A Cage Full of Heroes 3/4
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Chapter 3
Stormy Weather
Hogan wasn’t at all sure why, but he got the sense during morning roll call that he needed to have the coffee pot plugged in just in case he needed to overhear something in Klink’s office. Klink wasn’t up to anything out of the ordinary that Hogan knew of, and there weren’t any visitors to the camp. It was just one of those gut feelings he knew better than to ignore, especially with his suspicion of the Gestapo having tried for four days running to plant fake information to trap him, so he went with it.
Sure enough, Klink’s phone rang mid-morning. Kinch still hadn’t gotten around to replacing the phone tap, so all Hogan could hear through the room bug was Klink’s side of the conversation, which sounded normal enough until:
“Ich verstehe nicht, Major Hochstetter. Hauptmann Winchester ist.... Nein, sie wurden gleichzeitig eingefangen.”
Hogan frowned. Why would Hochstetter be asking questions about the Winchesters?
“Ja, natürlich, aber-jawohl, Herr Major. Wir erwarten Sie. Heil Hitler.” Klink grumbled something uncomplimentary at the phone after hanging up.
We’ll expect you. That sounded like Hochstetter was coming in, probably to question the Winchesters. But why would he call ahead? Normally he would have just shown up-unless he wanted to trap Klink (or Hogan) with evidence of coaching the prisoners on how to respond. Or maybe he needed to make sure the Winchesters were well enough to question.
Hogan sighed and unplugged the coffee pot. Ultimately, the reason for the call didn’t matter. He needed to give Dean, at least, a heads-up and inform him of his rights under the Geneva Convention.
It was a cold, snowy Sunday, and most of the prisoners had gone to the recreation hall. A handful were still lounging on their bunks reading, however, and LeBeau had drafted Carter and Dean to help with preparing something experimental for lunch. Carter was peeling potatoes, and Dean was slowly and cautiously grinding herbs with a small mortar and pestle.
“Would you like me to write down the recipe for you?” LeBeau was asking as Hogan walked up to the table.
Dean smiled a little and shook his head. “Thanks, but assuming something does pull us back, I dunno if we’ll be able to take anything with us. I’ll try to remember it, though.”
“You don’t even know what it’ll taste like yet,” Carter reminded LeBeau.
“Carter,” Hogan replied, “in all our years together, I’ve only known a dish of LeBeau’s to fail once. Whatever this is, I’m sure it will taste wonderful.”
LeBeau beamed. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“What failed?” Dean asked.
“Chow mein-I had to make it with sauerkraut.”
Dean gave an exaggerated shudder.
Hogan grinned but turned the conversation back to his own purpose. “Where’s your brother, Winchester?”
“Ping-pong tournament,” Dean answered. “Didn’t know the Sasquatch played anything but pool and darts, but I guess he and Newkirk got tired of tryin’ to out-hustle each other.”
“... Out-hustle?”
Dean shrugged. “Friendly competition, including whose technique is better and whose childhood was worse. I think they’re tied.”
Hogan snorted in amused disbelief.
“Why, you need him?”
“Actually, I need to talk to you for a minute. If he was here, I’d have reeled him in, too, but as it is, you can pass it on.”
Dean frowned in confusion and concern. “Okay.”
“C’mon into the office.”
“Yes, sir.” Still frowning, Dean stood-more stiffly than shakily, which Hogan hoped was good-and followed.
Once they were both inside, Hogan motioned to the stool beside his desk. “Sit down, sit down.”
Dean sat as Hogan closed the door. “What’s up?”
“How familiar are you with the provisions of the Geneva Convention?”
Dean shrugged. “Prisoners don’t have to give more than name, rank, and serial number.”
Hogan nodded. “Good. There’s more to it, especially about how prisoners of war are to be treated, but that’s one of the relevant parts. The other you should know is this: any prisoner who’s involved in sabotage or espionage isn’t covered by the Geneva Convention. If the Krauts find out about what’s going on here in Stalag 13, we probably won’t even get a trial, just a firing squad.”
Dean nodded slowly. “O-kay. Some reason I need to know that? Did we do something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that.” Hogan sighed. “Look, Winchester, I know you and your brother have been having a rough time, so I figured I owed you some advance warning. There’s a Gestapo officer coming to question you both, a Major Hochstetter. He’s nasty, and he’s dangerous.”
“Is he human?”
“Depends on your definition.”
Dean huffed. “Why’s he looking for us?”
“I dunno, but it’s a cinch it’s not just about what you and Sam pulled with Knorz. Hochstetter wants information about our operation, and if he knows you and Sam aren’t 100%, he probably thinks you’re our weakest link. He’s gonna come down hard, either with bribes or with threats, maybe both; but he’ll try to push every button you have to convince you to cough up something he can use.”
Dean laughed bitterly and started pacing, arms waving as he ranted. “What can he do, send us back? We’ve got no home, no money, no job, no degrees; our car’s in storage; all our friends are dead; our whole family is dead; we’re on the Most Wanted list of about a hundred kinds of monsters, not to mention the FBI; and my brother’s got the Devil tap-dancing in his head. How the hell can the Gestapo make my life worse?”
“Winchester, you’re not taking this seriously enough. I’ve been a pilot a long time, but I’ve been a spy longer than that, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from West Point on, it’s that everyone breaks.”
Dean stilled. “What?”
“The lucky ones die first or get out-rescue, trade, escape. Some people can hold out for years. Some go crazy. But everyone has a breaking point, and the Gestapo are masters at finding it. Torture, mind games, drugs, you name it.”
Dean looked at him with a curious frown. “What’s the longest you’ve known someone to hold out?”
Hogan shrugged. “Depends on the interrogation technique.”
“Under torture, let’s say. Like, the worst torture imaginable. Relentless. They take you to the point of death, then put you back together only to take you apart again the next day.”
Hogan considered. “Five, six years?”
Dean blinked. “Six?”
“That survived and broke before being rescued... yeah, I think so.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Say you heard someone was tortured that bad for thirty years non-stop before he broke.”
“I’d say he had an incredibly strong will.”
“Say a hundred, never broke before he escaped.”
“I’d call him a liar. Or maybe exaggerating and it wasn’t actually the worst torture imaginable. Maybe they weren’t trying to break him.”
A thousand nameless emotions flashed across Dean’s face as he ran a hand over his mouth and chin again, eyes no longer focused on Hogan for the moment. He swallowed hard a couple of times and shook his head as if he was drawing new conclusions about something and couldn’t believe he’d been wrong. But somehow he looked slightly less wrecked than usual. When he finally spoke again, though, his voice was hoarse. “The guy who held out for thirty years... say... when he broke, he went Nazi. Like, joined the Gestapo.”
