Chapter Text
“Drive faster, Dean!” Sam screamed, the wind howling through his hair as he leaned out the window, shotgun perched under his arm. If they drove by another car, or a sign, Sam was screwed; but that was the least of his worries right now.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Dean howled back, eyes fixed on the road ahead for once. One vacation; that was all they’d asked for! One quiet, peaceful trip to the Natural History Museum.
They had just moved on past the fossils when something had grabbed Sam. No-one had been looking, and the taller Winchester had barely had a chance to make a sound. Dean only realized something was up when he’d been grabbed himself, not even getting an ‘mmph!’ out before being pulled away.
Gabriel had been staring at pickled jars of snakes with boredom, while Cas studiously read every bronze plaque like he was studying for a final. Balthazar stood next to him, sneaking nervous glances, and Meg sat on the back of a taxidermized elephant, throwing pieces of popcorn at passers-by, before slipping into the adjacent exhibit to watch the security guards run about in confusion.
It was her, ironically, who’d noticed the sudden absence of the Winchester brothers, and warned the angels.
Sam and Dean had been nabbed by a trio of eager demons, who’d thought they’ll get into Crowley’s good books by bringing them to him. The ‘trio’ turned out to be about sixteen, there for the purpose of mingling with lower-ranking politicians. Stumbling across the hunters had been an honest accident, but a pleasant one for them.
This lead to a skirmish in the African exhibit that ended in a car chase with the police. Because of course, all the blame was left on them when the demons bolted.
Meg sat on the roof of the car, popcorn still clutched close, raven hair swirling and twirling with the wind. They shot around a corner, but she remained in place with inhuman strength and grace. Balthazar was unconscious in the trunk after being thrown head-first through a window, and Cas was sitting calmly in the backseat, asking Bobby for directions to a place they could hide.
Gabriel had donned his janitor get-up, and had opted to stay behind and play the role of innocent bystander. He’d clean up any traces of sulfur, and meet them later. Not even he could track the Winchesters anymore, so he’d be relying on Sam’s prayer to know where they were.
Sam had his shotgun, but didn’t want to shoot. A few of those officers might’ve been possessed, but mostly, they were still people. Plus, once he started firing, all bets were off.
“Left!” Cas called out, and Dean spun the wheel hard enough to threaten Meg’s balance. The tires squealed painfully, but abided. Sam was often amazed by the things Dean could make the old girl do.
“Watch it, short-stack!” She yelled through his window. When Sam looked up at her, he saw her flinging sharp, rusty nails she must’ve plucked from the exhibits being renovated. Each one found it’s mark in a cop car’s tire, and Sam yelled: “Careful!”
She gave him an eyeroll, showing off the whites of her eyes, but started to throw them with more consideration. She couldn’t risk being kicked out of the bucket brigade, now could she?
The thrum-thrum-thrum of a helicopter’s propellers above them made Sam curse. Just perfect.
Dean peered out of the cracked windshield, and groaned.
“Right!” Cas yelled over the sound of the wind, and Den obliged immediately. Sam banged his head hard on the roof, and swore up a storm. What was with their family, huh? Why did all this shit come their way?
Four blocks onward, and Cas directed them into the underground parking of a large shopping mall.
“Bobby says to ditch the car,” Cas explained, “He has a friend here who can steal it back later. Get the weapons and anything suspicious out, and blend with the crowds.”
“What?!” Dean screamed. “No. Absolutely not. We are not ditching Baby.”
“It’s Baby or us, Dean!” Sam yelled back as he scrambled out of the passenger seat. Meg slid off the roof, and Balthazar was hauled out of the boot by Cas. Dean cussed out every deity they’d ever even read about as he grabbed the suitcase of weaponry out of the trunk.
“I’m sorry, Baby!” Dean cried as they bolted for the mall entrance.
The mall was large, with two stories and an arching, cathedral-like roof. It had a skylight running through the center of the ceiling, probably to save on electricity. Dark, heavy clouds hung low in the sky, so that was for naught. The sops lined on every side showed a varied range of products; a perfume store, a hairdresser, a Starbucks.
