Out of the blue, it was the middle of the morning. Four months after the cross and the flowers and the funeral, I heard something akin to a sonic boom, somewhere down the empty gravel road. The sound is creating waves of a white electric crash through the room like foam from ocean waves. I asleep in my cot, in the back place of my store, when I heard the sound. Everything in the room shuddered when the white waves crashed, the lantern by my cot, the storage shelf it rested on, even the glass of water I left on the floor last night. For a moment, I wondered if it was Sam, Sam Winchester. That maybe he had found a way to bring his brother back from Hell.
Poor Dean.
I quickly dismissed the thought. Sam has been struggling for months to find a way, to see his brother back from the dead, all to no avail. Nearly every other time he calls the shop it's with this desperate braid of lavender hope and dark grey dread. Almost every other time he calls, I have to be the bearer of bad news. No, I didn't hear anything. No, I didn't see anything. Dean hasn't come back, or if he has, he hasn't come past my shop. Four months of that…after so much time to try, as much as I hate to admit it, it seems a little unlikely that the white thunder could be his doing. No hunter could cast a spell so powerful it would go 'boom'. It couldn't be him. It couldn't be Sam. If he'd just tried something, my phone would be buzzing up a storm.
…No. Whatever I heard, it wasn't Sam. Dean was still dead; his cross was still there. And the fresh flowers I put there just last week, must always be drying in the Sun. But that wash of white thunder, that booming sonic noise, what could it be? I couldn't help but wonder.
Dean woke up to darkness with a gasp. Breathing heavily now, he frantically searched his pockets until he found his lighter and flicked it on. The only thing in front of his face? Oakwood.
"Help!" He cried hoarsely to nobody. "Help! Help!"
Pounding on the wood in front of him as hard as he could, the cheaply-built coffin broke easily. Dirt poured through the hole his fist had made. But Dean kept digging. Six feet of Earth on top of his face, but he didn't give up.
In the middle of a grassy field, that simple white oak cross still stood planted. Flowers are turning brown at the foot of it. Suddenly, a hand burst out of the grassy dirt, then another and with a sheer force Dean Winchester pulls himself up and out of the ground. Crawling around from the hole he made, grunting and gasping for breath.
Falling onto his back, the drying flowers become his pillow until he recovers the energy to breathe and stand at the same time. But all around him, what used to be a shaded forest, was now a perfect circle of dead trees, offering no shelter from the glaring sunlight. All the trees had fallen unconscious at once as if some mighty force had come and struck them down with its thunder.
I thought I heard footsteps on the gravel of the country road. The sound like a thread of dark and subtle indigo weaving around me. But I have listened to many phantom noises around this shop in recent months. Wondering if Sam had returned to reclaim his brother, or if Dean had come looking for him, resurrected by his still living kin.
From the back room, in the wall behind the cashier's counter, I thought I heard a pounding on the front door and a loud voice calling. A thin, twined rope of intense white and sunset red. Curious, I headed towards the door of the room. But when I heard the sound of breaking glass, bright like a flash from a camera, I jumped back.
Pausing, I waited and listened for a minute or two. After that, I slowly approached the door to the storage room. But when I opened the door and returned to my desk, no one was in the store. All the doors shut, but the front door had a pane of broken glass. Whoever had come, they had already gotten what they wanted and left.
Which was ok, I decided. Business was always slow, for as long as I've owned this store the only customers I've had are the sad, the damaged, the lonely, and the lost. Which was okay, I didn't mind turning this place into a homeless shelter in the winter months. I kind of enjoy being in charge of this road-tripper's watering hole in the summertime. Beyond that, in the spring and fall, I could quickly get by without precisely fifty water bottles in the refrigerators, and I would love to get rid of all those old porn magazines in front of my desk. More than anything. Granted, the newspapers have been a bit expensive to replace these past few years, but for now, that was ok.
I was alone again.
Shrugging off the nerves from the break-in, I walked back into the storage room and finished up cleaning last night's mess; an empty Gatorade bottle, a busted-up notebook and an unfinished bag of peanut M&M's. Then I heard shuffling in the store, faint and distorted like a spray of lavender-coloured perfume. What is it this time? I wonder to myself. Again, finding myself curious, I creep up to the door, summon my courage, and then walk out of the storage room with a professional air to greet my potential customer.
"Good morning! My name's Brianna, how may I hel-." Once I saw the person making all the shuffling noises, I stopped. My voice trailed off.
A man with shortcut sandy-blonde hair, flannel shirt, t-shirt and jeans, had been caught red-handed stuffing a pile of snacks, energy bars and several water bottles into a smuggled plastic bag. The moment my voice breached the silence, he froze with his back to me.
