![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grumkin_snarkChapter Title: A Million Doors to Eternity
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Summary: In the end, it’s a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,413
Disclaimer: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own Supernatural nor Dark Angel. Just this.
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XXVI: A Million Doors to Eternity
Considering how much of a bitch Dean’s shoulder had been since Alec had thrown him into the concrete, the actual rotator cuff surgery seemed pretty anticlimactic. Significantly shorter than Alec would’ve thought—and less messy as well, at least in terms of bloodshed—Dean not gaining consciousness, and Noelle being methodical and efficient about the whole thing, not even yelling (much) at Alec during it, he really almost wanted more fanfare about it.
“Done,” Noelle pronounces, tying up the last miniscule stitch on Dean’s muscle. One final wipe of antiseptic, a bandage taped over the small external wound, and she’s pulling off her mask and gloves, tossing them in the biohazard bin and motioning for Alec to do the same.
Glancing at the clock in the room and wondering if maybe it was ahead of time, he looked back at Noelle. “Damn. You’re fast,” he comments.
Noelle shrugs, regarding Alec indecipherably. “You weren’t half bad an assistant,” she says, as close to a compliment as Alec thinks he’ll get. Turning back to Dean and seeing him finally start moving a muscle or two, she requests, “It’ll be better if we lay him down on this. Try not to jostle his shoulder. It’s still extremely sensitive.”
Alec almost snorts, thinking about how Dean would grimace if he’d heard her say that; he’d do the whole “I was doin’ just fine, got it?” masculinity thing that Alec had seen before. He doubts Noelle would be anything more than unaffected, but still…even Alec has to admit that after a while, the gruffness and perceived invincibility business gets a little tiring.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve had one or two shoulder injuries myself,” he remarks, deciding not to tell her that the vast majority of those he’d had to deal with himself. You know, slamming his own dislocated shoulder against a stone wall to pop it back into place, that sort of thing.
Noelle considers him suspiciously, but doesn’t speak. She sincerely doubts Alec would tell her anything even resembling the truth anyway. There’s nothing to do but wait now, wait until Dean awakens fully and she can go over the post-op procedures, write him scripts for pain and anti-inflammatory meds. She and Alec both take a seat, she in the more comfortable rolly chair—which Alec surveys with envy as he is demoted to the hard, thin plastic one—and pretend that the silence isn’t stifling.
Come on, dude, wake the hell up, Alec thinks miserably. It’s made even worse by the fact that he knows if the positions were reversed, Dean would probably already have had his way with the doctor in the storage room even before Alec was out of unconsciousness. Alec, to be frank, feels pretty pathetic. He used to have that charm and charisma…what the hell happened?
He has a sinking feeling it has to do primarily with Dean being in the room. He wonders if Noelle is thinking along the same lines; more importantly, that she’d rather go through all this with Dean than Alec. He does have to concede that she’s closer to Dean’s age than his. That’s just his luck. He’d said it to Max before, he’ll say it again: He always goes for the ones he can’t have. It’s a sin, honestly.
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me what really caused this,” Noelle pipes up, raising an eyebrow in challenge at Alec.
Who is completely downtrodden and just about done with everything. “I threw him into a concrete wall,” he answers tonelessly, chin on his hand as his eyes glance up at the doctor.
She pauses, as if he’s going to retract his statement, but he doesn’t. “You are definitely not the one who does the lying between the two of you, are you?” she asks astutely, now firming that fact in her mind. Even asleep, Dean looks like he’d be the more rakish one. Alec’s more…well, she muses, the little brother trying to reproduce said older brother’s rakishness, to less avail. “Threw him into a wall, my ass. You wouldn’t have the strength to do that.”
Alec laughs ironically. “Believe what you want, sweetheart,” he says, a little peeved. “But it doesn’t really matter now. It’s all patched up, we can head out once that lazy moron gets his act together.”
“You sneaky bastard,” comes their way from the operating table, and both Noelle and Alec start a little, snapping their heads over. Dean’s eyes are still closed, and he hasn’t changed positions, but there’s a certain annoyed set to his mouth that everyone in the room knows is for Alec. “You friggin’ roofied me, man!”
Noelle decidedly shuts her mouth, sending an expectant, amused look in Alec’s direction, who’s rolling his eyes at Dean’s melodrama. “Look, you totally wouldn’t’ve gone to the hospital—”
“I need to find Sam, damn it!”
“Not with a busted shoulder.”
Dean finally chooses to stare down his double, and sits up, valiantly ignoring the sudden rush of weightlessness in his head and crossed vision. He starts to chew Alec a new one, but then catches sight of the sole female in his vicinity, and promptly closes off whatever retort he’d had planned.
