Episode 22: The Call of Cthulhu (Continued)

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Duct tape.

Dean can wax lyrical on all the glorious wonders of duct tape if he's caught in a bar on the right night, and in the right mood, brought to the viewing public by his favorite sponsors, Jack, Jim and Johnny. And he knows that if Sam were in a talkative mood, he could feed anybody a whole bunch of trivia about duct tape. He'd explain that 1942 was the year of duct tape, and that not long after this pressure-sensitive tape made from polyethylene was born it was being utilized in World War II to fix everything from bullets to bombs. Castiel thinks it's great for making wallets, and that makes Dean smile.

Right now, pondering the origins and versatility of duct tape seems an incongruous pastime as they march steadily through the lush vegetation in the tropical jungle Team Free Will and company find themselves in. Even so, Dean smiles in what he knows is a self-satisfied sort of way as he muses on the specific purpose he likes to use it for that goes beyond car repair.

"Ahhh-maaa-thaa."

"Sam, I think she just called us motherfuckers," Dean points out, staring across at Meg as she stumbles along between them, and his brother briefly pauses from scything through the vegetation ahead of them with his machete, turns his head, and sends a withering look Dean's way.

Dean ignores him. "Silence is golden," he taunts the demon. "Duct tape is silver."

Meg glares back at Dean, her navy-blue eyes looking too-human, and it occurs to him that in another life and under a different set of circumstances, Meg would have been exactly the kind of girl he'd go for a tumble in the hay with, dark and intriguing as she is. Now that only sends his thoughts straight back to the man who has been snaking his way beside him through the brush this last quarter-mile or so, making not a sound, as though the leaves and the vines soften for his step alone; this man he loves. Castiel is tense and alert, an M-16 cradled in the crook of his arm. His aviator shades shield his eyes against the unforgiving sun, and a line of sweat gathers at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Dean knows this because he can see the slow slide of it from the corner of his vision, and he can see it because he's watching his friend like a hawk, alert to any sign something might be off with him.

"Actually," Castiel begins, "she just wishes you good luck."

Dean narrows his eyes as he studies Meg. Her biker chick get-up has backfired in the unrelenting humidity and she has the appearance of a wilting flower, dark hair plastered to her forehead in strings and hanks. Her mascara is running, and the devil's trap Dean Sharpied on her brow as an added precaution stands out in sharp, neat relief compared to her dishevelment.

Maybe, just maybe, there is an instant when Dean feels pity, not unlike the confused empathy he felt when he snuck up behind the meatpuppet that was once Christian Campbell, as the demon wearing him wielded its blade just like Dean once did in the Pit. And then he recalls Meg's own personal bucket list; Pastor Jim, Caleb, and he has to swallow down the lump that rises in his throat at the memory of their kindness to a mute, traumatized preschooler. Ellen, Jo, Bobby's legs, and his own brother used and abused by the demon. And that's just what they know about, but Dean is damned certain the notches on Meg's belt are too many to count.

Pity is weakness; it's time to put her out of their misery and maybe use her to do some good, and the irony of that isn't lost on Dean. "Really?" he queries shortly.

"She has only your welfare at heart, Dean," Castiel replies. "Surely you know this by now?"

Sam coughs to the side, in thinly disguised laughter.

Dean shrugs. "Hey, you never know. Stranger things have happened lately, like…oh, I don't know, apocalypses. Like how they come in pairs."

"There's no way she's going to wish us luck on feeding her to a giant inter-dimensional monster, Dean," his brother counters. "She'd sooner be a born-again Christian."

Dean snorts at that, then pulls up abruptly as they emerge from the forest into a clearing. There are ruins at its center, pitted, crumbling stone pillars strewn about messily, covered in a latticework of creeping vines, and to the right is what looks like an altar hewn from rock. Sigils and geometric shapes are carved into its sides, and flanking it are petrified wooden posts with long-rusted metal rings embedded in them. It's a sickly reminder of the stakes in Purgatory's Monster Town; of Castiel, forced to manifest and tethered there ready for torture, and the memory is appalling, cuts Dean's heart like glass and sucks the moisture from his mouth. Never again, he vows inside his head, and the touch of Castiel's shoulder at his right in that same second is so necessary and fundamental to Dean now that his knees almost sag from sheer relief at the angel's presence.