"By golly," I gasped, my voice a pale lavender of soft surprise. It was him. Four months ago I had been building a coffin for his corpse… now he was here. "—Dean Winchester—I can't believe it, you're alive!" I cheered, suddenly shocked by the neon purple of my feeling of triumph. "He did it! He brought you back! He truly did it!"
The man turned at the sound of my voice. "Wha—Do I know you?" Red. A deep, sultry-rose-red. That's what his voice was like.
"Do you remember the flowers, Dean? The flowers that were at the cross where you were...?" I asked, trying to keep my voice a light kind of purple.
Immediately, this man's shoulder's tense, his feet squaring themselves—poised to intimidate—with the words: "That's not what I'm asking. How do you know my name?"
"Sam, he told me what happened," I told him because it should have been obvious. "He was driving, four months ago. He pulled over about a mile from my store. When I found him, you had just died."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know," I replied. "Last time I talked to him, he was still looking for a way to bring you back. But I honestly had no idea he and—"
"He and who, he and Bobby?"
That name immediately rang in my head with a pitch yearning nostalgia I hadn't felt in a long time. "Wait…you know Bobby?" I asked. "You mean like…Bobby Bobby? Bobby Singer?"
"Well, how many other Bobby's do you know?" He asked sharply, his red words tinged with irritated orange sarcasm.
"…Good point." I told him, switching topics quick as I could. "If you want to call Sam or Bobby, there's a payphone just outside." One button opened my cash register, but before I could pull out any change, the TV on the left side of the room flickered on. I hadn't used that television for ages. And now it only showed static. Dean walked over and shut it off. But the radio on my right just managed to replace it. I turned it off.
Not missing a beat, Dean goes to a shelf and pulls out a carton of salt. Immediately he opens it and begins to pour it all along the windowsills of the shop. That's when the sharp tone sounds. A high pitched, single-toned sound screams through the shop. I cover my ears, Dean covers one ear with one hand but keeps on pouring salt. The nonsense words within that whining sound sting my ears; but the colour of those words fill the room with blue, bright and eye-catching.
As the sound continues, Dean clutches his other ear in pain and crouches to the floor, groaning in agony. He cannot see the colours. Not many people can. The window above his head shatters shards of bright blue. We both jump and try to escape the shrapnel, but then all the glass in all the windows and doors and ceiling breaks. Blowing gusts of bright blue everywhere.
Then it stops.
I uncover my ears, just as Dean does, looking around cautiously. Quick to finish what I started, I pulled some quarters from the change drawer and offered them to Dean. "Here's some change for that payphone."
Dean dials his brother's cell phone number, only to hear an alert tone and a recorded voice say; "'We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected.'"
Newly resurrected and all-around disgruntled, the young hunter hung up the payphone, then inserted another few of the quarters the easy-going shop girl had given him. He dials a new number and lets it ring. One ring and someone picks up. It's Bobby.
"Yeah?"
"Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"It's me."
"Who's 'me'?"
"Dean."
Dial tone. Dean hangs up, puts in another quarter and calls again.
"Who is this?"
"Bobby, listen to me."
"This ain't funny. Call again; I'll kill ya."
Dial tone. Again. Dean hangs up the phone, then turns. Sitting at the side of the convenience store, he sees an old, beat up white car. Walking back over to the door of the shop, Dean knocks and calls to the shop girl in the white cami, pink hoodie and black pants.
"Hey, is this your car here on the side?" he asks.
The shop girl looks up at the sound of his voice, silver hoops swinging beneath her high ponytail. "Yea. That car's mine." Then she smiled, "Need a ride, Mister Winchester?"
I drove my little white beat-up Ford to a place I knew very well, Dean sitting shotgun with his groceries in his lap, tapping his knees with his fingers anxiously, filling the cab of the car with orange.
"You're not ok, are you?" I asked him as we drove, my voice blending near-indigo into the orange haze in the air.
"No, not really."
"Nervous to see Bobby?"
"Nervous? Nah." He lied, the fib itself as yellow as a neon sign; may as well have screamed 'Liar'.
"Then why you tapping your fingers so fast?"
"Because I feel like it."
"Liar."
"Maybe I'm just impatient."
"Then I'll drive a little faster," I said, easing the gas pedal forward. My car groaned reluctantly but eventually did as I asked. His fingers still tapped his knee, the orange of his anxiety filling the vehicle like a toxic swamp gas leaking from his fingertips.
"…Ok, maybe."
"Maybe what?" I ask, rolling my lips together to smother the triumphant little smile trying to worm its way onto my face.
"Maybe I am a little nervous."
Only then did I let my victory shine with a smile. "Of course, you are, you've been away from home for four months and are about to see your friends for the first time since then. You have every right to be nervous."
From the corner of my eye, I could see a particular kind of tick in the older man's jaw. "'away from home'. That's an excellent way of putting it." He grumbled.
