FIC: Eve & the Biggest Apple (PG13, Gen)
Title:: Eve & the Biggest Apple
Author: bree_black
Genre: Gen, casefic
Characters: Sam, Dean, Cas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7k
Notes: Written for spn_cinema with Cloverfield as my prompt, though you don’t strictly need to have seen the movie to follow this. Huge thanks to mishaphappens for the beta.
Summary: Dean really hates big cities. That time he, Sam and Cas duke it out with the mother of all giant lizard monsters in New York pretty much justifies his prejudice.
Dean kicks the side of the phone booth after yet another unproductive call to a church. Trying to find two particular crazy dudes in New York City is like searching for a needle in a particularly large haystack, and Sam and Dean have been on the hunt for nearly a week now.
“Listen,” Dean says, “maybe we should just give up on this lead. They might not even be here.”
Sam rolls his eyes and set off down the street again. Dean has to run to catch up, matching each of Sam’s long strides with one and a half of his own.
“Bobby’s sure this is where they were headed,” Sam answers, without bothering to check if his brother is following or not. “And it’s not like we have any better leads.”
“This just feels like such a waste of time,” Dean argues from Sam’s side. “There are 30 million people in this town. There’s no way we’re going to find those two idiots.”
“We can’t just stop, Dean. Not when then they’re so close to restoring her.”
Dean nods, because what is he supposed to say? That he’s so sick of this city - of the smog and the traffic and the constant crowds - that he’s perfectly willing to let the Mother of All assume her true form if it means he can get the hell out of here?
“Okay,” Dean says with a sigh. “Let’s head back to the hotel, then. It’s dark, and priests go to bed early. Maybe Cas finally has a lead.”
Privately, Dean isn’t optimistic. Apparently the Mother’s minions are pretty careful about covering their tracks, and about hiding themselves from angels. And honestly, the lore is so thin on both Eve and her half-dragon flunkies that Sam, Dean, Bobby and even Cas have basically been wandering around in the dark for weeks. They know that the dragon dudes are trying to restore Eve “to her true form,” and they know, thanks to her ear slug, that she’ll be coming after them soon after, but beyond that they’re clueless. The only reason they’re even in New York at all is a reference to “the New City of the New World” Bobby managed to translate from the manuscript they’d stolen from the dragons’ lair.
They’re on the twelfth floor of the hotel, and paying nearly three times what they usually do in smaller, cheaper towns. Dean collapses onto the bed closest to the door and farthest from the huge glass window overlooking the city. The bedsprings squeak. They’re paying more, but aside from the view Dean feels absolutely no appreciation for, this room’s just as shitty as all the others, and that’s sort of comforting.
Dean closes his eyes as Sam mutters a short and faintly blasphemous prayer to Cas. Maybe Cas will show up with a book, and he can catch a few winks while the two of them geek out over its human-skin pages. Dean stretches out, kicking off his shoes and folding his hands behind his head. Yeah, a ten minute nap would feel really damn good.
Then the bed shudders. At first Dean thinks maybe it’s Sam stomping around like a baby elephant and shaking the ground again, but then it shudders again, vibrations stronger this time. The stained glass lamp on the bedside table next to the bed rattles, then falls to the ground with a crash. Dean opens his eyes and sees his confusion mirrored in Sam’s eyes, anxious in the flickering lights.
Sam gets up from the small desk and moves towards the huge window. Dean bites back the urge to order Sam to stay back, reminding himself that his brother can’t possibly just fall through the glass. Still, Dean gets up too, catching himself against Sam’s abandoned chair when the building shakes again and he stumbles.
Outside, the city is almost beautiful, in an alien sort of way that makes Dean’s stomach twist uncomfortably. He’s used to open, empty roads and endless blue sky and tiny little towns made of wood and brick where waitresses know all their regulars’ orders by heart. The city is completely different, black canvas dotted with dense clusters of white lights as far as the eye can see, straight lines of black and white interrupted by bursts of bright neon yellow, pink and green, and the red of cars’ taillights. It’s breathtaking in a technological sort of way, like looking at the inside of a computer, all metal and plastic and glass. It makes Dean feel nervous, trapped, like just another cog in a machine.
Also, Dean is the slightest bit afraid of heights. He stands behind Sam at the window - not too close, but close enough to grab Sam’s arm if he slips - and stares out at the city over his brother’s shoulder.
“Something’s wrong,” Sam says, as the building shakes again with a long groaning sound that chills Dean to the bone. “See over there?”
Dean looks in the direction his brother is pointing, to a large, empty spot of darkness not far from their hotel. The spot seems to be spreading, lights flickering out at its edges. Like a wave of darkness rippling out, and there, in the center, Dean can almost make out something moving...
Dean is nearly blinded by the flash of bright orange light at one of the edges of the dark spot. Fire, he realizes, bright orange fireball blazing in the harbour. The floor shakes even more violently, and Dean takes a step back from the window, tugging Sam along with him by the sleeve of his corduroy jacket.
“What the hell,” Dean says, as the room lurches wildly to the left, and he crashes against the side of a hotel bed. He smacks his knee painfully against the metal frame. Sam stumbles after him, falling against Dean and knocking the wind out of his chest. The cheap television crashes out of the storage unit and onto the floor, its plastic body crunching against the thin carpet.
For a moment, all Dean can here is the ominous groaning of the building around them, and his and Sam’s own harsh breathing. And there’s something else, a strange screeching sound off in the distance that fills Dean with dread, though he doesn’t recognize it.
And then the air fills with the sounds of human screams and mechanical emergency alarms, and Dean stumbles to his feet, pushing Sam off of him.
“Dean,” Castiel says, and suddenly he’s standing right there, beside the busted TV and helping Sam to his feet. Dean is pretty much used to Cas’ unexpected arrivals by now, but something seems off this time and it isn’t until Cas straightens that Dean figures it out. Castiel’s nose is bleeding, red droplets falling onto his pristine coat. When he sees Dean staring, Castiel frowns then wipes at his face. When his fingers come away red and wet, he frowns more deeply, licking his lip experimentally and grimacing at the taste of his own blood.
“Cas,” Sam says, “do you know what’s going on?”
Cas wipes his hand on his trench coat, leaving a dark streak. “Not specifically,” he answers. “But I suspect we are too late to prevent Eve’s transformation.”
“Goddamn it!” Dean says, and Castiel nods like he appreciates the sentiment, if not the blasphemy. And then the lights flicker out as the wave of darkness envelopes them too. The other occupants of the hotel strike up a renewed chorus of shrieks, and Dean would never admit it but it shakes him up a little. He’s not used to so many people screaming at the same time, so close, packed into this hotel and this city like sardines. The building lurches even further to the left and Dean barely keeps his balance. He hears the sound of plaster cracking.
“How about you zap us out of here and we figure out a plan downstairs?” Sam says. “On the ground,” he adds as the floor shivers beneath them again.
“Yes,” Castiel agrees, and Dean feels the angel’s fingertips on his forehead. He braces himself for nausea and the jolt of impact, but nothing happens.
“Cas?” Sam asks, after a long moment.
“I think we need to take the stairs,” he answers, voice louder than it needs to be like he’s trying to compensate for the screams surrounding them. When the building shakes violently once more, Dean decides not to argue the point. He doesn’t even bother trying to find his duffel or his boots in the pile of debris on the floor.
The hotel hallway is dimly lit by emergency lights only. They cast a sickly yellow light on the faces of the terrified people rushing towards the glowing red “EXIT” sign at the end of the hall. Their frightened voices seem to echo through the hall; Dean can recognize maybe five different languages being spoken, but he doesn’t need a translator to recognize that everyone is scared shitless.
It takes them twenty minutes to hit the pavement outside, the staircase is so congested. Sam ends up carrying two small children, one under each arm, while Dean carries an old man and Castiel his folded-up wheelchair. They set down their charges outside, and immediately lose track of them in the chaos on the street.
There are several upturned cars in the middle of the road, and others crushed by huge slabs of concrete or entire balconies fallen off of nearby apartment buildings. One of the gargoyles that decorated the outside of their hotel has detached itself, and grins maniacally at Dean from the middle of the sidewalk. People sit slumped on curbs, some of them surrounded by friends peering at their wounds through layers of dust, and other completely alone. Those who can walk move steadily in a single direction, away from the harbour and the dark spot Sam has first noticed, like rats sensing danger.
