Illegitimi non carborundum

Title:World Through Walls (3/6)
Rating: PG-13ish
Disclaimer: I can lay no claims on DA or SPN
SPOILERS: General DA, SPN though season four
Summary: Logan hasn't seen Dean since the shooting but their paths are about to collide again. (Sequel to World Behind Windows)

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World Through Walls
THREE

“Shield us from what?” Logan asks, panic rising. “I’m all right with a lot of weird things but...”

There is a loud incessant knocking on the door and a second later, Max crashes through, fists clenched in fury. Dean stares at her, eyes open. “Green guy is so losing his cigars.”

“Where’s Alec?” Max demands, moving too fast for Logan to see. In a split second, she has Dean pinned to the wall by the neck.

Logan’s first instinct is to reach out and touch her. To pull her away from his friend before she can kill him but he notes her bare forearms and his own ungloved palms. “What the hell are you doing, Max?”

“I talked to psy-ops and they can’t tell me much but they can tell me that Alec’s gone and this thing is in his place.” She tightens her grip and sneers at Dean. “What are you?”

“Max, I already told you who he is.”

“One of White’s men?” Max presses. “Another clone?”

Logan can see Dean’s lips trying to form his name. No sound comes out.

“You’re killing him!”

“Tell me who you are!”

“Kill him and Alec’s gone too.”

Max’s head snaps to Logan and Dean uses the distraction to break Max’s hold on him. He collapses to the floor gasping for air as he hisses, “Christo! Christo, you crazy bitch.”

Nothing happens. There is no flash of black in Max’s eyes. Dean scrambles to his feet in a kind of fury that looks so unlike Alec Logan doesn’t know how anyone could confuse the two. “Calm down, Dean,” Logan snaps. “Everything’s fine here.”

Max alternates her gaze between Logan and Dean, confused with the former, incredibly wary of the later. Finally, she settles on Logan and says, “You and me. We need to talk.”

“Dean,” Logan says. “See you back at the room.”

Dean nods once. Max glances over her shoulder and shouts, “Mole. Follow him there. Leave him alone but make sure there’s no attempt to leave.”

“He doesn’t need a babysitter,” Logan snaps.

“Shut the door behind you,” Max orders.

The door slamming sounds impossibly loud even to Logan’s normal, human ears and he imagines briefly that he can feel the reverberations snaking up through his broken ankle. “Max, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” Max repeats. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“You can start with why this is all suddenly directed at me. In case you haven’t forgot, I’m on your side here.”

Max’s eyes are icy when they finally connect with his own. Not a single ounce of their usual affection. “Tell me what’s going on with Alec.”

“We’ve already had this conversation, Max,” Logan says, exasperated. She is standing too close for his taste. Inches between flesh rather than feet. He would retreat if he didn’t think she would take it as a sign of weakness. It’s been a long time since they were this careless. “Remember? This morning. That’s Dean Winchester and I need you to trust me.”

“Trust you?” Max’s voice is filled with the kind of venom usually reserved for Alec at his most annoying. It hasn’t been directed at him in almost three years. “Why the hell should I trust you? Alec’s the only chance we had at infiltration and then yesterday, about three hours after we let you in on this little piece, Alec drops us the sign for extraction. When we get there, the place is on fire and the guy we pull out isn’t Alec. Which means he must be cult.” She meets his eyes. “Which means you must be cult.”

Logan is genuinely speechless.

“Tell me something, Logan,” Max pleads. “I don’t want to believe it but you’re not really doing a hell of a lot to defend yourself.”

“I didn’t even know Alec was on an infiltration.” Logan presses a hand to his temple. “I thought he was at Jam Pony this morning. I swear.”

Max’s face softens just a little and she makes a move toward him. Logan immediately moves the wheelchair in reverse to maintain the distance. It’s a habit now, ingrained just as much as brushing his teeth before bed. There must always be at least six inches between Max’s largest reach and skin contact with Logan.

Always.

But Max is looking at him strangely. Looking at him like she doesn’t understand this distance. “What the hell is wrong with you, Logan?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Logan says. He feels like he is back in 2009, sitting next to Dean Winchester, bluffing his way through a life that isn’t his. “I didn’t sell you out and Dean isn’t cult. I promise.”

“I want to believe you.”

“So believe me.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Fine.” Logan squeezes his eyes shut. “Then give me a day. Twenty-four hours. I need to figure it out for myself before I even think of explaining it to you.”

“All right,” Max breathes. “But you and looks like Alec are in your room. We’ll be watching. If you try to leave, the orders are to take you out. No chances.”

And she’d do it if she had to. She’d do it herself, put Logan Cale in her crosshairs and pull the trigger, bam. He blinks and for a split second he’s lying in the street in 2019, staring up at the hoverdrone as that world blurred into 2009. But then he’s back in the present and Max is still staring at him. He smiles but it doesn’t feel right on his face. “Understood.”

***

Dean is sitting on his bed when Logan finally rolls himself to the room. He looks every bit as shaken as Logan feels. “You all right?” he asks.

“He looks like me,” Dean says, staring at his hands. “Me when I was about nineteen but he looks just like me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Alec,” Dean says. “This guy who’s body I’m wearing. He could have been me ten years ago but it’s 2022 and every time I move it goes just a little too fast.” He stops, breathes. “Christ, I miss Sammy. He would have figured this all out already.”

