a/n: this chapter got finished a lot later than I expected it to. I probably rushed it a little in the end, but I was just so excited to pump out some new material that this is what you're stuck with now. Anyways, important question before we begin: my good friend and No. 1 Stan (also, the only one, so there's that) brought to my attention that my Chapters are apparently waaay too long. I'd love for you guys (if there's anyone out there wo cares) to leave your opinions on whether or not future Chapters should be cut down to around 2000 words, with updates coming 2 - 3 times a week, instead of slower updates and longer, more feels-heavy Chapters. If no objections are made I'll just go with my friend's wish and keep 'em short.
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For the first time in five years of working with him, I felt a thrill of grim ecstasy flood my body as Dean's fist found its target with a muffled crunch. Normally I would have turned away or tried to stop him from going too far, but watching Crowley recoil from the rune-covered dagger in Dean's hand, trapped on his back like a particularly nasty cockroach about to be squashed to death, I felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
"Did you do it?"
Dean kept his voice dangerously low, the blade of his knife pressing against the skin of the Demon's throat.
Only now did I notice that Crowley seemed to be covered in dirt. His ridiculously expensive-looking coat had bits of earth and something that looked like pine needles sticking to it, his dark hair was ruffled and I could make out a smudge of what I assumed to be dried blood on his cheek.
So he wasn't dead, but still. Whatever he had been up to, it didn't look like he'd been having the time of his life. Good.
Slowly, I got up, joining Sam and Mary who were both on their feet, undecided on whether or not to jump in.
"Did you let Lucifer out?," bellowed Dean, violently yanking Crowley closer and nearly strangling him with his tie.
There was more than a threat in the way he pressed down on his body, his back straining against the fabric of his shirt, muscles taut. Dean never talked about his time as a Demon, but from what I knew about it, Crowley had been essential in guiding him through the dark place he was in. The betrayal in Dean's voice was sickeningly evident, trembling with barely restrained rage.
Crowley spluttered, his face beginning to turn red, eyes bulging as he snarled out: "I didn't let - "
"Don't!," Dean spat at him, hardening his grip even further.
"Lassie! A little help here?" His voice straining, Crowley turned his head up and away from Dean, but I met him with a hard, unrelenting stare.
How I hated that nickname.
"You wish." I narrowed my eyes at him. Briefly, a look of disbelief flickered over his features before the Demon made a jerking movement towards Sam.
"Moose!"
"D-Dean, wait - "
"Seriously?"
Three pairs of disbelieving eyes turned towards Sam, joined by Crowley's triumphant ones.
Sam shifted uncomfortably, lifting his hands in defiance.
"Look, just don't kill him!," he argued, rubbing his brow as if to ward off a headache before gesturing towards Crowley.
"He worked the cage-spell with Rowena, so maybe he can actually help us." The urgency in his voice felt like a slap in the face. As if I had just remembered that putting Crowley in his place should be the least of our worries right now.
"And what if he can't?" Mary folded her arms over her chest.
There was no resentment in the look she gave Crowley, only caution. She looked just as ragged as the rest of us, her shaggy blonde hair in dire need of a shower; still, even after yesterday's agitating events, she kept her cool. Not for the first time, I admired her calm, observant attitude.
Sam gave a half-shrug, furrowing his brow at Crowley. "Well, then we kill him, obviously." That wiped the smirk of his face.
I didn't let my eyes off Dean who still looked ready to pounce, the scowl on his face unwavering. He gave Crowley a sudden push, letting go of his tie and getting up from the floor, dusting his knees off.
I winced a little at the sight of his bloody leg. Dean liked to pretend that minor injuries like this weren't something to be concerned about, but I didn't like the thought of him going up against an Archangel with the disadvantage of an injured leg. At all.
Getting up with a groan, Crowley lifted the chair from the floor with a clatter. "Cage-spell?," he gritted out between his teeth, sitting down and straightening the collar of his black, tailored suit. Breathing heavily, he glared at me as I sat down at the edge of the table.
"Thought you had mother for th- "
"Rowena's dead," Dean interrupted flatly.
Crowley lifted his eyebrows. "Really." He didn't even bat an eye, only giving Dean a doubtful look.
"Yeah, really." Sam hesitated before adding: "Lucifer."
"Funny." Examining his hands, Crowley's tone remained unchanged. "I always thought I'd be the one to kill her."
"Alright, " I snarled, something inside of me snapping at his words.