"This site seems appropriate," Castiel says solemnly, and he holds Dean's gaze for a moment that tells Dean he knows exactly what Dean is thinking about.

Dean clears his throat, clips out, "Showtime," as he lets his backpack slide down off of his shoulders. "Let's do this."

Sam doesn't reply, just nods once as he puts a big hand on Meg's shoulder and pushes her almost gently to her knees before shrugging the sports bag down his arm to the ground.

They're on the brink of this, finally, and anticipation is thrumming through Dean, adrenaline flooding him now that he isn't focusing on planting one boot in front of the other and not tripping onto his ass as they march. He can't stop his mind drifting to what they're facing and dwelling uneasily on the immenseness of it; the ancient, rancid presence that seeps out of the ground and the atmosphere here and eats into him, the pulse of sheer, unmitigated evil the mountain ahead of them exudes. He has butterflies in the pit of his gut, his skin is damp under his t-shirt, and his palms are slick with sweat. "We don't know what'll happen when we start this," he says, and he doesn't like how parched-dry and apprehensive his voice sounds. "But we don't go to defcon one unless I say so. The mojo is for emergencies only, Cas…if shit hits, plan A is to run for the Duck. And no stopping, no matter what happens."

"Of course," Castiel says smoothly, and Dean knows Castiel will stop if he has to, always will, and so will Sam, even if it's the difference between living and dying here. And so will he.

He reaches to drag the sports bag away from where his brother parked it, has to force the zipper open because it's sticky with caked-on sand and salt from the storm that heralded the island's rise from its watery grave.

And the next second stretches out of all proportion, lengthening into an infinity, almost like Dean is freeze-framing his way through it one shot at a time. Over in the other corner of his brain he plays it back, the way he haphazardly wedged the fabric-wrapped artifacts back into the bag before his gaze fell on Castiel, stretching up to the sun, all sinewy strength and beauty. And as a tactical error, that moment of distraction is right up there in the pantheon.

"They're not here," he says through the bile rising in his throat, and his own disbelief makes his voice sound wrecked, makes his hands start shaking. "The sword, the cup. They're not here."

Sam is rummaging about inside his backpack, and he looks up. "That's not funny, Dean," he snaps, but there's slight note of panic in his voice.

"On the boat," Dean clarifies as he slumps down onto his butt, well aware of the cunning gleam in Meg's eyes as she glances back and forth between them all. "I didn't lock them down properly."

Sam's brow corrugates as he remembers. "That hurricane, whatever it was…we almost capsized a couple of times."

"The waves," Dean finishes for him. "They must have washed away."

Muffled cackling forces its way out from behind Meg's gag at the revelation, and fuck that noise. Dean gropes about inside his backpack for something he knows for sure is wedged down inside it, because he fished it out from under the seat in front of him on the prop job that flew them out of Paraty, after the kid who owned it left it behind.

"Seriously?" his brother reproves, as Dean retrieves the squirt gun and a quart-bottle of holy water Jonas Harper blessed for them.

"Yeah, seriously," Dean confirms as he carefully fills the plastic gun before aiming it at Meg. She stares at the fluorescent orange muzzle and then back at Dean, and even behind the gag he can see that she's curling her top lip up into a Presley sneer. She rolls her eyes so thoroughly it takes long seconds for the whites to go blue again.

"You're damn lucky it isn't the super-soaker with the jet pack," Dean says as he fires off a shot. The water spatters across Meg's face, and a shrill cry erupts from behind her gag as smoke follows in its wake. Her skin bubbles as she shrieks out muffled fury, and Dean shrugs at the look his brother gives him. "Don't forget what she's done to us," he retorts. "And to our friends."

Sam shakes his head, and his features relax into a disappointed expression that's almost comical as his shoulders slump. "Some of our stuff was floating in the water back on the reef, but I would have seen them if they were there," he says dispiritedly. "They're probably at the bottom of the fucking Pacific. I wonder if it's even worth…" He trails off as he pulls his hand out of his pack, holding a folded wad of sodden, dripping paper, the ritual Eloni Nam'ulu composed so carefully for them long run away into formless inky blotches. "…Doing the ritual at all," he continues faintly.

