Losing Sam, Arc 3.7, Supernatural, Keeper!Verse, R
Fandom: Supernatural, Keeper!Verse
Title: Losing Sam, Arc 3.7 (All Keeper Verse Here, including Arcs 1 & 2)
Rating: R
Word Count: 37,625 (total arc)
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean (long term established wincest), John, Dana (Dean's daughter) Missouri, OFC & OMC
Summary: Dean and Dana go hunting, Sam and John bond a little more and Sam has a nightmare.
A/Ns & Warnings: This story pics up after arc 2 as written by shotofjack. It would never have happened without her. From the original concept to her beta, this fic owes a good amount to her. Expect a chapter a day until it is finished.
“You awake?”
Dean groaned and sat up, wiping at the drool. “Where are we?”
“Lincoln. There’s coffee.”
Dean focused through the sunglasses on the thermos on the seat next to him. He wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for that. “What the hell did you give me?”
“Same thing you gave me.” Dana said. “You needed it.”
He stretched and looked at her. She was tense, both hands on the wheel. “You know where we’re going?”
She nodded. Without looking at him she said, “Yeah, I read it on your damn arm.” She took a deep breath. “I better not hear another word from you about messing with dark shit either. I swear to every god anyone ever believed existed I’ll tell Sam what stupid shit you pulled for this.”
“I don’t care if you’re pissed.” Dean sat up and reached for the thermos, pouring out a half a lid full. He made a face after tasting it. “Damn, it’s all sugar.”
“Deal with it. It’s what you get when you act like an ass and make your daughter do all the work.”
She was really pissed. Maybe more than he’d expected. “So I take it you did some research?”
She shook her head. “Yeah…with no help from your incapacitated ass. I also called the garage and let them know you’d be gone a day or two, and took the dogs to Missouri, and took Scott to the airport.”
Oh, he’d forgotten that. No wonder she was so worked up. In the midst of all this, she’d had to say goodbye to Scott. Sure, he’d be home for Christmas, but they all knew that high school relationships seldom survived college apart. And it was clear to anyone that knew either of them that Dana was deeply in love with Scott, and Scott was equally in love with her. How else could any normal kid stick with her through some of the things he’d seen?
“I’m sorry Dana.” Dean said quietly.
She seemed to soften up then, at least a little.
“So, what are we after?”
She spared him a glance, then shook her head before looking back at the road. “You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
She licked her lips. “It’s a fucking angel, Dad. Some angel tried to kill Sam.”
“No such thing, Dana.”
“Yeah, Dad. Just like the zombies.”
John found himself dragging his feet the closer they got to the barrier, to the place where he had to give Sam back. The afternoon had flown by and dark was starting to creep down around them.
Sam yawned and stumbled, catching himself on John’s shoulder then grinning at him. “You must be tired.” John said, slinging an arm around his shoulders.
“I guess.” He was quiet, and when he looked up again the little boy was gone from his face. He was suddenly serious and concerned. “Why do you cry every time I say Daddy?”
John took a deep breath, fighting those tears. Just days before Sam had forgotten he’d ever even called him Dad, had said goodbye to him as John. How could he tell an eight year old that he cried because he’d never heard that word from him. “Well, Sam…You’ve never really called me Daddy…and I like the sound of it so much, it makes me very happy.”
He stopped them, confusion evident on his face. “What did I call you?”
“Sometimes you called me Dad. Before that you called me by my name.”
Sam chewed on his lip, obviously thinking something through. “What does Dean call you?”
“Dean calls me Dad.”
Sam nodded, then moved closer, lowering his voice. “Would it be okay if I called you Daddy? At least for now?”
John nodded, pulled him into a hug. “That would be just fine, Sam. Just fine.”
Ally stepped through the barrier, smiling at them. “Good evening.”
“Ally!” Sam let go of John and hugged Ally with almost as much enthusiasm. “I found a frog and played in the water and we went for a long walk and there’s fish in the water!”
She looked to John. “I take it then that he had a good time?”
John gestured at Sam, his broad grin, his mud caked robes. “We both did.”
“Daddy said he’d take me fishing next time. Do I get to come back tomorrow? I wanna go fishing and have a sleep over. Can I have a sleep over Ally?”
“We shall see Samuel. If you work hard in the morning, perhaps you may spend more time with your father in the afternoon.”
Sam yawned again and she patted his hand. “We should get you fed and into bed. It has been a busy day.”
Sam let go of her and launched himself at John, wrapping his arms around him. “I love you Daddy. I’ll miss you.”
John didn’t even have time to recover and Sam was gone, back behind the barrier. He backed away until his back was against a tree, and he slid down until he was sitting on the ground. He wasn’t an emotional man, but something inside him had broken open, and in the dark of the woods with no one to see him, John Winchester broke down and cried into his knees.
Dana got them into a motel room and ran for food while her father showered. Or, that’s what she told him…and she would come back with food, so it wasn’t a lie.
Cedar Street wasn’t all that long, predominantly lined with warehouses and industrial complexes. Except for one unique place smack in the center of it. It was old, probably turn of the century at least.
As churches went, it wasn’t much to look at. Modest stained glass windows, a wooden cross on top, not remarkable in any way, except for the fact that it was there, amid all the industrial stuff.
