Roof But No Ceiling (7/8)
Dean made it all the way to the car before collapsing, a trickle of blood running from the corners of both his eyes. Charlie was the closest to try and catch him, and she let out a little squeak of dismay when she saw the blood. Dean's weight took them both down pretty effectively, even with the side of the Impala to slide down, and Sam staggered his way over over just as Charlie was trying to prop him back up against the door. "Sam," she said. "His eyes. . . ."
"It'll be alright," Sam told her, wishing he was as certain as he sounded. "It's actually not the first time that's happened."
Charlie made a face, then propped Dean carefully against the car Sam got the rear doors open. He had to sit down himself while he waited for Cas to emerge from the farmhouse with Crowley, awake again, and spitting mad and impotent in the chains. Of course, Dean hadn't thought to stay in the range of the suppression field until after they got Crowley all loaded up. That wouldn't be nearly as dramatic an exit.
Fucker.
They set new ground-speed records in the Impala on the drive back to the bunker, making the trip that had taken them all day on the way out in just under eight hours. Sam had to let Charlie drive, a fact that niggled at him under his skin. Still, though, a non-Winchester behind the wheel was better than an exploding head or the Impala wrapped around a tree. Sam promised her they'd come back for her car as soon as they could, but she didn't seem too worried about it. Since it was the second car he'd seen her own in only a few years of knowing her, he supposed he shouldn't be too surprised.
Cas offered to drive either of the cars. No one wanted to take him up on it.
They pulled up into the bunker's garage not long after sunrise. Sam leaned over Dean's prone form in the back seat, wondering if he should try to shake him awake. Dean hadn't stirred the entire time. He still didn't, not even when Sam heaved him up into a fireman's carry and started for his room. Charlie and Cas both protested, almost dancing around him as they tried to offer to support him, or carry Dean for him, but he refused. This part, he had to do. This part he would do even if it took the very last ounce of his strength.
No one was going to carry Dean but Sam.
He tried to remember the last time he'd had to carry him like this. It'd happened more than a few times, he knew - at least as many as Dean had had to carry him - but the only one he could remember was after Lilith, all those years ago, when Dean's blood had slowly seeped its way down the back of Sam's shirt, moving only with the force of gravity. Sam shoved the thought as far away as he could and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as he made his way through the halls. Maybe Dean was right. Maybe Sam did need to learn to turn his brain off, sometimes. It certainly wasn't helping him much now.
He considered dropping Dean off in his room, with the king size bed and the mountain of pillows, since it was that much closer to the garage, but decided to make it the last twenty feet to Dean's. Sam hadn't put any effort into decorating his room or making it his own, and not just because the trials hadn't left him any time to "nest". Dean was in bad shape, and any little bit of warmth and comfort had to help. Sam barely managed not to drop him onto the mattress. His arms felt like slack rope, limp and frayed; his legs weren't much better. He stepped back, breathing hard, and had to swallow back saliva and bile as his body protested all the extra effort.
Dean didn't even grunt. He didn't shift or groan or crack his eyes open and curse like he normally would when he was injured and finally somewhere he could express it safely. He didn't move at all. It just wasn't right.
"You want me to get some of the pillows?" Charlie asked. Sam looked over, only just realizing she'd followed him the whole way in. Her eyes looked sunken. Sam wondered when the last time she'd driven that long had been.
"Nah," he said, his voice barely a croak. "Pretty sure he won't notice, either way. You look awful, by the way."
"You're a charmer." She punched him in the arm - or tapped him with her fist, at least. He appreciated that she didn't try to tell him how terrible he must've looked. "Guess the life of a hunter doesn't leave room for a lot of naps, huh?"
"You're not a hunter," Sam said. "Don't you remember? You're a Woman of Letters. We voted you in officially."
"Then I propose a motion," she said. "To revise the bylaws to acknowledge that 'People of Letters' and 'hunters' aren't mutually exclusive."
"It's practically a coup." Sam smiled tiredly. "I second the motion." He looked at Dean. "I guess we've already got a majority rule."
"Not yet." Charlie aimed another tap at his shoulder. Sam really hoped that wasn't just how hard she punched. "We're still down two members." Sam frowned and she groaned. "Cas and Kevin, duh."
"Oh." Sam hadn't even thought about including them. Charlie was the one who'd expressed interest in joining. "Yeah, I guess they should count, too."
"They're practically living here," Charlie said. "And I'm pretty sure Kevin has left this place even less than you have, in the last few weeks."
"I'll ask them," Sam said. "Another new bylaw, if it's not one already: membership is open to residents, but not compulsory."
"A real coup," Charlie said. "Where did Cas go, anyway?"
Sam shook his head. "I thought he was with you. I wasn't really paying attention to anything but. . . ." He trailed off, staring in at his brother. Dean still hadn't moved.
Charlie's tap was open handed this time. A pat, he decided, not a smack. "He'll be okay."
"You have no way of knowing that."
"Sure I do. We'll paint that symbol in his room if we have to."
Sam laughed painfully. "Yeah, because he'll love being stuck just in here."
"As step one, doofus," Charlie said. She looked at Dean, smiling faintly. "We can't give up. He wouldn't give up on any of us. Even if we wanted him to."