Dean finds that yes, it is possible to feel even more despondent. "I really wish she had laminated that for us," he supplies.

"Jesus Christ," is the muttered response.

Castiel clears his throat. "That's a good idea," he deadpans, in the utterly flat calm he uses when he's seriously pissed, and if he's crabby, well, Dean can't honestly blame him. "Perhaps we should all start praying for a miracle at this juncture? Since it appears we need all the help we can-"

"No, wait!" Sam jumps in.

Dean slants his eyes across, sees that Sam's face is suddenly animated, his eyes wide and calculating. It's his thinking, light bulb, solution-pulled-out-of-his-ass face, and Dean could hug him for it right then.

"We use the spell, the banishing spell," Sam races out, and he's already reaching back inside his pack and pulling out a plastic bag, from which he produces his journal. "The one we used to send the souls back. I got it in here, I'm sure of it." He extricates a folded piece of paper, holds it up triumphantly. "It could work. Couldn't it?"

There's no real sense to the theory, in fact it's wildly speculative, but Dean is grabbing it and holding on like it's a lifeline. "Could it?" he asks, as Castiel reaches down to pluck the paper from between Sam's fingers.

"There are no guarantees," the angel murmurs distractedly, to a triumphant snorting sound from Meg. Castiel nudges her gently with his boot, and once he has her attention his eyes go frigid and his tone takes on a vicious edge. "Don't interrupt me, please."

"I can squirt her again," Dean offers, but Castiel doesn't answer, just frowns thoughtfully as he returns to scanning the words.

"This spell is older than I am," he announces.

Dean has no idea if that's good or bad, says, "Yeah, it's magic with a k at the end," as the angel tilts his head in his usual quizzical way.

"You're sure it's the one you used the last time?"

"It's the one Death left us," Sam points out. "It stands to reason a spell that can pack a bunch of monster souls back to Purgatory has the power to send the Beast back where it came from, doesn't it?" He waits for a response, face still lit up, looks meaningfully from Castiel to Dean. "Especially if Michael is doing it?"

And suddenly the notion doesn't seem as crazed as it did, in fact it seems entirely logical, and Dean takes a deep breath and wills the tremor out of his hands as he remembers reading the words from the book in Bobby's study when he thought Castiel was lost to him. "If we have been selfish and cruel, it's you who will banish us," he breathes.

Sam nods vigorously. "Like Eloni said. Like Death said." He's confident, assured. "Michael slew the dragon, Dean. And you're the one true vessel, didn't he tell you that? Hell, Zachariah even said you were the Michael sword. So maybe we don't need the actual sword, or the cup and the ritual. Maybe we just need you."

The idea of it sends a thrill of excitement and a simultaneous surge of panic shivering through Dean as he glances at Castiel. "Cas?" he prods cautiously.

"The spell wasn't intended for this…" Castiel bends himself down to his haunches, fixes Dean with bright eyes, bright with hope maybe. "But old magic…" He pauses a beat, and a smile plays across his lips. "Magic with a k at the end, is still magic, and the principle of the spell should hold if it is cast in the right way."

"Like chaos magick?" Sam says, and the angel nods in agreement.

That goes right over Dean's head, oscillating as he is between feeling relieved and anxious. "Care to clarify for the slow child?" he asks.

"It's the idea that the belief is what's important in a magical operation," Castiel says. "You drew this on your hand the last time, yes?" At Dean's nod, he continues, low and confidential. "The spell as you were given it dictates a certain way to use it, but when you wrote it on your hand you broke the traditional rules. Your belief created a magic of its own. We'll have to do the same in order to use this again to try to send the Beast back. So, we sacrifice the False Prophet, but it's our belief as we sacrifice her that is of utmost importance. Dean, are you listening to me?"

