Buffy/SPN crossover: Resistance 2/4
Part 1
While they were taking a break, sharing water bottles and Dean doing his best to grin at them the way these girls deserved to be grinned at, a shock went through him, like the echo of being electrocuted. Sam, so fucking hungry: empty as Dean had been when Sam had been dead. Sam wanted-just a little blood, only enough to make a point. Mostly he wanted the Huntsman brought to heel. Dean felt it hit his whole body, like walking out of an air-conditioned morgue into deep South summer, and before he could even think he was going to his knees for the phantom Sam.
“Are you okay?” Ksenia asked, raising the bottle she’d plucked out of the air when he dropped it.
“I’m fine,” Dean said, getting back to his feet and starting towards the door. He was fugly-sweaty and should’ve showered, but he needed to be elsewhere. Right now.
He barely saw the hallways around him as he moved. He could feel the pull, like the smell of accelerant in the air drawing him towards bones in need of burning.
He started running as soon as he saw Sam through the open door to the reception area, and only managed to slow down when Sam’s head snapped up and his stance changed, bracing himself to fight.
Dean stopped himself in the doorway, hanging on to it so that he didn’t do anything stupid like grab Sam. Sam had recovered his balance along with Dean, but was still staring at him like a guy about to get his thirty-day chip would look at a bottle of Jack. Sam looked like he’d lost weight since Dean had seen him last, but Dean could tell he would still be just as fast, maybe faster. Sam’s shoulders were drawn in and he was bouncing from foot to foot as he inspected the fake magazine covers on the wall, hands deep in his jacket pockets. He wasn’t going to pull a weapon, though. Dean knew that Sam’s job was to run, not to fight, no matter what tricks Sam was trying to pull.
“Sam,” Buffy said, pushing past Dean.
Sam nearly tripped over his own feet, then let out a breath that seemed to calm him a little. “Buffy!”
They had a brief, awkward standoff, and then Buffy pulled him into a hug. From the look on Sam’s face (since Buffy was a foot shorter, Dean had an excellent view), she got a good feel of his muscles before she let go.
Sam stepped back and smiled at her, full dimples and everything, like he’d flipped a switch. “Good to see you, I need to talk to Dean.” Okay, maybe Sam hadn’t managed to enhance his Zen as well as it seemed.
“Standing right here,” Dean pointed out.
Sam did something in between a nod and a headshake. “Yeah, no, I need to talk to you alone.” He stuffed his hands in his jacket again, maybe so Buffy wouldn’t see how they were clenching into fists, but Dean knew.
“Okay, you weren’t anywhere near this freaked out last time, when you were facing down a deal with a demon and planning to kill me, plus Dean’s staring at you like a vamp at a Red Cross van, so I’m gonna say no to that plan and instead you’re gonna get the help you asked for.”
Dean spared a moment to be grateful that Buffy was the say-what-they-were-all-thinking type, because it would have taken him a while longer to work up to that. Also, he put his poker face back on, or at least he thought he did. He realized that he was shifting from foot to foot just like Sam was, and forced himself still.
“Did you find anything out?” Sam asked, a little stiffly. Dean shoved aside the thought that Sam-or whatever was working its way through Sam--might not want someone else to know what was really going on.
“Willow’s been working on your problem,” Buffy said before Dean could confess. “Why don’t we see what she’s got?”
“Yeah, great,” Sam said, distractedly. “Come on,” like Dean was a dawdling kid, and if Dean had been one hundred percent he would’ve found out real quick what Dean thought of that. But Dean wasn’t sure he could trust himself to put his hands on Sam and stop short of blood, so instead he got ahead of Sam, making sure to keep a couple of feet between them-he could feel every inch of the distance, like the moon must feel the tug of the earth. Buffy stayed behind him, next to Sam, all the way to Willow’s office, which turned out to be empty.
“You know what, let’s check the other common areas,” Buffy said, with the slightly edgy tone of someone who didn’t really want the Winchesters in her life for very long. “So, Sam,” she said brightly as they moved, “what do you know about the Huntsman and the Hart?”
“I think we can get this under control,” Sam said. “There are disciplines we can use to channel them.”
Dean sneered.
“It’s not going away, Dean,” Sam insisted, because of course he hadn’t needed to see Dean’s face to know what he’d think of that. “This isn’t something we can just cut out of ourselves.”
“Why the fuck not?” Dean asked.
“Hey, I’m no fan of mental discipline,” Buffy told him. “But I gotta say, I haven’t seen many of these things go away on their own.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re here, ‘cause we thought you could help,” Dean pointed out.
Without further conversational gambits, Buffy led them through the complex, searching for Willow. “So, couldn’t stay away,” Dean said to Sam once he was more certain he could make it come out jokingly.
Sam looked like Dean felt, bangs drooping over his eyes and skin so pale it wouldn’t look worse under fluorescent lights. “I wasn’t talking about meditation, Dean. I think there are ways to bind this thing down, so that we won’t keep wanting to kill each other.”
“Bind it down,” Dean repeated. Sam was usually pretty careful with his words, and that was the second time he’d said something other than ‘fix’ or ‘get rid of’ the problem. “So it would still be in us?”
Sam looked at Buffy’s back, and he wasn’t checking out her ass, so Dean had his answer. “There’s power here,” he said. “If I can get on top of it, I can use it-”
“Yeah, ‘cause that always works so well,” Dean said, but Sam wasn’t listening. Dean knew that not just because Sam never listened, but also because he could feel the blood rushing in his own ears, distracting him; he could feel their heartbeats speeding up in sync, urging them out of these bland corridors and out into the open. Sam’s presence was heating him up same as it was cooling Sam down-there was something flowing between them, but it wasn’t seeking an equal level, more like Sam was getting something from Dean and Dean was taking from Sam.
Finally, they found Willow in the kitchen. She had chocolate croissants, which immediately made the day about five times better. Sam refused his share and folded himself into a chair, watching as Dean tore pieces off and stuffed them into his mouth, licking his fingers as he went. Yeah, maybe he was working it a little, but Willow was watching out of the corner of her eye, and it was something to do.
“So, you got any ideas on how to fix this thing?” he asked once he’d reduced his pastry to stray flakes. Sam remained silent, arms folded over his chest, not hiding the pout that said that Dean ought to be following his lead instead.
“We think we can summon your mother’s spirit,” Willow said.
Dean stood up so fast his chair went skidding backwards into the wall. “Why?”
Willow looked at him, arms folded, waiting for him to work it out. Okay, he had to admit that there might just be something in his family’s past that they still didn’t know, and if Willow could raise a spirit without having it go apeshit then it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. After all, Azazel hadn’t killed nearly as many people around the other special kids, just the moms. Whether this Huntsman thing was part of that bastard’s special plan for Sam or something else, if Willow was right that there’d been a Winchester-specific prophecy then Mom might have heard it, either before or beyond the grave.
He’d already confronted his mother’s ghost once. Just a remnant, an echo, couldn’t hang around too long without going bad, he knew that. Which meant--“She already-we saw her spirit, but it left.” Burned up, he didn’t say. Went out fighting to save us just like Dad did, he didn’t say. “When ghosts go, they stay gone.”
“Well,” Willow said, “that’s kind of a matter of degree, at least when you’ve got a powerful enough witch, which you do. I’m not saying we can bring her back for long, but we can at least ask her if there were signs and portents. You know, like the prophet Dean met.”
Dean turned away, looking at the back of the kitchen door with its brightly colored chore schedules. He wished he were just some idiot signed up to do the cooking Thursday night. “Do we have to?” he asked.
Sam was watching the show with a slightly pained expression. This was all theoretical to him: nothing but Dean’s recycled memories to go on, and Dean had never been any good at explaining what a mom was. “We could get out of here-”
“No,” Dean snapped. He brought his hand up to cover his eyes, working up to it. “Sam, I can’t tell you I won’t-unless you can make your yoga mind control crap work right away, it’s not gonna work.” He shook out his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I guess we try Willow’s spell. But don’t you need something of hers to summon with?”
“We have something of hers, Dean,” Willow said gently. It took a second, and then Dean really needed to look down, remembering how he’d run towards her to tackle her into a hug, loving how big and strong he felt when she oofed and bent down to hug him. ‘My beautiful boy,’ Mom had always said, and he’d felt like it, so young and stupid that the very thought of himself back then made him want to punch something.
