SPN/DA crossover fic: Of Desire and the Status Quo (37/38)
Story Title: Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter Title: In Thy Nothing
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Summary: In the end, it’s a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,613
Author’s Notes: There is an epilogue, but I just wanted to say that it’s been an awesome ride, you guys, it really has. Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, and after almost a year and two hundred thousand words, this story must as well. My sincerest thanks, and I hope you enjoy these last two installments.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XXXVII: In Thy Nothing
Dean can’t decide whether he wants to run or stay inside his car forever, and it’s then he realizes he has something he needs to do first. It’s not something he wants to-by God, he’d rather die-but he knows that the alternative could be far, far worse. The woods would provide adequate cover, and an adequate source for…that.
He drives twenty minutes down the road, well out of view of White’s bunker, and off-roads the Impala over rocks and dirt and fallen tree branches. Then he turns her off and walks around the back, opening the trunk. Sam had rearranged the back to look like John’s truck once had, the weapons and other apparatuses in carefully cut foam, and while it hurts to see that level of order, it makes it easy to find a large machete. It’s sharpened to cut a vamp’s head clean from its torso, and it’s exactly what he…what he needs.
He treks further into the forest and hacks off branches, picking up fallen logs on the way and cutting them into more manageable pieces. Trying to pretend that what he’s doing isn’t what it is, he builds the wood up high, setting longer and stronger pieces to stabilize the top, and a circle of rocks around the bottom to discourage spreading. It’d be the last thing he needs to start and be stuck in a forest fire.
His walk back is one of dread, more dread than when he’d done this to his father, than when he’d heard the clock chime twelve in New Harmony, more than when he’d been faced with having to do this last time. Then, he’d made a deal. Now…well, now he doubts any Crossroads Demon would want to even talk to him, let alone help him out.
He hesitates as he reaches his car, her sleek black body looking ominous for the first time ever. Taking a breath, he opens the back door, his heart stopping as he looks inside.
He’d known in the back of his mind that Alec had done this, had made it so he didn’t have to-had also burned Ruby, which Dean reminds himself would probably be a good thing to thank him for-but it doesn’t make it any less gut-wrenching.
Knowing he has to do this, but feeling physically sick to his stomach, he shuts his eyes, trying to block out the pain. His chest constricted, he reaches in and pulls his brother into his arms. Sam’s heavy, and though carrying him isn’t something he’s done on a regular basis, he knows he can. Even if he’s not as in-shape as he used to be.
Every step he takes away from the car and towards the crude pyre brings him back to torture sessions Downstairs, swords to every inch of exposed skin. As he lays Sam’s body on the branches, he pulls down the top half of the moth-eaten motel blanket. Sam’s face is gray, the few lines he’d gained on his face smooth, his floppy hair a mess. He looks like he’s only sleeping, and Dean’s sure if he pretended hard enough, he could sink back into the comfortable but false “reality” in his head. Saline again assaulting his eyes, he leans down and hugs Sam to his chest, willing with all he has that Sam will suddenly start breathing again, heart start beating again, expression start bitchfacing again.
As he starts to reluctantly pull away, he feels a bulge hit his arm and, frowning, he reaches inside Sam’s jacket. His fingers close around cold metal-the butt of a gun; he’d know the shape anywhere.
Carefully, he pulls it out, and his eyes widen as he recognizes the ivory grip, the delicate etchings in the barrel. He hasn’t seen this thing in…thirteen years. The fact that Sam had kept it, had used it, when his whole life Sam had never really liked Dean’s gun, makes his heart break even more.
Swallowing, he puts the gun in his waistband; though it was his to begin with, Sam using it makes it feel like it was his, too. And Dean would rather have something that would remind him of Sam than nothing at all. He looks down at Sam again, at the face that he’ll forever see as his baby brother and not a man who’d been broken time and time again, and who’d turned to a woman-a thing-for the only kind of glue able to patch him together. As fractured as Dean is now, he knows that at least Sam can rest knowing that he’d rescued both his brother and Alec.
“Sammy,” says Dean, trying and failing to get a hold on the shaking marring his voice. “I don’t know what to do.” He blinks, temporarily ridding himself of his blurry vision. He feels like he’s back in Cold Oak, like he’s back at the last time he talked to his dead brother. Only this time, there’s salt, lighter fluid, and matches next to a pyre on which Sam lies. Dean takes a breath, wishing beyond everything that his brother would return to life.
“I just-I don’t know what to do,” he repeats. “These people, these transgenics, they’re saying I’m the only one who can save them. And that Meg bitch, she wants to kill me. Then this White asshole is saying he can kind of bring you back…I need your help, Sam. More than ever. God, what I’d give to have you back…” He lets one tear, many tears, fall and clumsily brushes the bangs from Sam’s eyes. “I know this White player’s not being straight with me, I’m not stupid,” he says. “But if there’s a chance-”
He slowly, as if not of his own accord, raises the gun to his head, hands steady as they always are when they hold a firearm, as they always have been. He shuts his eyes, his hand on the trigger. All it’d take is one light tap, one short recoil, and his pain would be over. He could see his brother again, could leave all his hurt behind. One little tap. Just one. His finger tightens around the trigger, leaving only a mere millimeter or two until it would go off in a burst of light and heat, allowing Dean escape.
But then he slowly opens his eyes, ducking his head as he imagines what Sam would say.
Dean, don’t, he’d admonish. Don’t play into what that guy wants. You know what you have to do. I’m gone, Dean, you have to accept that. You can’t save me, but you can save Alec. He needs you, Dean. You can’t bring me back. I’ll see you again, but right now, you have a job to do.
Dean sighs, Sam’s voice clear as a bell inside his head, as if his spirit were right beside him. Dean doesn’t look to see if it is; he doesn’t want to even build up a little hope just to have it shut down again.
But he knows Sam’s right. It tears him up inside, but he knows Sam’s right. He already brought him unnaturally from the dead once-he can’t do it again. Lowering the gun from his head with a heavy hand, he whispers, “Okay, Sammy. Okay.”
Giving a final look at Sam’s face, Dean slowly drapes the blanket back over it, sprinkles salt and gasoline over the pyre and his brother, and then drops a lit match on top of everything. The branches immediately catch to the licking flames, and Dean’s heart splinters with each second, the inferno climbing higher as it consumes the flesh. He knows he’s setting Sam completely to rest, but it doesn’t help the overwhelming urge to put out the fire and find some way to resurrect him.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” he says over and over, a dedicated litany of pain. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He looks at the flames, as if in them he can see his brother’s soul. He stands there until the daylight turns into darkness, the flames dying down, until all that’s left of Sam is a pile of ashes. The breeze soon blows them away into the trees, up into the ether, and Dean thinks solemnly, At least he’s at peace.
He looks again at the pistol in his hand, seeking answers. His eyes drag up to where White’s bunker is, and he realizes what he has to do. What Sam would want him to do. Doing what the famed Orpheus couldn’t, Dean turns around and doesn’t look back. He knows he’ll see Sam again. Alec’s future is in the air, and Dean has a say about where it leads. He’d already failed to protect his brother-he isn’t going to fail again. He won’t.
He’s not sure at what speed he goes to the bunker, nor what time it is, on autopilot more than anything else, but finds himself driving up, not bothering to hide the Impala this time; White is waiting for him, after all.
Pasting himself together with what might as well be old Elmer’s, he approaches the bunker, looking the two Familiar guards in the eyes as they move their hands to their guns reflexively. Dean’s determined glare lets them know in no uncertain terms that he’s to see their boss. Now.
He’s led through the bunker down the same path as before, though this time, White is in a different room, peering at various vials and some complicated DNA-like strands on a computer monitor. The Familiars lead Dean past the window and intend for him to wait outside the door, but he shrugs out of their grip and shoulders open the door.
White begins to berate the intruder, but then notices his customer is Dean, and merely smiles. “Excuse us, gentlemen,” he says to the two other men in the room. They look annoyed, but ultimately, after switching off the monitor, exit, leaving White and Dean once again alone.
“All it will take is one piece of his genetic code,” says White, trying to hide the greed in his eyes. “A strand of hair, skin cells from his clothes, anything. Undoubtedly, there is something in that car of yours that would contain-”
“Cram it with walnuts, ugly,” Dean snaps, really really not in the mood for games. White looks incensed for a moment, and then remembers he has to be calm and collected; Dean, he knows, is as skittish and yet dangerous as a captured tiger. “I’m declining your generous offer. I want more than anything to have m’brother back, but I’m not turning him into some kind of freakish, manufactured replica. You bastards have already ruined enough lives by toying with DNA, you aren’t going to have Sam.”
White’s mouth presses into a firm line, his displeasure nothing but blatant. “Perhaps you could use a little persuasion.”
“I don’t give a shit, whatever you’re going to say,” Dean says. White’s snake oil salesman routine is over, far as Dean’s concerned. “This is exactly the kind of thing that happened to m’brother when he fell for a demon’s lies, it’s exactly what happened to me years back, and I’m an idiot for not realizing it until now. My brother and I sacrifice ourselves over and over because our weakest link is each other. But as much as it makes me want to die myself, he’s in a better place. He deserves that. And I’m not going to drag him back to Earth just because I lost him before I even got an hour with him.”
White’s expression of simmering rage thinly veiled underneath Bad Guy Calm had held for a while, but as Dean started explaining his undeniable Fuck you, I ain’t doing this, it’d started to fade-rapidly.
“I see,” says White, his upset increasingly evident. “Well, it’s unfortunate you say that.”
