FIC: The Sharpness of the Outline (3/9)
Title: The Sharpness of the Outline
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: R - for strong language and content
Pairing: none (gen) Dean, Sam, John
Disclaimer: Not mine. Damn it.
SPOILERS: through current season
Summary: There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. - Anaïs Nin
A/N: This story serves as my Sweet Charity fic for a_starfish Thanks to pdragon76 for massive support and pants kicking, and hiyacynth for her time and sharp eyes. Those interested can read Their Appointed Rounds which serves as a companion to this fic, though it's not necessary to do so. Special tip of the hat to smilla02 for the wonderful icons.
One already wet does not feel the rain. - Turkish Proverb
Maltby Cemetery - Maltby, Washington - May, 2002
“That hand gonna give you trouble?” John asked as they unloaded the shovels, guns, and duffels from the back of the truck.
“No, sir,” Dean said.
It was the first his dad had made mention of the Ace bandage wrapped around his left hand. It had only been a week since the second cast came off - though his dad didn’t know that - and the muggy Pacific night air made Dean’s bones ache. The throb across his palm sent the smell of horses and dust into his nose, but he was about as far from Arizona as he could get. He made a point to grab the majority of the gear. Didn’t want his dad thinking he’d pussied up in the months they were apart.
It was weird being back together, weird to be on a hunt. As much as Dean had wanted to get out of Arizona, the weight of the sawed-off in his hand made him crave a sudden splash of sunshine, caught him up in a phantom corral, and had him staring at his father’s silhouette in the indigo light of the graveyard.
He needs me. Wouldn’ta called if he didn’t.
But the knowledge didn’t lessen the ache. “Jimmy seems like a good guy,” he called up over his dad’s shoulder.
His dad glanced back, then talked while he stalked forward. “He is. One of the best.”
There weren’t a lot of old friends in his dad’s life, Dean knew. John Winchester had a knack for pissing off people and holding grudges - clung to ancient wrongs and rebuffs like a vice. Hell, even Bobby Singer’d threatened to pull a shotgun on him on more than one occasion.
“How’d you say you know him again?”
“We were in the Corps together, Dean,” John answered without turning.
‘Nam buddy. Dean had met a few, but none that weren’t taking punches at his dad a few minutes into a chance reunion in some backwater bar. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Dad. No offense meant to Jimmy or Cheryl or Tabby, but…eighteen-year-old girls freak out and kill themselves occasionally. Even without the help of a spirit or demon. What’s got you convinced this is our kinda gig?”
His dad stopped a few feet in front of him, stared across the dark cemetery. He didn’t speak for a second, just stood there, white vapor of ground mist streaming past his legs like a cloud sliced by a mountain. “I need you to-- Can you just trust me on this, Dean? Follow my lead?”
It would have been suicide to laugh, and that was just too much irony for the night. Instead, Dean took a deep sniff. Licked his lips and cocked his head to the side, spring of his spine coiling tightly. “You call me outta the blue, Dad. After seven months. Seven months of you leavin’ me behind in Arizona, me leavin’ you voice mails you don’t return-- You call me up and say, ‘I need you here,’ and I come. I drive straight through to Washington in a day, and you sit me down for half a beer and ten minutes of ‘Hi, how ya doin’?’ with a Marine buddy, then haul me out to a cemetery. It’d be nice if I could get a little bit more than that.”
Holy fucking shit, shut your mouth.
He didn’t breath for a second. Had to fight against the white adrenaline flare firing behind his eyes. He clenched his left hand painfully around the handle of the shovel. He was still hoping he hadn’t actually said any of it out loud when his dad turned slowly - head bowed, almost penitent.
“It wasn’t right, leavin’ you like that, Dean. And it wasn’t right askin’ you to come here and then not givin’ you the whole story up front. I look like a real asshole. I get that. And I appreciate that you came when I asked. Right now, I just--” He drew a ragged breath. “He lost his daughter, Dean. His only child. And Jimmy doesn’t deserve that, no man does.”
Fuck. Seven months, and nothing had changed. His dad was still mourning Sam. Dean was still trying to figure out exactly what to mourn. “Dad, I just--”
He’d gained something in all that time alone, being in Arizona without another Winchester. But it was getting harder to remember what he was clinging to so tightly. Got harder every second he was in the sure, familiar presence of his dad. “Last hunt we were on together…” Dean shook his head, buffed his shoulder across his left cheek. “It didn’t end so hot.”
John faced forward again, hiding his profile from the moon. It was a double-edged maneuver: one part shame, one part deceit. Dean saw it for what it was, but still listened when his dad spoke.
“I’m askin’ you to do this job with me because I need your help, son. You don’t have to like me, you don’t even have to stick around when it’s done. I can’t do this alone, Dean, but I know I can do it with you.”
And that was good enough.
Goddamnit.
It was good enough, even though it shouldn’t have been. He’d learned in Arizona that alone was hard. Living in his own skin was something he couldn’t quite get comfortable with. He’d always been John’s Son and Sammy’s Brother, and he didn’t know how to be just Dean Winchester. But it was good enough, because it was more than he had by himself.
He closed the distance between them, settled in a spot just west of his dad’s shadow. “So, what exactly we lookin’ at?”
“Like any local cemetery, this one’s got a legend,” John said, moving forward, Dean keeping stride. “North-east corner there’s an underground crypt, accessible by a thirteen-step staircase. Name on the tomb’s been lost over the years, but most of the stories say Callham. Mid-1860s, he was a mover and shaker in Seattle’s infancy. Made a name for himself in construction to start off with, then as one of Washington’s earliest tragedies.”
“We talkin’ suicide?”
“Nothin’ so easy,” John continued. “One night, Joseph Callham returns from a late business dinner. Finds his wife and three daughters murdered in their beds. Police have no suspects but him. He swears his innocence, they can’t make anything stick. Huge scandal, his business suffers, he spends most of his savings to build the underground mausoleum honoring his beloved family. He starts drinking heavy, lets the house staff go.”
“Sounds like Mr. Funtimes,” said Dean, angling with his dad toward a group of lanky cedars.
“The other half of his money dries up and there were still bills to pay, so Callham boards up his windows, holes up in the house. Nobody sees him for weeks. Until one of the fired maids gets nicked for petty larceny.”
“Lemme guess the tune that canary sang,” Dean chuffed.
“Exactly,” John said, shovel pointing ahead to a roughed-up clearing beneath the trees. “The maid says Callham killed his wife and girls. That she saw him burning some bloody clothes that night, and he paid her off to keep her quiet.”
“And since there wasn’t anymore money to flow, she let the dam burst,” Dean concluded, dropping his shovel and duffel next to the spot his dad dropped his.
“The cops go to Callham’s house, but he bolts. They track him to Bellingham, where he’s hiding out with his sister. They flush him out, chase him to the shore. He broadstrokes it out into Bellingham Bay, never to be seen again.”
“Drowned?”
“Body was never recovered. Some versions go Callham made it all the way out to Lummi Island. Lived in the woods like a wild man, maybe killed a few visiting Native Americans.”
“So, how’s all of that get us back to Jimmy’s kid and a cemetery in Maltby?” Dean asked.
His dad fished a flashlight from one of the duffels, snapped it on, and shot the beam at the ruts and furrows of overworked soil.
“A few weeks after the police closed the Callham case and declared him MIA, locals started reporting seeing spectral figures near the tomb.”
“A woman and three girls?”
“The Callhams,” John confirmed, “waiting for Joseph to return and pay his respects so they could make him pay for his sins.”
“Okay, so a Sadie Hawkins home for spooks, where does Tabby Height fit in?”
John picked up his shovel, headed to the edge of the freshly turned patch of dark earth.
“Tail end of the legend goes like this,” John said, slicing the spade into the soil, and resting his boot on its steel head. “You walk down the thirteen steps to the door of the crypt, turn back to face the cemetery, and the cemetery’s gone. You’re greeted by the great expanse of Hell itself. Some people are driven instantly mad, race off into the woods and disappear. Others kill themselves, some are discovered in a comatose state, never to recover or speak again. The stairway was filled in and covered, dug up and filled in again a dozen different times. Last time was a week ago.”
Dean nodded, lips tight. “Tabby was here.”
“Yeah,” John croaked. “Last week, Tabby and four friends came out here and unearthed the steps. Dug all night until they reached the doors of the crypt. Tabby was the first one to test the legend. Friends said she walked down the steps, turned around and stared for a second…” His dad cast a quick glance out across the cemetery at Dean’s back, then kicked the head of the shovel farther into the ground. “She stared for a second, then started screamin’. Dropped to her knees, clawed at her eyes. Scrambled around like a crab, bangin’ against the stone steps until she drug herself out of the pit and collapsed.”
“And her friends just stood there while this was happenin’?” Dean asked, joining his Dad with the other shovel.
John shrugged a load of dirt to the side. “They’re kids, Dean. They don’t think, they just-- Somebody called 911 when she lost consciousness, but they left her there. Dittybopped it home when they heard the sirens.”
“So, then?” Dean asked, making his own pile of earth. The shoveling was easier than a regular burial - soft-packed soil the city or county must have just refilled a few days ago - and though it had been nearly six months since Dean dug a grave, he fell into an easy rhythm with his dad.
“She stayed in the hospital for two days, unconscious for half of it, and when she came to, all she did was talk about what she’d seen.”
“Hell,” Dean said, with a toss to his side.
“She said she saw herself, covered in flames. Eyes black, skin on fire, tearing people apart with her bare hands. Said she couldn’t get the smell of blood out of her nose and throat.”
Dean dug while the information sunk in. It filled the gaps between ‘Here’s my buddy, Jimmy, whose daughter’s suicide we’re going to avenge,’ and ‘Welcome to Sunnydale, let’s dig up the Hellmouth’. “How did she-- I mean, if she was in the hospital, how did she--?”
“Jimmy and Cheryl wanted her home where they could keep an eye on her, keep her safe,” his dad said on a choke. “They brought her home and…” His dad’s shovel stayed stuck in the dirt longer than it needed to, a stutter in the progress toward uncovering what was buried.
“And what?”
John shook his head and rocked his shovel past a stone. “The night they brought her home, she-- She used one of Jimmy’s guns. Swallowed a .45,” he said, and stabbed until the stone gave up its purchase.
Dean blinked hard, redoubled his efforts.
It took them close to five hours of steadfast digging before they uncovered the steps and reached the crypt. Neither one of them had seen a trace of a ghost, and the EMF meter balanced on top of their duffels hadn’t dropped a squawk.
Dean mopped a muddied forearm across his brow, grains of earth like broken glass in the slick between skin on skin; he and his dad had stripped down to t-shirts a couple of hours back. He was sitting on the edge of the short stairwell that led to the tomb, heels of his boots rapping softly against the stone wall.
