Fic: Last One Out Hits The Lights 4/4
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4
The first night they sleep in the hospital of a deserted town, camped out in the doctor's lounge while Castiel watches for danger. Watches over them while they sleep. Though Dean thinks he gets maybe half an hour of real sleep. The rest of it is just blood and horror. The way the world smells now. It's too damn close to hell for comfort.
The second night they don't find anywhere safe. So Dean's left driving on the adrenaline from the day before. There's death all along the roads, dead stumbling in the dark, wavering into the high beams with mindless intent. The damn things nearly make him crash the car twice, clumped together on bends and under the wet overhang of trees. He hasn't had to concentrate so fucking hard for years. Sam and Castiel don't say a damn word about the speed for a change. Nor about the wet crunching thud of bodies under tyres.
The third night they end up in a nondescript house sixty miles outside the city. They don't turn on any lights, they only eat the food in tins. They make the house safe, make it somewhere they can get out of, or hold if absolutely necessary.
Dean agrees to watch first, agrees to stare out of the window into the dark with Cas. He spends what feels like hours passed in silence, with the angel so close he could stretch his fingers out and touch him. Dean doesn't back away, doesn't try and find his own space again.
He thinks maybe for a while Cas wants to talk, wants to ask him questions but isn't sure how. Dean wants to tell him it's ok, that he can ask him anything, and he'll at least try to answer. Because if not now, then when? But Dean doesn't know how to tell him that. They're still too new, too strange. It all feels like the beginning but it's too close to what feels like the end. Like they don't have time to be anything.
To be anything but what they are, whatever the hell that is, as hard as they can.
Dean's just not any good at it.
He rubs tiredness out of his eyes and draws in a slow breath.
"You should sleep. I can keep watch." Castiel's voice is soft.
Dean shakes his head.
"I don't need to sleep."
"You don't want to dream," Castiel says quietly.
Dean winces.
"I've had more bad dreams than good," he admits. "People don't really get a lot of choice about what they dream. It's when your brain chooses to stab you where you're vulnerable." He grits his teeth a little on the words, because he doesn't like admitting to things. He doesn't like that brief moment where he's shown too much, given too much. He shakes his head and frowns out of the window rather than look at Castiel.
God, he knows Cas won't judge him but sometimes he thinks maybe he should be judged, should be looked at like Castiel thinks he can be better than that, and he hates it.
Because he never wants Castiel to look at him like that.
Ever.
Castiel's fingertips touch the back of his hand.
"I wouldn't leave," Castiel assures. "I'm here for as long as you need me. As long as I'm able."
Dean shifts his own hand and very slowly the touch becomes a hold, Dean's fingers slipping past Castiel's and sliding over his knuckles. Until their hands are curled together.
Castiel's fingers are warm, the press of his palm strangely intimate. Dean doesn't hold hands, he just doesn't, and yet he can't make himself pull away. Can't untangle himself from the softness of Castiel's skin, from the way it feels like he's holding more of Dean than his hand. He feels like Castiel is holding him up and for the life of him he can't let go of that.
He knows Castiel would let him, he'd let Dean slip his hand free without protest. But instead Dean stares out of the window and squeezes, as hard as he can, and says nothing.
Until Sam stumbles down the stairs, hair a wreck, but he's awake, miserably awake, and he gives Dean a sharp nod. Pretends he doesn't see their hands a fraction too close, fingers still touching.
"I told Bobby I'd take his shift."
Dean grunts.
"I'll bet he was happy about that."
Sam rubs his eyes.
"He's got his books open. I don't think he's been to sleep."
Dean barely remembers heading upstairs, finding the master bedroom, the sheets still slightly warm and untidy. His bag is dumped at the foot.
He kicks off his boots and jeans, then sits on the edge, rubs tired hands over his face.
"Cas," he says into the dark, just loud enough that he can hear his own voice.
There's the soft, familiar sound of wings and Castiel is standing just inside the door.
Dean takes a breath, because he hadn't been entirely sure that would work, that he'd come, and now he's not even sure how to ask.
"You want to stay for a while?" he says quietly. He thinks maybe he sounds just a little bit desperate. But Castiel reaches out, like he can't help himself now he's been given permission. He touches him. Dean lets Castiel draw him to his feet. Castiel, in turn, lets Dean strip his clothes free in slow tired movements, until he's soft and slender and strangely more naked than he should be. In a way Dean thinks he could get used to, more than get used to, hands catching his waist and pulling him in, pulling him down.
Castiel's uncertain for a moment. He's obviously expecting Dean to want, expecting his touches to be firm and needy. But Dean murmurs that that's not what he wants, that's not what he's asking for.
Castiel's warm and he's soft and real and Dean stretches him out on the bed. His skin jumps under Dean's hand when he settles it awkwardly on his stomach.
"If I die tomorrow get the hell off of this rock," Dean murmurs into Castiel's hair.
Castiel stiffens.
"Dean -"
"I don't want you to be here." Dean says without looking at him. "You should go back, be somewhere you belong, somewhere you're safe."
"I don't belong there," Castiel says quietly. As if Dean should know better. "And nothing you say will convince me otherwise."
"You're a stubborn son of a bitch."
"I have had to learn how to be." Castiel's fingers touch his hand, cautiously, like he's testing whether it's something Dean will allow.
Dean catches his fingers before he can drag them away. Castiel sighs something that sounds a lot like surrender, but doesn't say yes, doesn't promise him anything.
Dean breathes into the silence and gives up on the world for a while.
~~~~~
There's only three living people in the city of Detroit, and they're waiting at the main street intersection when they get there.
"'Bout time you boys got here," Ellen says. She sounds more than relieved to see them. Rufus is behind her and Jo's at her side. Jo has blood spatters in her hair and Rufus jacket is torn but they're still standing, still breathing and that's good enough.
"It's good to see you," Dean tells her and he means it, he really means it.
Dean grips Chuck's shoulder and swivels him round.
"Is that the building you saw?" he asks him.
The view across the city is cut through with a handful of office buildings, the tallest of which looks a hell of a lot like Chuck's hasty sketch.
Chuck nods.
"Yeah, only it's less torn apart than it was in my vision, and the sky was kind of broken, sort of bleeding death everywhere. So, yeah, that was it, and I'm really glad it's not doing that, by the way."
Sam smacks him on the shoulder. Because, yeah, Chuck did good.
"Is that where we're going?" Bobby asks.
Dean nods, jerks the bag he's holding open, guns on display for anyone that wants more. "That's where the world ends."
They walk through the streets. They can hear the dead but they haven't seen any of them yet, haven't caught so much as a glimpse from a side alley or sight of a shape in a doorway. But the zombies get louder the closer they get. The sun gets lost behind the buildings leaving them in the chill dimness of the city.
"I'm telling you, I've seen the way this turns out," Chuck says roughly. "It's not pretty, it's not, and I'm really not happy about being at ground zero when it all kicks off, really not -"
Dean grabs Chuck's arm and drags him back, hushes him silent. Because they can see the building's base now. They're all looking across at where the street in front of the building is choked with the dead. They're pressed in together almost too tight to move, shambling and clawing at the building's rough edges. Pressing into it in waves. The long endless chorus of moans sounding like desperation.
"We have to get in there?" Ellen asks flatly. Like the idea is ludicrous. Like they're going to be crazy to even try.
"We have to get in." Dean knows he doesn't sound happy about it. Hell he wasn't expecting it to be easy but this is something else.
"It looks like they all want to get in too." The quiet creak of the shotgun under Jo's fingers is the only sign that she's not exactly happy about the direction they're heading.
"I'm fairly sure that letting them would be bad," Sam decides. Which makes Dean snort because Sam has to be the voice of doom when Cas is busy.
He's currently busy standing very still and watching the building.
"There are no wards on the building," Castiel sounds curious.
Dean eyeballs him. "What does that mean?"
"Perhaps that they see no reason to hide their efforts to tear their way into the world anymore."
"Yeah, maybe they don't think there's anyone left to stop them," Ellen says quietly.
"Is it really that bad?" Sam asks her
Ellen's mouth goes fine and tight.
"Every city we've been through has been a mess. The military's trying to keep some of the big cities safe."
"That's going about as well as can be expected," Rufus says harshly.
Ellen snorts something disgusted.
"Pretty much anything else, you could teach people a few basic safety precautions to protect themselves. But the walking dead are just that. Not to mention the fact that the damn things are contagious."
"So, how do we get in?" Jo asks, with a sharp nod for the building.
She's right.
"There must be a way in the back, we could follow the alley round, or, if we had to, get in through the building next door," Sam offers.
Dean nods.
"Sounds like a plan." Dean pulls his gun out of his jeans. "Me and Cas will check the building next door. Sam, you and Chuck check round the back of the building."
Chuck doesn't look happy about it, but he folds his arms and nods when Sam gives him a look.
"Bobby, Ellen, Jo and Rufus, work your way round to the alley at the side, keep an eye on our friends. Make sure they don't get curious. If we find something, we'll be coming out that way. But y'know, if you hear us being eaten...."
"Don't say that," Chuck says weakly. "God, I'm already not liking this plan."
Sam smacks Chuck on the back and he groans but starts moving without Sam having to push.
