Full Leather Jacket: Chapter Three
Chapter Three
The Winchester brothers walk into The Roadhouse side-by-side, their shoulders touching and their strides matched. Dean doesn’t think he imagines the abrupt drop in hubbub that greets their arrival, because he feels Sammy tense beside him.
“Damn,” Sam murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s Topeka High all over again.”
Dean snorts.
He’d been in his senior year when Dad had dragged them to a safe house in Topeka. Their second week at the local high school, they’d walked into the Cafeteria at lunch time-side-by-side-and the entire room had fallen silent. Somehow, word had got around that they were the sons of a powerful mob boss. Dean had played up to it, enjoying the notoriety. Sam had hated it.
Dean signals Ellen to bring them a couple of beers and they make their way to a booth. Once they’ve settled into it, the general hubbub starts back up again and Dean gives his brother a wry smile.
“So,” he says to Ellen when she comes across with two bottles of Budweiser and two glasses balanced on a round black tray. “What have the mean girls at the popular table been saying about us?”
Ellen huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “Ain’t nothing,” she says. “Just Gordon and Kubrick with their usual pissin’ and moanin’.”
But her lips thin and her eyes slide sideways to Sam when she says it, so Dean has a pretty good idea what it is that Gordon and Kubrick are pissing and moaning about. And so does Sam if the way his shoulders slump are any indication.
As soon as Ellen leaves, Sam starts.
“Dean,” he begins, but Dean cuts him off.
“I’m not having this conversation with you again, Sam. I chose you to be my second. Anybody doesn’t respect my decisions can go fuck themselves.”
Sam nods. “I get that, I do. But maybe the problem is that Dad had me pretty much benched when he was in charge, and you’ve mostly had me hacking police and FBI databases. It’s been a while since anyone saw me in action.”
Dean scoffs. “If they don’t remember you driving getaway cars at fifteen, hell, fourteen years old, if they don’t remember you earning your bones when you were seventeen,” Sam winces at the reminder of his first kill, “then that is their problem.”
“I’m just saying,” Sam says evenly, “that I can see where they’re coming from. A lot of these guys, they don’t trust me anymore, they think going to college made me lose my edge. And maybe they think you don’t fully trust me either, the way you’re keeping me mostly in the background.”
Dean has to concede that Sam has a point. He can see how it might look to outsiders.
Still, he shakes his head. “You’ve got valuable skills that not many of our people have. Any bozo can break heads. Not many people can hack the FBI database.”
Sam studies the condensation dripping down his beer with intensity.
“But,” Dean says. Sam’s head comes up. “Maybe we need to give them a demonstration,” he looks across to where Gordon and Kubrick are holding court over by the pool tables. “Feel like playing a little pool, Sammy?”
Sam looks across to the pool tables. “It’ll have to be Gordon,” he says. “He’s the leader of the pack.”
Dean nods his agreement. “You can take him, little brother. I have faith in you.”
--
Sam learned a lot at Stanford, Dean’s prepared to concede that. One thing he learned was how to be an arrogant, condescending dick. Although, he was actually pretty good at that even before he went to college; college just seems to have refined his talents. It’s good though, watching someone else being on the receiving end of College Boy’s epic, condescending dickishness and Dean’s not going to lie, he’s enjoying watching the vein in Gordon’s neck throb furiously.
It only takes one more patronising comment for Gordon to take a swing. Sam ducks and dances around behind the bigger man and manages to get him in a headlock. Gordon doesn’t know when to cry Uncle, he’s stubborn that way, and Dean’s crew gets to watch him pass out, Sam holding him tightly, squeezing his neck and refusing to let go.
Gordon pisses himself as Sam lowers his unconscious body to the floor. Dean checks his pulse and shakes his head.
“He’s gonna have a sore throat for a couple weeks, but he’ll be okay,” he turns and surveys the silent crowd. “I chose Sam to be my capo bastone because he’s strong and he’s smart. He was born into the Life, and at an age when most of you were still tryin’ to figure out what your dicks were for, Sam was earning his button the old fashioned way. If anyone has anything to say to me about Sam, come say it to my face,” he waits a beat to see if anyone’s going to speak up and when no one does he nods. “You know where to find me. C’mon, Sam.”
Neither of them speaks until they’re half way to Bobby’s house.
“You think that’ll work?” Sam asks.
Dean shrugs. “I don’t think everyone’s gonna fully trust you until you get clean.”
Sam turns to look at him. Dean keeps his eyes on the road.
“That include you?” Sam asks.
Dean’s tempted to punch in a cassette tape and ignore the question, but he knows he can’t do that.
“I don’t trust The Devil’s Own,” he says. “I don’t trust the shit they put into your body without your knowledge or say so. You, I trust. But I’ll be a lot happier when all of that shit is out of your system.”
Sam nods and Dean feels his defensive posture relax, just a little.
Bobby’s out when they get back to the salvage yard, so Dean snags them a couple bottles of Coors from the fridge and they sit out on the porch, on the ratty old sofa Bobby keeps out there, and watch the stars. Dean lights up, compulsively counting how many cigarettes he’s got left and Sam wrinkles his nose and coughs pointedly.
“I’m down to two a day,” Dean says.
Sam smiles wryly. “Just promise me you’ll stay on my case this hard when I start kicking my habit.”
“Promise,” Dean says. “And speaking of, when’s that gonna be?”
“Not yet. When things are a bit more settled.”
Dean reminds his brother that things are never completely settled in their world.
“I know,” Sam says. “I just want to be sure there’s not gonna be a coup before I take myself out of action for a while. Can’t have your back if I’m sweating buckets and throwing up in Bobby’s panic room, can I?”
Dean figures his brother has a point. He finishes his cigarette and kind of regrets that the crisp clean mid-west air is now tainted by the bitter stench of tobacco smoke.
“How are things in Kansas City?” Sam asks.
Dean smirks. “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”
Sam snorts. “Show tunes, Dean? Really? I’m embarrassed for you.”
“Hey, you recognized it, Mr Pot.”
Sam’s smile is playful and relaxed, and Dean knows Sam only left Palo Alto because his girl got murdered, but even so, he’s so fucking grateful to have his brother back by his side where he belongs.
“We both know I was an audio/visual geek in High School,” Sam says. “You did wrestling. So what’s your excuse for knowing Show tunes?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “You did all the technical stuff for Oklahoma! your Senior Year of High School. Dad only let you do it because I agreed to keep an eye on you.”
Sam shoots him an accusing look. “You told me you waited in the car.”
“Like I wanted it to get out that I sat through five performances of Oklahoma!”
Sam stares at him. “You like musicals,” he says finally.
Dean rolls his eyes but doesn’t correct him. Sam smiles fondly at him and the pleased expression stays on his face far too long for Dean’s liking.
“Quit smiling at me like that,” he grouches.
He reaches for his pack of Dunhill’s, but Sam gets to them first. “You don’t need one,” he says. “And I know you just tried to derail me when I asked about Kansas City, but I actually had a reason for asking about it.”
Dean had sort of figured that, which is why he’d attempted to head the conversation off at the pass.
“Are you seeing someone in Kansas City?” Sam asks. “And I don’t mean finding a one night stand, whenever you go up there. I mean seeing seeing.”
Dean thinks about lying, but he kind of doesn’t want to lie.
“Yeah,” he says, slowly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam’s smile brightens.
There are more words that Dean wants to say, but they lodge themselves in his throat. He clears it and takes a long pull of beer, then clears his throat again. “I’m seeing Cas. A former fighter pilot.”
Sam looks expectant for a moment and then sighs. “And what pronouns does Cas prefer?”
Dean stares.
“Him? Her? They?” Sam prompts.
Dean clears his throat again. “I’ve never actually asked, but, uh, I guess he’s a he. He has a dick.”
“Will I get to meet him?”
Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Uh, it’s complicated.”
Sam scoffs. “It’s really not.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “No, it really is. He’s, uh, You know how you went to Stanford because you wanted to get out of, uh, certain elements of the, uh, Family business?”
Sam nods.
“Well Cas is kinda like you. He went into the military to get away from his Family, but now he’s back and they’re kinda pressuring him to get back into the Family business.”
