FIC: The Sharpness of the Outline (1/9)
Title: The Sharpness of the Outline
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: R - for strong language and content
Pairing: none (gen) Dean, Sam, John
Disclaimer: Not mine. Damn it.
SPOILERS: through current season
Summary: There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. - Anaïs Nin
A/N: This story serves as my Sweet Charity fic for a_starfish. Once I started, I couldn't stop. Thanks for being so patient, S. Also thanks to pdragon76 for massive support and pants kicking, and lemmypie and hiyacynth for after hours eyeballs. Those interested can read Their Appointed Rounds which serves as a companion to this fic, though it's not necessary to do so. Special tip of the hat to smilla02 for the wonderful icons.
A note about the history of this fic:This story was started a loooong time ago, with all good intentions. While it began posting as a WIP on February 1, 2008 - insert epic facepalm - I had plans to complete it in a reasonable time, with reasonable respect for readers along for the journey. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, eh? The complete nine chapters of this story will be reposted every four days, beginning today and ending March 3, 2010. To those of you who were here at the beginning, there are some editing changes to this front end - clean-up work - though the facts of the story haven’t changed. Also, to you, dear readers, my sincerest apologies for leaving you hanging. It’s unconscionable, and I hope you’ll forgive me and grant me - once again - your trust.
The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline. - Jacob Bronowski
Missoula, Montana - September, 2001
“Seems pretty ambitious.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just sayin’, it’s a lotta ground to cover at one time.” He had to be careful, tread lightly. He wasn’t going to spell it out in neon - It’s a three man operation, Dad, and Sammy ain’t here… - but Dean wanted his dad to know he knew it. That they both did. And he wanted him to admit it.
“You sayin’ you’re not up to it?”
“I’m sayin’ it’s a lotta ground to cover for just two guys.”
John kept cleaning the shotgun, patch - dark with oil - sliding in and out of the barrels on the end of the rod. Dean chewed on the heel of his burger, picked through the cold fries that lay like warped wooden planks in the lid of the Styrofoam take-out container.
This was their first major hunt since Sam had left, gaping chasm in his wake filled by half a dozen simple salt and burns, and a Black Dog pup that could have been handled just as well by Animal Control. This gig, though… Like he said: a little too ambitious.
For years, the haunting of Arlee High School was a quaint and curious ghost story - word-of-mouth oral tradition accompanying camp-outs and bonfires and the short-season tourist trade in a town of less than one thousand. The story went, a female student had committed suicide in the girls’ locker room showers and ever since, students, faculty, and the occasional passerby reported hearing screams in the hallways, on campus, and in the gymnasium. Girls admitted to cold drafts of air that moved between the water flows of overhead showers. Arlee High had filed more get-out-of-PE stomachache notes than any other Physical Education program in the state.
And all of that could have been ignored - had been, in fact, for close to eighty years - if it weren’t for what happened once the renovation and the new Fall semester began.
The small town had passed a millage vote, and a generous donation from a recently deceased longtime resident had garnered a remodel of the high school. Two days into the new school year, a JV basketball player had sustained three broken ribs and a serious concussion when he was inexplicably trapped behind the retractable bleachers after a late practice. The coach said he never noticed the second-stringer missing. Coach also said the bleachers were opened when he turned out the lights and locked up the school for the night. The b-baller said he couldn’t remember a thing after he slid under the bleachers to retrieve a towel he’d dropped.
A week later, four teens had been killed in an as-of-yet unexplained chemistry lab explosion. The teacher swore up and down none of the chemicals being used were incendiary - no matter the amount or combination - and the four students killed in the accident were AP level; they’d have never messed around with anything harmful.
Three days after that, a girl had slipped in the shower and fractured her skull. She laid in a coma in the hospital for two days before an embolism took her life. The morning she died, a construction worker fell from the roof of the high school, neck snapped and skull split open like a sack of rice on the pavement right outside Mrs. Odderink’s second period home ec class.
After that, they closed the school for a week. They brought in a slew of grief counselors from the university in Missoula. In a town as small as Arlee, everyone was either related to, or knew, the injured and deceased.
Dean had done all the research, tying together the threads his dad had presented by way of newspaper clippings and scrawled notes. It was Sam’s forté - amassing the essentials - but Dean was proud of the work he’d done, of the whole cloth he’d woven from the bits and scraps. Like the fact this wouldn’t be a simple salt and burn because Kathleen Dwight had been cremated after her suicide, coinciding with the Protestant burial trends in the 1920s. Whatever was binding her spirit to the high school - if it even was her spirit - was still a mystery to be solved.
John moved from shotgun maintenance to charms and wards, assembling piles of dried herbs bound in cotton squares with Sharpied symbols.
“There’s a full-time, round-the-clock security guard, you know,” said Dean, after a swallow of tepid beer.
John peered at him from under his heavy brow.
“At the high school. Because of the construction…and the accidents and everything,” Dean said, and then cut his eyes to the side. He brought the beer bottle back to his lips, wanted to shut himself up, because this was Thin Ice John Winchester. Fuck.
“There somethin’ botherin’ you, Dean?”
There was no RSVP attached to the remark; it was a jibe, a taunt. Bordered on a dare.
Dean shifted in his chair. “I’m just sayin’, if one of us is takin’ care of the security guy, that’s one less takin’ care of the ghost. And if we get rid of the security guy, then one of us is gonna be busy lookin’ out for civilians. I mean, it’s a small town, but it ain’t dead.” Yet.
“You’re sayin’ an awful lot tonight,” John grumbled without looking up from his work. “More than you’ve said in weeks.” He paused, left the words on the table between them like a bad casserole.
When Dean bit his tongue, refusing to grab for a helping, his dad continued.
“I got no desire to listen to you bitch and moan. There’re kids dying, Dean. We have a job to do.” He looked up and pinned him with a stare. “You’re either with me, or you’re not.”
And that was definitely an accusation right there: a line in the sand, pissed dark and thick by John fucking Winchester. It was the closest his dad had come to alluding to Sam’s perceived betrayal in weeks. The whole Sam thing? Apparently not up for discussion.
Dean cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, what?” John asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Dean. “I’m with you.”
* * *
Whatcom County, Washington - November, 2007
“So, how do you know this guy again?”
Dean sighed dramatically, palmed the steering wheel one hundred and eighty degrees, and pulled back onto the highway. “Me and dad did a job for him a couple years back.”
“What kind of job?”
“What kinda job do you think, Sam? We snaked his toilets. Jesus.”
“Hey, what’s with you?” Sam barked, turning in the passenger seat to face him.
“Nothin’.”
“You’ve been a complete dick since we crossed through Montana.”
“Maybe ‘cause you haven’t let up since Montana.”
“You mean, asking what the hell we’re doing heading to Washington in the middle of a demon war? Because, yeah, I can see where it’s a huge strain on you, clueing me in on what’s going down.”
Dean cocked his head, pinched up his face for a fraction of a second. “Just that kind of piss-poor attitude that’s a real turn-off, little brother.”
“You know what? Fuck you,” Sam said, facing forward again, arms pinned across his chest.
“Christ,” Dean muttered. He took a gulp of the coffee he’d just picked up at the gas station, held his scalded tongue so Sam couldn’t derive any satisfaction from it.
“You know, you just-- ‘Sam. We’re going to Washington.’ And I’m supposed to nod and say ‘okay’?”
“I told you. It’s a job.”
“Yeah. You told me that.”
Dean sucked at his coffee-rawed cheeks. “Look. We owe this guy a favor, and--”
“I don’t owe anybody in Washington any favors. If I did, I think I’d know about it. Maybe you and Dad owe this guy a favor. I’m apparently just along for the ride.”
“Long-ass ride,” Dean grumbled.
“I just don’t get why you’re being so secretive.”
“I’m not being secretive, okay? I don’t even know what the guy wants. You happy now?”
Sam aimed a gape-mouthed stare of incredulity at Dean. “Happy?” he asked. “You think a blind hunt is gonna somehow make me happy?”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Dean had no idea why he was throwing gasoline on the fire. Sometimes it was just easier to watch things burn.
“All about--?” Sam stammered, hand tenting on his chest. “All about me? Tell me what in the last six months hasn’t been about you!”
Actually, he knew exactly why he was turning Sam’s emotional-needs bulldozer in the opposite direction. Because if Sam kept plowing toward Dean, Dean was going to have to explain Montana. And he really didn’t want to explain Montana.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’ve tried to hold back. I really have--”
“Try harder,” Dean said, and kind of hated himself.
“I’m done, trying, Dean. And apparently, so are you. Oh, but that’s not new, is it? ‘Cause you were pretty much done trying by the time you drove back from the crossroads in Cold Oak, weren’t you?”
Well, shit… Don’t hold back, Sammy. Dean took it on the chin, though, because it was pretty well deserved.
“I mean, I think I finally get it, now. It’s not really about me. It’s about you, Dean. It’s about how you’re not man enough to step up to the plate and admit that this fight has tired you out, that you’re ready to lie down. Because, clearly, that’s the issue. It’s not a question of you having faith in me being able to get you out of the deal, or even about that convenient little proviso; that if I try and screw up, I’m dead, too. This is about you not wanting out of the deal in the first place!”
Dean steered Sam as expertly as he steered the Impala.
“You know, if I was to ever be in the position again to make a wish? I’d wish for every fuckin’ car trip I take with you to be filled with emotional vomit and wild accusation. ‘Cause this here?” Dean cocked his head and clucked his tongue. “This is awesome.”
“We’re just never gonna talk about this, huh? Without you making jokes and pronouncements about how you’re totally fine with going to Hell.”
“Nope.”
“Goddamnit, Dean.”
“Suck it up, Sammy.”
“Fuck you.”
