It Runs In The Family
Author: Cheryl W.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or any rights to Dark Angel or Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.
Summary: Crossover with Dark Angel and Supernatural –AU. Dean, Sam and Alec's continuing adventures. No slash.
Author's Note: First and foremost, thank you to everyone who emailed me and encouraged me to get back on this horse! I couldn't ask for a better group of people to hang out with!
Now I'm going to try and stop being a drama queen this go around. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion and I've asked for opinions so I'm sorry that I responded so poorly to the open forum. After all the manners of evil I bring against Dean and Sam and Alec, surely the least punishment I deserve is some well meaning criticism. Hope you can forgive me my weakness.
Now, for better or worse, is Chapter 28 in its original entirety.
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Chapter 28 – What Matters Most – part 20
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Dean, though he felt a sense of satisfaction watching the attacking undead scatter like grains of sand when he pumped a rocksalt shell into them, he felt no hope for victory. Instead there was the metallic taste in his mouth of pending defeat. He had blasted away the zombie ghosts in the room he stood in…and now more were stalking through the room's two doors. Remarkably, they didn't look happy to see him.
And then there was the empty shotgun in his hands.
Abandoning the idea of keeping the live rounds for his Manticore nemeses, he pulled the .45's trigger, once, twice, three times, was going for number four when one of the zombie undead tackled him. It was a real weight that slammed into his torso and sent him plowing into the wall behind him, sent his shotgun flying from his grip. It was real hands that delivered a blow to his gut, knocking the last of his breath from him, and pinned his gun hand to the wall. And it was a real knife clutched in the hand of the approaching Confederate soldier, who was apparently not too proud to take advantage of his enemy's vulnerable position.
"Don't suppose we can sit down with some rye whiskey and talk about this?" Dean meekly suggested.
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Stumbling to a stop, Alec gave one more paranoid look behind them before he bent over and unloaded Sam from his shoulder. He sank to his knees on the forest floor beside his brother's sprawled form. "Ok, that," he pointed to where they had just come from, "is not normal, even I know that. It's official, I am totally freaked out."
Sitting up, Sam knew he was as shaken as Alec was. "No. So not normal. None of this is."
Giving his older brother an incredulously look, Alec shook his head, "I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse."
"Me either," Sam mumbled, taking in his surroundings which turned out to basically be trees, before he faced his brother again. "Thanks, by the way, for the …" his hand gestured over his shoulder.
"Anytime," Alec offhandedly accepted Sam's gratitude, was made aware again, of the night and day differences between his brothers.
"So are we in the next state over or what?" Sam asked, his sense of direction royally screwed up after hanging upside down over his brother's shoulder while Alec went super sonic.
"East side of the house," Alec supplied, pointing through the woods to the house. "You think Dean's still in there?"
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Grabbing the Confederate's arm, Dean just managed to halt the knife point inches from his face. "Guess that's a no on the drinks," he quipped through clenched teeth before he lashed out with left leg. He wasn't sure if zombie ghosts minded a broken knee cap until the soldier let out a cry of pain and crumbled to the wooden floorboards. Not taking the time to relish his victory, he brought his elbow down into the spine of the soldier who had him pinned to the wall even as he brought his knee up. The zombie moaned in pain at the double assault.
Shoving the incapacitated zombie away, Dean scampered to the left, his back pressed against the wall. The zombies in the room menacingly tracked his progress and then they started lumbering forward. But it was the small tear gas can that the Manticore soldier at the doorway rolled into the room that decided Dean's fate.
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As if in answer to Alec's question, Alec and Sam heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering a second before they saw a figure dive out the house's second story window, roll down the porch roof and free fall to the ground below.
"Dean," Alec and Sam said in unison, both already in motion.
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When he could draw in air again, Dean wheezed, "That hurt," spitting out grass and mud from his mouth. But even as he told himself to get up, get moving, his body down right refused, was too busy radiating pain from his head down to his toes.
