SPN Big Bang: In the Darkness (With You) - Part I
See masterpost for summary and further information.
Three days ago, it snowed for the first time this year, but it all melted again before the temperatures dropped well below zero yesterday. Mel likes the snow but she doesn’t like the cold, and she doesn’t like the two guys whom enter her diner in a gust of cold air. They’re the inconsiderate kind who so annoy her in winter. Standing inside the opening they look around as people sometimes do when they aren’t quite sure if this is really the place they want to be, and in the process they let out all the warmth that the tiny heater and a few dozen guests took all day to accumulate. Without a single thought for the dropping level of cosiness inside, they stick their heads together and exchange some quiet comments, the taller one sounding sceptical though Mel can’t make out what exactly he’s saying. Probably the décor isn’t to his liking, she thinks sourly, or the menu or whatever else it is they need to have a discussion about in the open door in the middle of November. At least they manage to step in before she has to glare them into submission, but her opinion of them is ruined from the beginning.
Still she forces a smile onto her face when she goes to their table because smiling at the customer is part of the fucking job description. The cold they dragged in still lingers around them as they ask her to come back later. Turns out they haven’t decided what to eat yet which, okay, she didn’t really give them time for but it still pisses her off. They’re good looking, the two of them, she has to give them that, but being good looking is not an excuse for being assholes.
Which is what they are. It’s not like they have done anything to her, as such. They just kind of rub her in the wrong way. The tall one gives her an apologetic smile, though, and looks somewhat embarrassed for no damn reason so Mel is a little more willing to forgive him for his presence.
Any points that smile bought them are lost when the other one calls her over, flashes her a grin that says he’s convinced every girl in the world is straight and into him in particular, and tells her that he would like the chicken burger and the fries but without any salt, please.
“Without salt,” she repeats. “Fries.”
“Yes. I’m allergic.”
“Allergic to salt.”
“He actually is,” the other one confirms. “It’s rare but it happens. Believe me, you don’t want to see what happens when he even touches the stuff. It’s important that there is no salt anywhere on his food. I’ll have the salad, please.”
“He’s allergic to meat,” the short one helpfully provides and smirks, even as Mel can tell he’s being kicked under the table. She rolls her eyes as she walks to the kitchen to tell the cook that he needs to make a burger and fries without salt because otherwise their guest will die and he will sue their asses when he’s dead.
She’s pretty sure they made that up just to annoy her.
The cook gives her a confused look at her obvious bad mood but she just shrugs at him. She can’t even explain why she has such a problem with those two guys. One of them seems a little cocky but charming enough, the other is kind of sweet with his obvious embarrassment about his companion whom, judging by their behaviour, can only be his brother, or at least a cousin. But something about them irritates her for no reason she can explain. She wants them gone and can’t even tell why.
It feels like the instinct that sometimes tells her that someone is following her in the dark. And just like that instinct, it’s (probably) bullshit. It’s just…they give her chills, and not just because of the cold air they’ve dragged in.
Regardless, she brings them their food with a smile and they both smile back, one with self-confidence and one still looking uncomfortable and strangely guilty.
They probably murdered someone on their way here and now he feels bad for the police force that will soon shatter the door and scare off the other guests. But then, if they had murdered someone, he probably wouldn’t feel bad about the door.
Still. They are talking all through their meal and they keep their voices down almost to a whisper as if it was top secret and no one could be allowed to hear a word of it. As if anyone would care.
Really, don’t they know that whispering is the best way to make everyone want to listen? Mel finds herself trying despite herself, but the only thing she can make out is the short one (well, shorter than the other one anyway, which really isn’t hard) complaining about how bland the fries taste without salt.
So much for that.
The taller one seems to be pissed about something. He’s glaring and hissing a lot and looking around all the time for no goddamn reason. It makes her nervous, even though his companion doesn’t seem to be concerned about anything but the food on his plate. Maybe Mel feels so uncomfortable around them because things are tense between the two of them and she picked up on it. They certainly seem to be at odds about something, what with all the hissing and glaring. Either way, she’ll be glad when they finally leave.
Except she isn’t. Because she takes care of another table and when she turns around they are gone, empty plate and half-eaten salad bowl sitting before empty chairs. She didn’t notice them go. And of course, they didn’t pay.
At least now she knows what the tall one felt so guilty about, she thinks sourly when she moves to clean up the table.
+|+|+
Sam died on a Sunday. It was a shitty day, cold and rainy, with wind that made sure the rain got into everything, and there were puddles of freezing water everywhere, just waiting to be stepped in. At least, that was what Dean imagined the day to be. He could imagine anything he wanted because their cell had no window and maybe wasn’t even on Earth. He imagined it was a day like that because he hated days like that, and he decided that it was a Sunday because Sunday was the worst day of the week. For most people it was Monday, but a hunter never had the weekends off and Sundays sucked because all the useful places tended to be closed.
Though in all honesty, Dean couldn’t have cared less what day it was when he took the old, worn hunting knife and stabbed it through his brother’s heart.
There really was no weather and no day of the week that was appropriate for the final act of giving up hope.
There were no words to describe the moment afterwards; after Sam had fallen still for the first time in months or years or forever, when Dean didn’t know if he was relieved or happy or hating himself more than he ever did before. He felt the loss, though - that much needed no interpretation - even though there had been little left to lose.
There was nothing inside him, underlined with empty rage and burning hatred, and finally, clear and defined, determination and defiance when Castiel appeared in the door and their eyes met for just one second before Dean lifted the murder weapon and slit his own throat.
+|+|+
“Don’t be a bitch, Sammy,” Dean says, his fingers drumming on the wheel of a stolen car in the rhythm of something by Metallica, as if the radio of this old thing was actually working. “It wasn’t even ten dollars.”
“It’s the principle of the matter.”
“Yeah, well, on principle, I’d say the world fucking owes us. It owes us a lot more than a crappy meal in a diner. How often did we save basically everyone? Did we get paid for it? No. The world will hardly profit from her saviours starving, so I’d say it’s only fair.”
“You’re not starving, Dean. I’m not starving.”
“So what? I wanted to eat. You didn’t bitch about it when we took the car, and that’s worth a lot more.”
“Yeah, but the car we need.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “And I needed food, for the happiness of my soul,” he says and starts humming to signal the end of the discussion, since there is no music to turn up. Sam accepts it but he’s still looking pissed and probably won’t talk to Dean for the rest of the drive. It’s nice to know that some things don’t change.
