Bend the Bracket 8
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16
-- -- --
"You could have just used a cell phone, you know." A woman said from the mouth of the alley, and they turned as one to see her familiar form come forward through the broken fence, dressed exactly as they had seen her before. Nichole flipped the hood of her jacket down and came closer - close enough that Dean leveled the shotgun at her chest. "Whoa, Dean, really?" She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. "You really think I wouldn't smack you with a lightning bolt if I wanted you dead?"
"I don't trust easy," Dean lifted his left hand from the barrel of the gun to wipe rainwater out of his eyes.
Nichole actually rolled her eyes. "Alright, well then. Hi. My name is Amphitrite, and I lied to you. I am as old as the sea and angrier than Hell and happier than a clam that the two of you haven't turned into sea food, yet." She stopped a little more than a body length from them and let her hands fall to her sides.
Sam realized that he didn't even know where to start a conversation with her, or even what to think. Still, he faced her. "You... you're Poseidon's wife?" Not that that was the most important thing in the world.
"I look pretty young to be married, don't I?" Her smile was toothy and casual and her eyelashes glistened with sprinkles of rain.
"Look, we're not here to fight you-"
She nodded, cutting him off. "I know. You're here because Illuyanka and Vritra and Nehebkau and Leviathan, which is why I am here, as well." Her voice became serious, her demeanor guarded. She glanced over her shoulder before she went on. "It is why we are all here, why we are everywhere, like they are. If your God isn't going to fight, we will. You understand?"
Dean actually made a sound like he didn't like that idea at all, low in his throat, and lowered the gun a little, just enough not to look quite so threatening. He narrowed his eyes at her like he might be able to tell what she was thinking if he looked hard enough. "Why should we believe you?"
"Because if you don't, you're screwed six ways from Sunday." Nichole - Amphitrite - laughed at him. Dean bristled and she stopped herself, held up her hands once more. "Sorry. I don't mean to mock you, just... you gotta realize that this isn't a war with even fronts. It's not like we're taking on vast armies solo."
"Who's we?" Sam piped.
"The gods that give a rat's ass. No, Poseidon isn't one of them."
Sam took a moment to digest that. So God still wasn't exactly doing what was expected of Him, but that didn't mean all the wild cards had been played. There were still other gods out there willing to fight for the world. That wasn't so bad. Hell, maybe it was better that way. After all the things he'd seen and done, he wasn't too sure God was going to be his biggest fan when they finally bumped into each other, or that he would be God's.
The sound of the shotgun cocking distracted him, and the blast of it going off sent Sam scrambling for cover even before he'd registered that Dean hadn't just shot Amphitrite, but rather something else at the end of the alley. There was movement, fast and fierce, and the wind kicked up again, swirling impossibly salty, icy air in a whirl through the alley. The thing by the fence stood up, shook itself, and moved forward like a man on two legs, slow and deliberate.
"Run." The word was Nichole's voice, but different, laced with something Sam couldn't explain. An inhuman sound filled the alley like a wail or a moan, only louder and wretched and broken, like the air itself was crying out. It made his skull vibrate. He caught sight of Dean taking aim again and glanced back toward the street where the goddess and the Leviathan were swiftly headed toward hand-to-hand combat.
He turned back to Dean and couldn't get the warning out fast enough.
They'd been flanked. Sneaky sons of bitches.
Dean slammed into the brick wall, hard, and crumbled, the machete he carried slipping from his hand. Without much thought about the consequences, Sam sized up the brutish looking man that had put him there and charged, intent on doing something - anything - to get it away from his brother. It wasn't as if he was any more helpless than Dean was, but Dean was stunned. That made dodging more difficult.
Sam scooped up the machete and swung it so it whistled. The moan in the air remained constant, loud and terrible, low like the wind.
The Leviathan turned and opened its ugly mouth at him, which stretched its face into a disgusting mockery of the human skin it wore. The man it had turned itself into was about six foot two, maybe two hundred pounds, with little beady eyes and a shaggy head of sandy blond hair. Whoever the guy had been, he hadn't been too much for fashion. The machete blade was perfectly in line to catch the turn of his throat.
Something hit Sam from behind with the force of a freight train and his weight left his feet for a moment before he collided violently with the asphalt, dazed. The machete went somewhere and he struggled to find it at the same time that he fought to get air into his bruised lungs and scramble to his feet. It was next to someone's boot. He lumbered after it. If he couldn't get one head lobbed off in the next few minutes and find his brother, they were dead men, goddess or no goddess. His ribs ached but he didn't care. He had blood in his eyes and he didn't know where it had come from.
A large, dark hand wrapped around the handle of the machete and he stopped, trying to ascertain what was happening. Dean must have taken a couple more hits because he wasn't moving much, pressed to the cracked brick of the old building by another dark hand, which connected to a blue, sleeved arm and eventually to a barrel chest. A Leviathan had the blade and he was smiling, bleeding black goo out of his big round ears and wide nostrils.
Dean's head rolled against the brick of the wall until he could look at Sam. His face was badly bruised.
Hadn't there been three Leviathans? Sam had thought there might have been three, what with how he'd been hit from behind. And what about Nichole? Amphitrite? Whatever. Where was she? Couldn't she come help them before the Leviathan moved his hand a little higher and choked the life out of Dean?
The thoughts were there and gone in less time than it took for Sam to breathe. And then he was running again, charging the monster that had the only weapon they could use in the rain. Borax was pointless if it never hit the target and all of that was tucked away safely in the car.
Time slowed as he ran. Everything became heavy. And in front of him, the thing holding the machete flipped the blade before he violently stabbed the thing into Dean's stomach, angled upward, almost to the hilt. Blood bubbled out of his brother's mouth, oozed through his lips. His eyes widened, first in surprise and then in pain before they blinked shut again and his face contorted in agony. His whole body shuddered. The blade gave a cruel, slow twist in his gut and sank further into his flesh.
The Leviathan was talking but Sam couldn't make out the words.
There was a sound that Sam didn't recognize and didn't really hear, but he was perfectly aware of it, vibrating through his whole body, filling him up like a wave. Run, it told him. Get your brother and run. I can't defend you. I can't fight them off with you here. I can only save myself.
