The Flight of the Condor - Part 2 of 2
Feb. 19th, 2015 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsBack to Part 1
Sam’s hand cramped after the first couple of hundred autographs, and his face ached from smiling. In spite of the exhaustion, he was riding the wave of fan-love, and it felt amazing. He’d almost forgotten to check each Condorman to see if it was Dean, or to be disappointed when it wasn’t. When Ingrid finally called a break, he sat back and stretched out his back. He blushed when his stomach gave a loud rumble, but Ingrid laughed.
“Time for a visit to the Green Room,” she said. Sam stood up and stretched again, wincing as stiff muscles protested. Now he was standing, he realised his bladder was protesting too.
“Um, I think I need to freshen up first, if you don’t mind. Where are the restrooms?”
“Ja, ja, of course, I’m sorry! Come, follow me.”
Sam gave an apologetic wave to the people who he hadn’t got to sign for yet. Ingrid told him they would most likely hang around there, so that they’d be first in line when he returned. He was impressed by their dedication. He trailed along after Ingrid’s stocky figure through a quiet corridor at the back of the main hall, and saw with relief the sign indicating a men’s restroom. Sam’s need to relieve himself had become so urgent he barely heard Ingrid indicating she was going to the ladies’ room and would meet him back in the corridor in a few minutes. He rushed to the urinals and unzipped, allowing a loud sigh to escape as he finally let go. He nearly castrated himself zipping back up when a low voice rumbled in his right ear “Nothing better than a good piss, huh?”
Sam might have squeaked, though in an entirely manly fashion. He scrambled to fasten his pants before checking out at his surprise companion. It was Condorman, of course. He’d lost count of how many Condormen he’d seen today, but there had to have been at least eight of them. He had to be forgiven, then, for taking a few seconds to register the full lips and green gleam in the eyes of this version, and to remember why that voice sounded so familiar.
“Dean, oh hey. Man, way to give me a heart attack,” Sam exclaimed, embarrassed. This was so not how he’d imagined reacquainting himself with his elusive lift buddy. He went to move towards the washbasins, only to bump into someone else. Someone who was practically standing on Sam’s left foot, making him jump all over again. “Um. Hi?’ Sam said, pinned by an uncomfortably piercing blue gaze. After a second unable to break free of that look, Sam’s eyebrows reacquainted themselves with his hairline as he took in the guy’s costume. Sam blinked twice before his brain confirmed that, yes, it was a man dressed as Marishka the Red Bear. It was a few moments more before Sam realised the blue-eyed man was holding out a hand for him to shake.
“I think I ought to, you know, wash my hands before we shake, mister…er?”
Dean snorted a laugh behind him, and Blue-eyes looked slightly disconcerted, though he thankfully stepped back to allow Sam to rinse his hands, then splash his face. The hotel had no air conditioning and the event hall had been sweltering. Sam nearly missed the next part of the conversation, distracted by the pleasant coolness of the water on his sweaty face.
“My name is Castiel and we are here to save you, Sam Winchester.” It took a second for the strange cross-dressing Bear’s – Castiel’s – words to sink in.
“Hey, how do you know my real name? And wait a minute, what do you mean, save me – save me from what?”
It was Dean who answered this time, and the bluntness of his reply sent a chill through Sam’s body. “Save you from me.”
Dean offered Sam a towel with a grim smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve already decided not to kill you now.”
Dazed, Sam took both the towel – and the reassurance Dean handed to him – and obediently dried his face. Castiel’s expression was sombre, but Sam didn’t get any immediate sense of a threat from either of the two men, so he listened, transfixed, as Dean explained.
“Have you heard of the Soviet OSS? The Oчень Cекретная Cлужба? No? Not many people have, but I just thought perhaps…some of the stories you’ve written are pretty close to stuff that’s actually happened... Okay, never mind. You know about the KGB though, I expect. Well the SOSS are more ruthless, more deadly, and more secret, and I’ve been their foremost assassin since I completed my training at fifteen years old. The SOSS want me to end you, Sam, but I’ve had enough of killing. So me and my friend here are going to get you out of here before any of the other agents here realise what’s going on and decide to do my job for me.”
Castiel tapped Dean on the shoulder. “Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked, head tilted. Dean scowled and muttered something Sam couldn’t quite catch. When Sam persisted in looking bemused, he said it again, louder. “Oh yeah, Mary Winchester was my mother too.”
Sam could feel his eyes get wider than he thought was physically possible. What with the boggling eyes and the way his mouth had dropped open, he was sure he looked like a beached fish. The fact that the most top secret and deadly organisation this side of the Iron Curtain wanted Sam dead was lost in the wake of Dean’s subsequent revelation about his identity. Sam had been hoping for a reunion with his missing family members for so long, and now his long-lost big brother was standing right in front of him. Strangely, Sam didn’t doubt for one moment that this really was his brother, even though the rest of his thoughts were a complete jumbled mess.
“You’re Dean Winchester? You’re my brother? But…that’s incredible!” And the implications were enormous, but Dean didn’t give Sam time to absorb it. Castiel had produced a large holdall from somewhere, and was kneeling down to unzip it. Dean shoved a bundle of material at Sam.
“Here. Put this on, quickly.”
Sam shook the bundle out and raised an eyebrow. “Another Condorman costume? Really?”
It was Castiel who answered him; Dean just glared and gestured at Sam to get a move on. Sam hastily stripped down to his underwear, then hopped around trying to get his long limbs into the legs of the costume.
“It is difficult to look inconspicuous when you are so tall,” Castiel said, “but this suit will help in that regard. Hiding in a crowd, you understand? But it also serves another purpose. The material is deceptively strong, and will deflect most weapons. And these…” Sam looked up to see Castiel was holding out what looked like a jumble of wire and baking foil in one hand, and a set of black straps in the other. “…these are fully functional wings.”
Dean let out what could only be described as a gleeful cackle.
“O, klassno! We are going to fly out of here, little brother!” To Sam’s surprise, Dean turned to Castiel and hugged him, something clearly the Angel was neither expecting, nor comfortable with, if his wide-eyed, rabbit-facing-a-snake expression was any indication. “You really are a fucking angel!” When Dean went on to pinch Castiel’s cheek as if the guy was a chubby child who’d brought his parents a homemade birthday card instead of an escape plan, Castiel’s expression morphed to outright disapproval. Dean was undaunted.
His brother was crazy. Sam couldn’t get his head round the idea of having found Dean at last, let alone comprehend that once they ventured out of the washroom, the only things standing between him and certain death were his newfound brother and a mysterious dissident who was probably also at the top of someone’s hit list.
In a daze, Sam obediently fastened the set of straps around his torso and waist as directed, though he didn’t have a clue what their purpose was. There were two shoulder straps like suspenders, and the rest formed a triangle round and through his crotch, similar to a parachute harness. He might have squeaked slightly when Castiel pulled those ones tight.
“We need to get to the roof without being seen,” Dean said, as Sam tried to swallow down his inconvenient panic and concentrate. He didn’t want to be the dumb civilian in this story.
Meanwhile, Castiel was nodding in agreement with Dean’s assessment.
“Yes. With the height of the hotel itself added to the height of the cliff over the river, you should be able to maintain elevation long enough to cross over the border into Städtanderwandwesten, and still stay high enough to be out of range of most of the weapons the local guards carry.”
Dean frowned. “Damn. I wish we could wait for nightfall, or at least dusk, when the half light helps confuse the brain about what it’s seeing.”
“You can’t risk it,” Castiel said, and Sam finally pinpointed what had been niggling at him about the conversation – and it wasn’t fear of heights.
“Why do you keep saying ‘you’ not ‘we’, Castiel? Aren’t you coming with us?”
Dean stopped and looked at Castiel. “Good point, Sammy. Didn’t you bring wings for yourself, Cas? Kind of ironic, really, you being an angel and all.”
Castiel gave a small shrug. “My superiors have other work for me here,” he said, and a look of concern crossed Dean’s face. For a super spy-assassin, Sam was finding Dean rather easy to read, though he had the feeling he was missing something with all these angel jokes. Something to ask Dean about once they were safely on the other side.
“But you have a way out of here, right, Cas?”
The angel nodded. “Don’t worry, I am very good at disappearing.”
:::
The three men made it up to the roof without incident, Sam wondering somewhat guiltily whether Ingrid was worrying about his absence. Which reminded him of something else. He stopped dead.
“Wait! What about Garth?”
Dean looked around, frowning. “Who?”
“My manager and friend, Garth Fitzgerald IV. I left him in the Green Room – will he be in danger too?”
It was Castiel who answered, coming back to coax Sam into motion again.
“Our intelligence didn’t give us reason to suspect that any of the other convention attendees were at risk, whether they were Westerners or not. I am certain your friend will be safe, and I promise we will get him word of your whereabouts as soon as you are across the border.”
Sam, reassured and excited, didn’t notice either Dean’s raised eyebrow or Castiel’s eagerness to get him ready for the jump.
