Title: Atheists in a Foxhole
Author:![]()
amchara
Recipient:![]()
regala_electra
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Summary: It was time to face two fucking depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.
Author's Notes: ~7,700 words. Speculation but no spoilers for season four. Written for the prompt, ‘a pickup truck and an OFC that's a reformed nun turned gunrunner who knows exactly how strange that sounds’.
It was time to face two fucking, depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.
“We can’t do any patrols beyond the salt lines until we get new flame-throwers, glocks and rock salt,” Dean said, flipping his knife idly. He set it down and grabbed a pair of darts from the bucket beside his chair, throwing them at the target. They both hit close to the bull-eye, courtesy of the last week’s frustration and inability to do anything, which had led to lots of dart-throwing practice. He turned around, facing Sam. “And I need more dead man’s blood bullets if we’re going out to MacMillan’s again. The blood-suckers have set up a base three miles out from the road.”
“We can’t do anything on the patrol front yet,” Sam said, rubbing his temple tiredly as he looked over their acquisition sheets. “So you’ll have to wait. If Jimmy’s dead, then we’ll have to find another guy to make the runs to the coast.”
“We’ll be trapped like rats here, if our supplies run out,” Dean reminded him. “The salt line and the armed sentries are—”
Sam glared at him. “I’m aware of the problem, Dean. I’m the one who picked this place originally and I did the calculations. I know how long we can last without.”
“So how much longer?” Dean asked, his voice soft. He leaned forward in his chair. “’Cause the kids are getting spooked every time we head out to the supply shed and see that small pile gettin’ down to nothing. If you’d just let me go…”
“No,” Sam said, his voice quiet as Dean’s, but with the dangerous undercurrent that everybody but Dean had learned to avoid. “You are not going past that line again. I’m fucking tired of having to ward you with a million-”
“We may not have a choice, Sam, so put on your big girl panties and realize that we’re in a shitty situation that’s gonna require us to move out and face them sooner rather than later.”
“We are not going anywhere yet,” Sam insisted.
The tension in the room was palpable, and Dean thought that if he didn’t get some answers or action soon, he was going to strangle the secrets out of his brother.
They glared at each other. Dean could feel a twitch in his face and to his horror, he couldn’t prevent the huge yawn from escaping. He saw Sam try to avoid doing the same, but unable to resist the temptation. Dean smirked and Sam smiled his rare half-grin.
“When was the last time you slept, asshole?” Sam asked with a tired chuckle. He stretched his arms over his head.
“Don’t know, sometime yesterday?” Dean said. He snapped his fingers, remembering. “After the four a.m. watch. “ He eyed the purple bruises that had taken up residence under Sam’s eyes. “You?”
“Uh.” Dean could see Sam was thinking about it. “Maybe… yesterday.” Sam groaned, pushing aside papers on the rough desk.
Dean snorted, “Get to a bed, Sleeping Beauty, and we’ll talk strategy when you’re not dead on your feet.”
He stayed where he was, watching Sam lurch to his feet and stumble into the room beside the study, with a half-hearted good-bye that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fuck you.’
Dean breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut, waiting a few minutes to make sure Sam was dead to the world. He pulled out his kit, opened Sam’s sickening easy-to-pick locks, and went riffling through the drawers. But like the last time he had checked, there was nothing new, no document that indicated the master plan of why they were waiting out the war in one of the most densely demon-populated areas and doing nothing except sitting on their asses and conducting surveillance patrols.
There was a knock on the outside door. “Dean?” It opened and a small head poked through. Alex, their youngest recruit, was the designated runner for their operations.
Dean shoved the last of the papers in the last drawer shut, and locked it.
“Dara spotted Jimmy’s pick-up coming down from the pass,” Alex said, a wide grin splitting his face.
Dean breathed a sigh of relief. “About fucking time.”
He joined Alex and they jogged their way to the base of the look-out point. Originally a grain silo, there was a platform 50 feet off the ground inside the structure, with two six-foot wide windows that allowed them to see for miles north or south of their base. Alex scurried up the ladder with Dean following close behind.
Dara was on look-out and she had the binoculars trained on a bobbing white spot on the horizon. “Definitely Jimmy’s truck,” she remarked, handing the binoculars over to Dean. “You can recognize his crest on the hood.”
Sure enough, when Dean focused in, he could make out the faint outline of two crossed shotguns on the truck’s hood. “How far out?” he asked. “15 miles?”
“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Dara agreed. “So you probably want to haul ass now, and get down to the roadblock.”
“Why’s that?” Dean tracked the truck as it turned onto the road towards their roadblock.
“’Cause that’s not Jimmy in the truck,” she answered.
“What?” Dean pulled his eyes away for a second to look at her.
“S’not Jimmy. Probably some demon in a meat suit.” Dara smiled a disarming grin. “Dean, can I come with you and waste the motherfucker when they come in?”
“Um… I need you to stay here, keep watch,” Dean said, perturbed despite himself. 16 year old former cheerleaders were not supposed to use that kind of language or have that kind of glee on their faces when they talk about killing people. At least, they didn’t in the world he was used to, which, admittedly, had changed in the past eight months.
Dara pouted.
Dean bent down and grabbed the look-out’s walkie-talkie, radioing ahead to the gate. “Robbie? Code 5. Be ready with all you got. Do not, I repeat, do not allow that truck past the gate without my okay.”
*
“Dara’s right- that’s not Jimmy,” Robbie said, sighting his rifle along the road at the approaching truck. “It’s a woman, brown hair, kinda hot,” he said, lifting his head. He spit a stream of tobacco out of the side of his mouth.
Dean nodded. “Any scope on her eyes? Scales, horns, fangs, anything that might indicate non-human?” He was only partially kidding on the last details—some weird shit had happened to the human race since Sam had brought him back from hell.
“Not that I can see, sir,” Robbie said, his eyes already lined back up with the target. “You let me know if you want me to light ‘er up.”
“Everybody get ready,” Dean called. All along the reinforced gate, the rag-tag band of recruits – mostly teenagers and college kids too stubborn or stupid to have fled with their families to the coast and safety – aimed their assorted weapons at the truck.
Dean hopped the lowest section in the gate, and stood on the other side of the salt-lines. He breathed in a deep breath, smelling the sulfur-tinged air and felt the prickling of electricity cover his skin. Different on this side of their Line. “Robbie, cover me.”
The former marine joined him on the other side, and together they stood in the middle of the road. “Sam isn’t going to like this,” he said in a low voice to Dean.
“Sam can go fuck himself,” Dean said with a pleasant smile. He pulled out one of his only remaining holy water grenades, and held it in his hand.
The truck slowed, as it approached and stopped ten feet from the barricade. The passenger didn’t exit right away and Dean could feel tension rising from the group at his back as the seconds dragged on. “Steady,” he called.
The driver’s door swung open, and a pair of no-nonsense boots exited, followed by the rest of the driver. She started walking towards them, a woman in her early thirties, light brown hair tied back in a braid, wearing a Kevlar vest, sweatshirt and jeans. She stopped five feet from them, still far enough out of range to touch.
“Quite a welcome,” she said, clear blue eyes crinkling at the corners with tiny laugh-lines as she surveyed the scene ahead of her. “This is the Winchester place?” She addressed the question to Dean.
Dean nodded confirmation. “It is. Where’s Jimmy?” he asked.
“Jimmy’s dead,” she answered. “I’m Magda, his cousin.”
“Dean Winchester, and this is Robbie Goulding.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” she held out her hand and took a step forward.
Robbie stepped in front of Dean, rifle on his shoulder and pointed straight at her. “No offense ma’am, but we need to be sure you aren’t a creepy-crawly or devilly before we’re going to be treatin’ with you.”
She stepped back, and in the mid-afternoon light Dean could see a silver cross glint against the matte black of her vest. Didn’t necessarily mean anything- higher level demons could wear crosses so long as they took precautions.
“By all means,” she said seriously. She held her palms up and turned to show them they were empty. “Human, unarmed, and willing to prove it.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call a gun-runner unarmed,” Robbie said, observing her with a thoughtful look, lowering his gun. “Or don’t you have massive amounts of weaponry in the back of your truck?”
“No personal sidearm?” Dean added, wondering who would be stupid enough to travel anywhere in this day and age without one.
“Guilty of the first, and left it in the passenger seat for the second, ” Magda said easily, letting her arms drop down beside her. “I figured I better be friendly.” But there was a relaxed ease and alertness about her that Dean thought she might have other means of protections at her disposal, likely in the form of protective wards or perhaps a rare blessed weapon.
She easily passed the holy water bottle test, and the body search for weapons and she could follow Dean and Robbie back over the salt-lines without any problems. The last test involved driving Jimmy’s truck between the gates. None of the sigils flared, indicating that she was as human as she claimed.
Dean relaxed slightly, but he still fell slightly behind while Robbie and Magda walked up the path to the farmhouse, observing. Never could be too careful. And if he was being honest with himself, the view wasn’t bad either.
*
Someone must’ve warned Sam ahead of time, because he was waiting at the front door, standing ramrod-straight and tall, with no indication that he hadn’t had more than an hour’s sleep in the last 24.
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t let surprise color his voice as he took in their visitor. “Jimmy…?” he asked.
