On Borrowed Time

20. Phone Calls

PART TWO: BREAKOUT

CHAPTER TWENTY: PHONE CALLS

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TEAM WINCHESTER, STARLING , USA

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If there had been any question as to whether Felicity had been experiencing the hallucinations yet, it was quashed. They hurried from the library, Oliver stuffing his backpack with as many books as he could despite the protestation of the librarian. Barry had already taken Felicity back to her house in a converse clad, high speed streak.

As they stood in the parking lot of the library, Dean leaned against the Impala with the familiar sense of overwhelming failure crippling him. He had failed. Over and over again Dean Winchester had let everyone around him die. He had let his father die, let Sam die over and over again, let Adam die, Cas die and now Felicity was on the last threads of her life. Yet all he did was search for a way to stop his other half-brother from coming back.

"You've been to hell before, right?" Oliver asked and Dean's head snapped around, having not even realized he was there. He eyed Oliver carefully and tried not to snort in amusement. The dangerous vigilante that graced the newspapers and police scanners in Starling stood before him looking like a trust fund baby in his brand named everything. More than that, he looked tired, worried - like what Dean himself might find staring back at him should he look in the mirror.

"That was a long time ago," he said quietly, and then chuckled at his own words. "Well, it seems like a long time ago," he shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark jacket, feeling the fraying edges of the patch Lisa had sewn into it. He wondered briefly how they were doing, how Ben was doing, Lisa... He wouldn't finish that thought. That was a dangerous thread that had him nearly running back there at any given moment.

"Is this how she'll live out the last of her time, winding her way to madness?" This question alarmed Dean somewhat, he was standing next to a known murderer after all. Oliver's bluntness and the look of determination set on his face made Dean's hair stand on end.

"What are you insinuating Queen?" he asked, standing up from his leaning position as he turned on him.

"What- no! I didn't - I didn't mean that. I couldn't do that, not to her," he finished, his shouts turning into hardly more than a whisper. Dean breathed a sigh of relief and then tried to find a good way to break it to him. This was a broken man before him, and the news he had might only break him more.

"She's not really winding into madness," he started slowly, "it's more like the filter's been removed from her sight. Suddenly she's seeing demons as they are, people who look like normal people suddenly look horrifying when possessed. Primarily anyways, and it gradually worsens to flickers of hell and fiery pits and eventually she'll see the hell hounds when they come calling," he finished sadly.

"And the powers? I thought - I didn't think that was possible, she's not a Meta-human. Felicity is not a meta-human, how can she... she tore those books down in there without even touching them?"

"Well, if it makes you feel any better Sammy here can exorcise demons with his mind. Given the same circumstances," he said smiling up to his giant brother. Sam rolled his eyes, probably having hoped that that time in his life wouldn't be brought up again. Oliver looked at Sam with a wary look after that and Dean smirked until Oliver asked his next question.

"And what circumstances are they?"

"The consumption of demon blood," Sam answered rather bluntly, looking more than unhappy about it. "If what Dean saw is true, then it likely wasn't voluntary - Azazel is the biggest son of a bitch we've ever met, and that's saying a lot," he finished. Both Dean and Oliver stood looking at him in surprise before turning back to their conversation. Though he continued to talk to Oliver, Dean's mind was elsewhere.