Glass Half Empty
Summary: Sam and Dean run across a ghost who just won't let them have any fun... Season one - Post Shadow.
So... let's see if we can't get the boys into some more trouble...
Chapter Two
Dean hated Kansas. He hated looking at Kansas, hated being in Kansas, even hated driving through Kansas. Amber waves of grain, his ass.
He never said anything to Sam about it, but if there was a way to drive to where they were going without going through Kansas then so much the better. If there was no way to get around it, then the best he could do was drive along the southern edge of the state, as far from Lawrence as he could get.
The job with the Nurse-Pincher had actually been in northern Oklahoma but there hadn't been a motel for miles and miles, not even the little crappy kind, which was how he and Sam had ended up across the state line in Medicine Lodge. Talk about a one horse town. And its one watering hole had just tried to bash his skull in.
"Sam?" Dean tried to blink his eyes open, and immediately closed them again at the painfully bright overhead lights. He was pretty sure the bar had been a dark, dingy place before, but at the moment it felt like he was trying to look into direct sunlight.
"Dean, are you all right?"
Dean dared try to open his eyes again, and saw Sam's worried face swim into view. "Wha' happened?"
Dean heard another crash and felt bits of glass pelt his outstretched legs.
"Get down!" he heard the bartender bark. Sam immediately leaned over Dean, pressing his face into Dean's chest and spreading his jacket wide like a shield over Dean's face and upper body. He heard whatever it was fly past overhead and shatter against the table beyond.
"You ok?" Sam murmured into Dean's shirt.
"You mean other than the fact that my nose is in your armpit right now?"
Sam rose slightly and dared a look over his shoulder toward the bar. Once Sam lowered the jacket, Dean saw the bartender barreling toward them. "Get him up!" the man ordered.
"What?"
"I warned you!" The bartender stopped beside Dean and grabbed him around one arm. With no other choice but to help, Sam grabbed the other and between the two of them, they hauled Dean up. Dean's head protested and he was about two seconds from barfing when he realized the jerk hadn't let go of his arm and was pulling him toward the door.
Unfortunately, while the guy might want Dean to head for the door, Dean's legs weren't really with the program and he pitched forward. Sam caught him before he hit the floor, and hurriedly pulled one of Dean's arms across his shoulders.
The bartender swore and lunged away from them. It was their only warning, and Sam staggered forward under the weight of holding them both upright as a pair of bottles caught them with deadly accuracy, one landing against Dean's back, the other shattering against his elbow on the arm across Sam's shoulders, catching Sam's neck and head in the bargain.
"Get him out of here!" the bartender bellowed, accompanied by a chorus of the other remaining patrons.
Dean fought to keep his legs under him as Sam pulled him toward the door. One of the other customers ran around them and held the door open. "Hurry, you morons, or she'll kill you!"
Sam redoubled his efforts. Dean knew because his legs gave up trying to keep up and Sam practically dragged him out the door. He didn't stop until he was beside the car and Sam leaned Dean against the passenger door.
The bartender gave a parting shot of, "Don't come back here!" and then slammed the door behind him.
Dean stood very still, breathing heavily, and stared at the closed bar entrance. The neon sign in the window was too bright for him to look at so he closed his eyes. He felt the car shift slightly as Sam leaned against it beside him.
"So that was weird, right?" Dean said, his voice ragged, trying to decide whether or not he really was going to throw up. His head hurt so badly he was afraid the blow had actually cracked his skull. It wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened. Dean raised a hand to his temple just to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, despite his eye feeling like it was going to explode.
"Definitely."
"What do we do about it?" Dean asked. He opened his eyes and tried to turn his head toward Sam and spots appeared in his vision.
"Whoa." He felt Sam's hands settle on his arms, keeping him upright against the car. "Let's get you sitting down first."
"Don't wanna get in the car," Dean answered petulantly. "Wanna go kick... whoever clocked me with a beer mug."
"Dude, we gotta get you cleaned up first. You smell like a brewery."
Dean blinked at that. "I smell again? I just got rid of the dead guy stink!"
"That was before you had a beer poured over your head."
