Bellatrix-la-dumb's request: more about the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Don't forget to check out her stories if you want some really heavy canon-compliant well written angst.
No musical dare here, because this one is not that angsty in my humble opinion. There's a little less aggravation, a little more action here.
By the way, I noticed that some of you want to read more about pre-endverse situations, so, well... Some of you already know that these one-shots were intended to be a part of a bigger story I started to write, a 2009-2014 AU diverging from the canon from s05e03 and going all the way to The End. I started posting it some time ago, but discontinued the story because the task was just too big.
Much of what you could probably want to read is there - Sam saying yes, Dean and Sam taking separate ways, Dean and Cas getting together etc. Now these two works are no longer compatibile because I wrote alternative versions of Cas losing his grace and Dean and Cas getting together for this one ( both of these things happen in the other work in a different way), but I guess you still might find the other one interesting. The title is "Whatever choices you make".
He should not have stopped. He thought he could lie his way through the cordon, and he much preferred it to trying to yomp it, but it was a mistake. He should have at least tried. After all, he'd taken one of the old pickups that rotted in Bobby's yard in case he would need to ram something or withstand shooting. He should have tried.
He rolls the window down to hear a big, ageless man clad in full battle gear yell:
"Get out of here!"
Dean can hardly recognize a human in the boxy form covered in kevlar, carbon fiber and camo. His voice is so raucous that it rises over the turmoil of screams and car horns of crowd running away from where Dean was heading, mixed with the roar of engines and rotors of military choppers above their heads.
"I just need to find someone and I'll join another group further south," Winchester tries to negotiate; the man adjusts his hold on his machine gun and gestures with his head, calling someone up. Another soldier, identical to the first one save for the rank, comes closer.
"What's up, Cody?"
"Sir, this man here is…" "I just need to.." The younger soldier and Dean begin in unison.
"Get out of the car," Comes a dispassionate order from the commander.
"So how do I get to Cleveland?"
"You don't. Get out of the car."
Tension scintillates between them for a moment before it discharges in a harsh yap:
"Out. Now."
Black void of a gun barrel pointed directly at his face gives him no choice.
The moment the door closes behind his back, he realizes how bad the situation looks. He needs to be over there, behind the line of military outposts, armored carriers and makeshift barricades, but he's helpless against the current of an endless river of people. He starts to drift with it, herded and rushed by the army. None of them has the slightest idea what was happening. None of them will understand.
No. He has to try.
"I'm telling you, I can fend for…"
He is cut off by the commander's snarl:
"Sure, honey. Evacuation is mandatory. State of emergency. Rings a bell?"
"I have to find someone," Dean balances between anger and fear, "Cas is there," he adds, as if it means anything, "He's my…" he stammers, stunned by how fake 'friend' would feel. There is only one word in Dean's vocabulary that would describe what Cas means to him, how much he needs to find him; he offers it to the soldier like a prayer, desperately hoping that the man can relate, "He's my brother."
"Listen, missy. I don't give a damn who he is. Hotline for relatives will be up in hours, now get the hell out of here or I'll make you."
Winchester bites back a furious snort.
"Hotline," he grinds out under his breath, "as if he knew how to use a damn phone."
"What is he, challenged?" the commander bares his teeth in an ugly smirk, "Then you might as well stop looking. I hear some serious crap went down in Detroit and Cleveland. I don't think a retarded brat got out alive."
So Dean does the only thing that is left to do: punches these teeth as hard as he can.
-x-X-x-
He wakes up in a moving coach full of refugees, handcuffed to the headrest of the seat in front of him. It takes him some time to take in the surroundings and when he finally does, he feels an ice-cold weight of a realization pin him to the ground.
Cas doesn't have a name, no ID, nothing. No way Dean can find him.
They haven't agreed on any aliases.
Cas is going to look for Dean Winchester. They're going to tell him that Dean Winchester is dead.