Dean doesn’t react, hardly not expecting this reaction from, as far as he can discern, a poor man’s Mussolini. “Oh yeah? How’s that?” he asks.
On cue, four Familiars burst through the door, snarling. Dean merely grins, and extracts his pistol from his jeans. Pointing it directly at White’s forehead, he addresses the bodyguards, “You’re going to let me walk out of here, unharmed. You’re not going to follow me, and you’re going to leave the transgenics alone.”
White raises his eyebrows, giving Dean a simpering smile. “That’s a tall order for a man facing five Familiars,” he replies. “Though I admire your…tenacity.”
“Mmm. I’m sure,” says Dean. “But, see, even if you guys can’t feel pain, you sure as hell can’t will yourself to walk.”
White continues to stare, still calling Dean on his bluff. “Put that down, Winchester,” he says. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.”
Dean chuckles and, having had enough of White’s posturing, in the blink of an eye moves his gun from pointing at White’s head to his kneecaps and fires twice. Dean’s aim is as flawless as ever, and both of White’s patellae shatter. He falls not of his own volition, blood leaking out from underneath his tailored suit. The Familiars immediately start to move menacingly towards Dean, but Dean ignores them, keeping his gaze on the panting, but not grimacing, White.
“Call off your dogs,” growls Dean. “And do what I said. ’Cause even in Hell, I could still dream, and let me tell you: I’ve got a few ideas of just how exactly I can torture you. I didn’t agree to torture souls Down There, but I’ve got no problem shooting your extremities to smithereens one by one. And the best part? If you touch me, you got a demon to answer to. Pick your poison.”
The Familiars pause for a moment, looking at their master. White’s nostrils flare, his jaw clenching as he looks at Dean, eyes spitting in rage. He sees nothing in Dean’s deadly expression to imply that he’s anything but truthful in his threat, and, apparently valuing his life over anything else, nods nearly imperceptibly.
The Familiars cursorily glance at each other, confused, but then back down. “You’re different than I thought,” White bites out. “Wouldn’t have pegged you as one to swear your loyalty to a group of defect monstrosities.”
Dean shrugs. “First thing you should know, White, is that people tend to screw themselves when they make assumptions about me,” he says. “And as for the transgenics, they’re a million times more human than you are. At least they’re trying to make a life for themselves despite the shit they got to deal with. At least they’re not so fucking moronic as to resurrect and make a deal with a demon for something as monumentally stupid as a racist apocalypse. And that’s exactly why you’re going to let them be. You’re going to get the fuck away from them, and stay there. Oh, and a bit of advice? Next time you’re in league with people who know Latin, make sure you’re actually aware of what they’re saying. Otherwise…shit like this happens.”
“What are you going to do?” White asks, trying futilely to stand on his busted knees.
“Me?” Dean repeats. “Not quite sure yet. But I’ve got an endgame.”
White looks mildly intrigued, but acknowledges that even if Dean did know exactly what he’s going to do, he wouldn’t tell him. “Too bad,” White muses. “You really would have made a great Lieutenant. Otto’s wearing out his welcome.”
Dean laughs again, then re-aims his gun. White narrows his eyes at the silver barrel. “Just a little insurance,” says Dean flippantly.
With another light tap on the trigger, he shoots White dead center in the chest. Blood gurgles from the hole, the sternum broken, his heart very narrowly missed. White can’t manage to speak, but Dean doesn’t intend to converse with him anymore anyway.
Instead, he turns to the Familiar nearest him. “For the record?” he asks rhetorically. “I don’t miss unless it’s on purpose. I hear anything about any of you fucking with the transgenics, make no mistake: I’ll put the next bullet between his eyes. We clear?”
Neither the Familiars nor White answer, but Dean sees in their faces that they don’t intend to do anything but follow what he said. Undoubtedly they would like to, but Dean’s threat had made a noticeable impact.
Bestowing them with a last smirk, Dean hustles out, making tracks towards the Impala and heading it back towards Terminal City. He’d wanted to kill White in the most gruesome way possible, he really did, but he knows it’s not his job. White isn’t his adversary-he’s Max and Alec’s, the transgenics’, and he knows they have to deal with the guy, not him. (Though, of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t leave him with a few lead reminders of just how close he did come to dying.)
He knows he hasn’t got long before he has to do something, to save the transgenics, but he’s made life-or-death decisions in less time than it’ll take to drive from the bunker to Seattle. Plus, this time, he has more incentive: he has to avenge his brother.
It takes Meg a good few minutes to shake off Trinity’s mind scramble, but once she does, it’s plain as day that she’s even more pissed than before. Fortunately, Alec thinks, the journal wasn’t lying about the effectiveness of the devil’s trap. “Great, you freaks got me,” Meg observes distastefully, trying nonetheless in vain to get out. “What exactly do you plan to do now?”
Alec shrugs. “Whatever we like,” he answers. In truth, he’s trying to figure that part out. Trinity had said to wait for Dean, but for how long? Alec knows White’s penchant for enticing people to his side; what with Dean’s fatalist attitude, would he switch teams?
“Dean’s on his way,” answers Max with a hateful smile. “He should have fun with you.”
“Ah, Dean,” Meg reminisces. “Always the messiah.”
Alec rolls his eyes and turns away from her, feeling a tightness in his shoulders that is starting to edge into a headache. He glances perfunctorily at Max before walking away from the demon and heading towards her office. He stops, however, once he’s out of eyesight and sits down against the wall, leaning his head back. He’d been running on adrenaline ever since Max’s SOS phone call, and it’s quickly receding, leaving fatigue and a quick temper in its wake. He feels like he needs a break now more than ever, and yet knows that that’s just not in the cards right now.
A few moments later, he hears soft footfalls down the hallway, and knows them immediately to be Max’s. She stops a couple feet away from him. “You, uh…you okay?” she asks awkwardly, looking down at him.
He chuckles, not meeting her eyes. “Peachy,” he replies. “I’ve got a clone-sorta-out there talking to White and who, by the way, has a tenuous at best allegiance to us, not to mention a demon trapped in our command center, three of our own possibly irreparably wounded, and a day ago I had to burn a girl’s body, all because some Hellspawn decided to fuck her over.”
“You-wait, what?” Max asks. She’d missed that memo.
“Never mind,” Alec says, not wanting to get into it right now. Max must see the exhaustion in his face, because she doesn’t press the matter (yet, anyway). He looks up at her then, her brown eyes both concerned and holding the same tiredness as his own. “I’m just-this is way above my pay grade.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Max agrees, sitting down next to him. “I gotta say, this waiting around thing? Not my style.”
Alec simply laughs.
Dean drives towards Terminal City distractedly, guiding the Impala around the dark curves leading out of the former state park, and then through downtown, feeble lights bouncing off the black hood.
He finds the alley leading into the command center (or so he’d gathered from where Trinity had disappeared into) and stops, shutting off the engine. He sits there for a short while, staring out the windshield aimlessly.
He’d been thinking of ways to solve this whole mess on the way over, of how he’d both save the transgenics and not completely fuck it up. For Sam, as it’s always been. Always Sam.
It wasn’t until he replayed his and White’s conversation in his mind, what he himself had said, that he realized what might work. He still isn’t a hundred percent, even now that he’s gone over it in his head a dozen times, but considering he’s been unable to think of any other options, it’s the most viable one he’s got.
Letting out a heavy breath, he gets out of the car, walking towards the transgenics’ haven. There’s no door, just a window cracked the slightest bit, and he maneuvers himself through it, landing soundlessly on the ground below. He follows the hallway, and then halts as he sees two figures sitting against the wall, both in various states of listlessness.
They glance up when they hear his approach, and then quickly stand, stark relief on their faces. He tries not to be offended that they’d so clearly thought he’d double-cross them. Okay, so maybe he’d briefly considered it, but still. It’s a little insulting.
“Dean!” Alec exclaims. He looks like he wants to say something more, but doesn’t go through with it.
Max, on the other hand, picks up where he’d left off. “What happened?” she asks.
“You, uh, you won’t have to deal with that supremacist son of a bitch anymore,” Dean answers. “Well, not if he knows what’s good for him.”
Max and Alec give matching frowns, and Alec furthers, “Did you…kill him?”
“No,” Dean answers simply. “I was going to, I was, but I figured if anyone should have that pleasure, it’d be you. He’s your enemy, not mine.”
Alec’s not entirely positive whether to be happy about that or not. He does choose, however, not to insist on knowing exactly what went down at the bunker; Dean may have not killed him, but if Alec’s suspicions are right, White didn’t quite escape the confrontation unscathed. That’s good enough for him for the time being.
“Please tell me you have a solution for our problem here,” Alec says, disliking how much he-and the rest of T.C.-is relying on Dean, but knowing they don’t really have a choice in the matter.
Dean doesn’t answer right away, just strides down the rest of the hallway and pauses at the end, where it opens up into Command. Meg isn’t far, her back currently facing him, and he notes the devil’s trap is precisely drawn. It pains him a little that they all are now exposed to his world, but he has a shrewd feeling they’ll come to terms with it eventually.
“I know what to do,” Dean says, looking at Meg and not at Alec or Max.
At that moment, Mole notices the three come into sight, and tromps over from where he’d been guarding Meg. He observes Dean inscrutably, readjusting his hold on his shotgun.
“What’s our play?” he asks.
Alec doesn’t know what Dean’s planning, but from the look in the man’s eyes, it’s not good. Ignoring Mole, he snaps to Dean, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say whatever you’re thinking, no. We’ll find another way.”
Dean then turns to him and laughs. “There is no other way,” he says.