There is another loud screeching noise from that direction, followed by a deafening crash and then, horrifically, by an enormous cloud of grey dust rushing towards them, enveloping the emergency lights from stores and blocking out the moonlight, and threatening to swallow them whole. The people in the street start running away from the dust, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Dean manages one quick look at Sam, then backs against a secure looking wall and covers his face with his jacket, lowering his face. Dean wonders if Cas will stay with them, or if he’ll have gotten his mojo under control and will take off. Dean wouldn’t blame him if he did; Sam and Dean Winchester are those idiots who hold their ground while all the wild animals run the other direction, but thousands of years of existence have probably made Cas smarter than that.
It takes five full minutes for the wind to stop and the dust to settle that Dean can open his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. He straightens, coughing. He’s not surprised to find Sam a few feet away, also pressed against a wall and coughing his lungs out. He is surprised though, that Castiel is next to him, with his trench coat thrown over both their heads.
“Hey,” Dean says, pulling back the coat. “The coast is clear.” Sam nods and coughs again, but Cas merely blinks at him. His hair is coated in dust and his cheek is bleeding where some piece of debris must have hit him. He moves his mouth, but no words come out.
“You okay Cas?” Sam asks, peering at him with concern. He wipes at the blood with the cleanest corner of the trench coat he can find.
Before Cas can answer, there’s another screech sound from behind them, louder this time, and Dean turns around just in time to see a huge fucking monster tear a huge chuck out of a skyscraper.
“Holy shit,” Dean breathes, and then he’s grabbing Sam’s arms and they’re running for cover, ducking into a dimly lit convenience store with shattered windows just as the slab comes crashing down into the street below.
They sit at the back of the store, breathing hard. Sam grabs a few bottles of water and one of cheap vodka from the shelves. He tosses one bottle of water to Dean, drinks another himself in three gulps, and uses another bottle of water and the vodka to clean the cut on Cas’ face, which isn’t as deep as it had looked.
“You want me to get that?” Sam asks, gesturing at Dean’s feet. His socks are soaked in red, and that’s when Dean realizes he probably shouldn’t have left his shoes upstairs in the hotel room.
“Yeah,” Dean says, and lets Sam pull off his socks, though normally he’s ticklish when anyone touches him there. Sam washes his feet carefully, then uses the first aid kit from behind the counter to bandage the tiny cuts all over the soles.
“Did you see it?” Sam asks, still looking down at Dean’s bare feet.
“I don’t know what I saw,” Dean answers, shaking his head. And it’s true. He remembers grey skin, claws, an elongated jaw and impossibly sharp teeth. But he’s never seen anything like that, never seen a monster that big, except maybe in Jurassic Park.
“And it will rain stone and fire as The Mother rises from the depths, the embodiment of their darkest fears,” Castiel says.
“That’s cheerful,” Dean mutters, taking a swig of water and wishing he could drink the vodka instead.
“What’s it from?” Sam asks.
“It’s prophecy,” Cas says, shivering with what might be cold or shock. “It’s one of many possible apocalypses. In this one Heaven loses. I just recited the part immediately before the Angels retreat in terror, abandoning Earth forever.”
There is the sound of gunfire and heavy artillery outside, but inside the convenience store it goes dead silent for a moment.
“Right,” Dean says finally, clearing his throat and taking a swig straight from the vodka bottle now. “I guess it’s time to save the world again. But first we’d better find me some shoes.”
They pull a pair of hiking boots that look approximately Dean’s size off a dead body lying in the street. The air is still full of dust and debris, though most of that is falling off of weakened or fire-damaged buildings now. They don’t head away from the monster but they don’t run the opposite direction either. Instead, they travel roughly parallel to its - her - path, trying to keep her in sight. In the oppressive darkness she’s mostly just a moving smudge against the landscape, but they can hear her and they can track her based on which stars she’s blocking out.
A bright shape flashes by them out of a burning building, and it takes Dean too long to recognize that it’s a human being - a man, on fire. He starts to run after the figure, already disappearing around the corner, screaming in pain and terror, when Castiel grabs his arm and holds him still.
“Stop,” Castiel says. “He is only one person. We must not be distracted from the larger goal.”
Dean blinks at Cas, but he doesn’t bother to pull away. The man is too far gone by now anyway.
“You’re one cold son of a bitch, you know that?” Dean says instead, shaking off Cas’ arm and hurrying to match Sam’s stride. Cas doesn’t bother to defend himself, and he walks two steps behind them. For some reason, this pisses Dean off.
“What are you even doing here anyway?” Dean snaps. “Shouldn’t you be off getting some heavenly backup or something? Or have they already given up?”
“I have no idea,” Cas says, voice low and calm. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed by my injuries, my powers seem to be blocked.”
Dean feels a bit bad then, because of course he’d known that, and it’s not Cas’ fault he’s a heartless dick sometimes. “Why?” he says, lowering his voice.
“The Mother’s power is stronger than the forces of Heaven and the forces of Hell,” Castiel explains. “According to legend, the only way we were able to imprison her in Purgatory was by working together. Blocking my connection to Heaven would be no challenge to her. I don’t think we should count on on any heavenly assistance.”
The gravity of the situation hits Dean like a ton of bricks, so it’s Sam who speaks up. “So it’s up to the three of us to do what took some kind of angels and demons dream team a few millennia ago?”
“Something like that,” Cas says, as they turn another corner. “But if it’s any reassurance, it’s a very different world than it was three thousand years ago. The beasts and creatures who worshipped her have been forced into hiding, and the Mother’s power may be significantly diminished.”
Dean feels the breath knocked out of him again as they step into the next street. Before them, resting on its side on the asphalt, is the enormous disembodied head of the Statue of Liberty.
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “She still seems pretty powerful to me.”
Dean doesn’t consider himself all that patriotic. He likes America just fine, but he’s pretty willing to accept that for every one thing his country does right these days, there seem to be two things going wrong. He thinks it would be downright disrespectful to his baby to stick a flag bumper sticker on her and he hates New York City with a fucking passion, but seeing that head just lying there still breaks his heart a little.
“Fucker,” Dean mutters, and kicks a nearby rock with his new shoes.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, while Cas looks at them both in bewilderment.
“Right, so we’re going to kill this thing. Angels are fucking useless anyway.” Dean grins, feeling bizarrely high on adrenaline and more than a little reckless all of a sudden. “Present company excluded of course.”
Dean considers it fate’s sense of irony that they’re nearly run over by a tank ten minutes later. They barely manage to duck out of the way and into a nearby subway tunnel before three tanks and a stream of fifty or so heavily armed soldiers rush past. They’re oblivious to the three men they almost trample to death, and to the moans and screams that can still occasionally be heard from the apartments above. Not that Dean can really blame them, though, since he, Sam, and Cas have been pretty damn focused on their mission, too.
The difference, of course, is that the soldiers have some pretty impressive-looking weapons on their side.
“Hey,” Dean says, too loudly and his voice echoes through the dark tunnel, “do we have any idea how we’re planning on actually killing this thing?”
“Well we know those mortal weapons won’t work,” Cas says.
Sam leads the way, deciding that travelling underground is the safest route from now on without even needing to consult with Dean. It’s been like that again, since Sam got his soul back, and Dean’s stunningly grateful for their near-telepathy at the moment. Castiel follows Sam, and Dean pulls up the rear. He can’t see very well in the dark, and he keeps stepping on the back of Cas’ coat.
“And do we know any non-mortal weapons that might work?” Sam says over his shoulder.
“I can think of several,” Cas answers, and Dean’s heart sings. “But they are all in Heaven.”
Dean groans. “Damn it, Cas.”
“Would you prefer I lied to you?” Cas says, and Dean thinks he hears some sarcasm in his voice. Doesn’t take long for Cas to go native, apparently.
“No,” Dean says, racking his brain for some kind of witty comeback. “Ew!” There’s something warm and furry and moving pressed up against Dean’s ankle, and he desperately wishes he hadn’t left his blood-soaked socks behind in that convenience store.
“Rats,” Sam says.
“Oh. That’s what that is,” Cas says, his voice curious but completely nonplussed. Dean rolls his eyes. It makes him feel a bit better even though he knows no one can see him.
“What are they running from?” Sam wonders aloud. The rats are moving in the same direction as they are, and now that Dean’s adjusting to the feel of their furry companions against his skin, that really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“Maybe they just want to keep us company,” Dean jokes, but it does little to lighten the mood in the tunnel. Dean wishes desperately for a flashlight, a lighter or even a single match. He’s getting far too old to be stumbling around in pitch-black tunnels. He should’ve grabbed his duffel.
