FF/SPN: Blackout Zone 3/3
A little late, and a little longer than expected.
Blessings Against the Thunder: Blackout Zone 3/3
by Vanzetti (vaznetti)
Firefly/Supernatural
John Winchester/Zoe Washburne; ensembles
PG-13
Spoilers for Serenity.
Thanks to rez_lo for beta-reading and the_grynne for help with Chinese language; all mistakes are mine.
Previous parts:
Eurydice Settlement
Caieta Port
Xú Landing, 1
Xú Landing, 2
Xinwuwei Docks, 1
Xinwuwei Docks, 2
Blackout Zone, 1
Blackout Zone, 2
Their minder knows what it is, coming out through the broken glass, but not how to fight it. Or if she does, she forgets it in the panic when it swarms across the floor toward her. Simon scrambles back against the wall next to Sam. "Demon," Sam explains, not sure he needs to. The woman raises her head, eyes black, and clambers to her feet. "She'll be very strong."
"It's too much to hope that you have a weapon hidden somewhere, isn't it?"
"Even if I did, it wouldn't do much good. Can you just, um, distract her a little?" She's shaking her head a little as the demon settles in.
"Distract her?" Simon's voice is rising. "Distract her, how?"
"I don't know -- keep moving. Keep her moving."
She lunges towards them and they spring apart. "Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde..." Sam begins. He really hopes that Latin will work on this thing. He really hopes he gets a chance to find out: the demon knocks Simon back into the wall and turns on him, backing him up and striking, and sure, Sam towers over the minder's body but that's not much use against this kind of unnatural strength. He feels the blow all through him and the breath's knocked out of his lungs. Simon comes up behind her, jabbing an elbow into her neck; she staggers and turns and tosses him back down the length of the room. Sam dodges and starts backing away. "...in virtute Spiritus Sancti..."
She raises an eyebrow at Sam. "Is this another test? You should know what will happen."
Simon grabs one of the recording disks off the floor and hurls it at the woman; it misses her and Sam ducks out of the way. The next one hits the back of her head: she glances back to the far end of the room, where Simon's standing near the broken glass, before returning her attention to Sam. Her laughter sends the hairs on his arms straight up. His back is against the door; he tries the handle just to get some space, but it's locked and she has the key-card.
"This is fun," she says. "Maybe I'll rip out your tongue, first. Then I can leave you alive to watch me kill your friend here."
The Latin's rolling out of his mouth, familiar after the last few years. She shakes her head, as if something's buzzing in her ears, looks confused for a moment. Now she's reaching for him, going for his throat, ready to choke the words off: then her eyes roll back and she slumps to the floor, scrabbling at the carpet.
There's a long piece of glass sticking out of her lower back, and blood soaking into her blouse. Simon looks down at her a moment, then up to meet Sam's eyes. "I think we should go now."
* * *
John's knee deep in water, trousers clinging to his legs, working on the third altar in the lantern's uncertain light. He lifts a chalice, sniffs the contents: blood. Can't pour that into the water, but he can use a bowl from the last room. Mal and Zoe should have cleared the first two floors by now. Or Kaylee might have found a way into the network, found where Sam and Simon are. They might be out of the building already.
His hand shakes; a few drops of blood hit the altar. It hisses. John blinks away the smoke, takes a breath to steady his nerves. Three more to go, and he needs to concentrate if he's going to get them done. Mal wasn't wrong; this is a two-person job.
Another table's cleared now and he's starting on the next-to-last, but the pattern's awkward, and he's got to do it from inside the circle. He's as careful as he can be, stays close to the altar as he can. He doesn't want to step into the circle he knows is there, painted on the floor, in the dark under the water. He's getting cold, now, his pants are sticking to his legs, his knees ache, and he knows his mind isn't where it needs to be.
They should be out of the building by now. Zoe knows what she's doing. Mal too, if John's honest. And Sam's better than he is, when it comes to the demonic. Add a doctor, case anyone gets hurt, and they'll--
His left hand doesn't move fast enough, that's what he thinks later, and his right hand disturbs a pile of bones a second to soon. The candles flicker and go out. Something brushes the back of his knees. He drops the knife in his left hand, ready to leap over the table and to hell with disrupting the altar, too late for that, but the old wound in his thigh plays up. A second too long, and something thick and sinewy wraps around his legs and yanks.
