2 –Alphabet

There was a time when sleep gave him something of a break from the Mark. That was no longer true.

It was like an oppressive, ever-present weight slowly crushing his brain, digging in hooks that sunk deep into his gray matter and metastasized like cancer. It was like a presence that never went away, and slowly revealed that it was always there, and never leaving him alone again.

Dean knew this dream, and he didn't want to have it again. He was in the Bunker, and even though he heard a fight going on in the front, he walked to his room and shut the door. And started pushing furniture in front of it. The dresser first, then the bed. Then he sat on the floor and leaned against the bed frame, and wondered what the fuck he was going to do.

Since he was alone here, in theory, in his mind, Dean let himself despair a little, and a few tears leaked out. He thought he could resist it, fight it off, he was a fucking Winchester and there was nothing he couldn't do. But … that was no longer true. Dean knew that the Mark was going to beat him. The battle was all but lost now. He could feel himself dying in pieces. But he'd be damned – more damned – if he ever said that to Sam.

He was really going to kill him tonight. The Mark wanted to; it glowed warm and happy at the very thought of it. "What's going on?" Cass asked. Suddenly standing in front of him.

Was this the real Cass, or just a dream approximation of him? Dean had to find out fast. He wiped away the tears, and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"You called for help."

"I didn't."

Cass's brow wrinkled in confusion. "I heard you."

Okay, not real Cass. Just his subconscious taking Cass's form. That was okay, he could live with that. He could be honest with someone for once, because he was just talking to himself. "It wasn't intentional."

There were thuds out in the corridor, and Cass looked towards the blockade barring the door. "Is there a fight going on?"

"I'm killing Sam," Dean told him. "Or the Mark version of me is. He's taking his time with it. It's no fun for him if it goes too fast."

Cass frowned. "You've had this dream before."

"Maybe a dozen times. Probably more. I gave up counting. First few times, I tried to stop it, change it, but it doesn't matter. Nothing I do ever changes the outcome. I can't even kill that Dean. I've tried. But he just laughs at me. He's a real fuckhead."

Cass sat down next to him. "The Mark … is unreasonable. It was made for destruction."

"Tell me about it." Since he was simply talking to himself, there was no harm in admitting anything. "I almost killed Sam tonight. For real. The Mark was hungry for it."

"But you didn't."

"Barely. He was tied up. The Mark wanted a bit more of a fight. Not that there's much of a fight you can make against it, it just seems to like playing with its food from time to time. Things are so easy for it it gets bored."

Now there was a thudding on the door that shook the bed frame. Cass looked, as if the other Dean had peeled back the wood. "Is this part of it?"

"Oh yes. After he's done with Sam, he comes for me. He kills me a little faster, but not by much. Also, it turns out, sometimes when you die in a dream, you don't instantly wake up."

Cass was giving him his concerned look, and Dean found it hard not to laugh. Not because it was ridiculous, but because it seemed like an under reaction. "You feel yourself dying?"

Dean nodded. "I've felt it quite a bit in my life. It gets top marks for realism. I usually wake up gasping, because I think I stop breathing psychosomatically. It's a lot of fun. I'm trying to avoid sleep now, but I never got that much to begin with. I'm gonna hafta start popping uppers or something, trucker speed, just to stay alert."

Cass's blue eyes bored into his. "This is an alarming development, Dean. A part of you could be dying."

"Really? You think I'm getting off that easy?"

"Not like that. Not physical death."

"What's left? Emotional death?"

"Psychological death. It could be killing off parts of your personality."

Dean snorted. "That's no great loss. I'm kind of a dick."

Cass had his serious face on. And that was very serious indeed. Angels would probably find an Ingmar Bergman film festival too lighthearted. "Or it could be killing your soul. This is no joke. The Mark can do that. It can supplant its wearers personality, mind, body … everything. It can hollow you out. Do you understand what that means?"

"My personality might improve?"

Again, Dean got the very unhappy scowl. Cass didn't find him funny in the least. "You become nothing but a vessel for the Mark."

Vessel. What a loaded word that was. "Like a demon vessel or an angel vessel."

"More like a demon vessel. It doesn't need your consent."