"We don't have time for your bullshit, Crowley, so what do you want?"
He cocked an eyebrow at me, taking in my rigid posture.
"And here I was under the impression that you were the reasonable stooge," he drawled, leaning back and crossing his legs.
"Well - whenever there's a world-ending crisis at hand, I know where to place my bets. " He let his eyes wander over the four of us, lips pulled into a joyless smile. "It's on you, " he smirked, "You, big, beautiful lumbering piles of flannel."
I felt like screaming at him, but instead I nodded tightly, letting out a huff of strained laughter. Dean shifted awkwardly on his injured leg, clearing his throat.
"So," Crowley continued, "If you'll forgive my... transgression, I'll make it worth your while."
"Which means?" Dean urged him on, impatiently.
Crowley inclined his head towards Dean, his smile broadening.
"After we put Lucifer back in his cage - together, " he added, his eyes darting between Sam and Dean before shifting to his fingers again.
"I'll seal the Gates of Hell."
Finally, he stopped smiling. I tilted my head to the side, staring at him quizzically as he went on.
"You'll never see another Demon again. Apart from, of course, yours truly," he emphasized, and this time, there was no undertone to his voice, no mocking gleam in his gaze. He just sat there, calmly, waiting for a response.
"Well, shit," I murmured, looking at Dean.
His expression was unreadable, but I knew that this didn't leave him unaffected. What Crowley was offering here was huge. The promise of a world without those black-eyed sons of bitches rampaging earth was more than I'd ever dared to hope for. It was too good to be true. Even more so coming from the former King of freaking Hell himself.
"You wouldn't do that, " I asserted, shaking my head and staring at the Demon, who stared back, unimpressed.
"I had to drag myself out of a literal grave just to get here, thanks to those backstabbing imbeciles. I've just about had it with their endless squabbles, so why not?," he scoffed. "I'll happily stab them in the front, the sides, and right up their little black-eyed arses."
He had a point. He certainly had a big enough ego to pull off a stunt like this. But like Dean had said countless times before, he always found a way to stab you in the back; I wasn't eager to bring myself into a position in which he could ever do that again.
Swiftly clapping his hands together, Crowley leaned forward, his chair creaking at the sudden movement.
"So? We have a deal?"
Dean faced away from him as he gave a curt nod.
A strange sort of sombre excitement lay in the air as we returned to our research with renewed enthusiasm. It almost felt like we had a proper plan now. An actual weapon to use against Lucifer, in case it came down to that.
When it came down to that.
Hacking away at the keys of my laptop, I shuddered at the memory of the first time Lucifer and I had come face to face. My recollection of that day was only blurry - I did get knocked out more than twice, after all -, but the face of the Devil wasn't something you easily forgot. Those red eyes, burning through the twilight of the candle-lit church, red-hot orbs forever burned into my retinas.
Even though he never even acknowledged my presence with so much as a word, I still had filled sketchbooks attempting to recreate the inexplicable inhumanity of his facial features; I still woke up at night, bathed in sweat, haunted by his cruel, jeering voice, his face - Castiel's face, at that time, but it had looked nothing like him. That had probably been the scariest part; the shape of a face that should have been painfully familiar, twisted into an alienated mockery of the angel that I loved like a brother.
"Ooh, you almost had me there for a minute, but these mail-order spells... they're just not what they're cracked up to be, are they?"
Lucifer let out a cackling laugh, rubbing hands together that should be Castiel's -
"Lewanna. Hey!"
Sam snapped his fingers in front of my face, the hint of impatience in his tone suggesting that he'd been saying my name more than once already. Tearing myself away from the screen of my laptop, I looked up. Sam was on his feet, tablet in hand, his mouth pressed into a firm line.
"I've got something. Pacific Northwest - two hours ago, they had a pretty massive power outage. And - looks like the place they traced it back to is a house currently being rented by one James Novak."
Dean shot up straight away, seizing the jacket hung over the back of his chair. "That's Cass," he pressed. "Let's roll."
Just as I was about to stand up, Dean's hand landed on my shoulder, gently but very determinedly forcing me stay put.
"You stay here, " he instructed.
"Dean, I'm not -," I began to protest, but one look into his face told me that there was no room for an argument here.
Mary halted in her movements, confusion etched into blue eyes as she shook her head at her son's words. "Dean? What - "
"We need someone back at the base, mom, " Dean cut her off gruffly, removing his hand from me and turning to face his mother. "In case it all goes downhill and we don't make it back, we need someone to warn the others." I could feel them looking at me. Blinking rapidly, I intertwined my trembling fingers on the table, staring at the shiny wooden texture.