"Wasn't poured," Dean muttered. They were back where they were before. Dean hadn't tripped. He'd been pushed into that grave. And he'd been clocked by a beer, not had it thrown in his face.
Sam opened the door for him and Dean tumbled inside, spots appearing in his vision again, along with a definite twinge where the bottle had hit his back. He turned and saw Sam standing outside the driver's side door. His brother took off his wet jacket, threw it in the back and then leaned over, half upside down, and began fiddling with his hair trying to shake the glass out of it. Dean smirked. That's what happened when you had girl hair.
Sam finally got into the driver's seat, and although Dean would never admit it, he was struck once again by how much better life was with a wingman. After Sam left, their dad had closed down even more. He hadn't been a friend or even a partner. He'd been the boss, plain and simple. Dean could appreciate the chain of command. It kept things nice and orderly in a world where almost nothing was orderly. That said, however, it was good to have someone who would work beside him, not leave him tagging along behind, or just left behind.
Dean, you're gonna have to let me go my own way.
"Dean, you all right?"
"Hmm?" He opened his eyes to see that they were parked in front of a 24 hour pharmacy. "Why we here?"
"Because we used almost everything in the first aid kit on the last hunt," Sam explained.
"Right." Daevas. Tried to rip their faces off, along with any other appendages they could sink their claws into. Sent their dad running for cover. Away from them. Dean told him to go.
"Dean?"
"M'fine," Dean said, able to see the worried frown on his brother's face, despite not bothering to look at him.
"Just... stay here. I'll be back in a minute."
Dean waved a hand dismissively, and after another second of hesitation Sam got out of the car. Dean opened one eye long enough to look at his watch and note the time. He then closed his eyes again and let his thoughts drift.
He knew Sam was pissed at him and had been ever since Dean told him it was the right thing for their dad to leave. Frankly, Sam being pissed was nothing new. Since they hit puberty, Dean had been hungry and Sam had been pissed, pissed at the monsters, pissed at his family, pissed at the world in general that had somehow conspired to make his life miserable and ruin what bits of normalcy he could string together.
Maybe this time, Dean didn't even think Sam was wrong. Their dad leaving again... It just didn't sit right. He'd been thinking and rethinking it, and maybe, just maybe, this one time, Dad was full of crap. Dean had spent his entire life in harm's way, always with his dad egging him on, demanding that he get in and get his hands dirty, and now he decides it's too dangerous?
Dean sighed. He just didn't know anymore.
For just a few minutes, a few seconds really, he hadn't felt totally lost. His father had been there with them. His general had been back on the field of battle to take command instead of sending vague orders from somewhere else. Sam was already planning to ditch him again, but Dad was there. For a second, Dean hadn't felt the burden of being the oldest. He hadn't had to be the strong one, or the one who made the tough calls.
And then Dad was gone. He'd asked Dean to let him go again. Worse still, he'd looked to Dean to convince Sam that his leaving was for the best.
You're gonna have to let me go my own way.
Dean was getting kind of tired of everybody telling him they wanted to go their own way, and telling him he had to suck it up and accept it. It was true that sometimes a guy had to man-up and do what was better for somebody else, but Dean was getting kind of tired of it always being him.
Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face, mindful of the new bruising near his temple to match his claw marks. He was still feeling nauseous, and his head was killing him. If Sam didn't hurry, he was going to hurl in the car and wouldn't that be the end to a perfect day. He'd already been face to face with the freshly rotting corpse of Hank "Mr.-McFeely" Barton and if that didn't give a person a moment of clarity about how much their job sucked he didn't know what did.
Dean looked at his watch again and frowned. How long did it take to pick up some aspirin and a few bandages? He looked around the parking lot and saw that a couple of other vehicles had pulled in, but it dawned on him that he hadn't actually seen anyone come out of the drugstore.
Some people would just wait and say they were being paranoid, but Dean knew he'd rather live with Sam making fun of him than leave his brother to face something alone if there was a problem. He pulled out the keys Sam had left in the ignition and got out of the car. Once he was on his feet, he took the extra seconds necessary to make sure he didn't fall flat on his face, then headed for the front door, sliding a hand into the pocket of his jacket and thumbing off the safety on his gun. No sense in going in unprepared.