The November air was sharp and bit into his flesh, making Sam glad the ridiculous costume came equipped with a hood. He pulled it up, tucking his unruly hair in, then stood passively while Cas fussed around behind him, fixing and adjusting his wings into place.
Wings! Sam was finally starting to believe this was happening, and that he was going to fly just like in his dreams, when he was rudely interrupted by a woman’s voice, and more ominously, the click of a gun’s safety coming off.
“And what have we here, then?”
The woman was attractive, with long brown hair and very red lips, and she was smiling at Dean. A smile rendered deadly by the fact that she had not one, but two guns, both equipped with silencers, one trained on Dean and one on Sam. Cas was tucked in behind Sam’s bulk and for one moment Sam half hoped she hadn’t noticed the smaller man was there. Sadly, her next words dashed his hopes.
“That was a rhetorical question, by the way. You’re Samuel Colt, of course,” she said, barely glancing in Sam’s direction. All her focus was on his brother, and it was at Dean she aimed her remarks. “Dean Winchester, or should I call you Akulov? Mmm, or perhaps you prefer The Bear. And you must be little Castiel. Is Heaven missing an angel today?”
She laughed at her own joke, and Sam was annoyed to find that not only did she have a pleasant sounding laugh, but she also seemed to be in the know about the whole angel thing. Villains – or villainesses – in comic books always cackled, in his experience. It was kind of an essential characteristic for the evil antagonist. And how come he was the only one who failed to understand the angel references?
He felt Cas move out into the open, and without thinking Sam shifted to keep in between the angel and the woman. He vaguely remembered Cas saying something about his Condorman suit being bullet proof, and though he was sweating, and trembling with fear, he figured there were worse things than being a human shield. After all, Castiel must have a gun of his own, right? Surely he would take the opportunity to shoot her from behind Sam, given half a chance.
Dean, on the other hand, looked like the antithesis of their would-be assassin’s smug calm. Sam’s brother was red-faced and fuming.
“Bela,” he said, almost spitting out the name. “You’ve got a nerve, showing yourself after that debacle in Gdansk.”
Bela’s red mouth tightened. “Ah yes, Gdansk. Where you left me to rot while you ran away. I haven’t forgotten that, Akulov.”
“You tried to sell me out, you bitch. If you got caught in your own web of lies, that was justice.”
“I spent two years stationed in Siberia, thanks to you, so I think I’ve paid my dues. Igor thinks so too, and he was so right about not trusting you to see this job through. You are weak, Dean. Always were too soft-hearted to make a good agent.”
“Some of us believe that family is important, Bela. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? After all, you were quite happy to murder your own father, weren’t you?”
Bela’s pretty face twisted into a snarl at Dean’s words, but her aim never wavered. Sam’s heart was beating so loud it was almost drowning out the conversation, because he could see Dean was edging closer and closer to Bela as they spoke. Clearly he was hoping to distract her, and Sam prayed that it was working, because aside from trying to shield Castiel, Sam didn’t have a clue what to do to help.
“I’m not the only one with Daddy issues, now am I, Dean? To be quite honest, I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to live this long, let alone acquire such a fearsome reputation.”
Then all hell broke loose. Dean took a step too close. Bela smiled as she fired both guns simultaneously. Sam didn’t see Dean go down because all the air punched out of him when the bullet hit his stomach. He staggered backwards with a breathless cry. Folded in half, Sam thought he must be dying. It took several precious seconds for him to realise that wasn’t the case, and that Cas had been right about the Condorman suit. It really was bulletproof.
Sam sat up gingerly, holding his bruised stomach, and looked around. “Dean! Cas?”
He was just in time to watch Castiel in action. The smaller man must have moved as fast as the Flash, because he had already disarmed Bela by the time Sam was alert enough to focus. Sam’s heart lurched when he realised that Bela and Castiel were teetering precariously, right on the edge of the stone parapet that surrounded the roof space. Sam staggered to his feet as quickly as he could manage, and ran towards them. Stretching out a hand, Sam was just in time to grab Castiel’s Bear costume’s cloak as the two of them toppled over the edge. Sam hung onto Castiel cloak with both hands, trying to block out Bela’s scream and the sight of her plummeting into the abyss.
A warm hand grasped his shoulder, then arms were reaching round him to help pull a red-faced and choking Castiel back up.
“I don’t know what made Bela such a two-faced bitch, but that was poetic justice, if you ask me,” Dean rasped, his breath warm on Sam’s cheek. The three of them collapsed in a huddle, and Sam struggled to get his breath back. Castiel recovered first, and extracted himself from the puppy-pile, while Sam lay there grinning.
“That was amazing!” he knew he was babbling but he couldn’t help it; the adrenaline was still pumping and he was as excited as a kid to think he’d been in a real adventure, that they’d fought a real evil villainess and survived.
“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice full of a concern that immediately poured icy water over Sam’s euphoric mood. Sam rolled over onto his knees and finally registered Dean’s silence. Shit. When Dean had come over to assist him with Castiel, Sam had assumed that Bela’s shot must have gone wide. It was all too evident now that Sam had assumed wrong.
Dean was very pale, so that the freckles Sam had barely noticed before were now standing out starkly. It made his brother look very young and vulnerable. Gone was the bravado and confidence of before, and in its place was a man too young to die. Dean had one hand pressed to his ribs, and Sam could see the wet shine of blood soaking through the costume’s dark material and through Dean’s fingers.
Sam wanted to shout at Castiel then. Why hadn’t the stupid angels, whoever they were, made sure Dean was protected with a bulletproof suit, like he had been? He rounded on Castiel.
“Help him, dammit,” he said, though his voice rose up at the end, so his demand sounded more like the desperate plea it really was. Castiel was already moving, unfastening several of the pouches on his Marishka the Bear’s costume. He nodded at Sam. “The Red Bear is always prepared in your stories, is she not? Why are you surprised that I am too?”
Castiel took a brief moment to give Sam’s arm a squeeze before turning away to crouch down next to Dean. It was more testing than reassuring. “What was that for?” Sam sputtered.
“Your muscles are well defined, strong. Do you work out?”
“Yes, I do actually, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
Cas didn’t look up from his business-like assessment of Dean’s chest injury. “The wings I gave you are made of a new titanium alloy, super light but also super strong. They should be capable of carrying two men - perhaps for a lesser distance than they could carry one - but still sufficient to get you both across the river and into Städtanderwandwesten, which as you know, is in the Federal Republic.”
Dean was shaking his head and struggling to sit up, but Castiel kept him down easily with one hand on the undamaged side of Dean’s chest. That alone told Sam how badly wounded his brother was. Whatever they were going to do, they needed to do it fast, or Sam was going to lose his brother again before he’d even had a chance to get to know him. Sam knelt next to Cas, ignoring the pain in his stomach. Goddamn, but he felt like a horse had kicked him.
“What do you need me to do?” he said.
“Oh, hell no,” Dean protested, and Sam could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s too risky. Sam’s never flown in a wing-suit like this before, and I’ll bet those super-strong wings have never been tested for that kind of weight-load either, have they?”
Castiel didn’t reply, but produced a large roll of duct tape and spoke instead to Sam. “I’m going to dress the wound to stop the worst of the bleeding. We mustn’t prevent air being sucked through the wound – the lung is punctured and most likely collapsed, so this is the least risky course of action. Then I will need to tape Dean to you…”
Dean interrupted again. “You can’t do this, Cas, it’s fucking crazy. You need to get Sam out of here quick as possible - you know someone will be up here soon to investigate Bela’s swan dive. The best thing to do is take my flying suit for yourself and guide Sam across the border. Leave me here. Kazukov won’t let me die so easy, so I’ll be in hospital before you know it.”
Castiel stared at Dean. Sam was kind of glad that piercing blue gaze wasn’t turned on him right now because, boy, that look could’ve cut diamonds better than an Iceman laser.
“Once the SOSS get their hands on you, Dean, you are a dead man. They will either execute you outright, or just send you to the medical research facility at Butugichag for the so-called scientists to experiment on. Is that what you want?”
Even Sam could tell Dean’s response was pure bluster. “I’m too valuable to kill, they’ve got too much invested in me. And besides, I’ll just tell them Sam shot me, and pushed Bela over the edge…”
It was Castiel’s turn to interrupt. “Dean Winchester, if you do not shut up and co-operate, believe me, the first thing I will tape up will be your mouth.”
Sam couldn’t help a pained chuckle at the chagrined expression on Dean’s face, but Castiel’s words did the trick, and Dean stopped coming up with reasons to leave him behind. Castiel fiddled around with Dean’s suit and detached the wings – “Don’t want these deploying by accident,” he said, and Dean nodded before leaning back into Sam to allow Castiel room to work.