Sam’s gets that inward stare that means he’s sifting through mental data. “Family? As in…? Cas. Cas? Not…Holy shit. Not Castiel Novak? Naomi Santangelo’s son?”
Dean imagines his face looks pretty sheepish. “I guess I should pay more attention to the background briefings, huh? I know the main players, obviously, but Cas’s been out of it so long, and we were both, you know, keeping it on the down low, so no surnames. It took us both a few weeks to put it together.”
Sam sniggers. “So are you Romeo or Juliet?”
Dean very succinctly tells his brother to go fuck himself. “Besides,” he adds. “The Santangelos are meant to be on our side.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Meant to be.”
Dean’s expression sharpens. “You got something you wanna share with the class, Sammy?”
Sam shrugs. “Nothing concrete. Just. Feels like we’re being railroaded into a fight with The Devil’s Own. I just don’t understand why.”
Dean doesn’t tell his brother that he’s got Cas digging around at the Santangelo end on that very subject, but he’s pleased to hear his brother echoing his own concerns. It makes him feel less paranoid.
Dean shoots the breeze with his brother for a while longer. They have a couple more beers and then move on to the whiskey. It’s the most down time they’ve had together in a while and, as Sam heads on up to bed looking happier and less stressed than he’s looked in a while, Dean realizes that his little brother needed this.
Dean sighs. What he needs is for Cas to pin him down and fuck him through the mattress. His head’s a pretty dark place a lot of the time and nothing helps Dean manage it quite as effectively as Cas holding him down and giving it to him good. Unfortunately, that ain’t something that’s likely to happen in the near future because Cas is now working for the Santangelos and they’ve agreed to keep their distance until he’s figured out what’s going on.
Dean misses him. And if he’s honest about it, he doesn’t just miss the fucking. He misses Cas’s dry sense of humor, his tendency to be stupidly literal and the way that pop culture references go right over his head. He misses the arguments they have over movies and music and he misses Cas’s intelligence, the way he can get Dean to think about things differently without ever coming across like a patronizing know-it-all.
Dean watches as headlights bounce their way up the driveway. Bobby gets out carrying a plate covered over with saran wrap.
“Is that one of Marcy Ward’s peach cobblers?” Dean asks. “Bobby, you sly dog.”
“Shut up,” Bobby says as he comes up the front steps.
“Does Ellen know you’re catting around on her?” Dean teases.
Bobby scowls. “Well that’s rich coming from you. Besides, me and Ellen ain’t a thing. We just spend time together sometimes.”
“Uh huh. Just don’t forget that Ellen keeps a shot gun behind the bar.”
Bobby rolls his eyes. He heads inside and Dean hears him open a cupboard. He’s back out a moment later with a glass and Dean picks up the bottle of Jim Beam that’s on the floor beside the sofa and pours him a generous serve.
“Speaking of The Roadhouse,” Bobby says, “I called in there on the way home.”
“With the scent of another woman’s perfume still clinging to you? That was brave of you.”
Bobby smacks him upside the head, which Dean has to concede he probably deserved.
“Talked to Roy and Walt. They were none too happy. Said Kubrick had to take Gordon home because Sam damn near took his head off.”
Dean smirks. “It was a thing of beauty, Bobby. Sam sure hasn’t lost his touch. He literally made Gordon piss his pants.”
Bobby lights up a fat cigar and takes a few puffs. “You sure that was wise?”
Dean snorts and tips back the remainder of his whiskey. “Hey, I’m a wise guy.”
Bobby shakes his head. “According to Roy, there’s quite a number in the crew think that Sam’s a loose cannon. People know about this so-called Demon Blood. They think Sam’s tainted. A liability. And the way he bested Gordon today, people are saying he’s got super strength because of the Demon Blood that The Devil’s Own drugged him with. They’re saying he can’t be trusted.”
Dean stares at his Consigliere. “And what do you say, Bobby?”
Bobby takes a slow measured sip of whiskey. “I say we gotta get him de-toxed as soon as possible. Then we can be sure that he’s not compromised.”
“That’s always been the plan,” Dean says. “As soon as things settle--”
Bobby cuts him off. “No. Now. Tomorrow. No more excuses. We do it first thing.”
--
Bobby makes eggs and sausage for breakfast. Dean’s already on his third cup of strong black coffee when Sam comes yawning downstairs, looking like an extra from a hair metal video clip.
“Seriously, man,” Dean says. “Just give me five minutes with some clippers.”
“Shut up,” Sam mumbles and heads straight for the coffee pot.
“I was thinking,” Dean says, when Sam’s half way through his breakfast.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Sam jokes.
“I was thinking,” Dean reiterates, “that we should start your detox today.”
Sam sits up straight and runs his hands through the bird’s nest of his hair. “What? No. Dean. I thought we agreed that we’d wait until everything was sorted.”
“Everything ain’t never gonna be sorted,” Bobby chimes in. “And we need you, Sam. We need to know for sure that you ain’t compromised.”
Sam’s eyes dart back and forth between them. “I don’t think now’s the right time,” he says. “The drugs keep me sharp and we need that right now. Things will calm down a little and then…then I’ll stop taking them.”
“Okay,” Dean says.
Sam’s brow furrows. “That’s it? Okay? You’re not gonna argue?”
Dean shakes his head. “I trust you, Sammy.”
Sam looks at Bobby who shrugs and turns away to refill his coffee cup. “Ain’t up to me.”
Dean clears his throat. “We do have an important job we gotta do today, though. It’s to do with this whole Demon problem. So how about you go get ready and then meet us back here.”
Dean and Bobby sit silently until the shower starts up and then Bobby says gruffly, “So, plan B, huh?”
“Looks like it,” Dean nods unhappily.
“Has anyone seen my pills?” Sam says later, when he re-joins them in the kitchen.
He’s dressed in jeans and a burgundy button down shirt, his hair is damp and his eyes are twitching.
“Nope,” Dean says.
Sam frowns. “They were beside my bed.”
Dean shrugs.
“C’mon,” Bobby says, standing. “You two knuckleheads can deal with your housekeeping dramas later. I got something down here that you need to see.”
He heads down to his panic room, with Dean and Sam trailing behind him.
“In here,” Bobby says, pulling open the door and letting Sam go in ahead of him.
Dean hangs back.
Sam looks around, frowning. The panic room is set up like a cell.
“What’s going on?” Sam asks. “What’s this got to do with the Demon problem?”
“You’re the Demon problem,” Bobby says and shuts and locks the door.
“Very funny,” Sam shouts from behind the door. “Ha. Ha. Now let me out.”
“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean says. “This is for your own good.”
The next hour is fucking awful. Sammy hammers on the door and yells himself hoarse and Dean sits on the floor outside the panic room and tries not to think about how much he wants a drink and a cigarette, because how hypocritical would that be?
Dean has been steadfastly refusing to move from the floor outside the panic room, since they locked Sam in, so Bobby, in a move that’s totally below the belt if you ask Dean, calls in the big guns. It’s nearly lunchtime when Ellen sits down beside him. Sam’s mostly quiet now. Every now and then he’ll beg Dean to let him out and the misery in his voice breaks Dean’s heart.
Ellen pats his knee. “Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll sit with Sam for a while.”
Dean shakes his head. “I gotta be here, Ellen. I owe him that.”
Ellen wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head lightly. “This is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. You need to pace yourself. Go on upstairs, now. I’ve got this.”
Dean decides to allow himself to bask in her maternal comfort for a little while longer.
“This is so fucked up,” he says.
Ellen pulls on his ear lobe, hard enough to elicit an ow.
“Don’t think I won’t wash your mouth out, Dean Winchester.”
The threat is kind of comforting in an odd sort of way and Dean feels himself relax, just a little.
“I wasn’t ready for this,” he confesses. “I never thought,” he huffs out a laugh. “My dad always seemed so indestructible, you know? I mean, I saw him take some terrible beatings, but he always came up swinging. And then he goes and throws himself in front of a bullet and now all we’ve got left is me and I…I’m not even sure I can do this. I ain’t a big picture kinda guy, Ellen. I’m more…point and shoot. This all feels way over my pay grade and, you know, I’m tryin’ to keep my game face on for Sammy, but I’m just…I’m gonna let everybody down.”