And that effectively shut down the conversation for the next ten miles. Not that Dean couldn’t feel Sam brewing and stewing in the passenger seat, which was a good thing and a bad thing: good, because it kept Sam focused - like a puppy with a soup bone - gnawing and chomping and drooling all over his righteous indignation for hours. Bad thing, though, because…well… Sam was a thinky motherfucker, and that meant he might eventually coil his way back to--
“Wait. Didn’t you and Dad do a job in Montana after I left for school? Right before you dropped off the map for a while?”
Shit. “Huh?”
“Before that little Arizona cowboy adventure you had?” Sam asked with a slight smirk.
Dean shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel, leaned down and cranked up the volume on the radio.
* * *
Montana - 2001
They drove to the high school in the truck so there’d only be one vehicle drawing attention, both of them tense and silent in the cab. It wasn’t more than twenty minutes from their motel in Missoula to sleepy Arlee, but the trip seemed to Dean to take the better part of a month.
“So,” Dean lobbed, fifteen minutes into the drive, “the security guard?”
“Taken care of.”
Okay.
Dean waited for his dad to expound. Sometimes he didn’t get details until they were already on-site for a job. He might get a ‘Find me everything you can on Sylphs…’ or ‘Whatta you know about Cayman burial tradition?’ Occasionally, John Winchester even sat you down and had an actual palaver; showed his cards without you having to call. It hadn’t bother Dean so much when he was younger, but lately he’d been wondering if maybe his dad didn’t actually always have details, didn’t have a plan. Not to mention what a fucked-up, ego-maniacal, control-freak thing it was to do.
“Mind if I ask how?”
“How what?” John replied, but Dean knew he knew what was being asked.
“How’s the security guard taken care of?”
“Like I’ve always said, every scared man has a price.”
Dean chuffed a laugh. “What was his?”
John’s deep chuckle picked up where Dean’s dropped. “Fifth of double-malt scotch.”
“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, huh?”
“Not tryin’ to fuck him, Son. Just want him to take an extra long lunch break.”
Dean served a conciliatory half-grin when his dad glanced over, drummed his fingers on his knee for a few beats. “So, what’s the game plan? We goin’ in with EMF? Quick sweep to isolate activity?”
“We’re goin’ in locked and loaded. This is a currently active spirit. Could be a poltergeist. I don’t wanna take stupid chances.”
“Like havin’ a civilian accidentally gettin’ their neck snapped by a ghost?” The nuance that separated smartass from smart mouth was an art Dean never quite mastered. Especially with his father.
“You got a problem with how I’m running this hunt, Dean?”
Yes. “No, sir. I’m just sayin’, like you pointed out, it’s an active spirit. We got a small town, a closed-down haunted high school, kids with friends hurt or dead? Shit, Dad, half the boys in town gotta have boners, thinking about goin’ in there. Bein’ a hero, or at least getting one hell of a ghost story to piss out at parties…”
“Sounds like you in high school.”
There was nothing melancholy in his dad’s remark; it sliced the space between them and slipped into Dean’s gut. He’d been a teenaged fuck-up: fights, suspensions, a drunk and disorderly at sixteen that - honestly - he thought his dad was going to murder him over. It wasn’t easy being the new kid in school. Every two months or so.
“Yeah, sounds like my crowd, huh?” Dean said, and forced a smile. “But if we don’t have a security guard keepin’ out the looky-loos, we’re gonna have to keep ‘em out ourselves. And seein’ how it’s just me and you, that splits us up.”
“Yeah. It does,” his dad said, fingers tightening around the wheel.
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“Kids are dying, Dean. Did you forget why we do this job?”
Shit. “No, sir.”
“Saving people. Hunting things. Protecting innocents. These are kids, Dean. Seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds who don’t know how to keep themselves safe.”
Christ. It was painful how much Sam was a part of everything, without even being there. Almost like the loss of him was greater than his presence.
It really wasn’t the time or the place, and Dean knew that. He really did. But this was the new way with his dad; hopping from Sam-fire to Sam-fire with a gas can in his hands. Sooner or later, the whole thing had to blow, and Dean knew how flame could cleanse and purify. And how flame could torture and burn.
Keep Sammy safe.
“If you were so worried about him stayin’ safe, maybe you shouldn’ta made it impossible for him to come back,” Dean uttered, hands in fists atop his thighs.
The truck jerked to the side of the road with an angry cry of tire on asphalt, gravel knocking the undercarriage like a swarm of frantic hornets. They slammed to a stop and John spun on him, lip curled in a sneer.
“You got somethin’ to say, Dean? Man up and spit it out, because I’m gettin’ a little tired of the second-guessing, dude. You second-guess command, and your head’s not in the game. Your head’s out playin’ fly it up the flag pole while your ass is takin’ fire. I need you to have my back. Your brother already made his choice. Make yours. ‘Cause I think I deserve at least that much respect from my sons.”
Fucking unbelievable. Dean could never duck the rounds of rifle fire meant for Sam.
“You got somethin’, Dean? Anything?”
Sam had once called their dad an emotional zombie. A Vulcan. ‘Except for anger and self-righteousness,’ Sam had said, ‘Those he’s got down to a T.’
“It’s an active spirit, Dad. One wrong move, one slip up and--”
The air in the cab was crisp and cool enough; his dad’s breath streamed like dragon’s mist from his nose. The hesitation was the stutter of a bird’s wing, but Dean caught it. He knew he’d started something he maybe shouldn’t have.
“You think you know how to run a hunt better than your old man? Go out and start huntin’, Dean. ‘Cause what I don’t need on a job is somebody who’s got no trust in me.”
Oh, you motherfucker. His dad knew how to twist the knife. His dad was a fucking killer: double sharp accusations of lousy hunter and lousy son. His fingernails threatened to pierce his palms, and Dean forced his fists lax, rubbed tender hands across his blue-jeaned knees. “I trust you.”
“What was that?”
You son of a bitch… “I said, I trust you, sir.” He could feel the heat of his dad’s glare on his cheek, kept his eyes straight ahead.
An interminable silence passed like a snail along a razor’s edge. Then his dad dropped the truck into gear and pulled back onto the road.
The construction trailer where the security guard hung out was dark when they drove past, just like his dad said it would be. Dean didn’t see a single internal or external light source on the whole campus aside from the orange glow of two overheads in the parking lot. Meaning their flashlights were going to shine like fucking beacons.
Dean realized with a sting of bitter pride, his dad had made mistake number two for the night. Instead of bribing a security guard to stay on site and keep his mouth shut - a security guard who could assure the local heat that everything was cool should a conscientious neighbor report lights in the building - his dad had gotten rid of that small protection, ensuring no resistance should anyone be inclined to investigate their bobbing flashlights.
They parked a few blocks from the school. Dean hopped out of the cab and grabbed both duffels from behind the seat, nabbed the EMF from the glove box, and joined his dad at the tailgate.
John held out a silent hand, and Dean didn’t wait for his fingers to wiggle; he passed over the smaller of the two duffels with a sharp nod. Inside was ammunition for every gun they owned, extra rounds for the shotguns and Glocks, since they used those most. John Winchester Rule stated that you never transported a loaded weapon unless it was in your hands, or needed to be in your hands in under five seconds. Dean watched, cheek between his teeth, while his dad packed his jacket pockets with rock-salt shells and a chamber cradle of iron shot for the pistol at his back.
“Since you seem to be so tuned in to the high school dickweed mind-set,” his dad purred without looking up, “I’m gonna let you out-think ‘em. You’ve got perimeter.”
Dean tasted the mineral heat of blood in his mouth and made his jaw disengage. Fuck. His tongue probed the jagged rip his teeth had made in his cheek. “Yes, sir,” he said when his dad slapped the flashlight into his hand. He brushed a wrist across his nose, sniffed, and held out the EMF. “You should probably take this.”
His dad let him float for a second, then looked down and took the meter from his hand. Dean sucked at the lingering taste of blood on his tongue, said nothing.
John slid the meter into the breast pocket of his work shirt. “I’m going straight to the locker rooms. They’re off the basement gymnasium,” he told him, twisting in the EMF’s ear piece. “The whole south and north sides have ground-floor windows, and there are five entrances. You’re gonna be patrolling all that.”
“Got it,” said Dean.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
Dean figured Sam might actually enjoy Bellingham; its nickname was “The City of Subdued Excitement”, and that was more or less his brother’s calling card these days. Dean had hated the place when he and their dad had been here before. Sam didn’t seem impressed, though, as Dean cruised them through town on I-5, then onto a two-lane leading back into woods past the city limits.
They hadn’t talked for ten minutes. The last words exchanged were angry grumbles over the smell rolling off Dean’s boots. His constant footwear hadn’t really dried out from their last job, and Dean had been cranking the heater since they crossed into Washington.
“It’s like…bad cheese and decaying grass clippings.”
“Dude, they’re my feet. Whatta you want me to do?”
“Wash them occasionally?”
“Oh, ha ha,” he’d fired back. His mind had been so many places right then, it was the best he could do. Besides, Sam was right; Dean’s boots were seriously rank.
As they pulled onto the wooded two-track, Dean watched Sam lean forward and eye the house. It looked pretty much like Dean remembered it: rough-hewn imitation of an old Shaker box cabin, desperately in need of roof work. The five years since Dean had last been there had done nothing to improve the situation. Made it worse, if anything: royal blue tarped roof; collection of ruined autos in the front yard. His brother shot him a sneer. It was obvious this was a favor job. A guilt job. A not-getting-paid-dick job.
The Impala’s rumble brought Jimmy from inside. He stepped onto the front porch - pretty much just another blue plastic tarp held down on the corners with cords of wood awaiting chopping - hailing them with a casual wave. The years hadn’t done the man much good, either, from the looks of him. He’d lost weight, gone gray, taken on a slump in his shoulders Dean was glad he’d never had to see in their dad’s.
“That him?” asked Sam.
