Masterpost They left the next day. Bobby wished them well and told them to call when they’d decided whether or not D&D got the stamp of approval. Dean, who was still feeling off, let Sam drive for the first five hours while he sat on the passenger side, turning over thoughts in his brain. The radio was playing some of Sam’s music on low, but Dean couldn’t really decipher one song from the next.
“It’s hard for me, too, you know,” Sam said, somewhere near St. Joe, Missouri.
“Hmm?”
“Thinking about letting the soul go. It’s hard for me.” Sam spared him a glance. “That’s what you’re thinking about, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
Sam let the subject drop and turned his attention back to the road.
They stopped at the same place outside Springfield they always stopped at when they went down 71. Sam went inside the gas station to pee and get a Clif Bar or something. Dean stayed outside waiting for the pump to snap off. He leaned up against the car, arms folded over his chest, cheap plastic sunglasses shielding him from the rest of the world, even though it was nearly dusk.
He watched Sam come out of the gas station with an awkward gait that said, I’m not comfortable in this body. And why should he be? He had mile-long legs and flipper feet. His posture was slouchy, the result of unconsciously trying to make himself not tower over everyone else all the time, and his eyes flitted around the gas pumps like he was casing a bank for a robbery and like he was worried he’d been left behind all at once. He looked magnificent and vulnerable and strong and young and wise.
Sam went right into the passenger side without stopping to acknowledge Dean. When the pump finally shut off, Dean hung it back up and took his position behind the wheel.
“Man, are you okay?” Sam asked. “You sure you don’t want to talk?”
Dean wanted to tell his brother that no one or nobody would ever be good enough to take charge of the soul after Sam. He wanted to say that he felt things for that soul, things he’d only ever felt before around Ben. He wanted to say that he liked how it was something they had made together, just the two of them. He wanted to say that he wasn’t really sorry Sam was in this predicament because it felt like they were doing something important.
But, really, he knew, he couldn’t say any of that. The soul was a cosmic accident, the freak result of something disturbed and perverse. Every day it remained it Sam’s body it was clearly making him feel like crap, and it deserved its own chance at life. He just hoped it wouldn’t screw up as much as he had.
“I’m good.” He put the car in gear and pulled back onto the road.
They spent two days in Pensacola, snooping around like B-movie robbers or high school newspaper journalists. They found D&D’s apartment and picked the lock easily. The place was a one-bedroom plus den, surprisingly clean and bright. There were photographs of family and friends on the living room walls and fireplace mantle. The den, though, was everything he’d expected: posters for The Watchmen and Smallville on the walls, Star Wars action figures lining the bookshelves. Sam laughed when he hacked into the computer and discovered that the desktop wallpaper was actually Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Even Dean had to begrudgingly admit that their potential host maybe had a sense of humor about himself.
Sam didn’t find anything freaky on the computer. No kiddie porn. No porn of any kind, actually, to Dean’s dismay.
“Guess you won’t be bonding over tentacles,” Sam said as he logged off.
Dean could have pointed out that they wouldn’t be bonding over anything, because if they did their jobs right, the soul would go into D&D, and they’d hit the road before he and his family knew what was up.
“It’s not about the tentacles, Sam,” he said a little derisively. “It’s about the holes they go in.”
“Whatever, dude. I don’t understand why you have so much against this guy.” He turned his head toward Dean at the same time as he widened his eyes. It made for a comical effect. “Is it because he’s overweight? Dean, are you a fat-hater?”
“What?” Dean scoffed. “No.”
Sam gave a little mmm that meant he didn’t believe him.
After rooting around D&D’s apartment, they scoped out the guy’s store, Comic Relief. D&D’s absence was, apparently, a blow to the community. The store was open, but the clerk who greeted them made sure they knew she was just a regular customer stepping in. When Sam pressed for more details, she gestured to a picture of D&D on the counter and explained that several regulars had taken shifts - volunteering - to keep the place running in his absence.
“Of course, nobody knows the material like Brian.”
Dean nearly had to ask who Brian was, so fixed was his mind on calling him D&D or Comic Book Guy or Fat Coma Dude.
“How long have you known him?” Sam asked gently.
The woman, Elise, gave a sad smile. “Gosh, about five years, I guess. I knew him back when he was working at TBS, before he opened this place. A bunch of us started coming here as soon as he opened. I think TBS was angry he’d stolen away some of their more loyal customers.” She sniffed and shrugged. “Brian was just too knowledgeable. And nice. Hosting that cosplay every year.”
“The what?” Dean couldn’t help asking.
“Right,” Elise said, with a shake of her head. “Noobs, huh? Cosplay - costumes? Every year around Valentine’s Day he’d open the store up, host a party. Last year he came as Batman. He had such a good sense of humor about his thyroid.”
“His thyroid,” Dean echoed. “Right, he was fat because of his thyroid.”