Dana parked the SUV across the street and looked at it. She hadn’t really expected it to be that easy…but she hadn’t expect “angel” either. Not after seeing the damage it had done to Sam.
The attack had been vicious, cruel in an extreme she associated only with the darkest of evils. She knew she shouldn’t, but she opened the car door and got out, pocketing the keys as she crossed the street. She stood on the curb and looked at the church, let her senses slide over it.
There was old…wood and stone…a place of comfort for generations…worn down, forgotten…there was a man, polishing pews. He radiated the general goodness that she usually found in men who served people. There was no evil here.
She sighed and decided it couldn’t hurt to see if the man inside had anything to say. She kept her senses spread out around her and stepped up the stairs, opening the door.
The man looked up, smiling softly. “Hello.”
“Hi.” Dana waved a hand and rolled her eyes at herself. He was older than her Papa, bent and gnarled. She could feel the aches of a lifetime of hard living from half way across the room.
“I don’t often get visitors in the middle of the week.”
“I was just passing by, and I had to come inside to take a look. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. It’s nice to see young ones in a place as old as this.”
“I was curious how it is this place is still here, when everything around it is warehouses and stuff.”
“We have been blessed.” He sat in a pew, and gestured for her to join him. “Over the years a mysterious benefactor has always come through to save us from destruction.”
“A benefactor? Like who?”
He shrugged. “We are never sure. There are those who say it is Bellius himself.”
“Bellius?”
He smiled. Apparently he liked telling this particular story. The happiness of having an audience radiated off him. “Bellius was an angel, a minor minion in the courts of the Almighty. He didn’t rebel with those who followed Lucifer, but neither did he side with those who fought against him. He was a muddler…he muddled through. Mixed the light and the dark. He dabbled in dark arts to achieve his God-given goals.”
“Dabbled?” Dana frowned.
The old man nodded. “Dabbled. Used dark magic to accomplish light deeds, argued that it was the results that mattered, not the means to get the results.”
“So…what happened to him?”
“God cast him out of heaven. Sent him to earth to learn the dangers of the dark he liked to play with.”
“Not hell?”
“It is said that God was merciful because Bellius had a good heart. He sought the right thing, simply chose the wrong path. God granted him the mercy of learning his lesson and returning one day to heaven.”
Dana took a deep breath. “So, what does this Bellius have to do with your church?”
“There are those who say Bellius founded this church, that it was on this very ground that he came to earth, and his first act of penance was founding this church.”
“So…he’s an angel, who can’t go to heaven?”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
Again the old man shrugged. “I don’t know. The Bible tells us that angels pass among us as strangers.”
She chewed on her lip. “So he can appear human?”
“You certainly show a lot of interest for someone just passing through.”
She smiled at him. “I’m always curious about stories like these. Very inspirational.” She stood, wiping her hands down her legs before holding one out to shake his hand. It was wrong. More wrong than a lot of other things she’d done, but she scanned him. It was quick and she covered her tracks thoroughly.
He’d met Bellius. She had too. She nearly lost control when she realized when and where. She finished cleaning up any sign of her presence and pulled back, shaking his hand and high-tailing it out.
She was just getting into the SUV when she felt it, the smelly drift of that same murkiness that had alerted her at Yosemite, that had clung to Sam after the attack. She looked up, scanned the street. She couldn’t see him.
Dana took a deep breath and masked her presence, slipped into the car and headed off to find food. She turned the story over and over in her head. If Bellius was an angel, he wasn’t evil…not in the strictest sense of the word.
If he were, he’d have been made a demon, like the rest. Of course, that’s if you buy into that whole mythology, which to be honest, Dana wasn’t sure she did. She shook her head and pulled into the drive thru. Her father wouldn’t be satisfied until the thing was dead, angel or not.
Dana shoved the bags of food onto the passenger seat and headed back to the motel where her father waited. He wasn’t going to care about the fine lines, or any niceties. He wanted the thing dead.
She exhaled slowly and headed into the room. She wasn’t used to being the voice of reason, but then, she wasn’t used to her father going postal either.
“What took so damn long?”
“I-did a little recon.” She’d planned on lying, but her father was fragile, she could see it. He was only barely holding on. “Found where I think it is…or where it’s comfortable. Got a name.”
She put the bags on the table, but he ignored them, holding up the gun in his hand. “Then let’s go kill it.”
She held up both hands and urged calm, though without actually making a connection first it just sort of hung in the air between them. “Slow down, Dad. We can’t just go barging in and killing it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s in a church, first of all.”
“Never stopped me before.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sit. Eat. Let me tell you the story.”
“I don’t want some goddamn bedtime story Dana.”
“Dad, we’re not going after it until you’ve heard it. You need to know what we’re up against.”
Reluctantly he grabbed one of the bags and perched on the edge of the bed. She filled in the basics that the priest told her.
“Okay, so now you’ve told me the story, let’s go kill it.”
She sighed in frustration. “Have you heard a word I said?”
“Angel, kicked out of heaven, hurt Sam…we kill it.” Dean balled up his wrappers and tossed them toward the trashcan, missing by a whole foot.
“Dad, it isn’t…it’s not a demon….we can’t just kill it.”
“Why not?”
She sighed, exasperated. She didn’t want to articulate the thoughts swirling around in her head. Figured her father should understand. “It isn’t evil.”
