Chapter Text
Chapter Six:
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
“Dean, let me out of here! DEAN! LET ME OUTTA HERE! LET ME OUT! DEAN!”
Dean kept putting one foot in front of the other as he climbed the stairs out of Bobby’s basement. Sam was trying his damnedest to pound down the iron door with his bare fists and the banging echoed through the whole house. He knew that because Mercy was at the top of the steps waiting for him in rumpled pajamas, and it didn’t look like she’d gotten in a wink of sleep all night.
“Don’t go down there,” he told her sternly.
Mercy shuffled awkwardly, and when she lifted her foot to scratch at her opposite ankle, he noticed the hem of her plaid pants had slipped over her heel because they were too big. She looked so much younger than thirteen in that moment. “Is… is Sammy gonna be okay?” she asked eventually, pinning him with her sad baby blues.
His breath caught. That was the first thing she’d said since Castiel had left. She’d been silent the whole car ride, and immediately went to her room upon getting home. He hadn’t meant to pry, but when he’d gone to check on her later, he’d seen her praying at the foot of her bed. That had been two days ago.
“Of course he is,” he found himself saying. “I won’t let him not be.”
Her smile was small, but it was there. “I guess that’s true.”
“LEMME OUT! LEMME OUT!”
Mercy’s eyes widened at Sam’s renewed screaming and Dean grabbed her by the scruff, leading her further away from the basement. He wished Mercy didn’t have to be here for this, but this was her home and she didn’t have anywhere else.
A whine caught his attention, and he almost jumped when he saw a dark shape moving in the corner of his eye. Mercy got on her knees and called, “C’mere Remi!” and that big black Pitbull of hers slunk out of the shadows with his tail between his legs.
“Some guard dog he is,” Dean commented stiffly. He’d never been too fond of dogs to begin with, but after being dragged to hell by one he’d liked them even less, especially ones with black fur and big teeth like Remington.
Mercy flashed him a scowl. “You know animals can be sensitive to the supernatural. He’s a good boy- Sam just freaks him out.”
His face twisted up when she smacked a huge kiss on the dog’s wet nose. “Disgusting.”
She flipped him the bird.
Bobby was in the study. He’d dug up an old bottle of scotch whiskey, and to Dean’s surprise, three tumblers. He didn’t say anything when the older man handed Mercy one of the glasses with the smallest bit of amber liquid in it. She didn’t either, though she did look at it mistrustfully from where she was curled up on the couch with Remington’s big head in her lap. But when Sam’s hoarse shouting escalated again, Mercy knocked the drink back like it was a shot.
It was almost enough to make Dean laugh despite the severity of the situation. Oh, to be so young and naïve in the ways of alcohol. That kind of whiskey was supposed to be sipped slowly over a period of time. There was no way her lightweight ass wouldn’t feel that singing through her veins within seconds.
She was coughing from the burn, but held the glass back out to Bobby like she wanted more. “I don’t think so,” Bobby said, looking like he was already regretting his choice.
No one spoke for a long moment. It sounded like Sam was being tortured downstairs, and finally Dean couldn’t take it anymore. “How long is this gonna go on?”
Bobby took a long drag from his own glass. “Here, let me look it up in my demon-detox manual,” he said sarcastically, reaching for a random book. “Oh wait- no one ever wrote one… No telling how long it’ll take. Hell, or if Sam will even live through it.”
Dean didn’t appreciate the cynicism, but the phone rang before he could scrounge up a biting reply. “’Lo?” Bobby answered after digging the phone out his back pocket. “Suck dirt and die, Rufus. You call me again, I’ll kill ya.”
The oldest Winchester raised an eyebrow, wondering what had happened between the occasional hunting partners. “What’s up with Rufus?” he probed.
“He knows.” The phone rang again and Bobby sighed, reaching for the offending object. “I’m busy you sonofabitch this better be important,” he snapped. The grizzled hunter was quiet for a moment as he listened intently, and by the time Rufus was done speaking and had hung up, there was a deep furrow in his brow.
Bobby got up and went over to his printer, which had kicked to life. Rufus must have faxed something over and Dean waited impatiently as Bobby skimmed over the still hot papers, which appeared to be several news articles from a variety of different outlets.
“The news,” he grumbled, passing them over to Dean. “It ain’t good.”
“This is what Rufus called out?” he asked. “‘Key West sees ten species go extinct’?”
“Yup, plus Alaska- 15-man fishing crew all stricken blind, cause unknown. New York- teacher goes postal, locks the door, kills exactly 66 kids. All this in a single day?”
“They’re all seals~” Mercy called in a sing-song voice.
The two older men looked over at her sharply, and Dean refrained from rolling his eyes. She had her grubby little hand wrapped around Dean’s empty glass, which had been full not five minutes ago, and was hanging upside down on the couch now, face flushed bright red from a combination of the alcohol and gravity.
“You’re sure?” Dean asked.
Mercy hiccuped. “Mmhmm.”
“Do you know how many are left?”
There was a grunt as Mercy rolled off the couch. It took a few seconds for her to figure how to sit up properly again, but eventually she managed. “I dunno. Three? Four? I only know most of ‘em. Cassie wouldn’t even tell me what the last one was and it was supposed to be super big important, but I don’t think he knew either. Heaven’s so need-to-know, which is really suspicious and I don’t like it. You know what else I don’t like? Toothpaste that isn’t minty. It’s like, what’s the point? I saw cinnamon flavored toothpaste the other day. Whose idea was that? What dumbo was like, I know, let’s all brush our teeth with hellfire.”
It was good to know Mercy was the kind of drunk who could run her mouth for hours about whatever inane topic crossed her mind. Bobby shook his head, apparently deciding, and rightly so, to ignore her drunk, underage ass. “There can’t be many,” he said to Dean. “Where the hell are your angel pals?”
