Been too long, I know. But May's been a real shit month, people. If you're happy this is up, then freaking say so. Or don't. Whatever. - Tyler
They drove through the sunset and into the night, crossing state lines and stopping only for drive-through coffee and burgers – and to leave Pierce at the doorstep of his great aunt Nancy's house, despite his insistence he could be of use.
Dean was having none of it.
"Your record's clean, kid." He'd informed Pierce bluntly, "Go back to school. Graduate. Hook up with some pretty post-grad and go party in Tijuana or something. No one chooses this fucked-up life" Here he had shot a pointed glance at Adam.
Adam had ignored it, opting instead to pilfer the keys from his brother and consign Dean to take up Sam-watch in the passenger seat.
The New Mexican horizon greeted Adam as he steered the Impala down a beaten dirt road. He glanced up at the rear-view mirror.
"Dean."
Dean had fallen asleep in his position beside Sam, one arm draped over the back of the seat where his unconscious brother was slumped against him. Dean started at the call from Adam and inhaled deeply, his normally clear green eyes bloodshot and hazy as they opened.
"Huh."
"I think we're here." Adam turned towards Becky, whose eyes were closed and head tilted upwards. A small trickle of drool edged at the corner of her open mouth, "Hey. Weird girl."
She jerked awake, smudged eyelids fluttering as she hastened to wipe at her mouth and face. She cast Adam a scowl, "Stop calling me that!"
"I found the road. Where's the safe-house?"
"It's an old cabin in the middle of the woods. It's not like I know the freaking zip code!" Becky squinted out the window before she patted Adam's arm frantically, "That's it! That's it! Make a turn, here!"
Adam swerved sharply, soliciting a holler from Dean as he did so. The headlights ate up a leaf-covered path, and the dark shapes of trees whizzed by the Impala's glossy windows.
"What the hell, man! I let you drive for five freaking minutes and you're playing Need for Speed?"
"It's not my fault…" Adam tried to protest his innocence, but Dean was already launching into a scathing lecture about dark backroads and brakes, how reckless driving was 'only cool when he did it' and if Adam didn't want to spend the rest of the trip in the trunk with the body, he'd just better watch it.
Somewhere between a second reminder that tailspins were bitches and yet another threat to his hide if anything happened to Dean's baby, Adam tuned out.
He studied the cabin as the rising sun caught it in its grasp. It was quaint, to say the least, with one single floor under a sturdy-looking log roof. Ivy and moss had long since claimed the outer walls, and the only visible window was shrouded by filthy net curtain and a mesh of chicken wire.
Dean was still lecturing after Adam had pulled the handbrake and ducked out of the Impala.
"Hey!" Dean was hot on his trail as he swung his booted limbs out of the car. The hunter stopped short at the sight of the cabin, green eyes narrowing at the wisps of smoke spiraling from the chimney.
"What the hell is this place?"
"Now…" Becky hastily unbuckled her seat-belt and adjusted her clothing as she leaped out of the Impala, "Now would be a really good time to, uh, to explain exactly who this person is."
"Wait a minute. I know that bike." Dean strode forward, face set in stone as he stepped over the gaping mouth of a steel-jawed leg-hold trap. He was referring to a shiny RD-350 that stuck out like a sore thumb against its rustic surroundings.
"Yeah. You see, the thing is," Becky began to ramble nervously, "I knew this would be, like, the last place anyone'd look for you guys, and I figured…"
"I know those wards." Dean was ignoring her, his pace quickening as he stalked onto the creaking porch and glared at the myriad of symbols on the wooden walls, "The crappiest workmanship I've seen since Sammy's first Devil's Trap." He paused and turned to Adam with a raised finger, "You tell him I said that, you're dead."
"Right, so uh, since there's no need for anyone to feel threatened here, I figure, you know, it's all good…" Becky stopped mid-stammer as Dean turned his glower on her.
"How the hell did you find out about Trey Harlow?"
"Never mind, that's how!" Becky's sassy response reminded Dean of Nate. In fact, if the Littlest Rebel had been around, he would even have pointed it out – just to piss her off (which it would have). But Nate wasn't around.
Dean felt his stomach settle at the bottom of a dark pit. He turned to where Adam stood, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and eyes warily scoping the cabin.
"Look, I don't care what you think you read in your little Gospel of Chuck, okay?" Dean leaned in on Becky, "We are not staying here, and we are most definitely not leaving Michael's vessel here!"
"What choice do you think you have?" Becky lowered her voice, eyes flicking to the side as she watched a groggy Sam clamber out of the Impala, "There are angels and demons hunting us and this body, and you know as well as I do that this is the last place they'd ever look!"
