Chapter Six: In Which the Author Uses Crossroads as a Metaphor
"You did what?"
Still hooked up to a multitude of machines, Mary could see Dean's heartrate spike on the screen closest to her. Across the bed, Sam's face had whitened. His knuckles gripped both arms of the squeaky plastic hospital chair.
"Calm down, do you want to drag a nurse in here? I knew what I was doing."
Sam still looked sick. "He could've—could've killed you. You would have been in—Mom—"
Mary took one look at her family, Dean sitting up in the hospital bed that should have been his deathbed, scratching absently at the tape holding the IV in his arm and Sam, staring at her, wide-eyed and stricken, and burst into tears.
She wasn't sure what exactly caused them. Happiness, knowing that they were all okay? Relief, now that John's killer had finally been put down? Fear, for the future now that she didn't have the revenge that had driven her so long?
And then they were all crying and laughing at once. ("Dude, all those monsters and you nearly got killed in a car crash!" "You drew the summoning ritual in lipstick?") They laughed until their sides ached. It had been too long since she'd heard her boys laugh like that.
"Well, I hate to break up the party."
A nurse walked into the room, leading Bobby Singer behind her. Mary stood up, still a little wobbly, wiping the tears from her eyes. Bobby hastily put a hand under her elbow and steadied her. Huh. Who knew? Demonic possession took a lot out of you.
"You're a sight for sore eyes," Mary said cheerfully, giving the nurse a nod so she knew it was all right to leave.
He pulled her into a gentle hug, careful not to jostle her around too much. Mary grinned into his shoulder. Every time, Bobby was the one that she could count on to be there in a pinch.
"Leveled by a truck, huh?" he asked, taking a step back to get a good look at them. "Looks like you've been through the ringer this time."
By the time visiting hours were over, Mary had convinced the nurses that she and Dean were good to go. They were calling his quick recovery a miracle. If only they knew. Mary and Dean were escorted down to the lobby. Dean loudly protested the use of a wheelchair, blatantly ignoring the fact that he would have died if not for Mary's intervention and could probably stand for a little downtime. Mary didn't complain. Her legs were still a bit wobbly and her headache didn't look as if it were going to go away any time soon.
Bobby's old Chevelle was instantly recognizable. The nurse eyed the old, beat-up car suspiciously for a few seconds, then glanced uncertainly at her and Dean as if they would be a little car shy after the crash. Now that was a laugh, Dean, car shy.
"Thank you," Mary said swiftly, cutting him off before he could even open his mouth.
Before he could protest, she allowed Bobby to help her out of the chair and usher her into the backseat. Dean went next, squeezing in next to her without complaint. Sam ducked into the passenger side, Bobby into the drivers' seat and they were set.
"Where to?" Bobby asked, swiveling around to get a look at all of them.
"Lincoln. I want my van back."
Bobby shook his head. "I sent Rufus out there. Might have called in a few of your favors with him. You're gonna stay with me until you're back on your feet. And no, Mary, that is not negotiable."
If it wasn't for the fact that the conversation was making her head ache even worse, Mary might have argued. As it was, she stayed silent when Bobby turned his attention over to the boys.
"It's over, isn't it?" Sam asked. "The demon's dead."Ff
"Don't mean it's over," Dean replied, face darkening. "Right, Mom?"
Mary looked between the two of them—both faces still swollen with bruises, purple circles stamped underneath Dean's eyes, Sam's split lip still split. They'd been polar opposites from the very start. Now, Sam was breathing a sigh of relief because it was over and Dean was holding his breath because it had just begun.
"That depends on what you want."
"School. I want to go back to school."
Mary wasn't too surprised. Sam only come hunting with them to get revenge. Now that it was taken, there was nothing else for him to do. He wasn't on the road because he was comfortable, like Mary, or because it was all he had, like Bobby or because he had a hero complex a mile long, like Dean. And because of it, he could leave.
She wished it were that simple, that she could just cut her ties and be done, go out into the world and pretend that she had never known about any of it, but Mary couldn't. She'd tried when the boys were little. She'd never been cut out for bake sales or needlepoint or whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing at this age. Mary Winchester would only stop hunting when she was six feet under.
While Bobby and Sam bickered good-naturedly about how long a drive it was out to California and then back to Sioux Falls, Dean turned to Mary.
"I want to have some time to figure stuff out."
Mary stared at him blankly for a few seconds. "Dean, if you want to go back to Lebanon—"
"No. I don't want to go back to the Lebanon. I want to hunt on my own."
A thousand and one ways he could die flashed through Mary's head. Her first reaction was to protest, tell him that she couldn't let him go off on his own. Then, she took a better look at him. He'd grown without her noticing. The teenager who'd checked his college admissions essay six times, the teacher who'd patiently talked through double-digit addition was gone.
"Thing is, I can't count on you to trust me. If we're gonna hunt together, we need that. I can't have you looking over your shoulder when I'm supposed to have your back."
Mary slowly opened her purse. It was still there, wrapped in a bundle of tissues. She reached inside and pulled it out.
"Then I want you to have this. Make those bullets count."
And the Colt changed hands.
/
If Dean tugged on his tie one more time, she was going to kill him. Jo smoothed her skirt and flashed the man they were interviewing a quick smile. She couldn't even imagine what they looked like. Dean in a slightly oversized suit, wrinkled from being stuffed in the backseat of the Impala for so long and her in a suit-jacket-skirt combo that had been her mom's back in the eighties. Both of them trying to look like reporters from—
"Like I said, sir, Architectural Digest is just trying to get the best picture of Mr. Boyden that we can for his tribute."
