'Schism' is a fanfic rewrite of the Supernatural series after season 5. Written by Wren and Illustrated by PlaidPosh, this project is meant to honor the world and characters of Supernatural in a way that we feel the later seasons fail to do. It is a modest endeavor that we hope you enjoy. Table of contents here: www.supernatural-schism.tumblr.com/post/157326485300/table-of-contents
Clouds like cotton balls were scattered across the pure blue sky. The highway stretched long and empty ahead of Sam and Dean, hot in the sun, a black blur always vanishing under Baby’s wheels. Sam stared out the window at the flat skyline, the bright world outside, as his brother drove.
It had been two weeks since... well, since everything began again. Two weeks since Sam was ripped out of the blackness and dropped back into something resembling the life he once had. The sunlight was probably the biggest change. That golden warmth was always with Sam, warming him, filtering through even the thickest clouds on the stormiest day. Even at night, bright rays of sunlight bounced off the moon and found Sam’s face as he leaned out of Bobby’s window and stared at the sky. There was no darkness here on earth that the light couldn’t penetrate. Sam had forgotten what that was like.
The details of this world rooted him. Dean’s face cracking into a smile, rough hugs from Bobby, the awkward lilt of Castiel’s voice. Sunlight bouncing off Baby’s hood like it was the moon.
Sometimes it was almost too vivid. Like neon lights on all sides, so bright and alive it nearly overwhelmed Sam. It was too beautiful, too intense, for someone who had been promised an eternity of blackness.
But other times... like now, when the silence stretched, when his mind had the chance to wander... the world seemed to wear thin. He swore he could see cracks beneath the surface of reality, shifting when he looked too close. Like this was all a dream, and any minute now, Sam would open his eyes, and the darkness of the Cage would be all he saw ever again.
The sun was catching in the rearview mirror. It almost hurt to look at. Was light supposed to hurt? Sam’s hand lifted, his fingers brushing the window. It was warm under his touch, heated by the sun. The creeping unease in the back of Sam’s mind was growing. Was this really what warm glass felt like? How would he know if it wasn’t? There were no warm car windows in the Cage. Sam pressed his fingers more firmly against the glass, waiting for something to click. Some certainty that he was awake and all this was real.
“Which actress you picturing naked, Sammy?”
Sam’s fingers snapped away from the window. He turned to his brother in surprise, then frowned at the smirk on Dean’s face.
“ ... Shut up, dick.”
Dean shrugged. “I just assumed. You seemed real focused, is all.”
Sam sighed and shifted in his seat. The flicker of doubt had passed. The car window was no more than a car window, and things felt solid again. Maybe he’d been silly to doubt in the first place. “So this case,” Sam began, “Not a lot to go on, huh?”
Dean sighed. “Guess not. No remains, just missing hikers. Hell, for all we know, it’s not even supernatural. Could be some nutzo with a lead pipe, offing stray tourists and burying the bodies.”
“ ... Still worth checking out, right?” Sam pressed. He needed a job. Bobby’s house would get too quiet. The haziness would creep up on him.
“Yeah, I mean, why not?” Dean shrugged. “S’not like we’re swimming in cases right now.”
Sam had been trying to get them a job ever since he came back. Up until now, Dean had refused. You’re not ready, Sam. You’re so fresh outta Hell you smell like sulphur. Let’s just give it some time before we dive back in, ‘kay Sammy? The monsters will still be there tomorrow.
But Sam could tell that his brother hated the inactivity as much as he did. The fact that Dean had cracked over a case this weak and this far away was proof of that. The drive from South Dakota to Arizona was a hell of a commute. But the Winchester brothers had grown up on the road, and there was something nomadic deep in their bones. They didn’t do well when they stayed in one place too long.
Sam wasn’t the only one with creeping shadows.
“So,” Sam began before the silence could slink back in, “Last case you ran was, what, that badass father-of-all-vampires, right?”
Dean shrugged. “Yup. Just about anything should be a cakewalk after that.”
A snort of laughter spilled out of Sam. “First of all, don’t jinx it. Second of all, I definitely had a harder last case than you did.”
Dean’s brow furrowed. He glanced away from the road to shoot Sam a quizzical look.
Sam gestured. “Lucifer. Y’know.”
Dean balked, and the car swerved on the road. “Jesus Sam -- !”
“What, too soon?”
“First of all, yes it’s too soon! Second of all, it’s not a fuckin’ contest!” Dean snorted and glared out the windshield. “Jesus christ. I’m sorry I didn’t die on my last case. You fuckin’ win, are you happy?”
“Happy about the look on your face? Fuck yes.”
Sam snickered to himself while Dean grumbled under his breath. The road rolled by, and the silence filled the car again.
Sam shifted in his seat. “ ... You run a lot of jobs while I was gone?”
Dean stiffened like a spooked animal. Sam held his hands up in defense and continued quickly.
“I know you promised you’d get out of the life, and I know you kept your promise! You mentioned that already, like... a lot.” He cleared his throat and turned his gaze back out the window. “Just wondering how much practice you’ve had since... since whatever pushed you off the wagon.”
Dean huffed. His hands were still tense on the steering wheel. “ ... Just a handful of cases. But it’s kinda like riding a bike, y’know? Comes right back to you.”
“So... it was easy? Getting back into it?”
“Guess so. Why?”
Sam rubbed a hand through his hair. “Nothing, I’ve just... I’ve been out of the game for a while. Hope I still remember all the steps, y’know?”
Dean snorted. “You never could dance.”
Sam chuckled. Outside, sun was dipping lower on the horizon to the west. Shadows began to slant. It was comforting to know that the sun would still be there, somewhere on the other side of the planet, even after it disappeared from Sam’s view. Even knowing that, the fading light made Sam edgy. It felt like a leap of faith to assume that the light would only fade so much, and that it would come back in full force in the morning.
Probably real, Sam’s brain told him as the cottony clouds overhead caught golden rays. That’s probably what a sunset looks like. But hey, would you really know if it wasn’t? All you know for certain is dark.
Sam shifted restlessly in his seat. Too much silence. This car ride was too damn long. “Hey, I know you don’t want to talk about it,” he pressed. “But... Lisa. You never mentioned what happened with her.”
Dean’s lip curled, but he didn’t meet Sam’s eye. “And I don’t plan on it.”
The silence pulled Sam back under. He swallowed, drumming his fingers anxiously against his leg, focusing on the sensation of that. He watched sunlight hit the clouds.
Four hours down. Eighteen to go.
----
Arizona stretched ahead of them, red and baking. Dean blinked in the sunlight as Sam snored into the window. Like a sunnier version of Hell, Dean thought. Less demons. More cacti.
Dean gave Sam’s arm a smack. “Up and at ‘em, hotshot.”
Sam jolted at the impact, sitting bolt upright with such violence that Dean flinched away. For a moment, Sam stared out the windshield with wide eyes, his face pale, his breathing tight. He relaxed as he saw the red earth stretching out around them.
“ ... Oh. We’re almost there?”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “ ... Yeah. Bout twenty minutes out. Just what was that all about?”
Sam rubbed hair out of his face, yawning. “What all about?”
“That jumping out of your skin thing.”
Sam grunted as he stretched. “I was sleeping and you hit me. What’d you expect?”
“You just looked a little... ” Dean rolled his shoulder uncomfortably. “You didn’t look ready to fight, Sam, you looked ready to crawl under a bed and cry.”
“You trying to say something?”
“Just wondering if everything’s all shipshape in that coconut of yours.”
Sam frowned, giving Dean a long look. “ ... As shipshape as you’d expect, considering I just got out of Hell.”
Dean frowned, but didn’t push the point.
----
The sandy, beaten path of the Arizona Trail wound through the brush and the cacti like a rattler, coiling up and down rocky red outcroppings. Dean squinted at the sky as he followed his brother up the steep trail.
“I think those buzzards are circling us,” Dean grunted. He waved an arm at them. “Hey, go away, assholes! We’re not dead! Not currently!”
Sam snorted, shifting his backpack of hunting supplies. “Hey, keep your voice down. We don’t know what’s out here.”
Dean grumbled. “Not hikers, at least. Not with all the disappearances.”
Upwards, the trail twisted, crawling up the side of the plateau. The view over the desert was something else. Sam took a moment to appreciate it, scanning the sand and scruff below. There was a flicker of movement in the distance, something small and scurrying. A desert hare scampering from one spot of shade to the next, maybe. Sam watched until it moved again, his face breaking into a smile as he saw a pair of long ears twitching.
“Hey, eyes on the road. This trail ain’t a highway and that’s a steep fall.”
Sam shot Dean a look. “It’s a nice view. Not every day we get to hunt with a view.” He turned his eyes back to the desert. ... He thought he’d caught a glimpse of something bigger moving out there, just before he turned away.
“Yeah well -- ” Dean’s speech cut off and his hand shot out, grabbing Sam’s arm. “Hey, shut up. I hear something.”
Sam could hear it too. Footsteps, coming down the cliff ahead of them, around the curve of the path. Sam pressed himself against the red stone and held his breath as footsteps approached, pulling a knife out of his pocket. He caught Dean’s eye, and Dean nodded. In unison, they sprang around the corner, weapons raised --
The shriek from the girl nearly split Sam’s ears. He winced and lowered his knife as she continued to scream.
“Shit -- ” Sam held up a hand apologetically, taking a step back. “We are very sorry -- ”
“Oh my gooooooood -- ” The girl was pointing at Dean’s gun, her eyes wide. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god you guys are the psychopaths who kidnapped or killed all those people oh my god -- ”
“Hey, lady -- ” Dean put his gun away. “We’re not here to kidnap or kill anyone -- ”
“We’re trying to find the psychopaths who are kidnapping people,” Sam cut in. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his fake badge. “Agent Page, and this is Agent Bonham.”
“Yeah, and we’re not psychopaths,” Dean snapped.
“Well, you did just jump out at me with a gun!” the woman snapped right back, hands fisted at her sides. “And, ugh, a knife? You know that makes you look more crazy than a gun does, right? Like, I thought FBI guys knew better.”
“We are really sorry,” Sam tried again. “We weren’t expecting any hikers to be out, what with all the disappearances.”
“Oh my god, we’ve been planning this trip for weeks, we’re not gonna cancel because of some rumors.”
Dean sighed and crossed his arms. “Look, miss, as long as we’ve got you here, have you seen anything odd along the trail?”
“Um, yeah, like a million and one bugs,” the girl huffed, brushing her hands over her hair, which had been tightly drawn back into a poofy ponytail. “Oh, and two creepy guys jumping out at me with weapons. That was pretty damn odd. My name’s Mandy, by the way, thanks for asking.”
Sam sighed. “Look, Mandy -- we’re trying to catch whatever -- whoever is doing this. If there’s anything you saw that might help -- ”
“I mean, I haven’t seen anything.” Mandy gestured up the trail. “But someone else might have.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other. “ ... Someone else?” Dean tried. “How many of you are out here?”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve?”
“It’s my sorority.”
“Your s-- ” Dean pressed two fingers against his forehead and shut his eyes. “Sam.”
“Mandy, if you could take us back to your camp, we’d love to ask your sorority sisters some questions,” Sam pressed on. “Um. Please.”
Mandy grumbled, but she turned on her designer heel and began walking briskly back the way she came.
“Sam.”
“Yes, Dean?"
“Sam, there’s a sorority in the desert.”
“I know, Dean.”
“Does that sound like the worst setup for a porno to you?”
“I -- Dean, no!”
----
The camp sprawled at the top of the plateau, a forest of tents. Scattered between the tents were an assortment of college-age women, some lounging on folding chairs, others chatting around a cold fire pit. One of them was sitting cross-legged on a rock, textbook open on her lap.
"Hey!" Mandy loomed over the girl, hands on her hips. "No studying on the trip, Mindi!"
Mindi turned her nose up. "I'm not studying, I'm reading ahead."
The girl next to Mindi sighed without looking up from her phone. "Close the book, nerd."
"You're one to talk, Cindy. Get off your phone."
Dean blinked. " ... Your names are Mandy, Mindi, and Cindy?"
"Mmm-hm." Still typing furiously into her phone, Cindy began pointing around the camp. "Past Mandy over there is Andy, and that's Candy. The redhead over there is Sandy, and that's Lindy sitting next to Nindy and Dindy -- "
"Nindy and Dindy?" Sam repeated dryly.
"You had a good streak going," Mindi encouraged, glancing at Cindy. Cindy gave her phone a small smile.
Mandy was rubbing a hand over her face. " ... Mindi, Cindy, these guys are, like, real honest-to-god FBI."
Mindi's smile dried up. "Oh. ... Hi."
"Hi," Sam ground out. "Now please, we just want to know if anyone has seen anything strange."
----
Sam and Dean split up and worked their way through the camp, one girl at a time. The sun beat down and Sam wiped sweat off his forehead as he interviewed the women. There was a lot to hear, and little of it was useful.
"I dunno. Normal desert stuff, I guess."
"I swear, there's been, like, no one out here."
"You mean weirder than desert bugs?"
"There's no wifi. Like, at all. That's pretty weird, right?"
"Oh yeah, super weird! I heard a bunch of people have gone missing! That's... oh, I see. That's why you're out here to begin with. My bad."
Sam finished up with the redhead (her actual name turned out to be Amanda), and gazed out at the desert with a sigh as she walked away. The plateau offered a gorgeous view, and he took another moment to appreciate it. The sun was just starting to dip towards the horizon, and the desert was hot gold in the light.
There was a flicker of movement in the corner of Sam's vision. His gaze darted to the side, but it was already gone. Sam's eyes narrowed, scanning the landscape. Whatever he'd seen looked a little too big to be a rabbit.
Dean walked up to Sam with a huff. "Didn't get so much as a number. How about you?"
"Likewise," Sam grunted absently. His eyes snapped to his brother. " ... Wait. Please tell me you weren't actually asking for numbers."
"Course not. Agent Bonham is always professional." Dean gave Sam a cocky smile. "Professional and smooth. With just a hint of danger."
Sam sighed. "So did you actually learn nothing?"
"I learned that Christine over there is remarkably gifted in the department of --"
"Anything useful, Dean!"
Dean chuckled. "Nada. So how about you? Any leads?"
"Only that all of them are angry about the bugs. Except the girl with the dreads, she's minoring in entomology." Sam brushed past the point. "But that's not all. I saw something out there, just now, in the desert."
Dean sobered up. "Any idea what?"
"Something big. Not broad, just... tall." Sam huffed in frustration at the empty landscape. "And fast as hell."
"Ghost, maybe?"
"Maybe." Sam sighed and turned away from the view. "This is gonna sound crazy, but if we were in the north, I would have said wendigo in a heartbeat."
Dean laughed, dry and short. "A wendigo in Arizona? Sounds like the start of a bad joke."
Sam looked back at the desert. It had been such a short glimpse, barely a blur in the corner of his eye. He managed a chuckle. " ... Yeah, it does sound like a bad joke. So we're probably dealing with a ghost, given how fast it was. The girls are gonna have to cut their camping trip short, I’ll go tell them."
"Awesome. Good old fashioned salt 'n burn." Dean shrugged the bag off his shoulder and reached into it. "Let's cue up the EMF and see which of these cactuses is haunted."
"Cacti."
"There's a perfectly good cliff right there that you can jump off of."
----
The sun dipped lower in the sky, painting the desert red. Dean scanned the camp and the surrounding area with the EMF detector while Sam worked some smartphone voodoo to get a signal for research.
Dean hoped the research turned something up -- a violent death in the area, preferably -- because he really didn't want to EMF-scan the whole goddamn desert. So far, the camp was ghost-free, and every rock and tumbleweed he’d scanned had been no more ectoplasmically active than the tents were.
Dean waved the EMF detector around yet another cactus. The device beeped forlornly back at him. No ghosts here. Dean huffed at the little machine, stowing it in his pocket as he heard footsteps approach.
Sam looked out of breath as he jogged up to Dean. "Okay, I know this is crazy, but I definitely saw it this time."
"Saw what?"
"A wendigo." Sam glanced fervently over his shoulder as if expecting it to be there, waiting behind him. "Fuck if I know why, but there's a wendigo in the Arizona desert, Dean. We need fire, and we need to get the girls out of here faster."
Dean's heart sunk. " ... Sam, you know wendigos don't come this far south. It's about as likely that a polar bear did this."
"I know what I saw, Dean."
"Do you?"
The words leapt from Dean's lips like a diver off a cliff, and then it was too late.
Sam's eyes narrowed. "... Just what does that mean?"
"Look, I'm just saying -- "
"Saying I'm rusty?" Sam's voice was rising. "Or that I'm seeing things? Which is it, Dean, am I crazy or just incompetent?"
"Yeah, Sam, I think you're seeing things," Dean snapped back. "Hell scrambled you up real bad, you know that. We were scraping bits of you off the floor and gluing you back together."
"Cas was supposed to take care of that," Sam ground out. "Did he?"
Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth, looking away. Sam stepped closer.
"Dean, did he?"
"Probably," Dean managed. "Mostly."
Sam swallowed. "Wh-what the fuck does that mean?"
"It means this isn't the first time we thought we had you fixed and something went wrong."
"Thought you had me -- " Sam pressed two fingers against his temple, eyes squeezed shut. "Holy shit. I'm still fucked up, aren't I?"
"Sam --"
"What kinds of things went wrong?" Sam choked out.
Dean hesitated. " ... Violent behavior. Missing memories. And..."
"And?"
" ... And seeing things that weren't there.” The details couldn’t possibly help, but they tumbled from Dean’s lips all the same. “You chopped up a live rat with a kitchen knife. Didn't bat an eye. You thought the fucker was a potato."
Sam's breath had grown labored. He rubbed a hand back through his hair. "Oh my god. I c-can't believe you didn't tell me."
"Tell you what?" Dean threw his arms out. "There was nothing to do but wait and see if you were better!"
"You don't fucking understand -- " Sam stabbed a finger against the side of his head. "Ever since I got out -- shit, if I even did get out -- I've been questioning whether anything I saw was real. You knew for a fact it might not be and you didn’t tell me!"
Dean frowned. " ... Just what do you mean by that, if you got out?"
Sam laughed weakly, waving his hand in a lost gesture at the darkening desert around him. "Well, how would I know if I didn't? How would I know if any of this was fake?" Sam cursed and rubbed his head like it hurt. "Apparently I don’t."
"Sam -- "
"No, I -- " Sam swallowed thickly. "We're back to square one. I get it. Let's just... go tell the girls to pack up faster. Keep looking for clues. There's still something out there, even if we don't know what it is because I’m fucking seeing shit that’s not there."
Dean was silent. Then he nodded. "You go ahead. I'm gonna keep scanning with the EMF. We don't know it's not a ghost."
"Sure. Fine." Sam turned and walked away, through the rocks and the cacti, back towards the camp. Dean waited until his brother was out of sight, vanished around a cliff corner, before turning his eyes up towards the darkening sky, towards the smattering of stars that were just beginning to appear.
"Now I lay me down to sleep, and all that. Cas? You around?"
"What?"
Dean jolted at the voice behind him. Castiel stood in the desert sand, a long shadow stretching out behind him, wearing a scowl darker than the evening sky. Dean turned to face him properly.
"Sam’s still scrambled,” he began. "You need to go back into his head."
Castiel's eyes narrowed. "... What?"
"He's seeing things that aren't there. He thinks there's a wendigo around here and -- "
"Dean," Castiel interrupted, pressing his fingertips against his forehead and closing his eyes in exasperation. "This is not a viable solution. You cannot ask me alter your brother's brain every time he does something that seems odd to you."
Dean pulled back. " ... That's not what -- "
"For one thing, I'm busy," Castiel cut in sharply. "I'm on a rather delicate mission and I don't appreciate being summoned for non-emergencies."
"This is an -- " Dean paused. " ... Wait, you tellin’ me the Pearly Gates have got you running jobs again?"
Castiel wilted slightly. "... No. I am not... permitted to enter Heaven right now. This mission is self-assigned. And I am hoping it will change how Heaven sees me."
Dean’s gaze dropped. He scuffed his boot against the sand. " ... You went back into Heaven to figure out what was wrong with Sam, didn't you? After they told you to stay out?"
"Yes."
The memory of Castiel collapsing onto Baby’s hood, beaten and bloody, was fresh in Dean’s mind. "They didn't like that, huh?"
"No."
" ... I never thanked you for that."
Castiel sighed. "The recognition is appreciated. But I’m afraid there’s another problem. I doubt that all these brain alterations are healthy for Sam's psyche. I cannot keep putting up and tearing down walls in his mind like this, especially since every alteration brings the risk of another violent personality shift, or something worse.”
Another image flashed through Dean’s head: Sam pressing a knife against his own face until it drew blood, nothing left in his eyes but hate.
“I know this is hard, Dean, but at some point we will need to cut our losses."
“ ... What are you saying?”
"We did our best, Dean, but Hell changed him. Whatever issues Sam still has... you may need to accept that this is who he is now."
Dean shook his head. "No, I -- I can't just accept my brother being broken."
Castiel's eyes were hollow. "Are any of us whole?"
Dean didn't respond. A chill wind ripped across the darkening desert, rustling the brush and sending thin plumes of sand hissing over the ground. The sun had nearly set.
"I won't go back into Sam's head, Dean." Castiel turned. "I'm sorry."
With the next gust of wind, Castiel vanished.
Dean stared into the empty desert. It was too easy to remember the break in Sam's voice, the way he'd grabbed his head like there was a traitor inside. All Dean wanted to do was yank that traitor out.
Dean had never been comfortable with demons he couldn't punch.
The last glow of pink was fading in the west. Dusk had descended over the desert, painting the red cliffs in purples and blues. Dean sighed and turned his boot against the sand, away from the empty space that Castiel used to occupy, back towards the camp.
It was standing so close that Dean almost bumped into it. Tall and rigid as a cactus, motionless and pale in the twilight, the wendigo stared down at him.
Dean froze, the color draining from his face. The creature's hollow red eyes were locked on him.
"... Sh-shit." Dean's voice was a strangled whisper. Slowly, he took a step back. The wendigo didn't move, but its dead eyes followed him like a laser sight on a rifle. The wind hissed softly across the desert, suddenly colder now that the sun had left the sky.
Dean licked his dry lips. All he had to defend himself was an EMF detector and a gun. Against a wendigo, they were equally useless.
... But not as useless as trying to outrun it.
Dean took a resigned breath, his hand drifting towards the gun in his belt. "... Shoulda stopped and asked for directions, buddy. You missed your exit a long time ago."
The wendigo’s gaunt form was motionless, tall and pale as a dead tree. The only warning Dean got was a small flick of a clawed finger.
Then it moved.
----
Sam stared at his feet as he walked up the steep path to the camp, watching his boots crunch in the rocks and sand. In the shadow of dusk, the golden sand was reduced to a cool violet. It looked real, the grains of sand shifting over each other as his boots crunched through them, mixing with pebbles and twigs and the broken, brittle stems of desert plants. It looked so real, the way those dusty little particles slid over each other. But how would he know?
Was he really walking up the trail right now? Was he about to walk off a cliff, and wouldn’t know it until he was falling? Or was he still down there somewhere, treading ice-black water for eternity?
Sam reached the top of the plateau and huffed a deep sigh, putting the dark thoughts aside. When he realized all of the tents were still erected, he stopped and pursed his eyebrows. The girls were clustered around a burgeoning fire, making no effort to pack up. Sam could see a handful of marshmallows on sticks, toasting over the flame.
Sam walked up to the circle. "Hey, what happened to packing up?"
Mandy pulled her marshmallow out of the fire, blowing on it. "It's waaaay too late for driving home tonight. We'll leave in the morning."
Mindi looked up from her textbook. "Any luck, agent?"
Sam blew out a sigh. He didn’t have the energy to argue with them about leaving in the morning. "We thought we had a lead, but... it was my mistake. We're back where we started."
Mandy frowned. She held out her marshmallow stick towards Sam. "Have a s'more, agent. You look like you could use one."
Sam blinked at the charred marshmallow for a few seconds. Then a weak smile broke into his face and he took the stick.
"Yeah, I think I could."
----
"So what was your major, agent Page?"
"Yeah, like, what's the official FBI major?"
Sam swallowed a mouthful of graham cracker and chocolate and sticky marshmallow. "Uh, I don't think there's an official FBI major. I never finished college, but when I was there, I took law."
Mandy smiled. "Hey, me too!"
Cindy blew a pink bubble of gum that popped loudly, staring at her phone. "Awesome, you two can nerd out together."
"Oh my god, Cindy, he's FBI. Show a little respect!"
Sam chuckled, picking up the marshmallow bag and fishing out a new one. "Nah, it's fine. What's your major, Cindy?"
"Being a jerk," grunted Mindi into her textbook.
Cindy leveled a cool glare at Mindi before blowing another bubble of gum. "Chem," she replied, "and dorkface here is hard math."
Sam nodded at Mindi, skewering a marshmallow on his stick. "That's a rough major, I hear."
"Wouldn't be as rough if she would stick to her curriculum," Cindy remarked, her attention once again focused on her phone. "Is that textbook even for your class, Min?"
"Maybe!" Mindi snapped.
"This is why your grades are shit, dorkface."
Mindi slammed her book shut and stuck out her tongue at Cindy. "Ugh, I'm getting more firewood so I don't have to look at you!" She stood up in a huff and marched off into the darkness.
Mandy turned her nose up scornfully at Cindy. "You enjoy riling her up like that, don't you?"
"I'm her girlfriend, riling her up is my job," Cindy sighed. As soon as she said the words, she went tense and her eyes darted to Sam.
Sam hesitated, marshmallow stick in hand. No one exactly said anything or exactly looked at Sam, but there was a quiet tension in the air. It was the careful silence of eleven young women waiting to receive a nugget of information that would be quietly stashed away and never ever forgotten.
Sam shrugged at Cindy and extended his marshmallow stick over the fire. "My girlfriend used to tease me like that too."
Eleven missiles silently defused as though they had never been armed. Mandy smiled and handed Sam a new graham cracker. He took it.
"So that’s law, chem, and math," he recounted, rotating his marshmallow over the fire. He smiled at the group. "Any other law students? I’m a little biased."
----
The sun set, and the bag of marshmallows slowly disappeared as Sam learned all about the proud members of Rho Alpha Tau, best sorority on campus. As the last of the light was fading, Sam turned his eyes towards the desert. Was Dean still EMF-scanning out there?
A sound cut through the relaxed thrum of conversation, a sound that made Sam's prickling unease blossom into outright tension. Fast footsteps. Scared breathing. Sam turned around just as Mindi ran back into the camp, her eyes wide.
"C-code red," she stammered as she stopped near the fire. "Legit, not a scary story -- I just saw something freaky as crap out there."
Sam stood up, all trace of leisure gone. "Tell me what you saw."
Mindi pointed away from camp, past the dark pillar of a cactus, towards the blackness where the desert spread out. "There’s some huge person out there, and -- they’re moving really fast!"
Mandy stood up and put a hand on Mindi's arm. "It’s gonna be okay, we've got a badass FBI guy here."
Tall. Fast. Sam stared out at the landscape, his heart pounding. He hadn't been seeing things. He wasn't crazy. There was actually a wendigo out here.
"Everyone stay close to the fire," Sam ordered. "Are we missing anyone?"
Mandy did a head count. "No sir."
Sam nodded, trying to peer around the cactus, trying to search for movement in the dark landscape. "Good, now I need you to do exactly as I -- "
And that was when Sam realized the cactus was looking at him.
Sam's words choked off. From the gloom outside the firelight, barely visible in the shadow, the gaunt face of a wendigo watched them. It loomed tall and rail-thin against the darkness of the sky, absolutely motionless. Barely able to breathe, Sam slowly extended an arm to herd Mindi and Mandy closer to the fire.
"No matter what you do," he murmured, "do not step away from the fire. Does everyone understand me?"
Mandy was frowning. "Agent, what's going on?"
The wendigo moved.
None of the expected noises accompanied the movement, no crunching of sand or creaking of limbs. Only a faint, dry whistle, as of wind blowing through bones. One moment the wendigo was perched on the edge of the cliff like a gargoyle, the next moment it was looming just outside the heat of the fire, orange light catching in its dead eyes.
If Sam had blinked, he would have missed it. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to force his eyes shut again.
There was exactly one scream, high and thin and quickly choked off with the sound of someone's hand being slapped over someone else's mouth. The girls all jolted, like rabbits ready to bolt.
"What the hell is that?"
"Stay around the fire!" Sam barked. Something cold and sick shot down his spine as he realized there were bullet holes in the wendigo's gaunt chest. Six shots, bloodless wounds in the dead flesh. The grouping was tight; the marksman had been skilled.
Shit, Dean...
Sam tried to focus over his racing heart. There was no blood on the monster’s skeletal face, so it must not have eaten recently. Dean was still alive, stashed away in the wendigo’s cave. He had to be.
Had to be.
Sam glanced at the pile of logs and flames in the fire pit. It was mostly embers. " ... Mindi, you didn’t happen to grab more firewood while you were gone, did you? That would really make my night."
Mindi shook her head, her eyes wide. Cindy had latched onto her arm, and Mindi was gripping it like she was trying to take a blood pressure reading.
"Agent," Mandy pressed, her voice strained. "D-do you know what the hell that is?"
Sam's expression darkened as he turned his eyes back to the monster. It stared at him with hunger and patience. "It's a wendigo. And I'm not FBI." Sam slowly picked up his marshmallow stick. "I'm here to hunt this thing, so I need you all to do what I say. The only reason we're not dead is because of the fire."
Mindi swallowed. "Wh-what happens when the fire goes out?"
In the silence, the fire crackled. A log snapped, crumbling into coals.
"Does fire kill it?" Cindy blurted.
Sam kept his eyes on the monster. The beast’s rough, jagged claws were dark with blood, and it made his stomach churn. Dean... "Yeah, fire is the only thing that kills it."
Cindy pulled herself away from Mindi. “Mandy, where’s that bottle of perfume you brought?"
“Are you serious, Cindy?”
“Yes, the grenade-sized glass bottle, where is it?” Cindy ground out. “I’m also going to need your hand sanitizer and dish soap. And a small rag.”
Sam glanced at her in surprise. “ ... That’s brilliant, Cindy.”
Mandy squinted uneasily for a moment, then her eyes widened in understanding. She pointed. “It’s all in my -- ”
As her arm extended away from the fire, the wendigo moved again. Sam grabbed Mandy and yanked her back towards the dying fire as the monster stopped just feet away from where Mandy’s hand had been.
“Stay. Near. The. Fire,” Sam repeated.
“ -- Backpack,” Mandy finished numbly. Her face had gone pallid. She was shaking under Sam’s hand.
Sam turned to Cindy. “You’re trying to make a molotov, aren’t you?”
Cindy nodded, once again in a squeezing contest with Mindi. “Would that kill it? Cause if that’s not ‘fire’ enough to kill it, I’m out of ideas.”
“That’ll do, if we can make it work.”
Mechanically, without taking her wide eyes off the wendigo, Cindy thumped her fist once against her chest and numbly grunted, “Chem major.”
Sam reached his marshmallow stick behind himself, towards the fire, keeping his eyes on the wendigo. “Mandy, do you know exactly where your backpack is?”
Mandy nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Are you a fast runner?”
“Soccer all through high school and college.”
“Good.” Sam lifted his marshmallow stick, which had turned into a spitting blue-and-purple torch. “As soon as the wendigo is out of the way, grab your backpack as fast as you can and get back to the fire.”