A little bit of his irony rubbed off on my smile, but suddenly there was a tiny question niggling at me. Something I'd wondered a lot during this past for months watching over Dean and Sam Winchester. "My mother always told me that time passes differently in the afterlife, wherever it is you go…" I started slowly, keeping my words kind and neutral purple as I could as I tried to broach the subject. "…Is that true?"
Dean scoffed, interrupting red. "What do you think?"
"Honestly? –I don't know. I remember an old family friend who had books on all kinds of supernatural things, but in all my life I've never found anything that proved or disproved what my mother thought." I told him honestly, "You're the only person I've ever known who's ever come back to tell the tale, so…"
"So you're from a hunting family too, huh?" he asked, deftly swerving past my inquiry, his expression never wavering from that aimless stare over the dash of my car.
I swallowed, a little bit of light lavender concern weaving its way into my next words; "No, just my friend…" I amended as smoothly as possible. "…But he's one of the best. Started way back when his wife died possessed by a demon." I said.
The new Lazarus suddenly let a flicker pass through his blank eyes almost like…maybe a spark of recognition? "Huh," he muttered, though mostly to himself. "well that's just a patch of bad luck, ain't it?"
During those four months between myself and Sam, there were times where I could make Sam genuinely laugh. But it seemed to me that, without his brother beside him, the world had lost its humour in a lot of ways. With what little time we had to talk at any one time, the most I could get out of the younger Winchester was this sort of bitter half-laugh where Sam would sort of scoff, kind of laugh, or exhale with a tone that barely glimmered with golden amusement. –Suddenly it seemed as if the Winchester-half-laugh had been absorbed into the McKenzie family: "Huh, 'patch of bad luck', that's an excellent way of putting it."
Maybe he looked at me, from the corner of his eye, but with my gaze directed to the road before me, I couldn't be sure. Other than that, we just continued driving.
In no time at all, Dean and I arrive at Bobby's house. Anxious, Dean is the first one to reach the door and pounds on it with the side of his fist; a vein of abrupt white in a haze of itching orange. Bobby opens the door to find the elder Winchester alive on his doorstep, with me half-hidden behind him. The look on Dean's face seems…apprehensive...while Bobby looks just plain suspicious of him, his aura changing from orange to shaded grey.
"Surprise." Dean, a rather pathetic attempt at humour.
Out from behind his back, Bobby takes a silver knife. As Dean finds his way into the house, Bobby lunges forward and slashes at him. I dash into the house after him, reaching for his arm to stop him. But Dean beats me to it. He grabs Bobby's arm and twists it around; making Bobby break his grip and backhands him for good measure.
"Bobby! It's me!" Desperate orange floods the room
"My ass!" Bobby shouts at him, his more of an angry red than a desperate tone.
Dean shoves a chair between himself and the angry man. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!" He shouted back, trying desperately to prove himself. "Your name is Robert Steven Singer. You became a hunter after your wife got possessed, and…" Dean's voice suddenly trailed off. He looked at me, realisation dawning on his face. "You're kidding!"
I shake my head. "Nope. Not kidding at all." I say, motioning to Bobby with my head. "That's the family friend I was telling you about, right there. One of the best hunters in the country." With an elegant gold embellishing my words.
Bobby suddenly stops at the sound of my voice, then turns and looks at me. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked angrily, his words stinging red. "How the hell do you know this boy?!"
"I met Sam the night Dean died," I told him. "We built him a coffin and buried him in the woods by my shop."
"Oh, you mean that tinderbox your mother bought in Tuscola?" he asked mockingly.
"Yes! Yes, I do!" I shouted back at him suddenly. My orange and red taking a jab and joining all the other tones of itself in the room. No one would take a jab at my mother without getting their just desserts from me. "Uncle, I know Sam. I knew him in his darkest hour yet. And if I know Sam, then I know Dean. And that," I said, thumbing over to the Winchester boy in the living room, his orange anxiety turned slightly yellow to worry. "Is Dean, the real Dean."
Bobby lowers the knife in his hand, then looks over at Dean. Walking closer, he cautiously puts his hand on Dean's shoulder. Then, out of nowhere, he swipes at him again.
"Bobby!" I shout indignantly.
By the time his name left my mouth, Dean already had him subdued and disarmed. "Come on Bobby, you're the closest thing Sam, and I have to a father. You know us. You should be able to tell by now. I am not a shape-shifter!"
"Then you're a Revenant!"
Dean shoves Bobby back, he and I both looking at the old man with a vague look resembling disgust. Dean has the knife in his hand, and he holds it out in front of him. I stiffen...because I know precisely what he's going to do.
"Alright. If I was either, could I do this…with a silver knife?" Rolling up his left sleeve, Dean grimaces as he slices the skin on his arm. Just above his elbow, a line of blood appears in the trail of the knife.