Sam didn't think about the wind. He thought about how the Leviathan left Dean slumped against the building, a pool of blood spreading across his shirt and down his jeans.
It didn't matter why it just left Dean there. Not in the slightest.
His brother's name fell from his lips almost faster than he could recognize it, like a litany or a prayer. "Dean, Dean," he kept saying, like that would do something. When Dean finally looked up at him there was no life in his face. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks gaunt. There was more blood in his mouth, staining his lips and tongue. "Oh God, Dean..." Sam didn't have words any more. He only had his hands and a critical assessment of his brother's injuries, before all logic left him. He couldn't think about Jo, not without losing it, but Dean's injury was so similar to the one she had suffered, Sam's brain conjured the images anyway.
"Where'd the big guy go?" Dean's whisper didn't get whipped away in the wind, somehow.
The wound was beyond anything Sam knew how to treat. The machete was still in there, half-sideways, digging into guts and bones and at least three different organ systems. Stitches would not cut it. Sam couldn't even fathom what would. "He... um..." Sam tried to talk, but he couldn't look Dean in the face. "Nichole's got him. C'mon, we need to get out of here. We're in the way." He crouched as low as he could and hooked Dean's left arm over his shoulder. "Can you hold it so it doesn't shift?"
Dean shook his head very, very slowly. "Arm's broken, I think."
Sam steadied himself and shakily braced the wound with his left hand while he prepared to stand. "On three?"
His brother nodded and spit blood. "One... two..." They rose together, not that Dean's legs did much once they were up. His breathing was unsteady against Sam's side. Still, he stumbled forward, let Sam lead him without protest. The rain kept falling. Sam should have been looking out for attackers, he knew that, but he couldn't keep that good of an eye out with Dean dying on his arm. Instead, he moved as fast as he dared to, trusting that there were bigger things for the Leviathans to fight than two wounded men leaving the battle.
It was artwork getting the keys out of Dean's jacket pocket, and equally delicate sliding him into the passenger seat without killing him. There was too much blood, far too much blood, and Dean looked up at Sam before he closed the door and frowned so hard it made Sam pause to listen to him. He looked too serious.
"My upholstery..." Trust him to joke now.
Sam slammed the door and went to the driver's side, moving as fast as he could.
It wasn't until he had the car moving down the street as fast as he could drive it without killing them both that Dean's silence bothered him.
"Dean, talk to me." He demanded, and glanced over to see Dean resting his face on the door, his mouth open, eyes closed. His eyebrows twitched at the words but he didn't speak. He just laid there, breathing like he didn't have enough strength to get air, pale and broken. It made Sam's heart clench. His mind replayed every time he'd ever thought Dean was dead - knew that Dean was dead - and he couldn't think of a moment he'd looked so determined not to die. "You start talking and don't you stop talking until we're at the hospital, you understand? Right now."
"It's cold, Sammy." Dean's voice came out raspy and wet.
"Not like that, Dean. Tell me a story. Anything. Talk about Cas." Sam looked both ways and ran a red light.
Dean made a sound like a laugh that didn't quite take hold. "What? No." At least that made him sound a little livelier. "Don't wanna spend my last couple minutes..." He tried to cough and failed at it. "Thinking about my mistakes."
"You aren't going to die," Sam said.
"Done it before. Feels like this. But this... it's slower."
"I will not let you die."
Dean's silence explained his thoughts as well as words would have.
Ten seconds without a sound between them went by. Sam realized he kept thinking about how long it would take him to get to the hospital. Ten, fifteen minutes? He didn't have that kind of time. Dean didn't have that kind of time. But there wasn't anything else. His hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly before he wiped blood out of his eyes in frustration, scowling. Beside him, his brother was dying. And the only thing he could do about it was drive behind the slowest minivan on the planet and try not to cry.
"Pull over," Lucifer hissed at him from the back seat. Sam met his eyes in the rear view and almost did as he was told, but couldn't, not with Dean bleeding that much, even if Lucifer's face was as bloodless as Dean's was.
"Why?" Sam asked, instead, and guided them around a corner he didn't really check for other vehicles.
The Devil bit his lower lip in an irritated expression before he shook his head. "Look, he's dying, Sam. Right now. And we can save him, but you have to trust me."
"Why would you save him?"
"Because you'd die without him. Do you think I'm stupid?" Lucifer snapped, and reached forward to put a hand on Sam's shoulder, which was as cold as ice and twice as solid. The touch, however, had a soothing quality in its realness. "I've been wasting my energy trying to keep you from spiraling into crazy Hell dreams and hallucinations, and now I need to do this to help you, but you have to help me first. Otherwise, he dies. That's it." The Devil's hand squeezed. "When have I lied to you?"
Sam didn't pull over. He drove on, his breathing unsteady, but he already knew. Dean was his weakness, always had been. If Lucifer asked him in that moment to say anything, to open the Cage, he knew he'd do it. Because he and Dean could fight whatever ill came of it, if ill was to come, and he couldn't fight any of it by himself. Not while retaining his humanity as well as his sanity. There were tears on his face but Sam didn't wipe them, because there wasn't really anyone there to see.
"What do you want me to do?" He asked, and looked away from Lucifer so he might find a safe place to pull off the road and sell his soul if he had to.
Lucifer sighed gratefully and leaned his face on the back of Sam's seat. His grip loosened but he didn't pull his hand away. His voice came out very softly. "Let me touch your soul, Sam." He didn't move when Sam shifted to look at him in shock. "Just the tiniest little bit of contact. I think it will hurt and I think you won't like it, but if my grace and your soul work together-"
"Fine," Sam bit out, shaking. It wasn't like he had a choice really and knowing the details wasn't going to change his mind.
The Devil met his eyes in the mirror again and blinked, his gaze searching, his lips parted. There were words behind Lucifer's face, things he obviously wanted to say, things Sam had never thought to see in him. Primarily, there was worry. And after that, hidden behind the natural coldness of his irises, was something warm and fierce, bright and otherworldly, like lightning or sunlight bottled up and covered in skin. It was only there for a moment and then Lucifer looked away and Sam parked the car in silence.
Dean made a sick sort of gurgling sound and cracked his eyes, but they didn't seem to see anything. His weight remained on the door, his right arm tucked against his chest. His breathing was unsteady and shallow.
