Mendacium Ex Machina - Sam/Dean NC-17 [Part 1]
MASTERPOST
THEN
“…lost his groundbreaking lawsuit against prominent biotech firm Azazel Enterprises today. Citing criminal negligence in the death of his wife, John Winchester’s case had the potential to significantly delay plans to make augmentation more available to the general public. Although cameras were banned from the proceedings; crowds of protestors picketed the courthouse for the duration of…”
^
“We’ve been integrating ourselves with technology for decades now; replacing lost or damaged limbs, implanting data chips that give away huge amounts of personal information to governments and corporations all across the globe…”
^
“…CEO of Azazel Enterprises gunned down outside the firm’s corporate headquarters in Wyoming. Police have released security footage placing Sam and Dean Winchester - sons of former anti-augmentation lobbyist John Winchester - at the scene. Anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts is being urged to contact…”
^
“Human augmentation is a perversion of God’s will. They ask us to become machines; to sacrifice our freedom and humanity on the altar of corporate greed. The Word of God will not stand by and wait for Judgement Day; we will meet them in the streets, and in their offices, and their laboratories, and force them to…”
^
“…plans to restructure Crowley Cybernetics following a buyout by rising star Richard Roman, of Roman Innovations…”
“…rumours of human experimentation causing ripples in the financial world as stock prices continue to climb to record heights…”
“Richard Roman today signed a historic military contract with several branches of the United States armed…”
^
“Roman Innovations has unveiled their new Leviathan augmentation system. A revolutionary series of upgrades aimed at the consumer with the goal of becoming the cheapest, most accessible brand in the world. Dr Cas Tiel - leading scientist behind the project and former employee of Crowley Cybernetics - has reportedly resigned due to work-related stress; however CEO Richard Roman has promised that…”
^
“This is a business driven by fear. If I don’t improve myself; augment myself; I’ll be less successful; less intelligent, less able to compete than the rest of the human race…”
^
“…growing numbers of people experiencing side effects…”
“…dramatic increase in cases of augment psychosis…”
“…establishment of shelters for those suffering augment rejection…”
^
“We’re unifying humanity; bringing down the barriers that separate people, and bringing us all closer to the inevitable Singularity. We can become the gods we’ve always been striving to be, and I am honoured to have the chance to lead us down that path.”
“…is asking you to replace your perfectly healthy, functional body parts with mechanical augmentations. What they are doing is ethically and morally wrong…”
^
“…of rioting outside augmentation clinics has resulted in the deployment of military personnel to several major cities, in an effort to protect the public. Already many protesters have been injured and dozens more arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities…”
^
“They’ll be able to send messages into your brain; control your thoughts, as if they had the power of God.”
“It’s human nature to want to rise above our limits. There’s no crime in inventing tools to overcome weakness, or in looking to a future beyond the constraints of biology. The small-minded people who want to impede that march to a higher evolution? Well, they won’t stand in our way for long.”
^
“…have been abused; kidnapped; experimented on. Any resistance or opposition is met by brutal terror on the people. When does this stop? How long will you…”
“Violent clashes erupted again today outside several satellite facilities of Roman…”
^
“You see a bright and happy future? I see a police state run by super-solders! You see freedom and a better life? I see cell doors; barbed wire; camps for ‘defectives’ whose own bodies turn against them…”
“…so-called underground resistance movement have sparked curfews to be tightened in many urban population centres…”
“…yet another multi-billion dollar merger, taking Richard Roman to the very top of the fortune 100...”
^
“…Innovations has the power to turn off your limbs. The potential to shut down your eyes. You think ol’ Dick’ll stop at replacing soldier’s arms and legs with weaponised ‘upgrades’? You think he’ll be satisfied using his puppets to win foreign oil wars, and his paid-for politicians to dictate government legislation? Make no mistake my friends; they will come for us all. And when they do; they won’t need guns, or knives, or explosives. Just the flick of a switch; and we will all go willingly.”
^
“…broke into a Roman Innovations research and development complex in the early hours of this morning. It is unclear what the Winchesters were hoping to accomplish, however we do know a virus was left in the mainframe that crippled the…”
“These men are dangerous, and they will continue to pose a threat to the public good until they are apprehended, or stopped by other means. If you have any information on Sam or Dean Winchester, please contact the…”
^
“…now officially the most wanted criminals in America today, following a shootout that resulted in the deaths of…”
“…hacked the Roman Innovations site and disrupted traffic…”
“…just welcoming us all to Nineteen Eighty-Four. The bus got here a little late, and our tour guide George Orwell is good and dead; but hey we’re here now, and Big Brother Roman is watching!”
^
“…messages of anti-augmentation propaganda continue to plague the net as tech teams search for the source of the pirated…”
“…brothers have not been seen for several months. Speculation is rampant following the destruction of several…”
^
“…amid rumours that the footage showing the Winchester’s as they were shot and killed by local police is a result of holo-manipulation…”
“…no comment on the lack of DNA evidence at the crime scene, however…”
“I think they’re heroes.”
“They’re all terrorists, and they deserve what they get.”
“The Winchesters? Nah man they’ve been dead for months, no matter what the conspiracy wackos say.”
“I’ll admit they were something of a thorn in our proverbial paw, but that’s all. There are always a few short-sighted individuals who need a little extra guidance to be brought into the fold. I’m not concerned, no.”
^
“…and if our lords and masters think we’re going quietly; they’ve got a very rude, violent awakening coming their way. This has been the Frank Truth. Think human, stay human.
“…as conflicting reports continue to pile up, the manhunt for other terrorist groups goes on throughout…”
NOW
The detonator sits square-edged and skin-warmed in the middle of Dean’s palm. He’s been turning it over and over for at least five minutes, waiting for Sam to hurry his ass up and set the last charge; before riot police or more of Dick’s upgraded lackeys show up. Or worse; more Word crazies coming back to spray paint logos and break more windows.
“Anytime now would be nice, Sam,” he mutters into the frigid night air. Watches his breath plume over the lip of the rooftop. Waiting for any sign of his brother by the orange glimmer of the burning transport that sits like a twisted carcass across the wrecked street.