Castiel was quick, padding underneath the tape with gauze to create a space for the lung to breathe round the bullet hole. To Sam’s untutored eye, there seemed to be an awful lot of blood. By the time Castiel had finished, even though the whole process had probably only taken a few minutes, Dean was even whiter than before, and barely hanging onto consciousness. Sam thought it was probably a mercy, as Cas didn’t seem to have any painkillers in any of his handy pouches. Between them, Cas and Sam hoisted Dean onto his feet and shuffled him right up to the low parapet facing the chasm and their route to the West and freedom.
Sam tried not to remember how pathetic and helpless Bela had looked, tiny as a doll, as she fell.
“Dean, put your arms round Sam,” Cas instructed, and Dean somehow managed to reach around Sam’s waist. Sam immediately had to wrap his own arms around his brother, when even that brief exertion left Dean panting and trembling with the effort required to stay upright – tremors that Sam couldn’t pretend to ignore.
“Is this really the best position?” Dean mumbled into Sam’s chest, as their bodies pressed up against each other. Sam had to agree, it was embarrassingly intimate, especially in their matching Condorman suits, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. He could feel his cheeks burning, and it wasn’t from the autumn chill in the air. He missed Castiel’s reply; he was too busy supressing any inappropriate, involuntary reactions to having another warm body so damn close that he could feel every heart beat. Especially when the warm body belonged to a brother he’d only just met. Sometimes he hated being a guy.
A few minutes later and Cas had the two of them taped so firmly together so Sam couldn’t move without taking Dean with him. The duct tape was round their legs, ankles and chests, and for good measure Cas had bound Dean’s wrists together behind Sam’s back. There was no way Dean could crash now, without Sam crashing along with him. And that just wasn’t going to happen. Sam was determined. So many nights he’d dreamed of flying, all he had to do now was recreate that feeling of blissful confidence that always filled him when he was in one of those dreams.
A piece of cake.
“Oh please, don’t mention food now, I’m starving,” Dean muttered, and Sam blushed, wondering what other inner thoughts he’d just vocalised.
Castiel moved behind Sam and took hold of Sam’s arms, guiding him up onto the parapet. Fortunately it was a wide, substantial, fin de siècle stone construction, or this part of the plan could have been kyboshed by a pretty spectacular fall. As it was, Dean’s weight strapped to Sam’s front made him feel heavy and unbalanced, but being a few inches taller, he could at least see forward over Dean’s head. It reminded Sam of when he was little and his Dad had let him stand on his feet and walked him around. Except Dean was the one standing on Sam’s feet, and Dean must weigh at least one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle.
Sam felt Cas do something in the middle of his back and then his wings unfurled with a loud snap. Suddenly the chilly air that had felt like a light breeze before was tugging hard at the length of wing stretched out on either side, and -- holy shit. They were really doing this. Sam was filled with heady exhilaration that briefly overwhelmed his anxiety. He was really going to fly.
Cas fiddled some more while holding Sam steady against the buffeting breeze. He seemed to be stroking his hands over every seam and joint of the frame and canopy, and Dean grunted in approval.
“He’s checking there’s nothing bent or out of alignment,” Dean explained, and Sam nodded. That was reassuring, though the evident pain slurring Dean’s speech wasn’t. Sam was even more impatient to launch now, and get his brother to safety.
Castiel guided Sam’s hands onto a bar that was attached to the wide canopy, and then knelt down to strap Sam’s ankles into some sort of extra harness that must now be attached to the part that was already fastened round Sam’s crotch. Stuck in this standing position, and with Dean in the way, Sam couldn’t really see what was happening, he just had to trust the angel.
With Dean’s face pressed into Sam’s chest, he was immediately aware when his brother’s breathing grew more stertorous. He was pretty sure nobody’s exhales should crackle like that.
“Hurry, Cas,” Sam said, trying to keep the panic he was feeling out of his voice. Castiel seemed to understand though, and didn’t call him on it.
Castiel came round to stand up on the stone rail next to the brothers, keeping a reassuring grip on Sam’s arm.
“Dean, you’ll have to guide Sam as you go. Like you said, Sam’s never flown a glider suit before, right, Sam?”
Sam felt Dean’s muscles tense at that, and he shared a look with the Angel. “Yeah, man. I’ve parachuted, but never done anything like this before,” Sam said, not mentioning his dreams. Somehow he didn’t think the other two would count those as relevant experience.
“Fine, fine. I got this,” Dean said, though he was wheezing badly. “You have to tell me what you see, kid. Be my eyes.”
Sam nodded, then realised Dean couldn’t really see that without twisting his head. “Okay. You know this location better than I do. I’ll be relying on you to find us a safe place to land. And I’ve no idea how to steer this thing so…”
“So I need to help you with that, I get it.”
Cas gave Sam another knowing look – having Dean involved was necessary for those reasons, yes, but it was also an attempt to give Dean a reason to stay awake and alive.
“Enough talk,” Castiel said, releasing his grip on Sam. “Time to go.”
The wind buffeted Sam’s wings. Then there was a light push in the centre of his back and he was leaning forward, and out, and down, down, down.
:::
Dean fought off a wave of dizziness as he felt Sam lean, then topple over the edge. He was falling backwards into space, nothing but air between him and the river far below. Air that he could do with for expanding his chest, instead of pressing uselessly against his back. He’d long since lost all feeling in his hands and all strength from his arms, so had nothing to do but cling to the last shreds of consciousness. With his face squashed into Sam’s broad chest, he was spared the view of the bottom of the chasm hurtling to meet them, which was probably a mercy. He did however feel it through Sam’s body when the aerodynamics of their wings kicked in, and the lift of the thermals meant they began to fly rather than fall. Then Sam was whooping in sheer joy over the flapping of the canopy, and in any other circumstances, Dean would have been happy for him. Hell, he’d have been happy for himself, to be flying free.
As it was, he had to trust Sam, which had been an easy thing to do when he had two feet on the ground (albeit being held up by fucking tape, on account of the gaping hole in his chest, but he wasn’t going to quibble). It was a whole other matter when he was relying on a novice to fly them both to safety from the top of a thousand foot drop.
Sam twisted his head down.
“Dean, I need you to help me now, man. Where do I aim for?”
Dean closed his eyes, visualising from memory the landscape he knew was unfolding fast below them. The river would be dark at the bottom of the gorge, forming the natural border used when the German territories were divided, and that the GDR had fortified when the Iron Curtain came down. The Bundesrepublik side was some six hundred feet lower than the GDR side, so that wouldn’t give Sam much time to glide before he would have to land, unless they caught a good thermal and gained a lot of height. And to be honest, Dean didn’t really want that to happen – prolonging their flight just meant more time for him to bleed out or suffocate, and he was barely holding onto consciousness as it was. Added to which, more height meant more danger when it came to managing their descent.
What they needed was somewhere Sam could make a safe landing clear of built-up areas, given that Sam’s legs were not only tucked into the suits’ hang-glider/wing suit’s harness but also encumbered by Dean’s legs. Dean thanked the god he didn’t believe in that the weather was so calm. At least Sam didn’t have to worry about blustery winds knocking them off course. There was no point in either of them worrying about the East German guards spotting them. If that had been going to happen, they would already be full of holes.
“Steer us using your body, and try and keep us going straight, nothing fancy,” Dean instructed. “You need to feel the wings, how they are lifting, reacting to any wind. Don’t grip the bar too tight. Hold steady and we should fly straight.” He stopped to catch a breath, hearing his lung crackling worse than a faulty radio. He didn’t have too much time left, but he was going to make sure Sam was safe if it was the last thing he did.
“Feels good, Sammy. Just keep this up, nice light touch…don’t pull or push at the bar, and tell me what you can see below,” Dean said.
He tried to concentrate and map a course in his head as Sam described the landscape scrolling by. He knew there was a park near the edge of the town, but he didn’t want to risk Sam changing course. Keeping a nice straight, relatively slow glide was their best bet. These wings might be strong, but Dean doubted they were designed to carry the combined weight of the Winchester boys. Maintaining sufficient speed to carry their weight was key. If the glider’s nose dropped, they would pick up speed, if Sam pulled back and lifted the nose up, they could stall and drop like a stone.
“There are some apartment blocks coming up, I think we are ok to clear them, but we’re losing altitude,” Sam’s voice was carefully even, but Dean could feel the tension threaded through Sam’s every muscle, and he could hear the too-loud thud of Sam’s heart beating though the bones of his chest.
Dean needed to drill the basics into Sam as quickly as he could, before the darkness gathering at the edges of his vision swamped him. Before breathing became too hard with one working lung. As it was, talking was using up air he didn’t have, making black spots gather in his limited view of Sam’s chest and neck.
“S’important, Sammy…If you need to turn, you have to pick up speed first by pushing the bar gently, and dipping the nose. When we speed up, move your body a small amount to the left and you’ll feel the left wing drop, and the glider will pivot – you’ll keep going in that direction until you correct it, bring your body back to the centre…” Dean choked on the blood in his mouth, setting off a total whiteout as pain that shot through his whole left side. He tried desperately to stay with Sam, but it was more than any human could have managed.
His eyelids closed like the doors of a prison, with a finality Dean couldn’t fight.
