Mendacium Ex Machina - Sam/Dean NC-17 [Part 3]
PART 2 | PART 1 | MASTERPOST
It takes them just over a day to convert the upstairs of Rufus’ place into a kind of bare-bones workspace; equipment lugged out of the back of Dr Masters’ car and retrieved from other resistance dead drops she’d been using.
Dean’s been watching both her and Tiel like a hawk with a gun; tracking every move and sniping at her. She gives back as good as she gets, usually with double the sly underhandedness and provoking stares.
Tiel - Cas - is something else entirely. He alternates between hours of silence and then rambling about something totally tangential to whatever he’s actually doing. Sam doesn’t know if it’s just a trademark of his particular brand of genius or whatever psychological issues he’s dealing with, or maybe even the effect of all the Leviathan tech he’s had implanted into his brain.
Does it frighten you, Sam? Seeing what you could be? Who you could be?
Sam’s kind of been avoiding the both of them. He gets the reasoning for doing this just as much as Dean does, even helped convince Dean that this is their best shot at bringing down Dick and by extension the Leviathan program, but these two are responsible for so much of what their lives have been about; so much misery, intentional or not, that Sam can’t bring himself to strike up unnecessary chitchat.
“I don’t think they can do it,” Dean says one evening, collapsing into the chair opposite Sam on the other side of the table.
“What? Complete the weapon?” He’s already running through the tiny interactions he’s had with the two scientists, looking for the lie, but he can’t place one. “I thought they had most of it worked out already?”
“Exactly,” Dean says, with a weary sigh. “They’ve got this whole plan for how to program the nanites or whatever; how they’ll kill Dick by shorting out his biochip and all that, but they’ve only got part of the stuff they need.” He takes a long drag from the beer in his hand, snorts to himself like all his hope is evaporating in front of him, and he’s glad to see it go. “They’ve got the programming, and no high-grade nanites; a delivery system with no payload; gun with no bullets. They’re worthless.” He flicks the cap of his beer onto the table, watches it careen in a spin before rattling to a stop.
“You’re sure?” Sam asks, because if this whole thing is falling apart already then… he doesn’t even know.
“I heard ‘em talking about it earlier,” Dean admits. “They’ve been trying to use their own augs to cobble the parts together; Leviathan tech from Cas and DEMON tech from Meg; one big jigsaw. But it’s not enough. They’ve both had a lot of their implants removed for one reason or other, and now they can’t spare the parts without…y’know.” He draws a fingertip along his throat, sharp cutting motion.
“Well, can we get them the stuff they need? Steal it? We’ve broken into R.I. depots and warehouses before.”
“Hell I dunno man,” Dean sighs. “I’m starting to think this whole thing was one giant pipedream.”
There‘s a low hum from across the room, and then, “Oh come on now Dean, don’t be such a pessimist.”
They both dart to their feet as the air near the front door ripples and bends with sparking curves of grey-white light, like a mesh of tiny lightning bolts. The ripples spread further and further apart until they leave a man standing in a dark suit, like he’s just left a law firm somewhere; the deep red of his tie is a smooth line of blood, drawn down beneath his jacket.
“Sorry for loosening the old sphincters, lads,” he says. “But there’s only so much whinging I’m prepared to suffer through.” He smiles, tips back on his heels a little and takes them in. “Right then, introduction time: I’m-”
“Crowley,” Dean snarls. “Sorry but I’ve already reached my limit on supposedly dead wackos for this lifetime.” He clicks the hammer of his gun back. “I got an awesome consolation prize for ya though.”
“You really think you’ve got enough bullets to do the job?” He’s smirking; hands folded into his pockets and head tilted slightly, like he’s curious. “Feel free to waste the ammunition, but I did come all this way to pull your precious little plan out of the gutter; be a shame to ruin a good suit.”
“Wow, we must’ve put an ad out and forgot about it, Sam,” says Dean with a sneer. “All these brilliant forward thinkers coming t’us, offering their help.”
“How did you get in here?” Sam asks. He might have cloaking tech implanted in him but he can’t walk through walls.
Crowley’s stare turns on him, and Sam can see the red around the very edges of his eyes. “Oh I’ve been listening in for a while; had my men keeping an eye on you. Like your brother says, you’ve got some… interesting heavy hitters in your quaint little lair here. I never could resist a good conspiracy. I let myself in, hope you don’t mind.”
“About to mind a lot less,” Dean says, gun arm visibly bracing.
“Look, do you want to stomp Dick or not?” Crowley says. “I know you’ve got some former associates of mine holed up here, and I know they can’t quite get it up for you. I can help.”
“Help?” Dean repeats like he’s never heard the word before. “Last I heard, you took out hits on both of ‘em. Sour grapes and all that.”
Crowley’s smile this time is a slow creep of white teeth and a brief tinge of crimson over his eyes as they flick toward the staircase. “Oh I’d like nothing more than to roast the pair of them; for different reasons mind you, but still just as enjoyable. Sadly though, Dick’s become too troublesome to let myself get bogged down in old grudges.”
“You mean he’s taken you apart and stepped on all the pieces,” Sam says, and that salesman veneer wavers on Crowley’s face for just an instant.
“Either way,” Crowley says, hissing a little through the grit of his teeth. “I’ve got the resources and the manpower to help you go after Dick with a fighting chance.”
“And why should we trust you?” Sam asks. It’s getting to be a sickeningly familiar question.
Crowley scoffs, “Good God don’t. Never trust anyone.” He turns a little, looks past them. “A little lesson I learned from my last business partner.”
