Chapter 9
The next morning, Sam and Dean are waiting for Bobby to be his usual awesome guru self. Sam had emailed him the name of the book, which Dean had written letter-perfect just as he'd said. Now they're waiting for the hunter to phone back to let them know if the book is real, and if it is, whether he can get his hands on a copy. Sam doesn't have high hopes for a positive response to either question, but his stomach is still jittery and his mouth is still dry.
Dean had gone out for breakfast and he'd brought back newspapers with the pancakes, but his search for ghoul sign is desultory at best. Sam looks up from his screen to watch his brother glance through the columns, chewing on the tip of a pen just like he's done for years, but that's about all that's familiar. Not for the first time, Sam thinks Dean looks old and weary, and Sam wants to kill everything that has brought his big brother to this…except he's the one who caused a lot of it.
If Sam hadn't actually seen and heard Dean's ghost, he wouldn't believe it, any of it.
It's not helping that Dean won't explain the spell that allowed his spirit to travel back through time to warn him. The one that allowed his future ghosts to share their memories with their younger, living self. He'd sent a different email to Bobby asking about Dean's ghosts, because there was always a chance it was Hell—or Heaven—manipulating his brother with projections and false memories, and he has to know if it's possible. He'd suggested it last night but Dean had just looked at him like he was nuts.
Like he was nuts.
He wasn't the one seeing the ghosts of future past.
"Holy shit," Dean declares, sitting back in his chair in surprise. "I found 'em."
"Found?"
"The ghouls," he explains. "Here's a report on vandalism in a cemetery in Mountain Lake. That's like, ten minutes away. Right next to it, there's a death by animal attack—unidentified animal attack. 'Citizens are being warned to keep an eye out for a rabid dog or other large carnivore', it says."
Sam's about to respond, but his cell rings. Sam picks it up. Sure enough, it's Bobby. He flips it open. "Hey, Bobby," he says.
"Sam, where the hell did you get your intel?" the hunter demands instead of saying hello. "I found your book."
"It's real?" Sam doesn't actually believe it; is still not sure he wants to believe it. On his way to the coffeepot, Dean gestures for him to put Bobby on speakerphone. He switches it over and places it on the table.
"Right, okay," Bobby's voice sounds deep and hollow. "The book, 'Manuale per lo Spostamento di Demoni Potenti lontano. Literally: Manual for Chasing Away Powerful Demons.Written, if you believe the title page, in the 1650s by one Gabriolo Imbroglione."
"Wait, what's the guy's name?" Dean asks, pausing mid-pour.
"Gabriolo Imbroglione," Bobby answers and his voice, even through the digital circuits, sounds dryly amused. "Any guess as to what that means?"
"Imbroglione," Sam says, "isn't that 'trickster' in Italian?"
"Bulls-eye," Bobby answers.
"Gabriolo Trickster," Dean murmurs as if that relieves some doubt. For the first time, Sam realizes that Dean hadn't been sure; pretty sure, maybe almost positive, but now he Believes. It's there in Dean's expression, a momentary widening of the eyes followed by a slight drop of his shoulders. They've been watching each other for years, reading each other's tells, discussing strategies in the middle of hunts without exchanging a word.
It's possible Sam might be screwed.
Bobby's continuing his explanation. "If it was written by THE Trickster, then that explains a lot. The book's a bit of a joke among hunters in Europe because… Well, because there are inconsistencies in the text." Dean raises a questioning eyebrow, so Sam asks out loud. "He mentions sweet grass as a spiritual cleanse," Bobby answers, "Balsam of Peru as an ingredient in spell-breaking, and geraniums for use in exorcisms."
"And that's weird how?" Dean asks.
"Because none of those plants were known in Italy at the time," Sam explains.
"And that's not all," Bobby adds, "He included rituals and rites from religions all around the world. Areas that Europe barely knew existed at the time."
"Is there a ritual in there that can take on a demon of Lilith's strength?" Sam asks. This is the next spot that could end Dean's hope and let him have his. What if Dean's ghost got it wrong? He keeps watching Dean.
Bobby's next words kill that theory. "According to my sources in Europe? Yeah. Apparently, there's a ritual in it that could cage Lucifer himself. All you need is the rings of the Four Horsemen and voila." Bobby chuckles mockingly. "No wonder the guys in Europe have a hard time believing it's not a fake."
Dean doesn't laugh; he doesn't roll his eyes. He freezes and tightens up and Sam's realizes that his brother remembers where and when they used that ritual, which means the spell to banish Lilith might be legit.
God damn it.
"So how do we go about banishing the first demon Lucifer ever created?" Sam asks. This is the next hurdle. If the ritual calls for fifty virgins to be sacrificed on a full moon, there's no way his big brother will go for it.
Sam's kind of disgusted with himself for half-hoping that's what it calls for.
"I haven't actually got the book in front of me, Sam," Bobby says sarcastically. "One of my contacts is going to scan a copy and send it to me."
Sam snorts, "Hopefully it'll be legible."
"I'm not that optimistic, but maybe I'll be able to find the spell we need and clean it up some."