“You tell me,” he replied tiredly, throwing the news articles down on Bobby’s desk.
There was a long silence from the older hunter. Mercy had started humming Highway to Hell under her breath as she scratched behind Remington’s ears. “I’m just wondering,” Bobby eventually spoke up.
“What?” Dean asked shortly.
“With the apocalypse being nigh and all, is now really the time to be having this little domestic drama of ours?”
Dean frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t like this anymore than you do, but Sam can kill demons. He’s got a shot at stopping Armageddon-”
“So, what?” Dean cut in. “We sacrifice Sam’s life, his soul, for the greater good? Is that what you’re saying? Times are bad, so let’s use Sam as a nuclear warhead?”
Bobby sighed, shaking his head in frustration. “Look, I know you hate me for suggesting it. I hate me for suggesting it. I love that boy like a son. All I’m saying is, maybe he’s here right now instead of on the battlefield, ‘cause we love him too much.”
Dean felt like the wind had been knocked out his sails. There was some voice buried deep inside him that whispered, What if Bobby’s right? When has he ever led you astray? But every other cell in his body, every instinct John Winchester had drummed into his oldest son about taking care of Sammy, making sure Sammy’s okay screamed that Ruby couldn’t be trusted, and even if by some miracle the demon wasn’t manipulating Sam’s ass five ways to Sunday, there was nothing on God’s green earth, or off of it for that matter, that Dean Winchester would ever sacrifice his little brother for, no matter how mad or disappointed in him he got.
“How can you love someone too much?” Mercy’s quiet voice asked.
And Dean had to shut his eyes. A lot of ways, he wanted to tell her, but this can’t be one of them. Only, Mercy was too drunk to have a rational conversation, so Dean reached down and scooped her up in a princess carry. “You need to go to bed,” he said instead, nodding curtly to Bobby when he passed to let him know he had her.
Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she pushed her head into the crook of his neck. “I don’t wanna,” she whispered as he started up the stairs to her room.
“Yeah? Why not?”
“The nightmares.”
The smallness of her voice caused his chest to tighten. “You’re still having those dream about Alistair?” he asked regretfully, knowing the only reason she’d been in that warehouse was because of him.
She shook her head and said so softly he had to strain his ears, “Not Alistair.”
“Then what?”
He used his hip to bump the door to her room open and set her down in bed. The sheets had all been kicked to the floor, a sign that whatever sleep she’d been getting was restless, and he bent over to pick them up.
“Sammy.”
Dean’s hand froze reaching for the comforter. “What?”
“They were about Sammy, not Alistair,” she said and there were tears in her voice. “You didn’t see what he did to Alistair. You didn’t see Alistair’s face after he’d died, or hear how he screamed. And I didn’t want them,” she said quickly. “But they kept happening.”
He couldn’t help but wonder why she’d never had nightmares about him knowing what he’d done in hell. Knowing what he’d done when she was just outside that door. But he supposed knowing and seeing were two different things. Dean understood. Maybe he hadn’t seen what Sammy had done to Alistair, but he had seen how he’d turned that demon in the warehouse into an extra-large cherry slushy, and that was nightmare fuel enough.
“Sam would never hurt you,” Dean said, hoping it was true. Junkies would do terribly awful things to get their next hit.
“Wasn’t that,” Mercy murmured, and her eyes had slipped shut the second her head had found the pillow. “Wasn’t scared he’d hurt me. M’scared he’s hurting himself.”
Dean pulled the comforter up to her chin and watched as she nuzzled into it. “You’re a good kid,” he told her.
“M’not.”
“You are… Good night, Merce.”
“Night, De,”
On his way out, Dean hit the light. What Mercy said had steeled his resolve, because she was right. Sam was hurting himself. And Dean would be damned back to hell if he let that happen on his watch any longer.
-M-
The next morning, Mercy woke up with what Dean assured her was just a regular, old hangover, and not a reaper breathing down her neck to take her to an early grave, which was a pity, because a long nap under a dirt blanket seemed more enjoyable than the morning she spent with her head in the toilet. The only positive was that the sounds of her own puking were loud enough in the bathroom’s fantastic acoustics to drown out Sam screaming for mercy in what had effectively become their very own in-home dungeon.
When she stumbled downstairs, pale and shaking from heaving almost all of her guts into the Sioux Fall’s sewer system, Dean handed her a glass of water and a couple of Aspirin.
“Thanks,” she muttered, downing the lot.
“Uh-huh, you’re lucky I’m so nice. Bobby wanted to leave you to suffer through the consequences of your first night binge-drinking without any happy-pills. Do you even remember anything?”
She scowled, because she didn’t, not really, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “I’d hardly call that binge-drinking. It was like, a glass and a half of whiskey,” she said in her defense.
Dean opened his mouth, probably with a witty remark about her virgin liver that she wouldn’t be able to find funny in her current state, but the echoes of Sam shouting for help reverberated through the kitchen with renewed vigor. Mercy winced and rubbed at the lines in her forehead with her thumb.
“What day is it?” she asked
“Three.”
“No, not of his detox- of the week.”
“Oh.” Dean scratched at the back of his head. “Monday?”
She felt her shoulders slump and she looked at the time. It was going on eleven in the morning. If she left within the hour, she could make it in time for her last few classes of the day. The thought of going to school with the monster stomping through her head like Godzilla was nauseating, but anywhere was better than here.
“Would it be selfish if I went to school?” she asked Dean.
He looked at her like she was crazy. “What, because you don’t want to be here while Sammy’s sweating the hell-juice out of his system? I will drive your sorry, hungover ass to school right now if that’s what you want,” he told her.
Mercy cracked a tired smile. “Thanks, but I can bike. You should be here with your brother,” she said.
