Nightly News Roundup
K Hanna Korossy
"So," Dean asked distractedly, "any kid in the neighborhood is vulnerable?"
"Yep," Sam answered.
"We gotta make a stop. I want to check on someone."
Sam raised his head. "If the real kids are still alive, we don't have time—"
"We have to." And Dean was gone, out the door, not even waiting for Sam's agreement.
Sam frowned after him, then grabbed his jacket and followed.
Dean didn't seem forthcoming with answers, though. Sam didn't ask; his brother would be more likely to open up if he did it in his own time. Instead, he waited until they'd settled into thirty miles above the speed limit, then finally cleared his throat.
"I, uh, found another one. Graduate housing in Wisconsin, three people found dead in March, throats slit, one person missing." The papers—and probably the police—all thought it was the missing guy, Eric Chang, but Sam knew better. The eight other cases he'd found so far were all the same MO and all fell within the six months before Azazel snatched Sam from that roadside diner, leaving behind a similarly bloody scene.
Dean's lips bled to white. "Awesome. How'd we miss all these again?"
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. "Small number of vics, a probable explanation and suspect each time, spread out over the country and over months. Maybe a hunter looked into it, but gut instinct probably would've said it was a normal crime."
"Except for the sulfur," Dean sighed.
"Not exactly something CSI looks for," Sam agreed wryly.
"Well, nothing we can do about it now, right? So how 'bout we concentrate on the kids missing here and now."
Sam said nothing, just raised an eyebrow and waited.
Dean's face contorted before smoothing out in resignation. "Lisa. She's got a kid," he confessed to the windshield.
Ah. Sam nodded, then tilted his head at Dean questioningly. "So…you were with her and the kid—"
"Ben."
"—Ben all day?"
Dean glanced over then, face drawn in what looked on the surface to be irritation but Sam recognized as disguised worry. "Yeah, so? He was having a birthday party. He's a cool kid, Sam, has good taste."
Sam smiled a tiny bit. "He liked you," he realized.
A muscle in Dean's jaw ticked. "You don't have to sound so surprised about it."
"No, I'm just…all you could talk about before was 'Gumby Girl,' and now it sounds like you had more fun with Ben." Dean's face continued to collect storm clouds, and Sam forgot all thoughts of teasing. "Is Lisa… Does Ben have a dad?"
"No," Dean said tersely. Then, after a couple of beats, "Stop looking at me like that."
Sam sighed and turned away. After a minute, he started worrying at a hole in his jeans. "You know that girl who showed up in Lincoln and ganked a few of the Seven Sins?"
A whole new tension slid into Dean's body. "Yeah?"
"She showed up here."
Dean looked over at him. "She followed you?"
"Her name's Ruby. There's something about her…"
Dean snorted. "Don't forget to use protection."
He felt himself pink at that, raised a hand to let it drop again. "Dean…"
"Salt, Sam." Dean's eyes cut over to him again, keen and with bitter humor. "I'm talking about salt and iron."
"Oh."
Thank God, that was when they pulled up in front of Lisa's house.
It was two days later, in the car once more, before Sam got over the shock enough—and worked up enough nerve—to tell Dean just what he'd learned Ruby was.
He just happened to leave out the part about their mom.
00000
Their bags went into the trunk, side-by-side in the same places they'd gone for the last two years. Dean paused a second to wonder if his bag would stay there after he was gone, then shucked the idea off. Whatever Sam had to do to deal after Dean was dead was okay by him.
Dean shut the trunk door, then paused, hand still on the key.
Sam had started to walk away but turned back at the hesitation, giving Dean a curious look.
"I never told you what Casey and I talked about while we were trapped in that basement."
Sam shifted back around to fully face him. "Yeah?"
"Yellow Eyes has a name. Azazel."
Sam blinked. "That's biblical—the scapegoat took on the sins for Azazel. In the Apocrypha, he was the leader of the Watchers."
"Thank you, Encyclopedia Brown, I can read too. Besides, I don't think they were talking about the same son of a bitch there."
"Okay." Sam put his hands on his hips. "Well, that gives us something to look into, maybe try to figure out his endgame."
Dean had pulled the keys out, fidgeting with them, his gaze dropped. "That's not all she said. Seems Hell's got its own denominations…and not all of them were behind Azazel and the 'Boy King' plan."
Sam's arms dropped and there was a moment of stillness. But Dean only looked up when Sam said dully, "So, I guess that's one more group now that wants my head on a platter."
