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This was the last day. The last day he could most probably escape, the day when Gordon decided whether he would sell him or keep him. They were going to be in the Swamp City soon enough. He'd been steadily 'improving', refusing help from Rex and generally keeping with the pace and sometimes increasing it. He figured he might actually be his healthiest after all this walking, limited food and filling his body with water instead of alcohol - which might make him even more appealing to sell.
Dean tried not to think about that.
As they'd walked, the landscape had improved (it wasn't exactly reliable, one moment they could be walking through a picture book green valley and the next tripping over rocks in a boulder trap) but the desert of sand and ice was a distant memory from the almost pleasant scenery they most often traversed. Dean figured that meant they were getting closer to the City, or maybe Purgatory didn't make sense and it meant nothing.
They were close, he could tell, from the travellers that had appeared from nowhere, mostly alone, monsters that varied from vampires to stuff he'd never seen or heard of before, and they were ragged and tired from their journeys and Dean wondered if they all saw the same thing, experienced the same tests that let them continue. "Burning them of their sins" as Purgatory was supposed to, but then again if their sin was their existence, that was a lot of burning.
Gordon had told him the City was special, that nothing like it existed in Purgatory. "Feels like home" were his words, Dean couldn't imagine anything home-like here. They had passed no houses, buildings, and barely any people up until now. Purgatory was like the rough first draft of home, the sky unfinished, time still only a strange concept and the rules of the universe still undecided.
"Shit!" Dean's slipped onto his front, skinning his palms. His leg was stuck in a hole of mud that came up to his knee, a hole he was sure didn't exist a second before. He tried to haul it out, but the mud merely sucked at his jeans, pulling it back just as ferociously.
The rope around his stomach jerked and he roughly pulled back, glaring at Gordon who smiled viciously, his eyes mocking him.
"Stop! Our darling princess has caught her foot," Gordon gave the rope to another vamp, an old woman, Dean did not feel safe with his wellbeing in her grasp.
"Let's hope we don't have to chop it off!" She cackled, and the slowing group joined in, watching hopefully as Gordon tried pulling Dean up. He stumbled to his feet but he couldn't balance without Gordon helping him up. His leg was still definitely stuck in the hole.
"You're just determined to be difficult." Gordon murmured, roughly jerking his knee up, causing Dean to bite back a cry as his kneecap popped. His fingers dug into Gordon's arm, making Gordon stumble. The old woman took this as her cue to cruelly yank the rope and make him fall, taking Gordon with him. Dean wanted to slit every one of their throats as they quietly snickered, but obviously not as much as Gordon. His heavy weight was gone in an instant, and there was a sharp crack as Dean heard the sound of bones snapping, specifically a neck.
Gordon shoved the elderly woman's body to the floor, and this time Rex was given the rope. Dean got to his feet without any help, shivering as Gordon's rage washed over him and the rest of the group, who had retreated a few steps. The Behemoth had gone ahead but Dean doubted anyone would question Gordon's command still.
"Don't fall again." Gordon said, his voice like gravel. Dean nodded. Gordon examined his leg, stuck a finger in the mud and pulled it out again as if it were just ordinary mud. Dean tried to calm his heart as his nervous mind imagined Gordon breaking his leg and just ripping it off.
"Relax your muscles, and lift slowly." Dean took deep breaths, looking at the floor as Gordon held him upright. Very slowly he pulled his leg up, letting it hang loose, and the mud slipped away like liquid. He held it in the air for a fleeting moment and then he was stumbling forward, until Gordon pushed back and he was standing, legs attached.
"That wasn't too difficult, Deano." Gordon smacked his back, and Dean narrowed his eyes.
"Just unexpected," Dean said, shrugging, pulling his layers tighter round him. Gordon was too close for his liking and wasn't moving away.
"Yeah…" Gordon smiled, and Dean looked up at Rex, as if Rex would help, but Gordon was the boss, no one would interfere. "You're looking healthier, Dean, practically shining. I had been starting to get worried about you." Gordon's sharp eyes held his, and Dean wanted to vomit, kick him to the ground and finish him off or just run but none would end well.
"Gettin' used to the place, it's not exactly welcoming. I'll be glad to see the back of it." Dean smiled slyly, putting on just a little of his old bravado.
"Good to see some optimism in you, Deano. I could do with some of that, perhaps it's contagious." Gordon leaned closer; smelling him deliberately, warm breath brushing against his jaw. Dean couldn't hold still, he pulled back.
