Disclaimer/Spoilers: See Chapter 1
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I apologize if I haven't replied to your review yet, you can blame Chrissie0707 for that (mostly because I refuse to adult and take responsibility for my own mouth). She and I have a contest going, her 10k prompted story vs. my chapters 12 and 13. So I have been devoting almost all my free time to writing chapter 12 and chapter 13. That being said I hope you enjoy the chapter. :D
Bad Seed
Swing the noose again
Off the veil
Stand revealed
Bring it on
Break the Seal
At the mercy
Cat is out
Spit it up
Spit it out
Bobby glanced over his shoulder; from his viewpoint he could just barely make out the dark form of the elder Winchester, elbow deep under the hood of the Impala, through the window of his study. He had no doubt Dean would be preoccupied out there for the next few hours, possible longer, giving him a chance to talk to the younger Winchester and find out what the hell was going on.
He'd been sitting as his desk, thumbing through an old book on various types of possessions—nothing he didn't already know—when the rumbling of an old but well-maintained Chevy Impala and the slamming of its doors shattered the silence that had previously filled the salvage yard. He made it to the front porch just in time to catch the tail end of a rather heated argument.
"Because she's a demon, Sam! They lie—it's what they do!" Dean gestured widely with his arms, glaring across the roof of his car.
"How could you possibly know that, Dean? I didn't smell any sulfur, there were no black eyes, and, oh yeah, she was more interested in helping rather than killing, you know, anything!" Sam matched his brother's glare. "So tell me how from all the way across a parking lot you were able to tell she was a demon."
If Bobby hadn't been watching he would have completely missed Dean's falter. It only lasted for a split second, but it was long enough.
"Because it's my job, Sam!" Dean threw back after only the smallest of pauses.
Bobby could hear the almost silent shiver in his voice, the one Dean got when he knew he was on shaky ground. A pause in the argument presented itself, and Bobby took the moment to step up to the front of the car. "All right, you two wanna tell me what's got your knickers in a bunch?"
"Sam's an idiot."
"Dean's an idiot."
Bobby pressed his lips in a thin line. Sometimes he had to remind himself that the two boys in front of him were actually men that had seen and killed more evil than most people have even dreamed up. Before Bobby could make his response Dean threw his hands in the air, addressing his younger brother. "You know what? Forget it. You wanna hang out with demons? That's fine." He started stomping off toward the direction of the garage while yelling over his shoulder. "But when you accidently let the devil out of his cage, don't come crying to me to stop the apocalypse."
"What the hell does that mean!?" Sam shouted back at Dean's retreating form.
That'd been a few hours ago. Dean was still bouncing from the garage to the Impala, choosing the company of his car over people for the moment, and Sam . . .
The more the boy thinks and worries and muses, the more he moves around, like a pinball flung about by flippers. He was going to beat the record now, turning the house into his own personal track, lap after lap. Bobby's eyes followed him as he cut a new path around the study. Bobby's lips twitched, wanting to tell the kid to sit the hell down already, because he thinks so damn loud and there's no room left for anyone else's thoughts.
Initially, his thoughts leaned toward the assumption that Sam was overreacting, that he was seeing something where there was nothing. But the boy was smart and was often able to see patterns most people would miss, so he wanted to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. Let him lay out his arguments before they decided if there really was something to worry about.
Sam had laid out his arguments, presented evidence in a fashion that would have any law firm fall over themselves. Most of the things Sam brought up—Dean forgetting about Hendrickson and that he was wanted for a slew of crimes, his willingness to support Sam if he wanted to go back to school, his treating Sam more like an equal rather than just a little brother—alone may raise an eyebrow, but they weren't anything to really raise a red flag over.
Together, however, they formed an odd pattern. What that pattern was neither of them could really decide on. None of Dean's actions were dangerous, just . . . not normal. Then there were the two events that did raise a red flag, the first being Dean's impossible knowledge of the hunt a few days ago with the dream root, and more recently Dean's rather violent reaction against another hunter in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded parking lot.
Bobby stepped forward, raising his hands in an attempt to stop Sam's anxious pacing before the boy wore a hole in his floor. "Okay, tell me what happened."
