Ipswich Summer
Title: Ipswich Summer
Genre: gen, psychological
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence
Characters: Dean, Sam, Michael
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: 4.5 billion years to make the world, and three seconds to end it. Don't blink.
Notes: My first posted fic for SPN; any and all constructive criticism would be wildly appreciated like you don't even know. Beta-read by the lovely caerial.
They are sitting on Bobby's front porch, slack-legged, backs eased up against the house. There's a poetry to clean cotton shirts and summer-worn jeans that wasn't there before. Just feels nice.
"I've been waiting for this."
Sam pops the cap off a bottle of Ipswich Summer and it flies off into the weeds, joins the rest of Bobby's buried treasures. This were Heaven, they'd have grown a whole forest of trees.
Dean looks out and breathes in, and everything's good. Afternoon is the easy kind of warm that eases wood to silence, takes the creak from planks and bones alike. Sun dips down toward the earth, sets the fields and fences and the one long spindly road off US 90 aglow, and it means three things:
Most importantly, that there's still an earth for the sun to set on. Secondly, it's just that time of day where a combination of warm sun and cold beer sends a shiver down your spine that for once doesn't mean fear. And lastly, gorgeously, that it is finally, finally--
Time to rest.
"Been waiting for this a long time."
--
"Dude, seriously, this is for your own benefit. You need to--"
Coming up out of sleep (and likely off of something, holy fuck, because he feels like he's coming into the hangover from hell) is basically an invitation to a bludgeoning awareness of pain.
"--wake up."
And Dean is awake. Everything aches, which is mostly normal. He's wrenched and contorted into the space between the Impala's passenger door, legs drawn up and head scrunched down to the level of Sam's thigh, which is probably mostly normal. And Sam is hitting him, which is definitely mostly normal. So barring his exquisite headache and the fact that the car feels like it swerves half a lane over every time Sam tries to multi-task driving and hitting, they're probably mostly okay.
"How much did I drink last night?"
"None yet." Expression grim, Sam flicks the turn signals on, and they edge off the highway onto the road less traveled.
Jesus, just drop an anvil on my head and end it. Feels like his brain's a thick soup, sloshing up over the rim at every pothole. Dean tries to edge himself into proper sitting position and braces himself for the next buck and roll.
"And none for the rest of the night."
Figures. "Concussion?"
Sam nods sharply in the affirmative. "Can you tell me the date?"
"Must not be the first one, if I'm letting you drive."
"Dean--"
Dean curbs the attitude. Makes thinking around the pain that much harder. Sorry, Sam; the smart-assery is reflex. "I have no fucking clue. April 24th."
"June," is Sam's terse reply.
Dean feels like he's failing Sam's cognition test. "Whatever. Apocalypse starts raining down, it won't matter. How long since--"
Sam sails into another rut, and Dean bites back a Fuck you, Sam. Now that he's upright, he recognizes the scenery. He doesn't ever remember the road to Bobby's being this rough, and that includes at least a dozen times they've torn down it in various states of panic.
"What?" Sam answers, slingshots around the next turn with a violence so pronounced Dean's positive it really is Sam's driving, and not the concussion, that's conducting the Inquisition in his head.
Something's got Sam piqued, that's for sure. "Since...?" Dean repeats. Which seems like it's probably a dumb thing to ask. Was that a dumb thing to ask?
The pinched look on Sam's face and the fact that Bobby's actually waiting out in the yard when Sam pulls up--and nearly drives right through the house, because door's open and he's climbing out before the engine even slows--answer one of his questions, at least.
--
It happens in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
The Apocalypse has found a willing sacrifice in Anna Choi. She's nothing like red-haired turncoat I-fucked-you-in-the-back-seat-of-my-car Anna. Her name is Michael now, because her Daddy taught her right, and her Mommy taught her God.
In spite of himself, Dean notices that Michael is a busty Asian beauty. If he never regains his sense of humor, it'll be because Heaven shat on it.
Michael's voice is granite, and doesn't fit the girl at all. She has knit cats on her socks and an orange on her dashboard, and Anna Choi is warping like she's about to go SSBM, nuke the city. "Speak all you want of free will. This is not a mirror, and I am not your reflection. You pull right and--"
"It's me, going left."
So Dean goes left. Michael lies about going right.
It happens in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Sam passes Detroit eleven hours later and drives straight through.
--
Sam offers him the Ipswich Summer, phrases his question in the gesture. You want?
Dean straightens up, stretches out. "Yes."
Sam grins when Dean takes the bottle in hand. His expression is unapologetically predatory, and he does not relinquish his hold. "Thought you'd come around."
Not Sam.
The realization sets off a neural storm, and there, in the middle of soft sweet summer evening, all the shit floods back with torrential force. Dean falls back into a devil's trap that's long since washed away. Heart rate doubles its pace but his body doesn't follow suit--everything just feels lazy and slow, like he's slogging through floodwater.
His legs won't move. He can't make them move. He can't--
This wasn't--
It's over. It's over and done, and he and Sam and the rest of the world just walk away. That's how it goes.
"I am not the Devil, Dean," says Not Sam. "You and I need to talk."
"Already had this conversation with your angel buddy, Cas. Guess he's Castiel to you. Personal space. No mindfuck."
Not Sam smiles, and the expression is so familiar it's only then Dean understands just how related Michael and Lucifer truly are. "A puerile deflection. I am one of God's first. As such, my abilities extend far beyond your Castiel's. As you'll soon discover."
And Not Sam is gone, and Sam is gone, and the sun is gone, and Dean is alone on the porch.
He might be dreaming.
--
"Twenty-seven hours?" Dean splashes more water from Bobby's tap into his face. Waves away the towel Sam proffers.
"Eight. Slept an hour in Indiana. Twenty-eight." Sam is all wires, got a motor running in his leg he can't shut off. Taptaptap.
Bobby's response is measured. "I ain't got a reputation for optimism, but...could just be a garden variety concussion. Anterograde memory loss isn't exactly unheard of. What else you got, Sam?" Which isn't Bobby saying Dean just has a garden variety concussion; it's Bobby asking, And how Apocalyptic are we talking, here?
"Michael was in Ipswich."
There's a catch in Dean's chest, and he sets his jaw, tries to keep the tremors at bay. He's feeling a little more protective of his body these days, and there's something about a day-long memory gap that doesn't sit well with him. Twenty-seven hours. Eight. Whatever. A long fucking time, and all he's got to show for them is a headache that refuses to abate and a body that feels like it was put through a wall.
Sam assures him that was not the case, but the appropriate alternative details are slower in coming. "So then we booked it, drove out here. That's all."
"Oh, so you could bring the Apocalypse down on my doorstep? 'That's all'? Boy, you better start spilling all the gritty details." Bobby's secret talent is giving empty threats real edge. He shoots a look at Dean, Sit down before all the blood rushes out of that hard head of yours, and Dean acquiesces.
Sam shrugs. "Heaven's on the move. Lucifer's been running free for almost a year. Raising Death and Pestilence and who knows what else. And we--" And he just sounds so defeated.
"We're not ready. If we-- Or you-- If someone doesn't start playing by the rules..."
Dean wishes he hadn't sat down. It makes the jumping up and the Sam, don't give me that bullshit painful and edgeless.
"That kind of empty belligerence isn't going to get us anywhere, Dean. I would know."
"No," Dean insists, emphatic. Twenty-seven hours Sam won't talk about. Seven. Eight. Twenty-eight.
