Chapter 9 If Only They Could Talk


Lebanon, Kansas

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Sam knelt on the floor of the tiny confessional, his head bowed over his folded hands. Dean frowned as he saw his brother through the filigreed scrollwork of the screen between them.

"Sam, wait – I'm not – I'm not supposed to be hearing this –" he started to say, the words cut off by a high-pitched drilling sound, driving into his ears, into his mind, rebounding in the hollows in his skull. "Jesus! Stop!"

"I have killed, Father. I have tortured. I have followed a path of darkness and consorted with evil. I have –" Sam's voice droned in the cubicle, and Dean shook his head, hands pressed hard over his ears, eyes screwed against the sound that was getting louder and more piercing.

"Goddamn it! STOP IT!"

"I have betrayed. I have broken trust."

"Do you repent of your sins, my son?"

"Yes, Father," Sam said.

Light flooded the confessional and Dean twisted away from the screen, throwing an arm up over his face. "SAM!"

"You are absolved and forgiven of your sins, Sam Winchester."

Dean heard the voice, directionless and omnipresent, rattling the timbers of the tiny cubicle.

The light brightened, flooding into him through the solid flesh of his arm, through his tightly closed eyelids, reaching into him and illuminating every cell, every thought, every memory.

Then it was gone.

He shuddered, lowering his arm slowly, his pulse thundering in his ears in the complete silence and darkness. His brother had vanished.

"Sam!" He clambered to his feet, pushing against the narrow door. "Sam?!"

"Dean Winchester, are you ready to confess your sins?"

Flinching back against the wall, Dean looked around, peering through the screen. No one sat on the other side.

"What?"

"You can be forgiven."

He backed into the corner, looking from the screen to the door, understanding distantly that there was no one else there, that he wasn't hearing that voice with his ears. What kind of mindfuck trick was this, he thought furiously. Crowley? One of the angels dicking around at his expense?

"Do you repent?"

Did he repent?

The inanity of the question raised his hackles. He'd spent the last four years trying to make up for the filth that coated him, deep inside where he couldn't get rid of it, only to feel himself layered in more and more as the years had gone by.

"You can be free of your burden."

"Bullshit," he muttered, looking around.

"Do you seek forgiveness?"

"I …" he stopped, gaze dropping to the floor as the question spiralled down into him, a falling light that was illuminating the depths he tried never to look at.

He'd paid enough, hadn't he? Paid for the choices, paid for living when he should have died. He was so damned sick of trying to find a way to live that didn't crush him with memory. "For everything … everything I've done?"

"Everything," the voice that wasn't a voice, that he couldn't hear with his ears, that slid through him and saw everything, confirmed.

He took a step forward, and dropped to his knees, looking at the narrow ledge in front of him. "Yes," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Yes," he said again, clearing his throat, the word coming out more strongly. "Bless me –"

Snapping upright in the bed, Dean stared wide-eyed into the blackness of the room, his heart galloping in his chest, sweat dripping from his hair in droplets he could feel falling on his arms, the big muscles of his shoulders and back twitching and rolling as if he'd touched a live wire.

What the fuck?

The clock on the nightstand showed three a.m., its soft greenish glow letting him see the outline of the lamp above it, the rucked sheets along the edge of the bed. Swinging his legs over the side, his toes curled as they touched the floor, solid, real beneath them.

The heat that had flushed through him a moment ago had gone, leaving a dull ache and a bitter chill inside and he got up, shivering a little. Snapping on the lamp and trying not to acknowledge the reassurance that the warm, golden light gave him as he looked around the room. He didn't ask himself what he was looking for. Crossing to the bureau, her dragged out two of the drawers and grabbed clean clothes, forcing himself to keep moving, not thinking, across the room and out the door.

The bath was next door and he blinked in the brighter overhead light, tossing his clothes on top of the elaborately carved timber chest next to the sink and stripping off his sweat-sour and dripping tee shirt and shorts, leaving them in a wet pile in the middle of the tiled floor. He reached into the shower recess for the taps. The building's hot water system was good and as steam curled above the etched and bevelled glass screen, he stepped into the recess, feeling the chill dissipate under the hot flow, the last shreds of the dream blasted from him as he ducked his head under the water, grabbing the soap and washing himself compulsively from head to foot.

The blood had been burned out of his brother, he thought, tipping his head back and feeling the cascade sluice over him. Sam was normal. More normal than he'd been since he'd been an infant.

Now it was just him. The freak. The monster with a human face. It didn't matter that he knew the things that he'd done, the choices he'd made, those had been under duress, with no other option in sight. The holes he felt, the wasteland, the emptiness inside, that had come from something different.

He pushed the thoughts aside impatiently, turning around under the water and twisting the taps off.

You don't know what you're doing, Sam. He'd been trying to get his little brother to see reason.
Yes, I do.
Sam's response had hit like a hammer, shaking him somewhere so deep he couldn't take a breath. Then that's worse.
Why? Look, I'm telling you—
Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are!
He'd shouted that at Sammy, his father's words screaming in his head. It means—
What? No. Say it.
Sam had looked at him steadily, his expression tight.

It means you're a monster.

Leaning against the tiled wall, his eyes screwed shut as the memory replayed, too clearly, too fucking vividly. If you can't save him, you're gonna have to kill him. There was no way he could do that. Not then. Not any time. He knew what being a monster was all about. And every morning, every single damned morning, he woke, thinking that this day, today, he could do something to wipe out that darkness. He would do something to pay for what he'd done. Something that would let him die in peace. Something that would leave him finally clean.

But most days, that didn't happen. And some days, he thought he made it worse.

Stepping out of the shower, he grabbed the thick towel from the rail, drying himself off quickly. He dressed fast, dragging on jeans and a tee shirt, tugging the long-sleeved shirt over that, careful not to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror as the steam evaporated from the gleaming surface. Throwing the towel over the shower rail, he walked out and headed for the stairs, bare feet nearly soundless along the polished wooden floor.

A single lamp burned in the library and he glanced around, seeing empty tables, weaving around the last to reach the sideboard. The clink of the crystal stopper seemed loud and sharp in the silence of the building, and he replaced it more carefully, picking up his glass and swallowing a mouthful of the amber fluid, a soft roar of warmth in his throat finally dissipating the remaining chill.

He walked over to the small group of armchairs that flanked the now-clean hearth, dropping into the nearest and leaning back. Weird-ass dreams were going to kill him, he thought, keeping the rest behind the growing wall of numbing heat the whiskey brought as he downed another mouthful. What he needed to be thinking about was the how the hell they were going to get the frequencies of the angels that had fallen globally so that they could track them across the country and keep Cas out of their way.