That kind of killed the conversation.
****
Buffy ordered them to find something useful to do while Willow set up the spell and Buffy did whatever a Slayer did while not slaying. Ordinarily that would’ve been Dean’s cue to ask where the weapons were stored, but he was going to have to take a pass just now.
“Aren’t you gonna complain about this whole ghost-summoning thing?” Dean asked Sam when they were finally alone.
“I’m leaning more toward complaining about how I’m taking out the trash,” Sam said, throwing another bag up into the dumpster.
“Hey, it was that or cleaning toilets,” Dean said, chucking his own contribution into the reeking metal hulk. “I checked. No freeloaders in this place, that’s for sure. And I don’t know if you noticed, Sam, but we kinda owe these girls for, you know, not killing us.” Then he had to back away to keep the buzz of chase-hunt-kill down to a tolerable level. Sam noticed.
“You see?” Sam said. “The faster you accept that these people don’t have any solutions to offer and that we have to deal with this ourselves, the faster we’re gonna start getting control of this thing. I shouldn’t have let you come here. I don’t think they can accept this kind of power in someone else’s hands.”
Dean wasn’t entirely sure that was the problem. Hell, he didn’t like the look in Sam’s eyes when Sam said ‘power.’ “What do you want me to do?” Dean managed. If Sam had a real plan that didn’t involve facing Mom, Dean was all in.
Sam gave Dean the wide-eyed look he only used when he was hiding something. “I picked up some supplies on the way. I just need more time. And privacy,” he added, which made Dean itch--these girls knew what magic was, and they also knew what black magic was, so Dean felt justified in assuming Sam’s plan had sketchy bits.
Dean didn’t even bother to shake his head. He’d wait for Willow’s solution, for now.
****
Dean went out to the parking lot to check on the car. He wondered if he’d have fewer dreams if he slept inside her, surrounded by cold iron and the leather smell of home.
“Hey,” Buffy said. He looked up and nodded at her. She was carrying a sack of groceries. Dean was used to meeting people with separate, ordinary lives-that’s what they did, swept into town and fixed things for those people-but it was weird to see someone who knew what was really lurking in the dark carrying a plastic sack filled with milk and Oreos. Sure, he knew Bobby must shop, in theory, but it wasn’t the same as seeing Buffy and knowing that she had a whole group of Slayers to look after, not to mention afternoon snacks to grab. Somehow she’d made a life that wasn’t all highway miles and strangers.
“You about ready-what is that?”
Because Buffy was not likely to be trying to fake him out, Dean turned--and saw the pack of horses. They were heading straight towards the Slayers’ compound. And straight towards included going through the parked cars.
Ghost horses. “That’s new,” Dean said.
“They don’t look very much like the pony I always wanted,” Buffy said back. Their heads were too large for their necks, and they were so scrawny that every tendon stood out, like they weren’t much more than skeletons with skins wrapped around. Their mouths were foam-flecked and red.
He heard the milk and cookies drop to the ground as Buffy bolted towards the office door, and he figured that was as good an idea as any.
The first horse hit what must have been some kind of mystical barrier about ten feet in front of the office windows-that was new too, and smart, Dean thought-and disappeared in a flash of sick-making green, and then another two. The others tried to stop, squealing and whining, but two more crashed and flared out before the pack managed to halt itself, stomping and neighing in place. From his position with his back to the door, Dean could smell burnt and spoiled meat.
“Hey!” Buffy yelled before Dean could figure out the right words to say to the sole rider, at the back of the hissing and shuffling group.
The thing that looked over them was-first he thought it was a man more beautiful than Brad Pitt, and then it was a flayed corpse, and then a grey-haired Helen Mirrin type, and then its face was covered with huge yellow pimples-
“Stop that!” Buffy demanded, raising the long knife she’d taken from her back sheath. Amazingly, it worked, though less amazingly the thing settled on the version with the yellow pimples.
“Give me the Huntsman and the Hart,” it said, into Dean’s head without using any sound. The sensation was like having the inside of his skull rubbed with rough bricks. Dean raised his gun and thought about the silver knife in his ankle sheath, if he had time to go for it.
“Okay, one, I really prefer to do this kind of thing out loud,” Buffy told it. “Two, and maybe I’m assuming here, but if you’re not here to give them hugs then we’re going to have a problem. Actually, if you are here to give them hugs, they’re probably not going to be any happier, but that’s their macho issue and not mine.”
“Hey,” Dean said out of the side of his mouth.
“You do not understand the danger in which they put us all,” the thing croaked, its voice like the sound of an engine grinding itself up.
Buffy didn’t lower her knife, but she stood a little straighter, maybe because the thing was playing by her rules. “So educate me.” Dean thought about speaking up for himself, but she was doing pretty good, plus he saw the point of not reminding the dude (?) that the Huntsman was standing right there.
The horses pawed at the concrete, which sounded really awful, and Dean didn’t like the low, wheezing sounds of their breath. “Already their corruption spreads,” it said. “The Great Tree should be watered with the blood of their sacrifice, but it is blocked.”
Buffy sighed. “You’re gonna have to break that down some more.”
“Can you not sense it?” the thing demanded. One of the horses lost patience and charged the barrier, and worryingly got a good two feet inside before the magic managed to burn it up. Dean readied himself to fight and hoped the Slayers had noticed the oncoming battle. At least the horses seemed fully solid now, none of this I-can-grab-you-but-you-can’t-grab-me shit that the incorporeal tended to pull.
“The cycle is blocked,” the thing (Dean was just going to call it Captain Cryptic if it kept on like this) said again. “The Hunt makes the seasons flow, seasons of man and seasons of beast, but they will not hunt.”
“You mean they’re not trying to kill each other,” Buffy said. “Can’t say I see that as a bad thing.”
“Then you are a fool,” Captain Cryptic said. Like that was the starter pistol, the rest of the horses, except for the one it was riding, charged the barrier in a group, and Dean’s ears popped as it broke.
Then it was just Buffy and Dean outside; Dean hoped the girls inside knew enough to stay inside, protected, as long as they could. “Get back,” Buffy ordered Dean, which: like fuck. Buffy headed straight towards Captain Cryptic, closing the small gap between them. Dean fired around, catching one horse in the neck and another in the eye, but they were just too fucking big to slow down like that. He ducked and swerved and nearly got smushed by a hoof. Fortunately, none of the horses seemed to have brains of their own, which made them an awful lot like regular horses in Dean’s opinion. He put a couple more slugs into the pack and managed to take down one right before it got Buffy from behind, her own momentum carrying her away from its collapse.
Captain Cryptic’s horse reared so that Buffy had to dodge its hooves, but she got in a good slash as she went under it. Its belly sagged open and grey guts spilled out, but nauseatingly the horse didn’t seem bothered, trampling its own intestines as the smell of rot and bile grew so intense that Buffy had to stop her attack to retch. She narrowly dodged Captain Cryptic’s arm-Dean couldn’t even tell if it had a weapon, that was how hard it was to look at the thing-and fell back against the brick wall beside the door, which shattered under the horse’s weight.
Dean dove inside to follow it, dodging huge shards of glass, at which point he realized a key fact: while Captain Cryptic was really intimidating, and while the ghost horses had been pretty good weapons against a magic shield, a big guy (thing) mounted on a horse really didn’t have much room to maneuver in a standard-sized front office.
There was a lot of screaming, and a couple of crossbow bolts went in the wrong direction entirely-Jane needed a refresher course and Dean was going to have a couple of words with her about that when things calmed down--but with Sam, Buffy, and the three other Slayers who’d been ready to help when called, both the horse and the rider were put out of their misery in under a minute.
Not out of Dean’s misery, though, what with the smell, and two of the Slayers went the distance by throwing up onto the mess.
“I’m gonna find Willow,” Buffy said through her pinched nose. Dean nodded at her unhappily. Dean had some talking to Sam to do himself.
****
Dean managed to grab a shower first, because of the phantom horse guts (and also grabbing his duffel gave him an excuse to make sure that those ugly hooves had been nowhere near his baby), but the water felt like a rainstorm trickling down through the leaves and when he closed his eyes he could have been in the forest.
Sam was waiting for him when he got out, not even waiting for him to get dressed. “Do you know what the fuck that was about?” Dean asked, pulling a semi-clean T-shirt over his head.