Sam's feet ground to a halt as he shoved a hand through his hair. He opened and shut his mouth in aborted attempts to properly articulate his thoughts. He blew out a short breath. "I was outside waiting for Dean to finish whatever he was doing in the diner. This girl approached me, said she was a hunter." He paused and licked his lips. "She knew stuff, Bobby, about me and the Yellow-Eyed demon. She also knew things about Dean, said that whatever is going on with him might be because something or someone is still interested in Yellow-Eyes' plans for me." Sam pulled his shoulders inward and glanced up at the older hunter, looking like the small child Bobby use to take care of and comfort when his brother couldn't. "Bobby, what if someone did something to Dean because of me?"
Bobby tapped the air between them. "One problem at a time. What else did this . . . ?"
"Ruby."
". . . Ruby have to say? Did she give any specifics? More importantly, is there any reason to think Dean may be right that she's a demon?"
Sam rubbed at the back of his neck. "She said there was an equivalent of a supernatural earthquake in Florida in April on the night of the 27th. She said there were tremors that followed the next few days that seemed to move from Florida to Mississippi. The date and place coincide with Dean falling into that coma. She suggested that something might be possessing him, but not the normal kind that we've seen. Something older and much more powerful." Sam dug a hand in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and held it out to Bobby. "She gave me this. Said it's a spell that can exorcise any type of preternatural and supernatural entity from a person's body without harming the host."
Bobby raised an eyebrow, taking the paper and unfolding it. "And you just believed her?" He glanced over the words scrawled across the paper. The words were vaguely familiar, but the spell wasn't anything he'd seen before.
"What? No. I'm not using any spell on my brother just because some random hunter said so." Sam rubbed at the back of his neck. "I was hoping you could look at it. See if it's really what she said it is. If she was telling the truth, we can use it. If Dean is possessed by something, that spell could cast it out. If he's not, then it should have no effect at all."
"Provided your hunter friend is telling the truth." Bobby folded the paper in half as he moved to one of many haphazardly filled bookcases, looking for a specific book.
Sam followed him, peering over his shoulder at the books. "There's only one problem."
Bobby placed a hand on top of the short bookcase and glanced back at Sam. "Only one?"
Sam gave Bobby a quick bitch face before pressing forward. "If something is possessing Dean, it's not just gonna sit still while we exorcise it." He gestured to the paper in Bobby's hand. "And that's not really a short spell." Sam paused, a thought lighting across his face. "You think that's why he attacked Ruby?"
Bobby pulled a book from the shelf and looked up at Sam. "What do you mean?"
Sam shifted his weight across his feet. "Well, what if whatever is possessing Dean attacked Ruby and is claiming she's a demon because it knows Ruby at least has an idea of what's going on and how to get rid of it?" He went quiet for a moment, shaking his head. "I'm not sure I've ever seen that look in Dean's eyes before, even when we were dealing with Meg when Dad was . . .It was like he really and truly hated this girl. A girl that, as far as I'm aware, he'd never met before. Bobby . . . ." He glanced up through his eyelashes. "He was going to kill her. For those moments it was like his entire world narrowed down to ending that woman."
"Speaking of which, if Dean—or whatever—was so hell bent on killing her, how'd she get away?"
"I'm not . . . I guess he misstepped or something and someone got in a lucky shot."
Bobby rolled his lips inward. "Misstep? That doesn't sound much like your brother."
Sam shook his head. "No. But maybe Dean was fighting back against whatever is possessing him. Like he knew Ruby could help him and was trying to keep whatever from killing her."
"If anyone could do it, it'd be your stubborn, bull-headed brother."
"If the spell is real and can really save him . . . how are we going to use it on him? It's not a demon possession, so a devil's trap won't work. Whatever it is has no reaction to holy water, salt, iron, or silver. I tried all of them and nothing."
Bobby rubbed a hand over his beard. "I have an idea, but let's worry about seeing if this spell is the real deal first."
Dean rubbed his forehead, trying to keep the headache pounding behind his eyes at bay. He wasn't sure if it was from the flashback or the brick he apparently took to the back of the head—perhaps a combination of both. He knew Sam didn't believe him about Ruby, and to be fair he hadn't really given him a reason to. Trying to kill Ruby in the middle of a crowded parking lot in broad daylight wasn't very high up on his list of well-thought-out plans. When he saw her talking to his brother, leaning on his baby, all he could think about was how she had twisted Sam around her finger, how she ever so subtly turned them against one another. Because of Ruby, something in his and Sam's relationship had been broken, and it had taken years before they could even begin to mend it. He knew it was selfish, but when he saw the demon all he could think about was how he refused to go through that again.
