Between The Echoes

Set early season 8 after 8X01 and before 8x02 "What's Up, Tiger Mommy?" This story assumes that there's a fairly large gap between episodes 1 and 2.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It begins in a dream, a nightmare not unlike a lot of the ones he's had before. The people he couldn't save, they all come back to him eventually. Sometimes their faces mold themselves into the hideous fabric of motel comforters and in the cracking plaster of gas station bathroom walls. Sometimes he can't picture their faces at all.

That's worse.

This dream isn't the worst he's had. Dean remembers the face and the time and all the other little details because memory is a curse in this business and someone upstairs probably decided it'd be hilarious to give him a damn good one. Consciousness finds him before the details of the dream really make themselves known. It's just a vague picture swaddled in remembering. But he wakes up and the face from the dream is still there. A boy, flickering at the edges of his drearily blinking eyes.

"First shower?" Sam asks, and Dean realizes he's truly awake now, that the image should be gone, or at least fading. The boy frowns at him. Dean knows exactly how old he is. Should be.

Only just a teenager. Hasn't yet learned how to drive.

Dean blinks again, more deliberate. Answers his brother. "Go for it."

Sam looks at him a little funny, like his voice came out wrong or something, but Dean doesn't dwell on it. He rolls back over, closes his eyes. He's still not used to sleeping in a bed again.

"Wake me when you're done."

Too soon after, Sam is shaking him back awake. It's a mistake, and Dean's glad he hasn't been sleeping with a knife under his pillow lately, no matter how badly he wants to. Still, the grip he'd had on Sam's throat wasn't loose, and he only stops apologizing because something catches his eye. The ghostly boy blinks at him expectantly, still standing at the edge of his bed.

Dean ignores him. He's been seeing things, lately. Mostly Cas- just flashes of an angel who isn't there, who won't ever be coming back. This is nothing different. Dean takes his time in the shower and turns the water as hot as it will go. If it lasts long enough, he figures it might break the skin, maybe sear it black. Inevitably, the hot water runs out in less than five minutes. His skin itches for the rest of the day.

The young boy's ghost hums Metallica from the backseat.

After a couple days, it starts talking.

They're alone, just him and the ghostly boy left behind in the motel room. Sam is running leads, and Dean is supposed to be doing more research here, is supposed to be figuring out where Samuel Bard is buried. He doesn't like that this particular ghost shares a name with his little brother. Still, the laptop is open, powered up. He's sitting at a small table near the door, and his fingers are hitting keys.

"I remember everything," says the boy, eyes big and round. He's standing near the bathroom door on the opposite side of the room, just watching.

Dean draws in a sharp, stuttered breath, fingers frozen over the keyboard.

"You get all your memories when you die. Every single one. Good and bad and ugly."

Dean's died before, but he's never really been a ghost. He doesn't know how it works, but it must be different than what he's experienced for himself. Still, he imagines it has to be better than Hell. As far as ugly goes, those are memories he could stand to lose. Purgatory's not far behind.

"I'm sorry," Dean says. His lip quivers a little and he bites the inside of his cheek on the words, swears under his breath at the unexpected flare of pain. The kid's eyebrow quirks, like they're in on a joke together now.

"Sorry for what?" he asks. Folds his hands together like a prison guard. The motion is unaccusing. Just a guy doing a job. Just a ghost haunting the guy who got him killed. His voice is different, more subdued than Dean remembers it being when they'd first met.

"Everything," Dean whispers. The screen of the laptop goes dark, and Dean catches sight of his own reflection staring back. He closes it, slow and controlled, stands up from the table he's been leaning over. He turns away from the ghost and stares at the motel room door. Thinks about leaving, but knows it'll just follow him. He sits back down, lowers his head and breathes.

"You don't have to be sorry for everything," the ghost says. It moves to sit on the bed closest to the door. Looks out the window. "Just some things."

Dean lifts his head.

"You just never should've left. That's all." The ghost looks at his shoes and shrugs a little, as though Dean had merely forgotten to buy him some ice cream.

"I thought it was safe," Dean says. "I thought...I thought you were safe. If I'd known there was still… I never would've…"

He chokes on the rest of the useless words and stares at his hands, because if he looks at the kid, he'll see how his feet don't dangle off the side of the bed, but instead rest squarely on the floor. How he's sprouted so tall, so fast just like Sam did. How he won't grow any taller.

