Fic: Thirteen at Dinner (11/15)
Masterpost
Chapter IX: Philip Ashby
Chapter X: Peter Winn
Dean woke up, wondering why he felt so miserable.
Then he realized. Sammy.
He remembered the previous day, but there was a part of him that couldn’t believe that he’d said those things, that he’d left Sammy, his Sammy, his baby brother, to be arrested and interrogated and shoved around and -
What had he done?
He was going to owe Sammy a lifetime of vanilla lattes. If Sam was even willing to speak to him after -
But first he had to get the kid out of jail. The guy who’d called him had said something about a bail hearing. Dean was pretty sure the bail for a murder suspect would be more money than they could scare up, but he’d get Sammy out. He’d shoot every single person in Andover if he had to.
He had to get the kid out of jail, and then he could grovel.
What had he been thinking? Sammy, kill a woman in cold blood? The idea was ridiculous. There must’ve been an explanation. She’d probably attacked him or something. Sam had tried to explain, but Dean hadn’t listened to him. No, he’d listened to Avery instead -
Avery.
Dean’s jaw twitched.
He snatched his phone from the bedside table, searching his recent call list and pressing the button as soon as he found her number.
She picked up on the fourth ring.
“Dean?” she said warily.
“You lying bitch,” Dean hissed.
“Dean, I -”
“It wasn’t true, was it? It couldn’t have been true. Sam wouldn’t walk into a woman’s place of work and kill her. She was either murdering babies, or she attacked him. Or both.”
“Dean, I can explain -”
“Explain?” Dean laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can’t wait. I’m sure this is going to be good.”
“I told you to get him a lawyer!”
“You - I did something to my brother yesterday that I would outright kill anyone else for doing, and you told me to get him a lawyer? You’d better hope they treated him right at the police station, because if they’ve hurt one hair on his head… I don’t hurt women, not human women, anyway, but for you I’ll make an exception.”
“If… if… oh my God. You don’t know.”
Dean’s senses went on full alert. “I don’t know what? Is Sammy OK?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Don’t mess with me about my little brother. Is Sammy OK?”
“Turn on the TV, Dean. Local cable news.”
Dean fumbled for the remote and flicked on the TV, surfing through the channels until he found the local news station. A grim-faced young man was standing at the scene of a road accident. It looked like quite a pile-up - at least four cars, from what Dean could see, two of them gutted by fire.
Dean raised the volume.
“… transporting a murder suspect pending his bail hearing. We’re hearing reports that all three occupants of the police car were killed, we’ll get you confirmation in a few minutes. Meanwhile…”
Dean didn’t hear another word.
“I’m sorry, Agent Newman,” the woman said, not sounding sorry at all. “Nobody in the squad car survived the crash.”
Dean, still in his old Led Zeppelin shirt and boxers, ran a hand through his hair, forcing himself to stay calm. Sam wasn’t dead. It wasn’t possible. Dean would know if Sam were dead, because the world would stop spinning and the sun would disappear forever and maybe the sky would fall. None of those things had happened, so Sammy must be alive.
“There must be a mistake,” he said through gritted teeth.
“We have the records, Agent Newman. There were three people in the squad car, your partner and the two officers escorting him. We pulled three bodies out.”
“And you’re sure it was them?”
The woman sighed. “They were… Well, you must have seen it on the news. The car caught fire. We couldn’t… Um. The bodies aren’t… Identifiable. But we did recover a couple of your partner’s possessions, if you’d like to come by and pick them up. And do you have information on next of kin? He listed you as his emergency contact when we booked him, but when Officer Paulson spoke to you yesterday you said -”
“I’m coming,” Dean interrupted. He’d lose it if she finished that sentence.
Sammy.
He pulled on his clothes, buttoning his shirt with one hand and reaching for his jacket with the other. Sam had to be alive.
He pulled his jacket over his shoulders.
