fic: the sharpness of the outline (5/9)
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 3X07
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 hiyacynth for saving my bacon with a generous beta when I needed it. 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.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. - Blaise Pascal
Missoula, Montana - 2001
He was trying to figure out how long it would be before he could take another Vicodin. Between the lack of restful sleep, the concussion, the pain killers, and eating ibuprofen like Tic-Tacs for the last day and a half - his head was a little muddled. He was pretty sure he’d taken the last tab when Scooby-Doo came on. Then he’d watched half an hour of a deplorable local morning show, and a crappy episode of Gilligan’s Island from which Tina Louise was mysteriously absent. The Price is Right had come on after that. He didn’t remember the Showcase Showdown, so he must have switched over to the NASCAR channel before then. The growl of high-performance racing was giving him a motherfucking headache. He shook a Vicodin from the amber plastic bottle, palmed it into his mouth, and chased it with a swirl of room-temperature Gatorade.
He waited for the pill to take effect, then took a hot shower. Washed away the last of the locker-room stink from his skin and eased into clean clothes. The desk clerk gave him the horse eye when he stopped by the front office to pick up a newspaper. Dean knew it was because of the way his face looked and not any infraction of non-payment committed; he’d called and confirmed a charge on their bogus card for the motel room’s rental through the end of the week.
Thanks for lookin’ out, Dad. You son of a bitch.
Back in the room with a cup of gas station coffee and a slow-settling dizzy spell, he scoured The Missoulian. There was a short article on page six about a grave desecration at the Bennet’s Junction Cemetery, so his dad was still in town, or had been last night - just wasn’t in a communicating-with-his-son mood.
Dean folded up the newspaper with rancor, botched it like the redress of a virgin roadmap. Frustration brought him to the whole of The Missoulian’s front section in a ball, tightly wrapped by ink-smudged palms and white knuckles. At least it made it into the wastebasket when he threw it across the room. He might have lost his shit completely if he’d missed.
He should call Sam. Call his brother and just talk to him. Not even tell him Dad had taken off, or that he was hurt and he was scared--
No. Nope. Don’t call Sam.
Because if he talked to Sam right then? He’d tell him. He might even fucking cry. And then he’d really lose it.
He picked up his cell and ran his contact list. His thumb sat on the call button for a long time before he pressed it.
“Hello?”
“Dad?”
“Where are you?”
It took Dean a second the recover from the rush that flooded his head at this dad’s question.
Where am I? I’m at the fuckin’ dump you left me at two days ago, you fucker!
“The motel. Where are you?”
“On my way to Arizona. I need you to meet me there. Bisbee.”
Dean didn’t know which shook him deeper; the fact his dad ignored acknowledging how seriously he’d been injured, or that he caught himself looking around the room - mentally packing - because his dad said jump.
“What’s in Bisbee?”
“I don’t have time for a bunch of details right now, Dean. Can you get here or not?”
“I can only see outta one eye right now, Dad.”
His dad exhaled on the other end of the phone, rush of air so sad and heavy Dean swore he felt it brush his cheek.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I-- I’m sorry about what happened. I know you’re hurtin’ pretty bad right now, but I need you here in Arizona, Dean.”
The tinge of annoyance in his dad’s voice made Dean a little sick to his stomach, slight but present; a choke on the chain for a disobedient dog. Dean’s pause wasn’t nearly as long as he meant it to be. “What’s the gig?”
“Gig’s not important right now, just that you leave as soon as you can. I’ll fill you in when you get here. This is important, Dean.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“You have a pen? I’ll give you the address.”
He repeated the information back to his dad, told him he could be on the road in an hour. He packed up, then swallowed down a handful of ibuprofen. Hated himself and cursed his dad for the first two hundred miles south.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
He woke with a sore back. Either Jimmy’s couch had lost some spring, or the last time he’d surfed it, everything else ached so badly he hadn’t noticed. Dean was showered and shaved, stitches tended-to, and blowing across his first cup of coffee when Sam emerged from the cocoon of the sleeping bag. Dean poured a second mug and sugared it up, handed it down to the futon when Sam finished scrubbing the sleep off his face. “Mornin’.”
“What time is it?” Sam asked, reaching for the coffee. He squinched his eyes and cracked out a hard yawn.
“Little after nine. Jimmy called about twenty minutes ago. He and Cheryl are on their way over. They’re bringin’ breakfast.”
“Do I have time to take a shower?”
The rumble of a pick-up sounded outside.
“I don’t think so,” Dean smiled.
“Dude! I’m in my boxers!” Sam pushed the coffee back at Dean and unfolded from the futon. Tried to hop toward the jeans he’d left hung over the back of the chair when the zipper on the sleeping bag wouldn’t budge. “Dude!”
Dean was laughing, both mugs of coffee threatening second-degree burns as their contents sloshed over the sides.
“Dude!” Sam yelled again, looking like a frantic Houdini working the world’s toughest straight jacket. He finally got the zipper unjammed and the coffin-shaped sleeping bag pushed down around his ankles, when the door to the cabin opened.
Cheryl and Jimmy, hands and arms filled with grocery sacks and towel-wrapped casserole dishes, froze in the doorframe. Sam turned a shade of red Dean hadn’t imagined possible, then brought his hands across the front of his boxers like a man-made fig leaf.
Jimmy looked from brother to brother, gave a nod, and continued across the room to the kitchenette. “Honey, you remember Dean. This is his brother, Sam,” he said with a smirk and a tilt of the head when he passed him.
“Hi, Sam,” Cheryl said.
Sam stuttered and blushed. “Hi. I was-- I didn’t-- I just--”
“Sam’s a little shy,” Dean said with a wink, set the coffee mugs on the side table, and crossed to Cheryl. He relieved her of her load and wrapped her up in a one-armed hug. “How you doin’?”
Sam took the moment of distraction to grab his jeans and stumble into the bathroom, door closing soundly behind him.
“I’m good, Dean. I see you’re still full of smartass.” She pushed back from his embrace, gave him the once-over. “Am I ever gonna get to see you when you’re not all beat to hell?”
He slapped on half a grin, dipped his chin and cocked a brow. “I’m a dangerous man, Cheryl. Bumps and bruises come with the territory.”
“Maybe we can get you a booster seat with a lap belt,” she said, hand patting his cheek as she flashed her own smirk.
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said playfully, following her into the kitchen area. He popped Jimmy a nod around Cheryl’s shoulder. “You couldn’ta said I got in a barroom brawl or somethin’?”
“Sorry, Dean,” Jimmy chuckled, unpacking one of the grocery sacks.
“That I got grazed by a switchblade, defending an old lady from a mugger?”
“Oh, give it up,” Cheryl moaned, but her eye roll was cloaked in a smile.
The bathroom door opened and Sam walked out, hair damped of its unruliness.
“Thank God you managed to get some clothes on, Sammy,” Dean said, chumming up alongside Jimmy.
Sam ignored him, crossed to the low breakfront with a gait that denoted jittery dented pride and a shot of annoyance. His laser gaze traveled from Dean to Cheryl, expertly dialing down from kill to stun.
“Hi, Cheryl,” he said, one hand on his hip, the other smoothing the hairs at his crown. Puppy-dog flooded from lid to lid like tears. “This is a little embarrassing. I’m sorry about before.” His hand left his head to wave absently at the cabin’s main room. “And about Dean in general.”
Cheryl smiled, snared in the beam of his brother’s charm, and Dean shook his head softly. Dean won over the ladies with his mouth, Sam did it with his eyes.
“Oh, I know about Dean,” Cheryl said, taking Sam’s hand with a smile. “No worries. Nice to meet ya, Sam.”
“Jimmy,” Sam nodded over Cheryl’s head in greeting.
Jimmy nodded back, passed a casserole dish to Dean. “How’s it hangin’?” he asked, and then he and Dean broke into a duet of mutleys.
“They’re like third graders,” Cheryl uttered to Sam, then handed him a stack of plates and a fistful of silverware. “Set the table for me? We brought a ton of food. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved, actually,” Sam said taking the tableware. “It smells great.”
* * *
Bisbee, Arizona - 2001
He got into town a little after eleven the next night. He’d only stopped three times on the way: twice to piss and refuel; once - for four hours - to sleep in the backseat in a gas station parking lot before filling up and heading out again.
His head was killing him, and his right eye ached from over-compensating for his fucked-up left. He nearly missed the address the second time down the road, unsure what he was looking for. Not to mention everything was blurry and kind of haloed in white. He really hoped his dad didn’t want to talk business right away. All Dean wanted was a bed and six uninterrupted hours. Maybe a beer. And maybe eight hours instead of six. But nothing else. He definitely didn’t want a fight.