“What’s your plan?” Mole repeats gruffly, ever the battle strategist. He’s getting the same sense of foreboding that Alec has, but is without the strong personal connection. More than that, he can see there’s no changing Dean’s mind.
Dean looks at Mole, looking almost grateful that there’s one person in his vicinity who’s not going to try and object. “Meg can possess me,” Dean reveals solemnly, continuing at Alec’s outcry, “I’m stronger than her, I can stay conscious.”
“Yeah? Then what?” Max yelps.
“Then I kill her,” says Dean. “From the inside out.”
Mole stays quiet, stoic, even though his mind is unintentionally running rampant with thoughts of There has to be another way, there has to be. It isn’t like he likes Dean or anything, but he’s seen how attached Max and Alec are to the guy, and Terminal City can’t afford to have its two leaders out of commission. Mole could carry it for a little while, but not indefinitely.
“No,” seethes Alec. “No. No fucking way. We’ll figure something else out. We have to.”
Dean gives him a sad smile. “That was my philosophy, too, Alec,” he says. “Look where it got me. Hell, and a dead brother.”
“But-I mean, can’t you just-can’t you exorcise Meg and then…” Alec stops himself, swallowing back his desperation.
“She’d get out, somehow,” Dean predicts. “And I can’t stay here. I’m sorry.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Max inputs, standing by her Second in both proximity and conviction. “We have this knowledge about demons and Hell and now White’s shot up-we can’t tackle it ourselves.”
Dean laughs. “Y’all were doing just fine before I came along,” he says. “I’m not a transgenic, I don’t belong here.”
Cutting off his superiors’ continued protests, Mole steps forward. “What do you need?” he asks Dean. He feels Max and Alec’s gazes of betrayal at the back of his head, but he diligently disregards them.
Dean studies the lizard-man appreciatively. “Nothing,” he replies. “But you’ll need to get some people ready to take the girl Meg’s possessing to a hospital. I don’t think Meg’s done anything fatal to her, but she’ll need some R and R, and a hell of a lot of therapy.”
“Damen and Shane can do that,” Mole answers. “We’ve got a van they can take, and there’s a doctor at the hospital who’s helped us a few times before.”
“Carr,” Dean fills in, remembering the man who’d tended to his shoulder. Mole nods. “Good. Let them know what’s up. But don’t tell the doc about the demons-the less people that know about this world the better, no matter how trustworthy they are. Just-I don’t know, make something up.”
Mole nods his acquiescence again, then heads out to find Damen and Shane to update them. As Dean turns to Max and Alec, his level of surprise remains; he hadn’t anticipated them wanting him to stick around, he really hadn’t. He briefly does contemplate staying, at least for a little while, but knows that’s not remotely in the cards. Even if Sam weren’t, effectually, his purpose in life, he knows he wouldn’t fit in with the transgenics. Not completely. And he doesn’t want to assimilate into a group of people who would constantly look at him like he’s an outsider. Especially since that’s exactly what he’d be, what he is.
Turning away from the two, Dean walks over to the devil’s trap, to Meg. He smiles at her, more than ready to kill. “Go ahead,” Meg sneers, looking absolutely delighted to see him. “Exorcise me. I’ll just be back.”
“Not this time, sister,” he says. “This time I’ll kill you.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try,” she says. “There isn’t any incantation to kill a demon, and you don’t have the Colt or that bitch Ruby’s knife. What exactly do you think you can do?”
Dean smiles again. “It’s amazing how many useful things you can learn when you’re torn apart twenty-four/seven,” he replies. “Evidently, your demon pals had a hard-on for making me explode. Of possessing me, then making my insides be on the outside.”
Meg narrows her eyes, reading Dean’s face. “That nifty little tattoo of yours’ll say different,” she comments. “Would’ve thought you remembered that.”
Dean shrugs. “Another little gift,” he says. He reaches up to his collar, pulls it down to expose his chest. Where his anti-possession tattoo once was, the one he and Sam had gotten long ago in order to prevent being ridden by evil, now lies a crisscrossing mess of scars. “They had the same genius idea you did, sweetheart. Carved it off, piece by piece. Then re-inked it, then carved it off. Then re-inked it, then…well, you get the picture. I’ve got knife scars, but nothing to stop me being possessed. Or, in this case, getting possessed on purpose.”
“There’s no incantation,” Meg says again, gritting her teeth.
“Give it up,” Dean says. “And say your last words.”
“Well,” says Meg, seeing her future is dark, “take your best shot.”
Chuckling, Dean holds up a finger and then looks back at Max and Alec. Max’s face and body are stiff, her eyes shiny, but there are no tears. Dean leans down to give her a short, awkward hug, and then turns to Alec. He holds out his hand, and after a beat, Alec shakes it, gripping hard.
“Take care of her, huh?” Dean says quietly, gesturing with his head towards Max. “I don’t think she’s as strong as she thinks.”
Alec laughs. “I know,” he replies. He looks down at the ground, and then back up to Dean. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this.”
“Sorry, kid,” answers Dean. “You can’t. I have to do this. Just, uh, do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Drench my body in salt and lighter fluid, and burn me to a crisp,” says Dean. “I don’t want there to be even the tiniest chance that my ass will haunt yours.”
Alec looks stricken with the prospect-not with the haunting, but with the hunter’s funeral. “Dean, no…I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” replies Dean. “And you’re going to.”
Dean claps his double on the shoulder, then walks back over to Meg, staring her straight in the eyes. She looks like Kalinda, but Dean can see through the fake visage, through to the demon who’d once taken on his brother’s form, who’d been exorcised one too many times.
Barely aware of Max beside him, Alec watches with clenched fists as Dean mutters a chant under his breath. With each successive word, Meg cringes and grunts, her essence being slowly, agonizingly ripped from Kalinda’s body. She lets out an unearthly shriek, and an angry, wild black smoke comes spilling from Kalinda’s mouth, the Latin causing it not to go back to Hell, but to beeline straight into Dean. Dean stumbles back a step, and his eyes darken to a sinister black. For a moment, Max and Alec think it didn’t work, that Alec would have to quickly-very quickly-exorcise the demon from Dean, but then the black dissipates and brightens into green as Dean gets a hold of Meg.
Blood starts to dribble from his nose as he recites the second part of the spell, and as it progresses, he has an increasingly harder time spitting out the words, the demon inside him both trying to wriggle free and prevent itself from being axed.
Dean grits out the last of the spell, and in an instant, there’s a dull, pulsating orange from each rib, his eyes flashing black, then back to green, the process repeating itself until finally, finally, Dean screams and falls to the ground, more blood dripping from his nose, yet more falling from his mouth.
Max and Alec are vaguely aware of a stricken Damen and Shane carrying an unconscious Kalinda across Command to take her to the hospital, but are more focused on sprinting over to Dean, kneeling down beside him.
The spell hadn’t killed him, but it’s obvious to both transgenics that it had weakened him. “Weakened” being an immensely conservative estimate. “Dean…” Alec murmurs, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Dean’s eyes open slightly, dull underneath half-closed lids. He takes a breath, the rattling in his chest all too indicative of a punctured lung seemingly echoing throughout the room. He manages a barely-there smile, teeth stained red as he hazily looks between Max and Alec.
“She-She-She’s dead,” he whispers around gurgling in his throat. “F-For good.”
“Dean,” Alec pleads, attempting to stop his voice from cracking, “we-we can save you. We can.”
“Probably,” says Dean with difficulty. “B-But I can’t-I can’t let you do that.”
He coughs, turning his head to avoid choking, and spits out an appalling amount of blood. He feels fluid seeping into his lungs, feels an odd suppressing, liquidy sensation throughout his body, knows it’s internal bleeding and that his seconds are numbered. (To be honest, he’s astounded he even survived the spell.)
“Rade can help you,” Max says, her voice rough. “She’s a miracle worker.”
“This world is-it isn’t for me,” Dean replies, echoes of what he’d said before. “It’s yours, I wasn’t-I w-wasn’t meant to-to come back. I’m s-supposed to-to die. Everyone’s gotta go-for real-sometime.”
“You’re twenty-nine,” Alec protests pathetically. “Dean, I-”
“D-Don’t pansy up now,” Dean interrupts, laugh-coughing again and feeling his broken ribs jostle. “No clone’a mine is gonna b-be a wuss.”
“You don’t wanna die, Dean,” Max says, brushing her hair carelessly behind her ear. “Come on, Rade can fix you up…”
Dean’s face morphs into a strangely placid smile, and neither transgenic knows why. Usually people dying an incredibly painful death don’t smile, let alone calmly. “I do,” Dean says. “My life on Earth was sh-shit, my time in H-Hell was, well, hell. Th-There’s gotta be a Heaven, right? It can’t be-not any worse than what I’ve g-gone through.”
“You really believe in Heaven?” asks Alec, dubious. After what Manticore had made them endure, he finds it hard to trust in a higher power. Taking into account Dean’s behavior, outlook on life, and experiences, he hadn’t thought Dean believed in a higher power either.
Dean tries to shrug, and halfway manages it before collapsing again. “What’ve I got to lose?” he inquires. “Sammy’s gone. He-He was the one thing keepin’ me sane down in the P-Pit, now he’s gone. I d-don’t care if he went Dark Side, h-he was still m’brother. I-I think we did enough good in our lives to earn a ticket Upstairs. I’m-I’m just tired, man. I’m done. I am just done.”
Alec’s heard death more times than he cares to recall. He’s even heard it in himself once. But he doesn’t think he’s ever heard it quite so desolate, accepting, final as when from Dean’s mouth.