The stairs creak as Cas walks down and stands - more than a little awkwardly - at the bottom, Meg following with a pissed off expression already set in place.
“Hello Crowley,” Cas says, looking off into the middle distance at nothing.
Crowley looks like he‘s tasted something awful, pinch of his mouth and twitch in the corner of his jaw. “Cas. It’s been a while. Can’t say you’re looking good for it, as surprised - and mildly disappointed - as I was to hear you weren’t dead after all.”
“He says he wants to help,” Sam aims at them over his shoulder.
Crowley shrugs, “Priorities, nothing more.”
“Why?” Meg asks.
“Can we keep the hired help out of this?” Crowley waves a dismissive, gloved hand at the foot of the stairs. “I’m not sure they’re cognisant enough to-”
“Why would you risk coming to them, and not just arrange a deal with Roman? That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?” Cas pipes up with a low, harsh tone like the words are getting dragged out of his throat on a length of razor wire.
“You tried,” Dean says, sounding amused but not in a good way. “That’s it isn’t it? You went to Dick to try and save your own skin and he… what? Threw you out on your ass?”
Crowley shrugs, but there‘s tension there now. “Don’t look so surprised. He’s not one for diversity in the marketplace. Or the public sector, come to think of it. He’s got his monopoly now, and he plans to keep it. Once Levis are the sole aug on the market he’ll start… whittling down the remaining stock.”
“He’s gunning for you,” Sam says. “He’s got you running scared and just desperate enough to come to us.”
“I loathe the bastard,” Crowley admits. “Now I can save your scheme, and we all go our merry ways until I can find the time to immolate the lot of you; or I can leave and go ride out Dick’s personal apocalypse on a faraway island. Your choice.”
“And if we stop Dick you’ll… what? Quietly retire? Become a philanthropist?” Meg asks
“‘Course not,” Crowley says. “But I at least don’t want to kick-start a genocidal revolution. Much too messy. Who’s the bigger threat, right now?”
Dean takes a step toward him, “You double-cross us, then-”
“Oh yes I know you’ll kill me bloody, blah blah. Fine.” Crowley waves him off, then reaches into his jacket and pulls out a silver cylinder. “Best unprocessed nanites on the market. I should know; they’re mine.” He throws it the short distance to Sam, and he catches it left-handed. Crowley smirks when he sees it. “Won’t complete your weapon outright, but consider it a show of good faith.”
“Just boxed-up and ready to go, huh?” Sam says as he tucks the thing into a pocket.
Crowley smiles, “I’m a model of efficiency.”
“I’ll get a list of everything we need,” Meg says, in a tone like she’s daring him to say no so she’ll have an excuse.
“You do that,” Crowley tells her, the pleasant tone a complete contrast to the look on his face.
Dean gives him a look and cocks an eyebrow, and it somehow sums up every nagging misgiving about this whole screwed up situation.
The devil you know.
“You’re done? You’re sure?” Dean’s asked them that twice now already, and he’s not sure if he just doesn’t trust them, or if he’s really that concerned about them screwing it up.
“It’s done,” Meg says, all laconic confidence that offends Dean just on principle; makes him wonder if this is how’d she’d looked when she first came up with the biochip idea.
Yeah congrats, you can undo your own epic fuck-up, he thinks.
“Someone checked Crowley’s work, right?” Sam asks. “He didn’t mess with anything we’re gonna be using under fire?”
“He held up his end,” Meg says with a nod, some of the sourness returning to her tone. “We kept his grubby mitts out of it as much as possible; the rest was all his gear that he so kindly donated to the cause.”
“It will work,” Cas says. “Between the programming Meg devised, my knowledge of how Leviathan technology works, and Crowley’s DEMON nanites, we have a weapon that will kill Dick.” he’s saying all the right things but there’s something there underneath them that’s worrying Dean.
“But?” Sam asks, just before Dean can.
“It’s a one off,” Meg tells them, shrugging. “You get it right on the first attempt, or no dice.”
Cas lifts what looks like an oversized syringe from a worktable; long metal tube with four sharp needle-prongs on the end of it, a glass panel in the middle of its length glowing with roiling blue shot through with white.
“If you inject a Leviathan with this,” Cas tells Dean as he hands it over; it’s lighter than it looks. “Then it will kill him instantly. Permanently, beyond even their ability to repair.”
Dean’s seen the kind of insane damage Levi implants can fix when someone has enough of them. The tube of what basically amounts to glowing goo doesn’t exactly feel like something they should be pinning all their hopes on.
What else is there?
He hands it back, and Cas slots it into a narrow case on the table, clicks the lid shut.
“Crowley didn’t stick around for the champagne toast?” he asks.
“He said he had ‘preparations’ to make,” Meg says, with actual air quotes.
“Great. Don’t suppose he had a plan of how to get at Dick in the first place?” he asks. “‘Cause from where I’m sitting we’re talking about going after the most well known big kahuna in the western world with a magic gun that only fires once.”
“He’ll be at the lab,” Meg drawls. “It’s not exactly legal research, so no cops or outside help from the government types. We get in, wreck the place with a side order of dead Dick, and get the Hell out.”
“Oh you got this all worked out, huh?” Dean asks her, the bitter anger already starting to choke. “We still have to get into the damn building, and past whatever Levi security they’ve got inside without getting shot or captured.”
Meg looks over at Cas, who’s busying himself doing what looks like nothing with the computer. “Crowley had an idea about that,” she says.
“Crowley has a way in?” Sam asks, looking between them with a slight squint.
