Burdens, Doublefold - Chapter 6
Sam’s dreams were fevered and covered in a sickly yellow haze. He dreamt of blood on his tongue, running down into him and spreading through his veins, which lit up red, then yellow and bright white like lightning. He could feel power arcing through him, pumping in and out of his heart and through every cell in his too-small body. He opened his eyes, or he thought he did, and saw Brady staring back at him. The demon was watching him like he was waiting for something, black eyes unblinking and inhuman. Sam heard Brady’s heart beating and he could smell blood and power and it was close, so close. Brady stood up and disappeared, and Sam fell back asleep. If he’d ever been awake.
He dreamt of yellow eyes and fire and Jess burning and screaming. He saw himself lying on the bed, useless and frightened and weak. He watched her burn, watched her die, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He was powerless, but he wasn’t, was he? Not anymore. He could do things now and he did. He watched Jess burning and held his hand out to her and said, “Jess, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” The ceiling lowered itself, or maybe he floated up to her. She took his hand and the second he touched her, the fire vanished and she was fine, she was fine. She was unmarred and beautiful and smiling at him. “It’s okay.” Sam told her and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could.
She kissed him on the neck and whispered in his ear. “I know. I know, Sam. I know what you are. I know who you are.”
Sam pulled back from Jess just far enough to look at her. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Her blue eyes filled with sorrow.
“Jess, what-” Sam reached his hand out to cup her cheek and ran his thumb over her skin, wiping away the tear that was rolling slowly down.
She closed her eyes and when she opened them again they were yellow streaked with white. She laughed. It was a cruel sound. It cut into Sam’s bones and made him want to double over in pain. He let out an anguished cry and Jess laughed louder as flames poured out of her eyes and covered them both. The fire turned from bright yellow and white to orange to a deep dark red. The flames grew teeth and tongues, licked at Sam’s skin, opened it up, slipped inside and flowed through him.
His heart pounded faster and stronger, so much stronger.
Sam woke up again or he thought he did. He was in the Impala and Dean was next to him, driving and singing. "She's a kindhearted lady. She studies evil all the time.”
Dean's enthusiastic singing made Sam smile, and mumble, "I miss you."
Dean ignored him, and kept singing, ”She's a kindhearted woman. She studies evil all the time."
"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm sorry I haven't..." Sam trailed off, frustrated that Dean wasn't even reacting to him. "Dean," he said again, louder. "At least look at me, man."
Dean tapped the steering wheel with his fingers in time to the beat but didn't acknowledge Sam. He sang loudly and kept driving, even though the road had disappeared and there was nowhere left to go. They were driving through a fog-filled sky, nothing interesting about it...but still Dean stared straight ahead, smiling to himself.
Rage came unbidden, flowing through Sam's veins and spilled out in words, loud and angry. "Look at me!"
Dean turned to look at Sam, and rapid-fire his face shifted from contented to confused to frightened. "Sammy?"
Sam smiled and his power thrummed through him, flowing toward Dean as Sam reached his hand out to his brother. The moment Sam's hand touched Dean, everything changed. Dean froze solid, his skin flickering bright white and pale grey. "No," Sam said, and grabbed Dean's arm tighter until it crumbled away under his grip, nothing but ashes.
"No!" Sam yelled. "Dean, I'm sorry. Don't-”
Dean's face fell apart slowly, more of him scattering with every word Sam spoke, each breath dissolving him further.
Sam pulled his hand back and slammed himself against the Impala's door as hard as he could, terrified of losing Dean completely. The door gave way behind him and broke off, hurtling into the sky. Sam held onto the edge of the car's frame as the wind pushed past him, shattering the driver's side window and tearing what was left of Dean apart. The air filled with ash and Sam closed his eyes screaming, "Stop. Stop!"
“Stop what?” asked a voice, rough with whiskey and familiar.
Sam opened his eyes and saw his father staring back at him. He looked around, disoriented, trying to figure out what had happened to the car and to Dean.
“What is it you want to stop, exactly?” his father asked, walking past Sam, across the wooden floor of the old empty bar. He sat down on one of the bar stools and rested his elbows on the counter behind him.
“Dad?” Sam asked. “What are you…?”
“Good question.” John watched Sam intently. “Better question: what are you?” He punctuated the last word with his finger, pointing at Sam.
Sam felt a sharp pain in his side, looked down and saw a thick red line forming across his midsection, sliding across him from right to left. He lifted his shirt up and watched his open skin knit back together as quickly as it had been cut. He looked back up at his father who was grinning at him, his teeth too white and his eyes gleaming yellow.
“You…” Sam tried to walk towards the demon, but his legs were caught in the floor. The wood had closed around his ankles and was pulling him down, down, down. Sam looked back at Azazel, who was watching him struggle with mild interest.
Anger hit Sam, so pure it felt like salvation. Lightning poured out of his hands, his eyes and his skin and he gave it purpose, sending it after the yellow-eyed demon, surrounding him in a web of light. The floorboards around Sam’s legs shattered and he walked forwards, wrapping his hands around Azazel’s throat.
“Sam, stop!” the demon begged, his voice weakening. “Stop,” he said again. And he sounded like Brady.
Sam woke up. He had Brady by the throat, and the air around him smelled like ozone.
The next few days consisted of little more than eating and healing. Oatmeal or toast, the daily lunch special, bar-food dinners of fried whatever. He would let Jo examine his bandages but avoided her eyes and only answered in testy, single syllables. Dean knew he was being a real pill, but frankly, he didn’t give two fucks.