“No,” Sam said. Dean checked his expression, and couldn’t tell what it meant. “This is what I’m talking about-I need to step up and get this power under control, and you need to help me, or weird horse guy is just going to be the first.”
Dean tugged a pair of jeans on, then his boots. Those needed cleaning too, but he didn’t have extras.
“Still waiting on some specifics from you, Sammy,” he said, and decided that, yes, he did need to put his weapons back in place, as tough as that was with Sam in the room. That meant he was kind of distracted while Sam talked about some mystical metal he had a line on, some kind of bracelet he wanted Dean to wear. “Like a dreamcatcher,” he said, but Dean had the strong impression that this wasn’t the usual ‘simplify it for Dean because he doesn’t give a shit’ explanation but instead was a ‘don’t tell Dean what it actually is because he will freak the fuck out.’ When Sam got to the part where it was somehow going to feed off of Dean’s blood, Dean might’ve flipped out a little regardless.
Through superhuman self-control (okay, through walking out and ignoring Sam as he followed Dean through the halls), Dean managed not to punch him out. Fortunately, when he found Willow in her workshop, she was just about ready for the summoning. She chattered about the extra power required to reset the spell barrier around the Slayers’ compound, and it was something for Dean to hang on to that wasn’t about cutting Sam open to see what made him tick, so Dean was nothing but grateful.
The summoning ritual itself was completely unfamiliar to him. Dean had never been one to buy trouble. Scratch that: Dean had never been one to buy ghost trouble. Okay, so Dean had never been one to buy ghost trouble if the ghost wasn’t asking for it.
Unlike Dean, Sam seemed to recognize the spell enough to engage in a scholarly discussion about its echoes in subsequent rituals with Willow while Buffy checked her weapons. Dean forced himself to play his own role-his real role, not this bullshit Huntsman stuff-and leaned up against the wall, smirking. “Aw, Sam, you’re so erudite,” he cooed, and it made Willow blush.
“Erudite, Dean?” Sam snarked back. “Where’d you get that, some porno starring fake college girls?”
“Come on, you know I never listen to the dialogue,” he shot back. It didn’t feel comfortable, more like the first grief-dazed weeks after Stanford, but they were both trying, and that had to mean something.
“I’m going to take your blood now,” Willow announced.
They turned, each of them starting to roll up his sleeve.
“Dean’s,” Willow clarified. “He’s older, and, no offense, Sam, I just don’t know what effect traces of demon blood could have.”
“None taken,” Sam said. Dean checked his expression, but he didn’t seem hurt or guilty like he’d used to when the topic of his demonization came up. Unfortunately, turning his Sam-radar on reminded him that he really kind of wanted to grab Sam and-and-his mind refused to elaborate on what next, but nails and teeth might be involved.
Dean thought about the emergency flask in the trunk of the car. Whiskey hadn’t been able to dull the push-pull he felt towards Sam, but Dean had the idea that he hadn’t given his all to the project just yet.
Willow coughed. “If you’re ready,” she said, and she did have a lot in common with Sam, since she didn’t even have to say ‘stop wasting my time’ out loud. The Winchester way would have been a nice clean cut, but Willow insisted on a full Red Cross setup, needle and bloodbag and everything. At least it meant she spent some time rubbing his skin clean, and even if they weren’t going there again she still smelled nice and touched him with concern. A pint of blood was a fair trade for that.
****
Dean knelt where he’d been put and stared at his mother’s ghost.
Mom didn’t look like she had last time, in Lawrence, even though she was still in her white gown. More translucent maybe, blurrier; Willow had mentioned something in the flood of words about how this version wouldn’t be exactly the same as a restless spirit, since this time they were doing the invoking. Dean couldn’t figure it out, not when Mom was there in front of him.
She disappeared from the casting circle and instantly reappeared in front of the bowl full of his blood, raising it in cupped hands and drinking it down with a vampire hunger that made Dean twitch with the wrongness of it. Dean wanted to stand up and run away, and he wanted to reach out and grab her, let her drink directly from him if that would keep her longer.
Beside him, sitting crosslegged like a kid in front of a campfire, Sam wasn’t even breathing hard. All he saw was a face from a picture, another ghost. For a moment Dean couldn’t breathe for being angry.
Mom closed her red, shining mouth with a snap. The bowl was instantly back in its place on the floor. “I’m sorry, Dean,” she said, looking only at him, maybe because his blood made him more real to her. Her voice was full of slithery noises, like it was put together from the sound of a nest of snakes. Her lips were pale underneath the blood.
“Oh, baby,” she said. “I wish-I don’t have much time.” She flashed forward again, putting a translucent hand on his forehead.
Willow stepped forward before Dean could offer something he really shouldn’t. “Do you know anything about a prophecy about your family? Maybe something about your blood?”
The ghost stiffened and flickered, pulling back from Dean. “No,” she said, “no, that never happened.”
“What?” all four of them asked, overlapping. Dean had forgotten Buffy was even there.
“My family always knew magic was real,” Mom said. Dean’s mouth fell open and he shook like he’d been electrocuted, barely managing to stay seated. “We saw it all the time. When I was a girl, they took me to a seer. When she tried to tell my future, her eyes bled. She said,” turning away, looking out into nothingness, “she said that my children had been foretold. That I’d have twins, two beautiful boys, and that they’d destroy the world.”
The room was grave-silent for a moment, until Willow, who had less skin in the game, said, “But you didn’t have twins …?”
“No,” she said, and Dean sagged, gripping his jeans and rocking forward. Sam took a step forward to put a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and as quickly fell back, as if the touch had stung. Mom’s ghost continued: “I found a witch, old and powerful. She did a spell she said would make sure I’d never have more than one child.” Dean’s head snapped back up. Mom’s eyes welled with tears. “When I got pregnant with Sam, I was so afraid-but then he was born, and I thought she’d just got the words wrong.”
“Witchcraft like that always has a price,” Dean said, rough as old wood.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” she said, and Dean couldn’t ask more about that. “But it worked. I thought we were going to be safe. Then Azazel came.”
“So why did the prophecy start up again?” Buffy wondered.
“The Sumerian spell,” Willow said, consideringly. “When we put them together to destroy the crossroads demon, we made them the psychic equivalent of twins.”
Sam nodded, like all the pieces were falling into place. “Symbolism matters more than reality to magic. It was us.”
“It was my deal,” Dean said, and snapped his mouth shut. He felt blank, like his brain had been left in the fridge overnight.
Mom was wavering, her outline blurring into the wall behind her.
“How does this world-destroying happen? Can it be stopped?” Willow asked quickly, but Mom shook her head helplessly.
“I loved you,” she mouthed and fragmented into mist.
Dean put his head in his hands and bowed down, hiding his face as he made a noise like tearing metal. Then he got up and punched the wall.
“Dean,” Sam yelped, jumping to his feet, and Willow was looking pretty freaked, which he hadn’t meant to happen.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his hand out. One knuckle had split, and the cut on his arm stung like a motherfucker, so he’d probably opened that up too. “I just-”
“Twins,” Willow said. “That’s a good lead, I’ll get right on it.” She fled before Dean could say more, and Buffy followed after, not without a long, considering look at Dean that Dean took as a warning to behave.
“I was never supposed to exist,” Sam said, finally.
Dean growled an immediate protest. “You were supposed to-” He stopped, breathed out hard, and wiped his hand over his face. “Four years or four minutes, doesn’t make any difference. You’re still my brother, we’re still fucked.”
Twins. Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick. Obviously Dean was always supposed to be the oldest one, the one in charge, but still: no wonder Sam was such a snot-nosed rebel. He always must’ve felt the unnatural delay between them somehow. If it hadn’t been so wrapped up in the whole Huntsman/Hart disaster, finding that out would have been pretty freaking cool, actually. Dean had always been closer to Sam than was comfortable, but with twins it was different. Justified.
Oh, and also, Mom was a hunter, and knew about prophecies and witchcraft, all the mystical shit Dad had only picked up after her death. Dean was sorely tempted to pour out another serving of blood and ask her why she didn’t ever tell Dad-though once he thought about it he kind of doubted that pre-Azazel John Winchester would have believed any of this bull for a second. He had so many questions for her. He knew that most of them weren’t of any importance to anyone but him, and it was probably-definitely-a mistake to be worried about the past when he and Sam were so close to meltdown.