“Crowley was wrong,” Cas says, sounding a little manic and still not looking at any of them.
Dean eyes him, “Really? You sound pretty squirrelly over it. What did he want you to do?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cas says, his hands practically a blur as he fiddles with the tech in front of him, eyes a whirl of gold rings and flickering blue. “I’ve done all I can.” He jerks upright at looks at Dean, “I’ve destroyed everything, and I’ll destroy everything again. Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“No,” Dean says. “No we can’t.”
“Dean…” Sam’s voice is low, warning.
Dean steps right up to Cas, looks into those artificial eyes and wonders how much there is new and how much was put there by all the crap he’s had piled on him by what Roman did with his work.
“You made these things,” Dean murmurs. “And now you gotta help us stop ‘em. So you don’t get a pass, you don’t get to sit on the bench while everyone else steps up, nobody’s crying over your personal tragedy Cas, just clean up your mess.”
Cas is frozen for a second, then steps around Dean and heads down the stairs, slam of the door a few moments later.
“Nice,” Meg says, so much sarcasm Dean’s amazed she can breathe around it. “You remember me saying we needed him? Or did it leak out your wiffleball brain?”
Dean clenches his jaw, “Look-”
“No seriously,” she interrupts. “He’s probably the only person on the watch lists that Dick actually wants alive.”
“That’s the plan?” Sam asks, incredulous. “Get him to turn himself in?”
“If he shows up at that lab what do you think Dick will do?” She points out. “Cas creates a diversion big enough for us to get into the building just by walking up to the front door.”
Dean frowns, “Why not just give him the weapon then?”
Meg leans back against the table behind her, shrugs, “They’ll search him, it’s too risky. Dick gets a hold of that and we’re more than screwed.”
“Okay, say that plan works,” Sam says, gesturing helplessly. “If he’s not up for it, then we can’t do it. We’re wasting time planning something that we can’t even get off the ground.”
“You can’t get him to do it?” Dean asks Meg.
She shakes her head, smiles a little, “I’m not his keeper, Dean. I can’t make him do anything. Half the time he’s not even aware of what he’s doing.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Sam says, and Dean’s so surprised he doesn’t know where to start with that.
“You’ve been avoiding the guy this whole time,” he point out. “What’s changed?”
Sam looks down at his hands, thumb pressing into his left palm, when he faces Dean again he’s got that raw, open expression that’s always made Dean want to put up a million walls between his brother and the rest of the world; keep all the pain and death and torment as far away as possible.
He’s royally screwed up that priority to the point he just wants to laugh at himself.
“Just… trust me, Dean,” Sam says, and it slams a whopping hand down on every lifelong button Dean’s got that says sure Sammy, I trust you. It’s in his blood, his DNA; whatever else he is, to immediately think Sam’s the only person he can trust. The only one he needs. But he knows his brother’s got a ton of PTSD-style bullshit locked up in his head that Dean doesn’t want to mix with Cas’ own flavour of crazy.
But then that’s probably Sam’s point. Kinship or whatever.
“I can do it, Dean,” Sam tells him, earnest to the core.
Dean scrubs a hand over his face, pretends he doesn’t see the smirk on Meg’s face as she plays spectator to this little interlude, and forces himself to nod.
Sam finds Cas outside the cabin, sitting in the car he and Meg have been using; a slightly rusted Dodge pickup with a sizable dent in the tailgate, the paint a muted red. There’s music drifting from the open window, and Cas is sitting in the passenger seat with his head tipped back against the rest.
He either heard Sam coming or just doesn’t care, since he doesn’t so much as twitch when Sam opens the door and drops into the seat next to him.
“Sam,” Cas says, opening his eyes without looking over or even moving his head.
“Look, I get why you don’t want to do this,” Sam starts, half turned in the seat to face Cas’ profile. “And I’m not even gonna say you should do it. But I think our chances are a lot better with you than without. You’ve come this far.”
Cas is silent for a second, the indecipherable hum of the stereo just covering their breathing.
“If we attack Dick and fail, you and Dean die heroically, correct?” he asks.
Sam tries to predict where he’s going with that, “I guess.”
“And at best, I die trying to fix my own stupid mistake. Or I don’t die, and instead I get locked up and forced to work on whatever Dick chooses to do next. You know the neural overlays I had implanted make him able to simple wipe my higher functions? I’d be a barely sentient toolbox. A collapsing mineshaft of thought and idea. Which is a kind of death, I suppose.”
It’s the most Sam’s ever heard him say at once, and it’s one of the most horrifying things Sam can think of.
“I’m not good luck, Sam,” he says, low and painfully matter-of-fact.
“Maybe not,” Sam admits. “And I know you’ve already done a lot for us, but Cas…we still need you. And, bad luck or not, no luck or not, I think you can do this.”
Cas turns to him, a slow drag of his head against the seat behind. “You should blame me for what happened to you,” he says, glancing down at Sam’s hand where it’s in his lap. He’s been getting better about the lack of gloves thing, but the reminder still sometimes hits him like a punch he wasn’t braced for. “Without me you wouldn’t have been tortured the way you were. I enabled your suffering, no matter how indirectly.”
Sam has to breathe deep for a few beats to try and sort through that. He could blame Cas, it’s true. Dean does, on some level or other, but he’s always been too willing to forgive people who hurt him and not the ones who hurt Sam; that skewed sense of self their life has left him with. Sam sometimes wishes he was selfless enough to try and do something about it. Or at least selfless enough to wish it sincerely.