Of course, it would be just like the little bitch to manage to get himself in trouble, like Dean didn’t have enough to worry about -
Dean stopped short.
Where had that thought come from?
It was still there, a flicker of resentment against Sam, trying to push into his mind.
Hex bags? After all, there was at least one witch involved. And he’d been fine until -
Dean shucked his jacket, and desperate worry for Sammy slammed into him.
Right. Something in his jacket.
Dean turned out the pockets, but there was nothing he didn’t usually have, except -
He flinched as his fingers encountered the sheaf of papers Mathieson had given him. There were at least half a dozen, and as soon as his hand brushed them he felt a wave of unreasonable anger against Sam.
Crap.
He dropped the jacket like it had burned him. Sammy had been right about Mathieson. Dean should’ve stayed away from him. He had no idea what was in those papers. That was something for Sammy to figure out, when Dean got him back.
Dean was going to get him back. Sammy was alive. Sammy had to be alive. Sammy was probably going to hate him, but Dean could accept that as long as he was -
He shook his head, grabbed another jacket from his duffel, and went outside.
“It’s OK, baby,” he soothed, when the Impala’s engine sounded rougher than usual. She must miss Sammy. “It’s OK. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Sammy’s not dead. We’ll get him back.”
“I suppose his family must think it’s a good thing he died before he could be charged,” the red-haired woman said, unaware how close she was to having Dean shove her through a wall. “The way social media is these days, there might have been some retaliation against them. The public hates it when lawmen go rogue.” She glanced up at Dean. “We’ve still not got a response from the Bureau. Of course, it’s been less than a day since we filed the request, and I’m sure they’re backed up.”
“I’ll handle it,” Dean said automatically.
“Good. Now, if you’ll let us know about transport arrangements for the body… I can recommend a good undertaker in town, if the family wants to pick out a casket here. It might be better -”
“Shut up,” Dean snapped.
She looked immediately sympathetic, which only annoyed him more.
“Of course, I’m so sorry. He was your partner, even if he was… Well, innocent until proven guilty, right?” She shrugged, and Dean’s throat tightened. He needed to get out of here. He wasn’t going to be able to hold it together. “So, you let me know about that. Hang on, I have his things…”
She reached into a drawer and pulled out a clear plastic bag containing three cell phones, a watch, a wallet, and an FBI badge, all slightly damaged by fire but clearly recognizable as Sam’s - or, in the case of the badge, Agent Redford’s.
“Ironic, isn’t it? In a horrible way. They chucked this in the boot, so it didn’t get too badly damaged. The fire started in the engine.”
Dean took the bag, hope crumbling. These were Sam’s things. Sam’s geeky phones he loved playing with, the watch Dean gave him for Christmas, the wallet that was so worn Dean was sure stuff would start falling out of it but Sam kept because Jess had given it to him -
“Agent Newman, do you need to sit down?”
And Avery might have lied, but Dean had believed her. Dean had believed her, when he should have known better, and he deserved to have to go through life without Sammy after what he’d done. He deserved to live to be a hundred, knowing every single day that he’d caused Sammy’s death.
Oh, God.
Sammy.
Dean mumbled something - he wasn’t sure what - and ran outside. The Impala was parked near the entrance. He threw himself inside.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. “He’s gone - he’s gone, and it’s my fault.”
“Hi, Dean,” Mathieson said brightly, like he didn’t know what happened to people who hurt Sam.
Maybe he didn’t.
“I’m going to hunt you down,” Dean said, and he didn’t know if his voice was shaking more from anger or from grief. “I’m going to rip your beating heart out of your chest and make you eat it.”
“Dean, I’m sorry about your brother,” Mathieson said, over the tinny music in the background. Did the man live in his elevator? “But you must see he brought it on himself. He attacked and killed Amanda Velour. It’s divine justice.”
Dean supposed that was one way to look at it, and maybe -
Crap.
He ended the call.