He’d sit at the end of the bar and watch people come and go. The hunters, he spotted straight off. He knew their suspicious glower, the way they kept their backs to the wall and a gun, knife or flask within easy reach. He listened as they talked amongst themselves but never managed to scrap up anything he didn’t already know, the same old omens. Yesterday’s news.
When he tried to sleep, he dreamed about black eyes and bleeding fathers and throttling Sam to within an inch of his life. In the morning, when the thin December sun broke through the holes in the curtains, he felt like he hadn’t slept at all.
Dean would’ve picked up and left, blown this popsicle stand, if he’d had one good clue which direction to head. At least here, something might ping on Ash’s radar. The waiting was wrecking him though, sapping his hope and testing his humor, but it also bought him time to put his belly back together again. As long as he kept looking at it that way, he could screw up some patience.
The Harvelles would allow him beer now that he was nearly off the Percocet, which Dean found vaguely condescending. Jo would keep her distance when she wasn’t playing nursemaid, hardly looking at him sideways. It reminded Dean all too much of Sam’s sulking, and how the kid could pull a silent treatment with absurd resolve…like the asshole was doing right now, in fact. Not that Jo should shoulder any blame; Dean was being a fairly comprehensive douchebag to her at the moment. Sam, however, had no God-damned excuse.
One Wednesday morning, or at least he guessed it was Wednesday, Dean awoke to an unfamiliar jingling sound, something tinkling like glass breaking in the bar beyond his adopted bedroom. He pulled on his own clothes-someone had long-since gotten all the dirty laundry from the Impala and washed it, probably Jo-and with a gun in hand, padded cold-footed out into the hall.
He heard voices, laughter, tables being scraped about. As Dean blinked away what was passing for sleep, he recognized the glassy sound as bells. He tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans.
A huge, fresh evergreen stood propped up in the corner by the jukebox, almost overcoming the odor of old beer and wood smoke. Cardboard boxes brimming with glittery things were open on the floor: tinsel and garland and ornaments and bright silver jinglebells.
“What…what’s the date?” He almost didn’t recognize his own voice.
Every face in the room looked up at him, and Ellen smiled. “December 22nd, honey.”
Holy shit.
He moved in, circumnavigating boxes, trailing his hand over the prickly garland. Even Ash and a few of the locals were helping to deck the halls, fumbling wire fish-hooks into metallic-colored bulbs and untangling, with thick fingers, snarls of holiday lights.
Dean didn’t want to acknowledge how much time had passed. He didn’t want to admit he was stuck. But time had passed - was still passing - and it was almost Christmas and he didn’t know where his family was. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he steadied himself on a chair. He hated that his eyes were starting to sting and that he tasted salt on the back of his tongue.
Jo was still watching him while everyone else had gone back to the business of decorating. She unraveled herself from a rope of fake holly and walked over to Dean carefully, as though he was some skittish colt that would bolt if the wind blew funny.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Dean dragged in a breath and got his shit together. He pushed back the guilt and obsession that had nowhere to vent, put a lid on it, and forced a smile. “Hey.”
She lifted her hand and in it was a gold and silver plastic angel trailing an electrical cord. It was roughly the size of a small traffic cone. “I could use someone tall right about now.”
Dean took the tree-topper. He traced its fading, metallic wings with the meat of his thumb. The thing was probably ten years old and epitomized the word ‘tacky’. Apparently, they expected him to stick a tree up an angel’s ass. “Well, then, I s’pose I should make myself useful.”
“‘Bout time.”
“Funny,” Dean snorted.
He had to stand on a chair to accomplish his mission. Jo plugged in the cord and the angel flickered until Dean fiddled with the bulb in its torso and the light held steady. A small, warm glow pinkened the angel’s cheeks and sparkled the halo. Not that Dean had done anything earth-shattering, but the whole affair solicited a hyperbolic round of applause.
“Couldn’t have done it without ya,” Jo grinned, offering him a mug of coffee to which Ash promptly added a slug of Irish whiskey. No wonder they were all slap-happy about impaling angels on evergreens.
Dean sipped his spiked coffee, staring at the angel. He couldn’t tell if the strange curl in his stomach was the booze, or memories of holidays past. After some consideration, he decided it was neither. Liquor was never his problem, and the Winchesters seldom did Christmas, let alone a tree with electric decorations. It was that stupid déjà vu business he’d been feeling, off and on, since he’d left Sam after Jess’ funeral…clarity just out of memory’s reach. Again.
Rows and rows of angels. No, not angels. Dolls. Dolls? And not just any doll, but those creepy old-fashioned ones that followed you with their beady little eyes when your crossed the room and-
“Dean? You okay? You look a little wobbly, there.” Jo had set a hand on his arm and was watching him with concern.
“What? Oh, yeah. Fine, I’m fine. Just a little too much coffee in my whiskey, is all.” He tried on a smile, and found-to his fascination-it didn’t fit at all poorly when he looked down on Jo. In fact, looking at her made him forget the dolls and belly ache and missing things for just a heartbeat.
__________
It was a luxury, one perhaps he couldn’t afford, but Dean let his thoughts stray from his dad and his brother for just one afternoon. And mostly, it was accidental. Unhooking from the habit of playing guard-and-rescue dog didn’t come easily, but he’d more than earned it. He was exhausted from staying all worked up, drowning in anxiety.
It happened almost without him realizing it. Another Irish coffee down the hatch, the last of the paper snowflakes stuck to the windows, a sprig of preserved mistletoe (the real McCoy) tacked to a beam over the piss-poor excuse for a dance floor, and Dean was actually beginning to unwind.