The water closes over his head.
* * *
"I can't search this whole building, now, Kaylee," Mal says into the transmitter. "You gotta do better than that."
"I'm trying, cap'n, really I am. They've got the whole system locked up tight. River's trying to tap into the emergency services, but it's all real confused."
"Things ain't precisely clear in here," Mal says. Zoe touches his arm. "Got to keep moving, Kaylee. You raise a shout soon as you find something."
He and Zoe move further down the hall, guns ready. "You hear that?" Zoe asks.
Footsteps and a clatter of something, maybe one floor up. Like someone's running. "Stairs at the end of the hall," he points out. She nods.
He takes the lead, gets them down the hall, opens the door as quietly as he can. Above them, metal hits metal with a resounding crash -- Mal can feel the vibrations coming off the railing onto his hand. Then there are the feet pounding down the steps: he raises his gun.
The bullet hits the wall; he hears someone yelling "Shit," and that's Sam's voice. It had better have Sam still attached to it, is all he can think.
"Sam?" Zoe calls out. "Simon?"
Mal can hear feet shuffling up there and some muffled cursing. He's halfway up when Sam shouts "Now!" and Mal jumps back against the wall as a body goes falling down through the stairwell almost too quick to see. He don't think it was Sam or Simon -- to small, too, well, female. And no, because here's Sam and Simon barreling down the stairs, Sam saying, "Let's go, let's go!"
"Slow down," Mal says. "She won't be coming back from--"
"Yes," Simon says. "Unfortunately, she will."
He doesn't have time to argue about that: the transmitter chirps at his side. "What is it, Kaylee?"
"Emergency security," Kaylee says. "Coming in the front. River says there's a stairwell on the northwest corner, you can get out and down an alley there. But you gotta go now, Cap'n, you don't have much time."
"Got it," Mal says. He looks from Sam to Simon, and back at Zoe standing behind him. He's got the three of them to get out of here, that's his responsibility.
"Cap'n," Zoe begins.
"We're on our way," Mal says to Kaylee. "Zoe, we're moving."
"Yes, sir," she says, a little stronger than before. And Mal thinks, Winchester had better not've been lying about getting himself out of that basement, but Zoe continues, "You do realize that we're already on the northwest stairs, sir?"
The four of them look down the stairwell, at the body twitching on the lowest level. "Hunh," Mal says.
* * *
Something with suckers comes swimming at them as they turn the hall corner; Jayne throws a grenade and they hurl themselves back. There's a dull boom and a kind of splattering noise, and when Dean looks again bits of flesh are scattered all over the hallway, floating on the thigh-high water. "Not bad," Dean says. Whatever it was, it stinks, and he has to kick out a little to keep the pieces from clustering around his legs. This basement officially sucks, cold and wet and just generally gross, and he can't help wondering what else is lurking around, up where Sam's supposed to be nice and dry, doing his fancy research.
He can hear a splash and a gurgle and the sound of metal hitting concrete. Jayne stands still next to him, gun in his hand. Another splash: coming from down the corridor. There's one light still working, down at the end. They go carefully, until Dean hears the gurgle more clearly. That's when he starts to run, slow against the water.
Jayne's right by him when they reach the door: there's something in there thrashing around, he can hear it. Two things, maybe. More shadow than light coming through the door, but Dean can make out a set of altars in a circle and something pale moving inside them. It's more instinct than recognition that sends him forward, grabbing the knife at his belt, leaping over the table in his way just in time to see his father's head break above the water, hands wrapped around some kind of tentacle, thick and slimy. Dean starts hacking almost before he gets his balance; he's vaguely aware of his dad getting his feet underneath him and taking a knife from one of the tables. The thing bleeds black into the water, thrashing away; something smacks him in the face and his head snaps back. Shit. The suckers are trying to grip the skin of his arms and each tentacle they cut at seems to be replaced by two new ones.