The music. That tinny, hypnotic music. Was that how Mathieson got tenants to sign agreements where they agreed to pay ridiculous rent for tiny houses that would fall down in a high wind? And then was there something in the paper that kept people from arguing with him once they’d signed?
Sammy had known Mathieson was a scumbag. Dean should have listened. Then Sammy would be safe, alive, with him, instead of lying in a morgue.
He let his head thump down on the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that threatened to spill. Dean didn’t deserve the relief of crying. He deserved to feel even worse than he did now. If that was possible.
“What are we going to do?” he choked. “Baby, what are we going to do?”
For once, the Impala wasn’t a comfort. He was sitting in it alone, when Sammy should be with him, laughing at him for being emo, or maybe trying to sneak a hug. This was what came of letting Sammy go places in other cars. His baby would never have let Sammy die, no matter how bad the accident was. She loved Sammy as much as he did.
Dean’s phone rang.
He briefly considered running it over. What good was a cell phone he couldn’t use to call Sammy?
It kept ringing, so he answered it.
“Yeah?”
“Is that Agent Newman? This is Kara.”
“Kara?” Dean said blankly.
“From the library. You asked me to find out if there were any unusual deaths.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Listen, about that -”
“I found a bunch,” she went on quickly. “But there was one that was - well, particularly creepy. A little boy called Peter Winn.”
Dean hesitated. Peter Winn probably wasn’t their ghost, but he’d been at Ralph Ashby’s last little dinner party. Sam had wanted the mystery solved. The least Dean could do was hear the woman out.
“What’s his story?”
“He’s mentioned in the memoir of a more prominent resident of Andover, who was at school with him. He says Peter was… odd. Twisted. One evening when he was at dinner with some of his parents’ friends, the Ashbys, his host died and his host’s wife was accused of -”
“Witchcraft and murder.”
“Yeah. Anyway, the writer says he spoke to Peter about that later and Peter claimed that the woman was innocent. He said he’d done it himself - apparently he said this a lot, but nobody took him seriously, because he was a child, and he was known for fabricating stories. He said he’d learnt a spell from an old woman and used it because, I quote, ‘Old Ralph Ashby hit my cat with a stone and lamed him.’”
“What happened to Peter?”
“That’s where it gets strange. Five years to the day after Ralph Ashby died, he was found dead at exactly the same spot. Not a mark on him, according to the writer, but the man who found him said he’d been foaming at the lips - just like Ashby.”
“OK,” Dean said, “thanks, Kara. That’s helpful.”
He hung up.
So Peter had confessed. Was that it? After all that had happened, after Sam had died trying to find out the truth, was that all there was to it? A kid out for revenge who’d played with forces he didn’t understand?
But… That made no sense. Frances claimed she wanted the truth, but if Peter had confessed, the truth was already out. Why was she still hanging around?
Dean sighed. Sammy would’ve known where to start, and he could try all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to be able to focus on the case when he felt like his soul had been ripped apart. Dean didn’t care who killed Ralph Ashby. He didn’t care about the ghost, and he didn’t care about Isabelle Beaudreau.
“Please give him back.” He didn’t know who he was talking to. He didn’t believe in God. But Sam had, and that had to count for something. “I’ll do anything. Please. Please, please give him back.”
There was no answer.
There was still no answer twenty-four hours later, when Dean was sitting in the motel room with a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
If he’d thought getting so drunk he could barely remember his own name would make the gaping hole in his chest go away, even for an instant, he’d been wrong. He’d put off decisions as much as he could, but he’d still had to spend the day dealing with paperwork. Tomorrow he’d have to tell them what to do with the body - and that made his gut clench, referring to his sweet, innocent Sammy as the body.
Sammy.
All he could think about was Sammy. Sammy smiling at him, laughing at Dean’s teasing, poking at his rabbit food with a fork, Sammy pouting because they couldn’t get the jacket he liked in his Gigantor size, just…
Sammy.
