SPN Fanfic: And I Heard The Thunder Rolling In (1/Maybe?????)
(The first part of a last minute 4.22 tag, just 'coz)
Title: And I Heard The Thunder Rolling In (1/Maybe?????)
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR 4.22 Contains speculation-as-fic. No spoilers have influenced the writing of this at all. Open-ended. Might not be continued once the season starts airing and this no doubt goes way AU, but we'll see.
Rating: GEN, PG-13 (Some R-rated language, because under the circumstances, 'crap' seems a ludicrously under-powered epithet)
Word Count: 3000
Disclaimer: Sam, Dean and their friends, enemies and world belong to Eric Kripke. Although the Bible had some of them first.
Characters: Many. Sam, Dean, Castiel, Chuck, Bobby, and assorted others on both sides.
Summary: Do I think this is how Season five will start? Hell no. If anything turns out to be right, I'll be more stunned than anyone.
(A/N after cut 'coz it's biggish)
A/N The prologue was written within 2 hours of 4.22 airing. Force Nine plot bunny. Part One was mostly written the next day, then the rest in bits and pieces, then it stalled for a long while, and now I'm trying to push it through so it's up before it gets entirely Kripked. I'll tell you right now, even after it's 'done' this will be open-ended. May have one, possibly two more parts, or this might be all there is. No promises. Subject to retroactive editing as I'm posting from work. Title from Chris deBurgh's "The Vision" [LJ-only for now]
-
And I Heard The Thunder Rolling In
by CaffieneKitty
-
St. Mary's Ilchester, Maryland. 1972
"What do you mean? What child?
You will find a special child. One that will be prepared, one who will open the final seal.
"A human."
Yes. Born human, but marked, and trained. Prepared.
"Prepared to open the final seal?"
And for what comes after. Prepared to be my vessel.
"Ah. Yes, well of course. Custom-tailored, not any old thing off the rack."
Indeed.
"It will be done, Father."
-
Apocalypse, Year 1, Day 1. Thursday.
The convent shook.
"He's coming!" Sam breathed.
The blood on the floor swirled down and coruscating light poured up and- "Holy shit!"
"How do we- What do we-?"
Dean shielded his eyes. "I dunno, Sammy! That dick Zachariah said I was some kinda Chosen One, hell, Cas said I could stop-"
BRING FORTH THE CHOSEN ONE.
"Um, shit!"
Sam grabbed at Dean's jacket. "We have to stop this! This is all my fault, Dean!"
"Shut up, Sam, we-"
HM. NO ACOLYTES? NO SCURRYING MINIONS? IT MATTERS NOT. IF THE ONE WILL NOT BE BROUGHT, I SHALL TAKE HIM WHERE HE STANDS.
"Fuck it! RUN, SAMMY!!" Dean grabbed Sam's jacket in both hands and slung him towards the door.
Sam stumbled across the room but stopped and turned back. "No, Dean! Don't!"
"Don't look back Sammy!" Dean lowered his chin and moved closer to the deepening pit, addressing the light pouring out of it. "You want me, come and get me, you evil son of a bitch! Step on up and let's dance!"
Rich cackling erupted from the light.
WHY WOULD I WANT YOU?
Burning, diseased-looking light erupted from the gate, flew across the room to Sam, who was still standing half in the doorway.
"De-!" Sam said before the light struck him full in the chest, pinning him to the doorframe, arms splayed, transfixing him. His eyes and mouth flew open wide and the light surrounded him.
"Sammy! No!" Dean shrieked, taking a running step toward Sam, then finding himself halted in mid-stride. One of Sam's hands was aimed in Dean's general direction. A deep chuckling rose from Sam's throat even as the light poured into it, and Sam's eyes went vague with terror.
Unable to move, Dean swore, shouting, "Let him go! You let him go!"
The light swirled down into Sam and the room illumination reverted to flickering light from the few remaining lit candles. The gate sealed.
"SAM!" Dean howled.
"Ugh. Noisy." Sam made a pinching motion with his fingers and Dean's mouth snapped shut.
Sam tilted his head and pulled away from the wall, smiling and looking around. He looked back at Dean.
"Hardly worth the effort, is it? Earth." Sam kicked at the corpse of Ruby's former host. "Messy. It'll need some remodeling."
Dean struggled in the grip of the force holding him, eyes threatening things he couldn't begin to do.
Sam stepped closer to Dean, teeth flashing in a grin unlike any Dean had seen on his brother's face before. "I could squash you. Destroy you utterly, right now, right this second, Fate-boy. You're out from under your Keeper's eye."
Dean, growing pale from the effort of struggling against a titanic invisible force. Through his closed mouth he grunted, "Gh hme, sht-hd!"
