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Artwork courtesy of Valjean & |
By Valjean
ARCHIVE: No
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Artwork courtesy of Valjean & |
*****
“Hey,” Sam said softly as he saw his brother’s eyelids flutter. “Dean, are you all right?”
“I’m always all right,” the X5 mumbled as he forced his eyes open then squinted against the light of the overhead fluorescents in the recovery room. He raised a hand to his aching head. “What the hell happened to me?”
“You got your ass beaten,” Max said from where she was seated on the other side of the bed.
Dean’s eyes turned toward her, dark blond eyebrows drawn down in puzzlement. He honestly didn’t remember.
“481,” Max said softly. “’Deck had the two of you throw down.”
Dean tried to take a deep breath and winced at the pain. “I gather I lost,” he said. “How bad’s the damage, and for that matter why am I even still alive?” His memory was returning and he recalled some extremely vicious blows to his midsection.
“Four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and some internal bleeding that the docs fixed,” Max said levelly. “You were in surgery for three hours.”
Dean could feel the pressure of a bandage across his abdomen, as well as a dull pain throbbing in his side.
“As for why you’re still alive ...” Max looked across the bed to Sam.
“I made a deal with Lydecker,” his brother said.
“Deal?” Dean said, not understanding. “What kind of deal could you offer the guy?”
“I told him I’d get him information that would take Davis Stendahl’s operation down if he let you live and helped Max.”
The X5 blinked at that, not certain he’d heard correctly. “You what?”
“I told him I’d get Stendahl,” Sam repeated quietly.
“And just how do you propose to do that, bro?” Dean asked as Max held a glass of cool water to his lips. He raised his head from the pillow and drank thirstily until she took it away.
“Not too much,” she admonished him. “You’ll throw up.”
“I’m hungry, too,” Dean said, looking longingly at the water.
“I’ll have them bring some Jell-O,” Max said. “About what Sam said ...”
“Sam just said that to save me,” Dean replied dismissively, at the same time trying to sit up in the bed but giving up when his rib cage shrieked.
“No,” Sam said. “I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain. I really do think I can get into Stendahl’s operation and find the information Lydecker needs ... or rather into his head.”
Dean looked sharply at his brother. “You sayin’ you’re suddenly like Missouri? That you can read minds?”
Sam looked away, uncomfortable.
“Sam!”
“I can try,” he said softly. “You know I have ... abilities. Maybe it’s about time I started being pro-active about usin’ ‘em.”
“Yeah, abilities that give you migraines that rival my serotinin defeciency ones,” Dean pointed out. “You’re gonna kill yourself, Sam.”
“Maybe not.” He smiled slightly. “But at the very least I bought us time, and Lydecker’s agreed to start Max’s treatment immediately.”
Dean looked to Max. “I’ve already had my first injection,” she admitted. “It’s a serum to repair my immune system and make it genetically resistant to the virus Logan infected me with.”
Once again, Dean struggled to sit up, knowing he had to. However, Sam’s hands on his shoulders pushed him back into the pillows. “We’ve got time,” his brother said. “You heal fast. Lydecker’s given us a few days.”
“You’re not goin’ without me,” Dean said adamently.
“Of course not.” Again, Sam looked at Max across the bed, his grey-green eyes guarded.
“Go get him some Jell-O from the cafeteria,” Max said, nodding toward the door. “Your brother and I need to talk about something.”
Sam looked suspicious.
“Not about you,” she assured him.
“What about then?” Dean asked, suddenly wary because Max’s “little talks” could easily turn into vicious scoldings.
“About something that’s been on my mind for awhile,” she replied, “something I want answers to before you really do get yourself killed,” this time her eyes locking with the X5’s. “Cassie Robinson.”
“Sam,” Dean said, his voice oddly flat. “Leave.”
“Leaving,” Sam assured his brother, obviously not eager to get in the middle of a cat fight between the two X5s.
As soon as the door closed behind him Max rounded on the father of her son. “You’re in love with her.” The hurt in her voice made Dean’s already sore gut clench.
“I never meant for you to find out,” he said, not denying Max’s words. “But it’s not like me and Cassie are ever gonna have a future together. We said goodbye, and even though I told her I’d try’n keep in touch I’m pretty sure she’ll move on without me.” He thought a moment. “It’s what I’d do in her place.”