With drunken precision, Dean poured himself a finger of whiskey.
“I’m sorry, kiddo.” He knocked it back in one gulp. “I’m so sorry.”
He poured himself another. He was about to put it to his lips when there was a sharp rapping at the door, making him start and pour whiskey on himself.
“Crap,” he muttered. “Sorry, Sammy. I’ll do the laundry.”
The person at the door knocked again.
“Go away!” Dean yelled.
“Dean!” a voice called back. “Open the door! This is important!”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. He knew that voice. It was the lying bitch.
He grabbed his gun and stumbled to the door. He was too drunk to aim straight, but at point-blank range he couldn’t miss.
He flung open the door, raising the gun as he did so.
Avery gasped.
“Dean, wait -”
“You have nerve, I’ll give you that,” Dean spat. “Showing your face here after what you did?”
“Don’t act like it’s all my fault!” Avery snapped back. “I shouldn’t have lied, but you should have trusted your brother.”
“Unless you’re here to tell me you went to the cops and admitted you’re a lying bitch, I have nothing to say to you.”
“I didn’t go to the cops -”
Dean scowled, finger tightening on the trigger. “Goodbye, Avery.”
“Wait! You’ll want to hear this, trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Hear me out.” She paused. “Sam would hear me out.”
“You lied about my brother, and now you’re trying to use him to keep your own sorry ass alive?” Dean backed away from the door, using the gun to motion her into the room. “You’re lucky I’m a pushover for Sam. Now you’ve got exactly fifteen seconds to tell me something I want to hear, before I put a bullet in your brain.”
“I spoke to Frances -”
“I don’t care.”
“She said she and Steve -”
“Five seconds.”
“There’s a chance Sam’s alive!” Avery said desperately.
Dean lowered the gun. “OK. Keep talking. And if you’re lying to me…”
“I’m not lying. Frances won’t tell me everything. I think she’s angry with me because… Well. But she might talk to you.”
Chapter XI: Joyce Ashby
Chapter IX: Philip Ashby
Chapter X: Peter Winn
Dean woke up, wondering why he felt so miserable.
Then he realized. Sammy.
He remembered the previous day, but there was a part of him that couldn’t believe that he’d said those things, that he’d left Sammy, his Sammy, his baby brother, to be arrested and interrogated and shoved around and -
What had he done?
He was going to owe Sammy a lifetime of vanilla lattes. If Sam was even willing to speak to him after -
But first he had to get the kid out of jail. The guy who’d called him had said something about a bail hearing. Dean was pretty sure the bail for a murder suspect would be more money than they could scare up, but he’d get Sammy out. He’d shoot every single person in Andover if he had to.
He had to get the kid out of jail, and then he could grovel.
What had he been thinking? Sammy, kill a woman in cold blood? The idea was ridiculous. There must’ve been an explanation. She’d probably attacked him or something. Sam had tried to explain, but Dean hadn’t listened to him. No, he’d listened to Avery instead -
Avery.
Dean’s jaw twitched.
He snatched his phone from the bedside table, searching his recent call list and pressing the button as soon as he found her number.
She picked up on the fourth ring.
“Dean?” she said warily.
“You lying bitch,” Dean hissed.
“Dean, I -”
“It wasn’t true, was it? It couldn’t have been true. Sam wouldn’t walk into a woman’s place of work and kill her. She was either murdering babies, or she attacked him. Or both.”
“Dean, I can explain -”
“Explain?” Dean laughed bitterly. “Oh, I can’t wait. I’m sure this is going to be good.”
“I told you to get him a lawyer!”
“You - I did something to my brother yesterday that I would outright kill anyone else for doing, and you told me to get him a lawyer? You’d better hope they treated him right at the police station, because if they’ve hurt one hair on his head… I don’t hurt women, not human women, anyway, but for you I’ll make an exception.”
“If… if… oh my God. You don’t know.”
