SpN: Come The Night, 21/?

[roxy]

Title: Come The Night, 21/?
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 3049
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5

Summary: this is (now) an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.

Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance. Some scenes are graphic. Feel free to ask if you'd like more info.


one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen~sixteen~seventeen
eighteen~ ninteen~twenty





icon by fragilecat

3
Angel's quiet after that, not quiet like 'I'm gonna stab you in your sleep' quiet, just…quiet. The kind of quiet Sam would get when Dean did something particularly stupid, the way he'd seem pissed off and sad at the same time and god damn, Dean hated that shit. Still hates that shit, even coming from someone else. From Angel. But he can't bring himself to speak, to explain, so Angel's quiet and Dean's feeling like shit. And a coward. He just stands to the side and watches as Angel spends most of his time with Rio—lots of time spent sitting close together, quietly talking, laughing, or worse, not laughing.

Of course, it's all perfectly fine. Dean takes it as a punishment he deserves. Grits his teeth and prays for strength. He dislikes what it is he's feeling, because it's something he's never felt for anyone but Sam before. Jealousy, pure and simple, braided through with guilt, and it's an ugly, painful, overwhelming emotion. Dean spends a lot of time feeling like he's going to throw up. Well, kill someone first and then throw up.

And then of course, there's The Plan. The plan Angel and his little friends come up with, one that sucks major balls. It's stupid and reckless and dangerous for Angel, and himself of course, but in the end, he knuckles under. Angel doesn't really give him a choice—besides; he might as well go with the flow. There's this thing in the universe that gets its jollies off at seeing Dean pushed to the edge and then nudged off, and Dean's resigned himself to being the Universe's ass-monkey.

~o0o~
Dean's been standing at the edge of camp for a while, watching the kids run around, screaming and laughing and throwing a lump of stuffed leather Dean figures is supposed to be a ball. He squints against the sunlight. Yeah, kind of a football thing. He smiles--it makes him feel good, seeing kids who feel free enough—safe enough--to act like wild things. It feels like it's been a long time since he's heard laughter like that, pure and uncomplicated and filled with the joy of living. It sends him back to those few days in the mining towns, and the kids he'd seen there—the first really happy kids he'd seen, even before the gas station and the end of the world. The sound's almost enough to silence the other laughter he sometimes hears deep inside, the cold, breathy chuckles that slither between all the good moments that he has. Dean takes a deep breath and lets his muscles go slack, lets memories go and relaxes into the sound of kids living, the comfortable, dry, heat of the day….

Dean jerks so hard he nearly stumbles and curses at the low snicker at his side. Between one breath and the next, Shem's standing there next to him, like a fucking puff of smoke. So fucking quiet and smooth, he got right in under the Winchester radar. Dean hates that like poison.

"Hello, Traveler, ready to get pretty for me?"

"Jesus. Tell me, ya horse fucker, this is really the best idea you guys could come up with?"

Shem coughs hard into his elbow—Dean's pretty sure that Shem's about a half minute from peeing himself laughing. "Man, you know you insulting. Us, we don't be fucking horses; them Out-tribes foreigner assholes do that. So, I guess your boy did explain the thing to you, hanh?"

"Yes. Freakin' endlessly, like I'm deaf or stupid or something--blah-blah and blah, Deaaan, are you listening," Dean whines, doing a bitchy imitation of Angel being bitchy. Of course he knows this shit by heart, Angel's repeated it enough damn times Dean can say it in his sleep now. "How the fuckin' hell is this 'bride' thing not like slavery?" he frowns.

"Oh, it's exactly like slavery, s'why us the Seasons Tribes won't have that kind of shit. Whatdefer," Shem shrugs. "We don’t go around telling the world how to live its business; we just keep it the fuck out of ours."

"Yeah, you guys got hearts of gold," Dean mutters, trying to figure out and failing, just what the hell it was about the fucked-up circus in Sam's head that makes it okay for slavery, for all the flavors of it this world holds. It's like part of the world he rules like a steamroller and the rest of he encourages to go to Hell on its own….

He heads back to the tent, Shem trailing him and going on about god knows what—Dean tuned him out right around the fifth reason why The Tribe of Seasons was better than any other group of people on the face of the planet. Before he knew it he was at the tent and Shem was pulling the flap back, bowing him in with a sarcastic little bend of the waist and twist of the eyebrow. "Now how 'bout you go on and tell Rio trick you out right to be a pretty little thing for me?"

"How about I kick you in the fuckin' nuts and you tell me how you like that?" Dean snarls and Shem grins right back to his molars.

"Aw, come on, there, boy. Good looking guy like me, you know you wanna get smooth and good-smellin' for me. You're a little old, but I can deal with it—"

"You're a fucking jerkoff, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know that," Shem says with a surprising sincerity that startles Dean. The boy shakes his head and there's at least a little apology mixed in with his smirk. "Believe me, bru, this ain't just about entertaining me, this is the easiest way, the fastest. Best way since you don't have no papers of your own."