"How long will it take?" Dean asks.
"I don't know. My guy said at least a couple of days to get his hands on a copy long enough to PDF it. A couple days to make the file then who knows how long to read it and find the right spell."
"So a couple weeks?"
"'Bout that," Bobby confirms.
"See if you can't speed it up," Dean orders and Bobby barks at him in return, but Dean says he's got a feeling and that it's important, and the old hunter caves just like he always has when either of the Winchester boys ask him for something.
They end the call and Sam stares at Dean, and Dean stares at Sam, and neither of them says anything.
"Holy shit." Sam's voice is low.
"Yeah."
The laptop whirrs.
"How did you know that spell?" Sam finally asks. Dean lifts his eyebrows, pretending to not understand. "The one using the rings of the Four Horsemen."
"Ah," Dean looks away. "That one."
"Yeah." Sam repeats it deliberately, "That one."
Dean doesn't answer right away and Sam barely restrains himself from snapping at him impatiently. Too many damn secrets.
"I told you, last night, that you'd sacrificed yourself to trap Lucifer?" Sam nods. "That was the spell we used to, uh, reopen the door. Once it was open, you jumped in and took the Devil with you." Dean's voice breaks and he clears it self-consciously. Dean has all the signs of being in the middle of an emotional moment. Over something that hasn't happened yet. Won't happen? Didn't happen? It's as if this Dean, who only has some other Dean's memories of the event, is reacting like he'd lived it.
He had lived it, kind of.
If Sam's right, then Dean didn't just get the facts of whatever his ghosts went through, he got everything, in full-body Imax 3D, with smell-o-vision thrown in for fun. No wonder he's so set on banishing Lilith.
A change in subject is obviously in order. "The Four Horsemen? Seriously?"
Dean nods but doesn't say anything more. He looks at the beer cooler and Sam knows he want to grab one, maybe more than one, but he doesn't. Just turns away and goes to the coffee. A month ago he would have just grabbed the beer or four, and the only reason Sam can think of for his brother's restraint is because this Dean lived through a future where they drank and they got killed and so did their friends. Maybe one of the future Deans recognized that alcohol didn't help, that it was, in its way, as bad as demon blood for drowning out truth and caution.
It still makes Sam shiver as if he's the one being visited by ghosts.
"What were they like?" He asks more to take his mind off the once-but-no-longer-future, but also because he's interested. "The Horsemen."
Dean looks at him, and gives a surprised laugh. Sam shrugs, "I figure this time round I won't get to meet them."
Dean's chuckle is rueful. "Trust me, meeting them wasn't fun. The most decent one was Death. Very polite. Fucking terrifying though. He said he'd eventually reap God."
"Reap… God." Sam can't believe it.
Dean nods and he looks oddly cheerful. "Just a little intimidating to talk to."
"Yeah," Sam agrees weakly. "Just a little."
"Death is—was—completely neutral in the whole Apocalypse thing. As long as life and death follow their proper rhythms, he doesn't care."
"Why should he, since he's going to reap God."
Dean just nods his head casually while Sam can't process even the idea of it.
"Exactly. The others though, War, Famine and Pestilence. They're bastards. Liked toying with us humans, making us suffer. I am so glad we're not going to run into them this time."
"Do you realize how freakishly bizarre that sounds?"
"Yeah, well. This is our lives." Dean looks at him and Sam is struck once again by how tired his brother looks, and it's not physical, not just because of the injury and the healing. This is deeper. A mental tiredness, more insidious and harder to combat. It occurs to Sam that knowing all these futures must be harder than science fiction makes it seem. Probably the only way to make it easier, to keep everything straight, is to not to think about all of it: pretend you don't know anything but the now and hope that it all turns out fine.
Sam can pretend—it's a Winchester specialty.
"So when do you think we'll get to Bobby's? It's only an hour or so from here, right?"
"We're not going to Bobby's," Dean says. "We still have the ghouls to hunt."
"Seriously?"
Dean gives him a short nod.
"But we don't even know when they reach Windom. Our brother" –damned if that doesn't sound weird– "Adam's not in danger for months yet, you said."
"What about all the other people they kill? We just gonna let them die?"
Typical, Sam thinks. Putting everybody else's needs before their own. How can he think he's not like Dad?
"Look," Dean argues, "right now we know where they are, and we're close. It'll be a day or two tops before Bobby's ready for us and he might not have even finished translating by then."
It's logical, though Sam doesn't like it.
"Are we going to introduce ourselves to Adam or his mom while we're here?" He's curious, he admits it. Adam and his non-hunting childhood represents what they could've been if only things had been different. A muscle flexes in Dean's jaw and he doesn't think Dean shares his curiosity.
"We probably should," Dean finally says. "They have a right to know that Dad's dead, for one thing." Not the reaction Sam had figured. "But no trying to turn Adam into a hunter."
"I wouldn't!" The protest is automatic. Dean's eyes are flat and uncompromising.