He’d managed a game of pool with Ash, who kept coughing every time Dean attempted a shot. Ellen served grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for a late lunch, garnished with dill pickles from the gargantuan jar behind the bar, “on the house” for anyone who had helped decorate. Someone had swapped the old 45’s from the jukebox for seasonal songs, and as the sun slanted low in the sky and lazy gobs of snow began drifting from the heavens, Burl Ives asked the burning question, “But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?”
“Bet you don’t remember Rudolf’s girlfriend’s name,” Jo challenged, waving a left-over pickle.
“Watch where you point that thing.” Dean redirected the tip of the pickle, ignoring the trivia.
“Right. You don’t know.”
“What? I do too know.”
“Bullshit.”
“You’re…bullshit.”
Jo arched a brow because that didn’t make a lick of sense. “Whatever…”
“What’cha wanna bet, hmm?” Dean had graduated to whiskey, no coffee, and rolled an empty shot glass between his fingers as he leveled a narrow grin at her.
“Loser shovels the parking lot tomorrow.” The weather reports were predicting some serious white by morning.
“I’m injured!”
“Pussy.”
“You’re-”
The front door to the Roadhouse slammed open, bullied by the winter wind. Surly faces glared at the bitter cold that accompanied two men Dean recognized from recent Roadhouse visits as local hunters. His type of hunter. They forced the door shut and shook off snow. Folks went back to their drinks and the hunters sidled up to the bar.
Ellen set aside a dishtowel and greeted the men. “Harry. Abe. What can I get you boys?”
“Something strong, Ms. Harvelle,” said the bigger of the two. They were both on the young side, but old enough to drink. Their faces stayed serious and they kept their coats on as Ellen poured them two slugs of house whiskey.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost…” Ellen wasn’t joking. She mother-henned her hunters without getting in their way; apparently, it was just her nature. And when she thought a hunter looked like he’d seen a ghost? He probably had.
Jo and Dean both shut up to eavesdrop, watching each other conspiratorially.
“You heard about Stormy Saunders?” Harry or Abe asked. Dean didn’t know which was which.
“Stormy? Hell, he hasn’t been through here in months.”
“Won’t be back again, either…” mumbled the other.
A prickle traced over Dean’s skin, and he sat up taller. All the spit left his mouth.
Ellen frowned. “Why? What happened?”
The hunters exchanged loaded glances. “No one’s rightly sure. We were supposed to meet him outside of Omaha, something about a pair of poltergeists…”
“Dumb fucks,” Dean growled. “Poltergeists don’t run in pairs.”
Jo hushed him and Abe, or Harry, continued uninterrupted.
“…we figured something weren’t right when we saw all that lightning, out of nowhere. This time of year? Damned freaky.” He paused to throw back the whiskey, giving a hard shudder. “We found his truck, you know that big-ass thing with all the armor and protective runes? Door wide open. Stormy…he’d been dragged off into the field…”
Both men fell silent, staring at their hands on the bartop.
“What?” This time, Dean didn’t growl; he demanded. “What happened to him?”
“Dean...” Jo warned, but it fell on deaf ears.
Dean lurched off his stool and approached the hunters.
One of the men, the larger of the two, glared at Dean like he had a horn growing out of his forehead. “Look, buddy, this ain’t your-”
“Yes, it is my business because Stormy was a friend.”
Ellen interjected herself into the sudden tension with a hand reaching across the bar to Dean’s shoulder. “Now, boys. We’re all friends here. Abe, Harry, this is Dean. He hunts too. No need to go ‘Alpha male’ all over the situation.” When a few seconds had passed and no one started throwing punches, she pulled her arm back. “Go on, Abe.”
Abe assessed Dean suspiciously but picked up where he’d left off.
“Best I can figure is he knew whoever killed him. Or else he wouldn’t a’come out of the truck. They…they cut his tongue out first, from the looks of it. All the blood in his mouth. Then they sliced him-” Abe ran his thumb over his broad middle, left to right “-across the belly. Deep and wide.”
Harry turned a noticeable shade of green as he looked at his whiskey. “He was still…steaming…when we found ‘im.”
“Did you guys see anyone else? Really tall guy? Long-ish brown hair?” Jo seemed inordinately excited by the notion that Stormy was a fresh kill, and Dean could only stare at her. All of a sudden, he wanted to throw up.
“Tall Man?” Abe raised his brow and shook his head. “Ain’t you heard? Tall Man’s dead.”
Dean felt his stomach lurch again. “What?”
“What are you talking about, Abe?” Jo asked, sitting down on the stool next to him.
Harry emptied his shot glass, slamming it down on the bar and smarting from the burn. “Heard tell he got himself shot about a week ago and he ain’t been seen since. One of the psychics he was after got him.”
“Guess that one was extra-psychic,” Abe scoffed.
“You sure? How do you know?” Dean demanded. He knew he sounded way too concerned, way too much of an asshole, but he had to figure this out. Rumors and coincidences were beginning to connect in ways that Dean did not enjoy, not even a little. “I mean, Mr. Superbad Serial Killer that sucks the blood outta psychics like a swarm of mosquitoes gets offed by a bullet? Just doesn’t compute.”
Abe bristled and glared daggers at Dean, managing to look both dense and dangerous, all in one fell swoop. “Hey, you got your sources, we got ours.”
Ellen shifted again, making her presence known, and the temperature of the conversation cooled back to something that, if not cordial, was at least cooperative.
“I don’t know, man; I still ain’t sure he’s really gone,” Harry muttered, staring forlornly into his empty glass. “Ms. Harvelle, any chance I could get a refill?”
Ellen’s furrowed brow softened and she smiled at the hunter. “I don’t know, Harry, you got two bucks on you?”
Harry reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and tossed it onto the bar.
“He can’t be dead,” Jo muttered.
Ellen turned towards her daughter, smile flattening to a thin line.