:::
Castiel wanted to stay and watch until the Winchester boys landed, but he had no binoculars to track them with, and besides, he couldn’t afford to linger. He didn’t have the luxury of a wing suit or the option of escape. Castiel only had his orders, his duty, and the cause. All of which he’d betrayed by stopping Dean Winchester from killing Sam. His task had been to sit back and watch the Bear kill his brother, then help Dean escape to be debriefed in the West. Zachariah was going to be mightily displeased with Castiel.
When he turned to leave, he discovered he’d run out of time after all.
:::
Dean swam up towards the shimmering light. The lead weights tied to his ankles fought against his natural buoyancy and tried to drag him back down into the suffocating darkness. His head broke the surface and he finally drew a deep breath. And promptly choked.
“Easy, Dean, take it easy, it’s ok,” a voice he knew but couldn’t place was saying, and that, together with the firm but gentle pressure of two large hands steadying his shaking shoulders, eventually soothed him. His breathing calmed and his heart slowed the hammering that was threatening to shake his ribs apart. Fuck, that hurt. He fought hard against the heaviness that was pressing down on his whole body, and opened his eyes.
Brightness, then a blur of unidentifiable colours that eventually coalesced into something vaguely human that was looming over him. Two somethings actually, he concluded after a couple of seconds passed, one decidedly taller than the other.
He remembered something important.
“S’m?” he managed, before the dryness in his throat locked him down again, and he dissolved into another painful fit of coughing. A hand appeared under his nose, pressing a paper cup of ice chips to his lips, and he swallowed gratefully.
“Small sips, son,” said an unfamiliar gruff voice, and Dean automatically obeyed. Exhausted from that little effort, Dean decided talking was a bad idea right now, and settled for hanging onto consciousness long enough to work out what was going on. He was in hospital, that much was clear from the brief focussed glimpse he’d gained of anodyne décor, combined with the faint pervading scents of antiseptic and boiled cabbage. That, and the instantly recognisable beeping of a heart monitor he assumed belonged to him. He was too tired to check.
“Is he out again?” he heard Sam ask, and the anxiety in his little brother’s voice was incentive enough to make him reopen eyes he hadn’t even realised had closed. It was worth the effort to see Sam’s smile.
“Oh hey, Dean, good to see you awake at last.”
Dean couldn’t risk another coughing fit by speaking again, so he just raised an eyebrow. It was a bit scary how much energy that took, all by itself. Miraculously, Sam understood.
“You’ve been unconscious for five days, Dean.” Sam sat down and took Dean’s hand, careful not to jostle the IV. “We thought we’d lost you a couple of times,” he continued, and Dean gave him a pass for the handholding due to the tremor in Sam’s voice. It was nothing to do with the way his own heart kind of glowed at his brother’s touch. Nope. He refocused with an effort as he realised Sam had continued talking, and he was missing important information. A spy should always be alert, whatever the circumstances.
“…you’d lost such a lot of blood, and your lung collapsed. We made a bit of a crash landing on the other side of the river, near the edge of town in the end. But the West Germans were great; even our crazy costumes didn’t faze them at all. As soon as I got you safely to hospital, I managed to call Dad, and he got a flight straight away.”
Dean felt another warm hand on his other arm, and his gaze flew around to land on the other shape he’d been aware of as he’d surfaced. His father. John Winchester. The face gazing down at him with shining dark eyes wasn’t how he remembered his Dad, of course it wasn’t. The last time he’d seen John Winchester, Dean had only been eight years old, and that version of John had been some twenty years younger than this one. This John’s face was grooved with lines that spoke of sorrow and loss and years of grieving, but surrounding the eyes were the laughter lines Dean remembered, and damned if his sight wasn’t blurring with tears. Fucking morphine, messing with his emotions. He was a hardened assassin, not a freaking girl.
His head was buzzing with so many questions – had Dad ever tried to find Mom and him? Did Sam remember him at all? What had they both been doing with their lives while Dean had been murdering and spying for the Soviets? Would they ever forgive him for the things he’d done? After all, he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself, so why should they?
But he was sinking under the weight of it all; the bed was turning into cotton candy, sticky and soft. He struggled desperately to stay awake. The morphine drip winked at him, telling him resistance was futile, and the edges of the room folded in. Then through the sweet pink fog, Dean could feel Dad’s hand heavy on his arm, and Sam’s hand gripping his own, and for the first time since he’d stepped back across the border as a deadly spy-assassin, he realised he wasn’t alone.
And he let go.
Thursday December 7 1986: Lawrence, Kansas
John Winchester certainly knew how to pull strings. Dean had only been conscious for a day before he and Sam found themselves on a military plane on their way back to the States. Back home, Sam told him with the biggest, dopiest grin pasted onto his face. Dean couldn’t get his head round that idea – that he had a real home. The last time Dean had been in the USA, he’d killed two men – a diplomat and a CIA agent. He’d done it swiftly, efficiently, clinically. He really couldn’t see the Pentagon or the CIA rolling out the red carpet to welcome Dean ‘the Bear’ Akulov to his new apple-pie life in America, knowing he had all that blood on his hands. He fully expected to find himself taken into custody and never let go the moment he landed on American soil, so he was very surprised when all he was met with was a small medical team. The attending checked his vitals and agreed he was fit enough go home to Lawrence, Kansas, with his family.
Dean spent the next few days more asleep than awake, so he didn’t have much time to brood, or to tell Sam or Dad about his fears for his future.
Plus, as it turned out, having a little brother again after all these years was exhausting. Sam had boundless energy, and a disturbingly optimistic outlook that was totally at odds with Dean’s Russian-learned pessimism.
“So I’m going to write some of this into the next edition of Condorman, what do you think, Dean?”
Dean lit up at the thought, then quickly covered it with a cough. Wouldn’t do to have the kid getting to big-headed. Of course, pretend coughing wasn’t such a great idea when recovering from a severe lung trauma, and it was a few painful moments before Dean managed to get his breathing back under control. By which time a thought had struck him.
“Wait a minute, when you say write our story into the comic, who am I going to be?”
Sam pushed his stupidly long hair back out of his eyes, smiling. Dean shook his head.
“No, no, I still can’t believe you wrote me as a red-headed chick, Sammy. That’s just wrong, man. It’s perverted – I’m not Castiel to go round bucking gender stereotypical norms, you know?”
“I don’t know, Dean, I think you made a very attractive, kick-ass villain. And I got the green eyes right, didn’t I?”
“You’ve only been my little brother for five minutes and you are already a pain in my butt,” Dean grumbled. “Stupid, childish comic books.”
“Hey, you were the one who was desperate to go to a convention dressed as one of those stupid, childish comic book characters – and you can’t pretend it was for a mission, because you’ve already confessed your secret Condorman passions to me,” Sam was virtually crowing, and the grin on his face was wider than the Atlantic. Dean could have drowned in it.
Tuesday August 4 1987: Siberia
The Angels refused to save Castiel from a sentence of two years hard labour. Zachariah said it was his own fault; he should have been more disciplined. There was no room in the dissident organisation for such poor discipline – it only got people killed. Castiel’s sister, Ana, somehow managed to ensure Castiel wasn’t sent to the terrible radioactive mines that had killed Mary Winchester, or to one of the one of the dreaded medical research centres. So there was that. And Cas was grateful.
Nine months later, worn down and worn out, Castiel was even more grateful when Condorman and the Bear turned up and sprang him. But that’s a story for another day.
The dates in this fic are based on fact – i.e. the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and the Iron Curtain, as the West called it, did come down tighter than ever from that date. The Communist states were concerned about the so-called Brain Drain, and so literally overnight, the new barriers went up. In this AU however, I’m supposing the wall effectively runs all along the east/west border in a much more physical way than it actually did. I’ve also made up a completely fictional town so that the convention can be set somewhere suitable for a high altitude hang-glide escape.
This town became Städtanderwandwesten and Städtanderwandosten – literally ‘town on the wall western’ and ‘town on the wall eastern’. I imagined this to be somewhere north of Berlin.
The Soviet OSS is also fictional – I just used a Russian translation of very secret service, which becomes очень секретная служба (ochen' sekretnaya sluzhba). Apologies for any errors in translation here, I was relying on Google! This SOSS is not supposed to have any connection or bear any resemblance to the Office of Strategic Services that was the precursor to the CIA.
Butugichag gulag was a real place, though by the 1980s it was no longer in use. It existed from 1945-55. It was a mining gulag mostly for uranium, though also tin and gold. The area was already known as Death Valley from well before anyone knew about uranium and its deadly properties. Miners worked without any protection and life expectancy was merely months. It was also a top-secret medical experimentation facility. (Info from Wikipedia)
Preispodnyaya is made up – I just wanted a name for another facility that Mary could have been moved to, and this word means hell.
The Angel group of underground fighters, dissidents and counter revolutionaries is also completely fictional.