Dean's mouth flattened into a hard, angry line, and Becky narrowed her eyebrows to match.
"Alright. You think you're so freaking smart." Dean's tone and face grew amused all of a sudden as he steered Becky by the shoulders up the creaking steps of the porch, "You ask him. See how long it takes him to slam the door in your face."
"I am smart, which is why I called Trey before I even found you guys." Becky shrugged Dean's hands off her shoulders and tossed him a smug expression as she rapped on the door, "He's expecting us. So mind your manners."
"Dean." Sam's faint call had Dean swallowing the vicious reply he was about to let loose. Instead he stabbed a finger at Becky with eyes full of promise (at which she quailed) and retreated back down the steps to his brother's side.
"Sammy, how you feeling?"
"Like I head-butted a freight train." Sam's eyes were shut tightly, features drawn tightly in pain as he rubbed at his cranium, "What happened?"
"That angel you were fighting knocked you , Nate and Becky staged a rescue mission, which was mostly successful." Dean was babbling. He knew he was, although he had spent a good majority of the trip to Farmington concocting the least corrosive version of the truth that he could.
All those carefully-selected words had left Dean the minute he was faced with explaining what had happened to his brother.
He fell back on Plan B.
"You know what? Becky has something really important she wants to say to you. Hey, Becky!" Dean turned his back swiftly on Sam's confused expression, "Get over here!"
"I'm busy!" Becky's eyes went wide with dread, and she hastily proceeded to pound on the door with renewed fervor.
"Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam leaned in, "Where's Nate?"
"Yeah, about that, I think Becky really tells it much better. BECKY!" Dean's bark was insistent – threatening. The woman closed her eyes and inhaled, turning on her heels and missing Sam's raised, anxious eyebrows and Dean's emerald glare.
She released it in one breath. "Nate took on an angel and she lost, the angel dragged her off, and it was NOT MY FAULT!"
"What?" Sam turned on his brother sharply, "Please tell me this is another one of Becky's crazy fantasies!"
Becky opened her eyes long enough to scowl at Sam.
Dean, on the other hand, struggled with meeting his brother's gaze, and when he finally did, it was with a look that Sam recognized. It was the same look Dean used to give him after Jess' death, or after a vision, or after anything that his brother hadn't been able to stop from hurting Sam.
"Sammy, we'll get her back."
Sam's jaw locked and he moved past Dean, striding over to Becky and towering over her even from her position on the steps. He caught her eyes in his own, smoldering gaze and Becky felt a lump rise in her throat.
"What…" Every word that left his mouth was strained, "the hell…happened?"
"We…we had just gotten into the Impala when we saw you go down." Becky stammered, "I smashed the angel attacking you into a wall and then Nate and I loaded you into the car."
"And then?" Sam's prompt was a little too loud to be suggestive as he loomed in Becky's face.
She gripped the railing of the porch tightly, "We were about to get back in the car when I was choked by this crazy angel bitch riding a twelve year old! Nate hit her with a fender. I got in the car and boom, Nate went flying into a dumpster. Any other questions?"
"Yeah." Sam's voice rose two octaves as he continued, "Why the hell didn't you help her?"
"The cops showed up and I had to get Dean and the others before a new fight broke out! When we pulled out again, Nate and the angel were gone!" Becky lifted her nose a little and actually dared to shuffle an inch closer to the hunter looming over her, "It was Nate's fault for trying to take on an angel, Sam! Don't you dare go blaming me for this!"
"She took on an angel to save your life!" Sam's waning patience snapped. The hot rage in his voice and eyes set everyone on guard in an instant, "Explain to me how that is not your fault, Becky!"
"The kid's veins were supposedly at boiling point! I had no idea that she wasn't…" Becky clamped a hand over her mouth the moment the heated words left it.
"What?" Sam pressed, and when Becky sucked a long, loud gulp and looked at Dean, he slammed a hand across her path, "If you want to make it out of here in anything but a body bag, you'd better start talking!"
"Sammy!"
Sam's hand punched against the wooden beam of the porch, splintering wood the same way Dean's voice had cracked through the air. Becky flinched, backed against the doorway and fumbled for the handle…
A handle that turned precisely as Becky leaned against the molding door, shoving open and flinging her aside. The beady eyes of a double-gauge rifle were trained promptly on Sam's chest, and an accompanying set of brilliant blue eyes took aim at his face.
"Get a lot of birds out here." The voice was soft and neutral, "Little bastards like to come shit on my porch and squawk at some unholy hour of the morning. You know what I do'em?"
The determined cock of the rifle caused Becky to throw herself between it and Sam.