“I mean…” Jo chewed her lip. “It’s unlikely that he’s dead, what with those two missing psychics.”
“Missin’?” Abe asked, staring at her, curious.
“Yep. One from Lafayette, Indiana and one from Louisiana.”
“Where in Louisiana?” Harry asked.
“Alexandria,” Jo said, avoiding her mom’s eyes.
Dean did not like where his mind was going. There were troubling thoughts bouncing around in his gray matter, and he plumb refused to sort them out. All he was ready to admit was that the Tall Man being alive was far better than the alternative. Any other suppositions? Well, he didn’t think he’d ever be ready for those. “How long have they been missing?”
Jo smirked. “Oddly enough, ‘bout a week.”
“Son of a bitch,” Abe said. “So what, he’s…hiding somewhere, getting patched up?”
Harry nodded. “Either way…wasn’t him killed Stormy. Couldn’t have been.”
“Technically speaking, they’re not missing anymore,” Ash piped up from across the room.
“What’s that, Ash?” Ellen asked, looking just about as displeased with him as she was with her daughter.
He cleared his throat and ambled over to the far side of the bar. He propped his elbow onto the bar-top and leaned his chin on his hand. “Miranda Dobson from Alexandria, Louisiana was found dead in her home Wednesday night.”
“Tall Man?” Jo asked.
“Well, that’s the weird part,” Ash said. “She died from electrocution. They found her in her bathroom, fried to a crisp.”
Dean canted back, lifting his chin. “Electrocution? None of the other psychics died that way, did they?”
“Nope.” Ash over-enunciated the “p,” making a little popping sound. He grabbed a handful of bar-nuts from the bowl nearest to him and tossed one in his mouth. “It gets weirder. The other psychic that was missing -”
“Scott Carey,” Jo said.
Ash nodded. “Scott was found Wednesday night too. In his bedroom. Electrocuted. That’s not the weird part though.”
“Jesus, it’s not?” Abe gawked, blinking at Ash.
“The weirdest part is that Scott was Mister Lightning-fingers. His neighbors said he electrocuted their cat, just by touching it.”
“What the hell?” Harry muttered. “Wait so…are the psychics turning on each other or somethin’?”
“That’d be new,” Jo said. “Up until now, there haven’t been any reports of them even interacting with each other.”
“Alright, that does it!” Ellen slapped her wet dishtowel onto the bar-top and everyone jumped. She glared at Jo, then Ash, and her voice dropped in none-too-subtle warning. “The three of us are gonna have a serious talk about your extra-curricular activities later, but right now you answer me one thing.”
Ash stood up ramrod straight. “Yes ma’am.”
“Where the hell are you gettin’ all this intel?” she demanded.
Dean raised his eyebrows and turned towards Ash, just as eager as Ellen to hear the answer.
“I uh…” Ash popped a few more nuts in his mouth and chewed on them, clearly stalling. “I sorta set up a tracking system.”
“Trackin’ what?” Ellen asked.
Dean could practically see the ice in her words.
“Well, first I figured out a pattern to identify the psychics. Born in ’83, certain other things…” Ash glanced over to Dean, and then stared back down at his bowl of bar-nuts. “But I’m also tracking omens.”
“Omens like the kind Stormy was tracking?”
Ash nodded. “Yeah, starting to think maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, considering…”
Ellen leaned towards Ash, an angry fingertip mere inches from his nose. “We need to talk. Now.”
Jo stood up quickly, the barstool screeching across the floor. “Mom, why don’t we-you, me and Ash-go out back and talk things over. No need to make our guests uncomfortable. Right?” She pasted on an insincere smile and stomped out through the kitchen, not so much as throwing a single glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was following.
Dean let loose a low whistle. This wasn’t gonna be pretty. He heard them yelling at each other through a wall and two doors, picking out only the loudest words which seemed to be “your father” and “lose you” and “I am not a child”. Ash was markedly quiet; he wasn’t a fool, despite appearances.
Left alone with Abe, Harry, and his own thoughts, Dean felt another cog turn, another gear slip into place. Born in ’83. Sam was born in ’83. Sam was missing from school, apparently on some roadtrip with that blue-blood, Brady, which was so unlike Sam it felt like kidnapping. Sam wasn’t answering his phone, but if he was dead, Dean would know it. He’d feel it deeper than his bones. Sam, Sam, Sam. God-damn it, Sam, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?
Dean helped himself to another drink and dared Abe and/or Harry to say word one about it.
Jo spent the morning walking on eggshells, so it was with great appreciation that she took the joint from Ash, briefly acknowledging to herself that it was far too early in the day to be smoking anything, let alone Ash’s radioactive-grade weed.
They were skulking on the back porch of the Roadhouse. It was almost eleven o’clock and Jo would be roped into lunch duty any second now. Best get in a few lungfuls of happy before she had to face her mother again.
Yesterday’s argument still left her feeling puffy-eyed and impatient. She didn’t begrudge her mom the right to be fearful for her daughter’s life, not one bit. But Jo would be a legal adult in every state shortly and didn’t intend to stay at the Roadhouse any longer than she had to. Ellen was just going to have to get her brain wrapped around that. And she would, eventually. No choice.
The backdoor creaked and Ash flipped the joint off into a snow bank, where it barely sizzled before snuffing out entirely.
“Whoa, hey, don’t quit your illegal activities on my account,” Dean said, hands stuffed into his coat pockets and breath instantly vaporizing.
Ash cast a wistful gaze to the snow bank.
“You ready to shovel the parking lot?” Jo greeted Dean.
“Aw, now, that dog don’t hunt, Jo. We never officially made that bet.”