Dean tilted his head to study Sam's pinched features. He'd gotten hurt in the showdown with Casey and her demon lover and had only been out of the hospital two days. He was still pale, but Dean knew that wasn't what made him look so worn out. "Doesn't change anything, Sammy. I mean, since when haven't we been on Hell's Most Wanted list, huh?"
Sam's mouth twisted as he looked away, not answering.
Dean reached up to cuff him gently in the shoulder. "We've got some time left. Lot can change in seven months." He lifted his eyebrows to give Sam a pleading look.
Sam breathed out, body deflating. "Yeah, I guess." He glanced around the empty parking lot. "How 'bout we start by getting out of Sin City."
Dean bounced his keys once in his palm. "You got it."
That night Sam had a long conversation outside with Bobby, while Dean pretended not to know.
00000
They sat up, panting at the sudden release from the dream root, and turned to each other.
"I saw him," they said in tandem.
Dean frowned. "Bobby?"
Sam gave him a confused look back. "You saw Bobby? No, I was talking about our sandman."
"Oh. Awesome." Dean jumped to his feet, wavered a little as he rode the rush, then looked around for his jacket. "Let's go see if Bobby got a wake-up call, too."
"You saw Bobby?" Sam repeated, standing more slowly.
Dean stopped, looking his brother over. "Yeah, I did. Convinced him it was his dream and he could wake up." He chewed his lip a second. "Bobby ever tell you about his wife?"
Sam's head swayed back. "Karen? Um, not really. I mean, not any more than you know—she got sick and died a long time ago."
"She wasn't sick." Dean watched him carefully. "She was possessed. Bobby didn't know what to do—he ended up having to kill her."
Sam's jaw went slack, and he leaned an arm back to touch the bed before sinking down on it. "God."
"Yeah, pretty much."
Sam shoved his hair out of his face. "Bobby tell you that?"
Dean leaned over to the grab the jacket he'd just spotted on the nearby chair. "Some of it. Rest of it I saw in person—that was the nightmare he was stuck in."
"Poor Bobby."
"Tell me about it." Dean hesitated. "You didn't…I mean, Sandman, he didn't drag any of your dirty laundry out or anything, did he?"
Sam smiled briefly. "Naw, I think we were all stuck inside Bobby's dream. The guy came at me with a baseball bat in the front yard."
"You all right?" Dean barked.
Sam held his arms out before letting them fall. "Not a mark. None of it was real, man."
"Sounds fun," Dean observed dryly. "Next time I'm tagging along with you."
Next time, of course, Sam tagged along with him instead. And learned one of Dean's secrets this time.
00000
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Lilith."
Dean was driving one-handed in deference to the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder, but he didn't seem to be taking any extra care. In fact, Sam wasn't sure he was really seeing the road at all. And that was before Dean cut a glance over at him. "Dude, in the last twenty hours, I got arrested, strip-searched, shot, attacked, and trapped in the demonic version of the Alamo. You really think this is a good time to be having this conversation?"
Sam wriggled his shoulders. "I just wanted you to know."
"Oh, now you want me to know."
"Dean…" Sam sighed. He was exhausted, too, from fighting the horde of demons that had descended on the police station, from making sure his injured brother didn't collapse on him, from being responsible for yet more lives. And that included Dean's deal looming an impossibly short few months away. "I haven't known that long, all right? Witch-demon Tammi just told me a new badass was coming who didn't want competition. I didn't know who it was or anything about her—didn't even know it was a she. It. Whatever."
Dean was listening, he could tell, but was still unwilling to let it go. "So why not tell me, huh? Someone paints a bull's-eye on my brother, I wanna know, Sam."
"Yeah, I know," Sam insisted. "I just…didn't wanna give you one more thing to worry about right now, all right?"
Dean twitched. A ripe few seconds passed, then he was pulling off the road. His good arm left the steering wheel to drag down over his drawn face. They'd have to stop soon, whether they were still within range of the fallout in Monument or not. "I'm not dead yet, okay?" he finally said, but his voice had lost its edge. "So for the time being, someone even looks at you funny, I want to know." He gave Sam a piercing look.
Sam stared back at him a moment. Then suddenly he snorted a laugh. Dean's startled look drew another one, then a third until he was helplessly chortling. "'Someone even looks at you funny'? Dude, I'm not nine anymore."
Dean looked chagrined, then a little embarrassed. He put the car back into Drive with probably more force than his injured body was comfortable with. "Shut up," he grumbled. "I just wanted to make sure you knew, okay?"
Sam sobered, but he felt lighter than he had five minutes before. That had always been the case when he'd unburdened himself to his brother, ever since he could remember.
He refused to think that soon maybe Dean wouldn't be around to do that with.
But now he just quietly answered, "I know."
The End