Chapter 18.
Sam looked up as his mother came into the kitchen. "Hey, Mom." he said.
"Hello, Mary." said Jack.
"Hi, boys." she said, "Sam, I need your expertise."
"If it's about hunting, you might want to ask Dean." he said.
"You know at least as much as he does." she said. She dropped a notebook onto the table. "These disappearances and a few recovered bodies all scream vamp nest to me. But since the British Men of Letters wiped out the nests and their networks, we've mainly seen lone vampires with not much idea what they're doing. I want you to take a look at this and let me know if you think they're starting to organise and spread again."
"Okay." said Sam, picking up the notebook, "You know, you could do this on a tablet."
"You're allergic to paper?" she said.
"No."
She saw the two little keys and picked them up. "What are these for?"
"Ah," said Sam, "You just officially joined the conspiracy. Don't tell Dean or Cas you saw those here."
"We need them to believe they are talismans we acquired elsewhere." said Jack.
"You're using them to give Dean and Castiel the illusion of control over their telepathy?"
"Yes." said Sam.
"Because you think it's a subconscious choice for one or both?"
"That's my current theory. Even if it isn't, they're both strong-willed."
"That's a nice way of putting it. Strong-willed as a couple of mules in a bad mood."
"If they believe they can control it, I think they can. We just have to fool them into believing it."
She smiled. "You have a devious side I hadn't suspected. I like it. I guess you need to be a little sneaky when you're dealing with Dean. I'm glad you're here to take care of your brother."
"My brother has been taking care of me for years." said Sam, "I owe him everything. Of course, if he ever suspects I'm lying to him about this, he'll probably kill me."
"I think he'd understand, but you can rely on me not to say anything." she said.
"I like it better with you involved." said Jack, "I never like it when we're keeping something from you."
"Like what?" she said.
"Like the books and Dean's Hellcation and all the stuff we have now told you." said Sam quickly.
"Liking your devious side a lot less now." she said.
"I promise, the main thing we asked Jack to keep quiet about was Dean and Cas going off to talk about Hell, because Dean didn't want you to know he ever went there or anything that happened there."
"It's true." said Jack.
"Castiel asked me to postpone reading the book tonight. He and Dean promised to read with me tomorrow."
"Cas and I are supposed to be reading with you." said Sam.
"They don't seem to think you should read this one." she said.
"Why not?" said Sam.
"It's called Born Under A Bad Sign if that helps."
"Okay. In that one, I got possessed by a demon and caused some chaos. No big deal." said Sam.
"I could read the books alone." she said.
Sam called Dean. Before Dean could speak, he said, "Hey, jerk, I'm reading that book with Mom."
"We agreed I'd take over." said Dean.
"You agreed to discuss it with Sarah."
"You think she'll disagree with me?" said Dean.
"Sam," said Mary, "We can argue about this another time."
"I'm reading the books with her." said Dean, "That's my decision and I'm older than you."
"And Mom's older than you." said Sam.
"Is she? She's been alive less time than I have." said Dean.
"Well, Sarah trumps all of us, so we'll talk to her." said Sam.
"I'm only agreeing to that because you're giving Cas a headache, but Sarah will agree with me. She always does."
"You mean you always end up agreeing with her." said Sam.
"Sam," said his mother, "Leave it for now."
"For Mom's sake and Cas's, we'll discuss this tomorrow." said Sam, "But we will discuss it."
"You work on getting those talismans." said Dean, "We can decide who gets to babysit Mom when we've fixed the problem."
"Mom has sharp hearing." she said into the phone, "Mom is perfectly happy to read the books herself, no babysitter required."
"I didn't mean that the way it sounded." said Dean.
"We'll have a proper family fight tomorrow." said Sam, "Or maybe Monday. I think we need those talismans first."
"Yeah, we need to get Cas out of the crossfire before we unleash the whole Winchester whoopfest." said Dean.
"Are you heading home soon?" said Sam.
"Yeah."
"And you're both okay?" said Sam.
"We can talk about that another time too." said Dean.
"You wanna talk?" said Sam, "You?"
"Not right now and not later." said Dean, "When we get back tonight, Cas is going to put me out for the night. He's been through enough. He's not gonna share my bad dreams."
"Has today been that bad?"
"Yeah, it's been pretty bad."
Sam felt terrible. "Sorry." he said, "If I'd known ... "
"What, you'd have found the talisman thing sooner? This isn't your fault, Sammy."
Jack was shaking his head, warning Sam not to screw up the whole plan by saying something stupid.
"Okay. Come home, get some rest. We think we can have the amulets by tomorrow night."
"Sam, I know you can fix this. Don't think I'm not grateful."
"I wish I could do it quicker." said Sam.
"We know you're doing it as fast as you can." said Dean.
"Yeah." said Sam, "I just want to help both of you."
"We know that too." said Dean.