Dean exhaled sharply before he added: "No need to get her killed, not if I can help it."
There was a short pause, heavy with unspoken words simmering beneath the surface. Dean didn't have to utter even one of them for me to understand what this was about. How much I would hurt him if I insisted on tagging along. When did something like this ever turn out in a good way for us? How many people did we have to watch choke on their own blood before the message finally settled in? There was no happy ending to this. Not for any of us.
"Dean is right, " I finally murmured, looking up from my hands to meet the tentative looks of Sam and Mary, giving them a warm smile. "Damage control." Aaron used to say that whenever he made me cover for him in front of our parents. Keeping the damage to a minimum is what's essential here, Lou.
"Now, that's endearing," Crowley gushed, rising from the chair he had been lounging in. "I'm assuming that means we can finally lea-AAHRG!"
His bored drawl hitched into an irritated scream as Dean rammed the Demon-killing knife right into the flesh of Crowley's stocky hand, effectively pinning him to the table. He leaned into him until their faces were almost touching, twisting the knife a little deeper as Crowley visibly restrained from letting another cry of pain slip out.
"You've done enough, " Dean growled lowly, staring the Demon dead in the eye. "Think we're gonna trust you out there after what you pulled? Hmm?"
Dean let go of the dagger, stepping away from Crowley who was now breathing heavily, his glare murderous.
"No," Dean clipped, shrugging his jacket on. "You stay here, you sit down, and you shut up."
It was a twenty-four-hour drive from Kansas to North Cove, Washington, where we expected Cass and Kelly to be hiding out, so we had to move quickly. They have to move quickly, I corrected myself, biting my lip as I hurriedly wrapped up the leftovers from lunch, a sad little smile grazing my lips as I remembered Dean almost choking on his Burrito, laughing at something I had said. Why did already it feel like this happened a decade ago?
Stuffing the food and some bottles of water into an old bag from Tesco's, I made my way towards the garage.
Mary was already leaning against the open backdoor of the Impala, hands stuffed into the front pockets of her washed-out jeans. In that moment, she reminded my so much of her sons that my throat clogged up and I felt a sting behind my eyes. Stashing the bag on the back bench next to a folded blanket, I stretched out my arms towards Mary, pulling her into a tight embrace. I had never felt the air of distance around her that Sam kept talking about. Most likely because she wasn't my Mom - I had never lost her, so her return from the Dead wasn't even half as weird for me as it was for the boys. To me, Mary was just - well, Mary. The distinctive smell of the hand lotion she liked to use, mixed with the more bitter, musky smell of a life spent sleeping in cars and dingy motels. Or windowless bunkers.
She sighed against my hair, pressing me to her one last time, and it suddenly occurred to me how different she was from my mother. My mother, who was soft were Mary was lean muscle; my mother, who never learned to stand up for herself.
"Take care," was all I could get out after my arms had dropped to my sides, leaving me feeling hollow and frustratingly helpless as she smiled at me, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth - Dean's mouth - deepening. She got into the car.
Taking my Goodbyes from Sam and Dean should have been easier, considering the amount of times we had been at similar, even worse points at our lives. It wasn't.
There was nothing easy about Sammy's long arms wrapping around me, his nose buried into the small bit where my neck met my shoulder, the faint smell of that stupid organic Yogurt Dean loved to tease him about wafting from his breath as he pressed a lingering kiss to my temple, long hair tickling my skin. Nothing had changed since the last time Dean had squeezed me to him like that, his hug way too firm, suffocating and yet way too short, the familiar scent of sweat and something woodsy engulfing me for what I hoped wouldn't be the last time. I didn't cry, I wouldn't do that to them. To myself.
"You don't hear from us til' Monday, you drive straight up to Jody, that clear? No looking for us without backup, Lou." I nodded at Dean's instructions, leaning against the driver's door as he got in. I attempted a smile but failed pretty miserably.
"Got it."
And just like that, they were gone, and I pulled the garage door shut behind Baby's trunk rolling out of the Bunker.
Promptly, my shoulders fell forward in a shaky exhale as I let exhaustion seep in. There was so much to do; dig deeper into what little lore the Men of Letter's library provided about Nephilim, in case the grace-retraction thing didn't work out, and then there was still the mess the Brits had caused to look after; all the executed Hunter's families that didn't know what had happened yet, so many mothers and daughters to call.