“Indisposed, permanently,” Dean told him bluntly. “This is Magda, his cousin. She’s taking over for him.”
Sam nodded, and held out his hand, which Magda took and shook firmly. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Sam Winchester.”
“Magda Sitovich.“
After a brief nod from Dean, Robbie headed back to the roadblock and they moved to Sam’s office, shutting the door on the curious eyes of the dozen or so young people off-duty and hanging out in the main complex.
“Shall we get down to business?” Magda asked. She opened her backpack to pull out a massive pile of papers, and grabbed the pen clipped to her vest, checking off points as she made them. “I have most of Jimmy’s last order… glocks, flame throwers, m-17s, two Berettas, holy water grenades, bullet casings, … a couple other odds and ends-, and a huge order of dried foods.”
Dean nodded. “Excellent, exactly what we need. I’ll have some of the kids unload your truck.” He swiveled back in his chair to open the outside door, yelling into the hallway. “Whoever’s out there, get off your lazy asses and help unload the supplies.” He turned back around with a grin on his face, noting with satisfaction the look of amusement that flashed across Magda’s face. “Gotta keep them busy somehow.”
Alex came running towards the door first, followed by two other boys and Dean directed them to the pick-up truck.
“Tell them to just take the cases off the first two rows to start,” Magda called.
“You got that, kid?” Dean asked and Alex nodded eagerly.
“In the meantime, we need to talk about rocket launchers…”
“I’m not equipping you with them.” Magda’s quick and dismissive response wasn’t exactly the response Dean had anticipated.
Dean blinked. “Look- we need gonna need RPGs and Jimmy said…”
“Look, you’re a rag-tag band of paramilitaries trying to eke out an existence beyond the Line, just to prove you can, like any other number of Jimmy’s other clients,” Magda stated, her arms crossed and her face impassive in Sam’s study. “You’re not a unique group—maybe larger than any of the others, but not special. If this ever ends and things go back the way they were… I’ll give you the smaller weapons, but I’m not going to equip every group with enough arms to start a small war.”
Sam looked over at Dean, and Dean shrugged. He’d let Sam handle this one. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said, and then let Sam take it from there.
“Doesn’t make a difference,” Magda said, shrugging.
“I’m betting you also have another client, buying them up,” Sam guessed.
“That’s a good guess,” Magda answered swiftly.
Dean had to admire her ability to cut through the bullshit quickly.
“Who?” Sam asked, his voice dangerously soft.
“Divisions of the Marine Corps, and the 60th Air Mobility out of Travis,” Magda met Sam’s eyes without hesitation.
Dean snorted loudly. “The military? Sweetheart, what those boys know about supernatural warfare they could fill with teaspoon. You’re better off giving it to us.”
“They’ve managed to keep more than half a million Bay Area residents alive so far in this environment. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them,” she retorted. “They might not have the experience, but they do have the discipline and manpower to help humanity survive in this new… situation.”
“They pay you well?” Dean asked, quickly reevaluating his first impressions of her.
“Well enough, but money’s not everything.”
“You have an awful lot of morals for an arms runner,” Sam observed. “You’re sure you’re related to Jimmy?”
Other than one quick, unimpressed eyebrow arch, Magda ignored the question. “I have heard of you though, the Winchester place. I’ve brought you some of my other cache. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, I have a feeling they’re more to your style. You can take a look at what I brought- likely’ll make the difference for you than any heavy weaponry.”
Sam looked at Dean, and Dean shrugged. “Let’s take a look then.”
Magda led them out to the lightened truck, and jumped onto the bed, pulling out a key and unlocking a long, grey metal case.
“They’re blessed by the church,” she said, pulling the cloth back to showcase the shining rounds. “And I won’t even charge you extra for them.”
Dean let out a low whistle of appreciation. “You tracked down a member of the clergy who hasn’t been slaughtered yet, and convinced them to perform benedictions on rounds of ammo? Jimmy once claimed he could find us a priest for the right amount of money, but we didn’t think he could do it…”
“I did them myself,” she answered, a small, proud smile stealing across her face.
It took a moment for the significance to sink in for both Dean and Sam. “What?” Dean blurted out in surprise. “But that would mean…
“That you’re talking to the former Sister Magda of the San Francisco Sisters of Presentation,” she answered, the look on her and her tone warning them that this was the only answer they’d get at the moment. “So, do we have a deal, gentlemen?”
*
“I think I have whiplash,” Dean said conversationally, as they watched the white pick-up disappear in a cloud of dust into the horizon.
“Hmm?” Sam grunted, lost in his own thoughts, or perhaps just his exhaustion.
“I thought I had her pegged,” Dean replied. “Yuppie lawyer, business woman, yoga instructor maybe… former nun, never would’ve guessed with those legs.”
“Guess you’re not such a good judge of character as you thought,” Sam said, stifling a yawn.
“Maybe,” Dean said. “Shame though.”
“Former nun, did you say?” Robbie asked, joining them. “If she’s not working for God no more, no reason why you can’t.” He scratched idly at his three-day-old beard. “Hell, I’d tap it.”
“You’d tap it if you didn’t think Leah would cut off your balls for even thinking about,” Dean said, grinning at his second-in-command.
“Yeah… true,” Robbie admitted. “She wouldn’t be fond of that idea.” He looked around. “Speaking of Leah… if I’m not needed anymore for babysitting this post, I’m going off for a little R&R.” He leered good-naturedly. “She promised something good next time I came off watch.”
Dean nodded. “I think we should be good. Megan’s coming on and she can handle the ‘block for the daylight watch.”
Robbie gave him a quick salute.
“Oh, and make your R&R count,” Dean called after him. “Because we’re starting patrols again now that we have supplies that’ll inflict serious damage on those demon motherfuckers.”
“Hoo-rah,” Robbie answered, and he set off with a new spring in his step.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam shaking his head. “We’re still just doing surveillance patrols, Dean. No offensives.”
“Goddammit, Sam…”
Sam turned to meet Dean’s eyes. “You promised you would trust me. I need you to keep doing that. We’ll get out there, I promise, but it’s not the right time yet,” he said, his voice filled with intensity tinged with exhaustion.
“Alright,” Dean said, reining in his frustration. “But if we’re attacked, we’re blowing them away.”
“Fine,” Sam said, with a tight smile.
*
Magda came back a week later with six large barrels of rock-salt and another load of consecrated ammo. Dean invited her along on a tour of their camp, ostensibly for the purpose of laying down new lines of salt and showing her exactly what they were doing here. In case she changed her mind about those RPG’s and rocket launchers.
“Where’d you find your recruits?” she asked, as they passed by a group of the younger kids picking beans in their late-summer garden. She had taken off her Kevlar as soon as she passed the roadblock, and was wearing her hair in a messy braid, with little wisps of hair glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight. It was surprisingly distracting, and Dean found his eyes sliding sideways to take a look more often than was necessary. His fingers itched to tuck this one strand behind her ears, but he valiantly resisted.
“First couple of months there was a long stream of refugees who passed by, fleeing from whatever the hell happened further inland,” he answered. He waved back at some of the kids, continuing. “We saw kids whose parents were killed along the way, and while the younger ones were taken care of, no one else was helping out the teenagers. Sam and I set an age limit—12, as we’re pretty much sitting ducks here, and we don’t have time to baby-sit, but we told anyone who wanted to stay and pull their weight could.”
He shrugged. “That was the beginning. We also picked a group of Stanford students who had been working on one of the university’s experimental farms just on up the road. We’ve left them in charge of our food and energy. Other than that—it depends. We’ve gotten strays, people who survived on their own but ran into trouble and decide to join us. Most adults tend to move on to the city the first chance they can, usually catching a ride with Jimmy or any other human passing by.”
He snapped his fingers. “How did Jimmy die, anyway?” he asked, remembering that that fact had been skimmed over the last time they’d met.
“Ambush outside the city Line, from the reports I’ve heard,” Magda said, her lips tight. “I was in the supply warehouse when his bodyguard dragged in his corpse. The guard said it was ghouls, but I don’t doubt it was demons who ordered the attack. Jimmy was getting too well-known as an arms dealer.”
“You work for him long?” Dean asked, sending her a sideways glance, wondering if she was worried about the same fate.
“About a month. I had just arrived back in the Bay area after running my own small operation in SoCal, and Jimmy asked if I wanted to help with inventory. I took him up on it, ‘cause I needed the break from the constant running. About two weeks in, I got a call from a client. Demons had found a way to smash through the barricades in most SoCal outposts. Most survivors were head up north, so I decided to cut my losses and stay up here, build up my own client base again while helping Jimmy out. The army contract helped as well.”
“Arms dealing run in your family?” Dean asked, grinning at her.
“Illegal activities run in my family,” she said, with a quirk in her mouth as she answered. “I was one of the few to originally go into a respectable profession.”
“So… a nun, huh?” he said, finally letting the curiosity get the better of him. “Bet you don’t see many high school counselors pushing that option anymore.”
A light flush rose in her cheeks. “Reformed nun. I learnt my lesson.”
“What was the lesson?”
She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable and Dean began to regret asking the question. “That God and religion lets you down,” she finally answered.
“Can’t argue with that,” Dean said, thinking back to his own hunts and the stubborn belief that Sam still clung to.
He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw she was fixedly looking at the horizon.