Dean reminds himself that the most important thing right now is to get to Sam, to figure out what happened and to fix it, something he's sure he can do. Maybe that makes him crazy—crazier--but there's this thing in his mind, a little voice that tells him Sam needs him to make this right. It's fighting with the voice that tells him that he should protect Angel at all cost, and the voice that tells him that his nightmares about Sam are all true, right down to the tattooing of his name on the blood-wet bones of Dean's arms…he swallows, and turns himself away from those thoughts.

Before Dean manages to completely shove those thoughts back down where they belong, Rio comes strolling in with a young girl, all made up, red shadowed from brow to eyelids, black kohl rubbed around blue-green eyes. She's dripping with bright jewelry, scarves billowing around her as she walks, a fuck-ton of noise coming from the beads and bracelets and little bells strung all over her and just—crap.

Dean groans. "Oh fucking hell, look at you. You look like a two dollar whore."

"Fuck you—fuck you a lot, ugly. You wait, you're gonna look like a ugly guy done up like a ugly bitch."

"You get that telling me I'll make an ugly girl isn't much of an insult, right?"

Angel just flips him off and drops onto a cushion—trips actually; falling in a jangle of brass and silver and a chain-reaction flutter of material.

Rio rolls her eyes and sighs. "Dei. Shem'll be carrying the papers—your papers—of sale and that's all the docs you're gonna need." She makes a star-burst movement with her fingers. "Blam—you're officially not people now. You don't speak—not once, not to no one. You don't look no one in the eye. You be heads down and mouth shut and take tiny steps behind him when you walk. Now, I know that's gonna be some hard for one of you, who's a hard-headed, clot-brained, rough-neck, loud-mouth fool—"

Angel snorts a laugh into his hand and Dean mutters, "Shut the fuck up—" but inside he's beaming because the look Angel gives him says that Dean's not completely an unpleasant smear on the road of his life. "Can't be talking about me, 'cause that doesn't sound a bit like me at all," and smirks at Angel and Angel unbends enough to smile at him….

Rio turns to a kid who's almost been hidden behind her and the tower of bags in his arms; he drops them with a grateful sigh on the ground when she gives him a sign and takes off fast. She turns her attention to Dean. "I brought some jewelry and scarves and stuff for you, too," she says. "Lots of scarves. You all are okay but not even ugly girl pretty. No offense."

She smirks at Dean and cuts her eyes at Angel. Angel's got one of the filmy scarves wrapped around one hand, pulling it through his fingers and looking at Dean in a way that makes Dean…uneasy. And a little turned on. Angel snorts, and says to Rio. "Dona, it's okay, no offense taken at all."

Rio's cheeks turn a lovely red, and if it was any other person Dean would have called the expression she turns on Angel a simper, but of course she slugs Angel in the arm anyway, hard enough to stagger him. Shem just rolls his eyes at Dean. "Women," he says and Dean nods like he knows what the boy is talking about.

~o0o~

Dean slaps makeup on without really thinking about it. It's not like he's a stranger to the stuff--he's had to wear makeup before. They'd used to do it occasionally on a hunt, or as a cover of sorts, even though he'd looked pretty hideous with it once he got out of his teens and those kinds of disguises got hard to pull off. He looks Angel over from the corner of his eye, the kid's makeup is perfect and no matter what Dean might have inferred about how he looked as a girl the truth was, if Dean had come across Angel all tricked out like that some night in some dark bar, he'd have gone for him, happily. And wouldn't have known any better until he got the kid's clothes off. Dean mentally shrugged. Not that something like surprise dick would have stopped him….

He sweeps him with his eyes again and idly wonders if Angel's wearing satin undies under his robes, and winces. Curses himself and his stupid-ass dick for going there.

It's like Angel can read his damn mind. He jerks his chin at Dean and glares—his eyes are twin pissed off lasers burning into Dean's. "They taught us a lot of things back when I had no choice but to learn," he says, sharp and defensive.

Great—Dean's just been called on perving over the fact that Angel had had to know how to dress like this, probably for some fat old pervert that wanted a little girl with a dick…his stomach lurches and he drops his eyes to his feet. Dean feels like shit again. Angel's real fuckin' good at that, making Dean feel lower than a worm.

Until a big warm hand tilts his chin up. Angel says, low enough that only Dean can hear, "Come on, you. Let me do your makeup. Nobody who's not a blind, eighty year old whore wears big dots of red on their cheeks like that."

Dean gets it for what it is—an olive branch. He's so damn grateful Angel's not beating him with it he can't help but grin, the affection tucked into Angel's words makes his whole chest light up and the tight string between his shoulder blades loosens. He pointedly ignores the huffy snort he hears from Rio. Jealous bitch.

~o0o~

He remembers those words when they take their leave of the camp, and Rio and Angel hang off each other like long lost lovers parting again. Or maybe just long lost siblings…Dean hates that Rio twists him up like that.