"It's his most obvious and irritating flaw."
"If he was my girlfriend, I'd find him creepy and codependent."
"You should try him as a brother."
When Charlie touched him again, it was with her whole body, shoulder, arm, and hip, as she gave him a sideways hug. "Doofus," she said.
*
Dean's unconsciousness was usually an empty hole, a perfect void inside his head, as though any thoughts or memories had been knocked clear out of him by whatever put him out. Of course, that "whatever" was usually blunt force trauma, or maybe the occasional electric shock. This more closely resembled his run in with the vampire alpha, back when he was briefly among the fanged. Except while those images hadn't made a hell of a lot of sense, they'd at least been recognizable images. Rapid fire and obscure, sure, but you spent enough time around the supernatural, and you started to get used to rapid fire and obscure. If the alpha's message had been a flood, this wasn't even a tsunami. This was fucking God's revenge, clearing out the Earth of sinners and idolaters. This wasn't even Noah territory; in that story, there were survivors. In this one, Noah drowned with the unicorns and God electrocuted all the whales.
It went on like that for a long damned time, image over thought through factoid all at once, all important, until they blended into a jumbled roar. Dean had three thousand wikipedias slamming into his head every second. It didn't even hurt.
He didn't have the brainpower to spare on "hurt."
And then, suddenly, it slowed. It didn't stop - stopping at that speed was impossible, anyway - but it slowed, until Dean only had sight and sound jumbled together, until the narrator stopped sounding like the floor of the UN. Until he could very nearly think his own thoughts past the flow of outside information coming in. He felt warm, he noticed, like he'd been swaddled tight in a blanket. It smelled clean, like soap and vinegar, and a quiet background murmur tickled his ears.
He was home.
That explained the stemmed tides. The safeguards put in place to block Crowley's curse were old, poorly maintained and almost worn through, but still functional, if only barely. They couldn't stop the spell entirely, had never been able to, not until the Men of Letters had walled up the vaults with the last victim inside, comatose and buried beneath the central cavern floor. Dean wondered why they hadn't thought to put a warning on the door. Or who - or what - had unlocked it for him.
Still, the old Men of Letters hadn't been totally useless. Their magics did help slow the flow down a little. Maybe just enough for Dean to surface. The murmur grew louder as Dean fought the weight on his limbs and for the barest moment he thought he could even open his eyes. He saw a flicker of bedroom, with a side of giant sasquatchian silhouette in the doorway, and he nearly got out a whole word - "Sam," what else? - before he was dragged under again.
He fought his way up, willed himself to move, his hand, a fucking finger, and got another shutter flash of bunker. His throat clenched. He couldn't move. He couldn't wake up. Sam had only just gotten over the worst of the trials and he couldn't move -
His eyes opened, just slits, enough to make out light but no color. Two women stood and argued above him - around him - within him. He hadn't opened his eyes; he'd opened the bunker's.
They were in the vaults, the large, arching front room, only instead of dust it was filled with books. Books on shelves, book in boxes, books stacked up to the ceiling. Enormous hardbound books with worn covers, folios the size of posters, even a collection of flaking scrolls. The Men of Letters library, or part of it, shipped from Turin to Kansas just ahead of the outbreak of war. And the women - The women -
This wasn't right. Emmay's sacrifice predated the movement of the library. She couldn't be there with the books, not with her flesh on. Or perhaps a bunker's memories were like a person's, all jumbled up together.
"I don't want to see this place change," said the woman with Emmay, younger by at least a dozen years, a short and circular blonde with rosy cheeks not suited to an underground lair. Esther, Dean thought, and he couldn't be sure if it was knowledge or a guess.
"You hate it here," said Emmay. "You're a city girl at heart."
"It's grown on me." Esther laid a hand on the nearest stack of books, and Dean had to wonder again about the timelines. "Are they horrible?"
"Who?"
Esther gave Emmay a look, the sort perfected, it seemed, by teenagers across the ages. "The Italians," she said, and though it was a good 80 years away from her vocabulary, Dean heard the "duh" on the end, loud and clear.
"How should I know?" Emmay asked. "I'm from Chicago."
"I bet they're horrid," Esther said. "They're the ones who made all the rules. The ones obsessed with death and dust."
"And you're the one who arrived on our doorstep, raving about angels."
Esther sighed. "It's not the same here any more," she said. "There are too many men, and all Will does is mope."
"I know," Emmay said. "I'm sorry."
"Why won't you show yourself to him?"
Dean stiffened. The unfamiliar light of the gas lamps had thrown him. He could see now how much paler Emmay was than Esther, the way she blurred faintly at the edges. Damned faker. She was no death echo.
Or, at least, this part of her soul wasn't.
"My time with William is done," Emmay said. "It should never have happened to begin with. The Winchesters are a dangerous family, Esther, do not mistake it. They don't mean to be, but they'll end us in ruin."
"You goddamn liar," Dean said. "You called me a good omen."
Emmay turned and looked straight at him. "At the time I thought you were."
Esther vanished. The books turned to stone book statues and crumbled.
"The sigil," Dean realized.
"A suppression field," said Emmay. "You should be able to wake up soon."