~~~~~
It takes them longer to loop round the back than Sam thought it would. He's giving the dead a wide berth. He's still not sure how far away they need to be before they can smell you, or maybe hear you. No one's quite sure how it works. They end up in an alley two buildings down, quiet, nothing moving but trash in the wind. Chuck's muttering quietly under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like cynical ramblings about how he should have stayed at home and died of alcohol poisoning. Sam doesn't like the alleys between the buildings. They're too narrow and too high. There's almost no way out except the way they've come or the tangled mess of more alleys and trash that lead all the way round. It's a damn good place for an ambush, or for someone to just get cut off by a mess of the walking dead.
He doesn't see the dead woman until it's too late. She falls on him, hands clawing for his face. He doesn't have time to do anything but react. He grabs for her neck, gets his fingers round it just in time. But the dry clack of her teeth snapping together is still far too close and he's falling back under her weight, hitting the ground, gun clattering out of his jeans and across the ground.
Sam ends up on his back, one hand wrapped round the dead woman's throat, the other tangled in her hair, while her teeth strain for his forearm. She's strong, horribly, unnaturally strong. Hell she's strong enough that she's winning, dead fingers digging into his arm and cheek hard enough to draw blood.
He's trying to get a knee up to kick her in the stomach but she's too small, too high and he doesn't have any hands left to get her away.
Another half a minute and she's going to tear her way through to the tendons and he won't have any power left to grip her with.
Someone slams a gun barrel against the side of her head and pulls the trigger.
The shot throws her off his body, taking her into the ground with a thud, arms flung out, fluid draining out of the large hole in her head and staining the ground brown. Sam breathes relief for a second and then tips his head back.
Chuck's holding the gun.
He looks more than a little horrified.
Sam looks from the gun to the zombie corpse on the grass.
"Thanks, Chuck," he says quietly, though his voice is all edges of quiet disbelief.
"No problem," Chuck says thinly. He looks like he's going to be sick. But then, abruptly, he makes a quiet noise of distress. "Can you please take the gun now?"
Sam very carefully eases it out of his hand and Chuck lets it go like he's not entirely sure it won't shoot him back. If nothing else, the noise has torn through the city loud enough for the dead to decide something interesting is happening. Sam's fairly sure their way out is going to be closed up before they get there.
"Change of plans," Sam tells him, getting to his feet and catching Chuck's jacket. "We're meeting Dean and Cas round the other side.
The zombies are coming around from the front of the building too. Sam can hear the crashing, sliding thud of feet, and hands pushing masonry and steel out of the way.
"Remember when you promised I wouldn't be eaten by zombies," Chuck reminds him tartly.
"I'm working on it," Sam tells him.
They end up somewhere behind the original building, skidding on wet cardboard, working their way round, trying to find a way in, or through. One of the solid doors to the left of them shudders its way open, too damn close and Sam gets hit by the edge of it. He kills the zombie that almost falls out, then one behind it. They yawn out of the dark gap, a handful in ripped office clothing, thin and slow but desperate. They fall over the bodies in front of them, crawling across the ground, fingers scraping at Sam's boots. He kicks out, catches one in the face and sends her sprawling.
Chuck's fingers dig in the back of his jacket, tug on the material.
"Sam."
"I know," he points out.
"No, Sam," Chuck says fiercely and tugs hard. Sam steps back on instinct.
A zombie hits the ground right in front of him.
"What the -"
He looks up. Some of the smashed windows up above are full of the dead. They're clawing to get out, to take the easiest, the fastest way to him. Another smashes into the ground and immediately starts crawling in their direction. Then another, two in quick succession, surrounding them in a messy ring. Most of them can't get up. One is struggling awkwardly to its feet on what looks like one broken leg. But they don't need to be standing to be dangerous.
"Sam."
God, this is insane.
"Keep moving."
"Where?" Chuck insists, voice thready with panic.
Sam looks up the alley and finds it sprinkled with more of the fallen dead, all of them moving on arms and damaged legs, clawing their way along the ground towards them. Chuck's making soft noises that aren't even words - and then one falls close enough to hit them. Sam goes down, hits the ground again, and judging by the unhappy shout and the fact that he lands on something soft he's just crushed Chuck. At least this time he has a gun. The dead man is already dragging himself close, opening his mouth. But someone else takes him out. His head jerks under the impact and then he crumples inelegantly into Sam's lap.
Dean's shouting, and Sam can hear the thud of boots and then he's being hauled upright by hands, he doesn’t even know whose, and they're all running, crashing through the alley, smashing aside boxes and pallets and bags of trash. The dead going down before they reach them.
"Change of plans, run like hell," Dean hisses in his ear.
Someone catches his shirt, Ellen he thinks, yanking him to a stop and then there's a gun over his shoulder. The white face that was crawling out of the next alley smacks into the ground with a hard spatter of brown brain matter.
Sam reminds himself, fiercely, to keep his damn eyes open.
Dean skids on a wet piece of metal, but Castiel doesn't let him go down, keeps pulling. There are too many dead behind them, too many above them, there are just too many and the back of this building should have a fire escape but Sam can't find one, can't see one anywhere.
"Dean," Castiel says suddenly, sharply, and Sam realises before he looks up that they're at the back of the building they want. The security doors are chained up tight. This is a shitty place to hold. The entrance to the street, to the left, fifty feet away, is a mess of walking dead. To the right is a chain link fence. The wall behind them is at least ten feet high and they might be able to scramble over it, but that isn’t the way they need to go. They need to get inside. But the zombies are too close behind them, and there's no way Sam wants zombies following them into the narrow confusing corridors of an office building.
Dean takes out two zombies the moment they appear round the corner. Sam puts down the two that come in behind.
Then they shamble round in a mass and everyone's shooting at once. Ellen switches from shotgun to handguns and Chuck reloads every time Dean or Sam dumps a gun into his hands. The more they shoot the more stumble into the alleyway behind them. Crawling round from the front of the building with the promise of fresh blood, dragging themselves over the fallen bodies of the first wave, swelling over and through the broken chain links of the fence to the right.
Close and getting closer.
Doubling and then tripling in number.
They're going to pile over them like water.
Fifty feet.
Thirty.
"Fuck this." Hove unhooks the bag from his waist. "Everyone get ready to get down."
"Give them to me," Rufus says fiercely and holds out a hand.
Hove gives him a sharp look, silence dragging out, and then he hands over the bag.
"Rufus," Bobby protests.
"We're not outrunning them," Rufus says, like that's the end of the matter.
Ellen doesn't say a word and Jo's mouth is tight, fingers clenching and unclenching round her shotgun.
He's moving before any of them can protest again, a thud of boots on concrete. One of the grenade pins hits the dirty floor of the alley.
"God help him," Ellen says sharply, then wraps a hand round the back of Jo's head and pulls her to a crouch.
Sam doesn't have time to take a breath because Castiel pushes him to the floor and he has enough time to listen to his own blood rush in his ears before the whole world explodes. The blast wave slams into them all, hard enough to send even Castiel crashing into them and Sam's breathing rank wet ground and hearing nothing but the discordant rush of his ears ringing.
A rain of debris and bits of zombie crash into the floor and the sides of the building.
Castiel's hand slides off his back slowly and Sam rolls over and swallows to try and convince his ears to work again.
The approaching horde of zombies, and Rufus, have been reduced to a wet mess of pieces.
"Sam, Dean." Chuck's voice is sharp, insistent.
Sam assumes immediately that there are more, that Rufus has bought them maybe a few seconds and nothing more. He looks towards the mouth of the alley which is a torn out bloody nightmare - but that's not where Dean is scrambling.
He's heading the other way.
To where Bobby's sprawled on the floor.
"Bobby!"
"Someone help me, for God's sake," Chuck snaps. He has a hand pressed down over Bobby's shoulder, bright, shiny red seeping through his fingers.
Bobby looks annoyed, glaring up at them all through an expression that looks barely discomforted.
His cap's come off and it's rolling on the wet ground.
"It's nasty, but I'm not gonna die of it," Bobby says roughly. Like instead of fussing someone better help him the hell up. On any other day that would be true, but they're in the middle of an abandoned city, surrounded by fucking zombies. Dean's already ripping a strip off Castiel's coat and Ellen has a wadded up piece of plaid cloth from the edge of her shirt. Sam can see from the side that the wound has wood in it. Probably a piece of one of the pallets they'd run past.
They haul Bobby up together, tie the hasty bandage down tight over the mess. He makes an unhappy noise.
"We don't have time to take the wood out," Dean tells him.
"I know that," Bobby complains, like he didn't teach them these things and he's not senile for God's sake. They get him to the back of the alley, Ellen taking advantage of the quiet to load her gun. Jo's teaching Chuck how to make a sling that still lets you shoot with both hands and it's almost surreal how seriously he seems to be taking it, hands bloody, a streak of it down his temple where he's fidgeted with his hair.
Ellen drags Dean in close by his coat sleeve. Sam follows, because it's what he does.
"They'll pour in there after us the minute we let them, and I for one don't want to be trapped in a building like this."
Dean shakes his head.
"Ellen -"
"Get in there, get in there and find this thing and put it down for good," Ellen says sharply.
"We can't leave you out here," Sam protests.
"Sooner or later it'll be as safe as anywhere," she insists.
"Castiel can stay with you," Dean says through a frown.
Ellen makes a rough noise in her throat.
"You really think that angel would let you leave him behind?"
Sam catches the way Dean's face changes then, the way he wants more than anything else to take Castiel into hell with him. The way he feels nothing but guilty about that.
"With any luck you kill this thing, you kill all the dead. They fall where they stand and we all get to go home.