After a moment of sheer terror the hunter remembers Bobby. Robert Singer. A proper name, a proper address, even a landline. If everything else fails, they'll meet at Bobby's. They're okay.
It's not until his pulse slows down a bit that Dean realizes he hasn't been breathing.
-x-X-x-
The staircase is the best viewpoint. It doesn't give much scope, but it lets one observe those that are moving. It's a bottleneck; people move slowly, elbowing one another, yelling and swearing, but at least it organizes the flow of refugees flooding a school building which has been adapted as a temporary shelter; it stops them from meandering aimlessly in a chaotic search for any familiar face, for anyone who could know, who could at least give them hope.
Every once in a while someone shouts out a name and tries to break through the thick, grinding crowd. Sometimes when he or she finally manages to do it, two people throw themselves into each other's arms, crying out in joy. Sometimes he or she comes to an abrupt halt a few meters from the other person and looks down to hide the disappointment.
Dean can''t imagine how much his own heart would race until he catches a glimpse of the familiar unkempt dark-chocolate hair and recognizes this springy, but hesitant walk. Something is wrong though. There's no sign of beige or black, there's gray and denim blue instead, but it's Cas. Yes, Dean can now finally see his profile, the man doesn't turn around, he doesn't see Dean, but there's no way Dean could mistake this head tilt or the way that man looks around, lost and curious at the same time; it's Cas, so Dean shouts out his name and runs down the stairs, elbowing people, ramming them, clawing through the tangle of sweaty bodies until he can finally reach out and…
The blood runs cold in his veins; his limbs feel limp and heavy. He freezes with his hand hovering inches from the man's shoulder. It looks so much like the scene from his nightmares he's been having for days now. Cas turning around to greet him, pulling him into a hug, then letting go to move away for an arm's length, blinking to reveal cold, black eyes.
"Christo," the hunter chokes out. Cas twitches, turns around, looks at him, confused and dazed until disbelief, relief, joy and fondness flash through his face. He tilts his head slightly; his brows knot as if he was asking 'really? even now?' and the hunter doesn't even have to look at the anti-possession charm Cas presents to know that it's him, it's really him. Dean staggers forward, pulling the angel into a hug.
"I prayed to you," he breathes into the mess of those dark hair, "Every night. Haven't you heard me?"
"I am so sorry," the angel replies timidly when they finally break the embrace, "I fell faster and lower than I thought I would. I won't be of much use."
Now that he's crossed finding Cas out of the list of the most urgent matters he'd have to deal with, the awareness of the rest of them hits him with a double force.
"Where the hell is Michael? What's his plan now? Sucker didn't answer my prayers either."
Cas's takes a step back, his eyes darken. He casts his eyes down to gather himself before he can look at Dean again and when he does, there's no sign of joy.
"Michael and the rest of the angels… They left. Fled. Dean, we are on our own. I don't think we can win this time. It's over."
Fear and anger make Dean's lips thin, but despite himself he tries to keep himself from breaking:
"Bullshit, Cas. We'll figure something out," he pats Cas shoulders warily. Distance between them starts to grow, "Are you coming?"
After an instant of hesitation, the angel straightens up, lifts his chin. His gaze lingers on Dean's face, hopeful, searching, full of disbelief, almost of wonder. It seems that he's found what he was looking for, because he nods decidedly. Only his jaws clenching for an instant and a slightest flutter of his eyelids give away his anxiety.
"Of course."
-x-X-x-
There is something humiliating about being confined in a coach, forced to accept the driver's own lazy tempo and style, to sit close to other people who chat, eat, sleep, snore, cough, get sick and smell. The smell is the worst. It's nothing defined, nothing sharp or standing out, nothing he could put his finger on, but Dean feels the fug soaking into his lungs and skin, making it itch, making him feel dirty.