“Yeah. Jimmy Height. He’s a good guy, Sam. Met Dad in the Corps, helped us out of a pretty rough scrape about five years back.”
Sam turned to him, eyebrows up and jaw swinging low. “Another Marine buddy? You do remember what happened in Green River, right? I mean, you haven’t gone so mind-numbingly stupid that--”
“Chill out, dude, okay?” Dean said, bringing the Impala to a stop beside a 1940s tractor. “He’s a good guy.”
“So was Deacon, and we know how that one ended.”
“Whatever,” Dean muttered as he swung out from behind the wheel.
“Hey, Dean. Good to see ya again,” Jimmy said, half a smile on his face as he strode forward. He threw his arms around Dean in a tight embrace, and Dean caught the shock on Sam’s face when he reciprocated.
“Hey, Jimmy. Good to see you, too.”
“Sorry about John.”
“Thanks. Yeah.”
The hug ended with a few manly back-pounds, then Jimmy stepped away and gave Dean the once-over.
“Shit. You look good, Dean. You look good. Grown up.” He shook his head and tipped his chin toward Sam. “This your little brother?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth hopped. “Yeah. Little,” he said.
Jimmy stepped around the front of the car, and Sam met him halfway, hand extended. Pissed or not, Sam was always friendly. Dean admired the trait.
“Jim Height. Nice to meet ya, Sam,” he said.
“Likewise,” Sam said, smile tacked on his lips.
Dean twisted the Impala’s keys in his fingers. “Jimmy. Think I could use your head? ‘S been a long drive, man.”
“Sure, yeah. No. Come on in,” Jimmy said, apologizing over his shoulder as he headed back to the cabin. “Place is a wreck, but then so is everything else, so…”
Sam lifted an eyebrow in Dean’s direction, saying more with the move than he’d said in the last hundred miles: I want details. I wanna know what the hell’s going on. I wanna know how we know this guy. I wanna kick your ass right now.
Dean flashed Sam two fingers off his temple, then started after Jimmy. “Hey! You got beer? Once I make room for it?”
Jimmy wasn’t lying; his place was a mess. Looked a little like the inside of their dad’s journal, which was weird because, last Dean knew, Jimmy wasn’t a hunter.
“Wow. Interesting what you’ve done with the place. Goin’ for a whole demonic theme, are ya?” Dean asked, motioning around the room. The few pieces of furniture were piled with books and stacks of files. Newspaper clippings, charts, and graphs were scatter-tacked to the walls. He glanced over at Sam, who was glancing back, looking like they’d accidentally gotten off the tram in Crazytown.
Jimmy snorted, shook his head. He ducked into the mini-fridge next to the kitchen table and fished out three longnecks. “Yeah. I know. Looks a little…obsessive.”
Dean took the beers Jimmy held out. Passed one to Sam, and twisted the top off his. “Little bit.”
“I blame your dad for that.”
“A lotta people do,” Sam said, and Jimmy gave him a squint.
Dean watched as Jimmy assessed Sam. He’d gotten the same treatment when he first met him; evidently when John Winchester saved your life in Vietnam, you gained a healthy respect for the man, had a little trouble with people who felt differently. Dean understood it. Thought Sam did too, for the most part.
Jimmy tilted the neck of his beer in Sam’s direction, showed him an open face. “I figure if you guys are gonna be able to help me out, it’s gonna work best if we’re all honest with each other. I got no problem with honesty. You can ask your brother about that.”
Sam’s eyes flicked over from Jimmy, and Dean looked down quickly. He wasn’t sure if was successful hiding the guilt before his brother caught it.
“I know a whole different John Winchester than you do,” Jimmy continued. “I get that, I really do. And I know you and your dad didn’t always get along that great…”
Dean sensed Sam stiffen. He looked up from his beer bottle to see his brother’s narrowed eyes staring intently at their dad’s old pal. Jimmy’s hand came up like a stop sign.
“I get that, too. ‘Cause the man could be a bastard. But your dad saved my life a couple different times. Not the way you hear people talk about it, toss it around, but put his own life on the line for me. Risked his own life. More than once. Man who’ll give up his life for yours? You respect that man. Despite anything else.”
When Sam’s eyes cut to him again, Dean didn’t glance away. But he could only bear the look for a second before his lids grew artificially heavy and turned back to his beer.
“I just wanted you to know. Up front. The sense of your dad is all over this place, but that’s not the ghost I need help with,” Jimmy said, and tossed a half-glance in Dean’s direction. “I don’t wanna be butting heads.”
All three of them were still for a second, then Sam nodded once, looked Jimmy in the eye.
“It’s not gonna be a problem.”
Yes, it is. Dean knew his brother. God, he was insufferable when there was an emotional thread to unravel.
Jimmy nodded back at Sam, quirked his lips, and cocked his head in Dean’s direction. “He tell you about the mess him and your dad got in when they were here before?”
Well, shit, Jimmy. You probably just gave my brother an emo-ammo overload boner. Thanks a-fuckin’- lot.
“No. He didn’t, actually.”
“Hey, Jimmy, man,” Dean said, leaning toward him, “Let’s save the remember-when for--”
“Actually, I’d really love to hear the story,” Sam said, stepping closer, grin slapped on like a bumper sticker.
Jimmy’s face pistoned between them, corners of his mouth vining up like kudzu. “Shit,” he said, stopping at Dean. “I don’t know how you couldn’t tell that story.”
Dean huffed a chuckle and cocked his head. “Yeah, well…”
“I don’t know how you couldn’t tell it either, Dean,” said Sam, lips pursed right out of their dopey smile.
“I mean, at least parts of it. Especially with him bein’ pre-law,” Jimmy said, pointing his beer at Sam.
“Especially with that,” echoed Sam.
Oh, my God, it’s like some kind of avalanche. Jesus Christ. Dean swiveled to face Sam, held up his hands in as much surrender as barrier. “I’ll tell you, Sam. I swear to God, I will. Just not right now.” He didn’t break contact with Sam when Jimmy uttered a regretful “Sorry, dude…” just waved a hand in the man’s direction. “S’okay,” he said, eyes imploring his brother to listen. To hear. “Not right now, okay? I’m beggin’ ya...”
Sam’s eyes skittered left and right, reading every inch of Dean and plumbing for sincerity. “There’s gonna be talking. You understand this, right? At some point, there’s going to be talking.”
Dean held up both hands, appeasing bookends for his solemn face. “I understand that. Yes. I’ll be talking.”
“When?”
“When I have to. Right now, though,” he said with an uncomfortable half jig, “I gotta see a man about a horse.”
* * *
Montana - Arlee High School - 2001
Dean was putting off enough steam to take the bite out of the air. Still cold enough, though. Hope your fuckin’ over-zealous pride’s keepin’ you warm, Dad. But it wasn’t like Dean was going to be a dick about it; he’d already done three circuits around the school. He kept a wide berth of the large blackish stain on the concrete outside the home ec room and was coming around the corner toward the parking lot when he stopped dead. He took a quick backstep to slip against the rough brick.
The lights were on in the construction trailer.
Shit.
He crept to the edge of the building, leaned forward so one eye could scan the dark lot. There was an orange AMC Pacer no self-respecting high school student would ever drive pulled up along the side of the trailer: definitely a rent-a-cop mobile.
Oh, that’s just perfect.
He ducked back behind the bluff of the brick, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the school, listening for sounds from the guard or his dad inside. All he got was an earful of cold Midwestern wind. He slid his gun from his waistband and brought it to rest against his thigh, waiting.
“Who’re you?”
Dean jumped three inches off the ground when the voice broke the silence, and he fought to keep the gun at his side. He knew it was just the minimum-wage security guard who may or may not be armed himself. Dean’s heart was racing, and he made himself take a breath. His eyes snapped open, then closed, when the beam of a flashlight hit them. “Fuck!”
“You John Moore’s kid?”
It was his dad’s system; a memorized list of about seventy fake surnames that ran the gamut from A to Z. Whatever state they were in, their Dad picked an alias that started with the same first letter, made it easier to remember when Dean and Sammy had been kids. Dean thought it was a stupid, boring, antiquated system, and had offered alternatives on several occasions. The reception of such offerings usually wound up with a rousing chorus of ‘Don’t be an ass, Dean.’
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m Dean Moore.”
If Dean had his way? They’d use the names of rock gods and porn stars. Hugh Johnson? Come on.
“What’re you doin’ here?” the guard asked, clicking off the flashlight.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Dean asked back. The adrenaline rush was receding, and he hopped his shoulders to loosen the muscles. “You told my dad you were gonna stay gone.” Dean covertly returned his Glock to his waistband and the small of his back, let the cold steel settle the flare of self-disgust he felt when he got a good look at the guard and smelled the scotch bribe on his lips. You let this fuckin’ idiot sneak up on you? Dad’d kick your ass.
“I forgot my walkie-talkie.”
Oh, Jesus…
“An’ I wanted to bring your dad th’ letter,” the guard slurred.
Dean flicked a look at the gold nametag catching moonlight off the stout man’s chest. “What letter, Lyle?”
“M’ wife’s letter,” he said, fumbling in the pocket of his fake-fur trimmed security jacket. He produced a yellowed, folded square of paper. “Well, it’s not m’ wife’s letter. I mean, ’s not from her. She didn’t write it. But it’s hers, now. Her uncle wrote it. Her great uncle.”
Lyle held the letter with a kind of nervous reverence. Dean didn’t want to spook him by grabbing for it.
“Why’d you wanna show my dad the letter?”
“He’s tryna get rid of th’ ghost, right? But, see, I think there’s more ’an one ghost.”
Dean squinted hard at Lyle. He wasn’t sure exactly what his dad had told the man, but clearly whatever he’d said was close enough to the truth. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
Lyle flapped the letter in his hand. “Kathleen Dwight wasn’t th’ only one who died here, back then.”