Throughout Castiel's explanation of spellwork and chaos magick, Dean has let his eyes drift over to watch the shape of Meg's mouth beneath the duct tape as it moves. It looks like a minnow beneath a line of silver, and he can tell she's hurling obscenities. Castiel's voice runs in the background and it sounds assured, but the more Dean thinks about it, the more he knows that despite all their research, and fact-finding, and meticulous gathering of artifacts, none of them knows what the fuck they're doing. It's always been faith, and luck, and a whole shit-load of duct tape.

"I'm enthralled," he mutters. "Continue."

"Because I can stop if this bores you," Castiel chides him, and is that his trademark fond exasperation, or is a note of testiness creeping into his voice again?

Back in the moment, Dean groans inwardly. He knows it isn't the time or place but he takes a minute to reflect on the fact that he thought they had a while to go before they reached that stage of their relationship - that part where they annoy each other for no meaningful reason. And then comes the ennui. The silence, the cold dinners, the nights on the couch, and now there's the secret fear it could happen with Castiel if they live through this, which they damn well will, and Dean doesn't want that.

"No, I want you to keep going, and don't stop until I say stop," Dean says, and he infuses his voice with the stern edge of command. Castiel's eyes scorch right through Dean as he responds to it, like Dean knew he would, because deep down Castiel is a soldier, always a soldier, and something about the snapped order pulls a string in him that he responds to, instinctual, sexual, magnetic.

How do you keep a relationship from going stale? Dean thinks, and then has his answer - keep the interest. And how does one do that? By doing something unexpected. If Castiel were a chick, he'd buy him flowers, but Castiel's not a chick. So he'll have to do something better.

Dean's eyes fall on Meg. "You'll have to do," he says, chipper, and he turns to snatch the written spell from Castiel's hand.

"Dean, we need that-"

"Actually, Meg needs it," Dean says smartly, "and please, keep talking about chaos magick, Sam's really digging it." Which isn't so far from the truth, because Sam is sitting there with his machete in his hand, covered in plant guts and chlorophyll from bushwacking for the last thirty minutes or so, but he looks entranced. Or it could be exhaustion or concussion, Dean isn't sure.

"Chaos magick varies from individual to individual, as each one takes inspiration from many faiths…and many identify with symbols that evoke chaos, humor, or trickster archetypes…"

Gabriel would be so pleased, Dean thinks, with a hollow sort of amusement, as he leans over towards Meg and catches the edge of the silver duct tape with a nail. He feels the rough scrim poking at his fingers, and meets her black eyes once with a grin.

"…Austin Osman Spare is credited with a large amount of influence…"

Dean strips the tape away in one quick motion of his wrist. Meg's lipstick is smeared in every direction, giving her a clownish appearance, but he doesn't wait to appreciate it as she sucks in a shrieking breath. Her lungs fill with it in an attempt to launch a string of insults in their direction or maybe even summon Cthulhu herself, but Dean doesn't give her the chance. He crumples the paper with the spell in his hand and shoves it into her open mouth, slapping the duct tape back over it as she gags, her eyes so narrow they form black slits in her face.

Castiel's voice is fading into the background as Dean swipes perspiration away from his brow and turns to look at his brother, who had sat opposite him in Bobby's study, tapped his temple, it's up here, and smirked as he recited it all back to Dean, word-perfect.

"Play it again, Sam," he says, with a flourish that comes from nowhere, skirts perilously close to lunacy, and is partly inspired by the fear he's been tamping down since he came around, spitting salt water and with his brother's hand slamming into his upper back.

And, mercifully, Castiel stops his relentless information download on the ins-and-outs of chaos magick; and even better, it appears those long motel nights watching old black-and-white movies haven't gone to waste, because he blinks and a light comes into his eyes as his mouth, the mouth Dean loves to part and explore with his tongue, makes shapes around a new, updated version of one of his favorite phrases.

"I understand that reference."

Sam shakes his head. "You're damn lucky I remember this," he reproves before he begins the spell, albeit uncertainly, and then pauses. "Wait, Dean, don't we need her blood-"

"Nope," Dean tells him, "because my belief is creating a magic of its own, right the fuck now. And so is yours, Cas's too."

Forcing a weak grin, Sam says, "Tell me, I'm begging you to tell me, that you aren't going to enjoy feeding Meg to mega-monster?"