“Because you don’t know-”
“Clarice. Clarice was Rudolf’s girlfriend.”
Snorting, Ash held out his fist to Dean, waiting for the return-bump. Dean rolled his eyes and obliged.
“You looked that up last night, admit it!” Jo said, half-grinning. She wouldn’t have made him clear the damned lot anyways, even with the plow attached to Mom’s pick-up. Not the entire thing.
“Nah, Sammy used to watch that stupid show every Christmas. Until he was, like, nineteen.”
“Mmm. I always wished I had a brother.”
Dean chuffed, and Jo noted his eyes lost a little life. The past few days had been incredibly long and hard on Dean and Jo found herself wishing she could offer him just a moment’s peace.
He was looking better, no question, but he looked best when he was smiling and his eyes were crinkling with crow’s feet, but he really hadn’t found much to smile about lately. When she could surprise one out of him, though, Jo decided it was like panning for gold in a muddy stream and coming up with a hefty nugget, rare and worth a whole week’s wage.
Ash cleared his throat and Jo realized she’d been staring. “So. This hermano of yours-” he coaxed “-wouldn’t happen to be psychic, would he?”
Dean scowled into the winter-white distance, raked his hand through his hair, and that was answer enough.
“You’re afraid that something might be after your brother. That’s why you’ve been tracking the omens, and by default, the Tall Man?” It wasn’t really a question, because Jo was just stating what she saw as the obvious. She was wrong.
“No,” Dean said tersely. “I…I think he might be the Tall Man.”
Jo didn’t have to look at Ash to know he was gawking at Dean, too. The space between them was so quiet she could hear the ice creaking in the eaves.
Dean let their staring continue until it clearly got on his last nerve and he pulled out his wallet. Tucked into the back, nestled between a forger’s treasure trove of IDs-fake ones, Jo was quite certain-was a photo. Dean carefully unfolded it and showed it to his stunned audience.
Ash leaned in, squinted, chewed his cheek and finally nodded. “Yup. Fits the Tall Man ‘glamour shot’.”
He wasn’t wrong. Jo pinched the old photo delicately between two fingers. Dean looked younger in the picture, relaxed, his arm slung across the shoulders of another guy who was taller by probably a good four inches, and Dean was by no means short. He was lanky, shaggy-haired, and trying very hard not to bust out laughing-this must be Sam. His eyes were darker and tilted, cheekbones angular over deep dimples. He looked not a thing like Dean.
“You sure you two are brothers?” she jabbed, but Dean barely cracked a smile. Jo refolded the photo and slipped it back to him. “Okay. So what makes you think your brother might be, well-”
“America’s latest great serial killer? Call it a hunch.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Winchester. If you want our help-”
“I told you before: I don’t want your help.”
Jo stepped in, closing the gap between them. “No, you said it was none of my God-damned business, and I beg to differ. You and I have been following the same omens, the same weird phenomena, but I happen to have the best tracker this side of the Grand Tetons.” Jo hooked a thumb at Ash “So if you’re smart, you’ll let me help.” She jutted her chin up and dared him to say no.
“No.” He moved to step around her.
Was everyone going out of their way to annoy her this week? Jo grabbed his elbow with enough force to spin him, probably because he didn’t have all the strength of his core muscles at his disposal. Too bad. “Fine. Be stubborn. But you need me. You’ve got no where else to turn, Dean Winchester.”
“Dammit, Jo-”
“Dammit nothing, Dean. We’re your ace in the hole. Besides, I just may have a way to find your dad.” She released his arm and stepped away, pulling open the backdoor.
“Wait! How?”
Jo shot a glance over her shoulder, drumming fingers on the wood. “Call it a hunch.” And she let herself into the Roadhouse before Dean could say another word.
Dean rolled his eyes and watched Jo’s ass twitch back into the Roadhouse. No amount of visual pleading was going to get Ash on his side, here. The so-called genius was fixing Dean with a dead stare, part all your problem, bud and part you dick.
Begrudgingly, Dean followed her in, cutting through to the kitchen. Jo was already tying an apron around her waist and Ellen was elbows-deep in a pot of something that smelled like a little piece of heaven. From all outward signs, it was chili.
Despite the fact Jo had taken an enormous knife from the magnetic strip stuck to the wall, Dean sidled up beside her. “Jo, I’m sorry. I just…”
She shoved the handle of the knife into his palm and steered him to a big plastic cutting board and a pile of onions. “Get choppin’. I know you can use that thing.”
He made to speak but came up dry. Guess it was cryin’ time. Dean shrugged out of his coat, threw it in a corner and commenced slicing.
Ellen cut Dean a glance across the counter before she gave the pot a last stir and moved away from the stove. Dean did not want to get on Ellen’s bad side in any way, shape or form. He had no doubt she could make compost out of him and not a soul at the Roadhouse would think to question his sudden disappearance. He was duly relieved when she left the kitchen.
Apparently so was Jo, from the way she visibly relaxed. But she wasn’t ready to give in just yet. She stayed shuttered and tight-lipped, grating cheese with a sort of vengeance.
They worked in silence, Dean’s eyes stinging until he got fed up with all the tension and tears. He swiped at his face with a sleeve, stabbing the knife into one of the huge, white bulbs. “I mean it. I’m sorry; I was out of line.”
“Damn straight you were, crybaby,” Jo mumbled.
“Absolutely. I was a total jerk.” He had a fleeting mental picture of Sam saying the same thing time and again from the passenger seat of the Impala. Jerk. Dean blinked away the mirage. “So what’s this idea you have to find Dad?”
Jo huffed a sigh. “Okay. I put in a call to Bobby Singer.”