"Ellen." Dean's voice sounds like it knows how ridiculous it is to assume that.
"Get your asses in there before I push you boys," she says flatly.
Dean nods.
"Cas, open the door."
Castiel grips the chain that holds the door shut and it comes apart with a metallic snap and swings open, letting out cold air.
Ellen nods once, sharply, and then they're inside.
~~~~~
They move through the corridors, quiet as they can, checking every room and every long, dark hallway. It's too warm, a steady thrum of vibration in every step. This building isn't right. Which is how they know it's exactly where they want to be.
"What are the chances of it being at the top of the building?" Sam grumbles quietly.
"I'm not getting in an elevator, but I don't feel like climbing about forty flights of stairs either," Dean protests. A row of smashed windows to their right shiver in their frames, one steady shudder like the start of something horrible.
"Dean," Castiel says quietly. The steady pressure of a hand on his arm brings him to a stop. Brings him round to face the angel, who looks serious enough to leave a curl of worry in his stomach.
"Cas, what is it?"
"This building may not be warded but the surrounding area is soaked in death magic. My powers will be limited."
Dean really doesn't like the sound of that. "Limited how?"
"I won't be able to take you both out of here if it becomes necessary," Castiel admits. "Or to repair any injuries."
Dean thinks it would matter more if he thought they were leaving this place alive. He thinks maybe that's something both Sam and Castiel read from his expression, and no one says anything else. Castiel's hand slides away and they resume their long walk up the corridor.
Until the floor shudders underneath them. Dean flattens a hand on the wall and then regrets it. The damn thing's warm and damp, like it's sweating.
"Where the hell is this thing?"
A quick, hard shake sends him slamming into the window frame.
When he goes to straighten, something tugs at his arm, glass from the window, maybe?
But then the something tightens and pulls. Fingers dig into his arms, and he's turning into the reach of unexpected hands, so many hands shoved through the broken glass, coming apart bloodily on the shards but still pulling at him.
"Fuck -"
The grey hands haul Dean to the edge of the window, boots skidding uselessly on the carpet. The steady, high moans of desperate hunger. It's too loud and too close, and the broken glass is digging through the sleeve of his coat and into his arm. The leather tears and he barely gets a hand up to brace himself on the wall.
The gun goes clattering to the floor.
Dean tries to brace his feet too, to pull back, and Sam's got a grip in the back of his coat trying to haul him out of reach. Castiel has an arm round his waist but there's only so hard you can pull a human being before you're just doing more harm than good, because the dead are not letting go. Dean can see out into the street, and there's nothing but dead, a great seething mass of dead faces, reaching up with clawed hands to where he's being hauled from the windows. Reaching up like they can catch a piece of him too, drag him down and eat him.
Until Castiel is suddenly there in front of him, hands wrapped round the arms holding him, breaking them, tearing them free of him. The front of his palm shoves Dean back, shoves him back into Sam so hard he stumbles. There are a dozen hands catching the bottom of Castiel's coat, and his legs. The hands pull irresistibly, unstoppably. The angel's hands grab at the window, glass and wood coming apart under his fingers, foot skidding on the edge.
Dean's there before he even realises it, fisting both hands in Castiel's coat and jacket and trying to haul him back. Putting him within reach of the hands and the biting, lunging teeth again, and when a set snap against the leather of his sleeve - Castiel lets go.
"Cas." Dean's halfway back over the edge before Sam snatches at his jacket, hauls him back, hauls him all the way back inside.
The angel disappears in the rolling mass of dead.
Sam pulls him up and through the doors, leaving the freezing air and the high desperate moans outside, boots going from stone to carpet, scratching and rucking up the pristine blue length of it. Sam keeps pulling him, keeps dragging him into the brightness until he gets his own feet under him. Until he's walking on his own. He shoves off Sam's hands, mouth a tight line. Sam doesn't say anything, doesn't say a word, stays close enough to catch at Dean's sleeve if he tries to go back. But Dean knows better than anyone that there's no point. There's no point going back and trying to pull an angel out of an army of zombies. But he's damned if that isn't exactly what he wants to do, more than anything. To go back out there and put them down, one by one, until he finds him. Because they can't bite their way through Cas, even hundreds of them, thousands, they can't kill him, can't kill him. Hundreds, all trying to tear him apart - how could anything stand against that?
Castiel has saved him so many times, too many times, and the one time, the one fucking time -
"Dean."
"I know," Dean says, fierce and hard. He doesn't even know for certain what Sam was going to say. But he knows he can't hear it. He knows they need to do this, need to do this more than anything else and Castiel is one of the reasons they're in here to start with. They need to kill this thing dead. They need to finish it, stop this rot that's ripping the world apart.
He can't think about anything else, he can't.
Because they need to do this.
The whole building is shaking, great tremors of sound and fury that feel like something inside, or underneath, is trying to tear it apart. There's that same rank bloody smell to the place. It feels familiar, familiar in a way Dean remembers from weeks ago. There's absolutely no doubt that they're in the right place; that this is exactly the same sort of thing as they faced before this all started. Someone is trying to rip open a door to hell, has been trying for weeks, tearing great freakin' holes all over the world and letting darkness and ruin and bloody fragments of hell through. Failing every damn time and not caring what mess they left behind. But this, this is bigger, this feels like maybe someone has done their research, found the right place, and the right time.
"It's here." Sam's voice is quiet, tight and so close to shaky Dean wants to cut him off, wants to leave it at that. Because he knows well enough that fear is contagious. This isn't some messed up bedroom in a house on some suburban street. This is a whole damn building. This is a brutal shake of stone and an army of dead to worship, or feed, whatever the hell is coming out.
Dean's not going to let that happen. Whatever messed up thing is trying to claw its way free, they're going to send it back, choking on its own teeth.
"Where are the demons? The first place had guards."
Sam kicks open a door to the right, but there's nothing inside but a huge empty room with a long table set up for what looks like a meeting, pens scattered and flowers long-dead in their vases.
"This whole damn building is surrounded by zombies, maybe whatever this thing is it's not worried about being interrupted."
"But there's nothing here," Sam insists. "No guards, no worshippers - where's whoever's set this thing up?"
"Deeper inside, maybe? Or gone, maybe they didn't want to be here when this thing tears itself free and kills everything in its path."
"You think that's what it's going to do?"
"I don't think it's coming up for the weather," Dean says flatly.
"Jesus."
Dean's walking more quickly now and Sam keeps up because that's what he does. You use adrenaline or it uses you. The walls shake more fiercely now, solid booms of sound. Like the building's trying to turn itself inside out with them in it. Or like it's trying to vomit up whatever thing is clawing at its bowels.
Dean looks down at the floor. "It's underneath us. Find the stairs that lead to the basement."
Sam gets there first, kicking the doors open, gun pointed up, then down. The stairs are cold and empty, thudding softly under every deep vibration. Dean follows him down. The main doors at the end of the stairwell are huge. But Dean can see them shivering in their frame. That's not all. He can see the wet shine of red on the floor too. The trail of colour that leads further in.
"Dean?"
"I see it," he says tightly. He brings his gun up. Sam's right behind him and they both move towards the door.
Dean reaches out, pushes it open.
It's like walking into a nightmare. For a second all he can see is red. The whole basement is red from floor to ceiling. The room is one slippery shine of blood, smears of what look like skin and pieces that belong inside a human being. It's painted over everything, the floor the walls, the tangles of piping. The rank fresh stench of it is everywhere, the obscene wet sound of it under their boots.
There's no altar in the centre of the room. The whole floor is being used as an altar, ringed with dark symbols and heavy burned circles of barely identifiable material. Black and hot and heavy with the stink of copper. Laid out in the mess there is what Dean assumes is the witch who started the ritual. She's naked and quite obviously dead. She has the thin unhealthy grey-white of a woman drained of blood. She's used herself as the sacrifice. Dean doesn't have a clue where she found this much power, or maybe the dead are powering it from outside? Either way he doesn't want to bet on it not being enough. This isn't some shitty bedroom in some small town, this is huge.
Jesus, Dean doesn't know how anything from hell couldn't be attracted straight here.
The room shakes on every wave. They’re too late. It’s already started. The woman laid in the vast circle is already twitching. One pale arm, strangely vivid on the bright red floor, shifts and jerks like she's still alive. In stiff bug-like twitches. But this won’t be a crack. This will be a vast tear that rips open the whole floor. Room enough for anything to push its way through. Jesus, room enough for everything to push its way through.
This is it, if they don't stop it here then it's getting out and that hole isn't going to just shut. It's going to vomit up every horrific thing hell has to offer.
The witch's body jerks again, then bends like some sort of hideous puppet and Dean knows they're going to have to kill her somehow, whatever she's become. Whether it's possible or not they'll have to put her down, or die trying.
The witch's skull turns on the floor, rolling in the wet mess of blood there. Her mouth opens, one great creak of bone and skin and then the thing starts screaming. If they'd thought the thing in Greenburg was loud, this is a thousand times worse. It's a sharp, shrieking wail that sounds like pure inhuman desperation. A great rip of sound that threatens to tear Dean's eardrums to pieces.
The dead woman's ribs snap outwards, cracking and lengthening in a way human bones shouldn't. They press down into the floor, sharp and streaked red. Her dead body lifts itself like some huge inverted spider, limbs hanging down between the spires her ribcage and spine have become. It continues to rise in jerky movements, a dead monstrosity guarding the slowly cracking floor. Guarding the shine of darkness and fire where hell is tearing itself open beneath it.