“I… I know you never meant for this to happen,” Sam starts, halting as he tries to find the right way to say it. “And maybe I should hate you for what you’ve done, but… what’d be the point? It’s what it is, Cas, and you’re intentions were good, or you would’ve kept working for Crowley; for the military. I think you were just trying to help, and… I don’t think you’re evil, Cas.” It’s not a perfect explanation, but from the look on Cas’ face it’s at least struck home.
Cas swallows with a dry click, and when he speaks it‘s even raspier than usual, “Then I suppose I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.”
The barn was probably one part of a much larger farm at some point, but now It’s one of only two buildings left in the massive expanse of fields and nearby woodland, and the only one that still has four walls and a roof that actually holds out the elements. It’s basically the furthest from the nearest population centre or aug clinic as they could be without building a dome at the bottom of the ocean or something.
Dean takes a kind of sadistic pleasure in the way he grinds the gears as they pull up, more glad than he can ever put into words that he’ll never have to drive this particular POS again.
It takes them both working together to yank the warped wood of the barns door across, and the musty smell of damp wood and grass hits them in a slow wave as they step inside.
“So, on a scale of one to ten,” Sam says, looking around, “how close are you to shrieking like a four year old and dancing in a circle?”
“Shut up,” Dean says, like a reflex, but there’s a damning tug at the corners of his lips as he unties the tarpaulin that has Sam chuckling under his breath.
The heavy yellowish cover flaps to the ground with a swift drag, and Dean’s smile becomes a full-on grin as he skims a hand over the Impala’s hood.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he croons. “You miss me?”
He’s checking the wing mirrors and the pressure in the tires when he catches the look Sam’s giving him.
“What?” he asks, sounding defensive without even trying.
“Nothing,” Sam denies, even though that look on his face says different. “I’m just trying to decide if I should be jealous.”
It startles a real laugh out of Dean that carries weird in the mostly empty space of the barn, and he makes his face into a considering pose for a few seconds.
“Nahh,” he says, grins slowly as he pops the driver‘s side door and lowers himself in. “Threesomes are always the answer, Sammy.”
The drive back to Rufus’ place is probably the easiest Dean’s felt in his own skin for about a year. The seats form at his back and under his legs the way no other car ever has. The wheel fits his hands. The smell of the interior is basically the only definition he’s got for home that isn’t the word Sam and the roar of the engine through his bones is almost as good as the music he can finally blast through the speakers.
Sam tries to look like he’s just bemused by Dean’s reaction to the whole thing - which he admits he’s maybe playing up for the look on Sam’s face that’s not lined by tension or pain for a rare moment - but Dean can see the way he’s taking the old girl in like a friend who’s face he’s started to forget. A family member he hasn’t heard from in too long.
“We could’ve waited,” Sam says eventually. “Be a shame if something happened to it now.”
“Hey, if we’re doing this then I want her with us,” Dean answers as he goes for another tape. “If it goes the way we’re hoping then we can hit the road the way we really used to. And if not, well… no way I’m driving into the jaws of death or whatever in some crappy old junker.”
“No we wouldn’t want that,” Sam agrees, overplaying the drama with a tremble in his voice, and Dean shakes his head like it’ll hide the smile.
“You sure you want to do this?”
Dean frowns at Sam where he’s looming off to his side like a shadow. “Now you’re asking me that? I thought you were all about doing this from the get go?”
Sam sighs, “I was… I mean, I am. But Dean, you and Bobby, you always had that father-son deal that I… look I’m just saying, we can do it without bringing him back again. We’ve got the inside scoop on Dick’s big plan now, so if this is just gonna make things worse then-”
“He deserves his last words, Sam,” Dean sighs, looking down at the projector in his hands, catching the light. “Even if he is already… well.”
Dean’s turning the projector over and over, and he remembers going through their dad’s stored things after he died, that same expression on his brother’s face as they tried to choose whether to hold onto the pieces of that life or toss them out. He remembers the almost motherly smile on Ellen’s face, and wishes he was any good at offering comfort that simple when someone needed it.
Not that Sam’d accept it; probably think Dean’d finally lost it, he reminds himself with a pointless little breath of a laugh.
They’ve got maybe two hours until their ragtag team of unlikely allies get back from wherever Crowley’s stashed the last pieces of equipment and supplies they need, so if they’re gonna do this, it needs to be now.
Dean sets the device down on the blotchy surface of the nearest table, and almost hesitatingly flicks his thumb over the glowing blue circle in the centre. It pulses, just once, going a lighter shade that unwittingly reminds him of Cas’ eye implants, before green lines spread around the flat sides and meet one another, like water flowing between the cracks in paving.
For a few seconds, Dean’s convinced that they’ve been hauling the thing around for so long that it’s just not working anymore. They’re supposed to have a finite lifespan, right? Maybe they’re too damn late.
“Hey fellas.”
Sam spins as Dean does, and there’s Bobby, standing in the middle of the room, looking completely normal in his flannel and ballcap, a slight smile creasing his pale face and the corners of his eyes. At first glance you’d think he was just standing there; flesh and blood and breath all as it should be. But then Dean sees he’s not casting a shadow, even with the orangey glow of the lamp right behind him. And his clothes and patches of his skin are covered with spidering white patterns, like frost on a windshield.
“Bobby,” Dean breathes as a smile stretches across his face.
“Hey Bobby,” Sam says, nodding kind of awkward.
“Yeah we weren’t sure if you’d uh…” Dean waves vaguely toward the blinking lights of the projector.