“Yeah I’ve almost got it.” Sam’s voice faintly echoing in his earpiece; clear enough even with the car alarms ringing and the sirens in the distance. He sounds maybe a little out of breath, kinda distracted; but not ‘there’s-a-projection-of-a-sadistic-scientist-torturer-in-my-head’ distracted, so Dean’ll take it. They can’t exactly turn down opportunities like this, regardless of how balanced Sam is on any given day. He can say he’s doing okay all he likes; doesn’t mean Dean misses it when his eyes dart to empty air, or his fingers run over his left hand; chasing some echo of feeling or maybe just a habit, Dean doesn‘t know.
He hasn’t asked.
He wills himself to believe everything’s fine, that Sam can do this. The warehouse is empty; the cameras are dead; the two over-augmented mercs guarding the place were taken down in whatever shitstorm the Word guys kicked up before they cleared out. It’s just them, the rubble, and a whole lotta stockpiled Leviathan tech begging for the right amount of nano explosive.
“I’m done,” finally comes through the earpiece like a caress, and despite Dean’s taped-together faith his gut still unknots a little when he sees Sam’s shadow. He flits out the side door; moving silent and catlike between stacks of crates before he vanishes again.
Minutes later he’s up on the roof, and there’s a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth when Dean reflexively checks him over. Like he’s hiding a wound somewhere. Not like it’d be unprecedented.
“You took your sweet time,” he says as he shifts to his feet and primes the switch on the detonator, little bleep as the light turns green. “Was about to leave. Maybe go for coffee.”
“Hey I would’ve stopped for takeout but I heard somewhere that it funds evil corporations,” Sam says, deadpan and earnest. Dean grins, fits his fingers over the trigger, raises his eyebrows a little.
Sam nods, sure. Dean squeezes until the contact plates meet; and the building behind him erupts into a chaotic blaze of fire and noise; rains down chunks of battered metal. Washes out the ambient sounds of the city.
The force of the blast knocks into his back as a push of hot air, stirs the hairs at his nape, almost makes him flinch. Instead he just watches Sam; hair pushed back and jacket open, skin shining with perspiration save for the damn skin-tight black gloves Dean is coming to hate even more than the bangs he used to hide behind as a moody teenager. Sam and his barriers, all those shields he sticks up.
The firelight reflects as white glints in Sam’s eyes; colour bled away by the surrounding darkness, shadows thrown sharp across the angles of his face. He’s worn and hurting and too bad at hiding it, and Dean just stares like an answer’s gonna grow between them; weeds crawling up though concrete.
Sam faces him, smiles tired, crooked enough that a dimple pops. It’s ridiculous the effect that still has on Dean in what basically amounts to a war zone on the edge of an apocalypse. Teetering; precarious like one good shove would send it sailing over.
As they book for the fire escape, Dean hears the cracked vidscreen across the way sputtering it’s last lines of corper bullshit like a death knell. Same old message they’ve heard countless times since Dick came on the scene.
“Roman Innovations. Building a better you, for a brighter future.”
Watching the glowing flames and tendrils of black smoke climb up into the sky, blotting out the specks of light from the skyscrapers in the distance; Dean thinks he likes their way of ‘brightening the future’ a helluva lot better.
They pull into the gloomy lot just as the sun starts to turn the sky a pasty blue-grey, and Dean has a brief flash of rain coming down on the burning warehouse before deciding it probably doesn’t matter.
The engine protests with a coughing rumble, and he has to press the footbrake right into the floor before they stop, but at least they don’t end up going through the wall of the motel. He wants to bitch about missing the Impala, but at this point he’s got every response of Sam’s memorised, and he‘s too damn wiped to follow the playbook anyway.
The junker’s engine ticks too loud and too frequent (s’even the wrong pitch, of all the stupid details to get hung up on) but as Dean scrubs as a hand over his face and watches the old guy from the end room - no name, says he doesn’t remember, even on his good days - hobble to his door; leaning half on the wall and half on a battered steel crutch, he just wants to shut his eyes and not move for a century or two.
“We going inside, or just sleeping in the car like the good old days?” Sam says, after too much silence stretches out with not enough rest.
Dean lets the air out of his lungs through his teeth. Slow and hissing, tire with a nail in it. His hand scrapes over the crappy plastic door handle. He lets the creak of the seat as he folds himself out be his answer.
The air is cold, smells like gasoline and garbage; undefined alley stench clinging to the uneven ground. There’s barely enough light from the sickly pale fluorescent over the manager’s office to see by. Not like the guy inside’s the manager anyway.
Their door swings open with a twist of the handle, unlocked, ‘cause what’s the point even if the flimsy latch was still nailed into the wood properly? He flings his jacket over the lawn chair sat angled next to the stained, too-small table. Stands and blinks at the murky twilight that coats everything like a sickness when Sam turns on the lone bedside lamp.
His gun gets tucked into the back of his pants, holster stripped off his right leg with efficient, well-practiced moves, before it’s carelessly tossed onto the table, almost sliding off the edge.
The bed creaks a warning as Sam sits himself down, but it hasn’t quite collapsed yet so Dean’s not panicking over it. He snags a half-empty bottle of water from the remains of ‘breakfast’, contemplates the box of protein bars if only to have something to do. He drains half of what’s there, screws on the lid and lobs it in Sam’s general direction.
“We should call Frank,” Sam says, slumping back against the yellowing wallpaper, words stretched and mangled by a yawn. The empty bottle scrunches, dents in his hand. His pressure control’s improving.
“You should call Frank,” Dean returns, childish and no idea why except that he’s more or less swaying on his feet.
Sam just snorts, and their latest disposable phone bumps Dean hard in the shoulder, gets snatched out of the air on reflex. That, and they can’t afford to keep breaking phones.
“Fine fine, I’ll do all the work. Bitch,” he mumbles as his fingers do the walking.
The tone cycles through whatever chirping bit of encryption hardware Frank’s using this week, then rings twice before crackling to life. Some classical tune runs faintly in the background, trumpets and who knows what.
“Mary had a little lamb,” Dean says around a pained cringe, before Frank can prompt him and drag the embarrassment out. Fuck him for picking that line anyway. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam smirks. Dean sends him a cheery, emphatic middle finger.