He leaned forward, placing his hands on the lip of the Impala's open hood, once more weighing the pros and cons of keeping his secret from Sam. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Sam that he did the time warp back into his younger self, but more that there was so much that happened in the future that he was ashamed of and didn't want his brother to know about, things that this Sam could never understand. This Sam still saw him as the unshakable older brother that could and would fix everything, the same way Dean had seen their father for so long. It was a selfish desire to want to preserve that bit of innocence in his little brother, but it was his, and after all the crap he'd been through, the things he had bared witness to, he felt entitled to hold onto this one thing for as long as he could.
Dean let out a sigh and gently shut the hood of the Impala. He knew Sam was currently pissed at him, and he had nothing to offer his brother in the way of explanations. For now he would just keep his distance, let Sam brood and then hope the whole thing blew over soon. Dean walked around the Impala; a beer was what he really needed right now. He paused at the passenger side door as the sun bounced off something metal sitting on the floorboard half shoved under the seat.
He opened the door, placing one hand on the doorframe as he leaned down to investigate. A smile crawled across his face as his fingers wrapped around the smooth wooden handle of Ruby's Kurdish demon-killing knife. Somehow, despite the assault of memories and the blow to his head, he must have kept hold of it until he passed out and it fell to the floorboard. He tucked the knife into the pocket of his coat. At least something good had come of that whole exchange.
Dean trudged up the stairs of the porch, through the old screen door, and headed straight for the kitchen in search of beer and a very large bottle of Ibuprofen.
He pulled back quickly when he entered the kitchen and nearly ran over Bobby, who was standing by the fridge, a beer in each hand.
"Little early to be double fisting, isn't it?" Dean forced a smirk and prepared to step around the older hunter.
"Cute." Bobby thrust one of the open bottles at Dean before taking a drag from his own. "How's the car?"
Dean took the bottle, his thumbnail scratching against the label. Bobby wasn't often one to beat around the bush when it came to approaching sensitive subjects. When he did, it was usually because he was searching for something; the old hunter was a lot sharper than some people gave him credit for. Today, however, Dean didn't feel like dealing with any small talk and probing questions. He just wanted to take some painkillers, drink his beer, and maybe pass out on the couch. If he was feeling particularly motivated, he might even make it upstairs to a bed.
He pulled the bottle up to his lips, then paused. "Sam tell you what happened at the diner?" He knew Sam would, it was how Sam functioned: he discussed things in an effort to understand them. He'd done it as a kid, and he'd still be doing it ten years from now.
Bobby nodded. "He told me. Said you think this Ruby girl is a demon."
Dean pulled the bottle away from his lips without taking drink. "That's because she was—is." This time Dean did step around the hunter, setting his beer down on the table as he pulled open a drawer he knew to hold various types of drugs. Most were of the too-strong-to-have-without-a-prescription variety, but Dean wasn't looking for anything stronger than Tylenol, and he had little want to spend the night in a drugged oblivion, though it was tempting.
Bobby leaned against the counter. "I never said she wasn't. Just, you know, you might want to be sure before you go attacking someone in a crowded parking lot."
Dean slammed the drawer shut, fighting down a wince as the sound reverberated through his head. "I was sure—am sure. I don't care what lies she is trying to twist in Sam's mind. She's a demon and a manipulative bitch."
Bobby held his hands in front of him. "All right, all right, no need to take it out on the drawers."
Dean resisted the urge to rolls his eyes, not so much because it was disrespectful but because he was convinced that doing so would make his eyes explode from the pressure building behind them. For a short moment he considered the other drugs Bobby kept but dismissed the idea in favor of a long and deep pull from his not-so-frosty beer. He finished it in a few swallows, pulling back for only a moment, wrinkling his nose. The beer had a funny taste, like it was bitterer than it should have been. Dean shrugged; he wouldn't be surprised to find that Bobby had added a liberal amount of holy water to it, just to be safe.
He dropped the empty bottle into a nearby trashcan and turned to face said hunter. "Look, Bobby, I know—" He stopped short as he found the world teetering dangerously to its side. He threw a hand out to his side, searching, his fingers curling tightly around the top of a chair. "The fu—" He blinked forcefully, shaking his head, trying to clear it, but the action only made everything tilt faster and sharper. Suddenly his brother was standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder, his lips moving, but all the words were coming through garbled, like a broken radio.