Before now, Alec hadn’t thought living could be contingent on one single factor, but perhaps for Dean it is, that factor being his only brother, his only relative, his universe. Alec, of course, doesn’t have real brothers or sisters, and even though he’d give his life for most in T.C., he’s not exactly living for them.
Granted, that doesn’t mean he’s willing to let Dean just die.
“I’m taking you to Rade,” he proclaims again, swallowing. “You’re gonna live through this, you have to.”
“You try anything and I’ll kick your ass, kid,” Dean hisses through his teeth. Maybe it would have intimidated Alec before, but the diminished state Dean’s in, coupled with Alec’s panic, doesn’t allow that. Dean seems to realize this the moment Alec does. “You’re a good guy. And you’ve got a great thing going here,” he continues, looking pointedly at Max (Alec tries not to notice that Dean’s breaths are coming in shallower by the second), “but it’s n-not right that I’m here. Please-I spent almost two thousand years hoping that S-Sammy would bust me out, then I find out he’s g-gone off the reservation, then right when I could have him back, he dies. I can’t live with that, I can’t. I’ll put a bullet through my own head if I have to, Alec, but---you’ve gotta let me go. I need this.”
Alec sees the desperation and determination in Dean’s slowly darkening eyes, and knows resistance is futile, even in Dean’s severely wounded form. He doesn’t want him to give up, he doesn’t, let alone like this, but he can see plain as day that even if Rade were able to patch him up, he’d wish he were dead anyway. Hell, Alec had felt like that before, the only thing causing him to keep breathing being a twisted, sadistic government facility shooting lasers into his brain.
“Dean, I-”
Heaving out a breathy chuckle, Dean touches Alec’s arm. “Hey, no chick flick moments,” he says lowly, and though the weight of the words is known only to Dean, Alec takes it for what it is.
“I, um…” Alec’s at a loss of words. He’s been around people dying, but in those situations, it tended to be a cut-your-losses kind of thing, not much sentimentality going on. He glances at Max briefly, whose mouth is pursed shut, like if she tried to speak, she’d break down. And if there’s one thing he knows about her, it’s that she doesn’t break down. She just doesn’t. Alec turns back to Dean. “Just-uh, thank you, I guess. For…I don’t know. Everything.”
Alec thinks he sees Dean shake a nod and a one-sided smirk, and then, as if his sluggish mind just realized something, he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out first car keys then, reaching around his back with a wince, his pistol. He holds them out to Alec with shaking hands, his eyes sharp. “Take care of ’er,” he says, jingling the keys. “And d-don’t you dare lose my gun.”
Alec looks down at the two items now loose in the palms of his hands. “Dean, I can’t,” he says quietly. “No. These are-I can’t take these.”
“My baby isn’t going t-to sit there and rot,” Dean hisses. “A-And this gun is more accurate’n any you’ve ever fired.”
Alec doesn’t doubt it, but accepting Dean’s only possessions-sans his necklace, which remains around his neck-feels wrong. Blasphemous. “Dean, no,” he persists.
Their staring match is interrupted by a shrill ring, coming from the telephone at the center of Command. Alec jolts a little, not expecting it. It gets half a ring more before Mole picks it up, and then he, to his credit hesitantly, makes his way over to his two superiors and Dean.
He holds the phone out to Max, annoyance on his face. “N-Not now,” Max says, her words overemphasized, for precisely the reason Alec had guessed.
“It’s the Ordinary,” says Mole unhappily. “Lover boy.”
Max closes her eyes, trying to focus herself enough to not sound like a wreck. She’d like nothing more than to ignore Logan, but she knows that he would just keep calling if she didn’t answer. She reluctantly takes the phone, Mole scattering all too gladly.
She glances at Alec and Dean, and even though she hopelessly wants to stay, she knows that not only does Alec need this, but talking to Logan right next to both him and Dean? Not a good plan.
She gently touches the side of Dean’s face, and then slowly gets to her feet, grazing her hand lightly across Alec’s shoulder. “What?” Alec hears her grind out into the phone, before she walks out of earshot.
He looks down at Dean, sees Dean’s eyes even duller than before, and grips the engraved metal of the gun barrel tight. “Take them,” Dean implores, swallowing.
Alec feels like if he does so, it means he really won’t be commandeering Rade to patch Dean up, and that’s not really something he’s ready to handle, but he also sees the blood continuing to drip from Dean’s nose and mouth, his breaths coming in with a louder rattle, his body shutting down, and he finds he can’t deny anything to the man.
“Okay,” Alec whispers, setting the two items to the side. “Okay.”
Dean smiles, and as Alec watches, the already feeble light in Dean’s eyes fades, the little self-support he’d had vanishing, his head lolling against Alec’s hand. Alec feels a catch in his own chest, and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it. More accurately, he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s in shock. Staring down at Dean’s body and not wanting to think of what is supposed to happen now-Dean’s first request all too poignant in his brain-or how surreal it is to see his own face like…that, Alec resigns himself to a single tear.
“Break some angel hearts for me, dude,” he says, his fingers fisted Dean’s bloody shirt. “Promise.”
Well. Dean is always up for a challenge.
Across Command, Max’s eyes are trained on Alec and Dean, paying less than even half paying attention to what Logan’s saying. “Sorry, what?” she asks, when Logan notes she hadn’t responded to him.
“I said I found the link between Alec and Dean,” he repeats.
Max frowns. “You did? When?”
She can hear Logan smiling through the phone, and hates it. “I coerced Sam-Dr. Carr-to help me, and we discovered that back in ’98-”
“Logan, now’s really not the time,” she interrupts, itching to go back over to Dean.
Logan pretends she didn’t speak, just hurries on faster, “We don’t know exactly for what reason, but back in August of ’98, Dean went to this place called Synthesis Labs in Concord, New Hampshire. It’s a sperm bank, Max.”
“What?” she asks, now giving Logan a little more of her attention. “A sperm bank? How does that explain Alec?”
“Well, usually-I presume-those places are just a do-your-thing-then-leave, but we dug a little further into the history of the place, and apparently they were subcontracting for Manticore. Lydecker in specific. Essentially what they were doing was looking at potential candidates for the X-series project, which guys would produce the best genes. They recruited people, too, as you know, but this was easier, more efficient. I guess they decided Dean was a good source, took the DNA he’d…er…supplied, and used it for Ben and Alec.”
Max hears Logan talking, hears his explanation, but right in front of her eyes, she sees Dean’s body go limp, the blood that had been dribbling down his face slowly coming to a stop as his heart ceases beating. She sees Alec say something to him, and then just stare at his double, for lack of a better word catatonic. Max’s vision abruptly starts blurring, and she blinks quickly to force it to subside.
“Well?” Logan asks.
“W-Well what?” chokes out Max.
“You going to tell Alec?” he continues expectantly. “He probably wants to know. Dean, too.”
Max lets out a short, harsh laugh, hating how Logan sounds happy. She’s aware he doesn’t know what’s going down in T.C., but still, that someone could be in good spirits after what she’d just witnessed…what Alec had just witnessed…
“No,” she answers. “He won’t want to know. And I’m definitely not going to tell him.”
“Why?” Logan inquires in disbelief. “Max, I just found the whole reason for why Dean and Alec look identical, and now you’re saying you’re not going to tell him? What’d I even do that for then?”
Max takes a deep breath in through her nose, anger rising through her sadness. “Don’t you yell at me,” she seethes. “You have no idea what we’ve been through the last few days. What’s going on. Things just got a fuckload more complicated, and I really can’t talk to you right now, Logan.”
Logan’s quiet for a couple seconds, surprised at Max’s outburst. “Sorry,” he says defensively. “Care to tell me what the hell’s happened?”
Max sighs. “Look,” she says, neither ready nor wanting to talk about it, “just-don’t call here, okay? I can’t see you for a while, not with what’s…with everything. T.C. needs me.” She takes a beat, looking at Dean and Alec, then adds, “Alec needs me.”
“Alec?” Logan gapes. “But…but I thought…”
“It’s a long story, but Kali’s being taken to the hospital. Dr. Carr’s going to need to look her over,” Max informs. She knows what Logan was about to say-that he’d thought they were going to rekindle whatever it was they had before. But honestly, romance is the last thing on her mind right now, and even if it weren’t…well, she’s not sure she’d even want to go down that road again anyway.
“What happened?” Logan asks again, grasping at the very few threads of information Max had dropped.
“Goodbye, Logan,” Max says, and hangs up before he can express any more objections.
She meets Mole’s eyes from where he stands a few feet away, chewing so hard on his cigar it’s almost breaking in half, neither knowing what they’re supposed to do. He nods at her in both deference and condolence, and she returns it in kind.
With heavy gait, she walks back over to Alec, kneeling down next to him and placing a hand on Dean’s arm, his skin not yet cold. Alec looks at her, and she tries not to think of how godawfully wrong it is to see him broken like this.
She says nothing, just sits by her second-in-command in silence, her head a mess, wondering if either of them would ever be the same, wishing that Dean had never come into their lives, and cursing him that he left. He’d rid them of a demon that she’s sure would have slaughtered them all if she could, he’d gotten White off their tails-for now-but he’d also wormed his way into their lives, and though he wasn’t exactly a Rachel for Alec, Max knows Alec grew to consider him almost like a brother.
She knows from personal experience how painful it is to lose a sibling, whether that sibling is by blood or not, and as much as she often wants to strangle Alec, she wishes beyond everything that he didn’t have to endure what she had. No one, she thinks, especially her pain-in-the-ass partner, deserves that.
