SPN/DA crossover fic: Of Desire and the Status Quo (4/38)
Story Title: Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter Title: In Dreams That Bend
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,202
Summary: In the end, it’s a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter IV: In Dreams That Bend
Original Cindy watches Dean for a long time, staring at his body curled uncomfortably against her couch, her coffee abandoned. He’s jerking and writhing around, groaning indistinguishable words; or of the few that are distinguishable, she hasn’t the slightest clue what they mean.
His thrashing is from an obvious nightmare, Cindy’s gathered this much, but it reminds her eerily of the seizures Max used to get, and it makes her want to score Dean some tryptophan, or at least some milk. Then she remembers that, for some reason she can’t explain, Dean isn’t a transgenic. And is probably the kind of person who scoffs over milk and would take a good malt forty over it any day.
No, this is a bad, old-fashioned night terror, and Cindy feels helpless, a sensation she doesn’t usually have. A big part of her wants to awaken Dean in order to get his torment to stop, but another part of her warns against it. It could only go one of three ways: a) he’d strangle her out of sheer fear, or b) he’d say it was nothing and close off just like every infuriating transgenic Cindy’s met. No, she’ll go with c) wait until he gains consciousness again by himself, and not only have a better chance of living, but maybe he’d be more forthcoming.
Possibly most importantly, Dean needs the sleep, that much is evident. The shadows beneath his lashes are so purple she wonders if they might be bruises and not exhaustion after all; the corners of his full lips are drawn down, his cheeks gaunter than Cindy would like. (She knows, of course, what his face should look like: the handsome X5 across town.) A few hours of sleep wouldn’t make it all better, but it’s the least Cindy thinks she can do. Dean may not be transgenic, except he’s sure acting like one just out of Manticore and freaked to high heavens, and so she’ll treat him like one.
She holds her phone in her hand, fingers itching to dial Max’s number. The only reason she’s refrained so far is because she’s not sure Dean’s problem is entirely up Max’s alley. Half of her argues that, the other half argues that it doesn’t matter, Max could help somehow anyway, and maybe Logan as well.
Heaving a sigh with one last glance at Dean’s twitching body (No, no, Sammy, help me, save me, Sammy, please, he groans, and Christ, Cindy wants to help him, she does), she takes the phone into her bedroom and presses the numbers for Terminal City’s Command Center.
“Who is this?” the crisp, perpetually accusatory voice of Mole greets her, and for once she can’t muster up a retort. “This is a private line.”
“Mole, it’s O.C.,” she says. “I need to speak with my girl.”
Mole likes her well enough, she knows, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a job to maintain. “Regarding?” he demands, his voice stifled around what Cindy assumes is his ever-present cigar.
“It’s about…” Cindy pauses. What can she say? “Uh…Alec.”
It’s sort of the truth; Alec would want to know who the hell’s wearing his face. “What about Alec?” Mole snaps, and Cindy’s sure she detects Mole’s version of concern in his voice. Alec’s his buddy, and although Mole would never admit it, everyone knows it.
“Please, boo,” Cindy implores.
Mole leaves her hanging for a moment, then ultimately grumbles, “Hold on.”
A few seconds later, Cindy hears the muffled sounds of what is unmistakably Max and Alec bickering and, as an extra gift, a loud noise that lets her know Max bestowed him with a smack-par for the course. Cindy’s positive Max’s hits are no longer truly intended to be painful, but Alec pretends that they do, just as always. Tension relief, as it were.
That said, Cindy doesn’t have any time to reflect on their ridiculous antics anymore, because Max comes to the phone. “Cin?” she asks, surprised. “What’s wrong?”
“Can’t I call my girl jus’ ’cause?” Cindy replies immediately, casting a glance through her doorway where Dean is still squirming.
“What is it?” Max asks again, and now her tone is clearer, more focused. Even the background noise is gone, which means either she’d sent Alec away, or he complied with temporarily shutting his mouth.
Cindy exhales. “We got a problem,” she says.
“We’ve got lots of problems, O.C.,” Max replies, and there’s probably something going on down in Terminal City, too, but right now, Cindy has to get her to listen.