Mandy swallowed hard. Her face was still pale, but there was a determined set to her shoulders. “Gotcha.”
“Ready?” Sam took a deep breath and lunged towards the wendigo, holding his marshmallow stick out like a sword. “Go!”
The wendigo lurched back from the burning marshmallow with a rattling hiss, and Mandy bolted. Sam kept advancing, holding the flame high. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mandy bending down, grabbing something --
The wendigo darted around Sam in a flurry of soundless movement. Mandy shrieked when rough claws dug into her arm, thick yellowed nails that had splintered into jagged points at the ends. The claws squeezed, and ink-black blood welled up on Mandy’s arm, catching in the firelight.
Sam flung himself across the sand and rocks, and his marshamllow torch swung in a hot blue arc towards the monster. With a wailing screech, the wendigo released Mandy and slipped away from Sam, now wearing a hot smear of melted sugar next to the bullet holes.
“Run!” Sam shouted, swinging the torch at the wendigo again.
Mandy ran. She skidded to a stop next to the fire, panting, clutching her backpack to her chest. Sam’s boots brushed through the sand as he retreated after her, keeping his eyes locked on the wendigo’s pale dead face.
The wendigo moved.
Sam barely whirled in time to keep up with it. His chest tightened as the wendigo stopped between him and the fire.
A wind whipped off the desert, and the blue flame on Sam’s marshmallow flickered. He could see Mandy’s blood dripping from those yellowed claws.
“Cindy?” Sam’s voice was dry. “Molotov!”
“I know, I know!” There was clinking, the sound of gurgling liquid. “I’m improvising explosives as fast as I can!”
Sam’s heart was pounding in his ears. There was barely a flicker of flame left on his marshmallow, and the wendigo’s hungry eyes were locked on it.
“Mandy, hand sanitizer!”
“Here!”
Sam cupped his hand around the marshmallow as the flame sputtered. The wendigo took a silent step towards him, and Sam tried to breathe.
“Mandy, here, you’ve got the best aim -- ”
“I -- I think the glass is too think! It’s not going to break!”
Sam pulled his gun out, aiming it at the wendigo. “It’ll break!”
“Sam, get ready -- ”
There was a flash of glass catching firelight in the darkness, a glow of open flame. A perfume bottle arced over the wendigo’s shoulder, a flaming rag hanging out the end.
Sam’s gunshot rang across the desert.
From the shattering glass, flame blossomed like a blue and golden rose, eating up the night. For a moment, everything was illuminated, all the frightened faces, the lopsided tents, every grain of sand picked out in orange light. Every pale knot of skin on the wendigo’s gaunt form glowed.
The first tongue of flame kissed the beast’s shoulder. The wendigo’s flesh caught fire like old parchment, curling up in black burning folds as flames shot into the sky. The fire engulfed the beast, and a long, grating shriek scraped through the air.
The tall figure crumpled like a burning log. The scream trailed off, dying into a whispering hiss until the towering monster was no more than a pile of embers, crackling faintly in the silence.
Sam gasped for air, standing over the charred remains of the wendigo as twelve wide-eyed faces watched. He blew out a long breath and forced his shaking hand to let go of the marshmallow torch, no more than a blackened glob on the end of the stick, the last flame gone. It thumped into the sand.
The silence wasn’t broken until someone croaked, “I’m never eating a s’more again.”
----
Dean groaned as consciousness drifted back to him. His shoulders ached, straining in their sockets. He could feel something rough around his wrists, and he realized he was suspended.
The last thing he remembered was claws swinging towards him.
For half a heartbeat, it felt too familiar. First came the claws, then he woke up hanging from chains. This was Hell.
Dean gasped in a panicked breath, eyes snapping open. As the sight of a grimy cave greeted him, the panic faded. There was air in his lungs, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. He was alive. This wasn’t Hell.
Dean huffed out a shaking breath, twisting at the rope binding his wrists. He must be in the wendigo’s pantry. Shit, Sam had been right, there was a fucking wendigo in Arizona. But Sam didn’t know that, Sam thought he was losing his mind. And Dean had told him he was right. Dean grunted, his fingers scraping against the tight knot binding his wrists. He had to get out of here, had to kill the monster before it found those innocent girls or Sam --
“Hey, are you okay up there?”
Dean tried to twist himself around, swinging unpleasantly from his bound arms. In the entrance of the cave, one of the girls from the sorority was standing with a torch. A real, straight-up torch, an actual bundle of desert brush that was on fire. Thank god.
Dean twisted against his ropes. “Mindi, right? I need you to listen very carefully -- ”
“The wendigo’s dead,” Mindi interrupted.
Dean blinked. The girl looked serious. “You... wow. All right, that’s a curveball, but I’m not complaining.”
“Yeah. Sam told us everything. He said you’d be stashed away in a cave somewhere, so we’re all out looking for you.” Mindi looked around the cave, wrinkling her nose unhappily. “Eugh, it’s pretty awful in here, isn’t it?”
Dean managed a crooked smile. “You have no idea. Could you get me down from here, sweetheart?”
“I think I’d better get Sam for that. You’re waaaaay up high.”
“You’re a treasure.”
“I’m also gay. Fyi.”
Dean blinked again. “ ... I’m really not on a roll tonight, am I?”
“No,” Mindi replied sadly. “You’re really not.”
----
Dean was still rubbing the soreness out of his wrists as he and Sam and the sorority girls assembled around the (newly restocked and brightly burning) camp fire. Mandy was shaking Sam’s hand. A slightly bloody bandage was wrapped around her arm, but she was beaming.
“Thank you so much, Sam Page. You literally saved our lives.”
“Uh, Winchester. It’s Sam Winchester.” Sam gestured at Dean. “And Dean’s my brother. Sometimes he’s more useful than he was tonight.”
Mandy giggled, and Dean sneered at Sam. “I’m in stitches,” he grunted.
“It was still nice to meet you, Dean,” Mandy pressed, holding out her hand. Dean shook it with a rueful smile, and his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Gimme just a second,” he apologized, pulling away from the group. He flipped his phone open as he wandered away from the fire as Sam shook more hands. “Hey, Bobby.”
“You still down in Arizona?”
“Yeah, just wrapping up. Why?”
“There’s something real fishy going on in Louisiana. Thought you might want to grab this case.”
Dean frowned. “ ... Louisiana?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll go check it out. Thanks, Bobby.” Dean flipped his phone shut and turned back to his brother and the sorority girls. He walked over and gave Sam a firm clap on the back.
“Hey, you girls ever see anything weird like tonight, you give us a call, yeah?” He nodded at them. “Assuming you don’t kill it yourselves first.”
Mandy waved a hand dismissively. “Pfft, it wasn’t that hard. I could totally do this for a living.”
“Seriously, though,” Sam pressed. “This wendigo was young and inexperienced. An older wendigo wouldn’t have been as scared of the fire, and would have been fast enough to gut both of us before we could grab the supplies. Don’t try fighting them alone.”
Mandy’s smile evaporated.
“Stay in college,” Sam continued. “I wish I had.”
Dean frowned. “Hey, let’s get on the road, Bobby’s got a job for us.”
----
Dean’s mind wandered as he drove through the rain, water falling in dark sheets off Baby’s windshield. Sam was snoring in the passenger’s seat, and it gave him space to think.
Lisa. You never mentioned what happened with her.
Dean glanced at his sleeping brother. Someday, he ought to tell Sam what happened with Lisa and Ben. He ought to tell Sam why he broke his promise, why he got back into hunting.
... But not today.
It was almost dawn, the black and rainy world outside just starting to catch a hint of grey light. They’d taken turns driving through the night, and Dean felt it was time for coffee and breakfast.
He smacked Sam’s shoulder. “Rise and shine, hotshot.”
Sam gulped in a panicked breath of air, bolting up in his seat. He stared ahead in naked horror at the dark wet road, not breathing, knuckles white where he was grabbing at the seat.
“Hey!” Dean barked. “Easy, you’re fine!”
Sam’s head whipped around, his eyes meeting Dean’s. For one sickening moment, the terror didn’t fade. Then all at once, the tension drained from Sam’s shoulders and they slumped.
“ ... O-oh. It’s you.”
Dean’s heart was racing. “Who the hell else would it be?”
“No one.” Sam turned away, looking out the window again. A touch of fear crept back into his eyes as he watched dark rain pound against the windshield. “N-no one. Just a dream.”
“ ... Just wanted to wake you up for breakfast,” Dean murmured.
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah. It’s almost dawn.”
Sam let out a noise of pained relief, shuddering in his seat. “ ... Good. I could use a sunrise.”
Dean’s stomach twisted, but he didn’t answer. Silence stretched in the car once more. The headlights flashed on the dark road ahead of them, a dancing ghost on the wet pavement just before it vanished under Baby’s wheels.
Baby needed a bath. Dust was caking on her wheels and sides, tarnishing her shine. Dean paced around her with a hose, thumb pressed over the brass opening to send a harsh jet of water pounding against Baby’s steely black hide.
Summer was waning, and the first flickers of autumn were kissing a crispness into the wind. But the warmth in the air wasn’t ready to let go yet, and a hot sun beat down on Dean as he hosed Baby with icy water. By the time he had soaped her up, rinsed her, dried her, and waxed her to glossy perfection, the cool wind was a relief.
“Whew.” Dean wiped a rogue drop of hose water off his forehead as he looked her over. She shone like a jewel in the sunlight. Dean put his hands on his hips. “You sure clean up nice, girl. Maybe once Bobby gets back, I oughta take you out for a spin and -- ”
There was a loud crash as Castiel materialized in the air above Baby’s hood and collapsed onto her. Dean dropped the rag in his hand and rushed over as Castiel groaned, pulling himself upright with bloody hands and bracing himself on the hood.
“Cas -- !” Dean tried to help Castiel stand, his eyes widening when the angel buckled and almost fell. “What the hell happened?”
“Angels,” Castiel grunted, grabbing onto Dean for support and finding his feet. “I had questions I needed answered. Some of my brethren were more helpful than others.”
Dean heaved Castiel’s arm over his shoulder. “We need to get you inside.”
“I will heal. The injuries are not severe.” Castiel grabbed Dean’s shirt. “Dean. We need to talk.”
“Can we talk inside?” Dean grunted, trying to drag the angel towards the house. “Where you can sit down and not bleed all over my freshly-washed car?”
“Dean,” Castiel’s fist tightened in Dean’s shirt. “I know what’s wrong with Sam.”
Dean froze. Numbly, he helped Castiel sit down on Baby’s hood.
“Tell me.”
----
Water as cold as the black abyss of space closed around Castiel like a suffocating blanket as he plunged into the icy Cage. All sense of gravity and light vanished, leaving only a choking blackness that pressed in from all sides. The silence was absolute and empty. Castiel floundered, trying to get his bearings, soundless bubbles streaming from his mouth only to drift motionless in the water around him. Light from his glowing eyes was catching on the rippling surface of water in front of him. In front of him? He could have sworn he’d fallen down through the crack in the ice. Had he rotated ninety degrees, or had the rest of the Hell rotated around him? Was the flickering catch of light on water below him now? And why was it smaller?
Castiel bumped into something that thrashed in surprise. He struggled in the water and turned to see it, but the shape was gone, lost in the inky blackness. Castiel twisted, trying to swim. The sharp chill was getting under his skin, piercing to his bones. He’d plunged so deep into this dead pit at the center of Hell, Castiel wasn’t sure which way the exit was anymore. All around him, pressing in from every side, was dense, choking blackness. Castiel summoned as much light as he could and scanned his surroundings for something, anything.
Sam’s desperate hand reached out of the darkness towards him.
----
“What happened?” Dean cut in. “What was wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” Castiel shifted on the hood of the Impala, then winced and grabbed his side. “Nothing unexpected, that is. He was terrified and in pain, of course, but he recognized me when he saw me. He looked relieved, grateful. He was Sam.”
Dean swallowed. “S-so what went wrong?”
“Lucifer found us.”
----
Even in the silent weightlessness of the dead water, Castiel felt Lucifer’s presence like a shockwave before the archangel came into view. Castiel didn’t wait for his fallen brother to appear. He grabbed Sam and struggled to propel himself through the thick, syrupy blackness. He could barely tell he was moving, and could only hope that he was heading towards the fissure in the ice.
Lucifer’s scream was more thought than noise, a snarl of madness and desperation and impotence that died as quickly as it appeared, harsh like an inmate’s bloody knuckles pounding fruitlessly against a cell wall. Castiel forsook his humanoid manifestation and exploded into his true form, clutching Sam close and pulling them both through the water until he was a white-hot needle in the blackness, clutching the pure, roiling energy of Sam Winchester’s soul.
The first glimmer of light reflecting off water was sweeter than Heaven.
Lucifer pursued them like jaws in the blackness. Castiel could sense the archangel behind them, reaching, straining, hungry claws closing in until they were grazing at the flesh of Sam’s soul. He could sense Lucifer sinking his teeth in while Sam twisted in terror --
Castiel shot through the closing hole in the ice like a cannon, thumping against the cold stone wall in his human form and rolling to the floor. For a moment he didn’t move, catching his breath, curled up around the precious spark of life in his arms. He sat up with a shudder. The water in his drenched clothes was already freezing into hard sheets.
The ice floor was solid and unbroken, as if Castiel had never passed through it. Even this tiny chink in the armor of the Cage could not permit Lucifer to leave. It had snapped shut like a guillotine behind Castiel, trapping the fallen archangel inside.
Castiel looked down at the beautiful burning light in his hands. Sam. An unspeakable pain was radiating from the soul in hot throbs, so intense it made Castiel queasy just to hold him, but he supposed that was to be expected as well. He held the soul close and cast his eyes upwards, through the crack that led back to the surface of Hell.
Two feet below him, through solid metaphysical ice, the rest of Sam Winchester’s soul screamed and pounded his hands against the wall of the Cage as Lucifer ground his teeth in.
----
Dean stepped back. Castiel wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“ ... You and the devil played fucking wishbone with my brother’s soul.”
Castiel shifted uncomfortably. Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes and tried to breathe.
“H-he’s still in Hell. Sam’s still in Hell.”
“Part of him.” Castiel squirmed, as if even talking about it made him sick. “Most of him. What I rescued was merely a scrap.”
Dean jabbed his forefinger towards the car lot. “Then what the hell is that thing digging holes in Bobby’s back yard?”
“It’s Sam!” Castiel’s hands were clammy and shaking where he gripped the hood of the Impala for support. “It’s -- it’s part of Sam -- an i-insufficient quantity of Sam -- it’s just enough ‘Sam’ to animate a body and perform the simplest of human functions, but there’s not enough of him to -- ” Castiel made a gagging noise and covered his mouth, his eyes wide. “H-hang on, I think my vessel is -- malfunctioning -- ”
Dean veered back as Castiel doubled over and emptied whatever was left in his vessel’s stomach onto the dusty gravel. The angel heaved for a moment before righting himself, shaking and panting.
“ ... Christ, Cas,” Dean murmured. “Didn’t think angels could do that.”
“011110010010111101101110.” Castiel coughed. “Binary. Souls are binary, Dean. They are or they are not.” He lurched like he was going to throw up again. “Sam sh-shouldn’t be able to have part -- part -- part -- ”
Dean took a cautious step back. “Whoa, easy -- ”
“ -- Part of a soul.” Castiel shuddered. “Dean, you are very lucky that your human mind can’t fathom how wrong this is. Sam. Poor Sam. I never meant to hurt him even more -- ”
“Hey --!” Dean grabbed Castiel’s shoulders roughly, forcing the angel to look him in the eye. “Don’t you break down on me right now! You’re telling me he’s still down there? There’s still -- still some part of Sam trapped in the Cage?”
“Y-yes.” Admitting it seemed to terrify Castiel. His eyes were wide, his face pale like he might be sick again.
Dean’s own stomach was churning. “We need to get him the fuck out of there. Can you go back? Can you grab him?”
“Yes, I -- ” Castiel closed his eyes and swallowed. He took a deep breath and seemed to collect himself. “If I can just reach the Cage, if I can get the door open... I think that will be enough to fix him.”
“Wh-what’s that mean?”
“Sam’s soul is meant to be in one piece,” Castiel explained, still shaky. “I believe that it will mend itself if given a chance.”
Dean huffed out a deep breath. “ ... Okay. Okay. Let’s get you inside, and then we’ll work this out.”
Castiel let his arm be hefted over Dean’s shoulders, let the hunter pull him upright. He tried a cautious step, and with Dean’s help, they limped towards Bobby’s house.
----
“I will need to make an exchange with Crowley again,” Castiel began. “I will need him to guide me through Hell, as he did last time. Even at my full power, I am not strong enough to fight through every layer of Hell alone.” Castiel sighed, long and weary. “ ... I don’t have anything else to trade with him. He has made it clear he won’t help us for free. We’ll need something very old and very powerful to give him in exchange for this favor.”
Dean sighed. “Well shit. I’m gonna have to buy some Johnnie Walker blue label scotch.”
“I know many liquors are aged, but that is not what I mean by old and powerful,” Castiel insisted.
“Easy, Cas. Trust me on this.” Dean grunted as he heaved the angel up the creaky porch steps to Bobby’s house. He wrenched the door open and helped Castiel limp into the house. “You just sit tight, I’ll be back in twenty with the booze. You got enough mojo for a quick teleportation?”
----
Rufus creaked his door open but left the screen closed, peering through it suspiciously. Outside stood Dean Winchester, wearing a hopeful smile and holding a bottle of Johnnie Walker blue label, flanked by that angel guy. ... Angel guy who looked like he was doing his best to bleed all over Rufus’s porch.
Rufus squinted. “ ... I ain’t gonna like where this is going.”
“Rufus, buddy!” Dean’s strained grin broadened. “How’ve you been?”
Rufus grumbled and opened the screen door. “Get to the point, son.” He held his hand out. “And gimme that scotch.”
Dean handed over the bottle and swallowed. “ ... So, uh, how invested are you in that severed hand you collected from the Alpha vampire?”
----
Shhhk, ftt, shffff.
Sam was digging holes.
Dean watched from the porch for a long time, not sure how to approach him. He didn’t know what to call this thing in Bobby’s yard, this piece of his brother. Should he treat it like an animal? A small child, maybe, to be guided with gentle words and gestures? Should he treat it like Sam, just a very broken Sam? Or was this barely more than an inanimate object, trained to follow voice commands and feed itself? And what did that make the entirety of his brother, if this is what a small piece of him was like? What did that make any human?
These weren’t questions Dean wanted to address. So he spent a long time on the porch, giving Castiel time to get everything in place, instead of crossing the gravel lot to collect what was left of his brother. Castiel was off somewhere striking his deal with Crowley, and before that, he had shown Dean how to inscribe a powerful binding spell on the floor of Bobby’s living room. Castiel’s notion was that, as soon as the Cage was opened, the two parts of Sam’s soul would shoot across time and space to reunite, and a fully formed Sam soul would appear wherever they happened to meet. The strength of that pull would be cosmic. They needed a deep, old spell to root the smaller shard of Sam in place, and assure that the whole, complete Sam appeared back in his body where he belonged.
... Rather than somewhere in Hell, or in the void between worlds.
It was easier to think about that, to run over the plans and the technicalities in his mind, than to explain to Sam why he was being taken inside. Maybe Dean shouldn’t mention anything at all, grab Sam’s sleeve and drag him into the house. Move him like a piece of furniture. The thought was tempting.
Wind gusted across the car lot. Clouds were moving in overhead, the sun slowly disappearing behind them. The day was cooling. Dean sighed and glanced at his watch. He’d been out here for almost half an hour. He couldn’t put this off forever.
Sam didn’t look up from his work as Dean approached. Dean cleared his throat as he stood over the shallow pit.
“Sammy?”
Sam stopped digging. Dean clenched and unclenched his fists a few times.
“I need you to come inside, champ,” Dean began, his voice coming out raspy. “Got -- stuff to do.”
Sam blinked. “I need to dig.”
“Sam, you don’t need to dig -- ”
“I do.”
“Why?” The word burst out of Dean harshly. “You care about fuck all else, you don’t care about me or Bobby or whether you live or die. Why do you care so damn much about digging?”
Sam stared at Dean for a moment, then looked thoughtfully at the ground below his dirt-caked shoes. “I’m looking for something.” He explained. “Something important. I need to find... ” Sam trailed off. He rubbed his head as if it ached. “ ... It’s... very important... ”
Something dark clicked in Dean’s head like a locking gun. He could see it so clearly: Sam falling into a pit just like this one, plummeting into the deepest reaches of Hell, losing himself there. Sam’s soul is meant to be in one piece.
The words came out of him in a choked whisper. “ ... You’re looking for the rest of your soul.”
“My s-- ” Sam’s breath stopped. The shovel slipped out of his hands and fell into the dirt with a thud. He took a shaky step back, staring through Dean with sightless eyes.
The sudden change made Dean go cold. “Sammy? S-Sammy, hey, eyes on me -- ”
An awful, raw sound came out of Sam like he was trying to breathe but couldn’t. He staggered back until he hit the shallow wall of the pit.
“Sam --!”
“I’m not -- ” Sam’s breath came back in a violent choke and he doubled over, clutching at his skull like he was afraid it would explode, his face pale as the grave. “I-I’m -- I’m a piece -- just a little piece of something else, I’m a fragment, I’m a fragment, someone used to be whole and they splintered and I’m one of the splinters and I’m not even the biggest one and I’m a fragment -- ”
“Sh-shit fuck -- ” Dean jumped into the shallow pit and grabbed Sam’s shoulders. “Hey, kid, look at me!”
“I’m a fragment!” Sam’s panicked eyes finally found Dean’s and he grabbed his brother’s arms so hard it hurt, so hard his knuckles turned white. “I’m a piece! I used to be someone else or part of someone else but am I still that person or am I someone different or am I anyone at all or just a scrap of something that used to -- ”
There was a soft noise, a hand resting on top of Sam’s head, and Sam’s eyes fluttered closed. His body went limp and he collapsed just as Castiel stepped forward to catch him.
“Is he okay?” Dean choked out. His arms were tingling where Sam had been grabbing them. They’d bruise later. “What did you do?”
“He is merely unconscious.” Castiel hoisted Sam up, lifting him off the ground in both arms. His face was like stone. “You told him what he was, didn’t you?”
Dean ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I-I didn’t know it would do that to him -- ”
“That was a poor decision.” Castiel turned away from Dean and leaped effortlessly out of the pit, still holding Sam. He stared down at Dean. “I believe you now have a taste of why. Even after he is whole, I will have to put up mental blocks in his brain, otherwise he will be nonfunctional.”
“Mental blocks?” Dean scrambled out of the pit and stood up, brushing off the dirt. “You’re gonna mess with his head?”
“If we allow him to remember the sensations of Hell, of having his soul torn in two, he will be a mindless ball of pain.” Castiel looked down at Sam with sadness and resolve. “ ... I will sever the connections between certain memories and his emotions. We must rely on the resilience of the human brain to do the rest.”
Dean stared numbly at his brother’s face. It looked so much like Sam when he was asleep like this. He’d already been through so much. “ ... Okay.” His voice felt thick as tar. “Let’s -- let’s take him inside and get this over with.”
----
The ivory paint was already cracking and flacking on Bobby’s floor. Half cheap acrylic, half powdered priest bones, painted in a pattern only angels could create. Dean watched as Castiel laid his brother’s limp body in the middle of the circle, framing him in a cobweb of pale sigils.
“There.” Castiel straightened up. “Wait here. It’s best that he is unconscious when the rest of his soul is returned.”
Castiel vanished, leaving Dean alone in Bobby’s house with his brother’s limp body. He looked down at Sam’s face. When those eyes next opened, would Sam really be the one looking through them?
Dean sat down next to the ring of sigils, crossing his legs. The clock ticked.
“ ... Hey,” Dean began softly, speaking to his brother’s prone body. “I’m sorry I freaked you out back there. It’s gonna be okay now. We’re getting the rest of you back.”
Sam’s only response was barely-audible breath. The silence of the room stretched, and Dean swallowed.
“That’s what you want, right? That’s why you kept digging. Lookin’ for... the rest of yourself. God, you had no idea you were never gonna find it that way.”
Silence, broken only by the ticking of Bobby’s clock. Dean pulled his eyes away from Sam, looking out the window. The world outside had grown dusky since morning, dark with clouds.
“ ... That’s why you don’t like going up stairs, huh?” A dying laugh escaped Dean’s lips. “Hell’s not literally under us, Sam. Just rocks and dirt and salted bones down there. Going up a floor doesn’t pull you further away from the rest of your -- ”
He cut off. The words stuck in his throat like glass. Outside, the pattering of newly-falling rain was joining the ticking of Bobby’s clock.
“ ... Or maybe the stairs felt like Cas pulling you out. Going up.” The silence hurt worse than his voice, so Dean chewed his way through words. “And the elevator, damn, no wonder you freaked out. You stepped into a tiny room and suddenly you were being pulled up, just like before. You just remembered pain, didn’t know why or what had happened to you -- ” Dean pressed a hand over his eyes. “Shit, I hope you don’t remember any of that when you wake up... ”
The rain was coming down harder. The pale light cast Sam’s face in grave tones, hollow. It was hard to see his breathing. The clock ticked. Dean shifted, then hesitantly reached towards his brother.
“ ... Sammy?”
A weird silence met his words, and it took Dean a moment to realize that all of the rain outside had stopped. The clock hadn’t ticked for several seconds. Before he could pull his hand back, a zap of static electricity snapped against his fingertips like a feral dog. A silent thunderclap shook the room, a deep impact that reverberated through the marrow of Dean’s bones and knocked him on his back. For long seconds that the clock never recorded, Dean’s empty lungs strained, as if all the oxygen in the air had been burned up. Something harsher than gravity held him against the floor, the air crackling.
The rain came back in slow, growing patters. The clock resumed ticking, and Dean breathed again. He stood up gingerly, shaking the sting out of his hand. Sam hadn’t moved, but the painted sigils that surrounded him were no more than powder, scattered across the wood of Bobby’s floor.
Dean nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice spoke behind him.
“Was I successful?”
“Cas --!” Dean heaved a tense breath. “ ... Something freaky as crap happened. Hope it was the right thing.”
Castiel winced and clutched his side, breathing deeply for a moment. “ ... Good. Because we are out of bargaining chips.”
Dean looked the angel over, pursing his eyebrows. “ ... You’re not looking so hot there, buddy.”
“I have done a lot of travel today and I am -- ” Castiel grunted and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “ ... Still injured. Wounds from angel blades take a long time to heal.”
“Are you gonna have the juice to jumpstart Sam?”
“Yes.” Castiel approached Sam, limping slightly, and knelt next to him. “This is not a high-energy task. Merely a meticulous one.”
He pressed two fingers against Sam’s forehead and closed his eyes. Dean held his breath.
“Are you fixing him?”
“I’m trying to.” Castiel pursed his eyebrows in focus. “Human minds are remarkably sturdy. If I can give Sam some help, keep him safe from the worst of the memories, I think his subconscious will be able to cope with the rest.”
Dean leaned over Sam, watching his brother’s face. “What d’you mean by that?”
“I mean that it is a complicated process best facilitated by silence,” Castiel ground out.
Dean pulled back and shut his mouth. The light outside grew pale and eerie as he waited. After what seemed like an age, Castiel sighed and pulled his hand back, and Sam’s eyes slowly opened.
Dean’s heart nearly stopped and he thumped to his knees. “Sammy!”
Sam didn’t move or respond. Dean reached out and grabbed his shoulder, giving it a shake.
“Sam? What’s wrong with him?”
“I am not sure.” Castiel looked pale. “H-his soul is in one piece now, I felt it. I think -- I think I’ve severed his emotions too much.”
Dean’s head snapped towards Castiel. “You what?”
“I need to break his emotional connection to his memories of Hell,” Castiel explained in a rush. “He can keep the logical memories, and it’s best that he does so that he doesn’t obsess with recovering them, but if he remembers what it felt like -- ”
“He needs more emotions than this!” Dean gave Sam another shake, but his brother just rolled limply on the floor. “G-get back in his head, give him his emotions back!”
Castiel pressed his fingers against Sam’s forehead, and the room descended back into silence. The clock ticked, and Sam was unresponsive. Then his eyes snapped open wide.
“Aa-- ” Sam doubled up violently, clutching at his stomach with pale hands. A ragged gasp ripped out of his body, giving way to a shaking sobbing scream. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah --!”
Dean’s stomach dropped. “S-Sam -- !”
“Put them back!” Sam was screaming against the floor, shaking. “P-please! Just put them back inside me, stop pulling -- !”
Castiel looked panicked. “He’s remembering too much of Hell, I need to go back in -- ”
Sam grabbed at Dean’s arm, digging his fingers in. His voice came in strangled sobs.
“Please please I’m so empty! It’s all hollowed out and the w-water’s so cold, j-just put my guts back in, I c-can’t do it, please, please stop pulling -- ”
Castiel pressed two fingers against Sam’s forehead, and Sam’s dilated eyes slid closed. His body relaxed, and his fingers slipped off Dean’s arm.
Dean caught his breath in choked gasps. Under the smells of books and whiskey and rain, he could swear there was a creeping hint of sulphur.
Castiel took a deep breath. “ ... I-I will try again.”
“How many tries will this take?” Dean rasped.
“I don’t know. But we’re getting closer.” Castiel closed his eyes, forehead pursing, deep in concentration. “Perhaps, as you humans say, the third time will be the charm... ”
Rain fell as Castiel motionlessly dug into Sam’s head. Dean tried not to drum his fingers against the wood floor. His stomach was churning and he couldn’t stop hearing Sam’s voice. He clenched his fists until the knuckles cracked.
Castiel pulled back with a sigh, and Sam muffled a grunt against the floor. Dean’s heart skipped.
“S-Sammy?”
Sam groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “ ... What the...?” He sat up, looking around the room in confusion. His forehead pursed, and even before the next words passed his lips, Dean knew this was Sam. “ ... This isn’t the Cage.”
A strangled laugh lodged itself in Dean’s throat and he yanked his brother into a rough hug. After a startled grunt, Sam hugged his brother back, hard and relieved.
“F-fuck, I can’t believe this.” Sam made a noise close to a laugh. “I t-told you not to get me out, jackass. How’d you guys do it?”
“We’ll tell you later.” Dean’s voice came out thick, choked. He pulled back, holding Sam at arm’s length, taking it all in. His vision was getting watery, and he hoped Sam didn’t notice. “Y-you’re back now, okay? That’s what matters.”
Sam smiled gratefully and turned to Castiel. He gave the angel a nod. “Guess I have both of you to thank.” He shuddered suddenly and rubbed a hand over his face. “God, how long was I down there? And... wait a sec, why do I remember being up here too?”
“It’s complicated,” Castiel tried.
Sam gave a weak laugh. “Yeah, I’m getting that.” He looked back at Dean, his smile fading. “If you sold your soul for this, I’ll kick your ass. That’s not what I want.”
Dean held his hands up. “Hey, I never lifted a finger. It was all Cas.”
Castiel nodded modestly.
Sam’s shoulders relaxed. “ ... Pulling hunters out of Hell again? This is becoming a habit.”
Castiel shrugged, a small smile finally creeping in. “Certain hunters.”
Dean wiped a hand over his face roughly. Yeah, Sam definitely saw that. At least he wasn’t saying anything about it.
Sam pulled himself to his feet with a wince. “Aaah god, why am I so sore?”
Dean stood up quickly. “Easy, champ, you just got out of Hell. Don’t push yourself.”