Next
Chapter Title: In Thy Nothing
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Summary: In the end, it’s a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,613
Author’s Notes: There is an epilogue, but I just wanted to say that it’s been an awesome ride, you guys, it really has. Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, and after almost a year and two hundred thousand words, this story must as well. My sincerest thanks, and I hope you enjoy these last two installments.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XXXVII: In Thy Nothing
Dean can’t decide whether he wants to run or stay inside his car forever, and it’s then he realizes he has something he needs to do first. It’s not something he wants to-by God, he’d rather die-but he knows that the alternative could be far, far worse. The woods would provide adequate cover, and an adequate source for…that.
He drives twenty minutes down the road, well out of view of White’s bunker, and off-roads the Impala over rocks and dirt and fallen tree branches. Then he turns her off and walks around the back, opening the trunk. Sam had rearranged the back to look like John’s truck once had, the weapons and other apparatuses in carefully cut foam, and while it hurts to see that level of order, it makes it easy to find a large machete. It’s sharpened to cut a vamp’s head clean from its torso, and it’s exactly what he…what he needs.
He treks further into the forest and hacks off branches, picking up fallen logs on the way and cutting them into more manageable pieces. Trying to pretend that what he’s doing isn’t what it is, he builds the wood up high, setting longer and stronger pieces to stabilize the top, and a circle of rocks around the bottom to discourage spreading. It’d be the last thing he needs to start and be stuck in a forest fire.
His walk back is one of dread, more dread than when he’d done this to his father, than when he’d heard the clock chime twelve in New Harmony, more than when he’d been faced with having to do this last time. Then, he’d made a deal. Now…well, now he doubts any Crossroads Demon would want to even talk to him, let alone help him out.
He hesitates as he reaches his car, her sleek black body looking ominous for the first time ever. Taking a breath, he opens the back door, his heart stopping as he looks inside.
He’d known in the back of his mind that Alec had done this, had made it so he didn’t have to-had also burned Ruby, which Dean reminds himself would probably be a good thing to thank him for-but it doesn’t make it any less gut-wrenching.
Knowing he has to do this, but feeling physically sick to his stomach, he shuts his eyes, trying to block out the pain. His chest constricted, he reaches in and pulls his brother into his arms. Sam’s heavy, and though carrying him isn’t something he’s done on a regular basis, he knows he can. Even if he’s not as in-shape as he used to be.
Every step he takes away from the car and towards the crude pyre brings him back to torture sessions Downstairs, swords to every inch of exposed skin. As he lays Sam’s body on the branches, he pulls down the top half of the moth-eaten motel blanket. Sam’s face is gray, the few lines he’d gained on his face smooth, his floppy hair a mess. He looks like he’s only sleeping, and Dean’s sure if he pretended hard enough, he could sink back into the comfortable but false “reality” in his head. Saline again assaulting his eyes, he leans down and hugs Sam to his chest, willing with all he has that Sam will suddenly start breathing again, heart start beating again, expression start bitchfacing again.
As he starts to reluctantly pull away, he feels a bulge hit his arm and, frowning, he reaches inside Sam’s jacket. His fingers close around cold metal-the butt of a gun; he’d know the shape anywhere.
Carefully, he pulls it out, and his eyes widen as he recognizes the ivory grip, the delicate etchings in the barrel. He hasn’t seen this thing in…thirteen years. The fact that Sam had kept it, had used it, when his whole life Sam had never really liked Dean’s gun, makes his heart break even more.
Swallowing, he puts the gun in his waistband; though it was his to begin with, Sam using it makes it feel like it was his, too. And Dean would rather have something that would remind him of Sam than nothing at all. He looks down at Sam again, at the face that he’ll forever see as his baby brother and not a man who’d been broken time and time again, and who’d turned to a woman-a thing-for the only kind of glue able to patch him together. As fractured as Dean is now, he knows that at least Sam can rest knowing that he’d rescued both his brother and Alec.
“Sammy,” says Dean, trying and failing to get a hold on the shaking marring his voice. “I don’t know what to do.” He blinks, temporarily ridding himself of his blurry vision. He feels like he’s back in Cold Oak, like he’s back at the last time he talked to his dead brother. Only this time, there’s salt, lighter fluid, and matches next to a pyre on which Sam lies. Dean takes a breath, wishing beyond everything that his brother would return to life.
“I just-I don’t know what to do,” he repeats. “These people, these transgenics, they’re saying I’m the only one who can save them. And that Meg bitch, she wants to kill me. Then this White asshole is saying he can kind of bring you back…I need your help, Sam. More than ever. God, what I’d give to have you back…” He lets one tear, many tears, fall and clumsily brushes the bangs from Sam’s eyes. “I know this White player’s not being straight with me, I’m not stupid,” he says. “But if there’s a chance-”
He slowly, as if not of his own accord, raises the gun to his head, hands steady as they always are when they hold a firearm, as they always have been. He shuts his eyes, his hand on the trigger. All it’d take is one light tap, one short recoil, and his pain would be over. He could see his brother again, could leave all his hurt behind. One little tap. Just one. His finger tightens around the trigger, leaving only a mere millimeter or two until it would go off in a burst of light and heat, allowing Dean escape.
But then he slowly opens his eyes, ducking his head as he imagines what Sam would say.
Dean, don’t, he’d admonish. Don’t play into what that guy wants. You know what you have to do. I’m gone, Dean, you have to accept that. You can’t save me, but you can save Alec. He needs you, Dean. You can’t bring me back. I’ll see you again, but right now, you have a job to do.
Dean sighs, Sam’s voice clear as a bell inside his head, as if his spirit were right beside him. Dean doesn’t look to see if it is; he doesn’t want to even build up a little hope just to have it shut down again.
But he knows Sam’s right. It tears him up inside, but he knows Sam’s right. He already brought him unnaturally from the dead once-he can’t do it again. Lowering the gun from his head with a heavy hand, he whispers, “Okay, Sammy. Okay.”
Giving a final look at Sam’s face, Dean slowly drapes the blanket back over it, sprinkles salt and gasoline over the pyre and his brother, and then drops a lit match on top of everything. The branches immediately catch to the licking flames, and Dean’s heart splinters with each second, the inferno climbing higher as it consumes the flesh. He knows he’s setting Sam completely to rest, but it doesn’t help the overwhelming urge to put out the fire and find some way to resurrect him.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” he says over and over, a dedicated litany of pain. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He looks at the flames, as if in them he can see his brother’s soul. He stands there until the daylight turns into darkness, the flames dying down, until all that’s left of Sam is a pile of ashes. The breeze soon blows them away into the trees, up into the ether, and Dean thinks solemnly, At least he’s at peace.
He looks again at the pistol in his hand, seeking answers. His eyes drag up to where White’s bunker is, and he realizes what he has to do. What Sam would want him to do. Doing what the famed Orpheus couldn’t, Dean turns around and doesn’t look back. He knows he’ll see Sam again. Alec’s future is in the air, and Dean has a say about where it leads. He’d already failed to protect his brother-he isn’t going to fail again. He won’t.
He’s not sure at what speed he goes to the bunker, nor what time it is, on autopilot more than anything else, but finds himself driving up, not bothering to hide the Impala this time; White is waiting for him, after all.
Pasting himself together with what might as well be old Elmer’s, he approaches the bunker, looking the two Familiar guards in the eyes as they move their hands to their guns reflexively. Dean’s determined glare lets them know in no uncertain terms that he’s to see their boss. Now.
He’s led through the bunker down the same path as before, though this time, White is in a different room, peering at various vials and some complicated DNA-like strands on a computer monitor. The Familiars lead Dean past the window and intend for him to wait outside the door, but he shrugs out of their grip and shoulders open the door.
White begins to berate the intruder, but then notices his customer is Dean, and merely smiles. “Excuse us, gentlemen,” he says to the two other men in the room. They look annoyed, but ultimately, after switching off the monitor, exit, leaving White and Dean once again alone.
“All it will take is one piece of his genetic code,” says White, trying to hide the greed in his eyes. “A strand of hair, skin cells from his clothes, anything. Undoubtedly, there is something in that car of yours that would contain-”
“Cram it with walnuts, ugly,” Dean snaps, really really not in the mood for games. White looks incensed for a moment, and then remembers he has to be calm and collected; Dean, he knows, is as skittish and yet dangerous as a captured tiger. “I’m declining your generous offer. I want more than anything to have m’brother back, but I’m not turning him into some kind of freakish, manufactured replica. You bastards have already ruined enough lives by toying with DNA, you aren’t going to have Sam.”
White’s mouth presses into a firm line, his displeasure nothing but blatant. “Perhaps you could use a little persuasion.”
“I don’t give a shit, whatever you’re going to say,” Dean says. White’s snake oil salesman routine is over, far as Dean’s concerned. “This is exactly the kind of thing that happened to m’brother when he fell for a demon’s lies, it’s exactly what happened to me years back, and I’m an idiot for not realizing it until now. My brother and I sacrifice ourselves over and over because our weakest link is each other. But as much as it makes me want to die myself, he’s in a better place. He deserves that. And I’m not going to drag him back to Earth just because I lost him before I even got an hour with him.”
White’s expression of simmering rage thinly veiled underneath Bad Guy Calm had held for a while, but as Dean started explaining his undeniable Fuck you, I ain’t doing this, it’d started to fade-rapidly.
“I see,” says White, his upset increasingly evident. “Well, it’s unfortunate you say that.”