"You do realize you could just go after them, right?"
I jumped at the sudden voice echoing through the garage, my hand reflexively jerking to the gun secured to my belt.
Crowley stood on the metal platform overlooking the room, his hands casually buried in his coat, the trademark salesman smile twisting his lips.
"Shame, really." He sighed theatrically, shaking his head at me as if I was a tragic waste of decent potential. Relaxing from my alerted position, I ignored Crowley as I made my way up the stairs, brushing past him and deliberately switching off the lights in the garage before he had a chance to follow me inside.
And follow me he did. He was already sat in the library as I entered the warmly lit room, feet kicked up on a table, browsing through a Magazine that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be advertising (human?) body parts.
"Lovely," I remarked dryly, retrieving my laptop, pens and notebook from the table and moving towards the War Room.
"Don't judge," Crowley replied, already lazily draped across a chair at the table I was heading to. Coming to a halt, I let out a groan, making an abrupt turn in the opposite direction, only to be met with Crowley's smug face bare inches from mine. "Can you just... not?, " I shot at him, taking a step back and and glaring at the Demon. "What do you want, Crowley?"
"Oh, I was just wondering..." Crowley tilted his head to the side. "You'd just have to say the magic word -," he hinted, snapping his fingers. "We could be with your Pet Angel in less than a second."
I huffed in annoyance, shaking my head as I gave up and fell into a chair.
"No," was all I replied, setting up my laptop, not meeting his eye. Anything could happen if I was stupid enough to go in there with Crowley for backup - and I didn't care what he had done for us in the past, didn't care that we basically were allies by now. This was the Demon who I had watched smite innocent people without so much as a twitch of his finger, the Demon who had come close to killing us on more occasions than I could count on my hands. Nothing would ever change that, no saving Dean's ass, no killing Lucifer, no -
"Care for a drink, then?"
Out of seemingly nowhere, Crowley summoned two glasses, arranging them on the table before us.
Clutching a bottle of Glencraig, he smiled his salesman smile.
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The silence in the bunker felt almost physically crushing when I first woke up to the numbing stupor of a sticky room and my pounding head. Pushing away the hazy, already fading pictures of my recurring nightmare, I blindly grabbed for the pills I knew were scattered all over the nightstand after I had ripped the package open the night before.
There was a loud clanking noise as I knocked a glass over in the process; swearing, I reached for my phone, bathing the room in the slightly eerie, weak glow of the display. The glass lay in a pool of spilled Whiskey beneath my bed, the sharp smell immediately making me nauseous. I fell back into the pillows, pinching my eyes shut and groaning into the darkness of my bedroom.
The next time I woke up, the watch on my wrist showed 2:32 p.m. Not that there was any form of sunlight to measure the passing of time with, otherwise I'd probably gotten up sooner. Rolling onto my back and slowly blinking into the dark, I thought back to the first days we had spent in the Bunker, and Dean's unease at the lack of windows. It reminded him of his time in hell, he'd muttered, that one time when he got so drunk that he passed out in the library and Sam and I had to heave him back to his spartan room, nearly collapsing under the weight of six feet of slack muscle.
Sam had stayed in Dean's room that night, watching over his brother. I found him the next morning, dozed off in a chair by Dean's bedside just as I'd left him, his tall frame awkwardly slumped over, head lolling to the side. I remembered hesitating in the doorframe, fingers twitching to capture this moment in my sketchbook, wondering how many times this had happened before. Sam watching over his big brother after he would drink himself unconscious, away from the endless pain and grime and death that was constantly surrounding us.
Pressing my hands over my eyes, I swung my legs out of bed, naked feet meeting cold stone tiles. My head felt like it was split in half, and nausea was quick to return as I came to my feet, stumbling. How much had I been drinking?
I'd never really enjoyed alcohol. Not only because I was a complete wimp and hardly got down one bottle of beer before feeling the urge to throw it up again, but mostly because I simply failed to see the point in swallowing something that my body so obviously rejected.
Last night had been different. With the Winchesters off to find Cass, my mind had been a burning mess. The only thing that seemed to make it stop was setting my throat on fire with Crowley's Scotch; and Dean's Whiskey after that, when Crowley had left. One swig after the other, until there was nothing left but the lovely fuzziness of not-caring, shallow but effectively numbing. Of course the stale, nasty aftertaste was all this ultimately left me with.