There weren’t a lot of places left like The Red Strut; last of a staggering breed, same as its patrons. Set back down a dirt track off unribboned asphalt, the two-storey looked like a derelict farm house until you got up close, investigated the lights. Took in the graveled circle of rutted ground that wrapped around the side door, parking lot for half a dozen pick-up trucks. A red neon rooster sputtered and buzzed in the window beside the screen door.
Dean sat in the Impala for a few minutes trying to get his head together, decided he’d earned a Vicodin, so he swallowed one down with a mouthful of cold, bitter coffee he wasn’t sure was from that morning. It was going be hard enough to face his dad, but if John Winchester’d been drinking? The possibilities for trouble were staggering.
Dean’d been in bars like The Red Strut before, mostly to drag his dad out when things got ugly. Places like The Strut never called the cops to end a brawl - lawmen avoided them by mutual agreement. It was a roadhouse in the oldest, truest form, its customers shadowy types: cowboys from the local rodeo circuit; hunters; desperate men and desperate women needing strong drink and hard music and a place to stumble and fall.
From the porch, Dean could see the Chevy parked around the farthest stretch of the worn lot. The condensation on the windshield told him his dad had been there for a while, probably renting one of the tiny, foul rooms above the bar and noise and smoke. His dad sometimes booked them in rooms like those out of spite, payback for Dean’s habit of booking them in theme motels.
The juke box was blaring Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues, and between that and the smoke and the smell of exhaustion that hit him when he walked in, Dean had to grab hold of the door frame to keep from passing out. Patented Bionic Man slo-mo-jumping-noise pulsed through his whole body, and his vision tunneled down to a hyper-sharp sea of backs along the bar.
His head snapped left when his name was called, a sloppy swivel that smeared his vision like an acid trip. It took a second for his new liquid view to settle, but Dean finally sighted his dad. He was at a table across the room, strategically pinned in the corner adjacent to the door. There was research spread across the table’s top, and a half-full double finger of rye.
His dad waved him over, glancing at his watch as Dean wound his way through the obstacle course of tables.
“I expected you sooner,” he chided when Dean dropped into the seat across from him.
“Yeah, well. Kinda hard to make good time on no sleep and a concussion.” He shifted in his seat, turned his injured eye more directly toward his dad. He wanted a flinch or a pause, some kind of recognition that - once again - he’d done what was expected and asked, no real complaint, despite the right to it.
His dad didn’t blink, just slid a piece of paper across the table and took a sip of rye while Dean readjusted his vision to take it in.
“I need you to head to Wickenburg. Guy there thinks he’s got a poltergeist.”
“So what’re we doin’ in Bisbee?”
“I’ve got business here. This, I need you to take care of,” his dad said, tapping the note.
“You want me to do this solo?”
“The guy’s payin’ top dollar. Just wants to be rid of the problem. Should be an easy fifteen hundred.”
“That’s a nice price, but since when has a poltergeist ever been easy?” Dean asked, all kinds of warning bells going off, questions popping up. He’d never worked a gig without his dad, never been trusted to. And it wasn’t like Arlee was a show-stopper example of precision.
“I’ve got business here, but I need money coming in. You’re not gonna be able to shark a dime with your face lookin’ like that, and most of the credit cards are maxed out. It’s at least a month before the next batch. Just makes more sense this way.”
Dean twitched in his seat. “Dad, if you need money for somethin’-- If there’s some kinda trouble--”
“Dean, I’m asking you to do your job, here.”
“I’m just sayin’, maybe runnin’ another gig short-handed to turn a quick grand isn’t the wisest move.”
“Grand and a half. You drive all this way to argue with me, Dean?”
Why had he just driven all those miles and hours? After his dad had left him behind?
A sting sprang from the deep, unanswered well of blind faith inside him that Sam had sought so often to bleed dry. Dean followed orders and fell into their dad’s line without question, without waver. Sam called it sick obedience, Dean called it being a good son.
“Dean?”
The yoke - uncomfortable and burdensome as it could be - had been placed on his shoulders twenty years ago. Muscles and tendons had long since acclimated to the weary weight. He had nothing else, nowhere to go. “No, sir, I didn’t come all this way to argue with you,” Dean said and picked up the paper.
Phil Slocum (928)555-6511
If Sam were there, Dean would have made a slew of inappropriate jokes about the poor guy’s last name. But it was just Dean and his dad.
His dad leaned forward and slipped his wallet from his back pocket. He drew out a Visa card with the name Theodore Nugent on it - Dean had filled out the application - and slid it across the pitted table top. “Get into town and book the cheapest room you can. There’s not a hell of a lot left on that card. Give the guy a call as soon as you’re settled. He’s expecting you by six.”
“In the morning?” Dean coughed.
His dad dug under a few papers, slapped down a map of Arizona between them. He ran a square fingertip along Interstate 10. “It’s just northwest of here. Should only take you about four and a half hours.”
“Dad, it’s--” Dean pulled back his sleeve, checked the time. “It’s eleven twenty right now. I’ve been on the road for--”
“You can grab an hour or so of shut-eye upstairs.”
Dean followed his dad’s chin toward a staircase by the bar.
“It’s not too quiet, but if you’re as tired as you say…”
Unbelievable.
“So, when I’m humpin’ it to Wickenburg, what are you gonna be doin’?”
His dad didn’t reply for a second. Dean could see him struggle with how to play the deception.
“I’ve got a lead on something.”
“On what?”
John Winchester fingered his glass of rye, sloshed the dark amber like a liquid jewel.
“Get some sleep, Dean. I’ll wake you up in a couple hours.”
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
“You want another?” Cheryl asked Dean, scooting the basket of fist-sized biscuits toward him.
“Not unless you feel like suturin’ my stomach. If I eat another bite I’m gonna explode,” Dean said, patting his full belly. “And you already expressed a desire for my stayin’ as intact as possible.”
“Yeah, Cheryl. This was great. The best we’ve eaten in months,” Sam chimed.
“Well, it was my pleasure.”
“Mine, too,” Jimmy said. “You never cook like this for me anymore.”
“You never cook for me, period,” she returned, deadpan.
“That’d be Cheryl’s point, I think, Jimmy. If you’re keepin’ track,” Dean said.
“Yeah, thanks,” he drawled. “Anyway. Not to mix business with pleasure and, you know, with Dean’s bodily safety in mind…”
“Yeah,” Dean said after a swallow of coffee. “We should probably hear the rest of it.”
Cheryl pushed back from the table. “I need more coffee. Anybody else?”
“I’d take a warm-up,” Dean said.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Sam.
Jimmy topped his mug with his hand. “I’m good.”
Cheryl grabbed up a couple of plates when she stood.
“Lemme help you,” Sam offered, but she waved him off.
“Sit. I’m getting up anyway.”
“Thanks,” all three men said, and did their best to gather what they could before Cheryl traveled back.
“There been any activity on Lummi? Since you dug up the bones?” Dean asked, mug poised for another sip.
“Like, supernatural activity?”
“No, like barn dances,” Dean said with a sarcastic smirk. “Yeah, Jimmy. Supernatural activity.”
“Anyone acting different? Any rise in crime, reports of unusual phenomena?” Sam suggested.
“Bill Parsons beat the crap out of his wife, Lydia, Saturday night,” Cheryl said as she made a circuit with the coffee pot. “As long as I’ve known ‘em, and that’s ten years now, he’s never laid a hand on her.”
Jimmy scratched at his beard, pulled a grimace. “We’re a small community at the core, even smaller in the island art community.”
“Dan Potter’s dog went missing three days ago.”
“And that crazy old broad. Whatsername. She did that nude performance piece last weekend.”
Cheryl snorted, ran her fingers through the hair at Jimmy’s nape as she leaned against the back of his chair. “No, baby. Anna Eloisa’s just a crazy broad. And that was three weekends ago.”
“Maybe you should be clearin’ the table and Cheryl givin’ the brief,” Dean said with a half smile and a chin to Jimmy.
“Tell ya the truth,” he replied, resting his arms on the table, fingers splayed over smooth wood, “when we found the first set of bones? My reaction wasn’t too far off from yours, Dean.”
“Have you done any research on the symbol?” Sam asked.
“Tried. Haven’t found much, but I’m limited on what books I can get my hands on, and I’m not much with the Google-fu.”
Sam chuckled.
Jimmy leaned back in his chair, shook his head lightly. “I don’t know. There’s gotta be some connection between all of it. Tabby drawin’ the symbol, you drawin’ it,” he said with a nod toward Dean, “and then with Tabby’s mom and your mom…”
“Whatta you mean?” Dean asked, ice down his spine.
Jimmy looked back and forth between them, eyes squinched and the corners of his mouth pulled down.
“Whatta you mean, what do I mean?”
“Tabby’s mom and our mom,” Dean said and couldn’t say more.
Cheryl froze behind Jimmy. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and sounded to Dean as haunted as any gig they’d ever had.
