A/N: Freedom at last, school is out! Unbelievably happy to be done sophomore year, now I can focus on writing and wasting my life away. So, expect to see a bit of Smartass!Dean in this chapter, and a tad more focus on the Halliwells. I know I'm being a little unfair to the amount of work I put into the SPN scenes compared to the charmed ones, but like I said, I know more about SPN so it's only natural.
XXXXXXXXXX
With the Halliwells plus Winchester gathered in the sitting room, Castiel took in their expressions. Paige had returned home just a few minutes after he had arrived, and had only gotten the breif, one sentence explanation, before Phoebe called Leo and Piper. When they had gotten the call, Leo had orb them home, only to find that when they arrived, it left him completely exhausted. So there they sat, Paige's full lips set into a slight pout, Pheobe's eyes avoiding making contact with anything but the floor (Castiel assumed she knew something about what was happening), Piper waiting for answers, Leo remaining calm, and Dean just looking pissed off.
"Come on Cas, whatever you have to say, say it." The hunter growled.
Castiel nodded in acknowledgement, focusing his attention on the entire group. "I returned to heaven recently for a report on Raphael's movements, and found that all of the host of heaven has felt a decrease in their power. It started with things like healing and vanquishing demons, and is now to the point where transportation is becoming a strain. I fear it won't be long before the host is completely drained."
Dean paused, waiting for Castiel to continue. "Well, who's doing it?" He asked.
Castiel sighed in frustration. "If I knew that, obviously this wouldn't be a problem."
"Alright, so this person drains heaven. Then what? What will they do with all that power?" Paige asked.
Phoebe's head suddenly shot up from it's place resting in his hand. Her eyes appeared distant, drawing attention from the occupants of the room. "Oh god..." She muttered. "This is what my vision was about."
"Phoebe, what are you talking about? What do you know?" Piper frowned.
"Just before Castiel came, I had a vision when I touched the bullet that hit Sam. There was a man in black robe, he had Castiel, Leo and Sam chained up." Said angels frowned, "He said something about giving Sam all of the power of heaven, but Sam was fighting it." Phoebe explained, her voice slightly shakey.
"Oh, this is just freaking perfect." Dean groaned.
"It makes sense when you think about it Dean." Castiel stated. "The bloodline you and Sam hold is powerful. Sam played host to Lucifer, this robed man must realize he is capable of holding great power."
Dean grunted as he stood from his chair. "Well, we'll just have to keep on lookout for any black-robed-bastards. No one is touchin' Sammy."
XXXXXXXXXX
Sam and Prue watched from the entry way to the sitting room as their friends and family discused the recent turn of events. Sam's eyes were set wide into what Dean had always called his "kicked puppy face", as what he had heard sunk it. Everything made sense now; why he was shot with an ektoplasm filled bullet so he couldn't wake up. Whoever this was obviously didn't want his soul in his body when they transferred the power of heaven into him.
Dean hurried out of the room, no doubt on his way back upstairs. On instinct, Sam reached out to stop him, but his brother just walked right through him, pausing on the other side to roll his shoulders and scratch the back of his neck; no doubt the affect of walking through a spirit. Sam watched him jog up the stairs, his eyes not leaving even after Dean was out of sight.
"What did he mean by you playing host to Lucifer?" Prue asked suddenly, shaking him from his dazed.
"I'll, uh, explain later. Right now, we have to find some way of telling them that my body is hollow and waiting to be stuff with angel juice." He said urgently, pausing and shaking his head when he realized he sounded like Dean.
Prue shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how..."
"Well there has to be something!" Sam shouted, sweeping his arms in a wide arch, only to accidentally hit a vase on the table nearby. Cursing under his breath, he lashed out and caught it before it could hit the floor, setting it back on the table before anyone noticed. When he straightened himself up, he was met with Prue staring at him incredulously. He tilted his head in confusion before really realizing what he had just done.
"Come with me, I have an idea." Prue took him by the hand and half dragged him up the stairs, leading him up to the attic. Running straight through the locked door, Prue dropped his hand and began looking around the room in a hurry. Her eyes settled on an old wooden box. She turned around to face the incredibly confused Sam. "Start making noise."
"What?"
"Just do it." Prue ordered as she passed him and walked through the door again. She stood at the top of the stairs, watching as Piper walked by. A loud banging noise, no doubt from Sam stomping on the floor, caused her little sister to paused, back tracking to look up at the attic door. Prue smiled as Piper began walking up the steps to see what the noise was, her approuch careful and ready for danger. The deceased Halliwell walked back into the room, where Sam continued to bang on the floor. The door nob slowly turned, before being completely thrown open. "Stop." Prue whispered, although there really was no need. Piper glancing around the room, her face steady as she searched out any threat. But there appeared to be none, so her posture relaxed.
Prue looked up at Sam. "Knock that box over." She commanded, pointing at the wooden box she had found earlier. Catching onto her game, Sam quickly shoved the box off the shelf it had been sitting on, dust flyingfrom being idle for too long.
Piper had just been about to turn away, but nearly jumped out of her skin when the box was knocked over. She scanned the room again, once again finding no danger. She tiptoed her way across the room, leaning over to examine the box.