Shit. No. I did good research. He’d found no other deaths associated with the suicide. “Can I see the letter, Lyle?”
The stubby man looked reluctant, squinched his eyes and shook his head. “I should give it to your dad.”
Dean gritted his teeth, kept his face neutral. “My dad’s kinda busy right now, Lyle. How ‘bout I take a look at it, and if it seems real important, I’ll interrupt him.” Dean made a moue, leaned in conspiratorially. “You probably noticed my dad’s kinda gruff. Doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s workin’.”
Lyle nodded, then handed him the letter.
Dean stepped a pace away from the security guard, unfolded the faded paper, and fished his Maglite from his back pocket. He snapped on the flashlight and looked around.
“It’s from her Great Uncle William. He used t’ be th’ chemistry teacher here, back in ’27.”
It was typed on an old manual typewriter: wide-opened Courier letters with staggered, irregular spacing; dark, fat periods fringed by gray ink bulleting the ends of sentences. Dean walked a few feet until he could get around the back side of the building - coverage for the light illuminating the page.
“He was th’ P.E. teacher, too. Boy an’ girls, both,” Lyle gibbered, hop-skipping to catch up with Dean’s broad pace.
The guy nearly ran up his ass when Dean stopped. He turned to Lyle as if the man was a slow-witted child, shoulders up and head tilted. “Dude? If it’s important, you gotta gimme a second to read it, okay?”
“Right,” the guard said, and gave Dean a sloppy thumbs up. “’S a family secret.”
Dean nodded, gave him a smile, then turned his attention back to the letter.
To My Loving Family:
I leave this letter as a signed confession. I cannot go to death with this grave sin on my heart. When you find this, I will be gone. Please do with it what you think is best.
You are all well aware of the “suicide” of young, beautiful Katie Dwight. As you know she was a star pupil. The only Arlee girl who qualified to take my chemistry class, and a sterling member of the ladies fitness squad.
I am horrified to admit that Kathleen did not take her own life, but that I had a hand in the terrible death. I breached that line an educator must never cross and attempted to engage Miss Dwight in an illicit relationship.
When Kathleen refused my advances, I became terrified she might go to the administration, and I could not bear that disgrace brought down on me or my family.
That son of a bitch.
Dean turned on Lyle, not needing to finish the confession. “He killed her.”
The man nodded, chewing at the side of his thumb. “Strangled ’er in the gym shower. Strung ’er up like she hung herself, after.”
“And then he killed himself.”
Lyle nodded again, pointed over Dean’s shoulder. “Jumped from th’ roof of th’ school. Groundskeeper found ‘im in the morning. Frienda th’ family. They kept it covered up.”
Damn it. “You know where he’s buried?”
“Sure. County graveyard offa Bennet’s Junction.”
Dean clapped the man on the shoulder. “You did good, Lyle. Now. I need you to grab your walkie-talkie, get in your car, and get the hell outta here. Me and my dad’ll be clearin’ out in just a little bit. We appreciate your help.” He folded the letter and slapped it against Lyle’s chest, took a few backward steps toward the door where his dad had entered. He lifted his chin to the guard, who was standing there like a statue of idiocy. “Go on, Lyle. Shag ass.”
“You really think my great uncle-in-law’s hauntin’ the school?” Lyle asked with a dopey, horrified grin.
“If he is now,” Dean said over his shoulder, bopping up the steps to the covered entrance, “he won’t be by morning.”
The shaft of the Maglite bounced in tempo as Dean jogged the long, dark basement hall, boots echoing hollowly between painted cinderblock walls. His Glock - for all the good it would do, loaded with regular ammo - was drawn and pointed nose down at the scuffed tile flooring. Over his footfalls, he could hear the drone of the showers from the locker room. Couldn’t imagine why his dad would have turned them on. It had to be ghost activity, and that wasn’t good.
It all kind of made sense; with what Lyle’d told him, all the details jigged a more complete puzzle. If it was Sykes, that’d explain the phantom screams, the seemingly random choice of victims, his involvement drawing lines between the chemistry lab, the gym, and the roof of the building. Like realtors say: location, location, location.
As Dean passed the gymnasium, his scalp started tingling. His hands flexed around the grip of his gun, metal suddenly cool against his hot palm. He stuttered to a halt when he saw mist scrolling from under the lip of the double doors stenciled GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOM. It coiled and climbed liked pulled cotton. A few steps closer, and Dean could feel its warm moisture.
Steam. From the showers.
His grip on the Glock relaxed, but the hairs at the nape of his neck stayed sideways. He leaned his shoulder against the right-hand door, hip checking the metal bar of the handle. The metallic click of the give sounded like a chime on the thick air.
“Dad.”
The heat of his hiss cut a contrail through the steam. He inched in, feet adjusting from tile to painted concrete, eyes darting left and right down a gauntlet of lacquered steel lockers. When his knee caught the edge of a long wooden bench, he followed it like a rail, gun rising forty-five degrees from his thigh.
“Dad?”
There was no answer, and Dean quickened his steps through the row of lockers. He passed into a larger, central dressing room where the steam was thicker, the showers louder, and the cold much more intense. Sonuvabitch. Glock’s not gonna do shit against this. He didn’t even have a take-out packet of salt in his pocket. Shit!
“Dad!”
He got an answer, then. Not his dad’s voice, but a wet sounding thump-pitterpitter-thump, and knew it was the heel, toe-toe, heel of his dad’s boot on wet tile: the desperate throes of a choking man.
“Dad!”
Dean skittered and slipped as he broke into a run, found himself windmilling to keep his feet as he splashed into an inch of water on the floor of the communal shower. A fusty smelling rooster-tail arced over his skidding boot, and then both feet were off the tile. “Fuck!”
The slip took him a good two feet into the air, got him parallel with the floor, and dropped him with no mercy. He took the brunt of it on his left shoulder, neck snapping sideways past the round of bone and muscle until his skull cracked against the tile with a splashthud.
A nebula of white stars exploded across the banner of Dean’s vision. Sharp pain shot down his left side, tempered a fraction of a second later by the lance of pain as his right side made final, wet contact with the floor. His breath left his lungs with a jaw-snapping oomph! and the shower room flickered between blueblack and blackout a few times. He got a hand up to his face, swiped at the fetid water that was raining down from the showerhead above, and fingered the back of his skull - couldn’t tell if the wetness was blood or not, just knew it was going be a minute before he could stand without losing consciousness.
Goddamnit.
The displacement of air in the wake of his fall had parted the mist like a gauzy Red Sea. In the cone of light from his dropped flashlight, Dean saw his dad pressed against the tiled wall, William Sykes’s dead gray hands wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Hey!”
Sykes’s ghost didn’t flinch, didn’t turn. Didn’t decrease the pressure on his dad’s throat.
Dean rolled to his right, hand skiing up, still clamped around the Glock. He twisted from the spray of the shower, blinking away the stinging water and the dizziness that came with his movement.
He pushed himself to his knees, fought the tilt of the room, and rose to a stand. He stumbled three steps toward the glint of steel, bluff double barrels stabbing the edge of the Maglite’s beam. Dean dropped the Glock and snatched up the shotgun in one wobbly fell swoop. He didn’t bother cocking it; knew his dad had done that the minute he’d stepped into the high school.
Two glided steps brought him to a side angle with Sykes. Dean didn’t allow himself time to think - just fired - and watched the spook detonate in a cloud of white. He lunged forward as his dad gasped and coughed his way to the floor.
“Dad!” Dean twisted his hands in his dad’s lapels, sawed-off set to the side for a second. “You okay?”
John brushed Dean’s hands off his chest. Sucked in, and blew out, a few shallow breaths. “That sure as hell ain’t no high-school girl,” he growled.
No. No, it fucking wasn’t. And his dad would have known that, too, if he’d just talked to Lyle Harris instead of working so hard to get rid of him. But Dean bit it all down, scooted back when his dad pushed him away, and said nothing but a clipped “No, sir.”
John rubbed a hand across his stubbled neck and grimaced. Dean didn’t allow himself to hover. He grabbed up the shotgun and started on a reload, couldn’t watch as his dad pushed himself up from the floor.
“Careful and cover those shells, Dean! Don’t damp ‘em up,” his dad snarled.
Dean clenched his jaw. My fuckin’ hand’s shieldin’ ‘em, you son of a bitch. He flapped his cupped hand, moonlight brightening the shower spray that bounced off his fingers. You see that? He didn’t look up to see if his dad had, just finished loading. Slammed up on the forestock, pumped the action bar with a snap of his arm.
“Three o’clock!” his dad yelled, and Dean spun right.
Sykes was back in all his rotting-corpse glory, and Dean felt the double-barrel ripped from his hands. It took a heartbeat to register it wasn’t the ghost who was yanking, it was his dad. The moment Dean uncurled his fingers from the gun, John took a step in front of him, elbowed him to the side, and fired both barrels into Sykes’s chest. Dean didn’t get to watch the ghostly explosion.
His dad’s shove sent him slipping and sliding across the slick, wet tile. His arms shot out, airplaning for balance. He was so concerned with staying off his ass, he didn’t see the central shower pole until it was too late. He shot an arm forward to try to stop the collision, but a last-second wobble made him miss by a mile. He tipped forward and caught the grooved stainless steel circle of the shower knob with his left cheek.
The whole room went white, and Dean considered briefly that the metal might go clear through to his brain. He couldn’t stop moving forward, even as he heard a tiny snap! and felt his upper lip go numb. The knob pressed against his eye with brutal force, and that’s when things went from white to black. Like a blindfold had been slapped over both eyes and - fuck! - that couldn’t be good, if he was still conscious. He didn’t do much thinking after that, though. Newton’s third law took over, and Dean’s head bounced off the pipes with a hollow sounding bong.
click for 2
Author: kimonkey7
Rating: R - for strong language and content
Pairing: none (gen) Dean, Sam, John
Disclaimer: Not mine. Damn it.