Sam snorted. “I think I can handle standing up on my own. You worry too much -- ” Sam’s smile broke. He searched Dean’s face, horror starting to creep into his eyes. “Wh-- w-why can’t I -- ”
Cold uncertainty crept down Dean’s spine. “ ... Hey, you okay there, kiddo?”
Sam shook his head, eyes wide and lost. “ ... I-I don’t know your name.”
Dean froze. Something ugly twisted in his stomach.
“You’re my brother. I know that.” Sam ran a hand through his hair, still staring at Dean like he could force the memory to the surface. “You’ve been looking out for me my whole life, I know you better than I know myself. Why don’t I know your name?” Sam’s hand fisted in his hair and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Why don’t I know whose house this is?”
“Dean, it’s Dean.” Dean grabbed his brother’s arm. “C’mon, Sammy, remember.”
“Dean? Is that my name?” Sam shook his head. “Oh g-god, is Sammy my name? I don’t remember.”
Castiel placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam looked at him and and shut his eyes in defeat.
“ ... I don’t know your name either,” he choked out.
“Sam, listen to me. We got you out of Hell, but we are not done healing you.” He found Sam’s gaze and held it. “I can bring back the memories you’re missing. They are not lost.”
Sam’s shoulders slumped in relief. He nodded, and Castiel pressed two fingers against his forehead as Sam shut his eyes. Dean tightened his grip on his brother’s arm.
“B-be careful in there, Cas -- ”
Sam’s face went slack. Dean grudgingly let go of his brother’s arm and stepped back, holding his breath. After a moment, Castiel sighed and pulled his hand away as Sam’s eyes opened.
“There. I’ve restored more memory.”
Sam cocked his head slowly, staring at Castiel like he was trying to process the sight.
Dean shuffled uneasily. “Well? Any luck?”
Sam glanced at Dean, wordless. He slowly turned his eyes back to Castiel. Dean picked up the sound of Sam’s breath, fast and shallow, fight-or-flight.
Hunter instinct clicked in Dean’s head. He went tense. “Cas -- ”
Sam’s hand shot under Castiel’s trenchcoat and came out in a silver blur. There was a sharp, wet thud, and Castiel screamed. Sam bared his teeth and twisted the angel blade deeper.
“Does it hurt?” he snarled into Castiel’s face.
Dean’s fist slammed into his brother’s face, knocking him away. Castiel collapsed to his knees, his shaking hands clutching the silver hilt of the blade that was still buried inside him. Dean stood between the angel and his brother, heart racing, braced in case Sam made another go.
Sam was breathing hard, backing away from Dean like a cornered animal. “You can’t hurt me,” he panted. He edged towards the kitchen, keeping his eyes locked on Dean, feeling behind him for the door. He looked nothing like the brother Dean had hugged moments before. “N-nothing can hurt me.”
He turned and ran, scampering into the kitchen.
Castiel wheezed. Dean dropped to the angel’s side.
“No no no no no -- ” He gripped Castiel’s shoulder, holding him up as he swayed. Dean pulled the trenchcoat aside. The blade was buried just below Castiel’s navel, blood and grace seeping out, staining his torn shirt. The sight made Dean’s knees weak. “Oh sh-shit, n-no, Cas -- ”
“I’m n-not dying.” Castiel forced the words out in broken gasps. He gripped the handle of the angel blade and hissed in pain. “Go after him!”
“Cas -- ”
“Go.”
Dean swallowed. He stood up and ran into the kitchen, leaving Castiel on the bloody floor with an angel blade in his gut.
The kitchen was empty. Dean paced slowly through the room, wondering if he should find a weapon, and knowing that he’d never use it on Sam even if he did. Thunder was starting to rumble outside, the rain still pouring down. Dean cautiously peered around the door to the next room. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He turned around and ducked out of the way as one of Bobby’s steak knifes slammed into the door frame he’d been leaning against.
Sam wrenched the knife free, his breathing fast and labored. Dean backed away. There was no trace of his brother in this man’s eyes.
“Nothing’s going to hurt me,” Sam insisted raggedly, approaching Dean and tapping the knife against his cheek. He pressed the blade against his skin until a single scarlet drop rolled down his face. “Not anymore.”
Dean lifted his hands. “Sammy, it’s okay, no one’s gonna hurt you, yeah? Just put the knife down -- ”
Sam lunged, his knife whistling through the air as Dean stepped back.
“Sam, it’s me!”
Sam’s only reply was an animalistic snarl and another lunge with the knife. This time Dean grabbed his brother’s arm and twisted, locking the joint, drawing an infuriated scream from him.
“I’ll cut you and kill you and hurt you and rip you and -- ”
Dean clenched his teeth against Sam’s words and twisted the knife out of his brother’s hand. It clattered to the floor, and Dean kicked it across the room as Sam tried to lunge for it.
“You’re gonna calm down and Cas is gonna fix you!” he bellowed.
Sam’s boot crashed against Dean’s shin, sharp splinters of pain. He nearly buckled, and was sent staggering back when Sam’s fist pounded against his jaw. Then Sam’s entire body slammed into Dean’s, and they crashed through Bobby’s screen door onto the porch.
The rain was thunderous now, and the wood porch was hard and cold under Dean’s back as he grappled to keep his brother’s hands off his neck.
“Choke your life out,” Sam was snarling, his eyes wild. “No more pain no more pain -- ”
“F-fucking -- calm the fuck down, Sam!” Dean bucked, throwing Sam off and rolling onto him, trying to hold him down, but Sam was thrashing like a bull in its death throes. Dean slipped on the damp wood, and they toppled down the porch steps in a series of tangled limbs and painful thuds. Sam fell on his back in wet gravely puddle with an angry hiss, Dean on top of him. Rain was pounding down, soaking Dean’s shirt, running down Sam’s face like tears.
“You can’t hurt me!” Sam roared over the storm. His chest was heaving, his eyes hazy and feral. “I am pain!”
Dean struggled to hold his brother down, fear twisting in his stomach. “Sh-shit, c’mon, Sam, that’s not you -- ”
“It’s better to be pain, better than the thing it’s ripping into,” Sam insisted, frenzied. Dean could see the pulse flickering rapidly in his brother’s neck.
A pained grunt and a thump from the porch made Dean look over his shoulder. Castiel was leaning against the wet wood railing, clutching his abdomen, bloody angel blade in his hand. Castiel’s eyes widened.
“Dean -- !”
Dean’s head rang with sharp, crashing pain as Sam’s fist collided with it. The world spun. Dean’s back slammed against harsh gravel, rain falling in his face. He tried to heave a gasp, but his brother’s cold, rough hands were locked around his neck and squeezing.
Through the wet hair hanging around his face, a shaky smile was creeping onto Sam’s face. “Shoot the pain like a gun,” he hissed, squeezing. “No more looking down the barrel. No more.”
Dean clawed at his brother’s hands, kicking, gagging for air. Sam was too big and too heavy to throw off, and his hands were clenching like they were trying to crush Dean’s throat into a pulp.
A bloody hand grabbed a harsh fistful of Sam’s hair, a sharp, high hum of angel words ringing through the rain. Sam’s eyes went wide and his whole body froze. Castiel was panting, his face twitching in concentration, his bloody knuckles white where he was grabbing Sam’s hair. Finally, Sam’s eyes slid closed and his grip on Dean’s neck loosened, and Castiel wrenched him off and threw him onto the wet gravel.
Dean heaved air into his lungs, rubbing his sore throat. Speaking hurt like needles. “Wh-at --” He coughed. “What h-happened?”
“Too much pain,” Castiel grunted, kneeling next to Sam and splaying his hand over the unconscious hunter’s face. He wouldn’t take his eyes off Sam. “Too many memories. The human mind will do anything, become anything, to survive.”
Dean sat up, wincing. His heart was still pounding, and his neck throbbed and ached. A chill had worked into his chest that had nothing to do with the rain and mud soaking his clothes. There were things he wanted to ask, things about Sam’s mind and how he could possibly heal from that kind of agony, but he didn’t dare interrupt Castiel’s work. So he sat on the muddy gravel and watched the angel try to put his brother back together.
Sam gasped. Castiel pulled his hand back quickly, knuckles clenching on his angel blade. Sam held a hand up to keep the rain out of his eyes, catching his breath.
“Oh fuck --” Sam sat up, looking around himself, still panting. “Shit, I -- am I out? Did I imagine that?”
Dean stood up with a cringe and cautiously approached his brother. “ ... You back for real this time, Sammy?” he grunted, throat sore.
Sam turned to look at him. His face broke into a relieved smile that immediately twisted into horror.
“I -- sh-shit, I just tried to kill you -- ” His head snapped towards Castiel and the angel flinched. “I tried to kill both of you! Cas, I’m so sorry -- ”
Castiel sighed, slipping his blade back into his jacket. “ ... You are forgiven.”
Sam looked up at Dean, blinking in the rain. “This... this isn’t a trick, right? I mean, the Cage hasn’t done anything like this before, but -- ”
“It’s real,” Dean cut in. He held out a hand. “Come on, up.”
Sam took Dean’s hand, standing. He pulled Dean into a violent hug, hands fisting in Dean’s wet shirt, heaving a deep breath.
“If you sold your soul for this -- ”
“You’ll kick my ass, I know. I didn’t, so don’t.”
“Then how -- ”
“Later.” Dean coughed into Sam’s shoulder and cleared his throat, still holding his brother close. “Talking’s not my friend right now.”
“ ... R-right.” Sam shuddered against Dean, squeezing him tighter. “Can we, uh, get inside? I’ve had enough cold and wet to last the rest of my life.”
“Yeah.” Dean finally pulled back, holding out a hand to help Castiel up. “And you need to lie down or do whatever it is angels do to heal. Christ, that’s a lot of blood. Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”
Castiel hissed in pain as four hands helped him up. “It will probably take me a full day to recover, but the wounds are not fatal. I don’t think -- ” Castiel grunted as each of his arms were pulled over a set of broad shoulders. “ ... Really, both of you, I am quite capable of walking.”
Dean coughed again, and the three of them limped through the rain and puddles back to Bobby’s house, shoes crunching in the wet gravel. Sam suddenly barked out a strained laugh, rubbing a wet hand over his face.
“Something funny, Sammy?” Dean rasped.
Sam couldn’t stop laughing. “I... I ate mayonnaise with a spoon.”
Sam’s ringing laughter was a sweet, familiar sound above the roar of the rain. A smile broke across Dean’s face. “ ... Out of the jar,” he added with a chuckle. “Like ice cream. It was disgusting.”
Castiel looked between the two laughing brothers as they helped him limp through the rain and the soggy gravel towards the house. He pursed his brow.
“I don’t understand. Why is that funny?”
----
Whiskey. They didn’t have that in the Cage. Sam sipped it slowly, dipping his tongue into the glass and letting the amber liquid soak his tastebuds, bitter tingling warmth. He shifted on Bobby’s couch as he watched the rain, pulling a lumpy blanket tighter around himself. The Cage could never mimic whiskey like that. This, being out, this was real.
But this couldn’t be real.
The Cage was everything. It was the end, it was eternity. Hollow, choking blackness stretching out on all sides, no gravity, no time, pointless screams muffled in the dead water. The horror of the Cage wasn’t the burning cold or the suffocation, it wasn’t the way Lucifer and even Michael had torn into his body just to break the monotony.
The horror of the Cage was that it was forever. And nothing mattered. Whether you screamed and beat your fists against the frozen walls or floated listlessly in the eternal dark, it didn’t matter. The Cage wouldn’t care. No one would hear you. It wouldn’t be easier. And nothing would change. Ever.
Sam shuddered and took another sip of whiskey, letting the heat pour through him. The Cage stripped meaning away. It would never let him have something this special, sitting on Bobby’s couch and drinking whiskey, listening to his brother bustle and curse in the kitchen. So this had to be real.
There was a loud clatter, and Dean shouted “fuck!” from the other room. Sam smiled into his whiskey. Castiel had collapsed on Bobby’s bed and was healing himself, but with Sam’s body running on several weeks of a really strange diet, Dean was determined to whip up some food.
“God damn it, doesn’t this asshat keep any damn food in the house? How are there so many rats in here, what are the fuckers eating?”
Sam chuckled, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. This was surreal. He’d been gone so long, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be Sam. He looked at his own hand holding the whiskey glass. Real. He tipped the whiskey glass back and forth, watching the liquid slosh inside, cracking a little smile at the sensation of his tendons moving and flexing. Alive.
Sam’s hair was drying, the whiskey warming him through. Sam had been alone for too long to sit alone now. He threw the blanket off and walked into the kitchen to help his brother struggle with Bobby’s kitchen.
----
Sam found Dean shoulders-deep in a floor cabinet, grumbling to himself. Sam raised an eyebrow.
“Need some help?”
Dean cursed and bumped his head before pulling out. He rubbed the bump and glared at his brother. “Hey, go sit down! You just got out of Hell.”
Sam snorted. “Like you took sick days after Hell.”
“Yeah, well, your Hell was more badass than mine,” Dean grunted, giving the pantry one more hateful look before slamming it closed. He peered at Sam’s whiskey. “Uh, you want something stronger than that?”
Sam snorted. “What, like jet fuel?”
“Suit yourself, weirdo.” Dean heaved a breath and looked around the kitchen. “So, dinner options: far as I can tell, Bobby’s got one can of tomato soup, a bottle of ketchup, half a bag of tootsie rolls, some potatoes, a carton of milk, and about half a liquor store’s worth of booze. I’m thinking we toss the potatoes in the soup and call it a day.”
Sam shrugged and put his whiskey glass down. “We’ve eaten worse.” He got out a cutting board and one of Bobby’s knives, setting up on the counter. “Here, toss the potatoes over. I’ll chop, you get the soup ready.”
Dean had stiffened, face pale. Sam pursed his eyebrows, then stared at the knife in his hand. His heart sunk.
“ ... Dean, it’s really me this time.” The memory was fuzzy, but the knife in his hand felt too familiar. Without being sure why, Sam lifted his hand and touched his cheek, brushing his fingertips over the scabbing cut there.
“ ... Yeah. I know.” Dean cleared his throat loudly picked up the bag of potatoes. “Just -- it’s nothing. Get these chopped up, I’ll heat the soup.”
He tossed the potatoes and Sam caught them. They settled into a busy silence as Sam chopped and Dean wrestled with Bobby’s temperamental stove.
“So,” Sam began after a while. “I miss anything cool while I was, you know, down under?”
Dean was digging out a match to light the stove with. “I killed the father of all vampires.”
Sam looked up. “No shit? By yourself?”
“Well, Bobby and Rufus might’ve helped a bit. But, you know, I did all the heavy lifting.” Dean bit his tongue in concentration as he lit a match and held it to the stove.
Sam snorted, pushing aside the first diced potato to make room for the next. “That’s my brother. Modest.”
“Yeah, and I’ve had to work twice as hard to show off without your lazy ass making me look good by comparison.”
Sam finished his second potato and added it to the pile. “Jerk.”
“Bitch. Toss the can over, willya?”
Sam grabbed the can of tomato soup and chucked it. Dean caught it out of the air.
“Now where the hell is Bobby’s can opener... ”
“Dunno.” Sam grabbed the next potato and held it against the cutting board, his knife squeaking as it pushed through the firm flesh. “Check the drawer where he keeps the wooden spoons?”
Dean didn’t answer. Sam paused in his chopping and turned to see his brother staring at him in pale-faced horror.
Sam pursed his eyebrows and looked down at the cutting board. Harmless white chunks of potato sat on it. “What, did I cut it wrong?”
Dean rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth. “H-hey, uh -- L-let’s go check on Cas, okay?”
Sam’s frown deepened into a scowl. “Dean. What’s wrong.”
“I just think we should go check on Cas, yeah?”
Sam sighed. Some things didn’t change. He spent an eon in the Cage, and Dean was still a shitty liar. Sam put the knife down. “Fine. I’ll play along. But you’d better tell me what this is about.”
“Course, no problem.”
Sam followed his brother out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He gave his hand a shake, peering at it curiously. For a moment there, his fingers felt wet.
----
Dean braced himself when he walked back into the kitchen, but the sight was still jarring. At least it had stopped twitching.
“Shit... ” He stepped over to the stove where the empty pot was sitting on the live burner. He turned the gas off, and the blue flame went out. “Shit shit...” He had to get this cleaned up before Sam came back down.
He hoped Cas got everything right this time. It had taken some creative charades behind Sam’s back to get his point across, but finally Castiel’s face had broken into understanding and he held two fingers to Sam’s forehead.
“ ... What was wrong with him this time, Dean?”
Dean picked up the cutting board, cringing. The mess had pooled all over the counter and was drying sticky. He gingerly carried the cutting board to the trash and dumped out the gory mess.
“Fuck... ” Now it was all over his hands. Dean carried the cutting board to the sink and tried to wash it clean, but blood had soaked into the wood.
Blissfully, he had the board, the counter, and his hands clean by the time Sam walked back into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Sam called. “Sorry to ditch you like that, Cas wanted to check something. ... Check something in my brain.” Sam rubbed a hand through his hair uncomfortably. “ ... I guess that’s normal now, huh?”
Dean swallowed, hands still buried in the sink, and shrugged. “That’s fine. Hey, get the stove lit, willya? I found the can opener.”
“Sure.” Sam walked over to the stove and frowned. “ ... Why the hell is my whiskey glass full of milk?”
“Couldn’t tell you, Sam,” Dean grunted, drying his arms off quickly. He stiffly crossed the kitchen and grabbed the trash bag, hoisting it out of the can. It wasn’t full, but he didn’t want Sam glancing into it. If he did, he’d see the bloody cross-sections of a rat that Dean had scraped off the cutting board.
“Seriously, did you fill my whiskey glass with milk?”
“ ... Yeah.” Dean wrinkled his nose against the stench of death as he tied off the trash bag. The more he looked at that ruined little body, the more he could remember it squeaking and writhing under Sam’s knife as his brother calmly sliced it into neat chunks. “I -- I got thirsty.”
“For milk? That’s a first.”
Dean nodded stiffly, pulling the knot tight. He wasn’t hungry for dinner any more. What, did I cut it wrong? “ ... Yeah, well, we’ve all changed a bit, haven’t we?”
Sorry to do this, but some real life stuff has come up and we won’t have the full episode ready in time for tonight. Hopefully, we’ll have it posted tomorrow and be back on track for next week. Thanks for all the support we’ve gotten so far!
Suspended hundreds of feet above the Chicago pavement, as the first cold beams of light began to illuminate the sky, Jesse Peterson the window repairman loosened chunks of broken glass from a skyscraper’s shattered window. Inside the (currently open-air) office, a tall blond man was speaking angrily into a cell phone, pacing back and forth.
“Yes I know that, it’s a huge mess up here! I’m not just leaving a big hole in the side of my building for people to -- yes, it’s being fixed right now, what do you think I’ve been doing all night?”
Jesse Peterson the window repairman sighed. His gloved hands carefully pulled out another chunk of broken glass, setting it down in a box with the others. Lioncourt Luxury Hardwoods had always seemed like a mighty dodgy incorporation to him -- and being called in to fix a gaping hole in this office was only verifying his suspicions -- but all the same, he tried to keep his mind on the job at hand. He wasn’t being paid to eavesdrop.
... Well, in a very literal sense, he was. Mr. Oscar seemed to have zero fear of being overheard, however.
“Miraculously, nothing else is off track.” Oscar listened to his phone for a moment before speaking. “No, no change of plans. We keep going. If that bitch Suzie in New York one-ups us, I’ll kill everyone in this building.”
Seemed a little harsh, Jesse Peterson the window repairman thought. But then again, business types tended to be. Thank god he didn’t have to spend hours on the phone with a boss like that. He was just here to fix a window and ignore the ominous stains on the floor.
“Good. Good. You see to that. I’m going to grab some dinner and I’ll be right there.”
Seemed a little peculiar to be talking about dinner when the sun had barely risen, but Jesse Peterson wasn’t about to question the eating habits of someone this rich and this irritable.
Oscar hung up, and his humorless gaze fixed on Jesse. “Peterson, right?”
Jesse put down the last shard of glass. “Yes, sir?”
“Are you almost done?”
“Broken glass is all gone, sir. Two guys should be by in another fifteen minutes with a replacement window.”
“Good.” Oscar walked up to him so they were face-to-face, Oscar in the office and Jesse Peterson on his suspended swing outside. “Terribly sorry about your fall.”
Jesse Peterson the window repairman blinked. “Sir, I’ve never fallen in my whole career. What fall?”
Oscar grabbed the front of his shirt, yanking him through the empty window pane. Long, needle-like fangs slid out of his gums.
“The one you’re about to have.”
-
Dean stared at the screen of the laptop, his jaw tense with concentration. Under the words “enter password,” a cursor flashed in an empty box.
Rufus’s voice made him jump.
“Don’t matter how long you stare, it ain’t telling you the password.”
“I’m thinking,” Dean snapped. There were answers on this laptop, answers that he and Rufus needed. For starters, it might be able to tell them just how big this vampire-run company was, how far the influence spread. The laptop might hold secrets to bringing the company down.
... It might have an explanation for what the company was planning to do with Ben.
“Aren’t you younger generations supposed to be all about computers and technology?”
In frustration, Dean typed goddamn fucking vampires into the password box. No game. “Shut up, old timer,” he grunted.
He could totally crack this. He had to. Even though there were plenty of people in Bobby’s network who could’ve done it in a heartbeat, none were close enough to drive to Chicago in a reasonable timeframe. No one except...
“Y’know who’s good with computers?” Rufus brought up, for only the third time that morning.
Dean twitched. “We’re not bringing him here.”
“Sam.”
“We don’t have a Sam!”
“Right, right, he’s ‘different’ now.”
“He’s not different.” Dean rubbed a hand over his forehead. He was getting a headache. “It’s not him.”
“Thought you said that he -- or whatever it is that ain’t Sam -- had Sam’s memories?”
“He does, just not... anything else.”
The couch shifted as Rufus sat down next to Dean.
“Look, kid, I know this is a sore subject for you. But this here is life and death. Tell me straight: could this whatever-the-hell-it-is at Bobby’s place hack this bad boy?”
Dean slumped forward, completely burying his face in his hands. Just days ago, he’d been sitting across from what used to be his little brother, watching him win at poker. Sam’s retention of the rules had been immaculate. It stood to reason he’d remember his computer stuff as well.
“ ... I don’t want him coming here, Rufus.” Dean looked up reluctantly. “But yeah, he probably could.”
“He ain’t any safer at Bobby’s than he is here, Dean.” Rufus stood up. “Bobby’s only a day’s drive away. We’re calling them in.” Rufus picked up his phone. “It’ll be good to have that old codger on the job too. You know any extra muscle we can call in? Anyone who can get here fast enough?”
“Cas,” Dean replied automatically.
“Never met him.” Rufus dialed. “Hope he’s a badass motherfucker.”
Dean managed a snort and settled back on the couch, closing his eyes.
Rufus spread his arms. “You gonna call your buddy, or take a nap?”
“Calling him right now,” Dean replied without opening his eyes.
-
On the outskirts of Heaven, slinking through willow trees and over still waters, a pale curl of smoke drifted. It weaved through the cool evening landscape with a sense of agency foreign to most plumes of mist. Above, the skies of Heaven were a soft lavender fading to blue, a few stars peeking out through the twilight and reflecting in the still lake below. A cool breeze wafted through the balmy air. Through it all, in an innocuous vaporous form, the angel Castiel drifted.
Castiel would have preferred to manifest a human body than reduce himself to a puff of mist. Even more than that, he ached to enjoy the serenity of this peaceful place in his natural form, raw and receptive to the splendor of Heaven. But to do so would most certainly have attracted attention. In this wispy form, he was less likely to draw the unforgiving eyes of his of his brothers and sisters. No matter how tender or holy the angel, orders trumped all else, and Raphael had ordered Castiel not to linger in Heaven. There would be angels, Castiel knew, who saw the need to enforce this order harshly. But gentle angels he must find, if he was ever to figure out what had gone wrong when he saved Sam Winchester.
As Castiel drifted through hanging willow fronds, he began to sense a warmth, something bright and clean and golden, existing on a separate plane from the mild weather. It was the sensation of a nearby angel. The aura felt familiar, but this was not an angel Castiel knew intimately.
Still, it was worth a try.
Castiel followed the aura until he found a wooden bench on the bank of the lake, shadowed by swaying willow trees. A boy sat on the bench, his back straight and his body still, gazing at the deepening purple of the sky with pale blue eyes. As Castiel approached, the boy’s head turned, and he blinked in surprise.
“ ... Hello,” he began, addressing the general landscape. “You don’t need to hide. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
Castiel’s wisp of smoke drifted up to the bench, and he manifested his preferred form next to the boy. Human illusions of volume and weight filled his new limbs, and the wood and wrought iron of the bench became tangible textures as he leaned back against them. “Yes,” he replied to the boy. “We have met before. It is good to see you again, Samandriel.”
“It is... peculiar to see you again,” Samandriel mused. Wind gusted, and the willows rustled. “You are not the same angel I met before. Not truly.”
“I hope you will still hear me out.”
Samandriel meshed his fingers and clasped his knee. Reeds bowed in the breeze, and ripples danced across the glassy water. “I see no reason not to. Whatever mistakes you may or may not have made, you do not seem violent. And I do not believe you will be able to seduce me away from my loyalty to Heaven.”
“Nor do I intend to,” Castiel assured him quickly. “I merely seek knowledge on human souls, knowledge that angels are most likely to have.” Castiel shifted his gaze, looking out over the quiet, dusky lake. In the distance, a heron was flying with slow, powerful wingbeats, its plumed head held high. Even when he was sitting there on that weathered bench, feeling the lake breeze on his face, it was easy for Castiel to remember the icy black grip of Hell. “I attempted to rescue a soul from Hell recently,” he continued, pulling his gaze away from the view, “and I believe something has gone wrong. He is... not himself.”
“You rescued a soul from Hell? Alone?” There was no small degree of awe in Samandriel’s voice. “Stories of your ability have not been exaggerated. Tell me, are you certain that the soul you saved was the correct one?”
“I could not be more certain. I felt it, the soul was him.” The memory was vivid, the hot queasy pulses of agony radiating from Sam’s soul as he cupped it to his chest. Castiel tried to push the memory aside, wincing. “ ... I returned it to his body and healed the decay, as I have done before, but it did not go as it should have.”
Samandriel cocked his head. “He is alive now?”
Castiel sighed. “On a sheer biological level, yes. He moves, he eats, he speaks... but he is not the man I tried to rescue. I do not even think he has a survival instinct.”
Samandriel pursed his eyebrows. “ ... That is very strange. Have you consulted Balthazar? I have heard that peculiar events like this are his speciality.”
Castiel stiffened, turning his eyes away from the other angel’s. “ ... You never heard.”
“Heard?”
“Balthazar. He was killed in battle some time ago.”
“ ... I had not heard.” Samandriel looked back over the lake. “I did not know him well. Were you close?”
“Very.”
“Then I am sorry.” Samandriel sighed. “And sorry too that I do not know what is wrong with this human of yours. But you must have examined his soul: What does it feel like?”
“Torn.” Castiel blinked at the still waters. “Shredded. Like... ” His eyes dilated. “Wait... that’s not right... ”
His thoughts were cut off by Dean’s voice, a crisp prayer in his head.
Yo, Cas, get your feathery ass down here, yeah? We’ve got a job that might need a little angel power. Amen.
Samandriel was peering at him with mild concern. “Is something wrong?”
Castiel stood up as wind rustled through the willows. “Forgive me, I need to go. But you have been helpful.” He hesitated. “It has been... good to speak with one of my kind again. More than I can express. Thank you.”
“You are not unpleasant to converse with.” Samandriel leaned back in the bench. “You are leaving Heaven now?”
Castiel didn’t want to. The power and serenity here beckoned to him, the beauty and familiarity of it all, and so did the company of another angel. He sighed, pulling his eyes away from the star-scattered sky. “ ... Yes, I am leaving.”
“Good.” Samandriel turned his pale eyes towards the still lake. “Raphael does not want you lingering, and I did not want to have to drive you out. I advise you not to make a habit of visiting.”
Castiel’s smile faltered. The willow fronds swished as wind blew through them. “ ... I understand.”
Giving the peaceful surroundings one more longing gaze, Castiel melted back into smoke and seeped down through the floor of Heaven.
Through the inter-universal veil, Castiel sunk. As he finally dropped away from the void between Heaven and Earth, his wings caught onto the math and physics of the mortal plane like air currents, and he soared across time and space. He landed as a human-shaped glob of organized matter in a drab motel room on a drizzly Chicago morning, surrounded by peeling wallpaper and tasteless upholstery and beige.
On one of the ill-designed couches lounged Dean, eyes closed, hands loosely clasped on his knees. His usual prayer position. There was another man in the room, sitting in a battered wooden chair with his back to Castiel, cleaning a shotgun.
“You called, Dean?” Castiel spoke into the silence.
With a barked curse, the man in the chair spun around and fired off the shotgun with a bang like a thunderclap. The blast caught Castiel in the chest, shredding through his clothes and flesh, tiny led balls burying themselves in his manifested body. Castiel lowered his gaze to the wound, then turned his eyes to Dean.
“You hunters need to stop shooting the first angel you see,” he chastised.
The older man already had his gun reloaded and raised for another shot, looking alarmed but no less trigger-happy. Dean just sighed, waving a hand. “Easy, Rufus. This is Cas. Cas, Rufus. Yeah, he’s normally like this.”
Rufus didn’t seem soothed. “What the hell are you?” he snapped, not pulling his eyes away from Castiel.
“I’m an angel.” Castiel waved his hand over the shotgun wound, and at his command, both cloth and flesh knit themselves back together. He held his closed fist out towards Rufus, and opened it to show the lead balls clinking on his palm. “I suggest you not waste ammunitions on me.”
“Yeah, suggest all you want,” Rufus shot back.
With a sigh, Dean wrenched himself off the couch. He walked over to Rufus and put his hand on the barrel of the shotgun, struggling to lower it. “This guy is the muscle I’m calling in,” he explained slowly, impatiently. “He’s on our side. His name is Castiel. We do our best not to shoot him. And yeah, he’s really an angel of the lord and all that.”
“Like the sons of bitches who whipped up an apocalypse?” Rufus growled as Dean pushed his shotgun down, his eyes still locked on Castiel.
“No, not like -- well, yes, he’s technically one of them -- ” Rufus’s shotgun snapped up again and Dean shoved it down roughly. “Damn it, Rufus, he fought for us in the apocalypse! Me and Sam and Bobby and this guy, we’re the ones who shut it down! Show some goddamn respect!”
Giving Castiel one more assessing look, Rufus finally allowed Dean to wrench the shotgun out of his hands. Without warning, he barked a laugh. “Badass motherfucker indeed! A fuckin’ angel! Good to have you here, angel man. And shit, sure am glad you’re on our side.” Still chuckling, he clapped Dean on the shoulder and walked back to his chair. “Dean, you gotta introduce me to your other friends some time.”
Castiel watched Rufus sit down and pick up another gun. The grizzled hunter whistled as he started cleaning it. Castiel cocked his head.
“Is he... ”
“Yeah,” Dean interrupted, flopping back down on the couch. “Always like this. Come over here and lemme catch you up on the case.”
-
Bobby had taken more than his share of road trips in his life. Sometimes the company was loud or smelly. Sometimes they had shit taste in music. But Bobby would have taken just about anyone in the passenger’s seat over this emotionless husk with Sam’s face.