“Dude, I so forgive you,” he says earnestly, only making eye contact with Noelle.
Alec glances over to her, and is immediately outraged to find her flawless cheeks gain the faintest of pink tinges. “Perfect. Just peachy,” he mutters to himself, doubting Dean or Noelle, with their Ordinary hearing, noticed. Suddenly even less patient with everything, Alec questions acidly, “Can we get those prescriptions and blaze out of here already? I greatly, greatly dislike hospitals.”
“Have some heart,” Dean responds, sending a grin to Noelle as an afterthought.
“I’m not enabling your sick habit,” Alec snarks back.
The reason unbeknownst to anyone else, Dean’s exuberance suddenly fades, a kind of deep pain reflected in his eyes and now drawn mouth. The situations were entirely different, and yet the prim, nettled way Alec had said that sentence…it jolted Dean back fourteen years and a lack of quarters for a skeevy motel room’s “extra amenity.” Alec’s about seven feet shorter than Sam, and he’s far from the same bitchface, but…for a moment, Alec morphs into his younger brother, before transforming back into himself, albeit with a more confused and concerned expression.
Trying to regain his composure, Dean takes a silent, deep breath through his nose, and pretends he doesn’t see Noelle and Alec’s puzzlement. “So, um, what’d you do?” Dean asks Noelle, for the moment giving up both on his flirting and reminiscence of Sam. He flexes his shoulder, only wincing the slightest bit when the motion pulls against his stitches. “And can I have more of whatever that pain stuff was that you gave me?”
“I repaired that fucked up rotator cuff of yours,” Noelle replies curtly, picking up on Dean’s desire to forget what had just occurred. “You know, your brother was right—much longer with you overexerting that injury, and it could’ve been a lot worse for you.”
Dean scowls, this close to telling her that had been light compared to some of the hits he’d taken before. And not just in the Pit, either. Blood and Winchesters go together as naturally as doctors and antiseptic. If only his old scars were there as proof, she’d be a little less sugar-coaty. Then again, perhaps also warmer towards him, if she’s one of those chicks who likes scars.
“All right, so why don’t we just get those prescriptions and get on outta here,” Alec proposes again, also sensing Dean’s wanting to move forward. “Don’t we have your bro to find?”
Glaring at Alec for throwing his own words in his face, Dean also catches Alec’s slipup. Unfortunately, so does Noelle. “Your bro?” she emphasizes suspiciously.
“Yeah, well,” Dean says without skipping a beat. “Pipsqueak here’s kinda the runt of the family.”
Noelle smirks, like she’s in on everything—or perhaps that she can make a similar comparison to her own family—and Alec would very much like to slap the grin off both her and Dean’s faces. Well, one thing he does know is that Dean won’t be getting lucky with Dr. Quinn today, if he has anything to say about it. In the more rational part of his mind, Alec muses that maybe this sudden upturn of his libido is just him trying to do his defense mechanism thing, but that part isn’t forefront now.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s a Sasquatch, we know,” Alec gripes, thinking back to both his nightmare with Dean having to look up to Sam, and also to the latter’s stats, listing him as six-four.
Noelle at least comprehends Alec’s restlessness, and takes pity on him. “I’ll get you a few pills of OxyContin for the pain, Naproxen for an anti-inflammatory, and a script for more, if you use it as I say, although you’ll definitely want to ice it as well. And no more than holding a coffee cup in your left arm for a couple weeks, Dean.”
She gives him a look that clearly says she has him pegged as the kind of patient who disregards doctors’ orders if they don’t fit in with what he wants. “However you say, doc,” replies Dean, his words simple enough, yet their motives most obviously less than respectable.
Noelle ignores him, instead going over to a drawer and withdrawing a couple packets of two pills each, as well as scribbling some information on a pad of paper, ripping it off and handing the items to Dean. Immediately, he pops two of both the painkillers and Naproxen into his mouth and dry swallows them, waiting for the analgesic effects to come into play. Despite Dean’s instant ingesting without hearing her directions, Noelle doesn’t have the sense that Dean would abuse it, like some patients were wont to do with an opioid.
She hadn’t believed for a second that Dean had only been playing idle football and gotten the degree of injury he had, but she does think that he’s had lots of wounds before. (Even disregarding the messy array of deep scars across his heart, of which she doesn’t know the cause, but can definitively point the weapon out as a hardcore blade, with serious intent behind it.) Which imply that he’s well-versed in taking that kind of medicine; either that, or he would be worried that it’d indirectly slow down his ability to continue doing…whatever it is that he’d been doing that had forced the injury in the first place.
