First things first- Don't expect me to start updating this quickly again, this was just a good week ;)
HAPPY BIRTHDAYS to Britestar, Mr. Jensen Ackles, little Isabella Shepard, welcoming Jeffery Dean Morgan and Hilary Burton's baby girl and anyone else I may have forgotten- Happy fricking birthday I hope it was/is great!
I know there's some confusion going on, but I hope you all trust that I always explain eventually, sometimes in far more detail then necessary, but don't worry, I've done my research with episodes like "Death Takes a Holiday" "Death's Door" "Of Grave Importance" and several others that touch on this realm and taking from canon, if Bobby can convince a manifestation of Rufus to help him run from his reaper using ingredients in his imaginary living room while in a coma then I think I'm safely within the possibilities of Supernatural.
Enjoy and have a great weekend!
Sam flipped through pages much faster than Claire, who was twice as fast as Bryan, who had never hated Latin so much in his life. They weren't the research texts he'd become used to, able to read most of the information and only having to translate occasionally, magic evidently required obscure, even dead, languages. Early in their search, Bryan had let a soft, frustrated sigh escape, but the scowl Sam gave him encouraged complete silence from the young man after that, even muffling his breathing as much as he could.
Claire made a suggestion, having found a spell related to raising spirits, but Sam quickly pointed out its use was to capture a ghost and force it to do the caster's bidding.
"You don't wanna mess with that," Sam said simply, "Ghosts don't appreciate bein' used 'n the spell won't last forever."
The library was quiet again for a while, just the sound of flipping pages and Claire's occasional gasp, followed instantly by an adamant head shake before she turned to the next spell.
Bryan was about halfway through translating the fourth spell he'd reached, the first three he'd only had to understand their objective before realizing they would not be helpful, but this one at least mentioned spirts. It seemed to be séance related, at least close to the target they were trying to hit. The sentence he was working on translating finally made sense and Bryan stared at the words, afraid to draw attention to himself, unsure how many more scowls he could take from Sam before he snapped.
Quod perierat receperint, claustra dissolveret, iterum autem videbo vos
Welcome the lost, dissolve the barrier, we will see you again
Bryan kept his eyes on his messy translation, sure it couldn't be as perfect as he assumed and began deciphering the next line, painfully slowly.
O, spiritus, daemones torto animarum ex hesterno, ostende nobis vosmet
Oh, spirits, demons the twisted souls of yesterday, show us yourselves
"Shit," he whispered, though not quietly enough.
"What'cha got?" Sam's hard gaze was on him in a second and Bryan's mouth went dry.
"I don't, I'm not sure," he admitted, hating how uncomfortable he felt in his own skin and wished Sam would stop looking at him, "Probably nothin' helpful."
"Let's see," Sam nodded at the book and Bryan turned it towards him, he didn't bother offering his disheveled notes.
Sam narrowed his eyes at the spell, nodding a little and his lips moved as he mumbled to himself. After a minute, he tapped the page hard with his finger and looked at Bryan with much less aversion than before.
"This could work," Sam scoffed almost happily.
Bryan's eyes widened with surprise, glancing at Claire in silent confirmation that she too had heard Sam, the blonde was already peering over the table at the open book.
"Isn't it," Bryan began timidly, "dark?"
"Yeah," Sam agreed, inclining his head a bit with a smirk, "but, we might be able to adjust it," he pulled the chair across from Bryan out, gathering the large text closer as he sat, "This was taken from another ritual and twisted for Satan worshipping."
"Satan, like Lucifer?" Claire asked, a note of fear in her tone.
"Yeah, but, not really," Sam shrugged, "Maybe that's who they were tryin' to contact, but most Satan worshipping doesn't work, and if they had something like this, well, even then they'd only maybe get the attention of some random demon who's bored. No, this is built off a séance ritual."
"Meaning?" Claire urged him to continue.
"Meaning," Sam continued, "its original purpose is to make contact with spirits, but unlike a normal séance that seeks a single person, it's a way to, well, dissolve the barrier," he pointed at Bryan's notes, the corners of his mouth twitched upward as their eyes met and Bryan noticed a little relief on the weight in his gut.