"You're not a dream."
She shook her head.
"How are you here?"
"I'm a Winchester, too," she said. "I have been longer than I was ever a Moore. We don't do 'suppression'."
"So which is it, 'cousin'?" Dean slowly circled her. "Are we great or are we terrible?"
"We're human," she said. "Maybe even more than most. That makes us both."
"So this is it? You hit me with a curse, haunt my dreams, and I get to spend the rest of my life in a magic bubble?"
"You're very dramatic," she said. "You get that from William's side."
"Stuff it. Answer the question."
"I didn't do this to you. I had no idea when I cast that spell that it would expose you to the curse."
"You didn't try to stop it."
"I couldn't." Emmay scowled, her hands in fists at her side. "You have to believe I would have if I could. The past is immutable, and when I brought you back, you became part of it. I watched my friend die of this plague. I can only hope that you and yours will finally end it."
"Your friend?" Dean asked.
"Richard." She sank to the ground, her skirt pooling around her, and sifted the dust from the floor through her fingers. "He was the most senior after me. The Men of Letters were nothing if not hierarchical, and their curse could only be the same."
"That's why it hit me."
"You're the oldest of your new group," Emmay said. "With the longest legacy." She looked up at him, her eyes bright. "And it is long, Dean. Moores and Winchesters. Long and strong and so proud."
"So when I go," Dean said, shrugging off the thoughts that swarmed him, curiosity about his family's history. His mind's new instinct to reach beyond itself into the curse for answers to all his questions. "Sam'll get it next."
"Not if you fix it."
Dean shook his head. "Seems like every time my brother and I fix something, we break something else even worse."
"Then maybe it's time to change your methods." Emmay turned over her wrists, showing deep wounds leaking black. Her lips curled up in an ironic smile, traces of Sam at his most sarcastic in every line. "I think you'll find our family has sacrificed enough. So, please, try not to kill anyone while you're at it."
The vault blurred, taking on a glow around the edges. Dean tried to blink.
Emmay smiled. She smelled like Sam, too.
"Come on, Dean," she said.
Sam smelled like chalk dust. Dean tried to blink.
"It worked," said Charlie.
"Good," said Sam, and Dean's entire body shook as his brother collapsed across his bed, his weight too much for even memory foam to absorb completely.
*
Sam woke up 17 hours and 47 minutes later. Dean might've been able to get it down to the second, except the old alarm clock on his nightstand only counted minutes and hours. He set his book aside - even he could only watch internet porn for so long, especially with his brother passed out next to him - and looked over. "Welcome back."
Sam peered blearily up at him from where his face was still smashed into a pillow. Dean had a few of those, again. Charlie had grabbed them from the floor of Sam's room after they determined that, no, no one would be dragging Sam's giant ass back to his own bed. Dean watched the disorientation and confusion drain out of his brother's eyes as he slowly caught up on what was happening. "Shit," he grumbled.
"Uh huh."
"Your room?"
"Uh huh."
"Passed out."
"Well." Dean reached over and clapped Sam a few times on the shoulder. "That's what happens when you carry a grown man around after you've been awake for two days. Especially when you're still not completely recovered from mystical trials trying to burn your soul clean."
Sam shrugged Dean's hand off, rolling onto his side and rubbing one hand down his face. "Right," he said. "Next time I'll let Kevin carry you."
"Charlie's a better threat," Dean suggested. "She's a little shorter."
Sam made it onto his back and slowly sat up. "Were you watching me sleep?"
"Don't get all gooey," Dean said. "Didn't have a whole lot of options." He nodded to the wall by the door, where the suppression sigil was scrawled in chalk. "Think you guys drew it large enough?"
"Cas did it," Sam said. "He remembered it the best. I think he wanted to make sure it would reach the whole room."
"Well, his mission succeeded," Dean said. "I can now navigate my entire twelve foot cube of a room without my head exploding." He tried to keep it light, to keep the way he was itching under his skin from showing. Caged tiger metaphors sounded badass in theory, but they worked best when they weren't referring to a guy in an actual cage.
"We'll figure something else out," Sam said. "The Men of Letters figured out how to block it, before, right? So we know there's a way. This is just a temporary measure."
"Yeah," Dean said. "That's what Emmay said. Except apparently the solution last time was to bury the cursed guy alive and seal him up in a massive tomb."
Sam frowned, but apparently decided not to ask. "Cas said he had an idea - that doesn't involve you being buried alive, thanks for that image - but he didn't tell us what it was. Said he had to get some things organized."
"From his vast network of non-vengeful angel contacts?" Dean asked, wishing he could feel anywhere near as hopeful as Sam sounded. Sam scowled at him. "Relax. I'm good. I've got plenty of books. Bought some of 'em myself, even." He tapped the stack of science fiction on his nightstand. At the bottom was the copy of It he'd bought Sam. That one alone would probably take him at least a couple weeks to get through.
Sam tilted his head, doing that I can see through you look that he was so good at. Dean decided to try ignoring it.
"You don't have to pretend not to be scared, Dean."
Ignoring never worked.
"Who's pretending?" he asked. "I'm fucking terrified. I barely got through three weeks of just running to town every couple of days. And what the fuck am I supposed to do if I have to go to the bathroom?" He paused, actually curious to see if Sam had an answer to that one that didn't involve a bucket.