Des Moines, Iowa

Shadows, mauve and indigo, clung to the trees and filled the narrow paved paths, the birdsong was yet to begin and the city's lights were lit, spectral with the first glow in the sky. Two men stood where the winding path widened, one short and round, in baggy tweed trousers, a dull-coloured cardigan over a pale blue shirt, unkempt brown hair brushed back from a high forehead and a salt-and-pepper beard hiding the weak chin . The other was tall, a tailored suit hanging elegantly on a wide-shouldered and well-built frame. White hair, cut short at the back and sides, framed a face too young for it, although the eyes were older, pale grey, watchful and cold.

The short, portly man drew the lapels of his knitted cardigan closer, looking over the still flat waters of the pond. "They don't even appreciate this, most of the time," he said.

Beside him, the taller man shrugged the comment off.

"The angels have fallen and have begun to gather, and they have been stirred sufficiently to believe the angel is the cause of their current situation," he said, putting his hands into his pockets. "Just as you foresaw. There is sufficient leverage to motivate the factions, both angelic and … other."

"We cannot be seen in this gentle art of manipulation, Forrester," the short man said, his voice sharp. "That is of the utmost importance. How certain are you that you can feed the information to the firm?"

"Very certain," Forrester said, smiling at him. "You can trust me, you know."

"I thought I could trust others of your kind, and found I'd been mistaken."

Forrester laughed softly. "Saint-Clare? He was delusional."

"Delusional and powerful," the portly man said, a little bitterly.

"Live and learn," Forrester remarked. "Don't worry about the firm, or the order. Larry was the only one we needed to be careful with and he's dead."

"Yes," the short man said, turning to face him. "Which brings me to another sticky point. How do you propose to control her?"

"I don't," Forrester told him, pulling a phone from his pocket. "One of the great advantages of the twenty-first century is the dissemination of information. All I need to do is nudge a little here, provide some accurate intel there, and she – and all the rest – will do their jobs without requiring any other help."

He looked up, feeling the other man's stare on him.

"I sometimes wonder if you're not a little too good at your job, Forrester."

Forrester smiled again. "This is your story," he said. "My presumption doesn't go so far as to forget it."

"I'm glad to hear that."


Lebanon, Kansas

Sam looked down at his brother's big frame, sprawled loose-limbed in the armchair, hair spiking in every direction, his face relaxed in the balm of deep sleep. He leaned forward to rescue the crystal tumbler from the precarious two-fingered grip and set it down on the table behind him, backing away soundlessly to turn and walk out of the library, heading down the hall to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.

He'd had no idea Dean was still having nightmares. Months of not sharing a room or the car had desensitised him even to the idea of it, he realised uncomfortably, and all the rooms were thick-walled enough that it would take screams to penetrate them.

Leaning against the counter as he absently filled the coffee pot, he realised that the shadows that seemed to fill his brother's eyes most of the time had been present since the day Dean'd dug himself out of the cheap, pine box and shallow grave he and Bobby had buried him in.

His brother had told him a little about Hell and what had happened there. The soul-tearing despair that'd poured out with that brief telling had been more indicative of the damage done than what he'd said.

I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing.

He'd never heard Dean sound like that. Not before. Not since. And there'd been nothing he could say or do to change it, to make it easier or somehow lessen the load that his brother had been carrying.

Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland.

The memories had been bad, Sam thought, but Lucifer and Michael had been angry and spiteful and frustrated. There'd been no end goal. No planned escalation of pain, physical through the memories of the body, mental through the memory of mind, emotional through the soul itself. When he'd gotten what'd really happened to him clear in his head, he'd realised that there'd been nothing personal in any of it. Just … mindless rage, really. And somehow that'd been easier to deal with. He wasn't sure how.

Lucifer had told him all about Dean's time in Hell. In graphic detail. Horrific detail, the devil thinking – knowing – how it would affect him. Alastair had torn his brother apart and put him back together personally, Hell's master of torture finding every crack, every weakness, and reaming it for all the agony he could.

There'd been no purpose to what he'd suffered through, but there'd been a method to what had been done to his brother.

So much had happened, so many bad things had happened, he'd missed the way that Dean had kind of papered over his crushing pain, his bone-deep guilt and the deep wounds both had left in him, year by year, covering it up a little more, burying it all a little deeper.

Shaking his head as he filled the reservoir and turned the pot on, he felt a stab of guilt for not seeing it happening, not paying attention to what Dean had been doing. He knew that was the way his brother dealt with the things that were too painful to face. He knew it and he'd let him drink a little more, stress a lot more … withdraw.

I'm a grunt, Sam. You're not.

God, how could he have missed that, what had lain behind that. He'd brushed it off at the time, not believing it and not seeing that Dean had believed it. His brother had never cried poor me in his life.

Straightening up, he reached into the cupboard for the mixing bowl, setting it on the counter and walking to turn the burner and broiler on, taking out a heavy iron skillet, then turning for the fridge to get eggs, bacon, butter and milk.

What the hell could he do about it? The walls had been thick four years ago, now they were gargantuan, hiding his older brother's feelings about … everything … and letting the poisons seep out only when Dean slept, defenceless and vulnerable, or in those shadows that lurked behind so many of his waking expressions.

Was that what he'd been hiding, he wondered suddenly. A resurgence of the emotions he'd been not dealing with? How the hell was he ever going to get Dean to admit to that?

He broke eggs and watched them slip from the shells, whisked and tipped in milk, turned the bacon and set bread in the toaster, his hands moving automatically, a scowl creasing his brow as he realised he'd known, he'd recognised why Dean had needed Cas so much and had let that knowledge slide by like all the rest. And Dean had let Cas go. He still didn't understand that.

"Coffee."

He looked up, smoothing out his expression out as his brother appeared in the doorway, eyes still half-shut.

"Where's Kevin?"

"Asleep, I guess," Sam said, gesturing with his elbow at the full, burbling pot. "Just made, help yourself."

Glancing sideways at him, he watched as Dean pulled down a mug from the shelf, half-dropping it on the counter with a resounding thump, lifting the pot from the burner more carefully and filling his cup.

Sam cleared his throat. "How 'bout you? You sleep okay?"

Dean lifted the pot back and set it down gently, picking up the coffee and blowing over the hot, black liquid before he answered.

"Woke up thinking I had a lead on something, turned out to be a figment of my imagination," he said, turning away for the island counter. "That sucked."

"So you were, uh, researching, last night?"

"Trying to," Dean corrected mildly. "Fell asleep in the library trying to figure out how to key the god squad frequencies to the computer."