Dean doesn’t react, hardly not expecting this reaction from, as far as he can discern, a poor man’s Mussolini. “Oh yeah? How’s that?” he asks.
On cue, four Familiars burst through the door, snarling. Dean merely grins, and extracts his pistol from his jeans. Pointing it directly at White’s forehead, he addresses the bodyguards, “You’re going to let me walk out of here, unharmed. You’re not going to follow me, and you’re going to leave the transgenics alone.”
White raises his eyebrows, giving Dean a simpering smile. “That’s a tall order for a man facing five Familiars,” he replies. “Though I admire your…tenacity.”
“Mmm. I’m sure,” says Dean. “But, see, even if you guys can’t feel pain, you sure as hell can’t will yourself to walk.”
White continues to stare, still calling Dean on his bluff. “Put that down, Winchester,” he says. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.”
Dean chuckles and, having had enough of White’s posturing, in the blink of an eye moves his gun from pointing at White’s head to his kneecaps and fires twice. Dean’s aim is as flawless as ever, and both of White’s patellae shatter. He falls not of his own volition, blood leaking out from underneath his tailored suit. The Familiars immediately start to move menacingly towards Dean, but Dean ignores them, keeping his gaze on the panting, but not grimacing, White.
“Call off your dogs,” growls Dean. “And do what I said. ’Cause even in Hell, I could still dream, and let me tell you: I’ve got a few ideas of just how exactly I can torture you. I didn’t agree to torture souls Down There, but I’ve got no problem shooting your extremities to smithereens one by one. And the best part? If you touch me, you got a demon to answer to. Pick your poison.”
The Familiars pause for a moment, looking at their master. White’s nostrils flare, his jaw clenching as he looks at Dean, eyes spitting in rage. He sees nothing in Dean’s deadly expression to imply that he’s anything but truthful in his threat, and, apparently valuing his life over anything else, nods nearly imperceptibly.
The Familiars cursorily glance at each other, confused, but then back down. “You’re different than I thought,” White bites out. “Wouldn’t have pegged you as one to swear your loyalty to a group of defect monstrosities.”
Dean shrugs. “First thing you should know, White, is that people tend to screw themselves when they make assumptions about me,” he says. “And as for the transgenics, they’re a million times more human than you are. At least they’re trying to make a life for themselves despite the shit they got to deal with. At least they’re not so fucking moronic as to resurrect and make a deal with a demon for something as monumentally stupid as a racist apocalypse. And that’s exactly why you’re going to let them be. You’re going to get the fuck away from them, and stay there. Oh, and a bit of advice? Next time you’re in league with people who know Latin, make sure you’re actually aware of what they’re saying. Otherwise…shit like this happens.”
“What are you going to do?” White asks, trying futilely to stand on his busted knees.
“Me?” Dean repeats. “Not quite sure yet. But I’ve got an endgame.”
White looks mildly intrigued, but acknowledges that even if Dean did know exactly what he’s going to do, he wouldn’t tell him. “Too bad,” White muses. “You really would have made a great Lieutenant. Otto’s wearing out his welcome.”
Dean laughs again, then re-aims his gun. White narrows his eyes at the silver barrel. “Just a little insurance,” says Dean flippantly.
With another light tap on the trigger, he shoots White dead center in the chest. Blood gurgles from the hole, the sternum broken, his heart very narrowly missed. White can’t manage to speak, but Dean doesn’t intend to converse with him anymore anyway.
Instead, he turns to the Familiar nearest him. “For the record?” he asks rhetorically. “I don’t miss unless it’s on purpose. I hear anything about any of you fucking with the transgenics, make no mistake: I’ll put the next bullet between his eyes. We clear?”
Neither the Familiars nor White answer, but Dean sees in their faces that they don’t intend to do anything but follow what he said. Undoubtedly they would like to, but Dean’s threat had made a noticeable impact.
Bestowing them with a last smirk, Dean hustles out, making tracks towards the Impala and heading it back towards Terminal City. He’d wanted to kill White in the most gruesome way possible, he really did, but he knows it’s not his job. White isn’t his adversary-he’s Max and Alec’s, the transgenics’, and he knows they have to deal with the guy, not him. (Though, of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t leave him with a few lead reminders of just how close he did come to dying.)
He knows he hasn’t got long before he has to do something, to save the transgenics, but he’s made life-or-death decisions in less time than it’ll take to drive from the bunker to Seattle. Plus, this time, he has more incentive: he has to avenge his brother.
It takes Meg a good few minutes to shake off Trinity’s mind scramble, but once she does, it’s plain as day that she’s even more pissed than before. Fortunately, Alec thinks, the journal wasn’t lying about the effectiveness of the devil’s trap. “Great, you freaks got me,” Meg observes distastefully, trying nonetheless in vain to get out. “What exactly do you plan to do now?”
Alec shrugs. “Whatever we like,” he answers. In truth, he’s trying to figure that part out. Trinity had said to wait for Dean, but for how long? Alec knows White’s penchant for enticing people to his side; what with Dean’s fatalist attitude, would he switch teams?
“Dean’s on his way,” answers Max with a hateful smile. “He should have fun with you.”
“Ah, Dean,” Meg reminisces. “Always the messiah.”
Alec rolls his eyes and turns away from her, feeling a tightness in his shoulders that is starting to edge into a headache. He glances perfunctorily at Max before walking away from the demon and heading towards her office. He stops, however, once he’s out of eyesight and sits down against the wall, leaning his head back. He’d been running on adrenaline ever since Max’s SOS phone call, and it’s quickly receding, leaving fatigue and a quick temper in its wake. He feels like he needs a break now more than ever, and yet knows that that’s just not in the cards right now.
A few moments later, he hears soft footfalls down the hallway, and knows them immediately to be Max’s. She stops a couple feet away from him. “You, uh…you okay?” she asks awkwardly, looking down at him.
He chuckles, not meeting her eyes. “Peachy,” he replies. “I’ve got a clone-sorta-out there talking to White and who, by the way, has a tenuous at best allegiance to us, not to mention a demon trapped in our command center, three of our own possibly irreparably wounded, and a day ago I had to burn a girl’s body, all because some Hellspawn decided to fuck her over.”
“You-wait, what?” Max asks. She’d missed that memo.
“Never mind,” Alec says, not wanting to get into it right now. Max must see the exhaustion in his face, because she doesn’t press the matter (yet, anyway). He looks up at her then, her brown eyes both concerned and holding the same tiredness as his own. “I’m just-this is way above my pay grade.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Max agrees, sitting down next to him. “I gotta say, this waiting around thing? Not my style.”
Alec simply laughs.
Dean drives towards Terminal City distractedly, guiding the Impala around the dark curves leading out of the former state park, and then through downtown, feeble lights bouncing off the black hood.
He finds the alley leading into the command center (or so he’d gathered from where Trinity had disappeared into) and stops, shutting off the engine. He sits there for a short while, staring out the windshield aimlessly.
He’d been thinking of ways to solve this whole mess on the way over, of how he’d both save the transgenics and not completely fuck it up. For Sam, as it’s always been. Always Sam.
It wasn’t until he replayed his and White’s conversation in his mind, what he himself had said, that he realized what might work. He still isn’t a hundred percent, even now that he’s gone over it in his head a dozen times, but considering he’s been unable to think of any other options, it’s the most viable one he’s got.
Letting out a heavy breath, he gets out of the car, walking towards the transgenics’ haven. There’s no door, just a window cracked the slightest bit, and he maneuvers himself through it, landing soundlessly on the ground below. He follows the hallway, and then halts as he sees two figures sitting against the wall, both in various states of listlessness.
They glance up when they hear his approach, and then quickly stand, stark relief on their faces. He tries not to be offended that they’d so clearly thought he’d double-cross them. Okay, so maybe he’d briefly considered it, but still. It’s a little insulting.
“Dean!” Alec exclaims. He looks like he wants to say something more, but doesn’t go through with it.
Max, on the other hand, picks up where he’d left off. “What happened?” she asks.
“You, uh, you won’t have to deal with that supremacist son of a bitch anymore,” Dean answers. “Well, not if he knows what’s good for him.”
Max and Alec give matching frowns, and Alec furthers, “Did you…kill him?”
“No,” Dean answers simply. “I was going to, I was, but I figured if anyone should have that pleasure, it’d be you. He’s your enemy, not mine.”
Alec’s not entirely positive whether to be happy about that or not. He does choose, however, not to insist on knowing exactly what went down at the bunker; Dean may have not killed him, but if Alec’s suspicions are right, White didn’t quite escape the confrontation unscathed. That’s good enough for him for the time being.
“Please tell me you have a solution for our problem here,” Alec says, disliking how much he-and the rest of T.C.-is relying on Dean, but knowing they don’t really have a choice in the matter.
Dean doesn’t answer right away, just strides down the rest of the hallway and pauses at the end, where it opens up into Command. Meg isn’t far, her back currently facing him, and he notes the devil’s trap is precisely drawn. It pains him a little that they all are now exposed to his world, but he has a shrewd feeling they’ll come to terms with it eventually.
“I know what to do,” Dean says, looking at Meg and not at Alec or Max.
At that moment, Mole notices the three come into sight, and tromps over from where he’d been guarding Meg. He observes Dean inscrutably, readjusting his hold on his shotgun.
“What’s our play?” he asks.
Alec doesn’t know what Dean’s planning, but from the look in the man’s eyes, it’s not good. Ignoring Mole, he snaps to Dean, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say whatever you’re thinking, no. We’ll find another way.”
Dean then turns to him and laughs. “There is no other way,” he says.