Sam looks utterly horrified at the transformation, gun loose in his hand.
Dean's seen things like this before. But things like this, they don't get to be out of hell. They shouldn't be allowed to be out of hell. He puts two bullets into the hanging, shrieking face. It jerks and slams against the bone surrounding it but doesn't shut up, doesn't stop screaming.
Sam empties the shotgun into it from the other side while it's still pulling itself half out of the floor, out of the cracking mess the floor is rapidly becoming. The torso and legs shake under the fire, but the face is still screaming, still stretching wide open, rising higher off of the floor and growing bone legs, until the face is almost swinging level with Dean's. It snaps and jerks every time he hits it with a bullet.
He's trying to shake the bag off of his back, trying to get to the holy water and the rest of the ammo because Dean gets the feeling they're going to need all of it. The thing lashes out with a leg, bone smashing into the wall and leaving stone and blood rattling and spattering down when Dean ducks.
The wailing is louder, closer and the swinging legs are quicker than they should be, the ground rumbling and unsteady underneath his boots. Sam appears underneath one of the legs, shotgun suddenly pressed against the thing's head.
It moves just before he can pull the trigger. The gun blows away a chunk of torso instead and it spins into Sam, one vast leg joint smashing into him and sending him crashing back into the wall.
He slides, then falls, tumbles over twice and doesn't move.
Dean shakes the bag off, rips it open and gets a bottle out.
He doesn't go for subtle. He smashes the whole bottle of holy water against the woman's dead torso.
The flesh and two of the bone legs start to smoke instantly and the noise it's making goes high and tight and awful. The creature rears up and smashes into one of the walls, bone breaking in great tears of sound and Dean has the second bottle halfway out of the bag when something punches into and through his shoulder - The next thing he knows, he's the one on the floor, choking on an inhale. A streak of pain is slamming all the way through his chest and back and when he turns his head to the side he finds one of the thing's bone legs rammed all the way through his shoulder.
He drags a breath, stretches an arm out, but the bag's just out of reach.
Sam's hasn't moved yet, body still across the room. The half of his face Dean can see is still obscured by blood and hair, but whether it's from the floor or from him he can't tell.
"Sam!"
The thing's great wailing face is too close now, eyes bored out, mouth a dark empty hole.
"Sam!"
There's movement, Sam turns his head, one leg shifting on the red floor, and Dean's half way between panic and relief because Sam isn't dead. The creature seems to realise as much, legs folding on one side, blood running out of the woman's hanging body.
It drags its leg out of him in one great burst and Dean yells through bloody teeth. God, that hurts, that fucking hurts and there's blood splashed across his neck and against his jaw and the creature turns on its great bone legs, wailing and intent on pinning Sam to the floor like a butterfly.
Dean rolls, pain like a fucking fire all the way through him, and grabs the other bottle of holy water. He struggles to his knees, then one leg. He goes up and under the bottom of the thing and smashes the bottle right in its damn shrieking face.
The noise becomes a roaring wail, smoke curling up as the creature burns. It sways, legs clattering together, one of them scrapes and then smashes into the ceiling, bringing down the tattered light fixtures.
The room shudders like it's being shaken by a vast hand, Dean goes low, reloads his gun and then gets close, presses the barrel against the thing's ragged, stretched neck and doesn't stop firing, makes its throat a red, wet mess, head jerking and flailing, sinking lower on strings of bloody flesh and the shattered sharpness of its spine.
It's still wailing when Dean drops the gun, reaches out with both hands and grips it. He pulls, pulls hard until the wound in his shoulder screams and his fingers go numb. Flesh tears, and bone cracks and then breaks. The head falls, hits the floor with a low hollow sound, the scream cuts out, becomes a hollow rasp. A hissing breath and then shocking silence.
Dean can hear his own breathing.
The creature sways, then collapses in on itself in one great crash of bone. It twitches, smokes, but doesn't get up again.
"Sam."
Dean makes his way round the thing's body, to where Sam's still awkwardly, slowly, making his way to his feet.
The room is still shaking, the cracks in the middle of the floor now bowing inwards, swallowing great chunks of the floor. Pulling the creature's vast misshapen body closer, bone limbs sliding inside the hole.
Dean thinks maybe it's going to swallow the whole fucking building to shut itself. He grabs at Sam's coat, hauls him upright before he's ready. Every pound of his weight threatening to send Dean crashing to the ground too. But there's no fucking way they're being buried alive here.
No fucking way.
"We have to get out of here, Sam."
The room shakes, the rest of the light fixtures crashing down in a shower of sparks and metal clangs.
"Now, Sam." He pulls, forcing Sam to walk or be dragged and they stumble out of the door. The whole building shakes and Dean's briefly pressed sharply into the wall, hard enough that his shoulder screams and the world briefly goes grey, cold sweat collecting everywhere.
But he doesn't have time to pass out.
Sam's mostly walking by himself by the time they reach the stairs, but they're still close enough to the horror behind them that the collapsing floor is visible every time Dean turns his head.
"Sam, come on, damn it."
Sam's pulling himself along, almost as fast as Dean's pulling. Dean's fairly sure he has a bad concussion and he shouldn't be making him run, but if they don't get out of here it won't matter.
Nothing will matter.
One corridor.
Two.
The ground crumbles beneath their feet and the ceiling strains and groans overhead and Dean is not being buried alive inside some shitty office building in Detroit.
They burst out into the alley, into the light, the building cracking and listing behind them. The alley's empty and something in Dean's chest clenches but they have to keep moving, have to get away from the building. Sam's breathing hard and Dean's wincing with every step and it's not like they're even close to up to dealing with an army of the dead -
The streets are full.
The streets are full of the dead.
Thousands of unmoving dead, slumped against each other, sprawled out and broken in the sunlight. Piles of them, unmoving and dead. They both look at them and don't say a word. Whatever magic that was animating them, whatever was trying to claw its way out, it's dead. it's dead and gone.
The zombies are still.
"Dean," Sam says, voice slow but clear.
"I see it." He fists his hand tighter in Sam's coat, holds him as they stumble out into the street.
It's deathly quiet, impossibly still. They stumble out further, into the mess of abandoned cars, past the piles of dead and there's someone still upright, someone still moving that Dean recognises.
Ellen still has her shotgun slung over one arm. Like she's just daring the undead to get up and move again. Like she'll have no trouble putting them all down again if they do.
"Ellen." Dean's voice sounds more than a little broken.
Ellen meets them at the mouth of the alley, reaches out, grasps Dean's arm in warm fingers.
"Wasn't sure I'd see you again," Ellen tells them, but the way she says it, it sounds like so much else. It sounds like she was waiting for them, like maybe she would have waited as long as it took.
Her fingers on his arm are tight, then tighter.
"I think we found something that belongs to you," she says quietly. Then tips her head to the left.
There's an angel in a bloody trench coat standing by the wreck of cars, and all the breath goes out of Dean in one go. It's the space of a handful of seconds before Castiel's close enough to touch, close enough to catch with a hand and pull in, throw an arm around. Dean winces when his arm and shoulder pull but he can't let go for the life of him and Castiel doesn't make him. One arm winding round him and holding him up.
"Dean," Castiel says simply, quietly, like nothing else matters.
Dean takes a breath.
"I'm so fucking glad to see you, I thought you were dead, I thought you were fucking dead, Cas."
Dean holds him as tight with one arm as he can. Heart beating stupidly hard. The rest of whatever adrenaline he has left. He wants to fist his hand in the angel's hair and tell him somehow that this...this makes it all worth it.
"I'm glad you were successful," Castiel says thickly. But it sounds like so much more. It sound like everything.
"It would have been a shitty thing to save the world and lose you, Cas."
Castiel's fingers tighten, just a little.
Dean doesn't even care that Ellen hears, that she makes a soft noise in her throat.
He hears her boots on concrete, hears her catch at Sam's coat and lead him to sit against one of the parked cars.
Dean can see now that it isn't just Ellen.
Chuck, who's limping, is trying to get Jo to sit down so he can see to the cut on her cheek. He's losing so far, Jo seems to have inherited her mother's need to do. But she's done pretty good, Dean has to give her that.
He thinks maybe Bobby...until he sees him, stood over Sam, with one arm bound just tight enough to hold but free enough to shoot a gun.
"Everyone's ok?" Dean asks, and he knows how disbelieving he sounds, how sharp. Because they don't get to be ok, they just don't get to have this.
"You have delivered them all from evil," Castiel says quietly. It's strangely serious, firm, like it matters somehow.
Dean shakes his head, winces when there's a stab of pain and a pull of bloody cloth.
Castiel's pale hand lifts, presses down over the wet hole in his shoulder and Dean inhales sharply.
"Jesus, Cas," Dean hisses. But it's not to stop the bleeding. There's a curl of warmth, an ache that flares deep and then Castiel's hand slides away and the skin is smeared red, but whole. When the angel shifts, goes to move his hand, Dean holds it there, holds it pressed against his chest.
"I was afraid for you," Castiel says simply.
Dean squeezes his fingers.
"Is it over? Is it done?"
"Yes," Castiel says simply, no hesitation, no doubt, and Dean exhales, rough, hard like he was just waiting for someone to say that.
For someone to make him feel like he could just stop.
Dean breathes out, digs his fingers into Castiel's coat and lets the angel lead him towards the others.