“What it did to Sam was plenty evil. It deserves killing.” He stood and checked his gun, shoving it into the back of his jeans and heading for the door. “Let’s go.”
“Dad.” She didn’t move, waited for him to come back.
“Dana, get your ass in the car.” Dean said from the doorway.
She stood, waiting for him to be in the room again before she slammed the door shut with the wave of a hand. “If you think it should die, maybe so should I.”
He stopped, blinked at her. “What?” He shook his head. “You’re not making sense Dana.”
“Maybe I am.” She sighed in frustration. “It got dumped from heaven for the same thing I did, Dad. It used something dark to accomplish something good. So did I.”
“You saved Sam’s life.” Dean came toward her, held her hands. “You saved him, and I love you.”
“So, is it because you love me that I’m not worthy of the same punishment?”
“Dana, whatever it is, it came after Sam, first at Yosemite, then at home. It hunted him and nearly destroyed him.”
She nodded, looking at their joined hands. “I know. But…what if it thought…what if he thought it was the right thing?” She chewed on her lip. “What if it thought it was doing a good thing?”
“Good? Good? How is ripping a man’s mind to shreds a good thing, Dana?”
She shrugged and pulled her hands away. “I…I don’t know Dad. I just…I can’t just kill it. Okay?”
“No. It isn’t okay.”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t know how to express what she was feeling. It was difficult to admit to it herself. She’d dabbled. She’d used some pretty dark tricks. She’d always told herself it was okay, because she always did it for a good reason. There was always a reason, a cause…a need that she told herself could only be dealt with that way.
Each time it was easier than the time before.
Maybe that was why the path to darkness never seemed like it was leading anywhere specifically. Maybe she was on the same path as Bellius and one day she’d find herself ripping a man’s mind apart because it seemed like a good idea. Maybe one day her entire concept of good and evil would be so skewed she didn’t know the difference anymore.
“Dana, you’re nothing like this thing. Nothing.” Dean said grabbing her shoulder.
“I’m not so sure.” She sighed. “He works at the church. Takes human form and helps out there. He was getting there as I was leaving.” She turned to him. “If we do this, there’s no going back, Dad.”
“I know.”
The church wasn’t what Dean was expecting. It was small, cozy even. The windows were warmly lit and there was organ music playing. Dana parked the SUV and sighed. “He’s going to know who we are when we walk in.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed as he swept them over the building, then pulled his gun out to check its load.
“You better have something in there stronger than regular bullets.”
“Not my first hunt, Dana.”
“First hunt for an angel, Dad.”
He bit down his anger. “Stop saying angel. Angels don’t do what that thing did to Sam.”
“According to you angels don’t exist.” She unbuckled her seatbelt. “Do you even know how to kill it?”
Dean cracked his neck and got out of the car. “Put enough bullets in its head, it’ll go down.”
He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. This thing hurt Sam, nearly killed Sam. It was savage, brutal, and it deserved to die…no matter what his bleeding heart daughter had to say.
She got in front of him and held up her hands. He could feel her doing…something psychically, even if he couldn’t tell what. “That should give us a few minutes before he figures it out.” She opened the door and Dean followed her, the gun held behind his back.
“Good evening again.” Dean looked up as an older man came toward them. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“I brought my father to see the place.” Dana glanced at him. She was telling him to stay calm, but he was doing his best not to acknowledge her. “Who’s playing the organ?”
The old man smiled at her. “Isn’t it lovely? That’s our Mr. Bell. He helps out around here. It was broken, he fixed it.”
Dean’s eyes tracked to the organ. The man sitting there was small, balding, familiar. He started toward him. “Dad.” Dana’s voice was low and dangerous, but he had the man in his sights and it wasn’t getting away.
The music stopped and the man turned, his eyes widening. Dean knew the face, remembered seeing the man at the lodge, in the dining room at dinner, then again…somewhere.
“Oh my goodness.”
Dean had the gun up and the old priest was flabbergasted. Dana put him down as gently as she could while Dean advanced on the thing at the organ.
It turned, facing Dean head on. “Come to kill me?”
“Give me one reason not to.” Dean said through clenched teeth.
“You are not an evil man. You let him seduce you, you let his evil in…but you are a good man. I saved you from him.”
The anger seethed through Dean until he was sure it had to be pouring out of his pores. Dana was behind him. “You dare call Sam evil?” His hand was shaking.
The man stood. Dana gasped, then took a deep breath and pulled her father against her. Dean felt a wall of sorts go up. Bellius raised an eyebrow. “I may have underestimated you, young lady.”
“I get that a lot.” Dana snapped. “I’m not letting you inside either of us.”
“And you think you can prevent me? I am Bellius. I am not a mere demon, child.”
“No, you’re worse.” Dean said. He fired a shot, nailing him in the shoulder. Bellius fell back, sat hard on the organ bench.
As he stood back up he shed his human image. A yellow white light radiated from him, his presence.
“Shit, Dad…did you have to piss him off?” Dana hissed, pulling Dean back a step.
“I see that your uncle has corrupted you more than your father. Perhaps I was hasty in leaving you behind.”
“You were hasty all right.” Dean fired off three more shots, hitting him in the stomach and chest.