Fuck. "No."
--
"Whoa, whoa. Easy, Dean," which is Sam, coming from the general upward direction. A series of full, explosive coughs comes up before words do, and the words go something like sammmwhatthehelljusthappened. He's face-down on a streetful of sharp, jagged shit; tries to roll onto his side and maybe from there all the way up. He feels the pressure of Sam's hand at his back. Sam keeps telling him, Lie down, stay put like he's the pet dog they never had.
Sam is probably speaking sense, usually he is, but there's this belligerent ire rising up, Fuck you, Sam. He wrenches himself up to his hands and knees, and instantly regrets the sudden change in elevation. Crashes back down to one elbow like a human yo-yo. Retches up a trickle of bile, which doesn't calm the nausea near as much as he thinks it should.
But apparently he's proved he isn't so terribly damaged he can't be moved, and Sam catches him before he falls flat on the ground again.
They shoot upwards, and Dean's head screams hardy objections, which his legs override with WALK WALK WALK.
"You good?" Sam grunts, adjusts Dean's lean on his shoulder, and they stagger some distance Dean hopes will be a short-lived venture.
He needs to crawl somewhere cold and dark and puke his guts out, but yeah. He's walking, Sam's walking; they're walking away, and he's good. "Yeah."
--
A smile; two rows of full, bright teeth and a red nib of tongue slipping out between them. "Thought you'd come around."
--
Another mirror. One in Bobby's bathroom ain't the prettiest he's ever seen; his reflection ain't the prettiest he's ever been, either.
This is not a mirror.
He leaves the tap running for a minute, waits for the water to run clean of iron. Closes his eyes. I am not your reflection.
It's like he's on a boat. Down the Mississippi in one of those bright-white Mark Twain ferries, maybe. Either that or Bobby's house is being taken down to its foundations, because the floor lurches, Bobby's dingy floral bath rug slips out from under Dean's boots. Dean grabs hold of the sink; his anchor.
Cold ceramic against his breastbone.
Jesus fucking Christ. There isn't enough Tylenol in the world for--
"Dean?"
He dips his head into the sink. Nothing to throw up; don't need to throw up.
"Dean, I'm coming in."
"You wait your turn," Dean grits out, loud enough to be heard through the door.
What with the way Sam's jiggling at the bathroom lock, it doesn't sound like he's waiting his turn. Dean releases the sink and drops himself onto the toilet seat, just in time.
"Dude. Can a man take a leak in peace?"
'Dude,' yourself, warn Sam's flared nostrils. "You and I need to talk. Because you don't seem to understand, Dean. This is. The Apocalypse." Each syllable is laid with deliberate care. "And maybe you think we can just keep going at it with the whole give-'em-hell attitude thing, but you can't. You--"
"I what, Sam. Tell me." Sam is looming uncomfortably close and uncomfortably...up there. And it's distorting his perception of depth, looking up at his little brother like that. Personal space. No mindfuck. "Been tip-toeing around this all afternoon; I have some crazy, Apocalyptic concussion, and it sucks like a bitch, but goddamnit, Sam. I'm not brain-damaged. You want people to start taking your advice, you'd better start filling in all the gaps."
Sam is quiet; then: "You have to say 'yes.'" Hands to his pockets, flick of his gaze to the ground. He could be eight-years old, trying to get Dean to kick a soccer ball around with him. Without looking up, he catches the reproach that hasn't yet left Dean's lips. "You have to. Or I will."
Dean's first instinct is to say No, shove Sam up against the door; give him Dad's cold, hard look that had long stood substitute for any verbal ultimatums. Dean takes a breath, lets the impulse dissipate. "How can you say that? Either one of them gets ahold of their real vessel, we're talking mutually assured destruction."
"Yeah, well, Lucifer's doing just fine without his. You want to know what happened in Ipswich? Fine. Let's start with Anna Choi. Remember her? You develop a healthy rapport with Michael, and maybe he and God will--"
"Fuck you, Sam." Been wanting to say that all day. There's more that comes after, but that whole mind-body interaction thing is scrabbling for the white flag. It's supposed to go, God is either a sadist or he's just not fucking here. We go down fighting. Because we're that fucking stupid, because there's no turning back now.
"You can't stop me." You pull right and--
It's me, going left.
Maybe first instincts are first for a reason. Dean hooks a boot between Sam's legs and knocks him off his center of balance with a swift jerk. Sam drops, catches his ribcage against the rim of the sink. Hand swings back and Bobby's mirror splits down the middle, same as the skin on Sam's knuckles.
Glass.
Glass everywhere.
Glass rings against cold ceramic. Church bells. Plop, into the sink, draining slowly in spite of the clog Bobby's never bothered to fix.
Blood, too.
But not Sam's. Dean looks up and he is gone. Not Sam's.
Dean is alone. (He might be dreaming.)
There's a banging far off somewhere.
Ah. The other side of the door. Makes sense.
Maybe. It's about the only thing that does.
If it does.
Someone's voice comes with the banging.
"Dean? Dean! What the hell are you--" And that someone is rattling at the doorknob with an untrained panic that's like to tear metal from wood faster than it'll actually open the door.
Not Sam. Sam would pick it. He's the stealthy one.
"Dean, please, just open the door. I don't need this right now openthefuckingdoor."
Dean can feel the blood throbbing at this temples, off-time with Sam pounding at the door. Because it's Sam; has to be.
This time it has to be.
And Dean was going to let him in, he really was, but Sam is quicker on the draw. Dean does not have the energy to sort out what's happening--or what isn't. Just leans against the toilet and focuses on the cold ceramic pressure at his back. Lie down, stay put.
Sam stands dumb in the doorway. No manic propositions. Nothing.
So Dean starts them off. "Dude. Can a man take a leak in peace?"
It sounds cardboard-dry, like he's reciting lines in a grade school play. But then, this would be the second performance of the night, wouldn't it.
Sam has his Sammy Face on, flustered and red-rimmed and I-just-drove-1600-miles-straight-so-help-me and please don't do this to me Dean.
"We need to talk."
--
"Dude, seriously, this is for your own benefit. Come on."
Slow rise to the surface. Breach, heralded by the smack of cold air. Sam with one hand on the wheel, the other jogging Dean's shoulder. Sends a wide arc of pain from temple to temple; takes every detour and spreads.
Dean groans, relegates saving the world to the foot of the To Do list. Shitty Apocalypse fucking sucks. He smacks Sam's hand away as it lines up for the next assault. "'M awake; stop that. Where are we?" Without waiting for a response, he adds, "Do we have any Ibuprofen?"
"Not for you."
Dean ponders this. Sam's shooting straight down some highway, out towards a fiery horizon, the windows are open, and the radio is off.
He feels like shit, and Sam is driving.
Strange. Well, half-strange.
But more importantly, Sam is lying. He's pretty sure they have Ibuprofen. "Pull over."
"Can't."
This is all vaguely frustrating. "Sam, Pull over," Dean repeats.
Sam doesn't take his eyes from the road. Dean follows his gaze, makes sure it's just sunset in the distance, and the horizon's not actually burning. It's not. Finally, Sam affords him some acknowledgment. "There's probably some loose Tylenol in the glove compartment."
"Look, there's a perfectly good turnoff, right there. Pull over."
"Four lanes over, Dean!" And Dean's glad Sam's not actually a chick; the flighty pitch to the words is shrill enough as it is. He palms his forehead, hard even pressure, and lets his fingers feather into his hair.