SPOILERS: through current season
Summary: There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. - Anaïs Nin
A/N: This story serves as my Sweet Charity fic for a_starfish. Once I started, I couldn't stop. Thanks for being so patient, S. Also thanks to pdragon76 for massive support and pants kicking, and lemmypie and hiyacynth for after hours eyeballs. Those interested can read Their Appointed Rounds which serves as a companion to this fic, though it's not necessary to do so. Special tip of the hat to smilla02 for the wonderful icons.
A note about the history of this fic:This story was started a loooong time ago, with all good intentions. While it began posting as a WIP on February 1, 2008 - insert epic facepalm - I had plans to complete it in a reasonable time, with reasonable respect for readers along for the journey. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, eh? The complete nine chapters of this story will be reposted every four days, beginning today and ending March 3, 2010. To those of you who were here at the beginning, there are some editing changes to this front end - clean-up work - though the facts of the story haven’t changed. Also, to you, dear readers, my sincerest apologies for leaving you hanging. It’s unconscionable, and I hope you’ll forgive me and grant me - once again - your trust.
The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline. - Jacob Bronowski
Missoula, Montana - September, 2001
“Seems pretty ambitious.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just sayin’, it’s a lotta ground to cover at one time.” He had to be careful, tread lightly. He wasn’t going to spell it out in neon - It’s a three man operation, Dad, and Sammy ain’t here… - but Dean wanted his dad to know he knew it. That they both did. And he wanted him to admit it.
“You sayin’ you’re not up to it?”
“I’m sayin’ it’s a lotta ground to cover for just two guys.”
John kept cleaning the shotgun, patch - dark with oil - sliding in and out of the barrels on the end of the rod. Dean chewed on the heel of his burger, picked through the cold fries that lay like warped wooden planks in the lid of the Styrofoam take-out container.
This was their first major hunt since Sam had left, gaping chasm in his wake filled by half a dozen simple salt and burns, and a Black Dog pup that could have been handled just as well by Animal Control. This gig, though… Like he said: a little too ambitious.
For years, the haunting of Arlee High School was a quaint and curious ghost story - word-of-mouth oral tradition accompanying camp-outs and bonfires and the short-season tourist trade in a town of less than one thousand. The story went, a female student had committed suicide in the girls’ locker room showers and ever since, students, faculty, and the occasional passerby reported hearing screams in the hallways, on campus, and in the gymnasium. Girls admitted to cold drafts of air that moved between the water flows of overhead showers. Arlee High had filed more get-out-of-PE stomachache notes than any other Physical Education program in the state.
And all of that could have been ignored - had been, in fact, for close to eighty years - if it weren’t for what happened once the renovation and the new Fall semester began.
The small town had passed a millage vote, and a generous donation from a recently deceased longtime resident had garnered a remodel of the high school. Two days into the new school year, a JV basketball player had sustained three broken ribs and a serious concussion when he was inexplicably trapped behind the retractable bleachers after a late practice. The coach said he never noticed the second-stringer missing. Coach also said the bleachers were opened when he turned out the lights and locked up the school for the night. The b-baller said he couldn’t remember a thing after he slid under the bleachers to retrieve a towel he’d dropped.
A week later, four teens had been killed in an as-of-yet unexplained chemistry lab explosion. The teacher swore up and down none of the chemicals being used were incendiary - no matter the amount or combination - and the four students killed in the accident were AP level; they’d have never messed around with anything harmful.
Three days after that, a girl had slipped in the shower and fractured her skull. She laid in a coma in the hospital for two days before an embolism took her life. The morning she died, a construction worker fell from the roof of the high school, neck snapped and skull split open like a sack of rice on the pavement right outside Mrs. Odderink’s second period home ec class.
After that, they closed the school for a week. They brought in a slew of grief counselors from the university in Missoula. In a town as small as Arlee, everyone was either related to, or knew, the injured and deceased.
Dean had done all the research, tying together the threads his dad had presented by way of newspaper clippings and scrawled notes. It was Sam’s forté - amassing the essentials - but Dean was proud of the work he’d done, of the whole cloth he’d woven from the bits and scraps. Like the fact this wouldn’t be a simple salt and burn because Kathleen Dwight had been cremated after her suicide, coinciding with the Protestant burial trends in the 1920s. Whatever was binding her spirit to the high school - if it even was her spirit - was still a mystery to be solved.
John moved from shotgun maintenance to charms and wards, assembling piles of dried herbs bound in cotton squares with Sharpied symbols.
“There’s a full-time, round-the-clock security guard, you know,” said Dean, after a swallow of tepid beer.
John peered at him from under his heavy brow.
“At the high school. Because of the construction…and the accidents and everything,” Dean said, and then cut his eyes to the side. He brought the beer bottle back to his lips, wanted to shut himself up, because this was Thin Ice John Winchester. Fuck.
“There somethin’ botherin’ you, Dean?”
There was no RSVP attached to the remark; it was a jibe, a taunt. Bordered on a dare.
Dean shifted in his chair. “I’m just sayin’, if one of us is takin’ care of the security guy, that’s one less takin’ care of the ghost. And if we get rid of the security guy, then one of us is gonna be busy lookin’ out for civilians. I mean, it’s a small town, but it ain’t dead.” Yet.
“You’re sayin’ an awful lot tonight,” John grumbled without looking up from his work. “More than you’ve said in weeks.” He paused, left the words on the table between them like a bad casserole.
When Dean bit his tongue, refusing to grab for a helping, his dad continued.
“I got no desire to listen to you bitch and moan. There’re kids dying, Dean. We have a job to do.” He looked up and pinned him with a stare. “You’re either with me, or you’re not.”
And that was definitely an accusation right there: a line in the sand, pissed dark and thick by John fucking Winchester. It was the closest his dad had come to alluding to Sam’s perceived betrayal in weeks. The whole Sam thing? Apparently not up for discussion.
Dean cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, what?” John asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Dean. “I’m with you.”
* * *
Whatcom County, Washington - November, 2007
“So, how do you know this guy again?”
Dean sighed dramatically, palmed the steering wheel one hundred and eighty degrees, and pulled back onto the highway. “Me and dad did a job for him a couple years back.”
“What kind of job?”
“What kinda job do you think, Sam? We snaked his toilets. Jesus.”
“Hey, what’s with you?” Sam barked, turning in the passenger seat to face him.
“Nothin’.”
“You’ve been a complete dick since we crossed through Montana.”
“Maybe ‘cause you haven’t let up since Montana.”
“You mean, asking what the hell we’re doing heading to Washington in the middle of a demon war? Because, yeah, I can see where it’s a huge strain on you, clueing me in on what’s going down.”
Dean cocked his head, pinched up his face for a fraction of a second. “Just that kind of piss-poor attitude that’s a real turn-off, little brother.”
“You know what? Fuck you,” Sam said, facing forward again, arms pinned across his chest.
“Christ,” Dean muttered. He took a gulp of the coffee he’d just picked up at the gas station, held his scalded tongue so Sam couldn’t derive any satisfaction from it.
“You know, you just-- ‘Sam. We’re going to Washington.’ And I’m supposed to nod and say ‘okay’?”
“I told you. It’s a job.”
“Yeah. You told me that.”
Dean sucked at his coffee-rawed cheeks. “Look. We owe this guy a favor, and--”
“I don’t owe anybody in Washington any favors. If I did, I think I’d know about it. Maybe you and Dad owe this guy a favor. I’m apparently just along for the ride.”
“Long-ass ride,” Dean grumbled.
“I just don’t get why you’re being so secretive.”
“I’m not being secretive, okay? I don’t even know what the guy wants. You happy now?”
Sam aimed a gape-mouthed stare of incredulity at Dean. “Happy?” he asked. “You think a blind hunt is gonna somehow make me happy?”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it?” Dean had no idea why he was throwing gasoline on the fire. Sometimes it was just easier to watch things burn.
“All about--?” Sam stammered, hand tenting on his chest. “All about me? Tell me what in the last six months hasn’t been about you!”
Actually, he knew exactly why he was turning Sam’s emotional-needs bulldozer in the opposite direction. Because if Sam kept plowing toward Dean, Dean was going to have to explain Montana. And he really didn’t want to explain Montana.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’ve tried to hold back. I really have--”
“Try harder,” Dean said, and kind of hated himself.
“I’m done, trying, Dean. And apparently, so are you. Oh, but that’s not new, is it? ‘Cause you were pretty much done trying by the time you drove back from the crossroads in Cold Oak, weren’t you?”
Well, shit… Don’t hold back, Sammy. Dean took it on the chin, though, because it was pretty well deserved.
“I mean, I think I finally get it, now. It’s not really about me. It’s about you, Dean. It’s about how you’re not man enough to step up to the plate and admit that this fight has tired you out, that you’re ready to lie down. Because, clearly, that’s the issue. It’s not a question of you having faith in me being able to get you out of the deal, or even about that convenient little proviso; that if I try and screw up, I’m dead, too. This is about you not wanting out of the deal in the first place!”
Dean steered Sam as expertly as he steered the Impala.
“You know, if I was to ever be in the position again to make a wish? I’d wish for every fuckin’ car trip I take with you to be filled with emotional vomit and wild accusation. ‘Cause this here?” Dean cocked his head and clucked his tongue. “This is awesome.”
“We’re just never gonna talk about this, huh? Without you making jokes and pronouncements about how you’re totally fine with going to Hell.”
“Nope.”
“Goddamnit, Dean.”
“Suck it up, Sammy.”
“Fuck you.”