Plus he was exhausted. If he closed his eyes he was pretty sure he was going to be back in the forest, and he didn’t know whether he’d wake up as good old Dean Winchester.
Sam went over to where Dean had punched the wall and put his hand out, touching the smear of blood Dean had left behind. He stood there, but Dean could tell he was only calm by force, like he was waiting to be frisked. The sight of him, back to Dean like that, made Dean’s blood run faster and his hands curl into fists. The table he was standing by looked flimsy enough; it would break in a real fight, and then Dean could get a leg, all jagged-edged, and-
“Twins destroy the world when they’re in opposition,” Sam said into the wall, muffled. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. Romulus and Remus founded Rome together.”
Dean remembered catching a special on the History Channel that told the story a little different-the brothers did fine until their war was over, then split up when they couldn’t agree how to handle the peace, and one of them ended up dead, which was why the city was only named for one of them. Still, he wasn’t about to start arguing ancient history with Sam. They had enough history of their own, and Sam already sounded like he was trying to convince some prosecutor that really, they were nice guys who didn’t deserve any of the nasty things being said about them.
If Dean had been a different guy, he would’ve told Sam how fucking scared he was. If Sam had been regular Sam, open about his feelings, he would’ve gone first. But this was some supernatural shit, not even Sam’s real emo.
He was losing Sam. Again. Not to college or to grief, and he should probably care more that they were likely to do some collateral damage, but all he could feel was the poisoned connection between them, twisting them both further and further away from what they should be. It was like watching Sam sink down under water, face blurring into unrecognizability-and the worst was that Sam was seeing the same thing in reverse, and Sam had always found it easier to look away from Dean in the first place.
They stayed there, unable to break the silence. It was worse even then when Dean’s deal had been coming to a close because of how Dean wanted to claw his way inside Sam and stay-the only way he’d ever get to stay, to keep Sam from running. Dean had thought they’d gotten zipped up tight again, but it was understandable that Sam would run again, eventually, and end up the Hart to Dean’s Huntsman. This time Dean would get to catch him for good, keep him, Sam under his nails and running hot over his teeth--
Dean realized that he wasn’t so much standing as tensed to lunge, leaning forward so that when he leapt he’d be on Sam faster than Sam could react, and he forced himself to sit down, pressing himself into Willow’s chair until the wood was digging into the flesh under his shoulders.
Eventually, long after Dean had gotten his breathing under control and shoved all the stuff he couldn’t afford to care about back out of his head, Willow stuck her head back in the room. “Good news,” she said. “Well! Some news is better than no news, I guess? I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right myth now. Twins are big in a lot of legends, and a lot of times you get them having a frenemy thing going on, but I found this really ancient story where one of them is specifically the hunter and the other is the prey. If I’m right, then you two connected to the same mythos as the Powers That Be.”
“The what now?” The anger was simmering in Dean, looking for a target, and it didn’t much care about what the target deserved.
Sam coughed. He was watching Willow with a wary (hunted) expression. “Enigmatic and ancient forces usually on the side of good.”
Willow nodded. “The Powers are members of a broader pantheon, which includes the Huntsman and the Hart. Unlike the Powers, those guys manifest in humans, or the human-equivalent, in various dimensions and, um, tend to herald apocalypses of one sort or another. That part’s unclear-think that monologue in Ghostbusters.”
Dean snorted, remembering that Willow was in many ways exactly his kind of girl. At least Sam hadn’t turned into the Keymaster. Except: “Hey, we’ve got these fancy anti-possession tattoos. Why don’t they protect us?”
Willow frowned. “I don’t remember seeing-uh, I mean I wasn’t paying attention to your-oh, darnit!” Her face was so red it clashed with her hair, and her discomfort was really harshing Dean’s already limited mellow.
He summoned his best smile, or whatever he had left of it, and tilted his head for improved effectiveness. “Hey, I get it. But it sounds like a lot of people could get hurt, so can we please pretend-really pretend, not the fake thing where we don’t look at each other-that we’re just two good guys working on the same side?”
Her color subsided, and she smiled back, a little crookedly. “Does the charm offensive thing work for you a lot?”
Sam snorted, proving that his little brother was still in there. Dean shrugged and relaxed a few degrees. “Usually it gets me smacked around, but sometimes it pays off.”
She smiled, just a little, and waved her hands at him. “Show me the tattoo already.”
Dean unbuttoned his shirt enough to pull it aside and show off the Devil’s Trap.
“That’s easy,” she said as soon as she’d examined the whole thing. “Those are only directed at demonic possession. The Huntsman and the Hart don’t possess a person, they inhabit him or her.”
“That’s a crappy distinction,” Dean said, offended on behalf of the supernaturally challenged everywhere.
Willow shrugged helplessly and nodded her agreement. “Listen,” she said, “now that I’ve got a line on this thing, I’ve got to talk to some other witches I know, and then figure out what to do with Buffy. Will you be okay?”
“Sure,” Sam said, always the better liar between them, and Willow slipped out without confirming anything with Dean.
Dean wanted to get up and pace, but that would mean coming close to Sam, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that right now, so he just jittered in place at his seat.
“The Powers That Be,” Sam said consideringly, and Dean thought about expressing his very deep annoyance that he could hear the capitalization. Shitty name for a bunch of pumped-up supernatural goons, anyway. “Dean, if that’s what this is, then it might not be so bad. We need to see where it goes.”
Dean was already shaking his head. “Where it goes is me killing you, or didn’t you notice that part?”
Sam frowned and pushed his hair off his forehead, which made Dean notice that he’d gone well past ‘need a haircut’ and almost all the way to ‘swamp monster.’ “I don’t think it’s a one-sided fight.”
Dean waved a hand at him. “C’mon, Sammy, you’re freakin’ Bambi.”
“The Hunter isn’t just some indestructible Terminator,” Sam argued, his leg jittering like he’d had eighteen cups of coffee without a bathroom break. “There’s danger in the hunt, and overcoming that danger is the point. Look, Dean, there are ways to open ourselves up to-to whatever this is, make it work for us.”
Because Dean was really good at ‘opening himself,’ yeah. Dean made a face and Sam scowled right back. “What have we heard from Willow that’s better? Maybe we need to take the power for ourselves instead of relying on witches and Slayers.”
“Witches and Slayers did pretty good for us last time,” Dean said, keeping his voice down only with effort.
Sam shrugged that off. “They don’t know everything,” he said, conspiratorial, and Dean couldn’t help but lean forward.
“Sam?” It was a warning as much as a question.
Sam took a deep breath, and something in his eyes reminded Dean of how he’d looked right before announcing his full ride to Stanford. Half thrilled, half angry, all heading away from Dean. “I have to win, Dean. There’s something different about me, something that makes me stronger than the Huntsman. I don’t know if it’s the demon blood, or what Mom did, or something else, but I don’t think you can beat me.”
“I don’t want--” Dean began automatically, but even aside from the bullshit Huntsman stuff Dean kind of did want to smack Sam around some, just for giving him so much trouble. “Sam, what’s going on with you? What do you mean, stronger?”
“You know,” Sam said, eyes wide and intense. And the problem was, Dean really didn’t, but Sam would expect him to deny it even if he had understood what the fuck Sam was talking about.
“Pretend like I don’t,” Dean suggested.
Sam jumped out of his chair like he’d been flung by a slingshot. “The chase doesn’t have to be eternal. If the Hart wins, we could break the cycle entirely. We could be free.”
That didn’t make any sense to Dean, and the sheen of sweat on Sam’s temples wasn’t doing anything to convince him either. Plus Dean was starting to worry about whether he could stay in his seat with Sam prancing around just begging to be tackled. Dean could practically smell--
He couldn’t be here, not with Sam so close but still ignoring him when Dean’s only idea for making him pay attention was to make him bleed.
He thought again about trying to sleep, but even with the fatigue making his skin feel like lead and his bones like iron, he was too worried about what he might see in his dreams. “I’ll be down in the training room,” he said. If Dean got himself knocked unconscious by one of the Slayers, at least he’d get some rest.