Sam apparently let the horizon out of sight long enough to catch the motion, and he lowers his voice. "Paper bag's at your feet if you think you're gonna puke. You uh, got bounced a little, back in Ipswich. At least a concussion, which I think you're figuring out. Just take the Tylenol; we're going to Bobby's. We're about three hours out, so try and get some rest. I'll wake you in another three."
This doesn't seem like such a bad idea. It should; something at the back of his mind thinks it really should. Maybe it's Sam's white-knuckle grip on the wheel. Cold snap of wind burning his cheek.
Still doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
So Dean grunts, which he figures is as comprehensive a response as any. "We get the thing?"
Sam laughs, thin and breathy and sad. "Well." Foot depresses the gas pedal, just millimeters deeper. But the Impala notices, and so does Dean. "No. No, not really. But it's coming for us."
--
When he next wakes, it's dark--maybe ten, maybe not even close; it's times like these Dean wishes they'd invested in backlit watches--and Sam has abandoned him.
"Gonna wake me every three hours, huh?" Dean mutters. His headache has stepped down, and the basic rundown of events falls into some semblance of order. Something in Ipswich. US 90. Going to Bobby's.
Well, this ain't Bobby's. "So help me, Sam, if you broke her going straight down a highway--" This last is louder, as the words climb up about of chest and actually into his vocal cords. But Sam really isn't anywhere. It's coming for us.
Tentative, now. "Sam?" Gear's packed in the trunk, most likely. Probably a Glock in the lockbox in the glove compartment. Any luck, there's bullets too.
There is. Sweet little sub-compact, and he'll be damned if he doesn't have a battery of consecrated iron or silver rounds to choose from. This is good. ...Better, if not exactly good.
Whatever went down in Ipswich, it's ending here. Cold black endless highway, here.
His knees want to buckle as he crabwalks along the side of the highway, the Impala's body at his back. He makes his way to the trunk, slow.
No Sam.
The road is silent, dark.
If this were something to worry about, Sam wouldn't have bothered setting the parking break. Wouldn't have had time. This is what Dean tells himself.
The trunk gives--unlocked--and Dean makes a sweep of the corners 'til he hits metal. Flashlight's about as practical as the gun, but peace of mind's better than nothing. Peaceful Ipswich Summer. Been waiting for this.
"Out of batteries," says a voice behind him. It's a round-faced girl, with a rack that qualifies as award-winning in at least half of the lower 48.
Fucking hell. "Nice dress."
"I wore it to prom." Daddy taught her right, and Mommy taught her God. Anna of Ipswich. Anna Cats-on-her-socks, SSBM Anna. "Do you remember me, Dean?"
"I'm beginning to."
"It took an eternity to locate you. Castiel performed admiably." Feather-light touch on Dean's ribcage, tracing the old Enochian decorating Dean's inside--shockwave before the shrapnel storm.
Storm doesn't come. Just talk. "I'm not Zachariah, Dean. I won't hurt you; not the packaging, in any case." Anna Choi's body sneaks a hand up Dean's sleeve, matches her fingers to the raised scars on Dean's shoulder. "I have personal stake in this. I'd rather not remake you; originals are always best." I am God's first.
"Where's Sam." Dean jerks his shoulder back, and Anna Choi's hand drops.
"In a location appropriate to his station."
Which sounds too vague to be good; too smug. Too much like Heaven's getting exactly what it wants. Three safeties, and Glock's about to rip Heaven a new one anyway.
"And the girl?"
"Dessicated carbon. Her marrow boiled, and she melted like glass."
"So she's not inside, with you."
"This is not her body anymore."
Dean laughs, bitter; slaps a hand to the Impala's trunk. It clicks shut like a casket. It's not until Dean's rounded the car to the driver's side, put some distance between them, that Anna Choi's body cocks its head. "What're you doing with that, Dean."
"Anything I can." He opens fire into Anna Choi, with her white dress and her moon face and her red, red lips.
"Dean! What the fuck-- Dean!"
His forearms freeze, and he can feel the Glock be pried from his unwilling fingers. Blow to his chest, right shoulder, neck. Head falls back on a crown of gravel.
Everything hurts again.
Sam's heavy.
"Dean, will you shut up for a minute and focus?"
Dean fixes his gaze on Sam. Really focuses; as much as he can. There's pressure and fire and nausea roiling up in his everywhere.
Too dark to read Sam's expression, but there's fear in his breaths and panic in his grip. "What..." Sam begins. He jerks his eyes from Dean to the gun in the dirt to Dean again. "What were you shooting at."
A girl. Air. Heaven. He doesn't know. He doesn't know which sounds worst. He just doesn't know. It had all seemed-- It had all seemed perfectly reasonable, at the time. Like a dream, where A to B to C is connected by logic that dissipates upon waking. "I--" He doesn't know what kind of answer Sam is looking for.
Doesn't matter. The look on Sam's face spells defeat. It doesn't mean You're gonna be fine, and it doesn't mean Get in the car; just gonna drive.
But this is what Sam says, and this is what they do.
"Three hours. I promise. I promise." This last is tacked on, almost hidden in an exhalation. Sam promises.
(And Michael lies.)
--
"And for the next twenty hours?"
Sam has exhausted his storytelling abilities, and nothing more is forthcoming. ("I went to get gas. Station was about a half-mile back from the turnout. I don't know; it was stupid.")
Ran her dry, doubled back. And this entire time, Sam felt the better option had been to lock Dean in the car and leave him.
Fuck.
He kneads his forehead with his knuckles. A lot comes flooding back at the tail-end of Sam's story--a lot more than Sam knows, Dean can be damn sure. But from the look on Bobby's face, "And then you started laying rounds into thin air, babbling about archangels, and some girl named Anna Choi" is vividly Apocalyptic all on its own.
"What about the next twenty hours," Dean repeats. It's part command and part words just flowing out, somehow escapes being a question at all.
Sam gives him this pathetic, exhausted, I cannot do this again expression.
"Look. Sam. I am sorry"--words like yo-yos, timbre and intonation bucking everywhere--"if this is. That this is shitty, and fucked up, and-- I really am. Believe me, I'd be the first person to--" To just throw in the fucking towel. "But if we're gonna beat this? We all need to be on the same page."
"Doesn't matter," says Sam. Hard swallow. Fingers do a drumroll on Bobby's table top. "Won't help. No matter how many times I--"
"Don't give me that, Sam. Not you." Can't hear that from you.
"Every time you woke up, I told you. Every three fucking hours, I told you, and every time, I had some new--some new nightmare to reiterate. Same song, different verse, and I just. Can't. I can't keep doing this.
"It's like. Do you remember the Brewer County Mystery Spot? The Trickster, Gabriel. Eternal Tuesday."
"No, not really." But that's probably the point. Such is the power of Gabriel, the awkward other brother. Which means Michael... God's first. My abilities extend far beyond (Anything. Anything you've ever conceived).
"It's getting worse."
Upstairs. Bobby's bathroom, sink full of yellow water and hidden shards of glass, and the door with the broken lock.
Sam gathers himself visibly across the table. "Last Sunday in Ipswich, Massachusetts, an archangel walks out of Ascension Memorial." He's wearing a girl named Anna Choi. She has cats on her socks and an orange on her dashboard.
In Ipswich, Massachusetts, "You go down."