And that effectively shut down the conversation for the next ten miles. Not that Dean couldn’t feel Sam brewing and stewing in the passenger seat, which was a good thing and a bad thing: good, because it kept Sam focused - like a puppy with a soup bone - gnawing and chomping and drooling all over his righteous indignation for hours. Bad thing, though, because…well… Sam was a thinky motherfucker, and that meant he might eventually coil his way back to--
“Wait. Didn’t you and Dad do a job in Montana after I left for school? Right before you dropped off the map for a while?”
Shit. “Huh?”
“Before that little Arizona cowboy adventure you had?” Sam asked with a slight smirk.
Dean shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel, leaned down and cranked up the volume on the radio.
* * *
Montana - 2001
They drove to the high school in the truck so there’d only be one vehicle drawing attention, both of them tense and silent in the cab. It wasn’t more than twenty minutes from their motel in Missoula to sleepy Arlee, but the trip seemed to Dean to take the better part of a month.
“So,” Dean lobbed, fifteen minutes into the drive, “the security guard?”
“Taken care of.”
Okay.
Dean waited for his dad to expound. Sometimes he didn’t get details until they were already on-site for a job. He might get a ‘Find me everything you can on Sylphs…’ or ‘Whatta you know about Cayman burial tradition?’ Occasionally, John Winchester even sat you down and had an actual palaver; showed his cards without you having to call. It hadn’t bother Dean so much when he was younger, but lately he’d been wondering if maybe his dad didn’t actually always have details, didn’t have a plan. Not to mention what a fucked-up, ego-maniacal, control-freak thing it was to do.
“Mind if I ask how?”
“How what?” John replied, but Dean knew he knew what was being asked.
“How’s the security guard taken care of?”
“Like I’ve always said, every scared man has a price.”
Dean chuffed a laugh. “What was his?”
John’s deep chuckle picked up where Dean’s dropped. “Fifth of double-malt scotch.”
“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, huh?”
“Not tryin’ to fuck him, Son. Just want him to take an extra long lunch break.”
Dean served a conciliatory half-grin when his dad glanced over, drummed his fingers on his knee for a few beats. “So, what’s the game plan? We goin’ in with EMF? Quick sweep to isolate activity?”
“We’re goin’ in locked and loaded. This is a currently active spirit. Could be a poltergeist. I don’t wanna take stupid chances.”
“Like havin’ a civilian accidentally gettin’ their neck snapped by a ghost?” The nuance that separated smartass from smart mouth was an art Dean never quite mastered. Especially with his father.
“You got a problem with how I’m running this hunt, Dean?”
Yes. “No, sir. I’m just sayin’, like you pointed out, it’s an active spirit. We got a small town, a closed-down haunted high school, kids with friends hurt or dead? Shit, Dad, half the boys in town gotta have boners, thinking about goin’ in there. Bein’ a hero, or at least getting one hell of a ghost story to piss out at parties…”
“Sounds like you in high school.”
There was nothing melancholy in his dad’s remark; it sliced the space between them and slipped into Dean’s gut. He’d been a teenaged fuck-up: fights, suspensions, a drunk and disorderly at sixteen that - honestly - he thought his dad was going to murder him over. It wasn’t easy being the new kid in school. Every two months or so.
“Yeah, sounds like my crowd, huh?” Dean said, and forced a smile. “But if we don’t have a security guard keepin’ out the looky-loos, we’re gonna have to keep ‘em out ourselves. And seein’ how it’s just me and you, that splits us up.”
“Yeah. It does,” his dad said, fingers tightening around the wheel.
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“Kids are dying, Dean. Did you forget why we do this job?”
Shit. “No, sir.”
“Saving people. Hunting things. Protecting innocents. These are kids, Dean. Seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds who don’t know how to keep themselves safe.”
Christ. It was painful how much Sam was a part of everything, without even being there. Almost like the loss of him was greater than his presence.
It really wasn’t the time or the place, and Dean knew that. He really did. But this was the new way with his dad; hopping from Sam-fire to Sam-fire with a gas can in his hands. Sooner or later, the whole thing had to blow, and Dean knew how flame could cleanse and purify. And how flame could torture and burn.
Keep Sammy safe.
“If you were so worried about him stayin’ safe, maybe you shouldn’ta made it impossible for him to come back,” Dean uttered, hands in fists atop his thighs.
The truck jerked to the side of the road with an angry cry of tire on asphalt, gravel knocking the undercarriage like a swarm of frantic hornets. They slammed to a stop and John spun on him, lip curled in a sneer.
“You got somethin’ to say, Dean? Man up and spit it out, because I’m gettin’ a little tired of the second-guessing, dude. You second-guess command, and your head’s not in the game. Your head’s out playin’ fly it up the flag pole while your ass is takin’ fire. I need you to have my back. Your brother already made his choice. Make yours. ‘Cause I think I deserve at least that much respect from my sons.”
Fucking unbelievable. Dean could never duck the rounds of rifle fire meant for Sam.
“You got somethin’, Dean? Anything?”
Sam had once called their dad an emotional zombie. A Vulcan. ‘Except for anger and self-righteousness,’ Sam had said, ‘Those he’s got down to a T.’
“It’s an active spirit, Dad. One wrong move, one slip up and--”
The air in the cab was crisp and cool enough; his dad’s breath streamed like dragon’s mist from his nose. The hesitation was the stutter of a bird’s wing, but Dean caught it. He knew he’d started something he maybe shouldn’t have.
“You think you know how to run a hunt better than your old man? Go out and start huntin’, Dean. ‘Cause what I don’t need on a job is somebody who’s got no trust in me.”
Oh, you motherfucker. His dad knew how to twist the knife. His dad was a fucking killer: double sharp accusations of lousy hunter and lousy son. His fingernails threatened to pierce his palms, and Dean forced his fists lax, rubbed tender hands across his blue-jeaned knees. “I trust you.”
“What was that?”
You son of a bitch… “I said, I trust you, sir.” He could feel the heat of his dad’s glare on his cheek, kept his eyes straight ahead.
An interminable silence passed like a snail along a razor’s edge. Then his dad dropped the truck into gear and pulled back onto the road.
The construction trailer where the security guard hung out was dark when they drove past, just like his dad said it would be. Dean didn’t see a single internal or external light source on the whole campus aside from the orange glow of two overheads in the parking lot. Meaning their flashlights were going to shine like fucking beacons.
Dean realized with a sting of bitter pride, his dad had made mistake number two for the night. Instead of bribing a security guard to stay on site and keep his mouth shut - a security guard who could assure the local heat that everything was cool should a conscientious neighbor report lights in the building - his dad had gotten rid of that small protection, ensuring no resistance should anyone be inclined to investigate their bobbing flashlights.
They parked a few blocks from the school. Dean hopped out of the cab and grabbed both duffels from behind the seat, nabbed the EMF from the glove box, and joined his dad at the tailgate.
John held out a silent hand, and Dean didn’t wait for his fingers to wiggle; he passed over the smaller of the two duffels with a sharp nod. Inside was ammunition for every gun they owned, extra rounds for the shotguns and Glocks, since they used those most. John Winchester Rule stated that you never transported a loaded weapon unless it was in your hands, or needed to be in your hands in under five seconds. Dean watched, cheek between his teeth, while his dad packed his jacket pockets with rock-salt shells and a chamber cradle of iron shot for the pistol at his back.
“Since you seem to be so tuned in to the high school dickweed mind-set,” his dad purred without looking up, “I’m gonna let you out-think ‘em. You’ve got perimeter.”
Dean tasted the mineral heat of blood in his mouth and made his jaw disengage. Fuck. His tongue probed the jagged rip his teeth had made in his cheek. “Yes, sir,” he said when his dad slapped the flashlight into his hand. He brushed a wrist across his nose, sniffed, and held out the EMF. “You should probably take this.”
His dad let him float for a second, then looked down and took the meter from his hand. Dean sucked at the lingering taste of blood on his tongue, said nothing.
John slid the meter into the breast pocket of his work shirt. “I’m going straight to the locker rooms. They’re off the basement gymnasium,” he told him, twisting in the EMF’s ear piece. “The whole south and north sides have ground-floor windows, and there are five entrances. You’re gonna be patrolling all that.”
“Got it,” said Dean.
* * *
Bellingham, Washington - 2007
Dean figured Sam might actually enjoy Bellingham; its nickname was “The City of Subdued Excitement”, and that was more or less his brother’s calling card these days. Dean had hated the place when he and their dad had been here before. Sam didn’t seem impressed, though, as Dean cruised them through town on I-5, then onto a two-lane leading back into woods past the city limits.
They hadn’t talked for ten minutes. The last words exchanged were angry grumbles over the smell rolling off Dean’s boots. His constant footwear hadn’t really dried out from their last job, and Dean had been cranking the heater since they crossed into Washington.
“It’s like…bad cheese and decaying grass clippings.”
“Dude, they’re my feet. Whatta you want me to do?”
“Wash them occasionally?”
“Oh, ha ha,” he’d fired back. His mind had been so many places right then, it was the best he could do. Besides, Sam was right; Dean’s boots were seriously rank.
As they pulled onto the wooded two-track, Dean watched Sam lean forward and eye the house. It looked pretty much like Dean remembered it: rough-hewn imitation of an old Shaker box cabin, desperately in need of roof work. The five years since Dean had last been there had done nothing to improve the situation. Made it worse, if anything: royal blue tarped roof; collection of ruined autos in the front yard. His brother shot him a sneer. It was obvious this was a favor job. A guilt job. A not-getting-paid-dick job.
The Impala’s rumble brought Jimmy from inside. He stepped onto the front porch - pretty much just another blue plastic tarp held down on the corners with cords of wood awaiting chopping - hailing them with a casual wave. The years hadn’t done the man much good, either, from the looks of him. He’d lost weight, gone gray, taken on a slump in his shoulders Dean was glad he’d never had to see in their dad’s.
“That him?” asked Sam.