Or rather, that they are back to the way they are supposed to be.
It begins to snow a couple of minutes later, the weather soon getting so bad that Dean is forced to slow down, even though an accident would be the least of their worries. He is, in fact, not quite sure what their worries are at this point, but he knows that as soon as they reach Bobby’s place, their old friend is going to give them plenty to worry about.
“Maybe we should call ahead,” Sam mutters after an hour or so. Dean glances over and sees the traces of his breath on the window he’s leaning against. It’s almost dark though it’s not that late yet.
“What for? It’s not like he’s going to shoot us if we appear unannounced.”
But that’s exactly what might happen. Getting shot would be even more likely if they warned Bobby, though. Which is exactly what Sam means, Dean knows: They should give the old man a chance to make up his mind on the whole shooting thing.
The tension between them isn’t just caused by Dean’s decision to dodge the bill in the diner. They don’t know what’s going to happen now. They don’t know anything.
Things could go downhill without warning, very quickly. Things might already be going downhill and they just don’t know it yet.
It feels like a storm is following them, just beyond the horizon where they can’t see it.
“You think Bobby saved my car?” The thought comes over Dean suddenly and it’s kind of funny that it took him so long to think of this. His baby is his one and only, and should have been the first thing on his mind when they got back. Feels like he’s fucking betraying her by not being worried sooner, and he’s overcome by horrible visions of her in some salvage yard that is not Bobby’s, waiting to be disassembled because Dean is the only one who loves her enough to go though all the trouble to fix her.
Beside him, Sam shifts, trying to get comfortable on the unfamiliar seat. (Dean’s first thought upon coming back was Sam in his arms, Sam recognizing him, Sam recognizing reality, Sam being all the way with him and smiling and wide eyed and amazed and frightened, looking more alive than in forever and Sam Sam Sam. It’s no competition.) “I’m sure he got her home, if he could.”
And there’s that. That other reason why they did not call Bobby. They don’t know what became of him. Cas took Dean and Sam away to whatever place it was where he let them rot, but Bobby was not with them because Cas did not care about Bobby as much. So either he just left him behind, or he splattered him across the walls like he did Raphael. It’s not a possibility they have been willing to face yet.
Night is falling and the fading light adds to the air of approaching doom Dean hasn’t been able to shake off all day. Perhaps it just comes with their situation, this nervousness. Sam shifts again, looks out of the window, and doesn’t speak. Dean can’t stop glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, taking in the sight of his little brother sitting in this car and watching the world go by, the way he did from the passenger seat of the Impala all his life. He can’t get enough of that. For far too long he thought he’d never see this again.
He did the right thing. No matter how strong the feeling if impending doom is getting, he will never doubt that he did the right thing. How could it have been wrong if it’s given him this?
+|+|+
They arrive at the salvage yard a day later, just before sunset, in the bleak twilight of another winter day. The night they spend in a motel, using a stolen credit card. They checked in and then sat on the beds, facing each other without speaking. Neither of them tired, neither of them knowing why they were even there, just going through the motions. They left at dawn.
The ground of the Singer Salvage Yard is damp with half-molten snow, the gravel half-frozen. The Impala is the first thing Dean sees when he stops the stolen car. It’s standing closest to the house, the roof crushed, no work done yet. Waiting for him.
Bobby’s nowhere to be seen and they can’t knock on his door. There’s light in the window, though, so he’s home, alive and home. Probably looking out of the window at the unfamiliar car with a shotgun on standby. Dean smiles at the thought, but Sam frowns and looks tense.
There’s no other way but to show themselves, so they do. They leave the car at the same time and remain standing beside it, in full sight, waiting. Not getting closer to the house they can’t enter.
Bobby needs all of twenty seconds before he opens the door and comes out to them, the old wooden steps creaking beneath his weight. He’s wearing the “Thank God you’re alive!” expression on his face that Dean and Sam both have seen far too often in their lives. Dean finds himself grinning, suddenly happy, as if everything was going to be okay.
But Bobby slows down before he reaches them and something is lost from the expression on his face. He still comes closer, because even Sam is smiling at him and no one, not even a seasoned hunter, can keep up doubt when Sam Winchester is smiling.
“I’m damn glad to see you, boys,” Bobby says.
This is the right moment for a hug so Dean steps over to wrap his arms around the older man. “Me too,” he assures him, and pretends not to notice Bobby flinching the moment he touches him.
“So, uhm,” Sam begins. He comes over to their side of the car just when Dean and Bobby part, and Bobby moves away a little too quickly and makes no move to hug Sam as well. “How long have we been gone?”
Bobby eyes him strangely. “You don’t know?”
“Time felt strange there,” Dean answers before Sam can say ‘No, I lost track of time because I was insane and every day was a hundred years in Hell and every gentle touch cut me like a knife and everyone was Lucifer about to rape me’. Which he probably wouldn’t have said anyway, but Dean’s not taking the risk of him even thinking about it. “I don’t know where Cas took us, but I don’t think it was here. Heaven, maybe. Though it certainly didn’t feature paradise.”
“When did you get back?”
It’s damn hard to tell. “Couple of days ago?”
“And you didn’t think to watch the news? Listen to the radio? They do say the date every now and then.”
The radio of the car is a piece of shit that’s only spitting white noise and the TV in their motel room was broken. Yeah, how likely is that? Dean doesn’t even try to explain it. “Just give us a date, okay?”
“You’ve been gone for about two months. What, that comes as a surprise to you?” Bobby adds when he sees Dean and Sam exchange a look.
“Like I said, time felt strange. It sure felt a lot longer.”
“Well, you sure don’t look older than you should be.” Bobby’s looking mostly at Sam when he says that. “You’re looking good, boy,” he finally notes. “Much better than the last time I saw you. Cas fix that wall of yours?”
Dean nearly laughs there. But the sound that does escape his throat is something ugly and bitter.
Bobby frowns at him. “I guess not, then.”
“No, but I’m better. I’m fine.” That’s Sam, always trying to put everyone at ease. Dean just hopes he’s right. “I’m dealing, you know. Was rough for a while, but Dean…” He throws a quick glance in Dean’s direction. “Dean found a way to help me.”
Fuck you, Sam. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. (I love you so much.)
“Well, that’s great,” Bobby says and sounds like he actually means it. “Now come in already. I’m freezing my ass off out here.” He turns to get back into his house, and he’s already down the hall when he realises that the brothers are no longer behind him. They remained standing on the porch, before the line of salt. “What’s going on?” he asks, slowly walking back to them, but not all the way, and Dean can hear it in his voice that he suspects the answer even before Sam swallows and says, “This is as far as we can go.”