Flung from a belltower, actually. Through eighteen feet of vertical space, plus whatever horizontal force Michael added to the throw. Sam, as always, is further from Dean than he'd like. Michael is at Dean's side.
Michael kisses Dean's cheek. There's something about the sandpaper ground and the church debris and the dead, dead sound (like he's underwater; his head is just submerged in water) that makes it all feel very surreal. And Michael says this:
"For thirty years, you endured your hell on earth. This was admirable. And for thirty years, you endured Hell. This was impressive. Ten, you spent breaking. Which was, perhaps...admissible. Then Heaven raised you, and two years, you spent running from me. This. This was foolish."
Under the power of Michael's voice alone, Dean's mind feels like it's being taken down to threads, separated one by one. Here is your sense, and here is your courage, and here is the flame that will burn them both.
He might be screaming.
He might be dreaming.
It doesn't matter; the pain is real.
Beyond visceral.
There is no diagnosis in the American Handbook of Medicine for the symptoms, but Michael recites as if there were. Gives name to the nameless. This is your soul, liquefying. Evaporating from your bones, your skin, your heart. This is your self, being frayed apart.
"The Inquisitor, Alistair, may have cut into your flesh and bruised your soul, but I can ravage it. I will."
This is your soul--everything you know--being ripped out of you. Mother, father ather, brother, gone. Like spores on the head of a dandelion. This is you, being wiped out of existence. Speak all you want of free will. "How long, do you think, before you break?"
Michael doesn't answer his question in Ipswich, and eventually his onslaught stops. He kisses Dean on the cheek again, and is gone.
For a moment, the shrapnel cutting into Dean's face and his arms and his chest is heaven by comparison. Then the memory slips away, and Dean comes around to too-familiar pain, which isn't at all heavenly. He feels the pressure of Sam's hand at his back. Lie down, stay put.
And Dean is staggering, Sam as his legs, out of the churchyard and toward the Impala. She's streaked with things God can't identify, but if you drive fast enough, no one notices. They regain their temporary, convoluted variation of normal.
But Michael is on Dean's mind when he is conscious, in Dean's mind when the case is otherwise, and they are coming smack up to the end, ready or not. Michael doesn't answer his question in Ipswich, but Dean answers Michael's.
In Ipswich, Massachusetts, Dean says:
"Maybe."
--
"Thought you'd come around."
--
The world ends shit-filled, in a South Dakota kitchen.
And the world is re-made, still shit-filled, when Dean Winchester wills it. "No," he repeats.
This is not the answer Sam is looking for. "So what now, Dean? What the hell are we supposed to do? If you don't, I'm going to lose you. You're going to lose you."
Dean flashes a smile, flickers on-off quick, like a busted lighter. "I think I'm getting lost either way." He doesn't want to be. Up against the razor's edge--he's been here before, and he doesn't want to be. His insides are slick with fear instead of sick, but snakes are snakes. Doesn't matter what you call them.
Some things can't be helped. Others can. "We beat this or we go down fighting. I'm sure as hell not going to--oh, fuck it--Hell, knowing that we..."
Doesn't bother finishing the thought. He just can't. End of story. And Dean's got a better handle on his limits than Sam's got on his.
Dean died, and Sam got through it. Rode three months on a river of blood, sex, and demons, but he got through it. Whereas Dean has a contingency plan for every time Sam so much as hints that he might not make it.
Right now, Sam is hinting that he's purposefully going to Not Make It.
"Devil's not making change at a Qwik Mart, Sam." And it's the first thing Bobby's said since he and Sam came back downstairs, started explaining exactly how the world was ending.
Dean swings his gaze back to Sam with whiplash violence. Brings spots of colors to his vision and with them, the reminder that they are fucked all to hell, and this is just the pre-game.
"I went to get gas. I just--I just thought I'd see. See if he-- I don't know; it was stupid," Sam modifies his earlier summary.
"JesuschristSam, we do not need this right now." Yet of all the fucking ironies, the Devil's probably not their biggest problem.
"Don't put this on me, Dean. What're we gonna do, huh? Whip out some convenient archangel banishing spell? Holy oil's a bust, and a stupid sigil's not going to deter Michael. So what now? We. Are out. Of options, Dean. This is it.
"We come down to the wire and all we have is each other. You were right; awesome. We have me, and you--and Michael. He's got his foot in the doorway, Dean. Have you seen yourself recently?"
Too clearly. He doesn't need to see; he can feel it. It feels like-- "Fuck you, Sam."
"Oh, fuck both of you, while we're at it! World's got a snowball's chance, but sitting here bitchin' at each other ain't the answer."
Valid fucking point, Bobby. --is what he means to say. Instead he slams a palm to the table, echoed by the clatter and shudder of the various dishes and apparati commandeering the tabletop. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
"Dean?" says Sam, or Bobby. Maybe both.
--Feels like dragging plastic rope across raw flesh--wrists, ankles, usually. Brain, today. Rope that frays off in sharp, thready splinters and cuts deep. Faster, faster, a real fucking lawnmower of a precision job. Knife would be mercy. Knife's clean. Starts in his head and feeds off the concussion, is the concussion, before it bleeds into everything else.
Heat. This is your soul, liquefying. He feels a pressure at his back, like a hand drawing fingers along the hairline cracks in a fractured glass. He must react, some reflexive action governed by neurons unoccupied by destructive pain, because again: "Dean?" Panic-strangled.
If his name's the last thing the world ever hears, he swears to God, he'll shoot something.
--
"Them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life--and some to shame." Michael's breath is cool on his cheek, like a death rattle. "Beautiful words, no?"
Dean doesn't answer.
He might be dreaming.
He knows he's screaming, this time. As best he can. It's lungs and intercostal muscle and throat and tongue he needs, and he's losing his command of all of them. Too fast to counter. Where--?
"You want to know where we are," Michael says. "You are dying, and you want to know where. Never why, how come. I always did love that about you. Your father would call, give you a place to be; off you went. No questions. Always looking for someplace. A place.
"That is where we are. A place all your own."
Place is his, but his body isn't.
"Oh, your body is very much yours. For now. It's your mind I've borrowed."
Sam--
"Will die. Whether you are there to save him or not." Speak all you like of free will.
Some primal part of Dean wants to keep screaming fuck you, but the motor neurons calling the shots aren't so keen on the idea. A little too pathetic, Winchester. Even for you.
"Don't resist. I won't release you so easily this time. I would sooner burn your soul right out."
They wait.
An eternity they wait, in this place that's his. Slow burn.
They wait. This is nothing, compared to Hell. How long has it been? A year? Ten? An eternity.
It's then he realizes he's not breathing. No; that's wrong. It's just that he hasn't yet breathed. Three seconds. It's been three seconds.
"Thought you'd come around."
--
It's three seconds of feeling Sam at his back and turning around to find Lucifer instead. South Dakota is gone before anyone has time to miss it. Nobody says their goodbyes.
--
He might be dreaming. He doesn't care.
He's not screaming anymore.
It's June 14th, tentative summer like Dean loves. Sprawled out on Bobby's porch like the one important thing in the world is sitting there.
Sam's bottle cap flips out into the weeds, like the hundred others come before. He smiles when he hands Dean an Ipswich Summer.
"I've been waiting for this."
The world ends in a hiss and a clink, as Dean's cap follows Sam's. Long swig. The sky bleeds out, glassy-coppery when Dean catches a glimpse of it through the bottle's bottom, and it's a beautiful thing.
Day's done.