“Why?” Max said simply. “Oh, I know you tom cat around with the ladies, but that’s just sex. Hell, I do the same thing, sleep with good looking guys when I’m horny and you’re not around.”
Dean blinked at that, not liking what he was picturing in his mind.
“Alec,” Max snapped. “A good lay is one thing ... a one night stand ... but this girl ... Sam says you’ve known her for years.”
“Two years to be exact,” Dean said slowly. He held up one hand. “And before you start, me and Cassie became an item long before I ever knew Brac existed. Hell, Max ... you threw me out of your life. You said you never wanted to see me again. What was I supposed to do? Pine for you forever? And even now, it’s not like we’re married or engaged or even dating for that matter. We’re just ... together.”
“She’s an ordinary,” Max said, brown eyes narrowing as jealousy flared in their depths because Dean was right and she knew it. “You always said we were a danger to them. What happened to that idea of yours? I know I ignored your warning but--”
“What happened is I got lonely,” Dean said fiercely, wishing he wasn’t tethered to an I.V. of antibiotics so he could get escape from this interrogation. “And how dare you judge me, Max. Not after what you’ve been doin’ with Logan all these years.”
“I was in love with Logan long before I knew you,” Max said, looking away at the wall. “Deeply in love ...”
“I know. Which is why I never gave you more’n a lustful look for all those years. I wasn’t about to steal another guy’s girl. But then one day you looked back at me and stuff happened. Stuff you were sorry you did.” He swallowed hard. “You hurt me, Max. Bad. Later, so did Cassie, but for different reasons.” He cocked his head to one side. “Cassie to me was just like Logan was to you -- a chance for a normal life -- without the whole demon possession thing Logan had goin’ on of course.”
“Why didn’t you stay with her two years ago?”
“I told her the truth about myself and she couldn’t handle it ... thought I was lyin’ to get out of the relationship.” A ghost of a smile. “She said I had a problem with intimacy. That every time she started to get close to me I backed off.”
“She didn’t believe you were a transgenic?” Max said. “Did you show her your bar code?”
“I never got around to tellin’ her the Freak part,” Dean admitted. “It was my job ... the ghost bustin’ that made her think I was lyin’.”
Max shook her head, looking almost amused. “And this time? When you two hooked up again ... slept together ...”
“Like Sam said,” Dean muttered. “Eccentric pedigree ... eccentric job ... she’s better off without me. We parted ways knowin’ we might cross paths again but neither one of us holdin’ our breaths for it to ever happen.”
“But are you better off without her?”
Dean looked at her steadily. “I don’t know. Am I? Everyone needs to be loved, Max.”
“I love you,” she said. “You know that.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re really a couple. And as for a future ...” He shrugged.
“Genocide hanging over our heads does put a damper on that, doesn’t it. But at least we’re together in the danger. The same tribe ... We understand one another. And then there’s our son.”
“I never told her about Brac either,” Dean admitted, realizing just how much he’d kept from Cassie Robinson. Max, however, knew everything about him, probably right down to the number of hairs on the back of his hand, not to mention his most secret sexual fetishes.
“Do you love her as much as you did Rachel?” Max asked, apparently seeking a measuring stick for his emotions.
Dean thought about that a moment, then shook his head. Rachel was different,” he said. “That whole first love kind of shit that hits you so hard it nearly kills you but it’s never the same again. With Cassie ... it was more realistic.”
“And with me?”
“Max, I love you too, but it’s just that--”
“What?”
“You’re not there for me most of the time. Then again, neither could Cassie be. I mean, shit ... if she was with me this thing that’s after me and Sammy would probably kill her.” He cocked one eyebrow. “I still worry about you, too, Maxie.”
“Alec, you can’t be in love with two women. I won’t let you be.”
“How you gonna stop me?” he asked, for some reason amused as well as beginning to feel infinitely tired. Then again, he’d just come out of surgery and the pain killers were kicking in big time.
“I’ll stop you by making you choose,” she said simply.