Sam tipped his head back and laughed. "'Go home.' Cute."
Dean glared.
Sam took a slow walk around Dean, who followed his possessed brother's motion as best he coould, whites of his eyes showing as he tracked the slow movement. "I understand from the screamings of the human soul who lived in this body that I have you to thank for a great deal of its preparedness. Brother."
Dean roared, straining, trapped. "SMMY!"
"Yes, yes. He's in here. He'll be a fun toy for slow days. Won't be many of those, though, I expect. He says I should let you live." Sam stopped his circuit around Dean, stood in front of him, smirking. "He begs. Says he'll be quiet, cooperate, even help, if only I let you live."
"GNH! SM!"
"This amuses me. I think you will amuse me too. So," said Sam, face-to-face with Dean, "thank you."
The convent began to rumble. Dust sifted from the plaster overhead; a window shattered, sending shards of color to the blood-streaked floor.
Sam turned away, idly grabbing the knife from Ruby's corpse as he walked by and out the door, laughing. Dean continued to strain against the invisible force holding him immobile. Halfway down the hall Sam raised his hand and snapped his fingers, simultaneously releasing Dean and disappearing.
Dean shouted "SAM!" and ran towards the doorway.
That was when the convent collapsed.
- ~ -
Chuck stood side-by-side with Castiel, watching the archangel light build and brighten the room. Castiel's eyes were open wide against the glare, shoulders set and tense. Chuck could hear Castiel muttering something in an ethereal, echoing language and wasn't sure if it was some kind of angel spellwork or panicked swearing. The angel looked as terrified as a supposedly emotionless immortal creature could look.
Suddenly, the light and roaring outside was gone. Castiel stumbled forward a step, straining against a force that was suddenly absent.
"Wha-" Chuck said, looking between Castiel and the window. "Did you do it? Di- did you make it go away?"
"No."
Chuck glanced away from the window to Castiel. The angel stood beside Chuck's desk, leaning on it, looking disconcertingly like he was about to throw up.
"We were too late. Dean could not stop it. The Prophecy as foretold has come to pass. Lucifer has been freed."
Chuck sat suddenly. "Oh god."
"Armageddon has begun."
-
Dean woke to feel the rubble shifting above him. The door frame had kept him from being crushed outright, but his head hurt like a son of a bitch, and his right ankle was creaking under the weight of a section of wall. What happened? Where was he? And where was-
Dean's eyes snapped fully open.
Lucifer was free. Walking the earth. In Sam's body. Fuck his ankle.
"SAM!" Dean shouted.
A faint voice came from overhead. "...hear somethin'..."
"SAM?!" Dean shouted again, hoping wildly maybe that whole 'Lucifer-is-possessing-my-baby-brother' thing was a hallucination.
"...Dean?..." Didn't sound like Sam.
"Yeah! It's me!"
"...it's Dean! He's alive! Gun it!..."
Somewhere nearby an engine roared, and the pile of rubble shifted significantly, wooden beams and lintels pulled away. Light shone in on Dean, occluded almost immediately by a head and a trucker cap.
"Dean. Thank god! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."
"Bobby." Dean found it hard to breathe suddenly.
"Is Sam in this mess too?"
Dean shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"Where's Sam?"
"I- I..." Dean swallowed. I lost him. Lucifer got him. Oh God.
-
Without senses, Sam's world was darkness. Himself alone inside himself. But not alone, and not silent.
You said you'd let him live!
HE'LL LIVE. IT TAKES MORE THAN A COLLAPSING CHURCH TO KILL A COCKROACH.
He has to be alive, or I-
YOU WON'T COOPERATE? YOU'LL STRUGGLE? OH, PLEASE DO.
I'll-
YOU THINK FOR ONE OF YOUR POINTLESS, FLEETING SECONDS THAT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING TO STOP ME?
...I can try.
The voice modulated down from the soul-rattling boom to a moderate speaking tone. "I'm tempted to tell you he's dead, just to see what you'd 'try'. But he isn't. He's crawling out even now, lamenting his failure to save you. Again."
Sam seethed. Prove it. Prove he's alive. Let me see him.
"Maybe. If it amuses me. But... I control your access to your senses, Sam, all of them. You think I can't make you perceive anything it pleases me to make you perceive?"
Suddenly Sam had his senses back, vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, flooded with burning flesh and rotting blood and Dean, arms held wide by chains and being torn apart, screaming Sam's name.
No! Stop! The sensations snapped off and Sam's world was dark and quiet again. He wasn't sure who was controlling his stomach, but he felt like throwing up.