"So, this is what we need?" Bryan asked.
"It's close enough," Sam nodded, "Just gotta figure out how to take out the demon parts."
"How're we gonna do that?" Claire asked.
"I'm gonna call Rowena for starters," Sam shrugged, standing as he pulled his phone from his pocket, "Keep lookin', this is good, but there might be somethin' else in one'a these."
Claire returned to the book open in front of her and Bryan grabbed another from the stack on the table, leaving the spell he'd found where Sam had been sitting. Sam jogged down the stairs with his phone pressed to his ear, but stayed in the open room, allowing Bryan to clearly hear half the conversation.
"Rowena, it's Sam. Where are you?" Sam asked and several moments later his tone became confused, and a little angry, "Where? What? Why?" Bryan and Claire looked at each other briefly before turning their attention simultaneously towards the stairs, "Well, can you get back here? We've got a spell-" Sam stopped talking abruptly and the younger two in the library shared another glance, "What'd you mean? Rowena! You can't just- Rowena! Rowena!" Sam's growl was accompanied by a slam that made Claire and Bryan jump a little in their seats.
Sam stomped up the stairs, tossing his phone on the table and grabbed the open text while landing hard in his seat.
"No Rowena?" Claire asked quietly.
"Fuck her," Sam grumbled.
"Sam?" Bryan knew he sounded as nervous as he felt, but continued when Sam raised his eyebrows to show he was listening, though kept his focus on the spell, "You said that's a modification for Satan worshippers right?" Sam nodded, his eyes still on the book in his lap, "Then, uh, do y'think the original might be around here, somewhere?"
Finally, Sam looked at him, his hard gaze softening into thoughtfulness and, after a few moments, returned to the book, checking the edges of the page while mumbling something before flipping to the back, scanning with his index finger and still muttering to himself. Bryan held his breath waiting for Sam to look up again, and, when he did, there was a smirk of eagerness on his face.
"I love these organized freaks," Sam expelled a short laugh, "Where's volume one?"
Claire and Bryan shuffled through the stack, tossing a few to the other side of the table when they weren't the desired text, but, when Claire checked the cover of the one she was currently working through, the hunt was over. Sam took the book she practically threw at him, flipping the pages deliberately towards the middle and then slowly fanning a few with his thumb. He laid the antique volume flat on his lap and Bryan couldn't miss the grin growing on Sam's face as his eyes darted back and forth across the page.
"Is that it?" Bryan couldn't help his excited question.
"Might work," Sam scoffed lightly, "Be helpful if we had a witch or a psychic to run it, but it's worth a shot."
"And this could get her back?" Claire's question was laced with nervous hope.
"It could make it easier for her," Sam said, "Only she can get herself back, but if we can weaken the wall she's gotta break through, it might help."
"Then let's do it," Bryan nodded curtly.
Sam offered the same downward jerk of his head, then turned towards the hallway entrance and took a deep breath before yelling, "Dean!"
Claire and Bryan both jumped a little from Sam's volume, despite expecting the barking call the moment they saw the man's labored inhale.
"What?!" Dean called back a few seconds later and a shiver trickled down Bryan's back.
Sam rolled his eyes and sighed, bellowing back, possibly louder than before, "Think we found somethin'! C'mere!"
"What'd we need?" Claire asked, leaning forward on the table to peer at the Latin inscription upside down.
"Nothin' we don't have," Sam said, his focus returned to the page, "Normal séance stuff, it's just a different symbol that needs to be drawn in, oh."
"Oh?" Claire's voice raised with her eyebrows.
"The ashes of a man long forgotten," Sam read.
"A dead guy?" Claire clarified and Sam nodded, "We've gotta drawn the séance symbol out of a dead guy's ashes?" again Sam nodded, "Gross."
"Long dead, right?" Bryan confirmed.
"Yeah," Sam glanced again at the inscription, "I'd say a stiff dead the last fifty or more years should do it."