“Choice already made,” Dean said without hesitation. He blinked once. “I’m here, aren’t I? With you? Tryin’ to save you life? Max, I’m not in Mississippi with a girl who might have been ‘the one’ for me if I’d been born an ordinary. But I’m not ordinary. I’m an X5. In the long run, that has to rule. I was right when I told you that we’re a danger to them, and you’re right I should have heeded my own advice. Me bein’ with Cassie would only get her killed, either by Manticore or by this demon thing that’s already killed my mom, Jess, and Logan.”
“So,” Max said quietly, standing up to leave. “Where does that leave us?”
“Same place we’ve always been,” Dean said truthfully. “We’re breedin’ partners, Maxie. A pair. Mates. We might not ever be a happily-ever-after couple, but I also don’t think you and I are ever gonna be truly content with anyone else. Sad isn’t it?”
“Devestating,” she said, her full lips quirking in a small smile as her eyes wickedly raked his sheet covered body. Then she bent down and touched her mouth to his. Their kiss was deep, long, hungry, and fulfilling, sealing the bond between them. Dean wished more than anything that the damn morphine wasn’t tugging him toward oblivion, but then again he supposed the Manticore docs wouldn’t appreciate him pullin’ out stitches either.
Max felt his arousal with her hand and her smile broadened against his mouth. “Later,” she purred. “Oh, and Alec ...”
“What?” he mumbled, his voice low and husky with desire and sleep.
“Love ‘em and leave ‘em ... always leave ‘em. And then ... come home to me. Promise?”
“Promise,” Dean murmurred as he drifted off to sleep.
*****
3 Days later
“Your plan sucks.”
“Do you have a better one?” Sam snapped.
“Better’n fakin’ ESP to fool Lydecker into treatin’ Max?” Dean shot back as he sat on the edge of his hospital bed pulling on his boots. “Yeah, I can do better.”
“I’m not faking,” Sam said sullenly as he stood looking out the window at the grey Wyoming winter sky.
“Since when can you read minds?”
“Well, I might have been exagerrating that part,” Sam admitted as he shoved hands into the pockets of his heavy canvas jacket.
Dean hopped off the bed and reached for the t-shirt hanging on the back of a nearby chair, his movements only slightly stiff, his transgenic healing abilities having done their duty. Pulling it on over his head, he freed the magical amulet he always wore, made sure the necklace was on straight, then looked at his brother. “Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“For doin’ what you could to make sure I wasn’t killed. I know you lied to save me, but now we’re faced with owning up to that lie. I think we should just tell Lydecker the truth ... that we can’t take down Stendahl for him.”
Sam stared at him in astonishment. “Since when is lying a problem for you, Dean?”
“Since it’s a lie we’re gonna get tangled up in no matter what we do, and then the consequences will be worse than if we’d told the truth to begin with.”
“If I hadn’t told Lydecker what he wanted to hear, that X5 would have broken your neck,” Sam said quietly.
“I know.”
“And when he finds out I was bluffing--?”
Now it was Dean’s turn to look out the window.
“He’ll stop Max’s treatment,” Sam supplied for him. “And probably order your execution ... maybe mine too. The only way Lydecker will help us is if we cooperate with him ... give him what he wants. Even if we have to bluff.”
Sam was right, and Dean knew it. Still, he honestly didn’t know what to do next.
“Do we know where Stendahl’s base of operations is?” Sam asked.
Dean shrugged. “It’s no secret, at least not his main one.”
“What if we walk in the front door and--”
“What? Surrender? Beg him to shut the place down?”
“What would he do?” Sam continued. “If he came face-to-face with the two of us?”
“Kill you. Cage me,” Dean said simply, his voice clipped. “You’re useless to him. Me ... at the very least I’m breeding stock, provided his neurosurgeons can’t ‘persuade’ me to cooperate. Then there’s always the organ harvest bank ... Healthy X5s are few and far between in this world, bro. We’re worth millions.” Dean reached up and lightly scratched at the bar code on the back of his neck that was beginning to show up again. Being a “marked man” -- literally -- did have its drawbacks.
“Come on, Dean. We’ve overcome greater odds than this. At least Stendahl’s on this plain of existence ... corporeal. What if this was just a job for us? How would we take him down?”
“You really want to go there, Sammy? Killin’ a human being? ‘Cause that’s what it’s gonna take. We’re gonna hafta assassinate Davis Stendahl. It’s the only way to defeat his organization and make sure it stays buried. Then Lydecker’s group will be the only one left and he’ll have clear sailing with the military.”