Sam looked to the Devil for guidance. Lucifer flickered into the space between him and Dean in the blink of an eye, facing the younger Winchester, his feet in either foot well. He straightened the green T-shirt he wore under the plaid button-up like he was about to do something he needed to look nice for. The fingers of his right hand stretched out and then he formed a fist before he forcibly relaxed, pressed his fist to Sam's solar plexus.
"I should warn you that I've never done this," Lucifer whispered. "So if it goes wrong..." His eyes went to his fingers like he expected them to sink into Sam's chest all on their own.
"Do it already." Sam replied, and surprised himself when he reached out and placed his hand on the turn of Satan's knee.
There was nothing he'd known quite like having a hand crammed into his chest, no matter the purpose behind it, and no sensation like having his soul groped, no matter who was touching it. At first, Sam knew there was pain. The sensation momentarily blinded him to the fear that he'd made a mistake trusting Lucifer; it blocked everything out - the car, the light, Dean, the world. The rush that came after was not anything like what he expected - like he'd been pleasantly electrocuted, and there was pressure inside of him, and some cold, alien, thing pressed into his head, full of fury and righteousness and cool deception, and hunger and just the tiniest hint of indignation.
That thing was weak, but it fed off of him, grew stronger just by brushing the surface of what made him who he was, siphoning the energy off of him just by skimming the surface. That also did not feel good, but that was alright. It had the potential to be impossibly powerful, impossibly cold. Impossibly alone. He tried to bring it closer to himself, offer it a little more access to whatever it needed, because it didn't matter what it was, it didn't need to feel that angry and alone, even if it hurt to comfort it. Nothing need to feel like that. Ever.
In front of him, Lucifer breathed in sharply. Sam was only remotely aware of it. He was far more aware of the fearful way that little presence inside of him shuddered away from his warmth before it skipped forward, deeper, tentatively trying to understand what he wanted to give it. Sam knew what it was then, why it crackled with hidden fire, why it radiated cold disgust and anger, and why it chased after him like the loneliest thing in the world. And that was alright.
He could have sympathy for the Devil when Lucifer's naked grace was touching his soul.
It felt like a small eternity before Lucifer pulled his hand away, and when it was gone Sam still felt the little spark of grace in his chest, pressed into him like a wonderful, painful brand. If he tried he could touch it, somehow, with his mind or something, and feel it pulse recognition back at him, confused and familiar, white and full of glory. He didn't know how or why, but he wanted to touch it, teach it not to be so lonely, sooth its anger, even if it was somehow rightly placed. He imagined that if circumstances had been different, he'd want to sit there in the Impala for a couple of hours, just thinking about things that little sliver of angel didn't understand.
"We can do it now." Lucifer's image told him, and Sam opened his eyes to see that the Devil looked renewed, energetic even, though the small smile on his face wasn't the sort of expression he'd expected.
Sam nodded. Outside of that little bit of tangible power floating around somewhere inside of him, he didn't feel any different. His ribs still ached and head hurt like the onset of a migraine. There was still blood running down his face from the cut on his forehead. When he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the machete he still had no clue how to fix what was wrong with Dean's insides, only that there might be a way to do it.
The blade didn't come out easy and his brother didn't just sit there and let it move, either. Dean groaned and hissed and choked, and blood ran out of him unhindered by the press of his left palm to the gaping hole in his side. It was good that Dean wasn't in the mood to ask questions; Sam wouldn't have been able to give him real answers.
Lucifer touched Dean's hand, held it, almost, against his insides. Sam did not think twice about pressing his palms next to his brother's. He did think about the heat of the blood on his hands, though, and the contrasting coolness of Dean's skin. And then he followed the unspoken instructions Lucifer had given him and tapped into that little fraction of angelic energy, because that was what he felt he needed to do.
It wasn't perfect and it wasn't instantaneous. It wasn't like what Cas had done before, when he healed through clothes or carved through flesh and into bone. It was slow and incomplete, filtered through all sorts of distance and weakened by Sam's limited knowledge of how a working human body actually fit together. But veins still knitted themselves back together under his hands, membranes slid back into place, flesh wove itself into thin, new tissue. It took time, but Dean's breathing grew steadily more even. Sam tried to pay attention to what was left to fix rather than how much had already returned to some semblance of normal, but he found his concentration waving, his hands trembling with effort.
The migraine was really setting in but he didn't care, he didn't have the time to.
"He'll be fine, Sam, you can stop now." Lucifer whispered to him, and a hand slipped over his left palm and gently squeezed. The blood on the back of his hand was dry, Sam noticed. He'd been at it that long. "Sam," Lucifer repeated his name like he hadn't heard.
It wasn't the Devil's words that made Sam pull himself away. It was Dean's eyes, heavily lidded but looking at him, recognizing him, weak but aware. The relief Sam felt was only momentary, and then exhaustion took its place.
"My arm's still broken, but thanks." Dean mumbled, and made no move to sit up from the car door. Which was fine. He was alive enough to be making stupid comments. Maybe suffering from serious blood loss, but that didn't seem to matter too much at the moment.
Sam let himself sink against the driver's side door and let out a twisted, dry laugh. He didn't know where to even start dealing with the day, except that he needed something for the pain in his ribcage if he was going to laugh much more, and he need to thank Satan for all the hard work, and his brother was in serious need of a box of juice and a bag of cookies. Sam didn't even know how to explain it to Dean, considering he'd heard at least half the conversation, lived, and likely still didn't trust Lucifer. But maybe they could just come back to that some other time. After they'd recovered some. After the world had been saved, again.
"You're welcome," Sam managed, and looked across the empty car to meet his brother's eyes and smile.
"You look like shit." Dean groused.
"Uh, yeah. I know."
They sat in silence for a moment, gathering strength, before Sam finally pulled himself up with the steering wheel and started the car again, a little perplexed by where he'd parked. Some side street on the way to the hospital, next to a frat house.
He leaned on the wheel for a moment before he put the car in gear. "You want to see a doctor about your arm?"
Dean lurched a little higher on the door, the better to see out the windshield, before he gave up and sank back down again, shaking his head. "Let's try to call in a favor."