His dad tapped a toe against the carved lettering over the crypt door, knocking away chunks of moist dirt until they could both read the name: CALLHAM. They exchanged a look, but Dean stayed quiet. Waited for his dad to call the next shot.
“All right,” John said, working his right shoulder with his left hand, “here’s what I’m thinkin’. We’ve been real careful not to test the legend, so far. I don’t think that oughtta change.”
Dean nodded.
Clearing the small landing in front of the mausoleum door had been the most difficult of the digging; they’d had to be sure to keep their backs to the cemetery once they were at the bottom of the thirteen steps.
“If we get activity at all, I don’t know where it’s gonna originate, and once I get a blaze on those bones, I’m gonna be headin’ up these steps pretty fast, but I’m gonna be headin’ up backwards.”
Dean nodded again, jaw clenched tight. They both knew he was the more agile of the two; if anyone should be running backwards up a set of half-unearthed stone steps, it was him. But it wasn’t his call, wasn’t really ever his call when it was his dad. “All right.”
“That’s gonna leave you up here,” his dad said, sawed-off aiming into the stairwell, “downward angle on any shot you have to take.”
Dean hopped to his feet. Stared through the darkness, wiping dirt from the seat of his jeans. “Yes, sir.”
“Set up at the top of the stairs, or up here near the door.”
Dean leaned down and snatched up his gun, took the short walk around the black rectangle of open ground. When he reached the far end where the steps began, he paused, pointed. “Gate over the door opens to the left, door looks like it opens into the crypt in the same direction,” he said, hand flicking toward the spot he’d just abandoned. His fingers waved forward and back over the hole. “Gotta be a good fifteen feet from here to there…” He shook his head. “Best bet’s where you are now.”
He strode to his dad’s side, cracked the sawed off, and double tapped the shells with his thumb. Snapped the gun closed with a meaty click. He stood quietly until he could sense disappointment or pride from his dad for his assessment.
“I’m still usin’ those salt loads you came up with. Seem to work pretty well.”
If Dean was a dog, his tail would be a blur. He turned, bright-faced, to his dad. “Yeah?”
John nodded, curt and dismissive. “Scatter like a mother, but…seem to work okay.”
And it was like his dad stomped a boot on his wag. Dean nodded back, all business again. Good, boy. Down, boy. Not even together twelve hours, and Dean was right back under his dad’s heel. He hated how it felt so right, so safe.
“I need you in shootin’ mode, not thinkin’ mode, Dean. If I come outta there with ghosts on my tail, you yell fire in the hole and take your best shot. Ignore the ricochet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if I go down, you shag ass back to the truck, call Jimmy, and wait for him before you come for me.”
Dean turned to him, face pinched. “Dad, come on--”
“Dean, that’s an order. It’s not negotiable. We don’t know what we’re dealin’ with here, but what we do know is that Tabby Height saw somethin’ that made her put a gun in her mouth. We’re not takin’ chances.”
“But what’s Jimmy gonna--”
“Dean! I’m not lookin’ for input on this. You’re either with me, or you’re not.”
For a flash, he was back in Arlee, sick stench of the showers thick across his tongue.
“Dean.”
“Yeah,” he spit. His left eye twitched. “Yes, sir. I’m with you.”
His dad squatted in front of his duffel, grabbed his flashlight, and rooted out a few more shells.
“You think cleanin’ out the wife and kids is gonna take care of this mess? You don’t think Callham’s spirit’s got anything to do with it?”
John blew out an exasperated breath, rose to meet Dean’s eyes. “Son, do we have to go rounds right now? I’m not worried about Callham. Callham’s not the problem right now. Kids dying is the problem, and yeah, I’m pretty sure this is gonna take care of that.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean chuffed, and made it sound blasphemous.
Moonlight flashed across his dad’s eyes as he stepped forward, finger extended in accusation. “You chose to be here, Dean. Don’t start givin’ me shit.”
“No, you asked me to come, and I came, so don’t give me your bullshit, Dad. I asked an honest question, a valid one, about a hunt we’re currently on. So why don’t you give me a little more information and a little more credit.” It was like some tiny wire had snapped in his chest, hurt and anger uncoiling like a ball of snakes. “You want me to have your back, Dad? Then trust me to have it,” Dean said, arms stretched for crucifixion. “Hell, I must be doin’ somethin’ right. I managed to stay alive for almost a year with you nowhere around.”
His dad narrowed his eyes, let spite kill a smile forming there. He blew out another breath, warm moisture pressing - sharp as a push - on Dean’s cheek. “How many hunts did you run while you were in Arizona, Dean?”
“What?”
“You’re doin’ such a good job fightin’ evil on your own, how many clutch hunts did you run in Arizona? Or were you too busy bustin’ broncs and bustin’ your hand?”
Sonuva-- Indignation probably wasn’t the best choice for emotional response when you found out the dad you thought abandoned you had been keeping tabs, but Dean tried it on for size: what the fuck, it was convenient. “You were spyin’ on me the whole time?”
“I wasn’t-- I was watchin’ out for you, makin’ sure you were safe.”
“Makin’ sure I was safe? Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Dean could think of about five billion better ways to reach out and say ‘I care’. “Takin’ off for seven months without a phone call’s one hell of a way to handle that job.”
“The end of it is, I care. I did what I did because-- I may not have done it the right way, but I get it, okay? And that’s why we’re here right now. To deal with this thing for Jimmy, because I know what it’s like to have someone you love more than anything taken from you. Losin’ your mom--”
His dad stopped. Didn’t seem, for a second, like he even knew how to finish that sentence.
“If anything ever happened to you or Sam, I don’t think…” he looked up, imploring. “Please, Son. Just help me do this.”
The dichotomy was like being struck by a two-by-four in the chest and the back, simultaneously: breath gone, no way to move, the sting so strong you couldn’t see. The wrong and right of it reeled inside Dean till he was dizzy.
“Dean, I just--”
“Let’s do this,” Dean said. He moved around his dad, kicked back the duffels from the edge of the sunken stairwell, and took up his area of operation. He knocked his heels into the edge of the mound of displaced dirt, set his feet, and brought the stock of the sawed-off to the crook of his elbow. Gave his dad a nod. “Whenever you’re ready. I got your six.”
His dad moved glacially at first, thrown off-center as much as Dean had been a moment ago. Dean figured he was giving his dad a pretty good run for the emotional cement mixer money: I love you, I hate you; let’s grab a beer, go fuck yourself. But, like always, John Winchester recovered.
He returned Dean’s nod, grabbed the duffel with the salt, lighter fluid, bolt cutters, pick and chisel, and walked to the edge of the stairwell. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder, cocked his gun. “You sure your head’s in this?”
Dean kept his eyes on the blackness at the bottom of the stairs. “As far as it can get, yes, sir.”
John nodded, sucked at his cheek, and set his boot on the second stone step.
The bolt cutters made quick work of the lock on the crypt door. Dean sighted down the double barrels, into the gloom, as John clanked the cut chain from its loop through the wrought-iron gate. His dad dropped the bolt cutters, set a hand around the flaking metal, and gave a yank.
The two exchanged a quick look -
On your mark.
Get set.
- as the gate creaked open, then his dad took a step back, raised his foot, and slammed his sole against the mausoleum door.
Cold, stale air rushed up from the crypt, kicking up whorls of loose earth. His dad wiped the cobwebs from the doorway, flick on his Maglite, and splash it around inside. Reported to Dean without looking up. “I got ten feet of marble hallway, then a presentation room at the end. Four stone crypts, laid out equidistant. Looks like a clean straightforward.”
“You got a step down?”
The yellow circle of light cut to the ground in front of his dad.
“Yup.”
“Make sure you keep that in mind on your way out. No sense gettin’ your ass busted by ghosts when I’m happy to do it for you later.”
If the moonlight hadn’t caught a flash of tooth, he would have missed the half smile his dad tossed him. Dean’s jaw pulsed once as he bit down, then John disappeared into the crypt. Dean heard him clod across the marble, a hollow sound that conjured a summer hail storm pounding the earth.
John Winchester, ladies and gentleman: force of nature.
Dean did a quick scan of the cemetery. There was a lace of ground fog moving in, but that wasn’t unusual for Washington State in the fall. He memorized the temperature of the air on his skin, wanted to be sure he recognized if - and when - the temperature dropped.
The sound of scraping and pinging brought his attention back to the stairwell; his dad was chiseling open one of the stone tombs. If something was going to happen, now would be a likely time. Spooks, for all the trouble they caused, were predictable sons of bitches. Most of them were downright punctual.
A cool draft spun up the steps and fingered the hole at the knee of Dean’s jeans.
“Dad?”
“I know!” his dad yelled, frustration racing through the fluster in his voice.
Something icy brushed against his leg, and Dean’s eyes snapped down, caught a wisp of white twining itself around his ankles like a cat. Shit. There was nothing for him to shoot at without taking out his foot. “I got one out here!”
“I got the same, but nothin’ solid. Stay ready. I’m poppin’ the lid on the first box.”
Dean rocked his right foot as the chill coiled past the curve of his calf. “Not on the first date, sweetheart,” he exhaled, and then sucked it back in when ice shot up his spine.
He couldn’t move. Legs, arms, mouth, lungs - everything frozen and locked. He heard a muffled yell, a padded thud, and knew his dad was doing a little entertaining himself. He couldn’t squeeze his finger on either trigger, couldn’t blink against the frost at his eyes.
The twists and twirls of the popped wrought-iron gate started tightening themselves, flaking and glossing like sticks of black licorice. The metal stretched and moaned, split and skeined, bands of forged ore snapping like strings on a bass.
An ebony shard skimmed past his cheek, and he felt it slice across the rim of his ear. Another piece, long and thin like a blade, cut through his jeans and split the skin of his thigh. A scream banged for release inside his polar throat. He heard the double blast of his dad’s 12-gauge, felt his whole body constrict, release, and then he dropped to the ground with a shattered gasp.
“Dean?”
“Yes, sir!” he shouted, almost no pause. He didn’t check his leg, just rolled to his belly, and aimed both barrels into the hole. He brushed his shoulder past his ear, and felt a slick smear of blood.
“You okay?”
“Peachy! Keep goin’. Let’s get these bitches gone.”
There was more chiseling, sliding of stone. Dean’s eyes flitted around the cemetery like an agitated squirrel. A pool of warmth was growing on the soil beneath him, and he shifted. A few rough grains of earth wormed their way into the gash on his leg.
He’d forgotten what it was like; maybe all that time in Arizona, when he thought he was longing for the hunt, he was really just longing for Sam and his dad, wanting to have them without all the terror and fighting and death-defying acts.