“Yeah. Jimmy Height. He’s a good guy, Sam. Met Dad in the Corps, helped us out of a pretty rough scrape about five years back.”
Sam turned to him, eyebrows up and jaw swinging low. “Another Marine buddy? You do remember what happened in Green River, right? I mean, you haven’t gone so mind-numbingly stupid that--”
“Chill out, dude, okay?” Dean said, bringing the Impala to a stop beside a 1940s tractor. “He’s a good guy.”
“So was Deacon, and we know how that one ended.”
“Whatever,” Dean muttered as he swung out from behind the wheel.
“Hey, Dean. Good to see ya again,” Jimmy said, half a smile on his face as he strode forward. He threw his arms around Dean in a tight embrace, and Dean caught the shock on Sam’s face when he reciprocated.
“Hey, Jimmy. Good to see you, too.”
“Sorry about John.”
“Thanks. Yeah.”
The hug ended with a few manly back-pounds, then Jimmy stepped away and gave Dean the once-over.
“Shit. You look good, Dean. You look good. Grown up.” He shook his head and tipped his chin toward Sam. “This your little brother?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth hopped. “Yeah. Little,” he said.
Jimmy stepped around the front of the car, and Sam met him halfway, hand extended. Pissed or not, Sam was always friendly. Dean admired the trait.
“Jim Height. Nice to meet ya, Sam,” he said.
“Likewise,” Sam said, smile tacked on his lips.
Dean twisted the Impala’s keys in his fingers. “Jimmy. Think I could use your head? ‘S been a long drive, man.”
“Sure, yeah. No. Come on in,” Jimmy said, apologizing over his shoulder as he headed back to the cabin. “Place is a wreck, but then so is everything else, so…”
Sam lifted an eyebrow in Dean’s direction, saying more with the move than he’d said in the last hundred miles: I want details. I wanna know what the hell’s going on. I wanna know how we know this guy. I wanna kick your ass right now.
Dean flashed Sam two fingers off his temple, then started after Jimmy. “Hey! You got beer? Once I make room for it?”
Jimmy wasn’t lying; his place was a mess. Looked a little like the inside of their dad’s journal, which was weird because, last Dean knew, Jimmy wasn’t a hunter.
“Wow. Interesting what you’ve done with the place. Goin’ for a whole demonic theme, are ya?” Dean asked, motioning around the room. The few pieces of furniture were piled with books and stacks of files. Newspaper clippings, charts, and graphs were scatter-tacked to the walls. He glanced over at Sam, who was glancing back, looking like they’d accidentally gotten off the tram in Crazytown.
Jimmy snorted, shook his head. He ducked into the mini-fridge next to the kitchen table and fished out three longnecks. “Yeah. I know. Looks a little…obsessive.”
Dean took the beers Jimmy held out. Passed one to Sam, and twisted the top off his. “Little bit.”
“I blame your dad for that.”
“A lotta people do,” Sam said, and Jimmy gave him a squint.
Dean watched as Jimmy assessed Sam. He’d gotten the same treatment when he first met him; evidently when John Winchester saved your life in Vietnam, you gained a healthy respect for the man, had a little trouble with people who felt differently. Dean understood it. Thought Sam did too, for the most part.
Jimmy tilted the neck of his beer in Sam’s direction, showed him an open face. “I figure if you guys are gonna be able to help me out, it’s gonna work best if we’re all honest with each other. I got no problem with honesty. You can ask your brother about that.”
Sam’s eyes flicked over from Jimmy, and Dean looked down quickly. He wasn’t sure if was successful hiding the guilt before his brother caught it.
“I know a whole different John Winchester than you do,” Jimmy continued. “I get that, I really do. And I know you and your dad didn’t always get along that great…”
Dean sensed Sam stiffen. He looked up from his beer bottle to see his brother’s narrowed eyes staring intently at their dad’s old pal. Jimmy’s hand came up like a stop sign.
“I get that, too. ‘Cause the man could be a bastard. But your dad saved my life a couple different times. Not the way you hear people talk about it, toss it around, but put his own life on the line for me. Risked his own life. More than once. Man who’ll give up his life for yours? You respect that man. Despite anything else.”
When Sam’s eyes cut to him again, Dean didn’t glance away. But he could only bear the look for a second before his lids grew artificially heavy and turned back to his beer.
“I just wanted you to know. Up front. The sense of your dad is all over this place, but that’s not the ghost I need help with,” Jimmy said, and tossed a half-glance in Dean’s direction. “I don’t wanna be butting heads.”
All three of them were still for a second, then Sam nodded once, looked Jimmy in the eye.
“It’s not gonna be a problem.”
Yes, it is. Dean knew his brother. God, he was insufferable when there was an emotional thread to unravel.
Jimmy nodded back at Sam, quirked his lips, and cocked his head in Dean’s direction. “He tell you about the mess him and your dad got in when they were here before?”
Well, shit, Jimmy. You probably just gave my brother an emo-ammo overload boner. Thanks a-fuckin’- lot.
“No. He didn’t, actually.”
“Hey, Jimmy, man,” Dean said, leaning toward him, “Let’s save the remember-when for--”
“Actually, I’d really love to hear the story,” Sam said, stepping closer, grin slapped on like a bumper sticker.
Jimmy’s face pistoned between them, corners of his mouth vining up like kudzu. “Shit,” he said, stopping at Dean. “I don’t know how you couldn’t tell that story.”
Dean huffed a chuckle and cocked his head. “Yeah, well…”
“I don’t know how you couldn’t tell it either, Dean,” said Sam, lips pursed right out of their dopey smile.
“I mean, at least parts of it. Especially with him bein’ pre-law,” Jimmy said, pointing his beer at Sam.
“Especially with that,” echoed Sam.
Oh, my God, it’s like some kind of avalanche. Jesus Christ. Dean swiveled to face Sam, held up his hands in as much surrender as barrier. “I’ll tell you, Sam. I swear to God, I will. Just not right now.” He didn’t break contact with Sam when Jimmy uttered a regretful “Sorry, dude…” just waved a hand in the man’s direction. “S’okay,” he said, eyes imploring his brother to listen. To hear. “Not right now, okay? I’m beggin’ ya...”
Sam’s eyes skittered left and right, reading every inch of Dean and plumbing for sincerity. “There’s gonna be talking. You understand this, right? At some point, there’s going to be talking.”
Dean held up both hands, appeasing bookends for his solemn face. “I understand that. Yes. I’ll be talking.”
“When?”
“When I have to. Right now, though,” he said with an uncomfortable half jig, “I gotta see a man about a horse.”
* * *
Montana - Arlee High School - 2001
Dean was putting off enough steam to take the bite out of the air. Still cold enough, though. Hope your fuckin’ over-zealous pride’s keepin’ you warm, Dad. But it wasn’t like Dean was going to be a dick about it; he’d already done three circuits around the school. He kept a wide berth of the large blackish stain on the concrete outside the home ec room and was coming around the corner toward the parking lot when he stopped dead. He took a quick backstep to slip against the rough brick.
The lights were on in the construction trailer.
Shit.
He crept to the edge of the building, leaned forward so one eye could scan the dark lot. There was an orange AMC Pacer no self-respecting high school student would ever drive pulled up along the side of the trailer: definitely a rent-a-cop mobile.
Oh, that’s just perfect.
He ducked back behind the bluff of the brick, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the school, listening for sounds from the guard or his dad inside. All he got was an earful of cold Midwestern wind. He slid his gun from his waistband and brought it to rest against his thigh, waiting.
“Who’re you?”
Dean jumped three inches off the ground when the voice broke the silence, and he fought to keep the gun at his side. He knew it was just the minimum-wage security guard who may or may not be armed himself. Dean’s heart was racing, and he made himself take a breath. His eyes snapped open, then closed, when the beam of a flashlight hit them. “Fuck!”
“You John Moore’s kid?”
It was his dad’s system; a memorized list of about seventy fake surnames that ran the gamut from A to Z. Whatever state they were in, their Dad picked an alias that started with the same first letter, made it easier to remember when Dean and Sammy had been kids. Dean thought it was a stupid, boring, antiquated system, and had offered alternatives on several occasions. The reception of such offerings usually wound up with a rousing chorus of ‘Don’t be an ass, Dean.’
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m Dean Moore.”
If Dean had his way? They’d use the names of rock gods and porn stars. Hugh Johnson? Come on.
“What’re you doin’ here?” the guard asked, clicking off the flashlight.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Dean asked back. The adrenaline rush was receding, and he hopped his shoulders to loosen the muscles. “You told my dad you were gonna stay gone.” Dean covertly returned his Glock to his waistband and the small of his back, let the cold steel settle the flare of self-disgust he felt when he got a good look at the guard and smelled the scotch bribe on his lips. You let this fuckin’ idiot sneak up on you? Dad’d kick your ass.
“I forgot my walkie-talkie.”
Oh, Jesus…
“An’ I wanted to bring your dad th’ letter,” the guard slurred.
Dean flicked a look at the gold nametag catching moonlight off the stout man’s chest. “What letter, Lyle?”
“M’ wife’s letter,” he said, fumbling in the pocket of his fake-fur trimmed security jacket. He produced a yellowed, folded square of paper. “Well, it’s not m’ wife’s letter. I mean, ’s not from her. She didn’t write it. But it’s hers, now. Her uncle wrote it. Her great uncle.”
Lyle held the letter with a kind of nervous reverence. Dean didn’t want to spook him by grabbing for it.
“Why’d you wanna show my dad the letter?”
“He’s tryna get rid of th’ ghost, right? But, see, I think there’s more ’an one ghost.”
Dean squinted hard at Lyle. He wasn’t sure exactly what his dad had told the man, but clearly whatever he’d said was close enough to the truth. “What’re you talkin’ about?”
Lyle flapped the letter in his hand. “Kathleen Dwight wasn’t th’ only one who died here, back then.”