Beside him, Ellen sighs. “Your Daddy was one helluva man,” she says. “Driven; determined; demanding; highly competent. And those are some big boots to fill. But he was also a ruthless, paranoid sonofabitch. People were loyal because they respected him and they feared him. People are loyal to you because they respect you and they love you.”
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes.
“You’re a good man, Dean. You listen to people, and even though you can be ruthless, you’re not needlessly violent. Sam would follow you to Hell and back, but your Daddy never could get him to fall into line. In a lot of ways you’re a better leader than John ever was.”
“Tell that to Gordon,” Dean says darkly.
“I have. But, Dean, you know his history, so I’m sure you can see why this thing with Sam’s got him bent all out of shape.”
Dean frowns for a moment and then his eyes widen as he recalls. Gordon’s sister had been a junkie. When Gordon was a rookie soldier, first working for the Winchesters, she’d followed him to one of the Family’s meth labs and stolen five pounds of ice, worth a little over ten thousand dollars. The Family couldn’t let that stand and Gordon had earned his button by killing his sister. Dean had only been fifteen at the time, but he remembers thinking that he could never kill Sammy, no matter what.
“Gordon thinks that all junkies are the same,” Ellen says. “That it’s only a matter of time before your brother turns on us.”
Dean harrumphs. “Well at least Sammy getting clean should get him off our backs.”
Ellen purses her lips. “I ain’t so sure,” she says. “Listening to Gordon talk, he seems very sure that a leopard can’t change its spots; that getting clean never lasts.”
Dean lets his head thunk back against the wall. “I’m gonna have to deal with him, aren’t I?”
“Looks that way. In the meantime,” Ellen gives Dean a gentle push, “Bobby’s got some papers he wants you to take a look at, so why don’t you go on upstairs and I’ll sit with Sam?”
Dean agrees. But only because there are security monitors in the library that he can use to keep an eye on Sam.
--
Dean doesn’t leave the house for the next three days. He reads reports. He makes and takes phone calls. He issues orders and makes decisions.
Sam’s in a bad way. When he’s awake he’s either violent and angry, or depressed and crying. He sleeps a lot. And sometimes he hallucinates, which Dean figures must be something to do with the Demon Blood, because it’s not a typical symptom of Speed withdrawal.
Dean spends a lot of time sitting by his brother in the panic room, letting Sam rant and throw things, and then wrapping his arms around him when he shakes and cries. He holds a bucket under his head when he pukes. When Dean takes a break either Bobby or Ellen stay with Sam. They’ve been a Godsend and Dean doesn’t know what he’d do without them.
On Day Four, Dean gets a phone call from long-time Santangelo soldier, Uriel, who tells him that Zachariah wants to see him.
“Now’s not really a good time,” Dean says.
“Zachariah insists that you make time,” Uriel says.
Dean’s never really liked Uriel. He can’t seem to help sneering at the Winchesters; doesn’t think they’re fit to head up a Family, because they don’t have an Italian surname.
“Look, Uriel,” Dean begins, but Uriel cuts him off.
“The Winchesters owe us, Dean. You come to us, time and time again in need of our help and we help. We are a key ally and when we call on you, we expect you to respond.”
Dean runs a hand over the creases in his forehead. “Okay,” he says. “When and where.”
Ellen agrees to stay with Sam and Dean brings Rufus in to watch her back while he and Bobby go to meet with the Santangelos.
It’s lunchtime when Dean and Bobby walk through the front door of Vesuvius Italian Family Restaurant and Bar in Kansas City. Dean flirts shamelessly with the waitress who escorts them to Zachariah’s table as a matter of course. Ladies’ man is part of the persona he’s cultivated, after all.
He nearly trips over his own tongue when he sees Castiel standing to attention not far from Zachariah’s table. The way Cas looks through him, you’d never know he’d had Dean ass up and begging for his cock only a few weeks ago. Dean swallows and forces himself to look away. There’s another guy standing to attention on the other side of Zachariah’s table and Zachariah himself is watching Dean closely, with narrowed eyes.
“What’s with all the goons?” Dean tries to mask how uncomfortable Cas’s unexpected presence has made him.
“These are uncertain times,” Zachariah says smoothly. “Please. Have a seat.”
He and Bobby sit down, Dean with his back to Cas because he’s pretty sure he’s going to give himself away if he has to look at him again.
The waitress hands Dean a menu and he smirks and says, “Thanks, Darlin’,” on reflex.
They order food and drinks and Zachariah asks Dean why it’s Bobby with him and not his new Second. Dean tells him that Sam’s taking care of another important matter and, speaking of which, could they maybe move onto what was so urgent he had to drop everything to come to this meeting.
But Zachariah insists on eating first, with a pompous smile on his face that Dean just really wants to smack off him. He clenches his fists beneath the table and tells himself he doesn’t need a cigarette. Dean forces himself to make small talk with Zachariah and Uriel, and Bobby does his bit too, reminiscing with Zachariah about people and events from the old days; the days when John and Bobby were in charge and Dean didn’t have all this responsibility weighing on his shoulders.
Eventually though, Zachariah gets to the point. The bottom line is that the Santangelos believe that The Devil’s Own are out of control and The Winchesters need to rein them in.
Dean pauses, with his glass of expensive red wine half way to his lips. “You want us to declare war on them?”
Zachariah smiles bombastically. “Oh, I don’t think an actual declaration is necessary, but we do feel that the time is right for you to deal with Nick Morningstar in a more, shall we say, decisive manner.”
Dean stares at him. “No offense, Zach,” he says. “But I’m gonna need to hear that from Michael.”
“I speak for Michael,” Zachariah bristles and glowers.
Dean presses his lip together. No way in Hell would he consider moving on Michael Santangelo’s half-brother without say-so from the man himself. He may be new at this Capo business, but he’s not a fucking idiot.
“Okay,” he says to Zachariah. “Was that all?”
Zachariah frowns. “No,” he looks at Uriel and the look that passes between them is anything but reassuring. “Several of your men have been seen fraternizing with The Devil’s Own. Gordon Walker. Creedy. Kubrick,” he hands Dean a manila folder which contains surveillance photos, one of which shows Gordon taking a bundle of cash from a Demon. “You have traitors in your midst, Dean, and we do believe the time has come for you to take decisive action, both with your own traitors and the biker scum.”
It’s a sore point with the Santangelos that when he was kicked out of the Family business, Nick Morningstar elected to start up his own one percenter motorcycle club. The Mafia sees themselves as a cut above all other organized crime groups, and the older, more prestigious Families like the Santangelos view themselves as part of an honorable society. They get offended if they’re called a ‘crime gang’, but Nick Morningstar revels in being a common thug.
“Thanks for the heads up,” Dean says.
“So you’ll deal with it?”
“Sure.”
The waitress slips Dean her number as they’re leaving and Dean can’t help the way his eyes dart up to look at Cas. Cas is staring straight at him from where he’s walking beside Zachariah and the look on his face is so intense that Dean’s stomach somersaults. If they were at Cas’s place that look would mean Dean was about to get hogtied and then edged for hours.
As soon as they’re outside, Dean dumps the slip of paper with the waitresses number on it into the nearest trash can and he doesn’t think he imagines the pleased smile that flits across Cas’s face before each party turns and they go their separate ways.
“Well?” Bobby says.
Dean shrugs. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. Gordon’s always been a bit of a loose cannon.”
Bobby brushes him off impatiently, ‘Yeah, yeah. I know we’re gonna have to deal with that. It’s been on the cards ever since your old man bought it. And you obviously ain’t gonna move against Nick Morningstar without hearing it from Michael himself. What I wanna know is, what’s with you and that Santangelo goon who was eye-fucking you all through lunch?”
Dean damn near chokes on his own saliva.
‘Uh, what?” he says lamely when Bobby finishes patting him on the back.
Bobby rolls his eyes. “Don’t even try, boy. You know you can’t lie to me worth a damn.”
Which is absolutely true. Partly that’s because he doesn’t really have to. For the most part, Bobby accepts Dean for who he is and there’s never really been anything where they’ve been on a different page.
