Before we start, disbelief may need to be suspended. But I invoke the rights of fiction and for the purposes of action and a big showdown all the things written below are possible! Enjoy!
Chapter Seven.
Dean ran. Which was all he could do given the two bears following close behind him, their paws lumbering across the ground just a few feet away, their chase only slowed by the series of doors and ticket barriers Dean was picking his way through, each a lifeline giving him the few vital seconds he needed to get to the aquarium.
It was by no means his best plan but then again he'd hardly had time to formulate the finer points. It was either going to work or it wasn't, only he wouldn't know either way until it was too late. Still, he'd done crazier things…surely?
As the multi-coloured paw prints painted onto the ground before him gradually faded into little drawings of bright tropical fish, Dean resisted the urge to throw a skip of elation into his step, noting as the pounding again grew louder behind him. He was pretty sure both bears could have both outstripped him if they'd wanted, but for some reason Diana was having them hang back a little. God only knew what for but Dean wasn't going to question it while he still had ground to cover.
Up before them a tall domed building was starting to rise up out of the ground, a set of double doors blocking their entry. Never slowing his speed, Dean pelted towards it, bringing the shotgun up out in front of him and firing, watching as the lock fell away in a clean hit. If Yogi and Boo-Boo's arctic cousins hadn't been close enough to catch the bottoms of his heels he might even have grinned in self-congratulations at a shot well taken. As it was he simply dove headfirst through the newly released doors and into the body of the aquarium itself, breathing heavily.
They were standing in the long winding walkway that the zoo's pamphlets had made so much of, a dark tunnel cut straight through the bottom of the sea-spectacular, ripples of light reflecting down from the water and playing gently across the dark carpet while over-head swam fish of varying shape, size and colour. Impressive, or at least it would have been if he'd had the time to sightsee. As it was his footsteps thundered loudly around the curved glass walls as he ran, the rubber of his boot soles creating an almost comical bouncing noise, as if Tigger had somehow joined the chase behind him.
He's bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun –
The tiger he'd met earlier had been anything but.
As a sign before him loomed overhead, denoting the shark tank and with a pointy-arrow shaped like a fin, Dean skidded to a halt not wanting to go quite that far. There was no point in dodging death by bears only to end up as a midnight feast for a hammerhead. The tropical fish tank was far enough. Stopping dead, digging his heels into the thick and well-worn carpet, Dean spun on his toes turning the shotgun back up the way he had come and quickly loading in another round.
The bears were right there slowing on instinct, their lolloping gait turning into steady but thunderous tread, their shaggy paws sending little tremors of weight through the flooring. They came to a halt about twenty feet away and for a moment nobody moved. They were waiting.
It took Diana less than a minute to emerge from the unlit gloom, flowing between the bears and brushing her fingers lightly across the fur at each of the beast's nape in some sort of gesture for having cornered their prey so well. Dean raised the shotgun, keeping it pointed at her head,
"Now, now," she sang, "You know better than to point something like that at something like me."
"Something," Dean repeated with a growl, "You're that all right."
Diana blinked,
"I don't pretend otherwise, just like I'm not going to pretend that this amuses me anymore," she paused abruptly, tracing the tip of her finger across one of the bear's ears and watching it quiver in response, "I was going to save you for Bobby, let him see you get ripped apart but I've still got your brother for that and I'm sure he'll do just fine. Let Bobby find you here, scattered into little pieces," she punctuated each word carefully, every syllable coming out round and defined. Dean's expression flickered, as much at the mention of Sam being pulled apart as his own intended demise. Diana smiled, "Just about break his heart I would imagine. Fitting pay-back, don't you think?"
"Why do you do that?" Dean asked suddenly, tone cut-through with a long sigh of boredom, "You demons? Go on and on about yourselves? It's time to change the record sister, this one's broken."
Diana smiled thinly, a curious expression of respect and fast waning patience,
"Oh I'm going to enjoy this," she whispered, a flash of black passing through her eyes again. Slowly the bears began to walk forward and Dean clutched his shotgun closer.