“Surely you don’t think that…” Bellius sat again, harder, shattering the bench. “What is this?”
“Special treat I cooked up. Figured I wasn’t sure what we were up against, but that right there should put down nearly anything.”
“Dad…stop.” Dana pushed past him. Bellius tried to get up and reach for her, but she punched him hard. “These won’t kill him.”
“Bet they hurt like a son of a bitch.” Dean said, joining her. Something grabbed him, like a vice around his head, he backed off gasping.
“Shit.” Dana put herself between him and Bellius, cutting the hold. Dean stumbled backward, crashing into the altar rail. There was a struggle…Dana threw a wall between herself and Dean.
“Dana!” He could see her fighting, but couldn’t feel her. She was in there alone with the thing that ripped Sam to shreds. His little girl. “Dana!”
He’d gotten her into this, in over her head, and she was going to die because of it. Sam would never forgive him. He pulled himself to his feet and ran toward her, smack into the wall, then there was something of a sonic boom, the wall gave, Dana came flying at him and Bellius crumpled to the floor, reverting to his human form.
Dean rushed to her side. “Dana, honey…can you hear me?”
“Not much time.” She tried to sit up, holding her head. “Gotta get him out of here.”
Dean looked at where Bellius lay, his head and chest bleeding. “Chains, Dad. Tight. I can’t hold him down forever. Need to get him out and into a containment…” She shook her head, then focused on him. “Hurry.”
He nodded, then ran for the SUV, coming back with the chains and locks that Sam had packed for a hunt a few months before and never took out of the SUV. Dana lay on the floor near the first pew, cradling her left arm and looking like she was going to pass out any minute. Dean got Bellius wrapped up tight in the chains and dragged him down to the aisle. Dana pulled herself up and laid a hand on the chains, murmuring an incantation until the chains glowed a funny green and then she sighed.
“That should hold for a while. Get him out to the car. I’ll deal with the priest.”
“Dana, you can barely stand up.”
She nodded. “It’s okay. Sam taught me…a trick. I’ll be fine.”
He frowned at her, obviously not believing her. “Dad, we don’t have time.”
He nodded and dragged Bellius toward the front of the church. By the time he had Bellius in the back seat under heavy blankets, Dana was coming down the stairs, looking like everything was fine. She tossed him the keys. “You drive, I have to concentrate on keeping him out and confined.”
There was something she wasn’t telling him. He got behind the wheel while she put her phone to her ear. “Hey, Missouri…do you remember that containment thing we worked on last summer? I need you to set one up for me. A big one. Dad and I will be home in about 6 hours. We caught it.”
Dean pulled them out and headed them back to the motel for their things. Six hours if he drove like a madman. Dana’s attention was firmly on the back seat. It only took him a few minutes to get their things and toss them in the back, turn in the key and get them back on the road.
The nightmare settled over him, darkness swirling in and tiny mouths chasing skin. It echoed through him without any real form, Sam woke up suddenly, running from the dream and landing on the floor with a thump.
It was quiet, dark. He could feel Ally and Inda sleeping nearby. He was afraid, the memories rolling around in his head were frightening and he wanted his father.
As quietly as he could, Sam made his way down the stairs and out into the dark woods. It was almost as frightening as his dreams, almost as dark as the closet. There were no demons out there though, he knew that. He pulled his blanket around him and set off down the trail. His father was somewhere out there.
He was cold by the time he found the barrier, and stepped through it. Daddy had said goodbye here. He tried to still his mind and follow the trail, like he had the bird. He stumbled, rolling down a hill. He cried, cold and afraid and slowly picked himself up.
There was a truck…a tent. Sam licked his lips and went toward them. The sense of Daddy was stronger here. He unzipped the tent and poked his head inside. He was asleep on a cot. Sam crawled inside and zipped the tent back up. It was warm inside, a heater spilling warmth out.
Daddy shifted, opened an eye. “Sam?”
“Daddy.” He sniffed and rubbed a dirty hand over wet cheeks.
“Is something wrong?”
“I had a bad dream.” Sam said.
“You came all the way down here because of a dream?” Daddy sat up and Sam nodded.
“I was scared.” Now he was a different kind of scared. What if Daddy was angry? “I wanted my Daddy.”
His eyes closed and his arms spread open, inviting Sam into them. Sam didn’t hesitate, just moved closer and let Daddy wrap those arms around him. “What was this dream, Sammy?”
“I was a bad, bad boy and they put me in the closet. I didn’t like the closet, Daddy. I didn’t like him.”
Daddy held him, and rocked him like he was little. “I know Sammy, I know. But you weren’t bad, okay? That man who did that to you, he was bad.”
“He said I was evil. Needed to be punished.”
His arms tightened around Sam and he kissed the side of Sam’s head. “He can’t hurt you anymore, okay Sam? Daddy’s got you.”
Sam yawned and nodded, nuzzling against him. “Think you can go back to sleep?”
“Can I stay Daddy? It’s cold outside.”
He chuckled lightly and nodded. “You can stay. Inda and Ally will be missing you in the morning though.”
Sam sat back and nodded. “They’ll come for me.”
“Okay, let’s get you settled.”
Daddy helped him spread out his blanket on the floor and covered him up before he crawled into his cot. “Night Daddy.”
“Night Sammy.”