“John never told you,” Jimmy said; a damnation, not a question.
“Never told us what?” Sam asked.
Jimmy exhaled. Ran a hand down his face. “When Tabby was six months old--”
“Sonuvabitch,” Dean breathed.
“A fire.”
Jimmy nodded at Sam.
The table rocked as Dean pushed back violently, chair spilling behind him as he headed for the door. It felt like the whole cabin was spinning. “That son of a bitch.”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t know. Dean, I didn’t know,” Jimmy called after him.
Dean threw up a hand dismissively. Didn’t pause, didn’t turn.
“Let him go,” he heard Sam say, just as the door slammed between them.
He slipped on the blue-tarp front porch, still damp from last night’s rain, and skidded against a cord of wood anchoring a corner. A tumble of logs scattered across the rough yard.
“You son of a bitch!” he yelled at the sky.
How long? How long did you know about Sam? About the Yellow Eyed Demon and the special kids? Was Tabby one of them? Did you know, Dad? What did you see in that cemetery in Maltby?
When they’d been running down those vamps and the Colt in Colorado, he’d told them he’d tracked nursery fires to Arizona. Was that the business in Bisbee? Somebody had information their dad had been willing to pay for? Info about Sam?
Why? After all I did? The loyalty-- The fucking sacrifices--
He kicked his heel sideways at a stray log, sent in spinning and bouncing across the ground. He bit down, scraped tooth against tooth and sent his lower jaw forward. Muscles tightened, squelching tears that pushed for release. He sucked in a deep breath, shook his head tightly.
Sam.
He couldn’t get his brain around his own reaction, let alone what his brother’s might be. And then that was all he could think about: what this meant in terms of Sam; what the connection was between Sam and the Yellow Eyed Demon and Wyoming and Maltby and--
Why, Dad? Why didn’t you trust me? Why couldn’t you save all of us?
The grass was wet from the rain, too, but Dean didn’t notice the moisture wicking into the seat of his jeans. He’d needed to sit down before he fell down, and the ground was so close. He’d never been good with emotions - especially not in a flood, not hitting him from all sides: Dad, Mom, Sam; past, present, future. His chest was tight, throat burning, jaw aching from the grind of enamel.
His time was ticking down - no question about that - and he wasn’t any closer to saving Sam, no closer to finding a way to head off what suddenly felt inevitable.
Fuck that. You’re not doin’ that. Figure this out. What does it mean, those bones showin’ up again? Here? Now?
“Hey.”
He hadn’t heard the door open, or Sam come up behind him. He blushed a bit at the startle his brother’s voice caused, gave him a chin over the shoulder, then scrubbed the questions and fear off his face before Sam could get a good look.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said rolling out of his sit and ignoring Sam’s offer of a hand up. “Sorry.”
“Nothin’ to apologize for.”
Dean swiped at the moisture on the seat of his jeans, wiped the residual dirt on the sides of his thighs.
“Holy shit, huh?” Sam said, attempting the emotional tuck-and-roll before the weight of it could crush them both.
“Yeah. Holy shit.”
They stood side-by-side, nothing else to say for a minute, both of them looking for the safest route through. Sam took the wheel before Dean was able.
“How long do you think he actually knew?”
“I dunno, Sam.”
“I mean, Tabby was, what? Maybe six months younger than me? And her mom was killed just like our mom. The Demon--”
“What did Jimmy say?”
“Said he called Dad when it happened. Dad came out here, told him about everything.”
“Everything being?”
“Told him how Mom died, what he thought he saw in my room. About what we do, what we’ve done--”
“What about the Demon? Kids with superpowers? He tell him anything about Tabby?” Dean brushed at his left ear, ghost of his dad’s whiskers suddenly against his cheek, whisper of breath in his ear. ‘If you can’t save Sam, you might have to kill him, Dean. If you can’t save him some other way, you need to do that for me, Son.’
Sam’s face pinched and released. “He didn’t volunteer it, and I didn’t ask.”
“Fucker knew,” Dean said, more to himself than to Sam. “Fucker knew for all those years. All the time we hunted together and--”
“Yeah,” Sam broke in. “All the time we hunted together. As a family. The three of us.” He clenched his jaw, shook his head; mirror of Dean’s earlier movements. “You think he knew about me all that time? Twenty years or more?” Sam asked, and Dean hated the sadness and guilt in his brother’s voice.
He turned to him, head shaking. “No. Don’t do that. Whatever he knew, whatever’s-- It wasn’t right for him to keep that from us. To keep any of it from us.”
They stood in silence another few beats, then Dean’s palm made a pass down his face. “We gotta go back there.”
“Back where?” Sam asked, confused.
“Maltby. The cemetery.”
“What? Why?”
“’Cause it might be helpful to--”
“To what? Have another go at Hell’s Magic Eight-Ball?” Sam pantomimed a shake on the novelty oracle. “Is my brother the Anti-Christ?” He looked down and mocked a gape. “‘It is decidedly so.’”
“No, man!” Dean snapped, slapping at Sam’s hand. “Just-- Cut that shit out.”
“Why, Dean? Why go back there?”
“It’s where all this started.”
“But you and Dad ended it, right? Torched the bones? Salted and burned the whole damn place?”
“It’s not gonna hurt to make sure.”
“To make sure nothing’s changed,” Sam said, and Dean couldn’t ignore the venom and accusation in it.
“Listen to me, Sam--”
“To confirm that what you saw about me was true.”
“To make sure I didn’t miss anything, to see if anything-- Damn it, Sam! Jake killed you, I sold my soul, and we killed that yellow-eyed son of a bitch in Wyoming. So, yeah, maybe I wanna see if any of that’s had a fuckin’ impact on things, okay? Look, we go to the cemetery, we check things out. If there’s somethin’ that can help us--”
“Help you, you mean. Help you to save me.”
“Sam…”
“You sat in there last night,” he said, finger jabbing toward the cabin, “and told me how you almost died when you and Dad were there. You’re willing to take that risk right now? You’re already on a schedule, Dean.”
“We both are, Sam. Whole fuckin’ world is.”
The door to the cabin opened, and Jimmy stepped out tentatively. They both looked over to him and gave a nod.
“Hey, guys.” Jimmy hands were shoved deep in his pants pockets.
Dean waved a palm at the scatter of logs across the yard. “Sorry ‘bout the mess, man. I’ll clean it up.”
Jimmy shook his head as he walked over. “I ain’t worried about it, Dean. I’m more worried about-- If I’da known your dad didn’t--” He looked Dean in the eye, pain and anger screwing up his mouth. “I didn’t know the son of a bitch never told you. I’da never sprung all this on you if--”
“Jimmy, man, it’s not your fault,” Dean told him.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it.” He shook his head again. “I just can’t believe he didn’t tell you boys.”
“He had his reasons,” Sam said bitterly, and neither Dean nor Jimmy pressed the pronouncement.
“I’m thinkin’ Sam and me’ll head over to Arlee this morning. Check things out there.”
Jimmy frowned. “Not much to check out. After your dad’s little campaign, the county decided they’d had enough. Filled the whole goddamned crypt with cement and tore out the steps. Sodded it all over. Nothin’ left of it.”
“Sonuvabitch,” Dean chuffed, shaking his head.
“That leaves us Lummi Island, then,” said Sam.
“Normally the ferry dry-docks for two weeks in September, but they’re off schedule this season. Lots of construction they were trying to get done before winter, so there’s no auto transport right now. You can take the passenger ferry, or I could run you across. Cheryl’s brother’s got a boat,” Jimmy suggested.
“It’d be helpful if you could come along,” said Sam, “take us to the location you and Cheryl first started finding the bones.”
“Least I can do. Absolutely.”
* * *
Outside Wickenburg, Arizona - 2001
Dean’s whole body itched. He’d scratched his arms so much he could read them red by the dashboard lights. He was tired and pissed and hungry as hell. Realized it had been more than a day since he’d put anything but coffee and drugs into his system. He dragged his nails across his grumbling belly, took a couple of rough swipes across his scalp, then over his thighs through his jeans.
Motherfucker!
The few hours of sleep he’d tried to catch in the room above The Red Strut had been interrupted by fleas or ticks or fucking flophouse crabs - hell if he knew - and the constant irritation was making it difficult to drive. It all seemed par for the miserable course his dad had set. Dean wanted to pull into the next motel he saw, grab some food, decontaminate with a shower, and sleep for a week. He needed to get his head together before he met the guy with the poltergeist.
Interstate 10 was pretty much deserted, save the occasional semi, which was good considering all the swerving Dean was doing. The highway was lousy with rabbits, and Dean jumped the center line and skirted the berm a half dozen times trying to avoid the hoppy little bastards. Even so, the grill and wheel wells of the Impala were going to be a nightmare of blood and fur when he finally got to them.