Dean nodded, and she could tell he’d rather stay as close as possible just in case too. She got dressed in what was essentially glorified pajamas, brushed her teeth, and tied her hair back into a nub of a ponytail so she wouldn’t have to deal with how stringy and greasy it was, before hopping on her bike and heading to school. Half-way there she realized she’d forgotten her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in a motel in Iowa, and, besides that, had never finished her reading.
She couldn’t find it within herself to care.
Bobby must have called her in sick or something, because the secretary was surprised to see her. The overly-cheery woman in horn-rimmed glasses gave her a late pass anyway and sent her on her way to sixth period after Mercy spun a tale of getting food poisoning but feeling better and really not wanting to miss an ELA quiz she was supposed to have today.
Of course, that was the truth. They did have a quiz on the last three chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, the last three chapters she hadn’t had time to read, and the class was in the middle of taking it when she strolled in ten minutes late. She spotted Kelsey at the front of the room, and her friend, along with most of the class, looked up when she shut the door. Kelsey’s brown eyes widened when she saw her, and Mercy just shook her head as she took her spot, and flipped over the quiz waiting at her desk to the front page.
Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t answer most of the questions. And when Ms. Barnes called on her to participate later in class, it was very obvious she had no clue what they were discussing. Her teacher gave her a disappointed frown that Mercy couldn’t care less about.
Kelsey cornered her after class. “Where have you been all day?” she demanded, looking her up and down. “You look like actual hell.”
“Trust me, I don’t,” Mercy muttered. “I was just sick this morning.”
“You look sick now, M,” Kelsey said frankly, and she reached out and put her hand against Mercy’s forehead. “I don’t think you have a fever, but maybe you should still go home. You’re not okay. I’ve never seen you bomb participation so hard.”
Mercy laughed under her breath humorlessly. “It wasn’t that bad, and I appreciate the concern, but trust me, it’s better I’m here than at home right now.”
She hadn’t realized she’d given too much away until Kelsey’s mouth curved down sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean? You really worry me sometimes, Mercy. You know I don’t mind, but it’s suspicious that you’re not allowed to have friends over, and that time you broke your ribs? What was that? You miss school a lot with no warning, and don’t give me that crap about food poisoning or period cramps. What’s going on at your home that its safer to come to school like this than be there?”
“Nothing,” Mercy said quickly, probably too quickly if she was being honest, but she wasn’t on top of her game. “Nothing, I just- I have family visiting and I don’t want to get them sick, you know?”
Kelsey looked at her hard like she could pry the truth out of her if she just stared long enough. When the warning bell for next period rang, she sighed and said, “Fine, don’t tell me. Just, if you ever need somewhere to go, you can come to my place, okay?”
It was when she was sitting in science that Mercy realized how fucked up this whole situation was. Kelsey thought she was being abused at home or something, and she couldn’t even defend her family because what could she say?
‘Oh, by the way, it was a demon that broke my ribs, not my uncle like you’re thinking. And the reason I don’t want to be home right now is because one of the men who is like a brother to me is addicted to demon blood and detoxing in the dungeon. Don’t worry about me though, the only thing you should worry about is the impending freakin apocalypse we’ve been unsuccessfully trying to stop for a year now.’
Yeah, right.
Part of her wanted to take Kelsey up on her offer, but Mercy knew that would be selfish, and also like admitting something was wrong when there wasn’t, not really, not like that, so at the end of the day, she went straight home even though she was dreading it. She dragged her sorry ass inside and was heading to the kitchen for a snack when she heard it.
“-won’t bite my tongue any longer. We’re killing him.”
The air in Mercy’s chest dissipated at Bobby’s curt voice.
“Keeping him locked up down there- this cold turkey thing isn’t working. If- if he doesn’t get what he needs soon, Sam’s not gonna last much longer.”
She didn’t mean to be eavesdropping, but a part of her thought if they knew she was there they’d stop having such a frank conversation. Mercy strained her ear. She didn’t hear any more of what they were saying until Dean suddenly shouted, “Then at least he dies human!”
And, oh. Sam was dying.
Mercy treaded noiselessly down the hall, sticking to the carpet and jumping one of the creaky floorboards so they wouldn’t know she’d been there. The door to the basement was open, but all was quiet, for once. She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, half-expecting Dean to appear out of nowhere and chastise her for even thinking about doing what he’d expressly told her not to. He didn’t though, so Mercy steeled herself for whatever state Sam might be in, and descended the stairs.
As she got closer to the panic room, she heard Sam’s throaty voice. “Dean, no,” he was saying, and the words thick with tears Mercy couldn’t see through the tightly shut door. “Don’t say that to me. Don’t you say that to me!”
There was a tight feeling in her chest and Mercy pressed her hand up against the cold door. Coming down here was a mistake. Sam’s quiet begging was worse than the tortured screaming. She wanted to go, but leaving him alone, even if he didn’t know she was there, felt wrong. So, she shrugged off her backpack, which landed with a soft thump, and leaned back against the door, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor.
“Mercy?”
She sucked in a breath and didn’t reply. There was a chance he was caught in the grips of another hallucination. How would he have known she was there?
“I know it’s you,” Sam said, and he sounded almost lucid. “Bobby and Dean aren’t quiet when they check on me.”
Mercy cleared her throat gently. “I’m not supposed to be down here,” she said, just loud enough he could hear it through the door.
“Yeah… that- that sounds like Dean.”
There was a sticky apology stuck on the back of her tongue, like when you have too much sweet and it thickens your spit and makes it hard to swallow. Any other words she could say were stuck in its cloying trap. Mercy tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
Silence fell between them.
-M-
A tickle on her nose woke Mercy up that night.
She snuffled, rubbing the back of her hand across her face, and blinked in the darkened study. Bobby was slumped over his desk, snoring quietly, and Dean was sprawled on the couch across from her. The furrow in his brow carved canyons into his forehead even in sleep. But there was no one else, and Mercy frowned.
