FIC: Ride The Skies 13/?
A/N: Is anybody still reading this thing? *sheepish* Ugh to the writer's block. UGH, I say. Forgive the blah, and thanks a bunch to fireflybanner for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.
THIRTEEN
Second time in less than twelve hours that Dean's had a sledgehammer straight to the gut, compromising his air intake and his sane-person thinking and making the inside of his skull buzz like a nest of angry hornets. Second time that he's lost track of his latest attachments, so much potential tragedy in every direction, and he's not sure he can keep this up.
"Alec!"
There are rusted car parts and jagged hunks of metal everywhere and Dean wants to make promises and assurances and shower the whole place with shiny presents on the off-chance it'll lure the kid out of hiding because he's not in trouble anymore, Dean'll give him everything, the moon and the sky and the whole damn world if he'll just come out.
But he can't say any of that, just "Alec!" shaky and kind of wet-sounding, which would be mortifying if Dean actually gave a shit about anything but Alec and where and come back.
Dean catches sight of Sam's receding bulk before Max even reaches him, raggedy giant under the graying edges of an early morning sky, heading for that massive, crooked oak they tried and failed to build a tree-house in countless years ago. Sam's got his sights set on something, and going by the rigid line of his shoulders, it's something in immediate and severe need of destruction.
The next thing to catch Dean's attention is that Ben is twenty seconds and thirty yards ahead of him, streaking across the field and covering ground at warp speed.
Dean launches into a dead run and calls out, "Cas!" and the angel is a fucking cheater with his teleporting wings but the unfair advantage is one Dean'll make fruity tea and cookies for as long as anyone trustworthy intercepts that kid rightthefucknow.
"Bear!" he hears Max shout from behind him, already having passed her, but it's too late for all that. He doesn't have time to go back for more than the weapons he's currently wearing.
"Get over here, girl! Gimme a hand with this!" Bobby's roar dwindles in Dean's wake, and he can't worry about the older man getting left behind right now. He hates to even think liability where Bobby's concerned, but he's probably better off keeping the other kids that have flooded outside at the ruckus from wandering into the danger zone.
He sees Cas scoop Ben up just shy of Sam, the boy kicking and spitting in outrage at the hindrance, but Dean doesn't have the capacity for relief, instead lumping his split terror together to focus on Alec, who has yet to be spotted. Sam's always blocking the damn view, only it's worse now: Dean would swear up one side and down the other that Sam's just reached ten feet in height, all foreboding bulk as he stretches himself up, up, and up some more, looming like nobody's ever loomed before. Sam really is one huge, terrifying motherfucker when he wants to be, and that only serves to kick Dean's legs into higher gear because Sam's perceived mass is usually a pretty accurate gauge of the threat level.
He skids up behind his brother in time to hear him say, "Get your fucking hands off of him," and Dean is pretty sure anyone who does not immediately oblige deserves the messy death Sam's tone is promising, because they've gotta be a rare and very hopeless brand of retarded and, really, it'd be a mercy killing.
What he sees when he rounds the Volcanic Wall Of Sam catapults Dean's rage up into the stratosphere.
The asshole grins wide and spreads one arm like he's expecting a touching reunion complete with bear hugs, the other maintaining his grip on a snarling, struggling Alec with no effort. Ben is mirroring his brother's frantic struggles in Castiel's arms not four feet away, nothing like English flying out of his twisting mouth.
"Hey, guys! Miss me?"
Dean's fists ache to land smack in the center of that pompous, overly-chipper face. "Gabriel," he growls low, gaze seeking Alec's, whose too-familiar eyes are glazed with feral terror and rolling around like they're trying to retreat to the back of his head. Dean wants so badly to reach out, snatch Alec back and never let go again, kill Gabriel and the rest of his fucked-up family and worry about Heaven's bodysnatching agenda no more. Until the universe sees fit to grant him these superpowers, though, he'll have to settle for threats and hope he comes out on top. "You got three seconds to put him down before I bring my carving knife outta retirement."
Gabriel rolls his eyes, "Oh, lighten up, buttercup," and drops his hand from Alec's mouth. Alec snarls and spits louder, but doesn't seem capable of anything more coherent, still thrashing.
"Let. Him. Go." Sam bites out.