+|+|+
It wasn’t the first time Dean had died, far from it. The first time he had nearly died, he had seen the reaper coming for him, and he had seen him turn away and go after someone else. The next time he came close he actually met the reaper and she had tried to teach him something about letting go. The first time he died for real he had only seen hellhounds, and though he knows now that there should be a reaper every time to pick up the soul for its final journey, he hadn’t seen any, then. Not that he remembers. There was pain, and then there was more pain, so much worse pain, and meat hooks and forever and the first dawning understanding of what he had damned himself to, what he was facing. Perhaps reapers didn’t bother with lost souls because there was only one way to go anyway, no option of staying and therefore no reason to waste time on them.
Or he just didn’t remember. He didn’t remember any reaper that other time he died either, when he woke up in Heaven without any warning or transition and enjoyed one of the best moments of his youth before all too willingly letting his heart be torn to shreds (because really, it had been so easy to tell himself Sam didn’t love him since that made it so much easier to push him away - but even his self-esteem issues were no excuse for just accepting that apparently none of Sam’s most valued memories included the girl he’d wanted to fucking marry). This time, though, this time everything was as it had been when he had played Death. There was a brief pain, the familiar sensation of dying, and then there was a reaper. Not any reaper either, but Tessa, because apparently even reapers tended to be nostalgic.
She was wearing the face he knew, and she looked at him with such sadness and disappointment in her eyes that Dean felt like falling as she said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
+|+|+
Bobby looks heartbroken, but in the end not terribly surprised. He doesn’t shoot them. He breaks the salt line at the entrance and every other door in the house and lets them into his home, these creatures that might destroy him if they wanted, the way he has always let them in. Dean doesn’t know if he trusts them, or if this is a risk he’s willing to take for the sake of getting them back.
“So,” he says, standing in the kitchen while Dean and Sam settle down on the seats they have always chosen, ever since they were kids. Sam at the head of the table and Dean at the side, close enough to reach over to catch him should he fall. (They didn’t sit this close since Sam was five.) “I guess I don’t need to offer you dinner, then.”
“No,” Sam says, and at the same time Dean says, “If you got leftovers, I’ll take them,” making Sam pull a face on him while Bobby frowns. “You know,” Dean explains, “all those ghosts who don’t know they are dead? Who go around as solid as a living being, eating and drinking and sleeping? We’re kinda like that.”
“But you very obviously do know that you are dead,” Bobby observes.
“Yeah. I guess, I don’t know, I guess we just have the advantage of advance knowledge on everything ghost-y.” Dean shrugs and reaches for a bag of chips on the counter behind him, tears it open and stuffs some into his mouth to underline his argument. Sam rolls his eyes.
“Right.” The way Bobby stretches the word tells Dean that he’s not impressed with the explanation. “So, how did you end up this way? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you, but this is not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”
“I bet,” Dean mutters, and Sam hurries to say, “Cas killed us,” before Dean can explain what really happened. So Dean glares at his brother and Sam glares back and of course Bobby picks up on that because he’s not stupid.
“Did he? Why wait this long?”
“Who knows why he does anything he does? Maybe he just wanted us to bask in his glory.”
“And what kept you here? Something tells me you’re not just waiting to say goodbye.”
“What, you’d rather we’d have moved on without ever telling you what happened to us?” Dean tries to keep his tone light. “Because I don’t think Cas would have sent you a note.”
Bobby’s expression turns at the same time stern and soft. “You deserve better than this, boys.”
“Well.” Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Apparently, I-”
“We would’ve gone to Hell,” Sam interrupts him. “Cas is ruling Heaven, do you really think he would have let us in? So since neither of us is all that interested in a repeated performance, we decided to stay here instead.” He looks at Bobby with an open challenge in his eyes, everything about him radiating defensiveness. “Or would you rather have us burn?”
“Of course not,” Bobby snaps. “And as long as you two knuckleheads can keep yourselves from going vengeful, you’re welcome to stay here. But I know you, Sam. And the way you’re acting right now tells me there’s something you don’t want me to know.”
Of course he noticed that. It’s Bobby - Bobby knows them. Sam just kind of glares at him, so Bobby looks at Dean for an explanation. And the thing is, Dean wants him to know, wants his guilt to be acknowledged, but he won’t do that right here and now with Sam listening, because Sam doesn’t want Bobby to know and Dean owes him so fucking much.
He makes a vague gesture with his head that he hopes Bobby will interpret correctly as “I’ll tell you when we’re on our own,” even as he realises that the right moment might never come since he doesn’t have any inclination of letting Sam out of his sight anytime soon.
Bobby does give them some food in the end. Dean is the only one who eats, and he happily does so, pretending nothing is wrong. Sam is quiet; he has been quiet ever since, making Dean think that he took this harder than him or that something is wrong. (He’s almost anxiously sticking to his big brother’s side, though, and Dean can very much live with that.) And Bobby is sitting before his own plate, not touching the food, watching them with an unreadable expression on his face. He’s taking this well, all things considered, but in the end he did just learn that his surrogate sons have died, which is an odd experience to make from the point of view of a surrogate son. Makes it hard for Dean to really appreciate what the old hunter is going through right now.
This is a very strange situation.
After dinner, they retreat to their old room upstairs, the one they used as children. Bobby gives them sheets and blankets and they make their beds but neither of them lies down to sleep, even long after Bobby has gone to bed. Once again they sit on their beds, worn and exhausted but not tired, not sure if they could sleep even if they wanted to.
Not wanting to sleep because they might just drift away.
Eventually, in the silvery moonlight falling through the window, Dean reaches out for his brother. “Come here,” he whispers and Sam comes willingly, letting his brother take him in his arms as they sink down together, curled up and awake for the rest of the night.
+|+|+
They were still in the room where Dean had died. The cell where he had died. Bare walls, blankets on the floor for a bed, a high tiny window with fucking bars on it, and outside it was always dark. Just black, like there was nothing. A parody of a prison cell created for their convenience, or a picture drawn by a child with only a vague idea of what a prison cell looked like and very little imagination.
