Dean pulled up to the bunker in less than four hours. He barely parked the damn thing and he was out of the car. Dean walked quickly – he actively stopped himself from running – into the bunker.
"Sammy!" Dean growled as he entered the main study of the Men of Letters compound.
Dean spun around, looking for any signs of where Sammy and Cas were. He threw his hands up, brought them down on his head, and ran his fingers angrily through his hair.
"Sam!" Dean bellowed again.
"Dude," Sam stumble out of nowhere looking tired, "why are you yelling?"
"Where were you," Dean closed the distance between them in no less than two steps, "I was calling you!"
"Yeah, I heard." Sam rubbed his eyes. "Why are you yelling exactly?"
Dean was taken back by this question. Why was he yelling? There was no real reason to yell – was there? In his moments of contemplation Dean staggered backwards, allowing his thoughts to flow through his mind – freely and without restraint. He continued stumbling until his legs found the edge of a chair. He sat down out of habit…and mild confusion.
"I…" Dean tried to explain why he was so riled up, but words failed him because he just didn't know, "I thought you had something…we need to kill whatever the hell this is in Wisconsin." The response came from a deep part of Dean's mind, one based in self-preservation. The answer was not one he had actively thought of, rather it just fell out of his mouth. The answer surprised him as well as Sam.
"Dude, freaking out and yelling isn't going to get us there any faster," Sam started back towards his room, "so calm the hell down…I am going to get dressed and we can leave."
Dean stared off into the distance. He was slowly recoiling his mind into the manageable mess he was used to. He was making his world make sense again after this brief moment of unexplainable madness.
"Sam?" Dean spoke quietly, stopping Sam in his tracks out of the sheer oddness of the sound of his voice.
"What." Sam replied flatly.
"Cas," Dean licked his lips and gulped, "you said Cas was here…where is he?
"He left almost right after I called you." Sam replied nonchalantly and continued to his room.
"Oh." Dean said to himself as he hunched over in his seat, closing his eyes, and putting his head in his hands. All that could be heard was the sound of Dean's purposeful regulated breathing.
Sam and Dean were in the car over an hour before they talked. Sam spent the time looking at his brother, wondering and worrying for him. He knew something was wrong, but that is normal for them. What he couldn't figure out was what was wrong. He racked his mind for anything that could have caused Dean to act so weird. Nothing happened that could cause this, Sam was sure. As far as their life goes it's been normal for them. Normal itself was weird, but not weird enough to cause Dean to go off the deep end. The best approach to this would be to ignore it for now, Sam decided, and hope that Dean brought it up.
"So," Sam started, and then waited for an indication that Dean had heard him. Dean nodded, and Sam continued, "I think we're dealing with a rogue Egyptian god."
"Well, that's a new one." Dean grunted as he shook his head in disgust.
"Yeah, well, we wouldn't want it to get boring would we?" Sam smirked as he read information on the laptop he had opened on propped up on his knees as Dean drove.
"Well, I'm a captive audience."
"So, here's what we know." Sam breathed in deeply. "There have been four instances of sets of parents being killed, mysteriously of course, leaving an orphan. Each of these families only had one child."
"And that's weird why?" Dean stole a glance at his brother.
"At first I didn't get it either, but then I dug into each family's past and found an interesting similarity." Sam fingers moved gently over his keyboard. "In each case the family's had child and protection services involved in their lives at some point," Sam paused and shifted uncomfortably, "and in two of the cases more than once."
"So these people hurt their own children?" Dean barked.
"Hurt is putting it mildly. But there is more that's weird."
"Weirder than some assholes hurting their child?"
"In each case the person in charge of keeping these kids safe was the same guy." Sam clicked on his track pad. "His name is Herman Bes."
"Other than the awful name what is weird about this guy?"
"Well," Sam gulped, which Dean took to mean that Sam was now giving him theory rather than fact, "there is a god, an Egyptian god, named Bes. He is the god of war and slaughter…a destroying force of nature." Sam stopped and sighed. "Dean, he was also a protector of children."
"So, let me see if I can guess where this is going." Dean cover his mouth with his right hand, then removed it dragging it slowly down his face until it fell into his lap. "You think because this guy's last name is Bes, and there is a god named Bess, and because these dick parents are the ones being killed it all adds up to an Egyptian god working in back-of-nowhere Wisconsin?"
Sam grimaced, "Yeah, that's about it."
"Right. Well, then, we'd better get there and talk to this guy."
Sam half laughed in disbelief, but chose to stay quiet and not push his luck.