They hid in there for three hours. Meg spent her time in the candy store, and was joined by Gabe as soon as he showed up. Cas and Sam browsed the bookstore, while Dean put a pair of sunglasses on Balthazar and sat him outside the liquor store.
Dean also went as far as hiding the trunk in plain sight, bribing a suitcase-store employee to let him put it up on display. The most attention it got was a soccer-mom cooing, “Oh, vintage!” at it, as if it wasn’t covered in scratches and bloodstains.
Dean himself browsed the cheap whiskey section of the aforementioned liquor store to keep an eye on Balthazar – and the front entrance. Sam pried ‘50 Shades of Grey’ out of Cas’s hands before he could get a good look at it. He instead plucked ‘The Hobbit’ off of another shelf, and put that in Cas’s hands. No adopted brother – or, if Dean ever got his head out of his ass, brother-in-law – of his would ever be corrupted by the likes of E.L. James.
Police swarmed the place as casually as possible, doing their best not to startle the masses of people. It was already about three PM, and three hours was all they could spare – soon, the place would be shutting down.
They decided to split up; Dean, Balthazar and Cas hotwired a red Jeep from the early two-thousands, and half-an-hour later, Sam, Meg, and Gabe stole a green Volkswagen.
After a full-day drive, they’d successfully regrouped at Bobby’s new place. It was a cabin out in the woods of Minnesota belonging to Rufus Turner, who was not happy to suddenly have so much company. Bobby had more-or-less completely refurbished Rufus’s study, and had claimed the veggie-garden for Fatima, who seemed content to ignore anything going on around her in favor of Rufus’s turnips.
Gadreel carefully tucked Balthazar onto the couch, while Anna berated them from where she sat, fixing Rufus’s old radio to tune in on Angel-Talk. Cas thanked Bobby for his help, then crashed on the chair. It had been a tiring day.
Sam, Dean, and Gabe were left with the blow-up mattresses, and Meg contented herself with a bottle of rot-gut at the table. Rufus looked as if he didn’t know who to throw out first.
“I don’t know what’s worse!” He complained to Bobby, “The leviathans, the angels, or the freaking demon stealin’ my moonshine! Why are we friends, again?”
It took every ounce of reconciliatory skill Bobby possessed to keep them there. Sam was too tired to listen and take notes, though; as soon as the danger had passed, he collapsed onto a mattress that barely went to his knees, and slept.
…
The very next morning, Sam woke up to Imagine Dragons playing on the radio. That was actually quite welcome; he loved ‘On Top of the World’. The smell of his own dried sweat and something burning outside was less pleasant, and when he listened hard enough, he could here vicious arguing.
With the kind of quiet grace that only a man well-trained in the art of ‘be-sneaky-or-die’ could have, he crept to his feet and tiptoed to the back door. Dean was out for the count on the other mattress, snoring happily. Gabriel was raiding Rufus’s fridge for something sweet.
Glancing out the window, he saw Fatima buried deep in Rufus’s potato-patch, and he frowned. Had she even come in last night? He made a note to check on her later; he knew what angelic possession could do to someone’s head. The fact that she wasn’t a drooling vegetable was a miracle.
While she’d still been unconscious, and hadn’t been able to feel pain, Anna had taken the liberty of making her presentable. She’d used her angel blade to file down her teeth and claws into something that didn’t get in her way. Although her teeth were still a little too sharp, she could now comfortably eat, wear shoes, and use her hands.
Sam leaned in close to the door, minding the creaky floorboards, and heard Rufus arguing ferociously with Anna, Meg, and Gadreel. Balthazar, as far as Sam knew, was still in recovery in a bed upstairs.
“…And the hell do you know about it?” Rufus demanded, “I thought you said you knew only the basics about the leviathans!”
“That may be so,” Gadreel said, “But we have still heard many tales of their ruthlessness. I do not think he should’ve gone alone.”