Sam closed his eyes and breathed in the warmth. It was good to have a Daddy.
Title: Losing Sam, Arc 3.7 (All Keeper Verse Here, including Arcs 1 & 2)
Rating: R
Word Count: 37,625 (total arc)
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean (long term established wincest), John, Dana (Dean's daughter) Missouri, OFC & OMC
Summary: Dean and Dana go hunting, Sam and John bond a little more and Sam has a nightmare.
A/Ns & Warnings: This story pics up after arc 2 as written by shotofjack. It would never have happened without her. From the original concept to her beta, this fic owes a good amount to her. Expect a chapter a day until it is finished.
“You awake?”
Dean groaned and sat up, wiping at the drool. “Where are we?”
“Lincoln. There’s coffee.”
Dean focused through the sunglasses on the thermos on the seat next to him. He wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for that. “What the hell did you give me?”
“Same thing you gave me.” Dana said. “You needed it.”
He stretched and looked at her. She was tense, both hands on the wheel. “You know where we’re going?”
She nodded. Without looking at him she said, “Yeah, I read it on your damn arm.” She took a deep breath. “I better not hear another word from you about messing with dark shit either. I swear to every god anyone ever believed existed I’ll tell Sam what stupid shit you pulled for this.”
“I don’t care if you’re pissed.” Dean sat up and reached for the thermos, pouring out a half a lid full. He made a face after tasting it. “Damn, it’s all sugar.”
“Deal with it. It’s what you get when you act like an ass and make your daughter do all the work.”
She was really pissed. Maybe more than he’d expected. “So I take it you did some research?”
She shook her head. “Yeah…with no help from your incapacitated ass. I also called the garage and let them know you’d be gone a day or two, and took the dogs to Missouri, and took Scott to the airport.”
Oh, he’d forgotten that. No wonder she was so worked up. In the midst of all this, she’d had to say goodbye to Scott. Sure, he’d be home for Christmas, but they all knew that high school relationships seldom survived college apart. And it was clear to anyone that knew either of them that Dana was deeply in love with Scott, and Scott was equally in love with her. How else could any normal kid stick with her through some of the things he’d seen?
“I’m sorry Dana.” Dean said quietly.
She seemed to soften up then, at least a little.
“So, what are we after?”
She spared him a glance, then shook her head before looking back at the road. “You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
She licked her lips. “It’s a fucking angel, Dad. Some angel tried to kill Sam.”
“No such thing, Dana.”
“Yeah, Dad. Just like the zombies.”
John found himself dragging his feet the closer they got to the barrier, to the place where he had to give Sam back. The afternoon had flown by and dark was starting to creep down around them.
Sam yawned and stumbled, catching himself on John’s shoulder then grinning at him. “You must be tired.” John said, slinging an arm around his shoulders.
“I guess.” He was quiet, and when he looked up again the little boy was gone from his face. He was suddenly serious and concerned. “Why do you cry every time I say Daddy?”
John took a deep breath, fighting those tears. Just days before Sam had forgotten he’d ever even called him Dad, had said goodbye to him as John. How could he tell an eight year old that he cried because he’d never heard that word from him. “Well, Sam…You’ve never really called me Daddy…and I like the sound of it so much, it makes me very happy.”
He stopped them, confusion evident on his face. “What did I call you?”
“Sometimes you called me Dad. Before that you called me by my name.”
Sam chewed on his lip, obviously thinking something through. “What does Dean call you?”
“Dean calls me Dad.”
Sam nodded, then moved closer, lowering his voice. “Would it be okay if I called you Daddy? At least for now?”
John nodded, pulled him into a hug. “That would be just fine, Sam. Just fine.”
Ally stepped through the barrier, smiling at them. “Good evening.”
“Ally!” Sam let go of John and hugged Ally with almost as much enthusiasm. “I found a frog and played in the water and we went for a long walk and there’s fish in the water!”
She looked to John. “I take it then that he had a good time?”
John gestured at Sam, his broad grin, his mud caked robes. “We both did.”
“Daddy said he’d take me fishing next time. Do I get to come back tomorrow? I wanna go fishing and have a sleep over. Can I have a sleep over Ally?”
“We shall see Samuel. If you work hard in the morning, perhaps you may spend more time with your father in the afternoon.”
Sam yawned again and she patted his hand. “We should get you fed and into bed. It has been a busy day.”
Sam let go of her and launched himself at John, wrapping his arms around him. “I love you Daddy. I’ll miss you.”
John didn’t even have time to recover and Sam was gone, back behind the barrier. He backed away until his back was against a tree, and he slid down until he was sitting on the ground. He wasn’t an emotional man, but something inside him had broken open, and in the dark of the woods with no one to see him, John Winchester broke down and cried into his knees.
Dana got them into a motel room and ran for food while her father showered. Or, that’s what she told him…and she would come back with food, so it wasn’t a lie.
Cedar Street wasn’t all that long, predominantly lined with warehouses and industrial complexes. Except for one unique place smack in the center of it. It was old, probably turn of the century at least.
As churches went, it wasn’t much to look at. Modest stained glass windows, a wooden cross on top, not remarkable in any way, except for the fact that it was there, amid all the industrial stuff.
Dana parked the SUV across the street and looked at it. She hadn’t really expected it to be that easy…but she hadn’t expect “angel” either. Not after seeing the damage it had done to Sam.
