Chapter Thirty Six
Dean woke up the next morning groggily, with a pounding headache. He half- smiled, his eyes still closed, as he felt warm sunlight through the window shining on his face. He reached around next to him for Lilly, a little worried when there was no one next to him.
Then the night before came slamming home.
The girl at the bar… He didn't even know her name.
The best thing he'd ever had, ruined by too many shots of Jack Daniels and a girl whose name he didn't know.
Without Lilly, Dean wanted to say to hell with the Apocalypse, to hell with Michael and Lucifer, to hell with hunting. He wanted to crawl in a hole and die.
Making himself get up, he scolded himself. They had to find Lilly. If not because Slade was still out there, then because Dean had to at least tell her he was sorry. If she hated him, fine. He had to say it.
He guessed Sam was in a different room. Nausea and wooziness hit him hard when he tried to stand, and he made getting strong coffee a priority.
Stepping lightly to avoid any unnecessary noise, Dean padded to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. He hated the face staring back at him. Years of pain and heartache and mistakes and regrets were etched into the lines of his face. Years of holding back, suppressing his own emotions and desires in favor of those of others. Mindless self-sacrifice in the name of duty. Honor. His father's will.
Lilly had deserved better to begin with, and Dean had failed anyway. He'd screwed up, and he probably wasn't going to get a second chance.
A light knock came on the door. "Hey, Dean?" Sam's muffled voice called.
"Yeah," Dean called back, his voice hoarse.
Sam opened the door and stepped inside. "You okay?" he asked quietly.
Dean stormed out. "Yeah, I'm just peachy! How the hell do you think I am?" he shouted.
Sam's eyes darkened. "Maybe if you hadn't been swapping spit with some slut-"
"Damn it, Sam, I was drunk! Don't you think I've been telling myself the same thing? I'm not stupid. I know I screwed up." Dean hung his head, trying to regulate his breathing. "I screwed up bad."
"Do you have any idea how much she loves you?" Sam asked bitterly.
"Of course I do."
"No, I mean, really, really, know? What she went through with you, at first?"
"I was a dick, Sammy, I know that!" Dean slammed his fist down on the table.
"She would die for you in a heartbeat." Sam's words hung like a heavy cloud, and Dean felt his throat constrict, and blinked quickly.
"She almost did," he whispered. "So yeah, I know."
He glared up at Sam. "Now I have a question for you." Dean leveled his gaze at his brother. "Do have any idea how I feel about her? What she means to me?"
Slowly and reluctantly, Sam shook his head.
Unable to think of another way to prove it, Dean pulled up his shirt.
At first Sam didn't catch on, until he saw Dean's tattoo- and under it, his new, still-healing scar.
"Dean… What the hell is wrong with you?" Sam said, studying it.
"Chuck told me I had to." Sam's head shot up. "I know, I know," Dean said, holding up a hand defensively. "But Chuck said it would save her life. Now would I do this for anybody I didn't love?"
Again, Sam shook his head. "Wait…" Sam said, cocking his head to the side. "Lilly's last name is Holloway. I remember, we talked about how much she hates it."
Dean nodded.
Understanding slowly dawned on Sam.
Sam glared and moved towards his brother. "You can't."
Dean challenged his glare. "Why not?"
"You- You… It's you! You can't!" Sam yelled. Dean stepped forward, letting his shirt fall back down.
"Now do you see?!" Dean roared. "I screwed up, Sam!" Dean brushed past Sam and headed out the door.
"Damn it!" He screamed from outside. He stormed back in. "She took the damn car!"
( )
"Damn it, Bobby, help me!" Dean yelled into the phone. "Well, I don't care! Do something! Just find her, and find my damn car." He slammed the phone down onto the desk.
"Any luck?" Sam asked.
Dean glared. "Bobby said he'd look into it."
"Hey, Dean?" Sam said tentatively. Dean turned back to and glared again.
"What?"
"I found a job." Sam turned the laptop to face Dean, displaying a news article. Dean's glare only darkened.
"Do you think we have time for a job right now? We have to find Lilly, before Slade finds her!"
Sam was shaking his head. "Dean, I don't know if the thing with Slade is what you think it is," he said slowly.
"What do you mean? He's a demon. We kill him. It's pretty damn simple."
Sam frowned. "Dean, I looked up the name Sebastian Slade. He's a character in an old Broadway play."
Dean threw his hands in the air. "So? Some crazy old bat wrote a play and used that name. Big deal."
"How many demons do you know with last names?"
"What are you trying to say?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know. I really don't."
Dean narrowed his eyes. "You think something."
Sighing, Sam looked up. "I think Lilly has had a tough life, and has probably seen more than anyone should ever have to."
"And?" Dean demanded.
"And I think something happened to her, and she invented all this to keep from losing her mind."
Dean stared at Sam incredulously. "You're kidding me, right?"
Sam shrugged again. "I don't know, Dean, it just seems-"
"Really? After all we've seen, you think she made it up? You think that it wasn't real?" Sam looked like he was about to start again, but Dean interjected. "What about the scar on her hip? It said S.S. Sebastian Slade."
"She could have done it to herself, Dean," Sam said quietly.
Dean thought of something else. "What about the hellhound? It was branded."
"I wasn't close enough to see it." Sam shook his head.
"What about the notes? In Minnesota? You handed me the first one, so don't tell me you didn't see it."