Any time Sam.
"Dean!"
As if on cue a familiarly panicked syllable echoed through the tunnel, both he and Diana turning towards it. Sam was standing in the doorway a look of urgency and confusion on his face, Bobby lent behind him on the door-frame looking a little worse for wear. Dean however had bigger issues.
"Sam! The cross!"
As Diana turned Sam stepped back, slipping the wooden cross into his fist and lining up for the best pitch he'd ever made. Gathering the energy into his shoulder muscles, he threw his arm forward, flicking it at the last moment and sending the object sailing through the air over the heads of the oblivious bears and right into Dean's outstretched hand. Diana turned towards it with a frown, her hard stare only slipping as she realised what it was. Too late.
Suddenly Dean was pointing the shotgun up at the glass, one last call bouncing down the tunnel towards his younger brother.
"Sammy! Shut the doors!"
And then Sam didn't have to guess anymore, because he knew what Dean was doing and it did not make him happy.
"Dea – ," he didn't get to finish. In the same moment that Dean pulled the trigger trying hard to ignore the outstretched claw just inches from his face, a hand grabbed hold of a chunk of Sam's collar and hauled him bodily out into the open, slamming the doors shut in front of his face.
The sound of the gunshot and the shattering of glass that followed was amplified by the close surroundings of the tunnel, making Dean, Diana and even the bears inside pause in abrupt shock, unsure of what was happening. For a moment Dean feared that the glass was going to be too tough to break but the sudden tide of water proved him mercifully wrong.
It started as a strong leak, a thin but steady cascade of water pouring down between him and his furred assailants who stumbled back in surprise. They didn't get far however before there was the unmistakable tinkle of breaking glass and cracks started to run up and down the tunnel as the sheer volume of water pressing down proved too much for the bullet-hole.
Open-mouthed, Diana stumbled backwards but neither she nor anybody else was able to reach the doors before one whole section of the roofing gave way in a jagged jigsaw of glass, sending down an almighty rush of churning water that crashed around them and filled the tunnel whole in less time than it took to even take in a breath of air. As the tidal wave flooded in around them, plunging them under gallons of water in a split second, Dean gripped hard to the cross willing his idea to work. He knew what just a little Holy water could do, he could only guess at an aquarium's worth.
Around him everything turned a strange shade of black, the water a lot less blue than movies had led him to believe and only shot through with the bizarrely bright footlights of the tunnel somewhere beneath him, although only God knew exactly where as he somersaulted helplessly in the tide, thrown backwards, forwards, up and down so rapidly by the never-ending torrent of water that he barely knew which direction he was facing.
He hit a flat piece of glass hard, a part of the roofing further down that remained intact. All around him the aquarium water continued to pile in, creating pressure that stuck him fast in place and gripped his heart in icy panic. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe and there was only so long he could hold his breath. That limit was approaching pretty damn quick.
Suddenly to his side there was a ripple of activity that pulled him inwards, like an underwater tornado, an expulsion of energy tinged black and whipping out through the water ferociously.
Bingo. One demon down.
As his lungs began to contract violently, pulling at him desperately for more air, he let the cross slip from his fingers, job done. Instead he started to pound at the glass to no avail, it was strong, or at least stronger than he was and suddenly he was all out of ideas and oxygen.
The flood started to drop almost instantly. A fraction at a time but suddenly presenting a tiny bubble of air that he could turn his head towards, gasping and spluttering as he sucked in a mouthful of the bobbing liquid alongside it. Slowly the water level was falling, running out of the many exit doors and gaps that the probably-none-too-water-proof visitor walkway was full of, lowering him down and down until he was practically riding out on top of the crest, coughing in the churning torrent of foam and bubbles and hitting the ground hard as it levelled out to nothing more than an incredibly drenched carpet.