Struggling to get a clear thought into my head, I shuffled towards the general direction of the door leading onto the corridor, desperate for a shower.
The ceiling light stung my eyes as I found the light switch, immersing the hallway in harsh, grey lighting. Dean's room was only two doors apart from mine, and an iron hand seemed to grip my entrails as I passed Room 11, making it hard to breathe as I tried to simultaneously assure myself that he was okay and not throw up.
"Do you always let them order you around like that?"
A throb of pain pulsed through my brain as I clenched my jaw, pushing back yesterday's resurfacing events.
Crowley's smile was wary, his narrowed eyes pinned to the Demon-killing blade balanced between my fingers. He chuckled at my silence.
"Well, would you look at that. You do, don't you?"
Demons. They always found a way to get under your skin in the worst possible way. Fighting down the memory of Crowley's mocking voice, I continued towards the bathroom, leaving Dean's painfully empty room behind me. But even as I stood in the shower, sighing in relief as the steaming hot water hit the sore muscles of my back, the words continued to taunt me.
"They tell you to stay behind, you stay behind. They tell you to jump off a bridge, you happily comply, like a good dog would..."
Something flashed red in the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head to blink heavily into the foggy room, there was nothing there. My mind was playing tricks on me.
Panting heavily, my heartbeat speeding up from the rising temperature and my quivering stomach, I leaned my forehead against the slick tiles of the showerwall.
"A good dog, Lassie... that's what you are..."
"Shut up, " I whispered hoarsely, my head spinning and my tongue getting heavier still and maybe I shouldn't have been swallowing four of those pills at once...
I buckled over, knees hitting the shower floor as my stomach decided to eject the last bit of alcohol from my body. My gut contracted so violently that I had no chance of reaching the toilet in time; clear liquid mixed with the water still spraying down on me. Again, my body was wrecked by heaves of stomach-acid and alcohol leaving my body.
Afterwards, my head felt lighter. The shame sank in.
Sam, Dean and Mary had been gone for over a day now and I still hadn't checked in on them. Instead, here I was, watching the very liquid contents of my stomach wash down the drain.
Jesus fucking Christ. I needed to get my shit together.
Minutes later, I made my way toward the War Room on wobbly knees, a towel sloppily wrapped around my head, damp fingers working on my phone.
"Pick up, pick up," I muttered, pressing the small device against my ear and biting the nails of my free hand.
Dean's phone went to voicemail almost directly. "This is Dean's other, other, other phone, so you probably - "
Cursing under my breath, I hung up and continued to call Sam, the cold clenching sensation in my stomach worse than any Hangover.
This was bad. The really fucking atrocious kind.
I came to the conclusion that I needed a stronger alcoholic beverage as Sam's answering machine kicked in after three rings.
A lot stronger.
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"Yes, is this Hank Williams?"
My fingers flew over the paper in swift, feathery strokes, absentmindedly sketching the outlines of a face.
"Who is this, please?" The voice on the other side of the line was raspy and brusk. I imagined Hank to be a solid, brawny guy in his sixties, a no-nonsense kinda guy.
Over the years, sketching people while on the phone had developed from a game when I was a kid to a rock-solid habit; Underneath my fingers, the pencil-strokes were beginning to take on shape, a sturdy, barrel-like torso leading into a strong neck, a bushy beard covering the structure of strong jaw- and cheekbones.
"Lewanna Abrams, " I said, the face of another stranger coming to life on paper. "I was a friend of your daughter, Abbie."
Technically, that was a lie. Or stretching the truth, at the very best. Saying that I remembered what she had looked like would definitely be a lie. I couldn't sort her name to a face; there had been at least four other women who gave their lives, storming the Brit's base, only two of which I had known before the attack.
This would be the last call of the day. In the four days since the Winchesters had left I had made over two dozen calls, not counting the times I had to call back because the family member I tried to reach wasn't home or didn't pick up. I had contacted Jody about the names and numbers, reassuring her that it was alright and no, she didn't have to come over to keep me company, and I was fine, really, yes, really.
"What do you mean, gone?" Hank's reaction to the news was tinged with the same helpless rage that most of the other friends or family member had displayed.
After telling the same story over and over again, using the same empty words in an attempt to offer some closure to a complete stranger, consoling Hank almost came naturally. I explained the situation, offered my condolences and wrapped up the call in under four minutes. It shouldn't have been easy, but it was.