“It’s already making the rounds, boys,” Frank says, sounding way to awake for a guy who probably hasn’t slept in twenty-plus years. “‘Suspected terrorist attack at Roman Innovations storage depot.’ Personally I wouldn’t have minded a bigger bang, but that’s a few hundred augs that won’t be getting stuck into anybody’s flesh, so I can’t complain.”
“You’re all heart, Frank,” Dean says, while Frank barrels on.
“No statement from our favourite despot CEO as of yet, but there was a charming little drop in R.I.’s stock price just after the announcement hit the net. No doubt they’re all spitting and cursing and jumping on the least reputation-damaging excuse right now.”
Dean allows himself a tired smirk, feels it tug his lips over his teeth. “Yeah well they can’t exactly blame us without magicking us back to life again. ‘Least those crime spree douchebag copies were good for something.”
Frank chuckles through static on the other end. “Oh they’ve already played your ‘deaths’ on the news feeds at least twice since the explosion got noticed; complete with frame-by-frame bullet impacts and statements from police officials. Seems that Dick wants his little toy anchors to remind John and Jane Q. Public that you both got aerated by the Gestapo, and that there’s no reason not to go and get a limb replaced in the morning like good little sheep.”
Dean shrugs, pointless but for the habit; easier than talking. “Eh, maybe the Word can take the credit this time; make themselves look halfway credible for all of five minutes.” Says it without a lotta optimism.
Frank just chuckles again, keys clacking like an undertone. Brief pause, a warning. “So, I’ve been working on Bobby’s intel.”
Dean goes still. Stiller. Sam twitches into alertness and gives him a look, sixth sense or whatever. Dean turns his back.
The silvery disc of a projector sits heavy in his pocket; lead weight that’s lighter than his gun for all the meaning stuffed into it. The gun has meaning too o‘course, in that his dad’s fingerprints are all but etched into the grip. Specks of blood trapped underneath the slide. Memories in the creak of the trigger - squeeze, don‘t pull Dean. - But nothing like this.
“Oh?” he manages, grits his teeth through the tiny crack between the letters, like water shoving into rock. He knows Sam heard it anyway. Probably busy frowning at his shoulders right now.
“I’ve been over it backwards, forwards and upside-down a million times, but it turns out there’re a lot of things those numbers could mean, Dean. Don’t suppose you could just, oh I don’t know, maybe ask Bobby if-”
“No,” Dean cuts in like an axe through rotted wood. Free hand tensing ‘til the knuckles crack. “No. Sorry,” he tacks on, scratches at the grit under his jaw with ragged nails. Ain’t a speck of him that’s actually clean.
Frank sighs, tiny break in the noise of a keyboard working. Dean thinks he’s probably counting to ten or something.
“My best guess - without having the last few segments -” Frank grumbles, and Dean just waits him out, “is that it’s some sorta databurst frequency. But not radio or infolink or any of that other standard crap. We’re talkin’ black helicopter, Illuminati type stuff here, Dean. Complex harmonics like I’ve never seen before. There’s enough deep code in what’s there to make me real nervous. And I don’t like being nervous Dean; it puts me off my feed.”
Dean winces, waves a hand over his shoulder when he hears Sam shift like he‘s gonna stand. “Hey I uh, I don’t like you being nervous either Frank.” Momentary recall to a shotgun in his face and a hand none too steady. “But we need to know what those numbers mean. Bobby d--Bobby wouldn’t have focused on ‘em if they weren’t important,” He settles on the sentence like a refuge, doesn’t think about whatever look Sam’s wearing behind him.
“Well they got swiped right off of Roman’s personal system, so I’d bet there’s enough there to get us all disappeared with bags over our heads and taken straight to the nearest gulag. But I can only do so much with a puzzle that’s missing pieces,” he says it like it hurts. For him it probably does.
Dean blinks the sand from his eyes. Looks up at the ceiling where it’s spotted brown and dips in the centre.
Frank grunts out a noise. “Listen, I’ve got a few acquaintances in the underground who owe me - some of them more than you two, if you can believe that. There are a few techs who might - and I need to stress the ‘might’ part - be able to come up with something. I’ll pass it on to the names I trust, let them go from there.” Dean doesn’t like when Frank gets reasonable. It means they’re two feet deeper in shit than they were a minute ago.
His thumb traces one edge of the projector through his jeans, feels it warmed just like the lining by the skin beneath.
“So, Charlie then?” he asks, and almost enjoys Franks bitten off cuss. If it hurts Frank knowing there’s a system he can’t beat, it must kill him that there’s someone better at beating systems than he is.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up sweetheart. And ask Bobby about those damn numbers.” The call dies with a shuffling series of clicks. Dean swears under his breath, tosses the phone onto the table.
“Good news?” Sam asks, a little sleep-slurred but still drier than a desert in Hell.
Dean doesn’t answer. He stands with one hand on the table, bracing. His thumb picks at where the cover’s peeling off like chapped skin. Flakes of it getting under his nail.
He sighs, shoves his other hand into his pocket, tugs out the multisided, flat plate of metal and sits it in his palm. Like a papery-fine flower he’d plucked off of his clothes. An ornament he doesn’t wanna drop on accident. Some part of his frontal lobe keeps him from flinging it against the far wall, letting it crack and spew glittering parts over the room.
Sam is utterly quiet, gaze resting heavy from across the empty space.
He lays it down on the table, tap of alloy on the battered plastic; a whole lot gentler than he’d been with either the holster or the phone. It glints, innocent and too clean-looking in their dingy room with it’s rundown tenants. The imbedded circlet of an on-switch glows faintly blue; pulses of slow radiance in some fallacy of a heartbeat.
He’s not doing this. Not now. Not tonight.
He drags himself over to the bed, Sam watching him blank-faced and with dropping eyes sat deep above purple marks like bruises, smudge of grime on one cheek. The crease between his eyebrows is a thousand questions Dean doesn’t have the answers to.
Dean doesn’t know what to say. All his words are used up, inadequate before he even starts.
Outside, rain dashes against the door in a thousand needle pricks of cold and wet. Splinters of dawn light creep through the gauzy curtain like bony fingers. Wind rattles the glass in it’s frame.