"Huh." Sam poured the batter into the skillet, pulling out a flatter pan for the eggs. "'Cause, um, the computer's got the frequency range in its memory, you know," he said diffidently. "We just need to figure out how to retrieve it and use it for a different purpose."

"Oh."

Resisting the impulse to turn around and nail his brother with that slip, Sam chewed on the corner of his lip as he flipped the pancakes and stirred the eggs.

"Kevin should be able to figure it out, when he's up," he said as lightly as he could. "You want to go and see? Tell him breakfast's ready?"

"Sure."

He heard the mug clunk on the counter and footsteps head out of the kitchen and up the hall.

Two plates were set out, bacon, eggs, pancakes and toast sending tendrils of steam into the air when Dean returned.

"Where's Kevin?" Sam looked up as he set syrup and ketchup between the plates.

Lip curling, Dean shook his head. "He's in the office. Hand on the tablet."

"Which one?"

"Didn't get close enough to check, but I think it was the angel tablet, 'cause he was muttering 'lawful' over and over." He sat down in front of the more heavily loaded plate and looked it over gratefully.

"That rules out working on the angel tracking problem then," Sam said, his breath gusting out as he pulled out a chair on the other side of the table.

"Can't you look through the, uh, computer's memory and find them?" Dean asked through a mouthful of food.

Sam shook his head. "Charlie set it up to use ASCII, a low-level language, to interface between the order's dinosaur and ours. Kevin knows it. I don't."

"Well, good."

"Good?"

"You could take it easy for a couple of days, till Kevin's back on deck, just rest up," Dean said, picking up his coffee.

"I am rested up," Sam said, waving his fork for emphasis. "I'm not the one who's getting up in the middle of the night … to do research."

Dean looked away, tipping the cup up. "Well, you've been pretty much running on empty for awhile now."

"I feel good," Sam said firmly, stabbing at his food. "And I think I found something, report came in over the wire this morning." He gestured to the open laptop sitting on the end of the counter.

"What?" Dean turned reluctantly to look at the brightly-lit screen.

"A job," he said, starting to slide off the stool.

"A job," Dean repeated, heavily. He could feel Sam's impatience to discuss it. "Finish your damned food. We can look at it when you're done."

Sam tapped the keys, glancing sideways at his brother, sitting in the next chair, back to him, feet propped up on the table edge.

"You going to listen, at least?"

Twisting slightly toward him, Dean waved a hand.

"Taxidermist named Max Alexander, mysteriously crushed to death, nearly every joint in his body dislocated, every bone broken, uh, poor guy's a human pretzel," he said, talking fast as he realised Dean was already resisting the idea of taking this on. "You tell me what's got that kind of strength?"

"Demonic luchador?" Dean offered facetiously, wondering how to defuse his brother enough to stay put for a couple of days at least.

Zeke hadn't been kidding with the either/or last week and despite the fact the angel had said that the soul was continually replenished, he'd already wondered if he shouldn't've offered the angel his own to touch and recharge from. Cas had done it with Bobby. It hadn't killed the old man.

"Store's four hours away, in Enid, Oklahoma," Sam said patiently. "We should at least check it out. Unless there's some reason you think we shouldn't."

Ah, Dean thought, perfect, throw another fucking impossible curve at me, I love them. He could barely keep up with the crud he'd been throwing back to explain the dozens of fucking inexplicable things that had happened every time Zeke came out of hiding.

"No," he said, feeling the lack of sleep suddenly crash down on him. "No reason."

"Good."

"Fine."


Enid, Oklahoma

The rear parking lot was full and Dean eased the Impala into a half a slot, the tires sitting on the grassy verge. They got out and looked around, smoothing out the creases in their suits as they walked through the county and state vehicles.

"Cops, coroner, local funeral home," Sam muttered, as he passed them. The service and delivery door was set into a glass and steel frame, a neat white decal over the window proclaimed that Mounted Treasures had been established in 1967. Over the decal and the window and most of the door, another slogan had been painted, thick, dark red letters dripping with the amount of paint ladled on.

DIE SCUM.

"Subtle," Dean commented dryly as they got closer. Sam saw the small, inverted triangle in the top angle of the final 'M' and peered at it.

"Check that out."

Dean looked at it. In the centre of the triangle, there was a paw print, stylised. He glanced at his brother as he pulled out his phone and took a picture of it. He'd never seen it before, but it looked more like a logo than a hex mark.

The crime scene tape was positioned about eighteen inches from the store's rear wall, taking in the graffiti, and they ducked under it, Dean using his knuckles to push the door open as he saw the fine powder coating it. The firm had taken care of the state and federal databases holding their details months ago, but after years of having to keep a mental track of what crimes they were wanted for in which states, he'd decided that being cautious was not necessarily a sign of encroaching age, but accumulated wisdom.

Inside, the spacious room was wall-to-wall stuffed animals. And not the sort that sat fatuously on the ends of teenage girls' beds.

"Well the creep factor just skyrocketed," he said, looking from the glassy-eyed buffalo standing beside him along the walls of heads, whole bodies and in one glass display, stuffed and elaborately costumed dead vermin.

"Whoa, gentlemen, this is a crime scene," the local deputy said, stepping away from the counter and holding up his hands, blocking the doorway to the next room. Dean instantly felt a flash of impatience for the young man. Kid looked like he only needed a razor once a week, he thought, repressing the impatience and forcing his features into what he hoped was a pleasant and professional expression.

"Agents Michaels and de Ville," Sam said quietly, pulling out his ID and holding it up. Beside him, Dean did the same, looking past the deputy to the man leaning against the counter behind him.

"Body's already gone to the morgue," the deputy said, shrugging a shoulder in the direction of the other room. "Just wrapping it up with Dave Stevens. He's the one who discovered the body." The deputy dropped his gaze as his emotions overtook his professional reason for being there. "Such a shame, I used to go huntin' with Max. He was a real good egg."

"Sorry for your loss," Dean said automatically, ignoring the usual small double-take his brain did whenever he heard the word outside of the context he was used to. "You mind showing my partner around? I've just got a couple of questions for Mr Stevens."

"Uh, well, sure, come on," the deputy said, turning away. Dean watched Sam follow him through the doorway, noting that Sam's radar was on full alert. He walked to the counter and held up his tin.

"Mr Stevens? Just got a couple of questions for you, if that's alright?" he said, injecting a little more sympathy into his voice as he noticed Steven's reddened eyes.

Dave Stevens turned to him, his face pouched and sorrowful. "I'll tell you whatever you need to know," he said, voice cracking a little. "Max was a real pal."

"Hunting buddy?" Dean offered and Dave nodded agreeably. "So what time did you find the body?"

"Nine a.m." Dave sniffed. "My usual pick up time. I come in every Monday and Wednesday to collect the entrails."

