Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Rub it in my face, why dontcha? BTW, I'm not doing this every chapter, so consider this a blanket disclaimer for this fic. If I somehow gain possession of anything Supernatural-related, trust me, I'll brag here first.
Spoilers: Everything up through AHBL2 is fair game.
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Summary: This story picks up where The Guardian leaves off. If you haven't already read it, you should probably read it before you read this, otherwise a lot of this story won't make sense to you.
A/N: If you didn't catch the note that I added at the end of the last chapter of The Guardian, I discovered that the reason I was unable to figure out where to go with that story was that I had reached a good stopping place. So I stopped. This, then, is PART THREE of The Guardian series. Also, AJ already knows this, but I discovered a few months ago that Mr. ADSigMel and I are expecting our first baby, a little boy, in June. So if you see any really psychotic craziness in my writing, feel free to call me on it and I'll fix it, 'cause it's probably just the baby screwing with my head. It happens.
The silence within the Impala is deafening. Aside from the roar of the engine, no sound, not even a hint of Metallica, can be heard to break the monotonous tension. Dean stares straight ahead, jaw clenched, shoulders stiff, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. He has refused to allow his gaze to wander to the rearview mirror for over a week now. A couple of days ago, I finally talked Sam into getting Dean to take me to Lawrence. I'd been avoiding it, avoiding Missouri, since New Orleans. I've never met the woman, but I know that she's a powerful psychic. And I was so screwed up in the head after what went down in Louisiana that I could barely stand to be inside my own head, much less have somebody else floating around in here with me. Besides, I could barely get Dean to look at me, much less talk to me. It was pretty hard to persuade him to take me to see Missouri to get my freaky powers sorted out when he was out at some bar and I was stuck at the hotel with his brooding brother.
But then, as we were leaving the hotel in Houston after a salt-and-burn that Bobby had sent us on, I happened to pick up Dean's Zippo from the nightstand to toss into his bag. Seeing a couple hundred grave desecrations pass before my eyes, smelling the decomposing bodies and the charred remains, hearing Dean's banter with Sam, and before that, with John, as they waited for the bones to burn down…I knew I couldn't wait any longer. So I went to Sam and begged him to talk to Dean for me. I didn't tell him why I was so anxious to go to Lawrence, but the urgency in my voice was enough to convince him that I really needed to see Missouri. I have no idea how he talked Dean into it. Probably broke out the puppy-dog eyes. Nobody can resist that.
So now, here I am, in the backseat of the Impala once again. We bunked in Wichita last night. Dean left to go out immediately after our arrival at what I'm pretty sure was the skuzziest motel in town. He didn't return until after dawn, smelling like cigarettes, whiskey, and cheap perfume. Wordlessly, we all piled back into the Impala and set off again, but as the city skyline disappeared into the background, Dean's eyes drifted to the rearview mirror, where they caught the reflection of mine. "You don't have anything to prove to me, you know. It doesn't matter which of us is more badass. I don't care who gets drunker or screws more random strangers." "I've got nothin' to prove to anybody," he ground out in reply, "least of all, you." He said it as though I were lower than the chewed-up gum on the bottom of his boot. "Dean!" Sam snapped, angry at what he took to be his brother's hypocrisy. But I laid my hand on Sammy's shoulder and shook my head, and he fell silent.
Since then, not a word has been spoken between us. Dean stares out at the road stretching before us. Sam gazes out the side window, silently fuming over Dean's pigheadedness. Meanwhile, I, in the back seat, have simply curled up into the smallest ball I can form with my long limbs. I'm trying to be inconspicuous, but I don't think either of my companions is paying me any attention anyway. I don't blame Dean. It's clear enough to me that he's more uncomfortable around me than angry at me. I figure it's because we're so much alike, and that probably creeps him out some. I'll admit that I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. But under his discomfort, there is also an overwhelming sense of worry. I have no clue what concerns him, though, and he obviously isn't planning to talk about it, at least not with me.
Sammy is furious. That much is clear to everyone in the car. It's never failed to amaze me how easy it is to read him when he wants to be read. The anger is coming off of him in nearly visible waves. I know he thinks I'm being the way I am with Mel because of New Orleans. And I guess I am, to some extent. He's got it all wrong, though. I'm not mad at her. It's just weird for me to be around her. I've never met a girl that was quite so much like me. Hell, she's probably more like me than I am. She's a pro at drowning her emotional issues in whiskey and casual sex, and I had started to think that I had cornered that market.
I guess before she came along I just never really saw how my own behavior looks from the outside. Sammy always kinda rolled his eyes and went along with me. And after I made the deal…well, I could never tell if he was going along with my boozing and womanizing because he thought I deserved to have what little fun I could in the time I had left or if he just wanted to keep me distracted while he tried to find a way to get me out of it. It was probably a little bit of both. All I know is that I'm uncomfortable knowing what I now know about Mel. I mean, whether I like it or not, that girl has become part of the team. She's family. Not exactly like a little sister, but definitely like a distant cousin of whom I am very fond. And I don't want her to be like me. Especially not if she's the one that's gonna be left behind to take care of my baby brother after I'm gone. He deserves somebody way better than me…a saint, maybe. Yeah, maybe a saint would be good enough for my Sammy. Or an angel. Some shit like that. Yeah.
Of all the things that are wrong with my asshole of a brother, I honestly never thought hypocrisy would be one of them. But since he brought me back from the dead, I've begun to see that side of him. He was so angry after that faith healer traded his life for someone else's. He was even more pissed when Dad traded his own soul to save Dean. But then, what does he do? He turns around and does the same damn thing for me. At least that, though, I can understand. Sort of. I mean, hell. I don't know that I wouldn't have done the same thing if it had been Dean lying dead in the middle of that street in Cold Oak. Or maybe I would have just snapped and self-destructed.
At any rate, trading one soul for another is one thing. But this is completely different. I just don't get why Dean is so pissed at Mel. He's about the farthest thing I can imagine from a Boy Scout. So Mel likes to booze it up and screw random strangers in her spare time. How come she can't do it when that's Deans favorite pastime? I don't exactly approve, but it's none of my damn business. I just can't understand why he's being such an asshole to her about it. My brother is an idiot.
Dean has always been a drinker and a womanizer. It's part of what makes him who he is. Hell, some women actually dig that about him, though I've never understood why. Mel, though, as far as I can tell, turns to booze and casual sex to escape reality, to cope with the things that she can't face in her life. Is it just me or doesn't that make Dean's behavior worse than Mel's? It's no escape mechanism – it's just him. He can't blame his vices on anything except his own desire to indulge in them. Mel is just a woman with a lot of issues, doing what she can to deal with them in her own way. It's the wrong way, of course, and all she's doing is making things worse. But, hell, I'm no psychiatrist, and I can't tell her what to do.
I want nothing more right now than to just blow up at Dean, or better yet, beat some sense into him. The only thing stopping me is the fact that she doesn't want me to. She must be some kind of saint or angel or something – of course, I use those terms very loosely – to be so patient with my moronic brother. If I were in her shoes, I'd have given him a sizeable piece of my mind by now. Instead, I glance over my shoulder and see that she's huddled in the backseat as if trying to make herself invisible and shake my head. Returning my gaze to the window, I notice that the cornfields are thinning as we approach Lawrence. Thank God. Maybe Missouri will be able to sort this all out.