Sam winced.
Great.
"I finished the panic attack about it sixteen hours ago. You were out pretty hard, so you missed it. Kevin said he'd loan me some jars."
"He's not pissing in - Dean."
"You're damned right he's not pissing in Dean."
Sam's scowl had turned into a full-fledged glare. "Stop it."
"Stop what?"
"You think I don't know exactly how you feel right now?"
"What, stuck in bed?" Dean shrugged, honestly not sure what had his brother all riled, this time. "Of course you do. I just mentioned our whole three-week stint. At least you could drag your ass to the toilet when you had to. Well. Eventually."
"Not just that," Sam swung his legs off the side of the bed so his back was to Dean and leaned his elbows on his knees. He still looked exhausted. Dean tried to remember the last time he'd seen Sam bright and full of energy - and failed.
That was too bad; being tired always made Sam extra cranky.
"I mean all of it," Sam said. "The lack of control. Never knowing when it's going to knock you on your ass."
"You mean your vision things."
Sam's back tensed, then slowly relaxed, from the top of his spine down. "Yeah, Dean. Those, too."
"Demonic power? Knowledge slammed into your head? It's pretty fucking on the nose, Sam."
"Locked in a room?" Sam half turned, looking over his shoulder at Dean. "Shuffled around 'for your own good'?"
Dean felt cold. "What are you getting at?"
The look on Sam's face was half smile, half grimace. He had the gall to even look apologetic. "I'm getting at my entire life, Dean. With the exception of - of Amelia - I haven't had one moment of my life that was my own. I've been led around by the nose by Dad, by Ruby, by all the demons Azazel sent to try to make sure I shaped up right when I went off to college." He stopped there, swallowed. Dean narrowed his eyes.
"No, go on." He crossed his arms. "Say it."
"By you."
"You think I manipulated you."
"Not maliciously." Sam shrugged. "But - yes. You did. You do."
Dean pushed himself up off the bed, pacing the three feet to the wall with the sigil. He could feel its influence, this close, like a cool breeze under his skin. "I'll give you the demons. That's what they do." He turned around, putting the sigil at his back. "I'll even give you Dad, though from my angle, he gave you every fucking thing you ever asked for."
"Are you kidding me?"
Dean plowed on, barely listening. He felt like this argument had been lurking around them for years, without ever resolving. He wanted to finish having it, once and for all.
Before he most likely ended up dead for real. Forever.
"When have I ever tried to stop you, huh? You tell me you want to leave, and I let you go. I never tried to follow you. Not to college, not back when you wanted to go after Dad alone, not any of the other times you decided you had enough of me."
"Yeah, Dean, and you give me hell for it at every opportunity." Sam stood, facing him from the other side of the bed, his hands spread. "How many times have you lied to me, huh? 'For my own good'? How many times have you thrown my mistakes in my face, left me out of the loop because you were pissed at me?"
"Really? This is about Benny again?"
"No!" Sam threw his hands into the air. "It's not about Benny, Dean, it's never been about Benny. It's about you punishing me for trying to find a life for myself."
"You left me in Purgatory!"
"I thought you were dead!"
Dean stared across at Sam, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. Sam glared back just as hard. Both of them had curled their hands into fists.
Dean broke first.
He turned back to the wall again, barely stopping his fist from hitting it right in the middle of the heaviest chalk swirl in the center of the sigil. "You need to leave," he said.
"You're kicking me out?"
"Well, gosh, Sam, I'd storm out myself, but then my head would explode." He turned just enough to see his brother in his peripheral vision. Sam's expression was empty, like Dean had just pulled out the drain plug on him. It felt satisfying and terrible in equal measure, and Dean gave the wound between them one last poke for good measure. "That would be 'manipulative'."
Sam's face refilled, his cheeks actually flaring red as he ground his teeth. "Fuck you, Dean." He stomped around the bed. Dean thought for a moment he was about to get hit, but Sam just went to the door, pausing on the threshold. "I thought, just for a moment, that maybe you'd finally listen to me. But no, I'm still just your idiot little brother."
Dean wanted to deny that. Sam hadn't been his idiot little brother since -
His voice caught in the back of his throat.
Shit.
Sam was right.
He must've paused too long, because Sam just shook his head and left the room. Dean tried to follow, making it as far as swinging partway through the door before the vertigo hit, and the collected knowledge of the Men of Letters started elbowing its way into his head again. He heaved and swung back again, leaning heavily against the doorjamb as he watched Sam go.
"Sammy," he managed.
Sam waved his hand without turning around, too pissed off, or maybe just not willing to pay anymore attention. "I'll get you some jars," he said as he turned the corner into the library. Dean pushed off the door and stumbled back to his bed.
Jesus. He'd pretty royally fucked this up. And now he couldn't even chase Sam down and make him listen.
Story of his goddamn life.
*
"The Men of Letters were weird," Kevin said, after his second day working on translating Esther's journals.
"Well, yeah," Sam said. "I mean, I figured that out just by taking a look at this place."