Entrails. Dean registered the word as an image popped into his head to match, along with the list of uses he knew applied to them. Divination, transference rituals and summonings were the top three.

"Strange thing was, bins were empty this morning, that's why I came into the store," Dave continued. "And found him."

The deputy appeared behind Dave and Dean looked over the man's shoulder at him. If it was the entrails that were needed, why break in to kill Max, he wondered distractedly.

"Anything else missing?"

"No," the deputy shook his head. "Cash register was closed out, but that's normal for a weekend. Safe's intact, and the trophies have been inventoried. Max still had his wallet, personal belongings. It wasn't a robbery."

"And the door lock was definitely broken?" Dean asked the cop. "Not, uh, opened from the inside?"

"Nope, busted to hell."

"Anyone else here when you showed up?" He looked back at Stevens.

"No. It was empty," Dave answered, turning around. "I mean, except the Colonel."

Looking past him, Dean saw the dog, a full-grown German Shepherd, waiting patiently as Animal Control took his collar and hooked on a lead. Sam came out of the room, walking fast and Dean nodded to the deputy and Stevens.

"Thanks for your help, if you'll excuse us?" He turned and followed Sam to the rear of the store. "Anything?"

"No. You?"

"We got a thief who doesn't take valuables but is jonesing for animal parts, we got a pagan symbol, maybe, and we got a human pretzel," Dean summed up the dearth of information on the job so far. "Whoever did it took the entrails."

"Yeah, it all sounds like it's leaning toward witchcraft, but I didn't find a hex bag – or symbol – or circle that could've directed it."

"Could be on the body?"

"Could be in the body," Sam countered, nose wrinkling up at the thought. "The deputy said the body went to the morgue."

"Okay, next stop formaldehyde city." He looked down at his suit. "Then the dry-cleaner, I guess."


The motel was tired-looking, an L-shaped building running around a square parking lot, the sign grubby in the growing twilight. Despite the cash in their wallets, it was the best they could do, the only one in town with a vacancy.

"Nothing in or on the body," Sam said, hanging his plastic-bagged suit in the closet. "Are we ruling out witchcraft?"

"No. Maybe. I can figure taking the guts for some spell or ritual to be done at a later time, but why break in and kill the owner?" Dean asked, pulling a beer from the fridge and opening it. He needed something to eat, the chemical stink invariably made his stomach twitch and the only way to stop it was to put something in it.

"It's a good question," Sam said, sitting down at the table, and pulling out his laptop. He opened the screen and brought up a search engine, then plugged his phone into the port and transferred the image to the search bar.

"Okay, that symbol in the graffiti on the window? Not pagan. Local animal rights group," he told Dean as the image matched with a website and a couple of dozen other hits.

Dean walked to the table and looked down at the site. "Snart?" He skimmed over the page. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Well, most animals rights groups have a thing about taxidermists."

"Why?" Dean looked at him, brows drawing together. "Animals are already dead."

"Yeah, but hunters will keep him in business," Sam said, gesturing at the site.

"So? Do they burn down the bakery because the wheat farmers're using an insecticide? I mean, come on," he said irritably, turning around and going back to the fridge to check for the second time if there was anything edible in it. Talking about bakeries had been a mistake. "Whole fucking world is illogical."

Sam blinking at his brother's sudden vehemence. "Uh, you okay?"

"Hungry."

"Oh." He shook his head. "The question is … are those bleeding hearts actually witches … or do they just have way too much free time?"

Dean turned around. "Can we debate the ideological aspects in the car on the way to get something to eat?"

"Sure," Sam said, glancing at his suit. "You want to check out the group at the same time?"

Dean followed his gaze, shoulders slumping. "You're joking."

"Not so much," Sam told him with a shrug, pulling off his shirt and t-shirt and reaching for the freshly cleaned white business shirt again. "FBI don't do a lot of canvassing in jeans."


"I can't eat here," Dean said, staring at the sign above the store, 'Gentle Earth Vegan Bakery'.

"We don't have to eat here, this is the contact address for the listed members of S.N.A.R.T," Sam said with a long exhale, looking pointedly at the open doors. Dean entered reluctantly.

"What's that smell?" Sam asked, turning around slightly as he caught the peculiar odour.

"Patchouli," Dean supplied caustically. "Mixed with depression," he continued, as he scanned the interior. "From meat deprivation."

Behind the counter, two of the staff serving were wearing wraparound ultra-dark sunglasses and Dean tapped Sam's arm as he noticed them. "Hey, you know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people …" he told his brother, lip curling up derisively as he added, "… and douche bags."

Sam shrugged, heading to the servery. Dean followed him unwillingly, looking at the food on the tables as he passed. Not one actual, recognisable smell in here, he thought. He was starving but his stomach hadn't registered anything edible in olfactory distance.

"Olivia and Dylan Camrose?" he asked, stopping next to the register and the man and woman in sunglasses turned to him. Slender, pale-skinned with straight blonde hair swept back from her face and a striking bone structure hidden mostly by the glasses, the woman smiled first. Beside her, Dylan, he guessed, was narrow-shouldered, olive-complexioned and with a straggly, thin beard covering his jawline, chin and upper lip. Neither looked particularly healthy.

Olivia glanced at Dylan and back to him, smiling. "At your service."

"You two are members of the group SNART?" he asked.

"Founders and co-presidents, actually," Olivia said, leaning forward and plucking a pamphlet from the stand on the counter "Can we interest you in some literature?"

Sam waved a hand dismissively and Dylan gestured at the domed cake stand next to the pamphlets. "Or a flaxseed scone? It's wheat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free and surprisingly moist –"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Dean said, staring at the bell-shaped things with suspicion. Beside him, Sam pulled out his badge and he dragged his out, flipping the billfold open. "Uh, we're here to investigate the death of Max Alexander, local taxidermist?"

The couple stiffened together at the name, moving back from the counter perhaps a fraction of an inch.

"He's … dead?" Olivia asked, her head tilting to one side.

"You knew him?" Dean asked, looking at the blank, black lenses of the sunglasses, pinpointing her eyes behind them.

"Ish," she allowed. "Um … small town."

"Well, he was murdered last night," Sam said, staring at her. "And the SNART logo was found at the crime scene."

Dean watched as they looked uncertainly at each other.

"We can do the preliminary questioning here," Dean added, glancing around. "Or we can do it at the field office in Tulsa."


There was probably no one as respectful of the government's authority as those who kidded themselves they were opposing it, he thought a moment later, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite the pair. Sam's knees were sticking out to either side of his, the tables and chairs designed for those just a little smaller than the average height. Looking around the room, he wondered absently if that had anything to do with a lack of readily convertible protein.