Sam shrugged. "Is it really that far-fetched to think that a demon, any demon, can pick up on her fear and manipulate it? Dean, she's terrified. It's not exactly subtle."
Dean slammed a fist onto the table. "Why?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe to keep our focus off of the Whore of Babylon who was right there?" Sam asked. Dean rolled his eyes, even though in his heart he felt a sinking that meant his brother was starting to make sense. He brushed it away.
"Damn it, Sam, what's wrong with you? You know about this stuff. This is what we do, and you're doubting it now? When someone's going to die?"
"You don't know she's going to die."
Dean glared. "No, she's not, because I'm not going to let her. I'm gonna kill the son of a bitch before that happens."
"Dean…" Sam sighed. "Just trust me, okay? She'll come back when she's ready."
"Yeah, and hell will freeze over!"
"Let's just work this case, and if we hear anything about where she is, we'll go after her. Fair enough?"
Dean thought Sam was covering something up, but he was too spent to worry about it. Instead he eased his glare slightly, and turned around. "We need a damn car," he muttered.
"Got one," Sam said. Dean turned around to face him, frowning.
"What?"
Sam held up the phone. "I called a rental car service," he said, "One's being delivered as soon as they can get out here."
Dean's glare returned.
( )
Sitting in the shiny new rental car, Dean glanced from side to side incredulously. "What the hell are all these extra knobs for? Damn it, Sam, you didn't have to get a douche car."
Sam shook his head. "Dean, this car has consistently functioning temperature control, a navigation system, and a CD player."
"I want my baby back," Dean pouted. He shook a finger at Sam. "And I don't need that crap. That's why there's jackets, maps, and cassettes."
Sam rolled his eyes.
The car was a compact, silver hybrid sedan. Dean hated it. The engine sounded more like Darth Vader's breathing than the growl he knew and loved, and the gas pedal reacted to the slightest change in pressure, making for a bumpy ride. Dean was used to being able to put the pedal to the floor and still handle the vehicle smoothly.
"Dean, why don't you let me drive?" Sam asked. Dean slammed his fist onto the steering wheel, and growled at the car's reluctance to go past eighty without producing a horrid whine.
"This isn't natural!" Dean shouted, ignoring Sam's comment, once again slamming on the gas and sending them lurching forward.
"You shouldn't be allowed to drive," Sam said under his breath.
"This piece of crap car shouldn't be driven!"
"Let me drive."
"Fine. Bitch."
"Jerk." Sam gave Dean a half smile, but Dean didn't return it. He wasn't in the mood.
There had been no word from Bobby, but Dean wondered if it was from lack of information or lack of whole-hearted research. Bobby hadn't been too keen about Lilly the last time they'd met. Dean wondered if the older man thought he was just as well without her.
But I'm not, Dean thought, I have to get her back.
"So what's the case, anyway?" Dean asked, taking a seat on the passenger side.
Sam slid in the driver's seat, and pulled back onto the highway. He grabbed the papers sitting in the console and looked them over. "In Kokomo, Indiana-" Sam grimaced "-a family moved into new house a few weeks ago, and is complaining of flickering lights, items coming up missing, and strange noises."
"Doubt that's what the Beach Boys had in mind," Dean said, unable to even crack a smile. Sam raised his eyebrows in agreement, as he alternated between scanning the papers and watching the road.
"Yeah, no kidding," Sam said absently as he glanced at the now functioning GPS, which Dean hadn't been able to figure out. Sam took the next turnoff, and ended up on another interstate.
"Wake me up when we get there," Dean said sourly, as leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
He fell asleep quickly, but not without thinking of Lilly first.
( )
Dean woke up suddenly, to Sam shaking his shoulder and shouting his name. Briefly disoriented, he wondered why they weren't in the Impala, why Sam was driving, and why Lilly wasn't in the backseat like always.
Once again, it hit him- hard- that she was really gone.
Angrily, he stomped out the car and to the motel they were parked in front of. He realized he didn't know which room was theirs, and he turned around to look at Sam and crossed his arms.
Sam gave him a longsuffering look, and tossed him the keys to room number eleven. Dean moved closer so Sam could toss him the duffel bag, and then turned back and unlocked the door.
Dean felt the old dread he'd once faced daily resurface. It was the monotony of case after case, killing, and running from both angels and the law. It was the general difficulty and loneliness he'd felt before he met Lilly.
Absently, he dug through the duffel bag. The majority of their badges were in the trunk of the Impala; the only IDs they had left were the Stark and Bailey ones that they had used in Blue Earth. After some more digging, he pulled out his cell phone, and realized he hadn't even looked at it in probably a week and a half. Curious, he flipped it open.
His heart jumped painfully when he saw a message from Lilly, from right before she'd driven off.
Sam wants to know if you want to order a pizza. Just a heads up.
Dean knew it wouldn't do any good, but he dialed her number anyway.
"We're sorry; the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please make sure you have dialed correctly, or try-"
Dean hung up, dejected.
The phone rang, making him jump, and then hope it was from Lilly.
"Hello?" Dean answered, a little too eagerly.
"Dean?" It was Bobby.
"Yeah, what's up? Did you find her?"
"Not exactly." Bobby sounded at a loss for words.
Dean felt his heart race. "Don't you dare tell me she's dead, Bobby, don't you dare."
Bobby sighed. "Quit your belly-achin'. Nothing I found out makes me think that. Fact, just the opposite."
"Well?"
"Found your car."