"You think I can't do anything I choose to do, to you, or to your brother? You were built for me. Trained. Azazel did a lovely job. You fit like a glove. A very roomy glove."
Sam didn't respond.
"Aw, done fighting already?"
For now.
"Good. Because your brother is still alive. It might still amuse me to find him and have you flay him to death, slowly."
No! Bodilessly, Sam shuddered. Please, no.
"Please. Interesting word. The full form of it would be 'if it pleases you'. You'll just have to ensure that it does please me to allow your brother to live."
...Yes.
"What's that?"
Yes. I will. I, I won't be a problem. Just let Dean live.
"Excellent."
-
"I lost him. Bobby," Dean gasped, trying to shift the rubble off his ankle. "Fuck! I lost Sam. Lucifer, he's out, and he's got Sam."
"Easy, boy," said Bobby, reaching into the rubble with both arms. "Grab my hands."
"Bobby, did you hear me? I said-"
"And I said grab my hands so we can pull your fool ass out of there," Bobby snapped.
Dean blinked. "We? Who's with you?"
"No one that needs to know," Bobby whispered.
"Why-"
"Much as I'd be willing to, I couldn't find you and dig you out from under the rubble under my own steam. I, uh. Had to call in a favor or two."
"Who? What do they know?"
"Nothing more than I can help. Now stop jawin' and grab my goddamn hands, boy!"
Dean gripped both of the older man's arms in his, hands clasping behind elbows. Looking up out of the gloom in the rubble, he met Bobby's eyes. "I'm gonna get him back, Bobby."
"One thing at a time, alright?" Bobby turned and called back over his shoulder. "Pull!"
Dean grunted as his trapped foot came out from under the pile of rubble, which began shifting, destabilizing. He planted his other foot on a more stable chunk and pushed up towards Bobby and the light.
"Get Bobby out of there! It's shifting again," called a male voice over the sound of an engine.
Whoever was pulling on Bobby kept pulling as Dean stumbled up and out over the rubble-pile, not letting go. Behind them, the pile creaked and collapsed into the space that had held Dean, sending up a cloud of dust.
Bobby pulled Dean into a hug. Dean wrapped his arms around Bobby and held on, eyes closed. He whispered, "Bastard took him over, Bobby. I couldn't- He-"
"I know, Dean," Bobby rumbled quietly, resting a hand on the back of Dean's head, another between his shoulders. The touch grounded Dean, kept him from losing it completely. "We'll talk, but not now."
"Is this a private hug or can anyone get in?" a throaty female voice said somewhere in front of Dean.
Dean opened his eyes to see a dirt-smudged and scratched woman, with a smile on her face, watching the two men hug.
"Ellen?"
"Come 'ere," she said, holding out her arms.
Bobby released Dean who stepped into Ellen's arms, accepting the hug, but not relaxing into it. He and Sam hadn't seen her for nearly two years. They'd known she was still around hunting, from second-hand reports from Bobby, but Dean wasn't sure where she stood on recent events in the Winchester family. On Sam.
He had to find Sam. He had to get Sam back.
The section of roof-beam held by the tow truck cable fell back with a crash as the truck's engine cut out. The door of the tow truck cab opened.
Dean startled away from Ellen and frowned at the older black man descending from the cab of the truck. Rufus.
"Is the hugging mandatory?" Rufus called across the rubble. "Because I don't think I'm comfortable with hugging the brother of the Anti-Christ."
"Rufus..." Bobby scowled, voice low and warning.
"I said I'd help, Bobby. Never said I'd keep my opinions to myself."
Dean pulled on Bobby's arm and hissed into his ear. "You asked Rufus to-"
Bobby's eyes slid to the ground before coming back up to meet Dean's "We've all made our deals with devils to save the people we love, Dean."
Dean's jaw clenched.
"Come on," said Ellen, looking between the men. "Let's get out of here."
-
Chuck peered out the window. It was past midnight and pitch black outside, except for one or two feebly flickering street-lights that had escaped the effects of the archangel's near-landing.
He turned to Castiel. "So, is he uh, gone for good? My archangel? Or-"
A spike of raw pain snapped through Chuck's head and down his spine, and he collapsed on the couch.
Sam, eyes glowing fire, laughing, Dean and others tracking him, chasing him, death and dying and pandemonium on earth and Dean raising a knife, a gun, a sword, a hand palm out against Sam and Sam screaming and screaming and screaming in the dark-
Chuck's eyes flew open to find Castiel less than a foot from his face, leaning over him, looking at him partly like Castiel was a robin and Chuck was a possibly-tasty possibly-poisonous bug, and partly like Chuck was Castiel's only hope of, of everything.