"Gordon –" He gasped, his hands clenching as Gordon bit down and sucked. He hadn't felt this in days, had enjoyed the absence of fangs in his flesh, but the pain was excruciating, Gordon was sucking heavily. Dean managed to get his hands up and on his shoulders but he didn't have the strength to push him off, he was only standing because Gordon was holding his weight from his shoulders.
"Stop!" Dean yelled hoarsely, and Gordon lessened his draw, finally withdrawing from Dean's neck and letting him fall to the ground. Dean tried to hold his skin together, feeling his hot blood running over his fingers and onto his shirt. He could barely breathe.
He struggled to keep his eyes open, his head was drooping, sounds and sights swam in their own residue. It was dizzying, he wanted to throw up but he couldn't, instincts were rushing from all sides, telling him to get up and run even though the very idea made his sinuses ache.
The sounds became clearer, fuzzy bellows becoming distinct roars and shrieks. The blurry shapes grew into crazy, desperate claws and teeth and fists. He was surrounded by the messy violence and most of it was directed to get closer to him, he could sense the bloodlust, the red eyes that focussed on his torn up neck. Gordon wasn't letting anything get close though, refreshed, his strength was renewed and Dean felt sick as he ripped a girl's head off with his bare hands.
"Dean, can you get up?" Gordon growled at him, as he snapped a throat.
"Not for long." Dean shuddered as he tried to crawl onto his knees. He was shaking.
"Dammit." Gordon's fist literally punched a hole into the poor sod's chest, but despite Gordon's strength, it wouldn't be long till he was overwhelmed. His own crew were starting to turn on him; Dean was paralyzed as a vamp went from preventing a werewolf from getting him to pulling him to his feet and taking a bite.
He was missing a head a second later, thanks to Rex.
"Sharp wing," Dean stated, his vision flickering at the edges. Rex merely looked concerned, or as concerned as a beaked thing could look.
"Take him, Rex. I'll find you later, Deano." Gordon grunted, and then he was calling charge and they were all running outward, forcing everyone with them. Rex threw him over his back and they were sprinting like Dean's spine was made of rubber. Dean couldn't see a thing, shielded by Rex's wings, but it wasn't like he could do much anyway. He closed his eyes, trying to limit the aching pound in his head and just tried to keep still as they ran for their lives. Gradually, he forgot about the blood slipping down his neck and surrendered as the black devoured the conscious.
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"I'm back! Did some shopping and I didn't even pay; the cashier very kindly just let me have it!" Sherlock kicked the door wide open, striding in with bags of food and newspapers and who knows what else. The house was oddly quiet; he dumped the bags on the floor. John was no longer sitting at his laptop, which was weird. His mug was by the kettle as if he had been about to make some tea and his laptop was on standby. John usually turned it off when he left it; something about it ruining the battery.
"John?" Sherlock called. His instincts had already run the tests and every scenario ended badly. John was reliable, independent, and durable, but he was also very human.
Sherlock's gaze was fixed on the smudged red footprint next to the door - the door where Sam had kept the Leviathan, and where John had indisputably gone through after abandoning his laptop and tea. "Sam?" Sherlock called, his voice trembling as much as he tried to mask it. He didn't wait for a response, so stepping over the smudge, he opened the door.
The room was red and bare, the floor was strewn in guts, and tattered ropes surrounded the lone, empty chair. The room was empty. Sherlock almost just stopped. Sometimes being right wasn't a good thing. It rarely was in fact. Sherlock knew things about people he had never met that their closest relative may never know, he knew the girl that was cutting herself at night, the boy who had been abused as a child, and the fact that someone out there would never see their son again.
"No! No! No! He can't!" Sherlock knocked his fists against the wall, his skin broke and he cursed, curling into a ball as he fell to his knees. He sucked in a sob, biting into his sore palms now scarred with the dent of his nails. Not John.
"…Sherlock." Sam's voice registered in the back of his mind but he couldn't respond. The tone of his voice, the wince as he moved, the heavy sigh - they weren't things that Sherlock wanted or needed to analyse.
"I'm sorry." Sam fell quiet after that. What more was there to say after all? There was nothing that could be said.
"No."
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The Doctor sat alone. Just letting his feet dangle into the beautiful cosmos below. It never failed to… he didn't know what it did, but when he saw it, he felt the need to just stop and look. But even if he sat there for all of his 900 years, he still couldn't truly appreciate it all.
The colours, the lights, the size, and how insignificant it could make one feel, but at the same time just how grateful it made him because he could see it all and show so many others and everyday he saw something else that made the whole thing even better. He saw how one tiny, seemingly insignificant person could change it all, could impact whole planets, and change everything with one tiny act.