Then Dean hears it. A scuttling noise to their left, like claws scraping against stone. He tries to scream, to call out a warning to Sam and to Cas, but he’s too late. Sam screams first, a cry of surprise and pain that rips Dean’s heart out of his chest and tugs it up into his throat.
Dean pushes past Cas to get to Sam, who’s lying on the stone ground with some thing on top of him. It has at least six legs, and claws and some kind of pinchers or fangs, and to be honest Dean doesn’t really give a fuck because he just wants to get it off his brother.
Dean pulls his gun out of the back of his jeans, but he doesn’t know what he’s shooting so he doesn’t know where he should try to hit it, and anyway, Sam is trying to fight it off and he keeps rolling and moving and Dean is afraid he might shoot Sam by mistake. He shoves the gun back into his pants, and dives at the thing with his bare hands.
It’s strong, and fast, and it slobbers. Dean strikes out blindly with fists and feet. The thing seems to be made up of flesh and hard, protective shell, so Dean hits and hits until he finds a soft, squishy part and then just keeps hitting. He hears the snap of jaws near his face more than once, and he hopes that if he dies here it will at least mean Sam makes it out...
There is a sharp thwacking noise, and then the thing goes still on top of Dean. It drips something warm onto his neck. “Urg,” Dean says, and struggles out from underneath it. Cas stands over the body, brandishing a rusty crowbar.
“It does feel good,” he says matter-of-factly, “to fight with brute force. Though you should probably have used a weapon.”
Dean checks Sam over quickly and there doesn’t seem to be any major injuries, though it’s hard to see in the dark. When Dean asks Sam where it hurts he answers “Everywhere,” which isn’t exactly helpful but is a reassuringly normal response.
“What was that thing?” Dean asks.
“I saw these pieces falling off the thing - Eve - earlier. I thought they were just bits of debris or something, but maybe they’re alive.” Sam’s voice is shaky, but he’s doing a pretty decent job covering it up.
“Like these are her babies?” Dean says, screwing up his face in disgust and kicking at the corpse. “That’s just great. Because this fight isn’t impossible enough as it is.”
Cas gasps, and Dean is momentarily worried he’s been attacked and is just under-reacting, as usual. “I have an idea,” he says.
“About monster babies?” Dean says.
“No. I’ve remembered a weapon.”
They’re more careful until they reach the next station, never talking above a whisper and keep their ears open for any creepy scuttling sounds. The rats seem to settle down around Dean’s ankles, and he doesn’t even want to think about how he finds them sort of comforting now. That’s not to say he enjoys the trip though, and he almost screams with joy when he sees fluorescent emergency lights and a vending machine.
Dean kicks the shit out of it while Sam and Castiel stand near the subway map posted on the wall. He manages to extract two Pepsi and a Mountain Dew. When he rejoins the others they’re having some kind of argument about how best to break into a museum.
“Uh,” Dean asks, “is this really the best time to go sightseeing?” He hands Cas the Mountain Dew since the guy’s not used to drinking and probably doesn’t have the anti-Dew prejudice that he and Sam have. Shit tastes like soap.
“We’re not going sightseeing,” Sam says. “Cas thinks there’s a weapon that might beat the Mother in there.”
“I know it’s there,” Cas corrects, taking a sip of his Mountain Dew and grimacing, “I just can’t be certain it will defeat her.”
“What is it?” Dean asks, taking a long gulp of his own drink.
“David’s slingshot,” Cas says.
Dean spits his mouthful of Pepsi across the station. A few rats immediately wander over to investigate the spill. “A slingshot?” Dean says, trying not to cough when some of the Pepsi comes out his nose. “You want us to kill that thing with a slingshot?”
“Dean," Sam scolds, as if he’s worried Dean is going to hurt Cas’ delicate feelings, “it’s not just any slingshot. It’s David’s slingshot. You know, from the Bible? David and Goliath.”
“Yes, I know from the Bible!” Dean says. “But we are killing some kind of evil lizard bitch thing here, not a fucking giant and also, no way is David’s slingshot a real thing.”
“It is,” Cas says, sounding mildly offended and throwing his still-full Mountain Dew into a trash can. “And it’s not the giant that matters, it’s the low probability of success. The slingshot works best in battles its bearers have little to no chance of winning without it.”
“Then what the fuck is such a powerful weapon doing in New York City?” Dean asks.
Castiel shrugs. “Angels always assume we’ll win fights, so we did not seem to have much use for it. Besides, there are hundreds of thousands of heavenly weapons; we can’t possibly store and keep track of them all.”
Dean stares at Cas, hoping to make clear the extent of his disbelief. Cas stares right back.
Sam clears his throat. “Uh, guys? I don’t want to interrupt this little standoff you’ve got going on here, but we don’t have any better ideas and I think we can basically follow this line straight to the museum.”
It takes them another few hours to get to the museum. They only encounter one more of those spider-crab things, and they see it before it sees them. Dean unloads an entire round into it before it can jump Sam again, and Cas bashes it over the head with his crowbar a few times for good measure. Still, Dean is thrilled to see the early morning light at the end of the tunnel.
That is, until he notices that the museum is swarming with soldiers, who appear to have turned it into some kind of military base.
“Fuck,” Sam mutters. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t suppose we can walk up to whoever is in charge and ask them to allow us to borrow the weapon, can we?” Cas asks. There isn’t much hope in his voice.
Dean scoffs. “Not as civilians we can’t.” Then he grins again. “But then, we’re not civilians, are we?”
Ten minutes later Dean has talked them into the museum by impersonating a member of each of the CDC, the FBI and the NSA, respectively. He considers this an Oscar-worthy performance, and does pretty well in his supporting role. Cas holds them back at first, but by the second security checkpoint he’s smooth-talking too. Between this and the crowbar, Dean’s impressed; Cas is a pretty quick learner.
The main lobby is crowded with soldiers in fatigues, and the odd civilian in plainclothes. Dean sees a bunch of civilians dragged kicking, screaming and puking by armed guards yelling about quarantine. He figures this is just the usual mess of bureaucratic red tape, until a pale brunette with bloodshot eyes he’s just watched get dragged in explodes into a cloud of fine red mist before his eyes.
Dean has seen some pretty horrible things in his time, but this may be one of the worst. Beside him, Sam gags and even Cas goes pale.
“Were you bitten?” A soldier screams at the hysterical man who’d come in with the girl. “Did one of them bite you too?”
Then something clicks in Dean’s brain. He grabs Sam by the wrist, and drags him up the stairs to one of the exhibit halls. He’s gripping Sam’s skin too hard, he knows. He can feel the delicate bones of Sam’s wrist between his fingers, and knows he might crush them. He’ll leave a mark, for sure, if Sam makes it out of this.
“Ow, Jesus Dean what the fuck?” Sam snaps, but he follows willingly, Cas at his heels. Once safely out of view, Dean spins to face Sam, pushing him up against a wall. He runs his palms over the skin of Sam’s arms, squinting to see in the dim spotlight illuminating a nearby Egyptian sarcophagus.
“Were you bitten?” he says, desperate uncontrolled parody of the soldier downstairs.
“No. Dean, no. I’m OK.” Sam says, but Dean doesn’t believe him. He pulls Sam’s t-shirt up to his chin, checking his stomach and chest. There are plenty of bruises blossoming, but he can’t see any broken skin. He crouches and searches Sam’s jeans for tears or bloodstains, then grabs Sam by the waist, turns him around and does the same examination of his back.
“Satisfied?” Sam asks, voice amused. “Or are we going to keep with the groping?”
Dean scowls. He can’t seem to wipe the image of Sam exploding out of his mind, can’t help but imagine the splatter of Sam’s blood and flesh against his face and hands. “Yeah, I’m satisfied.” He turns on his heel and stalks down the tiled hallway. “Let’s go find our slingshot.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, pointing in the other direction. “It’s that way.”
“Right.” Dean nods, and follows the angel and his brother out of the Ancient Egypt section and even farther back in time.
The slingshot is displayed in a dingy corner of the museum apparently reserved for miscellaneous stuff they couldn’t fit anywhere else. It’s labelled “Weapon, origin and date unknown.” It is small and brown, and looks like it might disintegrate when touched. Overall, Dean is unimpressed.