"Get back!" It's Jayne, standing up on one of the tables. Dean grabs his dad and half-drags them both up onto another table, twisting to get their legs out of the way before the crash of the gunshot and the splatter of blood. Jayne takes a second shot. "That gonna take it out?" he asks.
"Gives us a few minutes, that's all." John says. "Dean, we need to do the last of these." He's already standing in the water, leaning against the table. "You see anything moving in here, Jayne, just keep shooting at it."
"Anything but us," Dean adds.
It's quick, working with his dad like this; they each know where the other will be before he even gets there, moving slow through the bloody water. Dean waits until they're done to ask what the hell his dad was thinking doing a job like this on his own. It needs two sets of hands and he should have known it. And what were those Serenity people doing, leaving him like this?
"The alarm went off," John says. "I sent Zoe and Reynolds up to get Sam and Simon out of whatever they got into."
The spike of adrenaline gets Dean standing up straight again. "OK," he says. "Hold it right there. You think Sam's in danger?"
"Sam'll be fine," John tells him. His hair's dripping and there's a red mark on the left side on his face which is going to turn into a bruise, but he's got all the authority in the 'verse in his voice.
"You don't know that," Dean says. He's keeping his voice level, as much as he can. "I swear to God, Dad, if you..."
John doesn't let him finish. "Sammy's a man now, Dean. Time you started treating him like one."
""What the hell do you mean by that?" Dean asks, adding a "Sir?" in case his dad can't tell how he feels.
"He can choose what risks to take, and you know as well as I he can stand up to whatever comes at him."
"So I should just send him off to fight on his own? That what you're saying?" And zao gao, but his dad has no idea what that last battle did to Sam, how long it took Dean to put him back together, piece by piece, until he knew that whatever darkness was left in Sam wasn't going to overwhelm him, drown them both.
"You two gonna be much longer?" Jayne asks. "'Cause I'm about ready to get out of here."
"He's not alone," John says to Dean. "Never has been."
And that's just too god damn much, right there. "Yeah," Dean tells Jayne. "Let's get going." His dad's looking a little unsteady on his feet, but this time Dean figures he can carry himself.
* * *
They race down the stairs, Sam doing some kind of mumbo-jumbo all the way down, but at the bottom there's that woman, something wrong with her neck but standing on her own two feet. Mal's already firing, and he hears Zoe doing the same behind him. The woman staggers and falls back and Sam rushes forward. "Hold her down!" he says, and then a lot more stuff that Mal don't catch.
The woman raises her head smiles. "Do it, and you'll have my thanks." Then there's a black cloud coming out of her mouth and Sam's talking twice as fast as before. The woman's gone limp under Mal's hands.
Sam takes a deep breath. "OK. let's go." Zoe and Mal get up, but Simon stays crouched by the woman, kneeling in the spreading blood. "Simon?"
"Another minute," Simon says. "I'm working."
"We don't have a minute," Mal says.
Simon looks up. "Do you want to kill her?"
"I did shoot her," Mal points out. There's a door opening, on one of the upper floors, and no time to argue: he nods at Zoe and the two of them lift Simon, dragging him away from the body and out the emergency door. Then they're all running: feet pounding away from the building and down a street, past a security cordon where the guard is so surprised to see them that he doesn't shoot and for a moment doesn't even give chase. Mal hears him behind them and hopes to hell the alley he can see up ahead is what Kaylee meant.
And he's never been so happy to see the beetle-shape of one of their shuttles hovering above the ground, Kaylee throwing the door open as they get near and then rushing forward to get them moving. Zoe comes in last, slamming the hatch closed behind them; Mal takes a deep breath and glances around, but before he can say a word, Sam raises his head. "Captain Reynolds?" he asks. "Where's my dad? He's supposed to be with you."
* * *
The three of them make it back out through the sub-basements and up into the concrete streets of the blackout zone, but it's not exactly a surprise when a party of MPs waves them down: their clothes are soaking wet, and John just now notices that there's a chunk of some kind of flesh clinging to his sleeve. His bloodstained sleeve.