But the door, usually closed unless it was time for their punishment, was open, frozen the moment Dean had ended it, and it was empty because Cas, for all his power, could not reach them here. The light was different, too. It was no longer the dim, yellow light that filled the cell all the time, all the fucking time, making Dean want to rip his skin off. It had been replaced with the colourless kind of twilight he remembered from his second adventure as a ghost, when he and Sam had stripped their bodies in order to save a reaper. The same reaper who was now looking at him with such hard eyes.
But Dean’s own eyes had something much more important to focus on than Tessa: Behind her, looking lost and confused but so fucking aware was Sam, his eyes wide and looking at Dean as if his big brother had all the answers. And Dean just kind of gravitated toward him just like Sam moved for Dean, both of them equally eager to wrap their arms around the other and just hold on. But before they could touch, Tessa put her hand flat against Dean’s chest, stopping him with the efficiency of a wall. At the same time, a hand took hold of Sam’s shoulder and pulled him back, making Sam flinch and Dean struggle to get there and get it off his brother, but Tessa wouldn’t let him go.
Sam looked at Dean in confusion and growing desperation. There was a man standing behind him: tall, middle-aged, bearded, black suit and tie. A reaper if Dean had ever seen one. “What the fuck, Tessa?” he snapped at his own reaper. “Let me get to my brother!”
“You can’t get to your brother.” Tessa didn’t exactly snap, but she did sound somewhat like a disappointed mother. Or a heartbroken mother. “You can’t get to your brother ever again.”
+|+|+
There’s a ghost in the window of a two-storey building to the left. It’s barely visible even on this plane, wouldn’t have any hope of being seen, let alone passing for a real person, in the realm of the living. It hushes away when Dean notices it, as if afraid. Or plotting something. He’ll tell Bobby about it when they get back, have him take care of it before it hurts anyone. Dean wonders if that makes him a hypocrite.
Maybe it’s just lost and needs help moving on. But Dean and Sam are hardly the go-to guys for getting into Heaven.
“I told Bobby.” These are the first words Dean has spoken in ages; they leave his mouth almost unbidden but this is not one of the secrets that has to be carried in silence. Sam doesn’t even stop, doesn’t say anything. He just turns to look at his brother as they walk down the empty road that has no sound, no smell and no wind. Dean looks back and shrugs. “So you can stop with the lying when it comes up.”
“Why did you do that?” To Dean’s relief, Sam doesn’t sound too pissed. Just a little, and a little confused and a little tired. Dean would tell him to take a nap but they don’t technically need sleep anymore and while they never spoke about it, neither of them is entirely sure they wouldn’t drift somewhere else without their consciousness to root them where they are.
“Why not? It’s not a secret worth keeping. Don’t you think he deserves knowing how we ended up like this?”
“I think this is about you trying to punish yourself again,” Sam bluntly tells him. “You don’t want Bobby to see you as anything better than what you are.”
“So you do think that it was a shitty thing to do.”
“No. But I know you think that. And I bet that you told it exactly like that.”
There’s nothing much Dean can reply to that, since Sam got it exactly right. They just know each other too well. “It was a shitty thing to do. You could be-”
“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Sam interrupts him and Dean almost (but not quite) jumps when his brother gabs his hand without warning and holds it tight. “With you.”
For a moment they stand still, looking at each other. Eventually, Dean clears his throat and pulls back his hand. “Didn’t we have a rule against chick-flick moments? That didn’t die with us.”
“You had a rule against chick-flick moments,” Sam points out. “And you sucked at keeping to it.”
They keep on walking. There’s nowhere in particular they are going; they are merely taking a walk. Sam started walking and Dean came along and as they walk, even now, their hands are just barely touching.
It’s not often that they willingly return to this plane. Both Dean and Sam are fully aware that they no longer have a place in the world of the living; they feel like they are working on borrowed time and maybe by slipping down to the plane that is more appropriate for them, they feel like giving up the place they have taken for themselves. Like they won’t be let in once they left for a minute.
How should Dean know? It’s not like they ever talked about it and thinking about stuff like that is something he takes great pains to avoid.
The thing is, it feels good being here. Like there’s a tension in him all the fucking time that he doesn’t even notice and now he’s here, where he belongs, he notices its absence. Like he can relax for the first time in ages. He’s pretty sure Sam feels the same way.
And that scares him shitless.
“We should get back up,” he therefore says. Maybe it’s bad, staying here for too long. Maybe at some point they won’t want to get back.
“Up?” Sam frowns at him. “That’ll go over well. There are actually people in this street, Dean.”
Dean calls it “up” because being here reminds him of being underwater, not because it gets him one step closer to his final destination.
“It’s not like we never materialized on some sidewalk before. If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that people ignore what they can’t explain.”
“Or Cas had some built-in perception-filter whenever he flew us somewhere.”
And, yeah, that is something Dean really likes to get nostalgic about, thanks. “We can get back to Bobby’s and pop up in his living room if that makes you feel better.”
“I found us a hunt.”
So there’s something that makes Dean stop in his tracks. “You what?”
“I read the paper, Dean. I recommend that, in general.”
“Sorry, I thought I heard something about a hunt right there. All this being dead and a friggin’ ghost must be interfering with my hearing. Maybe someone in the real world was just throwing salt through me when you opened your mouth.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “We’re not gonna go ghost hunting if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Right. We’re not gonna go hunting at all. Or did it escape you that we are the things hunters hunt?”
“We’re also hunters,” Sam apparently deems it necessary to remind him.
“No, Sam. We’re friggin’ ghosts!”
“We know how to handle a job and we know how to pass for living people. And I’m not saying we go out there and mingle with the rest of the hunting community. I’m saying there’s a hunt, a wendigo, in Michigan. And Bobby saw the same article in the same paper, and he’s going to go take care of it because there aren’t many others left he could send, right? And hunting a wendigo-”
“…is a two-man-job,” Dean finishes for him, biting his lip. “I hate you.”
“No, you don-” This time Sam stops himself, turning around to stare down the road behind them. Dean turns as well, sees nothing.
“What is it?” he asks, alarmed, but Sam shakes his head, turns back around.
“Nothing. I thought I heard something.”
“There’s no ‘I thought’ in our job! It’s usually something out to gank you!”
“There’s nothing, Dean. My imagination. It happens.” Sam seems unwilling to discuss this, but he’s turned around and is heading back to Bobby’s in order to pop out of thin air in the man’s kitchen, so Dean counts that as a win anyway. He’s quite concerned by the way Sam seems so very willing to write this off as his imagination going wild without even considering the possibility that it’s something else.
And by the way his brother is so tense as they head back, as if it cost him a lot of effort not to look over his shoulder.
