Day 43: Chapel

[constellates.livejournal.com]

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

Comments

[boyking]

Sam glanced over, surprised.

Huh. Well, that was unexpected. The blade had been perfectly fine last night and that aside, metal didn't disintegrate just like that. It certainly didn't crumble apart before leather did.

Never mind. That was probably the least of their concerns. Well, so long as the Glock he'd taken was functional, knowing what he did now about the knife. He hadn't checked. The mechanisms could've very well fallen to dust, too.

"Guess that means we'll have to see about the gun, then," he said. "I haven't actually fired it. The basement made a better hideout than I thought."

He hoped the weapon was in working condition. God knew they could use something more than a single knife and a few blunt objects. The bullets weren't silver and they'd need a shotgun before they could ever load rock salt, but at this point, Sam would take regular rounds over nothing at all. It'd still slow things down.

Sometimes. Sometimes it just made them mad.

It was a little weird to have Dean asking him what to do. That last year, it'd pretty much been an exercise in the two of them dragging each other one way or the other, running around trying to hunt down Lilith and Bela and Sam spending the rest of the time looking for ways to break that damn deal. There hadn't been a lot of discussion happening between them.

A part of him felt like this was wrong because it wasn't like things were any different right now. There was still the deal, Dean could still die in less than a year if Sam couldn't figure out what to do. But Dean was treating it as different—how could he not, when he didn't realize that Sam knew?—and maybe that changed things a bit all on its own.

"I don't know how much of a battle plan we can make until we know what's going on in the first place." He frowned at the floor. They needed information. The haunting, the monsters, hell even the zombies, he had a feeling that was all minor compared to what was really going on here. This was bigger. Big, the way Cold Oak had felt big even before Yellow-Eyes had shown up. And with the way what had once been routine suddenly changing out of the blue—

Peter had had a file, hadn't he, on his brother? Sam knew there were file rooms around here. He hadn't looked too closely at what it meant, having the nurses calling all of them by these alternate names, but he realized now that he should. It was a place to start, at least. If they could figure out what they were supposed to be to these people, they could start piecing it together.

"We should find out what they have on us. Why we're here according to them. I mean, we've all got the false identities, right? Maybe it could tell us something."

[kindalikedit]

Dean rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "I dunno, man. From what I got from that doctor, I'm relivin' a replay of that djinn's acid trip, with some details changed, like my name. I'm Rick Derringer," he added, a grin on his face as if he'd always wanted to use that name but hadn't ever gotten around to it. "How awesome's that?"

The thing was, he wasn't sure he wanted Sam to pick up their files. Yeah, it could be important - probably was - even if it was chock full of lies, but it also might have some information there he really didn't want his little brother to run across. It'd be nice to know what their cover was supposed to be so they could run into it and make sure they could match the details while they were stuck here; on the other hand, it could have too much in there, such as how long he had left, even if they chalked it up as cancer or something more normal than a demon waiting to collect on your eternally damned soul. Once Sam got it into his head he was gonna do something, it was as good as done, 'cause he was just as much of a stubborn bastard than Dad and the most Dean could do was slow him down, at best.

"Ice Queen also said I tried to kill myself," Dean mimed stabbing himself in the chest, which wasn't far from the truth...although he hadn't been exactly suicidal. It'd been the only way to jolt himself conscious, "Oh, and yeah, I supposedly ditched you - the wussy you, not the real you - on my way to hunt the djinn. But other than that, and the name thing, it's a dead-ringer for what I hallucinated that time."

It was also something she should've had no way of knowing. The only person he'd told about that was Sam, and he hadn't even told him the full details. Some of it was just too painful, sometimes he still regretted kicking himself out of that dream, even if he would've died in a matter of days, if not a week as that monster drained him dry: he believed his wish when it said it would've felt like a lifetime. It would've been a lot better than getting stuck in Landels with his time remaining ticking by and wondering how Sam was gonna get along without him. But then Dean remembered Sam trying to rescue him from that abandoned warehouse, how he would've got tagged by the djinn too if he hadn't jumped in to help, and he was able to shove aside the regret. He wasn't sure if he'd ever tell Sam the whole story, even months after.

How had Kisugi known though? He guessed she could be telepathic. It wasn't impossible. Wasn't like he had any mental defenses against that - Dean just knew how to kill these things, not Jedi it up.

The problem was he was pretty sure Sam was set on this idea about finding out more about their false identities. It wasn't a bad idea, though it did make him nervous. Dean guessed he'd just have to get to his own file first before Sam saw it, and remove anything that might have to do with his lifespan. He couldn't hide it forever, but he'd tell Sammy on his own terms.