Dean searched for a safer subject but there was one question he realized still needed answering. “So, how’d you escape the initial purge after it happened?”
“Luck, mostly, plus the fact that I wasn’t officially part of the church anymore,” she answered flatly, clearly wanting to change the topic. She pointed over to their water tower. “Where do you get your water? From the stream that follows the road?”
Dean was only too happy to bring her over to Megan and Bradley, letting them explain their irrigation and water conservation techniques until Magda’s eyes began to glaze over, and then he and Robbie rescued her and showed her where they started their patrols.
“So, any chance of those RPGs?” Dean asked hopefully at the end of her visit.
“Not a chance,” she answered, but there was a smile playing on her lips. “I’ll see you in two weeks, likely on the Friday.”
*
It was sheer luck that Dean was on watch the night the white pick-up truck came barreling up next. He was staring out into the empty night when rapidly swerving headlights appeared in the distance.
Heather, one of the former Stanford students, was dozing beside him, and she woke up with a start when gunshots went off. “What’s happening?” she said sleepily, making a grab for the rifle beside her.
“I don’t know,” Dean stood up, straining his eyes in the distance, wishing for the thousandth time that they had any kind of decent night-vision. “Keep sharp.” He grabbed his radio and rifle and headed down the steep ladder.
He was almost at the roadblock when he heard shots being fired from their position ahead. “Shit,” he muttered and started running.
“What do we have?” he shouted over the crack of guns.
Leah turned around from where she was shooting, and he could see her teeth gleaming white in the dim light. “Ghouls, and we think possibly black dogs running alongside the gun-runner’s truck. Some of ‘em came onto the road, trying to cut her off and we lit ‘em up.”
“There’s a lot of them, Dean,” Robbie said calmly, as he paused between shots. “Doesn’t help in the dark, either.” He aimed again, pulling his trigger and Dean could see a dark shape drop.
“Do the best you can, and ease off when the truck gets close. We don’t want to lose another gun runner,” Dean said. “Are they coming near the ‘block and our lines?”
Leah shook her head. “Not as far as we can see.”
Dean ducked inside their small shack to grab an extra rifle. “Alright, let’s provide cover for Magda so she can get within the safe zone.” He joined the others in attempting to pick off ghouls that came within range.
Two minutes later, the white pick-up came screeching up, and Dean could see the remaining dark shapes melt away into the surrounding darkness outside their lights.
“You okay?” Dean shouted ahead.
Magda poked her head out of the window. “Yeah. Might need some minor medical treatment though.” Under the bright spotlights, Dean could see red, arterial spray coating her windshield and driver’s door. Not hers though.
“Head towards the main complex,” Dean replied. “I’ll join you there as soon as I can.”
Leah and some others opened the gates, and Magda drove through. The sigils stayed blank and Dean relaxed his hold on the rifle, noticing Robbie doing the same.
Dean waited at the roadblock for a good 45 minutes, but the night in front of them remained silent. “Keep scanning, make sure nothing else is coming, and radio me if you see anything,” he ordered.
The others nodded and Dean started jogging towards the main buildings.
*
She was waiting in a bedroom that doubled as a spare medical room when he came to offer his assistance. Cam, their only trained medic, was busy treating the two new refugees they had stumbled across in their patrols earlier that day but promised to be over shortly. One of the other girls still awake had told Dean that she had already helped Magda as best she could.
“Can I do anything?” Dean asked, hanging back in the doorway.
Her back was to him. She didn’t react, and Dean walked closer, concerned. He noticed that she was breathing rapidly, her chest heaving up and down, and he saw that she was silently mouthing words. He also noticed the red staining her crudely wrapped upper arm. “Bandage, Magda?” he asked sharply.
He leaned down over the bed, and he saw her squeeze her eyes closed tightly, and then open them, consciously forcing herself to slow her breathing. She flicked her eyes over to him.
He sat down beside her, and tentatively touched his hand to her shoulder. “Here, let me help you.” She turned slightly, not speaking and he started to push her sleeve up before realizing that it wouldn’t roll up that far.
“One second,” Magda answered, finally speaking and she moved away from him, starting to pull her arms out of her sleeves. She then lifted the shirt over her head, leaving her in a tight white blouse.
Quickly, he grabbed some gauze and antiseptic from the counter behind him, and turned his attention to the ugly scratches that marred her right shoulder. “Black dog?” he asked, trying to distract her.
“Think so,” she said breathily, as he probed gently as the wound. “They jumped at my window when I slowed down to cross the ford. Had to shoot them with my pistol.” That explained the blood on her door.
They didn’t speak for a few minutes while Dean cleaned the wound and bandaged it, all the while acutely aware of her slowing breaths against his face and the faint smell of Tide laundry detergent.
When he was finished he looked up, and was surprised to see her face less than an inch away from his.
She shifted forward and their lips brushed against one another. She lifted up her hands and lay them against his shoulders.
In the dim light, he couldn’t see her expression but the tightening of her hands around his biceps encouraged him to a deeper exploration. He could taste the sweat and fear on her lips, and even though logically he knew that he couldn’t kiss away her fear, he was going to try his damnest. It had been a long time—the age difference between himself and the rest of his recruits had him reconsidering any trysts. He’d been in the ‘commander’ role long enough and he longed for a release from the responsibility.
“Distract me,” he heard her say, drawing him back to the present.
“You sure?” Dean asked, the fog in his brain clearing enough to remembering the former nun part. God, he hoped she was serious and this wasn’t some random PTSD shit that Cam had warned him might happen. Because it would be wrong to take advantage of her offer in that case. Yeah.
“Look, I nearly died tonight. I’d like to forget that fact for the moment, so yes, I’m sure,” she said, and there was a note of laughter in her voice.
Dean hesitated, but then she was licking along his neck, and fuck it, he had her blouse open, palming her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra. He bent down and sucked along the edge of fabric and skin, feeling her shiver under his hands, her nipples becoming prominent underneath his fingers. He pushed her bra down to gain full access to her breasts, sucking on her tiny areoles. He wondered briefly if she was a virgin, because that could make things complicated.
She let him stay there for a few moments, letting out tiny sounds of contentment, and then she pushed against his chest, and he fell back on the bed. She clambered on top, straddling him. She helped him pull off his shirt, while he fumbled with her jeans, managing to push them down to her knees. Her panties were wet and he could feel his own jeans tightening uncomfortably, with his cock straining against the denim in response. She palmed a hand over his groin area, and he groaned.
“Gonna fuck you, gonna fuck you hard, baby,” he whispered, and pulled her on top of him, maneuvering his hand to rub against the wet fabric before pushing it aside, and fingering her clit.
“Stop talking about it, and do it,” she hissed in his ear, grinding against him urgently. Not a virgin, his senses were telling him. Fine with him.
Goddammit, he was going to come in his pants if he didn’t… she unbuttoned and tugged and his jeans fell down, releasing his cock, which she immediately began stroking.
“Condom?” he managed breathlessly. “I… can…” he reached into the back of his pocket, pulling out his battered wallet and it fell open beside them on the bed. She snatched at the condom the same time he did, and there was brief scuffle before Dean claimed it, managing to tear open the package with shaky hands and then handed it off to her. She rolled it onto him expertly, and then positioned herself on top of him, slowly lowering herself onto his cock.
Dean rocked back, the tight, hot wetness driving any other thought from his mind. Fuck, he had missed this. She rode him, settling her hips in a slow, torturous rhythm and he followed blindly, burrowing his fingers in her slippery cleft and attempting to stroke in a similar fashion.
She tightened around him, letting out quiet sounds of panting. “Yeah, sweet Jesus, yeah, sweet Mother… please…”
The last coherent thought Dean had was that there was something deeply wrong with her calling on those particular people but holy… he didn’t care. She let out a long moan, and could feeling her tighten around him even more, pushing him over the edge. He came hard, and clung to her while riding it out.
When it was over she gingerly disentangled herself and bent over him, her silver cross swinging over him like a star. He lifted up his head to give her a hard, bruising kiss. She collapsed beside him.
“Thanks,” she said, after a moment.
It seemed like an incongruous statement and Dean could only reply with the obvious. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.
Both of them exhausted from the night’s activities and events, they fell asleep soon after, with Dean waking up only after Cam discreetly knocked on the door.
*
She left early the next morning before breakfast, kissing him briefly on the cheek with an enigmatic smile on her face. He didn’t know where they stood.
Dean prepared a speech in his head for the next time they’d be alone together. It came at the end of a day when they had finished tallying the inventory and she was preparing to leave for her four hour trip back to the city.
“You need to get back tonight?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why, are you offering some incentive to stay?” she asked mildly.
To his dismay, Dean felt himself stumbling in his response. “Well, I uh, I thought. If you ever need another distraction…” he offered lamely. His seduction skills had definitely taken a hit without practice these last few months.
But it turned out he didn’t need to worry. “I’d love one,” Magda said, her eyes crinkling in a pleased, cat-like shape that was slowly becoming familiar to him. She leaned forward and pushed her palm against his chest, walking him back against the wall of the silo. He circled his palm around the back of her neck, and drew her in for a messy, open-mouthed kiss.
“I don’t do relationships,” she warned him, when they broke apart.
“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he answered. “Neither do I.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but near enough to it that he felt comfortable saying it. Besides, for all he knew, she had a fuck-buddy at all the stations she stopped at. Just a way to scratch the itch and relieve some stress, he could work with that.