The brothers drove in relative silence for the rest of the trip. There were a few words here about stops for gas and food, some more about theories on their current job, and their last words were about what to do that night.
"I say we get some grub, a few beers, and sleep till tomorrow and we'll go talk to Bessie." Dean suggested.
"It's Bes, he's not a cow, but otherwise I agree."
Dean smirked, nodded, and turned the car into a nearby burger place.
Sleep came easily for Dean that night, which was never a good sign. The dream was familiar, too familiar really. A shadow in his doorway, a familiar smell that pervade the room, and a figure that stood unmoving. There was always that small part of Dean that wanted this person to come closer.
"Why are you here?" Dean spoke in his dream.
"You know why Dean." An all-to-familiar voice responded.
"I can't do this," Dean choked out the words, "it's wrong."
"You do so many things that others would say are wrong, but this is where you choose to draw your line." The figure laughed as it moved closer; it was still in shadows, but just barely. "This is what you want, but you will not let yourself have it because you believe it to be wrong."
"No, it is wrong." Dean stood up from the bed he'd been laying on in the dream.
"How is it wrong Dean, please explain it to me." The person didn't move out of the shadows.
"Because!" Dean roared back at the form hidden from view. "A man is supposed to be with…"
"…with a woman. A man is supposed to only love a woman." The man in the shadows replied, a hint of disappointment.
"Yes, god damn it, alright! That is the way it is supposed to be." Dean answered with a defeated sound to his voice.
Dean walked over to the shadow that hid the man from view. He stood on the edge of the light and stared into the not too dark doorway that hid his tormentor. Dean's shoulders were slumped in disappointment. His eyes did not dare to look up at the shape that lay just beyond the shadow. Dean's face was distorted in pain; a pain that cuts deep into the soul. Dean hated himself, he hated that as strong as he knew he was, and could be, he wasn't now. He couldn't even look this man in the eye. This man who used to bring him comfort, laughter, warmth…now all he felt was the cold trickle of shame and confusion. Funny enough, it was those eyes that started all of these feelings. Those emotive, loving, passionate eyes, they were the first things Dean had allowed himself to notice. They haunted him now; he couldn't look up into them.
"Please just give me some peace, at least in my dreams."
Dean woke up violently, arms flailing and legs kicking. The first thing Dean saw was Sam looking at him very concerned.
"Bad dream?" Sam questioned tentatively.
"With our lives when aren't the dreams bad." The finality of the tone to Dean's voice stopped Sam from questioning any further.
Dean took his time getting ready that morning. The shower pressure and the warmth made it almost possible for Dean to attempt to forget what was tumbling around in his head. His mind wandered around his problem for a while, and now it was fully taking over. What Dean relied on was that he knew what was right and what was wrong. That very fact allowed him to kill and not question his actions. Knowing what is right allowed him some solace in an otherwise terrible "profession." Knowing what was right let him sleep at night. Now, he didn't know what was right. He'd slept with women after having met them in some dive bar and left before they woke up in the morning. He had no problem with that; there was no pretense about what their relationship was. They both had a need they wanted filled and it was fun for both of them. There was no point in confusing the matter for the girl in question because Dean knew he couldn't be more than a one-night stand and perhaps a bad drunken decision. But now he had a feeling, one that he'd felt once or twice before, a feeling that isn't wrong. Loving another person is not wrong. What he was conflicted about was the fact that this person was not a woman. How could he have these feelings for a dude? He wasn't gay. The sheer number of girls he'd slept with proved that, right? What he couldn't deny was the feeling he got with him in the room. The feeling he got when he left. The dreams didn't help either. How could this feeling, this love, be wrong when every other time he felt it it was right? How can you decide when love is right? In his work there was no such thing as black and white, as much as he wished there were. Maybe this is the same thing. Maybe love functions in the world of gray. Maybe love is love and he should stop trying to make into something more than that.
Dean turned the shower off, feeling both lighter and cleaner. He toweled off quickly and went back into the room he and Sam were sharing. He stopped dead in his tracks.
"Cas?"
"Hello Dean," Cas tilted his head, "I have some news you may be interested in."
"Yeah, thanks man." Dean licked his lips. "Just let me get changed and we'll talk.
"Yes, clothing would be more appropriate wouldn't it?" Cas sat stiffly in the nearest seat. Sam sat on his temporary bed watching his brother and his angelic friend.
"I am going to go get some coffee and breakfast. I'll be back." Sam said more to himself than anyone else. Dean nodded out of habit and Cas just stared at the opposite wall. Dean knew that Sam had left but all he could see were Cas's eye. Damn those eyes.