END
The first night they sleep in the hospital of a deserted town, camped out in the doctor's lounge while Castiel watches for danger. Watches over them while they sleep. Though Dean thinks he gets maybe half an hour of real sleep. The rest of it is just blood and horror. The way the world smells now. It's too damn close to hell for comfort.
The second night they don't find anywhere safe. So Dean's left driving on the adrenaline from the day before. There's death all along the roads, dead stumbling in the dark, wavering into the high beams with mindless intent. The damn things nearly make him crash the car twice, clumped together on bends and under the wet overhang of trees. He hasn't had to concentrate so fucking hard for years. Sam and Castiel don't say a damn word about the speed for a change. Nor about the wet crunching thud of bodies under tyres.
The third night they end up in a nondescript house sixty miles outside the city. They don't turn on any lights, they only eat the food in tins. They make the house safe, make it somewhere they can get out of, or hold if absolutely necessary.
Dean agrees to watch first, agrees to stare out of the window into the dark with Cas. He spends what feels like hours passed in silence, with the angel so close he could stretch his fingers out and touch him. Dean doesn't back away, doesn't try and find his own space again.
He thinks maybe for a while Cas wants to talk, wants to ask him questions but isn't sure how. Dean wants to tell him it's ok, that he can ask him anything, and he'll at least try to answer. Because if not now, then when? But Dean doesn't know how to tell him that. They're still too new, too strange. It all feels like the beginning but it's too close to what feels like the end. Like they don't have time to be anything.
To be anything but what they are, whatever the hell that is, as hard as they can.
Dean's just not any good at it.
He rubs tiredness out of his eyes and draws in a slow breath.
"You should sleep. I can keep watch." Castiel's voice is soft.
Dean shakes his head.
"I don't need to sleep."
"You don't want to dream," Castiel says quietly.
Dean winces.
"I've had more bad dreams than good," he admits. "People don't really get a lot of choice about what they dream. It's when your brain chooses to stab you where you're vulnerable." He grits his teeth a little on the words, because he doesn't like admitting to things. He doesn't like that brief moment where he's shown too much, given too much. He shakes his head and frowns out of the window rather than look at Castiel.
God, he knows Cas won't judge him but sometimes he thinks maybe he should be judged, should be looked at like Castiel thinks he can be better than that, and he hates it.
Because he never wants Castiel to look at him like that.
Ever.
Castiel's fingertips touch the back of his hand.
"I wouldn't leave," Castiel assures. "I'm here for as long as you need me. As long as I'm able."
Dean shifts his own hand and very slowly the touch becomes a hold, Dean's fingers slipping past Castiel's and sliding over his knuckles. Until their hands are curled together.
Castiel's fingers are warm, the press of his palm strangely intimate. Dean doesn't hold hands, he just doesn't, and yet he can't make himself pull away. Can't untangle himself from the softness of Castiel's skin, from the way it feels like he's holding more of Dean than his hand. He feels like Castiel is holding him up and for the life of him he can't let go of that.
He knows Castiel would let him, he'd let Dean slip his hand free without protest. But instead Dean stares out of the window and squeezes, as hard as he can, and says nothing.
Until Sam stumbles down the stairs, hair a wreck, but he's awake, miserably awake, and he gives Dean a sharp nod. Pretends he doesn't see their hands a fraction too close, fingers still touching.
"I told Bobby I'd take his shift."
Dean grunts.
"I'll bet he was happy about that."
Sam rubs his eyes.
"He's got his books open. I don't think he's been to sleep."
Dean barely remembers heading upstairs, finding the master bedroom, the sheets still slightly warm and untidy. His bag is dumped at the foot.
He kicks off his boots and jeans, then sits on the edge, rubs tired hands over his face.
"Cas," he says into the dark, just loud enough that he can hear his own voice.
There's the soft, familiar sound of wings and Castiel is standing just inside the door.
Dean takes a breath, because he hadn't been entirely sure that would work, that he'd come, and now he's not even sure how to ask.
"You want to stay for a while?" he says quietly. He thinks maybe he sounds just a little bit desperate. But Castiel reaches out, like he can't help himself now he's been given permission. He touches him. Dean lets Castiel draw him to his feet. Castiel, in turn, lets Dean strip his clothes free in slow tired movements, until he's soft and slender and strangely more naked than he should be. In a way Dean thinks he could get used to, more than get used to, hands catching his waist and pulling him in, pulling him down.
Castiel's uncertain for a moment. He's obviously expecting Dean to want, expecting his touches to be firm and needy. But Dean murmurs that that's not what he wants, that's not what he's asking for.
Castiel's warm and he's soft and real and Dean stretches him out on the bed. His skin jumps under Dean's hand when he settles it awkwardly on his stomach.
"If I die tomorrow get the hell off of this rock," Dean murmurs into Castiel's hair.
Castiel stiffens.
"Dean -"
"I don't want you to be here." Dean says without looking at him. "You should go back, be somewhere you belong, somewhere you're safe."
"I don't belong there," Castiel says quietly. As if Dean should know better. "And nothing you say will convince me otherwise."
"You're a stubborn son of a bitch."
"I have had to learn how to be." Castiel's fingers touch his hand, cautiously, like he's testing whether it's something Dean will allow.
Dean catches his fingers before he can drag them away. Castiel sighs something that sounds a lot like surrender, but doesn't say yes, doesn't promise him anything.
Dean breathes into the silence and gives up on the world for a while.
~~~~~
There's only three living people in the city of Detroit, and they're waiting at the main street intersection when they get there.
"'Bout time you boys got here," Ellen says. She sounds more than relieved to see them. Rufus is behind her and Jo's at her side. Jo has blood spatters in her hair and Rufus jacket is torn but they're still standing, still breathing and that's good enough.
"It's good to see you," Dean tells her and he means it, he really means it.
Dean grips Chuck's shoulder and swivels him round.
"Is that the building you saw?" he asks him.
The view across the city is cut through with a handful of office buildings, the tallest of which looks a hell of a lot like Chuck's hasty sketch.
Chuck nods.
"Yeah, only it's less torn apart than it was in my vision, and the sky was kind of broken, sort of bleeding death everywhere. So, yeah, that was it, and I'm really glad it's not doing that, by the way."
Sam smacks him on the shoulder. Because, yeah, Chuck did good.
"Is that where we're going?" Bobby asks.
Dean nods, jerks the bag he's holding open, guns on display for anyone that wants more. "That's where the world ends."
They walk through the streets. They can hear the dead but they haven't seen any of them yet, haven't caught so much as a glimpse from a side alley or sight of a shape in a doorway. But the zombies get louder the closer they get. The sun gets lost behind the buildings leaving them in the chill dimness of the city.
"I'm telling you, I've seen the way this turns out," Chuck says roughly. "It's not pretty, it's not, and I'm really not happy about being at ground zero when it all kicks off, really not -"
Dean grabs Chuck's arm and drags him back, hushes him silent. Because they can see the building's base now. They're all looking across at where the street in front of the building is choked with the dead. They're pressed in together almost too tight to move, shambling and clawing at the building's rough edges. Pressing into it in waves. The long endless chorus of moans sounding like desperation.
"We have to get in there?" Ellen asks flatly. Like the idea is ludicrous. Like they're going to be crazy to even try.
"We have to get in." Dean knows he doesn't sound happy about it. Hell he wasn't expecting it to be easy but this is something else.
"It looks like they all want to get in too." The quiet creak of the shotgun under Jo's fingers is the only sign that she's not exactly happy about the direction they're heading.
"I'm fairly sure that letting them would be bad," Sam decides. Which makes Dean snort because Sam has to be the voice of doom when Cas is busy.
He's currently busy standing very still and watching the building.
"There are no wards on the building," Castiel sounds curious.
Dean eyeballs him. "What does that mean?"
"Perhaps that they see no reason to hide their efforts to tear their way into the world anymore."
"Yeah, maybe they don't think there's anyone left to stop them," Ellen says quietly.
"Is it really that bad?" Sam asks her
Ellen's mouth goes fine and tight.
"Every city we've been through has been a mess. The military's trying to keep some of the big cities safe."
"That's going about as well as can be expected," Rufus says harshly.
Ellen snorts something disgusted.
"Pretty much anything else, you could teach people a few basic safety precautions to protect themselves. But the walking dead are just that. Not to mention the fact that the damn things are contagious."
"So, how do we get in?" Jo asks, with a sharp nod for the building.
She's right.
"There must be a way in the back, we could follow the alley round, or, if we had to, get in through the building next door," Sam offers.
Dean nods.
"Sounds like a plan." Dean pulls his gun out of his jeans. "Me and Cas will check the building next door. Sam, you and Chuck check round the back of the building."
Chuck doesn't look happy about it, but he folds his arms and nods when Sam gives him a look.
"Bobby, Ellen, Jo and Rufus, work your way round to the alley at the side, keep an eye on our friends. Make sure they don't get curious. If we find something, we'll be coming out that way. But y'know, if you hear us being eaten...."
"Don't say that," Chuck says weakly. "God, I'm already not liking this plan."
Sam smacks Chuck on the back and he groans but starts moving without Sam having to push.
