Death Takes a Holiday Part 1
Dean tapped a button on the jukebox, then thumped the jukebox. Sam and Angela were at the table, Sam on his laptop and Angela on the phone.
"No, no, no, you're right, it's definitely weird… okay, Bobby, thanks." She said.
She put her phone away. Dean came over.
"What's up?" Dean asked as he sat down.
Sam started typing.
"Bobby found something in Wyoming." Angela replied.
"A job?"
"Maybe." Sam nodded.
Dean bit into a burger.
"Small town, no one's died in the past week and a half." Angela said.
"That so unusual?" Dean raised a brow.
"Well, it's how they're not dying." Angela said. "One guy with terminal cancer strolls right out of hospice. Another guy gets capped by a mugger and walks away without a scratch."
"Capped in the ass?" Dean asked.
Sam's browser had two tabs open to the Greybull Gazette; the top tab had an article with the headline 'Shooting victim walks away unharmed' and the subheading 'Man miraculously survives after direct shot to the heart'. The first paragraph read 'Police and medical authorities are struggling for an explanation as to why local resident James Jenkins was able to walk away from a point blank shooting incident. After leaving Bison Bud's Bar, Mr. Jenkins and friend Pete Hensley were confronted by a mugger in a nearby alley. After a brief altercation, the mugger fired a shot from a 9mm Automatic, hitting Jenkins directly in the heart…'
"Police say Mr. Jenkins was shot in the heart at a point blank range by a nine-millimeter." Sam said.
Dean kept eating, speaking with his mouth full. "And he's not a donut?"
"Locals are saying it's a miracle." Sam shrugged.
"Okay." Dean nodded.
"It's gotta be something nasty, right?" Sam asked. "I mean, people making deals or something."
Dean considered this. "You think?"
"What else could it be?" Angela asked.
"I don't know." Dean replied.
"All right." Sam put his laptop in his bag. "Get that to go."
Dean looked down and didn't move.
"Come on." Angela said.
Sam and Angela stood, Sam picked up his bag. Dean didn't moved except to chew. Sam looked at him, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
"What?" Sam asked.
Dean looked up and kept chewing, then glanced away and back. "Sure you want me going with you?"
"Why wouldn't we?" Sam asked.
Dean looked at Sam. "I don't want to be holding you back or nothing."
"Dude, I've told you a hundred times, that was the siren talking, not me." Sam replied. "Can we get past this?"
Dean put down the burger. "Yeah, we're past it." He brushed off his hands.
~/~\~
The Impala was parked outside Jim's house. Birds chirped.
"Now, you three said you were bloggers?" Jim asked.
Sam, Dean and Angela were sitting at Jim's dining room table. Jim sat down across from Sam. Jim's wife and daughter were visible in the next room.
"Yes, sir." Angela nodded. "Floored by the Lord dot com."
"All of God's glory fit to blog." Dean said.
Dean grinned. Sam glanced at him and cleared his throat.
"Um. Some of the people around town are saying what happened to you was a miracle." Sam said.
"It was. Plain as day." Jim replied.
"How can you be so sure?" Angela asked.
"How else do you explain it? The doctors can't." Jim said. "There's a bullet in my heart, and it's pumping like a piston."
"Well, how do you explain it?" Dean asked.
Jim hesitated. He looked over at his daughter. "Look, honestly. I was nobody's saint, not exactly father of the year, either."
"Okay." Dean nodded.
"But when that guy shot me and I didn't bleed a drop?" Jim asked. "I just knew the Lord was giving me a second chance."
"That so?" Angela asked.
"I had this feeling, like angels were watching over me."
Jim paused and Dean nodded.
"I wouldn't expect you guys to understand." Jim said.
"Well, we'll just have to try." Dean replied.
"You wouldn't have happened to have swung by a crossroads in the past week or so?" Sam asked.
"No." Jim replied, confused.
"Maybe you met someone? With black eyes? Or red?" Sam pressed.