The man scoffed. "Tribute. Right. Guy always had something going for him."
"Any idea why someone like that would kill himself?" Jo jumped in.
He shrugged. "No clue. He lived a charmed life, Sean. I don't know why he'd do it."
Dean gave her a satisfied smirk. Jo rolled her eyes. They'd worked a grand total of four cases together and already she wanted to strangle him. He'd been convinced that Sean Boyden's suicide was anything but. She'd wanted to chase the shtriga Bobby had called about in Iowa.
"I mean, ten years ago, he was living paycheck to paycheck. He lived in his parents' basement, he worked at this dive called Lloyd's and any girl who came near him scrambled for the nearest exit. He couldn't design his way out of a paper bag. Suddenly, he gets this gigantic commission and creates this beautiful piece of architecture. All this genius, coming out of nowhere. Now he had this big house and a fancy car and a nice job and a gorgeous wife. And he does it now, once he's successful? It's just weird."
"Thanks for your time," Jo said quickly, before the smirk on Dean's face actually required her to sock him in the jaw. She wouldn't want to ruin Architecture Digest's sparkling reputation.
They'd run into each other in Kentucky chasing down the same witch about two weeks ago and decided to work together for a little while. Frankly, Jo was about done with his antics.
"So, what, you're thinking Black Dog?" she asked.
Dean shrugged. "Guy sees it, dies immediately afterwards? Lore fits."
Jo lightly punched him in the shoulder and he grinned at her. Without agreeing on anything, they headed for the car. They ended up getting a list of other calls into Animal Control over the past few weeks. After a few more tips, it appeared that all roads led to Lloyd's.
"He wasn't kidding," Jo said, wrinkling her nose. She tended to reserve judgment as far as bars went, knowing that people who had never seen the inside of the Roadhouse might think the same about it. The place really was a dump. "Hey, look."
A crossroads, a bar, two mysterious successes happening around the same time? Jo had a bad feeling about this. After hearing about the Winchesters' experience with demons, she didn't look forward to tangling with one.
"Yeah. Where do you think center is?"
Jo jerked her head and Dean followed the movement a little bit to the left until he was standing where she thought the center was. She joined him and together they scrabbled at the dirt until a small black box became unearthed.
"Yahtzee," Dean said, grinning at her.
Jo dug her fingernail under the box's lid and worked it open. The inside only confirmed what she had expected. Someone had been summoning a demon. Jo picked up one of the bones inside and inspected it.
"Idiots," she growled under her breath, tossing the bone back in the box. "What do they think they gain from this?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "Apparently, great architecture."
/
"So, what brings a guy like you to a place like this?"
For all the world, the demon looked like a girl that Dean wouldn't mind getting a number from. He kept a wary distance from her, remembering his last run-in with a demon. It had taken him weeks to shake off the lethargy.
"Oh, you know. Heard about it from some buddies in there, thought I'd give it a shot. Didn't think it would actually work."
She laughed. "Don't pull that with me. I know who you are, Dean Winchester."
He raised his eyebrows. "Word got out, huh?"
"I'm not making a deal with you. Not with the way your momma wasted Azazel. Neat trick. Still got that gun?"
"You sure about that?" he asked, redirecting the attention from the Colt. "I think I'd be a pretty good prize, don't you?"
The demon smirked. "I don't think so."
Dean pointedly looked down at the soft dirt of the crossroads. Drawn around the demon's feet was a neat devil's trap, just the way Mom had shown him. Jo hadn't let him use her lipstick for it, so he'd been forced to draw it in the dirt.
"Should've gone for it, sweetheart," he said, smiling at her. "So here's our deal. You drop the deals you made here at Lloyd's and I let you out."
Jo was currently holding off the hellhounds that were trying to get at the next idiot that had made a deal at Lloyd's ten years ago. He had to move fast, before the young woman got caught in the crossfire.
The demon tossed her head, glowering at him. If looks could kill, he'd be six feet under. Dean's smirk grew wider. It was nice to see the tables turned, see the dealer become the victim for once.
"Or," he said softly. "You could just head back under. I hear the weather's nice this time of year."
She bared her teeth. Dean pulled a rosary from one of his pockets and unfolded a napkin that Jo had written the exorcism on. The demon watched. She did her best to keep herself impassive, but her breath caught a little when she saw it.
"All right, your choice."
He began the chant. Why was Latin so hard to read? Luckily, the demon was too busy convulsing to correct his grammar.
"Wait!" she shrieked. Dean stopped. "Fine. Fine. I'll drop the deals. Just don't send me back."
And before Dean had really realized what she was doing, she had stepped close to the edge of the devil's trap and pulled him across by the collar into a kiss. He yanked himself back, disgusted.
"What was that for?"
She grinned. "Binding contract, Winchester."
He leaned down and scratched out the trap. The demon gave him a little wave and vanished off to wherever it was demons hung out when they weren't in Hell. Dean waited outside Lloyd's with the engine quietly idling. Jo showed up about a quarter of an hour later. Her jeans had goofer dust all over them, but beyond that, she was unscathed.
"It worked!" she cried, ducking into the passenger side and giving him a high five.
"Celebratory drink?" he offered, pointing at the bar.
"As if," Jo scoffed. "Pedal to the medal, Dean."