Cason
Cason glanced up at Nat as she asked if his plan was working. He thought about it for a moment with his lips pursed and then he tilted his head to the side, considering his answer before nodding, “I think so, yeah. I gotta let it sit for a bit, if nothing goes wrong. If something goes wrong, hopefully someone will have the brains to go outside and call…”
He scooted a bit closer to Nat and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, just needing to feel her close to him for a moment. He still felt a bit…guilty? For leaving her behind, and for not giving her much of a choice or any agency, which wasn’t like him with her. Or at least, it hadn’t been when he had first met her. Maybe things were too deep now, for him to keep himself from practically tying her down, and he needed to find a way to deal with it, other than physically keeping her out of hunting. She would go insane.
“You haven’t been going insane while I’ve been gone, have you?” He asked gently, reaching his hand up to brush his thumb across her cheek. He thought for a moment, and then he sighed and shook his head, “Until I find a way to keep you tethered to me in some way, I just can’t have you running around near Angels. They’re unpredictable and ruthless…real similar to demons. The one in the trench coat? I think he may be coming to our side, which scares me almost more than when he was against us…”
Dean, Duke and Castiel
Dean took another heavy blow to the face, then another and a few more, before he finally dropped to the ground, flat on his cheek with a groan. He wheezed, spitting a mouth full of blood, before defiantly picking his head up from the floor, just in time to see Mika blast the side of Alastair’s head with a crowbar. Reaching out to Mika, Dean was startled, when the arms that came around his torso weren’t hers. They were Duke’s.
“I got ya bub. I got ya. C’mon. We gotta go…” Duke started, before Mika stabbed Alastair and for a moment, Duke thought that she had killed him. His heart hammered with excitement, but seeing Alastair pull the knife from his shoulder and toss it aside like it was nothing caused Duke’s heart to sink. He sat Dean back down and slowly stood from the floor, his body low and ready to pounce if something went down. The wind flew out of his lungs as Alastair actually punched Mika, but she got him back, and Duke continued to step forward toward the demons back.
Castiel showed up next to Dean, wrapping an arm around Dean’s waist to hoist him to his feet. As Cas began to turn and walk out of the room with Dean, Dean peered up from his swollen eyes and in tandem with Duke, he cried out, his voice soft and hoarse but Duke’s echoing in the room, “Mika! No!”
“No, no, no, no, no. You son of a bitch!” Duke screamed, realizing that Mika wasn’t just chained to the pole, she was gravely injured, judging by the blood trail that was left as she was raised up the pillar. As Alastair turned to him, glaring down at him, Duke felt his throat tighten and he brought both his hands up, clutching at his chin as Alastair choked him. Just as he began to see stars, Sam barreled through the door and he slammed Alastair against the wall. Duke fell to his knees, but he quickly scrambled to his feet, coughing to try and catch his breath.
“Mika! I’m not leaving. Get off of me! Mika!” Dean cried out, trying to wrench himself from Castiel’s arms as his heart shattered in his chest. The longer he was away from Mika, the more he could feel her slipping away from him, until he couldn’t feel her in the room at all. His struggling in Castiel’s arms began to slow as his body went cold and numb, and he fell to his knees, Castiel simply leaning with him, until they were both on the ground.
“Dean, there’s nothing you can do. We need to go.” Castiel said simply.
“No! I won’t leave without her! I won’t!” Dean cried out, his face almost touching the floor until he heard Sam torturing Alastair, in what felt like an entirely different universe. He raised his head, watching his brother use his powers like they were second nature to him, and the ease in which Sam wrenched information out of Alastair drew the pit in Dean’s stomach even further down toward his feet. He was going to lose Sam and Mika, all in one night. But suddenly, Sam caused Alastair to spark and die, the simplicity of it shocking Dean’s heart and causing his ears to ring as he stared at Sam with wide eyes, struggling to breathe. “Sammy. Mika…”
Duke dragged his feet as he pulled his lip between his teeth, stifling a deep sob that broke from his throat as he approached Mika, where she hanged. He reached his shaky hands up, running his fingers along the chains as Mika’s blood rolled down the pillar, soaking into the front of his shirt as he stepped closer. He finally found one of the ends of the chain, and pushed it through another part, the chain falling loose, but still holding her body up a bit. Duke reached up, bracing her limp body by her armpit for a moment while he freed the rest of the chain, and her body fell forward onto his chest. With a strangled whimper, he stumbled back, and then leaned forward, falling with her onto the floor.
“Please, babygirl. Please. C’mon.” Duke’s shaky voice called out to her, as if there was a chance she would come back to him. He rolled her slightly, pressing his hand to her back, where he pulled it back, covered in enough blood that he closed his eyes tightly, tilting his head back with a soft sob. This wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. Of all people, Mika deserved it probably the least. Duke placed his bloody hand on the back of Mika’s head and he brought her forehead up to touch his, his tears falling over her cheeks as he broke. It felt as if he had lost half of his soul. Someone had reached into his chest, ripped his soul in half and pulled it out, crushing it. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I was supposed to protect you…I always did. Please…”
Duke felt warmth against the side of his head, and a heavy weight pressing against his side as Dean crawled over to him, and leaned in. Duke didn’t budge, just tilting his face against Dean’s as they both cried, feeling every ounce of the other’s emotions, all at once. Duke knew that Dean had lost the one person on this planet that held him together. She was his constant and his peace. Without her, Duke couldn’t imagine the road that Dean might go down.
“Dean.” Castiel called out to them, and Dean didn’t budge, until Duke placed a hand on the back of Dean’s neck, squeezing gently. “Dean you have internal bleeding. I need to heal you.”
“No. Not until you bring her back.”