Right before he climbs into the cart, Rio grabs his arm. "You're so stupid, Shit-For-Brains. And you'll probably get yourself killed for it. And it makes my stomach twist in knots thinkin' you're gonna do the same thing to Angel and he don’t deserve that but he loves you, so."

Dean's whole self jerks when she says that, the words just flood him like a fire. He almost misses what she says next. "Please just look out for him. Whatever you think you're going to get done in the city, it's not for no good. Just…please. Let him go when you get there. Don't drag him down with you."

It's obvious the please just about gutted the girl, and Dean is impressed with how much she cares about Angel and how much it killed her to beg Dean…but Dean doesn't really care all that much. Angel is his and he'll take care of him, without Rio butting in.

Her eyes are all over his face before the slightly hopeful, slightly pleading expression on her's twists. Her eyes harden into the obsidian chips he recognizes—she nods. "Yeah. Figured as much," but doesn’t say anything else and Dean feels the barest lick of…shame. Just a whiff, before he turns away.

Shem bangs the side of the cart and yells, "Come on, you--we got miles to burn here. No matter what she's sayin', you a good lookin' woman. Now shake it."

Angel grins at Dean, snickers at how he struggles to climb into the cart, hampered by the stupid robes and scarves and little jingly damn bells on everything. "He's right De, you are. See, it's all in knowing what you're doin'—" he shimmies in a way that's just plain…disturbing. "Gotta know how to work it, s'all."

Dean glares at Angel but his heart's not in it—Rio's words are on repeat in his head. He's so deep into thinking about it he almost misses when the cart pulls off, trailed by a few of the tribesmen riding shotgun at the sides of the cart. They act like it's no big deal to set out across the no-man's land between the lands of the Seasons and Chronopolis—the Alley. Dean notices the way they're sigiled up and covered with charms and whatnot and figures maybe it's not. These Edgers look totally confident in themselves—they're bad asses, on a John Winchester level, and he has to admit, he's felt most comfortable with these people. Even if some of them kind of looked at him like he was someone's barely housebroken puppy…like that wasn't a look he'd gotten all his life. What the hell, they didn't know him. No one really did….

The cart bumps and sways away like a horrible carnival ride and Angel jerks back and forth cursing under his breath. Dean looks back over his shoulder, can still see the fires of the camp and Rio, saddled up but not moving. Watching them leave. She's still there, watching, when the trail dips away and Dean loses sight of her.


~o0o~
They spend a day on the trail; some barely there sketch of a path that Dean can't really make out. Every few miles are marked by a tall, black pole with a little black box perched at the top. He narrows his eyes at it…the box at the top of the pole looks familiar, reminds him of something…an ice-cold rill streaks down his back when he looks up, catches a glimpse of color. His sun-blizted eyes tell him it's blue but when he blinks he gets little afterimages of blue flashes, so he can't be sure if he really saw anything. All he's really sure of is that those poles make his gut roll. He kind of hates them, but no one else shows interest so he lets it go, tries to settle again. At his side angel shifts, and sighs like he's deflating. "What?"

Angel sighs again and says, "So. Here we are, getting close to your goal. I gotta point out, you haven't told me what your plan is once we get—if we get—inside. Just getting in the city doesn't mean much. You've still got to get to the petition court. Gotta have a reason to speak."

"My plan…my plan is to get in front of Sam. Figured he'd want to see me. From there, I find out who he is. Kill him if I have to."

"That's your plan?" Angel snorts, high, sharp and bitter. "Hell of a plan. First of all, he can't be killed. Second, his bodyguards will turn you into paste before the thought crosses your mind. Don't you know who you're dealing with?"

"My brother. Who loves me."

"Oh sure, that one, the brother—who did something so fucked up to you that you landed in our town—a stinking, homeless, wetbrain who still doesn't really know where he is or when. Fucked you up so bad that every time we talk about him you cry and I'm not thinking it's from being sad, bru. That brother? He'll kill you before you get a chance to breathe his name."

Dean shook his head. "No. If there's anything I know, it's that he won't kill me. I'll make it in alive; I'll find a way to Sam, somehow." He grabs Angel, all the stupid bracelets and charms and friggin' stupid little bells chiming as he locks his fingers around the kid's wrist. He squeezes until the bones shift under his grip. "Not for the reason you think. Not for that—it's different now. That Dean is gone and dead. This one, the one you made, all he wants is to lay that shit to rest, you understand? I promise you, that's the only reason."

Angel gives Dean a look that plainly says he wants to believe but he can't. Dean wishes he had some way of telling Angel, assuring him, prove to the kid that…he's everything to Dean. Sam was the old world, and Angel's the new world.

But he owes it to Sam, owes it to the kid he made that long, long, long ago promise to. This time, if he has to, he's going to make good on it.





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Comments

[macaronielbow.livejournal.com]

Yay! Another chapter!

I think I want to dress up as Angel-dressed-as-a-woman for Halloween.

Can't wait for Chronopolis!

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

LOL! If you do, I want pictures! :)

I'm really looking forward to getting into Chronopolis myself. :)