He’s about to voice his displeasure when Cas wraps part of his trench coat around his fist, then smashes the glass display case. Dean half expects an alarm to sound, but the generator must be running low, and anyway, this piece of shit probably isn’t even worth protecting. Cas hands the slingshot to Sam while he puts his dirty, bloodstained coat back on, and Sam sticks it in his back pocket. Cas frowns, but if he’s offended by this treatment of a holy relic he doesn’t mention it.
They hesitate at the top of the staircase, three storeys up. The lobby downstairs has descended into chaos in the half hour they’ve been away, and soldiers scramble to collect their gear and run out the door.
“I forgot my gun,” a young guy calls to an older soldier on his way out the door, turning to retrieve it.
“Leave it,” the older man calls back, “they’re going to nuke the fucker. Forget your gun.”
“Shit,” Sam says after a moment of stunned silence. “I’ll bet there are tens of thousands of people still alive out there, waiting to be rescued. We’ve got to get to this thing before a nuclear strike does.”
“We only need to find out where it is,” Castiel says, leaning over the railing to see which direction the last of the soldiers are leaving in. Then the ground shudders beneath them, the railing gives way with a sickening cracking noise, and Cas disappears.
Dean moves before he has time to think, before he even registers what he’s doing. He catches hold of Cas’ fingertips, leaning too far over the railing-less edge himself. He feels himself fall off balance, and his chest tip over his legs into empty air. Below him, Castiel’s eyes widen in terror and Dean thinks that’s maybe the most genuine emotional response he’s ever seen from him. They fall together over the edge, and Dean knows that this high up they could die from the fall, breaking their necks against the marble. Or worse, they might break their legs or backs or necks but live, and have to wait to die by monster or nuclear explosion.
And then the freefall abruptly stops. It sends a jolt through Dean’s body and Cas’ wrist nearly slides out of his now-sweaty palm. Dean feels a firm grip around his ankle, and then he hears Sam’s voice. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you,” Sam says. “Hang on.”
So Dean hangs on, though his arm starts to shake with the effort of holding Cas’ dead weight. Sam tugs them up excruciatingly slowly, and Dean doesn’t breathe again until both he and Cas have scrambled back up onto solid floor. The three of them collapse in a heap.
“You should have let me go,” Cas says, after a few moments. His voice is shaky.
“Fuck you,” Dean says, and that’s the end of it.
Turns out it’s no problem finding the monster at all, because she’s right fucking there, in the middle of Central Park, just a short jog away. They gape at her in silence for a few seconds, all three of them astounded by the size of her in the daylight. She has four legs but is walking on her hind legs now, head waving back and forth as she scans the ground, staring at something or someone. On either side of her head a gelatinous bag rhythmically inflates and deflates, like a set of external lungs.
“Right,” Dean says. “I’m going to aim at those things on her head.” He holds out his hand for the slingshot.
“No fucking way,” Sam says, pulling it out of his pocket and holding it well away from Dean. “I’m gonna be the one who goes.” This isn’t a new argument for them, but Dean’s not sure he’s even seen Sam look quite so determined before.
“Sam, I’m the oldest. Besides, I have better aim than you do.”
“With a gun, maybe. But I’m better with a crossbow.”
“Only ‘cause I used to let you win at target practice to boost your delicate self-esteem.”
Dean is so busy anticipating Sam’s next snotty remark and planning his next rebuttal that he doesn’t notice Cas sneak up behind Sam and snatch the slingshot out of his hand until after it’s happened. Apparently neither does Sam.
“Hey,” he says, irritably.
Castiel stares down at the slingshot in his hand with something like reverence. Then he turns his head and looks toward the Mother, now dangerously close and getting closer. “Hide under there,” he instructs, pointing to a nearby walking bridge.
Dean wants to protest, he really does. But he looks at Sam, and Sam looks at him, and he knows that neither of them is walking out of this without the other. Unattached, Cas is the smartest choice here, and they all know it.
Cas clears his throat. “I want you to know,” he says, “that it has been an honor fighting with the two of you these past years. You have taught me more than I can fully express.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “you too, Cas.” Dean can only nod, and then the ground is shaking and Sam is grabbing his arm and they’re running for the bridge. Dean manages one quick look over his shoulder and sees Cas running towards the monster, his trench coat billowing out behind him. He looks impossibly small compared to her, and painfully, terrifyingly mortal.
Dean and Sam sit under the bridge in Central Park, knees pulled up to their chests and bracing themselves against the curved roof above their heads. The ground shakes with every step the monster takes, and Dean can hear the steady sound of her breathing.
He can hear other breathing too. There are two other people sheltering under the bridge. Dean can just barely hear the sound of their voices over the crashing of the monster’s footsteps and the new, droning roar of fighter jets overhead. Dean doesn’t really care about the other people though. His world has narrowed down to him and Sam, huddled together under a bridge, waiting for fighter jets about to drop a nuclear weapon on their heads, or for a monster to crush them.
“Sam?” Dean says, screaming into Sam’s ear to overpower the noise.
“Yeah?”
Dean laughs, more than a little hysterically. “It’s funny. I always thought we’d die together. I’ve imagined it happening a thousand different ways. But never once did I consider giant lizard monster in the middle of New York City as a possibility.”
Sam laughs then too, and reaches into Dean’s lap to grab his hand and squeeze it tightly. Normally Dean wouldn’t tolerate that sort of thing, but he figures if they’re about to die anyway he’ll let Sam have his chick flick moment.
“I love you too, Dean,” Sam says, smiling brightly, and then the bridges crashes down on top of them in a shower of rock and dust.
It’s Sam who digs Dean out, of course, tossing aside massive boulders like he’s fucking Superman or something.
Dean can’t really stand up properly - he’s got at least a broken ankle, and probably a few cracked ribs, too, but he doesn’t even feel the pain. Beside him, Sam is alive and whole. Together, they dig up the other couple who’d been sheltering under the bridge. They’re shocked to find both the man and the woman alive, and Dean has to admit it feels pretty damn good to be actually saving people again.
The couple are dazed and dehydrated and they’ve had a pretty fucking awful night, but they cling to one another like it’s the only thing that matters in the world. They ramble for a bit about digging up their video camera, but Sam makes them sit down and rest. Dean suspects Sam is so attentive because he’s trying to avoid thinking about Cas. Dean wonders if the distraction is working for Sam, because it sure as hell isn’t working for him.
“Do you think he made it?” Sam whispers to Dean once the couple are settled down. The droning noise of planes overhead has temporarily receded, and the crashing footsteps of the Mother have stopped. The world is eerily quiet, and Dean instinctively whispers back.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, even if he got off the shot, he’d still have to get clear of her as she fell.” Dean thinks of Cas, so small and almost human as he’d run towards the monster, and feels his chest go tight.
“Goddamnit,” Sam says, and bangs his head back against what’s left of the bridge.
“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” says a low voice from their left, and Dean nearly gives himself whiplash turning to look for it.
Castiel stands a few feet away, outside what’s left of the bridge. The cut on his cheek is gone, his trench coat is spotless and he’s actually grinning. “Do you want to come see the body?’ he asks, voice full of pride.
“Oh my God,” Sam exclaims, completely ignoring those instructions. He practically launches himself at Cas and envelopes him in a bear hug that Cas is more than happy to return. And it’s just Dean’s broken ankle that stops him from joining in, to be perfectly honest.
“Would you like to leave now?” Cas asks when Sam finally releases him. Cas zapping them out of the park feels so awesome he doesn’t even worry about that constipation that always follows.
The only damage done to the Impala, by some miracle, is a missing side-mirror and one broken headlight. Cas repairs both before Dean even has a chance to whine about it and smiles, hesitantly, in Dean’s direction.
“Thanks,” he says. “While you’re at it, can you fix my ankle?” He wiggles his leg in a beguiling fashion.
“I must go,” Castiel says when he’s finished, “My colleagues in Heaven are requesting a full report of last night’s occurrences. I will see you both again soon.” And then he’s gone. Dean figures it’s actually the closest to a proper goodbye they’ve ever gotten from Cas.
“So I was thinking,” Sam declares as he climbs into the passenger seat. “That we should probably stick around a while. See if we can help with rescue and recovery or something.”
If looks could kill, Dean is pretty sure his could put down even the unkillable Sam Winchester.
“Or,” Sam amends quickly, “we could get the fuck out of this fucking city.”
“Why Sam, I do believe you are a genius,” Dean says, rolling down his window and turning up the music. “At least we won’t hit any traffic on the way out of town.”
****
Thanks again to mishaphappens, and to the mods at spn_cinema. I had a great time with this, even if re-watching the movie made me nauseous.