The attack had been vicious, cruel in an extreme she associated only with the darkest of evils. She knew she shouldn’t, but she opened the car door and got out, pocketing the keys as she crossed the street. She stood on the curb and looked at the church, let her senses slide over it.
There was old…wood and stone…a place of comfort for generations…worn down, forgotten…there was a man, polishing pews. He radiated the general goodness that she usually found in men who served people. There was no evil here.
She sighed and decided it couldn’t hurt to see if the man inside had anything to say. She kept her senses spread out around her and stepped up the stairs, opening the door.
The man looked up, smiling softly. “Hello.”
“Hi.” Dana waved a hand and rolled her eyes at herself. He was older than her Papa, bent and gnarled. She could feel the aches of a lifetime of hard living from half way across the room.
“I don’t often get visitors in the middle of the week.”
“I was just passing by, and I had to come inside to take a look. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. It’s nice to see young ones in a place as old as this.”
“I was curious how it is this place is still here, when everything around it is warehouses and stuff.”
“We have been blessed.” He sat in a pew, and gestured for her to join him. “Over the years a mysterious benefactor has always come through to save us from destruction.”
“A benefactor? Like who?”
He shrugged. “We are never sure. There are those who say it is Bellius himself.”
“Bellius?”
He smiled. Apparently he liked telling this particular story. The happiness of having an audience radiated off him. “Bellius was an angel, a minor minion in the courts of the Almighty. He didn’t rebel with those who followed Lucifer, but neither did he side with those who fought against him. He was a muddler…he muddled through. Mixed the light and the dark. He dabbled in dark arts to achieve his God-given goals.”
“Dabbled?” Dana frowned.
The old man nodded. “Dabbled. Used dark magic to accomplish light deeds, argued that it was the results that mattered, not the means to get the results.”
“So…what happened to him?”
“God cast him out of heaven. Sent him to earth to learn the dangers of the dark he liked to play with.”
“Not hell?”
“It is said that God was merciful because Bellius had a good heart. He sought the right thing, simply chose the wrong path. God granted him the mercy of learning his lesson and returning one day to heaven.”
Dana took a deep breath. “So, what does this Bellius have to do with your church?”
“There are those who say Bellius founded this church, that it was on this very ground that he came to earth, and his first act of penance was founding this church.”
“So…he’s an angel, who can’t go to heaven?”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
Again the old man shrugged. “I don’t know. The Bible tells us that angels pass among us as strangers.”
She chewed on her lip. “So he can appear human?”
“You certainly show a lot of interest for someone just passing through.”
She smiled at him. “I’m always curious about stories like these. Very inspirational.” She stood, wiping her hands down her legs before holding one out to shake his hand. It was wrong. More wrong than a lot of other things she’d done, but she scanned him. It was quick and she covered her tracks thoroughly.
He’d met Bellius. She had too. She nearly lost control when she realized when and where. She finished cleaning up any sign of her presence and pulled back, shaking his hand and high-tailing it out.
She was just getting into the SUV when she felt it, the smelly drift of that same murkiness that had alerted her at Yosemite, that had clung to Sam after the attack. She looked up, scanned the street. She couldn’t see him.
Dana took a deep breath and masked her presence, slipped into the car and headed off to find food. She turned the story over and over in her head. If Bellius was an angel, he wasn’t evil…not in the strictest sense of the word.
If he were, he’d have been made a demon, like the rest. Of course, that’s if you buy into that whole mythology, which to be honest, Dana wasn’t sure she did. She shook her head and pulled into the drive thru. Her father wouldn’t be satisfied until the thing was dead, angel or not.
Dana shoved the bags of food onto the passenger seat and headed back to the motel where her father waited. He wasn’t going to care about the fine lines, or any niceties. He wanted the thing dead.
She exhaled slowly and headed into the room. She wasn’t used to being the voice of reason, but then, she wasn’t used to her father going postal either.
“What took so damn long?”
“I-did a little recon.” She’d planned on lying, but her father was fragile, she could see it. He was only barely holding on. “Found where I think it is…or where it’s comfortable. Got a name.”
She put the bags on the table, but he ignored them, holding up the gun in his hand. “Then let’s go kill it.”
She held up both hands and urged calm, though without actually making a connection first it just sort of hung in the air between them. “Slow down, Dad. We can’t just go barging in and killing it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s in a church, first of all.”
“Never stopped me before.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sit. Eat. Let me tell you the story.”
“I don’t want some goddamn bedtime story Dana.”
“Dad, we’re not going after it until you’ve heard it. You need to know what we’re up against.”
Reluctantly he grabbed one of the bags and perched on the edge of the bed. She filled in the basics that the priest told her.
“Okay, so now you’ve told me the story, let’s go kill it.”
She sighed in frustration. “Have you heard a word I said?”
“Angel, kicked out of heaven, hurt Sam…we kill it.” Dean balled up his wrappers and tossed them toward the trashcan, missing by a whole foot.
“Dad, it isn’t…it’s not a demon….we can’t just kill it.”
“Why not?”
She sighed, exasperated. She didn’t want to articulate the thoughts swirling around in her head. Figured her father should understand. “It isn’t evil.”