:::
Sam’s hand cramped after the first couple of hundred autographs, and his face ached from smiling. In spite of the exhaustion, he was riding the wave of fan-love, and it felt amazing. He’d almost forgotten to check each Condorman to see if it was Dean, or to be disappointed when it wasn’t. When Ingrid finally called a break, he sat back and stretched out his back. He blushed when his stomach gave a loud rumble, but Ingrid laughed.
“Time for a visit to the Green Room,” she said. Sam stood up and stretched again, wincing as stiff muscles protested. Now he was standing, he realised his bladder was protesting too.
“Um, I think I need to freshen up first, if you don’t mind. Where are the restrooms?”
“Ja, ja, of course, I’m sorry! Come, follow me.”
Sam gave an apologetic wave to the people who he hadn’t got to sign for yet. Ingrid told him they would most likely hang around there, so that they’d be first in line when he returned. He was impressed by their dedication. He trailed along after Ingrid’s stocky figure through a quiet corridor at the back of the main hall, and saw with relief the sign indicating a men’s restroom. Sam’s need to relieve himself had become so urgent he barely heard Ingrid indicating she was going to the ladies’ room and would meet him back in the corridor in a few minutes. He rushed to the urinals and unzipped, allowing a loud sigh to escape as he finally let go. He nearly castrated himself zipping back up when a low voice rumbled in his right ear “Nothing better than a good piss, huh?”
Sam might have squeaked, though in an entirely manly fashion. He scrambled to fasten his pants before checking out at his surprise companion. It was Condorman, of course. He’d lost count of how many Condormen he’d seen today, but there had to have been at least eight of them. He had to be forgiven, then, for taking a few seconds to register the full lips and green gleam in the eyes of this version, and to remember why that voice sounded so familiar.
“Dean, oh hey. Man, way to give me a heart attack,” Sam exclaimed, embarrassed. This was so not how he’d imagined reacquainting himself with his elusive lift buddy. He went to move towards the washbasins, only to bump into someone else. Someone who was practically standing on Sam’s left foot, making him jump all over again. “Um. Hi?’ Sam said, pinned by an uncomfortably piercing blue gaze. After a second unable to break free of that look, Sam’s eyebrows reacquainted themselves with his hairline as he took in the guy’s costume. Sam blinked twice before his brain confirmed that, yes, it was a man dressed as Marishka the Red Bear. It was a few moments more before Sam realised the blue-eyed man was holding out a hand for him to shake.
“I think I ought to, you know, wash my hands before we shake, mister…er?”
Dean snorted a laugh behind him, and Blue-eyes looked slightly disconcerted, though he thankfully stepped back to allow Sam to rinse his hands, then splash his face. The hotel had no air conditioning and the event hall had been sweltering. Sam nearly missed the next part of the conversation, distracted by the pleasant coolness of the water on his sweaty face.
“My name is Castiel and we are here to save you, Sam Winchester.” It took a second for the strange cross-dressing Bear’s – Castiel’s – words to sink in.
“Hey, how do you know my real name? And wait a minute, what do you mean, save me – save me from what?”
It was Dean who answered this time, and the bluntness of his reply sent a chill through Sam’s body. “Save you from me.”
Dean offered Sam a towel with a grim smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve already decided not to kill you now.”
Dazed, Sam took both the towel – and the reassurance Dean handed to him – and obediently dried his face. Castiel’s expression was sombre, but Sam didn’t get any immediate sense of a threat from either of the two men, so he listened, transfixed, as Dean explained.
“Have you heard of the Soviet OSS? The Oчень Cекретная Cлужба? No? Not many people have, but I just thought perhaps…some of the stories you’ve written are pretty close to stuff that’s actually happened... Okay, never mind. You know about the KGB though, I expect. Well the SOSS are more ruthless, more deadly, and more secret, and I’ve been their foremost assassin since I completed my training at fifteen years old. The SOSS want me to end you, Sam, but I’ve had enough of killing. So me and my friend here are going to get you out of here before any of the other agents here realise what’s going on and decide to do my job for me.”
Castiel tapped Dean on the shoulder. “Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked, head tilted. Dean scowled and muttered something Sam couldn’t quite catch. When Sam persisted in looking bemused, he said it again, louder. “Oh yeah, Mary Winchester was my mother too.”
Sam could feel his eyes get wider than he thought was physically possible. What with the boggling eyes and the way his mouth had dropped open, he was sure he looked like a beached fish. The fact that the most top secret and deadly organisation this side of the Iron Curtain wanted Sam dead was lost in the wake of Dean’s subsequent revelation about his identity. Sam had been hoping for a reunion with his missing family members for so long, and now his long-lost big brother was standing right in front of him. Strangely, Sam didn’t doubt for one moment that this really was his brother, even though the rest of his thoughts were a complete jumbled mess.
“You’re Dean Winchester? You’re my brother? But…that’s incredible!” And the implications were enormous, but Dean didn’t give Sam time to absorb it. Castiel had produced a large holdall from somewhere, and was kneeling down to unzip it. Dean shoved a bundle of material at Sam.
“Here. Put this on, quickly.”
Sam shook the bundle out and raised an eyebrow. “Another Condorman costume? Really?”
It was Castiel who answered him; Dean just glared and gestured at Sam to get a move on. Sam hastily stripped down to his underwear, then hopped around trying to get his long limbs into the legs of the costume.
“It is difficult to look inconspicuous when you are so tall,” Castiel said, “but this suit will help in that regard. Hiding in a crowd, you understand? But it also serves another purpose. The material is deceptively strong, and will deflect most weapons. And these…” Sam looked up to see Castiel was holding out what looked like a jumble of wire and baking foil in one hand, and a set of black straps in the other. “…these are fully functional wings.”
Dean let out what could only be described as a gleeful cackle.
“O, klassno! We are going to fly out of here, little brother!” To Sam’s surprise, Dean turned to Castiel and hugged him, something clearly the Angel was neither expecting, nor comfortable with, if his wide-eyed, rabbit-facing-a-snake expression was any indication. “You really are a fucking angel!” When Dean went on to pinch Castiel’s cheek as if the guy was a chubby child who’d brought his parents a homemade birthday card instead of an escape plan, Castiel’s expression morphed to outright disapproval. Dean was undaunted.
His brother was crazy. Sam couldn’t get his head round the idea of having found Dean at last, let alone comprehend that once they ventured out of the washroom, the only things standing between him and certain death were his newfound brother and a mysterious dissident who was probably also at the top of someone’s hit list.
In a daze, Sam obediently fastened the set of straps around his torso and waist as directed, though he didn’t have a clue what their purpose was. There were two shoulder straps like suspenders, and the rest formed a triangle round and through his crotch, similar to a parachute harness. He might have squeaked slightly when Castiel pulled those ones tight.
“We need to get to the roof without being seen,” Dean said, as Sam tried to swallow down his inconvenient panic and concentrate. He didn’t want to be the dumb civilian in this story.
Meanwhile, Castiel was nodding in agreement with Dean’s assessment.
“Yes. With the height of the hotel itself added to the height of the cliff over the river, you should be able to maintain elevation long enough to cross over the border into Städtanderwandwesten, and still stay high enough to be out of range of most of the weapons the local guards carry.”
Dean frowned. “Damn. I wish we could wait for nightfall, or at least dusk, when the half light helps confuse the brain about what it’s seeing.”
“You can’t risk it,” Castiel said, and Sam finally pinpointed what had been niggling at him about the conversation – and it wasn’t fear of heights.
“Why do you keep saying ‘you’ not ‘we’, Castiel? Aren’t you coming with us?”
Dean stopped and looked at Castiel. “Good point, Sammy. Didn’t you bring wings for yourself, Cas? Kind of ironic, really, you being an angel and all.”
Castiel gave a small shrug. “My superiors have other work for me here,” he said, and a look of concern crossed Dean’s face. For a super spy-assassin, Sam was finding Dean rather easy to read, though he had the feeling he was missing something with all these angel jokes. Something to ask Dean about once they were safely on the other side.
“But you have a way out of here, right, Cas?”
The angel nodded. “Don’t worry, I am very good at disappearing.”
:::
The three men made it up to the roof without incident, Sam wondering somewhat guiltily whether Ingrid was worrying about his absence. Which reminded him of something else. He stopped dead.
“Wait! What about Garth?”
Dean looked around, frowning. “Who?”
“My manager and friend, Garth Fitzgerald IV. I left him in the Green Room – will he be in danger too?”
It was Castiel who answered, coming back to coax Sam into motion again.
“Our intelligence didn’t give us reason to suspect that any of the other convention attendees were at risk, whether they were Westerners or not. I am certain your friend will be safe, and I promise we will get him word of your whereabouts as soon as you are across the border.”
Sam, reassured and excited, didn’t notice either Dean’s raised eyebrow or Castiel’s eagerness to get him ready for the jump.
The November air was sharp and bit into his flesh, making Sam glad the ridiculous costume came equipped with a hood. He pulled it up, tucking his unruly hair in, then stood passively while Cas fussed around behind him, fixing and adjusting his wings into place.