Dean awards Sam a smile he knows splits his face, then directs it at Castiel, ramping it up to eleven as he does. It's the sort of smile that turns Castiel's dial up to fever-pitch when they're alone and the angel is writhing and moaning underneath him, and the blue gaze goes laser-like in response.

"The end of the world isn't without its fringe benefits, Dean," Castiel concedes tolerantly, "but I maintain that your sense of fun is abnormally twisted."

"Me?" Dean scoffs. "I wasn't the one who suggested using a crane to feed her to Cthulhu. That was Bobby. When I called him, he said he wanted to hook her up and drop her in like he was feeding a pet snake."

He wastes no more time, yanks Meg to her feet, and she sways, dizzy and dehydrated beneath the sun and the humidity that has their clothes clinging to their backs and creeping into every uncomfortable crease of sweat-drenched skin. Dean takes brief but rewarding satisfaction in the wild look that creeps into Meg's eyes as her gaze darts from one brother to the other, and then finally settles on Castiel with a look of desperate appeal.

Castiel shrugs.

"Cue the music," Dean announces with a grin. "And don't stop believing."



At some point, Meg's knees buckle and she sinks gracelessly down to her knees on the damp, stinking jungle earth, where the broken stones of ancient relics are scattered all around them. The setting is fitting, something primal and forgotten in the air and the ground, and in the background of it all is the steady recitation of Sam's voice as he intones the rune on a loop, solitary until Castiel picks up the incantation alongside him.

The moment their voices merge the effect is alchemical, and Dean concentrates, finds that he's joining in almost reflexively, that he can recall the words in a way he wasn't able to on that long evening in Bobby's study when he repeated them to himself ad nauseum but couldn't imprint them in his brain, where they needed to be. It's an omen, he thinks abstractedly, a good one. He fists his hands so tight he feels his nails digging into his palms, and believes like he never has before, believes that he is the Michael sword and that his willpower and the words that ring out around him will be enough, while he quashes down the memory of how he believed so hard the last time but Castiel still slipped through his fingers like air and tumbled into the abyss.

Bewitched by the ritual, Meg seethes and groans behind her mask of duct tape, her eyes switching frenziedly between navy and obsidian-black as the feathers of a crow, as though fear itself has spun her demonic compass out of sync. Her fists clench and her fingers fan out as she strains against the ragged edges of rope binding her.

Dean's stomach does an uncomfortable flip as the ground suddenly vibrates and drops a few inches under his feet. Shit is happening, he thinks, and the sick feeling of dread he has been holding tight to crashes through the barrier to freedom.

He stumbles back, keeps his wits about him sufficiently to hoist his backpack up onto his shoulder, reaches out with his free hand to snag the back of Sam's t-shirt and drag him along in tandem. Castiel's hand tags Dean's shirt in turn, and in a line they shuffle backwards as the shaking increases in time with their voices. Where Sam falters to keep up with the uneven convulsion of the ground, Castiel strives for more volume, pounding the ancient syllables home until Dean realizes he can perceive a radiance from the corners of his peripheral vision. Castiel is glowing like phosphorus with the force of his words, and it chills Dean with a heartstopping reminder of the last time they used this spell and why he'd be happy to never hear it again.

This is usually when the shit hits the fan, Dean thinks, and he has a gut feeling that if they survive this he'll feel pissed off that he's right on the mark every damn time. In the event, they're twenty yards further back down the hacked-out trail that marks their route when a discordant whining sound starts up, accompanied by the crunch of timber splitting, the wail of trees ripping loose from their moorings, and the crack of jungle vines snapping. The cacophony of sound fills Dean's ears, deafening him for a few moments, until the shaking abruptly stops. Everything falls silent and Dean can hear the harsh, worried breathing of his companions as they stand and stare back at Meg in the center of the clearing, where she writhes in her bonds.

Sam sees it first.

"Look!" he hisses, and points.

In the darkness of the jungle brush there is a winnowing shape that Dean thinks might be a vine twirling in place, like a living tornado. There seems no end to it, no beginning either, and it moves with oiled speed, punching through fleshy leaves and crushing smaller trees beneath its rolling wake. And now it's closer, Dean can see what his brother spotted first - it's no vine. It's thick and padded on every side with membranous suction cups.