She wasn’t sensitive to any other angel’s grace, but Castiel’s was familiar to her after four years and, for a split second, she could have sworn she’d felt him in the house. It wasn’t as though she had an in-built Castiel GPS but, if he wanted her to be aware that he was near, he could brush up against her soul, light as a feather, and she’d just know.
She sneezed a second later, and went cross-eyed as a little down feather from the pillow she’d been hugging in her sleep floated through the air right under her nose. “Dummy,” she murmured quietly to herself.
It wasn’t the first time her desire to see Cas has caused her to imagine the feeling of his grace. In the three days since Illinois she’d been constantly feeling like there was something in the corner of her eye- a flash of a trench coat, a glimpse of dark hair, but it was never real. Just as she was about to roll over and try and fall back asleep, she felt it again. Mercy scrubbed her face rougher this time. Don’t be stupid, she told herself.
She managed to lay there in denial for about three more minutes before she couldn’t take it any longer. The teenager stood up, huffing under her breath. Her feet carried her absently to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and stared sullenly out the window.
It was then she noticed there was a shadow moving across the grounds and she narrowed her eyes. Someone was outside in the salvage yard.
A curse crossed her lips. She hadn’t carried a proper weapon with her in the house since her first week. Her Glock was gathering dust, tucked away in her bugout bag. There was her silver-plated knife, which she always kept in her back pocket, but she’d prefer a long-range weapon. Luckily, Bobby kept loaded guns scattered around the house for emergencies such as this, and she found a shotgun, packed with real buckshot, not salt rounds, tucked between a cabinet and the wall.
She pumped the action and slipped out onto the porch.
Her heart was beating steadily in her chest as she quietly approached the figure leaning over a car. In all likelihood it was just a neighborhood boy on a dare. It wouldn’t be the first time- she’d seen Bobby chase hooligans off his property more than once, always with the same crotchety old man routine that made her laugh. But as she got closer, her heart began to pound so hard it made the stars above her spin.
She’d know the back of that head anywhere, even if she couldn’t believe he’d managed to get out of the basement. Sam’s shoulder’s tensed. He’d seen her reflection in the window. On instinct, Mercy raised the shotgun, though she kept the muzzle just left of Sam’s chest.
When he turned around she saw his pupils were just pinpricks on a foggy hazel sea. Defeat caused his lower lip to tremble. This was what hell looked like, she thought. His face was drawn and so pale it was almost translucent, like pastry dough that got rolled out too thin and would tear at the slightest move. She watched his Adam’s apple jump as he swallowed, eyes lingering on the barrel of her gun for a long moment before falling to the ground like he couldn’t bear to look at her.
“Come back to the house,” she heard her own voice say. “I won’t tell Dean.”
Sam blinked furiously for a moment. “No,” he whispered.
Mercy’s trigger finger, which was resting along the side of the guard, twitched. What was she supposed to say to that? Pretend she was willing to drag him back at gunpoint?
“You’re not gonna shoot me, Mercy,” he said with quiet confidence. The gravel drive crunched under his feet as he took a step closer.
She shook her head as if to deny what was an obvious truth. “You’re sick, Sammy,” she tried. “Just please come back.”
Another step, and he had walked right into the barrel of the gun. “You’re a good kid, Mercy. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.”
The familiar phrase summoned a lump in her throat. A good kid. She tried so hard, but sometimes it felt like she could never be useful enough to make up for existing. But he was right about one thing. She couldn’t shoot Sam Winchester. Still, her arms were stiff from how tense she was holding them, and no matter how much she wanted to lower the gun, she couldn’t get her muscles to relax enough to do it. “Please,” she whispered. “I- I can’t.”
Sam’s fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the barrel. He guided the muzzle until it was resting right over his heart and Mercy’s eyes widened. Her gaze travelled from the gun to Sam and back so quick it made her dizzy. “Then shoot,” he murmured, and he looked her in the eye for the first time.
They were a kaleidoscope of regret and shame and naked distress. Mercy’s hands relaxed their grip automatically. Her trigger finger slipped off the guard. “Sam-” she started to say, but then, faster than she could process, Sam jerked the shotgun up. There was a of burst pain at her temple like fireworks and Mercy was unconscious before she hit the ground.
-M-
“Mercy.”
“Kelsey, not now.”
“But, Mercy, your face.”
Unconsciously, Mercy reached up to touch the bruise that had blossomed on her temple in watercolor yellows and greens. It throbbed and she scowled. It had been a couple of days since Sam had decided to use her face as a canvas in his escape. It had been one day since Dean had come back from looking for him empty handed, but with a dulled look in his eyes.
“It’s fine,” she said sharply. And it was. Bobby had let her miss two days of school before he got tired of her moping around the house and kicked her out with nothing more than a surly comment. The bruise had faded some, but not enough, and this confrontation was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid in the first place.
She’d managed to evade Kelsey all day by ducking into boy’s bathrooms when she saw the other girl coming down the hall and pulling the hood of her sweatshirt down low over her face in class. It was her favorite, her Schrödinger’s Cat sweatshirt that she’d misplaced around Christmas and only just found. Her luck had held, until Kelsey had caught her unlocking her bike outside school and ripped her hood back without so much as saying hello.
“This isn’t fine. You-” Kelsey broke off. “Mercy, just, please tell me the truth.”
Mercy cast her eyes around surreptitiously. It didn’t look like anyone was paying attention, but she didn’t want to risk it, just like she didn’t want to risk Kelsey trying to talk to an adult. If she had to give Kelsey a breadcrumb of truth, then she would. She grabbed the blonde’s wrist and dragged her behind the school to the courtyard.
“If I tell you how I got this bruise, will you drop it all?” Mercy asked in a hushed tone.
Kelsey’s eyes narrowed. “You mean you won’t tell me about missing school and the broken ribs or anything else, is that it?”
She raised her brow. “The bruise or nothing, final offer. Going once, going twice-”
“Fine!” Kelsey snapped. “Tell me.”