“If you’d just let me--” Sam said, some kind of warning. Dean was going to deal with him just as soon as he got himself under control.
part 3
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While they were taking a break, sharing water bottles and Dean doing his best to grin at them the way these girls deserved to be grinned at, a shock went through him, like the echo of being electrocuted. Sam, so fucking hungry: empty as Dean had been when Sam had been dead. Sam wanted-just a little blood, only enough to make a point. Mostly he wanted the Huntsman brought to heel. Dean felt it hit his whole body, like walking out of an air-conditioned morgue into deep South summer, and before he could even think he was going to his knees for the phantom Sam.
“Are you okay?” Ksenia asked, raising the bottle she’d plucked out of the air when he dropped it.
“I’m fine,” Dean said, getting back to his feet and starting towards the door. He was fugly-sweaty and should’ve showered, but he needed to be elsewhere. Right now.
He barely saw the hallways around him as he moved. He could feel the pull, like the smell of accelerant in the air drawing him towards bones in need of burning.
He started running as soon as he saw Sam through the open door to the reception area, and only managed to slow down when Sam’s head snapped up and his stance changed, bracing himself to fight.
Dean stopped himself in the doorway, hanging on to it so that he didn’t do anything stupid like grab Sam. Sam had recovered his balance along with Dean, but was still staring at him like a guy about to get his thirty-day chip would look at a bottle of Jack. Sam looked like he’d lost weight since Dean had seen him last, but Dean could tell he would still be just as fast, maybe faster. Sam’s shoulders were drawn in and he was bouncing from foot to foot as he inspected the fake magazine covers on the wall, hands deep in his jacket pockets. He wasn’t going to pull a weapon, though. Dean knew that Sam’s job was to run, not to fight, no matter what tricks Sam was trying to pull.
“Sam,” Buffy said, pushing past Dean.
Sam nearly tripped over his own feet, then let out a breath that seemed to calm him a little. “Buffy!”
They had a brief, awkward standoff, and then Buffy pulled him into a hug. From the look on Sam’s face (since Buffy was a foot shorter, Dean had an excellent view), she got a good feel of his muscles before she let go.
Sam stepped back and smiled at her, full dimples and everything, like he’d flipped a switch. “Good to see you, I need to talk to Dean.” Okay, maybe Sam hadn’t managed to enhance his Zen as well as it seemed.
“Standing right here,” Dean pointed out.
Sam did something in between a nod and a headshake. “Yeah, no, I need to talk to you alone.” He stuffed his hands in his jacket again, maybe so Buffy wouldn’t see how they were clenching into fists, but Dean knew.
“Okay, you weren’t anywhere near this freaked out last time, when you were facing down a deal with a demon and planning to kill me, plus Dean’s staring at you like a vamp at a Red Cross van, so I’m gonna say no to that plan and instead you’re gonna get the help you asked for.”
Dean spared a moment to be grateful that Buffy was the say-what-they-were-all-thinking type, because it would have taken him a while longer to work up to that. Also, he put his poker face back on, or at least he thought he did. He realized that he was shifting from foot to foot just like Sam was, and forced himself still.
“Did you find anything out?” Sam asked, a little stiffly. Dean shoved aside the thought that Sam-or whatever was working its way through Sam--might not want someone else to know what was really going on.
“Willow’s been working on your problem,” Buffy said before Dean could confess. “Why don’t we see what she’s got?”
“Yeah, great,” Sam said, distractedly. “Come on,” like Dean was a dawdling kid, and if Dean had been one hundred percent he would’ve found out real quick what Dean thought of that. But Dean wasn’t sure he could trust himself to put his hands on Sam and stop short of blood, so instead he got ahead of Sam, making sure to keep a couple of feet between them-he could feel every inch of the distance, like the moon must feel the tug of the earth. Buffy stayed behind him, next to Sam, all the way to Willow’s office, which turned out to be empty.
“You know what, let’s check the other common areas,” Buffy said, with the slightly edgy tone of someone who didn’t really want the Winchesters in her life for very long. “So, Sam,” she said brightly as they moved, “what do you know about the Huntsman and the Hart?”
“I think we can get this under control,” Sam said. “There are disciplines we can use to channel them.”
Dean sneered.
“It’s not going away, Dean,” Sam insisted, because of course he hadn’t needed to see Dean’s face to know what he’d think of that. “This isn’t something we can just cut out of ourselves.”
“Why the fuck not?” Dean asked.
“Hey, I’m no fan of mental discipline,” Buffy told him. “But I gotta say, I haven’t seen many of these things go away on their own.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re here, ‘cause we thought you could help,” Dean pointed out.
Without further conversational gambits, Buffy led them through the complex, searching for Willow. “So, couldn’t stay away,” Dean said to Sam once he was more certain he could make it come out jokingly.
Sam looked like Dean felt, bangs drooping over his eyes and skin so pale it wouldn’t look worse under fluorescent lights. “I wasn’t talking about meditation, Dean. I think there are ways to bind this thing down, so that we won’t keep wanting to kill each other.”
“Bind it down,” Dean repeated. Sam was usually pretty careful with his words, and that was the second time he’d said something other than ‘fix’ or ‘get rid of’ the problem. “So it would still be in us?”
Sam looked at Buffy’s back, and he wasn’t checking out her ass, so Dean had his answer. “There’s power here,” he said. “If I can get on top of it, I can use it-”
“Yeah, ‘cause that always works so well,” Dean said, but Sam wasn’t listening. Dean knew that not just because Sam never listened, but also because he could feel the blood rushing in his own ears, distracting him; he could feel their heartbeats speeding up in sync, urging them out of these bland corridors and out into the open. Sam’s presence was heating him up same as it was cooling Sam down-there was something flowing between them, but it wasn’t seeking an equal level, more like Sam was getting something from Dean and Dean was taking from Sam.
Finally, they found Willow in the kitchen. She had chocolate croissants, which immediately made the day about five times better. Sam refused his share and folded himself into a chair, watching as Dean tore pieces off and stuffed them into his mouth, licking his fingers as he went. Yeah, maybe he was working it a little, but Willow was watching out of the corner of her eye, and it was something to do.
“So, you got any ideas on how to fix this thing?” he asked once he’d reduced his pastry to stray flakes. Sam remained silent, arms folded over his chest, not hiding the pout that said that Dean ought to be following his lead instead.
“We think we can summon your mother’s spirit,” Willow said.
Dean stood up so fast his chair went skidding backwards into the wall. “Why?”
Willow looked at him, arms folded, waiting for him to work it out. Okay, he had to admit that there might just be something in his family’s past that they still didn’t know, and if Willow could raise a spirit without having it go apeshit then it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. After all, Azazel hadn’t killed nearly as many people around the other special kids, just the moms. Whether this Huntsman thing was part of that bastard’s special plan for Sam or something else, if Willow was right that there’d been a Winchester-specific prophecy then Mom might have heard it, either before or beyond the grave.
He’d already confronted his mother’s ghost once. Just a remnant, an echo, couldn’t hang around too long without going bad, he knew that. Which meant--“She already-we saw her spirit, but it left.” Burned up, he didn’t say. Went out fighting to save us just like Dad did, he didn’t say. “When ghosts go, they stay gone.”
“Well,” Willow said, “that’s kind of a matter of degree, at least when you’ve got a powerful enough witch, which you do. I’m not saying we can bring her back for long, but we can at least ask her if there were signs and portents. You know, like the prophet Dean met.”
Dean turned away, looking at the back of the kitchen door with its brightly colored chore schedules. He wished he were just some idiot signed up to do the cooking Thursday night. “Do we have to?” he asked.
Sam was watching the show with a slightly pained expression. This was all theoretical to him: nothing but Dean’s recycled memories to go on, and Dean had never been any good at explaining what a mom was. “We could get out of here-”
“No,” Dean snapped. He brought his hand up to cover his eyes, working up to it. “Sam, I can’t tell you I won’t-unless you can make your yoga mind control crap work right away, it’s not gonna work.” He shook out his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I guess we try Willow’s spell. But don’t you need something of hers to summon with?”
“We have something of hers, Dean,” Willow said gently. It took a second, and then Dean really needed to look down, remembering how he’d run towards her to tackle her into a hug, loving how big and strong he felt when she oofed and bent down to hug him. ‘My beautiful boy,’ Mom had always said, and he’d felt like it, so young and stupid that the very thought of himself back then made him want to punch something.