He looks at Sam’s hands; wrapped in glossy black. Lifetime of calluses and scars, fine little hairs and crinkled skin all hidden away. Half stolen from Sam. All of them stolen from Dean.
“Y’should take those off,” he says, airiness wrecked by the heavy thunk of the gun against the nightstand, knife slid into his empty boot. He shucks his jeans with a clink of the belt. Sam’s expression gets hidden with a ruffle of ripe-smelling cotton over his head.
“I’m okay,” Sam breathes, quiet. Fingers toying with the edge of the left glove where a sliver of pure white hints from underneath, seamless from his wrist.
He wonders if Sam even thinks it’s a lie.
They squash and curl and fold awkward onto the squeaky frame with it’s sagging excuse for a mattress. Dean listens to his heart slow. Tries to imagine it’s Sam’s.
Heat bleeds between them under the ratty pile of blankets; necessity more than comfort.
Sam’s knee comes to rest in the hollow of Dean’s, single point of contact. Dean knows the feel of him, the shape. All the lines and dips and parts where he’s soft. Vulnerable. He knows the sounds; voice to breath to the pound of his heart. The rhythms of him. He knows Sam. Dean knows his brother.
He doesn’t know where Sam is.
Dean sleeps. He dreams of gleaming black and polished chrome. The smell of leather. The plastic clatter of his tapes; Sam’s voice a soundtrack to actual music. Roar of an engine.
Dean sleeps, and dreams of cold metal tables and the lingering, old penny tang of blood. The snap of a spine, too quick. The echoing, double bark of a shotgun.
Dean sleeps, and hears his brother scream.
It’s rare that Sam wakes up first these days.
Sleep itself is kind of rare, really. At least for more than an hour at a time that isn’t spent muffling noises behind his teeth, counting his heartbeats. Reliving things that had been bad enough the first time.
Dean’s got some sort of contest going with himself over how little rest he can get before he drops; like he has to just hover and wait to see if Sam’s gonna lose his shit again. Real concern or not; good intentions or not; Sam hates it.
They’re closer together than they were when Sam finally nodded off. The blanket’s gotten bunched and squashed between them like a wall of thready fabric. Lying on his side, Sam can smell the slightly unclean scent of Dean’s hair just in front of his face. He breathes, deep. Slow. Light does it’s best against the curtain; easy victory shedding muted white, cruelly revealing imperfections.
They aren’t touching, anywhere.
Sam’s lying on his hands.
Pins and needles run along his right-hand fingers, up the wrist, prickling through nerves and down to bone as the blood tries to push on through. The left one is a faint, cool ache; like ice resting on skin, left to melt. It’s not quite pain. It’s still pain enough.
Amusement flickers in the back of his head, not his own. Sharp, measured, curious. The cut of a scalpel.
Pain is physical, Sam. Organic.
He keeps his eyes closed, pink-red of vessels and film of his lids lit from outside, tries to imagine every thought and feeling just swirling away, water down a dark hole. He focuses on his breathing. Times the rise and fall of his chest with Dean’s, counterpoint.
Dean’s a warm, familiar presence just out of reach; pulling at him like gravity. Lodestone.
Sam doesn’t touch him.
Time passes in uneven, jumpy fragments. He doesn’t know what the plan is today; beyond: Stay alive, Stay sane. Stay human. He repeats it in his head; three little ticks counted one second at a time. Repeats it again.
He’s taken to not knowing like a defence. Less ammunition for the… for his brain to use.
He doesn’t like it, but it’s necessary. Like is a luxury. Bobby’d said that to him once.
Eventually Dean jolts awake; immediate and motionless. Silent. The way he’s done for years.
Sam listens as he gets up and putters around the room. Splash of murky water in the rusted sink; baking soda on a worn toothbrush. Shuffle of clothes. Crinkle of a wrapper.
Sam doesn’t pay attention to the other sounds. Beeping and the chink of metal-on-metal. Muffled voices talking low, clinical. Impersonal. Dean doesn’t react to them, so neither does Sam.
His hand aches.
“C’mon Sam,” Dean says eventually; quiet like he doesn’t already know Sam’s been awake this whole time. He’s been too willing to pander lately. “Can’t spend all day lazing around on your ass.” He’s facing the other way, tucking his gun into the back of his pants, holster abandoned on the table. Means a public place then. As public as they can be, anyway.
Sam rises, quiet and smooth. A shimmer of white passes through his periphery, and he wants to flinch. He doesn’t. Neither does Dean, so he wasn’t wrong. He focuses on dressing; precise, consuming movements. One thought at a time.
“We got plans?” he asks, doing up his belt, sitting back on the bed, reaching for his boots. Twenty-plus years of dog-with-a-bone curiosity still trumps one year’s worth of wacko sometimes.
Dean doesn’t answer. When Sam looks up from fiddling with his laces, Dean’s watching him; face a rictus, eyes not fully in the present.
Old habits.
“We’re running low on… everything, really,” Dean says, like he’s realising it now. “Plus I wanna head into the District, see if there’s any news on what Dick or the Word are up to.”
“Facts on the ground,” Sam concludes, something visceral shifting at their father’s favourite phrase.
“You got it,” Dean says, all false energy like a windup toy. He buttons it by shoving the projector into the inside of his jacket, hand scrubbing through his still-damp hair as he turns to leave.
“So,” Sam starts abruptly, plucked from him, helpless. Like poking at a loose tooth. “You ever gonna tell me what Frank said last night?”
Dean stops near the door, arm extended, fingers moving for the handle. His shoulders bunch. Sam waits, stays seated. Dean likes the high ground.
Manipulative.
Dean turns, slow. Considered thumps of booted feet on the barely there carpet. Three. Four. Eyes meeting, glancing off Sam like sun on water.
“He’s working on it,” Dean says, like Sam didn’t already know. Like he couldn’t have figured that out just from Dean’s end of the conversation.
“Long talk just for ‘working on it’” Sam says, temperate as he can. Dean’s jaw ticks a little, chest falling on a huffed breath.