“Well you should’a,” Bobby chides him. “You still got the damn thing. Dumb. You should’a burned it, right off.”
Sam winces, “Bobby, we-”
“You don’t know,” he says, rubbing at the sleeve of his coat like that’s actual ice covering him. “So much in here’s outta place, all jumbled and screamin’ dark. S’bad.”
“It’s not your fault,” Sam says.
“Right,” Bobby chuffs, shaking his head. “That’s just what data ghosting does to ya. I really bet the farm I could outsmart that.”
“We’ve got a plan,” Dean tells him, like it’ll be consolation for the bullet he took for them. “To bring down Dick, you don’t have to worry about-”
“Well you’d better do it, soon,” Bobby says. “S’helluva lotta people who’re owed that monster being shoved into a hole in the ground. But don’t you dare get your fool selves killed doing it, y’hear me?”
Sam smiles, but it’s bent out of shape. “We’ll do our best,” he says.
Bobby smiles at them both, but again it’s not formed from anything happy. “I know. And for what it’s worth…I never should’ve done this. Stupid ass thing to do; try an’ outsmart the final curtain by sticking a chip in your own head. Wasn’t fair to either of you.”
Sam’s mouth is pinched; his forehead’s creased with lines. “We’ll be alright, Bobby.”
“Yeah well, I’d better not be seeing either of you on the other side or whatever for a damn long time. You do your jobs, and you get out clean.”
“We will,” Dean promises.
Bobby nods, looks them both over in a way that has Dean doubting he isn’t actually standing there alive. Nobody recreated from thoughts and a snapshot of memories stored in hardware can be this real. “And you boys… you take of each other.”
Dean’s hand isn’t steady, but he lifts the projector off the table and gives Bobby one last nod before he drops it into the burning coals, sparks crackling off at the impact and flames licking up over the silvery metal.
Almost instantly, arcs of pluming blue and grey spread upward from Bobby’s feet, leave nothing but glimmering dust behind before it fades into empty air; like thousands of tiny, dying lightning bugs.
It takes under a minute for the projector to warp and turn glossy; like mercury freed from a thermometer. Red-orange-blue flame pokes up through warped gaps that expand and give off a smell like ozone and paint on a hot radiator, the whole thing smudging and smoking until it’s just an undefined mess of silver-black nothing.
Bobby’s expression set solid just as his image started to break down, and finally he vanishes completely with a last buzzing pulse of light, the room seeming suddenly a lot darker with the meagre glow of the fire and the one lamp.
They stand there for a few seconds in the quiet, staring at the last place Bobby’d been standing, almost waiting for the ghost of a ghost.
“You okay?” Sam asks. Kid never did meet a silence he liked.
“Yeah,” Dean says, mostly breath but not wobbling at least.
“Are you lying?” Dean snorts at that, like Sam’s added another level to this ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ thing they keep falling into.
“I just… I hung onto that stupid thing.” He waves absently at the glowing coals. “I thought that when we…y’know, switched him off or whatever, I’d feel… more.” There’s a pit near his heart that’s weighing him down, a lump in his throat and his eyes are prickling, but he’s not numb or angry or desperately shoving at the sadness the way he’d been when Bobby’d got shot.
Sam’s looking at him with an expression so gentle Dean can’t bear it. “Maybe… maybe you only mourn once.”
Dean doesn’t know how he feels about that. If he agrees or disagrees. He doesn’t suppose it matters now; Bobby’s gone for good, like so many others there aren’t enough fingers and toes between the two of them to count.
He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, twists until purple dances across the black, then breathes heavy through his nose.
“Better get some shuteye,” he says in lieu of anything else. “We gotta save the world in the morning, Sammy.” He claps his brother on the shoulder, feels the tail end of the snort through Sam’s broad back before he heads for the bedroom.
Big day tomorrow.
The Levi goon's head rolls with a slick noise on the stone until it comes to a stop, trailing black sludge as his implants try and keep him alive.
Dean knows that the decapitation won’t be enough; not by itself, but Cas was nabbed by the front security guys five minutes ago, and they can’t hang around waiting for them to notice the break-in through the emergency exit.
“What now?” Sam whispers as they creep down a corridor, trying to stay away from the roving eye of the camera mounted on the wall.
“Split up,” Dean says, trying to recall the guesswork map of the place Crowley had gotten from… somewhere. Dean wasn’t looking that gift horse in the mouth; thing’s probably got fangs. “You take out the lab, I’m going after Dick. Where’s Meg?”
Sam shakes his head, “If she’s inside then they haven’t noticed yet; no alarms. She said she’d bust Cas out of lockup and keep the guards off our backs, we’ll just have to trust her.”
Dean can’t quite help the wince.
“Okay, you take the east corner stairway, and I’ll go north.” He point up the shining length of corridor.
Sam nods, takes a step along the way they’ve been going before he turns back and presses a quick jab of a kiss against Dean’s lips, too fast to react to.
“Don’t get killed,” Sam says, somehow more of a whisper than he’d already been using. Then he’s moving away with the machete pressed flat to the underside of his forearm, gun in his left hand and checking every doorway he passes.
Dean takes the stairs two at a time, heart thudding hard and even in his chest, adrenaline tingling in his fingertips. Two floors up he hears the muffled sound of gunfire, followed by shouting, then a klaxon starts to sound somewhere in the building.
It’s probably Meg, he tells himself. It’s gotta be her.
He takes the stairs three at a time, feels the pull in his thighs as a welcome burn.