*
It became a routine. Magda would make the trip out every couple weeks, unload the guns and weaponry she had brought, and then she and Dean would steal off for a tryst wherever they could find the space.
“Oomph,” Dean heard her say during a particularly enthusiastic session against the supply closet’s wall.
On the other side of the wall, they could hear muffled giggling, and a blush rose on Magda’s cheeks.
Dean hammered on the wall. “This area is off-limits. Scram, you guys.”
“Aye aye, Dean,” came a voice on the other side.
Dean shook his head as Magda buried her face in his chest, shaking with laughter.
They rarely talked about anything personal in their lives. It was either business, or pleasure. Nothing in between. Guns, surveillance patrol tactics, or fucking. Dean didn’t mind it like that.
“What’s it like in the city?” he asked her one afternoon as they took a post-coital walk through the tiny fruit orchard on the property.
“Chaos, controlled chaos, but still chaos nonetheless,” Magda told him. “The civilian government has ceded most of the power over to the military in efforts to control the population, but it’s not doing much good. Everyone’s running scared ‘cause of the demon threat, when you can’t tell who’s the enemy, it’s hard to trust anyone else to protect you.”
Dean nodded. In their relatively isolated bubble of calm, it was easy to forget that there were others fighting the same war they were.
“Sam and I… we’re working on a plan that might work,” he said, knowing how thin that promise sounded. A plan that Sam was still mostly keeping him in the dark on.
“Mmmm,” she said, lost in thought. “I’ve pretty much given up on anything going back the way they used to be, even if we do find a way to kill all the demons.”
“No hope at all?” he asked. “You ever pray for anything different?”
Her eyes were sharp and sad when she looked at him. “No,” she answered.
The next time she visited, she brought them RPGs and rocket launchers.
*
“I stopped at the Jones’ farm today,” she murmured against his neck. “Every family member slaughtered. I found their heads twenty feet from their bodies.”
Dean paused from where he was kissing her neck. He looked up to meet her eyes. “Hate to say this, but this isn’t exactly pillow talk,” he said wryly.
“Sorry,” she answered, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She leaned back against the bed’s headboard, sighing. “I just need something to distract me, anything to get those images out of my head. There’s too damn many of them in there nowadays.”
“Just lay back and let me take care of that, sweetheart,” Dean assured her. He eyed her no-nonsense black panties and his mouth watered. Jesus, if only she’d let him… well, it was worth a try.
He started by sneakily trailing light, whispery kisses down her stomach, watching her eyes close and her face relax. Without stopping he hooked a finger under the band and pulled down her panties, approving of the sight of white skin and a tiny strip of hair underneath. Magda let out a little squeak as he bent down and drew his tongue along the raised pink folds.
“Dean, what the hell-” She half-raised herself off the bed.
“Relax, just trust me,” Dean said, gently pushing her back down. He let a smirk cross his mouth. “Believe me, when I’m done here, there won’t be anything in your head but the thought ‘Dean Winchester is a fucking star at eating pussy.’”
The look on Magda’s face doubted that, but she settled back against the pillow, her brown hair catching red highlights from the dim lamp as it sprayed out on the pillow. Dean paused to admire the picture in front of him before returning to his work.
He sucked along the edge of her thigh, and then pressed his finger down and dragged it along her fold, pausing at her hole as if marking the spot. He licked along the same strip, letting his lips briefly grab and release rapidly on her clit. Her breathing changed, and Dean could feel the shuddering sign that had him excited, he pushed a finger inside her, feeling the wetness and she bucked her hips, thrusting up into his finger. He sucked, his nose filled with the faint musk and her unique taste on his tongue. Her fingers curled around his ears, guiding him in the direction she wanted. He was only too happy to oblige.
She came three times, and as she shuddered around him for the last time, he looked up and saw her smiling.
“Go on, say it,” he teased, after she had recovered.
She whacked him gently on the back of his head. “All right, I’ll give it to you. Dean Winchester, you are a fucking star at eating pussy.”
“Thank you,” he said with mock gravity. “Distraction enough?”
Her smile faded, and he could’ve kicked himself.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said, and then leaned forward to kiss him. “Here, let me return the favor.”
Not gonna argue with her there.
*
One cool day in February, she arrived to find a different sort of action going on in the main compound.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Magda asked in a low voice, hardly pitched loud enough for Dean to hear above the excited chattering of his group as they busily began unpacking the truck.
“Naw, this is just for the fireworks. Gotta celebrate the fourth of July sometime this year,” he answered glibly.
He saw her take in the mounds of supplies around them. They had been stockpiling for the last few months, and a windfall with a group of truckers the week before had produced the last piece to the puzzle. “Bullshit, you have enough fireworks to blow the Golden Gate Bridge to smithereens and enough protected and blessed ammo to take on Satan himself,” she said, catching his arm. “What do you have planned?”
He threw her a wild grin. “Maybe we’re taking on the big Hoobah himself. Maybe we’re tired of him making the world his playground. Maybe we’re going to take fight there.” He knew he was babbling, but after months of inaction they were finally going into the big finale. Sam, the sneaky bastard, had finally let him know the full plan the night before and Dean was riding high on the sheer brilliance and amazingly difficult insaneness of what they were about to attempt.
“Are you fucking serious?” Magda raised her voice, and in the lull it carried and the frantic action around them stopped.
The kids were staring. Dean cleared his throat. “Carry on, everyone,” he told them, drawing Magda to one side. There was a bit of awkward shuffling and then they started up again.
“Did you bring the…”
“I have everything you ordered,” Magda said, interrupting him. “You told me it was for new patrols, not a suicidal assault. Dean… do you know what’s been happening in the city and around the limits lately? The Line is breaking.”
“Yeah, the demons are getting stronger, we get that, which is why now is the time to strike.”
“This is suicide,” she stated again, crossing her arms.
“We all die sometime,” he challenged. “Might as well go out fighting.”
“Risking their lives too?” Magda asked, nodding her head at the kids.
Dean ground his teeth. The one weak spot in the plan that he couldn’t allow himself to think about. “They knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to stay,” he said. “Besides, we told them that any one who doesn’t want to take part in the assault can catch a ride back to the city with you and wait it out.”
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. Dean waited for the ‘is there anyway I can talk you out of it?’ part, but it never came.
She closed her eyes, as if gathering her strength. “Okay,” she said.
“…okay?” Dean said cautiously.
She opened them, looking cross. “Okay, I’ll take anyone back who wants to come with me,” she said. “Also, I’m going to help you out, so gather everyone around with the main weapon they’re going to be using. Can’t promise that it’ll work, but I can attempt a blessing on them.”
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied, the lines on her face burrowing deep, making her look old.
The rest of the afternoon and into the evening a line threaded through the compound, ending beside Magda’s truck. She took each rifle, assault gun, machine gun and knife that was offered, quietly speaking the Latin blessing over the gleaming metal. She handed it back to the kids, and as Dean watched each kid walk away, their backs a little straighter, he concluded that this had been a good idea, if only for morale. There was a look of peace of Magda’s face too, and he commented on it while they took a quick break and ate dinner.
“I’ve been doing some thinking these last couple of weeks,” she said guardedly. “Reconsidering my stance.”
Dean remembered that she had always worn her cross, despite her professions of faith otherwise.
“No atheists in the foxholes,” Sam said from across the table. In the weeks leading up to finishing the plan, he hadn’t slept or eaten much, and Dean couldn’t help but feel a stab of concern whenever he looked at his brother. But the stress on Sam would all be over soon, one way or another.
“Maybe,” Magda said thoughtfully.
Dean decided it would be wise to keep quiet on the issue. No reason to upset the balance or start a fight, not on the last night together. Personally, he didn’t think that God had started to pay attention to the world again the last few weeks… or ever, so he saw no reason to start believing now that he was facing death.
Too soon, she had finished up with the last weapon, and was holding his own personal gun. She kept her eyes on his face as she moved her hands in the traditional movements over it, going through the Latin prayer in a practiced cadence. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti ,” she finished.
Sam and the others had left to do the final preparations and they were alone in the open yard.
“Well…” he started awkwardly. “Take care of yourself, Magda.” He wanted to thank her, for being an anchor, a release for him these last few months. It hadn’t been love, but it had been enough for the time they had.
“You too,” she said, with a half-smile. She walked towards him and he bent his head down for a final, lingering kiss. No time this night for anything else. And nothing more to be said. He knew she wouldn’t stay.
She got into her truck alone. None of the kids had wanted to miss out on the final battle, despite persuading otherwise, and Dean and Sam hadn’t the heart to refuse. She waved a hand and shouted out the window. “I’ll be back next week—if you’re here, I expect a warm welcome.”
“You’ll get it,” Dean promised.
The engine started and the truck slowly rumbled along the narrow road to the roadblock. Dean resisted the urge to jog alongside it. He turned his back, walking towards the front door.
He didn’t look behind, but he could hear himself straining to listen for the truck’s noises until it was too far away and the noises ceased. He went inside, heading towards the sound of the voices, where Sam and Robbie were going over the final battle plans.
Outside the windows, a blood-red sun rose as the white-pick up truck disappeared into the horizon.