NEXT
Three days ago, it snowed for the first time this year, but it all melted again before the temperatures dropped well below zero yesterday. Mel likes the snow but she doesn’t like the cold, and she doesn’t like the two guys whom enter her diner in a gust of cold air. They’re the inconsiderate kind who so annoy her in winter. Standing inside the opening they look around as people sometimes do when they aren’t quite sure if this is really the place they want to be, and in the process they let out all the warmth that the tiny heater and a few dozen guests took all day to accumulate. Without a single thought for the dropping level of cosiness inside, they stick their heads together and exchange some quiet comments, the taller one sounding sceptical though Mel can’t make out what exactly he’s saying. Probably the décor isn’t to his liking, she thinks sourly, or the menu or whatever else it is they need to have a discussion about in the open door in the middle of November. At least they manage to step in before she has to glare them into submission, but her opinion of them is ruined from the beginning.
Still she forces a smile onto her face when she goes to their table because smiling at the customer is part of the fucking job description. The cold they dragged in still lingers around them as they ask her to come back later. Turns out they haven’t decided what to eat yet which, okay, she didn’t really give them time for but it still pisses her off. They’re good looking, the two of them, she has to give them that, but being good looking is not an excuse for being assholes.
Which is what they are. It’s not like they have done anything to her, as such. They just kind of rub her in the wrong way. The tall one gives her an apologetic smile, though, and looks somewhat embarrassed for no damn reason so Mel is a little more willing to forgive him for his presence.
Any points that smile bought them are lost when the other one calls her over, flashes her a grin that says he’s convinced every girl in the world is straight and into him in particular, and tells her that he would like the chicken burger and the fries but without any salt, please.
“Without salt,” she repeats. “Fries.”
“Yes. I’m allergic.”
“Allergic to salt.”
“He actually is,” the other one confirms. “It’s rare but it happens. Believe me, you don’t want to see what happens when he even touches the stuff. It’s important that there is no salt anywhere on his food. I’ll have the salad, please.”
“He’s allergic to meat,” the short one helpfully provides and smirks, even as Mel can tell he’s being kicked under the table. She rolls her eyes as she walks to the kitchen to tell the cook that he needs to make a burger and fries without salt because otherwise their guest will die and he will sue their asses when he’s dead.
She’s pretty sure they made that up just to annoy her.
The cook gives her a confused look at her obvious bad mood but she just shrugs at him. She can’t even explain why she has such a problem with those two guys. One of them seems a little cocky but charming enough, the other is kind of sweet with his obvious embarrassment about his companion whom, judging by their behaviour, can only be his brother, or at least a cousin. But something about them irritates her for no reason she can explain. She wants them gone and can’t even tell why.
It feels like the instinct that sometimes tells her that someone is following her in the dark. And just like that instinct, it’s (probably) bullshit. It’s just…they give her chills, and not just because of the cold air they’ve dragged in.
Regardless, she brings them their food with a smile and they both smile back, one with self-confidence and one still looking uncomfortable and strangely guilty.
They probably murdered someone on their way here and now he feels bad for the police force that will soon shatter the door and scare off the other guests. But then, if they had murdered someone, he probably wouldn’t feel bad about the door.
Still. They are talking all through their meal and they keep their voices down almost to a whisper as if it was top secret and no one could be allowed to hear a word of it. As if anyone would care.
Really, don’t they know that whispering is the best way to make everyone want to listen? Mel finds herself trying despite herself, but the only thing she can make out is the short one (well, shorter than the other one anyway, which really isn’t hard) complaining about how bland the fries taste without salt.
So much for that.
The taller one seems to be pissed about something. He’s glaring and hissing a lot and looking around all the time for no goddamn reason. It makes her nervous, even though his companion doesn’t seem to be concerned about anything but the food on his plate. Maybe Mel feels so uncomfortable around them because things are tense between the two of them and she picked up on it. They certainly seem to be at odds about something, what with all the hissing and glaring. Either way, she’ll be glad when they finally leave.
Except she isn’t. Because she takes care of another table and when she turns around they are gone, empty plate and half-eaten salad bowl sitting before empty chairs. She didn’t notice them go. And of course, they didn’t pay.
At least now she knows what the tall one felt so guilty about, she thinks sourly when she moves to clean up the table.
+|+|+
Sam died on a Sunday. It was a shitty day, cold and rainy, with wind that made sure the rain got into everything, and there were puddles of freezing water everywhere, just waiting to be stepped in. At least, that was what Dean imagined the day to be. He could imagine anything he wanted because their cell had no window and maybe wasn’t even on Earth. He imagined it was a day like that because he hated days like that, and he decided that it was a Sunday because Sunday was the worst day of the week. For most people it was Monday, but a hunter never had the weekends off and Sundays sucked because all the useful places tended to be closed.
Though in all honesty, Dean couldn’t have cared less what day it was when he took the old, worn hunting knife and stabbed it through his brother’s heart.
There really was no weather and no day of the week that was appropriate for the final act of giving up hope.
There were no words to describe the moment afterwards; after Sam had fallen still for the first time in months or years or forever, when Dean didn’t know if he was relieved or happy or hating himself more than he ever did before. He felt the loss, though - that much needed no interpretation - even though there had been little left to lose.
There was nothing inside him, underlined with empty rage and burning hatred, and finally, clear and defined, determination and defiance when Castiel appeared in the door and their eyes met for just one second before Dean lifted the murder weapon and slit his own throat.
+|+|+
“Don’t be a bitch, Sammy,” Dean says, his fingers drumming on the wheel of a stolen car in the rhythm of something by Metallica, as if the radio of this old thing was actually working. “It wasn’t even ten dollars.”
“It’s the principle of the matter.”
“Yeah, well, on principle, I’d say the world fucking owes us. It owes us a lot more than a crappy meal in a diner. How often did we save basically everyone? Did we get paid for it? No. The world will hardly profit from her saviours starving, so I’d say it’s only fair.”
“You’re not starving, Dean. I’m not starving.”
“So what? I wanted to eat. You didn’t bitch about it when we took the car, and that’s worth a lot more.”
“Yeah, but the car we need.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “And I needed food, for the happiness of my soul,” he says and starts humming to signal the end of the discussion, since there is no music to turn up. Sam accepts it but he’s still looking pissed and probably won’t talk to Dean for the rest of the drive. It’s nice to know that some things don’t change.
Or rather, that they are back to the way they are supposed to be.