After checking her surroundings one more time, Mercy took a deep breath and started. “My older brothers are visiting home, and one of them we recently found out is-” she searched for the right word before coming up with, “-an addict. He’s been going through withdrawals cold turkey, and it was bad the other night. I shouldn’t have been near him, but I caught his elbow in a backswing while he was thrashing around. See? No big deal. I just didn’t want to talk about it, okay?”
Her friend’s eyes searched her face for a long moment, but there was enough truth in the story Mercy didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for the lies it was packaged in, and after a moment, Kelsey’s whole demeanor softened. “Mercy, I’m sorry. That- that sucks major ass.”
“Yeah, it does,” she agreed, feeling some of the tension bleed out of her shoulders. Somehow, Kelsey knowing a version of the truth made her feel a bit better about the situation.
“Is your brother okay?”
Mercy’s eyes slipped shut and she wondered how much more she could get away with telling Kelsey. “He ran away back to his dealer. He and my oldest brother got into a bad fight when he tracked him down. I- I don’t-”
“Mercy-Elizabeth.”
Her eyes popped open immediately, and she twisted around to see a middle-aged man in a suit with greying hair staring right at her. No one in Sioux Falls knew her full given name, she’d made sure Bobby had only put Mercy down on any forms she’d needed. He didn’t look like he was from around the area anyway, and besides that, there was something about him that set her teeth on edge.
“Have faith,” the man said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Mercy knew right away he was an angel. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“M, who is this?” Kelsey leaned in and murmured under her breath.
She’d like to know as well, but she didn’t want to ask with the other girl there. “Kelse, could you give us a moment? Please?”
“What? Are you crazy? Leave you alone with some religious nutter?” she said, shaking her head. Her hand slipped in Mercy’s. “No, I’ll stay.”
The angle’s eyes were like steel. He wasn’t like Castiel or Anna. The fingers of Mercy’s free hand twitched toward her back pocket, as if her piddly silver knife would do a thing.
“Good company that you keep, Mercy-Elizabeth. Shame about all the lies.”
She gritted her teeth. Kelsey’s hand was damp in hers. “Who are you?”
“My name is Zachariah,” he answered in a self-important tone. “And I need you to come with me, Mercy-Elizabeth.”
“No way,” she said automatically, and she began taking careful steps backwards, pulling Kelsey along with her. She wouldn’t put it past the angel to try and somehow use Kelsey and her ignorance of the supernatural against her.
Zachariah sighed, and glanced down at his watch. “You seem to be laboring under the delusion that I was asking.”
“Weren’t you?”
“Of course not,” he snapped, and Mercy flinched and squeezed Kelsey’s hand. “But if it makes you feel better to have the illusion of choice, I’ll make it easy. Come with me right now, or I’m afraid Ms. Clark will suffer the consequences of your disobedience. Remember Mercy-Elizabeth, you are nothing without heaven. We made you.”
She swallowed hard, but Zachariah was right. The choice wasn’t hard. Mercy let go of Kelsey’s hand and stepped forward.
“Mercy, no,” Kelsey said empathetically.
But it was too late. Zachariah smiled widely with unfeeling eyes. His hand landed on Mercy’s shoulder, and the world disappeared out from under her feet with Kelsey’s voice still ringing in her ears.
-M-
The walls of the so-called green room felt like they were closing in around Dean with each passing second. He’d never been good at waiting, at sitting around with his thumb up his ass while people made plans for him. The room made his skin scrawl. The name didn’t help, but it was all the lily-white marble and gilded furniture. Maybe it was all the shitty motels in his blood speaking, but give Dean bedbug infested mattresses over this pretentious shit any day.
Castiel denying him the ability to see his brother by physically removing the door had been his tipping point. If they wanted to take away his exits, he’d just have to make himself a new one. There was a heavy candlestick on one of the tables and Dean picked it up to weigh it in his hand.
It would do.
He got in four good swings with it, breaking through the plaster and to the support beams, before the wall magically repaired itself within the span of a blink. There wasn’t even a chip in the paint. It was smooth to the touch.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath, throwing the now useless candlestick on to the floor with a clatter.
“Quit hurling feces like a howler monkey, would you? It’s unbecoming.”
Normally an angel appearing behind him with no warning would seriously tick him off, but he was glad to see Zachariah’s stupid face if it meant he got to make his demands to the top of the corporate food chain. “Let me out of here,” he ordered.
Zachariah smiled blandly. “Like I told you- too dangerous. Demons on the prowl.”
“I’ve been getting my ass kicked all year,” Dean snarled in disbelief. “Now you’re sweating my safety? You’re lying. I want to see my brother.”
“That’s…” Zachariah trailed off. “Ill-advised.”
Dean had to bite the inside of his cheek to refrain from decking the angel right then and there. “You know, I am so sick of your crap riddles and your smug, fat face.”
Zachariah clucked at him like a mother-hen. “Now, is that any way to talk someone who is about to bring you a gift?” he asked.
“I told you. I don’t want your burgers or your beer, I want-”
“Yes, your brother, Dean. We get it, all of heaven and hell gets that, and the answer is still no. You can’t see your brother, but I think I can swing your sister if you behave yourself.”
Dean’s mouth snapped shut with a click. “I don’t have a sister,” he said carefully.
“No?” the angel asked innocently. “‘My father’s name is Bob, my mother’s name is Ellen, and my little sister’s name is Mercy’, that doesn’t sound familiar to you? Those fabricated memories didn’t come from nothing Dean. It was all there in your head. Do you want to see her? As it happens we’ve already picked young Mercy up. She knows a bit too much to be running around without… protection.”
“You leave her out of this,” Dean said lowly, feeling his temper rise.
“Leave her out of this?” Zachariah laughed humorlessly. “It may have escaped your notice but she’s already in. She’s always been in it.”