~~~~~
It takes them longer to loop round the back than Sam thought it would. He's giving the dead a wide berth. He's still not sure how far away they need to be before they can smell you, or maybe hear you. No one's quite sure how it works. They end up in an alley two buildings down, quiet, nothing moving but trash in the wind. Chuck's muttering quietly under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like cynical ramblings about how he should have stayed at home and died of alcohol poisoning. Sam doesn't like the alleys between the buildings. They're too narrow and too high. There's almost no way out except the way they've come or the tangled mess of more alleys and trash that lead all the way round. It's a damn good place for an ambush, or for someone to just get cut off by a mess of the walking dead.
He doesn't see the dead woman until it's too late. She falls on him, hands clawing for his face. He doesn't have time to do anything but react. He grabs for her neck, gets his fingers round it just in time. But the dry clack of her teeth snapping together is still far too close and he's falling back under her weight, hitting the ground, gun clattering out of his jeans and across the ground.
Sam ends up on his back, one hand wrapped round the dead woman's throat, the other tangled in her hair, while her teeth strain for his forearm. She's strong, horribly, unnaturally strong. Hell she's strong enough that she's winning, dead fingers digging into his arm and cheek hard enough to draw blood.
He's trying to get a knee up to kick her in the stomach but she's too small, too high and he doesn't have any hands left to get her away.
Another half a minute and she's going to tear her way through to the tendons and he won't have any power left to grip her with.
Someone slams a gun barrel against the side of her head and pulls the trigger.
The shot throws her off his body, taking her into the ground with a thud, arms flung out, fluid draining out of the large hole in her head and staining the ground brown. Sam breathes relief for a second and then tips his head back.
Chuck's holding the gun.
He looks more than a little horrified.
Sam looks from the gun to the zombie corpse on the grass.
"Thanks, Chuck," he says quietly, though his voice is all edges of quiet disbelief.
"No problem," Chuck says thinly. He looks like he's going to be sick. But then, abruptly, he makes a quiet noise of distress. "Can you please take the gun now?"
Sam very carefully eases it out of his hand and Chuck lets it go like he's not entirely sure it won't shoot him back. If nothing else, the noise has torn through the city loud enough for the dead to decide something interesting is happening. Sam's fairly sure their way out is going to be closed up before they get there.
"Change of plans," Sam tells him, getting to his feet and catching Chuck's jacket. "We're meeting Dean and Cas round the other side.
The zombies are coming around from the front of the building too. Sam can hear the crashing, sliding thud of feet, and hands pushing masonry and steel out of the way.
"Remember when you promised I wouldn't be eaten by zombies," Chuck reminds him tartly.
"I'm working on it," Sam tells him.
They end up somewhere behind the original building, skidding on wet cardboard, working their way round, trying to find a way in, or through. One of the solid doors to the left of them shudders its way open, too damn close and Sam gets hit by the edge of it. He kills the zombie that almost falls out, then one behind it. They yawn out of the dark gap, a handful in ripped office clothing, thin and slow but desperate. They fall over the bodies in front of them, crawling across the ground, fingers scraping at Sam's boots. He kicks out, catches one in the face and sends her sprawling.
Chuck's fingers dig in the back of his jacket, tug on the material.
"Sam."
"I know," he points out.
"No, Sam," Chuck says fiercely and tugs hard. Sam steps back on instinct.
A zombie hits the ground right in front of him.
"What the -"
He looks up. Some of the smashed windows up above are full of the dead. They're clawing to get out, to take the easiest, the fastest way to him. Another smashes into the ground and immediately starts crawling in their direction. Then another, two in quick succession, surrounding them in a messy ring. Most of them can't get up. One is struggling awkwardly to its feet on what looks like one broken leg. But they don't need to be standing to be dangerous.
"Sam."
God, this is insane.
"Keep moving."
"Where?" Chuck insists, voice thready with panic.
Sam looks up the alley and finds it sprinkled with more of the fallen dead, all of them moving on arms and damaged legs, clawing their way along the ground towards them. Chuck's making soft noises that aren't even words - and then one falls close enough to hit them. Sam goes down, hits the ground again, and judging by the unhappy shout and the fact that he lands on something soft he's just crushed Chuck. At least this time he has a gun. The dead man is already dragging himself close, opening his mouth. But someone else takes him out. His head jerks under the impact and then he crumples inelegantly into Sam's lap.
Dean's shouting, and Sam can hear the thud of boots and then he's being hauled upright by hands, he doesn’t even know whose, and they're all running, crashing through the alley, smashing aside boxes and pallets and bags of trash. The dead going down before they reach them.
"Change of plans, run like hell," Dean hisses in his ear.
Someone catches his shirt, Ellen he thinks, yanking him to a stop and then there's a gun over his shoulder. The white face that was crawling out of the next alley smacks into the ground with a hard spatter of brown brain matter.
Sam reminds himself, fiercely, to keep his damn eyes open.
Dean skids on a wet piece of metal, but Castiel doesn't let him go down, keeps pulling. There are too many dead behind them, too many above them, there are just too many and the back of this building should have a fire escape but Sam can't find one, can't see one anywhere.
"Dean," Castiel says suddenly, sharply, and Sam realises before he looks up that they're at the back of the building they want. The security doors are chained up tight. This is a shitty place to hold. The entrance to the street, to the left, fifty feet away, is a mess of walking dead. To the right is a chain link fence. The wall behind them is at least ten feet high and they might be able to scramble over it, but that isn’t the way they need to go. They need to get inside. But the zombies are too close behind them, and there's no way Sam wants zombies following them into the narrow confusing corridors of an office building.
Dean takes out two zombies the moment they appear round the corner. Sam puts down the two that come in behind.
Then they shamble round in a mass and everyone's shooting at once. Ellen switches from shotgun to handguns and Chuck reloads every time Dean or Sam dumps a gun into his hands. The more they shoot the more stumble into the alleyway behind them. Crawling round from the front of the building with the promise of fresh blood, dragging themselves over the fallen bodies of the first wave, swelling over and through the broken chain links of the fence to the right.
Close and getting closer.
Doubling and then tripling in number.
They're going to pile over them like water.
Fifty feet.
Thirty.
"Fuck this." Hove unhooks the bag from his waist. "Everyone get ready to get down."
"Give them to me," Rufus says fiercely and holds out a hand.
Hove gives him a sharp look, silence dragging out, and then he hands over the bag.
"Rufus," Bobby protests.
"We're not outrunning them," Rufus says, like that's the end of the matter.
Ellen doesn't say a word and Jo's mouth is tight, fingers clenching and unclenching round her shotgun.
He's moving before any of them can protest again, a thud of boots on concrete. One of the grenade pins hits the dirty floor of the alley.
"God help him," Ellen says sharply, then wraps a hand round the back of Jo's head and pulls her to a crouch.
Sam doesn't have time to take a breath because Castiel pushes him to the floor and he has enough time to listen to his own blood rush in his ears before the whole world explodes. The blast wave slams into them all, hard enough to send even Castiel crashing into them and Sam's breathing rank wet ground and hearing nothing but the discordant rush of his ears ringing.
A rain of debris and bits of zombie crash into the floor and the sides of the building.
Castiel's hand slides off his back slowly and Sam rolls over and swallows to try and convince his ears to work again.
The approaching horde of zombies, and Rufus, have been reduced to a wet mess of pieces.
"Sam, Dean." Chuck's voice is sharp, insistent.
Sam assumes immediately that there are more, that Rufus has bought them maybe a few seconds and nothing more. He looks towards the mouth of the alley which is a torn out bloody nightmare - but that's not where Dean is scrambling.
He's heading the other way.
To where Bobby's sprawled on the floor.
"Bobby!"
"Someone help me, for God's sake," Chuck snaps. He has a hand pressed down over Bobby's shoulder, bright, shiny red seeping through his fingers.
Bobby looks annoyed, glaring up at them all through an expression that looks barely discomforted.
His cap's come off and it's rolling on the wet ground.
"It's nasty, but I'm not gonna die of it," Bobby says roughly. Like instead of fussing someone better help him the hell up. On any other day that would be true, but they're in the middle of an abandoned city, surrounded by fucking zombies. Dean's already ripping a strip off Castiel's coat and Ellen has a wadded up piece of plaid cloth from the edge of her shirt. Sam can see from the side that the wound has wood in it. Probably a piece of one of the pallets they'd run past.
They haul Bobby up together, tie the hasty bandage down tight over the mess. He makes an unhappy noise.
"We don't have time to take the wood out," Dean tells him.
"I know that," Bobby complains, like he didn't teach them these things and he's not senile for God's sake. They get him to the back of the alley, Ellen taking advantage of the quiet to load her gun. Jo's teaching Chuck how to make a sling that still lets you shoot with both hands and it's almost surreal how seriously he seems to be taking it, hands bloody, a streak of it down his temple where he's fidgeted with his hair.
Ellen drags Dean in close by his coat sleeve. Sam follows, because it's what he does.
"They'll pour in there after us the minute we let them, and I for one don't want to be trapped in a building like this."
Dean shakes his head.
"Ellen -"
"Get in there, get in there and find this thing and put it down for good," Ellen says sharply.
"We can't leave you out here," Sam protests.
"Sooner or later it'll be as safe as anywhere," she insists.
"Castiel can stay with you," Dean says through a frown.
Ellen makes a rough noise in her throat.
"You really think that angel would let you leave him behind?"
Sam catches the way Dean's face changes then, the way he wants more than anything else to take Castiel into hell with him. The way he feels nothing but guilty about that.
"With any luck you kill this thing, you kill all the dead. They fall where they stand and we all get to go home.