Author: bree_black
Genre: Gen, casefic
Characters: Sam, Dean, Cas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7k
Notes: Written for spn_cinema with Cloverfield as my prompt, though you don’t strictly need to have seen the movie to follow this. Huge thanks to mishaphappens for the beta.
Summary: Dean really hates big cities. That time he, Sam and Cas duke it out with the mother of all giant lizard monsters in New York pretty much justifies his prejudice.
Dean kicks the side of the phone booth after yet another unproductive call to a church. Trying to find two particular crazy dudes in New York City is like searching for a needle in a particularly large haystack, and Sam and Dean have been on the hunt for nearly a week now.
“Listen,” Dean says, “maybe we should just give up on this lead. They might not even be here.”
Sam rolls his eyes and set off down the street again. Dean has to run to catch up, matching each of Sam’s long strides with one and a half of his own.
“Bobby’s sure this is where they were headed,” Sam answers, without bothering to check if his brother is following or not. “And it’s not like we have any better leads.”
“This just feels like such a waste of time,” Dean argues from Sam’s side. “There are 30 million people in this town. There’s no way we’re going to find those two idiots.”
“We can’t just stop, Dean. Not when then they’re so close to restoring her.”
Dean nods, because what is he supposed to say? That he’s so sick of this city - of the smog and the traffic and the constant crowds - that he’s perfectly willing to let the Mother of All assume her true form if it means he can get the hell out of here?
“Okay,” Dean says with a sigh. “Let’s head back to the hotel, then. It’s dark, and priests go to bed early. Maybe Cas finally has a lead.”
Privately, Dean isn’t optimistic. Apparently the Mother’s minions are pretty careful about covering their tracks, and about hiding themselves from angels. And honestly, the lore is so thin on both Eve and her half-dragon flunkies that Sam, Dean, Bobby and even Cas have basically been wandering around in the dark for weeks. They know that the dragon dudes are trying to restore Eve “to her true form,” and they know, thanks to her ear slug, that she’ll be coming after them soon after, but beyond that they’re clueless. The only reason they’re even in New York at all is a reference to “the New City of the New World” Bobby managed to translate from the manuscript they’d stolen from the dragons’ lair.
They’re on the twelfth floor of the hotel, and paying nearly three times what they usually do in smaller, cheaper towns. Dean collapses onto the bed closest to the door and farthest from the huge glass window overlooking the city. The bedsprings squeak. They’re paying more, but aside from the view Dean feels absolutely no appreciation for, this room’s just as shitty as all the others, and that’s sort of comforting.
Dean closes his eyes as Sam mutters a short and faintly blasphemous prayer to Cas. Maybe Cas will show up with a book, and he can catch a few winks while the two of them geek out over its human-skin pages. Dean stretches out, kicking off his shoes and folding his hands behind his head. Yeah, a ten minute nap would feel really damn good.
Then the bed shudders. At first Dean thinks maybe it’s Sam stomping around like a baby elephant and shaking the ground again, but then it shudders again, vibrations stronger this time. The stained glass lamp on the bedside table next to the bed rattles, then falls to the ground with a crash. Dean opens his eyes and sees his confusion mirrored in Sam’s eyes, anxious in the flickering lights.
Sam gets up from the small desk and moves towards the huge window. Dean bites back the urge to order Sam to stay back, reminding himself that his brother can’t possibly just fall through the glass. Still, Dean gets up too, catching himself against Sam’s abandoned chair when the building shakes again and he stumbles.
Outside, the city is almost beautiful, in an alien sort of way that makes Dean’s stomach twist uncomfortably. He’s used to open, empty roads and endless blue sky and tiny little towns made of wood and brick where waitresses know all their regulars’ orders by heart. The city is completely different, black canvas dotted with dense clusters of white lights as far as the eye can see, straight lines of black and white interrupted by bursts of bright neon yellow, pink and green, and the red of cars’ taillights. It’s breathtaking in a technological sort of way, like looking at the inside of a computer, all metal and plastic and glass. It makes Dean feel nervous, trapped, like just another cog in a machine.
Also, Dean is the slightest bit afraid of heights. He stands behind Sam at the window - not too close, but close enough to grab Sam’s arm if he slips - and stares out at the city over his brother’s shoulder.
“Something’s wrong,” Sam says, as the building shakes again with a long groaning sound that chills Dean to the bone. “See over there?”
Dean looks in the direction his brother is pointing, to a large, empty spot of darkness not far from their hotel. The spot seems to be spreading, lights flickering out at its edges. Like a wave of darkness rippling out, and there, in the center, Dean can almost make out something moving...
Dean is nearly blinded by the flash of bright orange light at one of the edges of the dark spot. Fire, he realizes, bright orange fireball blazing in the harbour. The floor shakes even more violently, and Dean takes a step back from the window, tugging Sam along with him by the sleeve of his corduroy jacket.
“What the hell,” Dean says, as the room lurches wildly to the left, and he crashes against the side of a hotel bed. He smacks his knee painfully against the metal frame. Sam stumbles after him, falling against Dean and knocking the wind out of his chest. The cheap television crashes out of the storage unit and onto the floor, its plastic body crunching against the thin carpet.
For a moment, all Dean can here is the ominous groaning of the building around them, and his and Sam’s own harsh breathing. And there’s something else, a strange screeching sound off in the distance that fills Dean with dread, though he doesn’t recognize it.
And then the air fills with the sounds of human screams and mechanical emergency alarms, and Dean stumbles to his feet, pushing Sam off of him.
“Dean,” Castiel says, and suddenly he’s standing right there, beside the busted TV and helping Sam to his feet. Dean is pretty much used to Cas’ unexpected arrivals by now, but something seems off this time and it isn’t until Cas straightens that Dean figures it out. Castiel’s nose is bleeding, red droplets falling onto his pristine coat. When he sees Dean staring, Castiel frowns then wipes at his face. When his fingers come away red and wet, he frowns more deeply, licking his lip experimentally and grimacing at the taste of his own blood.
“Cas,” Sam says, “do you know what’s going on?”
Cas wipes his hand on his trench coat, leaving a dark streak. “Not specifically,” he answers. “But I suspect we are too late to prevent Eve’s transformation.”
“Goddamn it!” Dean says, and Castiel nods like he appreciates the sentiment, if not the blasphemy. And then the lights flicker out as the wave of darkness envelopes them too. The other occupants of the hotel strike up a renewed chorus of shrieks, and Dean would never admit it but it shakes him up a little. He’s not used to so many people screaming at the same time, so close, packed into this hotel and this city like sardines. The building lurches even further to the left and Dean barely keeps his balance. He hears the sound of plaster cracking.
“How about you zap us out of here and we figure out a plan downstairs?” Sam says. “On the ground,” he adds as the floor shivers beneath them again.
“Yes,” Castiel agrees, and Dean feels the angel’s fingertips on his forehead. He braces himself for nausea and the jolt of impact, but nothing happens.
“Cas?” Sam asks, after a long moment.
“I think we need to take the stairs,” he answers, voice louder than it needs to be like he’s trying to compensate for the screams surrounding them. When the building shakes violently once more, Dean decides not to argue the point. He doesn’t even bother trying to find his duffel or his boots in the pile of debris on the floor.
The hotel hallway is dimly lit by emergency lights only. They cast a sickly yellow light on the faces of the terrified people rushing towards the glowing red “EXIT” sign at the end of the hall. Their frightened voices seem to echo through the hall; Dean can recognize maybe five different languages being spoken, but he doesn’t need a translator to recognize that everyone is scared shitless.
It takes them twenty minutes to hit the pavement outside, the staircase is so congested. Sam ends up carrying two small children, one under each arm, while Dean carries an old man and Castiel his folded-up wheelchair. They set down their charges outside, and immediately lose track of them in the chaos on the street.
There are several upturned cars in the middle of the road, and others crushed by huge slabs of concrete or entire balconies fallen off of nearby apartment buildings. One of the gargoyles that decorated the outside of their hotel has detached itself, and grins maniacally at Dean from the middle of the sidewalk. People sit slumped on curbs, some of them surrounded by friends peering at their wounds through layers of dust, and other completely alone. Those who can walk move steadily in a single direction, away from the harbour and the dark spot Sam has first noticed, like rats sensing danger.