Jim leaned forward. "Who'd you guys say you were again."
Angela looked over at Sam. "Never mind. Thank you for your time."
Dean and Angela got up. Sam followed.
~/~\~
Dean and Angela were sitting at a table on the laptop, reading a news article. Sam opened the door and came in.
"Hey." Sam said, closing the door.
Dean and Angela looked up.
"Anything?" Dean asked.
Sam came over. "That cancer survivor?" he asked. "He was clinically dead, his wife pulled the plug, and now he's taking her out for their twentieth anniversary."
"Any sign of a deal?" Angela asked.
"No." Sam shook his head. "What about you guys? Found anyone dying around here?"
"Not since Cole Griffith." Dean replied.
Dean and Angela were looking at the obituaries in the Greybull Gazette. Dean clicked on the picture of Cole Griffith to enlarge it.
"He dropped dead ten days ago." Angela said. "It was the last death we could find."
"So, what are you thinking?" Sam asked.
"Eh, maybe it is what people say it is." Dean shrugged.
Dean got up. Sam went over and sat next to Angela so he could look at the laptop. He scoffed.
"Miracles?" Sam asked. "Dean, our experiences, when do miracles just happen?"
"Well, there's no deals." Dean replied. "There's, uh, no skeevy faith healers." He poured a cup of coffee. "I mean, these souls just ain't getting dragged into the light."
Angela thought for a moment. "Maybe 'cause there's no one around to carry them." She said.
Dean came back over. "What do you mean?"
"Well, grim reapers, that's what they do, right?" Angela replied. "Schlep souls? So, if death ain't in town—
"Then nobody's dying." Dean finished. "So what? The local reaper's on strike? Playing the back nine? I don't know, Angie." Dean drank his coffee.
"Well, then, let's talk to somebody who might." She suggested.
"Well, last I checked, huggy bear ain't available." Dean replied.
"No, dude, she means the kid." Sam said.
"The kid?" Dean asked. "The kid's a doornail."
"Exactly. Look, if he was the last person to die around here, then maybe he's seen something. We should talk to him." Sam replied.
"I love how matter-of-fact you are about that. Strange lives." Dean said as he drank more coffee.
~/~\~
Sam, Dean and Angela were at a gravestone engraved 'Beloved Son Cole Griffith 1997-2009 Forever In Our Memories'. Five candles were arranged around a pentacle drawn on a cloth spread over the grave. Sam put a bundle of sticks in the center of the pentacle. Dean sat on another gravestone and flipped through John's journal.
"You sure this is gonna work?" Dean asked.
Sam looked up. "No. But if his spirit's around, this should smoke him out." Sam poured something into a bowl.
Dean closed the journal and Angela looked at him.
"What?" she asked.
"This job is jacked, that's what." Dean replied.
"How so?" Sam asked.
"You want me to gank a monster or torch a corpse, hey, let's light it up, right?" Dean asked. "But this? If we fix whatever this is, people are gonna start dropping dead. Good people."
Sam stood up. "Look, I don't want them to die, either, Dean, but there's a natural order."
"You're kidding, right?" Dean asked.
"What?" Sam asked.
"You don't see the irony in that? I mean, you, me and Angie, we're like the poster children of the unnatural order. All we do is ditch death." Dean said.
"Yeah, but the normal rules don't really apply to us, do they?" Angela asked.
Dean stared. "We're no different than anybody else."
"I'm infected with demon blood, you've been to hell and Angie is on some divine path to getting purified." Sam replied.
Dean looked away.
"Look, I know you want to think of yourself as Joe the Plumber, Dean, but you're not. Neither am I. And neither is Angie. The sooner you accept that, the better off you're gonna be."
Dean looked up. "Ah, Joe the Plumber was a douche."
"You gonna help us finish this?" Angela asked.
Dean stood up.
"Hey!" yelled a man.
Sam, Dean and Angela looked towards the voice: it was a man carrying a flashlight.
"What are you doing here?" the man asked.
"Uh—Angela started.