Drawing my knees up to my chest, I looped one arm around my shins, rested my cheek on one knee and began to trace the frail lines criss-crossing all over the huge map stretching over the table before me.
In four days, there had been no sign from Sam, Dean or Mary. Heck, I had even tried summoning Crowley, on the third evening, ready to take him up on his offer to teleport me to North Cove, even if that potentially meant getting screwed over by the King of Screw-overs.
But Crowley never showed, and neither of the Winchesters answered their phones. Castiel didn't answer my prayers, either, but then again - that one had been a rather desperate idea. Dean's prayers were the only ones he almost certainly answered to; they just had this weird connective thing going.
The War Room had become my favorite place to escape to when the quiet of my bedroom became too suffocating. At least I felt a sense of urgency in here, as if the mere fact that I was sitting in a War Room meant that I was achieving something, helping the cause, instead of sitting under my blanket, eyes glued to the screen of my Laptop, forcing myself to pay attention to a movie. Useless.
The worst part was that the boys did this sort of thing all the time. Four days without a call wouldn't be a big deal if these were normal circumstances; if this was me working on a seperate case or staying at the Bunker because my Tremor was particularly bad - it wasn't like we normally spent twenty four hours a day sitting on top of each other.
But this was Lucifer we were dealing with. I hadn't managed to get any sleep for the past two days, drinking and drawing and crying and cursing myself for being such a goddamn coward and staying behind on this one. I had only left the Bunker once, to stock up on liquor and TP.
I was so deep into my own head that it took the sound of a metal door falling shut for me to realise that I wasn't alone anymore. Jerking my gun out, I got on my feet shakily. Why hadn't I heard the garage door opening? My head felt way too light as I tried to calm down, heart pounding in my throat. The corridor was dark, the only light coming from the lamps in the Library and War Room, and I held my breath as I sneaked down the hallway.
It had to be them. Every entrance to the Bunker was triple-warded, even the floor beneath my feet had been covered in ancient sigils to keep the Evil away, and why would anyone else enter through the garage?
Still, my whole body was tense with fear as I continued to move down the hall, already wondering if I'd only imagined hearing something, if I was hallucinating, if there was nothing waiting at the end of that corridor but the small, icy hands of a little boy, black holes where his eyes should be, his bloated body stiff from Death, red trainers leaving a trail of blood behind him as he moved towards me in the darkness, arms outstretched to grab me -
I let out a small cry of shock as the lights along the walls were turned on.
Sam and Dean stared at from across the corridor as I momentarily slumped against a door in my back, closing my eyes and catching my breath, my food- and sleep-deprived body rebelling against the bright lights flooding the hall.
"Lou." Dean was the first to move, setting his bag down and coming towards me. He looked terrible. His face was gaunt, a colorful bruise led from his neck down under the collar of his shirt, and his chapped lips were pressed into a thin, angry line. The worst part were his eyes. Tired, watery eyes over shadows like bruises, avoiding my gaze as I searched his face for the answer to a question I hadn't asked yet.
"Where's Mary?"
Dean shook his head. "She didn't - " he turned as his voice broke off, moving to shoulder his bag again. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but all that came out was a soft whimper. Mary.
Sam met my dumbfounded stare over Dean's shoulder, the red swelling around his eyes telling me that he had been crying.
"Why didn't you call?" It was meant to come out as an accusation, but instead my voice was flat, toneless. I wanted to grab Dean by the collar of his jacket and shake him until he gave me an answer that didn't make me want to rip my lungs out, my heart, all that was burning inside of me, burning hot against my cheeks as finally, tears came sliding down.
"That's kind of a long story, " Dean murmured.
I wanted to scream at him to do something, to react to this like a normal fucking human being, to cut the crap. But I nodded instead, repressing the hiccups and wiping my face with my sleeve.
Noticing Sam still staring at me like an alien creature was crawling out of my nostril, I realized that I probably looked like a raging lunatic right now. Reeking of cheap Whiskey, my hair an unkempt mess, dressed in the baggy clothes that I'd been sleeping in for the past couple of days.
"Let's move this to the kitchen, then, " I suggested, running a tired hand over my face. "We could probably all use a cup of coffee."
Sam swallowed, suddenly looking nervous as his eyes darted in Dean's direction. He gestured towards the garage, letting out an awkward huffing noise.
"There's something else we have to tell you, " he began, only to get hissed at by Dean. "There's no we here, Sammy. Your fucking call."