It wouldn't be 'cause of a stupid piece of paper filled with just enough truth in those lies to get Sam asking questions.

[boyking]

Despite the quiet snort of amusement Sam gave, he personally found the alias a little more troubling than Dean seemed to. It fit a bit too well, as if they'd tailored it just for Dean. The possibility that that was exactly what had happened was far too real. He just couldn't think of why, what the point was.

"They've been calling me Matthew. Same surname." Of course.

Sam wanted to point out that Dean had effectively killed himself when he'd sold his soul at the crossroads and therefore Dean shouldn't be sounding so dismissive of the notion, but he couldn't, so he didn't.

In a lot of ways, it was fitting that the wish world the djinn had created was what Dean's fabricated life was based on. It was, after all, how things would've been had they grown up civilians. He'd been able to imagine what they would've been like once, but he couldn't anymore. Not without feeling as if he were just entertaining a useless fantasy. It'd always been too late for them.

He could still remember that whole incident, though, that twist he felt when Dean wouldn't pick up his phone. All of his concerns with having feds on their tails flew out the window and he'd stolen a car without a second thought, speeding through the streets to find Dean. Sometimes he wondered if Dean ever would've preferred to have been left there in his dream world, where their mother was alive and nothing was coming to kill them every waking second, where Sam just wasn't close enough to Dean to screw anything up.

Sam had never asked. The truth was he was afraid to, even though he knew there was only one answer Dean would ever speak out loud. For reasons beyond Dean simply being alive, reasons entirely selfish, he was glad Dean had pulled himself out of it.

"I'm not so sure she's told you everything, Dean," he said. "We should check it out to be certain."

He'd rather not be surprised by what they'd tell him, too. If he could find out beforehand, it'd be better. No one had said anything about it so far, the reason why he was here. Did it have anything to do with the night Dean was talking about? The same night Dean had gone to hunt the djinn and supposedly left Sam behind. He thought it must, though if Dean had been admitted here several days before Sam had...what was there to fill that gap?

He needed that file. Besides, the way all of this information was tied in pretty close to that dream world, something that actually had occurred...what else would be there? Would it mention anything about Dean's deal, or the fabricated equivalent of it? He had to know. He had to know if Dean's fate was true for where they were in all respects. He didn't know why because it wouldn't help, it wouldn't make things better—would make them worse in fact—but the question had been raised and there was no way Sam could just let it go. He had to answer it, even if it meant risking Dean seeing something about him he wouldn't want Dean to know.

[kindalikedit]

Dean wanted to sigh. Of course they had to check it out. It'd always privately annoyed him when Sam was so damn right all the time about stuff like this and if Dean dug in his heels just 'cause, he ended up looking like a douchebag.

That and he couldn't actually stop his brother without getting physical. Doing something like locking Sam into his room or duct-taping him to a chair was just gonna end up in a lot of awkward questions. The only thing he really could do was run damage control and make sure he didn't see anything Dean didn't know about ahead of time. Without thinking about it, Dean absently reached up and rubbed at his shirt, scratching over where the new tattoo was. Still felt irritated, but it had nothing on his other injuries, with his hands right up there. Despite not remembering much of last night - try most of it - it did look like he'd had his bandages changed, the ones wrapped around his busted fingers fresh all over again. Glancing sidelong at his brother, he almost did sigh this time, recognizing that expression as the one he'd seen time and time again before Sam took off doing his own thing. Looked like whether Dean wanted to or not, they were gonna be trying to suss out their "patient" files tonight.

Right now he couldn't do a thing to change tonight. What he could do, though, was find out what happened last night. Sam had told him bits and pieces, but he still didn't get how the hell they were both alive and in one piece. Dean frowned:

"So what else happened last night? I mean, I know Romero zombies are slow, but weren't you stuck draggin' my sorry ass all over town?"

And on that bad knee too. The one he'd somehow got that night Dean got possessed, which, studying his brother, the way he walked, Dean knew it was still bothering him. Now that he had a tattoo and was demon-proofed, Dean intended to find out who was responsible and kick their ass. No one went gunnin' for his brother. The problem was going up to the bulletin and asking if anyone fit in the black-eyed bastard category wasn't gonna do much, except waste his time. There was always trying to just Christo every single person he ran into...although honestly, that was just way too time consuming too, even if it might actually work compared to asking nicely for any demons to step to the front of the line.

Dean missed the days where it was just the usual hunts. Y'know, a good, nice and simple salt 'n burn or a monster that didn't have an agenda aside from snacking on just enough people to fit a pattern that got their attention.