“Heavy,” Elise corrected, but she didn’t sound upset.
Sam shot Dean a look that clearly said, See, you asshole, and you judged, and yeah, okay, Dean felt a little bad.
“Why Valentine’s Day?” Sam asked. “I mean, if you’re all in costumes, why not Halloween?”
“Because most of us didn’t have any other plans for Valentine’s Day.” Elise shrugged, her fingers curling over to grip the extra-long sleeve of her cardigan. “It worked out, though. Last year Courtney Rawlins asked Mark Sutherland to marry her. She was Black Canary, and he was Blade. I mean, DC and Marvel, but somehow it worked. Brian was a real matchmaker.”
The small bell over the door rang as a guy rushed in, a little breathless. “There’s an honest to god Batmobile outside!”
Dean beamed. “Actually, it’s a 1967 Chevy Impala, but I’m glad you like it.”
Sam gave Elise one of his trademark friendly smiles. “We’ll let you get back to work. Thank you for your time.”
Sam didn’t say anything once they got back in the car, though Dean certainly wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d said, See, I told you so, or, Don’t you regret being such an asshole now? or I can’t believe you didn’t trust my judgment. He was being awfully gracious, which only served to heighten Dean’s belief that Sam was the most exceptional human on the planet.
“So, we’ve checked out his home and work,” he said instead. “Want to check him out? We could be state hospital administration, ask for his charts.”
Dean wasn’t really sure he wanted to see the empty body that their soul would go into. It would make the whole thing too real. But Sam’s smile was infectious. “All right,” he agreed. “Let’s go meet him.”
They went back to their motel room, changed into suits, and were halfway to the hospital when they heard a very familiar gravelly voice say, “Sam. Dean,” and Dean nearly swerved the car off the road. He glared in the rearview mirror at the stoic angel sitting back there. “Damn it, Cas. You can’t just show up like that.”
“Apologies,” Cas replied without any remorse.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here because of Brian.”
Sam swiveled around in his seat. “What about him? Do you know something?”
“You cannot put that soul into him.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Cas said with a sigh, like he was being utterly put-upon to explain himself to a simpleton like Sam Winchester, “that soul has a more important mission.”
“Mission, huh?” Dean frowned. It wasn’t the first time an angel had appeared out of nowhere to feed him some line about God’s work. It was bullshit then, and it was probably bullshit now - especially since he knew without a doubt that Cas’s word was no good.
“I understand your skepticism, Dean. You feel a duty to protect the soul, just as you’ve always protected Sam. But there are things you don’t understand. When the time comes, that soul needs to go with me.”
“To heaven?” Dean said. “No offense, Cas, but I’ve been there. And it sucks.”
“I’m trying to make it better, Dean. You need to step back so I can.”
“Fuck no,” Sam echoed. “Sorry, Cas, but unless you give me more than that, I’m not going to agree to let you cart it off. Dean and I’ve already talked about it, and -”
“The decision is not yours or Dean’s.”
“Uh, yeah, it is.” Sam prattled on about how it was his body and his choice, but all Dean could think about was the fact that Sam and Cas had never really been the best of friends. Right now it seemed they were about five minutes away from coming to blows - which, as everyone who’d ever tried punching an angel knew, wasn’t going to end pretty for Sammy.
“Cas, the soul’s in Sam,” Dean reiterated. “He gets to decide what happens with it.”
Cas narrowed his eyes. “And just how do you intend to get it out of him?”
“I -” Sam looked nervously at Dean. “Please tell me you know a way to get it out.”
Dean cocked his head. There was a supernatural way to put a soul back in, so why not? “Yeah,” he started, but then he cut a glance at Cas in the mirror. Their little angel buddy was awfully keen to hear their plans, and there was no way he was going to let Cas know what they knew. Item one being that they knew Cas was lying to them. “Sorry we were so quick to draw, Cas. I guess me and Sam are just a little protective, like you said. Why don’t you tell you us what it is we don’t know? What’s so special about this soul, anyway?”
Sam glanced over at Dean, and whatever he saw on Dean’s face must have tipped him off to the ruse, because he sat back down in his seat and didn’t argue.
“It’s the first of its kind,” Cas explained. “If Sam hadn’t been soulless, it wouldn’t have been created. I’m sure you can imagine how rare it is for a human to walk around without his soul.”
“I still don’t understand how that happened,” Sam said. “How the hell did I get out of the cage without Lucifer getting sprung, too? And how’d my soul get stuck behind?”
Dean didn’t miss the way Cas glanced swiftly to the left. “Well, the important thing is that you’re back.” He plastered on a fake smile and thumped Sam’s thigh. “And now you’re going to make Mr. and Mrs. Bunny Ears the happiest parents on earth.”
“You cannot put that soul into Brian,” Cas reiterated. “Brian is supposed to be dead.”