Dean looked like he was about to explode. Sam cleared his throat again, shaking his head slowly, brow deeply furrowed. "No, Dean, we - we talked about this. You said - "
"Guys - "
Now it was my turn to get glared at. Stabbing a raised finger in Sam's direction, Dean gritted his teeth, breathing heavily.
"No, Lou, this isn't some stupid argument, this is some serious next level bullshit. We're talking 'accidentally-kickstarted-the-apocalypse'-bullshit - "
"Now you're being ridiculous, Dean, you can't compare - "
"He's Lucifer's son, Sam -"
"GUYS!," I barked, finally making the two snap out of their bickering and turn their heads to where I was pointing behind them.
Blinking profusely, I stared at the large shape lying behind Sam, a christmas-themed woolen blanket that I recognized as one of Jody's covering the unmistakable form of a human body like a grotesque, sloppily wrapped present. My body grew stiff as my mind began its mad chase for a logical explanation. This wasn't Ketch, we had already dumped his corpse into the river days ago; so maybe they'd gotten into some other kind of trouble and had to get rid of a body, because they couldn't have been stupid enough to actually bring Mary's remains here, they would've burned her right away, they couldn't have risked -
"What did you do, " I groaned, pressing my hands together and closing my eyes, frantic to keep my stomach from relieving itself from what little content it had left.
As I opened my eyes again, I saw that Sam was now kneeling beside the wrapped body, his jaw muscles working as if he was chewing down something extremely painful. Dean had turned his back to his brother, a vacant, stoic look in his hooded eyes. He seemed so out of it that I felt the sudden urge to stop Sam from what he was doing, to grab his hands that were pulling at the cloth covering the body and prevent him from revealing whatever it was that terrified Dean so much.
Instead, I stepped closer, all my thoughts coming to a violent halt as Sam uncovered the face. He could have just as well poured icy water straight over my head. All the thoughts that had had been raging for dominance came out as a sharp, choking noise as I took another step forward, hands curled up so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
He didn't look dead. There was no paleness to his cheeks, nothing in the peaceful quiet of his face that would indicate that he wasn't simply asleep. Probably a vessel-thing.
But it didn't feel like him, either. Behind the painfully familiar shadow of a beard, dark lashes brushing cheekbones and fine lines edged into what could only be Castiel's face, there was nothing but a terrifying emptiness.
It took me a few seconds to process that Dean had begun to talk, his voice dull, but steady.
"... - and I couldn't. I couldn't just burn him, or leave him there. It's Cass, goddammit. He's not human, we might be able to bring him back, we've always been."
Not trusting my voice, I whispered: "Maybe this time is different."
"We don't know that, " Dean said hoarsely, and there it was, finally, a surge of emotion, his voice cracking, his blank expression morphing into a pained grimace.
"Just leave this to me, " he grunted, bending to heave Castiel's lifeless body over his free shoulder.
"Wait, Dean, let me help -, " Sam tried to protest, but Dean ignored his brother's outstretched hands, his step heavy as he made his way down the hall.
And just like that, I realized that Castiel and Mary hadn't been the only ones not to return to me tonight. A part of Dean had died with them.
I blinked as he disappeared around the corner, slowly wrapping my arms around my torso.
"I think I need a drink."
Sam looked like he wanted to object, but he pressed his lips together in silence, nodding as I turned to walk back towards the War Room, a new ache in my bones that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
What I really needed was Cass. Mary. Dean. Reaching the Map, I gripped the edge of the table and bit on my lower lip until I could taste blood, forcing down the tears and the sudden, irrational urge to call my brother.
I need to hear his voice.
A dry sob left my throat, but I only bit down harder, my hands shaking uncontrollably, reminding me once more why I couldn't ever see him again. Why I couldn't be weak again.
"Lou?"
"I'm fine, Sam, " I spat, immediately regretting how harsh the words had come out. Turning, I opened my mouth to apologize, almost stumbling into a complete stranger standing right behind me. I flinched back so violently that I knocked over Crowley's empty bottle of Scotch, causing it to land on the floor in a small explosion of glass shards and little droplets of alcohol.
Golden Irises stared back at me in alarm as the stranger took a step back and out of my personal space, his widened eyes turning to a warm brown in a flash.
My eyes darted to the doorway in Horror, meeting Sam's pleading ones.
"Who is..."