There is another loud screeching noise from that direction, followed by a deafening crash and then, horrifically, by an enormous cloud of grey dust rushing towards them, enveloping the emergency lights from stores and blocking out the moonlight, and threatening to swallow them whole. The people in the street start running away from the dust, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Dean manages one quick look at Sam, then backs against a secure looking wall and covers his face with his jacket, lowering his face. Dean wonders if Cas will stay with them, or if he’ll have gotten his mojo under control and will take off. Dean wouldn’t blame him if he did; Sam and Dean Winchester are those idiots who hold their ground while all the wild animals run the other direction, but thousands of years of existence have probably made Cas smarter than that.
It takes five full minutes for the wind to stop and the dust to settle that Dean can open his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. He straightens, coughing. He’s not surprised to find Sam a few feet away, also pressed against a wall and coughing his lungs out. He is surprised though, that Castiel is next to him, with his trench coat thrown over both their heads.
“Hey,” Dean says, pulling back the coat. “The coast is clear.” Sam nods and coughs again, but Cas merely blinks at him. His hair is coated in dust and his cheek is bleeding where some piece of debris must have hit him. He moves his mouth, but no words come out.
“You okay Cas?” Sam asks, peering at him with concern. He wipes at the blood with the cleanest corner of the trench coat he can find.
Before Cas can answer, there’s another screech sound from behind them, louder this time, and Dean turns around just in time to see a huge fucking monster tear a huge chuck out of a skyscraper.
“Holy shit,” Dean breathes, and then he’s grabbing Sam’s arms and they’re running for cover, ducking into a dimly lit convenience store with shattered windows just as the slab comes crashing down into the street below.
They sit at the back of the store, breathing hard. Sam grabs a few bottles of water and one of cheap vodka from the shelves. He tosses one bottle of water to Dean, drinks another himself in three gulps, and uses another bottle of water and the vodka to clean the cut on Cas’ face, which isn’t as deep as it had looked.
“You want me to get that?” Sam asks, gesturing at Dean’s feet. His socks are soaked in red, and that’s when Dean realizes he probably shouldn’t have left his shoes upstairs in the hotel room.
“Yeah,” Dean says, and lets Sam pull off his socks, though normally he’s ticklish when anyone touches him there. Sam washes his feet carefully, then uses the first aid kit from behind the counter to bandage the tiny cuts all over the soles.
“Did you see it?” Sam asks, still looking down at Dean’s bare feet.
“I don’t know what I saw,” Dean answers, shaking his head. And it’s true. He remembers grey skin, claws, an elongated jaw and impossibly sharp teeth. But he’s never seen anything like that, never seen a monster that big, except maybe in Jurassic Park.
“And it will rain stone and fire as The Mother rises from the depths, the embodiment of their darkest fears,” Castiel says.
“That’s cheerful,” Dean mutters, taking a swig of water and wishing he could drink the vodka instead.
“What’s it from?” Sam asks.
“It’s prophecy,” Cas says, shivering with what might be cold or shock. “It’s one of many possible apocalypses. In this one Heaven loses. I just recited the part immediately before the Angels retreat in terror, abandoning Earth forever.”
There is the sound of gunfire and heavy artillery outside, but inside the convenience store it goes dead silent for a moment.
“Right,” Dean says finally, clearing his throat and taking a swig straight from the vodka bottle now. “I guess it’s time to save the world again. But first we’d better find me some shoes.”
They pull a pair of hiking boots that look approximately Dean’s size off a dead body lying in the street. The air is still full of dust and debris, though most of that is falling off of weakened or fire-damaged buildings now. They don’t head away from the monster but they don’t run the opposite direction either. Instead, they travel roughly parallel to its - her - path, trying to keep her in sight. In the oppressive darkness she’s mostly just a moving smudge against the landscape, but they can hear her and they can track her based on which stars she’s blocking out.
A bright shape flashes by them out of a burning building, and it takes Dean too long to recognize that it’s a human being - a man, on fire. He starts to run after the figure, already disappearing around the corner, screaming in pain and terror, when Castiel grabs his arm and holds him still.
“Stop,” Castiel says. “He is only one person. We must not be distracted from the larger goal.”
Dean blinks at Cas, but he doesn’t bother to pull away. The man is too far gone by now anyway.
“You’re one cold son of a bitch, you know that?” Dean says instead, shaking off Cas’ arm and hurrying to match Sam’s stride. Cas doesn’t bother to defend himself, and he walks two steps behind them. For some reason, this pisses Dean off.
“What are you even doing here anyway?” Dean snaps. “Shouldn’t you be off getting some heavenly backup or something? Or have they already given up?”
“I have no idea,” Cas says, voice low and calm. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed by my injuries, my powers seem to be blocked.”
Dean feels a bit bad then, because of course he’d known that, and it’s not Cas’ fault he’s a heartless dick sometimes. “Why?” he says, lowering his voice.
“The Mother’s power is stronger than the forces of Heaven and the forces of Hell,” Castiel explains. “According to legend, the only way we were able to imprison her in Purgatory was by working together. Blocking my connection to Heaven would be no challenge to her. I don’t think we should count on on any heavenly assistance.”
The gravity of the situation hits Dean like a ton of bricks, so it’s Sam who speaks up. “So it’s up to the three of us to do what took some kind of angels and demons dream team a few millennia ago?”
“Something like that,” Cas says, as they turn another corner. “But if it’s any reassurance, it’s a very different world than it was three thousand years ago. The beasts and creatures who worshipped her have been forced into hiding, and the Mother’s power may be significantly diminished.”
Dean feels the breath knocked out of him again as they step into the next street. Before them, resting on its side on the asphalt, is the enormous disembodied head of the Statue of Liberty.
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “She still seems pretty powerful to me.”
Dean doesn’t consider himself all that patriotic. He likes America just fine, but he’s pretty willing to accept that for every one thing his country does right these days, there seem to be two things going wrong. He thinks it would be downright disrespectful to his baby to stick a flag bumper sticker on her and he hates New York City with a fucking passion, but seeing that head just lying there still breaks his heart a little.
“Fucker,” Dean mutters, and kicks a nearby rock with his new shoes.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, while Cas looks at them both in bewilderment.
“Right, so we’re going to kill this thing. Angels are fucking useless anyway.” Dean grins, feeling bizarrely high on adrenaline and more than a little reckless all of a sudden. “Present company excluded of course.”
Dean considers it fate’s sense of irony that they’re nearly run over by a tank ten minutes later. They barely manage to duck out of the way and into a nearby subway tunnel before three tanks and a stream of fifty or so heavily armed soldiers rush past. They’re oblivious to the three men they almost trample to death, and to the moans and screams that can still occasionally be heard from the apartments above. Not that Dean can really blame them, though, since he, Sam, and Cas have been pretty damn focused on their mission, too.
The difference, of course, is that the soldiers have some pretty impressive-looking weapons on their side.
“Hey,” Dean says, too loudly and his voice echoes through the dark tunnel, “do we have any idea how we’re planning on actually killing this thing?”
“Well we know those mortal weapons won’t work,” Cas says.
Sam leads the way, deciding that travelling underground is the safest route from now on without even needing to consult with Dean. It’s been like that again, since Sam got his soul back, and Dean’s stunningly grateful for their near-telepathy at the moment. Castiel follows Sam, and Dean pulls up the rear. He can’t see very well in the dark, and he keeps stepping on the back of Cas’ coat.
“And do we know any non-mortal weapons that might work?” Sam says over his shoulder.
“I can think of several,” Cas answers, and Dean’s heart sings. “But they are all in Heaven.”
Dean groans. “Damn it, Cas.”
“Would you prefer I lied to you?” Cas says, and Dean thinks he hears some sarcasm in his voice. Doesn’t take long for Cas to go native, apparently.
“No,” Dean says, racking his brain for some kind of witty comeback. “Ew!” There’s something warm and furry and moving pressed up against Dean’s ankle, and he desperately wishes he hadn’t left his blood-soaked socks behind in that convenience store.
“Rats,” Sam says.
“Oh. That’s what that is,” Cas says, his voice curious but completely nonplussed. Dean rolls his eyes. It makes him feel a bit better even though he knows no one can see him.
“What are they running from?” Sam wonders aloud. The rats are moving in the same direction as they are, and now that Dean’s adjusting to the feel of their furry companions against his skin, that really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“Maybe they just want to keep us company,” Dean jokes, but it does little to lighten the mood in the tunnel. Dean wishes desperately for a flashlight, a lighter or even a single match. He’s getting far too old to be stumbling around in pitch-black tunnels. He should’ve grabbed his duffel.