"Just stay down," an unwelcome but vaguely familiar voice growled from his left. "Or I swear, I'll put a bullet in your heart and Boris will just have to throw your brains in a bowl to complete his experiment."
Turning his head to the left, Dean looked up at the brawny Manticore soldier he had tangled with at the gas station standing over him, saw the man's gun unwaveringly aimed at his back. "I'm getting the feeling that you're holding a grudge?" eyes pointedly traveling toward the man's bruised face and red puffy eyes.
"That would be unprofessional of me," the soldier mockingly drawled even as he cocked his gun.
Frantically wondering how to escape a bullet in the back, Dean didn't immediately understand the soldier's stunned expression, not until he saw the dark liquid coursing from just under the soldier's neck. As he watched, the man raised a trembling hand to his neck to try and stop the flow from the bullet wound, his inhale of breath a gargled gasp. Then the man bonelessly toppled to the ground, his dead eyes ending up on the same level as Dean's.
A hand landed on Dean's back, causing the older hunter to roll left and snap his head to the right. Letting his head sink down onto the ground again, he breathed out, "Sammy," in obvious relief at the sight of his brother crouched by his side.
"Don't know if you know this or not, but they did put doors in their homes in the 18th century, Dean," Alec caustically reprimanded from Dean's other side as he latched onto Dean's arm, helped Sam get their brother on his feet.
Sandwiched between his two brothers, Dean shot a smirk to Alec. "I've heard of doors," he drawled as he, with his two brother's help, ran to the right of the house. Once they were in the minimal cover of the woods, the threesome stopped, crouched down and viewed the raging battle around them.
"You alright?" Sam asked, studying his brother's profile, watched as Dean's wide eyes tracked the charge the Confederates were making. "Hey," he demanded, shaking the piece of Dean's shirt that he had fisted in his grip and finally earning Dean's eye contact. "Are you hurt?"
"Maybe you missed it, but I just fell off a two story roof, Sam," Dean cynically recapped, saw worry heighten in Sam's eyes instead of the frustration he was looking for. "I hurt…but I'm not hurt," he spelled out, was rewarded with a relieved nod from Sam, and his brother's frantic fingers released their possessive grip on his shirt.
Turning to Dean, Alec lowly hissed, "Tell me again, how this was the best, the safest plan you could come up with."
"Hey, the lore didn't mention it was gonna be freakin' re-enactment city out here," Dean lowly railed back, hand waving to the battle they were witnessing. "And we can see the ghosts, why can't Manticore's goons?"
"Perception," Sam supplied, earned glares from both of his brothers for answering the rhetorical and inconsequential question before Dean and Alec again locked horns.
"So now we get out of here and do things my way," Alec stringently stated, beginning to turn around, his intention to lead his brothers out of harm's way. But Dean's hand grabbed his bicep, halted his motion.
"Manticore is right where we want them," Dean pointed out, knew that, if Lydecker was right and Boris had only a limited source of manpower, this was still their best chance to diminish those numbers.
"No, you are right where Manticore wants you!" Alec shouted back, left 'And I'll die before I let them get their hands on you again' unspoken.
"We can't keep running, Alec," Dean bluntly announced, his eyes piercing Alec's. "We're not going to make it if we do."
Sam joined the fray. "Running is all we got because this, here, isn't working, Dean."
Dean turned from his brothers, watched the men in grey and blue uniforms as they fought for their lives in the fields in front of them. Knew every man there was fighting for a cause, for a belief, were willing to die and kill for freedom, freedom to choose the way they would live their lives. But there would be a loser, there always was. And the cost of that defeat, here on this small piece of land, would be twenty five thousand lives.
'But not Sam and Alec's lives. Not for me.' Dean suddenly vowed, was about to tell his brothers his decision when he saw four Manticore soldiers stalk from the house and stride right through two Union soldiers without even knowing it. Quickly turning around to face his brothers, he quietly groused, "Ah screw it. It's not the first time we've run away to fight another day." Keeping low to the ground, he passed between his two brothers, muttered, "And it won't be the last. And by the way, four Manticorean thugs just barreled out of the house and are coming our way."