“I’m not an assassin.”
“Neither am I -- ‘least not any more.”
The two brothers looked at one another. Dean was dressed and ready to go. But go where?
“How are you feeling?” Sam asked softly.
“I’ve been better,” his brother admitted. He stretched lightly and grimaced at the pain in his side and abdomen. “But I’ll live.”
“You’re in no shape for a mission.”
“Well, I don’t exactly have the luxury of stayin’ here to heal any longer now do I?” Dean snarked. “Not since a certain someone has agreed to a ‘Mission Impossible’ for the Devil himself.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. He held up one hand. “For getting you into a mess, but not for saving your life. It really was the only thing I could think to do, Dean ... make Lydecker a promise.”
“I know,” the X5 said gruffly, touched in spite of himself that Sam was so worried about him.
“And at least Max is being helped -- for now.”
“For now,” Dean repeated ominously, his eyes going to the infirmary room door. “She ought to be back soon. Maybe the three of us can come up with a plan.”
Suddenly, the door opened and Lydecker strode in. Worse, he was smiling. “Oh, I have a plan,” the Colonel said. “One that the two of you are going to implement, with or without Sammy’s ‘special abilities.’”
Dean looked up and around the room, feeling like a fool. “The room’s bugged,” he said -- a statement, not a question.
“Of course,” Lydecker said. “And now, if the two of you ... actually make that the three of you ... want to live you’ll do exactly what I say.
*****
“I’m not stupid, I’m not expendable, and I’m not doin’ this!” Dean declared as he paced the parking lot. “And neither are you!” he added with a meaningful look at Sam.
“We have no choice. The Colonel made that clear. At least this way we all have a chance.”
“Sam, it’s a suicide mission!”
“Not necessarily,” the younger Winchester brother argued. “Come on, Dean. We’re good together. We can pull this off.”
“Waltz into a transgenic guarded military facility, copy the hard drive of their top secret server, and waltz back out? Yeah. Right. Piece of cake.”
“Once Lydecker has that data he can take down Stendahl at his leisure,” Sam said. “We don’t even hafta kill the guy ourselves.”
“Point taken,” Dean replied dryly as he stretched arms over his head then winced, for the moment having forgotten his recently removed stitches. “Damn it, Sam. You aren’t trained for undercover work.”
“But you are.”
“Stendahl knows me too well. I’ll never get close enough.”
“Then he’ll need a reason for us to be in his facility that will make him want to keep us alive,” Sam said. “Come on, Dean. You’re a consumate liar. Think of something! What do we have that Stendahl wants?”
“Me.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Exactly,” he said. “What if you offer to join his group voluntarily?”
“He won’t believe me,” Dean said tiredly as he leaned against the hood of the Impala.
“And the procedures will be?”
“I’ll probably be tranquilized, caged, maybe operated on before I ever regain consciousness, lobotomy bein’ the least of it.” He shot a look at Sam. “Not acceptable, in case you hadn’t already reached that conclusion.”
Sam looked at the ground, momentarily defeated. Then suddenly he raised his head, eyes lighting up. “I know what we can do.”
Dean raised one eyebrow.
Sam was blinking, obviously thinking ... looking inward. “We don’t have to take down Stendahl’s whole operation by ourselves in order to ruin it,” he said.
“We don’t?”
Sam glanced up at his older sibling, eyes now expectant ... excited. “We only have to take down the man himself.”
“Kill Stendahl you mean?” Dean said. “Sam, we’ve been here before. Even if I could get close enough to take a shot I don’t wanna--”
“I’m not talking about killing him,” Sam interrupted, gesturing with his hands now. “I’m talking about scaring him into giving up his organization.”
“Scaring him?” Dean didn’t understand -- at all. “How?”
“How else?” Sam said smugly, crossing arms in front of his chest as he, too, leaned against the Impala. “With the supernatural.”
“You mean sick a ghost on the guy?” Dean said, his voice tinged with disbelief. “And this from someone who was cussin’ me out just days ago ‘cause I was dabblin’ in the so-called black arts?”