"I did." Sam doesn't believe it. He's hated hunting since he was a kid and, sure, yeah, he's adjusted to his new reality—can kind of see the point of doing what they do—but that in no way means he thinks recruiting people into it is a good idea.
Dean sighs and lets go of the argument. "To be fair, Adam, the ghoul Adam, was setting us up, always talking about getting revenge on the thing that 'killed his mom', and you were hell-bent on your own quest, so you kind of fed off of each other. But it was just a way to distract us, keep us busy, until we separated and they could take their own revenge." Dean looks away. "And I just… gave up, I suppose."
"Gave up on what?"
Dean flicks a glance his way and Sam braces himself. "On you. On us. On it ever going back to what it had been." He gives a bitter chuckle. "I didn't have much hope that it would get any better, but I sure as hell didn't realize it was going to get worse. It was supposed to be you and me against the world."
"It was, I mean, it is." Sam can feel his heart pounding. "That future? It's not going to happen anymore. You've changed it."
"Really? 'Cause every time I turn around there's another ghost coming at me telling me I've been killed again." Dean rolls his lips, swallowing nervously. "I ask… I ask them, where we—I—go. They can never tell me. I don't… I can't go back down there, Sam. I can't."
"Saving the world's gotta count on the plus side, right?" Sam jokes lightly because he can tell by the way Dean's breathing and closing in on himself that he's remembering Hell.
"Heaven sucks ass too, Sam, so still no bright side."
Sam just stares because Dean's bitter and tired and he doesn't trust Sam to have his back anymore—not like he used to, but he needs to do something, say something, that will pull Dean out of this. "Maybe we won't die. At least not for a long time."
Dean doesn't bother laughing. "What kind of Kool-Aid you drinking, man? It ends bloody or sad, or we get out."
"Get out?" he asks, surprised. "Is that what you're going to do, if this works and we banish Lilith without killing ourselves? Is that what you're saying I should do?"
"Is it such a bad idea?"
Sam doesn't answer. He's never thought it an option that his brother would consider, not when people would die if they weren't out there.
Dean digs deeper, "Tell me, Sam, in all the futures you've envisioned over the past year or so, have any of them included surviving?"
Sam doesn't want to admit that no, they haven't.
Dean hears him anyway. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
It takes ten minutes for them to drive to Mountain Lake. They might as well have not bothered. The place has three cemeteries but only one was the victim of 'grave robbers'. They check out the other two graveyards, slipping on leaves slick with first snow and getting whipped in the face by low branches, but it makes no difference. There's no sign of the ghouls anywhere. Now they're sitting in the local diner, drinking coffee and listening to the local gossip but there's not a whisper of anything odd.
"You know," Sam says patiently, leaning forward so he can keep his voice down. "Just because they eat corpses doesn't mean they sleep with them. And I don't mean sex."
"Maybe they checked into a motel." Dean's voice is mocking but Sam can see the small appreciative smile.
"It's possible. Ghouls are, after all, high-functioning undead, right? Or maybe they're not here. Maybe they're in Butterfield or Darfur or, hell, maybe they're in Minneapolis. All we've got are your hazy impressions passed on by a dead guy." Sam reigns himself in. "Sorry, this whole 'I see dead people' thing is freaking me out."
"I know. Believe me, I know."
"Why?" It comes out of his mouth without thought.
"Why am I freaked?" Dean asks in disbelief.
"No, dumb ass," Sam rolls his eyes. "Why did you start getting visits? Why now? Why not, I dunno, two years ago?" Before Dad sold his soul. Before you sold yours. Before, when there was still a chance to change everything.
Dean gives him a sad little smile. "Because I am, literally, not the same man I was then. Like the Six Million Dollar Man, baby, I was completely rebuilt."
Oh.
Dean assumes a pose he probably thinks a model would use. "Cas did a pretty good job, huh?"
Four months in the ground, no preservatives except a few hastily spoken words and a layer of salt, no protection against scavengers except depth and a hex bag. Sam is familiar enough with the different stages of decay—a sad thought right there—that he has to admit that Cas did indeed do a pretty good job.
"So, ghouls. Suggestions?"
Dean shrugs. "There was that little place between Windom and here." He looks at Sam, a question in his gaze and Sam considers it. It's possible the ghouls are already heading for Windom. Maybe they'll stop for a snack mid-trip.
"Let's go see if they have a cemetery."
"Lunch first?"
"It's ten."
"But they have homemade pie," Dean wheedles.
They stay. It's pretty good pie.
The place is called Bingham Lake and it's even smaller than the last tiny town—it only has two cemeteries. While Sam's checking official sources, Dean's at the local diner because, aside from having pie, diners are a great place for hearing gossip about gruesome deaths or grave desecrations happening in town, but that's not what Dean hears as he drinks his coffee and pretends to be playing whatever on the laptop. Apparently, Tommy Kearn, like his older brother and his father before him, has gotten his girlfriend 'in a family way' and a hasty wedding is being planned. Old Mrs. Knutsen had been found wandering the park in her housecoat again and isn't it terrible the way her son doesn't take care of her properly? Trish and Les are an item again, though no one thinks it'll last very long this time either. Oh, and hasn't the weather been odd lately?