"C'mon, relax. It's not like I was stringing him up by his toes or anything. We were just having a little chat." Gabriel lets Alec's flailing feet touch down, and Alec immediately darts away. "See? He's fine, just a little grump---oomph!" As soon as Alec hits the safety of Dean's embrace, Sam surges forward to slam Gabriel's back up against the tree, pistol practically shoved up the angel's nose. Gabriel doesn't take long to recover his breath, offering up a smug little grin as he eyes the too-close menace that is Sam Winchester in vengeance mode. "Honestly, where does all that hostility come from?"
"You killed my brother a hundred and seventeen times," Sam says, like he really, really wants to know how much pain a bullet to the face will inflict before Gabriel heals himself. "Plus one."
"Don't forget lame TV land," Dean grates, breathes deep and breathes and breathes because he can, because Alec is here and alive in Dean's possibly-too-tight embrace and breathing is important.
Once he gets the wrecking ball in his chest to stop battering at his ribcage, he pulls back-or tries to, but Alec's not really letting go-hand roaming over Alec as best it can with the way the kid is wrapped so snugly around him. The boy's so tense he's like a boulder with clinging limbs, a low, warning growl rumbling steadily through his little chest. Alec's animal instincts are clearly at the forefront here-Ben's, too-and Dean can't help but relate them to pets that go nuts just before an earthquake, or when sensing a cold spot.
"Hey, buddy, c'mon. You gotta let me see," Dean says.
Alec doesn't give any sign he heard, still refuses to let go. Dean has no desire to pry him loose with a crowbar, so he relents for the moment, chooses to turn his worry to ire and focuses it on the bastard responsible for the wrongwrongwrong that's hijacked the charisma and spunk from both of his kids.
Gabriel's wearing a nostalgic smirk when Dean looks back up. "Good times." Sam jerks him forward and slams him back again, harder this time. "Ow! Alright, so I'm an asshole."
Gabriel poofs himself out of Sam's hold and reappears behind Castiel, and Dean doesn't miss the violent flinch in Alec when he does it. Cas spins and stumbles back several steps as Ben's already rabid fit kicks up in ferocity. "But I'm not a callous bastard. Even I have lines, and I'm drawing one at picking on the Lollipop Guild," he finishes, cocking a brow like he's expecting praise for being so magnanimous.
Dean shifts Alec across his hip and fires his gun at the same time Sam does. Their bullets do absolutely no damage, of course, but at least it wipes that grin off the fucker's face.
"Okay, now you're just being unreasonable." With a snap of Gabriel's fingers, Dean's pistol wilts in his hand, and he looks down. He's now holding a giant daisy.
"Motherfucker," Dean says, looks over to see Sam's got an equally oversized gummy worm and wonders if the daisy stem he's holding is sturdy enough to jam through Gabriel's eye. Alec lets out a muffled whine, and Dean drops the flower to rub the kid's back. "Hey, I gotcha, kiddo. We're good."
"Getting you two chuckleheads to listen is like trying to instigate an orgy in a convent," Gabriel mutters. "I come in peace, alright? Make love not war? Well, not love love, because I still hate you. Uh, I'mma gonna make you an offer you can't refuse?" he tries, doing a bad mafioso impression.
"Lemme get this straight," Sam says, like he's some perfectly logical, composed person, the way he usually does when he's about to get creative with his violence. "Somewhere in your warped prankster-wired brain, holding a guy's kid hostage translates to a gesture of peace?"
Gabriel shrugs. "I needed to get you guys out here to talk. I could have busted through the shields Castiel put up around the place, but I figured that'd be more counterproductive than a good, old-fashioned lure. Not to mention all that extra effort."
"Uh huh." Sam frowns. "And you found us how, exactly?"
That's a damn good question. Dean shoots Cas a look, but Cas is too busy straining in his effort to contain Ben to notice. Cas quietly sidles up to Dean, probably hoping it'll calm Ben down some. It doesn't.
Dean shifts over and lays his free hand across Ben's chest. "Hey, I need you to chill out, dude," he says, low and firm.
Ben doesn't chill out. He growls and kicks and claws at Castiel's hands, leaving bloody scores that heal over right away, and the lower half of Ben's face is shiny with spit.
"Oh, please," Gabriel scoffs. "Anyone with two brains cells to rub together knows if you wait around this crap heap long enough, you morons will turn up eventually."
Dean frowns. He thought the same thing very recently, curses himself for sending that idea out into the cosmos for this asshole to pick up on.