I trailed off, already guessing the answer. The analytical part of my brain had quickly picked up on the stiff way he carried himself, his eerily unmarked, smooth skin, the almost catlike almond shape of his eyes - this wasn't a human.
It turned its head to look at Sam, brow furrowed in confusion. Sam gave him a reassuring smile, slowly coming towards us, hands outstretched.
"Lou, this is Jack," he said, and his careful tone and alert posture only seemed to support my theory of who this was.
"Please don't freak out, " Sam smiled nervously as I gave an impatient nod, urging him to go on. "He's Lucifer's kid."
Almost mechanically, I gave another nod. Sam halted in his movements, eyeing me suspiciously as if he expected me to pull my gun on the Nephilim any moment.
Cautiously, not taking my eyes off It, I slowly inched backwards until the table hit the small of my back. The amount of questions thundering through my head made me want to throw up.
"You don't look as brainwashed as - Cass did, " I said after a heavy pause.
"But you're saying, that, what, I look mildly brainwashed?," Sam asked, irritated. "Jack is not evil, Lou, he's a kid. He doesn't have any connection to Lucifer -"
"I'm saying that he's a three-day-old who looks like a grown-ass man, Sam, " I replied, tiredly bending down to pick up the pieces of broken glass at my feet. "And I won't make the mistake of trusting the wrong monster ever again. But I trust you, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be in here if Dean didn't at least trust him to not eat us alive - "
"I do not feel the desire to consume the flesh of humans."
Startled, I let a large piece of glass slide through my fingers, cursing as it cut through the skin, blood gushing out and adding to the mess on the floor.
I wasn't sure exactly what I had been expecting, but it wasn't the dry, matter-of-fact voice that had just come out of the Nephilim's mouth. He could talk - a fast learner, then? It. It was a fast learner.
"Shit." Inspecting the wound, I got on my feet to sit on a nearby chair. The cut wasn't very deep, but the bleeding was pretty heavy.
The Nephilim was at my side before I could properly react to his sudden proximity, unnaturally warm fingers curling around my hand as he examined the cut with something like curiosity on his face.
Automatically, I held my breath, my whole body stiffening as he looked at me, his eyebrows drawn like storm clouds over clear, bright eyes. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said, slowly, as if testing for my reaction.
It took all my strength of will to restrain from recoiling; if he wanted to harm me, I would most likely already be dead. Something in the look he gave me told me that his intentions were - pure, in a way.
"Um. That's alright, Jack." I cleared my suddenly burning throat, finally pulling away from his grasp on my fingers. Golden sparks elicited from his hand as I drew away, touching my skin and causing me jump up, the chair loudly scraping the floor. Sam was there in a heartbeat, pushing in between Jack and me.
"Whoa," I breathed out, completely ignoring Sam's arm around me, urging me to sit. Flexing my fingers, I still felt an echo of the weird scorching sensation from Jack's touch, but miraculously, I was physically fine. In fact, the cut was gone. Completely healed, without leaving a scar behind.
"Sammy." Holding my hand up and wiping the blood off with my sleeve, I smiled at Sam, incredulously. A little hesistant, Sam stepped back, staring at Jack quizzically.
"You healed her? But I thought you couldn't control your powers!"
Jack seemed just as surprised as Sam, but there was a pleased smile pulling on his lips as he shrugged his shoulders, staring at his own hand. "I - can't. I don't know how I did it, I was just - " He seemed at a loss for words, meeting my gaze as my smile grew wider.
Something in his eyes shifted, his smile dropping as he directed his stare back at his hands. "I wanted to help."
His voice was small, tinged with a sadness that send a stab of guilt though my chest. He sounded vulnerable, like he really was nothing more than a kid. Exhaling heavily, I threw all fears out of the window as I reached for Jack's forearm, gently touching him under Sam's wary glance.
"Thank you, Jack."
As he smiled back at me, carefully, there was nothing evil in the way his unusual eyes lit up like the ones of a child at Christmas.
But then again, I thought as I rolled my eyes at Sam giving me the 'I-told-you-so' eyes, that could be brainwashed me speaking.
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a/n: I made some subtle changes from the source material. In my version, Dean can't let Cass go - in a much more literal way. And my Jack is physically a little different from TV-Jack. Just his eyes, though. I imagine them to be a little less human. In a not totally creepy way.
Feedback would be much appreciated! (Shoutout to SeraphineWhist - thank you so much for reviewing!)
Cheers,
Dods