“We, uh, may have met at a bar,” Dean confesses.
“So you know each other?”
Dean nods.
“In the Biblical way?”
Dean nods again.
Bobby harrumphs. “Well,” he says, “I know Zachariah and Michael’s views on the ‘sin of sodomy’, so I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s deeper in the closet than you are.”
Dean’s pretty sure his cheeks are a more scarlet shade of red than they’ve been in a long time. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “That’s pretty accurate.”
“So I probably won’t have to kill him,” Bobby concludes.
Dean whirls on him fast. “You do not move on Cas without my say-so.”
Bobby looks way too pleased with himself.
“Cas, hey? So I’m guessing he’s the mystery someone that Sam mentioned you were seeing.”
They reach the car and Dean slips behind the wheel of his Baby.
“You and Sam gossip more than a couple of ninth grade girls,” he grumbles.
Bobby chuckles and then sobers with a sigh.
“Alrighty then,” he says as Dean starts up the engine. “Let’s talk about how we’re gonna handle Gordon and his co-conspirators.”
--
Dean sends out Lee Chambers and Steve Wandell to pick up Gordon. Meanwhile, he, Rufus and Bobby head out to Rufus’s cabin and the three of them pick a nice quiet spot in the surrounding forest and dig a deep grave.
And then they go back inside the cabin to wait. When Gordon arrives, Dean tells him to take a seat, and then he shows him the surveillance photos, one at a time.
Gordon looks at each photo in turn and then raises his eyes to meet Dean’s. “There’s a war coming, Dean,” he says. “And your brother is gonna bring it down on our heads.”
“Yeah? How d’you figure that.”
“He’s in Nick Morningstar’s pocket already. Lucifer,” he uses Morningstar’s biker nickname, “is gonna use Sam to kill you, just like he used him to kill his friends, his girl, his father. Now, I could have warned you, but you’re weak, Dean. And I knew you’d never do what needed to be done. I figured if I appeared to cooperate with Morningstar, maybe it’d keep the casualties down when the war came.”
“You took their money,” Bobby comments. “You did more than appear to cooperate.”
Gordon nods. “Lucifer wanted me to kill you and Rufus, because he knew that if Sam killed Dean you’d never let him take control of the Family. But Sam is weak. A junkie. I would never allow him to head up this Family either. I promised myself that I would kill Sam too and then I would run things.”
Gordon’s tone is calm and moderated. His eyes are clear and bright.
“You’re delusional,” Dean says.
“You realize you’ve betrayed the oath you made to this Family,” Bobby tells Gordon.
“That’s punishable by death,” Rufus adds.
Dean nods.
Gordon smiles, just a little. “So it’s come to this then,” he meets Dean’s eyes again. “You have no idea what I faced to get here, Dean. I lost everything. My family. Now my life. But it's worth it, because your Daddy believed in me. And I'm gonna do what you couldn’t. What you were too weak to do. I’m finally gonna kill the most dangerous threat this Family faces.”
“Get him outta here,” Bobby snarls and Lee and Steve strongarm Gordon to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” Dean says, his eyes narrowed and his heart beating triple time. “What do you mean? We’re about to put a bullet in you. How do you think you’re gonna kill anyone between now and then?”
But Gordon just smiles beatifically and then lowers his head and begins to pray.
Dean licks at his lips and gets out his cell phone.
Bobby quirks an eyebrow.
“Calling Kubrick and Creedy,” Dean explains. “I wanna know where they’re at.”
Kubrick’s phone rings out. Dean calls Creedy. And then tilts his head, because that ain’t an echo he can hear.
“Is that coming from out front?” Rufus says, turning and walking toward the window.
There’s a flash and a crack and then the front window explodes, the curtains flap and billow and Rufus staggers back a step and then slumps to the floor.
There’s another flash and Dean has the table turned on its side and is squatting behind it with his gun drawn by the time a bullet buries itself in the wall behind him.
Bobby is on his knees at Rufus’s side and his face is grim. His fingers press against Rufus’s neck and his eyes tighten. He shakes his head and Dean makes desperate motioning gestures to Bobby to get behind the cover of the table as another crack sounds, then another.
Bobby’s scrambling on all fours toward Dean when a moose head falls from the wall. One of its antlers spears Bobby’s calf and he cries out.
“Goddamn it, Dean,” he hisses. “Tell me again how it’s a good idea not to bring Kubrick and Creedy in just yet.”
Dean scrabbles for Rufus’s first aid kit, which is kept in the wooden cabinet beside the table.
“I thought it was the right call,” he says as he pulls the moose off of Bobby, who grunts out sonofabitch through gritted teeth.
Dean bandages his leg. “Gordon’s the ringleader. The others, I thought we could save. I mean they ain’t the sharpest tools in the box; they’re pretty easily led.”
Bobby snorts. “Got that right.”
There’s another gun blast and Steve Wandell, who’s been hiding behind the sofa, helping Lee hold Gordon down, suddenly gets to his feet, holding Gordon before him like a human shield.
“Got your boy in here,” he calls. “If you keep shooting you might hit--”
That’s as far as he gets before there’s another gun blast and a bullet hits Gordon square in the chest and then buries itself in Steve’s shoulder.
Gordon collapses with wide unseeing eyes and Steve drops back behind the sofa clutching his arm.
“Like I said,” Dean tells Steve, “not the sharpest tool in the box.”
He tosses over the first aid kit.
“Ok, I’ma deal with this. Hang tight.”
Dean makes his way to the back door of the cabin and inches it open slowly before edging outside. He creeps around the outside of the cabin, hugging the log walls, and then peers around to see if he can spot Creedy.
Creedy is squatting in front of the porch, looking up at the cabin’s front window from in between the railings. His gun is drawn.
Dean pulls back and considers his options for a moment before deciding fuck it and rounding the corner at speed, his gun up and cocked.
Creedy startles and tries to turn, but somehow manages to get his gun stuck between the porch railings. Dean shoots him between the eyes and watches him fall. He confiscates his gun and then calls out that Creedy’s down and he’s coming in, before walking up the front steps and through the front door.
Inside, Bobby is breathing heavily and looking pissed. Chambers is keeping pressure on Waddell’s wound and Rufus…Rufus is still dead.
Fuck.
Dean sighs. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. Lee, you and I are gonna bury Gordon and Creedy. Then I’m gonna take Steve to Dr Roberts to get patched up.”
Dr Cara Roberts is a friend of the Family and deals with any injured members who can’t go to a hospital, because the staff would ask too many questions and possibly feel obligated to inform police.
“I’ll gonna take you to hospital, Bobby,” Dean continues, “and we’ll tell them it was the moose head on your wall that did this to you. Lee, you’re gonna have to stay here and sit Shiva for Rufus on behalf of the Family.”
The Winchesters are the only Family Rufus has-had-left.
“Give the rest of us time to get clear,” Dean continues, “and then call Sherriff Mills. Tell her you and Rufus were planning on a hunting trip and you found him dead when you got here.”
Everyone nods and then Dean calls Ellen, because he’s still feeling spooked by Gordon’s last words. He’s pretty sure that Gordon meant Sam when he said he was going to kill the most dangerous threat to the Family.
Ellen answers and says that she hasn’t seen Kubrick, but that she’ll be extra vigilant. Bobby has security monitors and Rumsfeld, so Dean’s pretty confident Ellen will see and hear Kubrick coming. She knows where Bobby keeps his weapons and she’s a damn good shot. Dean tells himself he’s not worried and sets about getting Gordon and Creedy buried.
Next, Dean gets Steve to Dr Roberts and Bobby to the hospital, but he doesn’t stick around because he needs to be back by Sam’s side. If someone’s coming for him, Dean needs to have his brother’s back.
He calls Ellen again to check in and to let her know he’s coming. He has his cell phone in one hand and his keys in the other as he crosses the parking lot heading for his car.
Dean doesn’t even see the man who steps out of the shadows and tasers him, he just hits the ground. His cell phone bounces from his limp hand and slides across the asphalt.
“Hello?” Ellen’s voice says. “Dean? Hello?”