- - -
Sam did not try to explain what had happened in the car, which was perhaps better than the alternative. It meant that Dean couldn't be angry at him for doing something stupid just then, because he really, really wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, he reclined on the stack of pillows Sam insisted he rest on and let his brother inspect the damage his arm had taken before they decided if they should get him proper medical attention or not. Broken. Definitely broken. But not shattered or compound. Just broken. Which meant he had to use his left hand to dial Nichole's cell phone. It also meant that Sam got to pay a little attention to his obviously cracked ribs, even if he wasn't willing to sit down and bind them or stop hovering over Dean like a protective mother hen.
Not that Dean really minded. He was sure that if Sam weren't watching, he'd have fallen asleep before he did anything about preserving his health. His teeth chattered with internalized cold, his body ached with broken bits and bruises, and every time he turned his head too swiftly he thought he was about to faint for sure, but then he wouldn't, too stubborn to. If Sam hadn't been there with blood smeared across his face and worry in every little motion of his hands, Dean would not have cared enough to stay awake even while Nichole's phone rang.
While he was listening to the third ring, Sam tried to pry him out of his blood drenched clothes using worried looks and gestures and quiet comments about cold and hypothermia, which Dean would have none of. Not while on the phone when Sam was fairly likely to twist his broken arm off in his determination to make it better.
"I am a little busy," Nichole's voice hissed in his ear after the fifth ring. He didn't know why he thought of her as Nichole still, it just seemed more natural that way, even if she sounded nothing like the blubbering girl he'd met at the cafe.
"Yeah, my arm is broken and one of those..." He didn't let himself cough. "Things out there tried to disembowel me."
"Really sorry. Call me when one bites off one of your favorite boots, alright?'
Dean pressed his lips together. "Look, you sea-witch, I don't have time to go wandering into a hospital to almost get eaten by big-mouths again, so you get your salty little ass over here and-" The phone was missing, and Sam was silently berating him. Dean frowned at that, annoyed. Since when was he not allowed to talk smack to deities? He'd always been allowed that. Hadn't been smote for it yet, either.
"Yeah, hi, sorry..." Sam said into the receiver, and walked to the far side of the room, speaking in a clandestine whisper.
Dean was a little shocked when Sam picked up the bottle of booze by the computer and took a quick, shivering drink out of it. Poor kid. Maybe they did need to talk about the car sooner rather than later.
He was still thinking about that when Sam hung up the phone and sat it down, deliberately picked up the bottle again. "She's not the healing type, Dean, unless you want her to mend your sails." He mumbled, and put the bottle back down without taking another drink.
"Great. Fan-flippin' tastic. Good thing I didn't take off my boots."
"You stay there." His brother commanded him, "Nichole said she can have someone drop by who she trusts and might be able to help. Because it was kind of her fault for being followed."
Dean was thankful for that. It meant he got to sit there on the bed and not move for a while, leaving all sorts of stains on the ugly golden comforter.
It also meant that Sam didn't want to leave him sitting there in soaking clothes anymore.
It took the better part of ten minutes to work the jacket off, and another three for Sam to convince him that cutting the green T-shirt off was a lot less trouble - it already had a gaping hole in the stomach so it wasn't salvageable. With those things removed, Dean reclined on the damp pillows and tried to understand how his abdomen could look perfect and feel like someone had stuck their hand inside and scrambled everything beyond recognition.
A knock at the door startled them both. Sam tiptoed to the door and leaned down to look through the peephole without breathing, caution always primary, before he glanced back at Dean and flipped the lock open. "You aren't going to like this," he said softly, and swung the door slightly inward as to not let any unwanted eyes see in.
"My God, what happened to your big square face?"
Dean's expression fell. That accent. There was no mistaking that accent. It made his skin prickle just remembering the night at Sophia's.
"Arthur," Sam said the name like it was almost, almost pleasant.
"I hear you've gotten yourselves into a spot of trouble, am I wrong?" He pushed the door in and slipped right past Sam, his movement fluid and casual, relaxed like he'd walked in to a million nasty motel rooms and dealt with this same exact situation a hundred times before. He had a black bag tucked under his arm and a long, dark jacket over his clothes and leather gloves, his deep red hair pinned away from his eyes. He took in the room with a single glance before he looked at Dean and a wide smile broke out across his face.
Maybe Sam didn't remember what had happened before, but he looked fairly uncomfortable watching the red haired man lick his lower lip like Dean was a medium rare steak slathered in all the right sauce.
"Hello, Muppet," Aruther greeted him.
"Hi... Kermit," Dean replied.
Sam watched the exchange and went back to the table for the bottle of whiskey. He met his brother's eyes and cocked an eyebrow before he drank just the tiniest bit more, shaking his head. Too much for Sammy. The whole day, for once, had pushed him over the edge. They really did need to talk about the car, then, before it got worse. But in the meantime, Arthur was settling on the edge of the bed with his bag of goodies, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"You realize that makes you Miss Piggy."
Sam somehow managed not to choke around the neck of the bottle.
"A broken arm was it? And a lower abdominal injury? Judging by the state of things in this room, I'd say you're lucky to be alive. Or even conscious." Arthur observed, and opened his bag to produce gauze and some kind of white bag, and scissors and a motley assortment of other medical supplies that Dean didn't know the proper names of. A little bag of pills followed the ensemble onto the nightstand. "I don't ask questions about how things happened - questions don't pay for medical school - but I will ask you this," he flicked a finger at Dean's stomach. "Weren't you supposed to be bleeding from there?"
Dean shrugged and winced at the movement. "Call it a miracle."
"Magic, whatever," Arthur sighed, and took a little too much time inspecting Dean's stomach and chest for problems before he moved on to the arm. "After all, you might be Merlin with how you've cast a spell on me."
Dean didn't even have the energy to roll his eyes at that.
While Arthur went about making a cast out of plaster and bathroom water and ensuring that the bones were all in line, Sam sank down and watched from the chair next to the laptop, distant and thoughtful. Dean tried not to be caught watching him. There was something about how Sam sat and toyed with the bottle of whiskey, how he didn't seem to be seeing much of what was going on, that made Dean wonder. What had Sam done to save him? What had he traded? What was going on behind those tired looking eyes and that somber tilt of his head?
Dean couldn't ask. He didn't know if he ever would.