He was about twenty-five miles outside Wickenburg, sun just beginning to pink a swatch of sky at the horizon, when the choice to pull over was made for him. A gaggle - or a pride or a coven or whatever you called roughly forty-seven rabbits traveling in a pack - materialized in the pale yellow cone of the Impala’s headlights. He had nowhere to go but right, from where they’d come. He swerved, both feet hard on the brake. The front passenger side tire dropped from asphalt onto berm, weight of the Chevy throwing up a storm of powdery sand and stone. Dean couldn’t straighten out, and the nose jumped farther right, took a sharp angle across the embankment. It was all he could do to keep his face from kissing the steering wheel. He heard a metallic snapthunk when the Impala’s front end sheered the weeds on the far side of the ditch.
Sonuva--!
When motion halted, he ran a string of his favorite curses, evened out his breathing. The car had stalled, and there was nothing but the tick of her engine and the thump of Dean’s heart to greet the silence on the road. When he felt less like rubber, he popped the driver’s side door and dropped into the weeds. Took a step back to get a lay of his latest predicament.
The chassis was spanning the gulley at an angle, front wheels in the field and rears in the gravel along the side of the road. Dean ducked back inside, stretched across the bench seat, and grabbed the Maglite from the glove box. He made a slow circle around the car, legs and arms and neck stiffening as the adrenaline rush was absorbed throughout his body.
He could try pulling forward, but that would leave him in the field with the ditch between him and the highway, and he wasn’t entirely sure the Impala’s back end would clear enough to allow purchase for the rear wheel drive. If he threw her in reverse, he couldn’t guarantee he’d get her nose out of the gulley without ripping up the undercarriage.
“That’s just great. Fuck me,” he breathed, kicking down the dry pricker weeds snagging at his jeans.
It was a twelve. That was the number of beers he was going to have to drink to get over how pissed he was. Crouching down, he could see a dark puddle already forming along the front left wheel. Closer inspection revealed a crack in the CV boot cover.
Probably brake fluid.
He wasn’t willing to drive into Wickenburg like that, not with the luck he was having. Which meant a tow, and he was pretty fucking sure he didn’t have a AAA card with Ted Nugent’s name on it. His dad had told him to get cheap digs - not a whole lot left on the Visa he’d given him.
Dean still had the card they’d used to book the room in Missoula, but that was spent down to the last couple hundred, too. And with a different name on it, there was no way Dean could double-cover any charges. He had maybe thirty bucks in his wallet, and like his dad had pointed out - it was hard to shark when your face looked like you’d already been caught for doing the same.
He fished his cell from his pocket, ran his options through his head, and punched in the speed dial. The call went directly to voice mail, which seemed just about right for the way things were going.
Rabbits.
All because he was trying to spare a few rabbits.
Goddamnit.
“Hey, Dad. I’m in a jam, here. Got some car trouble and probably just enough credit to split on a tow and a room. I need you to call me, please. I dunno if I’m gonna be able to make this appointment for the gig, so…just call me. Please?”
He hit the disconnect, dialed 411, and asked the operator for the number of the first twenty-four hour tow company listed in Wickenburg.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
Dean was feeling pretty green by the time Jimmy got them to Lummi Island. The water of Bellingham Bay was choppy and rough, and Jimmy’d made a point of showing them what Cheryl’s brother’s boat could do. Dean didn’t think he’d bounced around so much since he’d fucked that sweet little waitress on a waterbed in Maine a few years back. Twice on the half-hour trip, the breakfast Dean had eaten with gusto tried to make a repeat appearance. At least Sam was amused, even if it was at his expense.
Jimmy got them docked and helped unload their gear. “It’s about a two-klick hike. Sorry. There’s no good landing on the southwest shore.”
“No problem,” Dean said shouldering the largest of their duffles, “I’m just glad to be on solid ground.”
The sky took on an awful shade of gray as they made their way to the installation site. The morning sun that had promised a little November warmth was chalked over and obscured by fat, dark clouds threatening rain and thunder. Dean worked the zipper of his jacket up under his chin and snorted back the drip in his nose the wind was causing.
“Looks like we could have a williwaw before the day’s over,” Jimmy said, dropping back to keep pace with Dean.
“A willi-what?”
“Williwaw,” Jimmy chuckled. “It’s a squawmish wind. Arctic and strong. Comes down from the mountains and blasts toward the coastline.”
“Fantastic,” Dean grumbled, and gave a pull on the duffle’s strap. “Maybe it’ll snow, too.”
“Nah,” Jimmy chuckled, “but it’s definitely gonna rain.”
“And me without my rain bonnet.”
He chuffed Dean a courtesy laugh.
“Speakin’ of,” Jimmy said, “how’s your head?”
Dean’s hand went to his cheek, fingers tenderly prodding Jimmy’s stitch work from the night before. He twitched his shoulders. “I’ve had worse.”
“Nah,” he said quietly, pointedly, “I mean, how’s your head. With all of this?”
There was a level of gentle care in the query that put Dean on edge; made him feel guilty and uncomfortable and touched, all at the same time. There was no way Jimmy could possibly know, or that he could explain, all the fucked-up shit that had gone down since John Winchester disappeared, reappeared, and disappeared again. The bomb Jimmy’d unwittingly dropped was still rippling and rumbling, shaking the ground beneath Dean’s boots. “Just tryin’ to focus on one thing at a time right now. It’ll all shake out eventually,” he said, trying to satisfy and cut off the line of the questioning in one go.
“You know I knew him, Dean. So you know I wouldn’t deny you a string of curses against him right now. John Winchester wasn’t a perfect man. If you wanna talk about--”
Dean stopped, and Jimmy followed suit.
“Look, man, all due respect. But you, of all people, oughtta know the Marine footlocker of self-control I was raised to haul around. We’re headin’ into possibly hostile territory here. I need to focus. That emotional shit gets you killed.”
Jimmy squinted at him. “That shit’ll keep you alive, too.”
Their heads popped forward when they heard the high-pitched squawk and blips. Sam jogged back from where he’d paced ahead thirty yards or so, EMF meter waggling in his hand. The first two LCD lights along the top blinked on and off, red like Crossroad Demon eyes.
“Definitely picking up something,” Sam said, “and I doubt out here it’s buried wires or plumbing.”
Dean glanced up, scanned the horizon; no electric poles or pylons in the area to set off the meter, either. He doffed the duffle from his shoulder and squatted to unzip it. Sam did the same beside him.
“Whatta you think it is?” Jimmy asked, suddenly tense.
Dean cocked his head, pulled a sawed-off from the bag and checked the load. “Your guess is as good as ours at this point.”
Sam passed him a few of the shells they’d packed with consecrated lead and silver, and Dean shoved them in his pockets. He ticked a knuckle across his cheek to dispel the raindrop that had landed there.
“You good?” Sam asked, slipping a flask of holy water into his jacket pocket, then passing one to Dean.
“Locked and loaded.”
“Whatta you want me to do?” Jimmy asked.
Both boys rose.
“Ideally?” asked Dean. “Head back to the boat and wait for us there. Give us an hour and a half. If we don’t show and you can’t reach us by cell, get back to Bellingham. Round up some guns and some guys you can trust. Knowledge of Latin would probably be a plus.”
Jimmy blinked, and when Dean didn’t, the man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Dean grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jimmy shook his head, face earnest. “I trust you, Dean. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know what you were doin’.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got…eleven twenty-three in thirty seconds.”
They synchronized on Jimmy’s count. Dean twisted his bevel to mark ninety minutes, gave Jimmy a nod, and shouldered the duffle.
“All right, boys,” Jimmy said, backing away from the brothers. “Be safe.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. “We will.”
When Jimmy turned, so did they, pulling up their collars against the light patter of rain.
By the time they hiked the width of the island to the installation site Jimmy’d marked on the map, they were soaked. Sam was having trouble keeping his hair out of his eyes, and Dean was pulled down so far into his coat, nothing below his eyes was visible.
“This is stupid, man,” Sam said, voice raised against the steady thrum of water through the cedars. “We’re not gonna find shit in this.” His arms flapped at his sides, water kicking off his shoulders. “We oughtta go back to the cabin. Start researching the area and the symbol.”
Dean’s head emerged from the neck of his coat like a turtle’s, and he made a moue.
“We don’t even know for sure what we’re dealing with here, dude!”
He was snappish and short. “We’re here, Sam. And we’re already soaked. We may as well do what we can before the field turns into a lake.”
“Come on, man. It’s freezing out here!”
“Suck it up, Buttercup,” Dean said, and stalked forward.
Half a second later, a buck emerged from the bracken that fenced the trees on the far side of the field. Dean never prided himself as being a fast counter, but he got all the way up to eighteen points on the bull’s rack before it charged.
click for 6
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: R - for strong language and content
Pairing: none (gen) Dean, Sam, John
Disclaimer: Not mine. Damn it.