Exchanging relieved looks at Dean's capitulation to their wishes to get out of Dodge, Alec and Sam began to follow in Dean's footsteps through the wooded area. Alec strained his hearing to pick up sounds of their pursuers but with the rifle fire and the boom of the cannons and the resulting explosions, he couldn't decipher what noise was near and what was farther away.
At first, when he saw the smoke wafting through the trees ahead, Dean stopped down into a crouch, thought the Manticore troops had lobbed a tear gas canister into the woods. Until the wind changed and he inhaled the unmistakable smell of fire …and burning flesh. Looking to his right, he searched a moment until he saw the source of the smoke. Orange and red flames of fire was creeping along the underbrush and up tree trunks and over any soldier unfortunate enough to be consigned to the ground, either by wounds or in death.
"Fire," Dean warned, pointed out the flames to Sam and Alec, who were now flanking him. "We have to get ahead of it or it will cut off our escape." Sharing looks of concord with his brothers, Dean surged to his feet, began to run, knew that Sam and Alec were pacing him.
Their tight-knit wall of Winchesters was only broken when a tree dared to separate them. But instantly after passing such a hurdle, they closed in their ranks again. They were actually making good progress until Alec shouted "Incoming! Down!"
Sam was instinctively dropping to his knees when he heard the boom, felt the invisible wave of heat shove him, chest first, into the trunk of the nearest tree. Limply dropping to the forest floor on his back, he frantically tried to draw in breath, felt panic clawing in his chest as silence blanketed him. He couldn't hear anything, not the gunfire, not the cannon fire, not his own heartbeat and nothing from his brothers. He lay there, void of breath, stunned, unmoving, watched as something pink fluttered in the air, drifted down to land on his chest: petals, pink petals. And then more followed, like a light snow, blowing across the carnage, dropping on the leaves of the trees overhead, on his arm, on his face. Peach tree blossoms.
'Something pure in the midst of all this evil,' Sam thought, found that bit of purity gave him the composure to take in a breath, to breathe…and move. To roll over and see Dean beside him, moving, thank God. And he was starting to hear again, the sounds of battle and Dean's panicked voice.
"Alec?" Dean called out, quickly crawling to his little brother's side, praying that the scream he heard hadn't been his brother's. "No," he choked out as he drew closer to Alec, saw the blood, read the agony on Alec's features. "Hey, it's alright, just a scratch," he soothed as he gently lifted Alec's head and shoulders onto his knees.
"Liar," Alec choked out, knew enough about wounds to know when one was serious.
Then Sam was there, kneeling by his leg and Alec saw the worried look in his brother's eyes as they sought out Dean's. Because his brothers, they were no slouches when it came to determining the seriousness of wounds either.
Slipping off his jacket and button down shirt, Sam quickly ripped his shirt into strips, began to tie them around the four bloody tears in his brother's left leg where the cannon's iron balls had imbedded in his brother's flesh. He winced as Alec cried out in pain as he pulled each one tight.
Having slid his hand in Alec's, Dean gritted his teeth, not in physical pain when Alec's strong grip tightened as his brother's agony spiked but in sympathetic agony. No one was supposed to get hurt. Alec wasn't supposed to get hurt. 'Especially not trying to save my butt.' Alec was there in the middle of a friggin' civil war battle because of him, Alec was hurt instead of him because his bullheaded, stronger little brother shoved him down between two trees, made sure he had cover even as he left himself open to the lethal rain of shrapnel.
"Easy, easy," Dean gently soothed, ran his hand lightly through Alec's hair as his brother's body stiffened at Sam's ministrations. "It's nothing worse than some buckshot. You with some whiskey and me with a sharp knife to dig it out and you'll be good as new."
When Sam removed his ruthless but albeit well-meaning hands from his leg, Alec wheezed out, "Define, new?" as he let his head collapse back against Dean's knees and his eyes closed. But his eyes snapped open when it wasn't Dean's voice that spoke next.