It is freaking unreal, Dean thinks as he sits and listens.
These people have no clue what's happening to the world around them, yet it's not like he and Sam exist on a different planet. They live here and the things they fight live here. However, to the good people of Bingham Lake, Em En, ghosts and ghouls are just tales told around campfires. This is the world his father had lived in until a demon burned it to ashes. It was the one Lisa had lived in before changelings ripped it apart. It's a world Dean can hardly remember and yet he protects it with his life—lives—his and Sam's lives. Too many lives.
The first time he'd tried to live in that world hadn't gone so well. There were rewards, sure. Lisa's warm body lying next to his on lazy mornings and Ben's smile of pride as they worked on the truck together. But nothing had made up for Sam's absence. Dean had thought his brother was in Hell, stuck with Lucifer inside him, maybe going through what had been done to him. Although it had, or would, only occur to him later that nobody in Hell would've tortured Lucifer's vessel. Except Lucifer himself, of course, which wasn't really better than picturing Alistair's replacement standing over Sam.
That isn't the case this time. Or won't be.
If this ritual works, and Lilith is sent back downstairs before all the Seals break, then Sam won't be going to Hell and the angels' plan will be stopped for another couple millennia. It's only been a year in this life since he last saw Lisa so it maybe isn't too late for him to try again. Maybe he can do it better this time, knowing Sam's alive and safe… safe-ish. Safe as he lets himself be. Which hopefully will be safer than they'd been this time last life since his baby brother's not so gung-ho 'hunting's not just a job' like he got the last time they went through this. Now that Ruby isn't whispering her friggin' lies in his fucked-out, blood-soaked ear all the time, that is.
Whoa. Bitter.
And he'd thought he was doing better…
"Dean!" Sam shakes him out of his future past. "Jesus, Dean. Sleep much?"
"No, not really," he answers before his brain catches up to the question. Sam flinches and looks away. "Forget it, man," Dean waves it away. "Nothing you can do to change it."
Sam blinks rapidly for a bit before giving Dean a reassuring smile. "They've had cattle mutilations," he says and it takes Dean a moment to refocus on the case: Adam, half-brother, ghouls; right. He nods at Sam to continue. "Arte Lindstrom had a calf chewed up last night. Sherriff's thinking wolf or bear."
Dean smirks. "Wolves and bears being so common in southern Minnesota." Sam smiles in agreement.
"I talked to Arte. He swears it was sicko humans because the wounds were too tidy to be anything but a knife. Plus, the calf was drained of blood before whatever it was got down to eating."
Dean frowns. It sounded familiar. "Lenore's not around here, is she?"
Sam blinks in surprise. "I don't… I took her to a place in Wyoming."
"Okay, that's good." She'll live too, if this works; and her group or kiss—whatever a vampire pack is called—they won't be called away from her. "What?"
"Just… I'm surprised you remember her."
"Why wouldn't I remember her?" Dean asks in return. "I saved a vamp's life because she was the good guy. It was a rather traumatic event for me." It altered just about everything actually. The traditional bad guys trying to live in peace and harmony, and a human—a hunter—being the evil bad guy who had to be stopped. "Plus she was hot," he adds to deflect any more questions.
It works. Sam makes his 'I can't believe we're related' face and goes back to the map. "The nearest cemetery is here, but there's no guarantee they're there."
"There's never any guarantee, Sam. Not about ghouls, not about anything." Shit, hadn't meant to say that. "I was looking at Dad's journal. He took out all the parts dealing with Windom. He put in a couple lines later about having to take the heads but nothing about how to track ghouls or their habits."
"Sloppy."
"Yeah. I think maybe he was freaked to find out he had a son. The entry's dated about the time Adam would've been one," he says in response to Sam's look. Adam would've been one. Sam would've been seven and Dean would've been eleven. Adam would've been crawling around in diapers and puking up milk while John had them out in some abandoned field practicing their aim.
"Well then, I guess it's a bug hunt," Sam's voice is overly cheerful and Dean wonders if he'd thought of the same ugly comparisons.
The cemetery is peaceful. Free of the snow that coated the fields of the previous town, the November grass is carefully tended. A light breeze rustles the last of the leaves. Mementos, old and new, decorate the stone memorials, adding a bit of color. It all fails to make it look like anything but a place of the dead. It's also an old place of the dead that's grown, unplanned, until it's become a maze of nooks and corners that back onto a wooded acre, which means there's lots of places for the undead to hide.
It takes them nearly an hour to cover the easy bits. Then it's scoping out the edge of the thick brush. Sam spots the broken branches and crushed grass, and a closer look reveals tell-tale brownish-red: Old blood. He whistles his brother over.
"Crumbling shack?" Dean suggests without enthusiasm, looking into the thick brush and seeing nothing but thick brush.
"It's not likely to be an abandoned mine," Sam says in the same tone. Doesn't matter, because either way, they're going in.