<
| NEXT>>
Back to MasterPost
The Winchester brothers walk into The Roadhouse side-by-side, their shoulders touching and their strides matched. Dean doesn’t think he imagines the abrupt drop in hubbub that greets their arrival, because he feels Sammy tense beside him.
“Damn,” Sam murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s Topeka High all over again.”
Dean snorts.
He’d been in his senior year when Dad had dragged them to a safe house in Topeka. Their second week at the local high school, they’d walked into the Cafeteria at lunch time-side-by-side-and the entire room had fallen silent. Somehow, word had got around that they were the sons of a powerful mob boss. Dean had played up to it, enjoying the notoriety. Sam had hated it.
Dean signals Ellen to bring them a couple of beers and they make their way to a booth. Once they’ve settled into it, the general hubbub starts back up again and Dean gives his brother a wry smile.
“So,” he says to Ellen when she comes across with two bottles of Budweiser and two glasses balanced on a round black tray. “What have the mean girls at the popular table been saying about us?”
Ellen huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “Ain’t nothing,” she says. “Just Gordon and Kubrick with their usual pissin’ and moanin’.”
But her lips thin and her eyes slide sideways to Sam when she says it, so Dean has a pretty good idea what it is that Gordon and Kubrick are pissing and moaning about. And so does Sam if the way his shoulders slump are any indication.
As soon as Ellen leaves, Sam starts.
“Dean,” he begins, but Dean cuts him off.
“I’m not having this conversation with you again, Sam. I chose you to be my second. Anybody doesn’t respect my decisions can go fuck themselves.”
Sam nods. “I get that, I do. But maybe the problem is that Dad had me pretty much benched when he was in charge, and you’ve mostly had me hacking police and FBI databases. It’s been a while since anyone saw me in action.”
Dean scoffs. “If they don’t remember you driving getaway cars at fifteen, hell, fourteen years old, if they don’t remember you earning your bones when you were seventeen,” Sam winces at the reminder of his first kill, “then that is their problem.”
“I’m just saying,” Sam says evenly, “that I can see where they’re coming from. A lot of these guys, they don’t trust me anymore, they think going to college made me lose my edge. And maybe they think you don’t fully trust me either, the way you’re keeping me mostly in the background.”
Dean has to concede that Sam has a point. He can see how it might look to outsiders.
Still, he shakes his head. “You’ve got valuable skills that not many of our people have. Any bozo can break heads. Not many people can hack the FBI database.”
Sam studies the condensation dripping down his beer with intensity.
“But,” Dean says. Sam’s head comes up. “Maybe we need to give them a demonstration,” he looks across to where Gordon and Kubrick are holding court over by the pool tables. “Feel like playing a little pool, Sammy?”
Sam looks across to the pool tables. “It’ll have to be Gordon,” he says. “He’s the leader of the pack.”
Dean nods his agreement. “You can take him, little brother. I have faith in you.”
--
Sam learned a lot at Stanford, Dean’s prepared to concede that. One thing he learned was how to be an arrogant, condescending dick. Although, he was actually pretty good at that even before he went to college; college just seems to have refined his talents. It’s good though, watching someone else being on the receiving end of College Boy’s epic, condescending dickishness and Dean’s not going to lie, he’s enjoying watching the vein in Gordon’s neck throb furiously.
It only takes one more patronising comment for Gordon to take a swing. Sam ducks and dances around behind the bigger man and manages to get him in a headlock. Gordon doesn’t know when to cry Uncle, he’s stubborn that way, and Dean’s crew gets to watch him pass out, Sam holding him tightly, squeezing his neck and refusing to let go.
Gordon pisses himself as Sam lowers his unconscious body to the floor. Dean checks his pulse and shakes his head.
“He’s gonna have a sore throat for a couple weeks, but he’ll be okay,” he turns and surveys the silent crowd. “I chose Sam to be my capo bastone because he’s strong and he’s smart. He was born into the Life, and at an age when most of you were still tryin’ to figure out what your dicks were for, Sam was earning his button the old fashioned way. If anyone has anything to say to me about Sam, come say it to my face,” he waits a beat to see if anyone’s going to speak up and when no one does he nods. “You know where to find me. C’mon, Sam.”
Neither of them speaks until they’re half way to Bobby’s house.
“You think that’ll work?” Sam asks.
Dean shrugs. “I don’t think everyone’s gonna fully trust you until you get clean.”
Sam turns to look at him. Dean keeps his eyes on the road.
“That include you?” Sam asks.
Dean’s tempted to punch in a cassette tape and ignore the question, but he knows he can’t do that.
“I don’t trust The Devil’s Own,” he says. “I don’t trust the shit they put into your body without your knowledge or say so. You, I trust. But I’ll be a lot happier when all of that shit is out of your system.”
Sam nods and Dean feels his defensive posture relax, just a little.
Bobby’s out when they get back to the salvage yard, so Dean snags them a couple bottles of Coors from the fridge and they sit out on the porch, on the ratty old sofa Bobby keeps out there, and watch the stars. Dean lights up, compulsively counting how many cigarettes he’s got left and Sam wrinkles his nose and coughs pointedly.
“I’m down to two a day,” Dean says.
Sam smiles wryly. “Just promise me you’ll stay on my case this hard when I start kicking my habit.”
“Promise,” Dean says. “And speaking of, when’s that gonna be?”
“Not yet. When things are a bit more settled.”
Dean reminds his brother that things are never completely settled in their world.
“I know,” Sam says. “I just want to be sure there’s not gonna be a coup before I take myself out of action for a while. Can’t have your back if I’m sweating buckets and throwing up in Bobby’s panic room, can I?”
Dean figures his brother has a point. He finishes his cigarette and kind of regrets that the crisp clean mid-west air is now tainted by the bitter stench of tobacco smoke.
“How are things in Kansas City?” Sam asks.
Dean smirks. “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”
Sam snorts. “Show tunes, Dean? Really? I’m embarrassed for you.”
“Hey, you recognized it, Mr Pot.”
Sam’s smile is playful and relaxed, and Dean knows Sam only left Palo Alto because his girl got murdered, but even so, he’s so fucking grateful to have his brother back by his side where he belongs.
“We both know I was an audio/visual geek in High School,” Sam says. “You did wrestling. So what’s your excuse for knowing Show tunes?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “You did all the technical stuff for Oklahoma! your Senior Year of High School. Dad only let you do it because I agreed to keep an eye on you.”
Sam shoots him an accusing look. “You told me you waited in the car.”
“Like I wanted it to get out that I sat through five performances of Oklahoma!”
Sam stares at him. “You like musicals,” he says finally.
Dean rolls his eyes but doesn’t correct him. Sam smiles fondly at him and the pleased expression stays on his face far too long for Dean’s liking.
“Quit smiling at me like that,” he grouches.
He reaches for his pack of Dunhill’s, but Sam gets to them first. “You don’t need one,” he says. “And I know you just tried to derail me when I asked about Kansas City, but I actually had a reason for asking about it.”
Dean had sort of figured that, which is why he’d attempted to head the conversation off at the pass.
“Are you seeing someone in Kansas City?” Sam asks. “And I don’t mean finding a one night stand, whenever you go up there. I mean seeing seeing.”
Dean thinks about lying, but he kind of doesn’t want to lie.
“Yeah,” he says, slowly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam’s smile brightens.
There are more words that Dean wants to say, but they lodge themselves in his throat. He clears it and takes a long pull of beer, then clears his throat again. “I’m seeing Cas. A former fighter pilot.”
Sam looks expectant for a moment and then sighs. “And what pronouns does Cas prefer?”
Dean stares.
“Him? Her? They?” Sam prompts.
Dean clears his throat again. “I’ve never actually asked, but, uh, I guess he’s a he. He has a dick.”
“Will I get to meet him?”
Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Uh, it’s complicated.”
Sam scoffs. “It’s really not.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “No, it really is. He’s, uh, You know how you went to Stanford because you wanted to get out of, uh, certain elements of the, uh, Family business?”
Sam nods.
“Well Cas is kinda like you. He went into the military to get away from his Family, but now he’s back and they’re kinda pressuring him to get back into the Family business.”