"Gah!" squawked Chuck.
"What did you see?" asked Castiel, intently.
"You! In my personal space!"
Castiel tilted his head. "I don't under-"
"Back off a sec, let me breathe! I have to process." Chuck sat up and put his head in his hands.
"This is a good sign," said Castiel, stepping away and looking toward the window.
"How is any of this good?" said Chuck, rubbing his temples.
"You are still receiving the Word. It means that Armageddon has started, but the story has not ended. There is hope."
"I wouldn't call it that."
"It also means that you should still be protected."
"Great. So the archangel's coming back? Or is it still there?"
"I don't know. I'm not 'in the loop' anymore."
Chuck swallowed, flicking his eyes towards the angel. "Wow. I didn't see that coming."
"Neither did I." Castiel turned to meet Chuck's gaze. "What did you see?"
Chuck looked down at the floor and drew a shuddering breath. "You aren't gonna like it."
-
It was like the old riddle about carrying foxes and hens and grain across a river in a boat. Ruby's Mustang was mashed flat by the collapse of the convent. Ellen had brought her car, Bobby and Rufus had come in the tow truck. They were all going back to Bobby's to regroup, but Rufus wouldn't ride with Dean, and the feeling was mutual. Dean didn't want Rufus riding with Ellen in case he used the trip to turn her against Sam, assuming she wasn't already, which left Bobby and Rufus in the tow truck, and Dean riding with Ellen.
There was a fragrant pouch of protective herbs hanging from her cigarette lighter. Dean watched the road roll by outside, tense.
That familiar crushing, queasy feeling had settled in, like his guts were full of engine grease. Sammy was gone, and Dean had no idea where he was or how to get him back. Something bad had him, something that was pretty much the definition of 'evil'. It was like Cold Oaks all over again, only a million times worse. Lucifer had taken Dean's little brother for a joyride. He wanted to puke.
"So," said Ellen, breaking the extended silence. "Are you gonna talk to me or do I have to put on my Yanni tapes."
Dean grimaced. "You listen to Yanni?"
"No, but it got you talking. What the hell's going on, Dean?"
Dean hesitated. "What have you heard?"
"I know what I've heard. I want to hear it from you."
He turned to face Ellen. Her chin was tipped down and her eyes were on the road. He looked away again. "It's a fam-"
"If you tell me this is a goddamned family thing, Dean Winchester, so help me, I will put this car in the ditch. Talk to me."
"I can't, Ellen. There's a lot-"
Ellen swerved. Dean thought for a second she actually was going to put the thing into the ditch, but she ran it onto the shoulder, throwing the car into park and turning towards Dean.
"You think I'd have dropped everything to come help dig your sorry ass out of a collapsed convent if I didn't care about you? You and your brother?"
Dean's jaw clenched. "Rufus did."
Ellen snorted. "Rufus is doing it for free pick of ten books out of Bobby's collection."
"What?"
"Any ten. No restrictions. Bobby's promised him that for his help."
Dean's head swam. "Bobby couldn't have got someone else to drive his tow truck?"
"You think that's all he brought Rufus in for? You disappeared out from in front of Bobby. Nobody knows half of what Bobby's got on that place for wards, and for you to disappear like that... We had to find you. He called me right away. Bobby's-" she raised her elbow in the air and pointed towards the ground, wiggling her finger around like the device Bobby had used to locate Lillith last year "-thing couldn't find you, and it started to smoke when we tried to find Sam."
Dean's eyebrow raised and he shook his head. Ruby and her hex bags.
"We went to the next logical thing and looked for demonic-omen central, which under the circumstances was a lot harder than it used to be. With the seals breaking, demonic activity is off the charts globally, never mind localizing it within the lower 48 states. They're rattling all the Gates, everywhere."
"Bobby knows about demonic omens though. Why'd he need Rufus?"
"Rufus has a few tricks Bobby doesn't know, so he called him in. And it worked 'cause we found you. Now spill."
Dean looked over at Ellen. She looked back, about the same as when he'd last seen her outside that graveyard in Wyoming. Maybe harder, maybe a couple threads of grey. What had she been doing since then? And why...
Dean set his jaw. "You never called us, Ellen. Not once. For two years. If you were that interested in me and Sam, you could have called."
Ellen's expression went hard for a moment, before her eyes dropped from Dean's and she turned back to the steering wheel.
"You boys could've called me too." She re-started the car. "I'm not the one who dropped off the face of the earth."
Dean shot Ellen a glance, but she was too-casually shoulder-checking and easing back onto the road.
I need to talk to Bobby.