“What it did to Sam was plenty evil. It deserves killing.” He stood and checked his gun, shoving it into the back of his jeans and heading for the door. “Let’s go.”
“Dad.” She didn’t move, waited for him to come back.
“Dana, get your ass in the car.” Dean said from the doorway.
She stood, waiting for him to be in the room again before she slammed the door shut with the wave of a hand. “If you think it should die, maybe so should I.”
He stopped, blinked at her. “What?” He shook his head. “You’re not making sense Dana.”
“Maybe I am.” She sighed in frustration. “It got dumped from heaven for the same thing I did, Dad. It used something dark to accomplish something good. So did I.”
“You saved Sam’s life.” Dean came toward her, held her hands. “You saved him, and I love you.”
“So, is it because you love me that I’m not worthy of the same punishment?”
“Dana, whatever it is, it came after Sam, first at Yosemite, then at home. It hunted him and nearly destroyed him.”
She nodded, looking at their joined hands. “I know. But…what if it thought…what if he thought it was the right thing?” She chewed on her lip. “What if it thought it was doing a good thing?”
“Good? Good? How is ripping a man’s mind to shreds a good thing, Dana?”
She shrugged and pulled her hands away. “I…I don’t know Dad. I just…I can’t just kill it. Okay?”
“No. It isn’t okay.”
She closed her eyes. She didn’t know how to express what she was feeling. It was difficult to admit to it herself. She’d dabbled. She’d used some pretty dark tricks. She’d always told herself it was okay, because she always did it for a good reason. There was always a reason, a cause…a need that she told herself could only be dealt with that way.
Each time it was easier than the time before.
Maybe that was why the path to darkness never seemed like it was leading anywhere specifically. Maybe she was on the same path as Bellius and one day she’d find herself ripping a man’s mind apart because it seemed like a good idea. Maybe one day her entire concept of good and evil would be so skewed she didn’t know the difference anymore.
“Dana, you’re nothing like this thing. Nothing.” Dean said grabbing her shoulder.
“I’m not so sure.” She sighed. “He works at the church. Takes human form and helps out there. He was getting there as I was leaving.” She turned to him. “If we do this, there’s no going back, Dad.”
“I know.”
The church wasn’t what Dean was expecting. It was small, cozy even. The windows were warmly lit and there was organ music playing. Dana parked the SUV and sighed. “He’s going to know who we are when we walk in.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed as he swept them over the building, then pulled his gun out to check its load.
“You better have something in there stronger than regular bullets.”
“Not my first hunt, Dana.”
“First hunt for an angel, Dad.”
He bit down his anger. “Stop saying angel. Angels don’t do what that thing did to Sam.”
“According to you angels don’t exist.” She unbuckled her seatbelt. “Do you even know how to kill it?”
Dean cracked his neck and got out of the car. “Put enough bullets in its head, it’ll go down.”
He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. This thing hurt Sam, nearly killed Sam. It was savage, brutal, and it deserved to die…no matter what his bleeding heart daughter had to say.
She got in front of him and held up her hands. He could feel her doing…something psychically, even if he couldn’t tell what. “That should give us a few minutes before he figures it out.” She opened the door and Dean followed her, the gun held behind his back.
“Good evening again.” Dean looked up as an older man came toward them. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“I brought my father to see the place.” Dana glanced at him. She was telling him to stay calm, but he was doing his best not to acknowledge her. “Who’s playing the organ?”
The old man smiled at her. “Isn’t it lovely? That’s our Mr. Bell. He helps out around here. It was broken, he fixed it.”
Dean’s eyes tracked to the organ. The man sitting there was small, balding, familiar. He started toward him. “Dad.” Dana’s voice was low and dangerous, but he had the man in his sights and it wasn’t getting away.
The music stopped and the man turned, his eyes widening. Dean knew the face, remembered seeing the man at the lodge, in the dining room at dinner, then again…somewhere.
“Oh my goodness.”
Dean had the gun up and the old priest was flabbergasted. Dana put him down as gently as she could while Dean advanced on the thing at the organ.
It turned, facing Dean head on. “Come to kill me?”
“Give me one reason not to.” Dean said through clenched teeth.
“You are not an evil man. You let him seduce you, you let his evil in…but you are a good man. I saved you from him.”
The anger seethed through Dean until he was sure it had to be pouring out of his pores. Dana was behind him. “You dare call Sam evil?” His hand was shaking.
The man stood. Dana gasped, then took a deep breath and pulled her father against her. Dean felt a wall of sorts go up. Bellius raised an eyebrow. “I may have underestimated you, young lady.”
“I get that a lot.” Dana snapped. “I’m not letting you inside either of us.”
“And you think you can prevent me? I am Bellius. I am not a mere demon, child.”
“No, you’re worse.” Dean said. He fired a shot, nailing him in the shoulder. Bellius fell back, sat hard on the organ bench.
As he stood back up he shed his human image. A yellow white light radiated from him, his presence.
“Shit, Dad…did you have to piss him off?” Dana hissed, pulling Dean back a step.
“I see that your uncle has corrupted you more than your father. Perhaps I was hasty in leaving you behind.”
“You were hasty all right.” Dean fired off three more shots, hitting him in the stomach and chest.
“Surely you don’t think that…” Bellius sat again, harder, shattering the bench. “What is this?”