"What was the beef with Max?" Sam asked bluntly. "He wasn't doing anything to hurt animals."

"His business is supported by hunters, and you know how hunters are," Dylan said disparagingly, looking from him to Dean. Neither responded and Dylan's voice rose a little as he clarified, "They're selfish dicks who define themselves by what they kill."

There were, Dean considered slowly, a lot of times when wearing the crappy suit and carry the stupid badge meant a loss of possible options. While they could, on some occasions, open doors and provide access to information otherwise difficult to get, he was beginning to wonder if that really made up for the times when a plains-clothes approach would be a helluva lot more satisfying, in the long run.

He turned his head to look at his brother. Sam's mouth had thinned out, tucking in slightly at the corners as he caught a glimpse of the expression in Dean's eyes.

"And as animal advocates, we couldn't stand for that!" Olivia added vehemently, apparently oblivious to the unreceptiveness of the agents.

"So … you killed him?" Sam asked.

"Of course not," she corrected him impatiently. "S.N.A.R.T doesn't tolerate violence."

"Huh," Dean said thoughtfully, looking from her to Dylan. "This from a couple who spray paints death threats?"

"It was a scare tactic," Dylan protested. "We just wanted to spook him!"

"Turns out we were the ones who got spooked," Olivia added, her mouth twisting down.

Sam's forehead furrowed as he looked at her. "What does that mean?"

Glancing at her partner, she took a deep breath when he nodded. "Well, last night, when we were tagging the joint," she said uncomfortably. "We heard this noise –"

"A hissing noise," Dylan interjected.

"It freaked us out, so we ran out to the alley –"

"But someone attacked us –"

"Sprayed us in the eyes with mace –"

"And it's not like we could go to the cops –"

"So now we look like total douche bags because we have to wear our sunglasses inside," she finished, looking at Dylan.

He reached up and lifted the glasses off his face, Olivia doing the same beside him.

Both Sam and Dean shifted back a couple of inches as they took the swollen and reddened flesh surrounding both SNART members' eyes. The whites had yellowed, Dean noted, eyelashes were gone, the mottled colouring seemed to follow the pattern of the blood vessels surrounding the sockets.

"You've been to the ER?" Sam asked, leaning forward warily to get a better look.

"They've done tests and swabs, taken blood and practically every other bodily fluid," Olivia snapped, her gaze cutting away from him. "They haven't come back yet, but they gave us something to bathe them with."

"And this was sprayed at you?"

Dylan nodded. "It didn't feel like an aerosol, you know? More like that splat of a pump-pack."

Dean felt his eyebrows lifting and looked away.


"Necrosis?" Dean turned around to look at his brother when Sam had finished reading out the details from the screen. "So not mace, that only acts on the nerves."

Sam looked at the photographs accompanying the report. "A couple of options – blunt force, radiation or venom."

"I'm gonna take wild guess and go for Door Number Three, Monty," Dean said, dropping into the chair at the table.

Nodding, Sam looked at him. "Alexander was constricted, the vegans heard hissing and the venom was probably spat at them, not sprayed … only problem is that there isn't a snake on the planet that both constricts and is venomous."

"Probably not one on the planet that can open locked doors and take a person by surprise either," Dean pointed out dryly. He leaned back in the chair, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. "So, super-monster snake … uh, we got a whole bunch of pretty nasty worms but mostly in Europe."

"Basilisk or their variants," Sam added, his face screwing up as he ran through his personal database. "But they're simpler, they just turn you to stone."

"Vetala have venom but they like to get up close and personal with their fangs," Dean mused, discarding the monster as soon as he'd thought of it.

Sam shook his head and closed the search screen, bringing up the order's interface and Charlie's unlovely but perfectly functional search form. He entered the relevant details and hit enter. Only one result was returned.

"Huh, the only possibility is an Amphisbaena, from Greece. Two-headed snake that occasionally constricts if one head is in disagreement with the other, ability to spit its venom like a cobra or bite." He shook his head. "They're actually pretty small."

"What about human-based variants?" Dean looked at him. "It went after the guts, but it not only got inside the locked store, it cleaned out a bunch of trash cans."

"There's the shape-shifting variations," Sam said slowly. "Most of them relate to spells or rituals to change form. Two main types, one inserts the human consciousness into the animal," he continued, reading the details of the order's file on animal possession. "The other transfers the attributes of the animal to the spellcaster."

"Alright, let's go with that, for the time being." Dean straightened up in the chair. "How do we find someone demented enough to turn themselves into a snake?"

"Good question."

The police scanner crackled from the table and Sam turned to look at it.

"Dispatch, this is Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, we have another ten-ninety-one. Ten-fifty-five, over."

"Ten-four, Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, what's your twenty, over?"

"Dispatch, we are located at the Animal Shelter down on Polk, over."

"Ten-four, Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, ten-fifty-five on their way, out."

"Dean," Sam said, writing the address down.

His brother opened the bathroom door, releasing a cloud of steam into the room. "What?"

"Another animal attack, over at the Animal Shelter," Sam said, gulping down his coffee as he stood up.

"Any details?" Dean asked, glowering at his suit.

"They called for the ambulance and the ME," Sam said, shrugging as he stripped off his jeans.

"Doesn't sound good."

"No, it doesn't."


They got there in time to see the body zipped into a black bag and rolled out on a gurney, and Dean shook his head as he came back from talking to the ME.

"Shock, loss of blood, several organs ruptured from deep slashes and puncture wounds," he recapped to Sam.

"All the cats are missing," Sam offered in return, gesturing down the aisle that was lined with cages. He lowered his voice. "Those spells, in the files I looked at from the order, the practitioner generally stays with one type of animal, you need completely different stuff to switch and the strain on the body of the witch is incredible."

"And yet we have a COD remarkably similar to being opened up by a big cat," Dean said, stopping beside a cage and turning to look at him. "Any security footage?"

"No, nothing installed, they didn't regard it a high risk, even with the Camroses' activity."

Dean looked down as the dog in the cage beside him barked suddenly, the German Shepherd staring past them as its lips curled back from its muzzle, revealing a set of long and sharp teeth. A deep, sustained growl filled the room.

He looked around, seeing the deputy coming toward them. The police officer ducked his head, pulling off the wide-brimmed hat as he approached and Dean's gaze snapped back to the dog as the growl ceased abruptly.

"Do you agents need any further assistance?" the deputy asked, looking from Sam to Dean.

"No, officer, I think we're okay," Sam said.

"Well, let me know," the deputy said, lifting his hat and settling it back on his head.

Dean looked down as the dog barked again, the growl coming out immediately.

"Uh, officer," he said quickly, turning to the deputy. "Can I borrow your hat?"