“Bobby knows what he is doing,” Rufus all but yelled, and from his tone of voice, it was clearly not the first time he’d said as much. “If he couldn’t handle it, he would’ve asked for our help! And you don’t even know if it was a leviathan. Now scram, all o’ you!”
Rufus stomped off, muttering about ‘jackass demons’ and ‘know-it-all angels’.
Gadreel’s hands tightened into fists, and the muscles in his thick neck went taught. Anna sighed deeply, and Meg just went back to enjoying her take-out breakfast of cold McDonalds chips.
“What’s going on?” He asked, making his presence known. Both angels jumped, and Sam had to remind himself that although they were healing, they were mostly human right now. They truly hadn’t picked up on him being there.
“Bobby went monster hunting,” Meg explained around a barely-edible looking French fry. “Alone. And these two are trying to implement a buddy-system.”
“What’s he hunting?” Sam asked, stepping out to join the circle of people.
“We don’t know,” Anna said, her brown skin looking more gold in the early morning light. Her hair looked like fire. “That’s why we’re upset. He got a call early this morning, from the sheriff in town; her surgeon apparently ate her roommate at Sioux Falls General, and she needed help. He refused to take anyone else with him.”
Sam quickly weighed the pros and cons; but inevitably, his faith in Bobby won out.
“Bobby’s been hunting since I was in diapers. If he thinks he has it in hand, I believe him. And Sheriff Mills is a damn good hunter herself; I’m sure they’ll both be fine. But if he doesn’t call in the hour, let me know, and Dean and I’ll take a drive.”
That seemed like a good solution to his ears, and he could see the others agreed. Over what Rufus’s excuse for a lawn was, Sam spied Fatima yet again. She was dutifully bent over the stalks of potato plants, and Sam’s back ached in sympathy for what hers must be feeling like.
“Gimme a sec,” he said, and took a slow march to where she was kneeling. He only wore jeans and a vest, which is less than he normally wore, but at least he hadn’t kicked off his shoes the night before.
The sun had just peeked over the horizon, bathing the world in orange-golden light. The air remained frigid, and Sam’s breath was visible as he exhaled. The air burned in his lungs, and the smell of fresh soil and early morning mist woke him up almost as well as coffee did. The drab, grey sky was dotted with peachy clouds, through which rays of light peaked out. It was an idyllic scene.
He made sure his footsteps were loud enough that she caught them as he joined her. When he was ten-or-so feet away, she looked up. She was startled for a second, then seemed to recognize him. By the time he stood only a foot away, she was back to work.
“Need some help?” he asked as he sat next to her, not minding the dew that would stain his pants.
“Sure,” she said, and handed him a plastic bag half-full of weeds. Five identical packets, all full to the brim and tied closed, sat behind her.
“How’d you sleep last night?” He asked, pulling stalks out of the rich, dark earth as he did so. The sun was in his eyes, making him cringe, but that problem would fade soon enough.
She stilled for a moment, before returning to her work as if he hadn’t spoken. The morning light caught her metallic nails, making them gleam from under a layer of muck.
“That bad, huh?” He tried to joke, and immediately felt like kicking himself. She was just possessed; jokes were the last thing she needed.
“I…” she hesitated, seeming to try and find the words. “I tried. I just…kept getting nightmares. Being a vessel was like being burned alive. It was… terrifying.”
“I know,” he said, keeping his voice soft and gentle. Thanks to his time interviewing witnesses, he was good at speaking sympathetically. He had to use two hands to pluck out one stubborn weed, but it eventually relented and joined its kin in the bag.
“I was possessed by an angel before; only a few weeks ago, in fact.” She looked up at him sharply, hands stilling for the first time in days. He powered on.
“It feels like being tied to a rollercoaster going full-speed, on a fiery comet, that’s careening towards Earth at thousands of miles per hour. And when it’s over, you feel like mummified husk at best. But the feeling does fade, eventually.”
She sat down properly, stretching out her back as she did so. It popped and cracked, and Sam cringed.
“Who were you possessed by?” She asked, getting as comfy as she could on the wet grass.
“Lucifer,” He answered, eyes still fixed on the weeds. She was silent for almost a full minute as she studied him.