"No, it surely does not." The banging on the door had become thuds, as Mark Dean, that black eyed bastard, was now flinging himself against the door. Sometimes the barricade held; sometimes it didn't. Dean didn't know what flipped the switch, why it worked one night and not the other. Maybe just the Mark being bored again. It needed to toy with him just to keep itself entertained. "I'm such an idiot. I thought I could fight this better, you know? I'm Dean fucking Winchester. I thought I could kick its ass."

"The Mark has no weakness. It doesn't tire, and it's in you. How do win that fight?"

Excellent questions all. Dean had no answers He just shook his head, and slumped against the frame. He found himself leaning against Cass's shoulder, but he didn't care, because Cass was him too in this instance. His weird, awkward side, he supposed. "I've fought a lot of shit that should have killed me. I really thought I could do this."

Cass decided to throw him a bone. Dean should have known his ego wasn't going to take that kind of drubbing quietly. "You've fought hard, Dean, and you're continuing to fight. You must be, or the Mark wouldn't be reacting like this. But you can't fight forever. The Mark always wins. It beat Cain, it will beat you too."

"And if someone kills me, I come back as a demon. There's no way to win."

"We will find a way," Cass insisted. His mouth was set in a grim, determined line. "We haven't given up looking, and you shouldn't either."

Dean would have laughed, but he couldn't work up the energy. "It's inevitable, isn't it? Why are we trying? Just let what's going to happen happen. I'm so tired, Cass."

There looked to be genuine anger in Cass's eyes as he stood up and faced the door. "Don't give up on yourself, Dean. I haven't given up on you."

Cass held out his hand, and blue energy began to well in his eyes and his palm. Was he going to blast the Mark? Dean didn't think that would work. But maybe in a dreamscape, it might.

The room lit up blue-white, angel energy writ large, and Dean woke up back in his bed in the Bunker, reaching under his pillow for the knife he still slept with (old habits died hard). But he woke up without gasping for breath, for the first time in a long time.

He really needed to invite dream Cass to party crash more often. Maybe he'd even figure out how to get a good night's sleep again.


Sam finally set aside frustrating research on the Mark of Cain to pay attention to some alerts that had just sprung up on his computer.

He had a program that specifically scanned for odd occurrences, or at least the parameters he had set up as such. It had culled five so far, but two were of immediate significance, because they happened in the same state, only a few miles from each other. The first was the mysterious death of a rising MMA competitor, who had been discovered by the side of a busy overpass, with signs that he'd been both trampled and gored to death by a rather large bull. Considering this happened in urban Seattle, people were extremely baffled by this. (Also, he lived in an apartment downtown – the closest thing to a bull was the mechanical one at a gimmicky country western bar.) Then, a teenage football player from somewhat neighboring Edmonds was found in a car, covered in cement or something like it one day later, although no cement was found in his car or around it: it was all on him. Two strange murders in as many days, several miles apart. What did it mean? Sam started investigating, but so far all that connected them was they were both male athletes in the same state. Definitely weird. Worth checking out, although a drive to Seattle would take a while. Was Dean up to that?

"One of these days I hope to spy you viewing porn or playing some stupid game," Crowley said, making Sam jump. "Then I'd know you were a normal person. You're really disappointing me, Moose."

Sam turned to find Crowley standing there, examining his own fingernails for any faults. Of course they were perfect. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Crowley smiled, which was never a good sign. "We had a deal, you and I. I cracked an angel for you and helped bring Dean home. Now I'm collecting that debt."

Sam's stomach twisted. He was kind of sorry the drugs from earlier had worn off, because he could have used them now. "What do you want?"

Crowley's grin became wider, and Sam's bad feeling got worse. "Ooh, so nervous. What, do you think I'm going to make you dress up like the Contessa, while I play the rough, handsome stable boy? You wish, Moose. No, all I want from you is … a book."

"A book?" This seemed way too easy and/or dangerous. There were many lethal books out there.

"It's called the Bellmage Grimoire. Fetch it for me."