Dean and Jayne flash their identity cards while John smiles and starts a long-winded explanation; he can see right away that the military's not buying it, no surprise there with the alarm going off back at the Blue Sun facility. Alliance is part of this, that's what Serenity's crew tells him, and that means the military. Should have let Jayne and Dean make their way out without him, he thinks now: they'd have a better chance. He keeps smiling, keeps patting his pockets, tries to ignore the guns pointed at all of them, Jayne tense beside him. Dean'll wait for his sign, John thinks, even now.
"That's long enough," the sergeant tells him. "You three -- we're taking you in." No more time: John waits for the man to turn away to give orders to his troops. He's got a knife strapped to his arm, he'll be fast enough. It's in his hand, now, he can hear Dean moving behind him, but the sergeant's no fool, already turning around and barking the order. A rifle-but slams into John's gut and he curls over, choking and gasping and holy god it hurts.
Dean's raised his voice and if John could manage to speak he'd tell the boy to keep his gorram mouth shut, but he's caught another blow along the back and shit but he's damned if he's going to drop to his knees. Under the shouting he can hear an engine and the crack of a gun firing and he opens his eyes just as something catches him and knocks him off his feet. It's Dean. John forces himself to twist, up and over so he's got the boy underneath him, out of the way of the bullets. He's staring into the sergeant's glazed eyes, at the neat hole in the center of his forehead; three more shots, three more bodies fall. Then there are hands grabbing his shoulders -- Jayne -- and Dean pushing up and the three of them running and limping to the open doors of a small black shuttle.
John hits the seat, blinks and looks around at the fine wood and leather trim as the door swings closed and they start moving: some kind of official vehicle. River's at the controls and Inara's kneeling next to him, looking concerned. There's a rifle on the shuttle floor, just by her. He coughs a little. "Didn't know Companions learned sharpshooting, too."
"That weren't... ow!" Jayne says. He's crowded into the front, right next to River.
Inara's mouth curves. "There are quite a few things you don't know about Companion training, John."
"Guess I'm gonna stay ignorant, now." Part of him wants to lay into Dean for mouthing off to the MPs, boy should know better'n to add to John's own mistake there, but that can wait. "Everyone get out?"
"You three are the last," Inara says.
"Everything back in its hole," River adds. "Everything but the shuttle. We stole that from General Lew."
It's John's turn to grin. "Yes," Inara says, "a client. And no, this isn't something the Guild encourages. We were worried." She frowns at him. "About Jayne."
* * *
Sam's got the engine running and Impala set to go by the time Dean makes it back to port. "Took you long enough," is what he says, but Dean can see the lines around his mouth ease a little.
"Get out of that chair and let me take her up," he says. "I don't know what you think you're doing with the starboard thrusters."
Sam scoots out of the pilot's seat. "You know you sound just like Dad, right?"
"Bitch." Impala's coming up smooth and easy, nothing to draw attention here. Dean's more than ready to leave this piece of rock. Fucking core planets with their fucking Alliance soldiers everywhere.
"Jerk," Sam says.
They sit in silence until they break atmo and Dean hands over the controls so that Sam can enter the course to the rendez-vous point. "Got Dad out," he says. "Some kind of fugly thing from hell was trying to drown him. Tentacles thicker'n my arm. Gotta say, the old man really knows how to find the cool jobs."
"Does that mean that you and Dad talked?" Dean shoots him a glance, but Sam's got his eyes on the numbers on his screen.
"What do you think it was, Sammy, some kind of ladies tea party?"
"Did you?" Sam asks again.
"Fuck you, Sam. He was right, I admit it -- this is our kind of work. What do you want from me?"
Sam raises his head and stares out into the black. "It's a lot bigger than anything we've seen before. Blue Sun? And the whole damn Alliance?"
The words are ready to roll off Dean's tongue, something like, don't worry, bro, and nothing we can't handle, but instead he leans back in the chair and listens to Impala's engines thrumming around them. "You're not wrong about that," he says. "Think the extra backup will make a difference?"
"They haven't tried to kill Dad yet," Sam says. "That's worth something."