The angel tilted his head to the side and his gaze fell on something over Dean’s shoulder. “Dean?” Mercy’s confused voice came, and he turned around abruptly. There she was, standing by the table like she was one of the peace-offerings to get him to shut up and stay in line. Her schoolbag was slung over her back and she had her bike helmet clutched tight in her hand. They’d clearly snatched her from right outside her school.
He asked her if she was okay with his eyes, and Mercy nodded once curtly. There was a fire burning in her blue gaze that said to him, tear this clown a new one.
Reassured she was unharmed, Dean turned back around. He wasn’t going to let Zachariah distract him. “What the hell is going on,” he asked coolly. “Why can’t I see my brother? And how am I going to ice Lilith?”
“Really? Not even the little girl will get you to shut up?” Zachariah sighed like he’d been immeasurably disappointed. “You’re not… going to ‘ice’ Lilith.”
“What?” Mercy demanded sharply as Dean gaped at the angel in bewilderment. She stepped forward, partly in front of Dean. “Then what’s the point of all this?”
“Lilith is going to break the final seal. Fait Accompli as this point-” Zachariah strolled over to a couch and sat down. “Train’s left the station.”
Dean shook his head. “But me and Sam, we can stop-” he broke off. Zachariah had titled his head to the side, a little, knowing smirk turning up the corner of his lip. “You don’t want to stop it, do you?”
“Nope, never did,” he replied flippantly. “The end is nigh, the apocalypse is coming, kiddo, to a theatre near you.”
Next to him, Mercy made a distressed sound in the back of her throat. Dean probably would have made a similar noise if the air had not been snatched straight from his lungs. “What was all that crap about saving seals?” he managed.
Zachariah shrugged his shoulders. “Our grunts on the ground- we couldn’t just tell them the whole truth. We’d have a full-scale rebellion on our hands. I mean, think about it. Would we really let sixty-five seals get broken unless senior management wanted it that way?”
“I don’t understand,” Mercy said. “Why?”
“Why not?” he retorted. “The Apocalypse- poor name, bad marketing. Puts people off. When all it is, is Ali/Foreman- on a slightly larger scale. And we like our chances. When our side wins, and we will win, it’s paradise one earth. What’s not to like about that?”
There was art on the walls, sitting pretty in golden frames. Dean hadn’t paid it much attention when he’d first gotten trapped in the room, but it jumped out to him now. Demons with twisted horns and leathery wings dancing in flames. Feathered angels bearing crosses, descending from un high. And the humans, the tiny, fleshy humans, caught in the crossfire. Burning, screaming, dying in droves.
“What happens to all the people during your little pissing contest?” Dean asked as if he didn’t already have the answers written right there on the walls.
“Well…” Zachariah stood up and adjusted his suit jacket. “You can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. In this case, a truckload of eggs, but you get the picture… Look, it happens. This isn’t the first planetary enema we’ve delivered.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a little brass statue of an angel with a trumpet. Would he be able to get away with braining the dickish angel? Did Mercy know how to draw a banishing sigil? Could she throw one up fast enough if he was keeping Zachariah occupied with a face full of Pied Piper?
“Uh, no, Dean. Probably shouldn't try to bash my skull in with that thing. Wouldn't end up too pleasant for you or Mercy,” Zachariah said warningly. “Besides, you think we’d teach a human anything that could actually bite us in the ass? Not likely.”
Dean swallowed. “What about Sam? He won't go quietly. He'll stop Lilith.”
The angel inhaled. “Sam… Has a part to play. A very important part. He may need a little nudging in the right direction, but I'll make sure he plays it.”
“What does that mean?” Dean said lowly. “What are you gonna do to him?”
“Sam, Sam, Sam. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” Zachariah mocked. “Forget about him, would you? You have larger concerns. Why do you think I'm confiding in you? You're still vital, Dean. We weren't lying about your destiny. Just… omitted a few pertinent details. But nothing's changed. You are chosen. You will stop it. Just not Lilith, or the apocalypse. That's all.”
He got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Which means?”
“Lucifer,” Mercy whispered.
Dean jerked his head around in her direction. She was standing in front of one of the paintings with sad, understanding eyes. It was an angel clad in armor and a red cape standing atop a demon- the devil. He was carrying a processional cross and a set of scales, hoisting a blade in the air and prepared to strike. He had a feeling Mercy knew more about the painting’s context than he did, but he got the gist.
“She’s clever, isn’t she?” Zachariah said. “You, Dean, are our own little Russell Crowe, complete with surly attitude. And when it's over, and when you've won, your rewards will be unimaginable. Peace, happiness…” Dean jolted when the angel smacked his ass and added, “two virgins and seventy sluts! Trust me- one day, we'll look back on this and laugh.”
He did laugh, then, as he walked away, but Dean couldn’t find anything funny. Mercy was still standing with her nose almost pressed to the canvas. She reached out, fingers hovering over the scales. After a moment’s hesitation, she touched her fingers to the dry paint, tracing the brush strokes with gentle caresses.
“My mom believed in you,” she said softly.
Zachariah paused with his back to them. “That she did. Pity how she died, but she’s got a nice little patch of heaven all to herself, so is it really all that bad?”
“She was slaughtered.” Mercy’s voice was sharper in reprimand, and Dean furrowed his brow, glancing between the angel and the teenager. He could have sworn Mercy had said her mom was killed in a car crash. “Was it you?”
“Was it me, what?”
Mercy dropped her hand from the painting and it clenched into a fist at her side. She was still facing way from him, but Dean could see the tension in her shoulders. “Was it you that ordered me to be brought to Burkitsville when I was a baby? Was it you that told my mom to keep me there until I was ten? Was it you that let her get murdered?” She turned around swiftly, a snarl on her lips. “Was it you that turned my life into a cosmic joke?”
For a long moment, Zachariah didn’t answer. “No,” he finally replied tonelessly.