The muscle that ran along the back of his injured thigh started to tighten, pinching and squeezing down on itself. A fuckin’ charlie horse? Now? “You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
From inside the mausoleum, Dean heard another long scrape, followed by a clunk, then the sweeping pitter of salt on long-dead bones. “About fuckin’ time,” he ground out, arms tensing as he fought off the burn in his thigh.
He inched to the edge of the stairwell, breathed in the tangoing scents of sulfur and naphtha. A half second later, a whoosh of warm air pushed itself up steps now glittered by flickering orange light. “Dad?”
“Two down, two to go!” came the reply.
Dean grunted and rolled to the side, no longer able to hold his position. His leg pulled up, muscle playing tug-o-war with bone and tendon. He scooted onto his ass, bit down on a grunt, and got the sawed-off balanced between his drawn-up knees. He pressed his left forearm against the throbbing cut in his thigh, hand wrapped like ribbon around the action of the gun. “You ‘bout done, old man?”
“On my way,” his dad hollered.
Dean stiffened when the call was followed by the skitter of metal on stone. His dad’s beat-up Maglite pinwheeled through the door, hopping the step at the threshold, cone of illumination climbing the stairwell like ivy.
“Dad?”
John followed right behind; he flew through the doorway backward, body folded over itself, arms and legs trailing like the tail of a kite.
“Dad!”
John hit the stairs about midway up, spine sprung strait, and Dean was up and taking aim as his dad rebounded forward.
“Bitch!” Dean roared, and emptied both barrels on the two dead girls swarming over his dad’s back. He angled as much as he could, tried to use the ricochet off the stone walls to his advantage. He flinched when the salt shot pocked and ripped across his dad’s shoulder. John didn’t move at all.
“Dad!”
Dean tried to move forward - fuckfuckfuck! Dad! - but found himself flying back: Mrs. Callham’s cold dead arm clotheslined him at the throat. He hit the mound of dug dirt, lost his breath and the sawed-off, and didn’t stop rolling until he’d back-flipped over the pile. His legs came down like thunder, and Dean found enough breath to cry out when his gashed thigh landed hard against a rock. He scrambled over the soil, hands crabbing for the shotgun, fast-forward, super-sharp panic fueling him on.
His fingers slipped across the razor edge of a rod of wrought-iron half-buried in the mound, offspring of the decimated gate. He ignored the sting of sliced skin, wrapped his hand around the metal, and pulled. He shimmied onto his back and swung like Sosa, cutting the ghost of Mrs. Callham into two. He rolled left when he caught the glint off the gun barrel - made a grab - used it like a lever to pop himself onto his feet. His vision swung madly: cemetery; stairwell; back to the blue-washed graves that bordered the stand of trees.
“Dad?” he hollered, digging new shells from his pocket. He only paused for a second when he got no response. Finished the reload, clacked closed the gun. He did another quick scan of the grounds, and made for the stairs when he came up all clear.
Fuck callin’ Jimmy.
His dad still hadn’t moved. Bounce of light off the stone showed Dean a poppy field across his dad’s shoulder where the rock salt had chewed through his coat.
Damn it.
Dean was three steps down when the ghost popped up, screeching a frozen blizzard that knocked him back on his ass. He got his elbows underneath him, rocked left, and fired a single load that bulldozed clean through the dead girl’s chest. The rest of her swirled into the black void of the crypt like water down a drain. Dean sucked in air, cleared his head. Realized if they still had specters, his dad hadn’t gotten all the bones.
He scooted down the steps, switching out the spent shell in the spare seconds he figured he had; better to do it now than wish he had two shots later. His boots hit the bottom step, and he pushed forward. Knelt with a grunt next to his dad’s still frame. Dean exchanged cold gun for warm skin, slipped his hand beneath the collar of his dad’s jacket, and ran his fingers under his jaw. Waited for the carotid to answer his call.
He sat out two strong thumps, then rose with a groan. He tripped forward, injured leg not quite keeping pace with the other, and caught himself on the doorway of the mausoleum. His dad moaned low, and Dean turned back to check on him, made sure to keep his eyes down; this whole mess was Hell enough. He got the flashlight on and aimed, yellow bouncing off the polished marble where his dad had stirred the dust. A grunt sounded behind him, and Dean called over his shoulder without looking back. “Stay down, Dad. Just-- Stay right there.”
Heat and black smoke rolled from the presentation room at the end of the short hall. Dean kept the sawed-off extended in his right hand, stowed the flashlight, and brought the crook of his left arm across his mouth and nose. The tomb in the far-right corner was uncovered, but there was no orange licking from its inside edges, no fire putting things to rest. He glanced back at his dad one more time, then took three long strides into the burial chamber.
When his boot thunked against the abandoned duffel, Dean dropped, ducked a tongue of flame from the tomb on his right, and found the canister of salt and the can of accelerant - shapes his hands knew by rote. He hissed and swore when the sawed-off - slipping from its balance across his pelvis - rode against the slice in his thigh. He dropped the shotgun, moved forward, and laid a dance of salt across the littlest Callham’s bones. He was fanning on lighter fluid when the chill ran past him, lifted the hair from his scalp with an arctic blast.
“Dad?” he yelled, coughing out smoke when he tried to fill his lungs.
It was six of one, half dozen of the other: he could leave the barbecue, wait for the spook to solidify and take a shot, or he could finish the fucking job at hand, and hope the little bitch flared out before she could do any further damage to him or his dad. He switched out can and canister for 12-guage and patted down his pockets; he’d fallen out of practice of constantly carrying a Zippo.
He found the familiar rectangle in the left-side pocket of his coat, pulled out the lighter, and pinged it open. It took him three passes of the flint before he got a flame.
His dad yelled thickly from outside: “No!”
Dean dropped the Zippo into the tomb, spun, ducked, and grabbed the shotgun. He headed for the door as the fire took hold, skidded across the marble, and slammed into the step at the doorways edge just as John yelled out again.
“Dad!” Goddamnit! All Dean could see was the blood across his back; John Winchester was staring down Hell.
Time slowed.
The shotgun was tossed to the side, and Dean dove for him. He tried to get a hand out in front so they didn’t fracture their skulls against the steps, while his dad struggled to twist away.
“Sammy! No!” John shouted, and it tore through Dean like a knife.
“Sam?” It was such an ingrained response - ring the Sammy-bell and Dean’s hero complex salivated - that he didn’t realize he was doing it. They hit the steps, and he pushed off from his dad’s back. Burst up from the stairwell in the blink of an eye.
And that was all the time it took to see his mistake; one blink, and the cemetery was gone: from blue to orange, cold to hot, dead to damned, and - God. Oh, God… - there was Sam. “Sammy?”
The world was on fire. The entire world was burning down all around Dean. Flames flared, from deep crimson to white covering land and sky and air and - fire! - the air was fire, and he was breathing fire and - not real, not real, no, not real - there was Sam, right in the middle of it.
“Oh, God, Sammy, no…”
His brother stood atop a mountain of bones: thousands upon thousands of bundled remains, trussed up and stacked like a house of cards. Sam looked down from the summit, arms spread wide, hands dripping blood.
Not real.
But it was. Dean could feel the skin on his face and arms burning. Smell his hair singeing. He turned to call for his dad, but his dad was gone. Nowhere to be seen. A hiss rose from Dean’s feet, and he looked to find a crimson stream flowing past his boots. Smoke climbed from his toes like vapor pythons where leather bisected blood. Dean stumbled back, but there was no escaping the flood.
“Your fault.”
Sam’s voice coiled around Dean. His head snapped back toward his brother on the peak, and Dean realized the source of the river sloshing past; both Sam’s hands were founts of blood, splashing redredred over dead yellow bones, lighting them orange and bright. The mountain grumbled, boggled, and changed to lava that moaned like the damned.
“All your fault, Dean. All this blood. On my hands.” Sam was scrabbling down the slope of fire, shaking his head, sad and despondent. “Your fault,” his brother repeated.
The accusation boomed through Dean like a sonic explosion, sounded through his head and chest, and he felt he might break apart like a ghost shot full of salt. “Sammy?”
He wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud - throat and mouth ablaze as they were - and if he had, Sam didn’t hear or care. Dean could see his brother’s hands were gone, now - burned away from seeking purchase as he made his descent. Blood still poured: from wrist stumps and ankles; from Sam’s eyes and ears; claret bubbling, thick as gravy, from his mouth.
“Sammy, what did I do?”
“All this blood on my hands because of you. You could have stopped it. You could have saved me from this, but you didn’t. You put it on my hands. Now it’s on yours.”
Flares of pain exploded through Dean’s fingers, tips blown open like a burst damn. Black blood and ochre pus coursed down to join his brother’s river. Coal smoke climbed, thick and sulfurous, and took over Dean’s vision. He was falling and burning and dying, and then he was dead.
Woke up, and he was still in Hell.
Soot-black smoke and fiery orange air, skin tight and red with heat. Crackling inferno all around, and he couldn’t move, anchored to the ground by panic and guilt. “Sammy?” he panted, and the plea flattened out into a harsh cough that stole his breath.
Something hit Dean’s shoulder, hard and heavy, and didn’t let go. A dark shadow flitted at the top of his periphery, and Dean felt himself dragged across the ground. Came-to again as his dad was stuffing him into the cab of the truck.
At least you’re here. Dean pawed at the shimmery vision of his father. I can bear this if you’re here. “Dad?” Someone to share the burden of this blood.
When he surfaced next, he wasn’t sure if he was still in Hell. He felt like Hell, but a lift of his lids proved an absence of flame.
His dad was beside him, mumbling and wild-eyed, mad captain of the truck as they sailed through the dark. “Wasn’t real. Just a-- Nothing. Wasn’t real, just fucking goddamned ghosts.”
“Dad?” It came out a croak, raw and thick like Dean’s damaged throat.
“None of that was real. Whatever you saw, Son, whatever we saw…” his dad said, head shaking, eyes catching Dean’s for a second, then gone.
His dad’s profile trembled in the green pallor of the dash light. Sirens roared from somewhere near. Dean pressed his palm against the deep ache in his thigh, then wiped his bloody hand on his shirt and, because it seemed so much easier not to think about any of it, Dean didn’t.
He blinked heavily - blackness, light; blackness, light - and peeled back another layer in the endless onion of a nightmare. Not in the truck anymore. Not moving, not sitting. There was something on his face, awkwardly covering his nose and mouth. He reached up a hand, but the move was stopped midway.
“He’s coming around,” a female voice said. Dean didn’t recognize it, but couldn’t ignore the anxiety it conveyed. “Jimmy?”