"Early days, Sam. Early days."
end 3/3
Next part: Blackout Zone: Epilogue
Next pa
Blessings Against the Thunder: Blackout Zone 3/3
by Vanzetti (vaznetti)
Firefly/Supernatural
John Winchester/Zoe Washburne; ensembles
PG-13
Spoilers for Serenity.
Thanks to rez_lo for beta-reading and the_grynne for help with Chinese language; all mistakes are mine.
Previous parts:
Eurydice Settlement
Caieta Port
Xú Landing, 1
Xú Landing, 2
Xinwuwei Docks, 1
Xinwuwei Docks, 2
Blackout Zone, 1
Blackout Zone, 2
Their minder knows what it is, coming out through the broken glass, but not how to fight it. Or if she does, she forgets it in the panic when it swarms across the floor toward her. Simon scrambles back against the wall next to Sam. "Demon," Sam explains, not sure he needs to. The woman raises her head, eyes black, and clambers to her feet. "She'll be very strong."
"It's too much to hope that you have a weapon hidden somewhere, isn't it?"
"Even if I did, it wouldn't do much good. Can you just, um, distract her a little?" She's shaking her head a little as the demon settles in.
"Distract her?" Simon's voice is rising. "Distract her, how?"
"I don't know -- keep moving. Keep her moving."
She lunges towards them and they spring apart. "Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde..." Sam begins. He really hopes that Latin will work on this thing. He really hopes he gets a chance to find out: the demon knocks Simon back into the wall and turns on him, backing him up and striking, and sure, Sam towers over the minder's body but that's not much use against this kind of unnatural strength. He feels the blow all through him and the breath's knocked out of his lungs. Simon comes up behind her, jabbing an elbow into her neck; she staggers and turns and tosses him back down the length of the room. Sam dodges and starts backing away. "...in virtute Spiritus Sancti..."
She raises an eyebrow at Sam. "Is this another test? You should know what will happen."
Simon grabs one of the recording disks off the floor and hurls it at the woman; it misses her and Sam ducks out of the way. The next one hits the back of her head: she glances back to the far end of the room, where Simon's standing near the broken glass, before returning her attention to Sam. Her laughter sends the hairs on his arms straight up. His back is against the door; he tries the handle just to get some space, but it's locked and she has the key-card.
"This is fun," she says. "Maybe I'll rip out your tongue, first. Then I can leave you alive to watch me kill your friend here."
The Latin's rolling out of his mouth, familiar after the last few years. She shakes her head, as if something's buzzing in her ears, looks confused for a moment. Now she's reaching for him, going for his throat, ready to choke the words off: then her eyes roll back and she slumps to the floor, scrabbling at the carpet.
There's a long piece of glass sticking out of her lower back, and blood soaking into her blouse. Simon looks down at her a moment, then up to meet Sam's eyes. "I think we should go now."
* * *
John's knee deep in water, trousers clinging to his legs, working on the third altar in the lantern's uncertain light. He lifts a chalice, sniffs the contents: blood. Can't pour that into the water, but he can use a bowl from the last room. Mal and Zoe should have cleared the first two floors by now. Or Kaylee might have found a way into the network, found where Sam and Simon are. They might be out of the building already.
His hand shakes; a few drops of blood hit the altar. It hisses. John blinks away the smoke, takes a breath to steady his nerves. Three more to go, and he needs to concentrate if he's going to get them done. Mal wasn't wrong; this is a two-person job.
Another table's cleared now and he's starting on the next-to-last, but the pattern's awkward, and he's got to do it from inside the circle. He's as careful as he can be, stays close to the altar as he can. He doesn't want to step into the circle he knows is there, painted on the floor, in the dark under the water. He's getting cold, now, his pants are sticking to his legs, his knees ache, and he knows his mind isn't where it needs to be.
They should be out of the building by now. Zoe knows what she's doing. Mal too, if John's honest. And Sam's better than he is, when it comes to the demonic. Add a doctor, case anyone gets hurt, and they'll--
His left hand doesn't move fast enough, that's what he thinks later, and his right hand disturbs a pile of bones a second to soon. The candles flicker and go out. Something brushes the back of his knees. He drops the knife in his left hand, ready to leap over the table and to hell with disrupting the altar, too late for that, but the old wound in his thigh plays up. A second too long, and something thick and sinewy wraps around his legs and yanks.