That name tickled Sam's memory, although he wasn't immediately sure why. He quickly searched for it, and found the reason. "Holy shit. A cursed book?" Supposedly it had been written by a "dark sorcerer", and the book used to be in the hands of a collector of such books in France, whose whole family was slaughtered and house burned down a week after it ended up in his possession. It then ended up in an old book shop, which was subsequently flooded in a freak accident that also killed the proprietor and a clerk. Wherever the book went, lethal disaster soon followed. According to the Men of Letters, it contained lethal magic, and they had wanted it for their "forbidden" vault, but it seemingly dropped off the radar in 1964, in Prague, when a man who stole it was found dead under an air conditioner, which had fallen out of an apartment and crushed him in yet another freak accident. Since then, no one knew what had become of the book, but no one was looking that hard. It might contain some good dark magic spells, but it was also too much trouble to handle. "Dude, this thing's been missing forever. I wouldn't know where to look for it. Also, it's as dangerous as hell. If somehow I could find it, I'd probably be dead the second I touched it."

Crowley waved his hand airily, as if he was boring him with trivialities. "You have all this Men of Letters crap. I'm sure if you put your muzzle to the grindstone, you'll find it. It's not like you Winchesters to give up so easily."

Of course he was going to use that against him. "This is impossible, Crowley. The Men of Letters can't work miracles. Besides, what do you want it for?"

Crowley quirked an eyebrow at him. "Ah-ah-ah, asking why was never part of it. It's what I want. We had a deal. You're not going back on it, are you?"

Sam wondered what he could do if he did, then remembered his Hellhounds. Shit. And even if he could defend against those, he was the King of Hell. There was no end to the terrible things he could do to him. Of course, Dean would kick his ass, but he didn't want to send Dean into a full tilt battle right now. He probably wouldn't come back, or at least not as a human. "No. But if I don't find any leads in 48 hours, we renegotiate. Understood?"

Crowley made a show of thinking about it, dragging it out for an insanely long time, just to be a dick. He didn't want Sam to forget who had the power here. "Fine. But I expect you to at least try, Moose. No half-assing it."

"Fine," Sam said, resenting the implication. Hell, he resented the hell out of all of this. He glanced down at his keyboard before looking back at Crowley. "But –"

"But what?" Dean asked, coming into the room. Crowley was gone.

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Crowley was just here. He's calling in his favor."

"Really?" Dean looked around, in case Crowley left a bomb or something. Dean had a beer, and had made himself a sandwich. It didn't seem like much of a breakfast, but at least he was eating something. He never thought chow hound Dean would ever get to the point where he didn't eat, but thanks to the Mark, he didn't actually have to. It would keep him going regardless. Apparently he could go without sleep too, but Dean still seemed to need that, psychologically if nothing else. There was always something weary in his eyes nowadays. Fighting a constant psychic battle that Sam had no part in, and couldn't help with, at least not yet. "What'd he want?"

"A book, that's both cursed and missing."

Dean shrugged. "Coulda been worse."

"I know, and that's what's bothering me. What could he want with it? Why is it worth wasting a favor over?"

Sam went back to searching, and Dean ate his breakfast. It was all quiet, and incredibly tense. They were just not going to talk about how Dean almost lost it against those vampires, were they? Honestly, Sam was afraid to bring it up. He'd dodged a bullet, either through Dean's force of will or the Mark's acquiescence. He really didn't want to know which side had won. He'd learned the hard way you never ask a question you don't want a genuine answer to.

After several minutes, Dean asked, "Need help?"

"Searching?" Sam could just imagine Dean gnawing his own arm off in boredom. "No. I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause, and Crowley's doing this just to annoy me."

"Any cases then?" Dean was trying and failing to pretend he wasn't restless. Sam was just hoping it was Dean himself, and not the Mark clamoring for more blood.

He hesitated, but maybe it would be better to get Dean's mind on something else, something constructive. "Well, there's a couple of weird cases in Seattle. If you wanna go on ahead, I'll meet you there."

"What is it?"

Sam showed him the news articles, and Dean grimaced at them. "What the hell ..? Bull trampling and cement? Is this some weird ass mob who totally misunderstood the Godfather?"

Sam shrugged. "Got me. It's worth a look."