“Okay,” Dean says a moment later, hopping off the table and grabbing his shirt, once more fighting the vertigo and desire to throw up. He’s not sure it fools Alec or Noelle in the least, but he can at least pretend it does. It’ll help his machismo. “Thanks.”
He turns the door handle, wishing he could put his shirt on without it hurting (if those damn pain killers would just kick in already!). Noelle’s a doctor, but that doesn’t mean he’s exactly comfortable with being half-naked in front of the two others across from him.
Noelle follows them out, and starts to head back to her office, pondering whether her decisions were the right ones, but then stops, kicking herself for doing so. “Dean, Alec, wait,” she calls, and the men in question turn around, the automatic doors already open. Awkwardly, Noelle offers with a sigh, “Look, um…if that shoulder gives you any trouble, or if your GP needs to contact me…”
“Don’t worry,” Dean says with a smirk, despite his still-vertiginous state, “I’ll call you. Noelle.”
“Dr. Stephens!” she yells irately, huffing as she hears Dean’s chuckle, his and Alec’s backs disappearing into the dusky night.
Another quiet laugh assaults her ears off to her right, and she snaps her head toward the matronly receptionist, her stance clearly demanding an explanation. “Men like that,” the receptionist says, pointing knowingly to her wedding ring, “cause even the most decent of doctors to fall over themselves.”
Noelle says nothing and storms off, cursing the two men that had expertly tricked her into performing a surgery that she really shouldn’t have without knowing the full story and scans. A reprehensible move, no matter how attractive they were.
“Oh, God, would you stop brooding on how much you hate me?” Alec snaps forty-five minutes down I-90, fed up with Dean’s dreary mood. He’d put his shirt on by this time—ignoring Alec’s offers to help, and simply enjoying the numbness that the OxyContin finally provided—and hadn’t spoken since the hospital. “It’s not like I murdered your dog or something.”
“I’m not,” Dean answers promptly, sounding surprised. “I woulda done the same thing.”
“Then why the miserable right side of the car?”
Dean looks over, like he can’t believe Alec’s asking the question with an annoyed tone. “I’m trying to think what agency would be best to get Sam’s cell location. Since your government went all to crap and everything, so you can’t just call up the phone company and turn the GPS on.”
“You think it would work?” Alec questions, internally doubtful it would.
“Best chance I got,” Dean replies, knowing it’s the truth. Especially since Bobby can’t help them. And wouldn’t at any point in the future. “Just wish we hadn’t taken that pit stop. Lost some time.”
Alec fights the urge to hit his head against the steering wheel in frustration. Or Dean’s, for that matter. “Dean, your shoulder was giving you a hell of a time, even I could see that,” he says sternly, unable to not feel at the moment like their roles had been reversed. Alec chiding while at the same time taking care of Dean, that is. “And we didn’t lose that much time. Jesus, Dean, how do you expect to save Sam if you’re playing wounded?”
He honestly expects Dean to lash out again, and Dean begins to, but then sags in defeat. “I know,” he says solemnly. “I just—I can’t help but think that the more time it takes to even think up a plan the more states away Sam could be. I know how huge this haystack is. Sometimes it’s near impossible to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. Let alone someone like Sammy, who knows every trick in the book, and a few more that he’s written himself.”
Alec can’t think of an adequate response for a few minutes, just keeps driving. Then, as if some outside power had planted it within his mind, he gets a spark of inspiration. “Hold up a second,” he says, even though it’s not like Dean was going anywhere. “What about NESDIS?”
“NESDIS?” Dean repeats, unfamiliar with the acronym. He’s memorized more than a lot of agencies, but he can’t recall that particular one.
“It stands for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service,” Alec recites. “It’s a division of NOAA, and basically they take data from various military factions—Navy, Air Force, FAA, what have you—and other places to incorporate them into different satellites.”
Dean raises his eyebrows at Alec, impressed. “Where’d you learn that, kid?” he asks.
Shifting in his seat uncomfortably, Alec takes a breath. “I was on a mission,” he explains after a while. “Manticore relayed some of the imaging to me.”
Dean doesn’t ask what the mission was, judging from Alec’s previous confession that it hadn’t fared well for whomever was on the opposite team. Still, though… “How do you know they’re still active?”
“’Cause the mission was last year,” Alec says detachedly, regretting that he’s making Dean feel like an asshole for asking questions, but unable to get the faces of that dead admiral’s wife and child out of his head. “Manticore wouldn’t’ve used them if they thought it’d go under.”
Dean nods, willing to take Alec’s word for it. “All right, where’s this place located?”