They try to be quiet as they wade through the woods but there are too many brittle twigs and branches, the grass is dry and raspy, and there are birds. Dean finally says, "Screw it" and bulls his way through. Sam follows close behind and curses his brother's impulsiveness for the millionth time.
It's not a shack, but it is abandoned.
It had probably been some kind of feeding shed for livestock, as it was more lean-to than shed. It's still big but one end has collapsed completely, making it a dark haven that might appeal to ghouls. Dean's got his sawed-off up and ready before he's finished moving into the isolated clearing. Sam lifts his weapon only moments after. Dean jerks his head and Sam nods understanding. He cuts to the right, moving close to the open end of the structure where he'll have a fairly clear line of sight along its length. Dean goes left and wide. He keeps his distance from the lean-to but makes enough noise to cover Sam's movements. If there are ghouls hiding out in there, they'll jump at Dean thinking he's the only one approaching and that'll give Sam a chance to pick them off from safety.
It's a good plan, they've used it before, but it goes wrong from the start.
A pale shape jumps out of the bush at Dean and knocks him almost to the ground.
"Dean!" Sam calls out in concern even though he knows he should keep his mind on where the other ghoul is.
It's behind the part of the shed he's standing by, as it happens, and it has a baseball bat it brings down in a heavy overhand swing.
He hears Dean's coughed warning but Sam's already shifting. He twists and pulls his arm back. The bat swings by so close Sam can feel the air move: broken wrist if it had connected. He grabs hold of the bat with his left hand and pushes it into the ghoul's stomach. He—it—lets go as it stumbles back. Sam tosses the bat, lifts his foot and kicks the ghoul with all his strength. The creature—in the shape of a teen-aged boy—flies into and through the rotten wood of the lean-to. It's down, stunned, but that won't last long, so Sam steps forward, lifts the shotgun, and pulls the trigger. One ghoul down. He turns to see if his brother's done with his yet.
Dean isn't.
Dean's standing in the clearing holding his head and blinking slowly as if he's having trouble seeing. Or, considering the way he's weaving on his feet, maybe his ears are screwed up. Worse than Dean's confusion is that he's dropped his weapon.
He's dropped his weapon and the ghoul's picked it up and is advancing on Sam with deadly intent.
The monster's in the body of an old man, casual in jeans and insulated plaid jacket, he—it—has a farmer's 'gimme cap' on its head and the shotgun looks natural in its hands. Sam jumps to the side just as it pulls the trigger. He can feel the blast and thinks it may have caught a piece of his jacket.
"I know what you are," it says, voice shaking with anger. "Goddamn hunters." It gets ready to shoot again so Sam rolls towards it, hoping to catch it around the legs and bring it down. It side-steps easily. "Hunters killed our daddy. You've just killed my brother. Now I'm going to kill you."
"I don't think so, bitch."
The ghoul may have picked up Dean's sawed-off, but Dean has the baseball bat and he swings it like a pro: transferring all the power in a line through his body as he twists and letting it flow right to the end of the bat. It connects solidly and Sam can hear the crunch-splat—an ugly sound but welcome. The ghoul topples. The gun falls to the grass-covered ground and the impact makes it go off. The blast echoes in the clearing. Dean's getting ready to swing again but Sam puts out a hand. He points his weapon in the direction of the ghoul's head—not easy when lying on an uneven surface—but he doesn't need pinpoint accuracy for a shotgun at this distance.
The ghoul opens his eyes and blinks at him. He looks lost.
Sam pulls the trigger.
As if the third shot had broken some kind of spell, birds burst out of the woods in a cacophony of wings. It's indicative of how messed up their lives are when both of them look around expecting to see an angel in the clearing instead of glancing up to watch the birds fly.
"Good job, Sam." Dean offers him a hand.
Sam takes it and lets himself be pulled until he gets his feet under him. He checks his coat—sure enough, there's a hole—and then looks at Dean as his brother retrieves his weapon and checks it for damage. "What happened?"
A quick glance, then Dean's eyes return to the gun as he breaks it open to take out the spent cartridges. "What do you mean?" Dean sucks at innocent ignorance.
"Come on, man. I saw you. You froze or something in the middle of a fight. Shit like that can get you killed, can get us both killed," Sam corrects because, God knows, Dean's never cared about his own life, but he's always been overcautious with Sam's.
It works. Dean sighs, shrugs and looks… not embarrassed but something else. Worried, maybe?
"It was okay, at first, then… I dunno." Now he looks at the sky. "I was fighting the fight from before or, the future, that… isn't anymore. I could see the trees but I could also see the house I'm going to kill them in. Or… did kill them in." He finally looks at Sam and he's smiling ruefully. "There isn't a tense for this shit."
"Has it happened before?" He gets a confused frown so he clarifies. "Have events from the other future overlapped events in this one?"
Dean looks away again. "Once," he admits. "In Don's basement. But that was pretty close to what happened before so…"
"You thought it was a factor," Sam completes the theory when Dean trails off.
His brother shrugs again. "Makes sense, right?" He offers a thin smile and Sam thinks that he's having problems with more than his tenses. Before he can call his brother on it, ask when he was going to tell him about this little development, Dean's handing him his weapon and bending to grab the ghoul's arm.