Dean forced open stinging eyes, pushed at the thing over his mouth, and the woman backed away. “Dad?” he choked out, and tasted smoke on his tongue.
The ‘Nam buddy - the one they were working for - was suddenly in his face. Dean bucked his shoulder against the hand Jimmy laid there. “Dad!” He felt panicked, tight-chested, out of breath. “Sammy?”
“Hey, Dean. You’re okay,” Jimmy soothed, slick as snake oil. “Hang tight for a second, kiddo.” The man’s head swiveled, and he barked to someone outside Dean’s blurry line of sight. “Gimme that, and go check on John for me. Keep him outside, if you can.”
Dean grabbed at the couch beneath him, struggled up twenty degrees before Jimmy’s face snapped back, his hand heavy on Dean’s chest.
“Lay down, son.”
It was so much like an order from his dad, Dean obeyed, dropped back, and held onto his breath until it was forced out with a cough. “Where’s my dad?” he growled.
Jimmy held up what looked like a Zip-loc bag; one corner torn off, a narrow hose shoved inside, and the ragged plastic taped around. “This is oxygen. Best I can do for a mask. You took in some smoke, and you need to keep this over your mouth and nose.”
Jimmy didn’t give him a second to think, just swooped in with the jerry-rigged O2, and grabbed one of Dean’s hands to hold the contraption against his face.
“You keep that on there, and I’ll get your dad, okay?”
He sucked in a breath, sides of the plastic bag pulling against his mouth. Jimmy and the ceiling spun, shifted. Dean breathed in deeply again, married with a generous blink. “Where’s my dad?”
“He’s fine. He’s coolin’ off outside. You stay still, keep that over your mouth, and I’ll get him for ya.”
Dean forced his eyes wide, struggling to steady his roiling vision. Fingers tapped against his cheek, and Jimmy’s concerned face slotted into clarity for a second.
“Dean? You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean breathed, then let his eyes slip closed again. He’s okay. We’re okay. And Sammy was…that wasn’t real. He felt Jimmy move away, forced himself to even out his breaths.
He ran a quick recon from head to toe, tried to determine what should hurt from what actually hurt. Dean focused on that instead of what happened in Maltby, because what happened in the cemetery was--
His mental wellness scan set off alarms in his leg, just then. Dean flashed on the iron gate; how it had twisted and moaned and torn itself apart. “Shit,” he hissed, inflating the Zip-loc like a worn balloon.
But Dad’s okay. Jimmy said he was okay. And Sammy’s… That wasn’t--
Muffled shouts rose from outside, and the cabin door banged open.
“John, you need to calm down!”
“Lemme see him! I need to talk to him!”
The door was behind Dean; he tried to twist around to see what was happening - what had his dad so hot, had boots scuffling on the wood floor - but pain lanced across his thigh and threw sparks in his vision.
“Winchester! Snap to!”
Dean knew that tone, and - Jesus Christ - it scared the shit out of him. It was pure Marine, cold steel like a clamp. When his dad talked that way, it was serious shit. And somebody was laying that shit on his dad.
“Jimmy, I gotta--”
“What you gotta do is calm the fuck down, Marine!”
And it was freaky and icy and wrongwrongwrong because John Winchester was the Ivory Soap of calm; ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent pure fucking serenity. Except when it was serious shit.
“John.”
Dean heard a tap dance of heel and toe, and what sounded like a shove: two bucks in a field. “Dad?”
“John, listen to me.”
Dean squeezed shut his lids, ears straining to hear what his eyes couldn’t see. Jimmy’s voice dropped an octave and gained a quaver, and Dean heard a hip bump a chair, and a strangled animal moan beneath the scrape of the furniture.
“Cheryl’s grabbin’ her kit, and she’s gonna come back here and sew up Dean’s leg before he bleeds to death. And you’re gonna stay out of her way, because that’s your son, John. You’re gonna drive your truck out into the woods, at least half a klick east, and then you’re gonna camo it up before you hump back here. And on that hump, you’re gonna cool yourself down and get your head screwed on straight, ‘cause this is bu cac toi, man. I love ya and I owe ya, but I ain’t goin’ to jail for you.”
Maybe he was still unconscious. Shit, maybe he was in fuckin’ Arlee, still; laid out by a shower knob on the girls’ locker room floor. Because - boo-cock-toy? Who’s goin’ to jail? Before I bleed to death? - none of it was happening, right? Never went to Arizona, never drove to Washington. Dad never left, Sam doesn’t hate me--
“Can’t lose ‘em both, Jimmy,” Dean heard his dad whisper.
“You’re not gonna lose him, John, but you’re no good to him if you get locked up. Come on. Di di mau len. Get on the job, Corporal.” There was the shuffle of leather by the door, the slap of hand on shoulder, then Jimmy was back at his side.
Dean called out when the man laid pressure on his thigh - a hand that felt like it was wielding a fucking light saber. “Sonuva--!”
“Sorry, kid,” Jimmy said from above him when Dean’s vision returned. “Had to put another steak of gauze on there. Can’t have you ruinin’ my couch.”
“Yeah, it’s a beaut,” Dean said, pulling the improvised oxygen mask from his face.
“How’s your breathin’?” Jimmy asked, taking the contraption when Dean held it out.
“How’s my leg?” Dean asked, lifting his head to take a cautious look at what was evidently worse than he’d thought. What looked like a stack of blood red towels was balanced on his left thigh, tied down with a pressure bandage.
Jimmy let him take it in, then helped ease his head to the couch cushion again. “You’ve got a pretty serious laceration, Dean. Mighta nicked the femoral artery.”
“The gate,” Dean said woozily.
“The gate?”
“On the crypt. Blew apart.”
Jimmy cleared his throat. “Gate or ghost or fuckin’ semi, you need to just take it easy, okay? Cheryl, she’s a-- She used to be a nurse. She’s gonna fix you up. She’ll be back in a minute. Meantime, I need to put some more pressure on your leg, okay?”
Dean managed a nod, and Jimmy took action before he could reconsider.
He didn’t bother holding back the groan. Another followed on its heels, but it couldn’t have been within stumbling distance of the first groan; he’d lost some time. Dean knew the tugging sensation at his leg, how it seemed to marionette the noise from his throat. Gettin’ stitched. That’s muscle bein’ stitched. He didn’t care if his whimper made him sound like a girl. Having a needle pierce and pull that deeply inside you? Under your skin like that? Makes a grown man beg. “Shit,” he pushed past dry lips.
“He’s comin’ around.”
“Well, I got nothin’ to give him, Jimmy. That Darvocet is three years old. Probably give him a stomach ache before it did anything else. Unless you wanna try and root up a few Midol from the bottom of my purse, I’m just gonna have to keep goin’ like this.”
Dean growled low, chest rumbling like the engine of the Impala when he got her on a straightaway. The assault on his thigh eased, and he felt a soft palm align itself with his jaw.
“Listen to me, Sweetie…”
Must be Cheryl. Nursing experience, huh? More like a fuckin’ taxidermist.
“I know this doesn’t feel too great--”
Oh, understatement of the year.
“--but I gotta get this closed up. Maybe fifteen more minutes. Try to go back to sleep if you can.”
What he’d meant as a laugh came out a tight lipped hmgh through bear-trapped teeth.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “We just don’t have--”
“Whiskey?” Jesusdamnfuckingchrist - you gotta have some whiskey.
“Oh, shit! Yeah!” Dean heard Jimmy call from across the cabin. “Hang on.”
Dean generally preferred a whole different activity going on when a woman was hunkered in his thigh region. He braced himself against Cheryl’s ministrations to his leg. His foot jerked twice when the needle pierced muscle - deep and high - inside his leg.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?” He hadn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them on Jimmy, looming next to Cheryl with a bottle of Maker’s in one fist and a coffee mug in the other.
“I’m gonna have to sit you up a little.”
“Yup. ‘S okay.” Dean closed his eyes again and let Jimmy and Cheryl figure out the logistics, did his best to help when he felt hands slip between his back and the couch, worked to gain a more vertical position. His eyes snapped back opened when his mouth said, “Okay, okay, stopstopstop!” because the pull on his thigh got a little too intense.
When he felt the cold ceramic touch his lips, Dean tilted back his head. Loosed his jaw, and let Jimmy pour a generous swallow of hot velvet whiskey past his teeth and over his tongue. Dean asked for more when he’d made work of the first mouthful, and Jimmy complied. After the second swallow, Dean risked a glance at what Cheryl’d been up to.
His jeans had been cut away, left leg of his boxers split and folded back to his hip. There was a goose-necked desk lamp balanced between his right hip and the back of the couch, spilling a bright circle of yellow light over the gash in his thigh.
Ah, fuck.
His leg looked like a belly-up gutted fish, gaping and raw, blood in splashes of tacky burgundy to bright candy apple surrounding the wound. Cheryl was watching him, lower lip tucked behind her front teeth. Her bloody-latex-covered hands were held in front of her, needle and silk pinched between her left index finger and thumb.
Dean sniffed deep, lifted his chin in Jimmy’s direction. When the mug returned to his lips, he drank it dry. Hissed like a hydraulic lift as Jimmy eased him back down on the couch.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I know what I’m doing,” she assured.
“Lefty, huh?” Dean joked, feeling suddenly flush.
“Fifteen minutes tops, Dean. I promise. I’ll make it as quick as I can.”
He mustered a nod, neck bending against the burn trail the whiskey had left in his throat. “ ‘Preciate that,” Dean said, and let himself drift off.
Someone was sitting in a chair next to the couch when Dean opened his eyes again. It took a second to recognize his dad’s shape, to realize the warmth over his hand was his Dad’s fingers curled tightly around it. There were shafts of afternoon sunlight slicing through the cabin, one illuminating a narrow tube - red and winding as a highway on a map - running from the crook of Dean’s elbow, over his shoulder, somewhere behind his head. Blood? He needed to move, suddenly. Scratch a full body itch. The kind of thing that overcame you when you’d slept too long.
It wasn’t the wisest compulsion to feed; e lost all his words - everything a full blaze, white-hot capital ‘O’ for half a second - then the flare dimmed to an opaque shower of juhmbled curses - pleasepleasepleasejesusfuckingchristPLEASE! - which translated loosely as STOP. He chugged out a breath, dry lips splitting like an old cellar door, and his dad’s fingers tightened around his.
“Hey, dude.”
Dean forced the mmmoan into “Mornin’.” Made a point to stay completely still while the pain coiled up from his thigh, over his hip, to the small of his back. Waited while it wound fast and tight around his spine: a spider with a fly.
“Afternoon, but, yeah. How you feelin’?”
“Like I been to Hell an’ back.”
John barked out a laugh so tragic, Dean felt like he might vomit.