“What’d you say if I told you I mighta met the guy who gave your boy that nice face?” Cindy bursts out. The thought had been plaguing her for a while, that maybe Dean is actually Ben and Alec’s genesis, given his age, but she has nothing more than wild speculation to go on.
Max is silent on the other end, and Cindy’s pretty sure she hears Alec ask what’s wrong, only Max doesn’t reply to him either. Eventually she finds her voice. “What are you saying?”
Cindy knows she’s treading dangerous territory. It’s bad enough that the massive hole in Max’s soul that’s Ben’s memory was mentioned, but now it has to do with Alec, too, and Max doesn’t say it, probably doesn’t even think it, but she’s protective over the guy, and Cindy’s just said all the wrong words. She’d love to ease Max into this, but can’t. Dean doesn’t just look like Alec’s future self, he currently looks like he’s going to keel over, and Cindy won’t have that.
“I’m saying that there’s a fine brother at my place, and he looks an awful lot like Alec,” she discloses.
“Then he’s just some pretty, narcissistic, sweet-talking, irritating asshole,” Max gripes. “You’re sounding crazy, Cin.”
Cindy feels some of her self-control break. “You know that ain’t cool, Max. You know Original Cindy ain’t stupid, and she’s not gonna say things like this if she wasn’t bein’ straight with you. Please, Max. He’s…he ain’t doing well.”
Max’s hand tightens so much on the phone that even Cindy can hear the plastic creak in protest. “Meaning?” she asks, undoubtedly fearing the worst, like Dean had shown schizophrenic tendencies or something.
Which, fair enough, some of the things Dean is moaning in his sleep are…unorthodox, but then, Cindy’s talking to a genetically engineered super-soldier with feline DNA here. It’s all like that pre-Pulse show, The X-Files, Cindy’d heard newscasts mention in reference to transgenics, and if anyone can figure this all out, it’s Max.
“Meaning he’s having one hell of a nightmare, and is a step away from kickin’ the bucket,” Cindy says sharply. She doesn’t see Max’s dark frown on the other end, as she recalls Alec’s own nightmare that morning.
And she knows she can’t ignore this, despite the odd behavior of Alec’s that she wants to decipher. “Okay, I’ll be down there in a sec,” Max accedes. Cindy hears faint sounds of heated discussion before the phone clicks off.
Exiting her bedroom, she sits back down on the coffee table, facing Dean. He’d changed; he is deathly still, only his eyes moving under their lids and his minutely rising and falling chest telling her he’s even alive. She isn’t sure if this or his vicious terrors bothers her more. Guiltily glad he isn’t Alec, Cindy nevertheless extends her hands and tugs off Dean’s heavy work boots, placing them next to the couch. She can’t imagine they’re the most comfortable of footwear, and it’s as much as she’ll venture towards him again, considering he currently reminds her more of a wounded animal than ever. Like, she realizes, a scared transgenic.
God, she needs an aspirin. Or twelve.
“What’s got you so spooked, Maxie?” Alec asks as he watches her face drawn tight, hands tying up her hair in a messy ponytail. He’d heard most of the conversation, and it didn’t make much sense to him, but he thought he’d be polite anyway. “What’d O.C. say?”
“Would you just be quiet for five fucking seconds?” Max spits nastily, her dark eyes steaming. She’d long since stopped seeing only Ben’s face on Alec, but with Cindy’s phone call, her dead brother flashes on him.
Alec holds his hands up in mock surrender, and he unhitches himself from the corner of her desk. “God forbid I worry a little,” Alec retorts. “I’ll leave you alone.”
He strides out of her office and slams the door, and Max presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. She doesn’t want to alienate Alec, regardless of what everyone assumes, but sometimes he chooses the most inopportune times to speak up. She has a feeling he’d want to know about this new set of developments, but can’t bring herself to tell him. He has enough with the nightmare on his mind, never mind that she’s sure he still feels backlash from Ben. He doesn’t need another look-alike to add to his issues. Not that she does either, but this is her responsibility.
She completely bullshits Mole as she walks out of the gates, but it must’ve been good enough for the lizard-man, because he doesn’t send sentinels to stop her. She knows the entrance to Terminal City is still covered by the military, and so she finds her way to the sewers instead, jumping down and blurring through the dank passageways towards Cindy’s apartment in Sector Five.