-- -- --
"You could have just used a cell phone, you know." A woman said from the mouth of the alley, and they turned as one to see her familiar form come forward through the broken fence, dressed exactly as they had seen her before. Nichole flipped the hood of her jacket down and came closer - close enough that Dean leveled the shotgun at her chest. "Whoa, Dean, really?" She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. "You really think I wouldn't smack you with a lightning bolt if I wanted you dead?"
"I don't trust easy," Dean lifted his left hand from the barrel of the gun to wipe rainwater out of his eyes.
Nichole actually rolled her eyes. "Alright, well then. Hi. My name is Amphitrite, and I lied to you. I am as old as the sea and angrier than Hell and happier than a clam that the two of you haven't turned into sea food, yet." She stopped a little more than a body length from them and let her hands fall to her sides.
Sam realized that he didn't even know where to start a conversation with her, or even what to think. Still, he faced her. "You... you're Poseidon's wife?" Not that that was the most important thing in the world.
"I look pretty young to be married, don't I?" Her smile was toothy and casual and her eyelashes glistened with sprinkles of rain.
"Look, we're not here to fight you-"
She nodded, cutting him off. "I know. You're here because Illuyanka and Vritra and Nehebkau and Leviathan, which is why I am here, as well." Her voice became serious, her demeanor guarded. She glanced over her shoulder before she went on. "It is why we are all here, why we are everywhere, like they are. If your God isn't going to fight, we will. You understand?"
Dean actually made a sound like he didn't like that idea at all, low in his throat, and lowered the gun a little, just enough not to look quite so threatening. He narrowed his eyes at her like he might be able to tell what she was thinking if he looked hard enough. "Why should we believe you?"
"Because if you don't, you're screwed six ways from Sunday." Nichole - Amphitrite - laughed at him. Dean bristled and she stopped herself, held up her hands once more. "Sorry. I don't mean to mock you, just... you gotta realize that this isn't a war with even fronts. It's not like we're taking on vast armies solo."
"Who's we?" Sam piped.
"The gods that give a rat's ass. No, Poseidon isn't one of them."
Sam took a moment to digest that. So God still wasn't exactly doing what was expected of Him, but that didn't mean all the wild cards had been played. There were still other gods out there willing to fight for the world. That wasn't so bad. Hell, maybe it was better that way. After all the things he'd seen and done, he wasn't too sure God was going to be his biggest fan when they finally bumped into each other, or that he would be God's.
The sound of the shotgun cocking distracted him, and the blast of it going off sent Sam scrambling for cover even before he'd registered that Dean hadn't just shot Amphitrite, but rather something else at the end of the alley. There was movement, fast and fierce, and the wind kicked up again, swirling impossibly salty, icy air in a whirl through the alley. The thing by the fence stood up, shook itself, and moved forward like a man on two legs, slow and deliberate.
"Run." The word was Nichole's voice, but different, laced with something Sam couldn't explain. An inhuman sound filled the alley like a wail or a moan, only louder and wretched and broken, like the air itself was crying out. It made his skull vibrate. He caught sight of Dean taking aim again and glanced back toward the street where the goddess and the Leviathan were swiftly headed toward hand-to-hand combat.
He turned back to Dean and couldn't get the warning out fast enough.
They'd been flanked. Sneaky sons of bitches.
Dean slammed into the brick wall, hard, and crumbled, the machete he carried slipping from his hand. Without much thought about the consequences, Sam sized up the brutish looking man that had put him there and charged, intent on doing something - anything - to get it away from his brother. It wasn't as if he was any more helpless than Dean was, but Dean was stunned. That made dodging more difficult.
Sam scooped up the machete and swung it so it whistled. The moan in the air remained constant, loud and terrible, low like the wind.
The Leviathan turned and opened its ugly mouth at him, which stretched its face into a disgusting mockery of the human skin it wore. The man it had turned itself into was about six foot two, maybe two hundred pounds, with little beady eyes and a shaggy head of sandy blond hair. Whoever the guy had been, he hadn't been too much for fashion. The machete blade was perfectly in line to catch the turn of his throat.
Something hit Sam from behind with the force of a freight train and his weight left his feet for a moment before he collided violently with the asphalt, dazed. The machete went somewhere and he struggled to find it at the same time that he fought to get air into his bruised lungs and scramble to his feet. It was next to someone's boot. He lumbered after it. If he couldn't get one head lobbed off in the next few minutes and find his brother, they were dead men, goddess or no goddess. His ribs ached but he didn't care. He had blood in his eyes and he didn't know where it had come from.
A large, dark hand wrapped around the handle of the machete and he stopped, trying to ascertain what was happening. Dean must have taken a couple more hits because he wasn't moving much, pressed to the cracked brick of the old building by another dark hand, which connected to a blue, sleeved arm and eventually to a barrel chest. A Leviathan had the blade and he was smiling, bleeding black goo out of his big round ears and wide nostrils.
Dean's head rolled against the brick of the wall until he could look at Sam. His face was badly bruised.
Hadn't there been three Leviathans? Sam had thought there might have been three, what with how he'd been hit from behind. And what about Nichole? Amphitrite? Whatever. Where was she? Couldn't she come help them before the Leviathan moved his hand a little higher and choked the life out of Dean?
The thoughts were there and gone in less time than it took for Sam to breathe. And then he was running again, charging the monster that had the only weapon they could use in the rain. Borax was pointless if it never hit the target and all of that was tucked away safely in the car.
Time slowed as he ran. Everything became heavy. And in front of him, the thing holding the machete flipped the blade before he violently stabbed the thing into Dean's stomach, angled upward, almost to the hilt. Blood bubbled out of his brother's mouth, oozed through his lips. His eyes widened, first in surprise and then in pain before they blinked shut again and his face contorted in agony. His whole body shuddered. The blade gave a cruel, slow twist in his gut and sank further into his flesh.
The Leviathan was talking but Sam couldn't make out the words.
There was a sound that Sam didn't recognize and didn't really hear, but he was perfectly aware of it, vibrating through his whole body, filling him up like a wave. Run, it told him. Get your brother and run. I can't defend you. I can't fight them off with you here. I can only save myself.