Sam stared unseeingly through the windshield as they drove. He was so still and so quiet that Bobby would start to forget he was there. For a few miles, he would fall into the dull serenity of a long voyage alone. Then he would glance to the side and nearly jump out of his skin when he remembered there was another warm body in the car.
Sam didn’t seem inclined to talk. Bobby didn’t initiate. It was a quiet ride, but not a restful one.
-
“You’re sure you can’t do anything?”
Castiel squinted at the glowing laptop screen while Dean loomed over the back of his chair. “Positive. This is not my field of expertise.”
Dean threw his hands up. “Can’t you angel-mojo a password into it?”
Castiel ran his fingertips lightly over the colorful pixels, reaching gently into it. He could feel all the inner mechanisms of the computer, the patterns of electricity that made the device function. It was a simple language, clear-cut and binary. 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0. On off, off on. Nothing more.
“I could attempt to manipulate it,” he relented. “Potentially, I could make it think that the correct combination of electrical impulses had fired.” He closed his eyes, reaching a little deeper, looking but not touching. The code was crisp, mathematic, refreshing. Like the clockwork of Heaven.
A silence stretched out. Finally Dean broke it with, “ ... You wanna try that in English?”
Castiel pulled his hand back from the warm screen, clearing his throat. “ ... Um, I think it would be unwise for me to tamper with it.” He stood up. “This is a complicated and delicate device. To manipulate it, I would have to feed it tiny electrical impulses from my own grace. A risky endeavor.”
Dean blinked. “ ... Ah. So it’d be like roasting a marshmallow on the sun.”
“I am not certain what a marshmallow is, but I will take your word for it.” Castiel glanced at the computer again. “It’s possible that I could retrieve the information we want, but I could also damage the device beyond repair. I suggest going through the normal mortal channels of unlocking this machine, leaving me out unless we have no other choice.”
Dean huffed, pacing away with clear disappointment. From across the room, Rufus scowled.
“We don’t need the angel to do it,” he reminded Dean, not for the first time that day. “We already got Sam and Bobby coming up.”
“It’s not Sam,” Dean snapped. He walked across the room and grabbed his jacket off a chair, making for the door. “I’m getting us breakfast.”
The door slammed, and Rufus turned back to his his gun cleaning with an unimpressed grunt.
Castiel eyed the door Dean had left through, then looked back at the computer. He sat down and brushed his finger experimentally over the silvery, rectangular pad under the keyboard. A small black and white arrow moved across the screen. It moved again when Castiel touched the pad again, following the direction of his finger.
Huh.
-
Bobby and Sam drove through the day and made it to Chicago sometime in the evening. The first sign of their arrival was a muffled scream through the motel walls.
Dean was out of his chair in an instant and bolting for the door, nearly knocking over his Chinese take-out dinner. He ran out into the hall in time to see the elevator doors ding open, revealing a trembling Sam curled up in the corner with Bobby kneeling over him. Sam was breathing hard, staring at the stained linoleum floor with wide eyes, but at least he wasn’t screaming any more.
“What the hell happened?” Dean blurted.
Bobby looked up. “No bleedin’ idea! He’s been a statue the whole ride here, then we get in the elevator and he loses it!”
“Ascending,” Sam sobbed under his breath, staring sightlessly at the elevator floor.
Bobby wrenched himself to his feet and took Sam’s hand, trying to pull him up. “C’mon, kid,” he urged, wearier than Dean remembered. “Up you come.”
Sam shook his head, closing his eyes. “Up,” he protested. But he let Bobby haul him to his feet all the same.
By then, Rufus and Castiel showed up. Rufus looked ashen, staring at Sam with a horror that Dean had rarely seen in those stern eyes. Castiel instantly rushed to Sam, holding his chin and looking in his eyes, clinical but worried.
“What happened?” Castiel demanded.
Bobby threw his hands up, an exhausted gesture. “We got in the elevator. He started screamin’.”
“Elevator?” Castiel pursed his eyebrows, still examining Sam. Sam was still breathing hard, but his face was slack and his eyes had gone glassy. “Sam, why did the elevator upset you?”
“Ascending,” Sam repeated, deadpan.
Dean felt Rufus give him a nudge.
“I’m sorry,” the man grunted, looking at Sam with something like grief. “I had no idea.”
Dean squeezed his fists and nodded stiffly, trying not to look at Sam’s face. It had stilled like the ocean after a storm, no trace of the panic that had overwhelmed him just seconds ago. “ ... Don’t sweat it,” Dean murmured back reluctantly. “You were right. We need him.” He waved in a gesture for everyone to follow, raising his voice. “Come on, let’s do what we came here for.”
They walked back to the room together, Sam following and staring placidly at the gaudy red wallpaper as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Surprised we’re not gettin’ grief about the racket Sam kicked up,” Bobby grunted, glancing at the doors they passed. “Boy was screamin’ bloody murder the whole way up.”
Dean blew out a breath between his lips. “The people in this dive are pretty jaded. Rufus fired a shotgun earlier and no one gave a shit.”
After some patient urging that nearly became impatient urging, Sam seemed to latch on to the task at hand. He sat down with the laptop and attacked its security with determined precision, keyboard clicks filling the otherwise silent room. Bobby and Rufus wandered to a corner to catch up, and Castiel peered curiously over Sam’s shoulder to watch him work. Dean was left sitting on the couch, trying not to let himself fall for the comforting familiarity of Sam at a computer.
Sam leaned over it like he always did, clacking away, his broad shoulders slightly hunched. At one point he must have gotten stuck, because his brow furrowed and he typed more frantically. Dean had gotten stab wounds that hurt less than that little, familiar brow furrow.
“I’m done,” Sam announced tonelessly after the better part of an hour, pushing the laptop away.
Dean wrenched himself off the couch, relieved. “Awesome.”
They gathered around Sam, three men and an angel, and Dean pointed to an icon on the desktop titled Itinerary. “That folder first. Let’s get a tour of this bad boy.”
-
“May I offer you a tour?”
The moon was high over Astor street, Chicago, clouds creeping by overhead on a stiff wind. Packed between the lavish condos, a Gothic mansion towered towards the sky, spires clawing at the stars. A sleek black limousine was parked in front of the mansion on the dark street below. Standing before the arching doorway, dressed in his very best suit, Oscar the vampire extended a hand towards the ornate doorway, inviting in the Esteemed Guest.
In response, the Esteemed Guest nodded once.
Through gilded halls and under vaulted ceilings, over rare hardwood floors and priceless carpets, the Esteemed Guest was guided. His polished shoes left wet footprints behind Him.
“Every evening, you will have a wide variety of human meals to chose from,” Oscar assured the Esteemed Guest as the tour progressed. “Of course, we are well aware of your... specific tastes, and have a well-stocked pantry ready for you.”
Under sprawling chandeliers that cast glittering orange candlelight on the walls, past tall windows of black, lightless glass, the Esteemed Guest was guided.
“The house is sealed as tightly as any coffin. No sunlight penetrates. We made certain of that.”
Through a wide and ornate door frame into a massive dining room, the Esteemed Guest was guided. Long wood tables spanned the room, set with silver forks and knives that would never see any use.
“ ... You may take your meals anywhere, of course, but this room is... well, specially designed.” Oscar coughed, turning to face the Esteemed Guest and steepling his fingers nervously. “I hope it is... acceptable, Father.”
The Esteemed Guest gazed at his surroundings silently. Sprouting from the wall like new plant shoots were stainless steel meat hooks, slim and sharp, sturdy enough to hold a cow carcass, all polished to perfection. The Esteemed Guest lifted His hand and tapped one long, pointed nail against a fine crystal goblet, making it ring softly.
“ ... It will do,” He stated.
-
By the time the sun had properly set and streetlights were shining through the gauzy motel curtains, every corner of Oscar’s laptop had been scoured. Bobby had pulled Sam away from the computer and coaxed him into sharing some Chinese takeout, but Dean, Castiel, and Rufus were still hunched over the computer. It had raised more questions than it had answered.
“Shit,” Dean breathed. “The place is a fortress. How the hell do we get in and out alive?”
“I believe I may be able to assist,” Castiel offered. “Perhaps I can provide some sort of reconnaissance and get us more information on this ‘Father’ person. I can remain unseen if I wish to.”
Dean grinned. “Cas, you’re a godsend.” When Castiel squinted, Dean cleared his throat. “Just a figure of speech, buddy.”
“I will return shortly,” Castiel announced. He stared at the far wall.
Seconds ticked by. Dean cleared his throat.
“ ... Were you planning on doing that today?”
Castiel looked back down at Dean. “I have bad news.”
“No kidding.”
“The mansion must warded against angels. I can’t get in.”
“ ... Angel warding? They were anticipating angels?”
“Well, I think we can all agree on one thing,” Bobby grunted, box of Chinese takeout in hand. “We’re in way over our heads.” He put down his chopsticks and pulled out his cell phone, dialing.
Dean looked up from the computer. “What’re you doing?”
“Phonin’ a friend,” Bobby grunted, holding the phone to his ear.
-
Sitting at a rickety desk that creaked and moaned under the monstrous weight of books piled upon it, Methuselah Nimrod Schmul stooped with his sharp nose an inch from the page. He nearly fell out of his seat when his cell phone -- buried under another few books -- buzzed harshly.
“Goodness,” he murmured, uncovering the poor device and flipping it open. “Robert Singer, is that your cellular number I observed?”
“Just get caller ID, Met. Look, we need some long-range research, and we’re gonna need it quick.”
Methuselah clicked on speakerphone and rested the cell lovingly on top of a high, unstable stack of books. “We?”
“Me and Rufus. And that brat I’ve been telling you about, Dean Winchester. And, uh, a guy named Cas.”
Two fresh voices came over the phone, one young and brash, the other cool and clipped.
“Good meetin’ you, Met.”
“Hello.”
Bobby’s voice again, sadder than before. “And... I guess that’s everyone we have here.”
Methuselah adjusted his glasses, skimming the tome before him while listening. “Ah, more friends of Robert’s. All very good. That crusty old bat would benefit from some companionship.”
“I can still hear you, nitwit,” Bobby growled over the line.
Methuselah steepled his long, gnarled fingers. “What appears to be your conundrum, Mr. Singer?”
“Not sure, but it’s somethin’ that makes vamps go gaga. Does the name ‘Father’ ring any bells?”
In a flurry of long-limbed movement, Methuselah snapped his book shut and shuffled around the desk for a more useful one, sending loose sheets of paper flying. “Oh my, that is a very vague term, Mr. Singer. The most obvious answer is that the vampire in question was referring to their sire; that is, the vampire who created them.”
“That ain’t the vibe we’re gettin’. They’re treatin’ this guy like he’s some kinda vampire god.”
Methuselah flipped a book open, licking his finger before turning the pages. “So there is a spiritual element to their treatment of him?”
“Yeah, financially spiritual. They had a huge-ass mansion personally made for him on a little place called Astor street. If that ain’t religious worship, I don’t know what is.”
Methuselah’s eyes widened and he adjusted his glasses on his crooked nose. “Oy gevaldt. Such a construction would have required no small quantity of money. Perhaps I would do best to leave my dusty books behind and get into vampirism, it seems to be a more lucrative career than I gave it credit for.”
“Like you could leave your books behind, you old geek.”
“Ah, I’ve been caught.” Methuselah closed the book and grabbed a new one. “Can you give me any further description of this ‘Father’ person?”
The younger voice introduced as “Dean” came over the phone. “Nada, we haven’t seen him yet. Just readin’ up on him.”
“On a computer Dean stole from a vampire secretary,” Rufus’s voice added eagerly. “If you can believe that.”
“A vampire secretary? You kids are on quite the adventure.” Methuselah flipped through his book. “This could very well be some sort of demi god that the vampires have chosen to worship, or perhaps a separate entity entirely that merely has them convinced it is such a demi god -- ” Methuselah cut himself off, freezing on a page. “ ... Oh dear.”
“Don’t do that dramatic pausing thing, Met. What’dja find?”
“ ... I don’t suppose this Father figure feeds on human blood and eschews sunlight?” Methuselah began hesitantly.
“ ... Yeah, they’ve got the mansion light-proofed and there are plans to bring him humans nightly.” Dean snorted over the line. “But this can’t just be any old vampire that they’re getting so excited over -- ”
“Oh no, not just any old.” Methuselah scanned one long finger over the page. “The oldest. And the first. Singer and friends, I believe you may be dealing with the very first vampire ever created.”
Silence over the line. Methuselah turned a page and kept reading.
“They call him Father because he is the eldest of their race, the one who gave rise to all others. You may also see him called the ‘Alpha’ vampire, or perhaps given terms of royalty like ‘his grace.’ You were not far off: to the vampires, he is a spiritual figure.”
“So he’s bad news, huh?” Bobby sighed.
“Oh, yes yes,” Methuselah replied briskly. “Terribly bad news. If you do get a better look at him, could you write down your observations for my records? Oh, it has been a very long time since someone has encountered an Alpha monster and lived to tell the tale, and more relevantly document it -- ”
“I think we’ll be a little busy,” Bobby growled. “Trying to kill the damn thing without gettin’ our heads bitten off. ... Please tell me it can be killed.”
Methuselah snapped his book shut and stood up, circling his desk and searching through the piles of scrolls and books and rubble on it. “Oh yes, I am quite certain that there is a way to send it back across the mortal veil. Let me find the proper literature so I can corroborate this.” Methuselah brushed his hand over an old book, kicking up a cloud of dust, and he coughed. “Ugh, shmutz everywhere... ” He picked up a leather-bound tome and flipped through it before putting it down. “I hope you are not planning to kill this Alpha vampire any time soon, because the materials for such a ritual may not be sold at your local convenience store -- ”
“Do not concern yourself with materials.” That was the voice introduced as “Cas.” “I am more than capable of acquiring whatever we need.”
Methuselah took off his glasses, squinting as he cleaned them on his tie. “Ah, very well, very well. Sit tight, now, and I will relate the ritual to you just as soon as I find it... ”
-
Amy had an awful feeling that this was why Dad was constantly telling her not to talk to strangers. Which wasn’t fair, because she hadn’t even talked to them.
They’d just shown up in her room one night, big swooping shadows with huge hands, like monsters from under her bed. Maybe that’s what they were, those big strangers with the weird eyes and too many teeth who grabbed her and carried her off. Monsters from under her bed. She supposed that Dad must’ve been lying when he said they didn’t exist. Or maybe he didn’t know.
He probably didn’t know where she was right now either.
Amy huddled further into her hiding place behind an armchair, trying to choke down the tears she could feel. She was tough, and tough girls didn’t cry. Even though she could hear other kids in the room sniffling, and that made it so much harder to be tough. The room reminded her of Dad’s study, with big leather furniture that she would have loved to jump on. None of the kids were jumping on it.
In one corner of the room, avoided by all the other kids, was the only kid who hadn’t been untied when he was brought to the room. Chains shackled him to the wall. Amy thought he might be sick or something, because he was breathing really funny and kept twitching. And he had sharp teeth like the big strangers. Looking at him made her want to cry again, so she tried not to look.
She would be tough and not cry. She had to be.
She might attract His attention if she started crying. He watched from His corner of the room, and Amy didn’t know what would happen if those dark eyes found her.
The door creaked, and all of the sniffling in the room stopped. One of the big strangers stepped inside, a tall woman with a grim face.
“Okay, brats,” she snapped, rolling up her sleeves. “It’s dinner time. Who wants the honor of being Father’s meal tonight?”
A painful silence stretched. Amy tried not to look at the big stranger while also looking at her so she wouldn’t get her attention but could still see what she was doing. Amy shivered as the big stranger’s eyes scanned the room.
“If I don’t get a volunteer, I’ll take whoever I can grab first,” the stranger threatened.
A low voice rumbled through the room, emanating from His chair by the door.
“Do not touch them.”
The big stranger spun around, her eyes going all wide. “Y-your Grace! I was told you were upstairs -- ”
“I am observing the children.” He tapped one long, pointed nail against the leather of his armchair and slowly scraped it. “You have frightened them.”
“I-I only meant to -- ”
“Hush. From now on, no one is to touch the children but me.” He slowly lifted a hand, one taloned finger pointing at the boy chained in the corner. The one that looked sick. “Do you know why he is here?”
“ ... No.” The big stranger frowned. “Wait, is he turned?”
“Yes.”
“Well what good is that? ... With all due respect, Father.”
He chuckled, a low and rich sound. Amy pressed back against the leather of the chair, hugging her knees.
“Do you remember Purgatory, young one? Can you feel the call of it in your bones?”
The big stranger looked confused. “Purgatory?”
“Ah, no, I see you are too young. You do not understand the core of what it means to be a predator.” He beckoned, slowly curling two fingers. The big stranger approached uneasily. “What does the word ‘predator’ mean to you?”
“Um. Something that feeds on prey?” the big stranger ventured.
“Oh no. That is a weak predator.” His hand shot out, quick as lightning, and grabbed the big stranger by the skull. She screamed, and one of the kids screamed too. Amy couldn’t scream, her heart stuck in her throat as He dragged the big stranger’s neck down to his mouth, opening into a cave of sharp teeth --
“A true predator eats everything,” He hissed.
Amy shut her eyes. She didn’t open them for a long time, and didn’t ever want to describe the noises she heard. Eventually there was silence, and then the shuffle of something heavy being dragged away. Amy heard the door latch shut, and she thought maybe He had gone, but she didn’t want to open her eyes.
“No need to cry, little one.”
Amy nearly screamed when she opened her eyes again. He was kneeling in front of her, smiling gently. Like a grandfather.
“I do not harm children.” He reached his taloned hand towards her head, and Amy shut her eyes again, but he only gave her a soft pat. “What is your name?”
“A-Amy,” Amy managed. She sniffled. “I’m not crying. Tough girls don’t cry.”
“I can see that.” He pulled His hand back. “Do you know what a predator is?”
“A p-predator is an animal that eats other animals,” Amy supplied quickly. She had learned that at school.
“Good. You understand more than my henchmen do.” His smile broadened with pride. “Do you know what the best predators eat?”
Amy thought. “ ... The best predators eat... other p-predators?”
His warm chuckle made Amy relax a bit. “Very, very good.”
-
“I think that’s everything.” Castiel deposited an huge armful of objects onto the motel bed. He wrinkled his nose as the three hunters gathered around. “I’m sure this goes without saying, but take care to perform the spell correctly. I may not be able to gather these ingredients a second time. Manticore lice are rare, and gathering them is not pleasant.”
Rufus snorted in displeasure. “Head lice, I hope?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Strewn across the motel bed, in addition to the small vial of wriggling manticore lice, were a variety of spell reagents, three lengths of wood, and three fake handcuffs.
Dean picked up one of the handcuffs, cringing. “Uh, why the handcuffs, Rufus?”
“Fake handcuffs, big difference. We put ‘em on to get smuggled in with the rest of the human victims and then we -- ”
“No, I mean why did you have them? Why do you have so many fake handcuffs?”
“You know how useful it is to look cuffed and not really be cuffed? Everyone oughta carry ‘em.”
Dean flipped the handcuffs over, squinting at a label. “‘Kinky play cuffs,’” he read out loud. He dropped the handcuffs back on the bed like they had burned him.
Rufus snorted and looked away, crossing his arms. “Useful. S’all I’m sayin’.”
“No one is disputing the utility of handcuffs,” Castiel cut in. He picked up the three lengths of wood: one oak, one birch, and one ash. “I’m going to craft these into a weapon, but that is as far as I will be able to assist you. I cannot come with you.”
Dean’s eyes wandered to the window where Sam was sitting. The shell of his brother was staring outside, looking down at the street below.
“You’ll keep an eye on Sammy, yeah?” Dean asked, turning to Castiel.
Castiel gave Sam a worried look. Sam leaned closer to the window, staring in apparent fascination at the pavement several stories below. Castiel stiffly strode across the room and grabbed Sam’s shoulder, pulling him back from the window.
“Yes, I think that would be best,” he agreed.
“Dean, you take the fancy weapon when Cas is done,” Bobby grunted. “You’re the young spry one with the good aim. Don’t you miss.”
Dean nodded. “Don’t plan to.”
Bobby picked up the stack of papers that they had written the spell down on. He sighed. “Well, Rufus, wanna rock-paper-scissors for pullin’ off the spell?”
“You can take care of the spell,” Rufus snorted, shuffling through his duffel bag and and pulling out a short length of pipe. “I’ll handle explosives.”
“We’re not using explosives,” Bobby growled.
“Bullshit. Always bring explosives to Big Bad fights unless the monster is fire-themed. That’s hunter one-o-one, that is.”
“No, no explosives.” Bobby walked over and whacked Rufus over the head with the papers. “So stop makin’ a pipe bomb!”
“We should get some sleep,” Dean cut in, wandering over to the couch and flopping onto it. “We’ve got about five hours before we need to be moving.”
-
Each night, as the sun went down, the glossy black vans of Lioncourt Luxury Hardwoods poured out of the company garage like an oil spill and began to prowl the Chicago streets. Some of them wandered at random, scooping up unsuspecting pedestrians, but others had strict schedules. At five in the morning, they all returned to deliver their nightly haul.
At precisely four forty-five, one of the company vans pulled up and parked on the curb the Sleeping Beauty café, as Dean nursed a steaming paper cup of sharp black coffee under the awning. Right on schedule. Dean watched, sipping his coffee, as a scruffy, sour-faced man climbed out of the van and walked into the café. As soon as the door closed, Dean dropped his stained paper cup into a trash can and darted around the back of the van. He probably had ten minutes tops.
The doors to the back of the van were bolted. Dean slid the thick iron bar out of its lock, and creaked the door open slowly. The van was full of bound, wide-eyed civilians, staring at him in terror out of the darkness, and Dean quickly held a finger up to his lips.
“Don’t say anything,” he hissed. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the van, he realized they were all gagged, thick strips of cloth shoved in each mouth. “ ... Oh. Guess that’s not an issue.”
Dean climbed into the van and shut the door, locking it. In the darkness, he groped around until he had wedged himself onto the leather seat between two captives.
“Everyone act normal,” he urged as he pulled a strip of bandage fabric out of his pocket. “Pretend I’ve been here all along. I’m here to break you guys out.” When he was met with an incredulous silence, Dean grinned. “Perfect. You guys are real naturals.”
He stuffed the fabric in his mouth, tying it around the back of his head. Next came the handcuffs, latched behind his back. Dean had barely settled in when he heard footsteps approaching the van, and the doors were unlocked and thrown open.
“New bunkmate,” the vampire snapped, shoving a sobbing young woman inside so that she stumbled to the floor. “Play nice, bloodbags. Next stop is home.”
The doors were slammed shut, leaving them in pitch darkness again, and Dean blew out a breath through his nose. So far so good. He hoped Bobby and Rufus had fared as well with their respective vans.
Soon the engine was revving up, and then they were moving. As he was jostled against the other bound captives in the blackness, Dean wondered if anyone would believe that he rode into battle against the father of all vampires wearing sex shop handcuffs.
The grind of the van’s breaks and the sudden silence of the engine cutting off were the only sign they had arrived. The doors of the van opened and Dean blinked in the sudden, harsh light. Outside he could see incandescent bulbs, concrete, more black vans. A scowling vampire with graying hair hauled himself into the back of the van, and the captives all shrunk back in alarm. The vampire grabbed the young woman on the floor and hauled her to her feet, dragging her out of the van as she struggled. Dean could see her sneakers fighting for purchase on the smooth floor.
“All right, bloodbags, I’m missing dinner for this!” a vampire bellowed from outside the van. It sounded like their driver. “The first person to make a problem of themselves is gonna make it up to me personally!”
One by one, the captives were pulled, squirming and whimpering, out of the van. When a powerful, calloused hand wrapped around Dean’s arm, he let himself be wrenched to his feet and led out of the van. What he stepped into was a large garage, cold and clean. Black vans were parked in a row like kenneled dogs. Corralled by several vampires, the captives from Dean’s van were led in a line across the bare cement towards a door, clustering there. Dean looked around the vast garage, but they were the only unloading van. No Bobby or Rufus in sight.
Dean hoped there wouldn’t be pat-downs involved. Under his jacket, he had a machete and an ancient weapon crafted from three holy woods by an angel, specially designed to destroy the most powerful of vampires. That might raise some questions.
Dean was shoved roughly in the direction of the other captives, and he grunted in displeasure. The gag was taking on a sour taste in his mouth, and he had a burning urge to spit it out.
“Get ‘em down to the pantry,” the driver barked, waving his arm and directing the other vampires. “We’re already late!”
Late was good news. It meant that Bobby and Rufus were probably already here, stowed away in the “pantry” and ready to start performing the spell. Dean shuffled towards the other humans, doing his best to look scared and defeated.
A rough hand grabbed Dean’s shoulder, halting him. He was wrenched around, and found himself staring at the scowling driver. Between the cracked lips and unkept stubble were needle-sharp fangs.
“This one from my van?” the driver barked to the room in general.
Another vampire snorted. “Course he is, your van’s the only one here!”
“Really?” The driver leaned close, his lips curling, his voice lowering. “Now that’s real funny. Cause I don’t remember pickin’ you up.”
Shit. Dean’s thumb found the safety latch of his cuffs, ready to flip them open.
“Now, I know every bloodbag I pick up,” the driver growled, his fingers digging painfully into Dean’s shoulder. “E’ry one. I don’t make mistakes.”
“Except being late,” snapped one of the other vampires. “We’re missing dinner for this!”
The driver whirled around, still gripping Dean’s shoulder, and Dean was nearly yanked off his feet. “I keep track of my stock! I never put this one in the van!”
“Oh, so he put himself in there? Genius plan!”
Dean clicked the cuffs open, slipping his hand free. C’mon, Bobby.
“Well, I guess he did!” the driver spat, giving Dean a rough shake and turning back to face him, face twisted in rage. “So which is it, pal? You a vamp fetishist, or a filthy little hunt--”
Out of time. Dean reached under his jacket and grabbed the machete, swinging it up above his head and driving it down into the vampire’s neck with all of his strength. The head toppled to the floor with a harsh thud, followed shortly by the rest of the body.
Dean ripped the gag out of his mouth as the vampires snarled at him, baring their fangs. Five, six, seven... shit, eight vampires. Dean took a step backwards as they closed in slowly, keeping his machete raised. C’mon, Bobby!
“Don’t know what your plan was, hunter,” came a voice behind him. Dean spun around, cursing under his breath as another vampire emerged from the group of captives. “But it was a bad one.”
Dean backed up, turning, trying to keep all the grinning vampires in his field of vision at once. He stumbled and barely managed to hold his balance. Did the ground just move?
“I take it back,” one of the vampires sneered as they closed in. “I’m glad we missed dinner for this. Dibs on his jugular.”
This time Dean was certain that a tremor passed through the cement beneath his feet. Instead of fading, it intensified, and Dean could tell from the vampires’ confused faces that they felt it too.
“The hell is that -- ”
A bang like a firing canon thundered through the walls of the room, shaking dust from the ceiling. Dean nearly fell from his feet, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes as the rumbling faded. When he looked up again, every vampire in the room was limp on the floor, collapsed.
Dean blew out a weary breath and lowered his machete. “Damn. That spell has some kick.” He checked his watch. They had forty minutes before the spell wore off and this overpriced place turned back into vamp central.
The crowd of captives were staring at him like he was on fire. Dean sighed and put his machete away, stepping over the bodies on the floor and approaching the captives.
“All right,” he called, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, “let’s get those gags off, and then you’re on your own. Please, just... don’t start screaming or anything. Just leave through any door you find, no one’s gonna stop you.” He heard a squelch beneath his boot and winced. He’d stepped in the blood spreading from the decapitated vampire. “ ... Okay, I know this looks bad,” he admitted as the captives stared at him in horror, “but please don’t call the cops for the next forty minutes.”
-
The mansion reeked of money. Dean’s boot left sticky bloody footprints over the expensive carpets and hardwood floors as he navigated his way through the house, following a quickly-drawn map from his pocket. Bobby and Rufus must have been delivered to the “pantry,” if they had pulled off the spell. Hopefully, they hadn’t gone far from there.
He checked his watch. Thirty-four minutes left.
Dean rounded a corner and nearly collided with Rufus. Both men cursed and staggered back, machetes drawn, as a singed-looking Bobby caught up.
“Easy, boys,” Bobby grumbled. “We oughta be the only conscious ones around here, ‘sides the Alpha. Unless that spell had the teeth to take him out, which I doubt.” He nodded at Dean. “You sure took your time.”
Dean sheathed his machete. “Bus ran late. Didn’t you used to have eyebrows?”
“Har de har.” Bobby rubbed soot off his cheek with the back of his hand. “Spell had some kick. If you’re done joking around, we’ve got a vampire god to gank and not a whole lot of time to do it.”
The doors to the dining hall alone were impressive. They arched twice Dean’s height in a blood-red wood, carved with a writhing mass of human bodies, all bleeding.
Bobby snorted as he craned his neck. “Ain’t that charming,” he breathed.
It took all three of them to move the massive slab of wood. There was no way to do it stealthily; it creaked like a ship in a storm. As the three men pushed and the massive door slowly dragged open across the marble floor, the dining hall stretched before them, all black glass windows and scarlet walls.
“Slow,” scolded a low voice from inside the room.
Dean froze, his shoulder pressed against the door.
“It has been eight full minutes since you cast your spell,” the voice continued. “Wasteful of you to take so long. Of course, one way or another, this fight will be over in a matter of seconds. So perhaps it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Dean cursed under his breath and slumped against the door. No point in hiding. He reached under his jacket and pulled out the sharpened wooden stake, two feet long, banded with the three different woods.
“Come out, children. I could hear your hearts beating from down the hall. Stealth was never a weapon you had.”
Bobby grumbled and pushed through the crack in the door. Dean grunted and followed him, stepping into the grand room.
Between the tall, dark windows, meat hooks jutted from the scarlet victorian wallpaper like silver antlers. All but one of them was clean.
“I must congratulate you on the spell,” spoke the Alpha vampire as He stood beneath the still-dripping corpse impaled on the wall just above Him. Dark blood had drenched her denim jeans, her head hanging limp on her neck, dark hair crusted with drying blood.
“That is some very old magic you used,” the Alpha continued. “I have not seen it in quite a long time. A good choice.” In one dark, clawed hand, he swirled a fine crystal wine glass. Something red that definitely wasn’t wine sloshed inside. “It’s always a pleasure to meet competent hunters.”
Dean’s fist tightened on the wooden stake as he strode closer. Bobby and Rufus started fanning out on either side. He could see them both pulling out machetes. Probably not enough to kill this son of a bitch, but better than empty hands.
The Alpha vampire turned. His face on another man may have looked no older than fifty. But there were centuries behind his eyes. His ancient gaze settling on each of them in turn. “Tell me, hunters. Do you know why dead man’s blood is toxic to vampires?”
“Don’t talk to him,” Bobby grunted under his breath. “The old vampires hunt with words as much as fangs.”
The Alpha vampire frowned. “Watch yourself, hunter.” He turned back to the corpse dangling limp on the meat hook. “It’s about the power of taking a life. The spark of fire inside all living things.” He swept a hand up at the slumping corpse. “If I were to drink from her now, the taste would choke me. It is the taste of cheating, of settling for mere scavenging when one is capable of a true hunt.” He lifted the wine glass. “But this blood was taken as she hung gasping and dying, still drawing the breath of life. Even though she now lies dead, this blood does not, for it was wrenched from a living body that still had fight in it.” He lifted the glass to His lips, taking a long, slow sip. He seemed to savor it.