"Everything alright?" Phoebe suddenly asked from the doorway, giving Piper another near heart attack.
"Don't sneak up on me like that!" Piper snapped.
"Sorry, sorry." Phoebe raised her hands his surrender before joined her sister on the other side of the room. "What's up?"
"I don't know." Piper answered truthfully. "There was a loud banging noise, and when I came up here, it stopped. Then this thing fell over out of no where." Phoebe picked up the box, reading the top. Her face light up in surprise for a moment, before her eyes traveled across the room. "Pheoebe?"
"I'm going to need this." Phoebe said simply before rushing out of the attic.
XXXXXXXXXX
Dean could almost hear Bobby poor himself another glass of whiskey. The soft clink of glass on glass was barely audible over Dean's lesser quality cell phone, but he knew it was there, practically on instinct. Next he would take a hard swing of the burning liqud, set it down, and shift in his chair, leaning further back. A heavy sigh and the stroke of a beard. He could almost see it. "So someone's pulled the plug upstairs." He huffed.
"Yeah. Looks like we're not getting any divine help on this one." Dean answered. "Do you know anything that could pull this off?"
"Honestly? Not a clue. But I'll dig deeper into this, see what I can find." Bobby paused, and Dean closed his eyes, seeing him take another, but gentler swing of alcohol. "So, how's your brother?"
Dean hesitated. "Not great." He shook his head at hearing his own voice break, so subtly that only someone close to him could even hear it. His eyes fell upon the still form of his baby brother, his face a complete blank, shed into just a pair of sweat pants. The bandage Dean had wrapped around his abdomen peaked out from under the blanket, bright white contrast against his toned skin. Despite his peaceful appearance a light sheen of sweat glistened on his face. Dean, who had been sitting in a chair pulled right up to the bed, reached out and placed his palm on Sam's forehead, wincing and the feverish temperature. "Sammy still hasn't waken up... I'm starting to think maybe we should have just taken him to a hospital after all." He sighed.
"Dean, a hospital wouldn't have been able to save him in time." Bobby pointed out grimly.
The eldest Winchester rubbed his hand over his face in a futile attempt to relieve his stress. "Probably." He muttered. "Alright, thanks Bobby, I'll call if anything changes." The phone snapped shut, the loudest sound in the entire house. Glancing back over at the comatose young man, Dean sighed, sinking deeper into his chair. "Come on, Sammy."
There was a light knock and the door, to which Dean muttered a "Come in", not bothering to get up. The door creaked open slowly and hesitantly at first as Phoebe poked her head in, then swung open. She sauntered in, glancing at Sam before her eyes rested on what she carried. In one hand she held a basket filled to the brim with candles, a deep indigo blanket and Amethyst stone sitting on top, and in the other, Dean scoffed as he saw it, a ouija board. Seeing Dean's reaction, Phoebe grinned knowingly and sat the large chunk of Amethyst on the nightstand by Sam's head. When Dean raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged and answered his unspoken question. "Amethyst has healing energy. If it can help even a little, it's worth a shot, right?"
Dean laughed humorlessly. "At this point, I'll give even that New Age-y crap a go."
"Don't knock it till you try it." She winked as she began taking everything else out of her basket.
"Phoebe, what are you doing now?" He asked. Over the past few days, he had grown a little more comfortable around the Halliwells, settling with the fact that they were in fact, 'good witches'; a fact he had learned when Piper saved his as from dropping a glass with her freezy-power-thing.
"We're going to contact Sam." She said matter of factly as she took out the blanket.
Dean leaned forward to shove his brother's shoulder and call loudly, "Earth to Sammy, come in." Turning back to Phoebe, he shrugged. "I think he's out of range."
"Smartass." The witch muttered under her breath, as she went about lighting the candles and placing them around the room. "Look, I have a really strong feeling that Sam's spirit is lingering outside his body and-"
"Your witch senses are tingling?" Dean interrupted with a smirk.
Phoebe rolled her eyes, dropping the ouija box on the blanket. "Alright, fine, maybe we can give this a try when you aren't being an ass." She huffed, stomping out of the room.
As the slammed the door behind her, Dean sunk deeper into his chair with a moan. He hadn't meant to sound like an ungrateful jackass, especially after all they'd done, but he was always really touchy when it came to Sammy. Looking over at his baby brother, he couldn't help but hope that maybe she was right after all. Glancing around the room, as if he would find hidden cameras, Dean pushed himself out of the chair and sat down on the middle of the blanket. He removed the contents from the box, examining it to figure out how it worked, before he placed it down on the blanket. He stared at it for a few moments. "What the hell am I even doing?" He asked himself as he stood up and stalked away from the board. He was being an idiot, he thought as he turned his back to it, there was no way in hell...
A light scratching, dragging noise froze him in place. His eyes widened, almost afraid to turn around. But he did, though with hesitation, an d was met with the wooden piece sliding across the letters, stopping for a few seconds everytime it passed over a certain letter.
D.E.A.N
"Sonovabitch!"
XXXXXXXXXX
My "Charmed Consultant" is coming over in two days, so hopefully she'll be able to help me out on the things I'm not too sure about, and maybe even give me a few ideas. So until then, hope you enjoyed.
R&R