Sam didn't think about the wind. He thought about how the Leviathan left Dean slumped against the building, a pool of blood spreading across his shirt and down his jeans.
It didn't matter why it just left Dean there. Not in the slightest.
His brother's name fell from his lips almost faster than he could recognize it, like a litany or a prayer. "Dean, Dean," he kept saying, like that would do something. When Dean finally looked up at him there was no life in his face. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks gaunt. There was more blood in his mouth, staining his lips and tongue. "Oh God, Dean..." Sam didn't have words any more. He only had his hands and a critical assessment of his brother's injuries, before all logic left him. He couldn't think about Jo, not without losing it, but Dean's injury was so similar to the one she had suffered, Sam's brain conjured the images anyway.
"Where'd the big guy go?" Dean's whisper didn't get whipped away in the wind, somehow.
The wound was beyond anything Sam knew how to treat. The machete was still in there, half-sideways, digging into guts and bones and at least three different organ systems. Stitches would not cut it. Sam couldn't even fathom what would. "He... um..." Sam tried to talk, but he couldn't look Dean in the face. "Nichole's got him. C'mon, we need to get out of here. We're in the way." He crouched as low as he could and hooked Dean's left arm over his shoulder. "Can you hold it so it doesn't shift?"
Dean shook his head very, very slowly. "Arm's broken, I think."
Sam steadied himself and shakily braced the wound with his left hand while he prepared to stand. "On three?"
His brother nodded and spit blood. "One... two..." They rose together, not that Dean's legs did much once they were up. His breathing was unsteady against Sam's side. Still, he stumbled forward, let Sam lead him without protest. The rain kept falling. Sam should have been looking out for attackers, he knew that, but he couldn't keep that good of an eye out with Dean dying on his arm. Instead, he moved as fast as he dared to, trusting that there were bigger things for the Leviathans to fight than two wounded men leaving the battle.
It was artwork getting the keys out of Dean's jacket pocket, and equally delicate sliding him into the passenger seat without killing him. There was too much blood, far too much blood, and Dean looked up at Sam before he closed the door and frowned so hard it made Sam pause to listen to him. He looked too serious.
"My upholstery..." Trust him to joke now.
Sam slammed the door and went to the driver's side, moving as fast as he could.
It wasn't until he had the car moving down the street as fast as he could drive it without killing them both that Dean's silence bothered him.
"Dean, talk to me." He demanded, and glanced over to see Dean resting his face on the door, his mouth open, eyes closed. His eyebrows twitched at the words but he didn't speak. He just laid there, breathing like he didn't have enough strength to get air, pale and broken. It made Sam's heart clench. His mind replayed every time he'd ever thought Dean was dead - knew that Dean was dead - and he couldn't think of a moment he'd looked so determined not to die. "You start talking and don't you stop talking until we're at the hospital, you understand? Right now."
"It's cold, Sammy." Dean's voice came out raspy and wet.
"Not like that, Dean. Tell me a story. Anything. Talk about Cas." Sam looked both ways and ran a red light.
Dean made a sound like a laugh that didn't quite take hold. "What? No." At least that made him sound a little livelier. "Don't wanna spend my last couple minutes..." He tried to cough and failed at it. "Thinking about my mistakes."
"You aren't going to die," Sam said.
"Done it before. Feels like this. But this... it's slower."
"I will not let you die."
Dean's silence explained his thoughts as well as words would have.
Ten seconds without a sound between them went by. Sam realized he kept thinking about how long it would take him to get to the hospital. Ten, fifteen minutes? He didn't have that kind of time. Dean didn't have that kind of time. But there wasn't anything else. His hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly before he wiped blood out of his eyes in frustration, scowling. Beside him, his brother was dying. And the only thing he could do about it was drive behind the slowest minivan on the planet and try not to cry.
"Pull over," Lucifer hissed at him from the back seat. Sam met his eyes in the rear view and almost did as he was told, but couldn't, not with Dean bleeding that much, even if Lucifer's face was as bloodless as Dean's was.
"Why?" Sam asked, instead, and guided them around a corner he didn't really check for other vehicles.
The Devil bit his lower lip in an irritated expression before he shook his head. "Look, he's dying, Sam. Right now. And we can save him, but you have to trust me."
"Why would you save him?"
"Because you'd die without him. Do you think I'm stupid?" Lucifer snapped, and reached forward to put a hand on Sam's shoulder, which was as cold as ice and twice as solid. The touch, however, had a soothing quality in its realness. "I've been wasting my energy trying to keep you from spiraling into crazy Hell dreams and hallucinations, and now I need to do this to help you, but you have to help me first. Otherwise, he dies. That's it." The Devil's hand squeezed. "When have I lied to you?"
Sam didn't pull over. He drove on, his breathing unsteady, but he already knew. Dean was his weakness, always had been. If Lucifer asked him in that moment to say anything, to open the Cage, he knew he'd do it. Because he and Dean could fight whatever ill came of it, if ill was to come, and he couldn't fight any of it by himself. Not while retaining his humanity as well as his sanity. There were tears on his face but Sam didn't wipe them, because there wasn't really anyone there to see.
"What do you want me to do?" He asked, and looked away from Lucifer so he might find a safe place to pull off the road and sell his soul if he had to.
Lucifer sighed gratefully and leaned his face on the back of Sam's seat. His grip loosened but he didn't pull his hand away. His voice came out very softly. "Let me touch your soul, Sam." He didn't move when Sam shifted to look at him in shock. "Just the tiniest little bit of contact. I think it will hurt and I think you won't like it, but if my grace and your soul work together-"
"Fine," Sam bit out, shaking. It wasn't like he had a choice really and knowing the details wasn't going to change his mind.
The Devil met his eyes in the mirror again and blinked, his gaze searching, his lips parted. There were words behind Lucifer's face, things he obviously wanted to say, things Sam had never thought to see in him. Primarily, there was worry. And after that, hidden behind the natural coldness of his irises, was something warm and fierce, bright and otherworldly, like lightning or sunlight bottled up and covered in skin. It was only there for a moment and then Lucifer looked away and Sam parked the car in silence.
Dean made a sick sort of gurgling sound and cracked his eyes, but they didn't seem to see anything. His weight remained on the door, his right arm tucked against his chest. His breathing was unsteady and shallow.