Been waiting for this a long time.
Genre: gen, psychological
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence
Characters: Dean, Sam, Michael
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: 4.5 billion years to make the world, and three seconds to end it. Don't blink.
Notes: My first posted fic for SPN; any and all constructive criticism would be wildly appreciated like you don't even know. Beta-read by the lovely caerial.
They are sitting on Bobby's front porch, slack-legged, backs eased up against the house. There's a poetry to clean cotton shirts and summer-worn jeans that wasn't there before. Just feels nice.
"I've been waiting for this."
Sam pops the cap off a bottle of Ipswich Summer and it flies off into the weeds, joins the rest of Bobby's buried treasures. This were Heaven, they'd have grown a whole forest of trees.
Dean looks out and breathes in, and everything's good. Afternoon is the easy kind of warm that eases wood to silence, takes the creak from planks and bones alike. Sun dips down toward the earth, sets the fields and fences and the one long spindly road off US 90 aglow, and it means three things:
Most importantly, that there's still an earth for the sun to set on. Secondly, it's just that time of day where a combination of warm sun and cold beer sends a shiver down your spine that for once doesn't mean fear. And lastly, gorgeously, that it is finally, finally--
Time to rest.
"Been waiting for this a long time."
--
"Dude, seriously, this is for your own benefit. You need to--"
Coming up out of sleep (and likely off of something, holy fuck, because he feels like he's coming into the hangover from hell) is basically an invitation to a bludgeoning awareness of pain.
"--wake up."
And Dean is awake. Everything aches, which is mostly normal. He's wrenched and contorted into the space between the Impala's passenger door, legs drawn up and head scrunched down to the level of Sam's thigh, which is probably mostly normal. And Sam is hitting him, which is definitely mostly normal. So barring his exquisite headache and the fact that the car feels like it swerves half a lane over every time Sam tries to multi-task driving and hitting, they're probably mostly okay.
"How much did I drink last night?"
"None yet." Expression grim, Sam flicks the turn signals on, and they edge off the highway onto the road less traveled.
Jesus, just drop an anvil on my head and end it. Feels like his brain's a thick soup, sloshing up over the rim at every pothole. Dean tries to edge himself into proper sitting position and braces himself for the next buck and roll.
"And none for the rest of the night."
Figures. "Concussion?"
Sam nods sharply in the affirmative. "Can you tell me the date?"
"Must not be the first one, if I'm letting you drive."
"Dean--"
Dean curbs the attitude. Makes thinking around the pain that much harder. Sorry, Sam; the smart-assery is reflex. "I have no fucking clue. April 24th."
"June," is Sam's terse reply.
Dean feels like he's failing Sam's cognition test. "Whatever. Apocalypse starts raining down, it won't matter. How long since--"
Sam sails into another rut, and Dean bites back a Fuck you, Sam. Now that he's upright, he recognizes the scenery. He doesn't ever remember the road to Bobby's being this rough, and that includes at least a dozen times they've torn down it in various states of panic.
"What?" Sam answers, slingshots around the next turn with a violence so pronounced Dean's positive it really is Sam's driving, and not the concussion, that's conducting the Inquisition in his head.
Something's got Sam piqued, that's for sure. "Since...?" Dean repeats. Which seems like it's probably a dumb thing to ask. Was that a dumb thing to ask?
The pinched look on Sam's face and the fact that Bobby's actually waiting out in the yard when Sam pulls up--and nearly drives right through the house, because door's open and he's climbing out before the engine even slows--answer one of his questions, at least.
--
It happens in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
The Apocalypse has found a willing sacrifice in Anna Choi. She's nothing like red-haired turncoat I-fucked-you-in-the-back-seat-of-my-car Anna. Her name is Michael now, because her Daddy taught her right, and her Mommy taught her God.
In spite of himself, Dean notices that Michael is a busty Asian beauty. If he never regains his sense of humor, it'll be because Heaven shat on it.
Michael's voice is granite, and doesn't fit the girl at all. She has knit cats on her socks and an orange on her dashboard, and Anna Choi is warping like she's about to go SSBM, nuke the city. "Speak all you want of free will. This is not a mirror, and I am not your reflection. You pull right and--"
"It's me, going left."
So Dean goes left. Michael lies about going right.
It happens in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Sam passes Detroit eleven hours later and drives straight through.
--
Sam offers him the Ipswich Summer, phrases his question in the gesture. You want?
Dean straightens up, stretches out. "Yes."
Sam grins when Dean takes the bottle in hand. His expression is unapologetically predatory, and he does not relinquish his hold. "Thought you'd come around."
Not Sam.
The realization sets off a neural storm, and there, in the middle of soft sweet summer evening, all the shit floods back with torrential force. Dean falls back into a devil's trap that's long since washed away. Heart rate doubles its pace but his body doesn't follow suit--everything just feels lazy and slow, like he's slogging through floodwater.
His legs won't move. He can't make them move. He can't--
This wasn't--
It's over. It's over and done, and he and Sam and the rest of the world just walk away. That's how it goes.
"I am not the Devil, Dean," says Not Sam. "You and I need to talk."
"Already had this conversation with your angel buddy, Cas. Guess he's Castiel to you. Personal space. No mindfuck."
Not Sam smiles, and the expression is so familiar it's only then Dean understands just how related Michael and Lucifer truly are. "A puerile deflection. I am one of God's first. As such, my abilities extend far beyond your Castiel's. As you'll soon discover."
And Not Sam is gone, and Sam is gone, and the sun is gone, and Dean is alone on the porch.
He might be dreaming.
--
"Twenty-seven hours?" Dean splashes more water from Bobby's tap into his face. Waves away the towel Sam proffers.
"Eight. Slept an hour in Indiana. Twenty-eight." Sam is all wires, got a motor running in his leg he can't shut off. Taptaptap.
Bobby's response is measured. "I ain't got a reputation for optimism, but...could just be a garden variety concussion. Anterograde memory loss isn't exactly unheard of. What else you got, Sam?" Which isn't Bobby saying Dean just has a garden variety concussion; it's Bobby asking, And how Apocalyptic are we talking, here?
"Michael was in Ipswich."
There's a catch in Dean's chest, and he sets his jaw, tries to keep the tremors at bay. He's feeling a little more protective of his body these days, and there's something about a day-long memory gap that doesn't sit well with him. Twenty-seven hours. Eight. Whatever. A long fucking time, and all he's got to show for them is a headache that refuses to abate and a body that feels like it was put through a wall.
Sam assures him that was not the case, but the appropriate alternative details are slower in coming. "So then we booked it, drove out here. That's all."
"Oh, so you could bring the Apocalypse down on my doorstep? 'That's all'? Boy, you better start spilling all the gritty details." Bobby's secret talent is giving empty threats real edge. He shoots a look at Dean, Sit down before all the blood rushes out of that hard head of yours, and Dean acquiesces.
Sam shrugs. "Heaven's on the move. Lucifer's been running free for almost a year. Raising Death and Pestilence and who knows what else. And we--" And he just sounds so defeated.
"We're not ready. If we-- Or you-- If someone doesn't start playing by the rules..."
Dean wishes he hadn't sat down. It makes the jumping up and the Sam, don't give me that bullshit painful and edgeless.
"That kind of empty belligerence isn't going to get us anywhere, Dean. I would know."
"No," Dean insists, emphatic. Twenty-seven hours Sam won't talk about. Seven. Eight. Twenty-eight.