Dean brought a hand up, fisting it in Sam's shirt as his knees buckled under him, and he felt himself slip toward the floor in a controlled fall. His mind skittered and skipped as he tried to figure out what was happening, what went wrong. He felt like he'd been . . . drugged. His eyes dragged up to his brother's face, mouth still moving around silent words, then over to Bobby, who was now standing less than a foot away. Dean realized that Sam wasn't talking to him, but to Bobby, and both appeared perfectly calm, like whatever was happening wasn't a surprise.
Dean scrunched his face and tried to pull back away from Sam's hands, only to find they'd been the only thing holding him up. He watched as a now blurred Sam lunged forward to catch him before Dean's already battered skull could bounce off any of the surrounding furniture.
As black spots danced and consumed his vision, he could hear his brother's voice break through the fog.
"You're okay, Dean. We're going to fix this. You'll be okay."
Consciousness returned at a slow crawl, moving through what felt like a drug-induced haze. The last thing Dean remembered was drinking a beer and talking with Bobby in the kitchen. Then everything got fuzzy and the floor rushed up to greet him, his brother's intervention the only thing that kept him from hitting his head. He also recalled the beer tasting a little bit . . . off.
But Sam and Bobby, they couldn't have . . . they wouldn't have . . . would they?
Dean pushed through the fog crowding his mind and became aware of several things: he wasn't lying down as one would expect to be when waking up, but instead he seemed to be sitting up—rather uncomfortably—in a chair. A halted attempt to move told him that he was secured to the chair with thick rope around his ankles and wrists.
Dean blinked forcefully, trying to clear his blurred vision. He could make out the muddled surroundings of Bobby's study, the furniture pushed to the sides of the room. He knew without looking that a devil's trap was above his head, but more curious were the markings beneath him on the floor. From what he could make out, it appeared to be a large chalked circle surrounding a seven-pointed star with a five-pointed star at its center. There was writing along the edges and in the center, but Dean could only recognize it as not English, Latin, or Enochian. It wasn't like anything he could recall seeing, but it was clear the symbol was meant to be a seal of sorts.
Fan-fuckin'-tastic, Dean thought humorlessly. They thought he was possessed . . . or worse, if there was a worse. He was pretty sure given a few moments he could come up with plenty of worsts. One of the infected, that would be a worse . . . worst. Definitely worst.
Dean let his eyes fall back to the seal at his feet. The real question at this point, though, was where were Sam and Bobby, and why the hell was he sitting in the study, tied to a chair by himself? Well, he knew why he was tied to a chair. At least he was mostly sure, like seventy-six percent sure.
The irony in his inability to lie was that he could lie and often did as a hunter without so much as a flinch. He'd spent a lifetime learning how to lie his way out of various circumstances; he just couldn't lie to Sam and Bobby, or at least he'd never been very good at it.
He had a feeling, however, that it wasn't the lies or secrets that gave him away, but more that Sam and Bobby knew him better than anyone else. But this Sam and Bobby knew a different Dean, with different habits and quirks, different instincts, different ways of saying things. This whole thing was his own fault for not being more careful. That, however, was not going to stop him from kicking his brother's ass at the first opportunity.
Dean's thoughts were brought to a halt as he heard the distinct sound of footsteps entering into the study behind him. Speak of the devils. He twisted in his seat as much as the ropes would allow; he heard them pause before resuming once more with careful steps as they skirted around him, giving a wide berth.
Dean shifted his focus from one hunter to the other as they stood in front of him. Years of living together made Sam pretty easy to read, especially at this point in his life. Sam still wore most of his emotions in the open where everyone could see. He could see his brother was one part nervous, one part pissed, and two parts worried.
Bobby was a bit more difficult to read, as the elder hunter often masked his emotions, but Dean could see much of the same fear and concern Sam was showing reflected in the older man's eyes. They both thought something or someone was in him that wasn't supposed to be.
"Guys, look, whatever you're thinking, trust me, you're wrong. I'm not possessed." Dean was pretty sure that wasn't going to convince them of that fact, but it seemed like a good place to start.