Dean’s senses went on full alert. “I don’t know what? Is Sammy OK?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Don’t mess with me about my little brother. Is Sammy OK?”
“Turn on the TV, Dean. Local cable news.”
Dean fumbled for the remote and flicked on the TV, surfing through the channels until he found the local news station. A grim-faced young man was standing at the scene of a road accident. It looked like quite a pile-up - at least four cars, from what Dean could see, two of them gutted by fire.
Dean raised the volume.
“… transporting a murder suspect pending his bail hearing. We’re hearing reports that all three occupants of the police car were killed, we’ll get you confirmation in a few minutes. Meanwhile…”
Dean didn’t hear another word.
“I’m sorry, Agent Newman,” the woman said, not sounding sorry at all. “Nobody in the squad car survived the crash.”
Dean, still in his old Led Zeppelin shirt and boxers, ran a hand through his hair, forcing himself to stay calm. Sam wasn’t dead. It wasn’t possible. Dean would know if Sam were dead, because the world would stop spinning and the sun would disappear forever and maybe the sky would fall. None of those things had happened, so Sammy must be alive.
“There must be a mistake,” he said through gritted teeth.
“We have the records, Agent Newman. There were three people in the squad car, your partner and the two officers escorting him. We pulled three bodies out.”
“And you’re sure it was them?”
The woman sighed. “They were… Well, you must have seen it on the news. The car caught fire. We couldn’t… Um. The bodies aren’t… Identifiable. But we did recover a couple of your partner’s possessions, if you’d like to come by and pick them up. And do you have information on next of kin? He listed you as his emergency contact when we booked him, but when Officer Paulson spoke to you yesterday you said -”
“I’m coming,” Dean interrupted. He’d lose it if she finished that sentence.
Sammy.
He pulled on his clothes, buttoning his shirt with one hand and reaching for his jacket with the other. Sam had to be alive.
He pulled his jacket over his shoulders.
Of course, it would be just like the little bitch to manage to get himself in trouble, like Dean didn’t have enough to worry about -
Dean stopped short.
Where had that thought come from?
It was still there, a flicker of resentment against Sam, trying to push into his mind.
Hex bags? After all, there was at least one witch involved. And he’d been fine until -
Dean shucked his jacket, and desperate worry for Sammy slammed into him.
Right. Something in his jacket.
Dean turned out the pockets, but there was nothing he didn’t usually have, except -
He flinched as his fingers encountered the sheaf of papers Mathieson had given him. There were at least half a dozen, and as soon as his hand brushed them he felt a wave of unreasonable anger against Sam.
Crap.
He dropped the jacket like it had burned him. Sammy had been right about Mathieson. Dean should’ve stayed away from him. He had no idea what was in those papers. That was something for Sammy to figure out, when Dean got him back.
Dean was going to get him back. Sammy was alive. Sammy had to be alive. Sammy was probably going to hate him, but Dean could accept that as long as he was -
He shook his head, grabbed another jacket from his duffel, and went outside.
“It’s OK, baby,” he soothed, when the Impala’s engine sounded rougher than usual. She must miss Sammy. “It’s OK. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Sammy’s not dead. We’ll get him back.”
“I suppose his family must think it’s a good thing he died before he could be charged,” the red-haired woman said, unaware how close she was to having Dean shove her through a wall. “The way social media is these days, there might have been some retaliation against them. The public hates it when lawmen go rogue.” She glanced up at Dean. “We’ve still not got a response from the Bureau. Of course, it’s been less than a day since we filed the request, and I’m sure they’re backed up.”
“I’ll handle it,” Dean said automatically.
“Good. Now, if you’ll let us know about transport arrangements for the body… I can recommend a good undertaker in town, if the family wants to pick out a casket here. It might be better -”
“Shut up,” Dean snapped.
She looked immediately sympathetic, which only annoyed him more.