*
Author:
amcharaRecipient:
regala_electraRating: Adult
Pairing: Dean/OFC
Summary: It was time to face two fucking depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.
Author's Notes: ~7,700 words. Speculation but no spoilers for season four. Written for the prompt, ‘a pickup truck and an OFC that's a reformed nun turned gunrunner who knows exactly how strange that sounds’.
It was time to face two fucking, depressing facts: they were dangerously low on ammo and supplies, and their gun-runner was two weeks late.
“We can’t do any patrols beyond the salt lines until we get new flame-throwers, glocks and rock salt,” Dean said, flipping his knife idly. He set it down and grabbed a pair of darts from the bucket beside his chair, throwing them at the target. They both hit close to the bull-eye, courtesy of the last week’s frustration and inability to do anything, which had led to lots of dart-throwing practice. He turned around, facing Sam. “And I need more dead man’s blood bullets if we’re going out to MacMillan’s again. The blood-suckers have set up a base three miles out from the road.”
“We can’t do anything on the patrol front yet,” Sam said, rubbing his temple tiredly as he looked over their acquisition sheets. “So you’ll have to wait. If Jimmy’s dead, then we’ll have to find another guy to make the runs to the coast.”
“We’ll be trapped like rats here, if our supplies run out,” Dean reminded him. “The salt line and the armed sentries are—”
Sam glared at him. “I’m aware of the problem, Dean. I’m the one who picked this place originally and I did the calculations. I know how long we can last without.”
“So how much longer?” Dean asked, his voice soft. He leaned forward in his chair. “’Cause the kids are getting spooked every time we head out to the supply shed and see that small pile gettin’ down to nothing. If you’d just let me go…”
“No,” Sam said, his voice quiet as Dean’s, but with the dangerous undercurrent that everybody but Dean had learned to avoid. “You are not going past that line again. I’m fucking tired of having to ward you with a million-”
“We may not have a choice, Sam, so put on your big girl panties and realize that we’re in a shitty situation that’s gonna require us to move out and face them sooner rather than later.”
“We are not going anywhere yet,” Sam insisted.
The tension in the room was palpable, and Dean thought that if he didn’t get some answers or action soon, he was going to strangle the secrets out of his brother.
They glared at each other. Dean could feel a twitch in his face and to his horror, he couldn’t prevent the huge yawn from escaping. He saw Sam try to avoid doing the same, but unable to resist the temptation. Dean smirked and Sam smiled his rare half-grin.
“When was the last time you slept, asshole?” Sam asked with a tired chuckle. He stretched his arms over his head.
“Don’t know, sometime yesterday?” Dean said. He snapped his fingers, remembering. “After the four a.m. watch. “ He eyed the purple bruises that had taken up residence under Sam’s eyes. “You?”
“Uh.” Dean could see Sam was thinking about it. “Maybe… yesterday.” Sam groaned, pushing aside papers on the rough desk.
Dean snorted, “Get to a bed, Sleeping Beauty, and we’ll talk strategy when you’re not dead on your feet.”
He stayed where he was, watching Sam lurch to his feet and stumble into the room beside the study, with a half-hearted good-bye that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fuck you.’
Dean breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut, waiting a few minutes to make sure Sam was dead to the world. He pulled out his kit, opened Sam’s sickening easy-to-pick locks, and went riffling through the drawers. But like the last time he had checked, there was nothing new, no document that indicated the master plan of why they were waiting out the war in one of the most densely demon-populated areas and doing nothing except sitting on their asses and conducting surveillance patrols.
There was a knock on the outside door. “Dean?” It opened and a small head poked through. Alex, their youngest recruit, was the designated runner for their operations.
Dean shoved the last of the papers in the last drawer shut, and locked it.
“Dara spotted Jimmy’s pick-up coming down from the pass,” Alex said, a wide grin splitting his face.
Dean breathed a sigh of relief. “About fucking time.”
He joined Alex and they jogged their way to the base of the look-out point. Originally a grain silo, there was a platform 50 feet off the ground inside the structure, with two six-foot wide windows that allowed them to see for miles north or south of their base. Alex scurried up the ladder with Dean following close behind.
Dara was on look-out and she had the binoculars trained on a bobbing white spot on the horizon. “Definitely Jimmy’s truck,” she remarked, handing the binoculars over to Dean. “You can recognize his crest on the hood.”
Sure enough, when Dean focused in, he could make out the faint outline of two crossed shotguns on the truck’s hood. “How far out?” he asked. “15 miles?”
“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Dara agreed. “So you probably want to haul ass now, and get down to the roadblock.”
“Why’s that?” Dean tracked the truck as it turned onto the road towards their roadblock.
“’Cause that’s not Jimmy in the truck,” she answered.
“What?” Dean pulled his eyes away for a second to look at her.
“S’not Jimmy. Probably some demon in a meat suit.” Dara smiled a disarming grin. “Dean, can I come with you and waste the motherfucker when they come in?”
“Um… I need you to stay here, keep watch,” Dean said, perturbed despite himself. 16 year old former cheerleaders were not supposed to use that kind of language or have that kind of glee on their faces when they talk about killing people. At least, they didn’t in the world he was used to, which, admittedly, had changed in the past eight months.
Dara pouted.
Dean bent down and grabbed the look-out’s walkie-talkie, radioing ahead to the gate. “Robbie? Code 5. Be ready with all you got. Do not, I repeat, do not allow that truck past the gate without my okay.”
*
“Dara’s right- that’s not Jimmy,” Robbie said, sighting his rifle along the road at the approaching truck. “It’s a woman, brown hair, kinda hot,” he said, lifting his head. He spit a stream of tobacco out of the side of his mouth.
Dean nodded. “Any scope on her eyes? Scales, horns, fangs, anything that might indicate non-human?” He was only partially kidding on the last details—some weird shit had happened to the human race since Sam had brought him back from hell.
“Not that I can see, sir,” Robbie said, his eyes already lined back up with the target. “You let me know if you want me to light ‘er up.”
“Everybody get ready,” Dean called. All along the reinforced gate, the rag-tag band of recruits – mostly teenagers and college kids too stubborn or stupid to have fled with their families to the coast and safety – aimed their assorted weapons at the truck.
Dean hopped the lowest section in the gate, and stood on the other side of the salt-lines. He breathed in a deep breath, smelling the sulfur-tinged air and felt the prickling of electricity cover his skin. Different on this side of their Line. “Robbie, cover me.”
The former marine joined him on the other side, and together they stood in the middle of the road. “Sam isn’t going to like this,” he said in a low voice to Dean.
“Sam can go fuck himself,” Dean said with a pleasant smile. He pulled out one of his only remaining holy water grenades, and held it in his hand.
The truck slowed, as it approached and stopped ten feet from the barricade. The passenger didn’t exit right away and Dean could feel tension rising from the group at his back as the seconds dragged on. “Steady,” he called.
The driver’s door swung open, and a pair of no-nonsense boots exited, followed by the rest of the driver. She started walking towards them, a woman in her early thirties, light brown hair tied back in a braid, wearing a Kevlar vest, sweatshirt and jeans. She stopped five feet from them, still far enough out of range to touch.
“Quite a welcome,” she said, clear blue eyes crinkling at the corners with tiny laugh-lines as she surveyed the scene ahead of her. “This is the Winchester place?” She addressed the question to Dean.
Dean nodded confirmation. “It is. Where’s Jimmy?” he asked.
“Jimmy’s dead,” she answered. “I’m Magda, his cousin.”
“Dean Winchester, and this is Robbie Goulding.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” she held out her hand and took a step forward.
Robbie stepped in front of Dean, rifle on his shoulder and pointed straight at her. “No offense ma’am, but we need to be sure you aren’t a creepy-crawly or devilly before we’re going to be treatin’ with you.”
She stepped back, and in the mid-afternoon light Dean could see a silver cross glint against the matte black of her vest. Didn’t necessarily mean anything- higher level demons could wear crosses so long as they took precautions.
“By all means,” she said seriously. She held her palms up and turned to show them they were empty. “Human, unarmed, and willing to prove it.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call a gun-runner unarmed,” Robbie said, observing her with a thoughtful look, lowering his gun. “Or don’t you have massive amounts of weaponry in the back of your truck?”
“No personal sidearm?” Dean added, wondering who would be stupid enough to travel anywhere in this day and age without one.
“Guilty of the first, and left it in the passenger seat for the second, ” Magda said easily, letting her arms drop down beside her. “I figured I better be friendly.” But there was a relaxed ease and alertness about her that Dean thought she might have other means of protections at her disposal, likely in the form of protective wards or perhaps a rare blessed weapon.
She easily passed the holy water bottle test, and the body search for weapons and she could follow Dean and Robbie back over the salt-lines without any problems. The last test involved driving Jimmy’s truck between the gates. None of the sigils flared, indicating that she was as human as she claimed.
Dean relaxed slightly, but he still fell slightly behind while Robbie and Magda walked up the path to the farmhouse, observing. Never could be too careful. And if he was being honest with himself, the view wasn’t bad either.
*
Someone must’ve warned Sam ahead of time, because he was waiting at the front door, standing ramrod-straight and tall, with no indication that he hadn’t had more than an hour’s sleep in the last 24.
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t let surprise color his voice as he took in their visitor. “Jimmy…?” he asked.