"I am SO sorry about the noise, Trey… I can call you 'Trey', right? You just never know these days…"
"You." The man who stepped into the light looked to be more or less Sam's own age, "You're the one who called me. The weird girl."
Becky inhaled sharply and released a forced breath of patience, "I distinctly remember introducing myself…"
"Hey Winchester," The man's blonde hair glistened in the spokes of sun falling between the overhanging branches. His blue eyes gleamed like a rushing ocean current, "still sending other people to do your dirty work, I see. What, you aren't man enough to call yourself?"
"Call you? We didn't even know we were coming here!" Dean bustled onto the porch now, promptly drawing his own firearm in the process and training it on Trey, "Weird Girl over there tricked us into it!"
"Stop calling me that!"
"Right, right, because uh…" Trey let out a scoffing laugh, "the famous Winchesters can never ask for help, is that it? Until it's too late, that is."
"You little sh…"
"Dean!" Adam shoved the muzzle of his brother's gun downwards as Dean made a move forward, "Look, that body is a homing beacon for every demon and angel out there – you said so yourself!" The youngest Winchester raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice to treat with Dean's angry scoff, "If this jackass is the only thing between us and them, then we shouldn't piss him off."
Dean scraped a hand across his mouth and jaw, clearly frustrated but unable to deny Adam's reasoning. He cast a furious glance at where Trey, Becky and Sam were engaged in tense diplomatic negotiation and clutched firmly at the collar of Adam's jacket, tugging him closer.
"Whatever you do, don't let him get you alone." Dean muttered the warning while keeping sharp green eyes trained on Trey. Adam moved to join Sam, but Dean wasn't finished, "Hey," He kept his grip on Adam's coat, "and don't believe a goddamn thing he says about anything, you hear me?"
"Alright!" Adam shrugged Dean's hand off him, irritated, "Why the hell do you hate the guy anyway?"
Dean's mouth set in a grim line, "Long story, kid."
The classic dodge only served to rankle Adam further. He rolled his eyes and shoved past Dean, taking a place beside Sam, who was in the middle of a highly uncomfortable exchange with Trey.
"So you need to stash a body, do you?" Trey gripped his firearm harder, knuckles whitening around the object.
Sam raised his eyebrows in a 'yeah, so?' gesture, "Are you helping us or not?"
Trey's striking looks twisted, "Much as I'd love to slam the door in your faces, we both know you'd just break it down."
Sam flashed him an unpleasant smile.
"You'd better come in before Dean has a heart attack. I don't think his clogged-up arteries could take it." The hunter moved aside, motioning Becky to enter first. She did so hesitantly, eyes downcast and avoiding Sam's gaze.
Dean and Adam handled the trunk, relocating it swiftly (minus a few moans and groans) into the front of room of Trey's heavily-warded cabin. Under Trey's direction, the Impala was moved around the back to rest under a canopy of willow branches.
Trey scanned the woods as though he expected Hell itself to be lurking amongst the trees before he slammed his heavy door shut.
The warm scent of pine filled the room, superseded only by the faint odor of incense sticks the flickered with fire at their tips. Dean and Adam set the heavy trunk down with a thud, kicking up a small billow of dust from the floorboards.
"Here. Cover it with this." Trey handed Dean a large, tasseled rug which had the makings of a Persian antique. Turning over the corner, Dean inspected the intricate tapestry of wards that ran along the hem.
"Nice carpet." He spread it reverently over the trunk, raising his eyebrows at his fellow hunter, "Where's the magic lamp?"
"In the basement," Trey had opened a deceptively small cabinet in his kitchenette to reveal a pull-out stocked with weapons, "right next to the giant hourglass where I keep the people who piss me off." He replaced his rifle and slid the closet shut with a bang.
Dean mimicked the latter part of the retort behind Trey's back as it turned, and Sam shot him a dry look.
An awkward silence took the room as the Winchesters examined their surroundings suspiciously and Trey, in turn, examined the Winchesters with equal distrust.
Becky attempted to break the ice from her position seated on a hard-back, wooden chair.
"So, this is nice…."
"Shut up." Sam, Dean and Trey shot the woman down with unified responses (and scowls).
She studied the decorative driftwood arrangement to her right intensely.
"So Crowley, huh?" Trey took a seat of his own – much to Dean's annoyance, he perched himself on the top of the trunk, "Thought that old rat bit the dust years ago."
"Apparently not." Sam followed Trey's lead, easing the tension in the room as he sat on the edge of a faded footrest and leaned his elbows on his knees. His fingers threaded together as he continued, "Guess news doesn't travel fast around these parts."