If Mercy was disappointed by that answer, she didn’t show it. “One last question…” she whispered. “Where is God?”
“God?” the angel turned and there was a strange light in his steely eyes, a weird tilt to his mouth. “God has left the building.”
He was gone between blinks.
Mercy suddenly reached up and yanked off her silver cross. Dean winced when she flung the necklace across the room with guttural shout.
-M-
After Zachariah left, Mercy quietly sat on the floor in front of the painting. There was too much to process and she didn’t know where to start, so she didn’t bother trying. She just pressed her chin to her knees and looked up at the depiction Saint Michael in all his holy glory.
Dean had spared her a concerned look, she’d saw it out of the corner of her eye, before he pulled out his phone and no doubt tried to call Sam. It was useless, and she knew it. If the angels didn’t want them to have contact with anyone outside this room, they wouldn’t. It was that simple. Apparently, it was that simple all around. God, how stupid could she be?
“You can't reach him, Dean. You're outside your coverage zone.”
Castiel had joined them- she’d felt him before she’d heard him. Mercy’s gaze continued to bore into the painting.
“What are you gonna do to Sam,” Dean asked immediately.
“Nothing,” Cas replied gruffly. “He’s going to do it to himself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” When Cas didn’t respond right away, Dean grumbled, “Right, right. Go to toe the company line. Why are you here, Cas?”
Mercy finally glanced over, wanting to know herself. It was strange to see Cas now, after days of wishing to talk to him, there he was and she couldn’t find it anywhere in her to be happy.
“We’ve been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say I’m sorry it ended like this,” Cas ended up saying.
“Sorry?” Dean repeated incredulously, and Mercy saw the tick he got in his cheek right before he drew his arm back and punched Castiel in the face. The angel’s head turned, but otherwise he was unaffected by the blow. Dean, however, had to cradle his hand to his chest for a moment. He might as well have punched the Terminator. “It’s Armageddon Cas,” he choked out, massaging his already bruising knuckles. “You need a bigger word than sorry.”
“Try to understand,” Cas implored. “This is long foretold. This is your-”
“Destiny?” Dean cut in furiously. “Don’t give us that ‘holy’ crap. Destiny, God’s plan, it’s all a bunch of lies you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?”
Cas took an aggressive step toward Dean. “What is so worth saving?” he demanded. “I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you- your guilt, your anger, confusion. But in Paradise all is forgiven. You’ll be at peace, even with Sam.”
It was Cas’s voice, but she knew those weren’t his words. Not really. Dean must have sensed it too. Cas couldn’t look him in the eye. Dean had to duck slightly to get himself in the angel’s line of sight.
He made sure Cas had met his gaze though, before saying, “You can take your peace and shove it up your lily-white ass. ‘Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.” Cas had turned away, but Dean was having none of it. He grabbed Cas’s shoulder and forced him back around. “Look at me! You know it!”
Cas’s eyes slid away again.
“Cassie,” Mercy tried, and suddenly Jimmy’s eyes were blazing through her, but they were all Castiel. All ancient and naïve at the same time. Funny, she’d never seen that naivety before, but it was there clear as day to her now. Cas may watch the universe turn from heaven, but down here on earth, she was the expert, and it was about damn time she stopped looking up to him like an infallible teacher.
“You were there in the house that night Sam escaped, weren’t you? It was you that woke me up. And what you were going to tell Dean and I before- it was this, right? You’ve been trying to warn us this whole time. And you need to keep trying. You need to keep helping us.”
His eyes flitted around her face. “What would you have me do?” he asked.
“Get us to Sam! We can stop this before it’s too late!” Dean said.
“If I do that, we will all be hunted.” Cas’s gaze darted between the two of them urgently. “We’ll all be killed.”
Dean and Mercy looked at each other at the same time. An understanding passed between them, and Dean told Castiel seriously, “If there is anything worth dying for… this is it.”
But Cas shook his head minutely.
“You spineless…” he drifted off in partial disbelief and turned away. “-soulless son of a bitch. What do you care about dying? You're already dead. We're done.”
“Dean-”
“We’re done!”
Castiel fell silent at the sharp rebuke in Dean’s voice. He looked to Mercy, for what she wasn’t sure. Absolution? Guidance? It was times like this she remembered Castiel really was heaven’s perfect little soldier. It would be hard for him to make a choice that went against all he’d ever known, but he’d already done it once. They’d dragged him back to heaven kicking and screaming for it, of course it’d be even harder to make the right choice for a second time. Which was exactly why she couldn’t tell him what to do, like his eyes begged her to. She could only ask one more time.
“Cassie… Dean and I have already figured out that this fight is worth dying for,” she said softly, and she could feel the weight of his undivided attention on her like Atlas bearing the sky. “We have it easy though. We know it’s worth dying for, because we’ve already lived for it…
“Do you remember all those stories I’d tell you in my nightly prayers? About teachers and school, my family and my friend? All those innocuous little moments come together into this ramshackle collection called life. Beautiful, ordinary life, even the bad things. Sometimes especially the bad things. Because with every bad thing there is an opportunity for kindness and compassion and some humans will disappoint you, but there will always be more who will shock you with their capacity for good. And it’s worth it. So, I guess what I’m asking you, is would you be willing to fight, to die, for a chance to understand how worth it it is?”
The angel’s eyes were wide. He reached out for her, his hand coming to rest on her cheek, and she saw determination crease his face. In a sudden flurry of motion, he reached into his pocket and produced Ruby’s knife. Blood bubbled up where he drew the blade across his forearm and he dipped his fingers into it before beginning to draw a sigil on the wall.
Dean and she stepped back to watch him work. He was almost done when Zachariah’s voice growled out, “Castiel! Would you mind explaining just what the hell you’re doing?”