“Fascinating,” Dean ground out.
The Alpha looked down into His wine glass, swirling it. “Dead pray is no challenge at all.” His voice was thick with disgust. “How appropriate that the blood of the dead makes us weak, just as a lack of challenge will weaken us. Most vampires are too young to understand this. The highest calling of all is to devour the strong.”
Dean continued approaching, his knuckles white on his weapon. Bobby and Rufus had closed in on either side of the alpha, and they were nearly within striking distance.
“ ... So perhaps you understand what a good deed you are doing me by being here,” the Alpha concluded. He turned to face them. “Will you be the ones to kill me? Who knows. Probably not. But you might.” He slowly tipped up His glass and downed the rest of the blood, staring into the empty crystal. “It is not often that I find myself hunted. Much less by someone with even the slimmest chance of besting me.” His hand tightened around the glass until it shattered in His fist, bloody shards tinkling to the marble floor. “And I do not believe that you can fathom how deeply I thirst for the blood of a fellow hunter.”
“We live to please,” Bobby growled dryly, making the Alpha’s eyes snap towards him. In that instant, Rufus charged.
The Alpha barely seemed to move, but somehow Rufus’s blade was flying out of his hands and he was knocked to the floor. Dean leapt over the table that barred his way just as Bobby raised his machete --
The Alpha spun, grabbing Bobby’s wrist and twisting. A scream wrenched out of Bobby, followed by a sickening pop.
“Too reckless,” the Alpha chided calmly, grabbing the front of Bobby’s shirt. He flung his arm out, and Bobby was thrown violently across the room. He hit the expensive dining table and crumpled. “You are not fighting a common vampire. If you do not use some creativity -- ”
The Alpha turned just as Dean was raising the stake to strike Him in the chest, and His hand shot out.
Blinding pain ripped across Dean’s face, crushing his nose and tearing across his eyelid and sinking into his cheeks. He felt the stake being ripped out of his hand as stars of pain danced in his vision, and he was pretty sure he was screaming but could only tell by the noise bouncing off the walls. The Alpha watched calmly, His hand splayed across Dean’s face, grinding shards of glass into the flesh as He squeezed.
“Don’t interrupt,” He ordered softly, holding Dean at arm’s length and watching blood drip down his chin. “I do not appreciate my lessons being disrespected.”
Dean’s left eye felt like it was boiling. His hands were shaking as he grabbed the Alpha’s wrist and tried to wrench His hand off. Struggling hurt like fire, ripping the wounds across his face, but the Alpha’s fingers tightened and wouldn’t let him go.
“I told you,” the Alpha murmured, shifting his grip on the wooden stake. “This would be a short fight.” He held it up, ready to drive it into Dean’s chest. “Any final words of defiance?”
“Fire in the hole!”
Dean couldn’t see Rufus through the rough fingers grabbing his face, but he recognized the man’s voice and knew what it meant. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his machete, swinging it up as hard as he could --
The Alpha’s only response was to blink in surprise when His severed hand thumped to the floor, rolling and stopping next to the pipe bomb at His feet. Dean didn’t have time to notice the hot pain on his face because he was running, vaulting back over the table and throwing himself behind an toppled table --
The blast rattled the floor and shattered one of the tall black windows, sending a cascade of glass outside and letting the first, golden rays of dawn shine into the room. Dean felt the impact against the table he was hiding behind, hard as a tumbling boulder. He huddled with his arms over his head as the dust settled and the chandeliers overhead swung and tinkled like wind chimes. There was no sound from the Alpha vampire.
Dean lowered his arms and cautiously peered over the table, viewing the damage of Rufus’s bomb. The crimson wallpaper had been blasted away, and the nearby wooden furniture had been charred or was actively burning. Where the Alpha had been standing, there was only a black blast on the marble floor, the incinerated remains of an expensive carpet. Dean craned his head up and flinched. The huge steel meat hook on the wall had a second occupant.
“ ... Bobby?” Dean called, getting to his feet without taking his eyes off the impaled vampire. “Rufus? You okay?”
A pained groan from Bobby. “I’ll live. It’s nothing that -- nnnnnnahfuck -- popping my shoulder back into its socket won’t fix.”
Dean could hear Rufus moving to help Bobby.
“On your feet, old man.”
“You’re one to talk, codger... ”
"You ever gonna lecture me ‘bout ‘splosives again?"
"Stuff it, you old bat."
Dean lifted a hand to his bleeding face, wincing when he touched it, as he approached the Alpha. There was blood dripping from the vampire’s mouth, and the polished steel of the hook jutted out of His chest, but His dark, ancient eyes were open and locked on Dean.
He whispered through the blood. “ ... Let me taste.”
Dean grimaced and leaned down to pick up the wooden stake. There wasn’t a scratch on it.
“How’s your throwing arm, kid?” Bobby called.
Dean lifted the wooden stake and gauged his shot. Depth perception was tricky with one if his eyes swollen shut, but he could manage. “Good enough.”
“Just one taste... ” the Alpha pressed. He grabbed the meat hook with His one remaining hand and leaned forward, hungrily, towards Dean. “No one has ever done this well against me. I must know what such a predator tastes like.”
“I’ll pass,” Dean grunted. He heaved the wooden stake like a spear.
The Alpha’s hand shot out and snatched the stake out of the air. He slowly cocked his head as Dean stepped back in alarm.
“One taste,” the Alpha repeated. “I will taste at least one of you before you die.” His arm moved, and the wooden stake shot like a javelin down the length of the hall and clattered against the far wall of the dining room. The Alpha grabbed the steel of the meat hook with his one good hand and and pulled himself up it.
“Dean!” Rufus drew his machete, standing between Bobby and the Alpha. “Stake this son of a bitch!”
Dean turned and ran, away from the smoldering furniture and the shattered window, leaving footprints of ash and blood across the pristine marble floors as he sprinted down the length of the vast hall towards the distant promise of his weapon --
There was a solid thump as the Alpha’s feet hit the scorched marble floor. Dean could hear pounding footsteps, pursuing him faster than any human could. The wooden stake was just a few feet away.
Dean dove for it, grabbing the stake and rolling over as he jabbed it upwards with the same motion.
The Alpha panted down at Dean with glazed eyes, his hand locked around Dean’s throat. Dean's chest heaved. The wooden stake was buried so deep in the Alpha's chest that it jutted out of his back.
“ ... One taste,” He whispered in awe. “Please.”
Dean grunted and shoved the vampire off. There was no more life in the Alpha’s eyes when His body hit the floor.
Bobby hobbled over, helped by Rufus, as Dean wrenched out the bloody wooden stake. He heaved an exhausted breath.
“Y’know, it really could have gone worse.”
Bobby scowled. “Tell that to my rib.”
Dean touched his face and winced. “Well, we’re walkin’, aren’t we? Or limping, in your case. Let’s get out of here before -- ” Dean cringed as he saw what Rufus was holding. “Ugh, Rufus, why the shit do you have his hand?”
Rufus gave Dean a disappointed look. He lifted the bloody severed hand. “Hunter one-o-one,” he explained slowly, as if afraid Dean wouldn’t follow. “Always nab yourself a body part or two. You never know when a ritual is gonna call for ‘em.” He checked his watch. “I’d be grabbin’ the whole corpse, but we got twenty-nine minutes to get out of here before the spell wears off.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, where the curtains and a good number of chairs were burning. “ ... Assuming the whole place doesn’t go up in flames first.”
In a jolt of panic, Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his map. “Kids,” he said in a rush, “the Alpha kept kids here. We can’t leave without busting them out.”
-
Something bad was going on outside. Amy was sure of it. First there was a loud, loud boom that she thought was going to break the walls, and since then no one had been in the room to check on them. Father was supposed to visit them and bring them dinner, but he hadn’t come. Had they done something to make him angry? The thought chilled Amy. Her tummy was rumbling and she didn’t know what was going on and she was having a hard time being tough and not crying.
... Plus, that creepy kid who was chained in the corner hadn’t moved since the loud bang, and she thought maybe he could be dead and she wished someone would come do something about that.
The sound of footsteps outside the door were the sweetest noise Amy had ever heard in her nine years of life. She wiped her eyes off and stood up. She didn’t want Father to see her crying. That would make him very disappointed.
There was a lot of clicking at the door, and then it creaked open. But the scruffy old man who peered inside wasn’t Father.
“Shit,” the man breathed, looking around the room. “I mean fudge. He was drinking from fudging kids. What kind of sick bastard... ”
He opened the door further, and Amy could see there were two more men outside. One of them had a beard and a hat, and one of them had his face all cut up. They were all splattered in a red liquid that made Amy’s stomach twist. Amy was scared, really scared, but she stood up straight.
“Where is Father?” she demanded.
The man with the beard stepped into the room. He looked sad. “Don’t you worry, munchkin, no one’s gonna hurt you any more. We’re taking all of you home.”
Amy’s scowl faded and her shoulders eased. “ ... Home?”
The bearded man nodded. “Round up all your little buddies, all right? Let’s do this nice and orderly, walk right on out of here.”
Amy pointed to the kid chained to the corner. “He can’t walk. He’s sick. Or sleeping.”
The two older men looked sad as they turned their eyes to the boy in the corner, but the younger one with the hurt face looked like he’d been shot. Amy could hear his breathing.
“Dean,” the bearded man said gently. “If you’re not up to it -- ”
“We can’t do it here,” the man named Dean choked out. “I’m not -- I’m not doing it in front of the kids.”
The bearded man sighed. “ ... All right. Scoop him up and let’s be on our way, we’re running out of time.” He looked around the room, at the scared kids huddling behind the furniture, and turned back to Amy. “You seem like a tough cookie. Can you help me round up all these pipsqueaks?”
Amy puffed out her chest. She was glad he had noticed. “Yes I can!”
-
The smoldering furniture on the scorched floor of the dining hall gave way to dancing flames. They licked their way across the expensive carpets and the decorative tables and leapt like gazelles to the curtains. There, the flames blossomed into a blaze, roaring up the velvet until they could reach the wooden rafters.
By the time three hunters and a flurry of uncoordinated children fled out the main doors of the mansion, there were flames leaping out through the broken windows as if straining towards the golden light of dawn. Before long, half the mansion was ablaze, pouring smoke into the sky.
Across the street, under a tree that kept off the worst of the morning sunlight, an immaculately dressed blond man stood calmly and watched a decade of planning and billions of dollars burn to the ground.
“I am done,” Oscar declared to no one in particular as another window shattered under the roaring heat. “That’s it. Suzie wins. I’ve had it with America and its batshit hunters. I’m going back to Venezuela.”
With that, Oscar turned his back on the inferno and pulled out a phone, dialing his travel agent and keeping to the shadows as he strode away.
-
Dean stared out the backseat window as they drove home. The harder he pressed his forehead against the cold glass, the less he had to look at the seat next to him. It hurt his wounded face, but it was better than seeing the small, limp body crumpled in the back seat.
“Glad you stashed the truck, Rufus,” Bobby grunted through obvious pain. “I’m in no mood for a stroll.”
“Especially not with -- ” Rufus cut himself off, and Dean didn’t need to see the man’s face to know why. “ ... lookin’ like we just came from a slaughterhouse.”
Running around in broad daylight with an apparently-dead kid was the issue.
Dean kept his eyes out the window and a hand on his machete the whole way home.
-
The motel elevator dinged as it opened, and Dean prayed no one was awake yet as he and Bobby and Rufus walked down the hall to their room. The last thing they needed was someone calling the cops because three grown men covered in blood were carrying a dead child down a motel hallway, tracking soot all over the cheap carpet floor.
The hall was blissfully quiet.
Rufus opened the door, and Dean heaved a deep breath of relief as he followed Rufus inside. He had barely gotten through the door when a panicked Castiel was in his face.
“Good, you’re back, you all survived,” the angel spilled out. His face was pale. “I think I’ve done something wrong. Very, very wrong.”
Dean blinked with his one good eye, wincing. “What are you talking about?”
Castiel seemed to notice the blood. “You’re hurt,” he remarked. He pressed two fingers against Dean’s forehead, and a flood of cool relief washed through Dean’s face, erasing the pain. Dean blinked again, with both eyes this time. Castiel gave Rufus and Bobby got the same treatment, then gazed sadly at Ben.
“I can’t do anything about that one.”
“Cas, what do you mean you’ve done something wrong?” Dean demanded. He looked around the room. “Where’s Sam?”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Castiel’s voice was miserable. “I -- I need to confirm this. I need to see if this is even possible. It shouldn’t be.”
“Cas, what -- ”
Castiel vanished. Dean groaned.
“ ... Great. Very helpful.”
There was a sneeze from the bathroom. Dean dumped Ben’s limp body on the couch and raced across the room, hurrying through the bathroom door. Sam was standing in front of the sink, surrounded by offensively yellow tiles and holding a glass of water. He took a sip without acknowledging Dean.
“ ... Sammy?” Dean tried.
Sam looked at him, face blank. Dean sighed.
“ ... No more screwed up than before, I see.” Dean gestured for Sam to follow. “Come on, out of the bathroom. We’ve got a kid more sick than you who needs to be in here.”
-
There was a clock in the bathroom. It was yellow with a big happy sun on it. Sitting on the yellow tile floor next to the bathtub, Dean watched in agony as the little red hand ticked from one second to the next. Ben lay in the bathtub, motionless. The sun’s smile refused to get any less ecstatic.
The bathroom door was shut and locked. Dean could hear Bobby and Rufus murmuring in the main room. They'd both begged him to take care of things before the vampire spell wore off, to not make things harder, but he couldn’t. Dean knew he could gank a monster that was looking him in the eye, but not a sleeping kid. Dean drummed his fingers against the hilt of his machete and watched the seconds creep by.
Even though he was expecting it, the first soft noise from Ben made Dean’s heart race. He got up on his knees and peered over the edge of the tub as Ben pulled himself clumsily upright.
“Hey,” Dean tried gently, reaching out to grab Ben’s shoulder. “Hey, kid, it’s me.”
Ben was wobbling like he was drunk, breathing raggedly. His dilated eyes found their way to Dean's.
Dean swallowed and gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze. "H-hey. Ben. You in there?"
Lurching, Ben grabbed the rim of the tub and leaned towards Dean. He was gasping like his small body was trying to breathe for a much larger creature.
Dean tightened his grip on Ben's shoulder, holding him at arm's length. "Easy -- "
Ben's lips pulled back and his fangs slid out of his gums. He pushed harder against Dean's hold on his shoulder, straining towards the man. His pupils were blown so wide his iris was barely visible.
Dean took a deep, shuddering breath. " ... Y-you're not in there at all, are you, kid?"
A thin, strained noise pulled itself out of Ben's throat. He made another hungry lunge for Dean, nearly slipping off the rim of the tub.
" ... I'm so sorry." Dean pushed Ben down in the tub, ignoring his hiss of rage. His hand was shaking on Ben's shoulder and his eyes were burning. "I know you weren't my kid, but I always thought of you that way. I should have saved you. Should have been a better dad and I -- I'm so sorry."
Dean lifted the machete and shut his eyes.
-
The wind blew, cold and crisp. It stung Dean's eyes as he tossed the last shovel-full of dirt over the fresh grave.
Chicago was far behind. Rufus had taken off on his own again -- this was more socializing than he was accustomed to, he said -- so Dean and Bobby and Sam were heading home alone. Dean needed them to make one detour first, to a nice open field a reasonable drive from Lisa's house.
"You need a moment?" Bobby asked as he took the shovel from Dean's limp hands.
Dean nodded. Bobby turned and left him alone under the single oak tree with the fresh grave at its roots. Dean supposed he ought to say some words here, but nothing was coming. So instead he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he'd been avoiding.
It went to voice mail, as he expected.
"Lisa? It's me." Dean watched wind whisk trails of dirt off the top of the grave as he spoke. "I don’t wanna bother you, I just... just thought this might bring you some closure." He took a deep breath. "I found what was left of Ben. He's -- " Dean blinked when he heard the phone click. "Lisa? Are you there?"
"Don't give me details," Lisa cut in. "All I need to know is whether or not he suffered, and if he's still suffering."
Dean stared at the grave. " ... I don't even think he was conscious, Lisa. I think... no, he didn’t suffer. And... no." He pulled his gaze away from that soft mound of earth. "He's not suffering any more."
Silence from the phone. Dean pressed on before she could hang up.
"I've buried him, Lisa. It’s about two hours out from the old house, I don't know about your new place. I can text you the lat and long." He looked up at the oak tree, at the rustling leaves overhead. " ... It's pretty out here, Lisa."
Still nothing. Dean pressed the phone closer to his ear. "Lisa? You still there?"
" ... Thank you."
Dean let out a long breath that the wind carried away. He stood in silence with the phone pressed to his face for a long time before Lisa said, "Goodbye, Dean."
"Goodbye, Lisa." Dean hung up, and turned his feet towards the Impala and away from the grave under the tree.
Four of hearts, five of diamonds, seven of hearts, jack of spades, two of hearts. They were cards that had seen a lot of gritty, sweaty hands, a lot of beer spills and peanut salt. The red of the hearts and diamonds had faded to a dried-blood brown, barely distinguishable from the black. Dean stared at the battered, yellowed cards on Bobby’s coffee table like his life depended on it, resting his elbows on his knees. He didn’t need to look at his own cards again. Four of spades and two of clubs. Two pair. Not a bad hand.
Staring placidly at absolutely nothing, haloed by afternoon light slanting through the window behind him, Sam sat on threadbare the couch on the other side of the table. Half of his substantial bounty of plastic chips was in the pot. Whatever Sam had, or was pretending to have, it was a little more than not bad. Nearly sweating, Dean flicked his gaze between the cards and Sam’s face, searching for a tick, a tell. Anything to let him know if Sam was bluffing, or if he really did have a flush or a straight.
Mostly, Sam looked bored.
“What in blazes are you doing?”
Dean nearly jumped out of his seat at the sound of Bobby’s voice. He looked up from the game.
“Texas hold ‘em, what’s it look like?”
Bobby approached the game, staring at the cards in disbelief. “Well, I’ll be. How’d you rope captain coma into that? I can’t even get him to fill his damn pits in.”
Dean grunted, turning back to the cards on the table. “Two good hours of mind-numbing debate. Told him I’ll help him dig if he wins.”
“It took two hours for him to agree to that?”
Sam blinked, and Dean scoffed. “The guy can connect point A to point B without trouble, but once C and D and E get involved, he goes back to digging his pits.” Dean’s fingers drummed against his arm. “What took two hours was convincing him that if he stopped digging now, he might be able to dig faster later.”
Bobby nodded, watching the game. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “So how are you losing?”
Dean slammed his hand down on the table. “Have you seen this asshole? He’s got the poker face of a brick wall!”
“Uh huh. And what’s the bet if you win?” Bobby’s eyebrows rose as he looked at Dean’s pile of chips. “Not that there’s much danger of that.”
“Shut up. If I win, he... plays another game.”
Bobby nodded. “ ... So you can lose that one instead?”
Dean snarled and tossed three of his chips into the pot. “Fine! Call! I fucking call your raise!”
Sam was still staring at the far wall. Dean waved his hands.
“Move! Go! Your turn! Show your damn hand!”
Sam looked at Dean, then at the pot. “Raise,” he said tonelessly, tossing five more scratched-up chips into the pot.
“Damn it!” Dean thumped his fist onto the table again. “No! I’m not busting out over your goddamn flush!” Dean shoved his cards forward. “Fold!”
Sam stared at Dean’s hand for a moment, then scooped the heaping pile of chips in the pot, dragging it towards him. Dean drummed his fingers tensely against the table.
“Well?” he snapped. “What’d you have?”
Sam lifted his eyes slowly, looking half-asleep. “I don’t have to tell.”
Dean snarled in exasperation and rubbed his hand roughly over his face.
“Well, god bless, I see Sam’s knowledge of poker rules remains intact,” Bobby mused. He squinted as Dean gathered up the cards. “Don’t deal again. We need to talk.”
“We definitely don’t need to talk,” Dean grunted, expertly splitting and shuffling the worn deck.
“Dean.”
“Bobby.” Dean choked out a weary laugh. “I spent two hours convincing him to do stop digging holes and play poker. Let me have this?”
“You need to get out of the house, Dean. Ain’t good for you to stay here.”
Dean’s shuffling slowed, his eyes sliding out of focus. “ ... Nowhere else for me to be.”
“Sure there is.” Bobby gave Dean a firm clap on the shoulder that made him sway. “Rufus has a job in Chicago. Lots of missing people.”
Dean grunted. “Isn’t that just Chicago being Chicago?”
“Rufus thinks it’s vamps. And you’re going with him. I’ve already got one vegetable in the house, I don’t need two.”
Dean’s face hardened. He twisted his shoulder away from Bobby’s hand. “Even if I was going to start hunting again, which I’m not, the last thing I’d want to hunt is -- ” Dean turned back to the deck and started shuffling, agitated and quick. “ ... Not vamps, Bobby. I’m not messing with vamps again.”
“Like hell. You go willingly, or I’ll have Rufus tranq you and throw you in the back of his car.”
“Bobby -- ” Dean rubbed a hand over his face, gritting his teeth. “Please. I promised Sam I’d stop hunting.”
Bobby glanced at Sam, who was giving the wood grain of the floor a deeply troubled look. “Yeah... I got a suspicion that he don’t care.”
“No, I mean... before. Before the swan dive.” Dean limply dealt another round. The old cards slid across Bobby’s scuffed coffee table. “Before Sam said yes to Lucifer, I promised I’d give up the life. It was his dying wish, Bobby, I can’t.”
Bobby watched as Dean picked up his hand. Sam stared at his own cards blankly for a moment before following suit. Bobby sighed.
“Well... at least you’re admitting he’s gone.”
Dean winced. Without looking, he tossed his ante into the pot, and Sam did the same. He yelped when Bobby smacked the back of his head.
“Then don’t be so damn dense, boy!” Bobby snapped. “Why exactly do you think Sam wanted you giving up hunting? It was to make you happy!” Bobby growled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “God knows, you’ve damn near gotta be forced!”
Dean rubbed the back of his head, glaring at Bobby. “Ow.”
Bobby shoved one gruff finger in Dean’s face. “You listen here, kid: I’ve known Sam near as long as you, and I know that this right here -- ” Bobby gestured at the poker game. “ -- is not what he wanted for you. Sam wanted you to have a life, a family and a god damn normal job, so you’d move on from his death. And you’re sitting here playing poker with his corpse.”
Dean stared at Bobby. His gaze dropped down to the stained cards in his hand, the chips in the pot, and finally shifted up to Sam’s vacant eyes. Dean blinked as if seeing him for the first time.
Bobby gave Dean another clap on the shoulder. “Pack up this evening, take whatever supplies you need. Rufus is swinging by in the morning, and you’re leaving with him.”
----
Rufus’s car rolled up Bobby’s dusty driveway at the wee hour of eleven forty-three in the morning. It grumbled across the gravel, grumbled to a halt, and then Rufus grumbled his way out of the car and grumbled up to the porch where Dean and Bobby were waiting. Bobby had a whiskey bottle dangling from his hand, but hadn’t touched it all morning. Dean was favoring coffee.
“This thing goes deep, Bobby!” Rufus declared by way of greeting, stomping up the creaky porch stairs. He snatched the whiskey bottle out of Bobby’s hand, unscrewing the cap. “Chicago’s an ant nest; the more I dig, the more I find, and the nastier it gets!”
Bobby gestured at the whiskey bottle as Rufus took a long, deep draw on it. “You’re welcome.”
Rufus lowered the bottle and gave it back to Bobby, letting out a relieved sigh. “So,” he began as if speaking to them for the first time, “I hear you’re tagging along, Dean?”
Dean grunted and took a sip of coffee. “Yeah, seems that way.”
“Great. Good. This case is gonna need all the muscle it can get.” He gave Dean a dismissive wave. “Even if that muscle is coming from your dumb ass.”
Dean snorted into his coffee. “Great to see you too.”
----
Rufus was insistent on bringing his truck. He wanted to know if they were driving together, and if he’d “have to put up with Dean’s face for the entire ride.” The company was tempting, even if the company was slightly bonkers, but Dean knew that if he was going to get back into hunting, he had to do it right.
He felt a little guilty about the thrill that went through him seeing Baby’s shiny trunk all loaded up with hunting supplies again. He couldn’t keep a smile off his face when he climbed in the driver’s seat and twisted the key in, pulling a hungry growl from her engine.
“Going hunting again, girl,” he murmured, giving her a little more gas than necessary as he pulled out of Bobby’s lot ahead of Rufus.
----
It was raining outside the Sleeping Beauty café, water pouring off the red awning in sheets. It was a cold rain, a relentless rain, promising the kind of chill that soaked into the bones and would not be banished. The sun had risen a scant hour ago, but not a trace of it was visible through the thick, dark clouds, leaving the Chicago streets dark and dreary.
Even though a dull neon sign in the Sleeping Beauty café’s window proclaimed “OPEN,” two people huddled just under the awning, making no move to go inside and get warm.
“If Jack doesn’t bring someone out out in the next twenty minutes, I’m bailing,” the taller one snapped. Her dark, sodden hair hung in wet ropes around her pale face. “I’m a vampire, not a fish.”
Her soggy companion hissed, looking over his shoulder nervously. “Keep your voice down!”
“Why? No one’s gonna believe it.” The taller vampire grinned. “Or if someone does, it’ll be because they want me to take them out back and give ‘em a nip. Hm?”
“You’re gonna get us killed. You don’t know if any of these people are hunters.”
The vampire grumbled, but fell silent. The wind roared, rain poured down, and the early morning commuters whooshed by on the wet roads, windshield wipers pumping, sending up cold mist behind them.
“Twenty minutes,” the taller vampire muttered, sullenly watching rain water drip from her hair. “Jack has twenty more minutes to seduce the scarf off of some human and bring them out. Then I’m bailing.”
“We’ll wait as long as we have to,” the other vampire growled. Unlike his partner, he had a hood pulled up to keep off the worst of the rain that was blown under the awning by the wind. “No one’s gonna want to come out in this weather, it may take Jack some time.”
“I don’t want to be out in this weather.” The taller vampire shifted her feet on the wet cement. “I’d rather be somewhere nice and dry with a tasty, warm body to -- ”
“Shut up.”
The vampire fell silent, turning her pale face towards the street. Two men were running down the sidewalk through the pounding rain, and as the vampire watched, they came to a stop under the awning outside the cafe. The older one wiped rain off his forehead and mustache, giving the sign on the door a suspicious look.
“Sleepin’ Beauty?” he read out loud. “This place got coffee at least?”
“It’d better,” the younger one grunted, pulling his sodden leather jacket tighter around himself. He glanced at the two vampires for a moment, his breath short from running. His hair was plastered against his head with water, droplets running down his face. The taller vampire grinned at him brightly.
“It’s got coffee,” she assured him.
The man gave her a crooked smile. “Awesome. Thanks.”
“I don’t care if it’s called Pretty Pony Teatime,” the older man grunted, wrenching the door open. “Let’s get the fuck inside.”
After a moment, the younger man followed, and the door swung shut behind them with a friendly chime.
The vampire nudged her partner, watching the men find a seat through the glass of the window. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Her partner wasn’t looking, but he was smiling. “Mm-hm. I think the Boss is gonna love him.”
----
At least it was warm inside the Sleeping Beauty café, Dean thought. Even if the decor looked a little...
“What would you call this?” Dean grunted, gesturing with his cup of coffee at the low lighting and the red upholstery. “Porno-chic?”
“I’d call it warm and dry,” Rufus replied. His coffee was already half-gone.
Dean glared at their surroundings, hunkering over his mug. Everything was either red, black, or pink. Dean was no interior designer, but even he could tell that this is what the word “clashing” had been created for.
Rufus was hands-down the oldest person there, and Dean thought he might be the second oldest. It was early, and there weren’t many patrons seated at the jet black plastic tables, but none of them looked old enough to drink. Seated at the table closest to Dean were a young couple, a girl and an older-looking boy, wearing equal amounts of eyeliner. The girl was dressed in few pounds of black lace, right down to a lace choker with a cross dangling from it that she tugged on shyly. The young man, if anything, had even crazier fashion. Dean didn’t know what you’d call that thing with all the ruffles, but it looked a few generations out of its time. Or maybe centuries. Dean caught the phrase “people just don’t understand me” before he tuned out with a scoff.
“Come on, no one’s voice is naturally that low and gravely,” he grumbled.
“We here to hunt or not?”
“Okay, fine. Catch me up.”
Rufus wiped coffee out of his mustache, keeping his voice low. “Bout a week ago, Gravel tossed me a Chicago case that looked fishy to them. I got to digging, and of course there’s tons of unsolved murders and missing persons in Chicago, but a mighty suspicious number of them looked like they could be vamp-related.”
“Big nest?”
“Oh yeah. Real big. Biggest I’ve ever seen.” Rufus took a sip of coffee. “Big enough that we’re gonna have to be clever. Can’t just barge in guns a-blazin’ or our asses are gonna be vamp chow.”
“Rats,” Dean grunted humorlessly. “That’s my favorite strategy.”
“I’m bettin’ it’s got a leader like any other nest,” Rufus continued. “The biggest, baddest vamp around. With a nest this big, that’s gotta be one scary motherfucker. But I’m thinking if we take the big one out, s’gonna be chaos. All the second biggest, baddest vamps fighting for control.”
“Could fracture the nest,” Dean picked up. “We take ‘em out one by one after that.” He leaned back in his chair, flinging one arm over the velvety back of the chair, staring thoughtfully into his coffee. One big bad vamp. Newly turned vampires were no threat to an armed, skilled hunter -- barely stronger than a human, overwhelmed and disoriented by their recent transition -- but the older ones were forces to be reckoned with. Dean sloshed his coffee around in his cup. If the nest was as big as Rufus seemed to think, they could be dealing with a seriously old, seriously scary vampire.
A breathy little gasp from the couple behind them made Dean groan in exasperation.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said loudly. “She’s probably, like, fourteen. Knock it off, man.”
The couple at the table stopped talking, but the girl gasped again, this time in offense. Dean leaned over the back of his faux-velvet chair to glare at them.
“Well? You’re sure not eighteen, are you?”
“I’ll be eighteen in October!” the girl retorted hotly, her cheeks flushing.
Dean rolled his eyes and shifted back in his chair. “Awesome.”
The young man swept out of his chair, extending a pale hand to his date. “We don’t need to stay here and be judged. Come, let’s find some place more... secluded.”
“But... the rain!”
“I will give you my jacket. And you will look lovely even with wet hair.”
“Oh... your hand is so cold... ”
“Yes... like my heart.”
Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Jesus fuck... ”
The couple left the café, the girl shooting Dean one more glare over her shoulder. A blast of cold, wet air gusted through the café as they left, before the door swung shut behind them.
“Drink up,” Rufus grunted, lifting his own cup of coffee to his lips. “Soon as the rain lets up, we’re gonna find us a motel and catch you up on the details of this case.”
----
There wasn’t much to be said for the decor of the motel they found, except that at least it wasn’t the Sleeping Beauty café.
On the coffee table of their room, Dean sorted through Rufus’s collection of newspaper clippings and printed articles while the other man showered. Rufus had scribbled over the faded old pages in red pen, underlining sentences and circling words, scratching barely-legible notes in the margins. There was a thick packet of articles stretching back decades that all involved some mangling of the neck. Some even involved decapitations. In a sticky note on top, Rufus had written “head chopping: hides neck bites.”