“What’s your plan?” Mole repeats gruffly, ever the battle strategist. He’s getting the same sense of foreboding that Alec has, but is without the strong personal connection. More than that, he can see there’s no changing Dean’s mind.
Dean looks at Mole, looking almost grateful that there’s one person in his vicinity who’s not going to try and object. “Meg can possess me,” Dean reveals solemnly, continuing at Alec’s outcry, “I’m stronger than her, I can stay conscious.”
“Yeah? Then what?” Max yelps.
“Then I kill her,” says Dean. “From the inside out.”
Mole stays quiet, stoic, even though his mind is unintentionally running rampant with thoughts of There has to be another way, there has to be. It isn’t like he likes Dean or anything, but he’s seen how attached Max and Alec are to the guy, and Terminal City can’t afford to have its two leaders out of commission. Mole could carry it for a little while, but not indefinitely.
“No,” seethes Alec. “No. No fucking way. We’ll figure something else out. We have to.”
Dean gives him a sad smile. “That was my philosophy, too, Alec,” he says. “Look where it got me. Hell, and a dead brother.”
“But-I mean, can’t you just-can’t you exorcise Meg and then…” Alec stops himself, swallowing back his desperation.
“She’d get out, somehow,” Dean predicts. “And I can’t stay here. I’m sorry.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Max inputs, standing by her Second in both proximity and conviction. “We have this knowledge about demons and Hell and now White’s shot up-we can’t tackle it ourselves.”
Dean laughs. “Y’all were doing just fine before I came along,” he says. “I’m not a transgenic, I don’t belong here.”
Cutting off his superiors’ continued protests, Mole steps forward. “What do you need?” he asks Dean. He feels Max and Alec’s gazes of betrayal at the back of his head, but he diligently disregards them.
Dean studies the lizard-man appreciatively. “Nothing,” he replies. “But you’ll need to get some people ready to take the girl Meg’s possessing to a hospital. I don’t think Meg’s done anything fatal to her, but she’ll need some R and R, and a hell of a lot of therapy.”
“Damen and Shane can do that,” Mole answers. “We’ve got a van they can take, and there’s a doctor at the hospital who’s helped us a few times before.”
“Carr,” Dean fills in, remembering the man who’d tended to his shoulder. Mole nods. “Good. Let them know what’s up. But don’t tell the doc about the demons-the less people that know about this world the better, no matter how trustworthy they are. Just-I don’t know, make something up.”
Mole nods his acquiescence again, then heads out to find Damen and Shane to update them. As Dean turns to Max and Alec, his level of surprise remains; he hadn’t anticipated them wanting him to stick around, he really hadn’t. He briefly does contemplate staying, at least for a little while, but knows that’s not remotely in the cards. Even if Sam weren’t, effectually, his purpose in life, he knows he wouldn’t fit in with the transgenics. Not completely. And he doesn’t want to assimilate into a group of people who would constantly look at him like he’s an outsider. Especially since that’s exactly what he’d be, what he is.
Turning away from the two, Dean walks over to the devil’s trap, to Meg. He smiles at her, more than ready to kill. “Go ahead,” Meg sneers, looking absolutely delighted to see him. “Exorcise me. I’ll just be back.”
“Not this time, sister,” he says. “This time I’ll kill you.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try,” she says. “There isn’t any incantation to kill a demon, and you don’t have the Colt or that bitch Ruby’s knife. What exactly do you think you can do?”
Dean smiles again. “It’s amazing how many useful things you can learn when you’re torn apart twenty-four/seven,” he replies. “Evidently, your demon pals had a hard-on for making me explode. Of possessing me, then making my insides be on the outside.”
Meg narrows her eyes, reading Dean’s face. “That nifty little tattoo of yours’ll say different,” she comments. “Would’ve thought you remembered that.”
Dean shrugs. “Another little gift,” he says. He reaches up to his collar, pulls it down to expose his chest. Where his anti-possession tattoo once was, the one he and Sam had gotten long ago in order to prevent being ridden by evil, now lies a crisscrossing mess of scars. “They had the same genius idea you did, sweetheart. Carved it off, piece by piece. Then re-inked it, then carved it off. Then re-inked it, then…well, you get the picture. I’ve got knife scars, but nothing to stop me being possessed. Or, in this case, getting possessed on purpose.”
“There’s no incantation,” Meg says again, gritting her teeth.
“Give it up,” Dean says. “And say your last words.”
“Well,” says Meg, seeing her future is dark, “take your best shot.”
Chuckling, Dean holds up a finger and then looks back at Max and Alec. Max’s face and body are stiff, her eyes shiny, but there are no tears. Dean leans down to give her a short, awkward hug, and then turns to Alec. He holds out his hand, and after a beat, Alec shakes it, gripping hard.
“Take care of her, huh?” Dean says quietly, gesturing with his head towards Max. “I don’t think she’s as strong as she thinks.”
Alec laughs. “I know,” he replies. He looks down at the ground, and then back up to Dean. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of this.”
“Sorry, kid,” answers Dean. “You can’t. I have to do this. Just, uh, do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Drench my body in salt and lighter fluid, and burn me to a crisp,” says Dean. “I don’t want there to be even the tiniest chance that my ass will haunt yours.”
Alec looks stricken with the prospect-not with the haunting, but with the hunter’s funeral. “Dean, no…I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” replies Dean. “And you’re going to.”
Dean claps his double on the shoulder, then walks back over to Meg, staring her straight in the eyes. She looks like Kalinda, but Dean can see through the fake visage, through to the demon who’d once taken on his brother’s form, who’d been exorcised one too many times.
Barely aware of Max beside him, Alec watches with clenched fists as Dean mutters a chant under his breath. With each successive word, Meg cringes and grunts, her essence being slowly, agonizingly ripped from Kalinda’s body. She lets out an unearthly shriek, and an angry, wild black smoke comes spilling from Kalinda’s mouth, the Latin causing it not to go back to Hell, but to beeline straight into Dean. Dean stumbles back a step, and his eyes darken to a sinister black. For a moment, Max and Alec think it didn’t work, that Alec would have to quickly-very quickly-exorcise the demon from Dean, but then the black dissipates and brightens into green as Dean gets a hold of Meg.
Blood starts to dribble from his nose as he recites the second part of the spell, and as it progresses, he has an increasingly harder time spitting out the words, the demon inside him both trying to wriggle free and prevent itself from being axed.
Dean grits out the last of the spell, and in an instant, there’s a dull, pulsating orange from each rib, his eyes flashing black, then back to green, the process repeating itself until finally, finally, Dean screams and falls to the ground, more blood dripping from his nose, yet more falling from his mouth.
Max and Alec are vaguely aware of a stricken Damen and Shane carrying an unconscious Kalinda across Command to take her to the hospital, but are more focused on sprinting over to Dean, kneeling down beside him.
The spell hadn’t killed him, but it’s obvious to both transgenics that it had weakened him. “Weakened” being an immensely conservative estimate. “Dean…” Alec murmurs, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Dean’s eyes open slightly, dull underneath half-closed lids. He takes a breath, the rattling in his chest all too indicative of a punctured lung seemingly echoing throughout the room. He manages a barely-there smile, teeth stained red as he hazily looks between Max and Alec.
“She-She-She’s dead,” he whispers around gurgling in his throat. “F-For good.”
“Dean,” Alec pleads, attempting to stop his voice from cracking, “we-we can save you. We can.”
“Probably,” says Dean with difficulty. “B-But I can’t-I can’t let you do that.”
He coughs, turning his head to avoid choking, and spits out an appalling amount of blood. He feels fluid seeping into his lungs, feels an odd suppressing, liquidy sensation throughout his body, knows it’s internal bleeding and that his seconds are numbered. (To be honest, he’s astounded he even survived the spell.)
“Rade can help you,” Max says, her voice rough. “She’s a miracle worker.”
“This world is-it isn’t for me,” Dean replies, echoes of what he’d said before. “It’s yours, I wasn’t-I w-wasn’t meant to-to come back. I’m s-supposed to-to die. Everyone’s gotta go-for real-sometime.”
“You’re twenty-nine,” Alec protests pathetically. “Dean, I-”
“D-Don’t pansy up now,” Dean interrupts, laugh-coughing again and feeling his broken ribs jostle. “No clone’a mine is gonna b-be a wuss.”
“You don’t wanna die, Dean,” Max says, brushing her hair carelessly behind her ear. “Come on, Rade can fix you up…”
Dean’s face morphs into a strangely placid smile, and neither transgenic knows why. Usually people dying an incredibly painful death don’t smile, let alone calmly. “I do,” Dean says. “My life on Earth was sh-shit, my time in H-Hell was, well, hell. Th-There’s gotta be a Heaven, right? It can’t be-not any worse than what I’ve g-gone through.”
“You really believe in Heaven?” asks Alec, dubious. After what Manticore had made them endure, he finds it hard to trust in a higher power. Taking into account Dean’s behavior, outlook on life, and experiences, he hadn’t thought Dean believed in a higher power either.
Dean tries to shrug, and halfway manages it before collapsing again. “What’ve I got to lose?” he inquires. “Sammy’s gone. He-He was the one thing keepin’ me sane down in the P-Pit, now he’s gone. I d-don’t care if he went Dark Side, h-he was still m’brother. I-I think we did enough good in our lives to earn a ticket Upstairs. I’m-I’m just tired, man. I’m done. I am just done.”
Alec’s heard death more times than he cares to recall. He’s even heard it in himself once. But he doesn’t think he’s ever heard it quite so desolate, accepting, final as when from Dean’s mouth.