Then Dean hears it. A scuttling noise to their left, like claws scraping against stone. He tries to scream, to call out a warning to Sam and to Cas, but he’s too late. Sam screams first, a cry of surprise and pain that rips Dean’s heart out of his chest and tugs it up into his throat.
Dean pushes past Cas to get to Sam, who’s lying on the stone ground with some thing on top of him. It has at least six legs, and claws and some kind of pinchers or fangs, and to be honest Dean doesn’t really give a fuck because he just wants to get it off his brother.
Dean pulls his gun out of the back of his jeans, but he doesn’t know what he’s shooting so he doesn’t know where he should try to hit it, and anyway, Sam is trying to fight it off and he keeps rolling and moving and Dean is afraid he might shoot Sam by mistake. He shoves the gun back into his pants, and dives at the thing with his bare hands.
It’s strong, and fast, and it slobbers. Dean strikes out blindly with fists and feet. The thing seems to be made up of flesh and hard, protective shell, so Dean hits and hits until he finds a soft, squishy part and then just keeps hitting. He hears the snap of jaws near his face more than once, and he hopes that if he dies here it will at least mean Sam makes it out...
There is a sharp thwacking noise, and then the thing goes still on top of Dean. It drips something warm onto his neck. “Urg,” Dean says, and struggles out from underneath it. Cas stands over the body, brandishing a rusty crowbar.
“It does feel good,” he says matter-of-factly, “to fight with brute force. Though you should probably have used a weapon.”
Dean checks Sam over quickly and there doesn’t seem to be any major injuries, though it’s hard to see in the dark. When Dean asks Sam where it hurts he answers “Everywhere,” which isn’t exactly helpful but is a reassuringly normal response.
“What was that thing?” Dean asks.
“I saw these pieces falling off the thing - Eve - earlier. I thought they were just bits of debris or something, but maybe they’re alive.” Sam’s voice is shaky, but he’s doing a pretty decent job covering it up.
“Like these are her babies?” Dean says, screwing up his face in disgust and kicking at the corpse. “That’s just great. Because this fight isn’t impossible enough as it is.”
Cas gasps, and Dean is momentarily worried he’s been attacked and is just under-reacting, as usual. “I have an idea,” he says.
“About monster babies?” Dean says.
“No. I’ve remembered a weapon.”
They’re more careful until they reach the next station, never talking above a whisper and keep their ears open for any creepy scuttling sounds. The rats seem to settle down around Dean’s ankles, and he doesn’t even want to think about how he finds them sort of comforting now. That’s not to say he enjoys the trip though, and he almost screams with joy when he sees fluorescent emergency lights and a vending machine.
Dean kicks the shit out of it while Sam and Castiel stand near the subway map posted on the wall. He manages to extract two Pepsi and a Mountain Dew. When he rejoins the others they’re having some kind of argument about how best to break into a museum.
“Uh,” Dean asks, “is this really the best time to go sightseeing?” He hands Cas the Mountain Dew since the guy’s not used to drinking and probably doesn’t have the anti-Dew prejudice that he and Sam have. Shit tastes like soap.
“We’re not going sightseeing,” Sam says. “Cas thinks there’s a weapon that might beat the Mother in there.”
“I know it’s there,” Cas corrects, taking a sip of his Mountain Dew and grimacing, “I just can’t be certain it will defeat her.”
“What is it?” Dean asks, taking a long gulp of his own drink.
“David’s slingshot,” Cas says.
Dean spits his mouthful of Pepsi across the station. A few rats immediately wander over to investigate the spill. “A slingshot?” Dean says, trying not to cough when some of the Pepsi comes out his nose. “You want us to kill that thing with a slingshot?”
“Dean," Sam scolds, as if he’s worried Dean is going to hurt Cas’ delicate feelings, “it’s not just any slingshot. It’s David’s slingshot. You know, from the Bible? David and Goliath.”
“Yes, I know from the Bible!” Dean says. “But we are killing some kind of evil lizard bitch thing here, not a fucking giant and also, no way is David’s slingshot a real thing.”
“It is,” Cas says, sounding mildly offended and throwing his still-full Mountain Dew into a trash can. “And it’s not the giant that matters, it’s the low probability of success. The slingshot works best in battles its bearers have little to no chance of winning without it.”
“Then what the fuck is such a powerful weapon doing in New York City?” Dean asks.
Castiel shrugs. “Angels always assume we’ll win fights, so we did not seem to have much use for it. Besides, there are hundreds of thousands of heavenly weapons; we can’t possibly store and keep track of them all.”
Dean stares at Cas, hoping to make clear the extent of his disbelief. Cas stares right back.
Sam clears his throat. “Uh, guys? I don’t want to interrupt this little standoff you’ve got going on here, but we don’t have any better ideas and I think we can basically follow this line straight to the museum.”
It takes them another few hours to get to the museum. They only encounter one more of those spider-crab things, and they see it before it sees them. Dean unloads an entire round into it before it can jump Sam again, and Cas bashes it over the head with his crowbar a few times for good measure. Still, Dean is thrilled to see the early morning light at the end of the tunnel.
That is, until he notices that the museum is swarming with soldiers, who appear to have turned it into some kind of military base.
“Fuck,” Sam mutters. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t suppose we can walk up to whoever is in charge and ask them to allow us to borrow the weapon, can we?” Cas asks. There isn’t much hope in his voice.
Dean scoffs. “Not as civilians we can’t.” Then he grins again. “But then, we’re not civilians, are we?”
Ten minutes later Dean has talked them into the museum by impersonating a member of each of the CDC, the FBI and the NSA, respectively. He considers this an Oscar-worthy performance, and does pretty well in his supporting role. Cas holds them back at first, but by the second security checkpoint he’s smooth-talking too. Between this and the crowbar, Dean’s impressed; Cas is a pretty quick learner.
The main lobby is crowded with soldiers in fatigues, and the odd civilian in plainclothes. Dean sees a bunch of civilians dragged kicking, screaming and puking by armed guards yelling about quarantine. He figures this is just the usual mess of bureaucratic red tape, until a pale brunette with bloodshot eyes he’s just watched get dragged in explodes into a cloud of fine red mist before his eyes.
Dean has seen some pretty horrible things in his time, but this may be one of the worst. Beside him, Sam gags and even Cas goes pale.
“Were you bitten?” A soldier screams at the hysterical man who’d come in with the girl. “Did one of them bite you too?”
Then something clicks in Dean’s brain. He grabs Sam by the wrist, and drags him up the stairs to one of the exhibit halls. He’s gripping Sam’s skin too hard, he knows. He can feel the delicate bones of Sam’s wrist between his fingers, and knows he might crush them. He’ll leave a mark, for sure, if Sam makes it out of this.
“Ow, Jesus Dean what the fuck?” Sam snaps, but he follows willingly, Cas at his heels. Once safely out of view, Dean spins to face Sam, pushing him up against a wall. He runs his palms over the skin of Sam’s arms, squinting to see in the dim spotlight illuminating a nearby Egyptian sarcophagus.
“Were you bitten?” he says, desperate uncontrolled parody of the soldier downstairs.
“No. Dean, no. I’m OK.” Sam says, but Dean doesn’t believe him. He pulls Sam’s t-shirt up to his chin, checking his stomach and chest. There are plenty of bruises blossoming, but he can’t see any broken skin. He crouches and searches Sam’s jeans for tears or bloodstains, then grabs Sam by the waist, turns him around and does the same examination of his back.
“Satisfied?” Sam asks, voice amused. “Or are we going to keep with the groping?”
Dean scowls. He can’t seem to wipe the image of Sam exploding out of his mind, can’t help but imagine the splatter of Sam’s blood and flesh against his face and hands. “Yeah, I’m satisfied.” He turns on his heel and stalks down the tiled hallway. “Let’s go find our slingshot.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, pointing in the other direction. “It’s that way.”
“Right.” Dean nods, and follows the angel and his brother out of the Ancient Egypt section and even farther back in time.
The slingshot is displayed in a dingy corner of the museum apparently reserved for miscellaneous stuff they couldn’t fit anywhere else. It’s labelled “Weapon, origin and date unknown.” It is small and brown, and looks like it might disintegrate when touched. Overall, Dean is unimpressed.