As she climbs out of the manhole cover carefully, she’s aware that she smells faintly of rotten bananas and algae, but she can’t do much about that now. She walks the block or so to the apartment, being sure to throw up her hood and keep her hair around her face to prevent her from being recognized. She doesn’t know exactly how many people would recognize her with just a passing glimpse, but she doesn’t want to take any chances. It doesn’t matter that Alec would undoubtedly get her out of wherever she’d be imprisoned-she’d never hear the end of it.
Seven floors later, Max raps on the door five times, and it takes Cindy only a few seconds to answer it. “Shh,” she whispers before Max can say anything. “Boy’s sleepin’.”
Max wants to see the guy immediately, but her friend pulls her into her bedroom and locks the door, concealing the object of Cindy’s perplexity. They’re both acutely conscious that Max could get out of the door and past Cindy before her friend could even blink, though given the expression on Cindy’s face, Max stays put.
“What’s the deal?” she questions firmly. “You call me down here and say there’s another Manticore disaster going on? You need to give me more than that.”
“I ain’t sure,” Cindy says. “I ran into him-literally-on the streets, thought it was Alec hangin’ around, only he looked diff’rent. Thought he was a double or somethin’. Brought him back here, boy crashes in minutes. Don’t want to wake ’im.”
“Why the hell not?” Max snipes.
Cindy puts her hands on her hips, taking a defensive stance. “For one, he’s havin’ a fit, and for two, he looks like he could kick Original Cindy’s ass if he wanted. Seems like Alec, to be honest.”
Max sighs, her headache intensifying. If Cindy doesn’t want to mess with this dude, Max is in for a long night. “So, what, he’s transgenic?”
Cindy laughs. “That’s jus’ it, girl,” Cindy says. “He ain’t. An’ before you go wiggin’ out on me, I checked. Boy don’t have any barcode. Don’t know who he is. But Original Cindy’s sure he’s human.”
Her eyebrows raised, Max unlocks Cindy’s door and steps out, staying quiet in spite of her instincts. In an ordinary situation, she’d march over to the couch and slap the guy awake, but this is far from ordinary. His head is facedown in a pillow, and Max squats down two or so feet in front of him and gently moves his face towards her. His features twisted into ones of fear and agony, but that doesn’t mask the very apparent fact that Cindy wasn’t lying when she said they have a problem.
“Shit,” Max says. It’s the only thing she really can say.
“Right?” Cindy echoes.
Max looks at her friend and pauses. “How can you be so sure he’s not transgenic?” she asks in almost a plea, even though she’d seen the absence of a barcode, too. Moreover, he’s too old to be an X5, yet human enough looking that he can’t be any breed earlier than that either.
Cindy’s voice is quieter than Max’s. “Same as you. ’Cept I don’t know why the guy’s comin’ around here if he’s a donor; Manticore made good on their promise of hidin’ them from you, din’t they?”
“Yeah,” Max affirms. She glances quickly back at the couch, and then to Cindy again. “Does he have a name?”
“Dean,” Cindy replies. “He didn’t say nothin’ else.”
“Dean,” Max repeats, testing it. “I guess I can ask Logan if he can find a donor with that name and face from those Manticore files he nicked.”
Cindy nods. “Better find somethin’.”
Max gives her a half-smile, and then turns to Dean. Despite everything, she’s a bit concerned now that she actually sees him. She doesn’t know the man-for all she does know, he’s one of White’s henchmen-but she’s witnessed and experienced enough night terrors to be positive Dean’s not faking. Even Alec’s not that good an actor. And that’s saying a lot. She fingers the wooden, African-looking bracelet on his wrist and the silver ring on his right hand curiously, committing them to memory just in case.
And quickly finds out that was a very bad idea. With a speed she hasn’t seen in an Ordinary before, Dean’s eyes snap open and his hand clamps onto her wrist like a vise. His eyes-Alec’s eyes, Max notes with alarm-are wild, the pupils dilated so only a thin ring of green is visible, tendons straining in his forearm. Max tries to pull hers away, but the guy has an unnatural grip.