“What the fuck happened, Dad?”
click for 4
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: R - for strong language and content
Pairing: none (gen) Dean, Sam, John
Disclaimer: Not mine. Damn it.
SPOILERS: through current season
Summary: There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. - Anaïs Nin
A/N: This story serves as my Sweet Charity fic for a_starfish Thanks to pdragon76 for massive support and pants kicking, and hiyacynth for her time and sharp eyes. Those interested can read Their Appointed Rounds which serves as a companion to this fic, though it's not necessary to do so. Special tip of the hat to smilla02 for the wonderful icons.
One already wet does not feel the rain. - Turkish Proverb
Maltby Cemetery - Maltby, Washington - May, 2002
“That hand gonna give you trouble?” John asked as they unloaded the shovels, guns, and duffels from the back of the truck.
“No, sir,” Dean said.
It was the first his dad had made mention of the Ace bandage wrapped around his left hand. It had only been a week since the second cast came off - though his dad didn’t know that - and the muggy Pacific night air made Dean’s bones ache. The throb across his palm sent the smell of horses and dust into his nose, but he was about as far from Arizona as he could get. He made a point to grab the majority of the gear. Didn’t want his dad thinking he’d pussied up in the months they were apart.
It was weird being back together, weird to be on a hunt. As much as Dean had wanted to get out of Arizona, the weight of the sawed-off in his hand made him crave a sudden splash of sunshine, caught him up in a phantom corral, and had him staring at his father’s silhouette in the indigo light of the graveyard.
He needs me. Wouldn’ta called if he didn’t.
But the knowledge didn’t lessen the ache. “Jimmy seems like a good guy,” he called up over his dad’s shoulder.
His dad glanced back, then talked while he stalked forward. “He is. One of the best.”
There weren’t a lot of old friends in his dad’s life, Dean knew. John Winchester had a knack for pissing off people and holding grudges - clung to ancient wrongs and rebuffs like a vice. Hell, even Bobby Singer’d threatened to pull a shotgun on him on more than one occasion.
“How’d you say you know him again?”
“We were in the Corps together, Dean,” John answered without turning.
‘Nam buddy. Dean had met a few, but none that weren’t taking punches at his dad a few minutes into a chance reunion in some backwater bar. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Dad. No offense meant to Jimmy or Cheryl or Tabby, but…eighteen-year-old girls freak out and kill themselves occasionally. Even without the help of a spirit or demon. What’s got you convinced this is our kinda gig?”
His dad stopped a few feet in front of him, stared across the dark cemetery. He didn’t speak for a second, just stood there, white vapor of ground mist streaming past his legs like a cloud sliced by a mountain. “I need you to-- Can you just trust me on this, Dean? Follow my lead?”
It would have been suicide to laugh, and that was just too much irony for the night. Instead, Dean took a deep sniff. Licked his lips and cocked his head to the side, spring of his spine coiling tightly. “You call me outta the blue, Dad. After seven months. Seven months of you leavin’ me behind in Arizona, me leavin’ you voice mails you don’t return-- You call me up and say, ‘I need you here,’ and I come. I drive straight through to Washington in a day, and you sit me down for half a beer and ten minutes of ‘Hi, how ya doin’?’ with a Marine buddy, then haul me out to a cemetery. It’d be nice if I could get a little bit more than that.”
Holy fucking shit, shut your mouth.
He didn’t breath for a second. Had to fight against the white adrenaline flare firing behind his eyes. He clenched his left hand painfully around the handle of the shovel. He was still hoping he hadn’t actually said any of it out loud when his dad turned slowly - head bowed, almost penitent.
“It wasn’t right, leavin’ you like that, Dean. And it wasn’t right askin’ you to come here and then not givin’ you the whole story up front. I look like a real asshole. I get that. And I appreciate that you came when I asked. Right now, I just--” He drew a ragged breath. “He lost his daughter, Dean. His only child. And Jimmy doesn’t deserve that, no man does.”
Fuck. Seven months, and nothing had changed. His dad was still mourning Sam. Dean was still trying to figure out exactly what to mourn. “Dad, I just--”
He’d gained something in all that time alone, being in Arizona without another Winchester. But it was getting harder to remember what he was clinging to so tightly. Got harder every second he was in the sure, familiar presence of his dad. “Last hunt we were on together…” Dean shook his head, buffed his shoulder across his left cheek. “It didn’t end so hot.”
John faced forward again, hiding his profile from the moon. It was a double-edged maneuver: one part shame, one part deceit. Dean saw it for what it was, but still listened when his dad spoke.
“I’m askin’ you to do this job with me because I need your help, son. You don’t have to like me, you don’t even have to stick around when it’s done. I can’t do this alone, Dean, but I know I can do it with you.”
And that was good enough.
Goddamnit.
It was good enough, even though it shouldn’t have been. He’d learned in Arizona that alone was hard. Living in his own skin was something he couldn’t quite get comfortable with. He’d always been John’s Son and Sammy’s Brother, and he didn’t know how to be just Dean Winchester. But it was good enough, because it was more than he had by himself.
He closed the distance between them, settled in a spot just west of his dad’s shadow. “So, what exactly we lookin’ at?”
“Like any local cemetery, this one’s got a legend,” John said, moving forward, Dean keeping stride. “North-east corner there’s an underground crypt, accessible by a thirteen-step staircase. Name on the tomb’s been lost over the years, but most of the stories say Callham. Mid-1860s, he was a mover and shaker in Seattle’s infancy. Made a name for himself in construction to start off with, then as one of Washington’s earliest tragedies.”
“We talkin’ suicide?”
“Nothin’ so easy,” John continued. “One night, Joseph Callham returns from a late business dinner. Finds his wife and three daughters murdered in their beds. Police have no suspects but him. He swears his innocence, they can’t make anything stick. Huge scandal, his business suffers, he spends most of his savings to build the underground mausoleum honoring his beloved family. He starts drinking heavy, lets the house staff go.”
“Sounds like Mr. Funtimes,” said Dean, angling with his dad toward a group of lanky cedars.
“The other half of his money dries up and there were still bills to pay, so Callham boards up his windows, holes up in the house. Nobody sees him for weeks. Until one of the fired maids gets nicked for petty larceny.”
“Lemme guess the tune that canary sang,” Dean chuffed.
“Exactly,” John said, shovel pointing ahead to a roughed-up clearing beneath the trees. “The maid says Callham killed his wife and girls. That she saw him burning some bloody clothes that night, and he paid her off to keep her quiet.”
“And since there wasn’t anymore money to flow, she let the dam burst,” Dean concluded, dropping his shovel and duffel next to the spot his dad dropped his.
“The cops go to Callham’s house, but he bolts. They track him to Bellingham, where he’s hiding out with his sister. They flush him out, chase him to the shore. He broadstrokes it out into Bellingham Bay, never to be seen again.”
“Drowned?”
“Body was never recovered. Some versions go Callham made it all the way out to Lummi Island. Lived in the woods like a wild man, maybe killed a few visiting Native Americans.”
“So, how’s all of that get us back to Jimmy’s kid and a cemetery in Maltby?” Dean asked.
His dad fished a flashlight from one of the duffels, snapped it on, and shot the beam at the ruts and furrows of overworked soil.
“A few weeks after the police closed the Callham case and declared him MIA, locals started reporting seeing spectral figures near the tomb.”
“A woman and three girls?”
“The Callhams,” John confirmed, “waiting for Joseph to return and pay his respects so they could make him pay for his sins.”
“Okay, so a Sadie Hawkins home for spooks, where does Tabby Height fit in?”
John picked up his shovel, headed to the edge of the freshly turned patch of dark earth.
“Tail end of the legend goes like this,” John said, slicing the spade into the soil, and resting his boot on its steel head. “You walk down the thirteen steps to the door of the crypt, turn back to face the cemetery, and the cemetery’s gone. You’re greeted by the great expanse of Hell itself. Some people are driven instantly mad, race off into the woods and disappear. Others kill themselves, some are discovered in a comatose state, never to recover or speak again. The stairway was filled in and covered, dug up and filled in again a dozen different times. Last time was a week ago.”
Dean nodded, lips tight. “Tabby was here.”
“Yeah,” John croaked. “Last week, Tabby and four friends came out here and unearthed the steps. Dug all night until they reached the doors of the crypt. Tabby was the first one to test the legend. Friends said she walked down the steps, turned around and stared for a second…” His dad cast a quick glance out across the cemetery at Dean’s back, then kicked the head of the shovel farther into the ground. “She stared for a second, then started screamin’. Dropped to her knees, clawed at her eyes. Scrambled around like a crab, bangin’ against the stone steps until she drug herself out of the pit and collapsed.”
“And her friends just stood there while this was happenin’?” Dean asked, joining his Dad with the other shovel.
John shrugged a load of dirt to the side. “They’re kids, Dean. They don’t think, they just-- Somebody called 911 when she lost consciousness, but they left her there. Dittybopped it home when they heard the sirens.”
“So, then?” Dean asked, making his own pile of earth. The shoveling was easier than a regular burial - soft-packed soil the city or county must have just refilled a few days ago - and though it had been nearly six months since Dean dug a grave, he fell into an easy rhythm with his dad.
“She stayed in the hospital for two days, unconscious for half of it, and when she came to, all she did was talk about what she’d seen.”
“Hell,” Dean said, with a toss to his side.
“She said she saw herself, covered in flames. Eyes black, skin on fire, tearing people apart with her bare hands. Said she couldn’t get the smell of blood out of her nose and throat.”
Dean dug while the information sunk in. It filled the gaps between ‘Here’s my buddy, Jimmy, whose daughter’s suicide we’re going to avenge,’ and ‘Welcome to Sunnydale, let’s dig up the Hellmouth’. “How did she-- I mean, if she was in the hospital, how did she--?”
“Jimmy and Cheryl wanted her home where they could keep an eye on her, keep her safe,” his dad said on a choke. “They brought her home and…” His dad’s shovel stayed stuck in the dirt longer than it needed to, a stutter in the progress toward uncovering what was buried.
“And what?”
John shook his head and rocked his shovel past a stone. “The night they brought her home, she-- She used one of Jimmy’s guns. Swallowed a .45,” he said, and stabbed until the stone gave up its purchase.
Dean blinked hard, redoubled his efforts.
It took them close to five hours of steadfast digging before they uncovered the steps and reached the crypt. Neither one of them had seen a trace of a ghost, and the EMF meter balanced on top of their duffels hadn’t dropped a squawk.
Dean mopped a muddied forearm across his brow, grains of earth like broken glass in the slick between skin on skin; he and his dad had stripped down to t-shirts a couple of hours back. He was sitting on the edge of the short stairwell that led to the tomb, heels of his boots rapping softly against the stone wall.