“It could happen,” Hogan replied carefully. “Happens to hostages and kidnapping victims sometimes-the Mary McElroy case comes to mind, and kids captured by Indians who were tortured and thought they had no chance of going back to their own life, although that’s not exactly the same thing. And near the breaking point, the prisoner can start to identify with the interrogator. Doesn’t make it a free decision if he wasn’t in his right mind.”
“What if he tortured? What if he liked it?”
Hogan got the feeling this wasn’t a hypothetical question. “Was he rescued?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he express remorse afterward? I mean, real remorse?”
Dean swallowed hard again. “Regretted it the rest of his life.”
“Then I’d say he wasn’t as damaged as he thought. The real bad apples never realize they’ve done wrong.”
Dean’s eyes slipped shut, and his chin trembled for a brief moment, as if Hogan had unwittingly given him absolution. Then he drew a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “Thanks for the heads-up, Colonel.”
Hogan nodded once. “You’re welcome.”
Dean made his way out into the main room, and Hogan watched from his doorway as Dean sat down at the table, clearly making an effort to hold himself together. Their conversation was still troubling Dean, Hogan could see, and he worried about what that would mean for the upcoming interrogation.
Dean hadn’t been sitting down long, however, when Sam came in and made a beeline for him. “Dean? What is it?”
“Just talked to Hogan,” Dean replied quietly, flicking a glance Hogan’s way. “There’s a Gestapo major coming to question us. About....” He gestured around the room.
“To question us,” Sam repeated, frowning slightly.
“Yeah.”
The brothers locked eyes for a long moment.
“You good?” Dean asked.
Sam rubbed at the scar on his left palm but didn’t break eye contact with Dean. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. You?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth twitched upward. “This ain’t Van Nuys.”
Evidently that meant something to Sam, because he snorted and grinned. “Dude....”
“This guy’s not Michael. He’s not Zach. He’s not Alastair. Hell, he’s not even Crowley.”
“And you’re not suicidal.” That almost sounded more like a question than a statement for some reason.
“Sam,” said Dean as he stood, “we are the guest stars on a 1960s sitcom. What the hell makes you think we’re gonna die this time?”
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head as if the statement really were the evasion Hogan thought it was, but he didn’t stop grinning as he started toward the door. “We’d be safer on The A-Team.”
Dean followed. “I thought you hated that show because nobody gets killed.”
Sam opened the door to let Dean out first. “I did when I was 12, but if you’ve got to get trapped in an action-drama, go with the live-action cartoon.”
“Dude. Sitcom.”
“Jerk.”
The door slammed shut behind Sam and cut off Dean’s usual reply.
Hogan blew the air out of his cheeks. That conversation hadn’t been quite as reassuring as it might be. So given Hochstetter’s propensity for questioning prisoners without a senior officer present, Hogan decided to at least eavesdrop-from the outer office. He didn’t know exactly how he feared the interrogation might go wrong, though he doubted either brother would spill anything about Papa Bear and his merry men, but regardless, being on hand to intervene should anything get out of hand seemed like the wisest course of action.
The Winchesters hadn’t been gone for more than a minute, however, when the door opened again to their voices complaining loudly over Schultz herding them inside.
“No, no, no,” Schultz insisted. “It’s too cold for you to be out there.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Schultz, we were just going for a walk around the compound.”
“Capt. Winchester, you have been very sick. You’re going to catch pneumonia if you go walking around out there in the snow.”
Sam huffed. “You don’t catch cold just from walking in the snow, Schultz.”
Schultz shook his head, stubbornly in Papa Schultzie mode. “Please, Sgt. Winchester, maybe you don’t catch cold. He has had the flu. And if he gets pneumonia, they got to take him to the hospital, and who knows what could happen after that. It is my responsibility that nothing happens to the prisoners. So please! Stay! Inside!”
Dean threw up his hands. “All right, fine. We’re inside.”
“Thank you.” Schultz took a long, bracing whiff of whatever LeBeau was cooking and sighed happily. “Ah, my little friend. What is it you are fixing today?”
LeBeau smiled. “I never know until I’m done.”
“Well, whatever it is, please save me some.”
LeBeau’s smile widened. “Okay, Schultzie.”
Schultz let himself out, and about two seconds later, both Winchesters busted out laughing.
“Dude,” Sam managed. “Did he seriously just....”
Dean nodded. “I know, right?”
“When was the last time-”
“Oh, man, I don’t even know. Fifth grade?”
“That one-”
“Yeah, her.”
“Can you imagine...”
“... Dad?” they finished together and laughed uproariously.
Carter looked from one brother to the other, completely lost. “The last time what?”
“The last time someone treated Dean like a kid like that,” Sam chuckled, wiping his eyes.
If Carter felt anything like the pang of heartsickness that hit Hogan, he didn’t show it. “Oh. Well, that’s Schultz for you.”
Still chuckling, Dean turned the conversation back to lunch. And Hogan sighed and went back to tidying his office, trying not to dwell on the thought that that exchange had brought to mind.
Newkirk, the scrappy lad from the streets of Stepney, might not have had the happiest of childhoods, and Sam, the college boy from the back roads of America, might have tied him for horror stories. But if he hadn’t been a kid since the fifth grade, Dean might well have had them both beat.
Hochstetter didn’t turn up until mid-afternoon. The only indication Hogan had gotten that either Winchester was at all nervous while waiting was that after lunch, Dean had asked whether the team had any weapons that needed cleaning. The handful of pistols that were stashed around the barracks hadn’t taken them long to strip and clean, as quickly and efficiently as if the brothers actually were the Air Force officers they appeared to be, and they had just finished sharpening and polishing the last of LeBeau’s cooking knives when Kinch spotted Hochstetter’s car driving in. They had just enough time for a lightning round of some card game Hogan didn’t recognize before Schultz came in, looking worried.
“Hi, Schultz,” Hogan said immediately. “What’s goin’ on?”
The question seemed to startle Schultz a little. “Oh, Col. Hogan. I have to take the Winchesters to the Kommandant’s office, by order of Maj. Hochstetter. And... he said to tell you not to come with them.”
Hogan frowned. “I’m the senior officer of this camp, Schultz.”
“I know, but I have my orders.”
“It’ll be all right, Schultz,” Dean drawled as he pushed away from the table, sounding surprisingly Texan for a Kansas boy. “I’m Sam’s superior officer; maybe Hochstetter figures that’s enough.”
Sam was not amused.
Hogan sighed. “All right, Winchester. Name, rank, and serial number, that’s all. Don’t let him push you around.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused and followed Schultz outside.
There was a long moment of silence after the door closed before LeBeau said, “They will not talk, Colonel.”