“Indisposed, permanently,” Dean told him bluntly. “This is Magda, his cousin. She’s taking over for him.”
Sam nodded, and held out his hand, which Magda took and shook firmly. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Sam Winchester.”
“Magda Sitovich.“
After a brief nod from Dean, Robbie headed back to the roadblock and they moved to Sam’s office, shutting the door on the curious eyes of the dozen or so young people off-duty and hanging out in the main complex.
“Shall we get down to business?” Magda asked. She opened her backpack to pull out a massive pile of papers, and grabbed the pen clipped to her vest, checking off points as she made them. “I have most of Jimmy’s last order… glocks, flame throwers, m-17s, two Berettas, holy water grenades, bullet casings, … a couple other odds and ends-, and a huge order of dried foods.”
Dean nodded. “Excellent, exactly what we need. I’ll have some of the kids unload your truck.” He swiveled back in his chair to open the outside door, yelling into the hallway. “Whoever’s out there, get off your lazy asses and help unload the supplies.” He turned back around with a grin on his face, noting with satisfaction the look of amusement that flashed across Magda’s face. “Gotta keep them busy somehow.”
Alex came running towards the door first, followed by two other boys and Dean directed them to the pick-up truck.
“Tell them to just take the cases off the first two rows to start,” Magda called.
“You got that, kid?” Dean asked and Alex nodded eagerly.
“In the meantime, we need to talk about rocket launchers…”
“I’m not equipping you with them.” Magda’s quick and dismissive response wasn’t exactly the response Dean had anticipated.
Dean blinked. “Look- we need gonna need RPGs and Jimmy said…”
“Look, you’re a rag-tag band of paramilitaries trying to eke out an existence beyond the Line, just to prove you can, like any other number of Jimmy’s other clients,” Magda stated, her arms crossed and her face impassive in Sam’s study. “You’re not a unique group—maybe larger than any of the others, but not special. If this ever ends and things go back the way they were… I’ll give you the smaller weapons, but I’m not going to equip every group with enough arms to start a small war.”
Sam looked over at Dean, and Dean shrugged. He’d let Sam handle this one. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said, and then let Sam take it from there.
“Doesn’t make a difference,” Magda said, shrugging.
“I’m betting you also have another client, buying them up,” Sam guessed.
“That’s a good guess,” Magda answered swiftly.
Dean had to admire her ability to cut through the bullshit quickly.
“Who?” Sam asked, his voice dangerously soft.
“Divisions of the Marine Corps, and the 60th Air Mobility out of Travis,” Magda met Sam’s eyes without hesitation.
Dean snorted loudly. “The military? Sweetheart, what those boys know about supernatural warfare they could fill with teaspoon. You’re better off giving it to us.”
“They’ve managed to keep more than half a million Bay Area residents alive so far in this environment. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them,” she retorted. “They might not have the experience, but they do have the discipline and manpower to help humanity survive in this new… situation.”
“They pay you well?” Dean asked, quickly reevaluating his first impressions of her.
“Well enough, but money’s not everything.”
“You have an awful lot of morals for an arms runner,” Sam observed. “You’re sure you’re related to Jimmy?”
Other than one quick, unimpressed eyebrow arch, Magda ignored the question. “I have heard of you though, the Winchester place. I’ve brought you some of my other cache. From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, I have a feeling they’re more to your style. You can take a look at what I brought- likely’ll make the difference for you than any heavy weaponry.”
Sam looked at Dean, and Dean shrugged. “Let’s take a look then.”
Magda led them out to the lightened truck, and jumped onto the bed, pulling out a key and unlocking a long, grey metal case.
“They’re blessed by the church,” she said, pulling the cloth back to showcase the shining rounds. “And I won’t even charge you extra for them.”
Dean let out a low whistle of appreciation. “You tracked down a member of the clergy who hasn’t been slaughtered yet, and convinced them to perform benedictions on rounds of ammo? Jimmy once claimed he could find us a priest for the right amount of money, but we didn’t think he could do it…”
“I did them myself,” she answered, a small, proud smile stealing across her face.
It took a moment for the significance to sink in for both Dean and Sam. “What?” Dean blurted out in surprise. “But that would mean…
“That you’re talking to the former Sister Magda of the San Francisco Sisters of Presentation,” she answered, the look on her and her tone warning them that this was the only answer they’d get at the moment. “So, do we have a deal, gentlemen?”
*
“I think I have whiplash,” Dean said conversationally, as they watched the white pick-up disappear in a cloud of dust into the horizon.
“Hmm?” Sam grunted, lost in his own thoughts, or perhaps just his exhaustion.
“I thought I had her pegged,” Dean replied. “Yuppie lawyer, business woman, yoga instructor maybe… former nun, never would’ve guessed with those legs.”
“Guess you’re not such a good judge of character as you thought,” Sam said, stifling a yawn.
“Maybe,” Dean said. “Shame though.”
“Former nun, did you say?” Robbie asked, joining them. “If she’s not working for God no more, no reason why you can’t.” He scratched idly at his three-day-old beard. “Hell, I’d tap it.”
“You’d tap it if you didn’t think Leah would cut off your balls for even thinking about,” Dean said, grinning at his second-in-command.
“Yeah… true,” Robbie admitted. “She wouldn’t be fond of that idea.” He looked around. “Speaking of Leah… if I’m not needed anymore for babysitting this post, I’m going off for a little R&R.” He leered good-naturedly. “She promised something good next time I came off watch.”
Dean nodded. “I think we should be good. Megan’s coming on and she can handle the ‘block for the daylight watch.”
Robbie gave him a quick salute.
“Oh, and make your R&R count,” Dean called after him. “Because we’re starting patrols again now that we have supplies that’ll inflict serious damage on those demon motherfuckers.”
“Hoo-rah,” Robbie answered, and he set off with a new spring in his step.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam shaking his head. “We’re still just doing surveillance patrols, Dean. No offensives.”
“Goddammit, Sam…”
Sam turned to meet Dean’s eyes. “You promised you would trust me. I need you to keep doing that. We’ll get out there, I promise, but it’s not the right time yet,” he said, his voice filled with intensity tinged with exhaustion.
“Alright,” Dean said, reining in his frustration. “But if we’re attacked, we’re blowing them away.”
“Fine,” Sam said, with a tight smile.
*
Magda came back a week later with six large barrels of rock-salt and another load of consecrated ammo. Dean invited her along on a tour of their camp, ostensibly for the purpose of laying down new lines of salt and showing her exactly what they were doing here. In case she changed her mind about those RPG’s and rocket launchers.
“Where’d you find your recruits?” she asked, as they passed by a group of the younger kids picking beans in their late-summer garden. She had taken off her Kevlar as soon as she passed the roadblock, and was wearing her hair in a messy braid, with little wisps of hair glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight. It was surprisingly distracting, and Dean found his eyes sliding sideways to take a look more often than was necessary. His fingers itched to tuck this one strand behind her ears, but he valiantly resisted.
“First couple of months there was a long stream of refugees who passed by, fleeing from whatever the hell happened further inland,” he answered. He waved back at some of the kids, continuing. “We saw kids whose parents were killed along the way, and while the younger ones were taken care of, no one else was helping out the teenagers. Sam and I set an age limit—12, as we’re pretty much sitting ducks here, and we don’t have time to baby-sit, but we told anyone who wanted to stay and pull their weight could.”
He shrugged. “That was the beginning. We also picked a group of Stanford students who had been working on one of the university’s experimental farms just on up the road. We’ve left them in charge of our food and energy. Other than that—it depends. We’ve gotten strays, people who survived on their own but ran into trouble and decide to join us. Most adults tend to move on to the city the first chance they can, usually catching a ride with Jimmy or any other human passing by.”
He snapped his fingers. “How did Jimmy die, anyway?” he asked, remembering that that fact had been skimmed over the last time they’d met.
“Ambush outside the city Line, from the reports I’ve heard,” Magda said, her lips tight. “I was in the supply warehouse when his bodyguard dragged in his corpse. The guard said it was ghouls, but I don’t doubt it was demons who ordered the attack. Jimmy was getting too well-known as an arms dealer.”
“You work for him long?” Dean asked, sending her a sideways glance, wondering if she was worried about the same fate.
“About a month. I had just arrived back in the Bay area after running my own small operation in SoCal, and Jimmy asked if I wanted to help with inventory. I took him up on it, ‘cause I needed the break from the constant running. About two weeks in, I got a call from a client. Demons had found a way to smash through the barricades in most SoCal outposts. Most survivors were head up north, so I decided to cut my losses and stay up here, build up my own client base again while helping Jimmy out. The army contract helped as well.”
“Arms dealing run in your family?” Dean asked, grinning at her.
“Illegal activities run in my family,” she said, with a quirk in her mouth as she answered. “I was one of the few to originally go into a respectable profession.”
“So… a nun, huh?” he said, finally letting the curiosity get the better of him. “Bet you don’t see many high school counselors pushing that option anymore.”
A light flush rose in her cheeks. “Reformed nun. I learnt my lesson.”
“What was the lesson?”
She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable and Dean began to regret asking the question. “That God and religion lets you down,” she finally answered.
“Can’t argue with that,” Dean said, thinking back to his own hunts and the stubborn belief that Sam still clung to.
He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw she was fixedly looking at the horizon.
