Fear Itself

We gathered at the edge of the gardens in the early morning light, hidden by the shadows of the trees that stretched and grew as the sun rose above their branches, casting us in darkness. We gathered around a deep, dark pit Alex, Casper, and Dean dug out hours before, when the night sheltered them from prying eyes who may have dared to question them. We had to be quick. Nobody wanted to, but we had to. Should somebody have seen us burying a body, let alone the body of Chandler Jacques, we were dead men. They would find all the convicted fugitives, and Dean would officially be connected to a terrorist movement. To rush was disrespectful to Chandler, but I assured Dean that Chandler would understand.

This must have been harder for Dean than anybody knew. He wanted for Chandler what Chandler always gave him: the best, top of line, cream of the crop, etc. To bury his best friend in a makeshift grave, wrapped up in a white sheet, at the break of day, was probably never what he imagined. To be fair, he probably never imagined having to bury his best friend. Who did? In a way, this was worse. Dean wasn’t just burying his best friend. He was burying the only dependable person he had known for the last seven years, the person who taught him how to live, how to survive. It was exactly like if I had to bury Avery. This was like burying a parent.

With three standing on each side, we balanced the body across three sturdy ropes and lowered his sheet-wrapped corpse into the ground with care. Flower petals were tossed in afterward; Eden insisted on bringing a single white balloon for him, but she lost her grip on the string as dirt was piled back into the grave, and the balloon soared up to sky. She wasn’t upset, for she reasoned, “Now, he’ll get it heaven.”

Once the pit was filled and the body buried, most attendees got to chatting. Eden seemed to make friends with Aunt Sophie and Mumbles rather quickly, seeing as she’d sped off to tell them both all about how she had found a cat in an alley the other day. I strode over to Dean and Gabe, who looked better and brighter than they did yesterday, which wasn’t saying very much. Nobody was crying, at least.

Gabe stood with his arms folded over his chest, left foot brushing back and forth against the grass with just the tiniest bit of a swing. “So, what’s the next move?”

“The annual summit’s next week,” Dean told him. The summit was a yearly conference held at League Towers where all the most important League politicians gathered to discuss their year. According to Sam, there was a large opening ceremony where they arrived and were presented in Center Square for the masses to see and marvel at. “We’re gonna put up a stronghold near by and take ‘em out.”

“All of ‘em?” Gabe’s eyebrows raised high on his forehead, and he leaned in like he hadn’t heard properly.

“Every last one,” Dean affirmed coldly. “If I’ve got anything to do with it.” It didn’t take more than a glance at Dean’s determined gaze to know he meant what he said. The League took Chandler from him. An eye for an eye. Simple as that. Dean was taking back what was stolen from him, and while I didn’t agree, I understood. I had never lost somebody close to me, not that close. I had no room to comment, so when Dean noticed I was there and greeted me, I met him with a gentle smile and a hug. His firm embrace told me his morale was improving; that was good, even if it was because he planned the mindless massacre of hundreds of men.

“I wanna help,” Gabe offered.

With his arm around me, Dean’s weight shifted forward. “Sorry, mate, I thought you said you were… you know, done.” Gabe had been previously involved? Must have missed that part of the conversation.

“Man, that was Bristol,” Gabe huffed with a laugh. “I only stopped ‘cause… well, firstly, I’m a shit planner. You lot have really got your shit together. Secondly, I gave it up to keep m’daughter outta it, but…” He sighed. “Seems we keep gettin’ dragged in, anyway. I was fightin’ to give her a better future, then I stopped to do the same thing, ‘cept, not much even changed when I did.” Gabe shrugged. “Gettin’ freedom don’t mean abstainin’ from action.”

“What’s your plan for all this, then?” Dean asked.

“Like, I said, shit planner, but um…” His voice trailed off as he shrugged. His arms settled on his hips. “I say we grab our guns, bust in there, and kill the bastards.”

Dean’s grin nearly scrunched up his own face, and a satisfied chuckle sounded from his throat. “A man after my own heart!” The two shook hands again, laughing. “Welcome to the team, Gabe. Glad to have you.”

We took him down to the Hangar with us, though he didn’t seem nearly as fazed by the elevator as the rest of us had been our first time. “Interestin’,” he murmured when it shook and began to descend.