“Of course, I’m so sorry. He was your partner, even if he was… Well, innocent until proven guilty, right?” She shrugged, and Dean’s throat tightened. He needed to get out of here. He wasn’t going to be able to hold it together. “So, you let me know about that. Hang on, I have his things…”
She reached into a drawer and pulled out a clear plastic bag containing three cell phones, a watch, a wallet, and an FBI badge, all slightly damaged by fire but clearly recognizable as Sam’s - or, in the case of the badge, Agent Redford’s.
“Ironic, isn’t it? In a horrible way. They chucked this in the boot, so it didn’t get too badly damaged. The fire started in the engine.”
Dean took the bag, hope crumbling. These were Sam’s things. Sam’s geeky phones he loved playing with, the watch Dean gave him for Christmas, the wallet that was so worn Dean was sure stuff would start falling out of it but Sam kept because Jess had given it to him -
“Agent Newman, do you need to sit down?”
And Avery might have lied, but Dean had believed her. Dean had believed her, when he should have known better, and he deserved to have to go through life without Sammy after what he’d done. He deserved to live to be a hundred, knowing every single day that he’d caused Sammy’s death.
Oh, God.
Sammy.
Dean mumbled something - he wasn’t sure what - and ran outside. The Impala was parked near the entrance. He threw himself inside.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. “He’s gone - he’s gone, and it’s my fault.”
“Hi, Dean,” Mathieson said brightly, like he didn’t know what happened to people who hurt Sam.
Maybe he didn’t.
“I’m going to hunt you down,” Dean said, and he didn’t know if his voice was shaking more from anger or from grief. “I’m going to rip your beating heart out of your chest and make you eat it.”
“Dean, I’m sorry about your brother,” Mathieson said, over the tinny music in the background. Did the man live in his elevator? “But you must see he brought it on himself. He attacked and killed Amanda Velour. It’s divine justice.”
Dean supposed that was one way to look at it, and maybe -
Crap.
He ended the call.
The music. That tinny, hypnotic music. Was that how Mathieson got tenants to sign agreements where they agreed to pay ridiculous rent for tiny houses that would fall down in a high wind? And then was there something in the paper that kept people from arguing with him once they’d signed?
Sammy had known Mathieson was a scumbag. Dean should have listened. Then Sammy would be safe, alive, with him, instead of lying in a morgue.
He let his head thump down on the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that threatened to spill. Dean didn’t deserve the relief of crying. He deserved to feel even worse than he did now. If that was possible.
“What are we going to do?” he choked. “Baby, what are we going to do?”
For once, the Impala wasn’t a comfort. He was sitting in it alone, when Sammy should be with him, laughing at him for being emo, or maybe trying to sneak a hug. This was what came of letting Sammy go places in other cars. His baby would never have let Sammy die, no matter how bad the accident was. She loved Sammy as much as he did.
Dean’s phone rang.
He briefly considered running it over. What good was a cell phone he couldn’t use to call Sammy?
It kept ringing, so he answered it.
“Yeah?”
“Is that Agent Newman? This is Kara.”
“Kara?” Dean said blankly.
“From the library. You asked me to find out if there were any unusual deaths.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Listen, about that -”
“I found a bunch,” she went on quickly. “But there was one that was - well, particularly creepy. A little boy called Peter Winn.”
Dean hesitated. Peter Winn probably wasn’t their ghost, but he’d been at Ralph Ashby’s last little dinner party. Sam had wanted the mystery solved. The least Dean could do was hear the woman out.
“What’s his story?”
“He’s mentioned in the memoir of a more prominent resident of Andover, who was at school with him. He says Peter was… odd. Twisted. One evening when he was at dinner with some of his parents’ friends, the Ashbys, his host died and his host’s wife was accused of -”
“Witchcraft and murder.”
“Yeah. Anyway, the writer says he spoke to Peter about that later and Peter claimed that the woman was innocent. He said he’d done it himself - apparently he said this a lot, but nobody took him seriously, because he was a child, and he was known for fabricating stories. He said he’d learnt a spell from an old woman and used it because, I quote, ‘Old Ralph Ashby hit my cat with a stone and lamed him.’”