Dean put the stack of articles aside, picking up the next packet. On top was a photo from a security camera, showing a dark parking lot and a clear view of a young man walking across it. Stapled to the photo was an article from 1988 with pictures of the same man, claimed to be missing. Dean squinted at the timestamp on the security camera photo. The year was 2009. If anything, the man looked younger.
Rufus’s research contained a handful of other clear examples of a missing person showing up years later, completely un-aged. Dean pursed his eyebrows. He set the photos and articles aside, picking up a different stack of paper: Rufus’s master list of missing Chicago denizens with potential vampire connections. Dean sorted through the pictures, his frown deepening the more he looked.
The bathroom door opened and Rufus stepped out, damp but clothed.
“One of us has an admirer,” he announced. “S’probably me.”
Dean tossed the stack of papers down. “Got another pattern. Nearly everyone that you’ve got on your list here is between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five.”
“You don’t say?”
“Not just that.” Dean gestured at the stack of papers. “There ain’t a girl on this list that isn’t eye-catching. And the guys... I don’t even swing that way and I can tell they’re lookers.”
Rufus pursed his eyebrows. “You’re sayin’ the vamps are targeting young hot people?”
“Not just targeting. Turning.” Dean leaned back in his chair. “They’re gathering a vampire army of... young hot people.”
Rufus sniffed. “Well, Dean, you know what this means... ”
“Not really.”
Rufus pressed a hand to his chest. “This means I ain’t safe.”
Dean chuckled, skimming an article. “Yeah, you’re a real... ” Dean trailed off as something caught his eye. “Hang on... ”
The article was about a missing girl, age nineteen. Right there on the page were the words “last seen at the Sleeping Beauty café.”
Dean pointed. “That’s where we got coffee this morning.” He leafed through the stack of missing persons, noticing a prevalence of eyeliner and black clothing that he hadn’t pieced together before. A sudden image of the couple in the café swam into his mind, and Dean rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “Shit... Rufus, I think that weird-ass café is vamp hunting grounds. And I think we let one get away.”
Rufus’s look darkened. “You think that boy was a vamp?”
“Yeah.”
“ ... Shit.” Rufus walked across the room and flopped down in an armchair. After a moment he grunted, “Well, can’t dwell on it. We’ve got a big-ass vamp nest to take down, and now we know where they like to hunt.”
“Well, it’s something, at least.”
“More than that. I think we’ve got our in.”
“Yeah? How d’you figure?”
“Our admirer.” Rufus gestured at the bathroom window. “Someone chick’s been standing on the opposite corner, staring into our window. Looks like the girl outside that weird-ass café, the one who got all friendly with you. And she’s not too keen on stepping out of the shade, if you get my drift.”
Dean frowned. “I’m being stalked by a vamp?”
“Nah, like I said, she’s probably stalking me.”
“Rufus -- come on, man.” Dean tossed the article down on the pile. “I’m in the age bracket, they clearly want me for their hot person army. I’m missing the part where any of this is good news.”
Rufus chuckled. “Dean, see, I think I’ve got a plan to take out our big boss vamp. And you’re gonna hate it.”
----
Several blocks from the Sleeping Beauty café, in a narrow alley swathed in shade and rain, a teenage girl wearing a black lace choker was fixing her eyeliner in a handheld mirror. Between the dumpsters, leaning against the wet brick wall and groaning faintly, slumped an older boy dressed in something that looked a few generations out of its time. His head was fallen to the side, raindrops washing blood from the ragged bite in his neck.
The girl snapped her mirror shut at the sound of footsteps. Someone was walking down the alley, his hoodie pulled up to keep off the rain and the pale light of dawn.
“You took your bloody time with him, Jack,” the approaching man called. “The sun’s up. Itches like crazy.”
Jack brushed her wet hair out of her face, giving the unconscious young man a glance. “He felt the need to spin me some poetry, take me on a little tour of the city. It all worked out in the end.”
When he got close enough to inspect the boy, the vampire grunted. “You actually turn him this time, or just drain him?”
“Turned. I know my job.” Jack snapped her mirror open again, re-analyzing her makeup. “Not that I’m convinced he’s worth it. Can’t say much for his personality. But Boris does love a pretty face.”
“Speaking of pretty faces... ” The other vampire cocked his head in the general direction of the Sleeping Beauty. “Did you see pretty boy in there? Leather jacket, bedroom eyes?”
“I saw.” Jack sighed into her mirror. “We won’t be seducing that one, though. He’s not into the whole ‘vampire’ allure. Tell Oscar to do it.”
“I don’t care how we acquire him. Boris is gonna want that one.”
Dean heaved, gripping the sides of the motel toilet, staring down into the clear water and willing his stomach to retain its contents. The sound of his own ragged breathing filled the small room.
He could do this. Rufus may have come up with the single least appealing plan Dean had ever run with, but by god, he could do this. He just had to...
Dean lifted his gaze, staring out into the main room of the motel where he knew a plastic gallon jug was waiting for him, full of dark milky red --
Dean turned back to the toilet urgently, hyperventilating.
... He just had to not throw up.
The motel door clicked as it opened. Dean licked his dry lips and called out weakly, “Hey, Rufus.”
“Bitch, I know you ain’t throwing that up. Just because we’re in Chicago don’t mean that food-safe corpses grow on trees.”
“Nah.” Dean laid his arm across the toilet seat and rested his forehead against it, closing his eyes. “Haven’t started drinking yet. Just picked up the jug and... got a whiff.”
Thick, metallic, nauseating. All the same, he could have bit his tongue and toughed his way through that. What made Dean run for the bathroom was the memory of Baby’s trunk full of dark red gallon jugs just like that, and the guilty greed in Sam’s eyes when he looked at them.
“ ... You mind not watching this?”
Dean forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to slow his breathing. He could do this. He heard Rufus entering the bathroom and forced himself to look up, nearly doubling up again at the sight of another gallon jug in Rufus’s hand.
Rufus caught his expression and lifted the jug, shaking it. “Open wide.”
“Fuck off,” Dean rasped, pulling himself away from the toilet and standing up. Rufus held out the jug, and Dean took it gingerly. The handle was sticky.
“We’re lucky to even have this much,” Rufus reminded him. “Everyone else in the morgue already had formaldehyde. Don’t wanna be chugging that.”
“Yeah,” Dean added, eyes locked on the jug of blood. He pulled the cap off, cringing as he stared down into the thick red liquid inside. “D-do we even know this will work?”
“Nope.” Rufus gave Dean a firm clap on the shoulder before turning and walking out of the bathroom. “But it’s what we got. Imma find another morgue to hit up, just in case you don’t keep that down.”
“Yeah.” Dean cringed, still not bringing the jug to his lips.
Rufus peered back into the bathroom. “You better keep it down, though.”
“I know.”
“More y’drink, more likely this pipe dream is gonna work.”
“It had better fucking work,” Dean breathed, and with that, he raised the jug to his lips and took a deep, sickening gulp. He gagged violently but managed to swallow, cringing and wiping the back of his hands over his lips. It left a red smear. He was pretty sure the taste was permanently branded onto his tastebuds, sour and metallic and heavy.
Rufus gave him an approving nod. “Atta boy.”
“Tastes like chicken,” Dean grunted weakly. The blood felt weird in his stomach. Despite his gulp, the bottle still looked distressingly full.
“Hey.” Rufus pointed a stern finger at Dean. “You pace yourself, y’hear.”
“Yeah. Gotcha.”
“Don’t you throw that up.”
Dean rolled his head, raising his eyebrows as he stared down into the bottle. “Yeah, I’ll do my best.”
Rufus walked away, his footsteps thumping on the carpeted floor. The door clicked shut as he left, and Dean squeezed his eyes shut and downed another thick gulp of dead man’s blood.
----
Nightfall saw Dean sitting next to a table bearing three empty gallon jugs, all staining brown as the blood on them dried. A forth one dangled from his hand, just a few sticky sips left at the bottom. Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this physically disgusting. The blood filled his belly like a too-rich meal, making him queasy. Dean didn’t know how, but he’d managed to keep down every gulp.
Rufus sat on the edge of one of the beds, sharpening a machete. The only noise in the room was the slow scrape of whetstone over steel as the sky darkened outside. Dean braced himself and downed the last gulp of blood, knocking it back like a shot. The taste clung to his tongue regardless, harsher than whiskey.
Dean set the bottle down and wiped his mouth off. “S’dark enough outside,” he declared, extending an open palm towards Rufus’s machete. “Pass it over.”
Rufus made no move to hand him the blade. “Nah, you can’t go in with a weapon.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re fang bait.” Rufus scraped the whetstone across the blade again. “Fang bait don’t bring weapons.”
Dean pulled his hand back, scowling. “Have I mentioned that I hate this plan?”
“Yup.”
“Hate it.” Dean stood up and jabbed a finger at Rufus. “You better not lose sight of me.”
“You’d better get the big bad somewhere alone.”
“I’ll request a romantic little back alley,” Dean snapped dryly, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. “Complete with mating cats and the faint stench of piss. That’ll get me right in the mood for blood loss.”
----
Mating cats it lacked, but the alley certainly smelled like piss.
Dean tugged his jacket tighter around himself as he walked further down the dark, dingy little street. His boots splashed through greasy puddles in the uneven concrete, oily rainbows dancing on their surface. There were no lamps in the alley, but a buzzing neon sign oozed a sickly glow over the cracked pavement. Rather than illuminating the alley, it only served to accentuate the shadows.
Something rustled in a soggy dumpster, and Dean’s whole body went tense before a cat leaped out with a yowl and ran away. Dean huffed with unease. It was a struggle to not constantly scan his surroundings, to keep his body relaxed. He had to look like easy prey. He certainly felt that way. With no weapons weighing him down, his belt was uncomfortably light on his hips.
Rufus was tailing him, he tried to remind himself as he kept walking. Ready to jump in at the right moment. The thought wasn’t nearly as comforting as a good bit of steel would have been. Dean shuddered, trying to keep his eyes on his feet like some idiot civie who didn’t know how dumb it was to walk down an alley alone at night.
Even though his ears were straining to pick up any hint of sound, the firm hand that suddenly grabbed the back of Dean’s jacket caught him by surprise. The stained brick wall seemed to fly up to meet his face as he was thrown against it. A powerful hand twisted in his hair, yanking his head back, exposing his neck.
“No talking,” a crisp voice commanded. “No need to make a mess of this. Hold still, and it will barely hurt. Or something.”
“Are you a vampire?” Dean spilled out in a rush, keeping his hands planted firmly against the filthy brick wall, fighting the urge to writhe against his assailant’s hold.
“Of course not. Vampires aren’t real.”
Dean’s head was pulled back further, his neck aching. “I-I’m looking for a vampire!”
There was silence for a moment. Dean’s chest heaved, his scalp starting to sting from the rough grip on his hair.
“ ... Go on.”
Dean swallowed, his throat bobbing. “I -- I wanna find out what it’s like to get bit. Hear it’s, y’know... ” He winced against the sting of the hand in his hair. “ ... titillating?”
“ ... Hm.”
The grip on Dean’s hair finally loosened and let go. He rubbed the ache out of his neck and turned around. The man facing him was tall, slim, and blond, wearing a nice suit and an impatient expression.
The man extended a hand. “Oscar.”
Dean hesitated before taking his hand and shaking it awkwardly. The vampire’s hand tightened around his, and before Dean could so much as shout he was yanked close, the vampire breathing into his neck. Dean went tense with alarm when he heard the soft, wet noise of fangs sliding out.
“I don’t want any lewd moaning,” the vampire whispered against his neck. “You hear me?”
“Wh-whoa, wait -- ” Dean pressed a firm hand against the vampire’s shoulder, though he might as well have tried to shove off a ton of bricks. “I-I don’t want just any vampire biting me!”
The vampire pulled back with an offended huff. “I’m hardly any vampire, you uncultured whelp. But very well. Who, in your immaculate wisdom and taste, do you want biting you?”
Dean swallowed, his heart still thumping. He tried to sound eager, wanting. “ ... Someone powerful. I only want the most powerful vampire in the city. The big bad.”
Oscar the vampire sighed. “Delightful. That’s what the Boss’s ego needs, a groupie.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “No talking while I’m on the phone, or I will rip your throat out.”
He dialed a number, and held the phone to his ear as it rang. Dean blinked. Vampire nests had a social order, sure, but they weren’t usually cell phone organized. This was just plain surreal.
“Hello, Boris. ... Boss.” Oscar rolled his eyes. “There’s a human who wants to see you. Yes, he -- Yes. In that way. That is in fact what I am implying. Yes. ... Please stop talking.” Oscar rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, Boris. ... Boss. At once.” He hung up, and gave Dean a weary look. “Good news. He’s very eager to meet you.”
Dean forced himself to smile. “Yahtzee.”
----
Through the darkening streets of Chicago, under harsh white street lamps and down putrid alleys, Dean followed the vampire. Dean had his fingers crossed in his pockets that Rufus was keeping up with them. He wanted to look over his shoulder and check, but if he blew Rufus’s cover, the whole plan was a bust.
Dean was just about to ask how far they were going when Oscar stopped in front of a big office building. Dean craned his head back to look up the steely-black length of it. He caught the words “Lioncourt Luxury Hardwoods” before a creak drew his attention back down. Oscar was pushing open the open the black glass doors, stepping inside.
“Come on, boy. Don’t keep the Boss waiting.”
Dean hesitated, a prickle of unease going up his spine. This wasn’t right. Vampires didn’t bite their victims in crowded office buildings. Oscar stopped when he realized Dean wasn’t following.
“Come.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Dean swallowed and stepped inside.
Oscar led him through a luxuriant lobby. Everything was furnished with black marble, dark hardwoods, and shiny brass trim. Dean froze when they approached the elevators, falling behind Oscar.
“Um -- When I said, private, I was thinking, maybe -- a hotel room or a gas station bathroom or something -- ”
Oscar ignored him, pressing the elevator call button and checking his watch. The elevator’s elaborate wooden doors opened with a ding, and when Oscar stepped inside, Dean had no choice but to follow. The shutting doors felt like the jaws of a trap closing around him.
“Um.” Dean shifted from foot to foot, his hands clenching and unclenching, upsettingly empty. “About this. Privacy thing.”
“The Boss likes to dine in his office.” Oscar reached into his pocket and pulled out a little brass key. “Around here, you do what the Boss wants.” His cold eyes darted to Dean. “Even if what he wants involves taking precious time out of your day to deliver some human with atrocious acting abilities to his office.”
Dean’s lungs seized. “Wh -- what do you mean by -- ”
“Honey, stop. Just stop. I don’t want to know details. Whatever your game is, I don’t have time to deal with it.” Oscar slipped the key into the elevator’s panel. “But if it’s about getting in his pants, I assure you, the song and dance is unnecessary.”
The key twisted, flashing in the light, and Oscar pressed the button for the top floor. Dean’s heart nearly stopped. Shit shit shit. They’d fucked up. Rufus wasn’t going to be able to follow him here. This wasn’t a nest, this was a fortress, and he was in here without a weapon and without backup --
“You seem concerned,” Oscar commented softly, eyes on his phone as he texted.
Dean hoped his face wasn’t too pale as he forced a smile. “C-course not. Just, uh -- ” He gestured vaguely at the lavish interior of the elevator, his mind racing. “Didn’t expect something this nice.”
He was completely fucked. There was no way he’d be allowed to leave this building. Dean swallowed and tapped his foot nervously against the black carpeted floor, watching the numbers on the elevator light up as they passed from floor to floor. He prayed that Oscar wasn’t listening to his racing heart.
----
All too soon, the elevator doors chimed and slid open. Oscar extended a hand, and Dean stepped gingerly out into a lobby. No machete. How do you kill a vampire with no machete? Oscar brushed past him, striding briskly away. Dean tried to take even breaths he was led down a black-carpeted hall. How the fuck do you kill a vampire with no goddamn weapons and moderate to severe blood loss -- ?
Dean nearly jumped out of his skin when Oscar grabbed his shoulder, halting him in front of a pair of heavy, dark doors.
“This one.” Oscar gave him a little shove towards the door. “Go in.” He crossed the hall, stopping in front of a much more modest door. “This is my office,” he explained, rapping his knuckles against the door and speaking slowly as if afraid Dean wouldn’t be able to keep up otherwise. “That one is the Boss’s. Unfortunately, neither of these doors are soundproofed. Make my life easier. Don’t be a screamer.”
Dean couldn’t find words as Oscar opened the door to his own office.
“Go in,” Oscar pressed impatiently before slamming his door shut.
Dean gulped, turning to face the huge wooden doors. His hand was shaking slightly as he grabbed the shiny brass handle. The door creaked as he pushed it open.
Dean poked his head inside. “ ... Hello? Mr. Boss vampire?”
The dark room was vast, lavish, and an entire wall was a floor-to-ceiling window, showing a sweeping view of the nighttime city. But as far as Dean could tell, it was empty.
Dean slammed the door behind himself and stalked through the room, scouring the walls and furniture. Black leather upholstery. Dim ceiling lamps. A huge, heavy desk with a big metal skull on it. The whole place was like something out of a gothic porno, but absolutely nothing could be turned into a decapitating weapon. Dean cursed, circling the room, craning his head back to search the walls. He just needed something, anything that could potentially be used to chop a head off. Come on. Novelty swords. Convenient metal sculpture. A fucking letter opener --
The door creaked, and Dean’s spine went rigid. He turned around slowly, trying to breathe.
A man was leaning against the doorframe, framed by the brighter light of the hallway. He leered, so overtly and greedily that his eyes felt like hands. Dean’s skin crawled. Nothing about the man’s greasy, bushy black hair or stained wifebeater shirt or ragged leather jacket said “CEO” to him, but something told him this vampire was the Boss.
“Wow.” The man grinned, needle-sharp teeth sliding out. “You’re pretty.”
Dean took a step back as the vampire stepped into the room. “You’re -- you’re the Boss, right?”
The vampire closed the door behind himself. “And you must be my treat. Tasty.”
Dean flinched as he heard the door lock with a click. The man started walking towards him, and he forced himself not to back away like his legs were begging him to.
“S-so this is a nice joint you’ve got here,” Dean rambled as the vampire approached with a hungry grin. “Kinda fancy shmancy for a vamp nest. I mean, if that’s not rude. Why don’t you. Um.” Dean swallowed and wavered back a step as the man walked right up to him. “ ... Tell me all about it?”
Boris’s thick fingers grabbed Dean’s chin, silver rings digging into his jaw. Dean struggled to breathe.
“The fancy shmancy skyscraper is a neat little mask,” Boris drawled, tilting Dean’s head from side to side and assessing the quality of his neck. “We don’t hide in the dark. We stand out in the open and look pretty, and the pretty people come right to us. A modern Théâtre Des Vampires.” Boris cocked his head. “Do you read Anne Rice?”
“C-can’t say I have,” Dean wheezed.
“Mm. Shame. I suppose no one is perfect.” Boris’s thick thumb rubbed against the flickering pulse on Dean’s neck. “My pretty boys and girls bring me more pretty boys and girls. So I get a nice constant stream of pretty boys and girls to keep the theater going and do... well, whatever else I want them to do, really.”
Dean swallowed, his throat bobbing against Boris’s hand. “O-oh?”
Boris chuckled. “We’re not some little nest, cutie pie, we’re big time. I’m big time.” He leaned towards Dean’s bare neck, fangs out. “But I hear you like big time -- ”
“Whoa there!” Dean squirmed and managed a shaky grin. “Wh-what, no foreplay?”
“Oh, you want a kiss first?” Boris slipped a hand under Dean’s jacket, wrapping it around his waist. “Nah, you want something a little heavier, don’t you?”
Dean’s eyes widened and he flinched back. “E-easy there -- ”
“I like to do ‘em up against the window.” Boris cocked his head towards the glass wall, the city sprawling below. “My toys say they like the view.”
“Nope! No, uh, no need!” Dean laughed nervously, reaching back for something to brace himself on and finding the solid wood of the desk. “W-we can just -- uh -- dive in! ... With the biting! Just the biting.” Dean swallowed, drumming his fingers anxiously against the desk and trying to scan the room again. Come on, anything, anything --
Boris blew out an impatient breath. “Closeted. It figures. Well, we’ll see if you change your mind after a little kiss... ”
The hand on Dean’s jaw tightened. Dean cringed as his head was forced to the side. No breath against his skin when Boris leaned in. A wet tongue scraped over Dean’s neck and he flinched.
“You taste a little funny, pretty boy. Haven’t been eating garlic, have you?”
Dean tensed in alarm. Dead man’s blood. He grabbed a handful of Boris’ thick black hair, trying to drag his face in.
“B-bite me,” he panted, “bite me now, come on!”
Boris didn’t seem to need further urging. Dean felt the pinpricks first, a dozen needle-sharp points against his skin, lingering there for just a second before the fangs punctured and Boris bit down hard. Dean clenched his teeth on a hiss of pain. The first ferocious tug of suction on the wound made his head spin, his knees nearly give out. Boris’s mouth pulled the blood out of his body in deep, hungry swallows, gulping him down like a cheap beer.
Dean’s knuckles whitened against the rim of the desk, his heart jackhammering in his chest as the vampire slowly drained him. There had to be something in this room. Anything with a sharp edge, he’d take a paperclip at this point --
Boris tore his fangs out of Dean’s neck with a gag, reeling back. He wiped a hand slowly across his bloody mouth.
“That’s no garlic there,” he panted, staggering slightly, watching the slight tremble in his hand. His cold eyes rose to meet Dean’s. “Not garlic at all. The hell did you take?”
Boris looked even less steady on his feet than Dean felt. Dean slipped out from between Boris and the desk, trying to put some space between himself and the vampire --
Boris reached out with startling speed, making a crude grab for Dean’s shirt. Dean staggered back, an aching spike going through his head at the sudden movement. The blood loss had left him disoriented, wobbly.
Boris snarled, his bloody fangs bared. “What the hell did you take?”
Dean’s fist cracked into Boris’s jaw, delivering as much power into the blow as he could. He was still shaking the sting out of his hand when Boris returned the blow, hard enough to knock the wind out of him and send him staggering back. Then there was a powerful hand grabbing his shoulder, turning him around and throwing him towards the empty air of the city --
Dean grunted as he was slammed against the glass of the window, face pressed against it, a several hundred foot drop stretching out before him. Boris had him pinned in place, one hand twisted in his hair, the other grabbing his arm and wrenching it behind his back --
The joint twisted painfully and Dean cried out.
“Tell me what you took,” Boris snarled into his neck. “And when I play with you, I won’t break you.”
“A big hearty dose of fuck you,” Dean shouted back.
Gripping Dean’s hair tighter, Boris pressed his face hard against the glass. Dean kept his eyes squeezed shut, trying not to look down, trying not to imagine that the window was about to crack and break under the freight-train force of Boris holding him in place --
... Wait.
“You’re lucky you’ve got a pretty face,” Boris growled. His body pressed up behind Dean’s, pinning him harder against the window and drawing a strangled gasp from Dean. “I’m gonna leave that intact. The rest of you, though -- ”
“Wait -- ” Dean swallowed hard. “Wait, I’ll tell you what I took, okay?”
“Tell me.”
Dean’s breath steamed against the cold glass. “I’m a dead man walking. Got dead blood in my veins and everything.”
Boris’s grip loosened, his voice softened by confusion. “What? How?”
Dean spun and twisted his arm away from Boris’s grasp. The desk was only a few feet away. Dean ran for it, and his fingers found cold, cast metal. As Boris recovered and approached with bared fangs, Dean dug his fingers into the eye sockets of the fake skull and hurled it towards the window.
The glass shattered, a thousand thick, razor shards sparkling in the city lights before they fell. The steel frame held jagged chunks of glass, ringing the windy opening like teeth. Boris wasn’t distracted for long, turning his cold eyes back towards Dean. Dean leapt at him, toppling them over, grabbing a thick handful of Boris’s hair and slamming it down onto the glass as they fell --
The glass made a sound like slicing meat as it drove through Boris’s neck. Dean sprawled back across the floor, panting hard, the room spinning. Boris was motionless, face-down with his head hanging out the window, blood seeping onto the glass and splattered across the floor. Dean rubbed a hand over his aching head, his heart still pounding.
A low, heavy noise of rage from Boris nearly made Dean jump out of his skin. The glass hadn’t cut all the way through.
“Fucking vampires,” Dean grunted under his breath, pulling his jacket off. He wrapped it around his hands before approaching the broken window. The wind was frigid and harsh in his face, stinging in his eyes. Dean grabbed a thick chunk of razor sharp glass, yanking until it snapped off, sending a dust of glass into the wind. “Just once I want to have a machete with me when I meet a fucking vampire.”
He knelt down, and raised the shard of glass above his head. It took several hard stabs before Boris’s head finally tumbled away, falling out into the cold open air of Chicago without a sound.
Dean collapsed back onto the floor, tossing aside the bloody glass. “Never leaving the house without a machete again. Fucking vampires.”
----
The heavy wooden door creaked loudly as Dean nudged it open. He peered outside, half expecting to see Oscar and a platoon of vampire guards waiting in the hall.
The hall was empty. The door to Oscar’s office was ajar, and there was a neatly written note taped to it. Dean slipped out through the door and approached the note.
----
My respected Boss,
I CANNOT WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS.
I have gone downstairs to find some place more PEACEFUL to work as I keep this company afloat. Learn to keep yourself and your victims QUIET. If this happens one more time, I will fill your office with ball gags. Fill. It.
Good day.
- Oscar, your immaculate secretary, without whom we would have gone bankrupt decades ago
Dean blinked at the note. Secretary? Cautiously, he eased Oscar’s door open.
Oscar’s small office was filled floor to ceiling with exotic potted plants. Aside from that, it was sparse and clean, with little more than a filing cabinet and a few chairs. Perched on a simple desk, surrounded by a veritable forest of ferns and orchids, was an open laptop.
Dean pulled back, glancing down the length of the hallway. All was quiet. He looked back at the laptop. Big secret vampire incorporation, huh? There was probably a lot of useful information on that laptop.
Dean slipped into the office, navigating between the plants and grabbing the laptop. He took off his jacket and draped it over the computer, holding it underneath. His luck had carried him this far, maybe he could push it just a little farther.
----
The elevator ride was nerve-wracking. Dean tapped his foot as the numbers dinged past. He hoped Rufus hadn’t tried anything stupid in the past twenty minutes. When the doors chimed and slid open, Dean darted towards them and nearly bumped into Oscar.
“Oh good,” Oscar said dryly as Dean grappled with the laptop under his jacket, trying not to drop it. “He’s done with you.”
Pale-faced, Dean nodded. “Uh, yeah, he -- he was wonderful.”
“Please, no details.” Oscar brushed past him, stepping into the elevator and pulling out his little brass key. Dean turned around and strode stiffly towards the door, fighting the urge to bolt.
The black glass doors opened against the push of his shoulder, and the night closed around Dean like a blanket. He heaved out a deep sigh, striding away from the building. The bustle of the nighttime city was comfortingly mundane. He wasn’t sure if this would be one of the hunts he bragged about, or never wanted to mention again.
“Dean!”
Dean spun at the sound of Rufus’s voice. The man was peering out of the alley next to the Lioncourt skyscraper, looking half panicked and half impressed. He had a significant length of rope looped over his shoulder.
“What the hell did you do?” he hissed as Dean jogged over. “I thought I was gonna have to scale the building and bust your ass out of there, and suddenly this vamp head nearly lands on me!”
“I’ll regale you with the details later.” Dean shot a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I stole the secretary’s laptop. We gotta get out of here before they notice. Or find the Boss’s body.”
Rufus squinted, then beckoned Dean to follow him down the alley. “We’re getting in the car and then you’d better tell me everything. Secretary vampires, jesus.”
----
Chicago city lights flashed by as Rufus drove them back to the motel. Dean had the computer open in his lap, navigating through the different folders.
“Shit, Rufus. You were right, this is huge.” Dean’s eyes scanned the screen. “Half of these folders want some kinda password, but even the ones I can open are just -- I never knew vamps could organize like this.”
Rufus smirked. “You got somethin’ in your eye there.”
Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “What?”
“Fire.” Rufus gave Dean a grin. “You’re havin’ fun, ain’t you?”
“On that job? I don’t think I’ve ever hated a plan more.”
“Admit it, you missed the hunt.”
“Shut up.” Dean’s face finally lost the battle with his grin. “ ... I killed him with a piece of his own window.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Room with no weapons, and I still killed him.” Dean clicked on another folder, scrolling through the contents. “I’m a complete bada-- ”
Dean froze, his smile gone. The photo on the screen stared back at him like an accusation.
Rufus glanced away from the road. “What? Something wrong?”
Dean’s voice barely worked, his lips struggling to form the words a few times before any noise came out. “ ... It’s Ben.”
There was no mistaking him, even with the dim lighting and grainy photo. That was the dark hair that Dean used to muss up, the eyes that used to look at him with such awe. Those eyes looked dead now, out of focus. And between Ben’s parted lips, Dean could see fangs.
Rufus’s voice cut the silence. “ ... Does it say somethin’ about him?”
“Nothing.” Dean’s mouth was dry. He tried to wet his lips, closing the file. His hands felt numb. “It’s just a photo in a folder.”
It was a hot day in Madrid, and it seemed that Crowley hadn’t invested in air conditioning. Castiel staunchly ignored the heat as he stalked through the demon’s lavish mansion, his shoes thumping on the expensive carpets. Normally, human sensations like sweatiness wouldn’t bother him, but he was short on patience today, and the heat irked him. Crowley was somewhere in this labyrinth of marble columns and persian rugs, and Castiel was going to find him. He could feel the demon’s presence, radiating in waves, something stronger and deeper than heat.
Castiel marched down a hall, past a painting that he was nearly certain was an original Bosch, when a shout came through a lavish wooden door.
“Get in here, Badcock, we need to fix the shoulders!”
Castiel gave the door a disgusted look before pushing it open.
The door swung into a dressing room filled with beautifully carved hardwood furniture and dominated by a massive triptych mirror with mother-of-pearl inlay. Crowley stood at the center of it, garbed in an immaculate ash-grey suit, adjusting cufflinks that flashed with fire opals. He met Castiel’s eyes in the mirror and squinted unhappily.
“You’re not Badcock.”
Castiel shut the door behind him. “I’m not interested in hearing what that means.”
“He’s my tailor,” Crowley snapped. Cufflinks adjusted, he fiddled with the shoulder of his suit. “It’s an old English name and I swear it’s his real one.”
“I heard your tailor had been... consumed.”
“That was one of my other tailors. You think I have just one?” Crowley scoffed. “My American tailor whose untimely demise you speak of specialized in the Italian cut. Badcock’s expertise lies with the English -- ”
“I don’t care,” Castiel cut in. He marched up to Crowley until he too was standing before the mirror. “We had a deal.”
Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Yes, we did. A very tidy one, I thought. You had terms, I had terms, we all shook hands and went home happy.”
“I didn’t go home happy.” Castiel’s voice sharpened. “Something’s wrong with Sam. He didn’t come back right.”
Crowley snorted. “And you’re surprised? Do you think Mike and Lucy have been having tea parties with our dear Sammy this whole time?”
“He is not conventionally wounded,” Castiel insisted. “He is... numb. I would expect him to be in pain, but he’s not. He’s not feeling anything.”
Crowley was silent for a moment. He adjusted his tie thoughtfully. “ ... Those fleshy little human brains are quite the enigma, my fine feathered friend. A mystery for the ages. However... ” He turned back to the mirror, smoothing down his suit. “ ... Not my problem.”