The deputy looked nonplussed, glancing at Sam. Sam shrugged.

"Just for a minute," Dean added, looking back down at the dog as the deputy took it off again. The growl died and Dean took the hat, holding in front of him for a moment. He lifted it slowly, and pushed it on and the dog let loose a volley of sharp, threatening-sounding barks, lips pulled back in a snarl that wasn't the least bit ambiguous.

Dean pulled off the hat and the dog relaxed, its gaze fixed on the lowered hat.

"Thanks," he said, turning back to the deputy and handing him the hat.

"Uh … um, sure, anytime," the deputy said, looking from him down to the dog and turning away.

"I've seen this mutt before," Dean said to Sam, looking at the dog. "And he has one helluva hate on for cowboy hats."

Turning to the paperwork clipped to the side of the cage, Sam flicked up the top page, reading the details.

"This is the taxidermist's dog," he said, looking down at him.

"So, he's been around for two of the attacks," Dean said, crouching down in front of the dog. "Let's eliminate some possibilities."

He pulled out a silver dollar, walking it through his fingers as he looked at his brother. "Most shapeshifters don't like silver."

"I thought you gave that to Charon?" Sam asked.

"I gave the one Dad gave me to Charon," Dean corrected him, looking back at the dog. "Yavoklevich chased me up another one." Reaching into the cage, he set the coin against the dog's skin, behind his ear. "There you go, boy, this won't hurt a bit."

The dog leaned into his hand, watching him placidly.

"Okay, so … not a suspect, how 'bout a witness?" Sam suggested.

"Put him on the stand, he'll probably spill everything for a box of jerky," Dean quipped tiredly, getting to his feet.

Sam shook his head, pulling out his phone and hitting the speed dial.

"Kevin?" He looked at Dean. "He's off the tablet," he mouthed. "Listen, how do we speak to a dog?"

Flicking the phone to speaker, Dean blinked as Kevin's voice snarled out of the cell.

"Are you kidding me, Sam? Are you freaking joking!?"

"Uh, no."

"'Find a way to reverse Metatron's spell'," the prophet's voice got a bit more shrill. "'Find a way to kill a Knight of Hell'!"

"Uh, yeah but …"

"No freaking buts!" Kevin snapped. "I'm not your research assistant. I'm the prophet of the Word and I'm struggling to keep my sanity here, working on not just one but two tablets and you are fucking up the very little time I have to eat and sleep and rest and the whole library here is accessible from your laptop so find the goddamned way to talk to dogs yourself!"

The call cut out and the brothers looked at the phone in Sam's hand.

"Might be a bit too pressure," Dean offered.

"He's probably right," Sam agreed, putting the phone back in his pocket.

"We'll grab some takeout, get back to the motel and see what we can see," Dean decided. He looked down at the dog in the cage. "On the off-chance we find something, do we take him with us?"

Sam followed his gaze, the Shepherd's head swivelling around to look at him.

"Probably a good idea."

"Paperwork's all yours."

"He'll have to ride in the car," Sam countered, watching his brother's brows suddenly pull together at that thought.


"Dean, give him one of your burgers," Sam said, finishing the sandwich and turning back to the laptop.

"What? No."

On the floor beside them, the dog whined softly again, looking up at him with soulful, pleading eyes.

Sam's hand flashed out and snatched the second burger from the table, unwrapping it and setting it on the floor with a sour look at his brother. The dog ate the burger in two bites, looking up as a pink tongue lolled out and licked around its lips thoroughly.

The look he was getting was almost smug and Dean sighed.

"Alright, I got one," Sam told him, reading through the file on the screen quickly. "Inuit spell. To talk to animals – more or less." He looked around the room. "We need a few things."

Dean got up, feeling in his pocket for the keys. "That box of stuff from the apothecary is still in the trunk."

"Good, I also need cloudberries, the vegan place should have them," Sam said, keeping his eyes on the screen as he heard his brother's groan. "And animal blood, about half a pint, any kind will do."

He heard the door open and slam shut and looked down at the dog. "This better be worth the fallout I'm gonna get."


The smell of the dirty brown mixture in the bowl was not appealing, Dean thought, watching Sam lean down and pluck a couple of hairs from the dog's rump and drop them into the sludge. Looking across the table at his brother, he wondered how it would affect the angel inside, if the canine conversations would hinder the healing process further.

"So how does this work, exactly?" he asked Sam, watching him stir the mess around.

"It's supposed to be a kind of a human-animal mindmeld," Sam said distractedly, looking down at the spell instructions again and tipping the bowl to one side. "If it works, we should be able to read the Colonel's thoughts. Or hear them."

He tipped the mix into a glass and a waft from the noisome liquid drifted around the table. Dean looked down as the dog snorted and belly-crawled further away. No argument, he thought sourly, looking at the glass. He couldn't risk any kind of danger to either his brother or the angel in residence, and he reached out and snagged the glass as soon as Sam stopped pouring.

"All right, I'll do it," he said, lifting it up to his mouth, flinching back slightly as the smell got worse – a lot worse – close up. "You got enough on your plate."

Sam stared at him. "Like what?"

"Uh … like," Dean hunted around for a reasonable excuse. "You're tired … and you got a sensitive stomach," he added, swirling the filthy mixture around in the glass. "Last thing we need is you upchucking this and setting us back to square one."

He looked down at the glass, ignoring Sam's disbelieving snort. "Doesn't look so bad."

Lifting it, he tipped it up, eyes squeezing closed as it filled his mouth, swallowing hard to get it off his tongue as quickly as possible. He looked at the empty glass for a second then at Sam, feeling his lips thin out as he forced them to remain together with an act of will.

"I was wrong."

Sam watched him uncomfortably as he swallowed a couple more times, chest hitching a little as he fought a battle of wills with his stomach which clearly wanted to eject the mess back out.

Mashing the side of his fist against his mouth, Dean ducked his head, gesturing impatiently for the spell incantation and Sam passed it over.

"Diala heil mae. Doog arou nagra, letur aram," he intoned through mostly closed teeth, looking up at Sam as he ran out of words. His stomach heaved again and he looked down at the dog.

"Alright, let's get this party started," he said to the Colonel. "Tell me everything you know."

Sam peered over the edge of the table as well. The Colonel lay on the floor, panting softly, and he opened his mouth to let out a whining yawn.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Dean asked, glancing back at his brother. Sam's expression was pained and he shrugged inwardly. He needed these moments of inanity, he was talking to a fucking dog for Christ's sake.

The Colonel sat up, barking once. Nothing seemed to emanate from the dog with the bark. He wasn't getting any meaning from it at all. He looked at Sam.