Dean searched for a safer subject but there was one question he realized still needed answering. “So, how’d you escape the initial purge after it happened?”
“Luck, mostly, plus the fact that I wasn’t officially part of the church anymore,” she answered flatly, clearly wanting to change the topic. She pointed over to their water tower. “Where do you get your water? From the stream that follows the road?”
Dean was only too happy to bring her over to Megan and Bradley, letting them explain their irrigation and water conservation techniques until Magda’s eyes began to glaze over, and then he and Robbie rescued her and showed her where they started their patrols.
“So, any chance of those RPGs?” Dean asked hopefully at the end of her visit.
“Not a chance,” she answered, but there was a smile playing on her lips. “I’ll see you in two weeks, likely on the Friday.”
*
It was sheer luck that Dean was on watch the night the white pick-up truck came barreling up next. He was staring out into the empty night when rapidly swerving headlights appeared in the distance.
Heather, one of the former Stanford students, was dozing beside him, and she woke up with a start when gunshots went off. “What’s happening?” she said sleepily, making a grab for the rifle beside her.
“I don’t know,” Dean stood up, straining his eyes in the distance, wishing for the thousandth time that they had any kind of decent night-vision. “Keep sharp.” He grabbed his radio and rifle and headed down the steep ladder.
He was almost at the roadblock when he heard shots being fired from their position ahead. “Shit,” he muttered and started running.
“What do we have?” he shouted over the crack of guns.
Leah turned around from where she was shooting, and he could see her teeth gleaming white in the dim light. “Ghouls, and we think possibly black dogs running alongside the gun-runner’s truck. Some of ‘em came onto the road, trying to cut her off and we lit ‘em up.”
“There’s a lot of them, Dean,” Robbie said calmly, as he paused between shots. “Doesn’t help in the dark, either.” He aimed again, pulling his trigger and Dean could see a dark shape drop.
“Do the best you can, and ease off when the truck gets close. We don’t want to lose another gun runner,” Dean said. “Are they coming near the ‘block and our lines?”
Leah shook her head. “Not as far as we can see.”
Dean ducked inside their small shack to grab an extra rifle. “Alright, let’s provide cover for Magda so she can get within the safe zone.” He joined the others in attempting to pick off ghouls that came within range.
Two minutes later, the white pick-up came screeching up, and Dean could see the remaining dark shapes melt away into the surrounding darkness outside their lights.
“You okay?” Dean shouted ahead.
Magda poked her head out of the window. “Yeah. Might need some minor medical treatment though.” Under the bright spotlights, Dean could see red, arterial spray coating her windshield and driver’s door. Not hers though.
“Head towards the main complex,” Dean replied. “I’ll join you there as soon as I can.”
Leah and some others opened the gates, and Magda drove through. The sigils stayed blank and Dean relaxed his hold on the rifle, noticing Robbie doing the same.
Dean waited at the roadblock for a good 45 minutes, but the night in front of them remained silent. “Keep scanning, make sure nothing else is coming, and radio me if you see anything,” he ordered.
The others nodded and Dean started jogging towards the main buildings.
*
She was waiting in a bedroom that doubled as a spare medical room when he came to offer his assistance. Cam, their only trained medic, was busy treating the two new refugees they had stumbled across in their patrols earlier that day but promised to be over shortly. One of the other girls still awake had told Dean that she had already helped Magda as best she could.
“Can I do anything?” Dean asked, hanging back in the doorway.
Her back was to him. She didn’t react, and Dean walked closer, concerned. He noticed that she was breathing rapidly, her chest heaving up and down, and he saw that she was silently mouthing words. He also noticed the red staining her crudely wrapped upper arm. “Bandage, Magda?” he asked sharply.
He leaned down over the bed, and he saw her squeeze her eyes closed tightly, and then open them, consciously forcing herself to slow her breathing. She flicked her eyes over to him.
He sat down beside her, and tentatively touched his hand to her shoulder. “Here, let me help you.” She turned slightly, not speaking and he started to push her sleeve up before realizing that it wouldn’t roll up that far.
“One second,” Magda answered, finally speaking and she moved away from him, starting to pull her arms out of her sleeves. She then lifted the shirt over her head, leaving her in a tight white blouse.
Quickly, he grabbed some gauze and antiseptic from the counter behind him, and turned his attention to the ugly scratches that marred her right shoulder. “Black dog?” he asked, trying to distract her.
“Think so,” she said breathily, as he probed gently as the wound. “They jumped at my window when I slowed down to cross the ford. Had to shoot them with my pistol.” That explained the blood on her door.
They didn’t speak for a few minutes while Dean cleaned the wound and bandaged it, all the while acutely aware of her slowing breaths against his face and the faint smell of Tide laundry detergent.
When he was finished he looked up, and was surprised to see her face less than an inch away from his.
She shifted forward and their lips brushed against one another. She lifted up her hands and lay them against his shoulders.
In the dim light, he couldn’t see her expression but the tightening of her hands around his biceps encouraged him to a deeper exploration. He could taste the sweat and fear on her lips, and even though logically he knew that he couldn’t kiss away her fear, he was going to try his damnest. It had been a long time—the age difference between himself and the rest of his recruits had him reconsidering any trysts. He’d been in the ‘commander’ role long enough and he longed for a release from the responsibility.
“Distract me,” he heard her say, drawing him back to the present.
“You sure?” Dean asked, the fog in his brain clearing enough to remembering the former nun part. God, he hoped she was serious and this wasn’t some random PTSD shit that Cam had warned him might happen. Because it would be wrong to take advantage of her offer in that case. Yeah.
“Look, I nearly died tonight. I’d like to forget that fact for the moment, so yes, I’m sure,” she said, and there was a note of laughter in her voice.
Dean hesitated, but then she was licking along his neck, and fuck it, he had her blouse open, palming her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra. He bent down and sucked along the edge of fabric and skin, feeling her shiver under his hands, her nipples becoming prominent underneath his fingers. He pushed her bra down to gain full access to her breasts, sucking on her tiny areoles. He wondered briefly if she was a virgin, because that could make things complicated.
She let him stay there for a few moments, letting out tiny sounds of contentment, and then she pushed against his chest, and he fell back on the bed. She clambered on top, straddling him. She helped him pull off his shirt, while he fumbled with her jeans, managing to push them down to her knees. Her panties were wet and he could feel his own jeans tightening uncomfortably, with his cock straining against the denim in response. She palmed a hand over his groin area, and he groaned.
“Gonna fuck you, gonna fuck you hard, baby,” he whispered, and pulled her on top of him, maneuvering his hand to rub against the wet fabric before pushing it aside, and fingering her clit.
“Stop talking about it, and do it,” she hissed in his ear, grinding against him urgently. Not a virgin, his senses were telling him. Fine with him.
Goddammit, he was going to come in his pants if he didn’t… she unbuttoned and tugged and his jeans fell down, releasing his cock, which she immediately began stroking.
“Condom?” he managed breathlessly. “I… can…” he reached into the back of his pocket, pulling out his battered wallet and it fell open beside them on the bed. She snatched at the condom the same time he did, and there was brief scuffle before Dean claimed it, managing to tear open the package with shaky hands and then handed it off to her. She rolled it onto him expertly, and then positioned herself on top of him, slowly lowering herself onto his cock.
Dean rocked back, the tight, hot wetness driving any other thought from his mind. Fuck, he had missed this. She rode him, settling her hips in a slow, torturous rhythm and he followed blindly, burrowing his fingers in her slippery cleft and attempting to stroke in a similar fashion.
She tightened around him, letting out quiet sounds of panting. “Yeah, sweet Jesus, yeah, sweet Mother… please…”
The last coherent thought Dean had was that there was something deeply wrong with her calling on those particular people but holy… he didn’t care. She let out a long moan, and could feeling her tighten around him even more, pushing him over the edge. He came hard, and clung to her while riding it out.
When it was over she gingerly disentangled herself and bent over him, her silver cross swinging over him like a star. He lifted up his head to give her a hard, bruising kiss. She collapsed beside him.
“Thanks,” she said, after a moment.
It seemed like an incongruous statement and Dean could only reply with the obvious. “You’re welcome,” he muttered.
Both of them exhausted from the night’s activities and events, they fell asleep soon after, with Dean waking up only after Cam discreetly knocked on the door.
*
She left early the next morning before breakfast, kissing him briefly on the cheek with an enigmatic smile on her face. He didn’t know where they stood.
Dean prepared a speech in his head for the next time they’d be alone together. It came at the end of a day when they had finished tallying the inventory and she was preparing to leave for her four hour trip back to the city.
“You need to get back tonight?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why, are you offering some incentive to stay?” she asked mildly.
To his dismay, Dean felt himself stumbling in his response. “Well, I uh, I thought. If you ever need another distraction…” he offered lamely. His seduction skills had definitely taken a hit without practice these last few months.
But it turned out he didn’t need to worry. “I’d love one,” Magda said, her eyes crinkling in a pleased, cat-like shape that was slowly becoming familiar to him. She leaned forward and pushed her palm against his chest, walking him back against the wall of the silo. He circled his palm around the back of her neck, and drew her in for a messy, open-mouthed kiss.
“I don’t do relationships,” she warned him, when they broke apart.