SPOILERS: through 3X07
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 hiyacynth for saving my bacon with a generous beta when I needed it. 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.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. - Blaise Pascal
Missoula, Montana - 2001
He was trying to figure out how long it would be before he could take another Vicodin. Between the lack of restful sleep, the concussion, the pain killers, and eating ibuprofen like Tic-Tacs for the last day and a half - his head was a little muddled. He was pretty sure he’d taken the last tab when Scooby-Doo came on. Then he’d watched half an hour of a deplorable local morning show, and a crappy episode of Gilligan’s Island from which Tina Louise was mysteriously absent. The Price is Right had come on after that. He didn’t remember the Showcase Showdown, so he must have switched over to the NASCAR channel before then. The growl of high-performance racing was giving him a motherfucking headache. He shook a Vicodin from the amber plastic bottle, palmed it into his mouth, and chased it with a swirl of room-temperature Gatorade.
He waited for the pill to take effect, then took a hot shower. Washed away the last of the locker-room stink from his skin and eased into clean clothes. The desk clerk gave him the horse eye when he stopped by the front office to pick up a newspaper. Dean knew it was because of the way his face looked and not any infraction of non-payment committed; he’d called and confirmed a charge on their bogus card for the motel room’s rental through the end of the week.
Thanks for lookin’ out, Dad. You son of a bitch.
Back in the room with a cup of gas station coffee and a slow-settling dizzy spell, he scoured The Missoulian. There was a short article on page six about a grave desecration at the Bennet’s Junction Cemetery, so his dad was still in town, or had been last night - just wasn’t in a communicating-with-his-son mood.
Dean folded up the newspaper with rancor, botched it like the redress of a virgin roadmap. Frustration brought him to the whole of The Missoulian’s front section in a ball, tightly wrapped by ink-smudged palms and white knuckles. At least it made it into the wastebasket when he threw it across the room. He might have lost his shit completely if he’d missed.
He should call Sam. Call his brother and just talk to him. Not even tell him Dad had taken off, or that he was hurt and he was scared--
No. Nope. Don’t call Sam.
Because if he talked to Sam right then? He’d tell him. He might even fucking cry. And then he’d really lose it.
He picked up his cell and ran his contact list. His thumb sat on the call button for a long time before he pressed it.
“Hello?”
“Dad?”
“Where are you?”
It took Dean a second the recover from the rush that flooded his head at this dad’s question.
Where am I? I’m at the fuckin’ dump you left me at two days ago, you fucker!
“The motel. Where are you?”
“On my way to Arizona. I need you to meet me there. Bisbee.”
Dean didn’t know which shook him deeper; the fact his dad ignored acknowledging how seriously he’d been injured, or that he caught himself looking around the room - mentally packing - because his dad said jump.
“What’s in Bisbee?”
“I don’t have time for a bunch of details right now, Dean. Can you get here or not?”
“I can only see outta one eye right now, Dad.”
His dad exhaled on the other end of the phone, rush of air so sad and heavy Dean swore he felt it brush his cheek.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I-- I’m sorry about what happened. I know you’re hurtin’ pretty bad right now, but I need you here in Arizona, Dean.”
The tinge of annoyance in his dad’s voice made Dean a little sick to his stomach, slight but present; a choke on the chain for a disobedient dog. Dean’s pause wasn’t nearly as long as he meant it to be. “What’s the gig?”
“Gig’s not important right now, just that you leave as soon as you can. I’ll fill you in when you get here. This is important, Dean.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“You have a pen? I’ll give you the address.”
He repeated the information back to his dad, told him he could be on the road in an hour. He packed up, then swallowed down a handful of ibuprofen. Hated himself and cursed his dad for the first two hundred miles south.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
He woke with a sore back. Either Jimmy’s couch had lost some spring, or the last time he’d surfed it, everything else ached so badly he hadn’t noticed. Dean was showered and shaved, stitches tended-to, and blowing across his first cup of coffee when Sam emerged from the cocoon of the sleeping bag. Dean poured a second mug and sugared it up, handed it down to the futon when Sam finished scrubbing the sleep off his face. “Mornin’.”
“What time is it?” Sam asked, reaching for the coffee. He squinched his eyes and cracked out a hard yawn.
“Little after nine. Jimmy called about twenty minutes ago. He and Cheryl are on their way over. They’re bringin’ breakfast.”
“Do I have time to take a shower?”
The rumble of a pick-up sounded outside.
“I don’t think so,” Dean smiled.
“Dude! I’m in my boxers!” Sam pushed the coffee back at Dean and unfolded from the futon. Tried to hop toward the jeans he’d left hung over the back of the chair when the zipper on the sleeping bag wouldn’t budge. “Dude!”
Dean was laughing, both mugs of coffee threatening second-degree burns as their contents sloshed over the sides.
“Dude!” Sam yelled again, looking like a frantic Houdini working the world’s toughest straight jacket. He finally got the zipper unjammed and the coffin-shaped sleeping bag pushed down around his ankles, when the door to the cabin opened.
Cheryl and Jimmy, hands and arms filled with grocery sacks and towel-wrapped casserole dishes, froze in the doorframe. Sam turned a shade of red Dean hadn’t imagined possible, then brought his hands across the front of his boxers like a man-made fig leaf.
Jimmy looked from brother to brother, gave a nod, and continued across the room to the kitchenette. “Honey, you remember Dean. This is his brother, Sam,” he said with a smirk and a tilt of the head when he passed him.
“Hi, Sam,” Cheryl said.
Sam stuttered and blushed. “Hi. I was-- I didn’t-- I just--”
“Sam’s a little shy,” Dean said with a wink, set the coffee mugs on the side table, and crossed to Cheryl. He relieved her of her load and wrapped her up in a one-armed hug. “How you doin’?”
Sam took the moment of distraction to grab his jeans and stumble into the bathroom, door closing soundly behind him.
“I’m good, Dean. I see you’re still full of smartass.” She pushed back from his embrace, gave him the once-over. “Am I ever gonna get to see you when you’re not all beat to hell?”
He slapped on half a grin, dipped his chin and cocked a brow. “I’m a dangerous man, Cheryl. Bumps and bruises come with the territory.”
“Maybe we can get you a booster seat with a lap belt,” she said, hand patting his cheek as she flashed her own smirk.
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said playfully, following her into the kitchen area. He popped Jimmy a nod around Cheryl’s shoulder. “You couldn’ta said I got in a barroom brawl or somethin’?”
“Sorry, Dean,” Jimmy chuckled, unpacking one of the grocery sacks.
“That I got grazed by a switchblade, defending an old lady from a mugger?”
“Oh, give it up,” Cheryl moaned, but her eye roll was cloaked in a smile.
The bathroom door opened and Sam walked out, hair damped of its unruliness.
“Thank God you managed to get some clothes on, Sammy,” Dean said, chumming up alongside Jimmy.
Sam ignored him, crossed to the low breakfront with a gait that denoted jittery dented pride and a shot of annoyance. His laser gaze traveled from Dean to Cheryl, expertly dialing down from kill to stun.
“Hi, Cheryl,” he said, one hand on his hip, the other smoothing the hairs at his crown. Puppy-dog flooded from lid to lid like tears. “This is a little embarrassing. I’m sorry about before.” His hand left his head to wave absently at the cabin’s main room. “And about Dean in general.”
Cheryl smiled, snared in the beam of his brother’s charm, and Dean shook his head softly. Dean won over the ladies with his mouth, Sam did it with his eyes.
“Oh, I know about Dean,” Cheryl said, taking Sam’s hand with a smile. “No worries. Nice to meet ya, Sam.”
“Jimmy,” Sam nodded over Cheryl’s head in greeting.
Jimmy nodded back, passed a casserole dish to Dean. “How’s it hangin’?” he asked, and then he and Dean broke into a duet of mutleys.
“They’re like third graders,” Cheryl uttered to Sam, then handed him a stack of plates and a fistful of silverware. “Set the table for me? We brought a ton of food. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved, actually,” Sam said taking the tableware. “It smells great.”
* * *
Bisbee, Arizona - 2001
He got into town a little after eleven the next night. He’d only stopped three times on the way: twice to piss and refuel; once - for four hours - to sleep in the backseat in a gas station parking lot before filling up and heading out again.
His head was killing him, and his right eye ached from over-compensating for his fucked-up left. He nearly missed the address the second time down the road, unsure what he was looking for. Not to mention everything was blurry and kind of haloed in white. He really hoped his dad didn’t want to talk business right away. All Dean wanted was a bed and six uninterrupted hours. Maybe a beer. And maybe eight hours instead of six. But nothing else. He definitely didn’t want a fight.