"Some news does." Trey shot him a sharp look, blue eyes narrowing, "Is it true about your kid?"
Dean riled at the question, "How about you mind your own freaking business…"
"Dean," Sam raised a hand wearily, "it's fine."
Trey's mouth slackened in shock. He stared at the floor and blew out a breath.
"People are looking for her, man."
"People are the least of my freaking worries." Sam ran a hand through his hair, dipping his head low, "In fact, if any of those hunter friends of yours can actually find her…"
"Demons got her?"
Sam shook his head dejectedly.
"Angels." Trey stood up abruptly, "Shit, man, I'm sorry."
"Oh God," Dean held up a hand, "someone pass me a sick bowl." He strode angrily into the center of the room, stabbing a finger at Trey as he spoke, "Don't you fucking start with the empathy, Harlow, cuz we all know how much you really care that Sam's daughter came back from the future to stop a global epidemic, and now she's Angel-chow, okay? You and your Neo-Nazi pals, all drummed up with your shiny Hondas and your little red book of morals," Dean stopped inches from the man's face, tension boiling in his blood, "You're not fucking sorry! Hell, you're probably huntin' for Nate yourself, hoping to score some man points with the hunter's KKK!"
"Get out of my face, man." Trey's jaw was clenched so hard it trembled. His voice was an octave above a whisper, full of menace.
"Just so long as we get one thing straight." Dean wasn't finished, "Whatever you think Nate's guilty of, whatever shit you've heard, she's our family. And if you or any of your right-wing buddies lay a goddamn hand on her, we're gonna drown you in your blood!"
"Dean!" Sam was standing now, large hands clamping purposefully down on his brother's shoulders and hauling him away, "This isn't helping."
"I dunno – I'm feeling a whole lot better…"
"This isn't helping Nate!" Sam snapped, shaking Dean's shoulders slightly in his grip as he dropped his voice to a whisper, "And it's not helping me, either. I need you, Dean!"
"I know, Sammy…"
"Then keep it together!" Sam's yell went as quickly as it came, the younger Winchester sucking in a sharp breath through his nose as he closed his eyes against his inner demons and trained them pleadingly on Dean, "Please. You're all I've got right now."
Shame settled swiftly into the place that anger had occupied only seconds before, and Dean found himself regretting his momentary outburst deeply for the upset it had caused his brother. He clapped Sam on the arm in apology, feeling even worse when relief flooded Sam's face, and turned to Trey.
"Got any beer?"
The rosebud lips of the adolescent staring out the penthouse window twisted at a short, throaty yell from behind her. The angel turned, hands clasped behind her back, to stride purposefully towards a mottled pool of blood on the gray Persian carpet.
"Would you keep it down?" She demanded, a slight squeak to her childish voice as she glared, "My parents are out of town and they asked the doorman to babysit!"
"How ironic…." Nate's teeth were grit and her chest heaved with sporadic gulps of breath, "considering your doorman is dicing my spleen!"
"Hm." The angel smiled, reaching up to pat the shoulders of a white-haired, black-tie-toting man who was methodically selecting another sharp object from a tray, "I thought to myself, 'what's the point in having servants if you're never going to make use of them'?"
Nate's sweat shone in beads across her skin, "First world problems." She had impressed her angelic captor in that she hadn't wasted energy in attempting to escape the dentist's chair to which she'd been tied. She'd screamed when they cut her, but seemed to be bearing up against the long, shallow slices in her stomach and across her arms…
….Cuts which burned anew when the pubescent-wearing angel rubbed a coat of salt into them.
Nate let out another yell, angry and pained, and the angel raised an eyebrow.
"You know, I have to say – I expected more from Sam's daughter…though I suppose you're only half a Winchester, aren't you?" She bent down, catching Nate's red, bleary eyes with her own shimmering lakes, "Speaking of Daddy…you wouldn't happen to know where he's gone, now would you? I really need that body."
The angelic butler moved to emphasize her point, but she held up a small, delicate finger, and he hung back.
Nate let out a breathless snort, her matted hair sticking to her forehead and shoulders, "You…you really need it, huh? I thought it was Michael's. Why doesn't he just come and ask me nicely?"
"He's busy."
"He's clueless." Nate's eyes were filled with contempt, a look which they worn for so long that it fit them like an old shoe, "You think I don't smell bullshit when you rub it in my nose? You want that body so you can screw somebody over, probably your precious Michael, am I right?"
The angel's cherub-like face spread into a wide smile, and she straightened her spine, "You're pretty observant…as far as pond scum goes."
Nate mirrored the angel's expression with her own, blood-stained grin, "Thanks, Amethyst."