“He’d have no defense against it,” Sam pointed out. “Not even his X5 army could protect him from the spirit world. He’d have to turn elsewhere for help.” The younger man was staring at Dean who was staring back. “Ya there yet?” Sam prodded.
And then Dean was -- there. He began to slowly nod. “You mean make it so Stendahl has no choice but to come to us for help. And his payment would be--”
“Giving up his military organization and turning things over to the Colonel.”
But of course the ever-practical Dean saw the immediate glitch. “And this ghost would come from where? My ecto-plasma ghostbustin’ gun? Sam, you know that ghosts are elusive critters with minds of their own. How the hell are we gonna make one do what we want it to?”
“Sue Ann controlled a Reaper,” Sam pointed out. “Completely.”
“With a black arts spell book and a cursed Coptic cross,” Dean said. “Yeah, I was there.”
“Dean, we have to do something or Lydecker will let Max die.”
“Actually, I don’t think he will,” Dean said thoughtfully, pushing away from the car and walking, hands in pockets, toward the main Manticore complex building. “She’s special to him ... has some of his dead wife’s DNA.”
“I never knew that,” Sam said, matching his brother’s pace.
“Well, you do now,” Dean replied. “But I wanna see Stendahl gone as much as Lydecker does. So, I’m willing to entertain this harebrained idea of yours, Sammy.” He stopped and faced the younger man. “Tell me first off, where are we gonna get our cooperative ghost?”
“We hold a seance,” Sam said. “And we trap one with a holding spell like the one Sue Ann used on the Reaper.”
“Sam, you saw what that Reaper did to the person who tried to keep it on a leash. Me ... I’m kinda fond of my eyeballs.”
“The maybe we don’t have to use force,” Sam argued. “Maybe we can get a ghost to cooperate with us.”
“What ghost? Or should I ask who’s?” They’d almost reached the door to the Manticore complex.
Sam put a hand on Dean’s forearm, drawing the X5 to a halt. “Someone we know,” he said in a low voice. “Someone willing to help us.”
“Not Mom!” Dean said loudly.
“No,” Sam assured him. “Besides, Missouri said Mom’s spirit is gone. It would have to be someone who’s still ... hanging around, for want of a better way of puttin’ it. We could summon it. We have the spellbooks. And ghosts can be bargained with. We just need to offer it the right incentive.”
“Such as?” Dean scoffed.
Sam shrugged. “Eternal peace maybe? An end to its suffering in the inbetween plain?”
“Now who do we know -- or rather knew -- that would fit the bill?” Dean asked, obviously still not believing Sam’s plan could possibly work. “What dead person -- besides Mom -- do we know who might want to help us?”
“Our brother,” Sam said simply.
“Who?”
“Our brother,” Sam repeated as he reached out to open the complex’s door. “Ben.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Dead serious.”
“Well, the dead part would probably be right -- if we resurrect that psycho killer.”
“Dean, he was our flesh and blood. That has to count for something.”
“493 was an assassin,” Dean replied tightly.
“So were you.”
Jaw clenched, the X5’s eyes shifted to the younger man as he stuffed hands in the pocket of his jacket. “I’m different. I didn’t go schitzo.”
“I still say it’s a plan,” Sam insisted. “We have the binding spell, the same one Sue Ann used. We can summon Ben and order him to do our bidding ... to haunt Stendahl until the guy either begs us to help him or goes nuts. Either way, his group goes down.”
“Why do you think Ben’s even hangin’ around as a spirit?” Dean asked, feeling like he was being backed into a corner and not liking it one bit.”
“The way he lived, not to mention died,” Sam replied. “Do you even need to ask. Spirits are born out of anger and hate and frustration. I think brother Ben was pretty full of all three.” Sam stepped ahead of his brother and put a hand out, stopping Dean in his tracks. “He yanked the teeth out of his victims’ heads, for God’s sake, Dean. Of course his spirit isn’t at rest.”
Dean put a hand to his head and rubbed one temple, feeling a headache coming on. “We’ll need Max for this,” he finally said with a heavy sigh. “She knew him best.”
*****
“You want to do what?” Max said loudly. She was lying in a hospital bed, wearing nothing but a blue gown and hooked up to a bank of I.V.s. However, Dean could tell she was better. There was more color in her cheeks and a bit of the old sparkle back in her eyes. Noting this, he relaxed his tense shoulders a little bit, in spite of the battle he saw coming.