Dean doesn't move for a long time. He realizes it only when he hears the purr of the Impala outside, has to blink furiously and whip the laptop open again before Sam makes it in the door.

"I know where Samuel's buried," Sam says the moment he's closed it behind him.

"Good," replies Dean, rising from his chair with stiff legs and an uneven pounding in his chest. "Let's light 'im up."

When it's done, Sam practically has to drag Dean away from the flames.

"You don't seem happy," the ghost-kid says to him a few days later.

Sam's grabbing snacks from the gas station convenience store while Dean fills the tank. This time the ghost is leaned against the back of the car, not far from where Dean's fiddling with the gas cap. The hunter's fingers spasm a little, still not quite used to having his invisible guest spew out observations. Mostly, the kid keeps quiet. Just hums along to the music Dean plays and smiles a little, still acting like they've got some inside joke going. Dean wishes he knew what that joke could possibly be. Then again, maybe he doesn't.

Dean knows this is different from the other hallucinations he's been having. He knows he should probably tell Sam. Probably soon. Dean reaches for the gas nozzle and starts filling the tank.

"You're not gonna answer me?" the ghost says after a too-long pause.

"Wasn't a question," Dean volleys, not making eye contact. He's watching the numbers on the screen climb. The kid scoffs.

"For real, though," the ghost insists. "I've been...observing for a while now. And you seem miserable."

Dean rolls his eyes and stares straight ahead, wishing the tank full . "Maybe that's because I'm being haunted."

"Nah. I've been watching you for longer than you know," the ghost says, shaking his head. "Takes a while to break through the veil, after all. Plus I didn't find you for a long time. You were somewhere else, huh? Somewhere bad?"

Dean whips his head around to face the spirit, stunned. "You've been...how long have you…" he stops, takes a deep breath. "I mean how long since you…?"

"Since I got eaten alive, you mean?"

Dean flinches, paling considerably. "That's… don't."

"That's what happened." The kid shrugs, that stupid, nonchalant raising of his shoulders. Dean wonders if this is how Sam felt in the year before Dean's deal came due; all the times Dean cast aside his own death like a pair of dirty socks never meant to make it to their next motel room.

Dean shakes his head, eyes burning. "I don't...you…"

"Gotta be over a year now, I think," the kid says, saving Dean from having to form a coherent sentence, of which he seems incapable at the moment. "Time doesn't mean as much once you're dead, but I think that's how long it's been."

Dean forgets to breathe. Over a year. Memories attack him, harsh and horrible. "Your mom…"

"Oh, you remember my mom, do ya?" the kid quips, eyebrows raised suggestively.

Dean just stares. He's not sure what expression is on his face, but he imagines it's brimming with at least some of the grief pooling inside his stomach, because the boy's ghost seems to immediately regret his words. His face softens, making him look even younger.

"Sorry. Sorry," he says. His tone shifts a little. "Look...pull yourself together, okay? Your brother's coming back."

Dean sniffs and straightens automatically.

"They didn't have ranch-flavo…" Sam pauses at the passenger side, a bag of Jim's Original Beef Jerky held over the hood of the car as an offering. There's a plastic bag in his other hand, no doubt filled with something a bit healthier. "Dean?" he asks, dropping both bags to his side and staring dumbly at his brother from across the car. "Dean, what's wrong?"

If this had been last year, Dean knows Sam would've already been right next to him, grabbing at his shoulders and tilting his chin up and checking him over or something. But things are different now. Dean knows he's changed, knows he's still holding onto an ugly rage directed at his little brother, the guy who didn't look for him. Most of him knows that's not fair, that there's no way Sam could've known where he'd ended up. But there's a tension there that can't be dispelled, and Sam can feel it.

Dean clears his throat.

"Nothing's wrong," he lies. He's not sure what Sam's seeing in his expression, but he does his best to school it.

"You look like you...I don't know. The 'seen a ghost' expression's never worked for us, has it?" Sam asks. It's supposed to be a joke, but he says it like he's not sure they can make jokes anymore. Something pinches inside Dean's stomach at that, but he can't care about that right now. The ghost sitting on the end of the Impala gives him a pitying look. Dean has seen many echoes of that expression. He forgets to answer Sam.

"Dean…" Sam says again. It's not a sentence that's ever needed an ending. Sam usually just waits for his big brother to fill in the rest for him. But Dean doesn't. Not this time. He just rubs a hand over his eyes and faces Sam again.