“Sure.” Hogan sighed. “Question is, will they survive?”
“You goin’ after ’em, sir?” Carter asked.
“Yeah, but let’s give it a minute, listen in first.”
With that, the team trooped into Hogan’s office and settled around the coffee pot, which Kinch plugged in just in time to hear Hochstetter and Klink shouting at each other. It took Hogan several seconds to work out that Hochstetter was trying to kick Klink out of the office and that Klink was using every weapon in his arsenal to try to refuse-pulling rank, threatening to call Gen. Burkhalter, and... spilling the beans about the Winchesters’ fragile mental conditions. As soon as Klink said the word Alpträume, nightmares, a collective groan went up from the prisoners.
“Sounds like you’d better get over there, Colonel,” Kinch stated.
Hogan nodded. “Yeah. If Hochstetter doesn’t even want Klink in the room, he’s probably got guards posted with orders not to let anybody in the building. Newkirk, Carter, diversion.”
“Yes, sir,” Newkirk and Carter chorused and dashed outside.
“Kinch, LeBeau, keep listening. Don’t miss a word.”
Hogan barely waited for them to acknowledge the order before walking quickly out of the barracks. Then he meandered casually across the compound while Newkirk and Carter started a running game of catch that led to one of the guards being “accidentally” beaned with the baseball. Hogan was already against the wall of the Kommandantur when Klink stormed out in a huff with Schultz hard on his heels, neither man seeing him or paying any attention to the commotion Newkirk and Carter were causing with the guards, so it was the work of only seconds for Hogan to jump up on the porch and slip into the outer office just as the door to the inner office was shutting. Then he crossed to the interior door silently and knelt to peer through the keyhole. He didn’t want to risk the spyholes in the Himmler picture; not only was there the real danger that Hochstetter would notice this time, but also, if something went wrong, Hogan was better off being right outside the door rather than at the back of the closet. The view from the keyhole was limited, but Hogan was quickly able to find an angle that allowed him to see at least Dean’s face and Hochstetter’s once Hochstetter seated himself in Klink’s chair. The Winchesters were already seated facing the desk; Hogan could see Sam, but not well.
Dean was wearing an expression of polite attention but minimal interest when Hochstetter began, “Now, Sgt. Winchester, it has come to my attention that certain important military information has been divulged to certain people in this camp. Tell me, have you heard anything about troop movements in East Prussia?”
Hogan frowned a little. Was this a pretext, or was the information on East Prussia legit? With Hochstetter, there was really no telling.
In any case, Sam replied flatly, “Winchester, Samuel, Sergeant, United States Army Air Force, 8675309.”
“Sergeant, we already know you overheard one conversation.”
“So what?” Dean interrupted. “We’re prisoners. Who could he tell if he did hear anything?”
Hochstetter smiled a little. “That, Capt. Winchester, is the problem. You see, the Gestapo has been investigating your story about being shot down outside Gummersbach. The bomber crash was legitimate... but the American Air Force has no record of either of you.”
Hogan’s heart sank.
“So perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what you were doing near that airplane.”
“We got dropped there by a demigod who was playing pranks on us. We’re not even from this reality.” The corner of Dean’s mouth curled up in a cheeky smirk.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, see, me and my brother, we’re demon hunters from the year 2012. We’ve been tryin’ to stop these monsters called Leviathans from takin’ over the world, but this Trickster, he decided we needed to pass a test before he’d think about helping us. Something went wrong, and here we are.”
It was all Hogan could do to keep from laughing. When the truth was that incredible, why not tell it?
Hochstetter chuckled, too, but not pleasantly. “You fancy yourself as a joker, Captain.”
“I think I’m adorable.”
Sam coughed.
“I would appreciate the truth,” Hochstetter stated, an edge creeping into his voice.
And Dean, to his credit, returned, “Winchester, Dean, Captain, United States Army Air Force, 1121983.” Hogan could sense both brothers shifting out of their air of insolence to prepare for a fight.
Hochstetter rose, leaning over the desk slightly. “Captain, I suggest you answer my question now. Otherwise, I shall take you back to Berlin with me, and there conditions will be far less pleasant. You have no idea how effective our methods can be; we will make your life a living hell until we get the information we want.”
Dean stood, eyes blazing, though he made no other movement toward Hochstetter. “Let me tell you something, Major,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I have been tortured before. And yes, I do have a breaking point. But what it took to reach that point? Himmler would have nightmares. So go ahead. Make my day.”
Only the way Hochstetter fidgeted with his belt buckle betrayed the fact that he was suddenly very glad to have a desk between him and the hot-headed American. “No,” he said after a long pause and broke eye contact to look at Sam. “Perhaps I should be more creative with your brother.”
Neither Sam nor Dean moved, but Sam snarled, and Hochstetter suddenly found himself dodging Klink’s pencil holder.
“You touch my brother,” Dean said evenly, “and I’ve got half a mind to let him go Dark Lord on you.”
Hogan took that as his cue and forced the door open. “Winchester!” he barked. “Stand down!”
Though neither brother stopped glaring at Hochstetter, who was fighting a losing battle to hide his fear, Dean did sit down. Klink’s pencils gathered themselves back into the holder, and the holder returned to its place on the desk.
“Major, I protest,” Hogan stated loudly, pretending he hadn’t seen Sam clean up his own mess without moving a muscle. “This interrogation is in violation of the Geneva Convention-and may I remind you that the Geneva Convention is as much to protect you as it is to protect the rights of prisoners? Sgt. Winchester wouldn’t have thrown anything at you if I’d been in here to begin with, and if I hadn’t been in the outer office to overhear, they could easily have killed you.”
Hochstetter straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. “Perhaps you are right, Hogan,” he said quietly. “My apologies. That will be all.”
The Winchesters stood in tandem and filed out, both standing ramrod straight and with expressions that promised death to anyone who stood in their way. But that air of danger dissipated once they were about ten yards away from Klink’s office. There they slowed and stopped side by side, Sam looking miserable and Dean running a shaking hand over his nose and mouth as Hogan caught up to them.
“Dean...” Sam said quietly.
Dean shook his head. “It’s okay, Sam. Not like you were... y’know.”
“You knew.”
“Yeah. I’ve known since Lilydale-the spoon thing. Just wasn’t sure if you knew.”
“I wasn’t sure it was real.”
Dean huffed, then clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Hey. At least it was just pencils, right?”
Sam snorted. “Yeah. And at least I missed.”
Hogan cleared his throat. “Uh, fellas? Anything I need to know about?”
“No, sir,” they chorused and strode back to the barracks without looking at him.