Sam’s gets that inward stare that means he’s sifting through mental data. “Family? As in…? Cas. Cas? Not…Holy shit. Not Castiel Novak? Naomi Santangelo’s son?”
Dean imagines his face looks pretty sheepish. “I guess I should pay more attention to the background briefings, huh? I know the main players, obviously, but Cas’s been out of it so long, and we were both, you know, keeping it on the down low, so no surnames. It took us both a few weeks to put it together.”
Sam sniggers. “So are you Romeo or Juliet?”
Dean very succinctly tells his brother to go fuck himself. “Besides,” he adds. “The Santangelos are meant to be on our side.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Meant to be.”
Dean’s expression sharpens. “You got something you wanna share with the class, Sammy?”
Sam shrugs. “Nothing concrete. Just. Feels like we’re being railroaded into a fight with The Devil’s Own. I just don’t understand why.”
Dean doesn’t tell his brother that he’s got Cas digging around at the Santangelo end on that very subject, but he’s pleased to hear his brother echoing his own concerns. It makes him feel less paranoid.
Dean shoots the breeze with his brother for a while longer. They have a couple more beers and then move on to the whiskey. It’s the most down time they’ve had together in a while and, as Sam heads on up to bed looking happier and less stressed than he’s looked in a while, Dean realizes that his little brother needed this.
Dean sighs. What he needs is for Cas to pin him down and fuck him through the mattress. His head’s a pretty dark place a lot of the time and nothing helps Dean manage it quite as effectively as Cas holding him down and giving it to him good. Unfortunately, that ain’t something that’s likely to happen in the near future because Cas is now working for the Santangelos and they’ve agreed to keep their distance until he’s figured out what’s going on.
Dean misses him. And if he’s honest about it, he doesn’t just miss the fucking. He misses Cas’s dry sense of humor, his tendency to be stupidly literal and the way that pop culture references go right over his head. He misses the arguments they have over movies and music and he misses Cas’s intelligence, the way he can get Dean to think about things differently without ever coming across like a patronizing know-it-all.
Dean watches as headlights bounce their way up the driveway. Bobby gets out carrying a plate covered over with saran wrap.
“Is that one of Marcy Ward’s peach cobblers?” Dean asks. “Bobby, you sly dog.”
“Shut up,” Bobby says as he comes up the front steps.
“Does Ellen know you’re catting around on her?” Dean teases.
Bobby scowls. “Well that’s rich coming from you. Besides, me and Ellen ain’t a thing. We just spend time together sometimes.”
“Uh huh. Just don’t forget that Ellen keeps a shot gun behind the bar.”
Bobby rolls his eyes. He heads inside and Dean hears him open a cupboard. He’s back out a moment later with a glass and Dean picks up the bottle of Jim Beam that’s on the floor beside the sofa and pours him a generous serve.
“Speaking of The Roadhouse,” Bobby says, “I called in there on the way home.”
“With the scent of another woman’s perfume still clinging to you? That was brave of you.”
Bobby smacks him upside the head, which Dean has to concede he probably deserved.
“Talked to Roy and Walt. They were none too happy. Said Kubrick had to take Gordon home because Sam damn near took his head off.”
Dean smirks. “It was a thing of beauty, Bobby. Sam sure hasn’t lost his touch. He literally made Gordon piss his pants.”
Bobby lights up a fat cigar and takes a few puffs. “You sure that was wise?”
Dean snorts and tips back the remainder of his whiskey. “Hey, I’m a wise guy.”
Bobby shakes his head. “According to Roy, there’s quite a number in the crew think that Sam’s a loose cannon. People know about this so-called Demon Blood. They think Sam’s tainted. A liability. And the way he bested Gordon today, people are saying he’s got super strength because of the Demon Blood that The Devil’s Own drugged him with. They’re saying he can’t be trusted.”
Dean stares at his Consigliere. “And what do you say, Bobby?”
Bobby takes a slow measured sip of whiskey. “I say we gotta get him de-toxed as soon as possible. Then we can be sure that he’s not compromised.”
“That’s always been the plan,” Dean says. “As soon as things settle--”
Bobby cuts him off. “No. Now. Tomorrow. No more excuses. We do it first thing.”
--
Bobby makes eggs and sausage for breakfast. Dean’s already on his third cup of strong black coffee when Sam comes yawning downstairs, looking like an extra from a hair metal video clip.
“Seriously, man,” Dean says. “Just give me five minutes with some clippers.”
“Shut up,” Sam mumbles and heads straight for the coffee pot.
“I was thinking,” Dean says, when Sam’s half way through his breakfast.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Sam jokes.
“I was thinking,” Dean reiterates, “that we should start your detox today.”
Sam sits up straight and runs his hands through the bird’s nest of his hair. “What? No. Dean. I thought we agreed that we’d wait until everything was sorted.”
“Everything ain’t never gonna be sorted,” Bobby chimes in. “And we need you, Sam. We need to know for sure that you ain’t compromised.”
Sam’s eyes dart back and forth between them. “I don’t think now’s the right time,” he says. “The drugs keep me sharp and we need that right now. Things will calm down a little and then…then I’ll stop taking them.”
“Okay,” Dean says.
Sam’s brow furrows. “That’s it? Okay? You’re not gonna argue?”
Dean shakes his head. “I trust you, Sammy.”
Sam looks at Bobby who shrugs and turns away to refill his coffee cup. “Ain’t up to me.”
Dean clears his throat. “We do have an important job we gotta do today, though. It’s to do with this whole Demon problem. So how about you go get ready and then meet us back here.”
Dean and Bobby sit silently until the shower starts up and then Bobby says gruffly, “So, plan B, huh?”
“Looks like it,” Dean nods unhappily.
“Has anyone seen my pills?” Sam says later, when he re-joins them in the kitchen.
He’s dressed in jeans and a burgundy button down shirt, his hair is damp and his eyes are twitching.
“Nope,” Dean says.
Sam frowns. “They were beside my bed.”
Dean shrugs.
“C’mon,” Bobby says, standing. “You two knuckleheads can deal with your housekeeping dramas later. I got something down here that you need to see.”
He heads down to his panic room, with Dean and Sam trailing behind him.
“In here,” Bobby says, pulling open the door and letting Sam go in ahead of him.
Dean hangs back.
Sam looks around, frowning. The panic room is set up like a cell.
“What’s going on?” Sam asks. “What’s this got to do with the Demon problem?”
“You’re the Demon problem,” Bobby says and shuts and locks the door.
“Very funny,” Sam shouts from behind the door. “Ha. Ha. Now let me out.”
“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean says. “This is for your own good.”
The next hour is fucking awful. Sammy hammers on the door and yells himself hoarse and Dean sits on the floor outside the panic room and tries not to think about how much he wants a drink and a cigarette, because how hypocritical would that be?
Dean has been steadfastly refusing to move from the floor outside the panic room, since they locked Sam in, so Bobby, in a move that’s totally below the belt if you ask Dean, calls in the big guns. It’s nearly lunchtime when Ellen sits down beside him. Sam’s mostly quiet now. Every now and then he’ll beg Dean to let him out and the misery in his voice breaks Dean’s heart.
Ellen pats his knee. “Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll sit with Sam for a while.”
Dean shakes his head. “I gotta be here, Ellen. I owe him that.”
Ellen wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head lightly. “This is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. You need to pace yourself. Go on upstairs, now. I’ve got this.”
Dean decides to allow himself to bask in her maternal comfort for a little while longer.
“This is so fucked up,” he says.
Ellen pulls on his ear lobe, hard enough to elicit an ow.
“Don’t think I won’t wash your mouth out, Dean Winchester.”
The threat is kind of comforting in an odd sort of way and Dean feels himself relax, just a little.
“I wasn’t ready for this,” he confesses. “I never thought,” he huffs out a laugh. “My dad always seemed so indestructible, you know? I mean, I saw him take some terrible beatings, but he always came up swinging. And then he goes and throws himself in front of a bullet and now all we’ve got left is me and I…I’m not even sure I can do this. I ain’t a big picture kinda guy, Ellen. I’m more…point and shoot. This all feels way over my pay grade and, you know, I’m tryin’ to keep my game face on for Sammy, but I’m just…I’m gonna let everybody down.”