"Ben," he says again, refocusing his attention on the nearest crisis, but his voice only seems to agitate Ben more, and Alec responds to his brother's near-hysteria, any tension Dean managed to soothe away flooding back in full force as he starts wriggling around again. "Dammit." Something's wrong with this. "Sam."
Sam looks over, whatever bloody scheme he's got up his sleeve instantly wiped from his mind when he sees the boys. He moves over to take Ben, but doesn't quite make it before the shit hits the fan.
"Look, is this better?" Gabriel's still running off at the mouth, snaps his fingers and transforms their little patch of field into a conference room, Gabriel sat at one end of an absurdly long table, blue-collar garb replaced with a shiny, expensive-looking suit. "I'd like to open up the floor for negotiations. Please have a seat."
"Stop talking," Cas says in his most authoritative, celestial-boss-man voice, but it only makes things worse.
Alec and Ben go completely apeshit, Dean and Cas both losing their grips at the unexpected escalation. Gabriel merely quirks a brow at the superpowered little-boy rockets shooting over the table just before he's bowled over, chair blown back and his feet flying up in the air. "Holy shh--!"
Loud slaps of fists striking flesh, curses and growls and godawful, hurt keening sounds, and Dean feels like a frantically struggling insect caught in a web, all enraged distress wrapped in invisible wire that won't let go, because Ben and Alec are making those sounds. It's somehow worse than any soundtrack Hell could conjure up-horror so endless that sometimes it still plays in Dean's head when everything's too quiet-and, for one terrible, senseless moment, there's this dreadful certainty that he's absolutely powerless to make it stop and they're going to go on forever sounding like that.
The conference room shudders and disappears with a loud pop! revealing the scuffle now taking place in the grass, dust and twigs hurled up into the air as little hands pound and claw and tear. Dean is like a wizard, the way he zooms from one place to the next, inspecting the blurry knot of brutality for a limb he recognizes. "Ben! Alec!"
"Stop!" Sam says, exercising his own wizardry as he materializes right beside Dean, floundering for his next move because he can't very well just dive in lest he be mistaken for archangel meat. "Alec! Come here! Ben!" A foot kicks out and slams into Sam's shin, and he falls back on his ass. "Shit!"
Castiel steps forward-
"Don't!"
-and then Max and girl-Sam and Biggs are there, throwing themselves onto the brutal pile, while Cece appears out of nowhere with a shotgun and levels it at Castiel's chest. "You can help by staying back," she tells him, fingers white around the gun and her shoulders curled forward, head low like she's trying to protect her throat. She's twitching and visibly struggling not to blast him full of holes.
Head cocked in confusion, Cas nods and keeps his distance. Cece moves to cover the others, refusing to turn her back on the angel in the process, and then finally, finally Ben and Alec are detectable to the human eye again, a pair of transgenic restraints for each of them. Max and Biggs slam Ben flat on his back, struggling to catch and contain his arms and legs.
"Hey, watch their heads, goddammit!" Dean yells.
Girl-Sam shoots him a fierce glare before returning her attention to Alec, yanking him into a sitting position so Cece can get him in a headlock.
"Get them outta here!" Max shouts, flicking a withering look in Gabriel's direction, which is all she can afford if she wants to keep Ben on his leash. Biggs has a handgun, Dean sees now, and Max's efforts are giving him enough freedom to keep it trained on the archangel. They're kids, and not particularly malevolent or anything, but the arsenal they've acquired makes Dean nervous-he's going to have a serious talk with Bobby about arming these deadly midgets in the heat of the moment.
It seems like forever between Alec tumbling out of Dean's arms to having both boys extracted by the mini extra-special forces, but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, because Gabriel is only now reacting, poofing himself way out across the field to wait for the insane kids to relocate. Cas scowls, but ultimately joins him when he realizes he's part of the problem.
Dean's still stuck at what in the freaky-ass hell was that? but it doesn't interfere with his need to have the boys back with him, because they're his and they're Sam's and it's nice that these kids are all helpful friends but the time for sharing has passed.
"I got him," Dean says, leaving no room for negotiation as he gently nudges the girls away from a marginally calmer Alec and scoops him up. Alec's eyes are still bugged out and wild, but he doesn't fight him, and to say Dean is relieved is like saying poltergeists are somewhat troublesome houseguests. The relief folds over on itself pretty fast, though, when he takes in all the blood. Most of it's coating Alec's torn hands, all slick and shiny crimson even in the dim morning light.