"Not by any of the normal customers, no." Bobby folded his arms over his chest, studying Dean with a wary eye.
"What?" Dean's eyebrows scrunched inwards. "There is nothing else in here with me."
"Really?" Sam took a step forward, standing at the edge of the circle drawn on the floor. "It's just you, just plain old Dean?"
"Well, I wouldn't call myself plain or old, but yes. It's just me."
Sam ran his tongue across his lips and gave a slight nod. He then pulled a knife from an inside pocket of his coat. "Then explain this." It was Ruby's demon-killing knife. "I've never seen a knife like this before, nor has Bobby. So tell me where you got it, Dean."
That's easy to explain. Dean opened his mouth to tell Sam where he got it and then a snarky suggestion of what Sam could do with it, but before the words could cross his lips his brother interrupted him.
"While you're at it"—Sam slid the knife back into his pocket and picked up an old familiar leather-bound journal from a table pushed to the far side of the room—"wanna explain this?"
Dean recognized the book instantly as the one he'd been making notes in since he came back in time. There was information in there about people, places, events that hadn't happened, dates when they would happen as best as Dean could recall. That information wasn't the problem—everything in the book was written in a very old form of Enochian, a language that was dead, buried, and turned to ashes so long ago that even the most advanced copies of the language were missing huge gaps. That one would be a bit more difficult to explain.
Dean rolled his lips against his teeth, deciding the best way to avoid that question entirely. "You went through my stuff? The hell, Sam!" Indignation was always a good way to go, and it was easy to trudge up, as the longer he sat bound to a chair the more pissed he was getting.
"I don't even know if I'm talking to my brother or something pretending to be my brother." Sam tossed the book back to the table.
"Sam. If you don't untie me right now, so help me God, I will kick your ass."
Bobby raised an eyebrow, giving Sam a sidelong glance. "Well, it's got the attitude down."
"If it is just you in there, Dean, then I will happily let you kick my ass. But there are too many things that don't add up. The knife—"
"Is Ruby's. You know, the demon pretending to be a hunter."
"The book?"
Dean opened his mouth then snapped it shut. Nope, still couldn't explain that one.
"How you knew things about Bobby's hunt a few days ago even though Bobby never called you or told you anything about it."
He'd been wondering when that one would come back and bite him in the ass.
"But like you once told me, or Dean told me . . ." Sam paused, gesturing to a piece of paper in Bobby's hands. "We don't always have to operate on blind faith in this job. We can know for sure."
Dean's eyes bounced from Sam to Bobby to the piece of paper in his hands. He narrowed his eyes. "And how are you going to do that?"
"It's a spell that can exorcise any type of preternatural and supernatural entity from a person's body without harming the host."
"Really?" Dean tilted his chin downward and lifted his eyebrows. A heavy feeling settled in his stomach. Whatever spell they'd trudged up wasn't one he knew of, and that made him more uncomfortable than he was willing to admit. Dean narrowed his eyes a fraction. "And just where did you find said spell?"
"Ruby." Sam folded his arms over his chest, standard defiant brother pose.
"Ruby?"
"Yeah, you know." Sam shifted his weight while holding his brother's gaze. "Hunter you thought was a demon and tried to kill in the middle of a crowded parking lot in the middle of the day."
Dean twisted his mouth into a mocking smile. "That's great. Now we're taking random spells from random chicks who claim to be some random ass hunter that knows things no one should."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot, Dean. Bobby checked the spell out—it's the real deal."
Dean's eyes shot over to the silent older hunter, then back to his brother. "Pardon me if I don't trust something that came from a demon's grubby, manipulative mitts."
Sam shook his head. "You're wrong, Dean. She's not a demon."
"Really? And you know that for sure how?"
"Because she was eating French fries."
Silence settled over the room. Dean blinked twice then shattered the quiet with a resounding "What?"
Bobby turned slightly to look at the younger hunter. Clearly Dean wasn't the only one thrown widely off by the declaration.
Sam looked between the two like his statement should have been the most obvious thing in the world. When the silence stretched on, Sam let out a long sigh. "Demons can't cross salt lines, so I'm pretty sure they can't ingest salt either.
Dean gaped at his little brother a long moment until an insincere chuckle spilt out. "So that's what we're doing now, taking the word of French fries over your own brother. That's . . . that's awesome." He shook his head. "God, I should have let the Hollow Men take me."