"Well, well. I didn't expect this to be so easy," came Boris' accented drawl from directly behind Dean.
Dean's head snapped up at the man's voice, but he didn't look back to Boris, instead his eyes found Sam's, anchored to the source of so much of his strength.
"So you got my invitation?" Dean calmly greeted as he looked down at Alec, was met with the same sparkling resolve that blazed in Sam's eyes. It wasn't the first time their backs were against the wall, that dying seemed a likely outcome. And like all those times, they weren't going to go down without a fight.
"You should be honored. Field work is not my forte but I have much invested in you. Now come, on your feet."
"And my brothers?" Dean quietly asked, knew the answer already.
"Though I have no use for them, sadly, I can not let them go," Boris even attempted to put some remorse in his tone.
"Well, Boris, I have a problem with that," Dean calmly objected as he looked over his shoulder to defiantly meet Boris' gaze. "You want me to come along nice and easy, you let my brothers go, both of them," hoped the man didn't realize that he had no bargaining chip, wouldn't risk his brothers in a scuffle here when Alec was hurt and they were sorely outnumbered with Boris and his six man entourage.
Boris had the audacity to laugh at the empty threat. "Dean, even when you are beat you can not admit it. It is no wonder 494 is still alive, had the skill to excel under Manticore's tutelage, had the tenacity to survive unbeatable odds. Lydecker chose well when he picked you…and so have I." Then Boris moved to one of the soldiers at his side and drew the man's firearm, wanted, no needed to do this personally. Wanted, by his own hand, to hurt Dean in the worst way he could. Cocking the gun, he aimed it at Dean's true brother.
Dean tensed, was about to beg Boris for mercy, mercy the man didn't possess when Alec inconspicuously slid his hand from his, replaced it with something the size of his fist. Dean curled his fingers around the object. He heard the small click when Alec pulled the pin out of the hand grenade, hoped no one else did.
"Sorry, but I promised my brothers that we would all leave here together…or not at all," Dean slowly announced, as he raised his hand, let Boris and his men see the armed grenade he held. Meeting Alec's eyes, he gave a tight, sorrowful smile before he used his free hand to gently move Alec's head to the ground. Standing up, he faced Boris, was ready to play his final card. "So how badly do you want to be scientist of the year?" Dean growled, stepped closer to Boris, causing the older man to retreat a step and his soldiers to tighten their grip on their guns. "It worth losing a few limbs?"
"You wouldn't kill your own brothers, I know that much about you," Boris shouted back, but his eyes were darting nervously to Sam, to Alec on the ground, hoping one of Dean's brothers would rein Dean in.
"You should be proud of yourself, Boris. You taught me that some fates are worse than death. If my brothers are going to die, they are going to die with me, my way," Dean snarled, felt his stomach plummet even as he said the words. He couldn't kill Sam, couldn't kill Alec, could never kill his own brothers. But, if his own father thought he could, was capable of such heartlessness, he knew he had a chance of making Boris believe that too.
"Helms," Boris barked, tried to not let his fear show, wanted his personal bodyguard to do something.
Eyes not leaving Dean Winchester's, Dick Helms took the measure of the man in his gun sights and slowly lowered his .45. "He's not bluffing, sir. He'll do it."
"If we let you walk away today, we'll just find you again," Boris offered up his own threat. "You can't outrun us. I think you know that." Seeing a slight break in Dean's confidence, Boris countered, "I accept your first offer. I'll let your brothers both go if you come with me."
Before Dean could fully process the pros and cons of Boris' offer, Sam shouted "No!" behind him and Dean felt a hand wrap around his ankle, knew it was Alec submitting his own silent protest to the deal on the table. But his eyes held Boris, needed to know if the man was capable of keeping his word. And suddenly he knew he had to give credit where credit was due. Whatever else he had to say about the crossroads deal maker, she had kept her word…every single bit of it. But did Boris have that much integrity?
And Dean didn't know if he could do it all over again to his brothers, willingly chose to leave them in order to save them. He didn't know if he had the strength to disregard their wishes, to hurt them, to destroy them, even if it was to spare their lives.