It begins to snow a couple of minutes later, the weather soon getting so bad that Dean is forced to slow down, even though an accident would be the least of their worries. He is, in fact, not quite sure what their worries are at this point, but he knows that as soon as they reach Bobby’s place, their old friend is going to give them plenty to worry about.
“Maybe we should call ahead,” Sam mutters after an hour or so. Dean glances over and sees the traces of his breath on the window he’s leaning against. It’s almost dark though it’s not that late yet.
“What for? It’s not like he’s going to shoot us if we appear unannounced.”
But that’s exactly what might happen. Getting shot would be even more likely if they warned Bobby, though. Which is exactly what Sam means, Dean knows: They should give the old man a chance to make up his mind on the whole shooting thing.
The tension between them isn’t just caused by Dean’s decision to dodge the bill in the diner. They don’t know what’s going to happen now. They don’t know anything.
Things could go downhill without warning, very quickly. Things might already be going downhill and they just don’t know it yet.
It feels like a storm is following them, just beyond the horizon where they can’t see it.
“You think Bobby saved my car?” The thought comes over Dean suddenly and it’s kind of funny that it took him so long to think of this. His baby is his one and only, and should have been the first thing on his mind when they got back. Feels like he’s fucking betraying her by not being worried sooner, and he’s overcome by horrible visions of her in some salvage yard that is not Bobby’s, waiting to be disassembled because Dean is the only one who loves her enough to go though all the trouble to fix her.
Beside him, Sam shifts, trying to get comfortable on the unfamiliar seat. (Dean’s first thought upon coming back was Sam in his arms, Sam recognizing him, Sam recognizing reality, Sam being all the way with him and smiling and wide eyed and amazed and frightened, looking more alive than in forever and Sam Sam Sam. It’s no competition.) “I’m sure he got her home, if he could.”
And there’s that. That other reason why they did not call Bobby. They don’t know what became of him. Cas took Dean and Sam away to whatever place it was where he let them rot, but Bobby was not with them because Cas did not care about Bobby as much. So either he just left him behind, or he splattered him across the walls like he did Raphael. It’s not a possibility they have been willing to face yet.
Night is falling and the fading light adds to the air of approaching doom Dean hasn’t been able to shake off all day. Perhaps it just comes with their situation, this nervousness. Sam shifts again, looks out of the window, and doesn’t speak. Dean can’t stop glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, taking in the sight of his little brother sitting in this car and watching the world go by, the way he did from the passenger seat of the Impala all his life. He can’t get enough of that. For far too long he thought he’d never see this again.
He did the right thing. No matter how strong the feeling if impending doom is getting, he will never doubt that he did the right thing. How could it have been wrong if it’s given him this?
+|+|+
They arrive at the salvage yard a day later, just before sunset, in the bleak twilight of another winter day. The night they spend in a motel, using a stolen credit card. They checked in and then sat on the beds, facing each other without speaking. Neither of them tired, neither of them knowing why they were even there, just going through the motions. They left at dawn.
The ground of the Singer Salvage Yard is damp with half-molten snow, the gravel half-frozen. The Impala is the first thing Dean sees when he stops the stolen car. It’s standing closest to the house, the roof crushed, no work done yet. Waiting for him.
Bobby’s nowhere to be seen and they can’t knock on his door. There’s light in the window, though, so he’s home, alive and home. Probably looking out of the window at the unfamiliar car with a shotgun on standby. Dean smiles at the thought, but Sam frowns and looks tense.
There’s no other way but to show themselves, so they do. They leave the car at the same time and remain standing beside it, in full sight, waiting. Not getting closer to the house they can’t enter.
Bobby needs all of twenty seconds before he opens the door and comes out to them, the old wooden steps creaking beneath his weight. He’s wearing the “Thank God you’re alive!” expression on his face that Dean and Sam both have seen far too often in their lives. Dean finds himself grinning, suddenly happy, as if everything was going to be okay.
But Bobby slows down before he reaches them and something is lost from the expression on his face. He still comes closer, because even Sam is smiling at him and no one, not even a seasoned hunter, can keep up doubt when Sam Winchester is smiling.
“I’m damn glad to see you, boys,” Bobby says.
This is the right moment for a hug so Dean steps over to wrap his arms around the older man. “Me too,” he assures him, and pretends not to notice Bobby flinching the moment he touches him.
“So, uhm,” Sam begins. He comes over to their side of the car just when Dean and Bobby part, and Bobby moves away a little too quickly and makes no move to hug Sam as well. “How long have we been gone?”
Bobby eyes him strangely. “You don’t know?”
“Time felt strange there,” Dean answers before Sam can say ‘No, I lost track of time because I was insane and every day was a hundred years in Hell and every gentle touch cut me like a knife and everyone was Lucifer about to rape me’. Which he probably wouldn’t have said anyway, but Dean’s not taking the risk of him even thinking about it. “I don’t know where Cas took us, but I don’t think it was here. Heaven, maybe. Though it certainly didn’t feature paradise.”
“When did you get back?”
It’s damn hard to tell. “Couple of days ago?”
“And you didn’t think to watch the news? Listen to the radio? They do say the date every now and then.”
The radio of the car is a piece of shit that’s only spitting white noise and the TV in their motel room was broken. Yeah, how likely is that? Dean doesn’t even try to explain it. “Just give us a date, okay?”
“You’ve been gone for about two months. What, that comes as a surprise to you?” Bobby adds when he sees Dean and Sam exchange a look.
“Like I said, time felt strange. It sure felt a lot longer.”
“Well, you sure don’t look older than you should be.” Bobby’s looking mostly at Sam when he says that. “You’re looking good, boy,” he finally notes. “Much better than the last time I saw you. Cas fix that wall of yours?”
Dean nearly laughs there. But the sound that does escape his throat is something ugly and bitter.
Bobby frowns at him. “I guess not, then.”
“No, but I’m better. I’m fine.” That’s Sam, always trying to put everyone at ease. Dean just hopes he’s right. “I’m dealing, you know. Was rough for a while, but Dean…” He throws a quick glance in Dean’s direction. “Dean found a way to help me.”
Fuck you, Sam. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. (I love you so much.)
“Well, that’s great,” Bobby says and sounds like he actually means it. “Now come in already. I’m freezing my ass off out here.” He turns to get back into his house, and he’s already down the hall when he realises that the brothers are no longer behind him. They remained standing on the porch, before the line of salt. “What’s going on?” he asks, slowly walking back to them, but not all the way, and Dean can hear it in his voice that he suspects the answer even before Sam swallows and says, “This is as far as we can go.”