"Ellen." Dean's voice sounds like it knows how ridiculous it is to assume that.
"Get your asses in there before I push you boys," she says flatly.
Dean nods.
"Cas, open the door."
Castiel grips the chain that holds the door shut and it comes apart with a metallic snap and swings open, letting out cold air.
Ellen nods once, sharply, and then they're inside.
~~~~~
They move through the corridors, quiet as they can, checking every room and every long, dark hallway. It's too warm, a steady thrum of vibration in every step. This building isn't right. Which is how they know it's exactly where they want to be.
"What are the chances of it being at the top of the building?" Sam grumbles quietly.
"I'm not getting in an elevator, but I don't feel like climbing about forty flights of stairs either," Dean protests. A row of smashed windows to their right shiver in their frames, one steady shudder like the start of something horrible.
"Dean," Castiel says quietly. The steady pressure of a hand on his arm brings him to a stop. Brings him round to face the angel, who looks serious enough to leave a curl of worry in his stomach.
"Cas, what is it?"
"This building may not be warded but the surrounding area is soaked in death magic. My powers will be limited."
Dean really doesn't like the sound of that. "Limited how?"
"I won't be able to take you both out of here if it becomes necessary," Castiel admits. "Or to repair any injuries."
Dean thinks it would matter more if he thought they were leaving this place alive. He thinks maybe that's something both Sam and Castiel read from his expression, and no one says anything else. Castiel's hand slides away and they resume their long walk up the corridor.
Until the floor shudders underneath them. Dean flattens a hand on the wall and then regrets it. The damn thing's warm and damp, like it's sweating.
"Where the hell is this thing?"
A quick, hard shake sends him slamming into the window frame.
When he goes to straighten, something tugs at his arm, glass from the window, maybe?
But then the something tightens and pulls. Fingers dig into his arms, and he's turning into the reach of unexpected hands, so many hands shoved through the broken glass, coming apart bloodily on the shards but still pulling at him.
"Fuck -"
The grey hands haul Dean to the edge of the window, boots skidding uselessly on the carpet. The steady, high moans of desperate hunger. It's too loud and too close, and the broken glass is digging through the sleeve of his coat and into his arm. The leather tears and he barely gets a hand up to brace himself on the wall.
The gun goes clattering to the floor.
Dean tries to brace his feet too, to pull back, and Sam's got a grip in the back of his coat trying to haul him out of reach. Castiel has an arm round his waist but there's only so hard you can pull a human being before you're just doing more harm than good, because the dead are not letting go. Dean can see out into the street, and there's nothing but dead, a great seething mass of dead faces, reaching up with clawed hands to where he's being hauled from the windows. Reaching up like they can catch a piece of him too, drag him down and eat him.
Until Castiel is suddenly there in front of him, hands wrapped round the arms holding him, breaking them, tearing them free of him. The front of his palm shoves Dean back, shoves him back into Sam so hard he stumbles. There are a dozen hands catching the bottom of Castiel's coat, and his legs. The hands pull irresistibly, unstoppably. The angel's hands grab at the window, glass and wood coming apart under his fingers, foot skidding on the edge.
Dean's there before he even realises it, fisting both hands in Castiel's coat and jacket and trying to haul him back. Putting him within reach of the hands and the biting, lunging teeth again, and when a set snap against the leather of his sleeve - Castiel lets go.
"Cas." Dean's halfway back over the edge before Sam snatches at his jacket, hauls him back, hauls him all the way back inside.
The angel disappears in the rolling mass of dead.
Sam pulls him up and through the doors, leaving the freezing air and the high desperate moans outside, boots going from stone to carpet, scratching and rucking up the pristine blue length of it. Sam keeps pulling him, keeps dragging him into the brightness until he gets his own feet under him. Until he's walking on his own. He shoves off Sam's hands, mouth a tight line. Sam doesn't say anything, doesn't say a word, stays close enough to catch at Dean's sleeve if he tries to go back. But Dean knows better than anyone that there's no point. There's no point going back and trying to pull an angel out of an army of zombies. But he's damned if that isn't exactly what he wants to do, more than anything. To go back out there and put them down, one by one, until he finds him. Because they can't bite their way through Cas, even hundreds of them, thousands, they can't kill him, can't kill him. Hundreds, all trying to tear him apart - how could anything stand against that?
Castiel has saved him so many times, too many times, and the one time, the one fucking time -
"Dean."
"I know," Dean says, fierce and hard. He doesn't even know for certain what Sam was going to say. But he knows he can't hear it. He knows they need to do this, need to do this more than anything else and Castiel is one of the reasons they're in here to start with. They need to kill this thing dead. They need to finish it, stop this rot that's ripping the world apart.
He can't think about anything else, he can't.
Because they need to do this.
The whole building is shaking, great tremors of sound and fury that feel like something inside, or underneath, is trying to tear it apart. There's that same rank bloody smell to the place. It feels familiar, familiar in a way Dean remembers from weeks ago. There's absolutely no doubt that they're in the right place; that this is exactly the same sort of thing as they faced before this all started. Someone is trying to rip open a door to hell, has been trying for weeks, tearing great freakin' holes all over the world and letting darkness and ruin and bloody fragments of hell through. Failing every damn time and not caring what mess they left behind. But this, this is bigger, this feels like maybe someone has done their research, found the right place, and the right time.
"It's here." Sam's voice is quiet, tight and so close to shaky Dean wants to cut him off, wants to leave it at that. Because he knows well enough that fear is contagious. This isn't some messed up bedroom in a house on some suburban street. This is a whole damn building. This is a brutal shake of stone and an army of dead to worship, or feed, whatever the hell is coming out.
Dean's not going to let that happen. Whatever messed up thing is trying to claw its way free, they're going to send it back, choking on its own teeth.
"Where are the demons? The first place had guards."
Sam kicks open a door to the right, but there's nothing inside but a huge empty room with a long table set up for what looks like a meeting, pens scattered and flowers long-dead in their vases.
"This whole damn building is surrounded by zombies, maybe whatever this thing is it's not worried about being interrupted."
"But there's nothing here," Sam insists. "No guards, no worshippers - where's whoever's set this thing up?"
"Deeper inside, maybe? Or gone, maybe they didn't want to be here when this thing tears itself free and kills everything in its path."
"You think that's what it's going to do?"
"I don't think it's coming up for the weather," Dean says flatly.
"Jesus."
Dean's walking more quickly now and Sam keeps up because that's what he does. You use adrenaline or it uses you. The walls shake more fiercely now, solid booms of sound. Like the building's trying to turn itself inside out with them in it. Or like it's trying to vomit up whatever thing is clawing at its bowels.
Dean looks down at the floor. "It's underneath us. Find the stairs that lead to the basement."
Sam gets there first, kicking the doors open, gun pointed up, then down. The stairs are cold and empty, thudding softly under every deep vibration. Dean follows him down. The main doors at the end of the stairwell are huge. But Dean can see them shivering in their frame. That's not all. He can see the wet shine of red on the floor too. The trail of colour that leads further in.
"Dean?"
"I see it," he says tightly. He brings his gun up. Sam's right behind him and they both move towards the door.
Dean reaches out, pushes it open.
It's like walking into a nightmare. For a second all he can see is red. The whole basement is red from floor to ceiling. The room is one slippery shine of blood, smears of what look like skin and pieces that belong inside a human being. It's painted over everything, the floor the walls, the tangles of piping. The rank fresh stench of it is everywhere, the obscene wet sound of it under their boots.
There's no altar in the centre of the room. The whole floor is being used as an altar, ringed with dark symbols and heavy burned circles of barely identifiable material. Black and hot and heavy with the stink of copper. Laid out in the mess there is what Dean assumes is the witch who started the ritual. She's naked and quite obviously dead. She has the thin unhealthy grey-white of a woman drained of blood. She's used herself as the sacrifice. Dean doesn't have a clue where she found this much power, or maybe the dead are powering it from outside? Either way he doesn't want to bet on it not being enough. This isn't some shitty bedroom in some small town, this is huge.
Jesus, Dean doesn't know how anything from hell couldn't be attracted straight here.
The room shakes on every wave. They’re too late. It’s already started. The woman laid in the vast circle is already twitching. One pale arm, strangely vivid on the bright red floor, shifts and jerks like she's still alive. In stiff bug-like twitches. But this won’t be a crack. This will be a vast tear that rips open the whole floor. Room enough for anything to push its way through. Jesus, room enough for everything to push its way through.
This is it, if they don't stop it here then it's getting out and that hole isn't going to just shut. It's going to vomit up every horrific thing hell has to offer.
The witch's body jerks again, then bends like some sort of hideous puppet and Dean knows they're going to have to kill her somehow, whatever she's become. Whether it's possible or not they'll have to put her down, or die trying.
The witch's skull turns on the floor, rolling in the wet mess of blood there. Her mouth opens, one great creak of bone and skin and then the thing starts screaming. If they'd thought the thing in Greenburg was loud, this is a thousand times worse. It's a sharp, shrieking wail that sounds like pure inhuman desperation. A great rip of sound that threatens to tear Dean's eardrums to pieces.
The dead woman's ribs snap outwards, cracking and lengthening in a way human bones shouldn't. They press down into the floor, sharp and streaked red. Her dead body lifts itself like some huge inverted spider, limbs hanging down between the spires her ribcage and spine have become. It continues to rise in jerky movements, a dead monstrosity guarding the slowly cracking floor. Guarding the shine of darkness and fire where hell is tearing itself open beneath it.