"Okay, spell tasted worse than African dream root and was a bust," he said, reaching for his beer. "What else you got in there?"

"Not much, I stopped looking when I found this one," Sam said apologetically.

"Well, I'm still starving since you gave Fido here my burger, so I'm going to get something else."

Get another burger for me too.

Dean looked at Sam. "You want a burger? Am I finally getting through to you?"

"What?"

Not for him, for me.

"What?" Dean looked down at the dog.

"What?" Sam looked at his brother.

Dean stared at the dog. "Shut up! It – he – it's working!"

"It is?"

"He just told me to get him another burger!"

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Sam's brow creased up as he looked from Dean to the dog. "Ask!"

"Can you, uh, understand me?"

Do I look like the runt of the litter?

"Uh, no," Dean said, frowning. "What were you trying to tell us about the cowboy hat?"

The thing that killed my friend was wearing a cowboy hat, the Colonel thought, slowly and clearly.

"Thing?"

Wasn't entirely human, although it looked it from the outside.

"Huh."

"What!?" Sam burst out, looking at his brother's thoughtful expression.

"He, um, says it's not entirely human," Dean said, his gaze fixed on the dog. "What about the death at the animal shelter?"

Same thing killed both.

"Okay."

"Ask about the cats," Sam said, picking up his sandwich wrapping and lobbing it past Dean into the trash can. "What did it do with them?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean nodded, turning around and reaching for the wadded up paper, pulling it out of the trash and handing it back to Sam.

I don't know. I couldn't see much back there.

"I don't want this," Sam said, looking at the paper and holding it up.

I didn't exactly have the best view. But I could smell it! It reeked of red meat, a whole bunch of weird scents I haven't come across before, dishwashing detergent and uh, Tiger Balm.

"What?"

Sam lobbed the paper back to the trash can, leaning forward. "So what's he saying?"

"Uh, that the not-quite-human guy," he said, leaning out of his chair to retrieve Sam's lunch wrapper again, tossing it back over the table to his brother. "He, uh, smelled like ground chuck, soap suds and old lady cream, plus a bunch of stuff he's never smelled before."

Sam picked up the paper ball. "Dean! What are you doing?"

Looking at him, Dean scratched at an itch behind his ear. "I don't know!"

The dog chuffed a little, the transference that came through not laughter, but an overwhelming sense of amusement.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked irritably, looking down at the Colonel.

Both heard the van at the same time, accompanied by a distinctive rustle of papers, rubbing together. The Colonel barked sharply and Dean spun around in his chair, eyes fixed on the window.

Sam watched his brother lunge out of the chair and press himself as close as he could get to the glass pane, back and shoulders rigid with some sudden tension, the dog skittering around the edge of the table and pressing its nose to the glass beside him, barking loudly.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, banging his palm on the window. "Hey! Hey, you!"

Sam stared at the two of them, and a long-ago-seen image popped into his head, the familiar Larson Far Side cartoon filling his mind's eye.

"You! You!" Dean shouted at the man in the parking lot, leather satchel over one shoulder and a handful of envelopes in his hand. "Hey! Hey! You! You! YOU!"

Blinking at his brother's behaviour, even the caption came back … Donning his new canine decoder, Professor Schwartzman became the first human being on Earth to hear what barking dogs are saying …

He sighed. "Ah, Dean?"

"Hmmm?"

"Not only am I sure the, uh, spell worked," he said slowly. "I think it worked a little too well."

"What?"

"I think … you might be, uh, exhibiting some of the traits that are normally restricted to … um …dogs," Sam said, careful to keep his expression neutral as Dean lifted a hand, and scratched furiously behind one ear as he stared back across the table.

"What!?"

"You're scratching your head," Sam said, picking up the wadded-up wrappers again. "You're barking at the mailman, you're playing fetch –" He tossed the ball past his brother again, and watched as Dean's eyes tracked the ball to the trash can, seeing his muscles twitch as his brother maintained a fixed stare on the balled-up wrapper.

The act of will required to turn back was visible, Dean swallowing with the discomfort of an addict regarding his choice of poison. "Ruh-row," he said unhappily.

"Gimme a minute," Sam said, biting the inside of his lips to keep from smiling. "I'll, um, check this out a bit more."


Dean got up, walking across the room restlessly. "I'm turning into a dog? Seriously, Sam!?"

"It might not be that bad," Sam said, bringing up the full file he'd retrieved from the order's archives. "Or …"

"Or what!?"

"Uh, yeah, apparently there are some side effects."

"Well, that would've been nice to know before I drank it!" Dean slumped on the edge of the bed and stared at him. "What kind of side-effects?"

"When you mindmeld with an animal, the connection is sometimes, uh, two-way," he said. "You can understand them and … um … relate to what they feel on an emotional and uh, sometimes physical level."

"What?" Dean scowled down at the dog in front of him.

Don't look at me, I didn't make you drink the damned stuff.

"Well, how long am I gonna have the urge to –"

Discover your inner canine?

Dean's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Colonel. "What are we talking about here?"

Well, off the top of my head, there's … let's see … marking territory. Making new friends. The loyalty factor, which I'm guessing belongs to the giant over there …

"Marking territory?"

Sure, you gotta let the others know what's yours, part of the whole alpha process.

"I'm not going 'round peeing on people's fences!"

Not yet.

"Uh, what are you talking about?" Sam looked from his brother to the dog.

"Nothing!"

"The side-effects will probably wear off when the spell does," Sam said, looking at the screen.

"Great, how long's that?"

"Um … well it doesn't say."

Reaching around to the duffel on the bed behind him, Dean let his fingers walk through the contents, stopping as he felt the smooth paper and foil of the chocolate bar. He needed something. And sinking another beer had lost its appeal.

The Colonel watched as he unwrapped the end of the bar, breaking off a piece and putting it in his mouth.

I wouldn't do that if I were you.

"What?"

"Uh, Dean, chocolate's … not good for dogs," Sam said.

"Goddammit!" He let the piece fall out of his mouth into his hand, a gooey mess with a scent that was suddenly, unbelievably intoxicating. And apparently poisonous.


Leo Pincott stood by the stainless counter, staring at the letter he held in one hand. A single word kept stuttering through his mind, shutting out every other thought and feeling.

Malignant.

The spell had stopped the spread, had sent the tumours into remission, but it was back, and from the last series of tests, his doctor had written, more aggressive than it had been before.

He couldn't believe it.

The restaurant had given him the idea, originally. Exotic foods were not only expected but encouraged, the more exotic and peculiar the better. It was not difficult to add to the orders, to seek out the other ingredients he'd needed. The Navajo shaman, on the other hand, had begun to get suspicious and had to be dealt with, and it hadn't been until after he'd taken care of that little problem that he'd realised that the shaman had written nothing down, the rituals used for hundreds of years were only passed orally from generation to generation and memory trained and honed to remember it all.