The building’s a fairly squat, square-shaped thing, so when Dean reaches the highest floor he walks in a loping, decreasing spiral from corridor to corridor. The place seems to be mostly empty - at least this high up - with a lot of rooms with wide, clear walls of glass and tables loaded down with tech so far ahead of what Dean’s used to he’s not sure what half of it is.
He’s got a fairly good idea though, judging from the severed arm he spots in one of the labs, sliced open from wrist to the faintest suggestion of where the elbow’s supposed to be, wires spilling out and blood marked metal gleaming from the inside and connecting with machines around the pronged stand the thing’s resting on.
It’s not like they didn’t know R.I. did human experimentation, Dean reminds himself; and then again when another lab holds a high platform of transparent concentric circles, with glass jars resting on it like compass points in three dimensions. Each one’s full of a greenish liquid, and the distinctive shape of what Dean just knows are human brains.
He somehow doubts that Dick uses the approved organ donor route.
Rounding another corner, Dean picks up voices in one of the last rooms on the floor he hasn’t checked. He creeps with his back held flat to the cool, white wall, until he can see through the gaps in the shades into the lab beyond.
It’s depressingly ordinary, given the horror shows he’d passed getting there, but it makes up for that with the fact that Dick Roman himself is standing near a computer display mounted on one of the walls, bright, linear projections scrolling over the surface on either side of him like an architect’s diagrams or .
There’s a guy in a white coat working at another terminal, tapping at a laser keyboard outlined in deep red on the solid white table. Dean tries not to think of him as being like Cas. Anyone working in this place hasn’t just been augmented to the point of insanity; they’re complicit in the research that Dick’s doing. They see the truth of it all and they do nothing.
Dick turns as Dean steps into the room, but the researcher is a little slower. Dean’s machete is already singing through the air before he’s even halfway facing him, and the blade slices clean through his neck with barely a sound, the guy’s head falling at an angle and away from his body.
Dick takes all this in, and then smiles. “A little abrupt,” he says, almost condescending. “But okay. Dean Winchester, nice to finally meet you in person. Well, your actual person, and not a poor duplicate meant to kill lots of people in public places.” He says it totally amiable, like he’s talking about the weather.
“Yeah it’s a real thrill for me,” Dean says, as he swings hard with the blade.
It doesn’t take Sam long to notice there’s a ringing in his head that’s getting louder the closer he gets.
He thought it was the sound of whatever tech Roman’s experimenting with, but it’s got that high whining quality like he’d been standing too close to an explosion; dimming all the noise around it and muffling his breath to his own ears.
Gunfire springs up somewhere away from him; he can’t tell where with his hearing this screwed up,
It starts to hurt as soon as he realises he’s located the lab; a wide, open room banked with screens and readouts he can’t even begin to fathom. His hand is throbbing like he’s dipped it in acid, and he can’t tell if it’s something in the room or the blaring noise in his head that’s making wraith patterns of blurred white spring across his vision.
There’s a clear space in the middle of the lab; a void with no workbenches or hologram projections, except in it’s sitting an angular, smooth grey machine; bulky but oddly graceful; narrower at the top and glowing a dull green. It looks like the kind of pod an insect would weave around itself; wide and latticed with patterns of silver-white. Attached to either side are four tall, slender poles arranged in two pairs that reach almost to the ceiling, fine metal spikes dotting the upper two or three feet.
Antennae, he realises. The signal’s gonna be broadcast from whatever this thing is. It might be a prototype or it might be that they’re doing all the work here. It’s not as if Dick doesn’t have satellites and transmitters and whatever else he’d need for this.
Which means that ringing sound…
He jerks into motion, tugs the pack of nano explosive out of his jacket and kneels to affix it to one side of the machine. The closer he gets, the more it feels like someone’s taken an ice pick to his temples. Or a drill, scoring through his skull and grinding in the root nerves of his teeth, his hand a searing weight that he can’t bear to move.
He staggers back to his feet, barely avoiding crashing back to his knees as the pain digs into his spine sharper than a dagger. Using the wall as a guide, he pulls himself back down the corridor, tears sticking in his lashes even as the feeling dials back as he gets further away.
Finally turning a corridor and slumping hard against the wall, he pulls the detonator and primes it, squeezes his eyes shut at the same time that he pulls the trigger.
The machete comes within a few inches of Dick’s suit-clad shoulder before his hand comes up like a fast forward motion and catches it, stops it dead and holds it there. Dean hadn’t noticed the too smooth paleness of his hands until now, creeping up under his sleeves. From the way his face doesn’t lose that patiently superior smile, Dean thinks it’s probably his entire arm - both arms, Jesus - that he’s had replaced.
They look a little like Sam’s hand; pale, slender looking but obviously crazy strong, but these are slightly different, like looking at the progression of a car model.
An upgrade of an upgrade. Fuck, that’s how far gone he is.
“Dean,” Dick says, like he’s talking to a disappointing child. “Did you really think it was going to be that easy?”
“Was kinda hoping,” Dean grunts as he tries to reach into his jacket without being obvious, shifts the grip on the machete’s handle and gets a solid shove to the chest for his trouble.
It’s like being hit by a train; he flies backwards and collides with the edge of the bench behind him and crumples to the ground with pain throbbing in his back and chest like he’s been squeezed in a vice.
He gets a hand into the inside of his jacket, drags the cold metal tube of the syringe out of the pocket as he stands.
Dick looks at it, then at Dean again, and still the freaky smile doesn’t waver. “Good on you; pulling that together. A-plus.”