Sam looks utterly horrified at the transformation, gun loose in his hand.
Dean's seen things like this before. But things like this, they don't get to be out of hell. They shouldn't be allowed to be out of hell. He puts two bullets into the hanging, shrieking face. It jerks and slams against the bone surrounding it but doesn't shut up, doesn't stop screaming.
Sam empties the shotgun into it from the other side while it's still pulling itself half out of the floor, out of the cracking mess the floor is rapidly becoming. The torso and legs shake under the fire, but the face is still screaming, still stretching wide open, rising higher off of the floor and growing bone legs, until the face is almost swinging level with Dean's. It snaps and jerks every time he hits it with a bullet.
He's trying to shake the bag off of his back, trying to get to the holy water and the rest of the ammo because Dean gets the feeling they're going to need all of it. The thing lashes out with a leg, bone smashing into the wall and leaving stone and blood rattling and spattering down when Dean ducks.
The wailing is louder, closer and the swinging legs are quicker than they should be, the ground rumbling and unsteady underneath his boots. Sam appears underneath one of the legs, shotgun suddenly pressed against the thing's head.
It moves just before he can pull the trigger. The gun blows away a chunk of torso instead and it spins into Sam, one vast leg joint smashing into him and sending him crashing back into the wall.
He slides, then falls, tumbles over twice and doesn't move.
Dean shakes the bag off, rips it open and gets a bottle out.
He doesn't go for subtle. He smashes the whole bottle of holy water against the woman's dead torso.
The flesh and two of the bone legs start to smoke instantly and the noise it's making goes high and tight and awful. The creature rears up and smashes into one of the walls, bone breaking in great tears of sound and Dean has the second bottle halfway out of the bag when something punches into and through his shoulder - The next thing he knows, he's the one on the floor, choking on an inhale. A streak of pain is slamming all the way through his chest and back and when he turns his head to the side he finds one of the thing's bone legs rammed all the way through his shoulder.
He drags a breath, stretches an arm out, but the bag's just out of reach.
Sam's hasn't moved yet, body still across the room. The half of his face Dean can see is still obscured by blood and hair, but whether it's from the floor or from him he can't tell.
"Sam!"
The thing's great wailing face is too close now, eyes bored out, mouth a dark empty hole.
"Sam!"
There's movement, Sam turns his head, one leg shifting on the red floor, and Dean's half way between panic and relief because Sam isn't dead. The creature seems to realise as much, legs folding on one side, blood running out of the woman's hanging body.
It drags its leg out of him in one great burst and Dean yells through bloody teeth. God, that hurts, that fucking hurts and there's blood splashed across his neck and against his jaw and the creature turns on its great bone legs, wailing and intent on pinning Sam to the floor like a butterfly.
Dean rolls, pain like a fucking fire all the way through him, and grabs the other bottle of holy water. He struggles to his knees, then one leg. He goes up and under the bottom of the thing and smashes the bottle right in its damn shrieking face.
The noise becomes a roaring wail, smoke curling up as the creature burns. It sways, legs clattering together, one of them scrapes and then smashes into the ceiling, bringing down the tattered light fixtures.
The room shudders like it's being shaken by a vast hand, Dean goes low, reloads his gun and then gets close, presses the barrel against the thing's ragged, stretched neck and doesn't stop firing, makes its throat a red, wet mess, head jerking and flailing, sinking lower on strings of bloody flesh and the shattered sharpness of its spine.
It's still wailing when Dean drops the gun, reaches out with both hands and grips it. He pulls, pulls hard until the wound in his shoulder screams and his fingers go numb. Flesh tears, and bone cracks and then breaks. The head falls, hits the floor with a low hollow sound, the scream cuts out, becomes a hollow rasp. A hissing breath and then shocking silence.
Dean can hear his own breathing.
The creature sways, then collapses in on itself in one great crash of bone. It twitches, smokes, but doesn't get up again.
"Sam."
Dean makes his way round the thing's body, to where Sam's still awkwardly, slowly, making his way to his feet.
The room is still shaking, the cracks in the middle of the floor now bowing inwards, swallowing great chunks of the floor. Pulling the creature's vast misshapen body closer, bone limbs sliding inside the hole.
Dean thinks maybe it's going to swallow the whole fucking building to shut itself. He grabs at Sam's coat, hauls him upright before he's ready. Every pound of his weight threatening to send Dean crashing to the ground too. But there's no fucking way they're being buried alive here.
No fucking way.
"We have to get out of here, Sam."
The room shakes, the rest of the light fixtures crashing down in a shower of sparks and metal clangs.
"Now, Sam." He pulls, forcing Sam to walk or be dragged and they stumble out of the door. The whole building shakes and Dean's briefly pressed sharply into the wall, hard enough that his shoulder screams and the world briefly goes grey, cold sweat collecting everywhere.
But he doesn't have time to pass out.
Sam's mostly walking by himself by the time they reach the stairs, but they're still close enough to the horror behind them that the collapsing floor is visible every time Dean turns his head.
"Sam, come on, damn it."
Sam's pulling himself along, almost as fast as Dean's pulling. Dean's fairly sure he has a bad concussion and he shouldn't be making him run, but if they don't get out of here it won't matter.
Nothing will matter.
One corridor.
Two.
The ground crumbles beneath their feet and the ceiling strains and groans overhead and Dean is not being buried alive inside some shitty office building in Detroit.
They burst out into the alley, into the light, the building cracking and listing behind them. The alley's empty and something in Dean's chest clenches but they have to keep moving, have to get away from the building. Sam's breathing hard and Dean's wincing with every step and it's not like they're even close to up to dealing with an army of the dead -
The streets are full.
The streets are full of the dead.
Thousands of unmoving dead, slumped against each other, sprawled out and broken in the sunlight. Piles of them, unmoving and dead. They both look at them and don't say a word. Whatever magic that was animating them, whatever was trying to claw its way out, it's dead. it's dead and gone.
The zombies are still.
"Dean," Sam says, voice slow but clear.
"I see it." He fists his hand tighter in Sam's coat, holds him as they stumble out into the street.
It's deathly quiet, impossibly still. They stumble out further, into the mess of abandoned cars, past the piles of dead and there's someone still upright, someone still moving that Dean recognises.
Ellen still has her shotgun slung over one arm. Like she's just daring the undead to get up and move again. Like she'll have no trouble putting them all down again if they do.
"Ellen." Dean's voice sounds more than a little broken.
Ellen meets them at the mouth of the alley, reaches out, grasps Dean's arm in warm fingers.
"Wasn't sure I'd see you again," Ellen tells them, but the way she says it, it sounds like so much else. It sounds like she was waiting for them, like maybe she would have waited as long as it took.
Her fingers on his arm are tight, then tighter.
"I think we found something that belongs to you," she says quietly. Then tips her head to the left.
There's an angel in a bloody trench coat standing by the wreck of cars, and all the breath goes out of Dean in one go. It's the space of a handful of seconds before Castiel's close enough to touch, close enough to catch with a hand and pull in, throw an arm around. Dean winces when his arm and shoulder pull but he can't let go for the life of him and Castiel doesn't make him. One arm winding round him and holding him up.
"Dean," Castiel says simply, quietly, like nothing else matters.
Dean takes a breath.
"I'm so fucking glad to see you, I thought you were dead, I thought you were fucking dead, Cas."
Dean holds him as tight with one arm as he can. Heart beating stupidly hard. The rest of whatever adrenaline he has left. He wants to fist his hand in the angel's hair and tell him somehow that this...this makes it all worth it.
"I'm glad you were successful," Castiel says thickly. But it sounds like so much more. It sound like everything.
"It would have been a shitty thing to save the world and lose you, Cas."
Castiel's fingers tighten, just a little.
Dean doesn't even care that Ellen hears, that she makes a soft noise in her throat.
He hears her boots on concrete, hears her catch at Sam's coat and lead him to sit against one of the parked cars.
Dean can see now that it isn't just Ellen.
Chuck, who's limping, is trying to get Jo to sit down so he can see to the cut on her cheek. He's losing so far, Jo seems to have inherited her mother's need to do. But she's done pretty good, Dean has to give her that.
He thinks maybe Bobby...until he sees him, stood over Sam, with one arm bound just tight enough to hold but free enough to shoot a gun.
"Everyone's ok?" Dean asks, and he knows how disbelieving he sounds, how sharp. Because they don't get to be ok, they just don't get to have this.
"You have delivered them all from evil," Castiel says quietly. It's strangely serious, firm, like it matters somehow.
Dean shakes his head, winces when there's a stab of pain and a pull of bloody cloth.
Castiel's pale hand lifts, presses down over the wet hole in his shoulder and Dean inhales sharply.
"Jesus, Cas," Dean hisses. But it's not to stop the bleeding. There's a curl of warmth, an ache that flares deep and then Castiel's hand slides away and the skin is smeared red, but whole. When the angel shifts, goes to move his hand, Dean holds it there, holds it pressed against his chest.
"I was afraid for you," Castiel says simply.
Dean squeezes his fingers.
"Is it over? Is it done?"
"Yes," Castiel says simply, no hesitation, no doubt, and Dean exhales, rough, hard like he was just waiting for someone to say that.
For someone to make him feel like he could just stop.
Dean breathes out, digs his fingers into Castiel's coat and lets the angel lead him towards the others.
END