“Asheville—wait, you want to infiltrate it?” Alec pauses himself, recognizing the voice full of confirmation. “We can’t just walk in there.”
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dean puts his foot up on the dashboard, the appendage having started to fall asleep. “I gathered that much,” he replies. “But who said anything about going in as civvies? What do you think they’d like better? NSA or Marines?”
Wondering if Dean had taken too much painkiller that it’s messing with his brain, Alec gives him a look clearly implicating he thinks he’s crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been through these kinds of things a billion times before,” Dean says, truly unable to count how many aliases and agencies of which he, Sam, and John had assumed membership. “I can whip up some IDs in an hour, tops. Just get me a decent copy center.”
“And under what purpose would we be doing there, genius?” Alec demands, not doubting that Dean could make fake identification—hell, Alec can, too—and yet still skeptical on Dean’s ability to bullshit that well. “You really want to tell them that we’re looking for Sam Winchester? There’s bound to be some guys old enough there who’d remember your names.”
“Aww, no need for flattery, dude,” Dean says with a smarmy smile. At seeing Alec’s lack of reaction, he sighs. “Of course not. For one, Sam wouldn’t be using his real name. For two, we’d just say there’s some security risk and we need to track the guy down. Planning another Pulse, or whatever you people call it.”
“No way they’re going to buy that,” Alec fetters harshly. “Since ’09, security in the government agencies that are still standing has been amped up more’n you’d believe. NESDIS will be the same way, you can trust me on that.”
Dean’s anger is simmering, Alec can feel it like it’s a tangible third entity in the vehicle. “Alec,” he says lowly, and Alec’s gathered thus far that when Dean actually uses his name, it’s because he’s pissed off, “I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this shit since I was four. Granted, I wasn’t actually the one making the badges or whatever, but more often than not I’ve been going under someone else’s name for the last twenty-five years. Well…” Dean amends with a pause and a wince, “before those two thousand ones, but the fundamentals are the same.”
Alec wants to blame the OxyContin again to Dean’s offhand yet imbued with meaning response, but he can’t. Mainly because the certainty in Dean’s voice reminded him all too well of that night back in Pryor, when Dean had almost told him about what was so plaguing his waking—and sleeping—moments. Granted, Dean had cited Hell, but it’s the intent that counts.
“All right then, MacGyver,” Alec says sarcastically, “say your way goes south, huh? We get arrested, I get slaughtered for being a transgenic, and you get pinned as a Friday the 13th Part Six knockoff. Doesn’t sound like my kind’a fun.”
“How the hell do you know about that movie?” Dean asks, dumbfounded. “That was in 1986, man. I barely remember seeing it.”
Alec shifts his eyes sideways over to Dean. “Another job,” he answers, and wishes he could have a less grisly one. “Undercover. The woman I had to terminate was big on the whole pre-Pulse slasher stuff. Had me watch some of ’em with her.”
“Freddy or Jason?”
“Jason. No question.”
“Knew you were good for something,” Dean smiles crookedly, giving Alec a light slap in the chest. “Sam always went with Freddy. But then again, he also liked the Godzilla remake, so I guess it’s expected.”
Alec’s not familiar with those films, but from the derisive note of Dean’s words, he guesses the remake wasn’t well-received, at least by Dean anyhow. He debates whether to comment regarding Sam, not knowing how touchy Dean would be on any topic at all concerning his brother, so in the end decides to go the safe route.
“Great, we’re on the same page about horror icons, but still on entirely different books for going about this, Dean,” Alec says, tightening and loosening his grip on the steering wheel in agitation. “I just think it’s way, way too risky is all. I mean, it’s not like either of us is exactly Master of World Peace in terms of public relations.”
“Sam and I got along just fine with our faces and fake IDs,” Dean counters, staring at Alec’s hard profile.
“Well I’m not Sam, okay?” Alec yells, finally losing it and snapping his glare to Dean furiously. “And pardon me if I’m not too keen on getting busted for something again for something that wouldn’t be my fault! Last time was bad enough, my damn psycho clone responsible for my arrest, and that was when transgenics weren’t so manhunted. Now I’m a friggin’ VIP in the whole movement, and there’s a shitload of people who want to get a hold of me, or worse, on my DNA and body parts. So I’m sorry if I’m not jumping for joy on this half-cocked plan of yours.
“I’m sorry I’m not Sam, Dean, but you’re just gonna have to deal with that! ’Cause it ain’t gonna change, got it? Just because you and I are pretty damn similar on a lot of things doesn’t mean we’re not total polar opposites on others. I got more military training than you, and I got better reflexes and mental capacity than you—they’re just facts, Dean—and you have a busted shoulder, not to mention you have zero idea what’s going on in the present, and I’m not going to stand for it. So stop giving out orders for two damn seconds, and just fucking talk about it!