Kevin shook his head. "This stuff is a little out there," he said. "But it's not weird. This is just, like, the Batman stuff. The tech and gadgets and training and books to fight the bad guys. The stuff downstairs? The research they were doing? They actually experimented with basilisk spit in the late nineteenth century. On werewolves." He tapped one of the pages in the journal. "And that's only the background action in here. Esther's too busy getting into who's dating who in the Men of Letters hierarchy."
"Why was she so obsessed with people's love lives?"
"How should I know? She mostly sticks to two families, at least."
"Winchesters and Campbells?" Sam guessed. It made sense: if Esther was a prophet, she could have been cluing into the angel bloodlines. And with the Men of Letters being active as long as they were, there was no way they hadn't crossed paths with the Campbell hunters at least a handful of times.
"Nah, Campbells and Moores. The name Winchester doesn't even show up until William joins up in 1908."
"Moore." Sam reached over to take the book from Kevin. He tried to skim the page, but half of it was in Cyrillic. "Mary Annabelle was a Moore."
"And a legacy," Kevin said. "The Moores were one of the founding families in the English speaking branch."
Sam shook his head. "English speaking branch. How was the whole organization wiped out by Abbadon so quickly if there were branches?"
"World wars," said Kevin. "Esther predicts unrest in Europe decimating the other branches. It's part of why they made this place the center of operations. Apparently, they barely even made it across the ocean. Only two guys survived the last boat trip, and one of them keeled over on the train out here." He pressed his fingers to a page and grimaced. "He, uh. Bled out from his eyes and ears. Apparently, he was the 'Center' of his era."
"Center," Sam repeated.
"Of knowledge."
"Jesus." There was so much here to discover, to absorb, and not just about the curse. Of course, most of it was written in languages only Kevin - and apparently, at least a little, Cas - could read. And what was with the Jess connection? Sure, Dean had pointed out it wasn't exactly a rare last name - the total opposite, in fact. It was a little bit like being shocked he encountered more than one person named "Smith". But what if it wasn't a coincidence? What if the Moore family was the original Michael bloodline?
Had Jess been a potential vessel? Was that part of why Azazel had had her killed?
Was Sam ever going to find the bottom of the holy conspiracy that was his and Dean's entire existence?
"Have you talked to him?" Kevin asked. Sam swallowed a sigh.
"Dean?" As though Kevin would believe for a moment that Sam didn't know who he meant. "He doesn't really do 'talking'."
"Are you kidding?" Kevin closed the journal and set it aside, giving Sam a look like he was the stupidest person Kevin had ever met. Funny, Sam had thought only Dean could manage that expression. "That's like all he does."
"He doesn't do talking to me," Sam said. "Not without a hunt and a beer at the side of the road. Besides." He shook his head. "He doesn't want to see me."
"What, because he kicked you out? Didn't you accuse him of trying to control you?"
"Kevin -" Sam cut himself off, not sure what he could say that would make the kid - a fucking teenager, Jesus, Kevin was so young - understand.
"I get it," Kevin said. "He's like your mother. He's spent your whole life trying to look out for you, and even though you know he can't do that forever, that you've gotta go out and do shit and screw up for yourself, he hasn't figured it out, yet."
Sam stared at him. It wasn't that the idea of Dean as a mother figure had never occurred to him before. It wasn't exactly hard to see. Dean was the quintessential helicopter parent.
He'd never thought of Dean as being like Kevin's mom, before.
Mrs. Tran was a fucking force to be reckoned with. She didn't put up with anyone's shit, and she'd taught her son to do the same.
Dean wasn't a helicopter. He was a tiger.
Which didn't make it any less smothering.
"Maybe you should talk to him."
"Are you kidding?" Kevin said again with a roll of his eyes. "That's like trying to walk repeatedly into a brick wall."
So spake the prophet, Sam thought.
He was screwed.
*
It took weeks.
Charlie started out scribbling chalk sigils on every surface she could find, trying to clear more safe space for Dean, but once he had an established path to the bathroom and back, he told her to stop. He wasn't 100% on just what the rules and limitations of the sigil were, and the last thing they needed was it somehow canceling out the layers of masking and protection overlaying the entire bunker. Or the healing spell that, faded as it was, Dean was sure was still a significant part of what kept Sam on his feet.
He'd thought that sticking close to the bunker while Sam was convalescing was hard. It was nothing compared to being stuck in his room - or the hall or the bathroom, thankfully - under threat of madness and death. He didn't even let anyone put the sigil up in the library. And if they put it there, anyway (which, let's face it, was freaking likely), he wasn't about to go find out. The library was the very heart of the Men of Letters and as such it contained some of the most powerful sustaining magics, including the ones that kept the place clean and dry. Climate control wasn't exactly cheap and easy in the era in which the place had been built. The very thought of what the humidity coming in from the broken skylight in the observatory could do to all his books made Dean shudder.
And then curse himself, because the hell? He wasn't supposed to be the one who worried about maintaining the books.