Dean makes a sound he knows he will deny making later.

The tentacle snakes towards Meg with intent, a shadow that seems to gather and deepen the darkness with it, and then it bursts with speed. Leaves rip in its wake and Meg scoots back on her ass, heels digging frantically into the soil in a final desperate act to save herself.

The tentacle slaps against her ankle and she shrieks and kicks out. It loops around her calves and then tugs her back with it, to where the ground heaves and quakes, the earth splitting apart to create a dark, jagged mouth that yawns open. It drags her through as though she were no more than a hog-tied calf at a rodeo, and then the landscape stops its dance and there is an abrupt, resounding silence.

No one moves. No one breathes.

"That's it?" Sam croaks after a stretched-out moment. "It can't be that easy. At what point have we ever just done the job, gone home, had a beer and gone to bed?" He goggles at Dean, repeats, "It can't be that easy."

"Don't fuckin' hex us," Dean growls, as he smacks his brow with his open palm and hopes that it is that easy, that there will be a seedy motel room, a couple of beers, and a warm, willing and rock-hard body pressed against him and moving inside him in the near future. Because why the fuck can't they just, for once, have the Big Rock Candy Mountain apocalypse? Is that too much to ask?

And sure enough it is, as the silence breaks with a distant, ominous rumbling that seems to emanate from under the ground. Dean fancies that it's like the sound of a thousand-mile long worm tunneling its way through the earth, and it sends the hair along the back of his neck standing straight up. He trades uncertain glances with his brother and his other.

Sam raises the Taurus at nothing at all, as if he does it for the comfort alone.

Castiel grimaces. "Weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?"

As the rumble dies away, there is another reverberation that strikes Dean as familiar. He gapes. "Was that a burp? Did Coolio just belch?"

"Cthulhu doesn't belch, Dean," Sam insists, without looking away from the knife-edge slash in the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dean snaps back acidly, "I didn't know you graduated with a masters in monster digestion, but…"

He trails off, distracted by the sound of a scream, and then Castiel is tugging at his wrist.

"Dean, weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?" the angel echoes himself, but Dean isn't really focusing on Castiel, preoccupied as he is by the fact the scream is rising in volume, and shouldn't that be the other way around? But no, apparently not, because in the next instant Meg comes cannon-balling back out of the crack into which she just vanished.

It's like a swan dive in reverse, one part comical and one part horrific, as she streaks back out with lightning speed, arcing through the air and face-planting without grace into the thick jungle leaves and grasses. She slides to a stop five feet away from where they're standing, and Dean winces at the impact, looks left of himself to see twin stupefied expressions he knows are a mirror of his own astonishment fixed on Meg as if she might explode next.

She doesn't explode.

"Apparently," Dean says, "not only does the big guy belch, but he also vomits."

Meg is covered in a viscous black gloop that looks like old motor oil, and she screams from behind her duct tape seal, eyes open wide and startlingly vivid, a ring of hazel captured in blue-gray. Dean looks down and thinks out of nowhere that he can't remember ever noticing that she had pretty eyes.

"Hey, she's got pretty eyes," Sam blurts out.

Dean looks at his brother and bites his tongue on any number of demon-lover jokes that spring to mind, as Castiel makes a perplexed huffing sound and steps closer to where Meg slumps.

"That's because she's not a demon any more," the angel says.

"What?!" Dean hears himself squawk, but Castiel doesn't spare him a glance as he crouches to his knees, grips an edge of the duct tape plastered over Meg's mouth, and rips it away with about as much ceremony as Dean had earlier. Globs of the black liquid spatter on nearby leaves and Meg heaves in a gasp that rakes down into her lungs as her bound hands reach up in imitation of prayer and catch at Castiel's sleeve.

"God," she wheezes. "God saved me. That's what happened, don't you see? Don't you get it? God gave me a second chance!"

Castiel wrenches out of the grasp of her fingers with his lips pulled back from his teeth in disgust, and Meg attempts to follow his backward pace, dragging herself after him, the haughty air and condescending manner evaporated into thin air.