"Let's get these bodies burned before we lose daylight," Dean says as he drags the fake old man over to the fake teen-aged boy, laying them together neatly in a gesture that's oddly thoughtful. "Don't need the locals calling the volunteer fire brigade about a fire in the woods when there's only one path in or out."
"This grass is really dry," Sam stomps on it and it cracks. "We're going to have to watch the fire so it doesn't take the bushes with it." Saying it lets Sam's mind spin along the side of a lot of slippery territory. Like '
Thankfully, Dean agrees with him. "Take the–" Dean stops, grimaces, and then starts up in a softer tone. "Why don't you take the guns back to the car and bring back the salt and lighter fluid. I'll stay here, clear around the shed so we can use it as firewood. That way, if someone does come later, they'll think it was teenagers having a party."
Sam agrees, even though the woods aren't any more fun the second time through. At least the struggle is enough to keep his brain occupied with things other than ghouls, demons and double-vision.
While he's at the Impala, he tosses some food into the small cooler with the beer since they're going to be staying a while—bodies can take a long time to burn. When he gets back, Dean has arranged some of the wood into a kind of bench so that they can sit in relative comfort off the cold ground. Sam hands him a beer. Dean silently takes it and silently drinks it and it makes Sam itchy. Dean's not a complete ass, usually, but there's something in the way he's holding himself that is respectful and thoughtful and Sam's just not that used to Dean behaving that way when they won. Against monsters.
He can't bring himself to ask, doesn't know what to ask really, so he drinks his beer silently, and when he gets hungry, he silently shares the jerky and cheese strings.
"I was thinking about what you said the other day," Dean says out of nowhere as the sun tips over into early evening and the air starts to crisp. The ghouls' bodies are almost completely gone now and all they're waiting for is the fire to die down. Sam keeps quiet. He said a lot the other day.
"Revenge is never over, is it?" Dean asks, but it's not a question. "Our dad killed their dad so they got angry and went after people close to Dad, so we killed them. If they have any other relatives, are they going to take after us next?"
"I doubt they exchange Christmas cards with anyone, Dean."
Dean grunts an almost-laugh and quiet falls between them once again, but it's not an easy quiet, not on Sam's part. This Dean isn't his Dean. Hasn't been since the ghosts started, which are good reasons to have changed, Sam has to admit; and he can also admit that it had pissed him off when Dean had tried to act as if nothing was different after getting out of Hell, but this… It's not the weakness Ruby had trained him to see, but it's still as if Dean's going through the motions of being a hunter, a big brother.
"Why are you getting so morose over a couple of ghouls?" Why are you so different? What aren't you telling me? Why am I losing you?
Dean makes this half-shrug that often indicates he's not going to say anything. Sam bites his lip as he tries to figure out another way to phrase it. Then Dean leans forward, arms on thighs, and Sam's breath catches with the sudden flare of hope.
"How many things have we killed, Sam? You ever count it up?"
Not the question Sam was expecting and he mutely shakes his head.
"Neither have I. Not sure I can remember them all. I was, what? Fourteen the first time Dad took me as back-up on a hunt. Made my first kill when I was sixteen and haven't looked back."
"A lot of them were already dead," Sam points out. Dean doesn't even shrug, like it doesn't even count. "And usually they were hurting someone," Sam adds, because that fact has to count for something.
"You know, most cops never pull their guns in the whole of their careers. And even when they do, not many of them actually kill anything. Ghouls, most ghouls, don't hurt anyone either. Their father didn't, not anyone living, anyway. Ghouls are scavengers, might as well hunt crows and foxes and feral dogs. Yet Dad came along and hunted him down. Why?"
How is Sam supposed to answer that? "Because Dad didn't know how to stop, I suppose."
"Or because it was supernatural and therefore a monster and deserved to die. Kind of like a racist… or maybe a species-ist?" He shrugs it off. "Anyway, tell me who the monster was, Sam." Dean barely looks at him.
"You are fucking grim to talk to," Sam blurts out. "What happened to 'we're allowed to have fun'?" He flinches even as the words come out of his mouth. He's practically daring Dean to go back to being shallow and unconcerned—or at least to wear that persona. Dean's silent and Sam mentally crosses his fingers, hoping against hope that he hasn't messed this up.
He has because Dean turns to him and grins. "Sorry, Sam. I just didn't think a marshmallow roast was appropriate."
It's a classic Dean-deflection but he can't stop his instinctive flinch. Eating something cooked on the same fire as a couple of monsters? "Gr-oss!"
Dean stands up kicks the barely glowing embers even further apart—they're done here. "C'mon, dude. If we boot it we can still make it to Bobby's in time for supper. Maybe he's making lasagna."
"I thought we were going to introduce ourselves to our brother." There's a slight pause in Dean's step. Maybe he'd forgotten they'd planned to do that. Or maybe he'd hoped Sam had forgotten. "We don't have to say how we know about him, or why we looked him up, but he should maybe know that he's got family out there, right? I think we should," he continues. "I'd like to meet him."