Shit. No. I did good research. He’d found no other deaths associated with the suicide. “Can I see the letter, Lyle?”
The stubby man looked reluctant, squinched his eyes and shook his head. “I should give it to your dad.”
Dean gritted his teeth, kept his face neutral. “My dad’s kinda busy right now, Lyle. How ‘bout I take a look at it, and if it seems real important, I’ll interrupt him.” Dean made a moue, leaned in conspiratorially. “You probably noticed my dad’s kinda gruff. Doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s workin’.”
Lyle nodded, then handed him the letter.
Dean stepped a pace away from the security guard, unfolded the faded paper, and fished his Maglite from his back pocket. He snapped on the flashlight and looked around.
“It’s from her Great Uncle William. He used t’ be th’ chemistry teacher here, back in ’27.”
It was typed on an old manual typewriter: wide-opened Courier letters with staggered, irregular spacing; dark, fat periods fringed by gray ink bulleting the ends of sentences. Dean walked a few feet until he could get around the back side of the building - coverage for the light illuminating the page.
“He was th’ P.E. teacher, too. Boy an’ girls, both,” Lyle gibbered, hop-skipping to catch up with Dean’s broad pace.
The guy nearly ran up his ass when Dean stopped. He turned to Lyle as if the man was a slow-witted child, shoulders up and head tilted. “Dude? If it’s important, you gotta gimme a second to read it, okay?”
“Right,” the guard said, and gave Dean a sloppy thumbs up. “’S a family secret.”
Dean nodded, gave him a smile, then turned his attention back to the letter.
To My Loving Family:
I leave this letter as a signed confession. I cannot go to death with this grave sin on my heart. When you find this, I will be gone. Please do with it what you think is best.
You are all well aware of the “suicide” of young, beautiful Katie Dwight. As you know she was a star pupil. The only Arlee girl who qualified to take my chemistry class, and a sterling member of the ladies fitness squad.
I am horrified to admit that Kathleen did not take her own life, but that I had a hand in the terrible death. I breached that line an educator must never cross and attempted to engage Miss Dwight in an illicit relationship.
When Kathleen refused my advances, I became terrified she might go to the administration, and I could not bear that disgrace brought down on me or my family.
That son of a bitch.
Dean turned on Lyle, not needing to finish the confession. “He killed her.”
The man nodded, chewing at the side of his thumb. “Strangled ’er in the gym shower. Strung ’er up like she hung herself, after.”
“And then he killed himself.”
Lyle nodded again, pointed over Dean’s shoulder. “Jumped from th’ roof of th’ school. Groundskeeper found ‘im in the morning. Frienda th’ family. They kept it covered up.”
Damn it. “You know where he’s buried?”
“Sure. County graveyard offa Bennet’s Junction.”
Dean clapped the man on the shoulder. “You did good, Lyle. Now. I need you to grab your walkie-talkie, get in your car, and get the hell outta here. Me and my dad’ll be clearin’ out in just a little bit. We appreciate your help.” He folded the letter and slapped it against Lyle’s chest, took a few backward steps toward the door where his dad had entered. He lifted his chin to the guard, who was standing there like a statue of idiocy. “Go on, Lyle. Shag ass.”
“You really think my great uncle-in-law’s hauntin’ the school?” Lyle asked with a dopey, horrified grin.
“If he is now,” Dean said over his shoulder, bopping up the steps to the covered entrance, “he won’t be by morning.”
The shaft of the Maglite bounced in tempo as Dean jogged the long, dark basement hall, boots echoing hollowly between painted cinderblock walls. His Glock - for all the good it would do, loaded with regular ammo - was drawn and pointed nose down at the scuffed tile flooring. Over his footfalls, he could hear the drone of the showers from the locker room. Couldn’t imagine why his dad would have turned them on. It had to be ghost activity, and that wasn’t good.
It all kind of made sense; with what Lyle’d told him, all the details jigged a more complete puzzle. If it was Sykes, that’d explain the phantom screams, the seemingly random choice of victims, his involvement drawing lines between the chemistry lab, the gym, and the roof of the building. Like realtors say: location, location, location.
As Dean passed the gymnasium, his scalp started tingling. His hands flexed around the grip of his gun, metal suddenly cool against his hot palm. He stuttered to a halt when he saw mist scrolling from under the lip of the double doors stenciled GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOM. It coiled and climbed liked pulled cotton. A few steps closer, and Dean could feel its warm moisture.
Steam. From the showers.
His grip on the Glock relaxed, but the hairs at the nape of his neck stayed sideways. He leaned his shoulder against the right-hand door, hip checking the metal bar of the handle. The metallic click of the give sounded like a chime on the thick air.
“Dad.”
The heat of his hiss cut a contrail through the steam. He inched in, feet adjusting from tile to painted concrete, eyes darting left and right down a gauntlet of lacquered steel lockers. When his knee caught the edge of a long wooden bench, he followed it like a rail, gun rising forty-five degrees from his thigh.
“Dad?”
There was no answer, and Dean quickened his steps through the row of lockers. He passed into a larger, central dressing room where the steam was thicker, the showers louder, and the cold much more intense. Sonuvabitch. Glock’s not gonna do shit against this. He didn’t even have a take-out packet of salt in his pocket. Shit!
“Dad!”
He got an answer, then. Not his dad’s voice, but a wet sounding thump-pitterpitter-thump, and knew it was the heel, toe-toe, heel of his dad’s boot on wet tile: the desperate throes of a choking man.
“Dad!”
Dean skittered and slipped as he broke into a run, found himself windmilling to keep his feet as he splashed into an inch of water on the floor of the communal shower. A fusty smelling rooster-tail arced over his skidding boot, and then both feet were off the tile. “Fuck!”
The slip took him a good two feet into the air, got him parallel with the floor, and dropped him with no mercy. He took the brunt of it on his left shoulder, neck snapping sideways past the round of bone and muscle until his skull cracked against the tile with a splashthud.
A nebula of white stars exploded across the banner of Dean’s vision. Sharp pain shot down his left side, tempered a fraction of a second later by the lance of pain as his right side made final, wet contact with the floor. His breath left his lungs with a jaw-snapping oomph! and the shower room flickered between blueblack and blackout a few times. He got a hand up to his face, swiped at the fetid water that was raining down from the showerhead above, and fingered the back of his skull - couldn’t tell if the wetness was blood or not, just knew it was going be a minute before he could stand without losing consciousness.
Goddamnit.
The displacement of air in the wake of his fall had parted the mist like a gauzy Red Sea. In the cone of light from his dropped flashlight, Dean saw his dad pressed against the tiled wall, William Sykes’s dead gray hands wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Hey!”
Sykes’s ghost didn’t flinch, didn’t turn. Didn’t decrease the pressure on his dad’s throat.
Dean rolled to his right, hand skiing up, still clamped around the Glock. He twisted from the spray of the shower, blinking away the stinging water and the dizziness that came with his movement.
He pushed himself to his knees, fought the tilt of the room, and rose to a stand. He stumbled three steps toward the glint of steel, bluff double barrels stabbing the edge of the Maglite’s beam. Dean dropped the Glock and snatched up the shotgun in one wobbly fell swoop. He didn’t bother cocking it; knew his dad had done that the minute he’d stepped into the high school.
Two glided steps brought him to a side angle with Sykes. Dean didn’t allow himself time to think - just fired - and watched the spook detonate in a cloud of white. He lunged forward as his dad gasped and coughed his way to the floor.
“Dad!” Dean twisted his hands in his dad’s lapels, sawed-off set to the side for a second. “You okay?”
John brushed Dean’s hands off his chest. Sucked in, and blew out, a few shallow breaths. “That sure as hell ain’t no high-school girl,” he growled.
No. No, it fucking wasn’t. And his dad would have known that, too, if he’d just talked to Lyle Harris instead of working so hard to get rid of him. But Dean bit it all down, scooted back when his dad pushed him away, and said nothing but a clipped “No, sir.”
John rubbed a hand across his stubbled neck and grimaced. Dean didn’t allow himself to hover. He grabbed up the shotgun and started on a reload, couldn’t watch as his dad pushed himself up from the floor.
“Careful and cover those shells, Dean! Don’t damp ‘em up,” his dad snarled.
Dean clenched his jaw. My fuckin’ hand’s shieldin’ ‘em, you son of a bitch. He flapped his cupped hand, moonlight brightening the shower spray that bounced off his fingers. You see that? He didn’t look up to see if his dad had, just finished loading. Slammed up on the forestock, pumped the action bar with a snap of his arm.
“Three o’clock!” his dad yelled, and Dean spun right.
Sykes was back in all his rotting-corpse glory, and Dean felt the double-barrel ripped from his hands. It took a heartbeat to register it wasn’t the ghost who was yanking, it was his dad. The moment Dean uncurled his fingers from the gun, John took a step in front of him, elbowed him to the side, and fired both barrels into Sykes’s chest. Dean didn’t get to watch the ghostly explosion.
His dad’s shove sent him slipping and sliding across the slick, wet tile. His arms shot out, airplaning for balance. He was so concerned with staying off his ass, he didn’t see the central shower pole until it was too late. He shot an arm forward to try to stop the collision, but a last-second wobble made him miss by a mile. He tipped forward and caught the grooved stainless steel circle of the shower knob with his left cheek.
The whole room went white, and Dean considered briefly that the metal might go clear through to his brain. He couldn’t stop moving forward, even as he heard a tiny snap! and felt his upper lip go numb. The knob pressed against his eye with brutal force, and that’s when things went from white to black. Like a blindfold had been slapped over both eyes and - fuck! - that couldn’t be good, if he was still conscious. He didn’t do much thinking after that, though. Newton’s third law took over, and Dean’s head bounced off the pipes with a hollow sounding bong.
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