Fuck. "No."
--
"Whoa, whoa. Easy, Dean," which is Sam, coming from the general upward direction. A series of full, explosive coughs comes up before words do, and the words go something like sammmwhatthehelljusthappened. He's face-down on a streetful of sharp, jagged shit; tries to roll onto his side and maybe from there all the way up. He feels the pressure of Sam's hand at his back. Sam keeps telling him, Lie down, stay put like he's the pet dog they never had.
Sam is probably speaking sense, usually he is, but there's this belligerent ire rising up, Fuck you, Sam. He wrenches himself up to his hands and knees, and instantly regrets the sudden change in elevation. Crashes back down to one elbow like a human yo-yo. Retches up a trickle of bile, which doesn't calm the nausea near as much as he thinks it should.
But apparently he's proved he isn't so terribly damaged he can't be moved, and Sam catches him before he falls flat on the ground again.
They shoot upwards, and Dean's head screams hardy objections, which his legs override with WALK WALK WALK.
"You good?" Sam grunts, adjusts Dean's lean on his shoulder, and they stagger some distance Dean hopes will be a short-lived venture.
He needs to crawl somewhere cold and dark and puke his guts out, but yeah. He's walking, Sam's walking; they're walking away, and he's good. "Yeah."
--
A smile; two rows of full, bright teeth and a red nib of tongue slipping out between them. "Thought you'd come around."
--
Another mirror. One in Bobby's bathroom ain't the prettiest he's ever seen; his reflection ain't the prettiest he's ever been, either.
This is not a mirror.
He leaves the tap running for a minute, waits for the water to run clean of iron. Closes his eyes. I am not your reflection.
It's like he's on a boat. Down the Mississippi in one of those bright-white Mark Twain ferries, maybe. Either that or Bobby's house is being taken down to its foundations, because the floor lurches, Bobby's dingy floral bath rug slips out from under Dean's boots. Dean grabs hold of the sink; his anchor.
Cold ceramic against his breastbone.
Jesus fucking Christ. There isn't enough Tylenol in the world for--
"Dean?"
He dips his head into the sink. Nothing to throw up; don't need to throw up.
"Dean, I'm coming in."
"You wait your turn," Dean grits out, loud enough to be heard through the door.
What with the way Sam's jiggling at the bathroom lock, it doesn't sound like he's waiting his turn. Dean releases the sink and drops himself onto the toilet seat, just in time.
"Dude. Can a man take a leak in peace?"
'Dude,' yourself, warn Sam's flared nostrils. "You and I need to talk. Because you don't seem to understand, Dean. This is. The Apocalypse." Each syllable is laid with deliberate care. "And maybe you think we can just keep going at it with the whole give-'em-hell attitude thing, but you can't. You--"
"I what, Sam. Tell me." Sam is looming uncomfortably close and uncomfortably...up there. And it's distorting his perception of depth, looking up at his little brother like that. Personal space. No mindfuck. "Been tip-toeing around this all afternoon; I have some crazy, Apocalyptic concussion, and it sucks like a bitch, but goddamnit, Sam. I'm not brain-damaged. You want people to start taking your advice, you'd better start filling in all the gaps."
Sam is quiet; then: "You have to say 'yes.'" Hands to his pockets, flick of his gaze to the ground. He could be eight-years old, trying to get Dean to kick a soccer ball around with him. Without looking up, he catches the reproach that hasn't yet left Dean's lips. "You have to. Or I will."
Dean's first instinct is to say No, shove Sam up against the door; give him Dad's cold, hard look that had long stood substitute for any verbal ultimatums. Dean takes a breath, lets the impulse dissipate. "How can you say that? Either one of them gets ahold of their real vessel, we're talking mutually assured destruction."
"Yeah, well, Lucifer's doing just fine without his. You want to know what happened in Ipswich? Fine. Let's start with Anna Choi. Remember her? You develop a healthy rapport with Michael, and maybe he and God will--"
"Fuck you, Sam." Been wanting to say that all day. There's more that comes after, but that whole mind-body interaction thing is scrabbling for the white flag. It's supposed to go, God is either a sadist or he's just not fucking here. We go down fighting. Because we're that fucking stupid, because there's no turning back now.
"You can't stop me." You pull right and--
It's me, going left.
Maybe first instincts are first for a reason. Dean hooks a boot between Sam's legs and knocks him off his center of balance with a swift jerk. Sam drops, catches his ribcage against the rim of the sink. Hand swings back and Bobby's mirror splits down the middle, same as the skin on Sam's knuckles.
Glass.
Glass everywhere.
Glass rings against cold ceramic. Church bells. Plop, into the sink, draining slowly in spite of the clog Bobby's never bothered to fix.
Blood, too.
But not Sam's. Dean looks up and he is gone. Not Sam's.
Dean is alone. (He might be dreaming.)
There's a banging far off somewhere.
Ah. The other side of the door. Makes sense.
Maybe. It's about the only thing that does.
If it does.
Someone's voice comes with the banging.
"Dean? Dean! What the hell are you--" And that someone is rattling at the doorknob with an untrained panic that's like to tear metal from wood faster than it'll actually open the door.
Not Sam. Sam would pick it. He's the stealthy one.
"Dean, please, just open the door. I don't need this right now openthefuckingdoor."
Dean can feel the blood throbbing at this temples, off-time with Sam pounding at the door. Because it's Sam; has to be.
This time it has to be.
And Dean was going to let him in, he really was, but Sam is quicker on the draw. Dean does not have the energy to sort out what's happening--or what isn't. Just leans against the toilet and focuses on the cold ceramic pressure at his back. Lie down, stay put.
Sam stands dumb in the doorway. No manic propositions. Nothing.
So Dean starts them off. "Dude. Can a man take a leak in peace?"
It sounds cardboard-dry, like he's reciting lines in a grade school play. But then, this would be the second performance of the night, wouldn't it.
Sam has his Sammy Face on, flustered and red-rimmed and I-just-drove-1600-miles-straight-so-help-me and please don't do this to me Dean.
"We need to talk."
--
"Dude, seriously, this is for your own benefit. Come on."
Slow rise to the surface. Breach, heralded by the smack of cold air. Sam with one hand on the wheel, the other jogging Dean's shoulder. Sends a wide arc of pain from temple to temple; takes every detour and spreads.
Dean groans, relegates saving the world to the foot of the To Do list. Shitty Apocalypse fucking sucks. He smacks Sam's hand away as it lines up for the next assault. "'M awake; stop that. Where are we?" Without waiting for a response, he adds, "Do we have any Ibuprofen?"
"Not for you."
Dean ponders this. Sam's shooting straight down some highway, out towards a fiery horizon, the windows are open, and the radio is off.
He feels like shit, and Sam is driving.
Strange. Well, half-strange.
But more importantly, Sam is lying. He's pretty sure they have Ibuprofen. "Pull over."
"Can't."
This is all vaguely frustrating. "Sam, Pull over," Dean repeats.
Sam doesn't take his eyes from the road. Dean follows his gaze, makes sure it's just sunset in the distance, and the horizon's not actually burning. It's not. Finally, Sam affords him some acknowledgment. "There's probably some loose Tylenol in the glove compartment."
"Look, there's a perfectly good turnoff, right there. Pull over."
"Four lanes over, Dean!" And Dean's glad Sam's not actually a chick; the flighty pitch to the words is shrill enough as it is. He palms his forehead, hard even pressure, and lets his fingers feather into his hair.