She isn’t afraid exactly, more puzzled than anything else. She’s looking right into his eyes, and he’s doing the same, but he’s not seeing her, not really. She wonders what he does see. Especially when he starts screaming.
They’re terrible screams, screams Max knows all too well, screams that bring her back to Psy-Ops and Isolation. Primal screams that don’t belong in the guy’s mouth. Then he begins speaking, and she stops trying to get out of his grasp, regardless of that her hand is turning purple. She can’t; she’s mesmerized.
“STOP IT!” Dean yells, his voice deep, hoarse, raspy in a way Alec’s has never been. “What do you want from me? SAMMY! Sammy, help me! Help-I don’t deserve this! I don’t belong in Hell, you fucking bastards! I don’t-” His voice gives way to more anguished screaming, so raw that Max’s hair stands on end.
She looks at Cindy, but the woman is just as captivated. So she does the only thing she can think of. Fully aware that she just may be risking her life, she puts her free hand on the side of Dean’s face, running her fingers through his now sweat-soaked hair, down over his cheekbones, his chapped lips, the planes of his nose and rough jaw. They’re motions she’d always used to calm Ben down, on the rare occasions he would get such bad night terrors and sweats that she was afraid he’d get taken away for being defective. (Never Alec, because the son of a bitch compartmentalized too well, even in sleep. Not that she’d ever even considered it, of course.)
“Dean,” she says gently, in the same lilt as so many years ago, disregarding how unfamiliar the name is on her lips.
She remembers she used to hum to Ben, too, and somehow, she feels drawn to the Ordinary. Leaning down, Max starts humming that tune whose title she doesn’t recall anymore, but whose rhythm she remembers as well as if it were just yesterday and this were Ben. It isn’t hard to pretend, really, considering Dean might as well be Ben’s older self.
Her fingers further their trailing along his face and through short hair, wanting him to calm down, needing him to calm down. Certainly Ben never said things like I don’t belong in Hell, and Max is mighty suspicious of what precisely that means, yet that’s not her most pressing issue at the moment. Her most pressing issue is trying to stop Dean from inadvertently killing himself. It was rare, but she’d heard of kids in other units dying of heart arrest because of the war waged inside their heads. Dean is a grown man, older than Max and Alec, to be sure, but the way he looks now…she doesn’t want to take the chance.
Finally, finally, his screams fade to aching whimpers, and his grip loosens on her wrist. Max puts her palm on his cheek again and his eyes close, lashes shadowing on already shadowed cheekbones. Max isn’t sure if his nightmare is over, or if he’s just repressed it, and that troubles her even more.
But, goddamn it she wants it to be over. Because if he really is just an Ordinary, that means he wasn’t an employee of Manticore’s, and yet he’s having horrors as bad as those Manticore created. Max doesn’t want to imagine what could’ve caused such catastrophe in Dean’s life. Oh, she wants to get to the bottom of this whole thing, and she will, but she’s wary of what she’ll find.
Max stands up, suddenly tired, and walks over to Cindy, leaning against the counter. “He’s been doing this the whole time?” she inquires.
Cindy nods. “Same stuff over an’ over,” she confirms. “I was gonna break out the handcuffs, but din’t wanna move him.”
“What’s this about Hell?” Max continues with a frown. “What do you make of it? It’s got to be just a fear or something, right?”
Her friend shrugs. “Sugar, I don’t know,” Cindy says. “Seems real. At least to him.”
“I’ve got to call Logan about this,” Max says. She doesn’t feel like divulging what she knows about Dean just yet, despite owing the stranger absolutely nothing, but fortunately Logan’s used to dealing with her evasiveness. He’d help her just the same. “Do you think you can handle him?”
Cindy squares her shoulders. “Original Cindy ain’t singin’, but pretty boy ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
Max far from wants another “boy” in here life, but it appears like Dean’s going to be staying awhile. By all means, Max thinks sarcastically, let him join the club. Not like we don’t have enough mayhem already.
With a last, sad scan of Dean, Max walks out of Cindy’s apartment, swinging a leg over her Ninja and heading off towards Sandeman’s old house, which Logan is still forced to call home in place of his destroyed penthouse.