The doors opened automatically and Dean walked in warily. There was no one at the check-out desk, nor did he see any other customers.
"Sam?" he called loudly enough to be heard throughout the store, his headache forgotten. "You in here?" If people thought he was nuts, or causing a scene then so be it.
"We're back here!" he heard Sam shout.
"Back where?" Dean pulled the gun out of his pocket and held it down next to his leg.
"Far side of the store in the back!"
"Are you hurt?" There was a second's pause, long enough for Dean's heart to stutter in sudden panic. "Sammy?"
"We're ok. Just need some help back here." There was another pause, then, "You're gonna need salt, Dean."
"Salt?" Dean heard a strident, high-pitched male voice say. "Are you nuts? We need the friggin' cops!"
"Shut up, you moron!" a female voice snapped. "You think the cops can do anything about this?"
Great. Civilians. Freaked civilians.
Dean stopped for about a second before turning back around and heading to the car. He quickly found his favorite sawed-off shotgun safely tucked in a duffel in the trunk. He pulled Marigold out, grabbed a handful of salt shells for her, shoved them in his pocket and ran back to the entrance, annoyed at having to wait the extra seconds for the motion detector to open the sliding door for him.
Dean hurriedly moved down the aisles, stopping just long enough to grab several canisters of salt off a shelf. He pulled his pocketknife out as he walked and popped the top off the first one. As he reached the end of the aisle, he slowed and warily peered around the end-cap. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary, so he stepped out.
Sam was in the back corner, kneeling beside a young woman who was sitting with her knees pulled up close her chin. Another man, who might as well have had "slacker" tattoed on his forehead, was crouched on the other side of her, his eyes wide and panicked.
"Sammy?"
His brother turned at the sound of his voice and quickly stood. Dean could see he was bleeding heavily from some sort of head wound and he had several nicks on his arms and hands, although Dean wasn't sure if they were fresh or if they were from the bar earlier.
"Dean," Sam said, visibly relieved. He took a step toward Dean and almost instantly a glass bottle flew from over the aisle divider and shattered at his feet. Sam quickly retreated and held out a hand to keep Dean back.
"You ok?" Dean asked.
Sam brought a hand up to his head and very gingerly ran his fingers into his hair. "Whatever this is, it threw a bunch of bottles at us until we were boxed in back here. The floor was wet and I slipped and fell in some of the glass." He held up his hands to show all of the cuts, answering Dean's question about whether they were new.
"Why didn't you call?"
"Left my phone in my jacket," Sam explained, obviously annoyed at himself.
"Who cares?" the man behind Sam shouted. "How are we gonna get out of here?"
"Dave, I already asked you to be quiet," Sam said, clearly frustrated. "We'll get out of here as soon as we figure something out, ok?"
"Screw that, man! I gotta get outta here!" The man stood and started forward, prompting another bottle to fly off a shelf several aisles away and crash into the wall inches from his head, showering him in booze and glass.
"You wanna get out of this, you're gonna shut your mouth and sit your butt back down," Dean thundered. "You got me, Dave?"
The man looked at Dean as if he hadn't actually seen him before, but he obeyed, sinking back to the floor. "This sucks," Dean heard him mutter. "This sucks. Beer run, man. Five minutes. We'll have the burgers ready when you get back."
Dean couldn't help a smirk. Some people just didn't deal well in crisis situations. The woman was headed toward catatonic. She was already doing the weird, I'm-about-to-lose-it, rocking thing. Dave was apparently the freak-out-and-run-right-in-front-of-oncoming-traffic kind.
Dean quickly threw a canister of salt to Sam and between them they hurriedly made a solid but very soggy arc of salt around themselves and the others.
"You see anything?" he asked Sam.
"Maybe a flicker?" His brother frowned. "Nothing recognizable."
"Super." Dean warily looked around, keeping Marigold handy. He could see all of the broken bottles, and he realized something as the smell suddenly struck him. "This thing only throwing liquor bottles at you?"
"Yeah."