Here the angel's head shot up, eyes going from mocking and indifferent to shocked in half a heartbeat.
"Yeah I know who you are." Sam's progeny continued in a raspy, pain-filled voice, "Your little attitude problem costs a lot of countries a lot of lives five years from now."
The angel's nostrils flared, "So it is true. Oplexicon holds the deed to your worthless little soul."
"Not so worthless to an archdemon." Nate arched her neck back against the headrest and closed her eyes, "So if I remember this right…" The young girl coughed, wincing, "you want to be queen of Heaven. You figure you have more followers on Twitter than Castiel….but now that I let Micheal out, I guess you have a problem."
Amethyst's lips thinned into a flat line, and she folded her small hands at her navel, "A problem, as you just stated, that is all your fault. And so," She raised her eyebrows, "You're going to make it right."
"Mmm…" Nate's eyes were scrunched tightly against her pain, "by dying. Kill off Future-Intel Girl cuz she pissed in your flowerbed – real great plan, Gem."
"It's Amethyst."
"Whatever." The young girl forced her eyes open, breath coming in slower takes, "Just so we can hit fast-forward on this whole torture chamber scene…I have no idea where the body is. If I did, I wouldn't tell you. And you can torture me and I will scream and cry because it fucking hurts," Nate's voice hitched with the bitter admission of weakness, "but after you throw my shredded corpse in the nearest sewer, or send it in a Fed-Ex box to Sam or whatever you white-eyes do to be edgy…Michael will come."
The slow smile of confidence that spread across Nate's face was unnerving.
"And when he does, I'll watch him vape you from my front-row seat in Hell. And this is the face I'll be wearing."
"Well," Amethyst was clearly rankled, her expression pulled tight as she reached a dainty hand towards the array of knives beside her, "if you're going to be in Hell, we'd best give you a face that will fit with the crowd."
"Madam…"
"Can it, Egbert, and hand me the scalpel!"
The possessed butler coughed softly, "It appears we have company."
Only when the loud thudding of Nate's heart slamming against her chest in fear slowed was she able to make out the faint peal of a doorbell.
Amethyst huffed impatiently, "If it's the Goldstens, tell them we don't need any more goddamned casserole! My parents left a butler – if they come again, feed them to Crowley's mutts in the back alley!"
The butler bowed his head and slid out of the living room.
Amethyst leaned viciously over Nate's prone body, "Don't get any ideas about being saved by the bell." She snatched up the scalpel and brought its cold, glinting blade to the hollow of Nate's cheekbone, "I'm feeling very creative right now. How about you?"
The velocity and force with which Nate headbutted the angel, slicing a long groove down her cheek in the process, was unprecedented.
"Finally. I thought he'd never leave."
Amethyst staggered backwards, blood seeping from her vessel's nose, and watched in shock as Nate ripped her arms and legs free of her bonds (which had not been warded due to the fact that she was a mere human) with ease.
"How do I feel?" Nate rubbed at the blood from her face, looking at it briefly before waving her hand and sending the giant, marble-top table smashing down on Amethyst and pinning her to the ground.
"Like breaking something." Nate responded to her own question even as Amethyst summoned her angelic strength the move the table off her broken vessel. And without another word, both palms extending upwards, Nate began to put giant cracks in the ceiling that slithered like hungry serpents on a hunt. Plaster showered, creating a fog of white dust as pieces of the roof began to fall.
A shout came from the doorway, and Amethyst, her vessel's legs and pelvis shattered, swung wildly to bark an order at her butler.
Only it wasn't her butler. It was Ed and Harry, and the latter was clutching frantically at a long blade stained with what was likely her butler's blood.
The duo stood frozen in the arched puerta, mouths slack as they witnessed Nate's actions – the dark, tainted blood streaming from both nostrils, from her face, stomach and arms, the cold grey eyes beginning to darken with demonic power.
A large chunk of ceiling nearly crushing Ed snapped them both to action.
"I'll waste the angel! You get the kid!" Harry yelled at his buddy, and the moment that he turned on Amethyst, she was gone, the usual sound of flapping wings drowned out by the noise of a crumbling tower.
Knowing they had roughly one minute to get clear of the penthouse before the entire roof caved, Ed swallowed the fear in his throat and moved fast. He snatched Nate around the waist and hauled ass, making for the door through the dust cloud and cement rain. When he realized that not only was Nate not resisting but that she had gone slack, he hazarded a look and saw the girl was unconscious.
Harry grabbed her legs and they leaped over the tangled body of the butler in the hallway, running into the fire exit and slamming the door shut against the puff of death that blew against it a moment later.