"Can we go?" Dean doesn't wait for a reply, just grabs the now silent nozzle from the tank and shoves it back into its rightful place.

He doesn't put the music back on because he doesn't think he can bear to listen to the kid singing along.

This isn't some kind of self-flagellation. He didn't seek ghost-kid out. As far as Dean's concerned, all this is is exactly what he had coming. There are some things he doesn't deserve to keep buried, and this has undoubtedly become one of them. This is maybe one of the biggest.

He knows he'll tell Sam eventually, just not yet. Because once Sam knows, it'll be over.

Once Sam knows, they'll have to burn the body.

"You gotta go see my mom," ghost-kid says one day, maybe a week later, and Dean almost loses it before he remembers Sam is sitting in the car right next to him. They're on their way to take care of a vampire's nest outside Chubbuck, Idaho, and Dean's been thinking about how it could be Benny. Another thing he has yet to tell his brother about.

He's not thinking about the ghost in the backseat, who hasn't spoken in at least a few days. When he does, Dean catches his eye in the rearview mirror and shakes his head minutely, once.

"Please, Dean? Please just go check on her. She's so sad all the time. She cries, and most days she won't get out of bed. You could help, I know you could."

"Dean?" Sam asks, but Dean doesn't reply, doesn't say anything even when the car is choking on gravel, shifted violently into Park and Dean's no longer in it, is breathing hard and taking deliberate strides down the deserted road, as far as he can get from that backseat and the remainder of what used to be a fourteen-year-old kid.

"Dean!" Sam is coming after his brother (of course he is, they're always supposed to come for each other, no matter what's going on between them and how many secrets Dean's keeping or how many times he's wished, guiltily, for the simplicity of Purgatory again) but today that truth feels like a curse and Dean doesn't want it. He starts running, boots kicking up gravel as he lengthens his stride, lets his feet take him as fast as they want to. Purgatory was get going or get dead, and Dean can feel the distance between himself and his brother growing wider.

He stops before he's ready because he'd never be ready and because he knows Sam will just keep following him, will always follow him except for the one time he didn't. And he knows he can't run from this anymore.

Dean straightens and interlaces his hands above his head, getting his breath back. The ghost is sitting on the ground beside him as if he's been there the whole time, pulling up the grass with his pale hands.

"I can't," Dean says, eyes large and pleading. "You know I can't go see her. She won't...she doesn't know..."

"It doesn't matter," the boy interrupts, watching the dead grass fly out from between his fingers and swirl out into the steady breeze. "She needs someone, and I'm not there anymore. You're the next best thing."

"You know that's not true," Dean whispers, moisture in his eyes. "You know I'd only make things worse for her, same as last time."

"We needed you," says the kid, his own eyes wide and glistening.

"It's not that simple," Dean insists. The tears are coming now, and so is Sam. He doesn't try to stop either. "I thought you were safe."

"Dean, who? Who's safe?" Sam has reached him, is huffing out short breaths of his own with his hands hovering just over Dean's shoulders, as if he's afraid to touch him.

"Sam…" Dean says, shattered eyes finding Sam's. It's all he can say. He reaches for his little brother, curls a fist inside his t-shirt. Sam must've ditched the flannel during the unexpected race along the roadside.

"Dean?" Sam sounds lost and scared and small and young and it only makes it worse because he is the echo of the dead boy who still sits in the grass below them with his eyes overflowing, looking up at Dean with two fistfulls of grass clutched inside his palms.

Sam pulls Dean into him, and Dean lets him, but only for a moment. He rests his forehead against Sam's chest briefly, centering himself. And then he pulls in a breath and pushes himself back to look his brother in the eye.

"I have...I have to tell you something."

The explanation is short. To the point. There's a ghost. A kid. It's following him. It's been following him for a while now, and Dean hasn't said anything about it until now.

"Why the hell not?" is the first thing Sam wants to know. They're not touching anymore, Dean's fist finally unfurled from Sam's shirt, Sam's fingers no longer locked around Dean's forearms.

"I couldn't. I couldn't tell you." Dean casts a glance down to the spirit in question. The boy is no longer crying openly, but there is still wetness on his cheeks and now he's glaring at Dean, lip curled.

"She can't see me, Dean. She's sad and alone and I can't do anything to fix it. But you could. You owe me that much!" he yells, and Dean closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them before he speaks.

