in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath [SPN, gen, case!fic] [1/3]
Written by Samantha Simard, © 2011
Title: in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath
Author: the_sammykinz
Artist: dollarformyname
Beta: gerolyn7
Rating: R (the boys like the F-word)
Genre: Supernatural - written for the spn-gen-bigbang 2011.
Timeline: Season 3, set between "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Kids Are Alright" - spoilers for anything before then.
Word count: Just over 15,000.
Warnings: Language, some violence and gore, lots of fire, a good-old-fashioned ghost hunt, major mockery of New Englanders, as much brotherly schmoop as I could stomach, and... a moose-themed motel room.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, so mad props to Kripke and company. The legend of Joey McCabe, the bridge, and the accident are real. I changed the date (but not the year) of the original accident, and also tweaked the story of Joey McCabe-you’ll see why. To my knowledge, the Museum of New England History doesn’t exist, but if it did, it would be that weird. The title is from “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull.
Summary: With Dean’s doomsday clock hovering at eleven months to go, the Winchesters decide that a good old-fashioned ghost hunt is in order, in the wilds of White River Junction, Vermont. What begins as an old local legend turns out to be much more, and what they thought was a simple case is anything but. In the end, it all comes down to two brothers-because, really, irony’s a b*tch.
Author's note: Hey everybody! Believe it or not, this was my first attempt at a gen!fic for Supernatural, so bear with me! It was written for the spn_gen_bigbang 2011 here on LJ, and I had a great time doing it! Visit the master post for a full set of thank-yous, which was too big to put in here! Tell me what you think, and drool over the art!
Check out Lisa's wicked art masterpost!
Dean Winchester had a love-hate relationship with driving.
He loved driving only if it was the Impala, because no other car ever matched up to his baby. If it wasn’t her, then it was just like anything else-mediocre. He could drive for minutes or hours or days behind the wheel of his Chevy, whether he had a place to go or not. But, he also had to eat and drink and piss like anybody-that made long, middle-of-nowhere type road trips sucky.
And then there was Sam.
Riding with his brother was something Dean had missed for almost three years. It pained him to think about giving it up again.
Damn it all, Dean had missed Sam and his stupid floppy hair and his complaining. And yeah, okay, maybe being able to find something in the trunk when he wanted it was nice. The bitch was good at organizing shit-totally worth selling your soul for.
But right now, Dean was asking Sam one of his least favorite-and most frequent-questions. “Where the hell are we?”
Sam was in the passenger’s seat of the Impala, face squinching as he rotated a crumpled map of the region on the dash. “Uh… New Hampshire? Maybe. I think.”
“Not helping, Sammy.”
A huff. “Hey, I can’t help it everything looks the same.”
Dean snorted, although it was true enough. For the afternoon, it felt like they’d seen nothing but trees and mountains and, oh yeah, more freakin’ trees. A little town would zip past the windows occasionally, but that was about it.
“What, fields and cow crap in Podunk, Oklahoma don’t blend together?” He winced as a pinecone covered in sap hit the windshield with a thunksplat. If that stuff even thought about ruining his baby’s paint job... and speaking of Dean’s inner pouty child: “Besides, this was your stupid idea anyway.”
Sam was busy playing Take Down with the map, but cut his brother a look anyway. “Oh, so now a lake monster-”
“A total tourist trap is stupid, yeah! Sam, that friggin’ thing’s been bringing people to Lake Champlain since forever. Wouldn’t you think if it was real somebody would’ve ganked it by now?” Sounded stupid, seeing as he’d agreed-way back in Lake Montiac-that Champ was probably swimming around somewhere.
Sam’s hands stopped moving, and the car was suddenly quiet without the rustle of paper. “Look, I just figured we could use something... just a hunt, with no destiny, or demons, or...” Deals, was the word that hung between them, silent and heavy. “Simple. Not that our lives are ever simple.”
Of course, the other thing Sam didn’t say was that he was going to use every bit of his free time on a bum case to look for a loophole in Dean’s whole selling-his-soul-to-Satan brainstorm. No reason he couldn’t multitask… discreetly, right?
Dean reached over and flipped on the radio. Journey filtered through the speakers, Steve’s voice matching the hum of wheels on the road. He tried to ignore the prickle at the back of his brain that told him they were getting in way over their heads. Again. “Amen to that.”