That kind of killed the conversation.
****
Buffy ordered them to find something useful to do while Willow set up the spell and Buffy did whatever a Slayer did while not slaying. Ordinarily that would’ve been Dean’s cue to ask where the weapons were stored, but he was going to have to take a pass just now.
“Aren’t you gonna complain about this whole ghost-summoning thing?” Dean asked Sam when they were finally alone.
“I’m leaning more toward complaining about how I’m taking out the trash,” Sam said, throwing another bag up into the dumpster.
“Hey, it was that or cleaning toilets,” Dean said, chucking his own contribution into the reeking metal hulk. “I checked. No freeloaders in this place, that’s for sure. And I don’t know if you noticed, Sam, but we kinda owe these girls for, you know, not killing us.” Then he had to back away to keep the buzz of chase-hunt-kill down to a tolerable level. Sam noticed.
“You see?” Sam said. “The faster you accept that these people don’t have any solutions to offer and that we have to deal with this ourselves, the faster we’re gonna start getting control of this thing. I shouldn’t have let you come here. I don’t think they can accept this kind of power in someone else’s hands.”
Dean wasn’t entirely sure that was the problem. Hell, he didn’t like the look in Sam’s eyes when Sam said ‘power.’ “What do you want me to do?” Dean managed. If Sam had a real plan that didn’t involve facing Mom, Dean was all in.
Sam gave Dean the wide-eyed look he only used when he was hiding something. “I picked up some supplies on the way. I just need more time. And privacy,” he added, which made Dean itch--these girls knew what magic was, and they also knew what black magic was, so Dean felt justified in assuming Sam’s plan had sketchy bits.
Dean didn’t even bother to shake his head. He’d wait for Willow’s solution, for now.
****
Dean went out to the parking lot to check on the car. He wondered if he’d have fewer dreams if he slept inside her, surrounded by cold iron and the leather smell of home.
“Hey,” Buffy said. He looked up and nodded at her. She was carrying a sack of groceries. Dean was used to meeting people with separate, ordinary lives-that’s what they did, swept into town and fixed things for those people-but it was weird to see someone who knew what was really lurking in the dark carrying a plastic sack filled with milk and Oreos. Sure, he knew Bobby must shop, in theory, but it wasn’t the same as seeing Buffy and knowing that she had a whole group of Slayers to look after, not to mention afternoon snacks to grab. Somehow she’d made a life that wasn’t all highway miles and strangers.
“You about ready-what is that?”
Because Buffy was not likely to be trying to fake him out, Dean turned--and saw the pack of horses. They were heading straight towards the Slayers’ compound. And straight towards included going through the parked cars.
Ghost horses. “That’s new,” Dean said.
“They don’t look very much like the pony I always wanted,” Buffy said back. Their heads were too large for their necks, and they were so scrawny that every tendon stood out, like they weren’t much more than skeletons with skins wrapped around. Their mouths were foam-flecked and red.
He heard the milk and cookies drop to the ground as Buffy bolted towards the office door, and he figured that was as good an idea as any.
The first horse hit what must have been some kind of mystical barrier about ten feet in front of the office windows-that was new too, and smart, Dean thought-and disappeared in a flash of sick-making green, and then another two. The others tried to stop, squealing and whining, but two more crashed and flared out before the pack managed to halt itself, stomping and neighing in place. From his position with his back to the door, Dean could smell burnt and spoiled meat.
“Hey!” Buffy yelled before Dean could figure out the right words to say to the sole rider, at the back of the hissing and shuffling group.
The thing that looked over them was-first he thought it was a man more beautiful than Brad Pitt, and then it was a flayed corpse, and then a grey-haired Helen Mirrin type, and then its face was covered with huge yellow pimples-
“Stop that!” Buffy demanded, raising the long knife she’d taken from her back sheath. Amazingly, it worked, though less amazingly the thing settled on the version with the yellow pimples.
“Give me the Huntsman and the Hart,” it said, into Dean’s head without using any sound. The sensation was like having the inside of his skull rubbed with rough bricks. Dean raised his gun and thought about the silver knife in his ankle sheath, if he had time to go for it.
“Okay, one, I really prefer to do this kind of thing out loud,” Buffy told it. “Two, and maybe I’m assuming here, but if you’re not here to give them hugs then we’re going to have a problem. Actually, if you are here to give them hugs, they’re probably not going to be any happier, but that’s their macho issue and not mine.”
“Hey,” Dean said out of the side of his mouth.
“You do not understand the danger in which they put us all,” the thing croaked, its voice like the sound of an engine grinding itself up.
Buffy didn’t lower her knife, but she stood a little straighter, maybe because the thing was playing by her rules. “So educate me.” Dean thought about speaking up for himself, but she was doing pretty good, plus he saw the point of not reminding the dude (?) that the Huntsman was standing right there.
The horses pawed at the concrete, which sounded really awful, and Dean didn’t like the low, wheezing sounds of their breath. “Already their corruption spreads,” it said. “The Great Tree should be watered with the blood of their sacrifice, but it is blocked.”
Buffy sighed. “You’re gonna have to break that down some more.”
“Can you not sense it?” the thing demanded. One of the horses lost patience and charged the barrier, and worryingly got a good two feet inside before the magic managed to burn it up. Dean readied himself to fight and hoped the Slayers had noticed the oncoming battle. At least the horses seemed fully solid now, none of this I-can-grab-you-but-you-can’t-grab-me shit that the incorporeal tended to pull.
“The cycle is blocked,” the thing (Dean was just going to call it Captain Cryptic if it kept on like this) said again. “The Hunt makes the seasons flow, seasons of man and seasons of beast, but they will not hunt.”
“You mean they’re not trying to kill each other,” Buffy said. “Can’t say I see that as a bad thing.”
“Then you are a fool,” Captain Cryptic said. Like that was the starter pistol, the rest of the horses, except for the one it was riding, charged the barrier in a group, and Dean’s ears popped as it broke.
Then it was just Buffy and Dean outside; Dean hoped the girls inside knew enough to stay inside, protected, as long as they could. “Get back,” Buffy ordered Dean, which: like fuck. Buffy headed straight towards Captain Cryptic, closing the small gap between them. Dean fired around, catching one horse in the neck and another in the eye, but they were just too fucking big to slow down like that. He ducked and swerved and nearly got smushed by a hoof. Fortunately, none of the horses seemed to have brains of their own, which made them an awful lot like regular horses in Dean’s opinion. He put a couple more slugs into the pack and managed to take down one right before it got Buffy from behind, her own momentum carrying her away from its collapse.
Captain Cryptic’s horse reared so that Buffy had to dodge its hooves, but she got in a good slash as she went under it. Its belly sagged open and grey guts spilled out, but nauseatingly the horse didn’t seem bothered, trampling its own intestines as the smell of rot and bile grew so intense that Buffy had to stop her attack to retch. She narrowly dodged Captain Cryptic’s arm-Dean couldn’t even tell if it had a weapon, that was how hard it was to look at the thing-and fell back against the brick wall beside the door, which shattered under the horse’s weight.
Dean dove inside to follow it, dodging huge shards of glass, at which point he realized a key fact: while Captain Cryptic was really intimidating, and while the ghost horses had been pretty good weapons against a magic shield, a big guy (thing) mounted on a horse really didn’t have much room to maneuver in a standard-sized front office.
There was a lot of screaming, and a couple of crossbow bolts went in the wrong direction entirely-Jane needed a refresher course and Dean was going to have a couple of words with her about that when things calmed down--but with Sam, Buffy, and the three other Slayers who’d been ready to help when called, both the horse and the rider were put out of their misery in under a minute.
Not out of Dean’s misery, though, what with the smell, and two of the Slayers went the distance by throwing up onto the mess.
“I’m gonna find Willow,” Buffy said through her pinched nose. Dean nodded at her unhappily. Dean had some talking to Sam to do himself.
****
Dean managed to grab a shower first, because of the phantom horse guts (and also grabbing his duffel gave him an excuse to make sure that those ugly hooves had been nowhere near his baby), but the water felt like a rainstorm trickling down through the leaves and when he closed his eyes he could have been in the forest.
Sam was waiting for him when he got out, not even waiting for him to get dressed. “Do you know what the fuck that was about?” Dean asked, pulling a semi-clean T-shirt over his head.