It's pathetic, deeply unsettling, and it occurs to Dean that the last thing they need on this trip is civilian baggage. "Is she the host now?" he barks. "This can't be for real."

"I assure you, this is very real," Castiel tells him. "But she isn't the host. She's Meg - just not demon Meg."

"This is your fault," Dean accuses, and points to Sam.

"How is this my fault?" his brother protests, aghast.

"Just before she went in, you said she'd rather be a born-again Christian!"

Sam smacks his hand to his face, but the sound is lost in Meg's sobbing as she attempts to prostrate herself at Castiel's feet. She's reciting prayers and invoking the name of Jesus Christ on a loop, apparently in every language she knows, and Castiel stumbles back from her again. "Your prayers won't be heard," he says, with something Dean thinks sounds like desperation. "You have no soul to save. You know this."

He pulls a knife from his boot with a quick jerk of his hand, hunkers down into the thick jungle floor beside the woman, and Meg cries out in terror and struggles to cover her head. Dean can only stare at the exchange with a dual sensation of distaste and pity. This is Meg? High-riding, get-out-the-way-imma-cut-a-bitch Meg? She cowers before Castiel's knife now, and the angel's face is a study in quiet agony that reminds Dean of how far Castiel has come; that he now has a full range of emotion at his disposal, and with it all the hardship of difficult decisions and the conflict they evoke. Like this one, and he's raising the knife, its blade glinting as he unexpectedly saws through Meg's duct-tape bracelet to cut her free.

"You trust her?" Sam gawks.

"No," Castiel says without emotion, as Meg tears the slashed strips of tape off her wrists in between sobs. "But I'm in no position to judge her."

Dean damn well disagrees with that, and argues the case too. "Are you serious? She's a killer…she has no soul." In his side vision, he can see the stony face his brother makes at the reference, but he plows on. "It doesn't matter if she's de-clawed, she'd kill us in a heartbeat."

But how many people Meg has or hasn't killed becomes a small and distant matter, as a new sound shakes the ground beneath their feet, and suddenly the only body count Dean is worried about is their own.

This time, the din is permanent and everywhere, like the earth has become a great drum and something is beating it with force, sending the trees shaking and the vines swinging on their limbs. It's like a boombox turned all the way up so it shakes the membranes of Dean's heart, and for once Sam is the one gripping him by the arm and hauling him backwards, yelling, "Weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?" because it's his turn to do that now.

Dean twists out of his brother's grasp, shouting for Castiel as the angel hangs back, trying to help Meg up onto her feet. He makes a wild grab, fists a handful of Castiel's t-shirt and drags him close as trees start timbering down under the force of the steady and persistent vibration, and new webs of cracks funnel out from the main fault line to zig and zag wildly around them.

"Shit is happening, Cas," Dean roars when Castiel tries to break free and make his way back to the woman as she crashes to the ground again. "Run. And that's a fuckin' order."



The island is rocking and rolling around them as energetically as if it ate three bowls of Wheaties after it woke up, and Dean pounds his boots into the soil and tries to ignore how the trees shimmy and leap violently up and down. He can hear harsh, panting breath, chances flicking a glance over to see his brother next to him, face grim and jaw locked, arms and legs pumping. Beyond Sam, Castiel is loping effortlessly along like he's on the hunt, and it is sonot the time to feel turned on by that, but men think about sex every seven seconds, so Dean can't help it.

The trail having been cleared by Sam's industrious application of the machete, it takes far less time to get back to where they started from than it did to cut through on the outward journey, but it still seems like too long a sprint.

The Duck is nestled in the fleshy vegetation where they left it, and where before it had seemed a somewhat reliable and indefatigable machine when it wasn’t coughing up its lungs or cutting out entirely, Dean thinks now that it looks small, miniature even, like a toy from his old G.I. Joe set. They hotfoot towards it over the rich and rotting earth beneath their feet, hands everywhere to help and lift and steady, and Dean tunes his ears backwards to pick out the sound of Meg sobbing close behind them as she finally catches up. She's muttering prayers in what sounds like Latin, praying maybe, and as Dean finds himself pondering abstractedly on how it is she can actually run in those heels Castiel snaps at her in Enochian. Dean is certain that he just told her to shut the fuck up.