Hogan glanced over his shoulder and pretended he didn’t see Hochstetter peering nervously through Klink’s window at the Winchesters’ retreating backs. He just followed them, not at all sure what to make of the exchange he’d just overheard or the scene he’d witnessed in the office.
And Hochstetter called him the most dangerous man in Germany....
LeBeau met the brothers at the door with coffee, but no one spoke, and Hogan didn’t have to do more than make eye contact with LeBeau for the Frenchman to nod and go back to the office. Hogan followed, closing the door behind him with a sigh. Then he and his team looked at each other for a moment, still processing what had happened. The coffee pot was unplugged, so the room was silent.
Finally, Carter spoke up. “What’d he throw, sir?”
Hogan sighed again. “Pencil holder. But that’s not the problem. Newkirk, LeBeau, have you... noticed anything odd about Sam? Other than the hand bit, I mean.”
LeBeau shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t be sure, Colonel, but I think maybe he is... comment se dit telécinétique?”
“Telekinetic,” Newkirk supplied, his accent thickened by concern. “I reckoned something like it meself. In a small way, sir, nothing but skill in ’is pool game or ’is darts, though ’e makes it look like ’e don’t know wot ’e’s doin’. But the other day, I chucked a bit of paper ’is way just to see. ’E didn’t see me do it, but ’e saw it comin’ towards ’im, and... it stopped. Right where it was when ’e looked at it. And then ’e picked it up with the stick, you know, like normal. I don’t think ’e even knew ’e’d done it.”
“He didn’t,” Hogan confirmed. “I think the pencil holder was an accident. But Hochstetter knows Sam didn’t touch it, either to throw it or to put it back. And that is what has me worried.”
“How so?” LeBeau asked.
“The Krauts are losin’ bad,” Kinch replied quietly. “And here he’s got a spy who’s telekinetic-could be a real Supermensch. Think he’s gonna let that go?”
“Yeah,” Hogan agreed. “And the way they talked, Sam’s capable of more than just throwing pencils. They didn’t tell me what he could do or under what circumstances, but you can bet the Gestapo scientists won’t stop testing him until they find out. If they’re not protected by the Geneva Convention....”
Carter frowned. “Is that what Capt. Winchester meant? About letting Sam ‘go Dark Lord’?”
“Yeah, and I’d hate to find out the specifics, since it sounds like the last time it happened, their world almost ended. Literally.”
“But... they won’t talk, right? I mean, after what he said....”
“Carter, those men have been to Hell. As in pitchforks and flames, the whole bit.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before LeBeau asked, “Are you sure, Colonel?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense of what they have said, some of what they haven’t said, why they seem to be looking for redemption with the demon hunting. You think I’m letting the Gestapo take another crack at ’em with that stuff in their heads?”
“So how do we keep them here?” Kinch asked.
Hogan sighed again and shook his head. “I wish I knew, Kinch.”
Dean was withdrawn most of the rest of the day-not unresponsive, really, but clearly not in the mood to do more than sit and think and wish he could get drunk; he politely but firmly shut down the other prisoners’ attempts to check on him with a repeated “I’m fine.” Sam tried not to hover, but it was hard not to worry that dealing with Hochstetter had sent Dean’s mind someplace they’d both desperately tried for years to keep it from going. Even when Dean took Sam up on the offer of a nap on his bunk, he didn’t actually sleep; his eyes were mostly closed, but not completely, and Sam could see that awful faraway look in them again that was starting to remind him of the Windows blue screen of death.
Fortunately, when Schultz came in to announce roll call, he took one look at Dean and put a hand on Sam’s arm. “Capt. Winchester looks worse,” he said quietly. “You should stay with him. I will tell the Kommandant.”
Sam managed a smile. “Thanks, Schultz.”
After everyone else was outside, Sam sat down on the next bunk over to keep an eye on Dean, and a good thirty seconds of silence passed. Then Dean said, “Sam. Do you know what... what Hogan said to me this morning?”
“No. What?”
“Everybody breaks.” That statement hung in the air for several seconds before Dean continued shakily, “Alastair, he... he s-said Dad... had been there a hundred years, treated the same way I was, and hadn’t broken. And I believed him. Dammit, I believed him! Forty years and I still let him get to me.”
Sam swallowed past the lump forming in his throat. “Dean.”
“Hogan doesn’t even know-and he said it would take a strong will to hold out for even six years. Six, Sammy!” Dean shook his head and tried to say something else, but whatever idea it was kept dying on his tongue, choked by the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes.
“To most people, that’s a long time,” Sam offered quietly.
“What I did-but what Alastair-” That thought, too, choked and died and came out as a sob. Dean never had been able to articulate what Alastair, Hell’s torture-master, had done to him for those thirty years before he’d broken.
“Oh, Dean.” Sam crossed the narrow space between bunks and pulled Dean into a tight hug, ignoring Lucifer’s inane commentary on the sappiness of the moment. “I told you. It’s not your fault.”
“I should-but Hogan-”
“Yeah. You listen to Hogan. I mean, he ought to know, right?”
“I th-th-thought....” I thought I was weak, Sam understood. I thought I failed.
“I know. I did, too, then, but hell, demon blood junkie. I’m one to talk.”
“Sam....”
“It’s okay, Dean. Let it go.”
And by golly, he did. He was still crying silently into Sam’s shoulder when the other men filed back in after roll call, but though he pulled away from Sam and hastily wiped the tears off his face, he didn’t object when Sam brought him coffee and soup and stayed seated beside him on the bunk. There was comfort in touch, but there was also comfort in nearness, and Sam knew Dean needed that nearness to ground him as he finally tried to get his head around the fact that he’d been beating himself up for four years for no reason. They couldn’t have the front seat of the Impala right now, or lie on her hood stargazing, but they could have this.
Shortly before lights out, Hogan came over and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You know,” he said quietly, “if you two need some space, you’re welcome to go down in the tunnel. It’s not much, but there’s nobody down there now; you’d have some privacy.”
Dean shook his head. “No. No, thanks, Colonel, that’s not... we’ll be fine.”
“All right. If you’re sure.”
Dean nodded.
So did Sam. “Thanks, Colonel.”
Hogan nodded and moved away, and Dean got up and climbed into his own bunk.
“Dean...” Sam began, not getting up or looking at Dean to give him some space but still concerned.
“What,” Dean replied, “you wanna use me for a teddy bear? I think the bed’s too narrow for that, dude.”
Sam huffed and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help smiling. No chick flick moments. Dean had answered the question Sam hadn’t asked-he’d be okay for the night, at least. “All right, forget it. Good night.”
Dean dropped a hand down to tousle Sam’s too-short hair. “Night, Sammy.”
And they both slept tolerably well that night.