“No,” Sam said. Dean checked his expression, and couldn’t tell what it meant. “This is what I’m talking about-I need to step up and get this power under control, and you need to help me, or weird horse guy is just going to be the first.”
Dean tugged a pair of jeans on, then his boots. Those needed cleaning too, but he didn’t have extras.
“Still waiting on some specifics from you, Sammy,” he said, and decided that, yes, he did need to put his weapons back in place, as tough as that was with Sam in the room. That meant he was kind of distracted while Sam talked about some mystical metal he had a line on, some kind of bracelet he wanted Dean to wear. “Like a dreamcatcher,” he said, but Dean had the strong impression that this wasn’t the usual ‘simplify it for Dean because he doesn’t give a shit’ explanation but instead was a ‘don’t tell Dean what it actually is because he will freak the fuck out.’ When Sam got to the part where it was somehow going to feed off of Dean’s blood, Dean might’ve flipped out a little regardless.
Through superhuman self-control (okay, through walking out and ignoring Sam as he followed Dean through the halls), Dean managed not to punch him out. Fortunately, when he found Willow in her workshop, she was just about ready for the summoning. She chattered about the extra power required to reset the spell barrier around the Slayers’ compound, and it was something for Dean to hang on to that wasn’t about cutting Sam open to see what made him tick, so Dean was nothing but grateful.
The summoning ritual itself was completely unfamiliar to him. Dean had never been one to buy trouble. Scratch that: Dean had never been one to buy ghost trouble. Okay, so Dean had never been one to buy ghost trouble if the ghost wasn’t asking for it.
Unlike Dean, Sam seemed to recognize the spell enough to engage in a scholarly discussion about its echoes in subsequent rituals with Willow while Buffy checked her weapons. Dean forced himself to play his own role-his real role, not this bullshit Huntsman stuff-and leaned up against the wall, smirking. “Aw, Sam, you’re so erudite,” he cooed, and it made Willow blush.
“Erudite, Dean?” Sam snarked back. “Where’d you get that, some porno starring fake college girls?”
“Come on, you know I never listen to the dialogue,” he shot back. It didn’t feel comfortable, more like the first grief-dazed weeks after Stanford, but they were both trying, and that had to mean something.
“I’m going to take your blood now,” Willow announced.
They turned, each of them starting to roll up his sleeve.
“Dean’s,” Willow clarified. “He’s older, and, no offense, Sam, I just don’t know what effect traces of demon blood could have.”
“None taken,” Sam said. Dean checked his expression, but he didn’t seem hurt or guilty like he’d used to when the topic of his demonization came up. Unfortunately, turning his Sam-radar on reminded him that he really kind of wanted to grab Sam and-and-his mind refused to elaborate on what next, but nails and teeth might be involved.
Dean thought about the emergency flask in the trunk of the car. Whiskey hadn’t been able to dull the push-pull he felt towards Sam, but Dean had the idea that he hadn’t given his all to the project just yet.
Willow coughed. “If you’re ready,” she said, and she did have a lot in common with Sam, since she didn’t even have to say ‘stop wasting my time’ out loud. The Winchester way would have been a nice clean cut, but Willow insisted on a full Red Cross setup, needle and bloodbag and everything. At least it meant she spent some time rubbing his skin clean, and even if they weren’t going there again she still smelled nice and touched him with concern. A pint of blood was a fair trade for that.
****
Dean knelt where he’d been put and stared at his mother’s ghost.
Mom didn’t look like she had last time, in Lawrence, even though she was still in her white gown. More translucent maybe, blurrier; Willow had mentioned something in the flood of words about how this version wouldn’t be exactly the same as a restless spirit, since this time they were doing the invoking. Dean couldn’t figure it out, not when Mom was there in front of him.
She disappeared from the casting circle and instantly reappeared in front of the bowl full of his blood, raising it in cupped hands and drinking it down with a vampire hunger that made Dean twitch with the wrongness of it. Dean wanted to stand up and run away, and he wanted to reach out and grab her, let her drink directly from him if that would keep her longer.
Beside him, sitting crosslegged like a kid in front of a campfire, Sam wasn’t even breathing hard. All he saw was a face from a picture, another ghost. For a moment Dean couldn’t breathe for being angry.
Mom closed her red, shining mouth with a snap. The bowl was instantly back in its place on the floor. “I’m sorry, Dean,” she said, looking only at him, maybe because his blood made him more real to her. Her voice was full of slithery noises, like it was put together from the sound of a nest of snakes. Her lips were pale underneath the blood.
“Oh, baby,” she said. “I wish-I don’t have much time.” She flashed forward again, putting a translucent hand on his forehead.
Willow stepped forward before Dean could offer something he really shouldn’t. “Do you know anything about a prophecy about your family? Maybe something about your blood?”
The ghost stiffened and flickered, pulling back from Dean. “No,” she said, “no, that never happened.”
“What?” all four of them asked, overlapping. Dean had forgotten Buffy was even there.
“My family always knew magic was real,” Mom said. Dean’s mouth fell open and he shook like he’d been electrocuted, barely managing to stay seated. “We saw it all the time. When I was a girl, they took me to a seer. When she tried to tell my future, her eyes bled. She said,” turning away, looking out into nothingness, “she said that my children had been foretold. That I’d have twins, two beautiful boys, and that they’d destroy the world.”
The room was grave-silent for a moment, until Willow, who had less skin in the game, said, “But you didn’t have twins …?”
“No,” she said, and Dean sagged, gripping his jeans and rocking forward. Sam took a step forward to put a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and as quickly fell back, as if the touch had stung. Mom’s ghost continued: “I found a witch, old and powerful. She did a spell she said would make sure I’d never have more than one child.” Dean’s head snapped back up. Mom’s eyes welled with tears. “When I got pregnant with Sam, I was so afraid-but then he was born, and I thought she’d just got the words wrong.”
“Witchcraft like that always has a price,” Dean said, rough as old wood.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” she said, and Dean couldn’t ask more about that. “But it worked. I thought we were going to be safe. Then Azazel came.”
“So why did the prophecy start up again?” Buffy wondered.
“The Sumerian spell,” Willow said, consideringly. “When we put them together to destroy the crossroads demon, we made them the psychic equivalent of twins.”
Sam nodded, like all the pieces were falling into place. “Symbolism matters more than reality to magic. It was us.”
“It was my deal,” Dean said, and snapped his mouth shut. He felt blank, like his brain had been left in the fridge overnight.
Mom was wavering, her outline blurring into the wall behind her.
“How does this world-destroying happen? Can it be stopped?” Willow asked quickly, but Mom shook her head helplessly.
“I loved you,” she mouthed and fragmented into mist.
Dean put his head in his hands and bowed down, hiding his face as he made a noise like tearing metal. Then he got up and punched the wall.
“Dean,” Sam yelped, jumping to his feet, and Willow was looking pretty freaked, which he hadn’t meant to happen.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his hand out. One knuckle had split, and the cut on his arm stung like a motherfucker, so he’d probably opened that up too. “I just-”
“Twins,” Willow said. “That’s a good lead, I’ll get right on it.” She fled before Dean could say more, and Buffy followed after, not without a long, considering look at Dean that Dean took as a warning to behave.
“I was never supposed to exist,” Sam said, finally.
Dean growled an immediate protest. “You were supposed to-” He stopped, breathed out hard, and wiped his hand over his face. “Four years or four minutes, doesn’t make any difference. You’re still my brother, we’re still fucked.”
Twins. Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick. Obviously Dean was always supposed to be the oldest one, the one in charge, but still: no wonder Sam was such a snot-nosed rebel. He always must’ve felt the unnatural delay between them somehow. If it hadn’t been so wrapped up in the whole Huntsman/Hart disaster, finding that out would have been pretty freaking cool, actually. Dean had always been closer to Sam than was comfortable, but with twins it was different. Justified.
Oh, and also, Mom was a hunter, and knew about prophecies and witchcraft, all the mystical shit Dad had only picked up after her death. Dean was sorely tempted to pour out another serving of blood and ask her why she didn’t ever tell Dad-though once he thought about it he kind of doubted that pre-Azazel John Winchester would have believed any of this bull for a second. He had so many questions for her. He knew that most of them weren’t of any importance to anyone but him, and it was probably-definitely-a mistake to be worried about the past when he and Sam were so close to meltdown.