“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he answered. “Neither do I.” Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but near enough to it that he felt comfortable saying it. Besides, for all he knew, she had a fuck-buddy at all the stations she stopped at. Just a way to scratch the itch and relieve some stress, he could work with that.
*
It became a routine. Magda would make the trip out every couple weeks, unload the guns and weaponry she had brought, and then she and Dean would steal off for a tryst wherever they could find the space.
“Oomph,” Dean heard her say during a particularly enthusiastic session against the supply closet’s wall.
On the other side of the wall, they could hear muffled giggling, and a blush rose on Magda’s cheeks.
Dean hammered on the wall. “This area is off-limits. Scram, you guys.”
“Aye aye, Dean,” came a voice on the other side.
Dean shook his head as Magda buried her face in his chest, shaking with laughter.
They rarely talked about anything personal in their lives. It was either business, or pleasure. Nothing in between. Guns, surveillance patrol tactics, or fucking. Dean didn’t mind it like that.
“What’s it like in the city?” he asked her one afternoon as they took a post-coital walk through the tiny fruit orchard on the property.
“Chaos, controlled chaos, but still chaos nonetheless,” Magda told him. “The civilian government has ceded most of the power over to the military in efforts to control the population, but it’s not doing much good. Everyone’s running scared ‘cause of the demon threat, when you can’t tell who’s the enemy, it’s hard to trust anyone else to protect you.”
Dean nodded. In their relatively isolated bubble of calm, it was easy to forget that there were others fighting the same war they were.
“Sam and I… we’re working on a plan that might work,” he said, knowing how thin that promise sounded. A plan that Sam was still mostly keeping him in the dark on.
“Mmmm,” she said, lost in thought. “I’ve pretty much given up on anything going back the way they used to be, even if we do find a way to kill all the demons.”
“No hope at all?” he asked. “You ever pray for anything different?”
Her eyes were sharp and sad when she looked at him. “No,” she answered.
The next time she visited, she brought them RPGs and rocket launchers.
*
“I stopped at the Jones’ farm today,” she murmured against his neck. “Every family member slaughtered. I found their heads twenty feet from their bodies.”
Dean paused from where he was kissing her neck. He looked up to meet her eyes. “Hate to say this, but this isn’t exactly pillow talk,” he said wryly.
“Sorry,” she answered, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She leaned back against the bed’s headboard, sighing. “I just need something to distract me, anything to get those images out of my head. There’s too damn many of them in there nowadays.”
“Just lay back and let me take care of that, sweetheart,” Dean assured her. He eyed her no-nonsense black panties and his mouth watered. Jesus, if only she’d let him… well, it was worth a try.
He started by sneakily trailing light, whispery kisses down her stomach, watching her eyes close and her face relax. Without stopping he hooked a finger under the band and pulled down her panties, approving of the sight of white skin and a tiny strip of hair underneath. Magda let out a little squeak as he bent down and drew his tongue along the raised pink folds.
“Dean, what the hell-” She half-raised herself off the bed.
“Relax, just trust me,” Dean said, gently pushing her back down. He let a smirk cross his mouth. “Believe me, when I’m done here, there won’t be anything in your head but the thought ‘Dean Winchester is a fucking star at eating pussy.’”
The look on Magda’s face doubted that, but she settled back against the pillow, her brown hair catching red highlights from the dim lamp as it sprayed out on the pillow. Dean paused to admire the picture in front of him before returning to his work.
He sucked along the edge of her thigh, and then pressed his finger down and dragged it along her fold, pausing at her hole as if marking the spot. He licked along the same strip, letting his lips briefly grab and release rapidly on her clit. Her breathing changed, and Dean could feel the shuddering sign that had him excited, he pushed a finger inside her, feeling the wetness and she bucked her hips, thrusting up into his finger. He sucked, his nose filled with the faint musk and her unique taste on his tongue. Her fingers curled around his ears, guiding him in the direction she wanted. He was only too happy to oblige.
She came three times, and as she shuddered around him for the last time, he looked up and saw her smiling.
“Go on, say it,” he teased, after she had recovered.
She whacked him gently on the back of his head. “All right, I’ll give it to you. Dean Winchester, you are a fucking star at eating pussy.”
“Thank you,” he said with mock gravity. “Distraction enough?”
Her smile faded, and he could’ve kicked himself.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said, and then leaned forward to kiss him. “Here, let me return the favor.”
Not gonna argue with her there.
*
One cool day in February, she arrived to find a different sort of action going on in the main compound.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Magda asked in a low voice, hardly pitched loud enough for Dean to hear above the excited chattering of his group as they busily began unpacking the truck.
“Naw, this is just for the fireworks. Gotta celebrate the fourth of July sometime this year,” he answered glibly.
He saw her take in the mounds of supplies around them. They had been stockpiling for the last few months, and a windfall with a group of truckers the week before had produced the last piece to the puzzle. “Bullshit, you have enough fireworks to blow the Golden Gate Bridge to smithereens and enough protected and blessed ammo to take on Satan himself,” she said, catching his arm. “What do you have planned?”
He threw her a wild grin. “Maybe we’re taking on the big Hoobah himself. Maybe we’re tired of him making the world his playground. Maybe we’re going to take fight there.” He knew he was babbling, but after months of inaction they were finally going into the big finale. Sam, the sneaky bastard, had finally let him know the full plan the night before and Dean was riding high on the sheer brilliance and amazingly difficult insaneness of what they were about to attempt.
“Are you fucking serious?” Magda raised her voice, and in the lull it carried and the frantic action around them stopped.
The kids were staring. Dean cleared his throat. “Carry on, everyone,” he told them, drawing Magda to one side. There was a bit of awkward shuffling and then they started up again.
“Did you bring the…”
“I have everything you ordered,” Magda said, interrupting him. “You told me it was for new patrols, not a suicidal assault. Dean… do you know what’s been happening in the city and around the limits lately? The Line is breaking.”
“Yeah, the demons are getting stronger, we get that, which is why now is the time to strike.”
“This is suicide,” she stated again, crossing her arms.
“We all die sometime,” he challenged. “Might as well go out fighting.”
“Risking their lives too?” Magda asked, nodding her head at the kids.
Dean ground his teeth. The one weak spot in the plan that he couldn’t allow himself to think about. “They knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to stay,” he said. “Besides, we told them that any one who doesn’t want to take part in the assault can catch a ride back to the city with you and wait it out.”
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. Dean waited for the ‘is there anyway I can talk you out of it?’ part, but it never came.
She closed her eyes, as if gathering her strength. “Okay,” she said.
“…okay?” Dean said cautiously.
She opened them, looking cross. “Okay, I’ll take anyone back who wants to come with me,” she said. “Also, I’m going to help you out, so gather everyone around with the main weapon they’re going to be using. Can’t promise that it’ll work, but I can attempt a blessing on them.”
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied, the lines on her face burrowing deep, making her look old.
The rest of the afternoon and into the evening a line threaded through the compound, ending beside Magda’s truck. She took each rifle, assault gun, machine gun and knife that was offered, quietly speaking the Latin blessing over the gleaming metal. She handed it back to the kids, and as Dean watched each kid walk away, their backs a little straighter, he concluded that this had been a good idea, if only for morale. There was a look of peace of Magda’s face too, and he commented on it while they took a quick break and ate dinner.
“I’ve been doing some thinking these last couple of weeks,” she said guardedly. “Reconsidering my stance.”
Dean remembered that she had always worn her cross, despite her professions of faith otherwise.
“No atheists in the foxholes,” Sam said from across the table. In the weeks leading up to finishing the plan, he hadn’t slept or eaten much, and Dean couldn’t help but feel a stab of concern whenever he looked at his brother. But the stress on Sam would all be over soon, one way or another.
“Maybe,” Magda said thoughtfully.
Dean decided it would be wise to keep quiet on the issue. No reason to upset the balance or start a fight, not on the last night together. Personally, he didn’t think that God had started to pay attention to the world again the last few weeks… or ever, so he saw no reason to start believing now that he was facing death.
Too soon, she had finished up with the last weapon, and was holding his own personal gun. She kept her eyes on his face as she moved her hands in the traditional movements over it, going through the Latin prayer in a practiced cadence. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti ,” she finished.
Sam and the others had left to do the final preparations and they were alone in the open yard.
“Well…” he started awkwardly. “Take care of yourself, Magda.” He wanted to thank her, for being an anchor, a release for him these last few months. It hadn’t been love, but it had been enough for the time they had.
“You too,” she said, with a half-smile. She walked towards him and he bent his head down for a final, lingering kiss. No time this night for anything else. And nothing more to be said. He knew she wouldn’t stay.
She got into her truck alone. None of the kids had wanted to miss out on the final battle, despite persuading otherwise, and Dean and Sam hadn’t the heart to refuse. She waved a hand and shouted out the window. “I’ll be back next week—if you’re here, I expect a warm welcome.”
“You’ll get it,” Dean promised.
The engine started and the truck slowly rumbled along the narrow road to the roadblock. Dean resisted the urge to jog alongside it. He turned his back, walking towards the front door.
He didn’t look behind, but he could hear himself straining to listen for the truck’s noises until it was too far away and the noises ceased. He went inside, heading towards the sound of the voices, where Sam and Robbie were going over the final battle plans.
Outside the windows, a blood-red sun rose as the white-pick up truck disappeared into the horizon.
*