“I can’t.” Castiel muttered sadly, and he shook his head, standing above Dean and Duke.
“Why not?!” Dean cried out, causing Duke to flinch, but Castiel was unmoved as he reached down and grabbed Dean’s arm, disappearing with him. He reappeared outside the door with Dean, and leaned Dean back against the door, pressing his palm to Dean’s forehead. Dean’s wounds healed immediately, and he took a deep breath, glaring at Castiel. “Why can’t you bring her back?!”
“It’s complicated. Bridging the gap between life and death his hard enough, when it’s required of us. We can’t just interfere…especially not with Mika, and the nature of her death.”
“You mean to tell me that she died…” Dean started to question Castiel, but he couldn’t even finish the sentence as the absence of pain caused his stomach to cramp painfully, and he turned back to the door, pulling it open. He stepped into the room, his eyes falling instantly on Duke, cradling Mika in his arms, rocking with her as he cried. Dean rolled his shoulders for a moment, and then he stepped forward, reluctantly squatting on the floor in front of Duke. He didn’t speak to him, shoving an arm under Mika’s back, smearing his skin with her blood, and then he pushed his other hand under her knees, standing with a groan from the floor, and pulling Mika away from Duke. Duke didn’t move much, staying on his knees as he watched Dean silently press a kiss to Mika’s forehead, and then he walked out of the room with her.
Duke turned his face back to look at the floor in front of him, his entire body numb and shaking as a few random tears fell down his cheeks. He wasn’t even sure he was alive, outside of the heavy thud of his heart pounding in his ears. In that moment, he wanted to sink into the ground, or wrangle up some demon to make a deal that Mika would hate him for, for the rest of her life. He wanted to kill every demon that existed on the planet, and at the same time, he wanted to go with her. It was short sighted, and he would leave plenty of anguish and mourning in his wake, but it would be better than this feeling.
His own death flashed in his mind a few times, thinking that this must have been how Esme felt when he died. It didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel real. At the same time, he was feeling everything at once, and he knew…he didn’t want to live without Mika, not after all these years. As he brought his hands up in front of his pale face, he just stared at them blankly, barely blinking. This wasn’t real…
Anna
Anna’s head snapped up as she heard Esme’s voice, her heart hammering in her chest with excitement. Esme had come for her! Which meant that someone was likely with her, which meant that maybe they were getting out unscathed, and no one was going to die. She looked up toward the window of the room and rattled her chains, before swallowing heavily at Esme’s question.
“Yeah! He hasn’t hurt me yet. I’m just stuck here!” Anna called back to Esme. Anna’s foot tapped nervously against the pipe it was chained to as it seemed to be taking Esme a while to get through the door. Of course the door was reinforced and heavy. Uriel would never trust Anna not to find a way to break free from her handcuffs while high on demon blood, and if she could break free of the handcuffs, some flimsy door wasn’t going to hold her back.
But Anna’s eyes went wide as the doorknob was melted from the door, and the door swung open. She stared at the door for a moment, as Esme ran to her, and her eyes caught up, turning to look at Esme. She wanted to ask her how the hell she had managed to melt a steel doorknob, but she didn’t have it in her to ask. She just wanted to be released from the chains.
“Y-you look good too. I’m assuming Duke is with you?” Anna asked, but she couldn’t carry on her questioning, which was eventually going to land on the subject of Sam. Esme crumbled the handcuffs and chains with some sort of power that Anna could have never dreamed that she had. In shock, Anna scanned Esme’s eyes, watching the bright light fade from them with wide eyes. She nodded nervously at Esme’s question, and she scooted back against the wall, sliding her body up onto her feet without touching Esme’s hands.
She nodded quickly once again at the instructions Esme gave, but before she stepped off to hurry downstairs, Anna shuddered and she couldn’t help but ask, “Esme…are you…are you a witch?”
She didn’t expect an answer, and shook her head, closing her eyes tightly with her brow furrowed, “You know what? Don’t answer that. Let’s go help the others.”
Anna stepped off finally from her place against the wall, and she jogged out the door, looking around the warehouse for any sign of a stairwell. Luckily, the lights were brightly shining down on the only stairwell in the hall, and Anna scoffed at their luck, running toward them, keeping at a pace to keep Esme close. She rounded the top of the staircase, quickly running down the stairs, almost taking two at a time as she only thought of one thing…to get to Sam before he got himself killed.
As she reached the boiler room, she could hear the chaos taking place in the other room, and she ran toward the door. As soon as she reached the door, she could hear Sam screaming at Alastair, and her heart dropped to her feet. Alastair would kill him. He would kill him and in the most brutal and creative way possible. But her eyes…landed on Dean.
“DEAN!” She cried out, as she pulled the door open and sprinted toward him, reaching back and grabbing Esme’s hand. No matter what, they needed to stay together. The questions could come later on. As she approached Dean, she looked up, just as Sam killed Alastair and the wind was knocked out of her lungs. Everything around her went silent, and Anna watched Alastair’s body slump over, dead. She couldn’t tell if the ringing in her ears, and sudden slow motion of the entire room was relief, or if she was afraid of Sam, in that moment. Sam had killed Alastair with his powers, snuffed him like it was nothing. Anna willed her heavy legs forward, as Sam panted. She crashed into his back, her eyes wide and her breathing ragged and terrified as she wrapped her arms around his waist, holding onto him for dear life. If she could have cleared her mind enough, the sight not far from his feet would have broken her, but she could see and hear nothing else other than Sam’s shirt against her cheek, his hot skin radiating against hers as she listened to his heart hammering.
“He’s dead. It’s over. He’s dead.” She breathed, panting as her heartbeat synced with Sam’s and she closed her eyes tightly.