Upon seeing that Sam has Ben under control, Dean glances out to where the angels have been banished. They're talking, stiff and curt but not throwing down for some cosmic death match, which is good, Dean guesses. Not that he'd mind Gabriel being smited, but he's pretty sure it wouldn't go that well for Cas, and the kids clearly don't like whatever vibes their combined mojo gives off.
"Alright, it's okay now," Sam's saying to Ben, holding him tight and heading quickly for the house, limping a little from the shin-blow.
Dean follows, the other kids buzzing around their legs and throwing nervous glances between the boys and the angels. Girl-Sam's still got one hand tangled in Alec's mangled shirt, gun at her side, keeps bumping into Dean's leg. She's pale and too somber, and he doesn't push her away so he can walk straight.
"You put that down, you little shit!" Bobby's shouting from somewhere in the back when they step inside, and then they're greeted with a bunch of short, flinty-eyed sentinels and way too many gun barrels. The kids are spooked as all hell, fingers twitching inside trigger guards that make for rattled nerves all around.
"Whoa," Dean says, stops right where he is. "How about we aim those things somewhere else." The edge in his voice makes this an order rather than a friendly suggestion, arms tightening around Alec. The guns lower a fraction. Not enough.
"Threat's neutralized," Sam says. "Ben and Alec aren't doin' so good right now, and if you make them freak out again, we're gonna have some problems."
Ben and Alec, for their part, are still too busy clinging and panting hard into Sam and Dean's shoulders to pay anyone much mind.
Bobby rolls in from the kitchen, frazzled and out of breath as more kids trickle out behind him, hunched in on themselves and looking thoroughly reamed. "We already got some problems," he says, rolls forward and snatches the nearest rifle from a tiny hand. "Weren't there rules about touchin' my stuff?"
The boy he's disarmed slinks back, eyes looking anywhere but at the grumpy man in the wheelchair. Girl-Sam seems unfazed by the old man's tone, though, manages to scrape up a wide grin even as her troubled eyes tell a different story. "Thanks for helping!" she chirps, trying a little too hard for that pep, looks up to confide in Dean, "Bobby gave us weapons."
"Gave, my ass!" Bobby snaps. "Stole, is what happened, and I want every knife and gun on that kitchen table, safeties on, in the next ten seconds! Better not be any missing ammo, either. Don't think I won't count."
Effectively chastised, the barrels drop with various clicking sounds, the kids shuffling off in a loose line to do as instructed. It's relieving to see them obeying the grown-ups again, but the fact that they rebelled in the first place is not comforting. Dean gets that their little worlds have been rocked and they're just falling back on old habits, relying on the hierarchies within their own units when the command they're accustomed to is absent, but dissension under fire rarely turns out well.
"Relax before you give yourself a stroke or something," Max says when Bobby doesn't let up on the disapproving glares, smirking as she goes to push his wheelchair into the living room. "Kick your feet up, have a cold one on me."
"You think you're real cute, don't ya? Just 'cause you didn't take nothin' don't give you any leeway on that smart mouth of yours." Bobby sounds pretty sour, but the twitch to his lips betrays him.
Max just grins tightly, covering her nerves only a hair better than the others, and girl-Sam struts back in from the kitchen, offering him a beer. The girls exchange a conspiratorial look when Bobby huffs but ultimately accepts the peace offering. It's one of those unexpected , too brief moments of tension relief, and Dean has to choke down a surprised laugh. Five minutes with him, and they've got the guy wrapped around their identical little fingers. Sam seems to be of the same mind, biting his lip to keep from smirking.
"Gonna need more than one," Bobby mutters, noticing Dean's look and upping the wattage in his glare.
Alec's fingers start fidgeting and twisting where they're hooked into Dean's shirt, leaving sticky streaks of red behind. He's gone from rigid to shaking. Dean glances over at his brother. Ben's doing the same thing, and Sam jerks his chin at the stairs. Dean flicks a silent apology to Bobby, who sighs like the weight of a thousand planets just crash-landed on his head. But he nods in understanding and barks at everyone to bring their little asses front and center so he can go over proper guest behavior again.
Dean heads up, Sam limping after him.
NEXT