“Special treat I cooked up. Figured I wasn’t sure what we were up against, but that right there should put down nearly anything.”
“Dad…stop.” Dana pushed past him. Bellius tried to get up and reach for her, but she punched him hard. “These won’t kill him.”
“Bet they hurt like a son of a bitch.” Dean said, joining her. Something grabbed him, like a vice around his head, he backed off gasping.
“Shit.” Dana put herself between him and Bellius, cutting the hold. Dean stumbled backward, crashing into the altar rail. There was a struggle…Dana threw a wall between herself and Dean.
“Dana!” He could see her fighting, but couldn’t feel her. She was in there alone with the thing that ripped Sam to shreds. His little girl. “Dana!”
He’d gotten her into this, in over her head, and she was going to die because of it. Sam would never forgive him. He pulled himself to his feet and ran toward her, smack into the wall, then there was something of a sonic boom, the wall gave, Dana came flying at him and Bellius crumpled to the floor, reverting to his human form.
Dean rushed to her side. “Dana, honey…can you hear me?”
“Not much time.” She tried to sit up, holding her head. “Gotta get him out of here.”
Dean looked at where Bellius lay, his head and chest bleeding. “Chains, Dad. Tight. I can’t hold him down forever. Need to get him out and into a containment…” She shook her head, then focused on him. “Hurry.”
He nodded, then ran for the SUV, coming back with the chains and locks that Sam had packed for a hunt a few months before and never took out of the SUV. Dana lay on the floor near the first pew, cradling her left arm and looking like she was going to pass out any minute. Dean got Bellius wrapped up tight in the chains and dragged him down to the aisle. Dana pulled herself up and laid a hand on the chains, murmuring an incantation until the chains glowed a funny green and then she sighed.
“That should hold for a while. Get him out to the car. I’ll deal with the priest.”
“Dana, you can barely stand up.”
She nodded. “It’s okay. Sam taught me…a trick. I’ll be fine.”
He frowned at her, obviously not believing her. “Dad, we don’t have time.”
He nodded and dragged Bellius toward the front of the church. By the time he had Bellius in the back seat under heavy blankets, Dana was coming down the stairs, looking like everything was fine. She tossed him the keys. “You drive, I have to concentrate on keeping him out and confined.”
There was something she wasn’t telling him. He got behind the wheel while she put her phone to her ear. “Hey, Missouri…do you remember that containment thing we worked on last summer? I need you to set one up for me. A big one. Dad and I will be home in about 6 hours. We caught it.”
Dean pulled them out and headed them back to the motel for their things. Six hours if he drove like a madman. Dana’s attention was firmly on the back seat. It only took him a few minutes to get their things and toss them in the back, turn in the key and get them back on the road.
The nightmare settled over him, darkness swirling in and tiny mouths chasing skin. It echoed through him without any real form, Sam woke up suddenly, running from the dream and landing on the floor with a thump.
It was quiet, dark. He could feel Ally and Inda sleeping nearby. He was afraid, the memories rolling around in his head were frightening and he wanted his father.
As quietly as he could, Sam made his way down the stairs and out into the dark woods. It was almost as frightening as his dreams, almost as dark as the closet. There were no demons out there though, he knew that. He pulled his blanket around him and set off down the trail. His father was somewhere out there.
He was cold by the time he found the barrier, and stepped through it. Daddy had said goodbye here. He tried to still his mind and follow the trail, like he had the bird. He stumbled, rolling down a hill. He cried, cold and afraid and slowly picked himself up.
There was a truck…a tent. Sam licked his lips and went toward them. The sense of Daddy was stronger here. He unzipped the tent and poked his head inside. He was asleep on a cot. Sam crawled inside and zipped the tent back up. It was warm inside, a heater spilling warmth out.
Daddy shifted, opened an eye. “Sam?”
“Daddy.” He sniffed and rubbed a dirty hand over wet cheeks.
“Is something wrong?”
“I had a bad dream.” Sam said.
“You came all the way down here because of a dream?” Daddy sat up and Sam nodded.
“I was scared.” Now he was a different kind of scared. What if Daddy was angry? “I wanted my Daddy.”
His eyes closed and his arms spread open, inviting Sam into them. Sam didn’t hesitate, just moved closer and let Daddy wrap those arms around him. “What was this dream, Sammy?”
“I was a bad, bad boy and they put me in the closet. I didn’t like the closet, Daddy. I didn’t like him.”
Daddy held him, and rocked him like he was little. “I know Sammy, I know. But you weren’t bad, okay? That man who did that to you, he was bad.”
“He said I was evil. Needed to be punished.”
His arms tightened around Sam and he kissed the side of Sam’s head. “He can’t hurt you anymore, okay Sam? Daddy’s got you.”
Sam yawned and nodded, nuzzling against him. “Think you can go back to sleep?”
“Can I stay Daddy? It’s cold outside.”
He chuckled lightly and nodded. “You can stay. Inda and Ally will be missing you in the morning though.”
Sam sat back and nodded. “They’ll come for me.”
“Okay, let’s get you settled.”
Daddy helped him spread out his blanket on the floor and covered him up before he crawled into his cot. “Night Daddy.”
“Night Sammy.”
Sam closed his eyes and breathed in the warmth. It was good to have a Daddy.