“We want to summon Ben’s spirit and command it to haunt Stendahl,” Sam informed her, as if saying something sane and normal.
“You can do that?” Max asked, the question directed at her mate.
“Maybe,” Dean said with a look toward Sam. “We have the spell, and Sam just might have the power. Then there’s the connection ... I’m his identical twin. That’s considered pretty close on the psychic plain. But ... we’ll need your help too, Max. Someone will have to talk to him and Sam and I are strangers to him.”
“You really never met him?” Sam asked.
“No,” Dean said. Then he smirked. “Well, once -- in a test tube. Hell, I never even knew the guy existed until I started gettin’ punished for his sins as a kid.” He shot a look in Max’s direciton. “They thought Ben Boy’s aberrations might be genetic.”
“And they weren’t,” Max said quickly. “Psy-ops cleared you.
And Dean knew she’d thought about that before, perhaps even been worried about him or possibly Brac. Schitzophrenia sometimes was hereditary, or at least the tendency toward it.
“And I’m still fine,” the X5 assured her. “No delusions of dentistry at all.”
“Guys,” Sam said. “If we’re gonna do this we need to get our act together.”
“So what?” Dean asked. “We hold a seance?”
“Basically, yeah,” Sam replied as Max scowled.
“No,” She said. “Not that I even believe you guys can do this -- conjure Ben’s ghost. But if you can ... I think we need to leave my brother resting in peace, not resurrect his ass for a mission.”
“How do we know he’s at peace, Max?” Dean said quietly -- a question that had teased the back of his brain for a long time now. After all, his mother certainly hadn’t been at peace. “Isn’t the first step in all of this to check and see where Ben really is? If he’s even ... reachable.”
“You make it sound like you’re gonna give him a ring on your cell phone,” Max said sourly. She started to cross arms in front of her chest but then remembered the I.V. lines and settled for scowling deeply instead.
“We’ll use a more old fashioned method than that,” Sam said easily. He tapped the side of his head with a forefinger.
“Have you ever done this kind of thing before?” Max wondered. “Summoned someone’s spirit?”
“Not deliberately,” Dean admitted, now watching his brother closely. “Sammy’s powers--”
“Don’t call it that,” Sam said. “You make it sound like I’m a Jedi knight or something.”
“Sammy’s abilities are a recent development.” Dean had a thought. “Maybe we should ask Missouri for help with this.”
“She wouldn’t,” Sam said quickly. “Help that is.”
“Why not?”
“She just wouldn’t.”
“What or who is ‘Missouri’?” Max asked.
“Old friend,” Dean said. “A psychic we know back in Kansas. But she’d bust our asses if she knew we were meddlin’ with the black arts.”
“Again,” Sam pointed out. “And Dad would have a stroke.”
Dean nodded.
“I still don’t like it,” Max finally said, her dark brown eyes drawn with worry. She looked up at Dean. “But I trust you guys, and we do owe Lydecker. And I suppose this plan isn’t any more dangerous or stupid than assaulting Stendahl’s base ourselves.”
“An option we can always save for later,” Dean pointed out. “If this fails.” He looked at Sam. “Do we have everything we need? And if so, where do you want to do it?”
“We’ve got the spell, me, you, and Max,” Sam said quietly as he began arranging three of the room’s chairs in a small circle, using the fourth to block the door. He glanced up at the monitoring camera.
“That can’t be helped,” Dean said. “If we knock it out, security will be on us in a flash.”
Max picked up her cell phone from the nightstand. “I’ll take care of that,” she said. A small smile. “I’ll tell Deck my ‘mate’ and I need some privacy.”
Dean raised one eyebrow at that and Sam snorted a laugh. However, sure enough, after Sam spoke a few words into the cell, the light on the security monitoring camera changed from red to yellow -- standby mode.
It was already growing dark outside, but Sam drew the curtains anyway. Dean flipped off the lightswitch leaving the room in relative darkness. Sam sat down in one of the chairs, the book in his lap. Dean took the seat to his right and Max -- I.V. line still in place -- hopped out of bed to take her place on Sam’s left. The seance was about to begin.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