Next
Chapter Title: In Dreams That Bend
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,202
Summary: In the end, it’s a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter IV: In Dreams That Bend
Original Cindy watches Dean for a long time, staring at his body curled uncomfortably against her couch, her coffee abandoned. He’s jerking and writhing around, groaning indistinguishable words; or of the few that are distinguishable, she hasn’t the slightest clue what they mean.
His thrashing is from an obvious nightmare, Cindy’s gathered this much, but it reminds her eerily of the seizures Max used to get, and it makes her want to score Dean some tryptophan, or at least some milk. Then she remembers that, for some reason she can’t explain, Dean isn’t a transgenic. And is probably the kind of person who scoffs over milk and would take a good malt forty over it any day.
No, this is a bad, old-fashioned night terror, and Cindy feels helpless, a sensation she doesn’t usually have. A big part of her wants to awaken Dean in order to get his torment to stop, but another part of her warns against it. It could only go one of three ways: a) he’d strangle her out of sheer fear, or b) he’d say it was nothing and close off just like every infuriating transgenic Cindy’s met. No, she’ll go with c) wait until he gains consciousness again by himself, and not only have a better chance of living, but maybe he’d be more forthcoming.
Possibly most importantly, Dean needs the sleep, that much is evident. The shadows beneath his lashes are so purple she wonders if they might be bruises and not exhaustion after all; the corners of his full lips are drawn down, his cheeks gaunter than Cindy would like. (She knows, of course, what his face should look like: the handsome X5 across town.) A few hours of sleep wouldn’t make it all better, but it’s the least Cindy thinks she can do. Dean may not be transgenic, except he’s sure acting like one just out of Manticore and freaked to high heavens, and so she’ll treat him like one.
She holds her phone in her hand, fingers itching to dial Max’s number. The only reason she’s refrained so far is because she’s not sure Dean’s problem is entirely up Max’s alley. Half of her argues that, the other half argues that it doesn’t matter, Max could help somehow anyway, and maybe Logan as well.
Heaving a sigh with one last glance at Dean’s twitching body (No, no, Sammy, help me, save me, Sammy, please, he groans, and Christ, Cindy wants to help him, she does), she takes the phone into her bedroom and presses the numbers for Terminal City’s Command Center.
“Who is this?” the crisp, perpetually accusatory voice of Mole greets her, and for once she can’t muster up a retort. “This is a private line.”
“Mole, it’s O.C.,” she says. “I need to speak with my girl.”
Mole likes her well enough, she knows, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a job to maintain. “Regarding?” he demands, his voice stifled around what Cindy assumes is his ever-present cigar.
“It’s about…” Cindy pauses. What can she say? “Uh…Alec.”
It’s sort of the truth; Alec would want to know who the hell’s wearing his face. “What about Alec?” Mole snaps, and Cindy’s sure she detects Mole’s version of concern in his voice. Alec’s his buddy, and although Mole would never admit it, everyone knows it.
“Please, boo,” Cindy implores.
Mole leaves her hanging for a moment, then ultimately grumbles, “Hold on.”
A few seconds later, Cindy hears the muffled sounds of what is unmistakably Max and Alec bickering and, as an extra gift, a loud noise that lets her know Max bestowed him with a smack-par for the course. Cindy’s positive Max’s hits are no longer truly intended to be painful, but Alec pretends that they do, just as always. Tension relief, as it were.
That said, Cindy doesn’t have any time to reflect on their ridiculous antics anymore, because Max comes to the phone. “Cin?” she asks, surprised. “What’s wrong?”
“Can’t I call my girl jus’ ’cause?” Cindy replies immediately, casting a glance through her doorway where Dean is still squirming.
“What is it?” Max asks again, and now her tone is clearer, more focused. Even the background noise is gone, which means either she’d sent Alec away, or he complied with temporarily shutting his mouth.
Cindy exhales. “We got a problem,” she says.
“We’ve got lots of problems, O.C.,” Max replies, and there’s probably something going on down in Terminal City, too, but right now, Cindy has to get her to listen.