Beside him, Ellen sighs. “Your Daddy was one helluva man,” she says. “Driven; determined; demanding; highly competent. And those are some big boots to fill. But he was also a ruthless, paranoid sonofabitch. People were loyal because they respected him and they feared him. People are loyal to you because they respect you and they love you.”
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes.
“You’re a good man, Dean. You listen to people, and even though you can be ruthless, you’re not needlessly violent. Sam would follow you to Hell and back, but your Daddy never could get him to fall into line. In a lot of ways you’re a better leader than John ever was.”
“Tell that to Gordon,” Dean says darkly.
“I have. But, Dean, you know his history, so I’m sure you can see why this thing with Sam’s got him bent all out of shape.”
Dean frowns for a moment and then his eyes widen as he recalls. Gordon’s sister had been a junkie. When Gordon was a rookie soldier, first working for the Winchesters, she’d followed him to one of the Family’s meth labs and stolen five pounds of ice, worth a little over ten thousand dollars. The Family couldn’t let that stand and Gordon had earned his button by killing his sister. Dean had only been fifteen at the time, but he remembers thinking that he could never kill Sammy, no matter what.
“Gordon thinks that all junkies are the same,” Ellen says. “That it’s only a matter of time before your brother turns on us.”
Dean harrumphs. “Well at least Sammy getting clean should get him off our backs.”
Ellen purses her lips. “I ain’t so sure,” she says. “Listening to Gordon talk, he seems very sure that a leopard can’t change its spots; that getting clean never lasts.”
Dean lets his head thunk back against the wall. “I’m gonna have to deal with him, aren’t I?”
“Looks that way. In the meantime,” Ellen gives Dean a gentle push, “Bobby’s got some papers he wants you to take a look at, so why don’t you go on upstairs and I’ll sit with Sam?”
Dean agrees. But only because there are security monitors in the library that he can use to keep an eye on Sam.
--
Dean doesn’t leave the house for the next three days. He reads reports. He makes and takes phone calls. He issues orders and makes decisions.
Sam’s in a bad way. When he’s awake he’s either violent and angry, or depressed and crying. He sleeps a lot. And sometimes he hallucinates, which Dean figures must be something to do with the Demon Blood, because it’s not a typical symptom of Speed withdrawal.
Dean spends a lot of time sitting by his brother in the panic room, letting Sam rant and throw things, and then wrapping his arms around him when he shakes and cries. He holds a bucket under his head when he pukes. When Dean takes a break either Bobby or Ellen stay with Sam. They’ve been a Godsend and Dean doesn’t know what he’d do without them.
On Day Four, Dean gets a phone call from long-time Santangelo soldier, Uriel, who tells him that Zachariah wants to see him.
“Now’s not really a good time,” Dean says.
“Zachariah insists that you make time,” Uriel says.
Dean’s never really liked Uriel. He can’t seem to help sneering at the Winchesters; doesn’t think they’re fit to head up a Family, because they don’t have an Italian surname.
“Look, Uriel,” Dean begins, but Uriel cuts him off.
“The Winchesters owe us, Dean. You come to us, time and time again in need of our help and we help. We are a key ally and when we call on you, we expect you to respond.”
Dean runs a hand over the creases in his forehead. “Okay,” he says. “When and where.”
Ellen agrees to stay with Sam and Dean brings Rufus in to watch her back while he and Bobby go to meet with the Santangelos.
It’s lunchtime when Dean and Bobby walk through the front door of Vesuvius Italian Family Restaurant and Bar in Kansas City. Dean flirts shamelessly with the waitress who escorts them to Zachariah’s table as a matter of course. Ladies’ man is part of the persona he’s cultivated, after all.
He nearly trips over his own tongue when he sees Castiel standing to attention not far from Zachariah’s table. The way Cas looks through him, you’d never know he’d had Dean ass up and begging for his cock only a few weeks ago. Dean swallows and forces himself to look away. There’s another guy standing to attention on the other side of Zachariah’s table and Zachariah himself is watching Dean closely, with narrowed eyes.
“What’s with all the goons?” Dean tries to mask how uncomfortable Cas’s unexpected presence has made him.
“These are uncertain times,” Zachariah says smoothly. “Please. Have a seat.”
He and Bobby sit down, Dean with his back to Cas because he’s pretty sure he’s going to give himself away if he has to look at him again.
The waitress hands Dean a menu and he smirks and says, “Thanks, Darlin’,” on reflex.
They order food and drinks and Zachariah asks Dean why it’s Bobby with him and not his new Second. Dean tells him that Sam’s taking care of another important matter and, speaking of which, could they maybe move onto what was so urgent he had to drop everything to come to this meeting.
But Zachariah insists on eating first, with a pompous smile on his face that Dean just really wants to smack off him. He clenches his fists beneath the table and tells himself he doesn’t need a cigarette. Dean forces himself to make small talk with Zachariah and Uriel, and Bobby does his bit too, reminiscing with Zachariah about people and events from the old days; the days when John and Bobby were in charge and Dean didn’t have all this responsibility weighing on his shoulders.
Eventually though, Zachariah gets to the point. The bottom line is that the Santangelos believe that The Devil’s Own are out of control and The Winchesters need to rein them in.
Dean pauses, with his glass of expensive red wine half way to his lips. “You want us to declare war on them?”
Zachariah smiles bombastically. “Oh, I don’t think an actual declaration is necessary, but we do feel that the time is right for you to deal with Nick Morningstar in a more, shall we say, decisive manner.”
Dean stares at him. “No offense, Zach,” he says. “But I’m gonna need to hear that from Michael.”
“I speak for Michael,” Zachariah bristles and glowers.
Dean presses his lip together. No way in Hell would he consider moving on Michael Santangelo’s half-brother without say-so from the man himself. He may be new at this Capo business, but he’s not a fucking idiot.
“Okay,” he says to Zachariah. “Was that all?”
Zachariah frowns. “No,” he looks at Uriel and the look that passes between them is anything but reassuring. “Several of your men have been seen fraternizing with The Devil’s Own. Gordon Walker. Creedy. Kubrick,” he hands Dean a manila folder which contains surveillance photos, one of which shows Gordon taking a bundle of cash from a Demon. “You have traitors in your midst, Dean, and we do believe the time has come for you to take decisive action, both with your own traitors and the biker scum.”
It’s a sore point with the Santangelos that when he was kicked out of the Family business, Nick Morningstar elected to start up his own one percenter motorcycle club. The Mafia sees themselves as a cut above all other organized crime groups, and the older, more prestigious Families like the Santangelos view themselves as part of an honorable society. They get offended if they’re called a ‘crime gang’, but Nick Morningstar revels in being a common thug.
“Thanks for the heads up,” Dean says.
“So you’ll deal with it?”
“Sure.”
The waitress slips Dean her number as they’re leaving and Dean can’t help the way his eyes dart up to look at Cas. Cas is staring straight at him from where he’s walking beside Zachariah and the look on his face is so intense that Dean’s stomach somersaults. If they were at Cas’s place that look would mean Dean was about to get hogtied and then edged for hours.
As soon as they’re outside, Dean dumps the slip of paper with the waitresses number on it into the nearest trash can and he doesn’t think he imagines the pleased smile that flits across Cas’s face before each party turns and they go their separate ways.
“Well?” Bobby says.
Dean shrugs. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. Gordon’s always been a bit of a loose cannon.”
Bobby brushes him off impatiently, ‘Yeah, yeah. I know we’re gonna have to deal with that. It’s been on the cards ever since your old man bought it. And you obviously ain’t gonna move against Nick Morningstar without hearing it from Michael himself. What I wanna know is, what’s with you and that Santangelo goon who was eye-fucking you all through lunch?”
Dean damn near chokes on his own saliva.
‘Uh, what?” he says lamely when Bobby finishes patting him on the back.
Bobby rolls his eyes. “Don’t even try, boy. You know you can’t lie to me worth a damn.”
Which is absolutely true. Partly that’s because he doesn’t really have to. For the most part, Bobby accepts Dean for who he is and there’s never really been anything where they’ve been on a different page.