Dean lunges forward, strikes out with his now-empty fist as he tries to stab the needle ends of the weapon through the guy’s suit. But Dick twists his arm as easy as breathing, and the thing clatters to the ground. Dean has just enough time to kick it to the side in case Dick decides to stomp on it, but then he’s being lifted with one hand wrapped around his neck, the pressure crushing his throat and choking off his air, blood throbbing in his temples and the base of his neck, eyes feeling like they’re gonna burst right then and there.
Just as his vision starts to blacken and cone inward to a murky impression of Dick’s stone-faced glare, the pressure releases and he’s collapsing into a hacking, wheezing mess, desperately trying to claw air into his lungs.
He forces himself to look up, and sees Dick straightening away from the nearest wall, glaring off in the direction of the doorway.
It’s Cas.
“Cas Tiel,” Dick says, tugging his damn tie back into place. “Good to see you again. Thanks for arming my little revolution, here.”
“It’s over now,” Cas says. He’s got the syringe, but there’s no way he’ll get the drop on Dick again.
“Is it?” Dick asks with a smarmy smirk. “From where I’m standing it’s just getting started. Face it Cas; humanity was always a prototype; something to be surpassed. They’ll be better off once they stop deluding themselves.”
Cas makes a sloppy, telegraphing move toward Dick, but a single punch is all it takes to send him hurtling into a stack of boxes and further until he slams into the wall and drops in a heap, the syringe falling next to him with a gentle roll.
Dick turns back to Dean with a slight shrug. “This is just a transition stage, Dean,” he says, almost like he’s not talking about massacring countless people. “There’s no way out; it’s evolution through conflict; it’s either struggle or succumb. I appreciate that you have a role to play, but you can’t win.” He strides closer, and Dean’s balling his fists for another futile round, when suddenly there’s a low roar and everything shakes, like a giant’s scooped the building up and rattled it like a kid’s toy.
Detonation. Sam.
Dick stumbles mid-stride, and Dean presses forward and manages to get two, three hits that feel like they’re gonna break his knuckles, before his hand gets grabbed and squeezed hard enough that he almost drops to the ground again at the pain of it.
There’s a noise like shredding wet paper, and then a low, sickening crunch before the tip end of Dean’s machete slices through the front of Dick’s suit from the back, Cas with a focused grimace on his face as he twists the handle and makes black residue soak through the fabric around the wound. Dick coughs more of the stuff and tries to make a grab for Cas, but he’s held in place like an insect pinned to cardboard.
“Dean,” Cas calls, and throws the syringe in a high arc through the air.
Dean grabs it like a javelin caught ready to throw, and shoves the burnished hollow needles into the side of Dick’s neck right to the hilt; as close to the jugular as he can manage.
The plunger depresses with a rapid rushing sound, the glowing blue swarm of suspended nanites flowing through in under a second, and Dean can see the faint trace of that light as it works into the blood vessels and through the rest of Dick’s body.
He convulses, and jerks his neck like he’s gonna break his spine all on his own, then his ears and nose and even his eyes start to bleed the typical Levi sludge that means he’s trying to heal himself. His mouth moves silently, and nearly every vein from where Dean’s holding the syringe into his flesh is a corroded black now.
Dick makes a grating noise Dean’d almost call a laugh, and there’s a thudding coming from him now like a slow drumbeat, pulses of heaving air that waves out like ripples on the surface of a pond.
Shit, Dean has time to think, right before everything goes utterly, deathly still, and then explodes in a blast of fetid air and static charge, pain radiating from everywhere Dean can consciously feel.
Then it all goes dark.
As he sprints for where Dean’s supposed to have gone, Sam can tell something’s changed.
The lab exploding was a plume of flame and charred debris that washed down the length of the corridor and nearly roasted him where he stood, but it’s more than the shock of the destruction. Something’s changed.
It’s like missing a tooth, even though he’s already checked for that. An empty space where there’s always been something. For a spinning, panicked instant he thinks Dean’s died and he can somehow sense it, but that’s not it either. It’s coming from him; deep down in the recesses and shadows of his head.
He’s different, lighter.
He skids on the floor as he reaches the top level of the building, and he’s hoping against hope that that feeling of being alone means what he thinks and not that his brother’s lying dead at Dick Roman’s feet.
Sam careens into the lab - or more like what’s left of it - with his heart rattling in his chest and sweat forming on his brow and upper lip.
The room’s a disaster zone; tables and screens scattered, displaced and broken. There’re bits of equipment lying on the floor and even old fashioned paper files and boxed strewn everywhere.
There’s Leviathan nanite gunk over everything, like arterial spray but stinking of metal tang and on a much larger scale. There’s a central point like the gap in the middle of a blast pattern, but no sign of Roman or Dean.
His breathing’s getting shallow, and he can hear his pulse in his ears going way too fast, old familiar panic clawing cold at his insides.
A rustle sounds from somewhere in the debris, then a battered groan, and adrenaline-sharp relief crests outward from Sam’s chest in a wave, and he drags an overturned table to the side to find his brother amid a jumble of storage crates and glass. He’s bleeding and looks dazed as hell, but he’s alive.
“You’re alive,” he says, really without meaning to, and sounding pathetically breathless even to himself.
“Yeah,” Dean grunts, plucking a long, jagged shard of glass from his calf like an oversized splinter. “Jury’s out on intact though.”
Sam lends a hand and pulls Dean to his feet, clasps his upper arm and tries to check him for signs of a concussion before Dean bats him away.
“I’m alright,” he says, and the mess he’s in coupled with his pained expression doesn’t match the knowing softness in his voice. “Bitch of a headache though,” he adds. “Where’s Cas?”