The water closes over his head.
* * *
"I can't search this whole building, now, Kaylee," Mal says into the transmitter. "You gotta do better than that."
"I'm trying, cap'n, really I am. They've got the whole system locked up tight. River's trying to tap into the emergency services, but it's all real confused."
"Things ain't precisely clear in here," Mal says. Zoe touches his arm. "Got to keep moving, Kaylee. You raise a shout soon as you find something."
He and Zoe move further down the hall, guns ready. "You hear that?" Zoe asks.
Footsteps and a clatter of something, maybe one floor up. Like someone's running. "Stairs at the end of the hall," he points out. She nods.
He takes the lead, gets them down the hall, opens the door as quietly as he can. Above them, metal hits metal with a resounding crash -- Mal can feel the vibrations coming off the railing onto his hand. Then there are the feet pounding down the steps: he raises his gun.
The bullet hits the wall; he hears someone yelling "Shit," and that's Sam's voice. It had better have Sam still attached to it, is all he can think.
"Sam?" Zoe calls out. "Simon?"
Mal can hear feet shuffling up there and some muffled cursing. He's halfway up when Sam shouts "Now!" and Mal jumps back against the wall as a body goes falling down through the stairwell almost too quick to see. He don't think it was Sam or Simon -- to small, too, well, female. And no, because here's Sam and Simon barreling down the stairs, Sam saying, "Let's go, let's go!"
"Slow down," Mal says. "She won't be coming back from--"
"Yes," Simon says. "Unfortunately, she will."
He doesn't have time to argue about that: the transmitter chirps at his side. "What is it, Kaylee?"
"Emergency security," Kaylee says. "Coming in the front. River says there's a stairwell on the northwest corner, you can get out and down an alley there. But you gotta go now, Cap'n, you don't have much time."
"Got it," Mal says. He looks from Sam to Simon, and back at Zoe standing behind him. He's got the three of them to get out of here, that's his responsibility.
"Cap'n," Zoe begins.
"We're on our way," Mal says to Kaylee. "Zoe, we're moving."
"Yes, sir," she says, a little stronger than before. And Mal thinks, Winchester had better not've been lying about getting himself out of that basement, but Zoe continues, "You do realize that we're already on the northwest stairs, sir?"
The four of them look down the stairwell, at the body twitching on the lowest level. "Hunh," Mal says.
* * *
Something with suckers comes swimming at them as they turn the hall corner; Jayne throws a grenade and they hurl themselves back. There's a dull boom and a kind of splattering noise, and when Dean looks again bits of flesh are scattered all over the hallway, floating on the thigh-high water. "Not bad," Dean says. Whatever it was, it stinks, and he has to kick out a little to keep the pieces from clustering around his legs. This basement officially sucks, cold and wet and just generally gross, and he can't help wondering what else is lurking around, up where Sam's supposed to be nice and dry, doing his fancy research.
He can hear a splash and a gurgle and the sound of metal hitting concrete. Jayne stands still next to him, gun in his hand. Another splash: coming from down the corridor. There's one light still working, down at the end. They go carefully, until Dean hears the gurgle more clearly. That's when he starts to run, slow against the water.
Jayne's right by him when they reach the door: there's something in there thrashing around, he can hear it. Two things, maybe. More shadow than light coming through the door, but Dean can make out a set of altars in a circle and something pale moving inside them. It's more instinct than recognition that sends him forward, grabbing the knife at his belt, leaping over the table in his way just in time to see his father's head break above the water, hands wrapped around some kind of tentacle, thick and slimy. Dean starts hacking almost before he gets his balance; he's vaguely aware of his dad getting his feet underneath him and taking a knife from one of the tables. The thing bleeds black into the water, thrashing away; something smacks him in the face and his head snaps back. Shit. The suckers are trying to grip the skin of his arms and each tentacle they cut at seems to be replaced by two new ones.
