For celinenaville 3
Get up.
A whisper in the crimson void. Nearly inaudible.
Get up.
Who's there?
No reply. Not to the disoriented questions pondered as I suspended in my own personal Hell, forever burning without fire. Drowning without dying.
The voice came again.
Get up.
It snowballed, growing in girth as it sprayed fragments of frigid murmurs that echoed:
Get up.
… giving him exactly what he wants.
Abandon all hope...
… always another way.
Get up!
The abyss crowded with voices gossiping out of turn, leaving ghosts of their words in their wake.
John fucking Winchester.
… make a proper demon of you yet.
GET UP!
I shot to the surface with a second (and highly metaphorical) wind. My eyes snapped open, took in the pin-pricks of blue-white stars on a black quilt of night. I picked up on a malee of crunches and stabs and electric pops, nearby but out of my wheelhouse. My legs scraped against asphalt, the heels of my boots snagged on blemishes and divots as the demon continued to drag me by my hair. The surreal pain coupled with oxygen denial, and fought like Hell to lay me back out. Made it harder to brace myself in the realm of consciousness.
I anchored myself in the knowledge that I wasn't going to die. Took footing in the understanding that my boys easily could, and I hoisted myself out of my seizing stupor. My left hand shivered under the strain as I forced it to move across my chest until the tips of my fingers found the hilt of the Kurdish knife. Finding gain between tremors and suffocation felt like forcing magnets together, but in the end I won. I ripped the blade, slow and uncouth, from my shoulder. I held it in my fist for a moment as a reflexive sigh of relief resulted in a sideways geyser of blood.
From the side of my eye I spotted the demon who had stuck me with the blade, his neck craning down to me.
"What are you–?"
It didn't happen happen as swift or as hard as I had hoped it would, but before he could finish his sentence, I managed to sink the knife into the calf of the demon dragging me. Voltaic orange light hissed under his skin, and he threw his head back in a howl of a scream. He stumbled to one knee, losing his grip on me in the process. I sank back, hitting the ground in a forceful collision that shotgunned a mouthful of blood up before gravity pulled it down in a shower over my face.
The uninjured demons discarded the wailing one, closing in on me instead. I felt for the knife like I had any shot of ripping it from Demon B, but my muscles still shook, my reflexes still restrained. Demon A gave my open hand a callous kick, blood spewed from my lips. The other demon, a girl I think, let out a high-pitched shriek of a giggle, even clapped when Demon A gathered a handful of my shirt in his fist and pulled me up to his face. My feet dangled over the ground, useless, my throat made terrible gargling sounds.
"Now, we ain't allowed t'kill ya," he said with a smirk and a growl. "But we have been encouraged to beat the living shit outta ya b'fore we take ya t'Crowley." His smile was violent and toothy. I coughed blood in his face, his smirk widened. "So please. Please. Try us."
Two beautiful things happened in that moment. The first was the sensation of knife and needle being torn from their beds of muscle and organ. There was still fluid, still burning. Would be for a while. But it put to ease a fraction of pain and dread. That was, as Castiel had put it, the silver lining; I only had to endure what Crowley could.
The second stroke from Lady Luck appeared in a brilliant beam of light that struck Demon A in the side of the face. He squinted and turned his head toward the source. There came a scream of rubber on blacktop and the demon glared.
"That bitch!" he spat as he released me from his grasp. I crumpled to the ground, sprayed more crimson from lips that formed a mute cry. My body seized in compulsory gasps for air that still could not pass. Blood gurgled up and washed down the sides of my face.
The next part I heard more than I saw. There was a homicidal thump of flesh and bone rebounding off aluminum, followed by an unearthly growl, then a second thump. The screech of sliding tires coupled with a third and final thump just feet from where I lay. I turned my head, watched the sideways show of black boots jumping from the van onto the pavement, scrambling for the front fender. I listened to the crack of iron against skull, the sizzling scream of holy water eating away at demon flesh, the shriek of pain, and thought; pussy.
I muscled past everything that strove to keep me down, reached a rattling arm over my chest. There was the din of soles slapping blacktop, the clamor of a crack and a splash and a scream as I tremorred and strained, rolling myself onto my stomach. I disgorged a mouthful of blood on asphalt and tried for air.
More gagging. More spewing.
Come on, John, I thought (at least, I think it was my thought). You didn't outlast Hell just to give up now.
My teeth gritted as I nudged myself up on brittle arms. I screamed at myself get up! Get up, goddamn you, get up! Propelled myself upright, swayed. Balance eluded me, and I tipped backwards. The hard ground rushed up to greet me with a mighty smack on the back that dislodged another mouthful of blood.
Back to square one.
A hand latched itself onto my uninjured shoulder, grappled with a handful of jacket, and yanked. I slid back a centimeter before a set of boots scrambled on the asphalt for purchase. Mystery's voice reached my ears in underbreath mutterings as a second effort to drag me was made.