“Bobby?” Dean frowned, squinting through an onion-induced haze. “Damn, I haven’t talked to Bobby in years. He agreed to help?”
This would’ve been a surprise, given that Bobby was often openly dubious of John’s parenting style. The older hunter and Dad didn’t part on good terms, the summer of Dean’s thirteenth year. Bobby Singer was the one person in Dean’s childhood who treated Dean like a child, and for that, he would always think of the man with great fondness. Bobby, despite a crotchety outward appearance, had shown Dean how to throw a softball, thread a worm onto a fishing hook, hell, he’d taught Sam ‘rock, paper, scissors’ but maybe that wasn’t something to thank him for. Sam always won. Didn’t he?
Jo kept her voice low. “I was pretty sketchy about the situation; didn’t want Bobby tattling to Mom. I told him I was collecting information on different varieties of demons for another hunter, that we were putting together an ‘infernal dictionary,’ complete with sigils. Told him I was just trying to be helpful, especially given Stormy’s accident.”
“And he bought that?”
“Yup. He sent me a mess of files…and I do mean ‘mess’. I skimmed ‘em this morning, and I think there’s some good stuff in there. Native American demons, lightning spirits that show up with demons, crossroads deal-makers-”
Dean found himself grinning, Cheshire Cat wide. This was the first inkling of a lead he’d had since he’d hit the Roadhouse. After lunch, he’d get Dad’s journal and cross-reference Bobby’s information and maybe (please, maybe) something would shake out. Before he knew it, he had Jo by the shoulders and was planting a big, grateful kiss on her lips.
She stiffened. And then…didn’t any more.
The kitchen door swung open and Ellen bustled in. Her bootsteps stuttered and Jo and Dean sprung apart like a firecracker.
Oh, shit. Dean felt his face flush hot. Stupid onions.
Ellen cleared her throat. “That garnish had better be done.”
Jo scooped up a great handful of shredded cheddar and plopped it into a metal bowl. “It is, Momma.”
Dean snuck a sideways glance; Jo’s cheeks were scarlet as she bit back a smile.
__________
Dreams dripped through Dean’s twilight sleep, full of black smoke and even blacker eyes, always on his tail no matter how fast he ran, how hard he drove. Whatever being created demons had an incredible imagination, and each damned flavor of fiend oozed from the corners of Dean’s subconscious, barely visible but undoubtedly there. He could shoot them with antique guns or blast them with holy water and it only made them angrier and more determined to follow him…here.
He stormed the porch of the Roadhouse and flung the door open. It was so fucking quiet inside he could hear the blood pound in his ears and the timbers creak under his boots like old bones. The lights were off and the moon was a dead sliver, shedding hardly a glow. Brittle sounds scuttled in the shadows, and then a single whimper. He knew it was Jo; it had to be Jo. As he slipped the Colt from his jacket and leveled the gun ahead, aiming with his hearing, he felt another presence.
Someone else lurked in the black, by the jukebox, which suddenly flared to life and color. A coin chunked into the machine. Music filled the room, whiskey-rough -“One Good Man”, Janis Joplin-and when Dean’s eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, there was Sam. He’d know that silhouette in a room full of silhouettes. Sam had his back to the bar, long fingers drumming on the top of the Wurlitzer.
“Howdy, Dean.”
Dean felt the scar on his stomach twinge, and he kept the gun raised but it was starting to shake. “Sam? What the hell?”
Sam didn’t speak, just lifted his head. Wasn’t like him not to speak.
“Come on, Sammy. Whatcha doing here?” You’re scaring me, man.
“I know…” Sam said softly, having read Dean’s mind. Just like that.
Dean cocked back the hammer of the Colt. “Turn around.”
“Why? Can’t shoot me in the back?”
“Turn. Around.”
Sam did, slowly. His eyes were the color of the sun, golden and striated with churning bits of white. Lightning danced in his gaze. Dean’s finger tensed, pinched against the trigger. This…this was all wrong. Not possible. Not his brother. Not his Sam.
Movement flickered at the edge of his vision and in his periphery, he thought he saw blonde hair and blood. His finger spasmed and there was a blast, loud enough to pitch him out of the dream and nearly onto the floor, heart thundering with the shock.
“Sorry, sorry!”
Dean darted a befuddled glance around the room before it landed on his bedroom door, and Jo entering. She had a cup of coffee and a plate with a muffin in her hands, a book at her feet where apparently her knee had bumped it from the edge of a chair.
The room was littered with papers and books from Dean’s all-night research. Ash had provided much of the reading material, with one notable exception: Dad’s journal. The world-weary, leather-bound book was tented open on the bed beside him.
“Hey.” He groaned, pulling himself upright, much to the complaint of his back. He was still wearing his outfit from yesterday, and it smelled at least that old.
Jo stepped over piles of clothes and shoes on the floor, shoving aside papers to sit on the corner of the mattress.
“It’s almost one o’clock. Thought you might want breakfast before lunch.”
Dean smiled blearily and used a beer cap to mark his place in the journal, just after the section briefing crossroads demons and how to deal with them. “Thanks, Martha Stewart. You’re the hostess with the mostest.”
“Mmmhmm.” Jo forced the food and drink into his now-empty hands. “Make any headway? Or just a mess?”
“Little of both, if I’m lucky.” He noted with some satisfaction she’d brought the coffee black, his preferred treatment. Good start to the day, which he could surely use after that image of Sam, yellow-eyed and leering, had branded itself into his brain. “Did you know there are Native American demon beavers? Of all things.”
“I did not,” Jo assured him, absently filtering through a stack of hand-written notes. “Though I can be fairly certain that’s not what took your dad.”
“Agreed. It was not a hell-spawned rodent who meat-suited Dad.”