“What happened to Peter?”
“That’s where it gets strange. Five years to the day after Ralph Ashby died, he was found dead at exactly the same spot. Not a mark on him, according to the writer, but the man who found him said he’d been foaming at the lips - just like Ashby.”
“OK,” Dean said, “thanks, Kara. That’s helpful.”
He hung up.
So Peter had confessed. Was that it? After all that had happened, after Sam had died trying to find out the truth, was that all there was to it? A kid out for revenge who’d played with forces he didn’t understand?
But… That made no sense. Frances claimed she wanted the truth, but if Peter had confessed, the truth was already out. Why was she still hanging around?
Dean sighed. Sammy would’ve known where to start, and he could try all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to be able to focus on the case when he felt like his soul had been ripped apart. Dean didn’t care who killed Ralph Ashby. He didn’t care about the ghost, and he didn’t care about Isabelle Beaudreau.
“Please give him back.” He didn’t know who he was talking to. He didn’t believe in God. But Sam had, and that had to count for something. “I’ll do anything. Please. Please, please give him back.”
There was no answer.
There was still no answer twenty-four hours later, when Dean was sitting in the motel room with a half-empty bottle of whiskey.
If he’d thought getting so drunk he could barely remember his own name would make the gaping hole in his chest go away, even for an instant, he’d been wrong. He’d put off decisions as much as he could, but he’d still had to spend the day dealing with paperwork. Tomorrow he’d have to tell them what to do with the body - and that made his gut clench, referring to his sweet, innocent Sammy as the body.
Sammy.
All he could think about was Sammy. Sammy smiling at him, laughing at Dean’s teasing, poking at his rabbit food with a fork, Sammy pouting because they couldn’t get the jacket he liked in his Gigantor size, just…
Sammy.
With drunken precision, Dean poured himself a finger of whiskey.
“I’m sorry, kiddo.” He knocked it back in one gulp. “I’m so sorry.”
He poured himself another. He was about to put it to his lips when there was a sharp rapping at the door, making him start and pour whiskey on himself.
“Crap,” he muttered. “Sorry, Sammy. I’ll do the laundry.”
The person at the door knocked again.
“Go away!” Dean yelled.
“Dean!” a voice called back. “Open the door! This is important!”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. He knew that voice. It was the lying bitch.
He grabbed his gun and stumbled to the door. He was too drunk to aim straight, but at point-blank range he couldn’t miss.
He flung open the door, raising the gun as he did so.
Avery gasped.
“Dean, wait -”
“You have nerve, I’ll give you that,” Dean spat. “Showing your face here after what you did?”
“Don’t act like it’s all my fault!” Avery snapped back. “I shouldn’t have lied, but you should have trusted your brother.”
“Unless you’re here to tell me you went to the cops and admitted you’re a lying bitch, I have nothing to say to you.”
“I didn’t go to the cops -”
Dean scowled, finger tightening on the trigger. “Goodbye, Avery.”
“Wait! You’ll want to hear this, trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Hear me out.” She paused. “Sam would hear me out.”
“You lied about my brother, and now you’re trying to use him to keep your own sorry ass alive?” Dean backed away from the door, using the gun to motion her into the room. “You’re lucky I’m a pushover for Sam. Now you’ve got exactly fifteen seconds to tell me something I want to hear, before I put a bullet in your brain.”
“I spoke to Frances -”
“I don’t care.”
“She said she and Steve -”
“Five seconds.”
“There’s a chance Sam’s alive!” Avery said desperately.
Dean lowered the gun. “OK. Keep talking. And if you’re lying to me…”
“I’m not lying. Frances won’t tell me everything. I think she’s angry with me because… Well. But she might talk to you.”
Chapter XI: Joyce Ashby