“What’d you say if I told you I mighta met the guy who gave your boy that nice face?” Cindy bursts out. The thought had been plaguing her for a while, that maybe Dean is actually Ben and Alec’s genesis, given his age, but she has nothing more than wild speculation to go on.
Max is silent on the other end, and Cindy’s pretty sure she hears Alec ask what’s wrong, only Max doesn’t reply to him either. Eventually she finds her voice. “What are you saying?”
Cindy knows she’s treading dangerous territory. It’s bad enough that the massive hole in Max’s soul that’s Ben’s memory was mentioned, but now it has to do with Alec, too, and Max doesn’t say it, probably doesn’t even think it, but she’s protective over the guy, and Cindy’s just said all the wrong words. She’d love to ease Max into this, but can’t. Dean doesn’t just look like Alec’s future self, he currently looks like he’s going to keel over, and Cindy won’t have that.
“I’m saying that there’s a fine brother at my place, and he looks an awful lot like Alec,” she discloses.
“Then he’s just some pretty, narcissistic, sweet-talking, irritating asshole,” Max gripes. “You’re sounding crazy, Cin.”
Cindy feels some of her self-control break. “You know that ain’t cool, Max. You know Original Cindy ain’t stupid, and she’s not gonna say things like this if she wasn’t bein’ straight with you. Please, Max. He’s…he ain’t doing well.”
Max’s hand tightens so much on the phone that even Cindy can hear the plastic creak in protest. “Meaning?” she asks, undoubtedly fearing the worst, like Dean had shown schizophrenic tendencies or something.
Which, fair enough, some of the things Dean is moaning in his sleep are…unorthodox, but then, Cindy’s talking to a genetically engineered super-soldier with feline DNA here. It’s all like that pre-Pulse show, The X-Files, Cindy’d heard newscasts mention in reference to transgenics, and if anyone can figure this all out, it’s Max.
“Meaning he’s having one hell of a nightmare, and is a step away from kickin’ the bucket,” Cindy says sharply. She doesn’t see Max’s dark frown on the other end, as she recalls Alec’s own nightmare that morning.
And she knows she can’t ignore this, despite the odd behavior of Alec’s that she wants to decipher. “Okay, I’ll be down there in a sec,” Max accedes. Cindy hears faint sounds of heated discussion before the phone clicks off.
Exiting her bedroom, she sits back down on the coffee table, facing Dean. He’d changed; he is deathly still, only his eyes moving under their lids and his minutely rising and falling chest telling her he’s even alive. She isn’t sure if this or his vicious terrors bothers her more. Guiltily glad he isn’t Alec, Cindy nevertheless extends her hands and tugs off Dean’s heavy work boots, placing them next to the couch. She can’t imagine they’re the most comfortable of footwear, and it’s as much as she’ll venture towards him again, considering he currently reminds her more of a wounded animal than ever. Like, she realizes, a scared transgenic.
God, she needs an aspirin. Or twelve.
“What’s got you so spooked, Maxie?” Alec asks as he watches her face drawn tight, hands tying up her hair in a messy ponytail. He’d heard most of the conversation, and it didn’t make much sense to him, but he thought he’d be polite anyway. “What’d O.C. say?”
“Would you just be quiet for five fucking seconds?” Max spits nastily, her dark eyes steaming. She’d long since stopped seeing only Ben’s face on Alec, but with Cindy’s phone call, her dead brother flashes on him.
Alec holds his hands up in mock surrender, and he unhitches himself from the corner of her desk. “God forbid I worry a little,” Alec retorts. “I’ll leave you alone.”
He strides out of her office and slams the door, and Max presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. She doesn’t want to alienate Alec, regardless of what everyone assumes, but sometimes he chooses the most inopportune times to speak up. She has a feeling he’d want to know about this new set of developments, but can’t bring herself to tell him. He has enough with the nightmare on his mind, never mind that she’s sure he still feels backlash from Ben. He doesn’t need another look-alike to add to his issues. Not that she does either, but this is her responsibility.
She completely bullshits Mole as she walks out of the gates, but it must’ve been good enough for the lizard-man, because he doesn’t send sentinels to stop her. She knows the entrance to Terminal City is still covered by the military, and so she finds her way to the sewers instead, jumping down and blurring through the dank passageways towards Cindy’s apartment in Sector Five.