"No one can fix this," he says.

"Dean, fix what?" Sam is at the beginnings of panic now, shoulders stiff as he runs a hand through his hair and tries to fill the spot of 'calm and rational brother,' a position which Dean has suddenly and violently vacated. Dean's not actually sure he's held the position since before Purgatory.

"You left me! You left me behind and something got me, Dean! Just like you promised it wouldn't!"

Dean lets out a low groan, smashes his hands over his ears to drown it out. "Stop. Please stop."

Sam startles beside him, whips his eyes down to where Dean's gaze is fixated on the dead grass, looking to find what he can't see.

"He's here?" Sam asks. "Right now?"

Dean nods slowly. "He doesn't leave."

"We have to burn him, Dean. We have to find the bones."

Dean sighs, letting his hands fall from his ears. "We can't."

"Why not?" Sam's concern is quickly morphing into frustration, but Dean knows not to take it personally. It's born of fear, after all. And he knows his barely-there explanations aren't helping, even as he sputters out the next one.

"Because I...this is different."

Sam squeezes the bridge of his nose with his fingers, trying not to boil over. "Look, Dean, if you're thinking this is something you deserve, that this is some kind of penance? I promise you, it isn't. Whatever mistakes you made, whatever the story is behind this...this kid, I know you did the best you could. Because it's you."

Dean shakes his head, takes a few more steps down the road, away from the Impala. Behind him, the ghost gets to his feet and follows after. The sun is almost directly overhead, blinding and insistent. "You don't know what you're talking about, Sam."

Dean is turned away, but he knows Sam has thrown his hands up in frustration because he hears when they come back down to slap against his jeans. "Well then enlighten me," Sam urges. "Tell me why we can't handle this the way we normally would."

"This is different," Dean repeats. As if saying it twice will defer any further questions on the subject. It's far from the case.

"Different how?"

"God, just tell him." The ghost is approaching anger at approximately the same speed as Sam. Dean saw the similarities between the two of them then, and he sees them now.

He turns around to face them both. "He...this kid. I know him."

"Of course you do," Sam coaxes, voice gentle now that he's getting his brother to spill. "Dean, you remember them all. He's...it's the gig, man. We can't save everyone. You know we can't save everyone."

Dean shakes his head in frustration. "But I did. I did save him. I left."

"So then, what? The monster wasn't really dead? Came back once you were gone?" Sam is grasping at straws, trying to make something stick. Dean laughs humorlessly. It is an ugly sound, like something dead has slithered out from between his teeth. Something that was never supposed to see the light of day. There is a pause in which everything is quiet. The wind shifts a little, rustling the trees along the roadside, but that's all.

"It was me, Sam," Dean says finally. "I was the monster. And I needed to go."

Sam's fingers twitch. "Dean...I don't understand."

Dean laughs again, but it's not quite as ugly. He smiles sadly, runs a hand over his face.

"He wants me to go see his mom, you know? Go talk to her."

Sam is thrown. Dean watches as Sam grapples with what this might mean, sees the response form on his brother's tongue and the effort it takes to string together what he thinks might be the right words.

"Is that...is that what you want to do? Would that put him to rest? To go see her?"

"No," Dean says mirthlessly, catching the eyes of the dead boy standing silent on the dead grass. The boy's chin quivers. "She doesn't know me anymore. She doesn't remember."

Dean watches as the ghost moves towards him, pausing just a few inches away. He reaches for Dean, a substanceless hand that somehow, in some way, makes contact with Dean's shoulder. He shudders a little at the almost-touch, blinking fast.

Across from him, Sam is shaking his head in confusion.

"I don't underst…?"

And then Sam stops, and Dean knows he's figured it out. Knows he doesn't have to say the next words, but it feels like he owes them to the kid standing beside him, transparent hand patting at the back of Dean's neck in a gesture of backwards sympathy that makes him sick to his stomach. Dean looks at Sam and tries not to break all over again. It's the first time he lets himself think the name, much less say it. It slides off his tongue like damnation.

"The ghost." His throat catches. "It's Ben Braeden."

I'm sure quite a few of you figured out who this 'mystery ghost' was long before the end reveal. I was going for something less obvious, but no matter how much I fiddled with the story, I couldn't find a way to make it work out that way. Regardless, I hope you're at least a little bit hooked by this point =).