“You’re joking,” She accused, sharp teeth catching the light as her face spread into a snarl. “You think this is funny?”
“I only wish I was joking,” He replied, still busy with his set of weeds. “And no, I don’t find it funny at all.”
Something in his face must’ve convinced her, because a short time later, he had a pair of thin arms wrapped around him.
“I’m sorry.” She muttered into his shoulder. She smelled like dirt and sweat, which wasn’t exactly refreshing, but Sam knew he smelled worse. “I should know better than to think something like that is impossible.”
He returned the hug strongly. She was ridiculously small compared to his gigantic frame, and she fit easily into his chest. “It’s cool. It sucks, but it could’ve been worse.”
When she finally pulled back, there were tears in her eyes; and for her sake, Sam didn’t point them out.
“So,” he said, “Bobby gave you the full explanation, yeah?”
It was maybe a little late to ask, but he’d been busy.
“Yeah,” she said, “But, uh- I do have one or two questions I never really got around to asking. I didn’t think of them at first, and everyone was doing something else by the time I did…”
“Ask away,” he encouraged, returning to the weeds.
‘One or two’ questions turned out to be a cascade of questions. She must’ve been bottling most of this up since she first blinked her eyes open after the possession.
“If…” She paused, and Sam got the feeling she didn’t like the question she was about to ask. “If she – I-Imogen – finds me again, and there are no banishing sigils or rings of holy fire around, what do I do?”
Sam knew the answer, of course, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like that the only advice he could give involved her giving up her autonomy.
“If she comes for you, it will be for one of three reasons. It will either be to torture you for information about us, to kill you, or to reuse you as a vessel. For the first two, your only hope is to pray there are defenses you can use around; or you’re fu- screwed. For the last one, though, you have a few options…”
They moved slowly through the vegetables, making sure each plant was seen to. Sam had never had much of a green thumb; the closest he’d gotten to plant-rearing was a fifth-grade assignment to grow a bean stalk from a seed. He’d failed that project because Dean had been forced to exorcize it. It was a long story.
“When an angel takes a vessel, they need that vessel’s consent. The trick with that is, all angels technically need is for you to say ‘yes’. They deal in absolutes; ‘yes’ means yes, and ‘no’ means no. For all they’re supposed to be righteous, they are not above giving you liver cancer or an aneurism to get your consent. The truth is, if you say ‘no’, then they’ll just beat you and hurt you till ‘no’ becomes ‘yes’.”
She took her time digesting this. As she thought, she ran her tongue over her new teeth. It still felt strange, having them actually in place and not skew. The metal felt even stranger. “So, if Imogen comes for me, the safest thing to do is say ‘yes’? There’s really no other options?”
Sam hesitated to answer. He didn’t want to give her false hope, but at the same time, she deserved his honesty. In fact, that was the least she deserved after what she’d been through.
“Well, you could try to fight the possession. It’ll be like walking barefoot on a burning tightrope while holding half a ton of squirming, screeching howler monkey babies, but it’s not impossible. It’s been done. You just have to focus on staying awake. If you’re awake, then when you get an opportunity, you can revoke your consent and cast them out. But if they put you to sleep, then that will never happen. If you are possessed, you start with that, and work your way up.”
She looked relieved to hear him say that. Her shoulders slumped, and it seemed like ten years of stress and worry had faded off of her.
“Thanks,” She said, “That really helps.”
“No problem,” Sam replied, smiling. “Then again, you could always play up the vessel thing. Finding a vessel capable of holding an angel like Imogen is nearly impossible. That make you valuable. If any supernatural creature worth their claws comes across you, they’ll try to barter you off long before they try to kill you. It still kinda sucks, but it could buy you time.”
At that, she looked thoughtful, then nodded. “That could work too, I guess. Thanks again.”
He nodded, and they returned to lighter topics of conversation.
He discovered that Fatima’s full name was Fatima Rahal Beaumont-Al Sham. Her mother was French, and her father, Syrian. She had five sisters – one older, four younger – and two Rottweilers. She was in AP Biology, and had dreams of becoming a botanist and adventuring to the amazon rainforest. She missed her home and feared for her family.