+|+|+
It wasn’t the first time Dean had died, far from it. The first time he had nearly died, he had seen the reaper coming for him, and he had seen him turn away and go after someone else. The next time he came close he actually met the reaper and she had tried to teach him something about letting go. The first time he died for real he had only seen hellhounds, and though he knows now that there should be a reaper every time to pick up the soul for its final journey, he hadn’t seen any, then. Not that he remembers. There was pain, and then there was more pain, so much worse pain, and meat hooks and forever and the first dawning understanding of what he had damned himself to, what he was facing. Perhaps reapers didn’t bother with lost souls because there was only one way to go anyway, no option of staying and therefore no reason to waste time on them.
Or he just didn’t remember. He didn’t remember any reaper that other time he died either, when he woke up in Heaven without any warning or transition and enjoyed one of the best moments of his youth before all too willingly letting his heart be torn to shreds (because really, it had been so easy to tell himself Sam didn’t love him since that made it so much easier to push him away - but even his self-esteem issues were no excuse for just accepting that apparently none of Sam’s most valued memories included the girl he’d wanted to fucking marry). This time, though, this time everything was as it had been when he had played Death. There was a brief pain, the familiar sensation of dying, and then there was a reaper. Not any reaper either, but Tessa, because apparently even reapers tended to be nostalgic.
She was wearing the face he knew, and she looked at him with such sadness and disappointment in her eyes that Dean felt like falling as she said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
+|+|+
Bobby looks heartbroken, but in the end not terribly surprised. He doesn’t shoot them. He breaks the salt line at the entrance and every other door in the house and lets them into his home, these creatures that might destroy him if they wanted, the way he has always let them in. Dean doesn’t know if he trusts them, or if this is a risk he’s willing to take for the sake of getting them back.
“So,” he says, standing in the kitchen while Dean and Sam settle down on the seats they have always chosen, ever since they were kids. Sam at the head of the table and Dean at the side, close enough to reach over to catch him should he fall. (They didn’t sit this close since Sam was five.) “I guess I don’t need to offer you dinner, then.”
“No,” Sam says, and at the same time Dean says, “If you got leftovers, I’ll take them,” making Sam pull a face on him while Bobby frowns. “You know,” Dean explains, “all those ghosts who don’t know they are dead? Who go around as solid as a living being, eating and drinking and sleeping? We’re kinda like that.”
“But you very obviously do know that you are dead,” Bobby observes.
“Yeah. I guess, I don’t know, I guess we just have the advantage of advance knowledge on everything ghost-y.” Dean shrugs and reaches for a bag of chips on the counter behind him, tears it open and stuffs some into his mouth to underline his argument. Sam rolls his eyes.
“Right.” The way Bobby stretches the word tells Dean that he’s not impressed with the explanation. “So, how did you end up this way? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you, but this is not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”
“I bet,” Dean mutters, and Sam hurries to say, “Cas killed us,” before Dean can explain what really happened. So Dean glares at his brother and Sam glares back and of course Bobby picks up on that because he’s not stupid.
“Did he? Why wait this long?”
“Who knows why he does anything he does? Maybe he just wanted us to bask in his glory.”
“And what kept you here? Something tells me you’re not just waiting to say goodbye.”
“What, you’d rather we’d have moved on without ever telling you what happened to us?” Dean tries to keep his tone light. “Because I don’t think Cas would have sent you a note.”
Bobby’s expression turns at the same time stern and soft. “You deserve better than this, boys.”
“Well.” Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Apparently, I-”
“We would’ve gone to Hell,” Sam interrupts him. “Cas is ruling Heaven, do you really think he would have let us in? So since neither of us is all that interested in a repeated performance, we decided to stay here instead.” He looks at Bobby with an open challenge in his eyes, everything about him radiating defensiveness. “Or would you rather have us burn?”
“Of course not,” Bobby snaps. “And as long as you two knuckleheads can keep yourselves from going vengeful, you’re welcome to stay here. But I know you, Sam. And the way you’re acting right now tells me there’s something you don’t want me to know.”
Of course he noticed that. It’s Bobby - Bobby knows them. Sam just kind of glares at him, so Bobby looks at Dean for an explanation. And the thing is, Dean wants him to know, wants his guilt to be acknowledged, but he won’t do that right here and now with Sam listening, because Sam doesn’t want Bobby to know and Dean owes him so fucking much.
He makes a vague gesture with his head that he hopes Bobby will interpret correctly as “I’ll tell you when we’re on our own,” even as he realises that the right moment might never come since he doesn’t have any inclination of letting Sam out of his sight anytime soon.
Bobby does give them some food in the end. Dean is the only one who eats, and he happily does so, pretending nothing is wrong. Sam is quiet; he has been quiet ever since, making Dean think that he took this harder than him or that something is wrong. (He’s almost anxiously sticking to his big brother’s side, though, and Dean can very much live with that.) And Bobby is sitting before his own plate, not touching the food, watching them with an unreadable expression on his face. He’s taking this well, all things considered, but in the end he did just learn that his surrogate sons have died, which is an odd experience to make from the point of view of a surrogate son. Makes it hard for Dean to really appreciate what the old hunter is going through right now.
This is a very strange situation.
After dinner, they retreat to their old room upstairs, the one they used as children. Bobby gives them sheets and blankets and they make their beds but neither of them lies down to sleep, even long after Bobby has gone to bed. Once again they sit on their beds, worn and exhausted but not tired, not sure if they could sleep even if they wanted to.
Not wanting to sleep because they might just drift away.
Eventually, in the silvery moonlight falling through the window, Dean reaches out for his brother. “Come here,” he whispers and Sam comes willingly, letting his brother take him in his arms as they sink down together, curled up and awake for the rest of the night.
+|+|+
They were still in the room where Dean had died. The cell where he had died. Bare walls, blankets on the floor for a bed, a high tiny window with fucking bars on it, and outside it was always dark. Just black, like there was nothing. A parody of a prison cell created for their convenience, or a picture drawn by a child with only a vague idea of what a prison cell looked like and very little imagination.
But the door, usually closed unless it was time for their punishment, was open, frozen the moment Dean had ended it, and it was empty because Cas, for all his power, could not reach them here. The light was different, too. It was no longer the dim, yellow light that filled the cell all the time, all the fucking time, making Dean want to rip his skin off. It had been replaced with the colourless kind of twilight he remembered from his second adventure as a ghost, when he and Sam had stripped their bodies in order to save a reaper. The same reaper who was now looking at him with such hard eyes.