Sam and Angela glanced at Dean.
"Just take it easy." Sam said.
"What the hell is this?"
"Okay, this, this, this is not what it looks like." Dean laughed.
"Really? 'Cause it looks like devil worship."
"What? No! No, this is not devil worship." Dean replied. "This, this is, this, this is, huh—Dean gave up. "I don't have a good answer."
"We're leaving." Sam said.
"You're not going anywhere." The man replied.
Sam frowned. The man took a few steps forward.
"Ever again. Sam." The man smirked.
The man looked at Dean. His eyes went white.
"Alastair." Dean said.
Alastair's eyes went back to human.
"I thought you got deep fried, extra crispy." Angela glared.
"Nah. Just the pediatrician I was riding. His wife's still looking for him. It's hilarious. Anyway." Alastair looked at Sam, who was fuming. "No time to chat. Got a hot date with death."
Alastair flicked his hand. Dean and Angela went flying across the graveyard and collided with the gravestone of someone surnamed Myth, 1957-2001.
"Dean! Angie!" Sam yelled.
Alastair turned back to Sam and flicked his hand. Nothing happened. Alastair tried again. Sam smirked.
"You're stronger, Sam." Alastair said. "You've been soloflexing with your little slut?"
"You have no idea." Sam replied.
Sam flicked his hand and Alastair went flying. Sam raised a hand to exorcise him. Alastair fled the man's body. Sam dropped his hand, surprised. Sam watched the smoke vanish.
~/~\~
Dean and Angela were lying on their beds, holding ice packs to their heads. Sam opened the door and came in.
"How are you two doing?" Sam asked.
"I'm feeling crappy." Angela groaned.
"I'm in pain, that's how I'm doing." Dean said. "I think I have a concussion."
"Either of you want some aspirin?" Sam asked.
"No thanks." Angela said.
Dean sat up. "No thanks, House." Dean replied. "So, demons, huh?"
"Yeah. So much for miracles." Sam said.
"And what the hell happened with Alastair again?" Angela asked, sitting up.
"I told you, he tried to fling me or whatever." Sam replied, flicking his hand in demonstration. He went over to the coffee maker. "And it didn't work, so he bailed."
"Well, how come he couldn't fling you?" Dean asked. "He chucked you pretty good last time."
Sam turned to face Dean and paused before answering. "Got no idea." Sam turned back to the coffee maker, then looked at Angela when she started speaking.
Angela scoffed and stood up. "Sam, do us a favor. If you're gonna keep your little secrets, I guess we can't really stop you, but just don't treat us like we're idiots, okay?"
"What?" Sam asked. "Angie, I'm… I'm not keeping secrets."
"Keep telling yourself that." She said. "So, did you go back and q-and-a the dead kid?" she asked, sitting on Dean's bed.
Sam came over and sat on the other bed, holding up a thin notebook. "Didn't have to. Bobby called. He did some digging."
"And?" Dean asked.
"He thinks Angie's right. Local reaper's gone. Not just gone, kidnapped." Sam answered.
"By demons? Why?" Angela asked.
"Listen to this." Sam replied. He read from the notebook. "'And he bloodied death under the newborn sky sweet to taste, but bitter when once devoured.'"
"Swanky." Dean replied. "What the hell's that mean?"
"Well, it's from a very obscure, very arcane version of Revelations." Sam said.
"Which means what I think it means?" Angela asked.
"Basically, you kill a reaper under the solstice moon, tomorrow night, by the way, you got yourself a broken seal." Sam nodded.
"How do you ice a reaper?" Dean asked. "You can't kill death."
"I don't know. Maybe demons can. Where the hell are the angels is what I want to know. We could use their help for once." Sam said.
"It looks like we're gonna have to take care of this one ourselves." Angela replied.
"What are we gonna do, just swing in and save the friendly neighborhood reaper?" Sam asked.
"You got a better idea, I'm all ears." Angela replied.
"Angie, reapers are invisible. The only people that can see them are the dead and the dying." Sam said.