“He thinks the numbers are some kinda signal, but he can’t be sure. He’s gonna ask around for us.” He says it totally bland, almost monotonal. Sam does his best not to prod him, looking for a reaction. An angry, gesticulating Dean is always better than a blank Dean. Blank is rain rinsing mud into an open grave. Blank is fire where the Roadhouse used to be. Blank is Sam tearing shreds of skin from his own wrist, pushing at a hand that isn’t; grasping for cauterised scars along his spine.
“Charlie?” he asks, level, replaying Dean’s words from last night. Trying to puzzle through what sort of transmissions would warrant Dick’s personal attention, when the man already owns every major news broadcaster on the net, plus who knows how many others.
Dean snorts; a phantom laugh. “Yeah. Charlie and any other tech who owes him more than just a lousy beer and a good right hook, most likely.”
Sam tries for a smile that Dean isn’t watching for.
“Also he uh…” Dean picks up again, slower, loaded hesitancy that tightens Sam’s gut. This road never leads to a good place. “He wanted me t’ask Bobby.” That… makes sense, actually. Sam shouldn’t be relieved that it wasn’t technically about him. He is though, just the same.
“I take it you don’t like the idea?” Sam asks, entirely pointless.
Dean’s eyes are scrutinising the - bare, apart from some inkblot water stains - wall furthest from the door. Frown like it’s not right; mystery hidden in crappy drywall.
Blank is Bobby with a bullet in his head.
“Way to put it mildly, Sam,” Dean says, back of a hand scrubbing at the grimace on his face.
“Dean, if he does know anything…” Sam trails off, hand cutting a line through the air between them. “Anything at all about what Dick’s planning, then we have to-”
“Have to what, Sam?” Dean breaks in, steps closer. “You saw what happened. What he was like the last time.” Sam winces at the memory of the holding cell; Bobby a distorted mess; the outright fear on Charlie’s too-gaunt face. The pain all over Dean’s.
He pushes on. “This is bigger than us, Dean. Bigger than me, than you. Than Bobby. We’re just gonna ignore it and hope it turns out okay? Since when has that ever worked for us?” The words just tumble out, hypocrisy and all. Like he’s been rehearsing. He knows it’s a low blow even before he finishes. Too much crap piled onto too few people, not enough left to bear the strain. And now he’s sitting here calling Dean selfish.
Dean looks like Sam’d taken a swing at him. Sam wishes he had. There’d be blood, bruises, broken bones. Things that mend. Things that fade.
“Don’t you talk to me like I don’t get it,” Dean says; voice a low rumble, warning. Dangerous. “But if we turn that thing on and Bobby’s not… not Bobby anymore.” He swallows hard, throat moving audibly. “Then you know that’s it. End of game. No take backs.”
“Dean it’s not him now, not really. You saw him too; did he seem like the man we both remember?” He’s twisting the knife, can’t stop now. “He’s an echo, Dean. An imprint. That’s all.” He does try for gentle. Tries to ignore the sting in his eyes, the roil of his stomach.
“What d’you want me to do, Sam?” Dean asks, little abortive shrug of his arms out from his sides. He looks tall, like this. He looks small too. “Demand the answers he might have, and then just watch as he rips himself apart?”
Sam wants to yell, wants to stand and get in Dean’s face, raise the volume. He wants to leave the stupidly tiny room and just move, out in the open air.
Sam stays where he is, and tries to look his brother in the eye.
“These things don’t last; they aren’t supposed to. It all goes the same way, Dean, sooner or later. You can’t hold onto it forever.” Waver in his speech, Dean’s jaw locked tight, his eyes are dark. Implication is a third person in a room meant for one.
“Why not?” Barbs in Dean’s voice now, digging in, tugging. Blood welling up. “S’what we do now, right? Just pretend. Pretend the world’s not sliding down the pan. Pretend Bobby ain’t just a bad copy in a stolen piece’a tech? Pretend you’re fine; like you’re not sleeping in leather gloves and jumping at shit that’s not there?” He’s nearly breathless. Harsh, choppy up-down of ribs like he’s been running instead of almost-shouting. Sam’s heart is beating, too fast. He’s flashing cold, freezing solid from the inside, palms sweating, beads forming slick beneath his gloves.
Cold grey eyes, the flash of cruel lights on steel. Too many questions and death memories laid over and over each other like stones, pebbles that make a mountain. Screams that tear his throat to ribbons.
He blinks hard, swallows bitterness creeping up. Stares at the fleeting guilt on Dean’s face as it gets trampled beneath the anger, captivating, like watching a car wreck.
“You’re right,” he says, hoarse. Anything else would be a lie. “About all of it. But Dean, we’re running fairly low on options here.” It’s too heavy; everything from the sound of his voice to the air itself, weighing in his chest. Truth hurts like everything does.
“Exactly why we’re not burning through the one shot we have, on the off chance it’ll work out,” Dean says, finality a blow that cracks the stillness. “Not until we’re totally sure there’s no other way.” He turns, gets halfway through the door before seeming to realise Sam’s still sat there.
“You coming?” he asks, turned in profile and ringed in pallor. He sounds tired already.
Sam nods, chips away the ice, follows him out. What else can he do?
The District never looks quite the same twice, Dean thinks.
It’s also impossibly more depressing in daylight.
They leave the car under a decrepit highway overpass; a camouflage of fallen brick and layers of crud, gloom devouring everything.
Dean takes point and heads into the nearest street entrance, walking deeper into the grimy network that makes up the place, like veins in some big dead animal.
There’re scraps of wood and old plastics strewn everywhere; boxes and wrappings and hollow industrial bins, carrion picked clean.
Tarps fastened between the looming buildings flutter in the breeze, strung across stories in irregular platforms of grubby shelter, casting off-white when the sunlight scores across them. Boards take the place of windows, layered like patchwork bandages over decay, a faded spectrum of graffiti forming death throes of colour.
It stinks.
“S’quiet,” Sam offers, eyes jumping from doorway to doorway, window to window. The stalls - what few of them there are - that crop up like a slapdash marketplace are abandoned; ratty awnings and bare, makeshift shelves like skeletons.
Steam rises lazy from grates and drains, swaths of vapour marring the emptiness.