“Manticore used DNA from any number of places.” Logan hesitates. “I have no idea how they found yours but they did.”

“This whole thing just skeeves me out.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about accidentally changing the past,” Logan says lightly.

Dean gives him a watery smile.

Logan smiles back and switches to business. “Time travel and body hopping asides, did anything about what just happened seem really off to you?”

“You seriously think I can judge something like that right now?”

“There’s something off about Max,” Logan says.

Dean blinks as if clearing his vision. “That’s the psycho girl, right? Lady chokes-a-lot. Crazy bitch she may be but damn can she fill out some jeans.”

Logan can recognize Dean’s autopilot. Knows he’s turned his brain off to deal while leaving his mouth to say whatever but he still can’t stop himself from saying, “She’s not a psycho. She’s more or less responsible for assimilating a city full of mutant ex-soldiers into post-Pulse Seattle while simultaneously combating a centuries old breeding cult bend on world domination.”

Dean leers at him, a little more involved in the conversation now. “So you’re saying you tapped that? Future boy, I’m proud of you. My little Logan’s growing up. Seems like only yesterday you were sitting in my passenger’s seat, lying your ass off to me.”

A blush creeps up Logan’s neck. “Max and I have logistical issues.”

“If you need the talk,” Dean leers.

“If Max and I touch, I’m going to die. She was infected with a genetically altered retrovirus specifically targeted to my DNA.”

Dean snorts. “Never mind. That kind of talk is not in my repertoire.”

Logan settles back. “She knows you’re not Alec and she thinks I’m kind of involved with this. They’ve got us under surveillance.”

“And here I was going to suggest joining forces to go kill a fallen angel.”

“They’re going to kill us if we set foot outside this room,” Logan says. “We’ve got to figure this out.”

“Don’t you get it, future boy? There’s no figuring this out. It’s hard enough to find lore on the freaking angels. Before last year me and Sammy didn’t even think they could exist. And that’s before we even start with fallen angels. Fallen angels are a whole different ball game. There are some who wind up human, others who hang with the devil. The time-travel thing, I only know about that much because of experience. There’s nothing, nothing on it in the books. Me and Sam looked.”

And if they couldn’t find anything on it before the Pusle, Logan doesn’t know what they could possibly do about it now.

“So what’s future me up to?” Dean asks. “I get if you can’t give me information because of the prime directive or whatever but I gotta ask.”

“Prime directive?” Logan raises an eyebrow. “Never would have pegged you as a Star Trek kind of guy.”

“Shut up.”

“You sent me a letter and few post cards,” Logan says. “I’ve dropped you a few tips on cases. Set you up with some ID cards a few times. Talked on the phone once or twice, but it’s hard to get a handle on cell reception. Best I can tell you’re in better shape than I am.”

Dean nods once and looks away.

Logan wheels backward to his makeshift pantry, grabs a bag of chips and tosses it in Dean’s direction. “Way I figure it, we do dinner and sleep. Any luck it goes away in the morning.”

“That ever happened with us?” He pops a few chips into his mouth and tosses the bag back for Logan. “I dunno about you but I think this needs some alcohol.”

Logan laughs. “Here here.”

***

Three hours later they’re both pleasantly drunk over a bottle of Alec’s super-strong home brew. They’re laughing at something but Logan can’t for the life of him remember what set them off. It’s been a long time since he laughed this hard, a long time since he got drunk without getting completely miserable. Dean starts pouring himself another glass.

“We’re pro’bly under surveillance ri’now,” Logan observes. “Wonder what they’re thinkin'.”

“They’re stupid,” Dean calls. “They can’t tell a shapeshifter from a bodyswaper and tha’s just incompetent.”

They dissolve back into giggles. Dean tries to take a sip and nearly falls off his chair, putting a hand on the desk for support. A pile of Logan’s neatly ordered papers collapses to the floor. The same pile that should have housed the collection of Dean’s letters and postcards over the past three years but didn’t.

“Sorry,” Dean mumbles, scrambling to pick up the papers and failing rather spectacularly. Then, all at once he freezes. His hand is on a piece of yellowing newspaper. The laughter is gone from his eyes.

“Wassamatter?” Logan asks.

Dean sits back against the desk and hands the paper up to Logan.

It’s a short, five inch obituary. It takes Logan a few seconds to focus long enough to read it but once he does he feels suddenly and completely sober.

Two bodies identified as Sam and Dean Winchester were discovered yesterday...

The date on the story is August 1st, 2011.

“Thought you said I was all right,” Dean whispers. “Fuck, Logan if I was dead you should have just said I was dead. It’s not like it would have been surprised.”

But this isn’t Right. It hadn’t been like this yesterday. Dean Winchester was alive in 2022, him and his brother on a swing up the west coast and anytime now, he was gong to stride into Logan’s room, alive and fine just like he was in 2009.

“You’re not dead. Last post I got was three months ago. You were fine. You and Sam were fine.”

The make the next connection almost simultaneously. Logan hears Castiel’s voice ringing in his ears. Already the changes from this abomination’s plot are trickling through to this present.

“We still remember how the right way went,” Logan says. He presses a hand to his forehead. He can already feel tomorrow’s hangover. “Why do we still remember?”

“Castiel said he would shield us as long as he could.”

Logan stares straight ahead. Castiel cannot protect them forever. The clock is ticking.

***

6-7 chapters tentatively planned. Hoping to finish before the semester starts back up. Back with more in a few days.

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