Maybe this had been a bad idea. We ate and we talked – well mostly me and Sam did the talking while Dean was eying the waitress – and I learned a few things about ghosts and then Dean blurred out that they had sniffed in my past. They even thought my own mother was haunting me. Okay, my foster-dad did, but that was not the point. If they knew about my mother, what else did they know? Did they know about my brother? Did they know who I was?
And how did they figure out that I had searched their room? I am very careful to not leave any tracks behind. Had I been sloppy? Or were they just that good? Watching Dean getting distracted by a nice ass I didn't think so.
I finally admitted that my foster-dad was haunting me. Not the word I'd use but that seemed to be the official term. Harry was haunting me, I tried to warp my mind around that idea. Until now I had the word haunting connected with screaming apparitions, flying furniture and nasty deaths.
All Harry ever did was talking to me, to be there when I needed him. He was the only one who was there, who knew.
"Harry?" Dean repeated. The Winchesters shared one of those looks. "He died of a heart attack."
That wasn't exactly right, however, that was a point I didn't want to elaborate.
"We were close." I offered. That didn't start to touch it, our relationship had been way more than just close.
"Okay. Harry." Sam was the first who processed the new information. "Any chance you have something on you that had belonged to him? Some kind of heirloom?" He squinted at me like he new what kind of long shot that was. I didn't wear any jewelry, I didn't even had a picture of him in my wallet and I told them so.
"Transplantation?" Dean asked and that was an even longer stretch. He knew Harry and I wasn't blood related so we were most likely not compatible.
"No. Why would you ask that?" I wondered if they were insane after all. Maybe a little bit but I couldn't explain Harry away. It is kind of hard to call someone insane if you share their delusions.
"Transplanted organs are part of the original body. A spirit could use that as a link to the acceptor." Sam explained and he even blushed a little. "Good it's not that because we can't just cut out an organ. You know, in most cases they are kinda needed." He fiddled with his cup of coffee clearly at a loss.
Dean made a barely notable motion with his chin and Sam answered with an even smaller nod.
"What are you going to do?" I asked when they got ready to leave.
"We hadn't thought of Harry." Dean admitted as if that was an explanation. "We have to think about this."
"Maybe we can meet again tomorrow?" Sam asked and I offered my place. After that we left the diner. They drove off in their car and I sat in mine and tried to process what just had happened. In the past hour I had learned more about ghost I ever wanted to know and everything swirled through my mind. I sat there for long minutes and it took me a while to notice how cold it was in the car.
"They want to kill me." Harry said and I didn't need to look in his direction to know he was sitting in the passenger seat.
"They don't know how to do something about you." I reminded him and I was the last person to help them.
"There's one thing they can do." Harry said but didn't care to explain. When I glanced in his direction he was gone.
Deep in thoughts I drove home where Debra awaited me with a beer and the offer of a peaceful evening in front of the TV. Absolutely not what I was in the mood for but I smiled and nodded.
"No date with Dean tonight?" I took the beer and we sat down on the couch.
"He said he had something he has to take care of." Debra shrugged. "Fuck, it's not like we are engaged or something."
We watched some TV but my mind was far away. I went over the information the Winchesters gave me over and over again trying to find that one piece Harry had referred to. What could they do? And more important: Would it work?
If I would have been capable of loving someone I would have loved Harry, however, even without that feeling I didn't want him gone. He was the one grounding me. He helped me to see clear when everything seemed unclear.
Suddenly Sam's words were replaying in my mind as if he was standing right next to me. Realization hit me and I sat straight up. I knew what Dean had to take care of tonight.
"Dexter?" Debra ask. "What's up?"
Your boyfriend is about to dig up our father to burn his corpse. I looked into her open questioning eyes and couldn't tell her the truth.
"I forgot." I stammered searching for a plausible lie and found nothing. "I have to go. There is this thing I've to … I have to go."
"Dexter?" She asked but I already shut the door behind me. "Dexter! What the fuck?" She yelled but didn't come after me.
I jumped in my car and hoped I wasn't too late. I didn't even know if I was right about this but I had to make sure. For a moment I considered calling them and bluntly ask but decided against it.
I drove through the night and some part of me expected Harry to appear. The passenger seat remained empty and the way to the cemetery felt way longer than usual.
When I finally arrived I parked next to the only other car around. A black Chevy Impala. Dean's car.