There weren’t a lot of places left like The Red Strut; last of a staggering breed, same as its patrons. Set back down a dirt track off unribboned asphalt, the two-storey looked like a derelict farm house until you got up close, investigated the lights. Took in the graveled circle of rutted ground that wrapped around the side door, parking lot for half a dozen pick-up trucks. A red neon rooster sputtered and buzzed in the window beside the screen door.
Dean sat in the Impala for a few minutes trying to get his head together, decided he’d earned a Vicodin, so he swallowed one down with a mouthful of cold, bitter coffee he wasn’t sure was from that morning. It was going be hard enough to face his dad, but if John Winchester’d been drinking? The possibilities for trouble were staggering.
Dean’d been in bars like The Red Strut before, mostly to drag his dad out when things got ugly. Places like The Strut never called the cops to end a brawl - lawmen avoided them by mutual agreement. It was a roadhouse in the oldest, truest form, its customers shadowy types: cowboys from the local rodeo circuit; hunters; desperate men and desperate women needing strong drink and hard music and a place to stumble and fall.
From the porch, Dean could see the Chevy parked around the farthest stretch of the worn lot. The condensation on the windshield told him his dad had been there for a while, probably renting one of the tiny, foul rooms above the bar and noise and smoke. His dad sometimes booked them in rooms like those out of spite, payback for Dean’s habit of booking them in theme motels.
The juke box was blaring Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues, and between that and the smoke and the smell of exhaustion that hit him when he walked in, Dean had to grab hold of the door frame to keep from passing out. Patented Bionic Man slo-mo-jumping-noise pulsed through his whole body, and his vision tunneled down to a hyper-sharp sea of backs along the bar.
His head snapped left when his name was called, a sloppy swivel that smeared his vision like an acid trip. It took a second for his new liquid view to settle, but Dean finally sighted his dad. He was at a table across the room, strategically pinned in the corner adjacent to the door. There was research spread across the table’s top, and a half-full double finger of rye.
His dad waved him over, glancing at his watch as Dean wound his way through the obstacle course of tables.
“I expected you sooner,” he chided when Dean dropped into the seat across from him.
“Yeah, well. Kinda hard to make good time on no sleep and a concussion.” He shifted in his seat, turned his injured eye more directly toward his dad. He wanted a flinch or a pause, some kind of recognition that - once again - he’d done what was expected and asked, no real complaint, despite the right to it.
His dad didn’t blink, just slid a piece of paper across the table and took a sip of rye while Dean readjusted his vision to take it in.
“I need you to head to Wickenburg. Guy there thinks he’s got a poltergeist.”
“So what’re we doin’ in Bisbee?”
“I’ve got business here. This, I need you to take care of,” his dad said, tapping the note.
“You want me to do this solo?”
“The guy’s payin’ top dollar. Just wants to be rid of the problem. Should be an easy fifteen hundred.”
“That’s a nice price, but since when has a poltergeist ever been easy?” Dean asked, all kinds of warning bells going off, questions popping up. He’d never worked a gig without his dad, never been trusted to. And it wasn’t like Arlee was a show-stopper example of precision.
“I’ve got business here, but I need money coming in. You’re not gonna be able to shark a dime with your face lookin’ like that, and most of the credit cards are maxed out. It’s at least a month before the next batch. Just makes more sense this way.”
Dean twitched in his seat. “Dad, if you need money for somethin’-- If there’s some kinda trouble--”
“Dean, I’m asking you to do your job, here.”
“I’m just sayin’, maybe runnin’ another gig short-handed to turn a quick grand isn’t the wisest move.”
“Grand and a half. You drive all this way to argue with me, Dean?”
Why had he just driven all those miles and hours? After his dad had left him behind?
A sting sprang from the deep, unanswered well of blind faith inside him that Sam had sought so often to bleed dry. Dean followed orders and fell into their dad’s line without question, without waver. Sam called it sick obedience, Dean called it being a good son.
“Dean?”
The yoke - uncomfortable and burdensome as it could be - had been placed on his shoulders twenty years ago. Muscles and tendons had long since acclimated to the weary weight. He had nothing else, nowhere to go. “No, sir, I didn’t come all this way to argue with you,” Dean said and picked up the paper.
Phil Slocum (928)555-6511
If Sam were there, Dean would have made a slew of inappropriate jokes about the poor guy’s last name. But it was just Dean and his dad.
His dad leaned forward and slipped his wallet from his back pocket. He drew out a Visa card with the name Theodore Nugent on it - Dean had filled out the application - and slid it across the pitted table top. “Get into town and book the cheapest room you can. There’s not a hell of a lot left on that card. Give the guy a call as soon as you’re settled. He’s expecting you by six.”
“In the morning?” Dean coughed.
His dad dug under a few papers, slapped down a map of Arizona between them. He ran a square fingertip along Interstate 10. “It’s just northwest of here. Should only take you about four and a half hours.”
“Dad, it’s--” Dean pulled back his sleeve, checked the time. “It’s eleven twenty right now. I’ve been on the road for--”
“You can grab an hour or so of shut-eye upstairs.”
Dean followed his dad’s chin toward a staircase by the bar.
“It’s not too quiet, but if you’re as tired as you say…”
Unbelievable.
“So, when I’m humpin’ it to Wickenburg, what are you gonna be doin’?”
His dad didn’t reply for a second. Dean could see him struggle with how to play the deception.
“I’ve got a lead on something.”
“On what?”
John Winchester fingered his glass of rye, sloshed the dark amber like a liquid jewel.
“Get some sleep, Dean. I’ll wake you up in a couple hours.”
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
“You want another?” Cheryl asked Dean, scooting the basket of fist-sized biscuits toward him.
“Not unless you feel like suturin’ my stomach. If I eat another bite I’m gonna explode,” Dean said, patting his full belly. “And you already expressed a desire for my stayin’ as intact as possible.”
“Yeah, Cheryl. This was great. The best we’ve eaten in months,” Sam chimed.
“Well, it was my pleasure.”
“Mine, too,” Jimmy said. “You never cook like this for me anymore.”
“You never cook for me, period,” she returned, deadpan.
“That’d be Cheryl’s point, I think, Jimmy. If you’re keepin’ track,” Dean said.
“Yeah, thanks,” he drawled. “Anyway. Not to mix business with pleasure and, you know, with Dean’s bodily safety in mind…”
“Yeah,” Dean said after a swallow of coffee. “We should probably hear the rest of it.”
Cheryl pushed back from the table. “I need more coffee. Anybody else?”
“I’d take a warm-up,” Dean said.
“Yeah, thanks,” said Sam.
Jimmy topped his mug with his hand. “I’m good.”
Cheryl grabbed up a couple of plates when she stood.
“Lemme help you,” Sam offered, but she waved him off.
“Sit. I’m getting up anyway.”
“Thanks,” all three men said, and did their best to gather what they could before Cheryl traveled back.
“There been any activity on Lummi? Since you dug up the bones?” Dean asked, mug poised for another sip.
“Like, supernatural activity?”
“No, like barn dances,” Dean said with a sarcastic smirk. “Yeah, Jimmy. Supernatural activity.”
“Anyone acting different? Any rise in crime, reports of unusual phenomena?” Sam suggested.
“Bill Parsons beat the crap out of his wife, Lydia, Saturday night,” Cheryl said as she made a circuit with the coffee pot. “As long as I’ve known ‘em, and that’s ten years now, he’s never laid a hand on her.”
Jimmy scratched at his beard, pulled a grimace. “We’re a small community at the core, even smaller in the island art community.”
“Dan Potter’s dog went missing three days ago.”
“And that crazy old broad. Whatsername. She did that nude performance piece last weekend.”
Cheryl snorted, ran her fingers through the hair at Jimmy’s nape as she leaned against the back of his chair. “No, baby. Anna Eloisa’s just a crazy broad. And that was three weekends ago.”
“Maybe you should be clearin’ the table and Cheryl givin’ the brief,” Dean said with a half smile and a chin to Jimmy.
“Tell ya the truth,” he replied, resting his arms on the table, fingers splayed over smooth wood, “when we found the first set of bones? My reaction wasn’t too far off from yours, Dean.”
“Have you done any research on the symbol?” Sam asked.
“Tried. Haven’t found much, but I’m limited on what books I can get my hands on, and I’m not much with the Google-fu.”
Sam chuckled.
Jimmy leaned back in his chair, shook his head lightly. “I don’t know. There’s gotta be some connection between all of it. Tabby drawin’ the symbol, you drawin’ it,” he said with a nod toward Dean, “and then with Tabby’s mom and your mom…”
“Whatta you mean?” Dean asked, ice down his spine.
Jimmy looked back and forth between them, eyes squinched and the corners of his mouth pulled down.
“Whatta you mean, what do I mean?”
“Tabby’s mom and our mom,” Dean said and couldn’t say more.