Next
Chapter 3
Stormy Weather
Hogan wasn’t at all sure why, but he got the sense during morning roll call that he needed to have the coffee pot plugged in just in case he needed to overhear something in Klink’s office. Klink wasn’t up to anything out of the ordinary that Hogan knew of, and there weren’t any visitors to the camp. It was just one of those gut feelings he knew better than to ignore, especially with his suspicion of the Gestapo having tried for four days running to plant fake information to trap him, so he went with it.
Sure enough, Klink’s phone rang mid-morning. Kinch still hadn’t gotten around to replacing the phone tap, so all Hogan could hear through the room bug was Klink’s side of the conversation, which sounded normal enough until:
“Ich verstehe nicht, Major Hochstetter. Hauptmann Winchester ist.... Nein, sie wurden gleichzeitig eingefangen.”
Hogan frowned. Why would Hochstetter be asking questions about the Winchesters?
“Ja, natürlich, aber-jawohl, Herr Major. Wir erwarten Sie. Heil Hitler.” Klink grumbled something uncomplimentary at the phone after hanging up.
We’ll expect you. That sounded like Hochstetter was coming in, probably to question the Winchesters. But why would he call ahead? Normally he would have just shown up-unless he wanted to trap Klink (or Hogan) with evidence of coaching the prisoners on how to respond. Or maybe he needed to make sure the Winchesters were well enough to question.
Hogan sighed and unplugged the coffee pot. Ultimately, the reason for the call didn’t matter. He needed to give Dean, at least, a heads-up and inform him of his rights under the Geneva Convention.
It was a cold, snowy Sunday, and most of the prisoners had gone to the recreation hall. A handful were still lounging on their bunks reading, however, and LeBeau had drafted Carter and Dean to help with preparing something experimental for lunch. Carter was peeling potatoes, and Dean was slowly and cautiously grinding herbs with a small mortar and pestle.
“Would you like me to write down the recipe for you?” LeBeau was asking as Hogan walked up to the table.
Dean smiled a little and shook his head. “Thanks, but assuming something does pull us back, I dunno if we’ll be able to take anything with us. I’ll try to remember it, though.”
“You don’t even know what it’ll taste like yet,” Carter reminded LeBeau.
“Carter,” Hogan replied, “in all our years together, I’ve only known a dish of LeBeau’s to fail once. Whatever this is, I’m sure it will taste wonderful.”
LeBeau beamed. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“What failed?” Dean asked.
“Chow mein-I had to make it with sauerkraut.”
Dean gave an exaggerated shudder.
Hogan grinned but turned the conversation back to his own purpose. “Where’s your brother, Winchester?”
“Ping-pong tournament,” Dean answered. “Didn’t know the Sasquatch played anything but pool and darts, but I guess he and Newkirk got tired of tryin’ to out-hustle each other.”
“... Out-hustle?”
Dean shrugged. “Friendly competition, including whose technique is better and whose childhood was worse. I think they’re tied.”
Hogan snorted in amused disbelief.
“Why, you need him?”
“Actually, I need to talk to you for a minute. If he was here, I’d have reeled him in, too, but as it is, you can pass it on.”
Dean frowned in confusion and concern. “Okay.”
“C’mon into the office.”
“Yes, sir.” Still frowning, Dean stood-more stiffly than shakily, which Hogan hoped was good-and followed.
Once they were both inside, Hogan motioned to the stool beside his desk. “Sit down, sit down.”
Dean sat as Hogan closed the door. “What’s up?”
“How familiar are you with the provisions of the Geneva Convention?”
Dean shrugged. “Prisoners don’t have to give more than name, rank, and serial number.”
Hogan nodded. “Good. There’s more to it, especially about how prisoners of war are to be treated, but that’s one of the relevant parts. The other you should know is this: any prisoner who’s involved in sabotage or espionage isn’t covered by the Geneva Convention. If the Krauts find out about what’s going on here in Stalag 13, we probably won’t even get a trial, just a firing squad.”
Dean nodded slowly. “O-kay. Some reason I need to know that? Did we do something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that.” Hogan sighed. “Look, Winchester, I know you and your brother have been having a rough time, so I figured I owed you some advance warning. There’s a Gestapo officer coming to question you both, a Major Hochstetter. He’s nasty, and he’s dangerous.”
“Is he human?”
“Depends on your definition.”
Dean huffed. “Why’s he looking for us?”
“I dunno, but it’s a cinch it’s not just about what you and Sam pulled with Knorz. Hochstetter wants information about our operation, and if he knows you and Sam aren’t 100%, he probably thinks you’re our weakest link. He’s gonna come down hard, either with bribes or with threats, maybe both; but he’ll try to push every button you have to convince you to cough up something he can use.”
Dean laughed bitterly and started pacing, arms waving as he ranted. “What can he do, send us back? We’ve got no home, no money, no job, no degrees; our car’s in storage; all our friends are dead; our whole family is dead; we’re on the Most Wanted list of about a hundred kinds of monsters, not to mention the FBI; and my brother’s got the Devil tap-dancing in his head. How the hell can the Gestapo make my life worse?”
“Winchester, you’re not taking this seriously enough. I’ve been a pilot a long time, but I’ve been a spy longer than that, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from West Point on, it’s that everyone breaks.”
Dean stilled. “What?”
“The lucky ones die first or get out-rescue, trade, escape. Some people can hold out for years. Some go crazy. But everyone has a breaking point, and the Gestapo are masters at finding it. Torture, mind games, drugs, you name it.”
Dean looked at him with a curious frown. “What’s the longest you’ve known someone to hold out?”
Hogan shrugged. “Depends on the interrogation technique.”
“Under torture, let’s say. Like, the worst torture imaginable. Relentless. They take you to the point of death, then put you back together only to take you apart again the next day.”
Hogan considered. “Five, six years?”
Dean blinked. “Six?”
“That survived and broke before being rescued... yeah, I think so.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Say you heard someone was tortured that bad for thirty years non-stop before he broke.”
“I’d say he had an incredibly strong will.”
“Say a hundred, never broke before he escaped.”
“I’d call him a liar. Or maybe exaggerating and it wasn’t actually the worst torture imaginable. Maybe they weren’t trying to break him.”
A thousand nameless emotions flashed across Dean’s face as he ran a hand over his mouth and chin again, eyes no longer focused on Hogan for the moment. He swallowed hard a couple of times and shook his head as if he was drawing new conclusions about something and couldn’t believe he’d been wrong. But somehow he looked slightly less wrecked than usual. When he finally spoke again, though, his voice was hoarse. “The guy who held out for thirty years... say... when he broke, he went Nazi. Like, joined the Gestapo.”