"Get back!" It's Jayne, standing up on one of the tables. Dean grabs his dad and half-drags them both up onto another table, twisting to get their legs out of the way before the crash of the gunshot and the splatter of blood. Jayne takes a second shot. "That gonna take it out?" he asks.
"Gives us a few minutes, that's all." John says. "Dean, we need to do the last of these." He's already standing in the water, leaning against the table. "You see anything moving in here, Jayne, just keep shooting at it."
"Anything but us," Dean adds.
It's quick, working with his dad like this; they each know where the other will be before he even gets there, moving slow through the bloody water. Dean waits until they're done to ask what the hell his dad was thinking doing a job like this on his own. It needs two sets of hands and he should have known it. And what were those Serenity people doing, leaving him like this?
"The alarm went off," John says. "I sent Zoe and Reynolds up to get Sam and Simon out of whatever they got into."
The spike of adrenaline gets Dean standing up straight again. "OK," he says. "Hold it right there. You think Sam's in danger?"
"Sam'll be fine," John tells him. His hair's dripping and there's a red mark on the left side on his face which is going to turn into a bruise, but he's got all the authority in the 'verse in his voice.
"You don't know that," Dean says. He's keeping his voice level, as much as he can. "I swear to God, Dad, if you..."
John doesn't let him finish. "Sammy's a man now, Dean. Time you started treating him like one."
""What the hell do you mean by that?" Dean asks, adding a "Sir?" in case his dad can't tell how he feels.
"He can choose what risks to take, and you know as well as I he can stand up to whatever comes at him."
"So I should just send him off to fight on his own? That what you're saying?" And zao gao, but his dad has no idea what that last battle did to Sam, how long it took Dean to put him back together, piece by piece, until he knew that whatever darkness was left in Sam wasn't going to overwhelm him, drown them both.
"You two gonna be much longer?" Jayne asks. "'Cause I'm about ready to get out of here."
"He's not alone," John says to Dean. "Never has been."
And that's just too god damn much, right there. "Yeah," Dean tells Jayne. "Let's get going." His dad's looking a little unsteady on his feet, but this time Dean figures he can carry himself.
* * *
They race down the stairs, Sam doing some kind of mumbo-jumbo all the way down, but at the bottom there's that woman, something wrong with her neck but standing on her own two feet. Mal's already firing, and he hears Zoe doing the same behind him. The woman staggers and falls back and Sam rushes forward. "Hold her down!" he says, and then a lot more stuff that Mal don't catch.
The woman raises her head smiles. "Do it, and you'll have my thanks." Then there's a black cloud coming out of her mouth and Sam's talking twice as fast as before. The woman's gone limp under Mal's hands.
Sam takes a deep breath. "OK. let's go." Zoe and Mal get up, but Simon stays crouched by the woman, kneeling in the spreading blood. "Simon?"
"Another minute," Simon says. "I'm working."
"We don't have a minute," Mal says.
Simon looks up. "Do you want to kill her?"
"I did shoot her," Mal points out. There's a door opening, on one of the upper floors, and no time to argue: he nods at Zoe and the two of them lift Simon, dragging him away from the body and out the emergency door. Then they're all running: feet pounding away from the building and down a street, past a security cordon where the guard is so surprised to see them that he doesn't shoot and for a moment doesn't even give chase. Mal hears him behind them and hopes to hell the alley he can see up ahead is what Kaylee meant.
And he's never been so happy to see the beetle-shape of one of their shuttles hovering above the ground, Kaylee throwing the door open as they get near and then rushing forward to get them moving. Zoe comes in last, slamming the hatch closed behind them; Mal takes a deep breath and glances around, but before he can say a word, Sam raises his head. "Captain Reynolds?" he asks. "Where's my dad? He's supposed to be with you."
* * *
The three of them make it back out through the sub-basements and up into the concrete streets of the blackout zone, but it's not exactly a surprise when a party of MPs waves them down: their clothes are soaking wet, and John just now notices that there's a chunk of some kind of flesh clinging to his sleeve. His bloodstained sleeve.