Plus he was exhausted. If he closed his eyes he was pretty sure he was going to be back in the forest, and he didn’t know whether he’d wake up as good old Dean Winchester.
Sam went over to where Dean had punched the wall and put his hand out, touching the smear of blood Dean had left behind. He stood there, but Dean could tell he was only calm by force, like he was waiting to be frisked. The sight of him, back to Dean like that, made Dean’s blood run faster and his hands curl into fists. The table he was standing by looked flimsy enough; it would break in a real fight, and then Dean could get a leg, all jagged-edged, and-
“Twins destroy the world when they’re in opposition,” Sam said into the wall, muffled. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. Romulus and Remus founded Rome together.”
Dean remembered catching a special on the History Channel that told the story a little different-the brothers did fine until their war was over, then split up when they couldn’t agree how to handle the peace, and one of them ended up dead, which was why the city was only named for one of them. Still, he wasn’t about to start arguing ancient history with Sam. They had enough history of their own, and Sam already sounded like he was trying to convince some prosecutor that really, they were nice guys who didn’t deserve any of the nasty things being said about them.
If Dean had been a different guy, he would’ve told Sam how fucking scared he was. If Sam had been regular Sam, open about his feelings, he would’ve gone first. But this was some supernatural shit, not even Sam’s real emo.
He was losing Sam. Again. Not to college or to grief, and he should probably care more that they were likely to do some collateral damage, but all he could feel was the poisoned connection between them, twisting them both further and further away from what they should be. It was like watching Sam sink down under water, face blurring into unrecognizability-and the worst was that Sam was seeing the same thing in reverse, and Sam had always found it easier to look away from Dean in the first place.
They stayed there, unable to break the silence. It was worse even then when Dean’s deal had been coming to a close because of how Dean wanted to claw his way inside Sam and stay-the only way he’d ever get to stay, to keep Sam from running. Dean had thought they’d gotten zipped up tight again, but it was understandable that Sam would run again, eventually, and end up the Hart to Dean’s Huntsman. This time Dean would get to catch him for good, keep him, Sam under his nails and running hot over his teeth--
Dean realized that he wasn’t so much standing as tensed to lunge, leaning forward so that when he leapt he’d be on Sam faster than Sam could react, and he forced himself to sit down, pressing himself into Willow’s chair until the wood was digging into the flesh under his shoulders.
Eventually, long after Dean had gotten his breathing under control and shoved all the stuff he couldn’t afford to care about back out of his head, Willow stuck her head back in the room. “Good news,” she said. “Well! Some news is better than no news, I guess? I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right myth now. Twins are big in a lot of legends, and a lot of times you get them having a frenemy thing going on, but I found this really ancient story where one of them is specifically the hunter and the other is the prey. If I’m right, then you two connected to the same mythos as the Powers That Be.”
“The what now?” The anger was simmering in Dean, looking for a target, and it didn’t much care about what the target deserved.
Sam coughed. He was watching Willow with a wary (hunted) expression. “Enigmatic and ancient forces usually on the side of good.”
Willow nodded. “The Powers are members of a broader pantheon, which includes the Huntsman and the Hart. Unlike the Powers, those guys manifest in humans, or the human-equivalent, in various dimensions and, um, tend to herald apocalypses of one sort or another. That part’s unclear-think that monologue in Ghostbusters.”
Dean snorted, remembering that Willow was in many ways exactly his kind of girl. At least Sam hadn’t turned into the Keymaster. Except: “Hey, we’ve got these fancy anti-possession tattoos. Why don’t they protect us?”
Willow frowned. “I don’t remember seeing-uh, I mean I wasn’t paying attention to your-oh, darnit!” Her face was so red it clashed with her hair, and her discomfort was really harshing Dean’s already limited mellow.
He summoned his best smile, or whatever he had left of it, and tilted his head for improved effectiveness. “Hey, I get it. But it sounds like a lot of people could get hurt, so can we please pretend-really pretend, not the fake thing where we don’t look at each other-that we’re just two good guys working on the same side?”
Her color subsided, and she smiled back, a little crookedly. “Does the charm offensive thing work for you a lot?”
Sam snorted, proving that his little brother was still in there. Dean shrugged and relaxed a few degrees. “Usually it gets me smacked around, but sometimes it pays off.”
She smiled, just a little, and waved her hands at him. “Show me the tattoo already.”
Dean unbuttoned his shirt enough to pull it aside and show off the Devil’s Trap.
“That’s easy,” she said as soon as she’d examined the whole thing. “Those are only directed at demonic possession. The Huntsman and the Hart don’t possess a person, they inhabit him or her.”
“That’s a crappy distinction,” Dean said, offended on behalf of the supernaturally challenged everywhere.
Willow shrugged helplessly and nodded her agreement. “Listen,” she said, “now that I’ve got a line on this thing, I’ve got to talk to some other witches I know, and then figure out what to do with Buffy. Will you be okay?”
“Sure,” Sam said, always the better liar between them, and Willow slipped out without confirming anything with Dean.
Dean wanted to get up and pace, but that would mean coming close to Sam, and he wasn’t sure he could handle that right now, so he just jittered in place at his seat.
“The Powers That Be,” Sam said consideringly, and Dean thought about expressing his very deep annoyance that he could hear the capitalization. Shitty name for a bunch of pumped-up supernatural goons, anyway. “Dean, if that’s what this is, then it might not be so bad. We need to see where it goes.”
Dean was already shaking his head. “Where it goes is me killing you, or didn’t you notice that part?”
Sam frowned and pushed his hair off his forehead, which made Dean notice that he’d gone well past ‘need a haircut’ and almost all the way to ‘swamp monster.’ “I don’t think it’s a one-sided fight.”
Dean waved a hand at him. “C’mon, Sammy, you’re freakin’ Bambi.”
“The Hunter isn’t just some indestructible Terminator,” Sam argued, his leg jittering like he’d had eighteen cups of coffee without a bathroom break. “There’s danger in the hunt, and overcoming that danger is the point. Look, Dean, there are ways to open ourselves up to-to whatever this is, make it work for us.”
Because Dean was really good at ‘opening himself,’ yeah. Dean made a face and Sam scowled right back. “What have we heard from Willow that’s better? Maybe we need to take the power for ourselves instead of relying on witches and Slayers.”
“Witches and Slayers did pretty good for us last time,” Dean said, keeping his voice down only with effort.
Sam shrugged that off. “They don’t know everything,” he said, conspiratorial, and Dean couldn’t help but lean forward.
“Sam?” It was a warning as much as a question.
Sam took a deep breath, and something in his eyes reminded Dean of how he’d looked right before announcing his full ride to Stanford. Half thrilled, half angry, all heading away from Dean. “I have to win, Dean. There’s something different about me, something that makes me stronger than the Huntsman. I don’t know if it’s the demon blood, or what Mom did, or something else, but I don’t think you can beat me.”
“I don’t want--” Dean began automatically, but even aside from the bullshit Huntsman stuff Dean kind of did want to smack Sam around some, just for giving him so much trouble. “Sam, what’s going on with you? What do you mean, stronger?”
“You know,” Sam said, eyes wide and intense. And the problem was, Dean really didn’t, but Sam would expect him to deny it even if he had understood what the fuck Sam was talking about.
“Pretend like I don’t,” Dean suggested.
Sam jumped out of his chair like he’d been flung by a slingshot. “The chase doesn’t have to be eternal. If the Hart wins, we could break the cycle entirely. We could be free.”
That didn’t make any sense to Dean, and the sheen of sweat on Sam’s temples wasn’t doing anything to convince him either. Plus Dean was starting to worry about whether he could stay in his seat with Sam prancing around just begging to be tackled. Dean could practically smell--
He couldn’t be here, not with Sam so close but still ignoring him when Dean’s only idea for making him pay attention was to make him bleed.
He thought again about trying to sleep, but even with the fatigue making his skin feel like lead and his bones like iron, he was too worried about what he might see in his dreams. “I’ll be down in the training room,” he said. If Dean got himself knocked unconscious by one of the Slayers, at least he’d get some rest.
“If you’d just let me--” Sam said, some kind of warning. Dean was going to deal with him just as soon as he got himself under control.
part 3
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