As she climbs out of the manhole cover carefully, she’s aware that she smells faintly of rotten bananas and algae, but she can’t do much about that now. She walks the block or so to the apartment, being sure to throw up her hood and keep her hair around her face to prevent her from being recognized. She doesn’t know exactly how many people would recognize her with just a passing glimpse, but she doesn’t want to take any chances. It doesn’t matter that Alec would undoubtedly get her out of wherever she’d be imprisoned-she’d never hear the end of it.
Seven floors later, Max raps on the door five times, and it takes Cindy only a few seconds to answer it. “Shh,” she whispers before Max can say anything. “Boy’s sleepin’.”
Max wants to see the guy immediately, but her friend pulls her into her bedroom and locks the door, concealing the object of Cindy’s perplexity. They’re both acutely conscious that Max could get out of the door and past Cindy before her friend could even blink, though given the expression on Cindy’s face, Max stays put.
“What’s the deal?” she questions firmly. “You call me down here and say there’s another Manticore disaster going on? You need to give me more than that.”
“I ain’t sure,” Cindy says. “I ran into him-literally-on the streets, thought it was Alec hangin’ around, only he looked diff’rent. Thought he was a double or somethin’. Brought him back here, boy crashes in minutes. Don’t want to wake ’im.”
“Why the hell not?” Max snipes.
Cindy puts her hands on her hips, taking a defensive stance. “For one, he’s havin’ a fit, and for two, he looks like he could kick Original Cindy’s ass if he wanted. Seems like Alec, to be honest.”
Max sighs, her headache intensifying. If Cindy doesn’t want to mess with this dude, Max is in for a long night. “So, what, he’s transgenic?”
Cindy laughs. “That’s jus’ it, girl,” Cindy says. “He ain’t. An’ before you go wiggin’ out on me, I checked. Boy don’t have any barcode. Don’t know who he is. But Original Cindy’s sure he’s human.”
Her eyebrows raised, Max unlocks Cindy’s door and steps out, staying quiet in spite of her instincts. In an ordinary situation, she’d march over to the couch and slap the guy awake, but this is far from ordinary. His head is facedown in a pillow, and Max squats down two or so feet in front of him and gently moves his face towards her. His features twisted into ones of fear and agony, but that doesn’t mask the very apparent fact that Cindy wasn’t lying when she said they have a problem.
“Shit,” Max says. It’s the only thing she really can say.
“Right?” Cindy echoes.
Max looks at her friend and pauses. “How can you be so sure he’s not transgenic?” she asks in almost a plea, even though she’d seen the absence of a barcode, too. Moreover, he’s too old to be an X5, yet human enough looking that he can’t be any breed earlier than that either.
Cindy’s voice is quieter than Max’s. “Same as you. ’Cept I don’t know why the guy’s comin’ around here if he’s a donor; Manticore made good on their promise of hidin’ them from you, din’t they?”
“Yeah,” Max affirms. She glances quickly back at the couch, and then to Cindy again. “Does he have a name?”
“Dean,” Cindy replies. “He didn’t say nothin’ else.”
“Dean,” Max repeats, testing it. “I guess I can ask Logan if he can find a donor with that name and face from those Manticore files he nicked.”
Cindy nods. “Better find somethin’.”
Max gives her a half-smile, and then turns to Dean. Despite everything, she’s a bit concerned now that she actually sees him. She doesn’t know the man-for all she does know, he’s one of White’s henchmen-but she’s witnessed and experienced enough night terrors to be positive Dean’s not faking. Even Alec’s not that good an actor. And that’s saying a lot. She fingers the wooden, African-looking bracelet on his wrist and the silver ring on his right hand curiously, committing them to memory just in case.
And quickly finds out that was a very bad idea. With a speed she hasn’t seen in an Ordinary before, Dean’s eyes snap open and his hand clamps onto her wrist like a vise. His eyes-Alec’s eyes, Max notes with alarm-are wild, the pupils dilated so only a thin ring of green is visible, tendons straining in his forearm. Max tries to pull hers away, but the guy has an unnatural grip.