Dean breathes slow, tugs air through his nose and regrets it. “Yeah. Not empty though.”
The back of Dean’s neck prickles with the rising of all those tiny hairs; instincts whispering of unseen eyes.
Sam nods, grim, squinting at shadows.
They walk on, toward the rough ‘centre’ of the District; passing through all the nothing filled with bits of shoddy living, cast off like old skins, outgrown.
An old street-level billboard - made with paper and held up in a metal frame, no holograms or screens - rests crooked and defaced; draws the eye with a scrawl of red letters, sprayed over the clean white-grey of the usual R.I. promises about augs. Some bored yahoo’s warnings of doom and the end of days.
Dean appreciates the thought, but really, in this place? It’s not exactly hot news.
They pass a woman resting on the lowest flight of an old fire escape, leaning on the railing with her knees drawn up, flare from the end of her cigarette, smoke slowly rising. Her legs are dark grey alloy, flowing lines of metal with seamless joints and bifurcated, flexing blades that curve into the vague shape of feet, ‘toes’ curved the opposite way, over the edge of the next step down. The tight coils of cable and silent mechanisms lead up from above her ‘knees’, vanish beneath the frayed clothes that drape her hips.
She looks up at them with drooping lids, eyes mostly unseeing, her hair a series of dark, straight lines down past her ears; like a kid’s drawing, all angular and simple.
Sam nudges him on with a tap to the shoulder.
Where the way in was quiet as a sky waiting to break open; the central part of the District is a street fair, overstuffed with people and their wares; a ragtag mix of those who scratch out their lives in the place because they’ve been left no choice, and those who come to peddle to them. A black market, thriving and dying by turns.
It’s all meaningless noise and shoulders bumping, lit by hanging bulbs and coloured lanterns strung up on wiring; people giving up whatever they’ve got in exchange for what they need more at that particular moment; dregs of society, clinging on.
Dean feels more than sees Sam’s hand inch closer to his gun.
Smoke rises from a grill, hiss of pilfered rations being charred darker, the slosh from plastic jugs filled with water, people huddled around, reaching out.
As they head through, Dean clocks the source of faint music, weaving in beats and pulses around and through the din; a few guys gathered by a wall, hoods pulled up like cowls and heads bent together.
“C’mon,” Sam says, low and practically against the shell of Dean’s ear. “Let’s not stick around here, huh?” He’s tense, Dean can feel it buzzing between them like static. He doesn’t know if it’s the risk of them being seen in public - even ‘public’ on this low a rung - or if it’s the general claustrophobic atmosphere setting him off.
He nods, picks up the pace, lets his breath pool warmth into his collar, fading into chill.
The bar takes up the width of a long, blunt, dead-ended street; a corridor of potholed dark and garbage-strewn sidewalk, overhung with girders and other detritus. It glows, like an oasis in the grey haze, and Dean doesn’t wanna dwell on the feeling that they’re returning someplace welcoming, the way the Roadhouse or Bobby’s place had been.
A sign hangs over the doorway, crooked like an axe frozen mid-swing. Two of the six bulbs along it’s length have been burned out for as long as Dean can remember.
It’s fractionally warmer inside, light spilling from overhead fixtures, the low hum of random chitchat. People clustered in twos and threes offer up cursory glances and turn their backs. The air is still, soured by cigarette smoke and the wide-ranging smell of too many people passing through a place.
They’re as much of a group as they can stand to be, he thinks.
“I’ll ask around, see if anybody’s heard anything new,” Sam says, looking this way and that around the large, high-ceilinged room.
“Be careful,” Dean says with a nod, then wants to roll his eyes at himself. Like Sam needs telling. Stupid habits.
Sam smirks, which nearly makes the girly little slip worth it, but doesn’t say anything as he breaks off and heads for a cluster of five people spaced around a wobbling circular table near one wall, a deck of cards scattered between them and what look like MRE’s in the middle. Dean hopes Sam knows better than to hustle these people out of too much stuff; they’re here for information, not to start a goods brawl.
Dean makes for the shiny, pockmarked semicircle of the bar, the thick shelving behind is backlit ghostly blue, diffracted through bottles and scattering out of place rainbows over the wood.
The dude manning the bar is a whole other story.
“Hey Dex,” Dean says, leaning his forearms onto the surface and taking a quick side-eye of the rest of the patrons. “Not exactly shooting over your maximum capacity, huh? You run out of good booze at last? Black market stop putting out for ya?”
Dex is a tall, sturdy guy in his late fifties. He’d look pretty badass just from the stern, ex-army face that’s always uncomfortably close to their dad’s default expression, plus the long-faded pink burn scars that run from above his left eye to the edge of his chin, like morbid abstract art, and the stretching creases of other damage that spreads from his neck beneath the collar of his black shirt.
But adding to all that’s the unnaturally sharp glint of that left eye; a shade too pale grey and ringed in too harsh a blue to be organic, and the thick, roping black tensor cords and cables of the arm on that same side; dull grey plates forming the back of his hand and spartanly economic joints along each square-tipped digit.
He’s living proof that the military’s early upgrade programs for wounded soldiers saved lives. But there’s a pretty big difference between being alive and having a life that’s worth living. S’not his call to make, though, and Dex has been damn good to the people in this slum; the closest thing they’ve got to a de facto leader.
Dex gives him a rueful smile, and Dean tries to remember to look him in both eyes.
“They keep their word,” Dex says, his voice low and almost rasping; basically the definition of ‘don’t fuck with me’. “So long as I keep forking over a ‘reasonable’ percentage of whatever I scrape together. Like I’m running a damned speakeasy and not a hole at the bottom of a pit.” He scoffs, and there’s a low whirr from his forearm as he levers himself away from the bar with a push, pours amber from a dirty bottle into a dirtier glass, sets it down in front of Dean’s clasped hands.
Dean hums commiseration as he knocks back what has to be jet fuel, turns the glass in his fingers, feels over a crack that’s spread right to the base.
“So what’s with the ghost town routine?” he asks, sets his glass down.
Dex leans forward again, light catching sparks off the regulation buzz cut that’s so white it’s like pure silver.