He has to accept moving in the wrong direction too - away from where he needs to be, from Lucifer. He has to know his plan if he is to react in any way. There is nothing Cas could do - his grace is now just a tiny flicker. It doesn't even suffice to keep the fallen angel immortal, let alone let him fly. All they can do is to sit side by side, let themselves be escorted by the army in an overburdened coach and try to be ready to act whenever an opportunity presents itself.
That's why they immediately shake off the slackness and sit bolt upright when the coach comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of a section of the road winding through a forest. Dean hears loud questions and commands coming from the humvee that preceded the coach in the column. Raised voices from another army vehicle that was closing the column follow soon after. Multiple pairs of funky eyes follow him as he walks down the aisle to see what happened. Just as he takes the view in, he hears a stifled curse just behind his back - he doesn't know the language, but he is sure it is a curse from the tone of it. Cas, who has followed him, must have realized the same.
And there is no way the soldiers will know what to do. They're so disoriented at first that they don't even mind Dean, who pulls the emergency door release despite the driver's protest and joins the men standing next to their vehicle, staring sheepishly at the group of people blocking the road.
Except that these are not people. Winchester recognizes that empty stare, that slight swaying and stiff shoulders. Croats. He exchanges a quick look with Cas, who found himself right beside him in a second. The angel seems concerned, but not too afraid; Dean realizes that he must underestimate human stubbornness. Two or thee dozen Croats are not a problem if you have machine guns and grenades, but said weapons are now in the hands of people who will probably do more harm than good. Winchester feels like he is treading on thin ice.
Even those, who have never seen infected people before sense something sinister. The silence can't mean anything good. A young soldier, the humvee's driver, sinks into his seat; Three others, who have exited the car, kick their heels nervously to mask taking small, but deliberate steps back. Their grip on their assault rifles is so tight that their knuckles go white.
"I said identify yourselves!" the older one shouts out again, but there's hesitation in his voice now, "What are you doing here?"
"They won't answer," Dean offers as calmly as he can.
"What? Who do you think you are?"
"They're sick. Infected. Incurable," the hunter explains, "It's a rare virus, but there might be a big outbreak," he adds, having noticed dubiousness in the soldier's look.
"How do you know?"
"I've seen it before. It's a rare motherfucker, but it spreads fast."
"It makes people violent," Cas adds.
The soldier exhales sharply through his nose - Winchester wishes he knew what it could mean. The man seems to be hesitant, though. It is a good sign. It means that he doesn't disregard what Dean said right away.
"Come over, we've got a situation here!" the commander yells towards the other vehicle crew, then turns to his the men standing near him, "We need to contain them..." he states, seeking eye contact with his subordinates. They nod slightly, uncertain as to what exactly the commander could mean. Containing is a nice, big word, but it means nothing when one is standing face to face with a group of irresponsive, potentially dangerous civilians. Especially when a stir moves through the group of Croats and they start walking towards the group of people - slowly, but steadily.
"You need to fight them," Dean barks. The situation is hanging by a thread.
"I won't open fire to U.S. citizens!" the commander announces sharply, pressingly, as if he had to convince himself.
Dean hear Cas turn abruptly; he follows his cue to see the coach driver standing on the entrance's lowest step.
"Oh, honey, I am afraid you won't have to..." he says as he raises his hand. Though the man is huge, obese and in his fifties, Dean recognizes Meg's honeyed voice right away. He also recognizes her cold, cruel smirk that looks so wrong on a man's stubbly face when she turns to look at the hunter, "I really shouldn't be there, but you see, I have always had a thing for your family. Great Dean Winchester is about to go down. I couldn't miss it, could I? Luckily, my father gave me a day off. By the way, he looks stunning in his new meat..."
There's an unrest among the soldiers, but the tableau holds, disturbed only by the scuff of the Croat's steady walk. Thoughts swarm in Dean's head - he could convince the soldiers that Croats posed a threat, but they won't help him against the driver. He tries to remember the interior of the coach - where he placed his scarce belongings, where he could find water or silver - but it gets irrelevant when the first gunshot rips the silence.