The days blurred together quickly. Cas checked in occasionally about his cunning plan: to have the sigil engraved onto necklaces for each of them. Apparently, he was having trouble finding a seller on Etsy who could handle the design. And now Dean knew what "Etsy" was, which was not something he'd ever expected to need to know. Of course, they didn't actually know how large the thing had to be to be effective, or if size had any effect on its range at all. Dean could find out, but it'd require walking out of his safety zone, and frankly, he wasn't really looking to have his head explode - or his brain liquify, or whatever other gruesome effect the curse would ultimately have - just yet.
Instead, he watched every decent movie Netflix had to offer, then several more that Charlie helped him hunt down on the rest of the internet. He read all of the novels he'd picked up at the bookstore, including that goddamn Fifty Shades of Grey - which he was absolutely sure now had to have been written by a demon. Sam brought him more books, longer books, harder books, and he breezed through those as well, before turning the tv back on. By the end of the month, he'd caught up on Telemundo and resorted to watching decades worth of old episodes of British soap operas.
They weren't any closer to a permanent solution.
Dean was lying on his bed, headphones on, staring at the ceiling when it happened. It was what he did when he'd had enough of staring at the television or a book, when he'd calistheniced himself into physical exhaustion, and there was no one else in the immediate vicinity to entertain him. He used to be able to lie still and listen to his music for hours. Now he got antsy after only a few songs. Sam had neglected to mention this part of the active-brain problem, how it made it so much harder to just be where you were. To wait. How the hell had Sam managed all that time stuck in his room after the trials?
Oh, right, he slept through most of it.
Dean sighed, tried to force his feet not to twitch, and failed. Thought of bending his knees, decided against it - then did it anyway, because once he got started thinking about it, he couldn't stop, and his legs started to cramp up.
Something rushed past his door, too fast to make out. A flicker of black blur, like a spectre in a movie. Dean froze, waited to see if it would return.
He hadn't hallucinated since his last trip down into the vaults, since he'd been forced to embrace the knowledge curse. He glanced over at the sigil, now painted in black over the original chalk lines. Did it somehow expire, like old milk?
He reached up slowly, pulling his headphones down off his ears, and listened.
There were four other people - five, if you included captive demons - living in the bunker, at least one of them home at any given time. It was never this quiet. He set the headphones aside, sidling up to his door and picking up the nearest weapon - his makeshift blade from Purgatory, interesting choice - as he went. The bone felt cool and welcoming in his hand.
The hallway was empty.
Dean felt heat, like stacked, smoldering coals, build its way up his back. His shoulders settled; his neck felt longer, his head clear. The sigil was working. Something was loose in the bunker, his friends and family were in trouble, and he felt like himself for the first time in so, so long.
He adjusted his grip on the Purgatory blade and stepped out into the hall. "Sam?" he called, body tensed for an attack.
Nothing.
His search routes were limited. He turned down the hall towards the bathroom, passing the kitchen - and the secret door to the vaults - on the way. The secret door was closed, the floor faintly scuffed in front of it. As far as Dean knew, no one had opened it since the night they went exploring. The kitchen was empty, save for a few coffee cups left out on the table to mold over. Jesus. How was he the only one trying to keep this place clean and uncluttered?
The figure had moved in the other direction, towards the library, so Dean took his time along the hallway, looking for clues as to its identity, or where Sam and the others had ended up. He kept a wary eye on his six, turning every few steps to scan behind him, and was giving the hall one such glance when he turned into the bathroom - and tripped over someone on the floor.
Kevin.
Dean crouched silently, holding his blade away from Kevin's body, and reached over to feel for a pulse. Just unconscious. Dean could see a lump starting to form at Kevin's hairline. He must've been taken out after a shower; his hair was still wet. Dean shook his foot, watching his face for a reaction, but Kevin didn't stir. Dean stood, grabbed a towel, and folded it up to put under Kevin's head.
He had more people to find.
He started back down the hall to his room, pausing to look into Sam's on the way. Empty. He wondered what he'd do when he reached the end of his little sigil-lined path. Stepping outside of its influence was a debilitating headache if he was very, very lucky. He walked up to the very edge of the sigil's range and felt the bunker tickling at the edges of his brain. He adjusted his grip on his blade, holding it up and looking it over before looking back towards the library. The angle was completely wrong to see more than light and shadow. Someone - or something - was moving around in there, but Dean couldn't make out who it was or what they were doing.
"Sam?" he called. "That you?"
Silence.
He was trapped. Something had attacked Kevin, maybe taken out Cas and Charlie. Sam was nowhere to be found. His only option was to try to goad whatever was in the library into coming after him in the hallway, where they would both have a limited range of movement. And if the thing got away into the unsigiled areas again, it'd be free. Why the hell wasn't he carrying around chalk? He could at least increase his range that way, though having to stop and draw another sigil on the wall every twenty feet or so would get old real fast. If he wanted to move quickly - and in this job, he always wanted to move quickly - he had to do it without the assistance of his magic little squiggle friend. He either had to risk the headache - and the possible actual head explosion - or go back to his room and hope that Sam had a handle on things.
Sam was a great hunter. He could handle himself in a tight situation. He didn't need Dean swooping in all the time to rescue him. Probably didn't want Dean around, anyway, not the way Dean had been treating him lately. They'd been silent treatmenting each other since the argument after they got back from recapturing Crowley. The last thing Sam would want was Dean swooping in to his rescue, especially if said swoop got Dean killed.