Cas slammed his hand into the center of the sigil and in a blinding flash of light, Zachariah disappeared. “He won’t be gone long,” Cas told them. “We have to find Sam, now.”
“Where is he?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know,” the angel said, handing Dean the knife. “But I know who does. We have to stop him from killing Lilith.”
The eldest Winchester frowned. “But Lilith is gonna break the final seal.”
“Lilith is the final seal. She dies, the end begins.”
Cas didn’t give them any time for that news to sink in, he grabbed them each by the shoulder, and then they vanished on the flap of an angel’s wing.
When they landed in a cluttered, rundown kitchen, the first thing Mercy heard was a man saying, “I’ll take twenty girls for the whole night.” She cocked her hip and stared at the speaker incredulously. “Lady, sometimes you’ve got to live like there’s no tomor-” he’d turned around and spotted their awkward trio. “Wait, th-this isn’t supposed to happen-” he jolted when the speaker on the other end of the phone said something and hastily told her, “No, lady, this is definitely supposed to happen. But I just gotta call you back.”
“Dude, gross,” Mercy said when he hung up.
His nervous gaze jumped to her and his mouth popped open. “Woah, wow, you’re Mercy-Elizabeth. I-”
“Chuck, you gotta tell us where Sam is right now,” Dean cut in.
And, oh. This was the infamous Chuck Shurley. Sam and Dean had told her in sparse detail about their encounter with the prophet. She’d been meaning to track down a copy of his series, but they weren’t well circulated and she’d been having a hard time. That, and she hadn’t been trying very hard. She almost didn’t want to know how the voice of God would choose to describe her.
“B-but I didn’t write this. You- You aren’t-”
“We’re getting off the beaten path. Chuck, tell us, now.”
At Dean’s harsh tone, the writer stumbled over to the counter in a flurry of nervous motions and picked up a stack of papers. Reluctantly, he handed them over to Dean and indicated a spot on the page. His eyes were darting all around the room like he was waiting for something to appear.
Dean glanced over the words. “St. Mary’s? What is it, a convent?”
“Yeah, but, you guys aren’t supposed to be there!” Chuck reiterated, hands flapping on semi-aborted gestures. “You aren’t in this story.”
“Yeah, well, we’re making it up as we go,” Cas said firmly.
Mercy’s smile disappeared before it had even begun to form when a high-pitched static filled the room, even to her. This was no angel speaking Enochian, this was pure grace and holy wrath descending on Chuck Shurley’s kitchen.
“What? No! Not again,” Chuck whined as a bright light flooded the room.
The lights burst and the shelves rattled, shaking off teacups and bowls which shattered on the ceramic tile floor. “It’s the archangel!” Cas shouted over the cacophony of assaulting sounds. “I’ll hold them off! I’ll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!”
“Cassie, NO!” Mercy screamed back but it was too late. His hand landed on her forehead and everything stopped at once. The noise, the light. Wherever they landed next it was dark, and she blinked to adjust.
Dean and she were standing in a small chapel. Silvery moonlight was filtering through the stained-glass window and there was a set of lit candles impressing their wax on a small altar on the other side of the room. But everything was quiet and there was no other evidence of a ritual that could summon Lucifer there.
Mercy ran her hands through her hair. When she’d told Castiel to fight, she hadn’t meant for him to sacrifice himself! That archangel would rip him to pieces within seconds! This- this wasn’t what she wanted. This was-
“Mercy, stay close and do everything I say,” Dean said under his breath.
And she inhaled through her nose deeply, trying to calm her heart. This wasn’t the time to panic or prematurely mourn. Dean needed her to have her head in the game. Sam needed her to have her head in the game. On her exhale, Mercy cast all thoughts of Cas from her mind.
“I will,” she assured Dean, and he nodded his appreciation.
They raced out of the room and down the convent’s narrow hallways. It wasn’t hard to guess which direction the ritual was happening in. The air was saturated with a heavy, dangerous aura, which only got more choking the closer to the center of the convent they got. Finally, they skittered around a corner and spotted Sam standing in a chapel with Ruby at his side. The demon turned her head and smirked, and before Mercy or Dean could even open their mouths to shout a warning, she raised her hand and the wooden door slammed shut.
“SAM!” Dean yelled, pounding on the door over and over again. “SAM!”
“Dean!” Mercy said loudly, and she gestured to a standing candelabra.
His eyes narrowed in determination. He scooped it and began using it as a battering ram. BANG, BANG. The doors shuddered under the assault. Over and over again Dean went at it with a mad look in his eyes until finally the wood around the handle and lock splintered and the doors crashed open into the room.
Mercy gasped at what she saw. They were too late. Lilith’s blonde host was lying on the floor with glassy eyes but the demon was no longer home. Blood was pouring from an unseen wound and draining towards center of the room. She watched it create a swirling, circular pattern on the floor with a horrible a feeling of dread raising goosebumps along her arms.
“You’re too late,” she heard Ruby say smugly.
“I don’t care!” Dean snapped.
And when Mercy turned to look, Sam had the demon in a choking hold as Dean drove her own knife up and into her stomach. Ruby screamed when he twisted it home, and then fell out of Sam’s grasp to the floor, dead.
For a second, the only sound in the room was their heavy breathing.
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered with a broken voice.
Then a hiss filled the air and Mercy scrambled back from the bloody circle on the floor. She hit Dean’s chest as yellow light erupted from the completed ritual. His arm came around and pulled her flush against him. “Sammy, let’s go,” he said, his other hand grabbing his brother’s arm and gripping tight.
“Dean,” Sam whimpered out. “He’s coming…”
Mercy squeezed her eyes shut as the light got brighter, turning her face and pressing her nose into Dean’s stomach. She felt tiny again, like she was ten years old and the Scarecrow had just stuck its scythe through her uncle and gutted him right in front of her eyes and Dean was the only person who could save her. Her mind was white noise from fear.
It was happening. The apocalypse had started.