An hour later Sam and Dean were in Vermont, barely over the New Hampshire border in White River Junction.
The summer sunset bounced off the Connecticut River, and people milled around talking Red Sox and camping and a picnic on the common. It was another typical New England town, with whitewashed houses, flags, and a swinging bench on every porch. The businesses were renovated and the streets were clean, though notably missing sidewalks.
The Winchesters found a small diner on the main drag for dinner-part of an old mill building with modern décor and old-time charm-that was offering Grade-A maple syrup with anything, no extra charge.
Sam slid down the red vinyl of the booth a little further, looking pointedly out the window as his brother doused a plate of onion rings in maple syrup. “Dean.”
“What?” Dean did his best to look affronted; truth was this was half eating, half torturing. “C’mon, Sammy! It’s a free country.”
“Yeah, but I’m the only upstanding citizen that’s gotta deal with your sugar rush and onion breath.”
Dean looked up with a grin as their waitress put down another pint of syrup and a pile of cheddar cheese puffs in front of him. “Finally! Thank you, sweetheart.”
“Mhmm. No problem.” Their pretty brunette waitress sashayed to another table.
Meanwhile, Sam did his best not to gag. “Christ, Dean, that’s not even…” He steeled himself and started to pick at his salad, yelping when the maple syrup bottle appeared under his nose.
Dean gave him one of his best chipmunk-cheeked smiles, and if it looked like a cement mixer, so what? What he said next was supposed to be “want some?” but sounded more like, “w’nt sm?”
Sam used his fork to push the bottle aside and started to bitch, but his ears pricked up at an outburst from the guy at the next table: “… a-and it’s only four d-days away! He’s coming on M-Monday.”
He was an older man with a cue ball head and thick glasses. He sat alone at the booth across the aisle from them, with a cup of coffee held between his brown-spotted, shaky hands. A local newspaper sat on the table beside him.
The waitress Sam and Dean also had smiled at him. “Mr. Parker, don’t worry-everything will be fine. You’ll see.” She patted the old man’s shoulder and turned away; her expression changed to annoyed, and maybe a little sad. She shook herself and headed back towards the kitchen.
“Huh.” Dean swallowed, licking some syrup off his thumb. “Wonder what that was all about?”
The corners of Sam’s mouth turned down in his usual, “I-have-no-friggin’-idea” expression. “I dunno. Does something-”
He stopped as their waitress approached their table again, coffee pot in hand. There was no flirty smile this time. “Warm you up?”
“Sure thing-” Dean’s eyes swooped for a nametag, “-Cindy.” She started to refill his mug, and he made a vague hand gesture. “So, what was up with that guy?”
Cindy glanced over her shoulder at the old man, before snapping her gum and saying, “He’s, like, the town nut. His name is Jerry Parker, comes in every day for his coffee and newspaper, same time, for as long as I can remember. The side effects of the stroke are getting to him, though. And around this time of year, he gets… weird. Tells that story over and over again, won’t believe it’s just a legend.”
Sam and Dean exchanged a quick glance.
“What’s the legend?” Sam asked, something at the back of his mind perking up. Maybe I’ve heard this before.
“Well, part of it’s true. There was an accident over in West Hartford a long time ago, and Mr. Parker says his great-grandfather was on the train when it crashed. Supposedly there’s, like, a ghost or whatever that haunts the tracks.” She grinned suddenly. “Seems too Poltergeist, y’know?”
“’Course it does,” Dean said, his eyes saying the exact opposite. “Totally nutty.”
I knew it. There was a beat of silence, and then Sam slapped a palm on the table in what he hoped was a decisive way. “Well, we better get going.”
“Oh, you guys aren’t planning on leaving town today, are you?” Cindy inquired, penciled eyebrows drawing down as she gestured towards the window, and the not-so-busy street beyond it. “We’re gonna get a heck of a thunderstorm in a few.”
Dean eyed her before looking through the glass; the dusky sky was clear. “Uh… doesn’t look like it.”
She winked. “Never does, sugar. Weather up here changes if you blink.”
Across the room, Jerry Parker turned a trembling newspaper page and whispered, “I c-can feel it in m-my bones. It’s coming.”
He wasn’t talking about the weather.
So much for the wild Nessie chase, Sam thought, taking the steps down to the parking lot two at a time-force of habit. You try having his giant legs sometime.