But if Sam got killed and Dean didn't even try to do anything about it? That couldn't happen. They'd both always known that. If Dean had to die so Sam could live, Dean wouldn't even hesitate.
Except that he was.
What would Dean's head exploding get Sam in this case? Dean would just be dead, and Sam would still be in trouble, with no possible cavalry available to ride in at the final moment. There had to be another way.
Dean leaned against the wall at the edge of the sigil's range and poked at the fuzzy, ticklish sensation of the magic border. The accrued Men of Letters knowledge was a curse. Their research over the last few weeks had confirmed what Crowley had said: every person who'd fallen under it had died young and bloody, overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of it. The full weight of the curse had basically put Dean in a coma for a day, last time he left the sigil's influence.
But did it have to work that way? Cas had tried talking to Dean about meditation, though Dean had basically just blown him off. He'd made some good points, about the things that Sam and Dean had both had to deal with already, beyond the scope of any "normal" human, and how they'd made it through intact. Mostly.
Emmay flickered into existence just inside the library. She blinked slowly at Dean, then lifted her chin. Winchesters find a way, she'd said. Usually by charging straight through it like a bull.
Dean narrowed his eyes, tipping his head to the door. She nodded slowly. He tapped his temple with the thumb of the hand still holding the Purgatory blade, then mimed his head exploding. She shook her head, then looked pointedly at the library. Dean swallowed, then nodded back. He braced himself and stepped out of the sigil's range.
The flood gates opened.
Instead of standing still in front of them, as he always had before, Dean went limp. The throbbing of his head brought tears to his eyes and a ringing to his ears - but it didn't take him out. He let the bunker, all two hundred some years of the Men of Letters, fill him up until he was overflowing. He couldn't feel the bone blade in his hand, couldn't see Emmay smiling at him from across the hall. He treaded water, tried to float. The headache built and built as Dean fought against the tide in his brain.
Somewhere past the library door, Sam let out a choked out gasp.
Dean let go.
*
Sam drummed his heels against the wall and wished the bunker wasn't so solidly built. The sound came out as a series of dull thuds; he had no idea if Dean could even hear him.
Sometimes it seemed like he spend his entire life being choked by demons.
"Well?" Crowley asked, his voice eerily level even as his hand convulsed around Sam's neck. "Do we have a deal, or don't we?" Sam barely managed more than a coughing squawk and a twitch of his head from side to side. Crowley frowned, loosening his grip just a touch, and Sam heaved in a breath. "You show me where I can find the information I need to defeat Abaddon," Crowley said, nice and slow like he expected Sam was hard of hearing. "And I'll pull the curse off your brother, and we'll all go our separate ways. Capiche?"
Sam shook his head again, prying at Crowley's hand, trying to get his weight properly back on his feet. "I don't even know if we have that information. Dean's the walking card catalog, remember?"
"Your brother's brain is so much jelly the minute he steps out of the range of those sigils," Crowley said. "Though I suppose I should thank you. It's a useful little squiggle. Reckon it sucked all the juice out of your little traps." He smiled, tightening his hand around Sam's throat again. "Now, let's try this again. You show me the information I need, and I make sure your brother gets to remember how to tie his own shoes when all this is over."
"No deal." Sam's eyes went wide at the sound of Dean's voice, and he pulled harder against Crowley's wrist. Crowley snapped his head around in surprise. "Velcro's underrated, anyway."
Crowley flicked out his hand, sending Dean flying back into one of the library stacks. Dean went down in a shower of hardcovers, and Crowley threw Sam after him almost casually.
"Interesting," he said. "I was sure you'd be dead by now."
Sam wasn't 100 percent sure Dean wasn't. He sure as hell looked like a corpse. From where he lay, sprawled over the pile of books, Sam could see that both his brother's pupils were blown wide, swallowing the green of his irises in black. The capillaries had given out as well, filling the whites with red and spilling bloody tears down both his cheeks. More blood ran from Dean's nose and his right ear. He looked like he should be lying in a puddle on the floor seizing, or at the very least unconscious. Not pulling himself up from under the pile of books and wiping stray drops of blood from their covers.
"You can't kill me." There was something hollow under Dean's voice, something that echoed. Like beneath the facade of his brother was an enormous, empty cavern. Sam shivered.
"Oh?" Crowley flicked his hand again, sending Dean slamming into one of the central tables. "Find some way to make yourself immortal, finally?"
Dean slid off the table and landed on his feet. His arm hung at a bad angle, but he barely seemed to notice. "No," he said. "I can die. Just not by you."
"Dean," Sam said.
"Not now, Moose." Crowley sent more books flying from their shelves. Sam threw his arms over his head and winced under the barrage. They slammed into him, then circled up into the air and back, swiftly developing into a storm of paper and hard covers. "The adults are talking."
Dean shot out a hand without looking at anything but Crowley, catching a phonebook-sized hardcover with crisp, perfect corners inches from Sam's face. He held it up as he walked towards Crowley, shifting his weight and walking through the flying books as though they were clearing a path for him. "This one here," he said. "Contains a three word exorcism. Zoroastrian, I believe. Highly effective."