Eden, on the other hand, shivered and latched onto Dean’s leg in paralyzed fright when the platform scraped against the sides of the chute. Chuckling under his breath, Dean took her under the arms and hoisted her up, settling her against his shoulder and rubbing her back. He told her it was going to be fine, and with the way her face softened, I knew she believed him. Someday, Dean would be this good, if not better, with kids of his own. If he ever got around to having them. But no time for such thoughts. Those could come later.

After the initial fascination with our new base and all of it’s flashing lights and screens, we settled in the main room around our table, and even Sam came out to discuss the on-coming riot. It would be an over-night affair; that was what Sam and Dean described when estimating how long it would take just for Dean and Cas to set up a barricade, no doubt made with years worth of smuggled military goods that apparently were hidden all over Dean’s house. It would have been nice to know I had been sleeping in a house full of weaponry and stolen supplies, but I digress.

“So, you think, we’re gonna be there for more than twenty-four hours?” I asked, sitting back in my chair.

Immediately, Dean shifted forward, interjecting before anyone could get a word out, leaving both Sam and Alex sitting there with their mouths hanging open. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Blondie. What d’you mean, we?” He stared at me incredulously. “You’re not coming with us.”

What the hell was this about? Were we really about to go through this again. “Yeah, I am,” I insisted. I folded my arms over my chest and shifted in my seat. “I’m as much a part of this group as you are. In fact, I belong here just as much as anybody else here, and I bet you aren’t turnin’ the rest of them away, are you?”

Dean’s expression softened, and his head dropped for a moment. He rubbed a hand over his brows and sighed. “That’s not—“ he began to murmur. He lifted his head and nodded to our left, by the door to Sam’ office, far from where we sat now. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

I wanted to tell him that whatever he had to say, he could say it in front of the group; however, Dean was still fragile. He’d gone through a rough couple of days, so I relented and nodded. “Sure, Muscles,” I told him softly. We both rose from our seats, and I followed him over to the spot.

He stood in front of me in silence. He certainly hadn’t brought me over here so I could watch him stare at his own feet, so I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows expectantly. “Babe,” he sighed. “It’s not what you think?”

“Oh really?” I laughed sarcastically. “Because last time you pulled this, you said I couldn’t handle myself because I was a woman, and you’re lucky I didn’t slap you right there.” I was sure Chandler had done it plenty for me, but I didn’t have the heart to utter his name. “What’s the excuse now?”

“I can’t lose you,” he admitted immediately. His eyes fell downward in an unfocused stare. “Blondie, you’re all I’ve got left.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, and suddenly, I understood his fierce need to keep me away from the riot, to keep me out of harm’s way. He watched his best friend march off to his death. No matter how poised and decided Chandler had been, Dean couldn’t accept it. I didn’t think he’d ever be able to get past it. If he lost me too, there wasn’t a point for him. He had no close friends left. He was alone, and nobody wanted that. Being alone was worse than being dead. I knew that first hand.

So I told him okay. “I won’t go,” I said. To be fair, I didn’t want him to go either, but he wouldn’t listen no matter how hard I begged. This was his purpose, at least in his eyes. This was how he was going to avenge Chandler. This was how he would repay his supposed debt, even if his “debt” was just a figment of his guilt. Somewhere very deep in his mind, Dean promised Chandler that things were going to change, and this was how he was going to do it. Trying to convince him not to do it would be like trying to defy gravity: impossible and pointless.

When Dean and I returned to the table hand-in-hand, we were discussing the impact a global broadcast would have. It took minutes to decide that it would gain the support of the public, but it also meant outing ourselves. For most of us, that didn’t matter anymore. A lot of us were already convicted felons. The League knew us, the League wanted us, and the League would stop at nothing to get us.

But this meant Dean could never go back. Though I tried to voice my concern in a worried glance, he merely shook his head, squeezed my hand. He didn’t mind, knew he had to do it. He could always stay in my room, and there was always a spare room I had set up for times we needed a little more privacy, mostly the kind we needed late at night when we woke up sweating and screaming over whatever nightmare decided to come out and play that night. It was going to be fine, he assured me. He told me over and over again the entire drive back home.