They got back in the car (stolen maple syrup tucked away in the trunk) and Dean said, “Dude, the hamster wheel’s turning in that head of yours-tell me we’re abandoning the wild Nessie chase.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
Sam smiled faintly and cleared his throat. “Nothing-and, yeah, maybe. I’ll see what I can dig up tomorrow… I think I’ve heard the old man’s story before.” He glanced around when they hit a stoplight. “Did you see a motel on the way in here?”
Dean grinned in that maniacal way of his, popping on a turn signal. “You bet your ass I did. Real quality establishment.”
Five minutes later, they were in front of the Moose Tracks Inn, which had nothing to do with the ice cream flavor and everything to do with the mammal. It was an old one-story L-shaped joint, painted a tacky shade of green, with the office on the short side of the bend and the rooms running beyond it. The sign out front was the size and shape of a real moose, complete with flashing Christmas lights strung around it.
God bless backwoods New Englanders and their tasteless charm.
The portly man behind the counter looked like a Fighting Irish guy who’d gone too heavy on the chili-cheese fries. He gave Dean a motel key with a plastic keychain in the shape of a tiny moose with really big balls.
He looked between Sam and Dean and grinned, showing a distinct lack of front teeth. “You boys have fun on them mattresses, now.”
“Even when we get two doubles, people still think we’re gay.” Dean parked the Impala a few spaces down from their room, and they grabbed their stuff and headed for the door. It was painted a darker shade of that tacky green and had a brass number on it. “We should do something about that.”
“Like wh-holy crap.” Sam stopped in the doorway, staring in abject horror at the most fugly motel room he’d seen since the disco freak show in upstate New York.
The floor was parquet and the walls were covered in forest-themed wallpaper, and all the furniture was supposed to look like boulders or trees. The beds were tiny and had moose-printed bedspreads; there were several unlucky stuffed animals scattered around, including a large buck’s head directly over the little table and chairs, which appeared to be made out of logs. There was a poor excuse for a window, and God only knew what the bathroom looked like-it was hidden from view by a “rock wall” divider.
“Dude, it looks like Yogi Bear threw up in here,” Sam said, trying not to choke on the smell of dead things and dust. “I think I liked John Travolta’s wet dream better.”
“What’d I tell you, Sammy?” Dean grinned again, tossing his bag onto the bed closest to the door. He tried to ignore how the mattress sagged under its weight. “Classy place. Now scram, I call first shower.”
They’d been driving for twelve hours straight after coming off a rough hunt in Delaware (fucking Black Dogs, always eating people), so as usual, the substandard, dingy motel room was both a blessing and a curse.
Sam went out, bought two six-packs, and got the lay of the land-all three stoplights, hot dog-while Dean undoubtedly watched some local porn with an unrelenting beaver theme. Normally Dean would, uh, do better than that with Hell looming, but aside from Cindy the waitress, the town was lacking in the chicks department. It was so bad even Sam noticed, distracted though he was.
Sam walked a full circle around town after the stop at a convenience store, which took about ten minutes. It was raining and thunder could be heard in the distance, but for once he wasn’t worried about being the tallest object around. He tried not to think too hard about anything: the blonde chick with the demon-killing knife; how to break the deal; letting all those damn demons out in the first place; and that nagging guilt complex he’d developed about his brother.
Save Dean save Dean save Dean, played on staccato repeat in the back of his brain, all the time. It was like a drumbeat at a loud concert, a noise so loud he could never run away from it.
He’d done enough running. It was time he paid Dean back.
Sam let himself back into the annals of moose as quietly as he could, only to find that his party hardy brother was lights out in bed. Dean didn’t snore when he was sleeping; he did something almost like sighing, with every breath. That sound had been Sam’s lullaby for a long time.
Sam’s lips quirked, and he knew his expression was showing fondness that he’d get mocked for if Dean was awake. Sam’s smile winked out instantly when he thought about the day Dean wouldn’t be there to hassle him, or-stop it, he insisted mentally.
Sam shook himself, setting the PBR down on the table gently and stripping off his jacket. If his hands were shaking when he threw a blanket over his snuffling sibling, at least nobody was there to see it.
Cracklecracklecrackle.
Dean came to with a muffled snort; one hand sliding under his pillow for what Sam had dubbed his “paranoia-will-destroy-you” knife. (It figured the bitch would pick that opportunity to make a bad song reference.) He waited, fingers curled around its hilt. Well, nothing but the sound of his own breathing… wait, just his own?