His dad tapped a toe against the carved lettering over the crypt door, knocking away chunks of moist dirt until they could both read the name: CALLHAM. They exchanged a look, but Dean stayed quiet. Waited for his dad to call the next shot.
“All right,” John said, working his right shoulder with his left hand, “here’s what I’m thinkin’. We’ve been real careful not to test the legend, so far. I don’t think that oughtta change.”
Dean nodded.
Clearing the small landing in front of the mausoleum door had been the most difficult of the digging; they’d had to be sure to keep their backs to the cemetery once they were at the bottom of the thirteen steps.
“If we get activity at all, I don’t know where it’s gonna originate, and once I get a blaze on those bones, I’m gonna be headin’ up these steps pretty fast, but I’m gonna be headin’ up backwards.”
Dean nodded again, jaw clenched tight. They both knew he was the more agile of the two; if anyone should be running backwards up a set of half-unearthed stone steps, it was him. But it wasn’t his call, wasn’t really ever his call when it was his dad. “All right.”
“That’s gonna leave you up here,” his dad said, sawed-off aiming into the stairwell, “downward angle on any shot you have to take.”
Dean hopped to his feet. Stared through the darkness, wiping dirt from the seat of his jeans. “Yes, sir.”
“Set up at the top of the stairs, or up here near the door.”
Dean leaned down and snatched up his gun, took the short walk around the black rectangle of open ground. When he reached the far end where the steps began, he paused, pointed. “Gate over the door opens to the left, door looks like it opens into the crypt in the same direction,” he said, hand flicking toward the spot he’d just abandoned. His fingers waved forward and back over the hole. “Gotta be a good fifteen feet from here to there…” He shook his head. “Best bet’s where you are now.”
He strode to his dad’s side, cracked the sawed off, and double tapped the shells with his thumb. Snapped the gun closed with a meaty click. He stood quietly until he could sense disappointment or pride from his dad for his assessment.
“I’m still usin’ those salt loads you came up with. Seem to work pretty well.”
If Dean was a dog, his tail would be a blur. He turned, bright-faced, to his dad. “Yeah?”
John nodded, curt and dismissive. “Scatter like a mother, but…seem to work okay.”
And it was like his dad stomped a boot on his wag. Dean nodded back, all business again. Good, boy. Down, boy. Not even together twelve hours, and Dean was right back under his dad’s heel. He hated how it felt so right, so safe.
“I need you in shootin’ mode, not thinkin’ mode, Dean. If I come outta there with ghosts on my tail, you yell fire in the hole and take your best shot. Ignore the ricochet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if I go down, you shag ass back to the truck, call Jimmy, and wait for him before you come for me.”
Dean turned to him, face pinched. “Dad, come on--”
“Dean, that’s an order. It’s not negotiable. We don’t know what we’re dealin’ with here, but what we do know is that Tabby Height saw somethin’ that made her put a gun in her mouth. We’re not takin’ chances.”
“But what’s Jimmy gonna--”
“Dean! I’m not lookin’ for input on this. You’re either with me, or you’re not.”
For a flash, he was back in Arlee, sick stench of the showers thick across his tongue.
“Dean.”
“Yeah,” he spit. His left eye twitched. “Yes, sir. I’m with you.”
His dad squatted in front of his duffel, grabbed his flashlight, and rooted out a few more shells.
“You think cleanin’ out the wife and kids is gonna take care of this mess? You don’t think Callham’s spirit’s got anything to do with it?”
John blew out an exasperated breath, rose to meet Dean’s eyes. “Son, do we have to go rounds right now? I’m not worried about Callham. Callham’s not the problem right now. Kids dying is the problem, and yeah, I’m pretty sure this is gonna take care of that.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean chuffed, and made it sound blasphemous.
Moonlight flashed across his dad’s eyes as he stepped forward, finger extended in accusation. “You chose to be here, Dean. Don’t start givin’ me shit.”
“No, you asked me to come, and I came, so don’t give me your bullshit, Dad. I asked an honest question, a valid one, about a hunt we’re currently on. So why don’t you give me a little more information and a little more credit.” It was like some tiny wire had snapped in his chest, hurt and anger uncoiling like a ball of snakes. “You want me to have your back, Dad? Then trust me to have it,” Dean said, arms stretched for crucifixion. “Hell, I must be doin’ somethin’ right. I managed to stay alive for almost a year with you nowhere around.”
His dad narrowed his eyes, let spite kill a smile forming there. He blew out another breath, warm moisture pressing - sharp as a push - on Dean’s cheek. “How many hunts did you run while you were in Arizona, Dean?”
“What?”
“You’re doin’ such a good job fightin’ evil on your own, how many clutch hunts did you run in Arizona? Or were you too busy bustin’ broncs and bustin’ your hand?”
Sonuva-- Indignation probably wasn’t the best choice for emotional response when you found out the dad you thought abandoned you had been keeping tabs, but Dean tried it on for size: what the fuck, it was convenient. “You were spyin’ on me the whole time?”
“I wasn’t-- I was watchin’ out for you, makin’ sure you were safe.”
“Makin’ sure I was safe? Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Dean could think of about five billion better ways to reach out and say ‘I care’. “Takin’ off for seven months without a phone call’s one hell of a way to handle that job.”
“The end of it is, I care. I did what I did because-- I may not have done it the right way, but I get it, okay? And that’s why we’re here right now. To deal with this thing for Jimmy, because I know what it’s like to have someone you love more than anything taken from you. Losin’ your mom--”
His dad stopped. Didn’t seem, for a second, like he even knew how to finish that sentence.
“If anything ever happened to you or Sam, I don’t think…” he looked up, imploring. “Please, Son. Just help me do this.”
The dichotomy was like being struck by a two-by-four in the chest and the back, simultaneously: breath gone, no way to move, the sting so strong you couldn’t see. The wrong and right of it reeled inside Dean till he was dizzy.
“Dean, I just--”
“Let’s do this,” Dean said. He moved around his dad, kicked back the duffels from the edge of the sunken stairwell, and took up his area of operation. He knocked his heels into the edge of the mound of displaced dirt, set his feet, and brought the stock of the sawed-off to the crook of his elbow. Gave his dad a nod. “Whenever you’re ready. I got your six.”
His dad moved glacially at first, thrown off-center as much as Dean had been a moment ago. Dean figured he was giving his dad a pretty good run for the emotional cement mixer money: I love you, I hate you; let’s grab a beer, go fuck yourself. But, like always, John Winchester recovered.
He returned Dean’s nod, grabbed the duffel with the salt, lighter fluid, bolt cutters, pick and chisel, and walked to the edge of the stairwell. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder, cocked his gun. “You sure your head’s in this?”
Dean kept his eyes on the blackness at the bottom of the stairs. “As far as it can get, yes, sir.”
John nodded, sucked at his cheek, and set his boot on the second stone step.
The bolt cutters made quick work of the lock on the crypt door. Dean sighted down the double barrels, into the gloom, as John clanked the cut chain from its loop through the wrought-iron gate. His dad dropped the bolt cutters, set a hand around the flaking metal, and gave a yank.
The two exchanged a quick look -
On your mark.
Get set.
- as the gate creaked open, then his dad took a step back, raised his foot, and slammed his sole against the mausoleum door.
Cold, stale air rushed up from the crypt, kicking up whorls of loose earth. His dad wiped the cobwebs from the doorway, flick on his Maglite, and splash it around inside. Reported to Dean without looking up. “I got ten feet of marble hallway, then a presentation room at the end. Four stone crypts, laid out equidistant. Looks like a clean straightforward.”
“You got a step down?”
The yellow circle of light cut to the ground in front of his dad.
“Yup.”
“Make sure you keep that in mind on your way out. No sense gettin’ your ass busted by ghosts when I’m happy to do it for you later.”
If the moonlight hadn’t caught a flash of tooth, he would have missed the half smile his dad tossed him. Dean’s jaw pulsed once as he bit down, then John disappeared into the crypt. Dean heard him clod across the marble, a hollow sound that conjured a summer hail storm pounding the earth.
John Winchester, ladies and gentleman: force of nature.
Dean did a quick scan of the cemetery. There was a lace of ground fog moving in, but that wasn’t unusual for Washington State in the fall. He memorized the temperature of the air on his skin, wanted to be sure he recognized if - and when - the temperature dropped.
The sound of scraping and pinging brought his attention back to the stairwell; his dad was chiseling open one of the stone tombs. If something was going to happen, now would be a likely time. Spooks, for all the trouble they caused, were predictable sons of bitches. Most of them were downright punctual.
A cool draft spun up the steps and fingered the hole at the knee of Dean’s jeans.
“Dad?”
“I know!” his dad yelled, frustration racing through the fluster in his voice.
Something icy brushed against his leg, and Dean’s eyes snapped down, caught a wisp of white twining itself around his ankles like a cat. Shit. There was nothing for him to shoot at without taking out his foot. “I got one out here!”
“I got the same, but nothin’ solid. Stay ready. I’m poppin’ the lid on the first box.”
Dean rocked his right foot as the chill coiled past the curve of his calf. “Not on the first date, sweetheart,” he exhaled, and then sucked it back in when ice shot up his spine.
He couldn’t move. Legs, arms, mouth, lungs - everything frozen and locked. He heard a muffled yell, a padded thud, and knew his dad was doing a little entertaining himself. He couldn’t squeeze his finger on either trigger, couldn’t blink against the frost at his eyes.
The twists and twirls of the popped wrought-iron gate started tightening themselves, flaking and glossing like sticks of black licorice. The metal stretched and moaned, split and skeined, bands of forged ore snapping like strings on a bass.
An ebony shard skimmed past his cheek, and he felt it slice across the rim of his ear. Another piece, long and thin like a blade, cut through his jeans and split the skin of his thigh. A scream banged for release inside his polar throat. He heard the double blast of his dad’s 12-gauge, felt his whole body constrict, release, and then he dropped to the ground with a shattered gasp.
“Dean?”
“Yes, sir!” he shouted, almost no pause. He didn’t check his leg, just rolled to his belly, and aimed both barrels into the hole. He brushed his shoulder past his ear, and felt a slick smear of blood.
“You okay?”
“Peachy! Keep goin’. Let’s get these bitches gone.”
There was more chiseling, sliding of stone. Dean’s eyes flitted around the cemetery like an agitated squirrel. A pool of warmth was growing on the soil beneath him, and he shifted. A few rough grains of earth wormed their way into the gash on his leg.
He’d forgotten what it was like; maybe all that time in Arizona, when he thought he was longing for the hunt, he was really just longing for Sam and his dad, wanting to have them without all the terror and fighting and death-defying acts.