Suddenly a hand clamped around his hand that held the grenade, but it wasn't one of Boris' men's. It was Sam's.
"Together, Dean!" Sam reminded Dean harshly, squeezing his hand painfully around his brother's, desperate to get through to Dean, to not let the same sick play turn out the same way it had last time. "You, me and Alec, remember! That's how this ends. , Dean. No exceptions." But Sam saw indecision warring on his big brother's features. "You want to do what's best for me, for Alec, then don't leave us. It's as simple as that."
"My options aren't great here, Sammy," Dean whispered back, eyes trained on Boris, on the soldiers that were getting itchy fingers.
"They never are," Sam returned, a trace of light mirth in his tone. "Never stopped you before from finding a way to keep us together."
And that got Dean sneaking a quick glance to Sam, found that part of him wanted to laugh and another part of him wanted to smack the smirk off Sam's face. Dropping his eyes to meet Alec's pained gaze, he received the same message Sam was sending him, loud and clear. They were in this together, to the end.
Turning his focus back to Boris, Dean shrugged and fluidly pulled out his .45 and aimed it at the scientist's head. "We took a family vote and I gotta say nah to your deal."
"You're just making this worse on yourself," Boris angrily shot back.
Sam pulled his own gun, stepped up to the nearest soldier and pressed the barrel against his chest. "How good do you think your bullet proof vest works at point blank range? I'm willing to test it out, are you?" In response, the soldier dropped his gun to the ground and raised his hands in defeat.
Alec couldn't help but smirk. His brothers, they were some tough customers.
"We'll be going now," Dean announced and then he stepped backwards, latched onto Sam's shirt and drew his brother back with him. "But I'm sure you'll send men and I'll send them back to you …in body bags."
Putting his gun in his waist, Sam bent over Alec. "Turn around is fair play," he taunted before he hauled Alec over his shoulder and stood up, grimaced at Alec's moan of pain as he shifted his little brother's weight a little. Then he started to walk, right through the small path Boris and his men made for him, knew they were parting more for Dean, who trailed behind him, and Dean's grenade than for him but that was just a nit picky detail.
"This really gonna work," he mumbled lowly as he kept walking straight ahead, Dean's shoulder blades practically bumping his as his brother walked backwards, kept his eyes trained on Boris and his men.
"So far, so good," Dean murmured out of the side of his mouth, giving a wink to Boris but keeping his gun sight aimed at the sadistic scientist. But a second later, Dean body slammed into Sam, growled, "Don't stop Sam!"
"Ah, kinda have to, Dean," Sam replied, a worried tinge to his tone that had Dean chancing a look over his shoulder. His mouth went dry at what had brought Sam up short.
About twenty Union soldiers stood in their way, rifles primed and ready and locked on the three Winchesters with merciless intent.
"Great. You got the pin for this thing? Cause it's not going do us any good with them," Dean grumbled as he waved his hand that held the grenade. Because, for one thing, the soldiers were too close to their position to lob the grenade at them and secondly, threatening to blow up these soldiers with some small ball thingy he held in his hand, it would beyond futile. If there was one thing he knew it was that, yeah, sometimes people were afraid of what they didn't know, but most of the time, people were just too naïve to be afraid of what they could never fathom even existed. And for these soldiers, an explosive you could hold in your hand that didn't have a fuse and didn't need a flame to ignite, was pure make believe. In their time frame, TNT wouldn't even be invented for another forty years.
Alec, even though he was hanging upside down over Sam's shoulder, was still as proficient a soldier as ever. Digging the grenade pin out of his pocket, he held it out to Dean and managed to meet his brother's eyes. "If I don't get a chance to tell you later, this plan sucked from beginning to end."
"Yeah, got that memo already," Dean grumbled as he slid the pin in the grenade, shoved the explosive in his pocket for a rainy day and raised his hands in surrender. "Out of the friggin' frying pan into the fire."
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TBC
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Have a great day!
Cheryl W.