Wings! Sam was finally starting to believe this was happening, and that he was going to fly just like in his dreams, when he was rudely interrupted by a woman’s voice, and more ominously, the click of a gun’s safety coming off.
“And what have we here, then?”
The woman was attractive, with long brown hair and very red lips, and she was smiling at Dean. A smile rendered deadly by the fact that she had not one, but two guns, both equipped with silencers, one trained on Dean and one on Sam. Cas was tucked in behind Sam’s bulk and for one moment Sam half hoped she hadn’t noticed the smaller man was there. Sadly, her next words dashed his hopes.
“That was a rhetorical question, by the way. You’re Samuel Colt, of course,” she said, barely glancing in Sam’s direction. All her focus was on his brother, and it was at Dean she aimed her remarks. “Dean Winchester, or should I call you Akulov? Mmm, or perhaps you prefer The Bear. And you must be little Castiel. Is Heaven missing an angel today?”
She laughed at her own joke, and Sam was annoyed to find that not only did she have a pleasant sounding laugh, but she also seemed to be in the know about the whole angel thing. Villains – or villainesses – in comic books always cackled, in his experience. It was kind of an essential characteristic for the evil antagonist. And how come he was the only one who failed to understand the angel references?
He felt Cas move out into the open, and without thinking Sam shifted to keep in between the angel and the woman. He vaguely remembered Cas saying something about his Condorman suit being bullet proof, and though he was sweating, and trembling with fear, he figured there were worse things than being a human shield. After all, Castiel must have a gun of his own, right? Surely he would take the opportunity to shoot her from behind Sam, given half a chance.
Dean, on the other hand, looked like the antithesis of their would-be assassin’s smug calm. Sam’s brother was red-faced and fuming.
“Bela,” he said, almost spitting out the name. “You’ve got a nerve, showing yourself after that debacle in Gdansk.”
Bela’s red mouth tightened. “Ah yes, Gdansk. Where you left me to rot while you ran away. I haven’t forgotten that, Akulov.”
“You tried to sell me out, you bitch. If you got caught in your own web of lies, that was justice.”
“I spent two years stationed in Siberia, thanks to you, so I think I’ve paid my dues. Igor thinks so too, and he was so right about not trusting you to see this job through. You are weak, Dean. Always were too soft-hearted to make a good agent.”
“Some of us believe that family is important, Bela. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? After all, you were quite happy to murder your own father, weren’t you?”
Bela’s pretty face twisted into a snarl at Dean’s words, but her aim never wavered. Sam’s heart was beating so loud it was almost drowning out the conversation, because he could see Dean was edging closer and closer to Bela as they spoke. Clearly he was hoping to distract her, and Sam prayed that it was working, because aside from trying to shield Castiel, Sam didn’t have a clue what to do to help.
“I’m not the only one with Daddy issues, now am I, Dean? To be quite honest, I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to live this long, let alone acquire such a fearsome reputation.”
Then all hell broke loose. Dean took a step too close. Bela smiled as she fired both guns simultaneously. Sam didn’t see Dean go down because all the air punched out of him when the bullet hit his stomach. He staggered backwards with a breathless cry. Folded in half, Sam thought he must be dying. It took several precious seconds for him to realise that wasn’t the case, and that Cas had been right about the Condorman suit. It really was bulletproof.
Sam sat up gingerly, holding his bruised stomach, and looked around. “Dean! Cas?”
He was just in time to watch Castiel in action. The smaller man must have moved as fast as the Flash, because he had already disarmed Bela by the time Sam was alert enough to focus. Sam’s heart lurched when he realised that Bela and Castiel were teetering precariously, right on the edge of the stone parapet that surrounded the roof space. Sam staggered to his feet as quickly as he could manage, and ran towards them. Stretching out a hand, Sam was just in time to grab Castiel’s Bear costume’s cloak as the two of them toppled over the edge. Sam hung onto Castiel cloak with both hands, trying to block out Bela’s scream and the sight of her plummeting into the abyss.
A warm hand grasped his shoulder, then arms were reaching round him to help pull a red-faced and choking Castiel back up.
“I don’t know what made Bela such a two-faced bitch, but that was poetic justice, if you ask me,” Dean rasped, his breath warm on Sam’s cheek. The three of them collapsed in a huddle, and Sam struggled to get his breath back. Castiel recovered first, and extracted himself from the puppy-pile, while Sam lay there grinning.
“That was amazing!” he knew he was babbling but he couldn’t help it; the adrenaline was still pumping and he was as excited as a kid to think he’d been in a real adventure, that they’d fought a real evil villainess and survived.
“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice full of a concern that immediately poured icy water over Sam’s euphoric mood. Sam rolled over onto his knees and finally registered Dean’s silence. Shit. When Dean had come over to assist him with Castiel, Sam had assumed that Bela’s shot must have gone wide. It was all too evident now that Sam had assumed wrong.
Dean was very pale, so that the freckles Sam had barely noticed before were now standing out starkly. It made his brother look very young and vulnerable. Gone was the bravado and confidence of before, and in its place was a man too young to die. Dean had one hand pressed to his ribs, and Sam could see the wet shine of blood soaking through the costume’s dark material and through Dean’s fingers.
Sam wanted to shout at Castiel then. Why hadn’t the stupid angels, whoever they were, made sure Dean was protected with a bulletproof suit, like he had been? He rounded on Castiel.
“Help him, dammit,” he said, though his voice rose up at the end, so his demand sounded more like the desperate plea it really was. Castiel was already moving, unfastening several of the pouches on his Marishka the Bear’s costume. He nodded at Sam. “The Red Bear is always prepared in your stories, is she not? Why are you surprised that I am too?”
Castiel took a brief moment to give Sam’s arm a squeeze before turning away to crouch down next to Dean. It was more testing than reassuring. “What was that for?” Sam sputtered.
“Your muscles are well defined, strong. Do you work out?”
“Yes, I do actually, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
Cas didn’t look up from his business-like assessment of Dean’s chest injury. “The wings I gave you are made of a new titanium alloy, super light but also super strong. They should be capable of carrying two men - perhaps for a lesser distance than they could carry one - but still sufficient to get you both across the river and into Städtanderwandwesten, which as you know, is in the Federal Republic.”
Dean was shaking his head and struggling to sit up, but Castiel kept him down easily with one hand on the undamaged side of Dean’s chest. That alone told Sam how badly wounded his brother was. Whatever they were going to do, they needed to do it fast, or Sam was going to lose his brother again before he’d even had a chance to get to know him. Sam knelt next to Cas, ignoring the pain in his stomach. Goddamn, but he felt like a horse had kicked him.
“What do you need me to do?” he said.
“Oh, hell no,” Dean protested, and Sam could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s too risky. Sam’s never flown in a wing-suit like this before, and I’ll bet those super-strong wings have never been tested for that kind of weight-load either, have they?”
Castiel didn’t reply, but produced a large roll of duct tape and spoke instead to Sam. “I’m going to dress the wound to stop the worst of the bleeding. We mustn’t prevent air being sucked through the wound – the lung is punctured and most likely collapsed, so this is the least risky course of action. Then I will need to tape Dean to you…”
Dean interrupted again. “You can’t do this, Cas, it’s fucking crazy. You need to get Sam out of here quick as possible - you know someone will be up here soon to investigate Bela’s swan dive. The best thing to do is take my flying suit for yourself and guide Sam across the border. Leave me here. Kazukov won’t let me die so easy, so I’ll be in hospital before you know it.”
Castiel stared at Dean. Sam was kind of glad that piercing blue gaze wasn’t turned on him right now because, boy, that look could’ve cut diamonds better than an Iceman laser.
“Once the SOSS get their hands on you, Dean, you are a dead man. They will either execute you outright, or just send you to the medical research facility at Butugichag for the so-called scientists to experiment on. Is that what you want?”
Even Sam could tell Dean’s response was pure bluster. “I’m too valuable to kill, they’ve got too much invested in me. And besides, I’ll just tell them Sam shot me, and pushed Bela over the edge…”
It was Castiel’s turn to interrupt. “Dean Winchester, if you do not shut up and co-operate, believe me, the first thing I will tape up will be your mouth.”
Sam couldn’t help a pained chuckle at the chagrined expression on Dean’s face, but Castiel’s words did the trick, and Dean stopped coming up with reasons to leave him behind. Castiel fiddled around with Dean’s suit and detached the wings – “Don’t want these deploying by accident,” he said, and Dean nodded before leaning back into Sam to allow Castiel room to work.
Castiel was quick, padding underneath the tape with gauze to create a space for the lung to breathe round the bullet hole. To Sam’s untutored eye, there seemed to be an awful lot of blood. By the time Castiel had finished, even though the whole process had probably only taken a few minutes, Dean was even whiter than before, and barely hanging onto consciousness. Sam thought it was probably a mercy, as Cas didn’t seem to have any painkillers in any of his handy pouches. Between them, Cas and Sam hoisted Dean onto his feet and shuffled him right up to the low parapet facing the chasm and their route to the West and freedom.