She let Sam talk, as well, and he found it incredibly therapeutic. Dean would’ve told him not to put so much stock in it, but Sam honestly believed that if you kept the bad stuff bottled up, it came back and bit you in the ass.
Dean called them in an hour later, telling them to ‘quit making flower crowns and come get some grub’. Sam couldn’t believe how much time had passed; it felt like only a few minutes! He could tell that as much as he felt better, so did Fatima; she smiled at him – a real, sincere smile, sweet despite the harsh metal – and took off running. Even though Dean would screech like a banshee if he caught Sam spilling feelings all over the place, Sam honestly felt a lot better too.
When Sam wondered inside and let his eyes adjust to the dark, his good humor faded back into oblivion. Jody Mills, local sheriff and occasional hunter, was seated on the couch. She wore nothing but a medical robe, and Bobby’s jacket slung over her shoulders. She had a white-knuckled grip on an empty whiskey glass that Dean was already refilling for her.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, concerned.
“I’ll live.” She responded, draining her glass and gesturing for another.
“What happened?” Cas asked. He sat next to Jody, applying gauze to a sharp cut on her cheek. He was stripped of his layers, and now only wore his white button-up with his black slacks. His hair was ruffled and feathery with sleep, and the bags under his eyes showed just how good a night he’d had.
“Leviathans,” Bobby answered, stepping out of the kitchen.
A quiet shock rolled through the room. Bobby was covered, head-to-toe, in the same black snot they’d all seen Raphael smear on Cas.
“A leviathan attacked you?” Gadreel asked, “And you survived?”
“Just about,” Bobby confirmed, leaning against the wall. “He wasn’t really expectin’ guests. And I had to drop a car on him to keep him down, but it bought us the time we needed to get away.”
Gadreel looked almost impressed, and Anna, his perpetual shadow, furrowed her brow.
“But, that still leaves us with the leviathan problem.” Rufus butted in to the conversation, “Bobby, you learn anything useful while playin’ chicken with ‘em?”
“Well,” Bobby said, letting Dean put a shot of whiskey in his hand, “The lore we’ve already got pretty much covers it. They’re like shape-shifters, just a lot more into eating folk. And pretty much nothin’ kills ‘em. Not holy water, not angel blades, or silver, or salt; I’m down to dismemberment and blunt force trauma.”
“Yay,” Dean deadpanned, drinking straight out of the bottle.
“All of this, we’ve already told you,” Anna said, “Though not even the archangels could keep them down long. They have no weaknesses.”
“So, what do you suggest we do?” Dean asked in the tone of voice that meant a fight. “Roll over and die?”
“Hardly,” Anna refuted, voice equally challenging. “Just that, of course, the usual stuff won’t work. If you want to stand a chance, you’ll have to use something no-one will have ever thought of before.”
“Well, we know one thing,” Bobby interrupted before the argument could escalate. “They bleed. And any good hunter can tell you that if it bleeds, you can kill it.”
No-one had much to say to that. No-one really wanted to play devil’s advocate when they were already so hopeless; and Bobby said it like it was the plainest truth in existence.
Eating was a silent affair. After only five minutes of this, Meg snapped.
“God,” she groaned, “This is depressing. There is nothing to do around here. I’m almost tempted to go running right to Crowley if hiding with you guys is gonna be like this.”
“Feel free to,” Sam replied, not even glancing up from his coffee and newspaper. “Honestly.”
They bitch-faced at each-other, forcing Bobby to cut between them.
“Since you so kindly volunteered, you can accompany Sam and Dean to Arkansas. I’ve picked up a case there, courtesy of an old friend; and the cabin-fever in here is gonna kill me. Get lost.”
Sam gawked at being teamed up with the demon, and Dean seemed equally perturbed.
“I’ll go with,” Cas said, standing from his place by Jody.
“Great.” Dean groaned. Though in truth, he was actually happy Cas was coming. “Just what we need. An awkward family road-trip.”