He’s about to voice his displeasure when Cas wraps part of his trench coat around his fist, then smashes the glass display case. Dean half expects an alarm to sound, but the generator must be running low, and anyway, this piece of shit probably isn’t even worth protecting. Cas hands the slingshot to Sam while he puts his dirty, bloodstained coat back on, and Sam sticks it in his back pocket. Cas frowns, but if he’s offended by this treatment of a holy relic he doesn’t mention it.
They hesitate at the top of the staircase, three storeys up. The lobby downstairs has descended into chaos in the half hour they’ve been away, and soldiers scramble to collect their gear and run out the door.
“I forgot my gun,” a young guy calls to an older soldier on his way out the door, turning to retrieve it.
“Leave it,” the older man calls back, “they’re going to nuke the fucker. Forget your gun.”
“Shit,” Sam says after a moment of stunned silence. “I’ll bet there are tens of thousands of people still alive out there, waiting to be rescued. We’ve got to get to this thing before a nuclear strike does.”
“We only need to find out where it is,” Castiel says, leaning over the railing to see which direction the last of the soldiers are leaving in. Then the ground shudders beneath them, the railing gives way with a sickening cracking noise, and Cas disappears.
Dean moves before he has time to think, before he even registers what he’s doing. He catches hold of Cas’ fingertips, leaning too far over the railing-less edge himself. He feels himself fall off balance, and his chest tip over his legs into empty air. Below him, Castiel’s eyes widen in terror and Dean thinks that’s maybe the most genuine emotional response he’s ever seen from him. They fall together over the edge, and Dean knows that this high up they could die from the fall, breaking their necks against the marble. Or worse, they might break their legs or backs or necks but live, and have to wait to die by monster or nuclear explosion.
And then the freefall abruptly stops. It sends a jolt through Dean’s body and Cas’ wrist nearly slides out of his now-sweaty palm. Dean feels a firm grip around his ankle, and then he hears Sam’s voice. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you,” Sam says. “Hang on.”
So Dean hangs on, though his arm starts to shake with the effort of holding Cas’ dead weight. Sam tugs them up excruciatingly slowly, and Dean doesn’t breathe again until both he and Cas have scrambled back up onto solid floor. The three of them collapse in a heap.
“You should have let me go,” Cas says, after a few moments. His voice is shaky.
“Fuck you,” Dean says, and that’s the end of it.
Turns out it’s no problem finding the monster at all, because she’s right fucking there, in the middle of Central Park, just a short jog away. They gape at her in silence for a few seconds, all three of them astounded by the size of her in the daylight. She has four legs but is walking on her hind legs now, head waving back and forth as she scans the ground, staring at something or someone. On either side of her head a gelatinous bag rhythmically inflates and deflates, like a set of external lungs.
“Right,” Dean says. “I’m going to aim at those things on her head.” He holds out his hand for the slingshot.
“No fucking way,” Sam says, pulling it out of his pocket and holding it well away from Dean. “I’m gonna be the one who goes.” This isn’t a new argument for them, but Dean’s not sure he’s even seen Sam look quite so determined before.
“Sam, I’m the oldest. Besides, I have better aim than you do.”
“With a gun, maybe. But I’m better with a crossbow.”
“Only ‘cause I used to let you win at target practice to boost your delicate self-esteem.”
Dean is so busy anticipating Sam’s next snotty remark and planning his next rebuttal that he doesn’t notice Cas sneak up behind Sam and snatch the slingshot out of his hand until after it’s happened. Apparently neither does Sam.
“Hey,” he says, irritably.
Castiel stares down at the slingshot in his hand with something like reverence. Then he turns his head and looks toward the Mother, now dangerously close and getting closer. “Hide under there,” he instructs, pointing to a nearby walking bridge.
Dean wants to protest, he really does. But he looks at Sam, and Sam looks at him, and he knows that neither of them is walking out of this without the other. Unattached, Cas is the smartest choice here, and they all know it.
Cas clears his throat. “I want you to know,” he says, “that it has been an honor fighting with the two of you these past years. You have taught me more than I can fully express.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “you too, Cas.” Dean can only nod, and then the ground is shaking and Sam is grabbing his arm and they’re running for the bridge. Dean manages one quick look over his shoulder and sees Cas running towards the monster, his trench coat billowing out behind him. He looks impossibly small compared to her, and painfully, terrifyingly mortal.
Dean and Sam sit under the bridge in Central Park, knees pulled up to their chests and bracing themselves against the curved roof above their heads. The ground shakes with every step the monster takes, and Dean can hear the steady sound of her breathing.
He can hear other breathing too. There are two other people sheltering under the bridge. Dean can just barely hear the sound of their voices over the crashing of the monster’s footsteps and the new, droning roar of fighter jets overhead. Dean doesn’t really care about the other people though. His world has narrowed down to him and Sam, huddled together under a bridge, waiting for fighter jets about to drop a nuclear weapon on their heads, or for a monster to crush them.
“Sam?” Dean says, screaming into Sam’s ear to overpower the noise.
“Yeah?”
Dean laughs, more than a little hysterically. “It’s funny. I always thought we’d die together. I’ve imagined it happening a thousand different ways. But never once did I consider giant lizard monster in the middle of New York City as a possibility.”
Sam laughs then too, and reaches into Dean’s lap to grab his hand and squeeze it tightly. Normally Dean wouldn’t tolerate that sort of thing, but he figures if they’re about to die anyway he’ll let Sam have his chick flick moment.
“I love you too, Dean,” Sam says, smiling brightly, and then the bridges crashes down on top of them in a shower of rock and dust.
It’s Sam who digs Dean out, of course, tossing aside massive boulders like he’s fucking Superman or something.
Dean can’t really stand up properly - he’s got at least a broken ankle, and probably a few cracked ribs, too, but he doesn’t even feel the pain. Beside him, Sam is alive and whole. Together, they dig up the other couple who’d been sheltering under the bridge. They’re shocked to find both the man and the woman alive, and Dean has to admit it feels pretty damn good to be actually saving people again.
The couple are dazed and dehydrated and they’ve had a pretty fucking awful night, but they cling to one another like it’s the only thing that matters in the world. They ramble for a bit about digging up their video camera, but Sam makes them sit down and rest. Dean suspects Sam is so attentive because he’s trying to avoid thinking about Cas. Dean wonders if the distraction is working for Sam, because it sure as hell isn’t working for him.
“Do you think he made it?” Sam whispers to Dean once the couple are settled down. The droning noise of planes overhead has temporarily receded, and the crashing footsteps of the Mother have stopped. The world is eerily quiet, and Dean instinctively whispers back.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, even if he got off the shot, he’d still have to get clear of her as she fell.” Dean thinks of Cas, so small and almost human as he’d run towards the monster, and feels his chest go tight.
“Goddamnit,” Sam says, and bangs his head back against what’s left of the bridge.
“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” says a low voice from their left, and Dean nearly gives himself whiplash turning to look for it.
Castiel stands a few feet away, outside what’s left of the bridge. The cut on his cheek is gone, his trench coat is spotless and he’s actually grinning. “Do you want to come see the body?’ he asks, voice full of pride.
“Oh my God,” Sam exclaims, completely ignoring those instructions. He practically launches himself at Cas and envelopes him in a bear hug that Cas is more than happy to return. And it’s just Dean’s broken ankle that stops him from joining in, to be perfectly honest.
“Would you like to leave now?” Cas asks when Sam finally releases him. Cas zapping them out of the park feels so awesome he doesn’t even worry about that constipation that always follows.
The only damage done to the Impala, by some miracle, is a missing side-mirror and one broken headlight. Cas repairs both before Dean even has a chance to whine about it and smiles, hesitantly, in Dean’s direction.
“Thanks,” he says. “While you’re at it, can you fix my ankle?” He wiggles his leg in a beguiling fashion.
“I must go,” Castiel says when he’s finished, “My colleagues in Heaven are requesting a full report of last night’s occurrences. I will see you both again soon.” And then he’s gone. Dean figures it’s actually the closest to a proper goodbye they’ve ever gotten from Cas.
“So I was thinking,” Sam declares as he climbs into the passenger seat. “That we should probably stick around a while. See if we can help with rescue and recovery or something.”
If looks could kill, Dean is pretty sure his could put down even the unkillable Sam Winchester.
“Or,” Sam amends quickly, “we could get the fuck out of this fucking city.”
“Why Sam, I do believe you are a genius,” Dean says, rolling down his window and turning up the music. “At least we won’t hit any traffic on the way out of town.”
****
Thanks again to mishaphappens, and to the mods at spn_cinema. I had a great time with this, even if re-watching the movie made me nauseous.