Sam looked to the Devil for guidance. Lucifer flickered into the space between him and Dean in the blink of an eye, facing the younger Winchester, his feet in either foot well. He straightened the green T-shirt he wore under the plaid button-up like he was about to do something he needed to look nice for. The fingers of his right hand stretched out and then he formed a fist before he forcibly relaxed, pressed his fist to Sam's solar plexus.
"I should warn you that I've never done this," Lucifer whispered. "So if it goes wrong..." His eyes went to his fingers like he expected them to sink into Sam's chest all on their own.
"Do it already." Sam replied, and surprised himself when he reached out and placed his hand on the turn of Satan's knee.
There was nothing he'd known quite like having a hand crammed into his chest, no matter the purpose behind it, and no sensation like having his soul groped, no matter who was touching it. At first, Sam knew there was pain. The sensation momentarily blinded him to the fear that he'd made a mistake trusting Lucifer; it blocked everything out - the car, the light, Dean, the world. The rush that came after was not anything like what he expected - like he'd been pleasantly electrocuted, and there was pressure inside of him, and some cold, alien, thing pressed into his head, full of fury and righteousness and cool deception, and hunger and just the tiniest hint of indignation.
That thing was weak, but it fed off of him, grew stronger just by brushing the surface of what made him who he was, siphoning the energy off of him just by skimming the surface. That also did not feel good, but that was alright. It had the potential to be impossibly powerful, impossibly cold. Impossibly alone. He tried to bring it closer to himself, offer it a little more access to whatever it needed, because it didn't matter what it was, it didn't need to feel that angry and alone, even if it hurt to comfort it. Nothing need to feel like that. Ever.
In front of him, Lucifer breathed in sharply. Sam was only remotely aware of it. He was far more aware of the fearful way that little presence inside of him shuddered away from his warmth before it skipped forward, deeper, tentatively trying to understand what he wanted to give it. Sam knew what it was then, why it crackled with hidden fire, why it radiated cold disgust and anger, and why it chased after him like the loneliest thing in the world. And that was alright.
He could have sympathy for the Devil when Lucifer's naked grace was touching his soul.
It felt like a small eternity before Lucifer pulled his hand away, and when it was gone Sam still felt the little spark of grace in his chest, pressed into him like a wonderful, painful brand. If he tried he could touch it, somehow, with his mind or something, and feel it pulse recognition back at him, confused and familiar, white and full of glory. He didn't know how or why, but he wanted to touch it, teach it not to be so lonely, sooth its anger, even if it was somehow rightly placed. He imagined that if circumstances had been different, he'd want to sit there in the Impala for a couple of hours, just thinking about things that little sliver of angel didn't understand.
"We can do it now." Lucifer's image told him, and Sam opened his eyes to see that the Devil looked renewed, energetic even, though the small smile on his face wasn't the sort of expression he'd expected.
Sam nodded. Outside of that little bit of tangible power floating around somewhere inside of him, he didn't feel any different. His ribs still ached and head hurt like the onset of a migraine. There was still blood running down his face from the cut on his forehead. When he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the machete he still had no clue how to fix what was wrong with Dean's insides, only that there might be a way to do it.
The blade didn't come out easy and his brother didn't just sit there and let it move, either. Dean groaned and hissed and choked, and blood ran out of him unhindered by the press of his left palm to the gaping hole in his side. It was good that Dean wasn't in the mood to ask questions; Sam wouldn't have been able to give him real answers.
Lucifer touched Dean's hand, held it, almost, against his insides. Sam did not think twice about pressing his palms next to his brother's. He did think about the heat of the blood on his hands, though, and the contrasting coolness of Dean's skin. And then he followed the unspoken instructions Lucifer had given him and tapped into that little fraction of angelic energy, because that was what he felt he needed to do.
It wasn't perfect and it wasn't instantaneous. It wasn't like what Cas had done before, when he healed through clothes or carved through flesh and into bone. It was slow and incomplete, filtered through all sorts of distance and weakened by Sam's limited knowledge of how a working human body actually fit together. But veins still knitted themselves back together under his hands, membranes slid back into place, flesh wove itself into thin, new tissue. It took time, but Dean's breathing grew steadily more even. Sam tried to pay attention to what was left to fix rather than how much had already returned to some semblance of normal, but he found his concentration waving, his hands trembling with effort.
The migraine was really setting in but he didn't care, he didn't have the time to.
"He'll be fine, Sam, you can stop now." Lucifer whispered to him, and a hand slipped over his left palm and gently squeezed. The blood on the back of his hand was dry, Sam noticed. He'd been at it that long. "Sam," Lucifer repeated his name like he hadn't heard.
It wasn't the Devil's words that made Sam pull himself away. It was Dean's eyes, heavily lidded but looking at him, recognizing him, weak but aware. The relief Sam felt was only momentary, and then exhaustion took its place.
"My arm's still broken, but thanks." Dean mumbled, and made no move to sit up from the car door. Which was fine. He was alive enough to be making stupid comments. Maybe suffering from serious blood loss, but that didn't seem to matter too much at the moment.
Sam let himself sink against the driver's side door and let out a twisted, dry laugh. He didn't know where to even start dealing with the day, except that he needed something for the pain in his ribcage if he was going to laugh much more, and he need to thank Satan for all the hard work, and his brother was in serious need of a box of juice and a bag of cookies. Sam didn't even know how to explain it to Dean, considering he'd heard at least half the conversation, lived, and likely still didn't trust Lucifer. But maybe they could just come back to that some other time. After they'd recovered some. After the world had been saved, again.
"You're welcome," Sam managed, and looked across the empty car to meet his brother's eyes and smile.
"You look like shit." Dean groused.
"Uh, yeah. I know."
They sat in silence for a moment, gathering strength, before Sam finally pulled himself up with the steering wheel and started the car again, a little perplexed by where he'd parked. Some side street on the way to the hospital, next to a frat house.
He leaned on the wheel for a moment before he put the car in gear. "You want to see a doctor about your arm?"
Dean lurched a little higher on the door, the better to see out the windshield, before he gave up and sank back down again, shaking his head. "Let's try to call in a favor."