“Well, he’s not,” Sam pointed out with a shrug. “Body’s still kicking.”
“Sam, Dean, I don’t want to abuse my power, but I have to insist. The only place that soul will be safe is with me. Crowley and the demons have been searching for you.”
Dean wasn’t particularly scared of that thought. Demons had been chasing them since he was four, after all, and Balthazar had warned him months ago about Crowley.
Balthazar had also warned him about Cas.
Cas who had pretended to burn Crowley’s bones back in December and had just made his fatal slip by admitting he knew the demon was still alive.
Dean clenched his jaw and shot a quick glance at his brother. Sam’s face was blank, but Dean could tell from the way his fingers were curled into a fist on his thigh that he’d caught the mistake, too.
“Tell you what, Cas,” Dean said in a cool, steady voice. “We were just on our way to the hospital to see Fa - uh, Brian. I told Sammy three times this was a bad idea, but you know how stubborn he can be. Let us have a few minutes to watch the family, see the body, get it out of our system, and we’ll haul ass back to Bobby’s to lay low until it’s D-Day. Give us two days, hmm?”
Cas didn’t look happy - but when did he ever? “I’ll meet you at Bobby’s in two days.”
“Awesome.”
The second he was gone, Sam put his knee up on the seat so he could face Dean. “He said Crowley was still alive.”
“Yeah, I got that. Damn it, Cas.” Dean pounded a fist against the steering wheel. “He’s probably listening to us right now.”
“Can you believe Cas is really capable of this?” Sam gaped.
“If you’d have asked me a year ago, I’d have said no, but now…”
Sam shook his head. “It’s like everything changed when I came back.”
“No kidding.”
They went to the hospital. Sam was too eager to spy on Brian’s life, and if there were going to try to beat Cas to the punch, they needed to get their plan in place. It was too late to alter course now.
They did, however, go in with protection. They carved sigils onto each other’s forearms, high enough to be covered by their suit jackets, but easy enough to get to in a pinch if Cas came back unexpectedly. While Dean was parking the car, Sam called Bobby and warned him that he was going to have to cover his house with the same sigils.
Fat Coma Dude was in a private room on the fifth floor. There was a single Mylar balloon floating above a miniature Spiderman action figure that was stuck to the window. On the rolling bed table was a tiny cactus that someone probably thought was more practical than flowers, given how long the guy was going to be in the hospital.
They couldn’t exactly loiter in one patient’s room, but they did manage to coerce one of the nurses into getting them a cup of coffee each. They drank slowly at the nurses’ station. Sam sifted through files like the nerd he was, and Dean made use of his handsome face to distract the staff. After fifteen minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny Ears showed up.
“How is he today?” the Mrs. asked one of the nurses as she headed to D&D’s room with confidence in her step that indicated she made the trip more than daily.
“Doing well,” the knockout redhead in maroon scrubs replied. “How was lunch?”
“I’d skip the green Jell-O,” Mr. Bunny Ears warned.
“Duly noted. Go on in, guys. Dr. Kalter will be around in a few.”
Dean was still nodding along to the story the one with the curly brown hair was telling him about her Yorkie, but when she reached a pause, he abruptly turned to Redhead. “They here to see that famous guy in the coma?”
She nodded. “They’re his parents. Come in every day, bless their hearts. Phyllis retired two years ago, but Paul only just quit his job because he wanted to be with Brian during his final days.”
Sam looked up from the stack of charts. “Final days?”
Redhead bit her lip, like she’d just let out a big secret.
“They’re pulling the plug?” Dean guessed. “You know, I gotta say I’m surprised. I saw that article in the paper about them. Seem like such a close family.”
“Oh, it has nothing to do with not being close,” Redhead assured him. “I’d say it’s the other way around. They see how hopeless it is for him. It’s like his soul’s already moved on to heaven.”
Sam and Dean exchanged a knowing look.
“When?” Dean asked.
“Thursday,” Redhead answered, staring in the direction of D&D’s room. “They’re just waiting on his sister to get here. She’s a senior at Clemson. It’s finals week.” She shook her head. “Such a terrible thing to come home to.”
“It’s for the best,” Sam said, giving her his puppy face.
Redhead bucked up and shook it off. “I can’t believe I just told you all that. Wow.”
Dean winked at her. “We’re not telling anyone. Besides, you can trust us. We work for the man.”
Redhead laughed a little and rejoined Curly Brown and company.
As Sam and Dean headed for the elevator, Sam did his duty by stating the obvious. “We have to get that soul in him before they take him off life support.”
“Yeah, I got that.” He stabbed the button and watched the numbers above the door tick down.
“How are we going to do it? Hoodoo?”
“Actually,” Dean said as the elevator doors dinged open, “I think I have an idea.” They stepped inside and gave cursory nods to the doctor in the corner who was playing with his smartphone. “Death.”