Where the hell was Sam?
Dean opened his eyes, green irises flaring briefly in the shadows. The Bambi and Boo-Boo heads on the walls made odd silhouettes; out on I-89, a truck shifted gears; the lights on the sign out front glittered between the gaps in the curtains. No immediate danger.
Sam wasn’t in bed.
Dean jackknifed upright in his own, and that’s when he heard that fucking noise again-only instead of a crackle, it was a series of snaps, less like wood burning and more like bones breaking. Bones were going to be breaking if Sam wasn’t in the bathroom taking a goddamn crap, or something equally not worth flipping Dean’s shit over. Although not literally flipping his shit, because that would just be-
“Dean.” Sam’s voice came, groggy and a smidge annoyed, from… the floor? “I swear to God, if you move again, I will kill you.”
Relief flooded Dean briefly. Then he dragged a hand down his face and wondered why his brother was such a gigantic psychic-wonder freak. “The fuck are you doing down there, Sam?”
“Gee, I thought I’d take a vacation.”
“At a lower altitude? Well, shit, bring me back some mouse ears.”
“Jerk.”
“Bitch. Seriously, though, humping the floor? It’s a little weird, even for you.” Dean shifted because his ass was falling asleep, and there it was again! Cracklecracklecrackle.
Sam groaned and sat up, his hair disheveled in a way that only Sam’s hair could be.
Dean resisted the Cousin It jokes that were threatening to consume him; instead, he said, “It’s the beds.”
“Good-” Sam squinted at the clock for confirmation, “morning, Captain Obvious. Anything else from the news desk?”
“Yeah.” Dean flung a pillow at Sam’s matted head, hitting him dead center. His not-so-little brother let out a string of muffled curses that made him chuckle as he grabbed a blanket and got cozy on the parquet. “Go back to sleep.”
“Bite me.”
“You wish.”
A few hours later, Dean was munching on a chocolate-covered donut in a little coffee shop with a generic and unfunny “bean” punch line for a name. He was saying, “Must be Fritos or something. Nothin’ else that loud, except maybe breaking a foot.”
Sam eyed him from behind the laptop, his own glazed glob of fat untouched but his coffee half gone. Freak. “Dude. Bigger fish.”
“All right then, Moby Dick, enlighten me.”
Sam let out a huff of air through his nose, but replied, “Okay, so what Cindy told us about Jerry Parker? I knew some of it already-the old man’s not crazy history-wise.”
He turned the laptop around so Dean could look. “In 1887, there was a train accident in West Hartford, about seven miles from here. There’s a railroad bridge that goes across the White River, and the thing’s got a wicked corner on the east side. The last sleeper car on this train left the tracks and fell once it reached the start of the bridge-took two more cars with it into a ditch, and everything caught on fire, including the bridge. About thirty people died and a crapload more were hurt, but there’s no list of names that I can find.”
Dean had been skimming articles while Sam talked, and bit into his second donut. “So… what? Must be a spirit that the old man’s afraid of. There a legend?”
“Hell yes.” Sam turned the laptop back to him and clicked around a bit. “The most famous story is kind of an urban legend, about a kid named Joey McCabe. I guess he, uh-” a millisecond of pain flashed on his face, “-burned alive, in the third coach. He was thirteen. Means there has to be remains hanging out somewhere else, because the train was toast.”
“Has anybody seen the kid? Otherwise we’re up to our eyeballs in violent deaths with nowhere to start.”
“People say they’ve smelled smoke around the bridge, but they don’t see any flames.” Sam leaned back in his chair and crossed his long arms over his chest. “Some say they’ve seen a person in the river, or on the tracks-nothing real reliable. Basically the bridge was rebuilt in a few months and everyone forgot about it.” His forehead creased. “What really sucks is that there isn’t much on the web about it. I guess we’ll have to raid a library and hope they’ve got some old newspaper articles.”
Dean crammed the rest of his donut in his mouth and pulled out his wallet. He dropped a ten on the table between them, stood, and said, “No, you’ll go find a library, see if you can dig something up, maybe get a lead on a piece of Joey.”
“And what’re you gonna do, Magnum?”
"What else? Tourist town, Sammy-I’m gonna go sightseeing.”