“It could happen,” Hogan replied carefully. “Happens to hostages and kidnapping victims sometimes-the Mary McElroy case comes to mind, and kids captured by Indians who were tortured and thought they had no chance of going back to their own life, although that’s not exactly the same thing. And near the breaking point, the prisoner can start to identify with the interrogator. Doesn’t make it a free decision if he wasn’t in his right mind.”
“What if he tortured? What if he liked it?”
Hogan got the feeling this wasn’t a hypothetical question. “Was he rescued?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he express remorse afterward? I mean, real remorse?”
Dean swallowed hard again. “Regretted it the rest of his life.”
“Then I’d say he wasn’t as damaged as he thought. The real bad apples never realize they’ve done wrong.”
Dean’s eyes slipped shut, and his chin trembled for a brief moment, as if Hogan had unwittingly given him absolution. Then he drew a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “Thanks for the heads-up, Colonel.”
Hogan nodded once. “You’re welcome.”
Dean made his way out into the main room, and Hogan watched from his doorway as Dean sat down at the table, clearly making an effort to hold himself together. Their conversation was still troubling Dean, Hogan could see, and he worried about what that would mean for the upcoming interrogation.
Dean hadn’t been sitting down long, however, when Sam came in and made a beeline for him. “Dean? What is it?”
“Just talked to Hogan,” Dean replied quietly, flicking a glance Hogan’s way. “There’s a Gestapo major coming to question us. About....” He gestured around the room.
“To question us,” Sam repeated, frowning slightly.
“Yeah.”
The brothers locked eyes for a long moment.
“You good?” Dean asked.
Sam rubbed at the scar on his left palm but didn’t break eye contact with Dean. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. You?”
The corner of Dean’s mouth twitched upward. “This ain’t Van Nuys.”
Evidently that meant something to Sam, because he snorted and grinned. “Dude....”
“This guy’s not Michael. He’s not Zach. He’s not Alastair. Hell, he’s not even Crowley.”
“And you’re not suicidal.” That almost sounded more like a question than a statement for some reason.
“Sam,” said Dean as he stood, “we are the guest stars on a 1960s sitcom. What the hell makes you think we’re gonna die this time?”
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head as if the statement really were the evasion Hogan thought it was, but he didn’t stop grinning as he started toward the door. “We’d be safer on The A-Team.”
Dean followed. “I thought you hated that show because nobody gets killed.”
Sam opened the door to let Dean out first. “I did when I was 12, but if you’ve got to get trapped in an action-drama, go with the live-action cartoon.”
“Dude. Sitcom.”
“Jerk.”
The door slammed shut behind Sam and cut off Dean’s usual reply.
Hogan blew the air out of his cheeks. That conversation hadn’t been quite as reassuring as it might be. So given Hochstetter’s propensity for questioning prisoners without a senior officer present, Hogan decided to at least eavesdrop-from the outer office. He didn’t know exactly how he feared the interrogation might go wrong, though he doubted either brother would spill anything about Papa Bear and his merry men, but regardless, being on hand to intervene should anything get out of hand seemed like the wisest course of action.
The Winchesters hadn’t been gone for more than a minute, however, when the door opened again to their voices complaining loudly over Schultz herding them inside.
“No, no, no,” Schultz insisted. “It’s too cold for you to be out there.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Schultz, we were just going for a walk around the compound.”
“Capt. Winchester, you have been very sick. You’re going to catch pneumonia if you go walking around out there in the snow.”
Sam huffed. “You don’t catch cold just from walking in the snow, Schultz.”
Schultz shook his head, stubbornly in Papa Schultzie mode. “Please, Sgt. Winchester, maybe you don’t catch cold. He has had the flu. And if he gets pneumonia, they got to take him to the hospital, and who knows what could happen after that. It is my responsibility that nothing happens to the prisoners. So please! Stay! Inside!”
Dean threw up his hands. “All right, fine. We’re inside.”
“Thank you.” Schultz took a long, bracing whiff of whatever LeBeau was cooking and sighed happily. “Ah, my little friend. What is it you are fixing today?”
LeBeau smiled. “I never know until I’m done.”
“Well, whatever it is, please save me some.”
LeBeau’s smile widened. “Okay, Schultzie.”
Schultz let himself out, and about two seconds later, both Winchesters busted out laughing.
“Dude,” Sam managed. “Did he seriously just....”
Dean nodded. “I know, right?”
“When was the last time-”
“Oh, man, I don’t even know. Fifth grade?”
“That one-”
“Yeah, her.”
“Can you imagine...”
“... Dad?” they finished together and laughed uproariously.
Carter looked from one brother to the other, completely lost. “The last time what?”
“The last time someone treated Dean like a kid like that,” Sam chuckled, wiping his eyes.
If Carter felt anything like the pang of heartsickness that hit Hogan, he didn’t show it. “Oh. Well, that’s Schultz for you.”
Still chuckling, Dean turned the conversation back to lunch. And Hogan sighed and went back to tidying his office, trying not to dwell on the thought that that exchange had brought to mind.
Newkirk, the scrappy lad from the streets of Stepney, might not have had the happiest of childhoods, and Sam, the college boy from the back roads of America, might have tied him for horror stories. But if he hadn’t been a kid since the fifth grade, Dean might well have had them both beat.
Hochstetter didn’t turn up until mid-afternoon. The only indication Hogan had gotten that either Winchester was at all nervous while waiting was that after lunch, Dean had asked whether the team had any weapons that needed cleaning. The handful of pistols that were stashed around the barracks hadn’t taken them long to strip and clean, as quickly and efficiently as if the brothers actually were the Air Force officers they appeared to be, and they had just finished sharpening and polishing the last of LeBeau’s cooking knives when Kinch spotted Hochstetter’s car driving in. They had just enough time for a lightning round of some card game Hogan didn’t recognize before Schultz came in, looking worried.
“Hi, Schultz,” Hogan said immediately. “What’s goin’ on?”
The question seemed to startle Schultz a little. “Oh, Col. Hogan. I have to take the Winchesters to the Kommandant’s office, by order of Maj. Hochstetter. And... he said to tell you not to come with them.”
Hogan frowned. “I’m the senior officer of this camp, Schultz.”
“I know, but I have my orders.”
“It’ll be all right, Schultz,” Dean drawled as he pushed away from the table, sounding surprisingly Texan for a Kansas boy. “I’m Sam’s superior officer; maybe Hochstetter figures that’s enough.”
Sam was not amused.
Hogan sighed. “All right, Winchester. Name, rank, and serial number, that’s all. Don’t let him push you around.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused and followed Schultz outside.
There was a long moment of silence after the door closed before LeBeau said, “They will not talk, Colonel.”