- ~ -
(Possibly to be continued, maybe. There's one more section I hope to have up before the premiere, but it's not looking at all likely now. Since I'm at work. :-P)
ETA: Continued here
Title: And I Heard The Thunder Rolling In (1/Maybe?????)
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR 4.22 Contains speculation-as-fic. No spoilers have influenced the writing of this at all. Open-ended. Might not be continued once the season starts airing and this no doubt goes way AU, but we'll see.
Rating: GEN, PG-13 (Some R-rated language, because under the circumstances, 'crap' seems a ludicrously under-powered epithet)
Word Count: 3000
Disclaimer: Sam, Dean and their friends, enemies and world belong to Eric Kripke. Although the Bible had some of them first.
Characters: Many. Sam, Dean, Castiel, Chuck, Bobby, and assorted others on both sides.
Summary: Do I think this is how Season five will start? Hell no. If anything turns out to be right, I'll be more stunned than anyone.
(A/N after cut 'coz it's biggish)
A/N The prologue was written within 2 hours of 4.22 airing. Force Nine plot bunny. Part One was mostly written the next day, then the rest in bits and pieces, then it stalled for a long while, and now I'm trying to push it through so it's up before it gets entirely Kripked. I'll tell you right now, even after it's 'done' this will be open-ended. May have one, possibly two more parts, or this might be all there is. No promises. Subject to retroactive editing as I'm posting from work. Title from Chris deBurgh's "The Vision" [LJ-only for now]
-
And I Heard The Thunder Rolling In
by CaffieneKitty
-
St. Mary's Ilchester, Maryland. 1972
"What do you mean? What child?
You will find a special child. One that will be prepared, one who will open the final seal.
"A human."
Yes. Born human, but marked, and trained. Prepared.
"Prepared to open the final seal?"
And for what comes after. Prepared to be my vessel.
"Ah. Yes, well of course. Custom-tailored, not any old thing off the rack."
Indeed.
"It will be done, Father."
-
Apocalypse, Year 1, Day 1. Thursday.
The convent shook.
"He's coming!" Sam breathed.
The blood on the floor swirled down and coruscating light poured up and- "Holy shit!"
"How do we- What do we-?"
Dean shielded his eyes. "I dunno, Sammy! That dick Zachariah said I was some kinda Chosen One, hell, Cas said I could stop-"
BRING FORTH THE CHOSEN ONE.
"Um, shit!"
Sam grabbed at Dean's jacket. "We have to stop this! This is all my fault, Dean!"
"Shut up, Sam, we-"
HM. NO ACOLYTES? NO SCURRYING MINIONS? IT MATTERS NOT. IF THE ONE WILL NOT BE BROUGHT, I SHALL TAKE HIM WHERE HE STANDS.
"Fuck it! RUN, SAMMY!!" Dean grabbed Sam's jacket in both hands and slung him towards the door.
Sam stumbled across the room but stopped and turned back. "No, Dean! Don't!"
"Don't look back Sammy!" Dean lowered his chin and moved closer to the deepening pit, addressing the light pouring out of it. "You want me, come and get me, you evil son of a bitch! Step on up and let's dance!"
Rich cackling erupted from the light.
WHY WOULD I WANT YOU?
Burning, diseased-looking light erupted from the gate, flew across the room to Sam, who was still standing half in the doorway.
"De-!" Sam said before the light struck him full in the chest, pinning him to the doorframe, arms splayed, transfixing him. His eyes and mouth flew open wide and the light surrounded him.
"Sammy! No!" Dean shrieked, taking a running step toward Sam, then finding himself halted in mid-stride. One of Sam's hands was aimed in Dean's general direction. A deep chuckling rose from Sam's throat even as the light poured into it, and Sam's eyes went vague with terror.
Unable to move, Dean swore, shouting, "Let him go! You let him go!"
The light swirled down into Sam and the room illumination reverted to flickering light from the few remaining lit candles. The gate sealed.
"SAM!" Dean howled.
"Ugh. Noisy." Sam made a pinching motion with his fingers and Dean's mouth snapped shut.
Sam tilted his head and pulled away from the wall, smiling and looking around. He looked back at Dean.
"Hardly worth the effort, is it? Earth." Sam kicked at the corpse of Ruby's former host. "Messy. It'll need some remodeling."
Dean struggled in the grip of the force holding him, eyes threatening things he couldn't begin to do.
Sam stepped closer to Dean, teeth flashing in a grin unlike any Dean had seen on his brother's face before. "I could squash you. Destroy you utterly, right now, right this second, Fate-boy. You're out from under your Keeper's eye."
Dean, growing pale from the effort of struggling against a titanic invisible force. Through his closed mouth he grunted, "Gh hme, sht-hd!"