"There's an old farmers' plot a few miles out the other side'a Lebanon," Bryan began, "Kids like to go there on Halloween, they say it's haunted, it ain't, but nobody's been buried there for more than forty years prob'ly."
Sam nodded slowly and checked his watch, "We should hurry, got a few hours before sunrise."
"I'll go," Bryan said, "Claire can help me, I know you guys don't wanna leave," he let his sentence trail off before saying Morgan's name.
"It'll take you guys too long alone," Sam shook his head, "I'll go, Dean can stay back."
"What the hell is Dean doin'?" Dean growled, emerging slowly from the library stairs.
"Hey, check this out," Sam stood, setting the first volume on the table and pushing it towards his brother, "It's a modified séance ritual. It's supposed to weaken the wall between the living world and the veil."
Dean blinked with surprise at the page, leaning over to get a closer look and nodding slowly, "Alright, let's do this."
"We're gonna head out to this cemetery Bryan knows about," Sam said and Bryan dropped his gaze when Dean turned his hard eyes on him, "Need the ashes of a long forgotten man for the base symbol."
"We don't have that?" Dean's question was so honest Bryan couldn't help a short laugh escaping, his ears burning when Dean scowled at him.
"A dead guy?" Sam's confusion at least assured Bryan he wasn't the only one taken aback.
"Ashes," Dean nodded, "I swear there's at least three urns in one'a those back storage rooms. Dead Men of Letters, what could be more long forgotten?"
"If you know where they are," Sam jerked his head down the stairs.
Dean nodded before turning to leave the library, "Good work, Sam."
"Actually, Bryan found it," Sam admitted.
Dean stopped, but didn't turn around, and made an agreeable grunting sound before descending the stairs and disappearing towards the garage.
Bryan's gut twisted and again he imagined himself accelerating away from the bunker, relieved of his constant discomfort.
"Claire," Sam said, "do you remember I showed you where those sage candles are?"
"Yeah, think so," Claire nodded, leaving the library at Sam's silent gesture to go get them.
"What can I do?" Bryan asked timidly.
Sam stared at him, seemingly fighting between anger and appreciation before finding himself somewhere in between, "You can tell me what happened, the truth."
Nausea returned to Bryan's throat, but he swallowed hard, forcing himself to take the unexpected opportunity to explain, "Nothing, no really, Sam, please," he started pleading when Sam rolled his eyes in disbelief, "She was havin' a hard time gettin' Channing to go down and she didn't wanna be all the way down the hall if he woke up, but sleeping in Garth's room was just, she didn't want to, it felt weird. So, we moved his crib thing into my room, we just cuddled, and kissed a little, but honest that's it, I swear."
"Why didn't you just move Channing into her room?" Sam asked.
Bryan's mouth gaped a moment before he grimaced, "I don'know, we didn't think about that."
Sam scoffed lightly, shaking his head and then staring hard into Bryan's eyes, "And nothin' happened?"
"No, sir, on my Mother," Bryan refused to even blink as he responded.
Sam nodded, but didn't continue. Bryan was sure it wasn't over, though.
"I'm gonna grab the rest of what we need, just stick around," Sam said, taking the book with him as he left the library.
Bryan returned to his seat, but, without a task, he was lost. Longing to run down the stairs, into the garage and take off in his car as fast as he could, but he had nowhere to go. Everyone he knew was either in the bunker or dead, he certainly wasn't going to drag any of the friends he'd made in Lebanon into the bullshit that was his life, so even the living might as well be dead. Or maybe it was him that might as well be dead.
He cradled his head in his hands with his elbows on his knees, trying to fight the swarm of tears flooding his eyes and the tingle in his nose, threatening very unmanly sobs. Everyone left him, they all died or got stuck in the ghost world or turned their back because they were never on his side anyway. His chest was tight, contracting with fear, dread and anxiety while he tried to fight the building explosion from escaping. Trying to focus on something happy and finding memories of his Mom crawling to the forefront of his mind.