“Sure.” Hogan sighed. “Question is, will they survive?”
“You goin’ after ’em, sir?” Carter asked.
“Yeah, but let’s give it a minute, listen in first.”
With that, the team trooped into Hogan’s office and settled around the coffee pot, which Kinch plugged in just in time to hear Hochstetter and Klink shouting at each other. It took Hogan several seconds to work out that Hochstetter was trying to kick Klink out of the office and that Klink was using every weapon in his arsenal to try to refuse-pulling rank, threatening to call Gen. Burkhalter, and... spilling the beans about the Winchesters’ fragile mental conditions. As soon as Klink said the word Alpträume, nightmares, a collective groan went up from the prisoners.
“Sounds like you’d better get over there, Colonel,” Kinch stated.
Hogan nodded. “Yeah. If Hochstetter doesn’t even want Klink in the room, he’s probably got guards posted with orders not to let anybody in the building. Newkirk, Carter, diversion.”
“Yes, sir,” Newkirk and Carter chorused and dashed outside.
“Kinch, LeBeau, keep listening. Don’t miss a word.”
Hogan barely waited for them to acknowledge the order before walking quickly out of the barracks. Then he meandered casually across the compound while Newkirk and Carter started a running game of catch that led to one of the guards being “accidentally” beaned with the baseball. Hogan was already against the wall of the Kommandantur when Klink stormed out in a huff with Schultz hard on his heels, neither man seeing him or paying any attention to the commotion Newkirk and Carter were causing with the guards, so it was the work of only seconds for Hogan to jump up on the porch and slip into the outer office just as the door to the inner office was shutting. Then he crossed to the interior door silently and knelt to peer through the keyhole. He didn’t want to risk the spyholes in the Himmler picture; not only was there the real danger that Hochstetter would notice this time, but also, if something went wrong, Hogan was better off being right outside the door rather than at the back of the closet. The view from the keyhole was limited, but Hogan was quickly able to find an angle that allowed him to see at least Dean’s face and Hochstetter’s once Hochstetter seated himself in Klink’s chair. The Winchesters were already seated facing the desk; Hogan could see Sam, but not well.
Dean was wearing an expression of polite attention but minimal interest when Hochstetter began, “Now, Sgt. Winchester, it has come to my attention that certain important military information has been divulged to certain people in this camp. Tell me, have you heard anything about troop movements in East Prussia?”
Hogan frowned a little. Was this a pretext, or was the information on East Prussia legit? With Hochstetter, there was really no telling.
In any case, Sam replied flatly, “Winchester, Samuel, Sergeant, United States Army Air Force, 8675309.”
“Sergeant, we already know you overheard one conversation.”
“So what?” Dean interrupted. “We’re prisoners. Who could he tell if he did hear anything?”
Hochstetter smiled a little. “That, Capt. Winchester, is the problem. You see, the Gestapo has been investigating your story about being shot down outside Gummersbach. The bomber crash was legitimate... but the American Air Force has no record of either of you.”
Hogan’s heart sank.
“So perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what you were doing near that airplane.”
“We got dropped there by a demigod who was playing pranks on us. We’re not even from this reality.” The corner of Dean’s mouth curled up in a cheeky smirk.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, see, me and my brother, we’re demon hunters from the year 2012. We’ve been tryin’ to stop these monsters called Leviathans from takin’ over the world, but this Trickster, he decided we needed to pass a test before he’d think about helping us. Something went wrong, and here we are.”
It was all Hogan could do to keep from laughing. When the truth was that incredible, why not tell it?
Hochstetter chuckled, too, but not pleasantly. “You fancy yourself as a joker, Captain.”
“I think I’m adorable.”
Sam coughed.
“I would appreciate the truth,” Hochstetter stated, an edge creeping into his voice.
And Dean, to his credit, returned, “Winchester, Dean, Captain, United States Army Air Force, 1121983.” Hogan could sense both brothers shifting out of their air of insolence to prepare for a fight.
Hochstetter rose, leaning over the desk slightly. “Captain, I suggest you answer my question now. Otherwise, I shall take you back to Berlin with me, and there conditions will be far less pleasant. You have no idea how effective our methods can be; we will make your life a living hell until we get the information we want.”
Dean stood, eyes blazing, though he made no other movement toward Hochstetter. “Let me tell you something, Major,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I have been tortured before. And yes, I do have a breaking point. But what it took to reach that point? Himmler would have nightmares. So go ahead. Make my day.”
Only the way Hochstetter fidgeted with his belt buckle betrayed the fact that he was suddenly very glad to have a desk between him and the hot-headed American. “No,” he said after a long pause and broke eye contact to look at Sam. “Perhaps I should be more creative with your brother.”
Neither Sam nor Dean moved, but Sam snarled, and Hochstetter suddenly found himself dodging Klink’s pencil holder.
“You touch my brother,” Dean said evenly, “and I’ve got half a mind to let him go Dark Lord on you.”
Hogan took that as his cue and forced the door open. “Winchester!” he barked. “Stand down!”
Though neither brother stopped glaring at Hochstetter, who was fighting a losing battle to hide his fear, Dean did sit down. Klink’s pencils gathered themselves back into the holder, and the holder returned to its place on the desk.
“Major, I protest,” Hogan stated loudly, pretending he hadn’t seen Sam clean up his own mess without moving a muscle. “This interrogation is in violation of the Geneva Convention-and may I remind you that the Geneva Convention is as much to protect you as it is to protect the rights of prisoners? Sgt. Winchester wouldn’t have thrown anything at you if I’d been in here to begin with, and if I hadn’t been in the outer office to overhear, they could easily have killed you.”
Hochstetter straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. “Perhaps you are right, Hogan,” he said quietly. “My apologies. That will be all.”
The Winchesters stood in tandem and filed out, both standing ramrod straight and with expressions that promised death to anyone who stood in their way. But that air of danger dissipated once they were about ten yards away from Klink’s office. There they slowed and stopped side by side, Sam looking miserable and Dean running a shaking hand over his nose and mouth as Hogan caught up to them.
“Dean...” Sam said quietly.
Dean shook his head. “It’s okay, Sam. Not like you were... y’know.”
“You knew.”
“Yeah. I’ve known since Lilydale-the spoon thing. Just wasn’t sure if you knew.”
“I wasn’t sure it was real.”
Dean huffed, then clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Hey. At least it was just pencils, right?”
Sam snorted. “Yeah. And at least I missed.”
Hogan cleared his throat. “Uh, fellas? Anything I need to know about?”
“No, sir,” they chorused and strode back to the barracks without looking at him.