Of course I knew where my father's grave was so I didn't have to search around. And even if not the light of two flashlights would have led me the way.
In stealth mode like I was on the hunt I made my way over the cemetery. Coming closer I heard the unmistakable sound of a shovel working its way through the soil and the murmured voices of the Winchesters.
I ducked behind a gravestone and took in the scene in front of me. It looked like something out of a horror movie and the only things missing were the wafts of mist and maybe a bat or two.
Sam stood next to the grave a flashlight in one hand and a shotgun in the other. At his feet lay the second flashlight, its beam highlighting the gravestone and another sawed off shotgun poking out of a green duffel bag. Dean did the digging and he must almost have reached the casket because he was up to his shoulders in the hole he was digging. Not just digging a hole, digging up a grave.
They are doing it, went through my head. They are reopening my father's grave.
Sam had told me how to put a spirit to rest and there were the charges for grave desecration but until now I hadn't been sure if they really meant it.
I'd dug up a grave or two myself in the past, when I needed proof that there actually was a body, proof that my victim belonged on my table, so I understood that part. It was part of the job, theirs and mine, however, this was not any grave. This was my father's grave. And that was kinda personal.
"Are you almost done?" Sam asked but with his eyes he swept the graveyard as if he expected to be attacked any second now. Was he waiting for me? I duck deeper in the shadow and his eyes passed me without him seeing me.
"Stop bitching around." Came Dean's response while one shovel of dirt after the other flew out of the grave. He worked in a steady rhythm but his breathing was even like he was used to this kind of nightly activity.
The shovel hit something solid and Dean changed position and scrapped the last dirt from what had to be the casket.
I swallowed thickly. That was my father's – foster-dad's – casket.
"Sam, get the salt and the gas." Dean ordered and duck in the hole. A creaking noise told me that he was opening the casket.
"You have to stop them." Harry said next to me. "They're going to kill me."
Stop them, that was easy to say. They had shotguns and I didn't have a syringe on me, no tools, not even a pocketknife. Taking them down hand to hand would be risky even without counting in the shotguns.
While I was still thinking about what to do Dean climbed out of the hole and Sam handed him a gas canister. Sam poured salt in the open grave and Dean the gas.
My time was running out. With no better plan than to stop them I stood up and jogged over to them.
"What are you doing?" I demanded while I stepped closer.
"Crap!" Was the unison comment from both of them as soon as they spotted me.
"Dexter, please." Sam tried to be the reasonable one. "We can explain."
"This is my father's grave." I stated the obvious. Of course they had made sure to dig up the right grave. "You have no right to do this."
"No, we have no right." Sam agreed. "And yes, we should have told you, should have ask for your permission. But we have to do this. Every spirit starts to hurt people eventually. Do you want Harry to become like that?"
He looked at me with that huge pleading eyes of his and maybe if I had been a more empathic person I would have fallen for it. However, the cold observing bastard that I was didn't fall for it and recognized Sam's little speech for what it was. A distraction.
While his brother did the talking Dean sneaked his hand in his pocket and came up with a lighter. Slow, subtle movements which were easy to miss.
I did the only thing I could do to stop him from setting the casket and the corpse within on fire. I jumped over the edge of the hole – and I didn't let myself get distracted by what was inside – and tackled Dean down.
Surprised by my attack he dropped the lighter and for a second or so I had the upper hand pinning him to the ground under me. With a quick roll in the grass he freed himself, then we parted and were both on our feet the next second. He was a trained fighter.
"Dexter, stop." Sam was behind me and tried to drag me from Dean one-handed, with the other hand he was still holding the shotgun. Why he hadn't used it by now I had no idea.
And then Harry was there.
"Dexter." Was all he said. A warning, a demand, encouragement maybe, I didn't know. Whatever he wanted to say Sam heard him as well. And apparently saw him because he pointed the shotgun at him.
What I did next was maybe the stupidest thing in my life because Harry was already dead, what could some buckshot do to him? On pure reflex I launched into Sam.
I heard the gunshot and then I was lying on my back and I couldn't breathe. Something had hit me in the chest and I couldn't breathe. With some delay came the pain. My eyes watered and I couldn't breathe and my chest was on fire.
"Shit, Dexter." I heard Sam but he sounded far away. Harry was closer. He knelt next to me and through the tears and the pain I listened to his voice.
"Breathe, Dexter." He said.