"Ugh, get up!" she grumbled through clenched teeth, more to herself than me, before managing to drag me a full inch. She stumbled, let go of my collar, and shoved her arms under my pits one at a time, securing me in the crook of her elbows while retaining both of her weapons; one iron crowbar, and one Kurdish blade oozing with blood.
Who's blade is that?
The question awoke the vision of a slain Sam, his body lying cold and limp on the ground, and it pushed me to exert my strength. I dug a bootheel into the ground, pushing back on Mystery's pull. Rinse, repeat; pull, push, her grunting complaints about goddamn this and goddamn that, me gargling bloody sobs that spilled down my chin.
She half dragged, half guided me around the van, then paused at the side door. A knee dug into my back, a pull guided me to balance along a slender thigh, and she unhooked one arm — her left, the one holding the crowbar — to roll the door open. She carelessly threw the bar inside, then made some awkward adjustments as she moved to climb up while attempting to keep her hold on me. She slipped, fell to the van's floor on her ass, grumbled, but used it. Her legs cinched around my midsection, her left arm secured itself around my chest.
My feet skid blind over the ground, searching for equilibrium. I found it and gave a determined but weak push, sending both of us back. Without skipping a beat (but with an unnecessary amount of vulgarity), Mystery scooted the both of us backwards until we were both well inside. She untangled her arm and her legs and stood, rolling me onto my stomach in the process, then threw herself into the driver's seat with the blade still in her fist.
"Sss—!" I vomited blood in my efforts to cry out for my sons. "D-d—!"
"Workin' on it," Mystery stated as she shifted the escape car out of park.
"F— Fr—!"
I spewed more blood.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered. From her lips came three sharp whistles as she punched on the gas, shooting the van in reverse. "Try not to fall out."
The van jerked to a stop, then lurched forward, wheels peeling in a rubbery scent. I tried to sit up, but her driving was too erratic for me to find balance. There was a thud and the van bounced under a bump of a body. Another thud, another savage tumble.
We slowed near the brutal song of knuckle clashing against bone, of knife on flesh and demon versus man. My sons were in there, I knew (or hoped wildly) they were. I made a blind grab for the bench seat when the driver's door cracked open, and, quite abruptly, a recording of Mystery's voice began to play:
Exorcizamus te…
I gnashed my teeth against the Latin command, but as soon as it had begun, it started to fade away. The door snapped shut and Mystery slammed on the gas, speeding off into the night. My fingers searched for purchase as the van weaved, and I felt myself slip.
That's when Lady Luck brought me Freya. She bounded through the open door, gracefully maneuvering around my battered body to my head. She latched her teeth onto my jacket collar and tugged me back, holding fast as she kept me in place.
The engine began to sputter and spur, clanking as it slowly died, then roared back to life. One of the demons was trying to slow us down, but Mystery's prerecorded exorcism was interfering. I almost wanted it to succeed in stopping Mystery from making off with Crowley's prize. Hell, I did want him to stop her. Sam and Dean were still back there.
And then, the van did a sudden 180 before it fell into an abrupt park.
"I hope your dog made it in," Mystery commented with actual genuineness. The doors clicked into lock, and the van bounced as she rushed to close the door. She dove, throwing herself on me with a haste that startled Freya. My companion unclenched her jaw, freeing me in time for Mystery's impact to force a spray of blood to splatter across Freya's muzzle. Mystery took note of what looked to her like crimson stuck to air, and, as she dipped over my neck, she hugged Freya's head against mine, squeezing us together with her arms and her chest like a mother protecting her children. Freya protested with a mild whine, but patiently allowed her to shield us, recognizing friend from enemy.
Mystery stayed like this for a moment, and I could feel her pulse, her heart beating wildly in her chest. My lungs made another attempt for air, and this time they got some. An involuntary convulsion roiled through me, my body's response to oxygen and its desperate pulls for more of it. Mystery wrestled with me, determined to keep Freya's and my head under wraps, until, at long last, she let go.
At first I thought I had tossed her, but as I lay grappling for precious air in urgent chokes, she rose to her knees, peeked out the windshield, then calmly settled herself behind the steering wheel. She gunned it, sending me onto my back as we surged forward. The van swung, skidded to a halt, and unlocked. I was pulling myself up as the door slid open to reveal Dean with a sheen of sweat and blood glistening on his face. His hardened expression cascaded into relief upon seeing me.
"Thank god," he breathed an alleviated sigh. And then he noticed how much blood I was wearing. "What the hell…?"
"Crowley." Sam's voice hovered behind Dean before his face came into view. His shirt was torn at the collar, a patch of blood matted down in his mane just above his hairline.
"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, hanging his head. "I'm gonna kill him."
"Plot your revenge on the road," Mystery called. "Now go get our shit, and get in the fucking van."
My sentiments exactly.
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