Sam tipped his head back and laughed. "'Go home.' Cute."
Dean glared.
Sam took a slow walk around Dean, who followed his possessed brother's motion as best he coould, whites of his eyes showing as he tracked the slow movement. "I understand from the screamings of the human soul who lived in this body that I have you to thank for a great deal of its preparedness. Brother."
Dean roared, straining, trapped. "SMMY!"
"Yes, yes. He's in here. He'll be a fun toy for slow days. Won't be many of those, though, I expect. He says I should let you live." Sam stopped his circuit around Dean, stood in front of him, smirking. "He begs. Says he'll be quiet, cooperate, even help, if only I let you live."
"GNH! SM!"
"This amuses me. I think you will amuse me too. So," said Sam, face-to-face with Dean, "thank you."
The convent began to rumble. Dust sifted from the plaster overhead; a window shattered, sending shards of color to the blood-streaked floor.
Sam turned away, idly grabbing the knife from Ruby's corpse as he walked by and out the door, laughing. Dean continued to strain against the invisible force holding him immobile. Halfway down the hall Sam raised his hand and snapped his fingers, simultaneously releasing Dean and disappearing.
Dean shouted "SAM!" and ran towards the doorway.
That was when the convent collapsed.
- ~ -
Chuck stood side-by-side with Castiel, watching the archangel light build and brighten the room. Castiel's eyes were open wide against the glare, shoulders set and tense. Chuck could hear Castiel muttering something in an ethereal, echoing language and wasn't sure if it was some kind of angel spellwork or panicked swearing. The angel looked as terrified as a supposedly emotionless immortal creature could look.
Suddenly, the light and roaring outside was gone. Castiel stumbled forward a step, straining against a force that was suddenly absent.
"Wha-" Chuck said, looking between Castiel and the window. "Did you do it? Di- did you make it go away?"
"No."
Chuck glanced away from the window to Castiel. The angel stood beside Chuck's desk, leaning on it, looking disconcertingly like he was about to throw up.
"We were too late. Dean could not stop it. The Prophecy as foretold has come to pass. Lucifer has been freed."
Chuck sat suddenly. "Oh god."
"Armageddon has begun."
-
Dean woke to feel the rubble shifting above him. The door frame had kept him from being crushed outright, but his head hurt like a son of a bitch, and his right ankle was creaking under the weight of a section of wall. What happened? Where was he? And where was-
Dean's eyes snapped fully open.
Lucifer was free. Walking the earth. In Sam's body. Fuck his ankle.
"SAM!" Dean shouted.
A faint voice came from overhead. "...hear somethin'..."
"SAM?!" Dean shouted again, hoping wildly maybe that whole 'Lucifer-is-possessing-my-baby-brother' thing was a hallucination.
"...Dean?..." Didn't sound like Sam.
"Yeah! It's me!"
"...it's Dean! He's alive! Gun it!..."
Somewhere nearby an engine roared, and the pile of rubble shifted significantly, wooden beams and lintels pulled away. Light shone in on Dean, occluded almost immediately by a head and a trucker cap.
"Dean. Thank god! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."
"Bobby." Dean found it hard to breathe suddenly.
"Is Sam in this mess too?"
Dean shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"Where's Sam?"
"I- I..." Dean swallowed. I lost him. Lucifer got him. Oh God.
-
Without senses, Sam's world was darkness. Himself alone inside himself. But not alone, and not silent.
You said you'd let him live!
HE'LL LIVE. IT TAKES MORE THAN A COLLAPSING CHURCH TO KILL A COCKROACH.
He has to be alive, or I-
YOU WON'T COOPERATE? YOU'LL STRUGGLE? OH, PLEASE DO.
I'll-
YOU THINK FOR ONE OF YOUR POINTLESS, FLEETING SECONDS THAT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING TO STOP ME?
...I can try.
The voice modulated down from the soul-rattling boom to a moderate speaking tone. "I'm tempted to tell you he's dead, just to see what you'd 'try'. But he isn't. He's crawling out even now, lamenting his failure to save you. Again."
Sam seethed. Prove it. Prove he's alive. Let me see him.
"Maybe. If it amuses me. But... I control your access to your senses, Sam, all of them. You think I can't make you perceive anything it pleases me to make you perceive?"
Suddenly Sam had his senses back, vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, flooded with burning flesh and rotting blood and Dean, arms held wide by chains and being torn apart, screaming Sam's name.
No! Stop! The sensations snapped off and Sam's world was dark and quiet again. He wasn't sure who was controlling his stomach, but he felt like throwing up.
"You think I can't do anything I choose to do, to you, or to your brother? You were built for me. Trained. Azazel did a lovely job. You fit like a glove. A very roomy glove."