The setback, however aggravating, had only been brief. There were avenues available if sufficient funds could be accumulated. And he had nothing better to spend his family's money on than prolonging his life indefinitely.

Malignant and aggressive.

He looked around the kitchen, gaze passing sightlessly over the glass-fronted fridges, long, metal-topped counters, ovens and cooktops, sinks and drainers. The strength he'd gained had been enormous. At first, that was all he'd been after, just enough strength to keep going, to continue the treatments, to keep living. It hadn't been until he'd taken the eagle's brain that he'd realised what else he could enhance.

Strength and speed, dexterity and vision and smell and taste and hearing, his senses ultranatural, boosted so far past their human limits he'd wondered if he was dreaming. Invulnerability to certain things. Acuity in others. Every creature on the planet had some unique and impossibly perfect gift to offer and he'd partaken of many of them, the ancient ritual locking those abilities into his cells, into the very strands of the chromosomes that controlled everything. And it was all accessible to conscious will.

He needed more, he thought, looking back at the letter. Needed to go further, deeper.

As a chef, he'd been trained to seek out the flavours and textures and scents that contrasted and harmonised, that strengthened or weakened one another, that enhanced the foods they were cooked with. He thought this would be the same process. Harmony and enhancement, to change the cellular structure and make the progression of the disease impossible. He turned abruptly from the counter, striding across the polished tiled floor to the cold room. Strength and vitality and … speed. He knew what he needed.


You're kidding me?

"No, all dogs leashed," Dean said, snapping the leather leash to the dog's collar. "That way we don't have to worry about the lawsuits from the hyper-hysterical."

He opened the motel room door, walking across the asphalt lot to the car.

Where are we headed?

"Back to the animal shelter," Dean said tersely, the Colonel's forward motion pulling him along in powerful jerks.

To sniff out more clues? The animal's mental tone was on the obnoxious side of amused. Maybe dig up something we missed?

"Alright, one more doggy pun and I'm gonna have your nuts clipped," Dean threatened, looking down at him.

Too late.

Dean felt the flinch, somewhere deep inside that he didn't want to investigate any more closely. His attempts to ignore it were aided by the sight of a long, white splat on the windshield of the black car, another following as they approached.

"Oh, you kidding me!?" he said, looking up at the pole above the car. On the top a pigeon sat, plump and self-satisfied. "Hey, dick move, pigeon!"

Screw you, asshat!

Dean's hand swung out, hitting Sam on the arm.

"What?!" Sam jumped.

"Wait a minute," Dean said, looking down at the dog. "Can I hear all animals?"

The dog looked up at him patiently.

You can hear me, and I can hear them. QED.

And I'm just getting started. Bunch of kids spent two hours feeding us this morning. You're gonna love the Dalmatian look to your wheels.

"What's it saying?" Sam looked up at the pigeon.

"Wh-it-it's being a douche bag!" Dean stammered incredulously, staring up at it.

Who you calling 'douche bag', douche bag?

"Shut it, you winged rat!" Dean yelled at the pigeon. Sam caught movement in the corner of his eye and saw an elderly couple pause by their car, both looking at Dean with raised brows.

"Dude," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"What?!"

"Just calm down, get in the car," Sam said, making damping down gestures involuntarily as he looked at his brother's scowl. For a second, he thought he hadn't heard, then Dean fished the keys from his pocket, handing them over and walked around the hood.

That's it, Sally, go cry to Momma!

"Oh, that's it, you sonofabitch," Dean growled, swinging around, dropping the dog's leash as he pulled out his gun, the barrel swinging up and centering on the bird's puffed-up chest.

"HEY!" Sam looked back, eyes bugging out as he saw the gun rising, pivoting on the spot and grabbing Dean's arm. "God, Dean, be cool!"

He heard the click as the hammer was uncocked, Dean's head ducking down, and he looked around, smiling widely and, he hoped, reassuringly, at the people looking at them. He waited until Dean had tucked the gun away and picked up the Colonel's leash then sidled along the car to the driver's door, opening it and slinging himself in with relief.

"What the fuck!?" he growled at Dean as his brother opened the rear door and the dog jumped in.

"You think this is easy?" Dean snapped back, closing the rear door and jack-knifing into the passenger seat, annoyance radiating from him like a defective heater. "Listening to a-a-a friggin' bird trash-talking me?"

"Restraint!" Sam suggested forcefully, starting the engine. "Just, I don't know, a little so we don't get arrested before we can even finish the freaking case!"

Dean looked away, unwinding his window all the way and swivelling around on the seat to reach into the back and do the same to the rear window. Sam took his foot off the accelerator as he watched him do it.

"You're joking."

"Need the fresh air," Dean muttered, leaning out slightly. "Loosens the tension."

Sam's mouth tightened slightly as he drove out of the lot and noticed Dean leaning further out.

"Dude, you're blocking the mirror," he said and Dean glanced around, slinking back inside slightly.

Was this what they going to be condemned to the rest of their lives, Sam wondered, fingers closing harder on the wheel in unease. Curses and spells, hunted by the things they were supposed to be hunting, his brother's only release from tension hanging out the car window with his mouth open?

The spell would wear off, he knew, but it didn't change anything. Dean hadn't wanted to talk about Charlie's decision or what she'd said to him when she'd hugged him goodbye. He also didn't want to talk about why Cas had left so abruptly and after they'd just got done hauling his ass out of danger and into the bunker. And somewhere near the top of the list of things that his brother was not talking about, there was the question of what exactly had happened at the church when he'd collapsed in Dean's arms and the angels had begun to fall out of the sky.

He could vaguely remember not being able to breathe, then there was pretty much nothing, until he'd woken scrunched into the corner of the Impala's front seat, driving through the night. At first, he'd put his brother's glib explanation down to him being okay, maybe a cramp or something similar, something that'd gone away and left him alright. But Dean's insistence in the last few weeks that he rest, that he not try to do anything that was too hard, too physical, too taxing … that didn't mesh with him being fine at all.

Then there were the nightmares. And the long, brooding silences. And the weird-ass looks he kept getting from his older brother. And the weirder explanations that would more or less burst out of Dean whenever he came to after being knocked out. Short. Lacking in any kind of detail. Weird.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed that the driver behind him was peering through his windshield. A quick look at the side mirror told him why. Dean and the Colonel were almost on the same slant, heads hanging out the window, eyes slitted against the wind of the car's motion, mouths open. He fixed his gaze on the road ahead and kept it there.