Turned out West Hartford was barely a spot on the map. If not for the highway and the river, it probably wouldn’t exist. The town was sleepy and quiet-Dean expected tumbleweeds any second-and most definitely didn’t seem haunted.
Dean was familiar with the crazy-hot-sex relationship between looks and deceit, though.
The bridge seemed to be in decent shape and was constructed mostly out of steel Y-beams and concrete. The train tracks ran parallel across the water with a two-lane vehicle bridge, which appeared to be the only way to get from one side of town to the other.
On the west side of the bridge was an old railroad yard; the east side curved sharply, was overgrown with weeds, and had a ditch with a steep grade that sloped right back down to the water. The railroad tracks turned and ran beyond a dense grouping of trees on the east side, then continued north. Dean had driven up Route 14 to get there, so he was on the correct side. He parked the Impala on the dirt shoulder of the road and got out, using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. It was warm, not hot, and crickets buzzed around his feet.
Dean looked both ways before stepping up on the rails, stopping right before the bend in the track and crouching down. Looking at the ditch and the slope, he now understood why the accident had been so devastating; even if someone had survived their sleeper car smashing to bits, they had a slim chance of escaping the flames unharmed.
He pressed his lips together, frowning. Well, that was somebody’s nightmare.
Arms out for balance, Dean made his way down the dirt slope, nearly tripping several times. Once he was at the bottom of the ditch and looking up, it was easy to envision exactly where the last train car had gone off the rails.
He turned to look at the river and something made a crunch noise under his boot. Having some experience with digging cicada guts out of shoe treads (along with dog shit and gum), Dean muttered, “oh, shit,” and lifted his foot to see what he stepped on. Nothing was on his boot, thank the random deity of your choice, but he had stepped on something besides dirt. Crouching to pick it up, he brushed the grime away with his fingers until he could read what was stamped on the little piece of metal.
Dean’s eyebrows rose. “‘Carnegie Steel Company’? Where the hell did-” His gaze flickered up to the steel struts of the bridge, and he felt like face palming. “Oh. Duh.” Then he paused, sniffing the air. That smell was permanently seared into his sense-memory.
Smoke.
Sam did three things at once. He brushed up on his knowledge of crossroads shit on his laptop; looked at laminated newspaper pages on the world’s most pissed off microfiche machine; and kept an eye on the librarian, who looked like she was going to eat him for lunch.
He wrote down the last victim’s name on the back of a file folder and turned off the microfiche. At least they had somewhere to start, and next he’d check for surviving relatives. Sam reached for his phone just as it started ringing, and he quickly closed the tab he was in-no sense in lying to Dean if he didn’t have to. “Yeah?”
“Sammy…” The tone of Dean’s voice was off. Not like, oh holy shit I’m dying off, but more like something’s happening right the hell now off.
Sam sat up straighter in his chair. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell me you got something, man.”
“Yeah,” Sam responded, confused, “’course I do. You all right?”
“Me? I’m fine. But we’ve got a problem of freakin’ weird proportions.”
If Dean wasn’t hurt, then something else was going on-the worry Sam felt increased. “Dean, what do you see?”
Dean almost laughed at Sam’s question, but it was the kind of hysterical thing that would land him in the nuthouse, so he forced it down.
The river was burning. So was the ground around Dean and the supports of the bridge and all the scrubby bushes… but yet they weren’t. The flames were a pale blue-white color, like propane in a gas stove, but at the same time they were almost translucent. There was no smoke visible, but the smell of it was unmistakable, strong and repugnant. No extra sound, either-it was like watching TV on mute.
Dean’s breath clouded in front of him like fog, and he felt a shiver ripple through him. Against his better judgment, he stuck a hand out. His fingers passed right through a lick of flame, but instead of burning him, it actually left his skin feeling chilled.
What the fuck?
Up by his ear, Sam’s voice was rising and taking on a frantic edge. Finally, Dean took a breath and answered him. “Ghost fire, man. I’m looking at ghost fire.”
And as he spoke, the flames flickered and died, like a bad movie reel. They took the smoke smell with them.
By the time Dean drove back from West Hartford, Sam had walked back to their motel from the White River Junction library. Dean let himself in and noticed Sam had his proverbial crap spread out on his bed, but also had a beer open, with one waiting for Dean on the nightstand.
Good kid, Dean thought. Sometimes.
That was far from what he was thinking twenty minutes later, after he’d told his story three times.