"I wanna go home," a whimper passed his shivering lips and the last hold on his stoicism broke as Bryan muffled his sobs with his hands in the empty library.
Morgan wasn't sure if moving had gotten easier or if she had simply gotten used to the feeling, but her steps weren't as labored as they had been. With her Dad at her side, they walked into the hall and she pointed to the open door across from hers.
"That's Dean's room," Morgan said, turning her finger to the closed one next to her room, "that's Sam's."
John expelled a light scoff at Sam's shut door, "When Sam was seven he asked for a lockbox for his birthday. Kid was always worried about his brother gettin' into his stuff."
"I really can't blame him," she giggled.
"Wow," John peered into the kitchen as they passed, "Emeril Lagasse would be all over this."
"Who?" Morgan inclined her head at him.
"He's not a famous chef anymore?" John asked.
"Gordon Ramsey?" Morgan offered.
"Who?" John inclined his head at her.
"That's who Dean thinks he is when he cooks sometimes," Morgan smiled, "he doesn't call himself Ramsay, obviously, but I've caught him talking to himself in a crappy British accent, pretty sure that's what he's doin'."
John chuckled, "Yeah, he used to do that when he was a kid too, except it was James Smith."
They continued towards the open room, but both stopped when Sam started striding towards them.
"Sam," John breathed and Morgan looked at her father's suddenly broken face.
Sam moved right through them, continuing down the hallway as John watched with sad eyes.
"Dad," Morgan said, "you know they'd do anything to have you back, to just see you again, just, they love you, a lot."
John nodded, "And I did nothing to deserve it."
"Hey," she barked in her best impression of both him and Dean, earning a startled look, "If I don't get to be self-deprecating neither do you."
John laughed, "Okay, Brat, that's fair."
She narrowed her eyes at him, "You know they call me that?"
"What?" he asked.
"Brat," Morgan said.
"It fits," John smirked, chuckling and scissoring his fingers at the tongue she stuck out.
Her amusement disappeared, however, the moment they returned to the library. In the midst of the stacks of heavy books was Bryan, bent over on his seat, with his head buried in his hands. Morgan held back on the stairs, but, when John continued upward, she hurried to follow him, keeping her eyes on Bryan.
His shoulders shook and the words he whimpered broke Morgan's heart, "I wanna go home."
Reflexively, she moved towards him, but the hand she tried to rest on his shoulder moved through Bryan same as air. Morgan had never seen him break, even when his Mom had died, he hadn't crumbled into a mess of sobs, but he thought he was alone.
"This Bill Elkins' kid?" John asked.
"Bryan," Morgan nodded, surprised when Bryan looked up after she said his name, but he just sniffled hard and wiped his cheeks.
"How long ago did his Mom pass?" John stepped forward, putting a hand on Morgan's shoulder, keeping her from following Bryan as he walked to the other side of the table and opened another large book.
"A couple months ago," she said.
"Poor kid," John sounded genuinely sad for Bryan, "And he started hunting right after?"
"Yeah," Morgan nodded, "He came back here to heal up from the vampire attack-"
"He was attacked?" John interjected.
"Yeah, bad," she grimaced, "but, uh, Sam 'n Dean got there just in time. They'd already gotten his Mom though."
John nodded sadly, but narrowed his eyes a bit analytically at Bryan, "He's a big kid."
"Have you met your sons?" Morgan smirked and her Dad chuckled.
"Speaking of," John looked over Morgan's head, making her turn to see Dean walking through the open room with an old wooden crate.
Morgan saw Bryan tense out of the corner of her eye as her brother trudged up the stairs.
"What're you doin'?" Dean asked gruffly, setting the box on the other table that wasn't as crowded.
"Nothin'," Bryan mumbled.
"Well, that's helpful," Dean's comment was laced with nasty sarcasm.
Bryan winced, but took a breath and said insistently, "Dean, really, if I could tell you-"
"Kid, I don't wanna hear it," Dean said with calm anger, "I appreciate that you're helping, but I'm not quite ready to get over my sister bein' in your bed last night."
"What?!" John barked.
