Time Stamp - (i) - Lost
A/N: Timeline wise, this takes place immediately after Dexter nabs Dean (so after the scene in the prologue).
SHIT, SHIT, SHIT." He directs a brutal kick towards the table to which he was so recently tied. The kick doesn't connect, and he knows better than to expect it to.
"I thought you'd be used to this by now," says a pale, dark-eyed woman.
He's not startled by her presence. "I don't have time for this, Tessa."
She raises an eyebrow. "I'm hurt. Here I've managed to fit you into my busy schedule yet again. I don't see much repeat business, as a rule." She circles around him. "You're hurting my reputation."
He rubs his forehead. "The 'one who got away'?"
"That's part of it."
Dean doesn't reply, instead turning back to watch as Dexter goes and prepares his tools.
Dean's first thought upon waking had been one of relief. There was a sick, strange comfort in waking in restraints. It had a beguiling familiarity- he knew this, or thought he did. It was immediately obvious his restraints were not the barbed wire and chain so beloved by Hell- another touch he was grateful for. But no monster he'd ever fought had gone so far as to invest in duct-tape. That worried him.
The photos arranged within his line of sight- all from his past- were puzzling. But he understood when he saw the bone saw and knives, all carefully arranged on the other table. He'd finally gotten the punchline to the cosmic joke that was his life. That it was the creepy little forensics geek was just the icing on the cake.
He turns away from his own bloody murder, working his jaw a moment before speaking. "How much did you know?" he asks at last. The tone is soft and deliberate.
"Know?" Her expression remains the same as ever- sympathetic, concerned, and utterly superficial.
He glares at her. "Don't play with me."
She shrugs, and her face falls into something more genuine- the brusque, business-like expression of a bureaucrat trying to get something processed. "Does it matter? Now?"
He throws his hands up and turns back to her, striding forward. "It matters! You obviously knew enough to warn me about what the angels were planning- and what was the point of that? Just to fuck with us?"
"What bearing does it have on the situation now, Dean?" she asks, ignoring his question.
His gaze doesn't waver. "I want to know," he says. "And you owe me a hell of a lot more than that after our last meeting."
She sighs, then speaks. "Yes, I knew," she says calmly. "And I tried to warn you- direct orders from the boss, by the way- but I am bound in ways you can't even imagine."
"You didn't tell me anything I-" Dean begins, but then Dexter walks right through Tessa. He's holding the bone saw. He fires it up and begins to Dean's blood-spattered corpse into more portable pieces with the cool efficiency of someone with a lot of practice.
Dean lets the sentence trail off. There's something about watching his body being dismembered from afar that brings him back to the present. "Fuck."
"Dean," Tessa says, her soft and sympathetic tones back. "There's nothing you can do here."
He ignores her. "You know, I expected to die. Just not...that way."
"Everyone says that," she says, not unkindly.
He waves her off. "I don't mean the irony- this isn't like a health nut dying of a heart attack. I mean. Serial killer. Considering what I'm fighting on a daily basis? And the goddamn apocalypse on top of that? Seriously?" He thrusts an arm out in Dexter's direction for emphasis. Dexter is wrapping Dean's head in a garbage bag. It's disturbingly anti-climatic.
"Isn't everything you go up against a serial killer in someway or another?"
"We're not talking Freddy Kreuger here. This is some Norman-Bates shit."
Tessa takes Dean by the arm and pulls him around until he is facing her again, and his killer is behind him.
"The method doesn't matter-" she starts.
"The hell it doesn't-"
"I told you once you had a choice," she continues. "That's still true."
He shakes her off. "No- what kind of choice is that?" Behind him, Dexter's saw starts up again.
"You know what will happen if you stay here."
"So? Are you going to tell me whatever they've got planned for me upstairs in Angel Central would be any better?"
"That's not my secret to tell."
"What good are you, then? And the Pit-" he swallows. "I'm not doing that again."
"It's still a choice."
"Well, fuck that. I'm staying- I still have to warn Sam-"
Tessa steps closer, and lays a hand against his cheek. "Dean, the time for that is done. Come with me."
Dean steps back. "Sister, I'm not buying what you're selling."
She shrugs. "Stop torturing yourself, Dean- don't you deserve rest?"
Dean closes his eyes and presses his lips together. "It's a lie. It doesn't exist."
"You don't know that."
He opens his eyes and glares at her. "And you're not telling. Unless you're willing to give me a lift to the motel, get lost. The answer's still no."
"I'm offering you a choice, Dean-" she says again, but her tone has turned urgent.
"You already said that-"
"Because otherwise, you won't have one." Her dark eyes never leave his.
He pauses. "What?"
"You're vulnerable here. The agents of both heaven and hell are looking for you. And if they find you- you won't have any choice at all. They'll take you."
"Why do you care?" he says. She's shaken him. He didn't expect- that.
"It's against the natural order," she says. "Like everything else they touch. You of all people should understand."
"It's kind of late for that," he says, stifling the urge to shudder as Dexter walks through him. It doesn't hurt, but it is creepy. "What's dead should stay dead.' We've gone so far beyond that we've come out the other goddamn side."