Sam tried not to remember how pathetic and helpless Bela had looked, tiny as a doll, as she fell.
“Dean, put your arms round Sam,” Cas instructed, and Dean somehow managed to reach around Sam’s waist. Sam immediately had to wrap his own arms around his brother, when even that brief exertion left Dean panting and trembling with the effort required to stay upright – tremors that Sam couldn’t pretend to ignore.
“Is this really the best position?” Dean mumbled into Sam’s chest, as their bodies pressed up against each other. Sam had to agree, it was embarrassingly intimate, especially in their matching Condorman suits, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. He could feel his cheeks burning, and it wasn’t from the autumn chill in the air. He missed Castiel’s reply; he was too busy supressing any inappropriate, involuntary reactions to having another warm body so damn close that he could feel every heart beat. Especially when the warm body belonged to a brother he’d only just met. Sometimes he hated being a guy.
A few minutes later and Cas had the two of them taped so firmly together so Sam couldn’t move without taking Dean with him. The duct tape was round their legs, ankles and chests, and for good measure Cas had bound Dean’s wrists together behind Sam’s back. There was no way Dean could crash now, without Sam crashing along with him. And that just wasn’t going to happen. Sam was determined. So many nights he’d dreamed of flying, all he had to do now was recreate that feeling of blissful confidence that always filled him when he was in one of those dreams.
A piece of cake.
“Oh please, don’t mention food now, I’m starving,” Dean muttered, and Sam blushed, wondering what other inner thoughts he’d just vocalised.
Castiel moved behind Sam and took hold of Sam’s arms, guiding him up onto the parapet. Fortunately it was a wide, substantial, fin de siècle stone construction, or this part of the plan could have been kyboshed by a pretty spectacular fall. As it was, Dean’s weight strapped to Sam’s front made him feel heavy and unbalanced, but being a few inches taller, he could at least see forward over Dean’s head. It reminded Sam of when he was little and his Dad had let him stand on his feet and walked him around. Except Dean was the one standing on Sam’s feet, and Dean must weigh at least one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle.
Sam felt Cas do something in the middle of his back and then his wings unfurled with a loud snap. Suddenly the chilly air that had felt like a light breeze before was tugging hard at the length of wing stretched out on either side, and -- holy shit. They were really doing this. Sam was filled with heady exhilaration that briefly overwhelmed his anxiety. He was really going to fly.
Cas fiddled some more while holding Sam steady against the buffeting breeze. He seemed to be stroking his hands over every seam and joint of the frame and canopy, and Dean grunted in approval.
“He’s checking there’s nothing bent or out of alignment,” Dean explained, and Sam nodded. That was reassuring, though the evident pain slurring Dean’s speech wasn’t. Sam was even more impatient to launch now, and get his brother to safety.
Castiel guided Sam’s hands onto a bar that was attached to the wide canopy, and then knelt down to strap Sam’s ankles into some sort of extra harness that must now be attached to the part that was already fastened round Sam’s crotch. Stuck in this standing position, and with Dean in the way, Sam couldn’t really see what was happening, he just had to trust the angel.
With Dean’s face pressed into Sam’s chest, he was immediately aware when his brother’s breathing grew more stertorous. He was pretty sure nobody’s exhales should crackle like that.
“Hurry, Cas,” Sam said, trying to keep the panic he was feeling out of his voice. Castiel seemed to understand though, and didn’t call him on it.
Castiel came round to stand up on the stone rail next to the brothers, keeping a reassuring grip on Sam’s arm.
“Dean, you’ll have to guide Sam as you go. Like you said, Sam’s never flown a glider suit before, right, Sam?”
Sam felt Dean’s muscles tense at that, and he shared a look with the Angel. “Yeah, man. I’ve parachuted, but never done anything like this before,” Sam said, not mentioning his dreams. Somehow he didn’t think the other two would count those as relevant experience.
“Fine, fine. I got this,” Dean said, though he was wheezing badly. “You have to tell me what you see, kid. Be my eyes.”
Sam nodded, then realised Dean couldn’t really see that without twisting his head. “Okay. You know this location better than I do. I’ll be relying on you to find us a safe place to land. And I’ve no idea how to steer this thing so…”
“So I need to help you with that, I get it.”
Cas gave Sam another knowing look – having Dean involved was necessary for those reasons, yes, but it was also an attempt to give Dean a reason to stay awake and alive.
“Enough talk,” Castiel said, releasing his grip on Sam. “Time to go.”
The wind buffeted Sam’s wings. Then there was a light push in the centre of his back and he was leaning forward, and out, and down, down, down.
:::
Dean fought off a wave of dizziness as he felt Sam lean, then topple over the edge. He was falling backwards into space, nothing but air between him and the river far below. Air that he could do with for expanding his chest, instead of pressing uselessly against his back. He’d long since lost all feeling in his hands and all strength from his arms, so had nothing to do but cling to the last shreds of consciousness. With his face squashed into Sam’s broad chest, he was spared the view of the bottom of the chasm hurtling to meet them, which was probably a mercy. He did however feel it through Sam’s body when the aerodynamics of their wings kicked in, and the lift of the thermals meant they began to fly rather than fall. Then Sam was whooping in sheer joy over the flapping of the canopy, and in any other circumstances, Dean would have been happy for him. Hell, he’d have been happy for himself, to be flying free.
As it was, he had to trust Sam, which had been an easy thing to do when he had two feet on the ground (albeit being held up by fucking tape, on account of the gaping hole in his chest, but he wasn’t going to quibble). It was a whole other matter when he was relying on a novice to fly them both to safety from the top of a thousand foot drop.
Sam twisted his head down.
“Dean, I need you to help me now, man. Where do I aim for?”
Dean closed his eyes, visualising from memory the landscape he knew was unfolding fast below them. The river would be dark at the bottom of the gorge, forming the natural border used when the German territories were divided, and that the GDR had fortified when the Iron Curtain came down. The Bundesrepublik side was some six hundred feet lower than the GDR side, so that wouldn’t give Sam much time to glide before he would have to land, unless they caught a good thermal and gained a lot of height. And to be honest, Dean didn’t really want that to happen – prolonging their flight just meant more time for him to bleed out or suffocate, and he was barely holding onto consciousness as it was. Added to which, more height meant more danger when it came to managing their descent.
What they needed was somewhere Sam could make a safe landing clear of built-up areas, given that Sam’s legs were not only tucked into the suits’ hang-glider/wing suit’s harness but also encumbered by Dean’s legs. Dean thanked the god he didn’t believe in that the weather was so calm. At least Sam didn’t have to worry about blustery winds knocking them off course. There was no point in either of them worrying about the East German guards spotting them. If that had been going to happen, they would already be full of holes.
“Steer us using your body, and try and keep us going straight, nothing fancy,” Dean instructed. “You need to feel the wings, how they are lifting, reacting to any wind. Don’t grip the bar too tight. Hold steady and we should fly straight.” He stopped to catch a breath, hearing his lung crackling worse than a faulty radio. He didn’t have too much time left, but he was going to make sure Sam was safe if it was the last thing he did.
“Feels good, Sammy. Just keep this up, nice light touch…don’t pull or push at the bar, and tell me what you can see below,” Dean said.
He tried to concentrate and map a course in his head as Sam described the landscape scrolling by. He knew there was a park near the edge of the town, but he didn’t want to risk Sam changing course. Keeping a nice straight, relatively slow glide was their best bet. These wings might be strong, but Dean doubted they were designed to carry the combined weight of the Winchester boys. Maintaining sufficient speed to carry their weight was key. If the glider’s nose dropped, they would pick up speed, if Sam pulled back and lifted the nose up, they could stall and drop like a stone.
“There are some apartment blocks coming up, I think we are ok to clear them, but we’re losing altitude,” Sam’s voice was carefully even, but Dean could feel the tension threaded through Sam’s every muscle, and he could hear the too-loud thud of Sam’s heart beating though the bones of his chest.
Dean needed to drill the basics into Sam as quickly as he could, before the darkness gathering at the edges of his vision swamped him. Before breathing became too hard with one working lung. As it was, talking was using up air he didn’t have, making black spots gather in his limited view of Sam’s chest and neck.
“S’important, Sammy…If you need to turn, you have to pick up speed first by pushing the bar gently, and dipping the nose. When we speed up, move your body a small amount to the left and you’ll feel the left wing drop, and the glider will pivot – you’ll keep going in that direction until you correct it, bring your body back to the centre…” Dean choked on the blood in his mouth, setting off a total whiteout as pain that shot through his whole left side. He tried desperately to stay with Sam, but it was more than any human could have managed.
His eyelids closed like the doors of a prison, with a finality Dean couldn’t fight.
:::
Castiel wanted to stay and watch until the Winchester boys landed, but he had no binoculars to track them with, and besides, he couldn’t afford to linger. He didn’t have the luxury of a wing suit or the option of escape. Castiel only had his orders, his duty, and the cause. All of which he’d betrayed by stopping Dean Winchester from killing Sam. His task had been to sit back and watch the Bear kill his brother, then help Dean escape to be debriefed in the West. Zachariah was going to be mightily displeased with Castiel.