“I may not be the second half of your little dynamic duo, but I’m an asset in my own right, and we’re pretty much partners now, whether you want to admit to it or not. So start treating me like one, and not a lame-ass sidekick. Or I’ll be the one throwing your ass out of the car, and you can hitchhike your way to North Carolina.”
Dean looks ready to murder, ready to cut Alec up into little pieces and scatter them all over Creation, as if Alec had gone into the Sistine Chapel and spray painted over the fresco ceiling, an inverted pentacle branded on his chest. Dean’s green eyes are the pure embodiment of fury, the streaks of amber through them more homicidal than Alec’s ever witnessed, more homicidal than Alec’s ever known his own to be. What’s worse is that Alec knows it’s all directed at him, the gritted teeth, the protruding jaw, the twitching of the muscles around his nose, the sharp posture and tightened tendons…all of it, sent straight to Alec.
“Don’t you say that about Sam, not ever,” Dean growls, almost inhumanly. “And don’t ever assume I compare him to you. Because you’re not the same, not in a million years. Just get us the fuck to Asheville.”
He turns his head to stare out the window, right arm clenched around his left, as if trying to hold in the hurt, both physical and emotional, and even if Alec tried to speak to him, he knows it’d be like talking to a block of cement, the hastily but solidly built walls too thick to penetrate.
So Alec drives, his hands rigid around the wheel, breathing stilted, the mileage signs only reaching as far as La Crosse, Wisconsin. He has a sinking feeling it’ll be the longest twelve hundred miles of his entire life.
They’re about eight hours out from the border of North Carolina by Alec’s guesstimation when he spots an advertisement—albeit tagged almost beyond readability—for a restaurant coming up in the next town. It isn’t so much that he’s hungry (although really, he can feel his body yearning for calories), more that he’s seriously jonesing for some caffeine right about now. He doesn’t necessarily want to risk Dean’s wrath some more by suggesting they stop for the night, but he will risk it for want of coffee. The Coke had long since worn off, and he and Dean had no other food-type items left in the car.
That, and Alec hopes there’d be some other vehicles in the parking lot, since the Mustang is running on less than an eighth of a tank, and because he hadn’t exactly been able to grab extra money from T.C., Alec’s strapped for cash. He’s got enough for a drink, but not for gas, should they even find a station. He wonders if Dean would be up for some wholesome bar games in order to rustle up some more. Between the two of them, Alec thinks they’d have a pretty good turnout within mere hours.
Considering Alec has it on good authority (by which he means intuition) that Dean won’t be speaking to him anytime soon—though he doesn’t know exactly why; he thought he was being perfectly fair about his outburst, if perhaps a little…assertive—he doesn’t attempt to. Pulling up into a parking space and shutting off the car, he exits and walks up to the diner, not bothering to check if Dean is following suit. Alec would very much like Dean to eat or drink something, but if the guy’s too stubborn to do so, well, it’s no skin off Alec’s nose. Okay, not a lot, anyway.
The host is thankfully a male this time, and he barely looks up at Alec before asking if it’s just him. Alec glances behind him to the car, where Dean is still sitting defiantly, and then sighs, “Nah, man. Can I just get—” Alec pauses, spotting an establishment out of the corner of his eye. Slowly turning back, his face gaining a mischievous glisten, he amends, “Never mind, actually. I think I’m gonna go for something a little…stronger.”
The man looks neither impressed nor disappointed, simply apathetic, and Alec strides out of the diner. He leans through the car window, and Dean looks over at him. “So,” Alec says nonchalantly. “How do you feel about ruffling up a few feathers?”
Dean frowns, but then catches where Alec had been looking: Nate’s Bar. Dean’s still not thrilled with Alec, but he is realistic enough to know that they’re pressed for not only money, but a good, fortifying drink as well. And Dean could more than use that.
Getting out of the car and slamming the door, Dean walks around to stand next to Alec. He’s stoic as he takes unwilling but heavy steps to the bar.
Next
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-22 07:54 pm (UTC)Anyways, I just wanted to drop you a line telling you how much I am thoroughly enjoying this crossover. You've seamlessly combined the two shows into a cohesive plot that works--it's completely believable. You're doing an excellent job with keeping the plot moving, and I'm definitely feeling just as anxious as Dean is to find Sam. So sad about Bobby, by the way--I felt the same shock and sadness that Dean did.
Wonderful story! Hope you post a new chapter soon!!
followingabdiel :)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-23 07:46 pm (UTC)