"What does that even mean? Eliot Ness followed us to the Walgreens?" Dean demanded, annoyed even more at the sight of his brother leaning on one of the shelves, closing his eyes for a second. "Hey. You sure you're ok?"
Sam opened his eyes. "You're one to talk." His eyes tracked to Dean's left. Dean followed his gaze and realized he had unknowingly been using an elbow propped on an end-cap to keep himself upright.
"So what do we do?"
"We're in a drugstore. We can have a first aid party." Dean smiled helpfully.
"Can't leave our little corner, remember?"
"Well, we got plenty of booze. Feel like a party, party?"
The bottle flew over the shelves like a guided missile. That was one problem with salt lines. They kept the ghosts out, but it didn't do anything about the projectiles. Dean had a particularly interesting scar from years ago when a ghost had lobbed a winged dragon statue at him. That had driven the lesson home really fast, and it came right back at the sight of the bottle headed straight at his nose. Dean tried to duck, but it still clipped his shoulder and broke apart.
"Son of a-" His chest felt like it was on fire. The alcohol on his still relatively fresh wounds from the daevas was like someone had taken a torch to him.
It was also enough to make Dave bolt. He ran for the front of the store. A wave of bottles followed in his wake. Dean ran after Dave while Sam got the woman on her feet.
Dave had almost reached the front of the store when a six-pack caught him in the back of the head. He went down hard and slid into one of the displays. Potato chips and beef jerky fell around him in a pile. Sam and the woman ran past him, while Dean leaned down and grabbed the back of Dave's shirt, grunting as another bottle hit him in the lower back before falling to the ground and shattering.
Dean began to pull the man up, his back sending darts of pain in all directions, but went very still when he heard the PA system crackle to life. It let out a screeching wail before dying away again.
"You must learn."
It was a female voice, although it was hard to tell past the static. "Lady, I sucked at school." Dean leaned over further, ignoring the pounding in his head as he bent to pick up the still-unconscious Dave. He hefted the man's dead weight despite the pull on the still healing wounds to his chest. Dean hadn't bothered to tell Sam, but he'd already had to patch himself up once tonight after digging and then being pushed into the grave.
"It will kill you. It will follow you and drag you down with it. It will bring nothing but ruin and death."
A can of something smacked him right in the side of the head, followed by a second mashing his ear, and Dean stumbled, almost dropping Dave. His ear was shrieking and Dean distantly noted how much he hated it when something hit one of his ears. It hurt more than a lot of things for some reason.
Of course, he also hated it when something hit his nose, because that hurt like a bitch, and it was about to happen, because he was seeing stars and his head was killing him, and Dave's body was dragging him down and he was definitely going to face plant right in front of the register.
"Dean!" Through a haze of darkness, he saw Sam lunge back through the doorway. He caught him right before he hit the floor face first and Dean took a bit of pleasure in knowing that Dave was not so lucky. The bastard had jumped cover and managed to get Dean clocked again. He so deserved a broken nose.
Sam dragged Dean, who just managed to grab Marigold, through the door and dumped him unceremoniously on the curb. Sam then rushed back in and grabbed Dave and pulled him to safety as well.
Dean groaned and rolled onto his side before pushing himself to a sitting position. "Was there a clerk in there somewhere?"
"Aisle 4," Sam answered.
"We need to go back in for 'em?"
"She's fine. She just freaked when the ambush started and kind of sat down and refused to move."
"Helpful," Dean commented sourly. He pushed himself to his feet using the bumper of the nearest car before leaning back against it to stay upright. "Where'd the girl go? The other one?"
"Ran off as soon as we were out the door. She'll call the cops. We should get out of here."
Dean just nodded, too tired and sore to bother with anything else. He pulled the keys from his pocket. "Come on."
"Where to?"
"Back to the bar," Dean growled. A bottle shattered against the large plate glass window right in front of them, cracking the window and sending it crashing toward them. They both hustled to get away from the shower of glass, Sam stopping just long enough to pull Dave farther from the line of fire.
"We gotta talk to that bartender. Now."
More soon... Might not be tomorrow since it's show day.