"Yeah, guess so." Dean finished off his beer and stood. "Okay, I'll get going. Keep me updated on the book search. If Crowley gives you any trouble …"

"Call you, got it." This was another worrying development. Did he still kind of think of Crowley as a friend, or at least an ally? Because he wasn't. He was the King of fucking Hell, and Sam had lost count of the times he had screwed them over and tried to kill them over the years. Hell, Dean wouldn't be saddled with the Mark if it wasn't for him. He was a motherfucking monster, and Dean shouldn't have the slightest bit of camaraderie with that devil. But he knew that made him sound bitter, when really he was only pointing out facts. So he kept this tirade to himself.

Dean really did have a knack for making non-human friends, didn't he? Considering how many he had killed over the years, that was really strange. Sam decided he had too much on his plate right now, and he'd worry about the implications of that another time.

Assuming there'd be another time.


Dean actually made it to Washington State in good time, but not stopping to sleep helped a lot. Dream Cass interrupting the slaughter had helped, but he knew better than to count on him. He was just going to see how long he could stay awake before his mind couldn't take it anymore. It was kind of nice to be alone (in theory) too, as he didn't have to make any excuses or pretend he wasn't constantly fighting the Mark. He could just mainline coffee, play his music too loud, and pretend he was almost normal, like in the old days. Not that he was ever normal. Normal-er, perhaps. Before the Mark had taken over his life.

He expected rain, but it was actually sunny, so there was that stereotype blown to hell. There was a fuckload of coffee places, though, so he stopped in one and got the biggest triple shot espresso they made and poured over the files Sam had emailed him.

The victims were men who were into sports, but that was the only tenuous connection between them. The MMA guy was named Ben Hernandez, twenty three, who was still competing in the amateur ranks but showed a lot of promise. He was six foot, shaven bald, with a nose that had clearly been broken many times, and sporting so many tattoos he could have been an artist's doodle pad. He looked every inch the rough customer, and how he ended up on the side of a road gored by a bull was anyone's guess. The last time he'd been spotted that night, he was leaving a local gym, but that was six hours before his body was found. He had a job as a bar bouncer, but he wasn't working that night.

As for the teenager, he'd been one Tyler Coupe, sixteen, a quarterback on his high school football team. He was clean cut all American, blonde and slender (whereas Ben was as muscular and wiry as a guy made of beef jerky and leather), blandly handsome if you went in for that type. He was supposed to be in that night but apparently snuck out, although his girlfriend, Brytnee (oh Christ her name was actually spelled that way? They should have let the Apocalypse happen), had no knowledge of this and claimed she hadn't met Tyler anywhere. Tyler's friends were playing dumb too. If he was looking for some easy witnesses to crack it would be the kids. Although Dean didn't know if he could show up at Brytnee's house and not pistol whip her parents. What kind of assholes gave a kid a name like that?!

Okay, yeah, time to give the coffee a rest.

Dean was looking in the trunk of the Impala, picking out a phony FBI badge, when he heard sirens close by. He selected an ID, pocketed it, and slammed the trunk shut. Since the sirens were continuing, he decided to feed his own curiosity and see what was going on.

He cut down a long alley that could have passed for a very narrow street (maybe he'd have room to get the Impala in, but there was no way he could open the doors), and it fed into a much smaller alleyway. He heard the commotion up ahead, and realized he had taken a main path right into the action. He paused at the corner and tried to casually glance around it, hoping he wasn't spotted by any 5-0.

It wasn't just police, though. An ambulance was there too, and all their focus seemed to be concentrated on something behind a Dumpster. It was only when the cops managed to push it off to the side that he saw what it was. It was a statue.

Except, no, that made no sense. Who covered a statue with a Dumpster? Sure, it could be some modern art bullshit, but who called an ambulance for that? Dean stared at the statue, which was sitting on the ground, one hand partially raised, the other down on the pavement, and noticed it had some great details. It was wearing Nikes; the jeans had a tear on the left thigh. He even had a stud in his nose. It was a guy too, young, maybe mid-twenties? Made of something fine and gray, like cement … wait a minute.

Dean looked as long as he dared before retreating around the corner, and speed dialing Sam. As soon as Sam picked up, he said, "It's not cement."

"What? Are you in Seattle already?"

"Yeah, and Coupe wasn't covered in cement. He was turned to stone."

"What? How do you know?"

"Because the cops just found another guy with the same problem. What the hell turns a person to stone?"

From the length of Sam's silence on the other end of the line, it wasn't going to be an easy question to answer. Son of a bitch.