Dean and Jayne flash their identity cards while John smiles and starts a long-winded explanation; he can see right away that the military's not buying it, no surprise there with the alarm going off back at the Blue Sun facility. Alliance is part of this, that's what Serenity's crew tells him, and that means the military. Should have let Jayne and Dean make their way out without him, he thinks now: they'd have a better chance. He keeps smiling, keeps patting his pockets, tries to ignore the guns pointed at all of them, Jayne tense beside him. Dean'll wait for his sign, John thinks, even now.
"That's long enough," the sergeant tells him. "You three -- we're taking you in." No more time: John waits for the man to turn away to give orders to his troops. He's got a knife strapped to his arm, he'll be fast enough. It's in his hand, now, he can hear Dean moving behind him, but the sergeant's no fool, already turning around and barking the order. A rifle-but slams into John's gut and he curls over, choking and gasping and holy god it hurts.
Dean's raised his voice and if John could manage to speak he'd tell the boy to keep his gorram mouth shut, but he's caught another blow along the back and shit but he's damned if he's going to drop to his knees. Under the shouting he can hear an engine and the crack of a gun firing and he opens his eyes just as something catches him and knocks him off his feet. It's Dean. John forces himself to twist, up and over so he's got the boy underneath him, out of the way of the bullets. He's staring into the sergeant's glazed eyes, at the neat hole in the center of his forehead; three more shots, three more bodies fall. Then there are hands grabbing his shoulders -- Jayne -- and Dean pushing up and the three of them running and limping to the open doors of a small black shuttle.
John hits the seat, blinks and looks around at the fine wood and leather trim as the door swings closed and they start moving: some kind of official vehicle. River's at the controls and Inara's kneeling next to him, looking concerned. There's a rifle on the shuttle floor, just by her. He coughs a little. "Didn't know Companions learned sharpshooting, too."
"That weren't... ow!" Jayne says. He's crowded into the front, right next to River.
Inara's mouth curves. "There are quite a few things you don't know about Companion training, John."
"Guess I'm gonna stay ignorant, now." Part of him wants to lay into Dean for mouthing off to the MPs, boy should know better'n to add to John's own mistake there, but that can wait. "Everyone get out?"
"You three are the last," Inara says.
"Everything back in its hole," River adds. "Everything but the shuttle. We stole that from General Lew."
It's John's turn to grin. "Yes," Inara says, "a client. And no, this isn't something the Guild encourages. We were worried." She frowns at him. "About Jayne."
* * *
Sam's got the engine running and Impala set to go by the time Dean makes it back to port. "Took you long enough," is what he says, but Dean can see the lines around his mouth ease a little.
"Get out of that chair and let me take her up," he says. "I don't know what you think you're doing with the starboard thrusters."
Sam scoots out of the pilot's seat. "You know you sound just like Dad, right?"
"Bitch." Impala's coming up smooth and easy, nothing to draw attention here. Dean's more than ready to leave this piece of rock. Fucking core planets with their fucking Alliance soldiers everywhere.
"Jerk," Sam says.
They sit in silence until they break atmo and Dean hands over the controls so that Sam can enter the course to the rendez-vous point. "Got Dad out," he says. "Some kind of fugly thing from hell was trying to drown him. Tentacles thicker'n my arm. Gotta say, the old man really knows how to find the cool jobs."
"Does that mean that you and Dad talked?" Dean shoots him a glance, but Sam's got his eyes on the numbers on his screen.
"What do you think it was, Sammy, some kind of ladies tea party?"
"Did you?" Sam asks again.
"Fuck you, Sam. He was right, I admit it -- this is our kind of work. What do you want from me?"
Sam raises his head and stares out into the black. "It's a lot bigger than anything we've seen before. Blue Sun? And the whole damn Alliance?"
The words are ready to roll off Dean's tongue, something like, don't worry, bro, and nothing we can't handle, but instead he leans back in the chair and listens to Impala's engines thrumming around them. "You're not wrong about that," he says. "Think the extra backup will make a difference?"
"They haven't tried to kill Dad yet," Sam says. "That's worth something."
"Early days, Sam. Early days."
end 3/3
Next part: Blackout Zone: Epilogue
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