"He's not even going to be there, Sam. It's November and he's at college. Isn't that, like, major exam time?" Dean's back is high and tight, a huge silent warning to back off. Sam's not going to though, because unless they do this now, he knows they'll never come back to Windom, Minnesota, and the chance will be lost.
"Family's important, right? That's what you always say." Sam lifts his voice, "Or is that only when it's convenient?" They've reached the tidy cemetery and walking's easier. A youngish woman and a small child are sitting beside a headstone, obviously visiting the grave of someone they once loved. Hopefully the person died peacefully.
Dean stops dead. His body has gone beyond tight. He whips around. "No, that's you, Sam. You're the one who can pick us up or ignore us whenever you want to go chasing something else, something better. And you know what? Maybe you weren't wrong."
Sam feels like he's been kicked in the chest.
"Why do you think Dad never told us about this kid, Sam? Huh? Why do you think he ripped those pages out of his journal?"
"Because—"
Dean doesn't give him a chance to finish. "Because he was protecting him! Dad was protecting Adam."
"Dad's dead, Dean." He says it quietly, but firm. They don't have to do what Dad might or might not have wanted anymore. He thought Dean understood that.
"Doesn't matter! He didn't want Adam to have our lives, okay? And we are gonna respect his wishes. Hell, I don't want to have our lives."
"What?"
The fury falls from his brother's face. "Shit, didn't mean to say that."
He tries to turn toward the car but Sam won't let him. He grabs his arm and turns him back. "No, don't run away. What do you mean by that?"
"Do you have to ask?" Dean's voice is weary. "I mean, come on. We've got angels and demons on our asses 24/7. The Apocalypse is coming and that might be our fault. I've been to Hell and you are—were—maybe still are—headed there. Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Rufus; all of them, dead. We have no home, no future, just more of the same and a gruesome fucking death at the end of it. Why would anyone want this life, Sam? You didn't. Mom didn't."
"You did. But that was before." It's a quiet realization of how badly he's fucked them up. "If you could walk away now—no Kool-Aid required—would you?"
Dean snorts. "I hate fucking what ifs." Then suddenly, he laughs and the clouds leave his face and the storm is gone from his eyes. "I hate 'em, and now I'm fucking living one. Is that irony?"
It's Sam's turn to snort. "No, man. I think it's just par for our lives."
Dean's smile is the one he used to have and Sam feels something loosen inside him that he'd only vaguely been aware of. They can do this: they can be brothers again. He opens the trunk and they pack away the weapons and the cooler. "You really want to go see him?" Dean asks.
He does, but Dean was right: Adam will be hip-deep in mid-terms right now. He's not even sure which university he's attending. "We can go talk to his mother. Let her know we know they exist and that Dad's dead."
"If she knew what he was, then she's probably guessed that part." Dean's got the door open, letting the breeze sweep through the car. It wasn't especially hot during the day, but it was enough to make the air stale.
"It's always good to know for sure."
Dean tips his head to the side, not arguing but not necessarily agreeing either. "Sleep tonight; visit in the morning, then straight to Bobby's?"
"Deal." He grins at his brother and Dean gives him a small smile in return. He knows Dean doesn't understand why he's pushing for this, and in some ways, Sam doesn't know why he is either. Except that having another brother living in the world is another connection to this world instead of the drifting depression Dean's been in. Dean needs family and Sam… Sam needs Dean not to be completely broken by everything Dean did for him (Hell) or that Sam did to him (nearly killed him). If Dean's okay, then that means that Sam'll be forgiven—really forgiven—not that half-assed Buddhist accept-the-suffering thing Dean's always had.
Sam's cell rings as they're pulling out. "It's Bobby," he announces after looking at the photo that pops up. "Hey, Bobby."
"You boys must be on the side of the angels," he says in greeting and Sam's brain flashes on Uriel in Palestine and he seriously hopes not.
"My contact says the guy with the book PDF'ed it years ago so it could be used and studied but not get damaged. He says most of the pages are even legible."
"That's… incredible." Dean frowns at him but Sam ignores the question. "So when are you getting the file or is there a charge?"
"My virus-checker's munching on it now, and he said no charge, but a donation to the Gutenberg Project would be appreciated."
"We can do that," Sam says in simple gratitude. He's used the site before to look up books he'd otherwise have no access to. "Next time I'm online."
"Yeah, that's what I said," Bobby chuckles. "Never had a book hunt go so easy."
That's a sentiment Sam can easily agree with. And if he thinks too much about how smooth it's going, he's going to get very uneasy, so he changes the subject to their proposed ETA of late tomorrow afternoon and Bobby promises to bring in extra food. He won't make lasagna but he's got some deer he could roast up. Sam knows it'll be an acceptable substitute as far as Dean's concerned. The call almost ends on an optimistic note, until the old hunter tells Sam to check his damn emails.
"You ask me a question I gotta assume you care about the answer. If not, I won't bother looking stuff up for you anymore."