Sam didn't respond.
"Aw, done fighting already?"
For now.
"Good. Because your brother is still alive. It might still amuse me to find him and have you flay him to death, slowly."
No! Bodilessly, Sam shuddered. Please, no.
"Please. Interesting word. The full form of it would be 'if it pleases you'. You'll just have to ensure that it does please me to allow your brother to live."
...Yes.
"What's that?"
Yes. I will. I, I won't be a problem. Just let Dean live.
"Excellent."
-
"I lost him. Bobby," Dean gasped, trying to shift the rubble off his ankle. "Fuck! I lost Sam. Lucifer, he's out, and he's got Sam."
"Easy, boy," said Bobby, reaching into the rubble with both arms. "Grab my hands."
"Bobby, did you hear me? I said-"
"And I said grab my hands so we can pull your fool ass out of there," Bobby snapped.
Dean blinked. "We? Who's with you?"
"No one that needs to know," Bobby whispered.
"Why-"
"Much as I'd be willing to, I couldn't find you and dig you out from under the rubble under my own steam. I, uh. Had to call in a favor or two."
"Who? What do they know?"
"Nothing more than I can help. Now stop jawin' and grab my goddamn hands, boy!"
Dean gripped both of the older man's arms in his, hands clasping behind elbows. Looking up out of the gloom in the rubble, he met Bobby's eyes. "I'm gonna get him back, Bobby."
"One thing at a time, alright?" Bobby turned and called back over his shoulder. "Pull!"
Dean grunted as his trapped foot came out from under the pile of rubble, which began shifting, destabilizing. He planted his other foot on a more stable chunk and pushed up towards Bobby and the light.
"Get Bobby out of there! It's shifting again," called a male voice over the sound of an engine.
Whoever was pulling on Bobby kept pulling as Dean stumbled up and out over the rubble-pile, not letting go. Behind them, the pile creaked and collapsed into the space that had held Dean, sending up a cloud of dust.
Bobby pulled Dean into a hug. Dean wrapped his arms around Bobby and held on, eyes closed. He whispered, "Bastard took him over, Bobby. I couldn't- He-"
"I know, Dean," Bobby rumbled quietly, resting a hand on the back of Dean's head, another between his shoulders. The touch grounded Dean, kept him from losing it completely. "We'll talk, but not now."
"Is this a private hug or can anyone get in?" a throaty female voice said somewhere in front of Dean.
Dean opened his eyes to see a dirt-smudged and scratched woman, with a smile on her face, watching the two men hug.
"Ellen?"
"Come 'ere," she said, holding out her arms.
Bobby released Dean who stepped into Ellen's arms, accepting the hug, but not relaxing into it. He and Sam hadn't seen her for nearly two years. They'd known she was still around hunting, from second-hand reports from Bobby, but Dean wasn't sure where she stood on recent events in the Winchester family. On Sam.
He had to find Sam. He had to get Sam back.
The section of roof-beam held by the tow truck cable fell back with a crash as the truck's engine cut out. The door of the tow truck cab opened.
Dean startled away from Ellen and frowned at the older black man descending from the cab of the truck. Rufus.
"Is the hugging mandatory?" Rufus called across the rubble. "Because I don't think I'm comfortable with hugging the brother of the Anti-Christ."
"Rufus..." Bobby scowled, voice low and warning.
"I said I'd help, Bobby. Never said I'd keep my opinions to myself."
Dean pulled on Bobby's arm and hissed into his ear. "You asked Rufus to-"
Bobby's eyes slid to the ground before coming back up to meet Dean's "We've all made our deals with devils to save the people we love, Dean."
Dean's jaw clenched.
"Come on," said Ellen, looking between the men. "Let's get out of here."
-
Chuck peered out the window. It was past midnight and pitch black outside, except for one or two feebly flickering street-lights that had escaped the effects of the archangel's near-landing.
He turned to Castiel. "So, is he uh, gone for good? My archangel? Or-"
A spike of raw pain snapped through Chuck's head and down his spine, and he collapsed on the couch.
Sam, eyes glowing fire, laughing, Dean and others tracking him, chasing him, death and dying and pandemonium on earth and Dean raising a knife, a gun, a sword, a hand palm out against Sam and Sam screaming and screaming and screaming in the dark-
Chuck's eyes flew open to find Castiel less than a foot from his face, leaning over him, looking at him partly like Castiel was a robin and Chuck was a possibly-tasty possibly-poisonous bug, and partly like Chuck was Castiel's only hope of, of everything.
"Gah!" squawked Chuck.
"What did you see?" asked Castiel, intently.