Crowley scowled, and the lamps on the table joined the building book tornado. Sam ducked under shards of Tiffany glass. Dean set the book he held gently on one of the newly empty shelves, then picked up a katana from its display rack.
Oh, great. Sam winced as a two-inch shard of lamp sank into his forearm. Dean just had to call attention to all the blades in the room, too. Not that he was getting hit with any of the debris. He didn't even seem to have noticed that Sam was.
"This sword has been blessed by - well. Any number of holy orders, really. An experiment by Bernard Speck in 1926." Dean tested the blade with his thumb. "It's got a taste for demon blood. Won't kill you, but it's guaranteed to hurt a lot."
Crowley backed up a step. Dean set the sword back down.
"Alright, Deano, I'll play," Crowley said. "You got all this knowledge swimming around in your head, then. Why not use it? Why just show me the book, the sword?"
Dean smiled. The blood from his eyes and nose had run into his mouth, tinting his teeth pink. Sam would be hard pressed to come up with any moment when Dean looked crazier, more terrifying than he did right now. "You're the King of Hell," he said, then shrugged. "Former. You were right, you know. Knowledge is intoxicating. The Men of Letters have always known it. Gathering it's our only goal." He'd made his way close enough now to grab Crowley by the lapels of his suit. Sam couldn't be sure from this angle, creeping along on the floor under the circling debris, but he thought Crowley actually looked frightened. "Just think of the things we could learn from you."
"You think this is your brother, Sam?" Crowley yanked himself out of Dean's grip. The books sped up until they whirred. "A deal with me is the only way you're getting him back!"
Sam shook his head. "Fix him anyway. Or I'll let him have you."
"Doesn't work that way," said Dean. "This king was of the crossroads, first. Without a sealed deal, he's basically powerless." He grinned again. "Fascinating." The sound he made next didn't even sound human. It scraped over Sam's skin, burned in the lacerations from Crowley's book-storm. Crowley writhed, letting out short, sharp keening sounds as his skin began to turn red. Thin tendrils of smoke seeped out from under his suit. The books in the air wavered. Sam felt sick. He wondered if this was what Dean had felt every time he had to watch Sam use his demon-blood powers. Everything about this was wrong.
A flicker behind him dragged Sam's gaze away from Dean and Crowley. A woman in a suffragette skirt stood in the doorway to the library, her hands clenched at her sides. Her long sleeves dripped ectoplasm to the floor, and the skin over her wrists was dead and split wide.
So. This was the infamous Emmay. What the hell was she doing here?
She looked from Dean to Sam, catching his eye, and the way her lips curled made Sam's heart freeze in his chest. Too many women he'd known had had that smile. His mother, in pictures. Jess.
Winchesters find a way, she said, and Sam didn't know how he could hear her over the sound of the books or the noises Dean made to torture Crowley. Sam frowned.
"I - I don't -"
I was a Moore, first. She looked at Dean again. This is enough. He needs to remember. And back at Sam. It's not the Men of Letters he's meant to be protecting.
Sam's jaw clenched. He stood slowly, turning his shoulder into the swirling books and keeping his head low. He reached the shelf with the book Dean claimed contained the exorcism and picked it up. For a moment he thought to flip through it, find the three words, but cracking the book revealed it was written in some sort of ancient Arabic. Instead, he hefted it between his hands and crept closer.
There wasn't much need for stealth. Dean and Crowley were both entirely occupied with each other, Dean hissing more of those strange, painful words, Crowley biting back a howl and losing his grip on the circling books. Several flung out of the storm, smacking into the walls hard enough to crack the tiles and snap the shelves, though none of them approached the two of them. Sam ducked low again, making his way out from under the storm, and swung the book in his hands at the side of Dean's head as hard as he dared.
Dean staggered sideways into a pillar, then leaned into it, looking dazed. Crowley swayed on his feet and blinked owlishly at Sam.
"You need a deal to fix him?" Sam asked. Crowley nodded. "Here's the deal. You fix him, and we won't use all the crappy, horrifying tricks the Men of Letters have collected to find you, capture you, and torture you all over again."
Crowley's eyes were wild. "You call that a -"
Dean started to straighten, radiating hatred and a kind of maniacal pleasure focused straight at Sam. He got out another scraping syllable, this one rattling and burning through Sam's nerves as well as Crowley's. Sam gathered his strength, moving through the pain with the ease borne from too many years of practice, and slammed the book into Dean's head again. It wasn't enough to drop him - might've been, if Sam weren't still feeling the last lingering effects of the demon tablet trials - but it bought Sam just a little more time.
"No tracking me," Crowley gasped. Blisters were forming along knuckles and down his right cheek. "No 'curing' me, no capturing me. You leave me to take care of my business."
"If you fix Dean," said Sam.
"Do we have a deal?"
Sam yanked Crowley forward and kissed him. The circling books stopped and fell to the floor. Dean let out an abbreviated roar. Sam saw him staggering forward out of the corner of his eye, his face actually dripping blood. When Sam pulled away again, Crowley nodded, and Dean crumpled like an empty sack.
"Now," said Crowley, yanking his jacket straight and brushing dust from his arms. "If you could get the door? Your airlock is still, unfortunately, perfectly intact."
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