He gives vague promises to look, the most he can do with his brother in the seat next to him and listening in. Then he ends the call. He holds the phone—he could check his emails on it. Read whatever Bobby found out. He could…
He flips the phone, end over end.
"We should go see a movie," he suggests instead of reading Bobby's message. "In a theater with real popcorn and real butter."
"And real small seats."
"We haven't been to see a movie in a while," Sam ignores him. "We could go see The Changeling."
"Dude! I don't want to see a frickin' monster movie," Dean protests.
"No monsters, just Angelina Jolie." Sam defends his choice and Dean has to agree that's a selling point. "Or there's the newest Saw movie." He looks at Dean. Dean looks at him.
"Nah." They both reject that one. They argue without heat, about what to see and Sam knows they'll probably end up at the motel watching whatever's on pay-per-view, but it's comfortable and normal and… nice. He can pretend that things are going to be okay even after Lilith's gone.
At least he can pretend until they reach the motel in Windom and there's a trench-coated angel standing in the middle of their room.
"Hey, Cas," Dean says casual as anything. "You wanna watch a movie with us?"
"I do not know. Will it take long?"
"No need to worry, 'cause you're here on assignment, right?" Dean points out.
Castiel frowns, but Sam thinks it's a kind of agreement. He boots up his laptop. "What did your boss say about Adam?"
"I didn't tell him."
Sam sees Dean looking at the angel, using the same silent communication that they use. He's not sure if he's more disturbed that Dean is doing it, or that Castiel understands. "He didn't ask."
'One thousand shades of truth,' indeed.
Sam opens up his mail to see a message from Rebecca Warren. Little Becky, whose brother's image had been stolen by a shapeshifter who then murdered the girlfriend. They've kept in contact, mostly via emails, but it's been friendly and real. Now she's telling him that her brother, Zach, is getting married. Any chance of him and Dean coming to St. Louis for the wedding?
Fuck no. The St. Louis cops still think Dean killed all those women, and what are the chances of a nosy detective showing up at the ceremony? He'll have to remember to send a card though, and a, shit, a gift or something.
Married… Shit.
He leans back in the seat and just stares at the message because it reminds him of a whole other world he'd once dipped his toe into. A world that was safe and stable and normal. Jesus, he'd been young. And naïve, and possibly stupid for thinking he could escape his past, but he'd been planning on marrying Jess. He'd been looking at rings, thinking about careers and where they'd live. And kids. They would've had tall kids, him and Jess, and he'd wondered if they would be smart and sassy like their mother. Would they have blonde hair or dark?
Sitting here now thinking about it, all he wonders is would he pass his demon blood down into a child of his? How could he risk it?
The answer, of course, is that he can't; not now he knows.
He glances at his brother—his untainted brother—who could've done all those things, but hadn't. Too busy having Dad's back, protecting Sam, saving the world, being the big god-damned hero. And still purely human. Dean could have kids. Dean could settle down with someone, maybe that chick in Cicero—Gumby Girl—with the son who was maybe Dean's already. Sam could be an uncle. They could have a Joe Normal life, once Lilith is gone. House, job, bills and taxes…
He had pictured it easily once. He isn't sure he can picture it now. Normal is looking up from his leftover research into ghouls to see his haunted brother arguing movie choices with a confused angel who looks like a tax accountant.
He leaves Rebecca's email to be answered later and opens the message from Bobby, sent this morning while they'd been in Mountain Lake.
Good news: my research says demons can't send ghosts across time with messages for people. Bad news: things that can do what you described are God, the angels (maybe), gods or goddesses in charge of an underworld, plus any other entity with power over death. It's the time-travel thing that's got me stumped, Bobby concludes. Time-travelling ghosts are usually the result of a curse, however they can usually only move forward from their own time.
Useless really, but Bobby's message continues.
Why are you asking? And don't try to fob me off with a lame-ass excuse, boy. One of you is seeing time-travelling ghosts, likely Dean since he knew the name of an obscure demon-fighting book that's exactly what you boys need right now. Does he have any other symptoms? How is it affecting him?
Is that what happened in Memphis?
Sam reads the last question and swallows his stomach back down. He could fudge it. He could fudge it until they actually arrive in Sioux Falls because it's probable that one of them will let it slip that he stabbed Dean. He'd told Bobby something, during the days Dean had been in the hospital, but he can't remember what exactly. He'd spent most of his time in a panic heightened by demon-blood and guilt.
He sends back a carefully crafted answer that admits Dean's seeing ghosts and getting their memories that sometimes overlay the real world. That'll give the old hunter something to worry about other than what happened in Memphis.
"Dude," he hears Dean say. "I'm not watching When Harry Met Sally with you. I'd have to explain every damn scene and just, no." Sam laughs. He knows the scene Dean's thinking of.
He exits the browser and closes his laptop. "What else is on?" So they watch Hot Fuzz with the angel, and follow it with Planes, Trains and Automobiles, because it's getting close to Thanksgiving, and he listens to Dean laugh, and he laughs too. Castiel doesn't understand any of it, of course, and teasing Dean as he tries to explain is almost as funny as the damn movies.
It's a good night.