“They’ve been stepping up the raids,” he murmurs, like he’s trying not to tip off the patrons who must’ve been there for it all anyway. “Not just every month or two; sometimes it’s three times a fortnight now. We lost eight people the last time, five more got pretty roughed up.” He shakes his head, and gulps down his own drink like it’s tap water.
“So why the sudden escalation?”
Dex shakes his head, but the pinch of his mouth is telling. “There’s a lot of talk about malfunctioning augs. More than usual, I mean,” he adds as Dean goes to comment. The District was practically founded on malfunctioning augs. “People’re saying it’s spreading, like a disease; getting worse and more sudden. That the raids are meant to cover up how many new faces are ending up here; like Roman’s rent-a-cops are keeping us off balance for something. There’s rumours about full-blown aug psychosis just popping up outta nowhere. It’s nothing we ain’t heard before, mind you, but we‘ve never drawn this amount of heat. Makes people invent truths ‘cause they can‘t take the not knowing.”
He’s trying to play it off, dismiss it like idle gossip; but his voice has dropped again and he’s eyeing the people gathered around the room; slow flick of his focus from point to point, ring of blue at the edge of his iris flickering, turning quicker.
“And you can’t get any of ‘em into the emergency shelters? I thought they were still taking the suits and high society types at least? People who got something to bribe their way in with; low people in high places and all that.”
Another headshake, sharp and more than a little angry; bitter. “They don’t wanna know. ‘Overburdened’; s’what they always say. No room at the inn these days; for anybody. S’why we got neighbourhoods like these in the first place. Not one of us here ‘cause we got alternatives, Dean.” He flattens his palms on the counter, pale, strong fingers and cold grey metal ones contrasting; deep sigh that makes Dean feel like a jackass for even asking.
“Look man, anything we can do, you know that. All you gotta do is ask.” It’s a sincere offer, even if it is all will and no means.
Dex gives him a tired smile, appreciation even for ineffective help. “You just do what you do best,” he says. “Give ‘em hell, slow ‘em down wherever you can. We’ll hold our own.”
Dean huffs a laugh despite himself. This is why he’s always liked Dex; that unshakable impression that he’d wander into Hell with a squirt gun and an accepting nod, shoulders squared and head high.
“You don’t have to worry about us,” Dean says. “Take care of your people; we got each other’s backs.”
“I don’t doubt,” Dex nods. “But I got eyes, Dean. I see those gloves; I read the body language. How’s Sam doing?”
Dean leans away from the counter a little, holds the stare Dex is levelling at him. “He’s fine. Fine as we ever are. You know we lost Bobby.” Not a question, but Dex nods anyway, lips pressed a little tighter, crease between his eyes. “It’s… it’s what it is. We deal, we keep going. That’s it.” He wishes it felt true, less like a rope bridge over a fast current; missing planks.
“There’s no denying you can’t just stop still and let shit run you down,” Dex says. “But what happened ain’t going away just ‘cause you slap some leather over it. Dean--” he pauses, considering, and Dean’s spine is an iron bar, rigid between his shoulders. “If he’s seeing things, then-”
“It’s not psychosis,” Dean sticks into the sentence like a blade, solid in his hands. “Yeah okay, he’s still wearing the gloves, but c’mon man; you can‘t expect… after what happened? He’ll get there.”
“By ignoring it?”
“By fighting. By doing what we’ve always done. What we do best, remember?” He flings the words back, but Dex’s patient stare doesn’t falter.
“I’m not trying to burn a bridge here,” Dex sighs. “Really I’m not. I know pretty much the whole resistance is on your shit list as is.” Dean must blink or start at that, Dex gives an almost fond smile and says; “Kevin. He came by last week, looking for some girl he knows who he thinks wound up here. He filled me in before he bugged out.” He sighs again, harder this time; weighted. “I’m just saying; whatever you shove down? It’s only got so far t’go. Eventually you’ll have to work through instead of past.”
Dean nods, then shakes his head, the whole mess still sharp and burning in his gut. “Yeah, well, they basically told Sam ‘hey sorry you got tortured and all, but we can’t use you if you’re gonna be dropping marbles left and right’. Like half of that bunch aren’t three stops past Crazy Town already. Screw ‘em, we’ve been on our own more often than we‘ve had help. We’re fine. Sam’s fine. I’m fine.”
He’s not sure what to call the look Dex gives him at that. All that fatherly disappointment bullshit is gathering dust in the back of his skull somewhere; old grievances buried along with the man himself.
Luckily that’s when Sam appears, and Dean’s not sure whether to be proud of silent movement or kick him for making him jump like that.
“Sam,” Dex nods, totally cool and collected. “How goes the good fight?”
Dean really wants to be somewhere else now; not feeling like he’s been caught whispering behind his BFF’s back or some such shit.
“I think that’s more your job description,” Sam says. It sounds easy, the way small talk is supposed to, Dean guesses. But Sam’s so tense Dean thinks that if you hit him with a hammer he’d shatter into bits.
“Learn anything?” he asks, taking the silence by the reins.
Sam gives a noncommittal shrug. “Rumours mostly. People disappearing, more psychosis cropping up than ‘normal’.” Dean can hear the air quotes, even though Sam’s hands are by his sides. Beneath the bar; out of sight. “There’s some new health initiative that Dick’s financing; with the UN; supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel type thing. Nobody here’s buying it.” He tacks the last bit on with a twist of his lips.
He looks older, like it’s a struggle to think where Dean’s seen him before.
One of Dean’s knuckles cracks where he’s squeezed his hands too tight. He tries to breathe.
“Yeah Dex was telling me there’s been some kinda crackdown,” Dean says, trying to keep Dex from asking pointed questions without it looking like he is.
“You think they’re looking for resistance members?” Sam asks.
Dean snorts “Hell, when aren’t they? There’s not a cop or private sector security douchebag in this country who’s not linked to Roman somehow at this point.”
“Which means you two should probably cut down on the visitations,” Dex cuts in. “Don’t get me wrong; these little chats are fun and games but if we get raided while you’re here? The game’s over.”
Sam just makes this accepting quirk with his eyebrows, and Dean feels the weight press down a little harder; walls closing in.