Jo pinched her brows, copper-brown eyes keen and slightly frustrated. “Who, then?”
He shouldn’t involve her. The less she knew, the safer she’d stay. After Caleb and Pastor Jim and Stormy, it was highly ill-advised to be on the same team as a Winchester. Dean sure as hell didn’t want a whole damned demon army marching into the Roadhouse and napalming the place with unholy fire. There’d been enough collateral damage already.
“All I know is he’s got yellow eyes, not black. And he loves to fuck with my family.” Dean stared down at the muffin, still untouched. “He killed my mom when Sammy was a baby. That’s what set my dad off, hunting.” That’s when the world went all wrong-shaped.
Jo paused a beat, blinking. “Wow. Your very own hereditary demon. That’s quite a family heirloom.”
“No kidding.”
“I mean, you guys must be something pretty fancy to get that big-time a baddie into our plane of existence and crashing your party.”
“Yeah, thanks, I didn’t think of that.”
Dean’s surliness didn’t thwart Jo; she jabbed at his shin and kept right on brain-storming. “Okay, so you can’t force him to show. Is there something he wants? Something that can lure him out, maybe? Why’d he take your dad anyway?”
“I don’t know, Jo, I really don’t,” Dean lied. Panic began to squeeze his throat but he chased it gone with a swallow of hot coffee.
“So that fancy gun in the safe ain’t no big thing after all?”
Dean groaned. Jo was too damned smart for her own good, subversion or no. “We think it’ll kill him. I’m sure he wants to get his mitts on it. But he’s not stupid; he knows I won’t just hand over the gun in exchange for Dad. If…if Dad’s even still alive.”
“Don’t think that way,” she said quickly.
“I know, but-”
“But nothing! Wouldn’t you know it if your dad was dead already?”
Dean shrugged. He really wasn’t sure. The panic crept back.
“How about enemies of this yellow-eyed bastard? Is there someone else you might be able to deal with, a demon whose identity you do know and who might want a promotion?”
“Maybe one. But she goes by her human name: Meg. Can’t summon with that.”
However, a notion tickled at Dean’s thoughts, and it wasn’t just the panic talking. It was something Jo said. And something - Dean ran his fingers over his father’s journal - something he’d read, right before he had nodded off last night.
He must’ve started to look glassy-eyed and vague because Jo stood up, hands on her hips. “Why don’t you take a break from all this for five minutes? Grab a shower. Come out and help me and Mom work on dinner.”
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. Yeah, it was official. He stunk. “Dinner? Already?”
Jo’s expression softened. “Yeah. It’s kinda special. Christmas Eve.”
“It’s…Christmas? Damn. It’s Christmas.”
She gave him a careful smile, maybe a touch sad, before turning and leaving, tugging the door shut behind.
“Christmas. Well, isn’t that dandy,” Dean murmured. Then he picked up Dad’s journal, thumbed back a few pages, and found something to smile about. He smiled like a man making peace with his Maker before facing the firing squad.
Jo fussed over a basket of silly fake poinsettias and set it in the center of the table in their private dining room, which was just a small addition off the kitchen where the Harvelles could eat in peace or hide out when they’d had enough of the bar. A wide-mouthed taxidermied bass oversaw the area from the wall, and someone had hung a Christmas ornament from a hook snagged on its open maw.
It had started to snow again, blotting out the sun, and when Jo flipped on the overhead light, she saw Dean in the doorway.
He was watching her with a cryptic expression on his face, not quite melancholy but damned close. His hair was wet and combed, clothes clean…hell, he’d even shaved. But his eyes were dark with something unreadable.
Jo smoothed a hand over her own hair, abruptly self-conscious though she couldn’t place why.
No, that was fibbing to herself; she knew why, but she didn’t want to make a stink about it. Who wouldn’t find him attractive, what with his muscle and scars and a nose that had probably been broken at least once and eye-lashes that were too pretty for his own good? So what if she’d seen enough of him to know he had freckles dusting his shoulders and feet and the tops of his thighs?
She cleared her throat and gave a last fluff to the centerpiece, corralling her feelings before she blushed so hard, he wouldn’t need to be psychic to know what she was thinking.
“You okay?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t advance into the room. He just stood there, staring. His jaw twitched and she knew he was clenching his teeth. Then, his eyes got all shiny and liquid.
It kinda scared her.
“Don’t answer,” Jo said, lifting a hand. “Come on. I’ll give you something to do.” She grabbed his elbow as she brushed by, steering him into the kitchen.
Her mom was fussing with the goose, basting the enormous, mahogany-colored bird, aromatic steam filling the air. It was certainly oversized for the small number of folks expected for dinner, but no one dared complain. Ellen grinned as Jo wrapped a white, restaurant-issue apron around Dean’s waist, tying it off in a big bow.
“Do you like yams? I like yams,” Jo said, pressing a peeler into his hand.
He exhaled hard, and the tense line of his shoulders curved just a smidgeon. Jo got her own peeler and stood beside him. She rolled a yam in his direction.
That’s the way they stayed until dinner, working wordlessly, companionably. As long as he kept busy, Jo reasoned, he’d be fine. He wouldn’t miss his family too much. And she was right.
For dinner, it was the Harvelle women, Ash and Dean, and Jud and his uncle, the sheriff. The sheriff and his nephew had a standing invitation to holidays at the Roadhouse, not just because they were the local law, but because Sheriff McCook was a widower and a little sweet on Ellen. They liked to flirt, even if it made Jo roll her eyes. Nothing ever came of it, she didn’t think.