She isn’t afraid exactly, more puzzled than anything else. She’s looking right into his eyes, and he’s doing the same, but he’s not seeing her, not really. She wonders what he does see. Especially when he starts screaming.
They’re terrible screams, screams Max knows all too well, screams that bring her back to Psy-Ops and Isolation. Primal screams that don’t belong in the guy’s mouth. Then he begins speaking, and she stops trying to get out of his grasp, regardless of that her hand is turning purple. She can’t; she’s mesmerized.
“STOP IT!” Dean yells, his voice deep, hoarse, raspy in a way Alec’s has never been. “What do you want from me? SAMMY! Sammy, help me! Help-I don’t deserve this! I don’t belong in Hell, you fucking bastards! I don’t-” His voice gives way to more anguished screaming, so raw that Max’s hair stands on end.
She looks at Cindy, but the woman is just as captivated. So she does the only thing she can think of. Fully aware that she just may be risking her life, she puts her free hand on the side of Dean’s face, running her fingers through his now sweat-soaked hair, down over his cheekbones, his chapped lips, the planes of his nose and rough jaw. They’re motions she’d always used to calm Ben down, on the rare occasions he would get such bad night terrors and sweats that she was afraid he’d get taken away for being defective. (Never Alec, because the son of a bitch compartmentalized too well, even in sleep. Not that she’d ever even considered it, of course.)
“Dean,” she says gently, in the same lilt as so many years ago, disregarding how unfamiliar the name is on her lips.
She remembers she used to hum to Ben, too, and somehow, she feels drawn to the Ordinary. Leaning down, Max starts humming that tune whose title she doesn’t recall anymore, but whose rhythm she remembers as well as if it were just yesterday and this were Ben. It isn’t hard to pretend, really, considering Dean might as well be Ben’s older self.
Her fingers further their trailing along his face and through short hair, wanting him to calm down, needing him to calm down. Certainly Ben never said things like I don’t belong in Hell, and Max is mighty suspicious of what precisely that means, yet that’s not her most pressing issue at the moment. Her most pressing issue is trying to stop Dean from inadvertently killing himself. It was rare, but she’d heard of kids in other units dying of heart arrest because of the war waged inside their heads. Dean is a grown man, older than Max and Alec, to be sure, but the way he looks now…she doesn’t want to take the chance.
Finally, finally, his screams fade to aching whimpers, and his grip loosens on her wrist. Max puts her palm on his cheek again and his eyes close, lashes shadowing on already shadowed cheekbones. Max isn’t sure if his nightmare is over, or if he’s just repressed it, and that troubles her even more.
But, goddamn it she wants it to be over. Because if he really is just an Ordinary, that means he wasn’t an employee of Manticore’s, and yet he’s having horrors as bad as those Manticore created. Max doesn’t want to imagine what could’ve caused such catastrophe in Dean’s life. Oh, she wants to get to the bottom of this whole thing, and she will, but she’s wary of what she’ll find.
Max stands up, suddenly tired, and walks over to Cindy, leaning against the counter. “He’s been doing this the whole time?” she inquires.
Cindy nods. “Same stuff over an’ over,” she confirms. “I was gonna break out the handcuffs, but din’t wanna move him.”
“What’s this about Hell?” Max continues with a frown. “What do you make of it? It’s got to be just a fear or something, right?”
Her friend shrugs. “Sugar, I don’t know,” Cindy says. “Seems real. At least to him.”
“I’ve got to call Logan about this,” Max says. She doesn’t feel like divulging what she knows about Dean just yet, despite owing the stranger absolutely nothing, but fortunately Logan’s used to dealing with her evasiveness. He’d help her just the same. “Do you think you can handle him?”
Cindy squares her shoulders. “Original Cindy ain’t singin’, but pretty boy ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
Max far from wants another “boy” in here life, but it appears like Dean’s going to be staying awhile. By all means, Max thinks sarcastically, let him join the club. Not like we don’t have enough mayhem already.
With a last, sad scan of Dean, Max walks out of Cindy’s apartment, swinging a leg over her Ninja and heading off towards Sandeman’s old house, which Logan is still forced to call home in place of his destroyed penthouse.
Next