“Death?” Sam repeated.
“Mm-hmm. Death is the only thing that can do it.”
The doctor looked up from his phone with a mixture of alarm and confusion, but Dean just gave him a big, fake smile.
“So this is the right decision?” Sam asked for the third time. Their dinner conversation hadn’t been all that stimulating - just alternating between requests for extra napkins and affirmation that they were doing the right thing.
“Yeah,” Dean grunted as he dragged a French fry through a puddle of ketchup. After he ate it, there was so much salt and ketchup left on his fingertips that he couldn’t resist licking them. And then because his mouth was all full and salty, he had to cap it off with a drink of soda. “My god, that is good.”
“They’re just French fries, Dean,” Sam chided.
Dean said something in response that was approximately, “Um, yeah, delicious, good,” but it only came out as a series of grunts and lip smacks.
“So you’re okay with this even if it means your progeny is a comic book geek?”
“It’s not progeny if the dude’s older than you. But, yeah, I am. I mean, I still think it’d be cooler if it was going into a rock star or a tattoo artist, but, yeah, this Brian guy seems like a good guy. His family deserves to have him back.” He crammed another fry into his mouth, and before he’d even chewed it, took a gulp of soda through the straw. With a straw tasted amazing. Fizzy and sweet and cold and sweet mother.
“That doesn’t even have alcohol in it,” Sam pointed out. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Mm-hmm.” Dean leaned forward to take another sip. God, beer had nothing on carbonated sugar water. He leaned forward to taste a little more.
“Dean, seriously.”
“Mmm?” He looked up at Sam as he crammed a mouthful of pickle slices in.
“This is the part where we find out that you have some kind of food curse,” Sam said with a vague wave of his hand, “or that you’re the one who’s gestating new life.”
“Nope, just hungry. Not my fault this food tastes awesome.”
Sam looked between him and his plate with disgust. “I think you might be having sympathetic pregnancy.”
“Thought we weren’t allowed to use the p-word.”
“We are when it comes to you,” Sam said, pulling the soda away so that Dean was left making a sucking face toward the air. “Seriously. How much weight have you gained since I woke up?”
Dean couldn’t help sucking in his gut a little. “Not that much.”
“And the cookies and the pickles and the milkshakes and the French fries. You’ve been eating nonstop, and don’t pretend you haven’t been crying more than usual. Don’t even get me started on the gas. And yesterday you were complaining about your back.”
“That is not true,” Dean pointed out. “I said I thought the springs in the front seat were shot. That’s totally different.”
“Dean, you were rubbing your back and groaning like someone with a giant baby bump.” Sam put the soda back in front of him. “You’re having all the pregnancy symptoms I’m not having.”
That actually sounded about right, but his middle name was denial for a reason. “What? That’s crazy. Why would I do that?”
“Could be psychological,” Sam said as he picked his fork back up. “How do you actually know what pregnancy symptoms are, anyway?”
Dean pushed a fry around his plate. “The, uh, book. The one you made fun of.” He glanced up, expecting to see Sam make that funny fish-face that indicated surprise and maybe sputter a little with rage. Instead Sam leaned back in the booth and laughed. So hard he put a hand over his gut.
“You’ve been reading pregnancy books? That’s awesome,” he gasped.
“I don’t see why you think it’s so funny. Just trying to be a good brother. I thought we should be prepared. This soul is special.”
“Only one its kind ever, apparently,” Sam said soberly, echoing what Cas had said earlier.
“Yeah, we need to talk about that.”
“Should we be worried the angels are just going to end up killing Brian to get the soul?”
“Maybe Death knows a way to protect him.”
“How are we going to summon Death?”
“I got him here once,” Dean said confidently. “I can do it again. I think he likes me.”
Sam snorted. “‘I think he likes me.’ You’re talking about Death.”
The waitress, who had magically appeared at the head of their table, blinked a few times, but she quickly recovered. “Can I bring you fellas anything else?”
“Do you have pie?” Dean asked through the last bite of juicy burger smothered with ketchup and topped with crunchy, spicy red onion.
“Sorry about him,” Sam said with a wave of his hand. “Just the check.”
The waitress ripped the green check off her pad and slid it face down toward Dean. “You have a nice day.”
“Why’d she give it to me?” Dean wondered after she walked away. “You’re the one who asked for it.”
“Because it’s obvious you’re paying.” To prove his point, Sam slid out of the booth and hurried to the door.
It wasn’t exactly surprising or upsetting, but on certain occasions, when Sam and the whole world took it for granted that Dean was the big breadwinner of the family, it got a little annoying. He only left a fifteen percent tip as payback. How he’d get back at Sam, that was another question.
“Okay, let’s go get Death,” he said, patting Sam on the back as they headed toward the car.
Next