He gets down, pulled by Cas just as the chaos breaks out. Guns start to roar at once. A series coming from the other Humvee scuffs up sparks from the tailgate of the vehicle on the front - it is something neither Dean, nor the soldiers expected, so all remnants of order snap. The coach is caught in a disordered crossfire; Winchester hears groans of pain all but drowned out by the thundering clatter of machine guns. He wants to scramble to all fours, but Cas holds him down firmly.
"We need to get my blades," he hisses right to Dean's ear, pushing him slightly towards the vehicle's open door. Winchester crawls inside - the Humvee driver would know where the confiscated weapons are, so Dean tries to wring it out from him, but all he gets is a panicked look. Horror makes the driver - the kid, because he's not older than twenty - completely mute. Dean follows his blank stare to see smudges of black smoke swarming over the road.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Cas make a dive for the coach; even through the screams and gunshot clatter he can hear him yell:
"Pray! Do you hear me? They can't possess a man or woman who is praying... If you want to live, people, pray!"
Just as he starts a frantic search of the car's interior for his confiscated weapons, more cries of pain start coming from inside the coach.
-x-X-x-
The silence that falls after the last demon dies at the angel blade in Dean's hand is deafening. The hunter stands still for a while, panting and swearing under his breath, before he can straighten up to take a look around.
The road is strewn with dead bodies of Croats, soldiers and many civilians who ran out of the coach in panic; blood stains the clothes and puddles underneath most of them, but some people just lay there with their eyes wide open and their mouths burned out by demons who killed them from the inside. There were just six of them - Meg and those who possessed the crew of the other humvee, but they jumped from host to host so fast that Winchester wasn't even sure where they were. He remembers killing three and seeing Cas kill two, so Meg must have fled, but he doesn't even have the strength to care. One look at the angel, who is standing a few dozen feet down the road with an angel blade dripping with blood in his hand lets Dean know that Cas feels the same.
He's about to throw the child-soldier's dead body from the driver's seat and try to hotwire the humvee when a high, modulated sound catches his attention. It's coming from inside the couch. Winchester sneaks inside, his blade ready, carefully stepping over bodies that encumber the aisle. As he is getting closer, he can discern words of a prayer, muttered over and over by a girl who sits stiff in her seat, shell-shocked.
Dean hesitantly places a hand on her shoulder; she jolts, then casts him a scared look, but she gathers herself quickly - surprisingly quickly for someone who has just witnessed at least seventy people slaughter each other for no reason.
" It's okay, you're safe," Dean allays her, "I'm not one of them."
"Prove it," she snaps. Her eyes grow wide when the hunter cuts his own forearm with the blade he was wielding, but she nods with understanding as fresh blood starts dripping from the cut. Winchester guesses that she has already psyched out that demons bleed russet light instead of blood. She must have observed that much.
"My name is Dean," he doesn't offer his hand, which is still covered in the demon's and Croat's blood, "and that little guy there, it's Cas."
"Risa. Risa Rivera," the girl replies, still eyeing Dean with slowly melting distrust.
"Okay, Risa. We need to get you to safety."
As he staggers out of the coach he starts to realize how exhausted he is. His legs buckle beneath him just as he reaches the first Humvee's front door, so he pulls himself onto the seat using his arms. Cas and Risa join him soon after. He forces his muscles to work in unison so that he can take a few deep, deliberate breaths, working his own body like it was a separate being. Steadying his breath has never been so difficult.
Before he drives off, he takes one final look at the carnage. He realizes he should feel something, he should feel guilt, fear, he should be sorry for the victims, disgusted at the puddle of blood on the upholstery, he shoud at least be ashamed for not trying to bury the dead; he knows that these feelings will eventually come, they will bring nausea, sleepless nights, and fever, he will writhe, retch and sweat for hours, but for now there is nothing but the dull pain throbbing in his muscles. It's almost like his soul snapped, caved in on itself under the weight of what he had to see. He feels nothing.