"Well, if ghosts are the only ones that can see them…" Dean started.
"Yeah?" Sam asked.
"Then we become ghosts." Dean said. He put the icepack back to his head, smirking.
"You do have a concussion." Sam replied.
"Sounds crazy, I know." Dean said.
"It is crazy." Sam said.
Dean and Angela smirked at each other.
"How?" Sam asked.
~/~\~
Sam opened the door. On the other side was Pamela, and behind her Dean and Angela. They entered.
"I can't even begin to tell you how crazy you three are." Pamela said. She felt the counter, then the chair.
"Well, Pamela, you're a sight for sore eyes." Sam replied, closing the door.
Pamela turned around, lowering her sunglasses far enough to reveal plastic white eyes.
"Aw, that's sweet, grumpy." She replied, putting her sunglasses back. "What do you say to deaf people?"
Angela sighed and Dean looked down. Sam looked uncomfortable.
"Which one of you brainiacs came up with astral projection?" Pamela asked.
Dean and Angela raised their hands.
"Yo." Dean replied.
Angela smiled sheepishly.
"Of course, it'd be you two." Pamela sighed. "So, let's be clear. You want to rip your souls out of your bodies and take a little stroll through the spirit world?"
"Mm-hmm." Dean hummed.
"Do you have any idea how heavy-duty insane that is?" Pamela asked, folding her arms.
"Maybe, but that's where the reaper is, so…" Angela started.
"So, it's nuts." Pamela said.
"Not if you know what you're doing." Dean replied.
"You don't know what you're doing." Pamela retorted.
"No, but you do." Dean said.
"Yeah, I do." Pamela replied. "And guess what? I'm sick of being hauled back into your angel-demon, Soc-Greaser crap."
"Look, I'd love to be kicking back with a cold one, watching Judge Judy, too." Dean said.
"Nice." Pamela scoffed. "More blind jokes?"
"You know what I mean. We're talking the end of the world here, okay? No more tasseled leather pants, no more Ramones CDs, no more nothing."
Angela paused before speaking. "We need your help."
~/~\~
Sam closed the curtains. Dean flicked closed a lighter and dropped it on the table next to some of the several candles burning around the motel room. Angela brought one of the candles over to the bedside table, shielding the flame with one hand. Pamela is sitting on a chair between the beds.
"Tell me something, geniuses." Pamela said. "Even if you do break into the veil and find the reaper, how you gonna save it?"
Sam closed the curtains on another window.
"With style and class." Angela replied.
"You're gonna be three walking pieces of fog who can't touch or move anything. You'll be defenseless, sweetheart." Pamela retorted.
"I seem to recall a bunch of ghosts beating the crap out of us." Sam said.
"Yeah, well, they had plenty of time to practice." Pamela replied.
"Well, then, I guess we got to start cramming." Dean said.
"Wow, couple of heroes. All right." Pamela patted one of the beds. "Lie down. Close your eyes."
~/~\~
Sam, Dean and Angela were lying on the beds, Sam diagonally.
"Animum vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. Vis, vis, vis." Pamela recited. "Okay, guys. That's it. Showtime."
Dean and Angela sat up. Dean looked at Pamela.
"Well, nothing like shooting blanks." Dean said. "What's plan B?"
Pamela didn't hear him. Dean and Angela looked at Sam, lying on the other bed, then over one shoulder at Sam, standing. Sam spread his hands. Dean looked over his other shoulder at himself, unconscious on the bed.
"Oh, I'm so feeling up Demi Moore." He said.
"All right, so I'm assuming you're somewhere over the rainbow. Remember I have to bring you back." Pamela said. Pamela stood and went over to Sam.
Dean and Angela watched her.
"I'll whisper the incantation in your ear." Pamela said. She leaned over Sam to do exactly that. "You have got a great ass." She whispered.
Sam grinned.
"What'd she—Dean started. Dean looked at Sam. "What'd she say?"
Sam shrugged.