"You! In my personal space!"
Castiel tilted his head. "I don't under-"
"Back off a sec, let me breathe! I have to process." Chuck sat up and put his head in his hands.
"This is a good sign," said Castiel, stepping away and looking toward the window.
"How is any of this good?" said Chuck, rubbing his temples.
"You are still receiving the Word. It means that Armageddon has started, but the story has not ended. There is hope."
"I wouldn't call it that."
"It also means that you should still be protected."
"Great. So the archangel's coming back? Or is it still there?"
"I don't know. I'm not 'in the loop' anymore."
Chuck swallowed, flicking his eyes towards the angel. "Wow. I didn't see that coming."
"Neither did I." Castiel turned to meet Chuck's gaze. "What did you see?"
Chuck looked down at the floor and drew a shuddering breath. "You aren't gonna like it."
-
It was like the old riddle about carrying foxes and hens and grain across a river in a boat. Ruby's Mustang was mashed flat by the collapse of the convent. Ellen had brought her car, Bobby and Rufus had come in the tow truck. They were all going back to Bobby's to regroup, but Rufus wouldn't ride with Dean, and the feeling was mutual. Dean didn't want Rufus riding with Ellen in case he used the trip to turn her against Sam, assuming she wasn't already, which left Bobby and Rufus in the tow truck, and Dean riding with Ellen.
There was a fragrant pouch of protective herbs hanging from her cigarette lighter. Dean watched the road roll by outside, tense.
That familiar crushing, queasy feeling had settled in, like his guts were full of engine grease. Sammy was gone, and Dean had no idea where he was or how to get him back. Something bad had him, something that was pretty much the definition of 'evil'. It was like Cold Oaks all over again, only a million times worse. Lucifer had taken Dean's little brother for a joyride. He wanted to puke.
"So," said Ellen, breaking the extended silence. "Are you gonna talk to me or do I have to put on my Yanni tapes."
Dean grimaced. "You listen to Yanni?"
"No, but it got you talking. What the hell's going on, Dean?"
Dean hesitated. "What have you heard?"
"I know what I've heard. I want to hear it from you."
He turned to face Ellen. Her chin was tipped down and her eyes were on the road. He looked away again. "It's a fam-"
"If you tell me this is a goddamned family thing, Dean Winchester, so help me, I will put this car in the ditch. Talk to me."
"I can't, Ellen. There's a lot-"
Ellen swerved. Dean thought for a second she actually was going to put the thing into the ditch, but she ran it onto the shoulder, throwing the car into park and turning towards Dean.
"You think I'd have dropped everything to come help dig your sorry ass out of a collapsed convent if I didn't care about you? You and your brother?"
Dean's jaw clenched. "Rufus did."
Ellen snorted. "Rufus is doing it for free pick of ten books out of Bobby's collection."
"What?"
"Any ten. No restrictions. Bobby's promised him that for his help."
Dean's head swam. "Bobby couldn't have got someone else to drive his tow truck?"
"You think that's all he brought Rufus in for? You disappeared out from in front of Bobby. Nobody knows half of what Bobby's got on that place for wards, and for you to disappear like that... We had to find you. He called me right away. Bobby's-" she raised her elbow in the air and pointed towards the ground, wiggling her finger around like the device Bobby had used to locate Lillith last year "-thing couldn't find you, and it started to smoke when we tried to find Sam."
Dean's eyebrow raised and he shook his head. Ruby and her hex bags.
"We went to the next logical thing and looked for demonic-omen central, which under the circumstances was a lot harder than it used to be. With the seals breaking, demonic activity is off the charts globally, never mind localizing it within the lower 48 states. They're rattling all the Gates, everywhere."
"Bobby knows about demonic omens though. Why'd he need Rufus?"
"Rufus has a few tricks Bobby doesn't know, so he called him in. And it worked 'cause we found you. Now spill."
Dean looked over at Ellen. She looked back, about the same as when he'd last seen her outside that graveyard in Wyoming. Maybe harder, maybe a couple threads of grey. What had she been doing since then? And why...
Dean set his jaw. "You never called us, Ellen. Not once. For two years. If you were that interested in me and Sam, you could have called."
Ellen's expression went hard for a moment, before her eyes dropped from Dean's and she turned back to the steering wheel.
"You boys could've called me too." She re-started the car. "I'm not the one who dropped off the face of the earth."
Dean shot Ellen a glance, but she was too-casually shoulder-checking and easing back onto the road.
I need to talk to Bobby.
- ~ -
(Possibly to be continued, maybe. There's one more section I hope to have up before the premiere, but it's not looking at all likely now. Since I'm at work. :-P)
ETA: Continued here