The muscle that ran along the back of his injured thigh started to tighten, pinching and squeezing down on itself. A fuckin’ charlie horse? Now? “You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
From inside the mausoleum, Dean heard another long scrape, followed by a clunk, then the sweeping pitter of salt on long-dead bones. “About fuckin’ time,” he ground out, arms tensing as he fought off the burn in his thigh.
He inched to the edge of the stairwell, breathed in the tangoing scents of sulfur and naphtha. A half second later, a whoosh of warm air pushed itself up steps now glittered by flickering orange light. “Dad?”
“Two down, two to go!” came the reply.
Dean grunted and rolled to the side, no longer able to hold his position. His leg pulled up, muscle playing tug-o-war with bone and tendon. He scooted onto his ass, bit down on a grunt, and got the sawed-off balanced between his drawn-up knees. He pressed his left forearm against the throbbing cut in his thigh, hand wrapped like ribbon around the action of the gun. “You ‘bout done, old man?”
“On my way,” his dad hollered.
Dean stiffened when the call was followed by the skitter of metal on stone. His dad’s beat-up Maglite pinwheeled through the door, hopping the step at the threshold, cone of illumination climbing the stairwell like ivy.
“Dad?”
John followed right behind; he flew through the doorway backward, body folded over itself, arms and legs trailing like the tail of a kite.
“Dad!”
John hit the stairs about midway up, spine sprung strait, and Dean was up and taking aim as his dad rebounded forward.
“Bitch!” Dean roared, and emptied both barrels on the two dead girls swarming over his dad’s back. He angled as much as he could, tried to use the ricochet off the stone walls to his advantage. He flinched when the salt shot pocked and ripped across his dad’s shoulder. John didn’t move at all.
“Dad!”
Dean tried to move forward - fuckfuckfuck! Dad! - but found himself flying back: Mrs. Callham’s cold dead arm clotheslined him at the throat. He hit the mound of dug dirt, lost his breath and the sawed-off, and didn’t stop rolling until he’d back-flipped over the pile. His legs came down like thunder, and Dean found enough breath to cry out when his gashed thigh landed hard against a rock. He scrambled over the soil, hands crabbing for the shotgun, fast-forward, super-sharp panic fueling him on.
His fingers slipped across the razor edge of a rod of wrought-iron half-buried in the mound, offspring of the decimated gate. He ignored the sting of sliced skin, wrapped his hand around the metal, and pulled. He shimmied onto his back and swung like Sosa, cutting the ghost of Mrs. Callham into two. He rolled left when he caught the glint off the gun barrel - made a grab - used it like a lever to pop himself onto his feet. His vision swung madly: cemetery; stairwell; back to the blue-washed graves that bordered the stand of trees.
“Dad?” he hollered, digging new shells from his pocket. He only paused for a second when he got no response. Finished the reload, clacked closed the gun. He did another quick scan of the grounds, and made for the stairs when he came up all clear.
Fuck callin’ Jimmy.
His dad still hadn’t moved. Bounce of light off the stone showed Dean a poppy field across his dad’s shoulder where the rock salt had chewed through his coat.
Damn it.
Dean was three steps down when the ghost popped up, screeching a frozen blizzard that knocked him back on his ass. He got his elbows underneath him, rocked left, and fired a single load that bulldozed clean through the dead girl’s chest. The rest of her swirled into the black void of the crypt like water down a drain. Dean sucked in air, cleared his head. Realized if they still had specters, his dad hadn’t gotten all the bones.
He scooted down the steps, switching out the spent shell in the spare seconds he figured he had; better to do it now than wish he had two shots later. His boots hit the bottom step, and he pushed forward. Knelt with a grunt next to his dad’s still frame. Dean exchanged cold gun for warm skin, slipped his hand beneath the collar of his dad’s jacket, and ran his fingers under his jaw. Waited for the carotid to answer his call.
He sat out two strong thumps, then rose with a groan. He tripped forward, injured leg not quite keeping pace with the other, and caught himself on the doorway of the mausoleum. His dad moaned low, and Dean turned back to check on him, made sure to keep his eyes down; this whole mess was Hell enough. He got the flashlight on and aimed, yellow bouncing off the polished marble where his dad had stirred the dust. A grunt sounded behind him, and Dean called over his shoulder without looking back. “Stay down, Dad. Just-- Stay right there.”
Heat and black smoke rolled from the presentation room at the end of the short hall. Dean kept the sawed-off extended in his right hand, stowed the flashlight, and brought the crook of his left arm across his mouth and nose. The tomb in the far-right corner was uncovered, but there was no orange licking from its inside edges, no fire putting things to rest. He glanced back at his dad one more time, then took three long strides into the burial chamber.
When his boot thunked against the abandoned duffel, Dean dropped, ducked a tongue of flame from the tomb on his right, and found the canister of salt and the can of accelerant - shapes his hands knew by rote. He hissed and swore when the sawed-off - slipping from its balance across his pelvis - rode against the slice in his thigh. He dropped the shotgun, moved forward, and laid a dance of salt across the littlest Callham’s bones. He was fanning on lighter fluid when the chill ran past him, lifted the hair from his scalp with an arctic blast.
“Dad?” he yelled, coughing out smoke when he tried to fill his lungs.
It was six of one, half dozen of the other: he could leave the barbecue, wait for the spook to solidify and take a shot, or he could finish the fucking job at hand, and hope the little bitch flared out before she could do any further damage to him or his dad. He switched out can and canister for 12-guage and patted down his pockets; he’d fallen out of practice of constantly carrying a Zippo.
He found the familiar rectangle in the left-side pocket of his coat, pulled out the lighter, and pinged it open. It took him three passes of the flint before he got a flame.
His dad yelled thickly from outside: “No!”
Dean dropped the Zippo into the tomb, spun, ducked, and grabbed the shotgun. He headed for the door as the fire took hold, skidded across the marble, and slammed into the step at the doorways edge just as John yelled out again.
“Dad!” Goddamnit! All Dean could see was the blood across his back; John Winchester was staring down Hell.
Time slowed.
The shotgun was tossed to the side, and Dean dove for him. He tried to get a hand out in front so they didn’t fracture their skulls against the steps, while his dad struggled to twist away.
“Sammy! No!” John shouted, and it tore through Dean like a knife.
“Sam?” It was such an ingrained response - ring the Sammy-bell and Dean’s hero complex salivated - that he didn’t realize he was doing it. They hit the steps, and he pushed off from his dad’s back. Burst up from the stairwell in the blink of an eye.
And that was all the time it took to see his mistake; one blink, and the cemetery was gone: from blue to orange, cold to hot, dead to damned, and - God. Oh, God… - there was Sam. “Sammy?”
The world was on fire. The entire world was burning down all around Dean. Flames flared, from deep crimson to white covering land and sky and air and - fire! - the air was fire, and he was breathing fire and - not real, not real, no, not real - there was Sam, right in the middle of it.
“Oh, God, Sammy, no…”
His brother stood atop a mountain of bones: thousands upon thousands of bundled remains, trussed up and stacked like a house of cards. Sam looked down from the summit, arms spread wide, hands dripping blood.
Not real.
But it was. Dean could feel the skin on his face and arms burning. Smell his hair singeing. He turned to call for his dad, but his dad was gone. Nowhere to be seen. A hiss rose from Dean’s feet, and he looked to find a crimson stream flowing past his boots. Smoke climbed from his toes like vapor pythons where leather bisected blood. Dean stumbled back, but there was no escaping the flood.
“Your fault.”
Sam’s voice coiled around Dean. His head snapped back toward his brother on the peak, and Dean realized the source of the river sloshing past; both Sam’s hands were founts of blood, splashing redredred over dead yellow bones, lighting them orange and bright. The mountain grumbled, boggled, and changed to lava that moaned like the damned.
“All your fault, Dean. All this blood. On my hands.” Sam was scrabbling down the slope of fire, shaking his head, sad and despondent. “Your fault,” his brother repeated.
The accusation boomed through Dean like a sonic explosion, sounded through his head and chest, and he felt he might break apart like a ghost shot full of salt. “Sammy?”
He wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud - throat and mouth ablaze as they were - and if he had, Sam didn’t hear or care. Dean could see his brother’s hands were gone, now - burned away from seeking purchase as he made his descent. Blood still poured: from wrist stumps and ankles; from Sam’s eyes and ears; claret bubbling, thick as gravy, from his mouth.
“Sammy, what did I do?”
“All this blood on my hands because of you. You could have stopped it. You could have saved me from this, but you didn’t. You put it on my hands. Now it’s on yours.”
Flares of pain exploded through Dean’s fingers, tips blown open like a burst damn. Black blood and ochre pus coursed down to join his brother’s river. Coal smoke climbed, thick and sulfurous, and took over Dean’s vision. He was falling and burning and dying, and then he was dead.
Woke up, and he was still in Hell.
Soot-black smoke and fiery orange air, skin tight and red with heat. Crackling inferno all around, and he couldn’t move, anchored to the ground by panic and guilt. “Sammy?” he panted, and the plea flattened out into a harsh cough that stole his breath.
Something hit Dean’s shoulder, hard and heavy, and didn’t let go. A dark shadow flitted at the top of his periphery, and Dean felt himself dragged across the ground. Came-to again as his dad was stuffing him into the cab of the truck.
At least you’re here. Dean pawed at the shimmery vision of his father. I can bear this if you’re here. “Dad?” Someone to share the burden of this blood.
When he surfaced next, he wasn’t sure if he was still in Hell. He felt like Hell, but a lift of his lids proved an absence of flame.
His dad was beside him, mumbling and wild-eyed, mad captain of the truck as they sailed through the dark. “Wasn’t real. Just a-- Nothing. Wasn’t real, just fucking goddamned ghosts.”
“Dad?” It came out a croak, raw and thick like Dean’s damaged throat.
“None of that was real. Whatever you saw, Son, whatever we saw…” his dad said, head shaking, eyes catching Dean’s for a second, then gone.
His dad’s profile trembled in the green pallor of the dash light. Sirens roared from somewhere near. Dean pressed his palm against the deep ache in his thigh, then wiped his bloody hand on his shirt and, because it seemed so much easier not to think about any of it, Dean didn’t.
He blinked heavily - blackness, light; blackness, light - and peeled back another layer in the endless onion of a nightmare. Not in the truck anymore. Not moving, not sitting. There was something on his face, awkwardly covering his nose and mouth. He reached up a hand, but the move was stopped midway.
“He’s coming around,” a female voice said. Dean didn’t recognize it, but couldn’t ignore the anxiety it conveyed. “Jimmy?”
Dean forced open stinging eyes, pushed at the thing over his mouth, and the woman backed away. “Dad?” he choked out, and tasted smoke on his tongue.