Before now, Alec hadn’t thought living could be contingent on one single factor, but perhaps for Dean it is, that factor being his only brother, his only relative, his universe. Alec, of course, doesn’t have real brothers or sisters, and even though he’d give his life for most in T.C., he’s not exactly living for them.
Granted, that doesn’t mean he’s willing to let Dean just die.
“I’m taking you to Rade,” he proclaims again, swallowing. “You’re gonna live through this, you have to.”
“You try anything and I’ll kick your ass, kid,” Dean hisses through his teeth. Maybe it would have intimidated Alec before, but the diminished state Dean’s in, coupled with Alec’s panic, doesn’t allow that. Dean seems to realize this the moment Alec does. “You’re a good guy. And you’ve got a great thing going here,” he continues, looking pointedly at Max (Alec tries not to notice that Dean’s breaths are coming in shallower by the second), “but it’s n-not right that I’m here. Please-I spent almost two thousand years hoping that S-Sammy would bust me out, then I find out he’s g-gone off the reservation, then right when I could have him back, he dies. I can’t live with that, I can’t. I’ll put a bullet through my own head if I have to, Alec, but---you’ve gotta let me go. I need this.”
Alec sees the desperation and determination in Dean’s slowly darkening eyes, and knows resistance is futile, even in Dean’s severely wounded form. He doesn’t want him to give up, he doesn’t, let alone like this, but he can see plain as day that even if Rade were able to patch him up, he’d wish he were dead anyway. Hell, Alec had felt like that before, the only thing causing him to keep breathing being a twisted, sadistic government facility shooting lasers into his brain.
“Dean, I-”
Heaving out a breathy chuckle, Dean touches Alec’s arm. “Hey, no chick flick moments,” he says lowly, and though the weight of the words is known only to Dean, Alec takes it for what it is.
“I, um…” Alec’s at a loss of words. He’s been around people dying, but in those situations, it tended to be a cut-your-losses kind of thing, not much sentimentality going on. He glances at Max briefly, whose mouth is pursed shut, like if she tried to speak, she’d break down. And if there’s one thing he knows about her, it’s that she doesn’t break down. She just doesn’t. Alec turns back to Dean. “Just-uh, thank you, I guess. For…I don’t know. Everything.”
Alec thinks he sees Dean shake a nod and a one-sided smirk, and then, as if his sluggish mind just realized something, he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out first car keys then, reaching around his back with a wince, his pistol. He holds them out to Alec with shaking hands, his eyes sharp. “Take care of ’er,” he says, jingling the keys. “And d-don’t you dare lose my gun.”
Alec looks down at the two items now loose in the palms of his hands. “Dean, I can’t,” he says quietly. “No. These are-I can’t take these.”
“My baby isn’t going t-to sit there and rot,” Dean hisses. “A-And this gun is more accurate’n any you’ve ever fired.”
Alec doesn’t doubt it, but accepting Dean’s only possessions-sans his necklace, which remains around his neck-feels wrong. Blasphemous. “Dean, no,” he persists.
Their staring match is interrupted by a shrill ring, coming from the telephone at the center of Command. Alec jolts a little, not expecting it. It gets half a ring more before Mole picks it up, and then he, to his credit hesitantly, makes his way over to his two superiors and Dean.
He holds the phone out to Max, annoyance on his face. “N-Not now,” Max says, her words overemphasized, for precisely the reason Alec had guessed.
“It’s the Ordinary,” says Mole unhappily. “Lover boy.”
Max closes her eyes, trying to focus herself enough to not sound like a wreck. She’d like nothing more than to ignore Logan, but she knows that he would just keep calling if she didn’t answer. She reluctantly takes the phone, Mole scattering all too gladly.
She glances at Alec and Dean, and even though she hopelessly wants to stay, she knows that not only does Alec need this, but talking to Logan right next to both him and Dean? Not a good plan.
She gently touches the side of Dean’s face, and then slowly gets to her feet, grazing her hand lightly across Alec’s shoulder. “What?” Alec hears her grind out into the phone, before she walks out of earshot.
He looks down at Dean, sees Dean’s eyes even duller than before, and grips the engraved metal of the gun barrel tight. “Take them,” Dean implores, swallowing.
Alec feels like if he does so, it means he really won’t be commandeering Rade to patch Dean up, and that’s not really something he’s ready to handle, but he also sees the blood continuing to drip from Dean’s nose and mouth, his breaths coming in with a louder rattle, his body shutting down, and he finds he can’t deny anything to the man.
“Okay,” Alec whispers, setting the two items to the side. “Okay.”
Dean smiles, and as Alec watches, the already feeble light in Dean’s eyes fades, the little self-support he’d had vanishing, his head lolling against Alec’s hand. Alec feels a catch in his own chest, and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it. More accurately, he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s in shock. Staring down at Dean’s body and not wanting to think of what is supposed to happen now-Dean’s first request all too poignant in his brain-or how surreal it is to see his own face like…that, Alec resigns himself to a single tear.
“Break some angel hearts for me, dude,” he says, his fingers fisted Dean’s bloody shirt. “Promise.”
Well. Dean is always up for a challenge.
Across Command, Max’s eyes are trained on Alec and Dean, paying less than even half paying attention to what Logan’s saying. “Sorry, what?” she asks, when Logan notes she hadn’t responded to him.
“I said I found the link between Alec and Dean,” he repeats.
Max frowns. “You did? When?”
She can hear Logan smiling through the phone, and hates it. “I coerced Sam-Dr. Carr-to help me, and we discovered that back in ’98-”
“Logan, now’s really not the time,” she interrupts, itching to go back over to Dean.
Logan pretends she didn’t speak, just hurries on faster, “We don’t know exactly for what reason, but back in August of ’98, Dean went to this place called Synthesis Labs in Concord, New Hampshire. It’s a sperm bank, Max.”
“What?” she asks, now giving Logan a little more of her attention. “A sperm bank? How does that explain Alec?”
“Well, usually-I presume-those places are just a do-your-thing-then-leave, but we dug a little further into the history of the place, and apparently they were subcontracting for Manticore. Lydecker in specific. Essentially what they were doing was looking at potential candidates for the X-series project, which guys would produce the best genes. They recruited people, too, as you know, but this was easier, more efficient. I guess they decided Dean was a good source, took the DNA he’d…er…supplied, and used it for Ben and Alec.”
Max hears Logan talking, hears his explanation, but right in front of her eyes, she sees Dean’s body go limp, the blood that had been dribbling down his face slowly coming to a stop as his heart ceases beating. She sees Alec say something to him, and then just stare at his double, for lack of a better word catatonic. Max’s vision abruptly starts blurring, and she blinks quickly to force it to subside.
“Well?” Logan asks.
“W-Well what?” chokes out Max.
“You going to tell Alec?” he continues expectantly. “He probably wants to know. Dean, too.”
Max lets out a short, harsh laugh, hating how Logan sounds happy. She’s aware he doesn’t know what’s going down in T.C., but still, that someone could be in good spirits after what she’d just witnessed…what Alec had just witnessed…
“No,” she answers. “He won’t want to know. And I’m definitely not going to tell him.”
“Why?” Logan inquires in disbelief. “Max, I just found the whole reason for why Dean and Alec look identical, and now you’re saying you’re not going to tell him? What’d I even do that for then?”
Max takes a deep breath in through her nose, anger rising through her sadness. “Don’t you yell at me,” she seethes. “You have no idea what we’ve been through the last few days. What’s going on. Things just got a fuckload more complicated, and I really can’t talk to you right now, Logan.”
Logan’s quiet for a couple seconds, surprised at Max’s outburst. “Sorry,” he says defensively. “Care to tell me what the hell’s happened?”
Max sighs. “Look,” she says, neither ready nor wanting to talk about it, “just-don’t call here, okay? I can’t see you for a while, not with what’s…with everything. T.C. needs me.” She takes a beat, looking at Dean and Alec, then adds, “Alec needs me.”
“Alec?” Logan gapes. “But…but I thought…”
“It’s a long story, but Kali’s being taken to the hospital. Dr. Carr’s going to need to look her over,” Max informs. She knows what Logan was about to say-that he’d thought they were going to rekindle whatever it was they had before. But honestly, romance is the last thing on her mind right now, and even if it weren’t…well, she’s not sure she’d even want to go down that road again anyway.
“What happened?” Logan asks again, grasping at the very few threads of information Max had dropped.
“Goodbye, Logan,” Max says, and hangs up before he can express any more objections.
She meets Mole’s eyes from where he stands a few feet away, chewing so hard on his cigar it’s almost breaking in half, neither knowing what they’re supposed to do. He nods at her in both deference and condolence, and she returns it in kind.
With heavy gait, she walks back over to Alec, kneeling down next to him and placing a hand on Dean’s arm, his skin not yet cold. Alec looks at her, and she tries not to think of how godawfully wrong it is to see him broken like this.
She says nothing, just sits by her second-in-command in silence, her head a mess, wondering if either of them would ever be the same, wishing that Dean had never come into their lives, and cursing him that he left. He’d rid them of a demon that she’s sure would have slaughtered them all if she could, he’d gotten White off their tails-for now-but he’d also wormed his way into their lives, and though he wasn’t exactly a Rachel for Alec, Max knows Alec grew to consider him almost like a brother.
She knows from personal experience how painful it is to lose a sibling, whether that sibling is by blood or not, and as much as she often wants to strangle Alec, she wishes beyond everything that he didn’t have to endure what she had. No one, she thinks, especially her pain-in-the-ass partner, deserves that.
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