Bobby took a step forward, holding the sheets of paper in his hand. "If you idgits are done. . . . Like your brot—" Bobby paused, pursing his lips before starting again. "As Sam already said, I've checked the spell out. Regardless of where it came from, it's a real spell, and it does what it's supposed to do. If you are all Dean and nothing else, then the spell will have no effect and we will untie you. You can kick Sam's ass, and then we can sit down and figure out what the hell is going on." Bobby rubbed a hand across his bearded chin. "If you're not all Dean, if there is something else in there, this will force it out."
"For the record, if I die, I swear to God I'm haunting both of your asses so hard." Dean raised his chin. "Well, come on. The sooner you see the spell doesn't work the sooner you can untie me. I can get a beer and then kick your asses. In that order."
Sam fidgeted and chewed on his bottom lip as Bobby gave them both one last glance before lifting the paper and beginning reciting the spell.
Dean tried to relax; he was sure once they tried the spell and it didn't work they would believe he wasn't possessed by anything. They would still want answers about a few things, answers Dean wasn't sure he could spin believable lies for. Hell, he wasn't sure the truth was any more believable, but maybe it was the best he had, and maybe it was time to tell them. Maybe.
For a moment everything was still, Bobby's voice filling the room and washing over them.
It started like a murmur, like a distant hum at the back of his mind. Dean shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sound, but it only grew louder, rolling closer like thunder.
Then the fire hit him.
Like a liquid inferno, it seared through him with a vengeance, slamming into his cells, racing along his veins and igniting his nerves. It ricocheted between his head and chest before shattering outwards, tearing through him.
Riding on the heels of the fire were noises so loud he strained against the ropes, desperate to block it out. Cries and whispers screamed across his ears like nails dragged across a chalkboard. Images followed at a dizzying pace, searing through his mind, obliterating everything.
"Don't be so full of yourself, Sammy. 'Cause from where I'm sitting—"
"Maybe you should just go somewhere for a while."
"That's a great idea. Unfortunately, my car's screwed to hell."
"Dad would never let us do anything like this. Thanks, Dean."
"—there ain't much difference between what I turned into and what you already are."
Pressure built inside of him until he was sure his body would snap in half from the force alone. Things he never wanted to remember, never wanted to forget—they surged forward in tangled, confused clumps, overlapping each other, demanding attention.
"The only thing you're gonna see is Michael killing your brother."
"My goodness, Dean Winchester has tipped over his king."
"Dean, if we're going to do this—"
"Well, then I ain't gonna let him die alone."
"Did you look for me, Sam?"
"—then we do it together, just as we always have."
He couldn't breathe.
He fought to pull air through lungs that had been beaten flat by the pounding of his own heart. He felt himself slip toward the edge of a dark cliff, the ground crumbling beneath his feet as his own personal Hell opened up before him. He tried to pull away from the noise, the pain, but it surrounded him, consumed him, came from inside him.
"Oh, he's in here, all right. And he's gonna feel the snap of your bones."
"You made a deal . . . for Sam, didn't you?"
"No, we did not get licorice, we got good snacks. Licorice is disgusting."
"Sam, it's okay. I'm here. I'm not gonna leave you."
"I'm sorry. I didn't quite understand that, uh, Mr. Peanut-Butter-and-Banana Sandwiches?"
"I couldn't let him die, Bobby. He's my brother."
He felt something splinter deep inside his chest, something that went deeper than blood and bone. He was being ripped into tiny pieces, each piece buckling and turning to ash under the intense pressure.
"'Need' and 'Want' are two different things, now ain't they?"
"Cas? Dean?"
"Shut your face! Get in the car!"
"Dean, it's over for me. It doesn't have to be for you. You can keep going."
"It's all a figment. You, me, left, right. But no matter which way you turn, you keep ending up here."
"I'll call it. Time of death: 10:41 a.m."
"Who says I want to?"
"Why this figment? Why this place"
A copper tang filled his mouth, coated his tongue, causing him to gag in between the impossibly loud screams echoing in his head.
"I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed Mom walk because of you."
"You're not evil, Dean. That's not an evil man."
"Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present—"
"That's a good man crying to be heard, searching for some other way."
"—that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever!"
"What if I said I . . . I didn't want to die . . . yet, that I wasn't ready?"