Hogan glanced over his shoulder and pretended he didn’t see Hochstetter peering nervously through Klink’s window at the Winchesters’ retreating backs. He just followed them, not at all sure what to make of the exchange he’d just overheard or the scene he’d witnessed in the office.
And Hochstetter called him the most dangerous man in Germany....
LeBeau met the brothers at the door with coffee, but no one spoke, and Hogan didn’t have to do more than make eye contact with LeBeau for the Frenchman to nod and go back to the office. Hogan followed, closing the door behind him with a sigh. Then he and his team looked at each other for a moment, still processing what had happened. The coffee pot was unplugged, so the room was silent.
Finally, Carter spoke up. “What’d he throw, sir?”
Hogan sighed again. “Pencil holder. But that’s not the problem. Newkirk, LeBeau, have you... noticed anything odd about Sam? Other than the hand bit, I mean.”
LeBeau shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t be sure, Colonel, but I think maybe he is... comment se dit telécinétique?”
“Telekinetic,” Newkirk supplied, his accent thickened by concern. “I reckoned something like it meself. In a small way, sir, nothing but skill in ’is pool game or ’is darts, though ’e makes it look like ’e don’t know wot ’e’s doin’. But the other day, I chucked a bit of paper ’is way just to see. ’E didn’t see me do it, but ’e saw it comin’ towards ’im, and... it stopped. Right where it was when ’e looked at it. And then ’e picked it up with the stick, you know, like normal. I don’t think ’e even knew ’e’d done it.”
“He didn’t,” Hogan confirmed. “I think the pencil holder was an accident. But Hochstetter knows Sam didn’t touch it, either to throw it or to put it back. And that is what has me worried.”
“How so?” LeBeau asked.
“The Krauts are losin’ bad,” Kinch replied quietly. “And here he’s got a spy who’s telekinetic-could be a real Supermensch. Think he’s gonna let that go?”
“Yeah,” Hogan agreed. “And the way they talked, Sam’s capable of more than just throwing pencils. They didn’t tell me what he could do or under what circumstances, but you can bet the Gestapo scientists won’t stop testing him until they find out. If they’re not protected by the Geneva Convention....”
Carter frowned. “Is that what Capt. Winchester meant? About letting Sam ‘go Dark Lord’?”
“Yeah, and I’d hate to find out the specifics, since it sounds like the last time it happened, their world almost ended. Literally.”
“But... they won’t talk, right? I mean, after what he said....”
“Carter, those men have been to Hell. As in pitchforks and flames, the whole bit.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before LeBeau asked, “Are you sure, Colonel?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense of what they have said, some of what they haven’t said, why they seem to be looking for redemption with the demon hunting. You think I’m letting the Gestapo take another crack at ’em with that stuff in their heads?”
“So how do we keep them here?” Kinch asked.
Hogan sighed again and shook his head. “I wish I knew, Kinch.”
Dean was withdrawn most of the rest of the day-not unresponsive, really, but clearly not in the mood to do more than sit and think and wish he could get drunk; he politely but firmly shut down the other prisoners’ attempts to check on him with a repeated “I’m fine.” Sam tried not to hover, but it was hard not to worry that dealing with Hochstetter had sent Dean’s mind someplace they’d both desperately tried for years to keep it from going. Even when Dean took Sam up on the offer of a nap on his bunk, he didn’t actually sleep; his eyes were mostly closed, but not completely, and Sam could see that awful faraway look in them again that was starting to remind him of the Windows blue screen of death.
Fortunately, when Schultz came in to announce roll call, he took one look at Dean and put a hand on Sam’s arm. “Capt. Winchester looks worse,” he said quietly. “You should stay with him. I will tell the Kommandant.”
Sam managed a smile. “Thanks, Schultz.”
After everyone else was outside, Sam sat down on the next bunk over to keep an eye on Dean, and a good thirty seconds of silence passed. Then Dean said, “Sam. Do you know what... what Hogan said to me this morning?”
“No. What?”
“Everybody breaks.” That statement hung in the air for several seconds before Dean continued shakily, “Alastair, he... he s-said Dad... had been there a hundred years, treated the same way I was, and hadn’t broken. And I believed him. Dammit, I believed him! Forty years and I still let him get to me.”
Sam swallowed past the lump forming in his throat. “Dean.”
“Hogan doesn’t even know-and he said it would take a strong will to hold out for even six years. Six, Sammy!” Dean shook his head and tried to say something else, but whatever idea it was kept dying on his tongue, choked by the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes.
“To most people, that’s a long time,” Sam offered quietly.
“What I did-but what Alastair-” That thought, too, choked and died and came out as a sob. Dean never had been able to articulate what Alastair, Hell’s torture-master, had done to him for those thirty years before he’d broken.
“Oh, Dean.” Sam crossed the narrow space between bunks and pulled Dean into a tight hug, ignoring Lucifer’s inane commentary on the sappiness of the moment. “I told you. It’s not your fault.”
“I should-but Hogan-”
“Yeah. You listen to Hogan. I mean, he ought to know, right?”
“I th-th-thought....” I thought I was weak, Sam understood. I thought I failed.
“I know. I did, too, then, but hell, demon blood junkie. I’m one to talk.”
“Sam....”
“It’s okay, Dean. Let it go.”
And by golly, he did. He was still crying silently into Sam’s shoulder when the other men filed back in after roll call, but though he pulled away from Sam and hastily wiped the tears off his face, he didn’t object when Sam brought him coffee and soup and stayed seated beside him on the bunk. There was comfort in touch, but there was also comfort in nearness, and Sam knew Dean needed that nearness to ground him as he finally tried to get his head around the fact that he’d been beating himself up for four years for no reason. They couldn’t have the front seat of the Impala right now, or lie on her hood stargazing, but they could have this.
Shortly before lights out, Hogan came over and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You know,” he said quietly, “if you two need some space, you’re welcome to go down in the tunnel. It’s not much, but there’s nobody down there now; you’d have some privacy.”
Dean shook his head. “No. No, thanks, Colonel, that’s not... we’ll be fine.”
“All right. If you’re sure.”
Dean nodded.
So did Sam. “Thanks, Colonel.”
Hogan nodded and moved away, and Dean got up and climbed into his own bunk.
“Dean...” Sam began, not getting up or looking at Dean to give him some space but still concerned.
“What,” Dean replied, “you wanna use me for a teddy bear? I think the bed’s too narrow for that, dude.”
Sam huffed and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help smiling. No chick flick moments. Dean had answered the question Sam hadn’t asked-he’d be okay for the night, at least. “All right, forget it. Good night.”
Dean dropped a hand down to tousle Sam’s too-short hair. “Night, Sammy.”
And they both slept tolerably well that night.
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