They reach the Duck and Sam doesn't even try for the door, just vaults over the side with the springheel-jack bounciness of a guy with eight-foot-long legs. Dean clambers up after him as he starts the engine, thinks, thank fuckin' Chrysler as the responding rev grumbles through the noise of the land disintegrating around them. He turns to reach for Castiel, and Meg tumbles in after them. There's no time to argue about space or loyalty as Dean screams himself hoarse for Sam to get us the fuck out of here.

Sam isn't waiting. The Duck pitches forward while Meg clamors on and on, her knuckles white as she hangs onto the side of the vehicle, and Dean shuts his mind to the sound of her terror. Castiel is crouched there close to him, an uncomfortable jostle of hips and elbows, and under ordinary circumstances this would give rise to all kinds of delicious juxtapositions to be taken advantage of, but Dean can't look away from the crevices and fissures that are opening up the surface behind them, ripping the island into pieces the way one might rip wet newspaper into shreds.

It's time for plan B, and Dean puts his lips close to Castiel's ear, speaks clearly and urgently. "Defcon one. You're cleared for take-off, buddy."

Castiel swings his head around and Dean can see it in his eyes before he replies, some mix of embarrassment and frustration. "I've tried already. I'm - not working. That thing is blocking me somehow."

His voice is almost lost in the fury that surrounds them, but the words are still like a punch to Dean's gut. They aren't getting out of this.

Wind is howling up out of the cracks like tornadoes, the force of the air moving the jungle trees so they gyrate frantically, like giant egg-beaters whisking the sky. Their leaves tear off and billow away into the blue before showering down, and it's like they're driving through a ticker tape parade Cthulhu laid on just for them. Sam dodges larger trees and grinds them right over skinnier ones, forces the Duck through wild hairpin turns that threaten to tip it over as the vehicle labors its way over the injured land, dragging its barge behind it like a broken limb. Dean can see black smoke belching out from under the hood, knows he'll see the yellow glow of flames any minute now, but Sam doesn't ease off.

Dean feels the vise-tight grip of Castiel's arms around his chest, drawing him further into the Duck and close to him. He looks around, meets eyes that are staring fear back at him. Castiel is scared, he thinks, scared of losing him in this wild getaway-that-isn't, scared of the thing waking up beneath the earth. Dean knows that should terrify him, but he swallows it down, puts his hand against the angel's cheek. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue but he damn well won't say them, won't accept this, won't give into this, won't ever let Castiel know he thinks this might be the end of them.

It's rising up, he thinks, as he turns to look behind them again. He stares, agog, and he couldn't look away if he wanted to, even though he can feel Castiel's lips soft, and warm, and desperate against his ear, I love you, Dean. I always have.



In the distance the surface erupts, and then nothing is distant anymore. But if those startling rips, sending rock flying like glass shattering into a million slivers, are terrifying and gargantuan, the next vibration reduces them to no more than a sneeze on the Richter scale. The earth heaves and detonates outwards, in an almighty blast that turns the crust into immense shards careening into the sky, and all the terrain they've covered since they staggered away from the clearing is blown apart in an instant as the fracture yawns wide enough to engulf all the ground from here to there.

Dean has time to think there is something gray and dark, like an endless shadow in the deep, and the gray and the dark is moving, is watching him; and he remembers hearing that when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

The Duck goes vertical. One second the tires are biting into the soil and the next there is no soil left to bite into, and Dean feels his sense of orientation blown to smithereens as they start to flip upside-down. There is no time to scream - all he feels is his angel's hand come up over his eyes, as though the last thing Castiel can offer him is the mercy of seeing nothing of this horror at all. It blinds Dean to the shape of shadows that rise up to meet them, blinds him to the tentacle that snaps like a lasso in the air and furls about the vehicle, swathing them in warm, wet, spongy darkness.



Episode 23: Achilles' Last Stand

Authors' notes: The poem Dean quotes is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The movie dialogue is from The Court Jester.