Cheryl froze behind Jimmy. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and sounded to Dean as haunted as any gig they’d ever had.
“John never told you,” Jimmy said; a damnation, not a question.
“Never told us what?” Sam asked.
Jimmy exhaled. Ran a hand down his face. “When Tabby was six months old--”
“Sonuvabitch,” Dean breathed.
“A fire.”
Jimmy nodded at Sam.
The table rocked as Dean pushed back violently, chair spilling behind him as he headed for the door. It felt like the whole cabin was spinning. “That son of a bitch.”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t know. Dean, I didn’t know,” Jimmy called after him.
Dean threw up a hand dismissively. Didn’t pause, didn’t turn.
“Let him go,” he heard Sam say, just as the door slammed between them.
He slipped on the blue-tarp front porch, still damp from last night’s rain, and skidded against a cord of wood anchoring a corner. A tumble of logs scattered across the rough yard.
“You son of a bitch!” he yelled at the sky.
How long? How long did you know about Sam? About the Yellow Eyed Demon and the special kids? Was Tabby one of them? Did you know, Dad? What did you see in that cemetery in Maltby?
When they’d been running down those vamps and the Colt in Colorado, he’d told them he’d tracked nursery fires to Arizona. Was that the business in Bisbee? Somebody had information their dad had been willing to pay for? Info about Sam?
Why? After all I did? The loyalty-- The fucking sacrifices--
He kicked his heel sideways at a stray log, sent in spinning and bouncing across the ground. He bit down, scraped tooth against tooth and sent his lower jaw forward. Muscles tightened, squelching tears that pushed for release. He sucked in a deep breath, shook his head tightly.
Sam.
He couldn’t get his brain around his own reaction, let alone what his brother’s might be. And then that was all he could think about: what this meant in terms of Sam; what the connection was between Sam and the Yellow Eyed Demon and Wyoming and Maltby and--
Why, Dad? Why didn’t you trust me? Why couldn’t you save all of us?
The grass was wet from the rain, too, but Dean didn’t notice the moisture wicking into the seat of his jeans. He’d needed to sit down before he fell down, and the ground was so close. He’d never been good with emotions - especially not in a flood, not hitting him from all sides: Dad, Mom, Sam; past, present, future. His chest was tight, throat burning, jaw aching from the grind of enamel.
His time was ticking down - no question about that - and he wasn’t any closer to saving Sam, no closer to finding a way to head off what suddenly felt inevitable.
Fuck that. You’re not doin’ that. Figure this out. What does it mean, those bones showin’ up again? Here? Now?
“Hey.”
He hadn’t heard the door open, or Sam come up behind him. He blushed a bit at the startle his brother’s voice caused, gave him a chin over the shoulder, then scrubbed the questions and fear off his face before Sam could get a good look.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said rolling out of his sit and ignoring Sam’s offer of a hand up. “Sorry.”
“Nothin’ to apologize for.”
Dean swiped at the moisture on the seat of his jeans, wiped the residual dirt on the sides of his thighs.
“Holy shit, huh?” Sam said, attempting the emotional tuck-and-roll before the weight of it could crush them both.
“Yeah. Holy shit.”
They stood side-by-side, nothing else to say for a minute, both of them looking for the safest route through. Sam took the wheel before Dean was able.
“How long do you think he actually knew?”
“I dunno, Sam.”
“I mean, Tabby was, what? Maybe six months younger than me? And her mom was killed just like our mom. The Demon--”
“What did Jimmy say?”
“Said he called Dad when it happened. Dad came out here, told him about everything.”
“Everything being?”
“Told him how Mom died, what he thought he saw in my room. About what we do, what we’ve done--”
“What about the Demon? Kids with superpowers? He tell him anything about Tabby?” Dean brushed at his left ear, ghost of his dad’s whiskers suddenly against his cheek, whisper of breath in his ear. ‘If you can’t save Sam, you might have to kill him, Dean. If you can’t save him some other way, you need to do that for me, Son.’
Sam’s face pinched and released. “He didn’t volunteer it, and I didn’t ask.”
“Fucker knew,” Dean said, more to himself than to Sam. “Fucker knew for all those years. All the time we hunted together and--”
“Yeah,” Sam broke in. “All the time we hunted together. As a family. The three of us.” He clenched his jaw, shook his head; mirror of Dean’s earlier movements. “You think he knew about me all that time? Twenty years or more?” Sam asked, and Dean hated the sadness and guilt in his brother’s voice.
He turned to him, head shaking. “No. Don’t do that. Whatever he knew, whatever’s-- It wasn’t right for him to keep that from us. To keep any of it from us.”
They stood in silence another few beats, then Dean’s palm made a pass down his face. “We gotta go back there.”
“Back where?” Sam asked, confused.
“Maltby. The cemetery.”
“What? Why?”
“’Cause it might be helpful to--”
“To what? Have another go at Hell’s Magic Eight-Ball?” Sam pantomimed a shake on the novelty oracle. “Is my brother the Anti-Christ?” He looked down and mocked a gape. “‘It is decidedly so.’”
“No, man!” Dean snapped, slapping at Sam’s hand. “Just-- Cut that shit out.”
“Why, Dean? Why go back there?”
“It’s where all this started.”
“But you and Dad ended it, right? Torched the bones? Salted and burned the whole damn place?”
“It’s not gonna hurt to make sure.”
“To make sure nothing’s changed,” Sam said, and Dean couldn’t ignore the venom and accusation in it.
“Listen to me, Sam--”
“To confirm that what you saw about me was true.”
“To make sure I didn’t miss anything, to see if anything-- Damn it, Sam! Jake killed you, I sold my soul, and we killed that yellow-eyed son of a bitch in Wyoming. So, yeah, maybe I wanna see if any of that’s had a fuckin’ impact on things, okay? Look, we go to the cemetery, we check things out. If there’s somethin’ that can help us--”
“Help you, you mean. Help you to save me.”
“Sam…”
“You sat in there last night,” he said, finger jabbing toward the cabin, “and told me how you almost died when you and Dad were there. You’re willing to take that risk right now? You’re already on a schedule, Dean.”
“We both are, Sam. Whole fuckin’ world is.”
The door to the cabin opened, and Jimmy stepped out tentatively. They both looked over to him and gave a nod.
“Hey, guys.” Jimmy hands were shoved deep in his pants pockets.
Dean waved a palm at the scatter of logs across the yard. “Sorry ‘bout the mess, man. I’ll clean it up.”
Jimmy shook his head as he walked over. “I ain’t worried about it, Dean. I’m more worried about-- If I’da known your dad didn’t--” He looked Dean in the eye, pain and anger screwing up his mouth. “I didn’t know the son of a bitch never told you. I’da never sprung all this on you if--”
“Jimmy, man, it’s not your fault,” Dean told him.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it.” He shook his head again. “I just can’t believe he didn’t tell you boys.”
“He had his reasons,” Sam said bitterly, and neither Dean nor Jimmy pressed the pronouncement.
“I’m thinkin’ Sam and me’ll head over to Arlee this morning. Check things out there.”
Jimmy frowned. “Not much to check out. After your dad’s little campaign, the county decided they’d had enough. Filled the whole goddamned crypt with cement and tore out the steps. Sodded it all over. Nothin’ left of it.”
“Sonuvabitch,” Dean chuffed, shaking his head.
“That leaves us Lummi Island, then,” said Sam.
“Normally the ferry dry-docks for two weeks in September, but they’re off schedule this season. Lots of construction they were trying to get done before winter, so there’s no auto transport right now. You can take the passenger ferry, or I could run you across. Cheryl’s brother’s got a boat,” Jimmy suggested.
“It’d be helpful if you could come along,” said Sam, “take us to the location you and Cheryl first started finding the bones.”
“Least I can do. Absolutely.”
* * *
Outside Wickenburg, Arizona - 2001
Dean’s whole body itched. He’d scratched his arms so much he could read them red by the dashboard lights. He was tired and pissed and hungry as hell. Realized it had been more than a day since he’d put anything but coffee and drugs into his system. He dragged his nails across his grumbling belly, took a couple of rough swipes across his scalp, then over his thighs through his jeans.
Motherfucker!
The few hours of sleep he’d tried to catch in the room above The Red Strut had been interrupted by fleas or ticks or fucking flophouse crabs - hell if he knew - and the constant irritation was making it difficult to drive. It all seemed par for the miserable course his dad had set. Dean wanted to pull into the next motel he saw, grab some food, decontaminate with a shower, and sleep for a week. He needed to get his head together before he met the guy with the poltergeist.
Interstate 10 was pretty much deserted, save the occasional semi, which was good considering all the swerving Dean was doing. The highway was lousy with rabbits, and Dean jumped the center line and skirted the berm a half dozen times trying to avoid the hoppy little bastards. Even so, the grill and wheel wells of the Impala were going to be a nightmare of blood and fur when he finally got to them.