He braced himself against it unmoving, pleased beyond belief to feel the ground underneath him again, his clothes hanging off him so heavily that he could barely lever himself into a crouch, his jeans like sheets of unbending metal around his joints. He coughed and spluttered too, the salt water draining off his damp hair into his eyes, the stinging sensation suddenly coming to the forefront as the panic of near-death faded away.
There was a squelch beside him and as he belatedly remembered the polar bears a strong grip wrapped firmly around his arms, making him jump.
"Dean?" It was Sam, "Are you okay?" A splutter met the younger man's gasp of concern as he grabbed up handfuls of Dean's jacket and hauled him onto his knees, watching as the droplets of water cascaded down from his brother's hairline and then across and off his nose, joining the water being coughed out over the lips. He had yet to get an answer, "Dean," it was harder this time, Sam brushing aside his worry in exchange for a response either way. A hand came up to rest across his, gripping hard.
"I'm okay Sam,"
The answer brought a grin of wry disbelief,
Yeah, for a man who just had an aquarium dropped on him.
Shaking his head Sam pulled him upright to his feet, it took Bobby less than a second to join them, face twisted in what looked like anger although they all knew it was masking the relief he felt beneath.
"You ever try that again," he began, pointing an accusing finger in Dean's face, "I'll damn well drown you myself," abruptly he reached out a hand to clap him on the shoulder, a sudden smile on his lips, "Good job."
Dean coughed once more, swiping a hand across his wet face and grinning vaguely, feeling exhausted.
"Thanks."
Sam meanwhile had moved beyond them across to a figure lying face down in the damp, prone and seemingly lifeless. Crouching beside her, Sam gently pulled the wet hair out of Katie's face, resting two fingers against her cold and damp neck. Dean and Bobby looked across at him expectantly,
"She's alive."
"Well I'll be," breathed Bobby, the grin widening before he noticed the bears beginning to stumble to their feet behind them, "Come on, we'd better get out of here. All of us."
Sweeping one hand behind her neck and the other under her legs, Sam hefted Katie up into his arms, listening to the soft squelching as they quickly made their way out of the tunnel, Bobby collecting up his cross and shotgun almost as an after-thought as they went. They shut the doors firmly behind them and then secured them again with an iron bar in absence of the lock Dean had wasted earlier. They then used their ever-handy piece of chalk to write a polar bear related warning on the steel entrance. They hardly wanted another keeper death on their hands.
Slowly and with Dean trailing decidedly wet footprints alongside the colourful animal prints, the hunters made their way out of the park, Katie still hanging limply in Sam's arms. Bobby led the way muttering – mostly to himself – about the Winchester's being the death of him while Dean and Sam trailed in his wake, the younger weighed down by the prone tiger keeper but deliberately slowing his step to match Dean's, which was ever so slightly flagging. Hardly surprising really.
"Look at the bright side," he said eventually, breaking the silence in a quiet aside. Dean looked across at him, a brow cocked quizzically.
"Which is?"
"You got to see the aquarium,"
His grin was returned in kind, Dean skating a hand through his sopping hair and flicking the excess water off his fingers and down onto the concrete as he snorted in derision,
"Looked better in brochure."
"Drier too. So, still fancy a day at the zoo?"
A grin met his,
"Yeah, actually I kinda do."
Sam blinked, seriously? Well, Dean always had been a bit of a mystery. Up ahead Bobby half-turned to shout back at them irritably, his tone no less forgiving for a job done.
"Will you two stop yakking and hurry up! Those cops will probably be back any minute and I don't know about you but I don't think there's going to be any explaining this one away!"
Sam and Dean shared a glance.
Silently and still squelching, they both sped up a notch.
The man had a point.
Somehow I just can't resist Dean being brave and stupid all at the same time…oh well!
One more chapter to go and then we're done for another tale!
Snow is just about starting to melt – another blizzard notwithstanding – and I put that down to all the lovely fuzzy reviews I've got! I appreciate every single one, thank you.
