thirty-one beers

[shutupsammy]

[ In his dream, they do nothing. It isn't the same as reality, but Dean's subconscious has never been particularly forgiving of himself, not in the slightest, and Dean's subconscious believes he might have deserved this a little, the pain and the loneliness and the dying and going to Hell

Comments

[cal_sitter]

Niko reflects, as he views the mess formerly known as Dean Winchester's body, that he never did like hamburger. "Isn't there enough red meat in your life without this?" It's an irreverent question, but in the dream Niko can't bring himself to care.

Still, there's no excuse for a lack of manners, so Niko makes an attempt at an apology for form's sake. "Sorry. One too many maulings for the day. Yours is impressive though."

[shutupsammy]

Dean startles when he hears Niko's voice, not recognizing it immediately, not even understanding words initially. His arms lift halfway to cover his face from any incoming blows before he understands what's happening. This isn't the first time for him.

The dreamwalking.

"Would you believe I'm in the mood for a strawberry milkshake and french fries right now?"

The blood from his chest and shoulders drips audibly to the ground as he lowers his arms again, looking away from Niko and back at what's left of himself on the ground with knit eyebrows and an expression that's more curious than horrified.

"They came to collect."

[cal_sitter]

Hitting Dean right now won't be any fun. Niko would rather not waste his time. The older man looks ragged enough as it is with bits of flesh hanging in strips and second version of him turned into puree on the ground. Hellhounds are better than ccoa at mauling their victims.

"We're supposed to go out for tofu and salads," Niko points out. "My treat. But hold on a moment." He opens his blood-drenched overcoat and rummages through an inside pocket. Six knives, a hatchet, and a handful of shuriken fall to the ground before Niko produces a small carton of french fries and hands it over. "Don't ask. I don't know, and I don't want to."

[shutupsammy]

Dean gives one cough, one that sounds like it has pieces of lung in it, before ignoring the merciless looks of the other group in the room, the one that never moves every time he has this dream, and he bridges the few steps to Niko, bare feet padding over the weapons that dropped on the floor with a care that's almost funny, considering the condition of the rest of him. Instead of immediately taking the food, he wraps the taller man in a hug made of desperation and a wispy sort of nostalgia, as if he's already forgotten what giving one is like.

He pulls away, sticking slightly to the leather duster, his fresh blood mingling with the gore already staining it.

"This is the first time I've ever been offered a last meal. Dream or otherwise. I told those assholes I wanted some fucking Jack-in-the-Box before I went, but it was all, no Dean, no pee breaks, we're not stopping for dinner. There's no time.

Guess the joke's on them, ain't it?"

[cal_sitter]

Well. That was unexpected. Niko stiffens and barely keeps from pushing Dean off of him. It takes a moment for the instinct to free his hands to pass. When it does, Niko is able to relax and awkwardly pat the other man on the back before he's released.

"There's never time for anything but dying at the end of the world," Niko notes in resignation. "You look like shit, by the way. It's better than the suit and tie. One more comment about the need for a PDA to manage your life of corporate tedium and I may crack." He pauses to consider, adds, "Again."

Then, "When do the demons get here?"

[shutupsammy]

Dean wipes his right hand off on the butt of his jeans before digging into the french fries, but it only serves to smear the coppery stuff across his palm and fingertips like ketchup. It doesn't stop him from shoving them in his mouth and chewing each individual, over-full mouthful like he's committing the taste of food and the act of eating to memory. Instead of the normal simple pleasure, his expression is covered by the look of an addict smoking his last stick in the carton at the bottom of a war trench.

"I don't know what the fuck's up with that, believe me. But I hope you got your party hat on, brother, because they get here soon and they get here with a real hard-on for my ass. And they're legion."

[cal_sitter]

"Have you ever tried a thermonuclear device?"

Another of Niko's pockets produces a wicked-looking knife. Its blade is black, designed for nighttime combat, another detail the dream has produced for no apparent reason. "The only night of my adult life I didn't spent fighting in my sleep was after Cal and I used one on the Auphe. You could ask a priest to consecrate yours."

[shutupsammy]

"I'd need a thousand. I'd need ten-fucking-thousand."

His image flickers slightly as the air in the room slowly chills, like a television slightly out of tune. Halfway in one plane of existence and halfway in another, the makings of an angry spirit. But he won't last that long. They always come to collect, and they want Dean more than they've wanted someone since Jerusalem. The demons.

"There's billions of them. And there's no up or down or sideways or day or night. It's big and it's hot. So big I've seen people show up new and piss themselves just trying to comprehend how fucking big it is. But believe me, if I could murder every last one of those sons of bitches down there, I would have done it and liked it."

[cal_sitter]

"Here." Niko offers the knife to Dean. In the absence of a bomb, it's the best he can do. "You might as well try it."

He glances at the others and give's a moment's thought to conscripting them, but Dean knows the rules of this dream better than Niko. "Will they bother to help, or is it just us?"

[shutupsammy]

Dean's hand hesitates before taking hold of the knife with a strange sort of reverence, one he's learned to treat weapons with in the last few years. The Colt, the knife, the other gun. Any number of blessed, cursed, or just loved weapons. Jo's little pigsticker. Her daddy's poker.

"Them? They never help. It's the same every night, they just...stand."

He shakes his head, but sobers up immediately.

"Do you feel tha--" he stares at the ground. "You want me to figure out how to get you out of here now, this is your last chance to say so. All aboard who's coming aboard, Nik."

[cal_sitter]

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Niko murmurs. "I don't think either of us has a choice right now."

He slides his sword free of its sheath. "Is there anything else I should know?"

[shutupsammy]

Dean flips the heavy blade once, so that the handle is gripped in his strangely sweaty ghost-palm, form flickering again as the ground below their feet starts to crack in an unnatural way, as if being opened and not part of an upheaval.

"Yeah. Aim for the brain or the heart, like anything else that dies."

He frowns at the black smoke leaking slowly out, forming bodies, and it doesn't work the way it usually works. No possessions, no ghastly forms that look baked for centuries, empty black eyes and rictus mouths. The smoke simply forms into people Dean is familiar with, has met or cared for. Some that he didn't manage to save. He hesitates for a second.

Dreams are fucked up.

"You know we can't win, don't you. Nice knowing you, Nik'. See you in the morning."