Bobby stares. "Dean?" he asks, finally starting to believe.
"That's what we've been trying to tell you!" I say, exasperated with the older man, my so-called 'uncle'.
Bobby finally breaks out of his hunting mode, grabbing Dean and abruptly wrapping him in a tight hug, which Dean returns with enthusiastic golden relief, his breath a puff of golden dust. I smile, watching them unite like father and son. They pull apart. "It's…It's good to see you, boy." Bobby says, a little overwhelmed.
"Yeah, you too."
"But…how did you bust out?"
"I don't know. I just, uh, I just woke up in a pine box…" Suddenly Bobby splashes a glass flask of holy water on Dean's face. I can't help it. I burst out laughing. Dean spits the water out of his mouth half-heartedly. "I'm not a demon either, you know." He muttered.
"Sorry. Can't be too careful." Bobby replied, without much remorse.
I chuckle, mostly to myself. "Here, let me get you a towel."
When I return to Dean with his towel, I pick up the conversation quickly.
"But…that don't make a lick of sense." Bobby said, bewildered.
"Yeah, you're preaching to the choir."
"Dean. Sam told me your chest was in ribbons and your insides were slop. You've been buried for four months now. Even if you could slip out of hell and into your meatsuit—"
"I know, I should look like a Thriller video reject," Dean muttered. I chuckled a little bit at the image, secretly.
"What do you remember?" Bobby asked, asking the same question I had been wondering about ever since I saw Dean alive again.
"Not much. I remember I was a Hellhound's chew toy, and then…light's Out. Then I come to six feet under, that was it." Dean says. The lull in his words catches my attention, but he keeps on talking, deciding to change the subject. "Sam's number's not working. He's uh…he's not…"
"No," I say definitively, making sure to cut his sentence off before he starts thinking the worst. "He's alive Dean, I know it."
Both Dean and Bobby look over at me. "How do you know?" they ask simultaneously.
"I gave him my number. He's been calling me almost every other week to check on Dean." I said first to Bobby, trying to shrug off the intensity of their gazes. "Or to check and see if something he tried to use to revive you worked," I said, speaking this time to Dean.
"What?!" Bobby exclaimed, flying up from his chair. "You're telling me that that idgit has been calling you every week and yet I haven't heard a lick from him for months?! What the hell?!"
"What!?" Dean says, now that it was his turn to be astounded. "Bobby, you should've been looking after him!"
"I tried! He was dead set on it!" Bobby defended. "These last months haven't been exactly easy, you know. For him or me. Sam had to bury you!"
Dean suddenly paused, a thought seemingly occurring to him before he asked; "…Why did you bury me, anyway?"
"I didn't." Bobby quickly corrected, shaking his head. "Sam did. I wanted you salted and burned. The usual drill. But, he wouldn't have it."
"Well, I'm glad he won that one." Dean quipped ironically.
"He said you'd need a body when he got you back home someday," Bobby told him. "That's about all he said."
The air around Dean suddenly turned pale grey like the mist of suspicion. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice deathly low.
"He was quiet," Bobby said, completely unaffected by Dean's sudden seriousness. "Real Quiet. And then he practically just took off. Wouldn't return my calls. I tried to find him, but he didn't want to be found."
"Goddammit, Sammy!" Dean cursed, the halo of colour around him burning the grey away until it was completely red with anger and yellow with a merciless sense of anxious fear.
"What?" I asked with dread…"What is it, Dean? What's wrong?" I've always hated yellow.
"Oh sure, I came back home okay. But whatever he did to bring me back, it is bad mojo." Dean spat back over his shoulder, suddenly pacing back and forth before me with that towel still tossed over his shoulder.
Something tensed in my chest, just that little bit of lavender concern resurfacing when I dared myself to ask; "—What's so bad about it?"
"Oh, you should have seen that forest lot you and Sam put me in. It was like a nuke went off out there. And then there was this…force, this presence, I don't know what it was, but it, it blew past me at Brianna's store. She heard it too. Shattered everything glass in the place. And then this." Quicker than I can blink, Dean rips off his flannel shirt, rolls up his T-shirt sleeve to reveal a freshly-red brand. A brand in the shape of a handprint. Bobby flies to his feet as I stumble back a little.
"By golly," I whisper at the same time as Bobby curses with a curled fist.
"It was like a demon just yanked me out." Dean said, jumping over the raging sound of my 'Uncle' Bobby's fluorescent blue surprise. "Or rode me out."
"But why?" I asked.
"To hold up their end of the bargain."
"You think Sam made a deal," Bobby said. I open my mouth, about to deny that Sam would ever do such a thing. It was too risky. But then Dean decided to say;
"It's what I would have done." —That shut me right up.