“We, uh, may have met at a bar,” Dean confesses.
“So you know each other?”
Dean nods.
“In the Biblical way?”
Dean nods again.
Bobby harrumphs. “Well,” he says, “I know Zachariah and Michael’s views on the ‘sin of sodomy’, so I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s deeper in the closet than you are.”
Dean’s pretty sure his cheeks are a more scarlet shade of red than they’ve been in a long time. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “That’s pretty accurate.”
“So I probably won’t have to kill him,” Bobby concludes.
Dean whirls on him fast. “You do not move on Cas without my say-so.”
Bobby looks way too pleased with himself.
“Cas, hey? So I’m guessing he’s the mystery someone that Sam mentioned you were seeing.”
They reach the car and Dean slips behind the wheel of his Baby.
“You and Sam gossip more than a couple of ninth grade girls,” he grumbles.
Bobby chuckles and then sobers with a sigh.
“Alrighty then,” he says as Dean starts up the engine. “Let’s talk about how we’re gonna handle Gordon and his co-conspirators.”
--
Dean sends out Lee Chambers and Steve Wandell to pick up Gordon. Meanwhile, he, Rufus and Bobby head out to Rufus’s cabin and the three of them pick a nice quiet spot in the surrounding forest and dig a deep grave.
And then they go back inside the cabin to wait. When Gordon arrives, Dean tells him to take a seat, and then he shows him the surveillance photos, one at a time.
Gordon looks at each photo in turn and then raises his eyes to meet Dean’s. “There’s a war coming, Dean,” he says. “And your brother is gonna bring it down on our heads.”
“Yeah? How d’you figure that.”
“He’s in Nick Morningstar’s pocket already. Lucifer,” he uses Morningstar’s biker nickname, “is gonna use Sam to kill you, just like he used him to kill his friends, his girl, his father. Now, I could have warned you, but you’re weak, Dean. And I knew you’d never do what needed to be done. I figured if I appeared to cooperate with Morningstar, maybe it’d keep the casualties down when the war came.”
“You took their money,” Bobby comments. “You did more than appear to cooperate.”
Gordon nods. “Lucifer wanted me to kill you and Rufus, because he knew that if Sam killed Dean you’d never let him take control of the Family. But Sam is weak. A junkie. I would never allow him to head up this Family either. I promised myself that I would kill Sam too and then I would run things.”
Gordon’s tone is calm and moderated. His eyes are clear and bright.
“You’re delusional,” Dean says.
“You realize you’ve betrayed the oath you made to this Family,” Bobby tells Gordon.
“That’s punishable by death,” Rufus adds.
Dean nods.
Gordon smiles, just a little. “So it’s come to this then,” he meets Dean’s eyes again. “You have no idea what I faced to get here, Dean. I lost everything. My family. Now my life. But it's worth it, because your Daddy believed in me. And I'm gonna do what you couldn’t. What you were too weak to do. I’m finally gonna kill the most dangerous threat this Family faces.”
“Get him outta here,” Bobby snarls and Lee and Steve strongarm Gordon to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” Dean says, his eyes narrowed and his heart beating triple time. “What do you mean? We’re about to put a bullet in you. How do you think you’re gonna kill anyone between now and then?”
But Gordon just smiles beatifically and then lowers his head and begins to pray.
Dean licks at his lips and gets out his cell phone.
Bobby quirks an eyebrow.
“Calling Kubrick and Creedy,” Dean explains. “I wanna know where they’re at.”
Kubrick’s phone rings out. Dean calls Creedy. And then tilts his head, because that ain’t an echo he can hear.
“Is that coming from out front?” Rufus says, turning and walking toward the window.
There’s a flash and a crack and then the front window explodes, the curtains flap and billow and Rufus staggers back a step and then slumps to the floor.
There’s another flash and Dean has the table turned on its side and is squatting behind it with his gun drawn by the time a bullet buries itself in the wall behind him.
Bobby is on his knees at Rufus’s side and his face is grim. His fingers press against Rufus’s neck and his eyes tighten. He shakes his head and Dean makes desperate motioning gestures to Bobby to get behind the cover of the table as another crack sounds, then another.
Bobby’s scrambling on all fours toward Dean when a moose head falls from the wall. One of its antlers spears Bobby’s calf and he cries out.
“Goddamn it, Dean,” he hisses. “Tell me again how it’s a good idea not to bring Kubrick and Creedy in just yet.”
Dean scrabbles for Rufus’s first aid kit, which is kept in the wooden cabinet beside the table.
“I thought it was the right call,” he says as he pulls the moose off of Bobby, who grunts out sonofabitch through gritted teeth.
Dean bandages his leg. “Gordon’s the ringleader. The others, I thought we could save. I mean they ain’t the sharpest tools in the box; they’re pretty easily led.”
Bobby snorts. “Got that right.”
There’s another gun blast and Steve Wandell, who’s been hiding behind the sofa, helping Lee hold Gordon down, suddenly gets to his feet, holding Gordon before him like a human shield.
“Got your boy in here,” he calls. “If you keep shooting you might hit--”
That’s as far as he gets before there’s another gun blast and a bullet hits Gordon square in the chest and then buries itself in Steve’s shoulder.
Gordon collapses with wide unseeing eyes and Steve drops back behind the sofa clutching his arm.
“Like I said,” Dean tells Steve, “not the sharpest tool in the box.”
He tosses over the first aid kit.
“Ok, I’ma deal with this. Hang tight.”
Dean makes his way to the back door of the cabin and inches it open slowly before edging outside. He creeps around the outside of the cabin, hugging the log walls, and then peers around to see if he can spot Creedy.
Creedy is squatting in front of the porch, looking up at the cabin’s front window from in between the railings. His gun is drawn.
Dean pulls back and considers his options for a moment before deciding fuck it and rounding the corner at speed, his gun up and cocked.
Creedy startles and tries to turn, but somehow manages to get his gun stuck between the porch railings. Dean shoots him between the eyes and watches him fall. He confiscates his gun and then calls out that Creedy’s down and he’s coming in, before walking up the front steps and through the front door.
Inside, Bobby is breathing heavily and looking pissed. Chambers is keeping pressure on Waddell’s wound and Rufus…Rufus is still dead.
Fuck.
Dean sighs. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. Lee, you and I are gonna bury Gordon and Creedy. Then I’m gonna take Steve to Dr Roberts to get patched up.”
Dr Cara Roberts is a friend of the Family and deals with any injured members who can’t go to a hospital, because the staff would ask too many questions and possibly feel obligated to inform police.
“I’ll gonna take you to hospital, Bobby,” Dean continues, “and we’ll tell them it was the moose head on your wall that did this to you. Lee, you’re gonna have to stay here and sit Shiva for Rufus on behalf of the Family.”
The Winchesters are the only Family Rufus has-had-left.
“Give the rest of us time to get clear,” Dean continues, “and then call Sherriff Mills. Tell her you and Rufus were planning on a hunting trip and you found him dead when you got here.”
Everyone nods and then Dean calls Ellen, because he’s still feeling spooked by Gordon’s last words. He’s pretty sure that Gordon meant Sam when he said he was going to kill the most dangerous threat to the Family.
Ellen answers and says that she hasn’t seen Kubrick, but that she’ll be extra vigilant. Bobby has security monitors and Rumsfeld, so Dean’s pretty confident Ellen will see and hear Kubrick coming. She knows where Bobby keeps his weapons and she’s a damn good shot. Dean tells himself he’s not worried and sets about getting Gordon and Creedy buried.
Next, Dean gets Steve to Dr Roberts and Bobby to the hospital, but he doesn’t stick around because he needs to be back by Sam’s side. If someone’s coming for him, Dean needs to have his brother’s back.
He calls Ellen again to check in and to let her know he’s coming. He has his cell phone in one hand and his keys in the other as he crosses the parking lot heading for his car.
Dean doesn’t even see the man who steps out of the shadows and tasers him, he just hits the ground. His cell phone bounces from his limp hand and slides across the asphalt.
“Hello?” Ellen’s voice says. “Dean? Hello?”
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