He stroked the smooth wood of his girl. "Just like you. You're an incredible thing." The Doctor looked down at the swirling galaxy, where once his home had roamed, and his elders had stood proud and resilient, like gods. "Made of Angels. That's what they used to say."
He closed his eyes, leaning against the solid oak and he felt comforted even as if he thought of his world, of the mountains where his home had sat, sheltered by red grass and trees with silver leaves, where he had seen his first glimpse of white, shining snow. He had played in forests that glittered as if on fire when the sun caught them, and so had his children.
He tensed, waiting till the pain numbed. His girl hummed, thrumming under his touch. She warmed beneah him.
"Do you remember Omega? You were probably there. Just stories for me, of course. The man who helped create the Time Machines, started the foundations on which all of Time Lord culture would date back to. A genius, someone everyone looked up to, whether they had known him or he was just the story that put you to sleep every night." The Doctor opened his eyes, taking in the blues, purples, even the black orbs as his vision adjusted to seeing again.
"It was my favourite story. She used to tell it in such a vivid way, a story of fantasy, monsters and love. I've been chasing such stories ever since, huh, girl." The Doctor sat back, leaning on his hands, letting the wonders of outside wash over him. Silence settled for an indefinite amount of time and then the TARDIS bumped making the Doctor jumped, looking behind him and sticking his head under the TARDIS but there was nothing there, of course.
The TARDIS bumped again and the Doctor chuckled under his breath, "You like the story too?"
There was no reply but the Doctor knew the answer, as they had been friends for a long, long time.
"Omega was one of the very first explorers, sent in a spaceship to discover and watch and learn. He was long thought dead when he landed back home in a ragged vessel, it was made up of bits of his old spaceship roughly shoved together to make a craft just large enough for him. Or so it seemed, for when he opened the door it was so much bigger on the inside and a large engine towered in the middle, filled with blinding, golden light. He took it straight to his friend, Rassillion, who wanted to examine it and take it apart when Omega told him of all the journeys he had been on, not just through space but also in time." The Doctor shook his head bemusedly.
"But the machine would not let him. It would only let Omega in and Omega would not defile it. When asked to explain, he said his vessel was not a machine but had as will of its own. He called it an Angel." The Doctor pursed his lips, considering. "Obviously Rassillion dismissed this as purely just a word to describe something Omega could not yet explain - even then we were a species that relied purely on scientific observation and the presence of a God had yet to be proved." The Doctor paused, caught in the thought. He'd faced beings that thought themselves gods and devils and Creators and Destroyers but angels? Angels, from Heaven, with wings and halos, who were messengers of God, who fought demons, the spawn of Hell, and fell in love with humans, humans. The Doctor snorted, but then again he was the time travelling alien, the last of his kind, a being revered as a god on some planets.
He carried on, "So Omega told him there were more and they could make many of these vessels, possibly thousands. Convincing his vessel, he took Rassillion to a small dimension within their own, except it was not the home of 'Angel's as Rassillion had expected but of monsters. What seemed like failed experiments roamed this poor imitation of their universe, living in a continuous cycle of kill or be killed, and the soon to be Time Lords were no exception but we weren't so passive in those days, Rassillion was a great warrior and Omega was even better. Together they fought beasts that sprung from steaming lakes and chased them back into their dark depths. Eventually they came to the Forests of Light. For that was what it looked like from afar. Luminous mists rose from the Forests, disappearing into the white sky, and Rassillion thought them to be the most beautiful thing he'd ever set his eyes on, a striking contrast to their surroundings."
"But as they got closer, he became horrified. The 'Angels' were chained to the floor with something resembling lightning, the lulling sounds he had heard before turned to cries in his ears though they were not ugly sounds. Their cries were quiet; a remorseful sound that they sang in time and though he did not know the words he could still feel the words for they hurt and burned and he wished for all the world to make it stop. Omega showed him that though he could not free them from their bonds, the chains could be redirected so they weren't connected to the floor anymore but onto a loose bit of metal and so a vessel could be built round them. Rassillion noticed as they did this, the song grew quieter, even becoming less painful. And so the TARDIS's were built. They became a permanent part of Time Lord culture, and one could be killed for neglecting one, for they stopped working, but if you cherish them, there are no limits to what can be done, right?" The TARDIS rumbled and the Doctor smiled.
"They were never called Angels again, that was just part of the fairy-tale. You would tell me, right? Tell me if you were an Angel." The Doctor turned, but he didn't have time to pursue it for the phone was ringing. He ran, the doors closing behind him. He grabbed the phone, barely putting it to his ear before –
"Doctor! You have to get back now, John is gone. I don't know what happened; I don't know what to do. Just come back -"
"It's alright, Sam. I'm coming."