When he turned to leave, he discovered he’d run out of time after all.
:::
Thursday November 27 1986: 13:10 Städtanderwandwesten, FDR. Krankenhaus von St. Radegund.
Dean swam up towards the shimmering light. The lead weights tied to his ankles fought against his natural buoyancy and tried to drag him back down into the suffocating darkness. His head broke the surface and he finally drew a deep breath. And promptly choked.
“Easy, Dean, take it easy, it’s ok,” a voice he knew but couldn’t place was saying, and that, together with the firm but gentle pressure of two large hands steadying his shaking shoulders, eventually soothed him. His breathing calmed and his heart slowed the hammering that was threatening to shake his ribs apart. Fuck, that hurt. He fought hard against the heaviness that was pressing down on his whole body, and opened his eyes.
Brightness, then a blur of unidentifiable colours that eventually coalesced into something vaguely human that was looming over him. Two somethings actually, he concluded after a couple of seconds passed, one decidedly taller than the other.
He remembered something important.
“S’m?” he managed, before the dryness in his throat locked him down again, and he dissolved into another painful fit of coughing. A hand appeared under his nose, pressing a paper cup of ice chips to his lips, and he swallowed gratefully.
“Small sips, son,” said an unfamiliar gruff voice, and Dean automatically obeyed. Exhausted from that little effort, Dean decided talking was a bad idea right now, and settled for hanging onto consciousness long enough to work out what was going on. He was in hospital, that much was clear from the brief focussed glimpse he’d gained of anodyne décor, combined with the faint pervading scents of antiseptic and boiled cabbage. That, and the instantly recognisable beeping of a heart monitor he assumed belonged to him. He was too tired to check.
“Is he out again?” he heard Sam ask, and the anxiety in his little brother’s voice was incentive enough to make him reopen eyes he hadn’t even realised had closed. It was worth the effort to see Sam’s smile.
“Oh hey, Dean, good to see you awake at last.”
Dean couldn’t risk another coughing fit by speaking again, so he just raised an eyebrow. It was a bit scary how much energy that took, all by itself. Miraculously, Sam understood.
“You’ve been unconscious for five days, Dean.” Sam sat down and took Dean’s hand, careful not to jostle the IV. “We thought we’d lost you a couple of times,” he continued, and Dean gave him a pass for the handholding due to the tremor in Sam’s voice. It was nothing to do with the way his own heart kind of glowed at his brother’s touch. Nope. He refocused with an effort as he realised Sam had continued talking, and he was missing important information. A spy should always be alert, whatever the circumstances.
“…you’d lost such a lot of blood, and your lung collapsed. We made a bit of a crash landing on the other side of the river, near the edge of town in the end. But the West Germans were great; even our crazy costumes didn’t faze them at all. As soon as I got you safely to hospital, I managed to call Dad, and he got a flight straight away.”
Dean felt another warm hand on his other arm, and his gaze flew around to land on the other shape he’d been aware of as he’d surfaced. His father. John Winchester. The face gazing down at him with shining dark eyes wasn’t how he remembered his Dad, of course it wasn’t. The last time he’d seen John Winchester, Dean had only been eight years old, and that version of John had been some twenty years younger than this one. This John’s face was grooved with lines that spoke of sorrow and loss and years of grieving, but surrounding the eyes were the laughter lines Dean remembered, and damned if his sight wasn’t blurring with tears. Fucking morphine, messing with his emotions. He was a hardened assassin, not a freaking girl.
His head was buzzing with so many questions – had Dad ever tried to find Mom and him? Did Sam remember him at all? What had they both been doing with their lives while Dean had been murdering and spying for the Soviets? Would they ever forgive him for the things he’d done? After all, he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself, so why should they?
But he was sinking under the weight of it all; the bed was turning into cotton candy, sticky and soft. He struggled desperately to stay awake. The morphine drip winked at him, telling him resistance was futile, and the edges of the room folded in. Then through the sweet pink fog, Dean could feel Dad’s hand heavy on his arm, and Sam’s hand gripping his own, and for the first time since he’d stepped back across the border as a deadly spy-assassin, he realised he wasn’t alone.
And he let go.
Thursday December 7 1986: Lawrence, Kansas
John Winchester certainly knew how to pull strings. Dean had only been conscious for a day before he and Sam found themselves on a military plane on their way back to the States. Back home, Sam told him with the biggest, dopiest grin pasted onto his face. Dean couldn’t get his head round that idea – that he had a real home. The last time Dean had been in the USA, he’d killed two men – a diplomat and a CIA agent. He’d done it swiftly, efficiently, clinically. He really couldn’t see the Pentagon or the CIA rolling out the red carpet to welcome Dean ‘the Bear’ Akulov to his new apple-pie life in America, knowing he had all that blood on his hands. He fully expected to find himself taken into custody and never let go the moment he landed on American soil, so he was very surprised when all he was met with was a small medical team. The attending checked his vitals and agreed he was fit enough go home to Lawrence, Kansas, with his family.
Dean spent the next few days more asleep than awake, so he didn’t have much time to brood, or to tell Sam or Dad about his fears for his future.
Plus, as it turned out, having a little brother again after all these years was exhausting. Sam had boundless energy, and a disturbingly optimistic outlook that was totally at odds with Dean’s Russian-learned pessimism.
“So I’m going to write some of this into the next edition of Condorman, what do you think, Dean?”
Dean lit up at the thought, then quickly covered it with a cough. Wouldn’t do to have the kid getting to big-headed. Of course, pretend coughing wasn’t such a great idea when recovering from a severe lung trauma, and it was a few painful moments before Dean managed to get his breathing back under control. By which time a thought had struck him.
“Wait a minute, when you say write our story into the comic, who am I going to be?”
Sam pushed his stupidly long hair back out of his eyes, smiling. Dean shook his head.
“No, no, I still can’t believe you wrote me as a red-headed chick, Sammy. That’s just wrong, man. It’s perverted – I’m not Castiel to go round bucking gender stereotypical norms, you know?”
“I don’t know, Dean, I think you made a very attractive, kick-ass villain. And I got the green eyes right, didn’t I?”
“You’ve only been my little brother for five minutes and you are already a pain in my butt,” Dean grumbled. “Stupid, childish comic books.”
“Hey, you were the one who was desperate to go to a convention dressed as one of those stupid, childish comic book characters – and you can’t pretend it was for a mission, because you’ve already confessed your secret Condorman passions to me,” Sam was virtually crowing, and the grin on his face was wider than the Atlantic. Dean could have drowned in it.
Tuesday August 4 1987: Siberia
The Angels refused to save Castiel from a sentence of two years hard labour. Zachariah said it was his own fault; he should have been more disciplined. There was no room in the dissident organisation for such poor discipline – it only got people killed. Castiel’s sister, Ana, somehow managed to ensure Castiel wasn’t sent to the terrible radioactive mines that had killed Mary Winchester, or to one of the one of the dreaded medical research centres. So there was that. And Cas was grateful.
Nine months later, worn down and worn out, Castiel was even more grateful when Condorman and the Bear turned up and sprang him. But that’s a story for another day.
The dates in this fic are based on fact – i.e. the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and the Iron Curtain, as the West called it, did come down tighter than ever from that date. The Communist states were concerned about the so-called Brain Drain, and so literally overnight, the new barriers went up. In this AU however, I’m supposing the wall effectively runs all along the east/west border in a much more physical way than it actually did. I’ve also made up a completely fictional town so that the convention can be set somewhere suitable for a high altitude hang-glide escape.
This town became Städtanderwandwesten and Städtanderwandosten – literally ‘town on the wall western’ and ‘town on the wall eastern’. I imagined this to be somewhere north of Berlin.
The Soviet OSS is also fictional – I just used a Russian translation of very secret service, which becomes очень секретная служба (ochen' sekretnaya sluzhba). Apologies for any errors in translation here, I was relying on Google! This SOSS is not supposed to have any connection or bear any resemblance to the Office of Strategic Services that was the precursor to the CIA.
Butugichag gulag was a real place, though by the 1980s it was no longer in use. It existed from 1945-55. It was a mining gulag mostly for uranium, though also tin and gold. The area was already known as Death Valley from well before anyone knew about uranium and its deadly properties. Miners worked without any protection and life expectancy was merely months. It was also a top-secret medical experimentation facility. (Info from Wikipedia)
Preispodnyaya is made up – I just wanted a name for another facility that Mary could have been moved to, and this word means hell.
The Angel group of underground fighters, dissidents and counter revolutionaries is also completely fictional.
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Date: 2015-02-22 08:19 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for adding this fantastic fic to the challenge. ♥
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Date: 2015-03-08 08:24 pm (UTC)Poor Mary though, she just never catches a break...
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Date: 2015-03-08 09:14 pm (UTC)