“Cas?” Sam asks, surprised. “Cas was here?”
“Yeah he uh, he showed right at the last second. Saved my bacon. Couldn’t have ganked Dick without him.” Sam can’t tell if he’s surprised or just weary.
Sam shifts more of the room’s scattered contents, and finds Cas much like he’d found Dean; sprawled and stunned and a little beaten up, but still alert enough.
Dean helps him lift Cas upright and set him on his feet, muttering, “Dude’s heavier than he looks,” As he kicks part of a display projector clear of their patch of floor.
“Did it work?” Cas mumbles, blinking slow but with even pupils.
“Yeah,” Dean huffs. “Yeah it actually did. Thanks for the assist there, Cas.”
There’s still no ground-in anxiety; or flashes of that random delusion, Sam realises.
“We’d better find Meg,” he says, still trying to take everything in. “Before more Levis show up.”
“Not to worry,” suddenly floats over from the doorway. Crowley looking like an ash-covered smudge in his dark suit through Sam’s moisture-addled eyesight.
“Well done, boys,” Crowley says with a smile. “Seriously, I was expecting to hightail it out of here with your entrails left cooling on the floor. I’m impressed.”
“It’s not over,” Cas intones, shuffling to stand unsupported, blood streaking his temple.
Crowley shrugs and steps in, walking over the detritus like it‘s his kingdom. “Of course it’s not, it never is. But you’ve lopped off the beast’s head now, just the floundering limbs to worry about. We‘ve got the plans for the anti-Levi weapon, we’ll get them in the end.”
“And you?” Sam asks “You just going back your own little corner?”
“Why would I do that? Dick’s dead, along with his entire board of directors, and I’ve been building up a nice cache of funds and negative PR as a final blow in case I should be presented with… oh, let’s call it an opportunity. Such is business.”
“Back to screwing up the world the old-fashioned way, huh?” Dean says.
Crowley gives him a sideways glance. “Now now Dean, I’ve got a small army of DEMONs securing this whole place. You want to walk out with all your limbs unbroken and your head still attached?”
“We had a deal,” Sam warns.
“So we did,” He shrugs. “But I suggest you hurry up, there’s not much time left.”
“Until what?” Cas asks, sounding less slurred.
“Until I reduce this building to a pile of smouldering rubble,” Crowley says, nonchalant. “Can’t leave the stuff Dick was working on just lying about now can we? Much less the rather blatant killing spree that went on; might look bad on the evening news.”
“As opposed to a bombing?” Dean asks.
Crowley doesn‘t look worried, reaches out and pulls a chunk of glass from under Deans collar, flicks it away. “I’ll find a way to get it reported as an accident; gas leak, incompetent and dangerous research; the usual. That or I’ll blame it on those Word of God psychos and kill a few more birds with a rather well aimed stone.”
“Where’s Meg?” Cas suddenly asks.
His demeanour shifts, but it’s still all artifice. “Waiting for you. She got a little banged up during her sweep of Dicky boy’s hired security. Nothing she can’t come back from. I thought about scooping her up, but, well… she’s more trouble than she’s worth to me, right now.”
“Real nice of you,” Dean grunts. “And you’re just gonna let us leave? No turnarounds?”
“Why would I bother?” He asks. “We all got what we wanted; Dick’s dead, saved the world, and now I’ve got empires to rebuild, fortunes to amass, old rivalries to snuff out.” He spares Cas a smile that isn’t a smile, steps back out the way he came. “Until next time, boys. Toodles.” He walks off down the corridor, tap of his shoes receding.
They exchange a look, the three of them, then Dean sighs and shrugs off Sam’s arm, steps forward, crunch of refuse beneath his feet.
“Let’s get the hell outta here, huh?”
EPILOGUE
“…President has halted trading on the markets following the massive and sudden decline in Roman Innovations stock price, which fell over eighty percent in light of revealed ‘financial problems’…”
“…CEO Richard Roman has been unavailable for comment, however there are growing rumours of possible securities fraud being investigated by the S.E.C.…”
“…that Richard Roman falsified his financial statements, and faked his own death as a means of…”
^
“…in a press conference earlier this morning, Mr. Crowley vowed to maintain the integrity of the augmentation industry, by offering a multimillion dollar bailout for…”
“…massive recall of Leviathan grade implant technologies across several countries due to newly discovered health risks…”
“…clinics shutting down in America, the United Kingdom and China, as public demand for increased safeguards continues to escalate…”
^
“…as the world was stunned by evidence leaked to the media of forcible human experimentation being done by former augmentation giant Roman Innovations. An investigation is ongoing; however it is believed that…”
“You believe that, Sammy?” Dean asks, as the radio dial click into silence.
“I know,” Sam says, shaking his head. “It’s shocking, really.”
Dean grins at his brother, sees it mirrored and feels the lightness near his heart expanding outward, taps his fingers on the steering wheel.
“So,” he says, loose and easy, creak of the leather beneath his shoulders. “Where to next?”
“Uh… Seattle,” Sam answers, flicking though a datapad. “Cas said Kevin’s got something on Crowley we can use.”
Dean nods, snags the datapad out of Sam’s hands and decides why the fuck not; hauls him in by the back of the neck and kisses him, deep and unhurried like they’ve got unlimited time and endless road. They don’t, obviously; the fight’s still on, and maybe it always will be.
He pulls back, sees that rekindled spark behind the shifting colour of Sammy’s eyes, and thinks; hell:
Close enough.
END