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“You are not going,” Sam announced, his voice making sure that no one would protest. But what is gonna stop Dean?
“Sam do you really think you can talk me out of this? ‘CAUSE YOU ARE NOT!”
Charlie and Bobby lurched in the shadows of the abandoned hall they stood in. Night had fallen, death loomed over their heads. The night was moonless. Castiel was nowhere around.
“Dean Winchester you are not going,” Charlie stepped forward, her voice strong as ever. “And you cannot deny the order of a raging lesbian like me.”
“Charlie, I told you-” Dean started.
“YOU COMPLETE IDJIT! Don't you get it? You will DIE!” Bobby shouted in a hoarse voice.
“Do you think I care?” Dean replied with an equally loud voice. “No- all of you, JUST SHUT UP. Cas is in there! If I don’t go, that bitch is gonna kill him anyway. It’s Cas! We can’t leave him!”
“When did we ever say that we were gonna leave him there, Dean?” Sam protested.
“Oh? Do you have another plan? Shoot.” Dean mocked. “I’m all ears.” Sam remained silent.
“That son of a bitch ain’t gonna wait,” Bobby said, “Dean got that one right.”
At a corner of the hall, the King of Hell arrived, his fingers still in the snapping position. “Which lady are we talking about here?”
“Oh Crowley,” Sam sighed. “Not the best time. Never the best time!”
Crowley stepped beside them all. “Where’s your Giraffe?”
“He’s got caught,” Bobby said, staring angrily at the ground. “There’s this goddess Nike who caught him. And she won’t release him until he fights and kills someone else. And-”
“Oh, yes, that lady,” Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory. Been caught by her once. She never lets you go without victory.”
“Then how did you escape?” Dean asked, suddenly all active.
“I left my meat suit. And, I must add, it was fairly difficult getting it back later on.”
“Right. Of course.” Sam mumbled as he rubbed his hand over his face.
Everyone stood silently for a while, shifting on their feet, rubbing hands nervously, while Crowley observed them. He broke the silence.
“So, is squirrel over here not going to go and save the angel? Or is moose not letting him?”
“Moose not letting him,” Deam grumbled, glaring at Sam.
“Dean, we sa-” Sam got interrupted by another one of Dean’s bolts of anger.
“Shut up, Sammy!” he shouted. “Cas has done so much, so, so much for us and we are not even going in there to try? Is that what you’ve got? And you know it, everyone knows it, that I am not letting you go and fought Cas in front of that douchebag. I won’t let any of you go, get it? And I won’t leave him either. He's mine!!!”
Suddenly, everyone trying to protest stopped. And so did Dean. It was dead silent, as he realized his words.
“I didn’t- didn’t mean that- that- I was-” he stuttered. Sam put a hesitant hand on Dean’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t need saying, Dean,” Charlie said. “We all know.”
Dean looked up at her, his eyes shining with a glint of all the hope he had left in him. He moved his hands in his hair, and said, “Fresh air,” and headed out. The group inside remained silent.
Then came the sound of Baby’s engine revving from outside, and everyone ran. Dean had left to fight for Cas, or, with Cas.
Dean drove and drove, not daring to look back because he knew an aggressive squad was following him.
Within fifteen minutes, with far no care for speed, and raging thoughts in his mind, he reached the place of Nike. It was all dark except for one window which shone with yellow light.
Dean stormed in through the front door, barely visible in no light, which was already opened.
Stairs stood in a corner of the dimly lit hall Dean had entered from the doorway. He climbed up, following a thread of the same yellow light he had seen outside.
His heart throbbed wildly in his chest, the image of Cas flashing in front of his eyes every now and then.
“Oh, here he comes!” came a voice from inside the room on the first floor. It was the source of light. Nike’s deep, victorious voice echoed inside. “Come in, Winchester.”
Dean moved his hand to his gun, pushed open the door, and stepped inside. Nike sat on a huge sofa, looking like any seventeen-year-old, except for an aura glowing around her. The sofa was glowing yellow – it was the source of light.
In a corner, tied in ropes, bleeding from multiple places, sat Cas, his eyes desperate. “Dean,” he said in a weak, withered voice.
“Cas,” Dean breathed, forcing himself to take eyes off Cas and face Nike.
“Oh, if you are done being Romeo-Juliet,” Nike mocked, “FIGHT!”