"That's exactly the point. You and your brother are a wound on the world," she says, biting every word. "Each trespass stretches nature to the brink. How much more do you think the earth can take?"
He sighs and rubs his face. "It won't matter if the big boys get their way."
"Then don't play their game," she urges, stepping closer.
He throws his hands up. "And when has that ever been an option? If that's more advice from your 'boss'-" he says the word with exaggerated deference- "tell him to shove it up his ass. We're not playing the game- we're the fucking pieces."
"You can remove yourself from the board, Dean. This is your chance."
"You know as well as I do that's not how it works. I was dead. They laid siege to Hell.Does that sound to you like people who are going to just give up? They'll probably be digging me up before the creep finishes burying my corpse."
She smiles. "You're wrong."
"Oh, really?" Dean asks, his voice flat with disbelief. "And what's different this time?"
Tessa nods at Dexter, who has moved on to bagging other pieces of Dean's now-portable anatomy. "I know him-"
"Yeah, I bet. Sends a lot of business your way, right?" Dean interjects sourly.
"That's besides the point," Tessa says, not bothering to dispute it. "They won't be digging you up, Dean, because he won't bury you."
Dean makes a face. "I hope you're not implying what I think you are."
Tessa rolls her eyes. "The sea, Dean. All those little pieces of you will be floating in the Gulf Stream. And the sigils on your ribs are unbroken."
The answer can't be that simple. Dean distrusts it on reflex. "So they'll have a little more trouble finding my ribs. I'm sure they'll manage," he says.
"That's not how it works. As long as those sigils remain intact, you- the whole of you- is shielded. They won't be able to bring you back without your body. And they won't be able to find it unless they know where to start looking."
Dean turns away, his jaw clenched. He blinks several times, then shakes his head. "It's not that easy-"
She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Why not?"
It's more of a suggestion that a question. The reaper version of "Just Do It," Dean realizes. He's too tired to be angry. "It's never that easy. There's always a catch, and this one's a doozy. Even if I don't end up on the Afterlife's Most Wanted, ol' Lucy's still gunning for my brother -" he says, with vicious emphasis, "and he's the dick that's kicking everything into gear. So I'm gone. So what? The apocalypse continues on- the angels eventually find me...my brother goes off the deep end. I've seen how this story ends, or close enough, anyway- and it's not pretty. So no. It's not an option."
"You underestimate him," Tessa says mildly.
"My brother? It's not a question of-"
"No," she corrects. "Your killer." She says it like she's pointing out the obvious. There's a lilt to her tone, light-hearted and helpful, as if the news might be welcome. Dean stops, feeling something hollow open up in the pit of his non-existent stomach.
"What do you mean by that?" he demands. "What does that even mean?"
She shrugs. "He's thorough. You don't think he'd target you and then leave it at that, do you?" She doesn't wait for Dean to respond. He's staring at her, stunned into speechlessness, so she spells it out for him: "You both disappear, and the game ends."
Dean backs away, shaking his head. "That is a stupid plan! I'm doing this my way."
"And what's your way? Stay? You know what happens-"
Dean begins to pace. "Oh, I know. That's the plan. I'm dead and I'm pissed. I've been in this business long enough to know that should buy me something- I'll warn Sam-"
"Because you Winchesters always take death so well," Tessa says, her tone decidedly ironic. Dean stops. "Fuck. If I tell Sam, he'll go all trigger-happy."
Tessa shrugs. "Probably."
"Fine- I'll kill the creepy little bastard if he even so much as looks sideways at Sam. Or I'll- I'll ask Cas to deal with it. He'll drop kick Sam to Bobby's for me."
"Dean. Do you really think that'll work, this time?"
Dean opens his mouth to argue, then pauses. "You're just wasting time. Delaying." Dean whirls around, looking for Dexter, but the room is empty: only table still remains. Dean stalks away from Tessa, as if that will clear his head. As if he hadn't just let himself get distracted by an argument with a goddamn reaper.
He slams his hands against the table still station in the center of the room. "SHIT!" He gets no satisfaction. The table flips over and slams against the wall, but his hands still passed right through it.
"Dean," Tessa says, and her soothing, sympathetic voice is back. He ignores her. Dean knows better than to lose track of his surroundings. He doesn't even have to think about it anymore- it's just instinct. Except he's dead now, isn't he...and those hard-earned instincts are nothing but decaying synapses in his corpse. Dean turns, glancing every more desperately around the room for some sign of his murderer. No body parts, no tools, no blood. No serial killer. Dean's been wasting too much time. Somewhere outside, a car coughs into life. Dean bolts for it, leaving Tessa behind.
"Dean!" She could follow him, but he knows she won't. He is out of the building before she can say another word. He gets to the loading dock just in time to see Dexter put the car in gear. Dean swears, takes a deep breath and pushes. When he opens his eyes, he's in the car. He's had far too much practice being dead. Dean glances over at his murderer. Dexter drives on, unwitting, and looking far too relaxed for a man with a dead body in the back. After a minute, Dean grins mirthlessly. "Enjoy it while it lasts," he tells Dexter. "You stupid bastard. You're in deep shit without a shovel." Dexter keeps on driving, oblivious. Dean shrugs. "Don't say I didn't warn you."