Fear Itself

The truck was parked in a back alleyway near a manhole. Dean, Alex, Avery, and I were helped down and allowed to pass. While we made our way to the tunnel, we passed a long stretch of people, many of whom I had never seen before, grabbing the crates Dr. Larson and Garrett dropped down to them and passing them down all the way to the end. Granted, it took them awhile. We made it into Sam’s office before the first crate was even slid through the entrance into the base itself. Sam exploded when we told him what happened, not that I expected much else.

“Dean, you blew something up? Again?” he asked his brother incredulously, staring straight up at him in disbelief. I sat on Sam’s cot, trying to block out the yelling. Alex had taken perch in what seemed to be his usual arm chair. “Where did you even get a grenade?”

“I punched a hole in one of the crates just because and happened to find it,” Dean told him nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders. “They needed help, and I improvised.”

“You also caused unholy amounts of damage,” Sam replied in a sarcastic huff. His arms folded over his chest. “You could have hurt someone.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” Dean contended, now looking a little cross with his brother. “If it wasn’t for me, the team wouldn’t have made it out of there alive.”

Sam scoffed, eyes widening. “You almost hit Tali with a grenade.”

“Yeah, you kind of did,” I murmured shyly, looking down at my feet.

“And I’m sorry for that, Blondie,” Dean apologized half-heartedly, mostly just to appease Sam, which I found sort of amusing. “But we got what we needed, and everyone got out alive. I don’t know what more you want.”

“What you don’t understand is that we can’t just keep pulling stunts like this!” Sam shouted. “This is why we’ve got the reputation we have! The League calls us terrorists, and people believe them because we carelessly blow things up and take millions of lives, and you just—“

“Okay!” Alex interjected, throwing his hands in the air. “Can we just stop? For two minutes? Honestly, this never gets us anywhere, both of you know it, and I don’t know why this continues after every single mission. I don’t care about the motives, I certainly don’t care about the reputation. The ends justify the means, blah, blah, blah, that’s all well and good, but it’s over. Okay? It’s done, so just shut up.” Alex groaned softly and dropped his head against the wall with a soft thud. Nobody responded. All I could hear was the ticking of the clock sitting beside Sam’s laptop.

“So… what’s our next move?” I asked, mostly just to break the silence.

“The riot,” Sam explained with a sigh. “We have to figure out how we’re going to get there, how we’re going to escape… there are just… there’s just too much to plan. I really can’t even discuss it right now.” Sam plopped down in his desk chair and heave another sigh, beginning to click the trackpad on his laptop, getting back to work.

“Hopefully, 5,000 guns will be enough for anyone that shows up,” Dean added.

It was quiet again. I thought I heard Sam exhale harshly through his nose before he muttered, “Can you guys get out? I really need to work.”

Shuffling quietly, we exited, and just after passing through the door, Alex rested a hand on my shoulder. “You should head home,” he told me before he began to walk away. Just before leaving the base, he turned his head over his shoulder and called back, “And whatever you do, just stay safe.”