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A sweet cloying smell clung to his lungs, trapping his air; he couldn't expand his chest –
Dean bolted upright, dragging in a breath and falling to his side, dry heaving, just managing to avoid his leg being roasted by greedy flames.
"How -"He coughed, his hand feeling the rough skin where his neck was covered in dry blood.
"Good times…" He sniffed, eyeing the flames. The smoke was flavoured with something tangy and disgustingly fragrant. Small twigs of a diseased looking tree were piled next to the fire and Dean could see they were also in the fire too. Signalling?
He pulled himself upright, towing his backside away from the fire so he could lean on a tree and figure out if his skin had been slow roasted. He inhaled less smoky air, taking in the forest. It reminded him of his first night here, it shouldn't feel so long ago, but it was, it felt like a different Dean had stood there, paralyzed by fear, hoping to God Cas hadn't left him.
It didn't take long though.
He shook his head, couldn't think of that.
A twig snapped behind him and he tensed, wishing he had a weapon of some kind. But no, not even a sharp stick. He was dead meat. He just did his best to hide into the foliage.
Long arms came into view, trailing on the floor, a beak sniffed the air.
Rex.
"Rex, here." Dean patted the ground to make himself known, and smiled as Rex came over, even letting Rex nuzzle his shoulder. He was friends with a monster, figures.
"Thanks. You've done a great job, boy." The simple fire was actually aweing in the light this gangly creature had made it but then, Dean better than anyone knew that he was a lot stronger than he looked.
"De-ean" Rex croaked and Dean let out a surprised chuckle.
"You're learning to talk?"
"De-ean." Rex preened and Dean couldn't help but grin, oh man, he was turning into a girl.
"Dean-o!" Dean froze, he had actually forgotten. He had let himself believe he was free. He looked up; Gordon was standing on the other side of the fire, grinning smoothly. He looked spritely as if still full of fighting adrenaline. Dean's blood had stilled, he should have run, and they should never have stopped.
"Good idea using that toxic smell, couldn't miss you for miles, course that means the same for everyone else. Got myself a good few snacks, though," Gordon said, striding around the fire.
Dean stood up, this time he wouldn't go without a fight. Gordon smirked.
"Playtimes over, Dean. The Behemoths not far behind, I'm all up for a fight but you're the only one who's gonna get hurt." Dean grimaced but this time he didn't say anything.
"De-ean." Rex growled, standing in front of Dean and baring his wings at Gordon.
"Looks like you found another boyfriend already." Gordon rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
Dean backed up, running as Gordon launched himself at Rex. He couldn't help Rex; he just had to hope he'd be smart and get away before he got hurt too badly. He ran, feeling the shadows latch onto him, invisible eyes watching him as he fled. He stuck close to the trees, trying to keep his breathing even as he sprinted, unable to hide, cursed by his own blood.
"Dean!"
He gasped, falling to the floor as Gordon shoved him from behind. He rolled over, scrambling to his feet again as Gordon came after him, shoving him against a tree.
"If the Behemoth didn't think you were so valuable, I would suck you dry right now." Gordon stated, regarding him as if he were a troublesome drug.
"Maybe you just should." Dean hissed, he could see Sam in his mind's eye. He could die with that last image, of Sam just knocking his beer against his, cheers to their last night. Sam wouldn't hate him; he'd done enough, lost enough.
"Aw, has Dean had enough?" Gordon mocked but his pupils were dilated, his tongue snuck across his lips and Dean could feel his neck itching as Gordon eyed it. He closed his eyes, feeling Gordon lean closer. Sam hugged him tight, his arms clutching at his back. Dean wasn't crying, he must have smoke in his eyes still.
And then the weight was gone and there was growling and cries and his weight was replaced by steady hands and an impossibly deep voice.
"Dean, are you alright?" His hands pressed into him but he dare not open his eyes or speak. It could break the whole illusion.
"Dean, answer me." He felt Cas guide him gently to his knees, stooping in front of him. Dean lifted his hand, brushing his hand against the bristle of a scruffy beard. He sucked in a breath, smiling despite himself.
"Nice scruff, Cas."
He felt a hand smooth over his neck, a thumb tracing the deep marks Gordon had left. He still couldn't open his eyes.
"I can't believe we found you," Cas whispered, and Dean felt him lay his head on his shoulder and they just stayed like that, ignoring the sounds around them, and just holding each other.
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