[boyking]

Apparently, Dean wasn't too sold on the idea of grabbing those files. He hadn't said anything, but Sam knew his brother too well not to have caught what he was thinking, and if he had to guess further, he suspected Dean's reluctance had to do with what only ever had Dean reluctant recently—the deal. Since when did it not come down to that single thing? He felt a little guilty that Dean kept worrying over that when Sam already knew, had the whole story and then some.

Dean wasn't protesting, though, at least. Sam would've just taken the files on his own if Dean hadn't agreed, but he didn't really want to go behind his brother's back. He'd done enough last year. He was doing it enough right now.

Glad for the change of topic, Sam scratched the back of his head as he tried to decide where to start. It probably said something about him that he was relieved to be talking about how they almost got eaten or set on fire by a bunch of living corpses.

"We almost didn't make it," he said finally. "We owe a couple of people."

One of whom he could see sitting in the chapel, actually. He looked fine, all things considered; Sam didn't know if that meant Peter was fine, as well, but it was a good sign, at least, small though it was. He really needed to find his roommate. Peter hadn't been there when he'd woken up this morning. Even if Peter was okay, he had to talk to him. There hadn't been much time last night for Sam to thank either of them, though he knew he owed them both a lot more than just that, too.

"Once I got you into one of the houses, it was just a case of waiting it out." And taking down a couple of zombie kids and making sure Dean was stable despite the drugs, but Sam didn't add that part. He didn't want to see that guilty look on Dean's face, that I should've been there to take care of it expression that Sam had learned to spot a long time ago no matter how well Dean hid it. As if it somehow upset the natural order whenever Sam ended up shouldering whatever crap went down.

Lately, though, he was wondering if Dean might be right. If maybe he wasn't cut out to keep his brother safe because it'd been twice now in about as many days that Dean had almost slipped through his fingers again.

"He says he ran into you once." Sam glanced over, curious. "His name's Peter."

[kindalikedit]

Dean hadn't expected to hear about people actually helping them. Usually it was the other way around. Civvies were supposed to run around, crapping their pants cause a Jersey devil was on their ass and that was when they'd step in. Being the rescuee was a new one. Technically he'd been unconscious for all of that, so he'd missed out. But Peter? Wishy-washy, good kid Peter? He hadn't exactly struck him as the kinda guy to dive into the fray like that. Dean's eyebrows rose. "Yeah, I ran into a kid like that first day here."

He'd arrived during the night and had spent an unknown chunk of it unconscious on the floor after getting friggen flashlight-whipped with his own flashlight - something, he realized, was starting to turn into a running gag in this joint. Getting your knocks on in the job was just part of the risks, but he could safely say he hadn't spent as much time unconscious (or near it) as he had just within this week here. Hopefully he wasn't gonna get brain damage or something permanent, even if he had a pretty hard skull. Dean decided he was gonna keep the whole getting brained by your own flashlight to himself for now. Sam had enough things to be worried about. Something that happened once and looked to be just a random thing wasn't really that high on their To-Do list.

Dean was still trying to wrap his around him that nerdy, probably-shy Peter had been the one to put on the superhero cape and save their asses when the dead were walking. "You serious though? Him? I mean, I talked to him a little, but he came off as just some college kid that time."

And not the badass kind, like Sam. Sam had come prepackaged with all the know-how on surviving and handling a gun; somehow he doubted they taught how to hotwire a car and bypass security at Stanford. Still, Peter had toughed it out to last here during the nights, which meant either he knew the meaning of "stay put" in the rooms or he could handle himself more than Dean had guessed at first. Peter told him about being "brainwashed", which had been his first warning there was a real danger of getting possessed and attacking people with no say in the matter - he just wished he'd paid more attention to that, 'cause he still had no memory of the actual moment when he must've gotten tagged. No stray memories leaking into him from the demon, either. Come to think of it, how had it gotten into his room? He'd laid salt lines down...

Unless there was more he forgot and he didn't even know it. That night had just been obvious. Dean wasn't sure if he wanted to bring that up to Sam just yet, not when the kid knew more than he did and could just get away with hedging around it. Sam probably had good reasons but Dean could handle himself. Especially now that he had the tattoo and he couldn't get turned against his brother like that.

Dean caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, shifting slightly to watch as the first nurse came in to escort the patients at the same time as the intercom sounded. Looked like their time was up for now. Dean gave his brother a back-handed tap on the arm before Hello Nurse showed up:

"Take it easy, Sammy,"