"Nothing happened!" Bryan and Morgan insisted simultaneously, taking a step back from their confronters.
John and Dean shared a scoff so alike Morgan couldn't help scowling at the brother that couldn't see her.
"Can this not be the focus?" she asked, wanting to leave the library, but couldn't, frustration building as Morgan realized she was trapped, "It's really hard to find this book already, and everyone's yelling, seriously, I need to concentrate."
"Little girl," her Dad growled, "if I could, I'd be concentratin' my hand on your ass."
"Yeah, well," Morgan mumbled, glaring at Dean, "if he knows, you can rest easy."
"Dean," Bryan's nervous tone took their attention, watching the young man shift his gaze from the intimidating older man and the floor as he spoke, "I'm sorry, I should've told you about her dream, I knew she wasn't gonna tell you. And we should've thought to put Channing in her room instead'a mine. I'm sorry, for everything."
Morgan really wished she could get them out of the library, even the fog would be preferable to the current situation. Her Dad's gaze was hot on the side of her head and Dean glared at Bryan, his thick arms crossed threateningly.
"The kid was in there?" Dean asked.
"She didn't wanna be far away from him 'n, well, I'm kinda better at the baby thing," Bryan shrugged, "but just 'cause she's never been around any."
"She ain't gonna be either," Dean growled.
"No, of course not," Bryan agreed adamantly, "Me either. Nothing happened, Dean I promise, we just talked, and kissed a little, but I swear that's it."
"Bryan," Dean sighed, dropping his arms and leaning on the back of a chair, "it's not that I don't believe you. I just don't care. All I care about right now is getting Morgan back to her body. After that, then I'll worry about how hard I'm gonna kick your ass."
Bryan nodded, his eyes staying on his boots. Morgan felt sick.
"Hey, I grabbed all the candles I could find," Claire announced, walking into the room with an overflowing cardboard box, a variety of candles poking out of the open top, "I wasn't sure which the sage ones were."
"It's fine," Dean said, taking the box from her as she reached the top of the stairs and set it next to the crate on the table.
Morgan looked at her Dad, surprised to find his expression calm.
"You gonna find this book or what?" he asked and she nodded, "What's it look like?"
"Small," Morgan used her hands to describe the size of the little journal, "and pink."
John expelled a short laugh, "Well, that shouldn't be hard."
She mostly ignored the bits of conversation happening between her brother and her friends while walking around the table and scrutinizing every inch she could see. So many texts were stacked and stumbled on each other it was hard to see what was underneath, but, as she rounded the other end, a flash of color caught her attention.
"Dad," she gestured him over while grabbing for the corner of the pink journal sticking out from underneath a leather-bound book, but, again, her hand slid right through the solid objects, and Morgan released an angry growl.
"Relax, you gotta concentrate," John said.
"Can you do it?" she asked bitterly, averting her challenging gaze when her father raised an unforgiving eyebrow.
"I'm new at this too, kiddo," John said simply, "we'll get it."
He reached for the journal heeding the same results, but instead of growling, John took a deep breath. Focusing his attention again, but kept his hand a few inches from the target. It was several moments, but Morgan gasped when the large text on top of the journal nudged slightly. No one in the room was paying attention and it hadn't moved enough to really earn any, but Morgan watched intently as her Dad took another breath and strained his concentration on the leather-bound obstacle.
"Alright, I think we've got everything we need," Sam said, jogging up the library stairs with the spell book in one hand and a tackle box of herbs in the other, the former he tossed directly on top of the book John was trying to move, effectively covering the pink journal from sight.
"Sam!" Morgan exploded with frustration and the book he'd just dropped fired from the table directly into Sam's back.
"Hey!" John's expression was a mix of incredulous amusement, "Do I really have to tell you not to throw books at your brother?"
"He's in my way," Morgan mumbled.
Her brother crumbled momentarily from the sudden shot between his shoulders, but recovered quickly turning with the others in the direction of Morgan and John. Their eyes darting around them, at the table and occasionally right where they were standing, every one of their faces confused and searching.
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