“Run that by me again,” Sam said, still disbelieving. “You saw-”
“By now, you, me, and the folks over in Russia know what I saw, Sam!” Dean was aggravated and he let it show. “I’m telling you, I know what I saw.”
Sam’s eyes flashed blue-green sympathy for a second as he nodded. “I believe you, man, I do. But it’s just weird-for a spirit to be manifesting in another form makes it pretty friggin’ powerful, sort of like making ectoplasm. Just pulling something out of thin air like that is…” He rubbed his forehead. “Well, it’s like pulling something out of thin air, I guess.”
“Maybe not.” Dean was sure if he were a cartoon character, a light bulb would’ve just gone on over his head. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the little metal plaque he’d found in the ditch. “I picked this up over by the tracks. Read it.” He tossed it over.
Sam caught it one-handed and squinted at the tiny raised letters, mouthing the words in a dorky way that had Dean coughing to hide a snicker. Kid was like the poster child for Hooked On Phonics.
Sam’s other hand moved to pinch the bridge of his nose as he said, “Uh… okay, I’ll bite. Carnegie Steel operated around Pittsburg from the 1870s until 1901, when it was sold to U.S. Steel.” He lifted his eyes to look at his brother and wondered why the hell he could follow his thought patterns so easily. “What, you think they supplied the metal for the bridge that’s there now?”
Dean rolled his eyes-you’d think the college boy would catch on quicker. “Well, yeah, but that’s not my point. What if it’s in history? What if this ghost is so pissed off that it’s powerful enough to conjure some of its memories? They’d look and maybe smell real-”
“But maybe they could keep them from hurting people, if they wanted to.” Sam shrugged his big shoulders. “Possible, I guess. Ghosts can make themselves visible and solid-why not the ghost of what killed them, too? Like some kind of death echo, but not.”
“And on that charming note,” Dean said, watching the dead beady-eyed beaver on its perch in the corner with suspicion, “you got names?”
Sam handed him the file folder and took a pull off his beer. “Those are all the recorded vics I could find; the second column is confirmed relatives living within a fifty-mile radius of here.”
The second column had ten names, compared to the thirty in the “dead” column, Dean noted. And he also saw something else. “Sam? There were two McCabes on that train.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Sam shuffled some papers around. “Don’t know what the relationship between them was, though. Joey was younger than… Benjamin, I guess.” He checked something on the laptop. “And Agatha McCabe-Lewis lives over the border in Lebanon.”
They decided to split up, each of them taking half the list, with Dean driving to the places furthest away and Sam legging it to the ones closer to town.
Agatha McCabe-Lewis was Joey’s great-great niece. She was also apparently the only surviving McCabe in the area and maintained their page on Ancestry.com religiously. Aggie (as she insisted on being called, random deity knows why) was a spunky thing in her 70s, although clearly she favored Hostess over Pilates. She lived in a grayish-blue Cape with a screen porch, in a cul-de-sac full of kids and life and vitality, things she seemed to be trying to preserve.
Dean fed her (pun intended, ha) a half-baked story about how he was a journalist doing a series of articles about famous local landmarks. He also sat on a wicker chair on her screen porch, eating more than one cookie at the same time.
Aggie mercifully guessed why he’d shown up on her doorstep and bustled inside. A kid chased a ball out into the street; a dog barked next door. Aggie came back bearing lemonade and an old, coffee-colored leather-bound photo album.
“Now these pictures are quite old-there’s one on the third page that has Joseph in it.” She sighed mournfully. “The poor thing.”
Dean flipped to the third page, and sure enough, there was an old, sepia-toned photograph of two young men. One was younger than the other, with a gap-toothed smile and dark hair; the other was taller, broader, and had more well defined features.
Dean pointed to the shorter boy. “That’s Joey?”
Aggie took a peek and nodded. “Mhmm, he would’ve been my great-great uncle.” She giggled in that way old ladies do, and touched his arm. “Oh, but you already know that!”
“Riiight.” Dean patted her hand. “But, what I don’t know is who this other guy is? Do you?”
“Of course.” Aggie looked suitably pleased with herself. “Most people don’t know it, but that man would’ve been my other great-great uncle. That’s Joey’s older brother, Benjamin. They say he was coming back from the front car when the train went-Joseph probably watched his brother burn to death.”
And lets just say the ever-fucking-loving irony of existentialism was not lost on Dean Winchester. No sir.
(part two)