Sam apparently let the horizon out of sight long enough to catch the motion, and he lowers his voice. "Paper bag's at your feet if you think you're gonna puke. You uh, got bounced a little, back in Ipswich. At least a concussion, which I think you're figuring out. Just take the Tylenol; we're going to Bobby's. We're about three hours out, so try and get some rest. I'll wake you in another three."
This doesn't seem like such a bad idea. It should; something at the back of his mind thinks it really should. Maybe it's Sam's white-knuckle grip on the wheel. Cold snap of wind burning his cheek.
Still doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
So Dean grunts, which he figures is as comprehensive a response as any. "We get the thing?"
Sam laughs, thin and breathy and sad. "Well." Foot depresses the gas pedal, just millimeters deeper. But the Impala notices, and so does Dean. "No. No, not really. But it's coming for us."
--
When he next wakes, it's dark--maybe ten, maybe not even close; it's times like these Dean wishes they'd invested in backlit watches--and Sam has abandoned him.
"Gonna wake me every three hours, huh?" Dean mutters. His headache has stepped down, and the basic rundown of events falls into some semblance of order. Something in Ipswich. US 90. Going to Bobby's.
Well, this ain't Bobby's. "So help me, Sam, if you broke her going straight down a highway--" This last is louder, as the words climb up about of chest and actually into his vocal cords. But Sam really isn't anywhere. It's coming for us.
Tentative, now. "Sam?" Gear's packed in the trunk, most likely. Probably a Glock in the lockbox in the glove compartment. Any luck, there's bullets too.
There is. Sweet little sub-compact, and he'll be damned if he doesn't have a battery of consecrated iron or silver rounds to choose from. This is good. ...Better, if not exactly good.
Whatever went down in Ipswich, it's ending here. Cold black endless highway, here.
His knees want to buckle as he crabwalks along the side of the highway, the Impala's body at his back. He makes his way to the trunk, slow.
No Sam.
The road is silent, dark.
If this were something to worry about, Sam wouldn't have bothered setting the parking break. Wouldn't have had time. This is what Dean tells himself.
The trunk gives--unlocked--and Dean makes a sweep of the corners 'til he hits metal. Flashlight's about as practical as the gun, but peace of mind's better than nothing. Peaceful Ipswich Summer. Been waiting for this.
"Out of batteries," says a voice behind him. It's a round-faced girl, with a rack that qualifies as award-winning in at least half of the lower 48.
Fucking hell. "Nice dress."
"I wore it to prom." Daddy taught her right, and Mommy taught her God. Anna of Ipswich. Anna Cats-on-her-socks, SSBM Anna. "Do you remember me, Dean?"
"I'm beginning to."
"It took an eternity to locate you. Castiel performed admiably." Feather-light touch on Dean's ribcage, tracing the old Enochian decorating Dean's inside--shockwave before the shrapnel storm.
Storm doesn't come. Just talk. "I'm not Zachariah, Dean. I won't hurt you; not the packaging, in any case." Anna Choi's body sneaks a hand up Dean's sleeve, matches her fingers to the raised scars on Dean's shoulder. "I have personal stake in this. I'd rather not remake you; originals are always best." I am God's first.
"Where's Sam." Dean jerks his shoulder back, and Anna Choi's hand drops.
"In a location appropriate to his station."
Which sounds too vague to be good; too smug. Too much like Heaven's getting exactly what it wants. Three safeties, and Glock's about to rip Heaven a new one anyway.
"And the girl?"
"Dessicated carbon. Her marrow boiled, and she melted like glass."
"So she's not inside, with you."
"This is not her body anymore."
Dean laughs, bitter; slaps a hand to the Impala's trunk. It clicks shut like a casket. It's not until Dean's rounded the car to the driver's side, put some distance between them, that Anna Choi's body cocks its head. "What're you doing with that, Dean."
"Anything I can." He opens fire into Anna Choi, with her white dress and her moon face and her red, red lips.
"Dean! What the fuck-- Dean!"
His forearms freeze, and he can feel the Glock be pried from his unwilling fingers. Blow to his chest, right shoulder, neck. Head falls back on a crown of gravel.
Everything hurts again.
Sam's heavy.
"Dean, will you shut up for a minute and focus?"
Dean fixes his gaze on Sam. Really focuses; as much as he can. There's pressure and fire and nausea roiling up in his everywhere.
Too dark to read Sam's expression, but there's fear in his breaths and panic in his grip. "What..." Sam begins. He jerks his eyes from Dean to the gun in the dirt to Dean again. "What were you shooting at."
A girl. Air. Heaven. He doesn't know. He doesn't know which sounds worst. He just doesn't know. It had all seemed-- It had all seemed perfectly reasonable, at the time. Like a dream, where A to B to C is connected by logic that dissipates upon waking. "I--" He doesn't know what kind of answer Sam is looking for.
Doesn't matter. The look on Sam's face spells defeat. It doesn't mean You're gonna be fine, and it doesn't mean Get in the car; just gonna drive.
But this is what Sam says, and this is what they do.
"Three hours. I promise. I promise." This last is tacked on, almost hidden in an exhalation. Sam promises.
(And Michael lies.)
--
"And for the next twenty hours?"
Sam has exhausted his storytelling abilities, and nothing more is forthcoming. ("I went to get gas. Station was about a half-mile back from the turnout. I don't know; it was stupid.")
Ran her dry, doubled back. And this entire time, Sam felt the better option had been to lock Dean in the car and leave him.
Fuck.
He kneads his forehead with his knuckles. A lot comes flooding back at the tail-end of Sam's story--a lot more than Sam knows, Dean can be damn sure. But from the look on Bobby's face, "And then you started laying rounds into thin air, babbling about archangels, and some girl named Anna Choi" is vividly Apocalyptic all on its own.
"What about the next twenty hours," Dean repeats. It's part command and part words just flowing out, somehow escapes being a question at all.
Sam gives him this pathetic, exhausted, I cannot do this again expression.
"Look. Sam. I am sorry"--words like yo-yos, timbre and intonation bucking everywhere--"if this is. That this is shitty, and fucked up, and-- I really am. Believe me, I'd be the first person to--" To just throw in the fucking towel. "But if we're gonna beat this? We all need to be on the same page."
"Doesn't matter," says Sam. Hard swallow. Fingers do a drumroll on Bobby's table top. "Won't help. No matter how many times I--"
"Don't give me that, Sam. Not you." Can't hear that from you.
"Every time you woke up, I told you. Every three fucking hours, I told you, and every time, I had some new--some new nightmare to reiterate. Same song, different verse, and I just. Can't. I can't keep doing this.
"It's like. Do you remember the Brewer County Mystery Spot? The Trickster, Gabriel. Eternal Tuesday."
"No, not really." But that's probably the point. Such is the power of Gabriel, the awkward other brother. Which means Michael... God's first. My abilities extend far beyond (Anything. Anything you've ever conceived).
"It's getting worse."
Upstairs. Bobby's bathroom, sink full of yellow water and hidden shards of glass, and the door with the broken lock.
Sam gathers himself visibly across the table. "Last Sunday in Ipswich, Massachusetts, an archangel walks out of Ascension Memorial." He's wearing a girl named Anna Choi. She has cats on her socks and an orange on her dashboard.
In Ipswich, Massachusetts, "You go down."