But Dean’s own eyes had something much more important to focus on than Tessa: Behind her, looking lost and confused but so fucking aware was Sam, his eyes wide and looking at Dean as if his big brother had all the answers. And Dean just kind of gravitated toward him just like Sam moved for Dean, both of them equally eager to wrap their arms around the other and just hold on. But before they could touch, Tessa put her hand flat against Dean’s chest, stopping him with the efficiency of a wall. At the same time, a hand took hold of Sam’s shoulder and pulled him back, making Sam flinch and Dean struggle to get there and get it off his brother, but Tessa wouldn’t let him go.
Sam looked at Dean in confusion and growing desperation. There was a man standing behind him: tall, middle-aged, bearded, black suit and tie. A reaper if Dean had ever seen one. “What the fuck, Tessa?” he snapped at his own reaper. “Let me get to my brother!”
“You can’t get to your brother.” Tessa didn’t exactly snap, but she did sound somewhat like a disappointed mother. Or a heartbroken mother. “You can’t get to your brother ever again.”
+|+|+
There’s a ghost in the window of a two-storey building to the left. It’s barely visible even on this plane, wouldn’t have any hope of being seen, let alone passing for a real person, in the realm of the living. It hushes away when Dean notices it, as if afraid. Or plotting something. He’ll tell Bobby about it when they get back, have him take care of it before it hurts anyone. Dean wonders if that makes him a hypocrite.
Maybe it’s just lost and needs help moving on. But Dean and Sam are hardly the go-to guys for getting into Heaven.
“I told Bobby.” These are the first words Dean has spoken in ages; they leave his mouth almost unbidden but this is not one of the secrets that has to be carried in silence. Sam doesn’t even stop, doesn’t say anything. He just turns to look at his brother as they walk down the empty road that has no sound, no smell and no wind. Dean looks back and shrugs. “So you can stop with the lying when it comes up.”
“Why did you do that?” To Dean’s relief, Sam doesn’t sound too pissed. Just a little, and a little confused and a little tired. Dean would tell him to take a nap but they don’t technically need sleep anymore and while they never spoke about it, neither of them is entirely sure they wouldn’t drift somewhere else without their consciousness to root them where they are.
“Why not? It’s not a secret worth keeping. Don’t you think he deserves knowing how we ended up like this?”
“I think this is about you trying to punish yourself again,” Sam bluntly tells him. “You don’t want Bobby to see you as anything better than what you are.”
“So you do think that it was a shitty thing to do.”
“No. But I know you think that. And I bet that you told it exactly like that.”
There’s nothing much Dean can reply to that, since Sam got it exactly right. They just know each other too well. “It was a shitty thing to do. You could be-”
“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Sam interrupts him and Dean almost (but not quite) jumps when his brother gabs his hand without warning and holds it tight. “With you.”
For a moment they stand still, looking at each other. Eventually, Dean clears his throat and pulls back his hand. “Didn’t we have a rule against chick-flick moments? That didn’t die with us.”
“You had a rule against chick-flick moments,” Sam points out. “And you sucked at keeping to it.”
They keep on walking. There’s nowhere in particular they are going; they are merely taking a walk. Sam started walking and Dean came along and as they walk, even now, their hands are just barely touching.
It’s not often that they willingly return to this plane. Both Dean and Sam are fully aware that they no longer have a place in the world of the living; they feel like they are working on borrowed time and maybe by slipping down to the plane that is more appropriate for them, they feel like giving up the place they have taken for themselves. Like they won’t be let in once they left for a minute.
How should Dean know? It’s not like they ever talked about it and thinking about stuff like that is something he takes great pains to avoid.
The thing is, it feels good being here. Like there’s a tension in him all the fucking time that he doesn’t even notice and now he’s here, where he belongs, he notices its absence. Like he can relax for the first time in ages. He’s pretty sure Sam feels the same way.
And that scares him shitless.
“We should get back up,” he therefore says. Maybe it’s bad, staying here for too long. Maybe at some point they won’t want to get back.
“Up?” Sam frowns at him. “That’ll go over well. There are actually people in this street, Dean.”
Dean calls it “up” because being here reminds him of being underwater, not because it gets him one step closer to his final destination.
“It’s not like we never materialized on some sidewalk before. If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that people ignore what they can’t explain.”
“Or Cas had some built-in perception-filter whenever he flew us somewhere.”
And, yeah, that is something Dean really likes to get nostalgic about, thanks. “We can get back to Bobby’s and pop up in his living room if that makes you feel better.”
“I found us a hunt.”
So there’s something that makes Dean stop in his tracks. “You what?”
“I read the paper, Dean. I recommend that, in general.”
“Sorry, I thought I heard something about a hunt right there. All this being dead and a friggin’ ghost must be interfering with my hearing. Maybe someone in the real world was just throwing salt through me when you opened your mouth.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “We’re not gonna go ghost hunting if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Right. We’re not gonna go hunting at all. Or did it escape you that we are the things hunters hunt?”
“We’re also hunters,” Sam apparently deems it necessary to remind him.
“No, Sam. We’re friggin’ ghosts!”
“We know how to handle a job and we know how to pass for living people. And I’m not saying we go out there and mingle with the rest of the hunting community. I’m saying there’s a hunt, a wendigo, in Michigan. And Bobby saw the same article in the same paper, and he’s going to go take care of it because there aren’t many others left he could send, right? And hunting a wendigo-”
“…is a two-man-job,” Dean finishes for him, biting his lip. “I hate you.”
“No, you don-” This time Sam stops himself, turning around to stare down the road behind them. Dean turns as well, sees nothing.
“What is it?” he asks, alarmed, but Sam shakes his head, turns back around.
“Nothing. I thought I heard something.”
“There’s no ‘I thought’ in our job! It’s usually something out to gank you!”
“There’s nothing, Dean. My imagination. It happens.” Sam seems unwilling to discuss this, but he’s turned around and is heading back to Bobby’s in order to pop out of thin air in the man’s kitchen, so Dean counts that as a win anyway. He’s quite concerned by the way Sam seems so very willing to write this off as his imagination going wild without even considering the possibility that it’s something else.
And by the way his brother is so tense as they head back, as if it cost him a lot of effort not to look over his shoulder.
NEXT