Castiel snarled and grabbed Crowley’s tie, yanking him forward, rumpling the perfect suit. “How about I make it your problem?”
“Bloody -- Cool it, feathers!” Crowley shoved him off, glaring. “Even if I wanted to help, I wouldn’t know what to tell you! Saving souls isn’t really my territory, you follow?”
Castiel watched silently as Crowley grumbled and tried to re-adjust his suit. “ ... You’re saying I should ask an angel.”
Crowley snorted. “I’m saying you should do whatever pleases your pure little heart, just do it elsewhere. I kept my end of the bargain, I got you the Cage. I’m not responsible for what you found inside.”
Castiel turned his gaze to his own reflection. The hard lines of anger on his face softened and his shoulders slumped.
“You... may be right,” he relented. He straightened his spine. “But don’t think I won’t be back if necessary.”
“Delightful,” Crowley grunted.
“And get some air conditioning,” Castiel snapped. “It’s like a furnace in here.”
He stretched his wings into the fabric of the universe and flitted away.
Crowley chuckled, not bothering to glance at the empty space next to him. He looked over his suit, admiring the fit of it, the knot of the tie and the cut of the ash-grey fabric. His eyebrows pursed as he examined the shoulders.
“Badcock!” he bellowed.
----
It was hot. Sam felt hot. The sun was high in the sky. The sun was making him hot. Sam shoveled. He needed to dig deeper. He would like to be less hot. He was standing in the sun. The sun was making him hot. He could see shade in a different part of the lot. It would be less hot in the shade. Sam wanted to be less hot. Sam stopped digging. That felt wrong. He needed to keep digging. Sam kept digging.
----
When Sam dug really deep, there was shade. The walls of the pit made shade. Shade was good. It was less hot in the shade. But now the pit was too deep and Sam couldn’t shovel dirt out of it. He would toss the dirt out and it would slide off the pile, pouring back into his pit. That was a problem. He couldn’t go deeper if he couldn’t remove dirt from the pit. He couldn’t go any deeper here. He needed to go deeper somewhere else.
Sam tossed his shovel out of the pit and grabbed the rim. He started hoisting himself up, but that was wrong. He stopped, letting himself slump back to the floor. Sam was in a pit. He couldn’t go any deeper. He needed to climb out. He grabbed the edge of the pit and started pulling himself up. Up is wrong. Down is correct. Up is wrong. Sam stopped. He didn’t like climbing out of the pit. But if he didn’t climb out of the pit, he couldn’t dig a new pit. He needed to dig a new pit. He needed to go up to go down. He didn’t like that.
Sam pulled himself up, up, up, towards the sky and the clouds and the wind and the sun and everything was wrong it was all wrong he was supposed to be going the other way down down down down he needed to be down he was being ripped apart --
Sam was out of the pit. He picked up his shovel. He could see shade. It would be cooler in the shade. Sam walked to the shade and started digging.
Sam’s stomach hurt. That happened when he was hungry. Eating would make the hurting stop. Hurting was unpleasant. Sam had just stared a new pit, not even big enough to stand in. He dropped his shovel and walked towards Bobby’s house. There was food in Bobby’s house.
Sam walked inside the house. He walked to the kitchen. Rats littered the floor like tiny men, and they scattered like tiny men when they saw Sam. Sam opened the refrigerator. He could see cheese. Cheese was a food. Sam was hungry. He picked up the cheese and opened the plastic packaging, taking a bite.
“Caught you! Shut the goddamn fridge door!”
That was Bobby’s voice. Sam turned around and looked at him. Bobby was standing in the door, holding a beer and scowling. Sam took another bite of cheese and closed the refrigerator door.
“God damn it, Sam... ” Bobby walked over to Sam and took his cheese away. “Don’t just take bites off it... ”
Sam watched as Bobby put the cheese on a cutting board and cut slices off of it. Bobby got out a plate and put the cheese on it, then he reached for the fruit basket and picked up a withered old apple. He sliced that too.
“This used to be your favorite school lunch.” Bobby’s voice was quiet. He wasn’t looking at Sam. “Apples and cheese. You mostly wanted the apples, though. Got so damn finicky about which kind of apples I bought.” Bobby made a noise that was kind of like a laugh. “You had this list of fancy apple names memorized just to drive me crazy. And it worked, too.”
Sam remembered the apple and cheese lunches. Bobby used to make them for him when he was in school. He remembered the apple names too. Fuji, pink lady, braeburn, gala, granny smith, macintosh.
Bobby turned around and handed Sam the plate of apple and cheese slices. Sam took it. He picked up a slice of apple and ate it.
Bobby shoved his hands in his pockets. “ ... Right kind of apple, Sam?”
Sam swallowed. He didn’t know what a correct or incorrect apple was. “It’s an apple.”
Bobby looked away from Sam. “P-put the plate in the sink when you’re done, we have enough damn rats.” He left the room.
Sam looked at the food on his plate, picking up a slice of cheese. Maybe an incorrect apple was one that was up, and a correct apple was one that was down.
No. Only Sam was supposed to be down. Down was the only place Sam could be. Down was where...
He needed to dig.
----
Monsters screamed in the living room as Dean pulled two beers out of the fridge. He hummed, snapping the magnetized bottle opener off the fridge door and popping the glossy red bottle caps off. The clatter of those little bits of metal hitting the countertop cut crisply through the roaring snarls from one room over.
Something squelched loudly. Lisa laughed, and Ben yelled “Gross!” with the kind of glee that only a twelve year old can attach to that word. Dean chuckled and picked up the beers, walking out of the kitchen to join his family in the TV room.
Lisa and Ben were snuggled up on a couch in the darkened room, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching the television. On the screen, a “monster” was roaring at a pair of children, flailing tentacled arms.
Dean thunked the beer bottle gently against the top of Lisa’s head. She twisted around to wrinkle her nose at him, but smiled when she saw the beer.
“Are you sure you’re all right with this, honey?” she pried as she took the bottle.
Dean glanced at the screen again, taking a slow sip of his beer. “S’no problem. Monster movie night is a tradition, and I don’t fight tradition.”
“You wanna join us?” Ben asked eagerly. He gestured at the screen. “It’s a really fake monster, you can totally see the guy under his facepaint.”
“Honey, if Dean doesn’t want to join, he doesn’t have to.”
Dean ruffled Ben’s hair. He kept his eyes locked on the space of wall just above the television. “Nah, monster movies ain’t up my alley. Lemme know when you’re watching one of those cooking shows with all the pies.”
Ben seemed a little sad, but to his credit, he replied, “Okay. We’ll tell you when it’s done.”
“Thanks, champ.” Dean bent over to kiss Lisa’s head. “I’ll be on the front porch.”
Lisa reached up to find Dean’s hand, giving it a loving squeeze. Dean smiled down at her before letting his hand slip out of hers and walking out of the room. The monster gurgled behind him, children screamed, and Dean took a sip of beer.
----
The sun had long since gone down, and the air outside was cool and soft. Dean sat on the porch and watched the shadows of clouds move across the navy sky, losing their last dusky blushes of purple. In the gloom between streetlights, the neighbor’s cat stalked across the street, a slinky black and white beast taken to yowling at dogs and shedding affectionately all over Dean’s pants whenever it got the chance. As Dean watched it pad across the asphalt and disappear into the neighbor’s gardenia, he tried to shut off the part of his mind that zeroed in on anything that prowled in the dark, the part of his mind that was ready to prowl in pursuit.
He shouldn’t have stepped into the TV room. The shrill, fake screams of the children reminded him of real ones. He knew Ben and Lisa had picked out the dumbest, corniest monster movie they could just to keep him comfortable, but it wasn’t enough. It had been a week since Dean’s visit to Bobby’s, but he still wasn’t recovered from it. And arguably, he hadn’t been recovered even before that.
Dean understood why Castiel had brought him to see Sam -- or what was left of Sam -- but part of him wished he’d never answered the door. Sam wasn’t back, not really. It was just a tease, a puppet wearing Sam’s body, a vivid reminder of what he’d lost and would never have again. His brother was gone. That thing at Bobby’s house just rubbed it in Dean’s face.
All Dean wanted to do was settle down with Lisa and Ben and put every speck of hunting behind him. Every drop of blood, every choked scream, every dead stare from the cold, judging eyes of someone he hadn’t been able to save --
The stars were starting to come out. Dean took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm himself down. It took so little to make his adrenaline spike these days, and he hated himself for it. Yesterday he’d been reduced to clammy-palmed terror just because Lisa made hardboiled eggs for breakfast and left the kitchen smelling of sulphur. He knew his hair-trigger reaction time had saved his life before, but he wanted the damn thing shut off now. He was jumping at shadows.
Maybe this was the fate that awaited any retiring hunter. But Dean would be damned -- again -- if he let his own twitchiness get in the way of Ben and Lisa’s special mother-son tradition. He could tough out one cheesy-ass, poorly-written, cornstarch-and-food-dye monster movie that he wasn’t even sitting in the same room as.
Dean shuddered and downed the rest of his beer. He should have brought whiskey.
----
A crescent moon shone down from the dark sky when the door creaked open. Ben stepped onto the porch, holding a beer bottle.
“Here.” He offered it to Dean. “Mom said you’d probably want another.”
Dean chuckled and took the beer as Ben sat on the steps next to him. “Your mom’s a smart lady.”
“Damn right she is.”
Dean laughed again, louder, and took a sip of beer.
Ben thumped his sneakers together a few times before saying, “Sorry the movie was so hard for you.”
“Hey, don’t you go feeling bad about that.” Dean gestured at the sky with his beer. “I had plenty of fun out here with the stars.”
Ben nodded, giving Dean a quiet smile. “You’re pretty tough, Dean.”
For hiding from a scary movie? Dean didn’t say it out loud. He just grinned back and stood up. “Damn right I am. Let’s go back inside, I bet you’re tired.”
----
Lisa was unloading the dishwasher when Dean and Ben walked into the kitchen.
“Ben, honey, could you get the popcorn bowl?” she called as she put away a stack of plates.
Ben nodded and scampered off. Dean made sure Ben was around the corner before stepping up behind Lisa and wrapping his arms around her.
“I’ll put the kid to bed and help you with the dishes,” he murmured into her hair.
Lisa tsked. “Just the dishes?”
Dean kissed her neck. “Oh, I hope not.”
A shrill yowl from outside made Dean’s whole body go tense. Before he knew what he was doing, his hand flew to his hip, looking for the weapons he no longer kept there.
Lisa found his hands, wrapping them in hers and squeezing. “Shh, it’s okay. The neighbor’s cat is just throwing a fit again.”
“At what?” Dean shuddered hard, fighting the urge to run outside and make sure it was safe. “ ... I’m sorry, baby. I’m on edge tonight.”
“You’re fine, honey.” Lisa lifted Dean’s hand to her lips, kissing the white knuckles. “We’ll put Ben to bed and see about taking some of that edge off, hm?”
Ben walked back into the room, munching on the last few kernels of popcorn. “Take what edge off?”
Dean stifled a weak laugh, squeezing Lisa’s hand once before slipping away from her. “I’m gonna go make sure the door’s locked,” he announced, fighting to keep his voice steady. As he walked out of the room, he could hear Ben exclaim, “Did you guys hear the cat?”
----
The door locked with a hearty click as Dean turned the latch. He wished the sound comforted him more. A deep unease had worked into his chest, sitting there like a solid lump. Dean heaved a slow breath, rubbing his temples.
“There’s nothing in the house, there’s nothing in the house... ” He repeated the phrase silently to himself as he walked back to his family. There’s nothing in the house...
----
Ben was helping Lisa with the dishes, but he was yawning his way through it. He gladly followed when Dean suggested bedtime.
“Come on, squirt, it’s almost midnight.”
Ben stumbled up the stairs after Dean, rubbing his eyes. Dean flicked the lights off as they went, creaking open the door to Ben’s room and letting himself smile as Ben grumbled his way to the bed and collapsed onto it. Dean gave the room a quick scan -- habit -- and stiffened.
“Ben,” he asked sharply. “Did you leave the window open?”
“Di’n open the window,” Ben replied tiredly. He rolled over, following Dean’s gaze. “Huh. Guess I did.”
The unease in Dean’s chest flared up. He covered the distance between the door and Ben’s bed in three long strides, grabbing the kid’s shoulder.
“Ben. Look at me. Are you absolutely sure you didn’t open the window today?”
Dean’s fear must have woken Ben up, because his voice was clear when he replied, “Y-yeah, it was cold in the morning and then I was downstairs with you and Mom all day -- ”
Dean’s heart was pounding. He rushed over to the window and slammed it shut, locking it.
“Lock your door when I leave,” he ordered. “Stay in your room.”
Ben was clutching at his blankets. “Dean, is something in the house?”
Dean swallowed. There’s nothing in the house. There’s nothing in the house. “I’m not sure,” he answered at last. “But I want you to stay in here until I’m positive.”
Ben’s eyes went wide. “Mom’s downstairs!”
“I know, kid, I’m gonna go get her.” Dean grabbed a baseball bat that was leaning against Ben’s laundry hamper. “Just stay in here, okay? Make sure you lock the door.”
Ben nodded, pulling the covers up. “Make sure Mom’s okay!”
Dean nodded and slammed the door behind him.
----
No hunter lasted long without a reliable gut instinct for danger, and Dean’s was screaming at him. As he picked his way down the stairs, his hand was so sweaty he was afraid the baseball bat would slip out of it. The silence in the house felt cold, choking. There’s nothing in the house, there’s nothing in the house...
Dean got to the bottom of the stairs and crept towards the kitchen. There was a clink, as of a wet dish being set down on the counter. Dean tried not to sigh with relief.
Lisa was humming as she put away the last few dishes. She turned around and started when she saw Dean.
“Honey, you snuck up on me.” Her smile faded when she saw the bat dangling from his hand. “Dean? Is something wrong?”
Dean crossed the kitchen and dragged Lisa into a fierce hug, burying his nose in her hair. He pulled back just as quickly, holding her shoulder.
“Something’s in the house,” he spilled out. “Ben’s window was open. I want you to go upstairs with Ben while I -- ”
“Dean, it’s all right. There’s nothing in the house.”
“Ben’s window -- ”
“I opened Ben’s window.”
Dean blinked. Lisa cupped his face, giving him a comforting smile.
“It was starting to smell like ‘boy’ in there,” she confessed, wrinkling her nose.
Dean’s heart was still racing. “Are -- are you sure?”
“Positive. I meant to close it before it got cold again, but with dinner and the movie and everything, it must have slipped my mind.”
Something still could have crawled inside. Dean shuddered and rubbed a hand over his face. His heart wouldn’t slow down.
“Honey... ” Lisa’s voice was so gentle. “There’s nothing in the house.”
Dean hugged her again until his shaking died down.
----
The stairs seemed so easy to climb. Dean didn’t know how that was possible when they had stretched on for miles as he crept down them not minutes ago. He blew out a sigh as he approached Ben’s door and creaked it open.
“False alarm, kid,” he announced, “Everything’s all -- ”
The words died in his throat. Ben’s bed was empty. The sheets were a mess, kicked back, and as Dean stared, a cool wind wafted across his face. A wind that would have had to come through the open...
Window.
“Lost something?”
The foreign voice made Dean’s blood freeze. His head whipped up.
Something was in the house.
A man stood in the corner of Ben’s room as if he belonged there, his fangs flashing in the dim light. Dean’s brain felt clogged. There wasn’t supposed to be a vampire calmly standing next to Ben’s laundry hamper, teeth bared, drops of red dripping down his chin. Dangling limply from his arms, glassy-eyed and breathing raggedly, was Ben.
Dean’s limbs felt frozen. There was a sickening dark smear on Ben’s neck. And another across his mouth.
“It’s funny,” continued the vampire, cocking his head. “I lost something too.”
I closed the window. I told him to lock his door. Dean’s hands were shaking. It was already in the room and I made him lock himself in here --
Dean didn’t realize he was hearing Lisa’s footsteps until she was peering into the room.
“Honey, is everything -- ”
For a millisecond, Lisa made eye contact with the vampire. Then Dean felt the baseball bat being ripped out of his hand.
“No -- !” Dean didn’t have time to finish the word before Lisa was charging into the room and swinging the bat at the vampire’s head. The vampire caught it, wrenching it out of Lisa’s grip and striking her across the face so hard she was knocked to the floor.
“Lisa!” Dean ran into the room, grabbing the bat off the floor. He put himself between Lisa and the retreating vampire as she groaned and got to her feet.
“You took my progeny, hunter!” the vampire spat, piercing Dean with its cold, icy eyes. It shook Ben, making him groan. “Consider this paying off your debt.”
Before Dean could raise the bat, the vampire disappeared out the window. Dean might have not moved from that spot until dawn if Lisa hadn’t grabbed his arm and yanked.
----
The backyard was empty. No vampire, no Ben, not even a spot of blood to lead Dean in the right direction. He and Lisa piled into the car without a word, and Dean tore out of the driveway.
The night seemed to be alive with flickers of movement, and in the corner of Dean’s eye, all of them looked like vampires. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as the Impala screamed around corners, and Dean did his best not to throw up. He couldn’t stop picturing the smear of red on Ben’s mouth.
Lisa had her window open and was leaning outside, vigilantly scanning the peaceful suburb. Dean tried not to look at her, or a the growing bruise around her eye where the vampire had struck her.
They drove until dawn.
----
By the time the sky started to grow pale in the east, Dean’s head was light from lack of sleep and a adrenal exhaustion. He wasn’t exactly sure where they were, only that Lisa had stopped looking out the window a long time ago. He nearly jumped out of his seat when her voice cut the aching silence.
“Take us home.”
Dean shuddered. “We might still -- vampires rest at daytime -- ”
Lisa turned towards him. Her eyes were so cold and dead that she almost looked like Sam. “Just take us home. Please.”
Dean swallowed the bile in his throat and turned the car around. Lisa didn’t speak for a few minutes, staring sightlessly through the windshield.
“He was already turned,” she said at last. “Wasn’t he?”
Blood all over his mouth. Dean had known it, but he’d been too terrified to bring it up. “ ... Yes.”
“Is there... any way to bring him back?”
The flicker of hope in her voice broke Dean’s heart. He couldn’t look at her.
“No.”
That bought him another fifteen minutes of silence. The world slowly brightened outside as they drove home. Dean’s whole body ached.
Lisa spoke again. “The vampire acted like he knew you.”
Dean was too exhausted to parse apart this information. “Never seen him.”
“He said you killed his progeny. Did you?”
Dean shrugged. “I’ve killed a lot of vampires. I probably -- ” Dean’s stomach curled up. He was staring at the road, but all he could see was a shock of orange hair in the gloom of Bobby’s house. “I -- I think I killed her last week.”
“Last week?” Lisa straightened up. “When you were at Bobby’s?”
Dean couldn’t breathe.
Lisa sounded choked. “ ... You promised me you wouldn’t hunt.”
“I -- ” I did it to save myself. I did it to save the worthless husk that used to be my brother. He couldn’t force the words out. Ben was gone because of him. He didn’t deserve excuses.
Lisa shuddered, curling up in her seat. “Take us home faster.”
----
The sun was starting to rise when they pulled back into the driveway. Dean couldn’t meet Lisa’s eyes as he stepped out of the car and shut the door. His legs ached from sitting. His whole body ached. Looking at Lisa was physically painful, but Dean forced himself to do it. She was hurting more than he was right now. She’d lost a son. Wish as Dean might, Ben wasn’t his.
The bruise on Lisa’s face was darkening to the color of the morning sky. The neighbors are going to think you put that there. Dean swallowed. He opened his mouth and tried to force out the words “I’m sorry,” but they felt dead even in his mind.
“You promised me you wouldn’t hunt.”
Dean flinched under the sharpness of the words. Lisa was staring at the ground and hugging her stomach like there was a knife in it.
“You promised me you’d let it go, that we mattered more to you.”
Your fault your fault your fault. Dean tried to breathe. “I w-was just -- ”
“We had one thing we absolutely couldn’t fuck up!” Lisa was shouting, her voice harsh and cutting in the morning air, and Dean couldn’t meet her eyes. “One thing! Take care of Ben!”
“I’m so sorry -- ”
“I just -- ” Lisa cut off with a strangled sob that made Dean’s gut twist. “A-all I did was leave the window open -- ”
Dean took a halting step towards her, ready to pull her into a hug and kiss her hair and tell her everything was okay --
“I just left a f-fucking window open and -- ” Lisa flinched and shut her eyes. “ ... I j-just want to go inside and wake him up for school -- ”
Dean grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight while she shook and cried into his shirt.
“H-how do I go back in the house now?”
“I’m sorry... ” Dean couldn’t tell if the words were actually leaving his lips or just rattling around in his head. His eyes were squeezed tight shut, blocking out the sweet new rays of the rising sun hitting the side of a house that Ben would never set foot in again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry... ”
----
Sleep did not come easily to Dean that morning, but weariness finally overtook him. He didn’t know if Lisa did the same. She collapsed into bed when he did, but the sheets were cold and empty when he awoke a scant hour later.
The morning had turned cold and rainy. Dean found Lisa in the kitchen, staring out the window, holding an untouched cup of coffee. The house felt bigger than it had before. Too big for two people and that much silence. Dean’s hands shook as he poured himself a cup of coffee to never drink.
----
Before the rain had cleared, Lisa was packing. Dean didn’t need to ask where she was planning on moving. He knew he wasn’t invited.
Silently, Dean packed his own things that day. As he was walking out the door with his last bag, Lisa caught him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her words had no emotion left, dry and thin and weary. “I know this isn’t fair.”
Dean grunted and shifted the duffel on his shoulder. “Nothing is.”
----
It was a long day. The road stretching ahead under Dean’s wheels was longer.
----
Dean’s tears had dried by the time he reached Bobby’s, but in their place, a deadness had settled in his bones. Bobby had the good grace not to say a word when he opened the door and saw Dean standing there, sunken-eyed and hollow. He invited Dean in, gave him a bear hug and a glass of whiskey, and left to arrange a sleeping place. Dean guessed he shouldn’t be surprised that Bobby could recognize death in a friend’s eyes.
Dean finished his whiskey and left the glass on the table, walking to the back porch. He was pretty sure Bobby kept extra shovels in the shed.
----
Sam was digging holes in the back lot.
Dean watched him for a long time. Sam didn’t say anything, didn’t so much as look at him, focused on shoveling dirt. The pattern of it was soothing. Unchanging. Dean envied it.
“Can I join you?” he asked at last, lifting the shovel in his hand.
Sam looked up at him, blinking. “You can.”
“Awesome.”
Dean jumped into the pit, finding space next to Sam and driving his shovel into the ground.
For just a second, he felt as dead as Sam. It was the best he’d felt in days.
----
In a grimy alley between two towering Chicago buildings, three hours after midnight, a sleek black van grumbled over the uneven pavement. Emblazoned on the sides were the golden words Lioncourt Luxury Hardwood. As the van drove, splashing through oily puddles, a middle-aged man with pale eyes stepped out from between the buildings, dragging a stumbling child with him. The van jerked to a halt before the two of them, rocking back on its wheels, flooding the man and the child in the yellow glow of the headlights.
“I hear you can put me in contact with Boris,” the man called, letting his fangs show.
The van door creaked open. A man slung his legs out, thumping onto the asphalt. He looked like he hadn’t bothered to cut his dark, dense hair in a few centuries, and his smirk made the filthy alley look pristine in comparison.
“Now who’s been tattling about my little program?” he drawled, shoving the door shut.
The first vampire swallowed. “B-Boris. I didn’t expect you’d be -- ”
“Manning the vans?” Boris shrugged amicably. “I’m not about to leave the most enjoyable job entirely up to the grunts.”
The vampire regained his composure and dragged the child forward. “I have a gift.”
Boris glanced at the kid, who stared back at him with dilated eyes. “Oh, bad boy,” he chided. “You’re not supposed to turn them that young. They come out wrong.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Furthermore, he’s not my type.”
“The gift isn’t for you,” the vampire growled. “It’s for Him.”
Boris’s smirk vanished. “ ... I see.” He turned and crooked one thick finger, silver rings flashing in the van’s headlights. “Come on, we’ll put him in the back with the others. I’ll take it from there.”
The vampire led the child around the van, following Boris. He peered skeptically at the gold writing on the side of the vehicle.
“About this... ” The vampire gestured at the van. “‘Lioncourt’? Not terribly subtle, is it?”
Boris laughed as he flung open the back doors of the van. “It’s called honesty.”
“And the bit about hardwoods? Is that honesty too?”
Boris just grinned.
The vampire gave the lacy words one more cringing glance before dragging the child around the back of the van. He peered inside and his eyes widened.
“ ... Are they all for Him?”
Boris laughed again, pulling the kid away from the vampire’s grip. “Shit no. These ones are for me.”
Ooooh! This is so good already! And Sam seems so detached but he isn't really, and I love Dean, Ben, and Lisa as a family and I don't want that to go out the window and those pictures seems so real, and they really capture the feeling of things, and HOW ARE YOU TWO DOING THIS TO ME SO FAST?!!?
Dean gasped awake in the cold, pre-dawn light, his limbs tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. The coolness of the night air that drifted through his open window did little to soothe the panicked heat beneath his skin. Dean sat up, tossed the sheets off, and wiped a shaking hand across his forehead. The first chimes of birdsong were beginning, although the cold twilight filtering through the window told him that the sun had not yet risen. Dean tried to slow his breathing, tried to let the calmness of the world wash over him and wipe out the lingering taste of his dream.
The heaviness, that was the freshest sensation in his mind. The body slumping into his arms had felt like lead.
Lisa’s warm, sleepy mumbles pulled Dean away from the thought. He felt the mattress shift, and then she was blinking up at him, her hair sleep-rumpled.
“Dean?” Her voice was hushed, as if scared to wake the sleeping world outside. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Dean started trying to force his mouth into a smile, but it died halfway through. He shuddered and sank back down on the bed, back into the now-cold stain of sweat he’d left there.
Lisa’s arm slunk across him. “Another dream?”
“Yeah.” Dean’s voice came out in a sore rasp. He rubbed his hand absently up and down her arm, as much to soothe himself as to soothe her. “Not a great one.”
Lisa leaned over him, her hair tickling his neck. “Would it be better to talk about it, or... ?”
“ ... Probably not.” Dean stroked messy strands of Lisa’s hair out of her face. This time, he managed a weak smile without breaking it. “I’ll be fine.”
Lisa’s brow was pursed in concern. “Are you sure?”
Dean brushed his knuckles down her neck, over her bare shoulder. The cold light coming through the window fell across her freckled skin. “Yeah. I’m already feeling better.” The warmth of Lisa’s body pressed against his was comforting, and it helped banish the darkness of his dream until it was no more than a shiver in the back of his mind.
Lisa allowed herself a worried smile before leaning down and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Dean tilted his head up so that her next kiss caught his lips.
“You should get back to sleep,” he murmured. “It’s early, and you don’t have work.”
Lisa tsked scoldingly and brushed her hand over his bare chest. “Well, as long as you’ve woken me up... ”
Smiling became easier, suddenly. Dean tangled his hand in Lisa’s dark hair to pull her into another kiss. He slid his other hand down her lean back, pulling her up against him, as her fingers tickled over a pale scar on his chest.
There was a clatter downstairs. Dean tore away from Lisa and bolted upright, all calmness gone, straining to pick up another noise. His heart pounded in his chest. Faintly, the pitter-patter someone trying and failing to walk silently could be heard. Someone small. There was another clatter and a soft, childish curse.
Dean relaxed. His hand wandered to Lisa’s fingers, squeezing them. “ ... Sounds like Ben’s trying to make us breakfast.”
Lisa let out a weary breath, rolling onto her back and rubbing a hand over her face. “Oh, the poor kitchen... ”
Dean chuckled and swung his legs out of bed. “Hey, you go back to sleep. I’ll go see what the kid’s up to.”
Lisa snuggled under the covers as Dean got up and rifled through his dresser, pulling out a fresh set of clothes. “You sure, honey?”
Dean stepped into a pair of jeans and let his eyes wander back to the bed. Lisa’s dark eyes were lidded and sleepy, and the sun was just high enough that the first few beams of pink light peeked through the curtains, falling across the soft white sheets and dusting her black hair with sparks. Dean almost crawled back in bed with her.
A louder crash from downstairs made him wince.
“You stay right where you are,” Dean ordered, pointing a finger at Lisa as he pulled a shirt out of his dresser. “I’ll make sure the kitchen’s in one piece when you decide to get out of bed.”
----
The sun was starting to creep up over the horizon as Dean quietly descended the stairs. The once cold blue light that filtered through the windows was blushing into a soft lavender, but the pink and gold splendor of the sun’s rays hadn’t made it over the houses yet.
By the time Dean got to the kitchen, it was clear that Ben had already been busy for a while. The big electric mixer was out on the counter, thick white wires tangled around the fruit bowl. It looked like half the pantry had been strewn across the countertop, and it looked like half of that had been opened and was resting perilously on some edge or another. There was already a good amount of flour spilled on the hardwood floor. And in the thick of it all was Ben, carrying a large bowl. When he noticed Dean, he jolted, and a little more flour joined the mess on the floor.
Dean rubbed a hand over his face, trying not to smile. “It’s six thirty, kid. What are you doing?”
Ben thumped the bowl of flour onto the counter, wiping a white smudge off his cheek and leaving a bigger one in its place. “I’m making pancakes for mom.”
Dean lost the battle with his smile. He picked his way through the mess on the floor, trying to assess the damage. “Well, I’m sure she’ll love that, but you know what she’d love even more? Showing you how to make pancakes once she’s awake.” He cringed when he stepped on an egg shell. “ ... And showing you how to clean up, too.”
“Can’t,” Ben brushed off, turning back to his work. He picked up a jug of milk with both hands and carefully poured it into a measuring cup. “I’ve gotta surprise her.”
“Why’s that?”
Ben gave him a skeptical look. “Dude, it’s Mother’s Day.”
Dean blinked. Ben kept pouring, and Dean grabbed the milk jug just in time to stop it from spilling all over the counter.
“Ben... you’re a champ for getting up this early,” Dean began, gently lifting the jug away from Ben’s hands and carrying it back to the fridge. “But do you even know how to make pancakes?”
Ben shook his head. “No. But the internet does.”
He pointed across the kitchen where Lisa’s laptop was resting on the window sill. Through the glare from the kitchen lights, the screen showed a golden stack of pancakes flanking a list of ingredients.
“The internet’s pretty useful, Dean. You should try it sometime,” Ben suggested dryly. He gave Dean a firm clap on the back, leaving a floury handprint. “Don’t worry. If Mom asks, I’ll tell her you taught me everything I know about pancakes.”
Dean chuckled and ruffled his hand through Ben’s dark hair. “I knew I liked you for a reason. Come on, let’s make Mom some pancakes.”
For the first time in twenty-eight years, Dean celebrated Mother’s Day.
----
The sun had crested the horizon, spilling yellow morning light across the neighborhood, by the time Dean and Ben had cleaned the kitchen and produced a presentable stack of pancakes. Ben went a little overboard with the syrup, but Dean wasn’t about to criticize their masterpiece.
“Strawberries?” Ben asked, artfully arranging a fork, knife and napkin on the breakfast tray for about the twentieth time.
Dean gave him a thumbs-up. “Strawberries.” As he fished them out of the fridge, a car revved by outside. The neighborhood was waking up.
As Dean closed the refrigerator door, a chilly tub of strawberries in hand, the doorbell rang. He pushed the strawberries into Ben’s hands.