Flung from a belltower, actually. Through eighteen feet of vertical space, plus whatever horizontal force Michael added to the throw. Sam, as always, is further from Dean than he'd like. Michael is at Dean's side.
Michael kisses Dean's cheek. There's something about the sandpaper ground and the church debris and the dead, dead sound (like he's underwater; his head is just submerged in water) that makes it all feel very surreal. And Michael says this:
"For thirty years, you endured your hell on earth. This was admirable. And for thirty years, you endured Hell. This was impressive. Ten, you spent breaking. Which was, perhaps...admissible. Then Heaven raised you, and two years, you spent running from me. This. This was foolish."
Under the power of Michael's voice alone, Dean's mind feels like it's being taken down to threads, separated one by one. Here is your sense, and here is your courage, and here is the flame that will burn them both.
He might be screaming.
He might be dreaming.
It doesn't matter; the pain is real.
Beyond visceral.
There is no diagnosis in the American Handbook of Medicine for the symptoms, but Michael recites as if there were. Gives name to the nameless. This is your soul, liquefying. Evaporating from your bones, your skin, your heart. This is your self, being frayed apart.
"The Inquisitor, Alistair, may have cut into your flesh and bruised your soul, but I can ravage it. I will."
This is your soul--everything you know--being ripped out of you. Mother, father ather, brother, gone. Like spores on the head of a dandelion. This is you, being wiped out of existence. Speak all you want of free will. "How long, do you think, before you break?"
Michael doesn't answer his question in Ipswich, and eventually his onslaught stops. He kisses Dean on the cheek again, and is gone.
For a moment, the shrapnel cutting into Dean's face and his arms and his chest is heaven by comparison. Then the memory slips away, and Dean comes around to too-familiar pain, which isn't at all heavenly. He feels the pressure of Sam's hand at his back. Lie down, stay put.
And Dean is staggering, Sam as his legs, out of the churchyard and toward the Impala. She's streaked with things God can't identify, but if you drive fast enough, no one notices. They regain their temporary, convoluted variation of normal.
But Michael is on Dean's mind when he is conscious, in Dean's mind when the case is otherwise, and they are coming smack up to the end, ready or not. Michael doesn't answer his question in Ipswich, but Dean answers Michael's.
In Ipswich, Massachusetts, Dean says:
"Maybe."
--
"Thought you'd come around."
--
The world ends shit-filled, in a South Dakota kitchen.
And the world is re-made, still shit-filled, when Dean Winchester wills it. "No," he repeats.
This is not the answer Sam is looking for. "So what now, Dean? What the hell are we supposed to do? If you don't, I'm going to lose you. You're going to lose you."
Dean flashes a smile, flickers on-off quick, like a busted lighter. "I think I'm getting lost either way." He doesn't want to be. Up against the razor's edge--he's been here before, and he doesn't want to be. His insides are slick with fear instead of sick, but snakes are snakes. Doesn't matter what you call them.
Some things can't be helped. Others can. "We beat this or we go down fighting. I'm sure as hell not going to--oh, fuck it--Hell, knowing that we..."
Doesn't bother finishing the thought. He just can't. End of story. And Dean's got a better handle on his limits than Sam's got on his.
Dean died, and Sam got through it. Rode three months on a river of blood, sex, and demons, but he got through it. Whereas Dean has a contingency plan for every time Sam so much as hints that he might not make it.
Right now, Sam is hinting that he's purposefully going to Not Make It.
"Devil's not making change at a Qwik Mart, Sam." And it's the first thing Bobby's said since he and Sam came back downstairs, started explaining exactly how the world was ending.
Dean swings his gaze back to Sam with whiplash violence. Brings spots of colors to his vision and with them, the reminder that they are fucked all to hell, and this is just the pre-game.
"I went to get gas. I just--I just thought I'd see. See if he-- I don't know; it was stupid," Sam modifies his earlier summary.
"JesuschristSam, we do not need this right now." Yet of all the fucking ironies, the Devil's probably not their biggest problem.
"Don't put this on me, Dean. What're we gonna do, huh? Whip out some convenient archangel banishing spell? Holy oil's a bust, and a stupid sigil's not going to deter Michael. So what now? We. Are out. Of options, Dean. This is it.
"We come down to the wire and all we have is each other. You were right; awesome. We have me, and you--and Michael. He's got his foot in the doorway, Dean. Have you seen yourself recently?"
Too clearly. He doesn't need to see; he can feel it. It feels like-- "Fuck you, Sam."
"Oh, fuck both of you, while we're at it! World's got a snowball's chance, but sitting here bitchin' at each other ain't the answer."
Valid fucking point, Bobby. --is what he means to say. Instead he slams a palm to the table, echoed by the clatter and shudder of the various dishes and apparati commandeering the tabletop. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
"Dean?" says Sam, or Bobby. Maybe both.
--Feels like dragging plastic rope across raw flesh--wrists, ankles, usually. Brain, today. Rope that frays off in sharp, thready splinters and cuts deep. Faster, faster, a real fucking lawnmower of a precision job. Knife would be mercy. Knife's clean. Starts in his head and feeds off the concussion, is the concussion, before it bleeds into everything else.
Heat. This is your soul, liquefying. He feels a pressure at his back, like a hand drawing fingers along the hairline cracks in a fractured glass. He must react, some reflexive action governed by neurons unoccupied by destructive pain, because again: "Dean?" Panic-strangled.
If his name's the last thing the world ever hears, he swears to God, he'll shoot something.
--
"Them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life--and some to shame." Michael's breath is cool on his cheek, like a death rattle. "Beautiful words, no?"
Dean doesn't answer.
He might be dreaming.
He knows he's screaming, this time. As best he can. It's lungs and intercostal muscle and throat and tongue he needs, and he's losing his command of all of them. Too fast to counter. Where--?
"You want to know where we are," Michael says. "You are dying, and you want to know where. Never why, how come. I always did love that about you. Your father would call, give you a place to be; off you went. No questions. Always looking for someplace. A place.
"That is where we are. A place all your own."
Place is his, but his body isn't.
"Oh, your body is very much yours. For now. It's your mind I've borrowed."
Sam--
"Will die. Whether you are there to save him or not." Speak all you like of free will.
Some primal part of Dean wants to keep screaming fuck you, but the motor neurons calling the shots aren't so keen on the idea. A little too pathetic, Winchester. Even for you.
"Don't resist. I won't release you so easily this time. I would sooner burn your soul right out."
They wait.
An eternity they wait, in this place that's his. Slow burn.
They wait. This is nothing, compared to Hell. How long has it been? A year? Ten? An eternity.
It's then he realizes he's not breathing. No; that's wrong. It's just that he hasn't yet breathed. Three seconds. It's been three seconds.
"Thought you'd come around."
--
It's three seconds of feeling Sam at his back and turning around to find Lucifer instead. South Dakota is gone before anyone has time to miss it. Nobody says their goodbyes.
--
He might be dreaming. He doesn't care.
He's not screaming anymore.
It's June 14th, tentative summer like Dean loves. Sprawled out on Bobby's porch like the one important thing in the world is sitting there.
Sam's bottle cap flips out into the weeds, like the hundred others come before. He smiles when he hands Dean an Ipswich Summer.
"I've been waiting for this."
The world ends in a hiss and a clink, as Dean's cap follows Sam's. Long swig. The sky bleeds out, glassy-coppery when Dean catches a glimpse of it through the bottle's bottom, and it's a beautiful thing.
Day's done.
Been waiting for this a long time.