He was about twenty-five miles outside Wickenburg, sun just beginning to pink a swatch of sky at the horizon, when the choice to pull over was made for him. A gaggle - or a pride or a coven or whatever you called roughly forty-seven rabbits traveling in a pack - materialized in the pale yellow cone of the Impala’s headlights. He had nowhere to go but right, from where they’d come. He swerved, both feet hard on the brake. The front passenger side tire dropped from asphalt onto berm, weight of the Chevy throwing up a storm of powdery sand and stone. Dean couldn’t straighten out, and the nose jumped farther right, took a sharp angle across the embankment. It was all he could do to keep his face from kissing the steering wheel. He heard a metallic snapthunk when the Impala’s front end sheered the weeds on the far side of the ditch.
Sonuva--!
When motion halted, he ran a string of his favorite curses, evened out his breathing. The car had stalled, and there was nothing but the tick of her engine and the thump of Dean’s heart to greet the silence on the road. When he felt less like rubber, he popped the driver’s side door and dropped into the weeds. Took a step back to get a lay of his latest predicament.
The chassis was spanning the gulley at an angle, front wheels in the field and rears in the gravel along the side of the road. Dean ducked back inside, stretched across the bench seat, and grabbed the Maglite from the glove box. He made a slow circle around the car, legs and arms and neck stiffening as the adrenaline rush was absorbed throughout his body.
He could try pulling forward, but that would leave him in the field with the ditch between him and the highway, and he wasn’t entirely sure the Impala’s back end would clear enough to allow purchase for the rear wheel drive. If he threw her in reverse, he couldn’t guarantee he’d get her nose out of the gulley without ripping up the undercarriage.
“That’s just great. Fuck me,” he breathed, kicking down the dry pricker weeds snagging at his jeans.
It was a twelve. That was the number of beers he was going to have to drink to get over how pissed he was. Crouching down, he could see a dark puddle already forming along the front left wheel. Closer inspection revealed a crack in the CV boot cover.
Probably brake fluid.
He wasn’t willing to drive into Wickenburg like that, not with the luck he was having. Which meant a tow, and he was pretty fucking sure he didn’t have a AAA card with Ted Nugent’s name on it. His dad had told him to get cheap digs - not a whole lot left on the Visa he’d given him.
Dean still had the card they’d used to book the room in Missoula, but that was spent down to the last couple hundred, too. And with a different name on it, there was no way Dean could double-cover any charges. He had maybe thirty bucks in his wallet, and like his dad had pointed out - it was hard to shark when your face looked like you’d already been caught for doing the same.
He fished his cell from his pocket, ran his options through his head, and punched in the speed dial. The call went directly to voice mail, which seemed just about right for the way things were going.
Rabbits.
All because he was trying to spare a few rabbits.
Goddamnit.
“Hey, Dad. I’m in a jam, here. Got some car trouble and probably just enough credit to split on a tow and a room. I need you to call me, please. I dunno if I’m gonna be able to make this appointment for the gig, so…just call me. Please?”
He hit the disconnect, dialed 411, and asked the operator for the number of the first twenty-four hour tow company listed in Wickenburg.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
Dean was feeling pretty green by the time Jimmy got them to Lummi Island. The water of Bellingham Bay was choppy and rough, and Jimmy’d made a point of showing them what Cheryl’s brother’s boat could do. Dean didn’t think he’d bounced around so much since he’d fucked that sweet little waitress on a waterbed in Maine a few years back. Twice on the half-hour trip, the breakfast Dean had eaten with gusto tried to make a repeat appearance. At least Sam was amused, even if it was at his expense.
Jimmy got them docked and helped unload their gear. “It’s about a two-klick hike. Sorry. There’s no good landing on the southwest shore.”
“No problem,” Dean said shouldering the largest of their duffles, “I’m just glad to be on solid ground.”
The sky took on an awful shade of gray as they made their way to the installation site. The morning sun that had promised a little November warmth was chalked over and obscured by fat, dark clouds threatening rain and thunder. Dean worked the zipper of his jacket up under his chin and snorted back the drip in his nose the wind was causing.
“Looks like we could have a williwaw before the day’s over,” Jimmy said, dropping back to keep pace with Dean.
“A willi-what?”
“Williwaw,” Jimmy chuckled. “It’s a squawmish wind. Arctic and strong. Comes down from the mountains and blasts toward the coastline.”
“Fantastic,” Dean grumbled, and gave a pull on the duffle’s strap. “Maybe it’ll snow, too.”
“Nah,” Jimmy chuckled, “but it’s definitely gonna rain.”
“And me without my rain bonnet.”
He chuffed Dean a courtesy laugh.
“Speakin’ of,” Jimmy said, “how’s your head?”
Dean’s hand went to his cheek, fingers tenderly prodding Jimmy’s stitch work from the night before. He twitched his shoulders. “I’ve had worse.”
“Nah,” he said quietly, pointedly, “I mean, how’s your head. With all of this?”
There was a level of gentle care in the query that put Dean on edge; made him feel guilty and uncomfortable and touched, all at the same time. There was no way Jimmy could possibly know, or that he could explain, all the fucked-up shit that had gone down since John Winchester disappeared, reappeared, and disappeared again. The bomb Jimmy’d unwittingly dropped was still rippling and rumbling, shaking the ground beneath Dean’s boots. “Just tryin’ to focus on one thing at a time right now. It’ll all shake out eventually,” he said, trying to satisfy and cut off the line of the questioning in one go.
“You know I knew him, Dean. So you know I wouldn’t deny you a string of curses against him right now. John Winchester wasn’t a perfect man. If you wanna talk about--”
Dean stopped, and Jimmy followed suit.
“Look, man, all due respect. But you, of all people, oughtta know the Marine footlocker of self-control I was raised to haul around. We’re headin’ into possibly hostile territory here. I need to focus. That emotional shit gets you killed.”
Jimmy squinted at him. “That shit’ll keep you alive, too.”
Their heads popped forward when they heard the high-pitched squawk and blips. Sam jogged back from where he’d paced ahead thirty yards or so, EMF meter waggling in his hand. The first two LCD lights along the top blinked on and off, red like Crossroad Demon eyes.
“Definitely picking up something,” Sam said, “and I doubt out here it’s buried wires or plumbing.”
Dean glanced up, scanned the horizon; no electric poles or pylons in the area to set off the meter, either. He doffed the duffle from his shoulder and squatted to unzip it. Sam did the same beside him.
“Whatta you think it is?” Jimmy asked, suddenly tense.
Dean cocked his head, pulled a sawed-off from the bag and checked the load. “Your guess is as good as ours at this point.”
Sam passed him a few of the shells they’d packed with consecrated lead and silver, and Dean shoved them in his pockets. He ticked a knuckle across his cheek to dispel the raindrop that had landed there.
“You good?” Sam asked, slipping a flask of holy water into his jacket pocket, then passing one to Dean.
“Locked and loaded.”
“Whatta you want me to do?” Jimmy asked.
Both boys rose.
“Ideally?” asked Dean. “Head back to the boat and wait for us there. Give us an hour and a half. If we don’t show and you can’t reach us by cell, get back to Bellingham. Round up some guns and some guys you can trust. Knowledge of Latin would probably be a plus.”
Jimmy blinked, and when Dean didn’t, the man nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Dean grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jimmy shook his head, face earnest. “I trust you, Dean. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know what you were doin’.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got…eleven twenty-three in thirty seconds.”
They synchronized on Jimmy’s count. Dean twisted his bevel to mark ninety minutes, gave Jimmy a nod, and shouldered the duffle.
“All right, boys,” Jimmy said, backing away from the brothers. “Be safe.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. “We will.”
When Jimmy turned, so did they, pulling up their collars against the light patter of rain.
By the time they hiked the width of the island to the installation site Jimmy’d marked on the map, they were soaked. Sam was having trouble keeping his hair out of his eyes, and Dean was pulled down so far into his coat, nothing below his eyes was visible.
“This is stupid, man,” Sam said, voice raised against the steady thrum of water through the cedars. “We’re not gonna find shit in this.” His arms flapped at his sides, water kicking off his shoulders. “We oughtta go back to the cabin. Start researching the area and the symbol.”
Dean’s head emerged from the neck of his coat like a turtle’s, and he made a moue.
“We don’t even know for sure what we’re dealing with here, dude!”
He was snappish and short. “We’re here, Sam. And we’re already soaked. We may as well do what we can before the field turns into a lake.”
“Come on, man. It’s freezing out here!”
“Suck it up, Buttercup,” Dean said, and stalked forward.
Half a second later, a buck emerged from the bracken that fenced the trees on the far side of the field. Dean never prided himself as being a fast counter, but he got all the way up to eighteen points on the bull’s rack before it charged.
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