The ‘Nam buddy - the one they were working for - was suddenly in his face. Dean bucked his shoulder against the hand Jimmy laid there. “Dad!” He felt panicked, tight-chested, out of breath. “Sammy?”
“Hey, Dean. You’re okay,” Jimmy soothed, slick as snake oil. “Hang tight for a second, kiddo.” The man’s head swiveled, and he barked to someone outside Dean’s blurry line of sight. “Gimme that, and go check on John for me. Keep him outside, if you can.”
Dean grabbed at the couch beneath him, struggled up twenty degrees before Jimmy’s face snapped back, his hand heavy on Dean’s chest.
“Lay down, son.”
It was so much like an order from his dad, Dean obeyed, dropped back, and held onto his breath until it was forced out with a cough. “Where’s my dad?” he growled.
Jimmy held up what looked like a Zip-loc bag; one corner torn off, a narrow hose shoved inside, and the ragged plastic taped around. “This is oxygen. Best I can do for a mask. You took in some smoke, and you need to keep this over your mouth and nose.”
Jimmy didn’t give him a second to think, just swooped in with the jerry-rigged O2, and grabbed one of Dean’s hands to hold the contraption against his face.
“You keep that on there, and I’ll get your dad, okay?”
He sucked in a breath, sides of the plastic bag pulling against his mouth. Jimmy and the ceiling spun, shifted. Dean breathed in deeply again, married with a generous blink. “Where’s my dad?”
“He’s fine. He’s coolin’ off outside. You stay still, keep that over your mouth, and I’ll get him for ya.”
Dean forced his eyes wide, struggling to steady his roiling vision. Fingers tapped against his cheek, and Jimmy’s concerned face slotted into clarity for a second.
“Dean? You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Dean breathed, then let his eyes slip closed again. He’s okay. We’re okay. And Sammy was…that wasn’t real. He felt Jimmy move away, forced himself to even out his breaths.
He ran a quick recon from head to toe, tried to determine what should hurt from what actually hurt. Dean focused on that instead of what happened in Maltby, because what happened in the cemetery was--
His mental wellness scan set off alarms in his leg, just then. Dean flashed on the iron gate; how it had twisted and moaned and torn itself apart. “Shit,” he hissed, inflating the Zip-loc like a worn balloon.
But Dad’s okay. Jimmy said he was okay. And Sammy’s… That wasn’t--
Muffled shouts rose from outside, and the cabin door banged open.
“John, you need to calm down!”
“Lemme see him! I need to talk to him!”
The door was behind Dean; he tried to twist around to see what was happening - what had his dad so hot, had boots scuffling on the wood floor - but pain lanced across his thigh and threw sparks in his vision.
“Winchester! Snap to!”
Dean knew that tone, and - Jesus Christ - it scared the shit out of him. It was pure Marine, cold steel like a clamp. When his dad talked that way, it was serious shit. And somebody was laying that shit on his dad.
“Jimmy, I gotta--”
“What you gotta do is calm the fuck down, Marine!”
And it was freaky and icy and wrongwrongwrong because John Winchester was the Ivory Soap of calm; ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent pure fucking serenity. Except when it was serious shit.
“John.”
Dean heard a tap dance of heel and toe, and what sounded like a shove: two bucks in a field. “Dad?”
“John, listen to me.”
Dean squeezed shut his lids, ears straining to hear what his eyes couldn’t see. Jimmy’s voice dropped an octave and gained a quaver, and Dean heard a hip bump a chair, and a strangled animal moan beneath the scrape of the furniture.
“Cheryl’s grabbin’ her kit, and she’s gonna come back here and sew up Dean’s leg before he bleeds to death. And you’re gonna stay out of her way, because that’s your son, John. You’re gonna drive your truck out into the woods, at least half a klick east, and then you’re gonna camo it up before you hump back here. And on that hump, you’re gonna cool yourself down and get your head screwed on straight, ‘cause this is bu cac toi, man. I love ya and I owe ya, but I ain’t goin’ to jail for you.”
Maybe he was still unconscious. Shit, maybe he was in fuckin’ Arlee, still; laid out by a shower knob on the girls’ locker room floor. Because - boo-cock-toy? Who’s goin’ to jail? Before I bleed to death? - none of it was happening, right? Never went to Arizona, never drove to Washington. Dad never left, Sam doesn’t hate me--
“Can’t lose ‘em both, Jimmy,” Dean heard his dad whisper.
“You’re not gonna lose him, John, but you’re no good to him if you get locked up. Come on. Di di mau len. Get on the job, Corporal.” There was the shuffle of leather by the door, the slap of hand on shoulder, then Jimmy was back at his side.
Dean called out when the man laid pressure on his thigh - a hand that felt like it was wielding a fucking light saber. “Sonuva--!”
“Sorry, kid,” Jimmy said from above him when Dean’s vision returned. “Had to put another steak of gauze on there. Can’t have you ruinin’ my couch.”
“Yeah, it’s a beaut,” Dean said, pulling the improvised oxygen mask from his face.
“How’s your breathin’?” Jimmy asked, taking the contraption when Dean held it out.
“How’s my leg?” Dean asked, lifting his head to take a cautious look at what was evidently worse than he’d thought. What looked like a stack of blood red towels was balanced on his left thigh, tied down with a pressure bandage.
Jimmy let him take it in, then helped ease his head to the couch cushion again. “You’ve got a pretty serious laceration, Dean. Mighta nicked the femoral artery.”
“The gate,” Dean said woozily.
“The gate?”
“On the crypt. Blew apart.”
Jimmy cleared his throat. “Gate or ghost or fuckin’ semi, you need to just take it easy, okay? Cheryl, she’s a-- She used to be a nurse. She’s gonna fix you up. She’ll be back in a minute. Meantime, I need to put some more pressure on your leg, okay?”
Dean managed a nod, and Jimmy took action before he could reconsider.
He didn’t bother holding back the groan. Another followed on its heels, but it couldn’t have been within stumbling distance of the first groan; he’d lost some time. Dean knew the tugging sensation at his leg, how it seemed to marionette the noise from his throat. Gettin’ stitched. That’s muscle bein’ stitched. He didn’t care if his whimper made him sound like a girl. Having a needle pierce and pull that deeply inside you? Under your skin like that? Makes a grown man beg. “Shit,” he pushed past dry lips.
“He’s comin’ around.”
“Well, I got nothin’ to give him, Jimmy. That Darvocet is three years old. Probably give him a stomach ache before it did anything else. Unless you wanna try and root up a few Midol from the bottom of my purse, I’m just gonna have to keep goin’ like this.”
Dean growled low, chest rumbling like the engine of the Impala when he got her on a straightaway. The assault on his thigh eased, and he felt a soft palm align itself with his jaw.
“Listen to me, Sweetie…”
Must be Cheryl. Nursing experience, huh? More like a fuckin’ taxidermist.
“I know this doesn’t feel too great--”
Oh, understatement of the year.
“--but I gotta get this closed up. Maybe fifteen more minutes. Try to go back to sleep if you can.”
What he’d meant as a laugh came out a tight lipped hmgh through bear-trapped teeth.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “We just don’t have--”
“Whiskey?” Jesusdamnfuckingchrist - you gotta have some whiskey.
“Oh, shit! Yeah!” Dean heard Jimmy call from across the cabin. “Hang on.”
Dean generally preferred a whole different activity going on when a woman was hunkered in his thigh region. He braced himself against Cheryl’s ministrations to his leg. His foot jerked twice when the needle pierced muscle - deep and high - inside his leg.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?” He hadn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them on Jimmy, looming next to Cheryl with a bottle of Maker’s in one fist and a coffee mug in the other.
“I’m gonna have to sit you up a little.”
“Yup. ‘S okay.” Dean closed his eyes again and let Jimmy and Cheryl figure out the logistics, did his best to help when he felt hands slip between his back and the couch, worked to gain a more vertical position. His eyes snapped back opened when his mouth said, “Okay, okay, stopstopstop!” because the pull on his thigh got a little too intense.
When he felt the cold ceramic touch his lips, Dean tilted back his head. Loosed his jaw, and let Jimmy pour a generous swallow of hot velvet whiskey past his teeth and over his tongue. Dean asked for more when he’d made work of the first mouthful, and Jimmy complied. After the second swallow, Dean risked a glance at what Cheryl’d been up to.
His jeans had been cut away, left leg of his boxers split and folded back to his hip. There was a goose-necked desk lamp balanced between his right hip and the back of the couch, spilling a bright circle of yellow light over the gash in his thigh.
Ah, fuck.
His leg looked like a belly-up gutted fish, gaping and raw, blood in splashes of tacky burgundy to bright candy apple surrounding the wound. Cheryl was watching him, lower lip tucked behind her front teeth. Her bloody-latex-covered hands were held in front of her, needle and silk pinched between her left index finger and thumb.
Dean sniffed deep, lifted his chin in Jimmy’s direction. When the mug returned to his lips, he drank it dry. Hissed like a hydraulic lift as Jimmy eased him back down on the couch.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I know what I’m doing,” she assured.
“Lefty, huh?” Dean joked, feeling suddenly flush.
“Fifteen minutes tops, Dean. I promise. I’ll make it as quick as I can.”
He mustered a nod, neck bending against the burn trail the whiskey had left in his throat. “ ‘Preciate that,” Dean said, and let himself drift off.
Someone was sitting in a chair next to the couch when Dean opened his eyes again. It took a second to recognize his dad’s shape, to realize the warmth over his hand was his Dad’s fingers curled tightly around it. There were shafts of afternoon sunlight slicing through the cabin, one illuminating a narrow tube - red and winding as a highway on a map - running from the crook of Dean’s elbow, over his shoulder, somewhere behind his head. Blood? He needed to move, suddenly. Scratch a full body itch. The kind of thing that overcame you when you’d slept too long.
It wasn’t the wisest compulsion to feed; e lost all his words - everything a full blaze, white-hot capital ‘O’ for half a second - then the flare dimmed to an opaque shower of juhmbled curses - pleasepleasepleasejesusfuckingchristPLEASE! - which translated loosely as STOP. He chugged out a breath, dry lips splitting like an old cellar door, and his dad’s fingers tightened around his.
“Hey, dude.”
Dean forced the mmmoan into “Mornin’.” Made a point to stay completely still while the pain coiled up from his thigh, over his hip, to the small of his back. Waited while it wound fast and tight around his spine: a spider with a fly.
“Afternoon, but, yeah. How you feelin’?”
“Like I been to Hell an’ back.”
John barked out a laugh so tragic, Dean felt like he might vomit.
“What the fuck happened, Dad?”
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