- - -
Sam did not try to explain what had happened in the car, which was perhaps better than the alternative. It meant that Dean couldn't be angry at him for doing something stupid just then, because he really, really wasn't feeling up to it. Instead, he reclined on the stack of pillows Sam insisted he rest on and let his brother inspect the damage his arm had taken before they decided if they should get him proper medical attention or not. Broken. Definitely broken. But not shattered or compound. Just broken. Which meant he had to use his left hand to dial Nichole's cell phone. It also meant that Sam got to pay a little attention to his obviously cracked ribs, even if he wasn't willing to sit down and bind them or stop hovering over Dean like a protective mother hen.
Not that Dean really minded. He was sure that if Sam weren't watching, he'd have fallen asleep before he did anything about preserving his health. His teeth chattered with internalized cold, his body ached with broken bits and bruises, and every time he turned his head too swiftly he thought he was about to faint for sure, but then he wouldn't, too stubborn to. If Sam hadn't been there with blood smeared across his face and worry in every little motion of his hands, Dean would not have cared enough to stay awake even while Nichole's phone rang.
While he was listening to the third ring, Sam tried to pry him out of his blood drenched clothes using worried looks and gestures and quiet comments about cold and hypothermia, which Dean would have none of. Not while on the phone when Sam was fairly likely to twist his broken arm off in his determination to make it better.
"I am a little busy," Nichole's voice hissed in his ear after the fifth ring. He didn't know why he thought of her as Nichole still, it just seemed more natural that way, even if she sounded nothing like the blubbering girl he'd met at the cafe.
"Yeah, my arm is broken and one of those..." He didn't let himself cough. "Things out there tried to disembowel me."
"Really sorry. Call me when one bites off one of your favorite boots, alright?'
Dean pressed his lips together. "Look, you sea-witch, I don't have time to go wandering into a hospital to almost get eaten by big-mouths again, so you get your salty little ass over here and-" The phone was missing, and Sam was silently berating him. Dean frowned at that, annoyed. Since when was he not allowed to talk smack to deities? He'd always been allowed that. Hadn't been smote for it yet, either.
"Yeah, hi, sorry..." Sam said into the receiver, and walked to the far side of the room, speaking in a clandestine whisper.
Dean was a little shocked when Sam picked up the bottle of booze by the computer and took a quick, shivering drink out of it. Poor kid. Maybe they did need to talk about the car sooner rather than later.
He was still thinking about that when Sam hung up the phone and sat it down, deliberately picked up the bottle again. "She's not the healing type, Dean, unless you want her to mend your sails." He mumbled, and put the bottle back down without taking another drink.
"Great. Fan-flippin' tastic. Good thing I didn't take off my boots."
"You stay there." His brother commanded him, "Nichole said she can have someone drop by who she trusts and might be able to help. Because it was kind of her fault for being followed."
Dean was thankful for that. It meant he got to sit there on the bed and not move for a while, leaving all sorts of stains on the ugly golden comforter.
It also meant that Sam didn't want to leave him sitting there in soaking clothes anymore.
It took the better part of ten minutes to work the jacket off, and another three for Sam to convince him that cutting the green T-shirt off was a lot less trouble - it already had a gaping hole in the stomach so it wasn't salvageable. With those things removed, Dean reclined on the damp pillows and tried to understand how his abdomen could look perfect and feel like someone had stuck their hand inside and scrambled everything beyond recognition.
A knock at the door startled them both. Sam tiptoed to the door and leaned down to look through the peephole without breathing, caution always primary, before he glanced back at Dean and flipped the lock open. "You aren't going to like this," he said softly, and swung the door slightly inward as to not let any unwanted eyes see in.
"My God, what happened to your big square face?"
Dean's expression fell. That accent. There was no mistaking that accent. It made his skin prickle just remembering the night at Sophia's.
"Arthur," Sam said the name like it was almost, almost pleasant.
"I hear you've gotten yourselves into a spot of trouble, am I wrong?" He pushed the door in and slipped right past Sam, his movement fluid and casual, relaxed like he'd walked in to a million nasty motel rooms and dealt with this same exact situation a hundred times before. He had a black bag tucked under his arm and a long, dark jacket over his clothes and leather gloves, his deep red hair pinned away from his eyes. He took in the room with a single glance before he looked at Dean and a wide smile broke out across his face.
Maybe Sam didn't remember what had happened before, but he looked fairly uncomfortable watching the red haired man lick his lower lip like Dean was a medium rare steak slathered in all the right sauce.
"Hello, Muppet," Aruther greeted him.
"Hi... Kermit," Dean replied.
Sam watched the exchange and went back to the table for the bottle of whiskey. He met his brother's eyes and cocked an eyebrow before he drank just the tiniest bit more, shaking his head. Too much for Sammy. The whole day, for once, had pushed him over the edge. They really did need to talk about the car, then, before it got worse. But in the meantime, Arthur was settling on the edge of the bed with his bag of goodies, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"You realize that makes you Miss Piggy."
Sam somehow managed not to choke around the neck of the bottle.
"A broken arm was it? And a lower abdominal injury? Judging by the state of things in this room, I'd say you're lucky to be alive. Or even conscious." Arthur observed, and opened his bag to produce gauze and some kind of white bag, and scissors and a motley assortment of other medical supplies that Dean didn't know the proper names of. A little bag of pills followed the ensemble onto the nightstand. "I don't ask questions about how things happened - questions don't pay for medical school - but I will ask you this," he flicked a finger at Dean's stomach. "Weren't you supposed to be bleeding from there?"
Dean shrugged and winced at the movement. "Call it a miracle."
"Magic, whatever," Arthur sighed, and took a little too much time inspecting Dean's stomach and chest for problems before he moved on to the arm. "After all, you might be Merlin with how you've cast a spell on me."
Dean didn't even have the energy to roll his eyes at that.
While Arthur went about making a cast out of plaster and bathroom water and ensuring that the bones were all in line, Sam sank down and watched from the chair next to the laptop, distant and thoughtful. Dean tried not to be caught watching him. There was something about how Sam sat and toyed with the bottle of whiskey, how he didn't seem to be seeing much of what was going on, that made Dean wonder. What had Sam done to save him? What had he traded? What was going on behind those tired looking eyes and that somber tilt of his head?
Dean couldn't ask. He didn't know if he ever would.