“Here, decorate those pancakes and get ‘em up to Mommy. I got the door.”
Ben gave him a mock salute. Dean raced for the door, unlocking it and wrenching it open, letting cool morning air spill into the room.
“Sid, didn’t think you’d be up this earl-- ”
Dean’s words turned to lead in his throat. Lead, like a body slumping into his arms.
Castiel stood on the porch. The morning sunlight struck his face.
“Hello, Dean.”
Dean’s brain stalled out. He stared blankly, unable to connect the angel at his door with the already-distant memory of chilled strawberries in his hand.
Castiel looked him over. “You look well. Healthy.”
“Cas -- ” Dean’s throat was still full of lead and the words wouldn’t come. He swallowed. “What -- what are you doing here?”
“It’s about Sam.”
The lead in his throat sharpened into a knife and dropped into his stomach. Mechanically, Dean stepped outside and slammed the door shut. His hands were shaking.
“I promised,” he ground out, stabbing a finger against Castiel’s chest, rocking the angel’s body back with the force of it. “I promised Sam I wouldn’t come looking for him. Promised I’d get out of hunting, get a yard with a goddamn picket fence and -- ” ... and dream about death every night --
“Dean -- ”
“So don’t you fucking talk to me about Sam! I won’t break my promise, Cas!”
“And you won’t have to,” Castiel cut in. “I got him out, Dean. Sam’s back.”
Dean’s hand fell limply away from Castiel’s chest. It hung by his side, heavy as lead, like a dead body. “How did -- ” He rubbed the back of his hand over his face, barely feeling it. “That -- wasn’t supposed to be possible -- ”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
“Are you sure?”
“I went into Hell and retrieved his soul myself. It’s him.”
“I-is he... ” Dean couldn’t choke the words out.
Castiel didn’t answer. He looked tired, and sad. Dean tried to exhale through the gravel in his lungs.
“ ... Just let me tell Lisa and Ben,” he managed at last. He reached back with a hand that felt dead, fumbling for the door knob. “And I’ll come with you.”
----
Dean didn’t remember going back into the house or walking up the stairs. What he remembered with crisp clarity was the scrape of forks against a plate as Ben and Lisa shared the big stack of pancakes on her bed. He remembered the way Lisa’s glowing smile faded when she saw his face. Dean didn’t understand how there could be strawberries and pancakes up here when there was an angel on his doorstep.
He must have spoken, because Lisa was hugging him. “It’s okay,” she was saying. “He’s your brother. Go see him.”
“I’ll only be gone a few days,” Dean swore. “I just need to see him.”
“That’s fine.”
“I won’t hunt. You know I promised I wouldn’t.”
“I know you won’t.”
“It’s just that -- ”
“I know.” Lisa kissed his cheek. “Go ahead. We’ll be fine.”
Dean pulled her against him, closing his eyes and burying his nose in her hair. He kissed her forehead. “Happy Mother’s Day.”
Lisa squeezed him. “We’ll celebrate when you get back.”
----
Castiel hadn’t arrived in a car.
He pressed two fingers against Dean’s forehead, and Michigan vanished like smoke. In place of the neat, green suburb, familiar rows of half-broken cars loomed around them, and dust and gravel crunched under Dean’s feet. The wind smelled like oil and rust.
“Sam has been staying with Bobby,” Castiel explained, letting his hand drop from Dean’s forehead. “He’s probably inside.”
Bobby wasn’t inside. As Dean and Castiel approached the house, they saw him standing in the shade of the wooden porch with a steaming cup of coffee and a dark, sour look. Dean took all three porch steps in one stride and pulled Bobby into a rough hug. He got a firm clap on the back in return, and they separated.
“He’s in the back,” Bobby grunted. His gaze drifted over Dean’s shoulder, towards Castiel. “Doing that thing he’s been doing.”
Dean breathed out a thanks before bolting into the house, nearly ripping the screen door off its hinges. Bobby took a sullen sip of coffee as Castiel walked up the porch steps, standing beside him.
“You are angry,” Castiel remarked.
Bobby grunted, not meeting Castiel’s eyes. “Dean’s a recovering alcoholic, and you just offered him a drink.”
Castiel squinted. “There were no drinks involved.”
“Sam’s his liquor.” Bobby took another sip of coffee, longer and deeper. He huffed when he lowered the mug again. “He’s not gonna like what he finds here.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t have brought him?” Castiel demanded.
Bobby just shrugged wearily.
It only took a handful of Dean’s long strides to run through Bobby’s house, but his heart strained and thumped like he’d run miles. He nearly fell over his feet when he burst out into the lot.
In the early dawn light, Sam stood between the broken-down cars, digging.
It felt so normal to see him, just standing there in Bobby’s lot. Sam was knee-deep in a pit in the ground, shovel in hand, digging methodically. The noise was familiar too, the shhhk, ftt, shffff of the shovel driving into the ground, lifting a load of dirt and dust and rocks, and dropping it into a pile.
The small dust pile almost doubled in size before Dean found his voice.
“ ... Sammy?”
Sam’s head lifted at the sound of his name. He froze with a shovel full of pale gravel and dirt, the wind whipping off streams of dust.
Dean forced his locked legs to take a step. Then another. He somehow stumbled into a run that carried him all the way to Sam’s pit, jumping in with his brother and yanking him into a savage hug that made Sam drop the shovel. Sam swayed slightly with the force of the impact, but otherwise didn’t respond. His arms hung at his sides limply as Dean squeezed him.
The stillness sent a chill down Dean’s spine. He pulled back gingerly, examining Sam’s face. Sam stared back without a word.
“ ... Sammy?” Dean swallowed and gave his brother’s shoulder a squeeze. “You, um, you in one piece?”
Sam looked troubled by the question. His gaze drifted away from Dean, eyeing the pit they were standing in.
Dean gave him a gentle shake. “Hey, Sam. It’s okay, yeah? Don’t need to talk about it. I’m just glad you’re back.”
Sam lifted his gaze again. His silence was starting to make Dean uneasy.
“ ... You, uh... you can talk, right?”
Sam nodded slowly. “I can talk.” His voice was calm, like Dean had asked about the weather.
It put Dean’s teeth on edge. An absolutely terrifying question rose to his lips, and it spilled out before he could think better.
“Sam... you remember me, right?”
Sam’s eyes were as flat and emotionless as his voice. “I remember you.”
Dean let his hand slip off of Sam’s shoulder. His whole body felt cold.
“ ... You can’t be Sam.” You’re nothing.
Sam cocked his head. “I am Sam.”
----
Dean slammed the door so hard the hinges screamed in protest. He marched into the kitchen where Bobby was arm-deep in a sink full of soapy dishes and Castiel stood quietly watching.
Dean stabbed an accusing finger in the general direction of the lot. “That can’t be Sam!”
“Will you cool your engines?” Bobby huffed, drying off a plate with a faded dish towel. He placed the plate on the counter and tossed the dish towel over his shoulder. “I already splashed, cut, and salted ‘im. You know where the supplies are if you wanna have your own go.”
Dean turned to Castiel. “Cas, you said you got him out. That... ” Dean’s voice choked off. “ ... that can’t be all that’s left of him.”
Castiel looked wounded. “Dean, I’m so sorry... ”
Dean pressed a hand over his eyes, trying to breathe. “ ... How long has he been like this?”
“Cas brought him two weeks ago,” Bobby grunted. “We thought... well, we thought we’d wait, and maybe we’d have a little more to show you.” He turned around, soapy kitchen knife in hand. “I don’t think he’s gonna get better, Dean. Whatever happened to him in that pit is -- damn varmits!”
Dean flinched as Bobby hurled the kitchen knife, nearly hitting a startled rat that squeaked in alarm and scurried out of the kitchen in a gray frenzy.
Bobby cursed softly and walked across the kitchen, wrenching the knife out of the wall it had stuck in. “Numbskull out back’s got enough brain function to figure out that he needs to eat,” Bobby explained sourly, “but not enough to remember to put his goddamn leftovers away. Now I’ve got an infestation.”
Dean’s fists clenched. “How can you talk about him like that? Like he’s not even -- ”
“Because it’s not Sam, Dean!” Bobby threw his towel down. “I get it, I want him back too! I clung to hope at first! When you live with him, you see it. Sam’s not in there.” Suddenly weary, Bobby bent down and picked up the towel. “I dunno what’s animating that corpse, but it ain’t your brother. And I’m damn sorry.”
Silence stretched in the kitchen as Bobby tossed the dish towel onto the counter and grabbed a clean one, throwing it over his shoulder. For a long time, the clinks and splashes of dishes being washed were the only noise.
“ ... Supplies are in the usual place?” Dean finally asked.
Bobby tilted his head in a gesture to the living room. “Same as ever.”
----
Sam submitted to the tests with calm platitude, though it took a great deal of urging to get him to climb out of his pit. He bled like any human would under the silver knife, and when Dean washed the cut with holy water, Sam’s only response was to clench his fist slightly. The salt crystals sat harmlessly on his palm until Dean brushed them away.
“You know why I’m doing all this?” Dean asked.
Sam nodded as Dean bandaged the cut. “To see if I’m human.”
Dean kept his voice calm. “And are you?”
“Yes.” When Sam tried to move away, Dean grabbed his shoulder.
“Why are you digging all those pits?” He’d seen them scattered around the lot. It must be driving Bobby crazy.
“I’m supposed to.”
“Supposed to? What, someone tell you to?”
“No. I need to be... I’m trying to find... ” Sam looked unsure. He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “ ... Something.”
“Well, if that ‘something’ is rocks and dirt, good call. If not... ”
“It’s not rocks and dirt.”
Dean sighed and took his hand off of Sam’s shoulder. “Is it your sense of sarcasm?”
Sam’s eyes widened and he took a moment to consider this. He finally settled on, “Maybe.”
“Well, let me know if you find it.”
This answer did nothing to ease Sam’s agitation. He picked up his shovel and jammed it into the ground.
----
Dean spent the whole day in Bobby’s lot, watching Sam dig. Sam would dig until the pit was so deep he couldn’t shovel dirt out of it, until Dean could no longer see his head. Crawling out of the pits seemed to be a huge emotional ordeal for him. Sam would shiver and whine as he wrenched himself out, as if every fiber of his being was begging him to jump back in. Then, once Sam was on solid ground again, the distress would pass like a summer storm, and his eyes would return to glass. He would pick up his shovel, find a new spot of bare dirt, and start digging.
The whole pattern made Dean’s head ache, but he refused to go inside. He talked occasionally while Sam dug, sometimes getting replies, sometimes not.
“Lisa and Ben say hi. And they hope you’re okay. So much for that, right? Sam, could you fill those awful things up again when you’re done digging ‘em? No wonder Bobby’s going off his rocker.”
“I need to dig more.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re lookin’ for, huh? Might be I can help you find it.”
Sam didn’t like that question. He dug more frantically.
After a couple hours, Bobby came out with a beer and two sandwiches.
“Here,” he ordered gruffly, shoving the food at Dean. “Eat. I know you haven’t eaten yet.”
Dean took the beer, but left the sandwiches in Bobby’s hand. “Not hungry.”
“Dean, cut me a break. I’ve already got one handful to babysit.” He shoved the sandwiches at Dean again. “Eat the goddamn food. Don’t force me to make train noises.”
Grudgingly, Dean took the sandwiches. It wasn’t until he swallowed his third bite that he realized how hungry he was. Never did get to try the pancakes.
“The other’s for Sam,” Bobby explained. “He’ll come looking for food when he needs it.”
Dean swallowed a thick bite of white bread and sliced ham. “Cas around?”
“He left. Says he’s gonna figure if there ain’t something we can do about Sam. He left your car in the lot, says you’ll have to get yourself home.” Bobby paused. “ ... Also says he’s sorry about Sam. He did his best.”
Dean took a sip of beer to wash the sandwich down, watching Sam dig. Shhhk, ftt, shffff.
“I’m sorry too, Dean. I wish you didn’t have to see this.”
“Yeah, well, better than thinking he was dead.”
Bobby shook his head, turning back towards the house. “Wish I could agree with you, son.”
----
Sam dug. The sun moved across the sky. Dean sipped his way through a second beer. At some point Sam left his holes behind to claim his sandwich, wolfing it down before picking up his shovel again.
“Jeez, Sam, you ate that sandwich like it was a salad.”
Sam drove the shovel into the ground. “I was hungry.”
“Salad still your favorite food?”
Sam paused in his shoveling. “ ... I need food to live.”
“That’s not -- never mind.”
Dean had a third beer. The sun moved across the sky.
----
The shadows were starting to stretch when Bobby came out of the house again. This time he carried two huge, steaming bowls of soup, setting them down on the rusted hood of a car next to Dean. Dean picked one up without complaint, spooning hot broth and chicken and potatoes into his mouth.
“Got a call from Rufus,” Bobby began. “Needs help one state over. Something about a zombie librarian.”
“I don’t hunt,” Dean grunted in response, watching Sam dig.
“Well, I sure ain’t askin’ you to. I got Rufus. Just keep an eye on that -- ” Bobby stopped himself. “ ... On your brother. Make sure he finds his dinner and a suitable place to sleep. You can use my bed, I won’t be back tonight.”
Dean nodded. Bobby walked back into the house, and a frantic whine from Sam’s pit told Dean that it was time for Sam to climb out. He sighed and set his food down on the car before striding over and lowering a hand into the pit.
“C’mon, kid, up you come.”
----
Sam’s soup had cooled from scalding to lukewarm before he stopped digging to come eat it. He leaned against the rusted old car next to Dean, eating in silence, as the sun set and the light turned gold. Dean closed his eyes, and for just a moment, he could pretend that this was just a normal day on the road with Sam, that the rusted car hood under his fingers was smooth and black.
The moment passed when Sam put his bowl down and walked away, picking up his shovel. Dean downed the rest of the beer and went inside Bobby’s house to find something stronger.
----
Certain whiskey bottles belonged to Bobby and Bobby alone, but there was always liquor available for guests. Dean grabbed one such bottle, the last half of its amber contents sloshing against the glass, and brought it outside with him. He took sips as he watched Sam dig.
Shhhk, ftt, shffff.
The cycle of it got less aggravating as Dean’s head started to buzz.
“I kept my promise, y’know,” he announced. “Family, apple pie, no hunting. Never came looking for you, not once. Just like you said.”
Sam didn’t respond. Dean sipped at the whiskey bottle.
“You remember that, Sam? Remember making me promise that?”
Sam looked up this time. “I remember.”
“ ... You happy I kept my promise?”
The question seemed to puzzle Sam. Dean shuddered and took another draw on the bottle, gulping down the sour burn.
“Never mind. Just dig.”
Sam dug, and Dean drank until the lot was swaying and Sam’s rhythmic shoveling almost seemed to make a cosmic sort of sense.
----
By the time the sun set, Dean’s whiskey bottle dangled from his limp hand, empty.
“You jus’ dig like this all day?” he slurred.
Sam tossed a load of rocks and dirt out of his pit. “Usually.”
“Don’ get tired?”
“I do get tired. And then I sleep.”
Dean lifted the whiskey bottle to his lips before remembering it was empty. He let it drop again. “Do you dream?”
“No.”
The whiskey felt hot in Dean’s blood. Shadows were swallowing up the car lot, turning Sam’s pit into a black maw that could have gone down forever. Or down into the deepest pit of Hell. Suddenly he wanted to yank Sam out of it.
“D’you remember it?” he blurted.
“Remember what?”
Dean couldn’t look away from that big black hole. “The Cage. Hell.” He still remembered Hell.
“Yes. I remember.” Sam turned back to his digging calmly, driving his shovel into the earth and scooping dirt out of the pit.
The whiskey was making Dean ask questions he ought not to. “Can you remember what -- what he did to you? Lucifer?”
Sam tossed dirt out of his pit. “Yes. He hurt me. In lots of ways.”
“Did he -- ” Dean’s head was spinning with memories he’d tried to put away for so long. Memories of blood and fire and hooks under his skin and the things Alastair forced him to do. It was too easy to see all of that happening to Sam. “God, Sam, I’m sorry -- ”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t -- I couldn’t get you out.”
Sam cocked his head. “I’m out now.”
“Do you remember that part?” Dean almost started to lift the empty whiskey bottle again. “You remember how Cas got you out?”
Sam’s eyes slid out of focus. The shovel slipped in his shaking hands and he stopped breathing.
“Wh-whoa, easy -- ” Dean dropped the empty bottle and stumbled over to Sam’s pit, extending a hand. “Come on, you don’t have to tell me. Let’s get you out of there.”
“N-no -- ” Sam backed away until he thumped against the dirt wall of the pit. “I’m supposed to be down here.”
Dean pulled back, lifting both hands in a peaceful gesture. Sam shivered and started digging again. Dean stood on the edge of Sam’s pit until his buzz had faded and the stars had come out, bringing a chill with them.
----
Eventually, Sam let Dean help him out of the pit. “I’m tired,” he announced.
Dean gave him a firm clap on the back, leading him away from the hole. “Let’s get you to bed, champ.”
Sam walked willingly into Bobby’s house, but wouldn’t go up the stairs. He stopped at the foot of them, staring up into the darkness of the top floor with worry. A few times he lifted his foot as if about to take the first step, only to yank it back. Dean took Sam’s hand and managed to guide him up three steps, reassuring him and pulling the whole time.
“I’m supposed to be down there,” Sam protested.
“Come on, Sam, there’s a better place for you to sleep upstairs.”
“But I’m not supposed to -- this isn’t right -- ”
The ordeal ended when they got to the fifth step, and Dean felt too broken and too weary to go on. He let go, and Sam jumped back down the stairs gratefully.
The couch, thankfully, gave Sam no trouble. Sam waited while Dean found pillows and a blanket, then gladly flopped down on the rough cushions and wrapped himself in the bedding.
Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. The bed upstairs was beckoning. “You tell me if you need anything.”
Sam nodded.
Dean wandered around the house, tidying up and shutting off the lights. A rat ran under his feet and he cursed softly, stumbling. Finally, he dragged himself up the stairs, barely pausing to kick his shoes off before collapsing onto the bed. A deep exhaustion had worked into his bones, like he’d been the one digging holes all day.
Cicadas called outside, filling the air with a steady droning. The night had grown cold, but when Dean dragged Bobby’s thick comforter over himself, it was cozy and warm. The calm and the dark were soothing, and for a moment, Dean felt peaceful. He closed his eyes and listened to the night noises, waiting to drift off, trying not to think about how, this morning, he’d woken up in a different bed and a different world.
The cicadas sang, and wind gusted outside. Rats scurried downstairs. Dean let out a tired sigh and rolled over, pulling the blankets up higher, when he heard the downstairs door open.
It didn’t register for a moment. Sam’s gone outside to dig again, he thought. But Sam had been passed out when Dean had last seen him, snoring into his pillow.
Adrenaline shot through Dean’s body like a knife. He bolted up, throwing the covers off and swinging his legs over the bed. He moved across the creaky wooden floors as quickly as he could without stepping on any of the really noisy boards, creeping down the stairs, straining to hear. Someone was walking through the house, someone who wasn’t bothering to muffle their footsteps.
Dean’s heart raced so fast it hurt. Breathing felt like needles. It had been a year since he’d last hunted, he wasn’t sure if he remembered how, and hunting wasn’t something you could fuck up or people died --
As he rounded a corner, Dean could see a shape moving in the darkness. Dean pressed himself to the wall, trying not to make a sound, praying he hadn’t been seen. The figure looked human, with a shock of orange hair so bright it was even visible in the gloom, but Dean didn’t trust it. A lot of things looked human that weren’t.
You don’t have salt. Silver. Holy water. Salt gun. Dean’s helpful brain ticked off all the ways he was screwed as he tried to creep up behind the intruder before she could get to Sam. Exorcism. Machete. Regular gun. A weapon of any kind --
A rat raced under Dean’s feet suddenly, squeaking in alarm. The woman spun around, her orange hair flying, showing a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs.
For a moment, Dean was frozen. The vampire stared back with equal surprise.
“The fuck?” She narrowed her eyes. “When’d you get here?”
Dean didn’t think. His arm moved and his fist crashed into the vampire’s face, knocking her back a step. Dean bolted past her, his feet pounding against the uneven wooden floor as she cursed.
When Dean made it to the living room, Sam was still lying on the couch, snoring faintly. Dean threw shut the heavy wooden doors and latched them before running to the other end of the room and doing the same.
“Sam!” he shouted. “Sam, get up!”
Sam grumbled and sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was sleeping.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s arm, trying to yank him off the couch. “Sam, come on, I need you up -- ”
The vampire was pounding her fists against the door. “Come on, mister, let me in! I’m not here to eat you, I swear!”
“Piss off!” Dean shouted at the door. He yanked Sam’s arm, but Sam wouldn’t budge. “Come on, come on... ”
“Hey, that’s the truth! I don’t wanna mess with you, I just want that simple one.” She made a low, appreciative noise. “You know who I mean, yeah? The big one who looks like he wouldn’t struggle too bad. Bet he’d just lie there all pretty, I could take my time.”
Sam was blinking at the latched door. He yawned and tried to crawl back under his blankets.
“That’s a fucking vampire out there, now get up!” Dean hissed, grabbing Sam under the armpits and hoisting him off the couch and onto the floor. Sam let out an oomph, grabbing at the couch and trying to get upright.
“Been waitin’ days for that scary old hunter to clear out,” the vampire continued. “I really got no interest in you, just let me have the big guy!”
“Sam, you need to move!” Dean yanked Sam to his feet.
Sam tried to sit back on the couch again. “I’m tired.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s jaw, forcing his brother to look at him. “Sam, we need to move now or that vamp’s gonna make a happy meal out of you. You wanna die?”
Sam pursed his eyebrows thoughtfully. His silence made Dean’s stomach drop.
“C-come on, we don’t have time for your existential crisis!” he gave a sharp yank on Sam’s arm, and Sam staggered away from the couch.
The thump of retreating footsteps could be heard through the door. The vampire was probably looking for another way in. Dean pulled furiously on Sam’s arm, and to his relief Sam finally followed. He dragged Sam towards the door that had just been abandoned, creaking it open and looking around cautiously. All they had to do was get to the panic room and seal themselves in until dawn.
Dean couldn’t see or hear the vampire. He ventured out of the living room, his hand still locked around Sam’s wrist. Sam followed as Dean led him through the house, staring into space and yawning occasionally. Dean held his breath and prayed Sam wouldn’t complain about being tired again.
They made it to the kitchen. Dean checked for rats this time as they picked their way carefully across the moonlit tile floor. Sam looked half-asleep, slumping tiredly after Dean just because it was less work than fighting.
Dean peered around a corner. A fist crashed into his jaw, throwing him from his feet and ripping his hand away from Sam’s arm. The unforgiving floor slammed into his back, and his head knocked against it painfully. Before Dean could get up, a second blow pounded into his stomach, driving the wind out of his lungs and making him double up.
“Yeah, stay down there! You’re a real pain in the ass!”
“S -- a-m -- ” Dean couldn’t speak above a wheeze. He coughed, his head reeling. His abdomen was alive with pain, churning and aching.
The vampire was ignoring him, talking to Sam. “Not gonna run? Yeah, I knew you’d be easy. Do me a favor, doll, tilt your head to the side. You understand words, right?”
Dean coughed again, pushing himself up on his hands and knees. His stomach heaved, threatening to empty itself all over the rough wood floor.
“Geez, you’re a tall one. Bend down so I can goddamn reach you.”
“I’m tired.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get a nice long sleep after this... ”
Clinging to the wall, Dean wrenched himself painfully to his feet, still holding his stomach. The vampire was grabbing Sam’s hair, pulling him down to her height and baring his throat. Her fangs were out, needle glistens in the moonlight, and before Dean could move she was sinking them into Sam’s neck.
Sam grunted in confusion, trying to turn his head away. “That hurts -- ”
Dean seized the vampire by the shoulders, and somehow his arms found the strength to rip her off of Sam and throw her to the floor. He yanked Sam’s wrist, trying to drag him away, trying not to look at the blood on his neck --
“Sam, run -- ”
The vampire was on her feet again, fingers digging bruises into Dean’s arm. She threw him to the ground, and the wind was driven out of Dean for a second time that night. She was on top of him, holding him down, grabbing his hair so roughly he shouted.
“I was gonna leave you alone,” the vampire snarled, her needle teeth bared, “but if you’re gonna be this much of a pain, I’ll just eat you first!”
“Sam!” Dean bucked and kicked, grabbing the vampire’s face and trying to keep it away from his neck. She hissed between his fingers, fangs pricking his skin. “Sam, go into the kitchen and get Bobby’s meat cleaver!”
Sam blinked, watching calmly as Dean struggled with the monster on the floor. “I don’t know where it is.”
“With the other knives, Sam, go -- ”
The vampire spat, finally wrenching Dean’s hand off her face and slamming his wrist against the floor. Dean cursed, twisting uselessly against her superior strength, trying to push her off with his free hand.
“I just wanted a nice easy meal!” the vampire growled, tightening her grip in Dean’s hair and wrenching his head to the side. Her snarl softened into a hungry groan when she saw his exposed neck.
Dean shoved at her frantically with his free hand. “Sam!”
The vampire opened her mouth, baring every one of her slim, pale fangs, before leaning towards his neck. Dean kicked in panic when he felt those thin slivers of bone sinking into his neck, slicing into his veins.
“Sam!”
“Yes?”
Dean tried to wrench his head around, hissing in pain. Sam was standing above him, holding a meat cleaver, watching. He yawned.
Dean winced, lifting his arm towards his brother. “Sam -- cleaver -- give it here!”
Sam extended the meat cleaver tiredly, the blade brushing against Dean’s fingers. Dean nearly sobbed as the vampire slurped hungrily at his neck. His head was feeling light.
“H-handle first, Sam!”
Sam rubbed a hand over his eyes as he shifted his grip on the cleaver, holding it by the dull side of the blade and offering the handle to Dean. Dean’s fingers finally closed around the smooth wood handle and he swung the cleaver around, slamming it into the back of the vampire’s neck.
She shrieked, a high clicking noise that cut straight into Dean’s bones. Dean threw the monster off, sitting up over her twisting body and raising the cleaver above his head.
The blade came down. Again. And again. And again. Dean didn’t stop until the cleaver was buried so deep in the wood of Bobby’s floor that he couldn’t pull it out again.
Dean stumbled away, his back hitting a wall. His chest was heaving, the room spinning worse than it had after the whiskey. There was a wetness on his neck, and on his hands, but it barely registered over the crippling nausea in his stomach.
A sleepy grunt drew his attention back to Sam. Sam was giving the opposite wall a bored look, rubbing a hand absently against the bite on his neck, smearing blood all over it.
“I’m tired.” He looked at Dean. “I’m going back to bed.”
----
There was no reason to expect another attack, but Dean dragged Sam to the panic room all the same. When he creaked open the salt-soaked iron door, some corner of Dean’s mind expected his brother to be incapable of crossing the threshold. But Sam stumbled in gladly, finding the bed and flopping down, snoring in seconds. Dean bandaged the bites on their necks, which Sam didn’t even wake up for, and pulled out the cot for himself. He sat down, but never fell asleep.
There were no cicadas down here, no rats. Just the hum of the overhead fan and the faint tick of Dean’s watch, counting down the hours until dawn.
----
No sunlight touched the panic room, but according to Dean’s watch, it was around eight thirty when Sam woke up. Sam sat up on the bed and immediately stated he was hungry. He continued to state this every few minutes as he wandered around the room, and once he tried to open the door and Dean had to stop him. Dean knew the sun would be well above the horizon, but he kept them in the panic room for another half hour, until he couldn’t stand any more of Sam’s emotionless declarations of hunger.
As eager as Sam had been to leave panic room, he agonized over the stairs leading out of the basement. He stood at the bottom, stomach rumbling, staring up the flight of stairs and shifting from foot to foot uneasily. Dean brushed roughly past him and stomped up the stairs, leaving Sam at the bottom.
Dean couldn’t stomach the thought of food, but he made himself a pot of coffee. He could hear Sam whimpering as he struggled up the stairs. The sound grated on Dean’s ears until he didn’t even want the coffee anymore. Just when he was about to go and drag Sam up the damn stairs himself, the whimpering died off. Dean could hear footsteps. When Sam walked into the kitchen, he was glassy-eyed and calm. He went straight for the refrigerator, opening it and grabbing the first thing he saw, which happened to be a jar of mayonnaise.
Dean downed the rest of his coffee and left his mug in the sink. He rolled up his sleeves and marched quickly out of the room. He had a deep panic that Sam was about to eat the mayo straight out of the jar with a spoon, and suddenly the thought of cleaning up the dead vampire seemed like the less nauseating option.
----
Sam’s incessant hole-digging proved useful. Dean dumped the vampire’s corpse in the nearest pit and started filling it in, taking dirt from the pile Sam had left nearby. When Dean wandered back to the kitchen to find a sponge for the blood on the floor, he saw that Sam had left the refrigerator door open, as well as the jar of mayo, which sat on the counter next to an open bag of bread. Dean sighed and cleaned up after his brother, not sure how grateful he should be that Sam was enriching his mayo diet with some bread.
----
Bobby’s truck crackling across the gravel was the sweetest sound Dean had ever heard. He’d nearly finished scrubbing the blood out of the floor -- though there was nothing to be done about the deep gash where he’d slammed the meat cleaver into it -- when he heard the front door open.
Bobby’s heavy boots thumped on the floor as he wandered through the house. He peered into the room where Dean knelt, gave the bloody sponge and the gash on the floor a sour glare, and nodded in greeting.
“Is it dead?” he grunted.
Dean soaked the sponge in his bowl of soapy water and squeezed it out. “And buried.”
Bobby must have seen the bandage on his neck, because his next question was: “Vamp?”
“Yup.” Dean picked up the bowl of water and stood up. “That old meat cleaver you got? Might wanna soak it in bleach.”
“Noted.” Bobby frowned at the gash in the floor again. “I trust Sam’s in one piece?”
Dean snorted scornfully. “He wasn’t in one piece to begin with.” He strode to the kitchen to dump out the bloody, soapy water. It sloshed down the drain in pink bubbles.
“How long you staying?” Bobby called after him.
Dean thumped the empty bowl onto the table, bracing his arms against it and huffing. “About five more minutes.”
----
Castiel had left Dean’s Baby in the front next to Bobby’s car. Dean stood next to her for a long time, watching the gleam of the morning sun off her hood. Castiel couldn’t have known that Dean hadn’t driven Baby since he rode her to Lisa’s house after Sam died. He couldn’t have known how that sleek black door handle beckoned to Dean’s hand, or how his hand shook when he reached for it. Castiel couldn’t have known how hard this would be.
Something finally made Dean pull away from Baby and walk around the house to the back lot.
----
“I’m going back to Lisa and Ben.”
Sam glanced up from his digging without stopping. “All right.”
“Dunno when I’ll be back.”
“All right.” Sam didn’t even look up this time.
Dean squeezed his hands into fists. He watched Sam shovel.
Shhhk, ftt, shffff.
“What would you have done if I’d died?” he snapped suddenly.
Sam just blinked. “ ... What would I have done?”
“Yeah. If that vamp drank me like a juice box and left me dead on the floor. What would you have fucking done then, Sam?”
For a moment, Sam almost looked thoughtful. A gust of wind tossed his hair.
“I would have gone back to sleep,” he said at last.
----
Climbing back into Baby’s leather seat didn’t hurt half as bad as staying would have. Dean’s throat felt full of lead as he turned the key and Baby’s familiar engine roared into life.
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