The table waited with their hands in their laps until Ellen sat down and chastised them all soundly for thinking she was going to pray over the spread. Eventually, every hand was moving, passing plates and serving dishes and wickered bottles of Chianti.
Nebraska was royal blue beyond the frosted windows. Dusk crept up on the landscape and snow began to accumulate in rolling blankets. By contrast, the light in the room was golden, flickering with mismatched candles that sat between baskets of rolls and bowls of carrots, bright pink candied apples, and brussel sprouts that only Ellen would eat. Though Dean was polite enough to take a few.
Ash raised his wine and led a toast, something rambling about never forgetting to live and looking to the stars that Jo was certain he’d cribbed from Oscar Wilde. But it was sweet and loopily eloquent. Everyone lifted their glasses to the center of the table and looked to each other the way you did when feelings outshone the words that spurred them.
To absent friends… Jo said to herself, out of habit. And family.
Jo slid a glance to her left, to Dean. He was forcing a smile. His jaw tensed again, a spasm betraying the levity of the moment, and Jo found his hand underneath the table. At first, he didn’t grip back, and she was on the verge of feeling foolish about the gesture but the Harvelle women were obstinate. She tugged his fingers and they twitched, then curled. Rough and dry, his palm pressed to Jo’s and they threaded fingers. His breath released in a stutter but he didn’t stop smiling. Neither did Jo.
Eventually, Jo released his hand to finish dinner and afterwards, help return the leftovers and empty dishes to the kitchen. She didn’t mind; she desperately needed to stretch her full stomach and shake off one-too-many glasses of wine. The men could tackle the dishwashing later and they would, too, if they knew what was good for ‘em.
When she returned, the sheriff was regaling the table with his latest Stupid Tourist Story. A database administrator from Boston had gotten spooked by a mule deer, of all things, and found himself stuck in a sink hole. The man had pinned so many bear bells onto his clothing, it sounded like Doreen Chapman was down there with him. This was only funny if you knew Doreen, and everyone in Arcadia did. She gave local belly dancing lessons and was fond of wearing her jingly garb everywhere, as advertising. She was self-taught and a tad past her prime, but she did have her fair share of belly and boy, could she make it dance.
Dean, though, was nowhere to be seen.
Jo caught her mother’s eye and Ellen quirked a nod towards the barroom.
Hmmm.
Pausing to lean on the doorframe, Jo watched him at the bar. It was dark, save for the vague blue radiance of a cell phone, cast upwards on his face. The air was cold and silent, the taps disassembled and the neon turned off for the next day and a half while Christmas spun itself out.
Jo knew whom he was calling, or had called, or was thinking of calling: his mysterious Sam. The brother he had misplaced, who worried and baffled him, whom Dean so clearly missed he could barely bring himself to speak his name.
Dean was frowning down at the phone, swimming in an isolated glow against a moonless dark. Jo shivered, wrapped her arms around herself. Snow had been blowing in fits and starts all evening, caught on the sills of the windows and moaning across the parking lot. She walked into the room heavily so he could hear her boots and not be startled when she appeared, suddenly, from the shadows. He didn’t look up, but he snapped the phone closed. It was a hollow, broken sound. Matched his eyes.
He stayed huddled at the bar, even as Jo plugged in the Wurlitzer and stained-glass colors cut over the scuffed floor. The machine hummed softly, flickered. Jo fished a coin from her jeans and dropped it in. She skimmed the song selections, none of which was a recent radio hit because the old juke still played vinyl, and that’s the way they liked it.
The static of the needle hitting the record hissed for a few seconds before Elvis Presley’s voice echoed out into the Roadhouse. He was determined to have a ‘Blue Christmas’ for a whole host of reasons that he proceeded to describe, in song.
Jo ambled over to Dean, who was still sitting with his heels hooked on the rungs of a barstool. He was fingering the tiny brass bauble he wore around his neck. Jo hadn’t yet researched the symbol, but it wore the totemic feel of something sacred. Might’ve been a ward or a talisman, or it might only have been important to Dean and Dean alone. Hunters were a superstitious lot.
She took a chance again and caught his roaming fingers in her own, and he didn’t pull away this time, either. The brass was warm. She tugged at him gently, insistently. He balked, looking at her with a pinched expression that Jo didn’t buy for one red cent. She kept tugging his hand and he exhaled, defeated.
He rocked off his perch and let her steer him to the small patch of illumination cast by the jukebox. Jo slipped her right hand into his, her left over his shoulder. Stubborn cuss, he just stood there as she stared up at him, unblinking. She hazarded a small smile and started to sway, pressing into him, forcing him to respond or else look like a big, dumb tree. Eventually he caved, followed her lead, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to smile. Something caught at the corner of his lip, pulled, a flicker of tightly-held emotion.
Jo put that out there, telegraphing the sentiment through her fingertips playing across the tense, bunched muscle in his shoulder to the hair that tickled at his nape, in need of a trim. It’s okay, it’s…okay…
He curled a little, maybe trying to make their height difference less difficult, maybe surrendering to the magic of Elvis. Or maybe he was melting down, and needed someone to be present as he let loose all that worry and fear and guilt, so painfully caught inside. Maybe that hitch she felt in his chest when he dropped a hand to her waist was just a sigh. And maybe the warm wetness she sensed on her neck as he closed in around her wasn’t tears, not at all.
Jo let him stifle sobs into her shoulder, because here in this moment, he was safe. It was a good place to be weak. She didn’t object when he hauled her up, effortless, and slid his mouth along her jaw to kiss her so hard, they knocked teeth. She tasted salt on his lips and red wine on his tongue. The Wurlitzer ran out of song, and Jo wrapped her legs around his waist, hooking boots, kissing him until his backside bumped into her bedroom door.
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