~/~\~
Sam, Dean and Angela walked along the street, looking around. A car went past. A jogger went right through Angela without noticing. Dean laughed, watching her go. Dean turned back to Angela.
"That was wild." He said.
Angela looked at him and shook her head. Dean stuck his arm into Sam's chest up to the elbow. Sam looked down at it, then up at Dean, face stony.
"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Dean asked.
"Get out of me." Sam replied.
Dean pulled his arm back. "You're such a prude. Come on." Dean kept going. Sam and Angela followed.
~/~\~
Dean, Sam and Angela crossed the street. Their breath was visible in the cold.
"Oh, man, we've been spooking this town for hours." Dean said. "No demons, no black smoke. I say we hit Victoria's Secret and get our peep on, huh?"
Angela looked up and to the right. "Hey. Three o'clock. Kid in the window."
Dean and Sam looked up. The kid was looking out and upstairs window at Sam, Dean and Angela. It was the same face from the obituary photo: Cole Griffith.
"Am I crazy or is he looking at us?" Sam asked.
"It's 'cause we've seen him before." Dean replied.
"We have?"
"Newspaper. Cole Griffith, the last person to die in this town." Angela said.
Cole flickered and vanished. The three hunters looked at each other.
~/~\~
Mrs. Griffith left the room, going through Dean, Sam and Angela. Cole was standing by the dresser; he threw more balls.
"Stop!" Dean exclaimed. "How are you doing that?"
"Who are you?" Cole asked.
"Relax, Cole. It's okay." Angela said.
"How do you know my name?"
"Look, this isn't gonna be easy to hear, but… you're, dead. You're a spirit. Us too." Sam replied.
Dean and Angela glanced back at Sam.
"Yeah, thanks, Haley Joel. I know I'm dead." Cole replied. "What do you want?"
"We just want to talk." Angela replied softly.
"About what?" Cole asked.
~/~\~
Mrs. Griffith poured herself a glass of vodka and took a sip. Cole was leaning on the wall watching her. Dean, Sam and Angela were sitting at the dining room table watching him.
"I was outside all morning." Cole turned around. "They tell you to be careful when it's cold."
"Cold air can cause an asthma attack?" Dean asked.
Cole nodded, shrugging. "But then I was in my room. It happened so fast. I called out for my mom, but nothing came out. Everything started spinning, and then I was just standing there, looking down at my body." Cole leaned on the table.
"And that's when you saw the man?" Sam asked.
"Creepy old guy in a black suit. He wanted me to go with him, but…" Cole looked back at Mrs. Griffith. "I didn't want to go."
"Reaper." Angela murmured.
Sam and Dean nodded.
"How'd you get rid of him?" Sam asked.
"I didn't. The black smoke did."
"Black smoke?" Dean asked.
"It was everywhere. I hid in the closet, and when I came out, it was gone, and so was he."
Dean leaned forward. "Do you know where the smoke went?"
"No. but I know where it is."
The lights started flickering. Cole jumped. Dean looked up. Mrs. Griffith looked around.
"They're back."
"Who?" Angela asked.
Cole vanished. Dean, Sam and Angela looked around. A blast of wind hit them in the face. Something white and human shaped went through the room and up the stairs.
"Another reaper." Sam said.
Sam, Dean and Angela got up and went to the stairs.
"Hey! Hey! Wait! We need to talk to you!" Dean called.
The three hunters stared. A woman descended the stairs: it was Tessa.
"Dean." Tessa said.
Sam and Angela glanced at Dean, who was still confused.
"Do I know you?" Dean asked.
"We go way back." Tessa replied.
A/N: Hey guys, sorry this is late! Anyway, in the next few chapters we're gonna see Angie express some really raw emotion, and I'm really excited. We're not gonna see her like, lose it or anything, but it's gonna be real interesting, because she's been holding some stuff in about how she feels about Sam and that's caused some build up. So be prepared!
Don't forget to review, review, review! Love you guys!
~Emily