“No!” chorused both Dean and Cas.
“Do it or-” Nike raised her hand, bringing her index finger to point at Cas “-I play with the angel.”
With a swish of her finger, Cas stood up, his face red with pain.
***
“Faster!” Sam yelled from the passenger seat to Bobby. They were halfway to where Dean had gone to – Nike's place. Charlie and Crowley sat in the backseat. “Crowley, tell us more about Nike.”
Crowley shifted his wait. “Nike and me, well, we have a very complicated relationship. Which means, that if she sees me, she will kill me. She never lets anyone escape without a fight – that's how she entertains herself. And oh, she hates Craig, and thus I hate her.”
“How do we kill her?” Charlie asked.
“We don’t.” Crowley replied.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked, turning around. Crowley didn’t reply.
“He means,” Bobby explained, “that Nike is a powerful goddess. She can’t be killed. One of the hardest sumbitch in Greek myths.”
“Amazing,” Sam grumbled.
They zoomed past trees and houses, cold air running through their hair.
Ten minutes later, Bobby stopped his car beside Impala. Voices were coming from a yellow-lit room.
The door was open. They ran for it.
***
All his tries to negotiate with Nike had failed.
Cas was still standing, in a half-trance, his face pained. “Dean...” he kept whispering, unable to take the sentence forward.
“Kill us then,” he finally said. “Now.”
“What? With no fight?” Nike said. “You two bore me. What are you, eh? Lovebirds?”
Dean felt a shiver pass through his nerves at the word. He'd known it for a while, his crush on the angel. He never admitted it, thought he was a fool to think of it. And now, here he was. Dying.
Nike stepped up from her sofa-throne, her eyes sparkling with a mysterious emotion. It's always hard to read gods. Harder to kill them, especially if they are immortal like Nike.
Cas collapsed at her will, panting and groaning. Dean tried to meet his eyes with hers, but it felt overwhelming to even look at them.
“Fight. Or I will make you.”
“You can’t make us fight,” Dean said affirmatively.
Nike let out a harsh laugh, took a round around the room, while both of the boys stood petrified.
Nike turned to face them. “YOU WILL FIGHT!”
Against his will, Dean’s hands and feet started moving. His whole body did a dance to Cas, who was also standing now. Unable to utter a word, adrenaline trying to fight this trance, Dean took a stance to kick Cas.
But Cas gave in first.
A big punch right to Dean’s face. Dean’s kick landed near Cas’s stomach.
More punches and kicks, more ducking, and defending came following as Nike watched the scene with satisfaction.
Then, abruptly, both of them stopped. They had laced their fingers together. Standing like statues, eyes were deep in the other’s. Nike jumped forward angrily, unable to control the two anymore.
Then three people stormed in through the door, two tall men and a fierce-looking ginger. Guns and knives in their hands.
“Ha!” Nike shouted. “Now look who comes here!”
“Leave them,” Sam warned, his voice shaking with fury.
“Now,” Charlie and Bobby added.
“Haha!” Nike walked back to her throne. “Aye, you fools! Your lovebirds are dead. They are hanging on their last threads.”
“No... NO!” Sam screamed, raging forward at the goddess only to be thrown back by a flick of her finger.
“You! Stop it right NOW!” Bobby loaded his gun and shot, the bullet stopped midway and fell to the floor. Charlie made her way to Dean and Cas, now barely even breathing. She tried to shake them, but they wouldn’t move. Nike walked to her, grinning wide. “You lost them, girl.”
The building began to shake. Nike, for a second, looked bewildered, but then she started laughing madly again.
“YOU LOST!” She shouted before disappearing. Crowley appeared at her place, doing some complicated gestures with his hands. None succeeded.
The place shook even harder, knocking everyone and everything out of balance. The three hopelessly tried to reach each other. Dean and Cas moved, lacing together their other hand, still in a trance.
Cas was the one to come out of his trance.
“Dean,” Cas whispered. “I-”
They blasted like a bomb; a time bomb held by the last word.
Deam never got a chance.
The building collapsed. Sam, Bobby, Crowley, and Charlie flew out with a great force – not anything solid, no shrapnel at all but pure energy. They landed in a huge pile of hay lying beside the building, surviving with little, insignificant injuries. At least insignificant to what had happened.
Dean and Cas were dead.
Gone together, lost to the end.
And they never got the chance to say it, even once.
***