“And on that note, we‘ll get outta your hair,” he says, pushing back from the bar and clapping Sam on the shoulder.
Dex looks between them, the metal of his left thumb taps a beat on the countertop. “Good luck boys.”
Sam trails after Dean as they retrace their steps out of the District, trying not to get lost in his head again.
They didn’t exactly leave on a positive note. Even a neutral one could’ve been called a win, but instead they’re basically getting out of dodge before the next wave of troops ransack the place.
He’d seen the looks on the faces of the people he’d spoken to. Tired. Lost. Not so much desperate as reconciled. They’ve been left in the cold so long they’ve just gone numb.
Are you so different?
Dean’s… someplace else. Whatever he’d been talking to Dex about at the bar - and Sam can guess, from the faraway guilt-worried look on Dean’s face that Sam could find in the dark at this point - has his shoulders tightened even more, the skin around his eyes pinched and his hands flexing like he wants to hit something.
So of course it’s Sam that gets jumped.
They fly at him outta nowhere from inside a dank alley, Dean already five or six paces ahead.
A boot thuds hard into his ribs, forces the air from his lungs as pain throbs through his chest. He hears Dean’s shout, then a fist slams into his jaw and he spins from the force of it, blows landing across his back and stomach, eyes stinging and a high ringing in one ear, blood spattered from his nose.
He kicks out, knocks one guy - there’s three of them, all in black hoods and steel-capped boots, each of them with different types of augs but with the same random, jumbled look - off his feet and back against the nearest brick wall, where he falls in a deadweight slump. He lands two good hits to the next dude’s face, but the other one still standing gets a knife to his throat, and he doesn’t dare twist with the tingle-itch of blood already rolling slowly down his neck.
“Any closer, and he’s dead,” says the one holding the blade, cold metal of his hand pressing into the skin at the side of Sam’s neck. He’s talking to Dean.
Dean’s got his Colt in one hand, his knife held in a reverse grip and his legs frozen mid-stride.
Sam forces himself to meet his eyes, the barest nod even with the razor sting of the knife at his throat.
“He dies; you die.” Dean’s voice is steady, low and rumbling; honest.
There’s fear in his eyes though, if you know where to look for it.
Sam can’t see the two that are still conscious; they’re both either behind him or off to one side, and he can’t turn without digging the knife in.
“You’re aug lifters, right?” Dean asks, derisive and with a practiced smirk. “You go after people for their upgrades; cut ‘em out and leave ‘em bleeding to death where they drop? That how you pay your way?” He snorts and widens the smirk a little. “Bunch’a walking hatchet jobs, you can’t even make the news feeds.”
The guy mutters a curse and almost moves enough for Sam to duck around and out of his grip.
“Got the drop on your boy though,” the one not holding the knife says. His voice is muffled a little; probably distorted around the fat lip Sam gave him. “You just let us at whatever he’s hiding under those gloves and maybe you can walk out of this.”
Their pound of flesh. Would it be worth it, do you think? Is Dean worth it, to you? How about to himself?
“The next finger you lay on him is the first one you’re gonna lose,” Dean promises, easy; silver flash of the serrated blade in his hand. He’s barely a foot closer, making tiny slide-steps at random.
Sam pushes meaning into the stare between them, the tiniest rocking gesture with his left hand; back and forth and then again. He sees Dean notice it, all the tiny shifts in his posture.
“You sure you wanna do that?” Sam asks them, movements of his throat shifting the tip of the blade over his skin. “You haven’t even checked what augs I’ve got. You willing to die for a useless bit of hardware?”
A cold laugh echoes.
Knife Guy shifts a little, and Sam doesn‘t let the wince show. “You don’t look like the type to be carrying useless tech,” he says, and in his periphery Sam can barely make out where the skin gets redder halfway up his forearm; the foul, sour hint of necrosis he’d been writing off as just another District odour until now. There’s a tremble creaking in one of the grey cords at his wrist, barely noticeable in the touch of the knife.
Knife Guy’s got aug rejection. That’ll work in their favour, if he can time the move just right.
“Still,” Dean jumps in, another tiny step that only Sam seems to notice. “S’it worth the bullets and the knife wounds and the broken bones? Just take the gloves off, you’ll see.”
The second guy suddenly leans around and snags Sam’s hand at the wrist, tiny bones grinding as the glove on his normal hand gets yanked off and tossed aside. Trying to turn away when he feels his left hand being reached for only has Knife Guy pressing down harder into his neck, another cooling trail of blood running slowly down to his shirt with the fresh bite of pain.
As soon as his left hand gets caught in that same grip, he shudders involuntarily and an icy wave of nausea rolls through him; sudden irrational panic and a wounded animal kind of fear.
Fear without flesh is an illusion, Sam. I taught you better than this.
The glove twists and bunches, would probably be uncomfortable if he could feel anything more than a vague pressure there; a sense that something is moving over the white, artificial skin of his hand.
The glove drops to the ground with a tiny, dry flap of a noise, and the relentless pinch of the knife goes slack right as the second guy gasps and almost yells; “Shit, that’s Levi gear!”
Sam turns ninety degrees and barges his shoulder hard into Knife Guy’s chest, swings his left elbow down hard into the guy’s still-outstretched arm; right at the decaying join with his aug. He cries out at the impact and reels back further, knife clattering to the floor as he doubles over in pain, and Sam doesn’t slow or bother to look as three shots ring out in quick succession, puncturing the air and retorting between the walls, rebounding off of concrete like claps of thunder.
The remaining lifter tries to rush around Sam and back into the shadow of the alley, but Sam kicks out at his ankle and sends him sprawling on a disjointed spin, at the same time he balls his left hand into a fist and swings as hard as he can.
With a sickening, wet crunch, the poor bastards jaw caves and his cheekbone shatters, a high scream that cuts off as he crumples to the floor and goes still, pool of red forming beneath his off-angled head.
Sam’s breathing hard, the skin of his neck’s tacky and pulling with the drying blood. He’s staring down at the violently bright red streaking the grey-white joins of his knuckles, the spatters on the back of his hand. Some of it meets the seamless join of his wrist, where the skin’s still paler than his forearm; tiny hairs matted with crimson drops.
PART 2