Chapter 22

Wednesday, May 1st, 2002

If there had been anything else for it Dean would have been more than happy to let Robert change their tire. Just because he knew how to do it by hand didn't mean he wanted to. It was annoying work at best, infuriating at the worst. There were the times, out on a call in his truck where the client's tire was no less shredded than theirs, who hadn't had spares either. It was the nature of operators to bring some along, though, to save everyone the trouble. But he'd never changed a flat in the middle of a ghost storm before, and neither did he want to do so again, least of all when he was drowning in his temper. He wished he had his truck in that moment, if only to get them both out of there sooner. And so that he wouldn't have to take them back to Lyon. Back to their dad.

Who hadn't called in…hours. If Dean hadn't been sitting in the middle of the thunder and wind, underneath the pressing storm clouds and the dense pressure in the air, he might have been more worried about that than anything else.

The last lug-nut came away from its bolt and he dropped it to the side among the others. The wheel came free in his hands.

When this whole thing blew over - when they dodged the storm and Dean had some more money, when they cleared the air with their dad and Dean could get them all to California - it would be better. They would be better. They would have the time to -

Dean stood and came up short, seeing Sam already staring at him. There was a bewilderment in his eyes, a new kind of tension in his jaw. One hand was clutched on the lapel of Dean's discarded coat, and, too, another invisible one tightened around his throat.

"What the hell is this?" Sam asked. He didn't add the lilt of a question, the words too full of fury to have room for anything else.

Dean swallowed but nothing felt better, feeling the thumping blood settle in his throat and the tips of his fingers. He didn't need to look to see what Sam was asking after. It would be about the same thing Dean had been asking after the entire trip.

But he had to remember, Sam didn't know what it was, didn't know the truth of it. If he could be careful about -

Dean didn't answer in time, apparently. Sam went on. "It looks like that shit from Ms. Gonzalez. Yeah?"

"It - no, not - not - "

"It's a yes-or-no question, Dean." Dean saw Sam's nostrils flare. No, this wasn't a yes-or-no question. "I fucking knew it."

Dean grabbed at the straw. "Knew - knew what?"

"At Jameson's, I knew it was something else. Stopping there. You weren't just 'helping him with his ashtray'. What kind of lame ass excuse is that, anyway?" He dropped the coat then like it was a disgusting thing, the tip of his mouth turned in a sneer. Dean took a step around the bumper. Sam's eyes were focused on Dean. "And all this time, not sleeping, or letting me get too close to your things, like I would find it. You going to keep lying to me?"

"Wait, I didn't lie to you."

"But you did."

"I didn't, I needed to pay Jameson back somehow for your shower, so I was helping him."

"Helping him get high? So what is this?" He took a purposeful step back to Dean's coat and tugged it open once more, digging through the pocket for the satchel. "Crack? Dope? Is it pot?" Sam's forceful hand became rougher as he searched the coat. At the sudden object in his back pocket, Dean closed his eyes and sighed, letting the frustration run rampant for a moment. He knew Sam wouldn't find it. Nothing was louder than the screaming wind than the pulsing of the blood through his ears. Sam had no idea the stakes Dean was up against to make this a safe trip, to prove to Sam that things would be fine if he stayed, yet here he was, accusing Dean of all these things. Being a drunk, a crack head, a liar. A bad brother, only out for himself.

When he forced open his eyes Sam had his coat by the bottom cuff, shaking it upside down. Dean saw a flip lighter loosed from a pocket as it began to fall, and then his phone. The plastic crunched against the asphalt like a gavel. This is enough.

He stepped forward and snatched the coat out of Sam's hand, for a moment forgetting his things strewn across the ground. With a few fingers pressed against Sam's chest Dean pushed once more, saying, "You hate me, is that it? Think your big brother is some kind of fuckhead?"

"I think you're a liar, Dean," Sam sneered. "My brother will not be an addict. I'm getting rid of it."

"You're up your ass about all these lies but you wouldn't accept the truth if it was sucking your dick." Dean closed the distance Sam created with each small step backwards. He wanted to be in Sam's space, wanted to give him what he'd wanted this entire time - someone to blame. "It's not drugs, moron, it's a charm."

"You're addicted, Dean."

Dean pulled out the velvet bag from behind, held it up in the air for Sam to see. A flicker of confusion crossed Sam's face and for some reason Dean took that as a little win.

"And you're an ass," Dean said. "Go ahead." An underhand toss put the charm on the asphalt between him and Sam, who'd backed away from the charm as if it were a bomb. "Try and open it," Dean said. "Show me the drugs you find in there."

Dean crossed his arms. Sam eyed his brother sternly before stooping to take up the velvet bag. A moment of uncertainty passed while Dean forced the thought that Sam would destroy the charm, that this time it might not work. But the magic reacted to Dean's intent as usual. Where the charm had been real just before Sam's fingertips half a second before was now open air. Once again, Dean pulled the bag from his back pocket, holding it up like a trophy. Sam's brow flattened. The wind between them was trying to tear away Sam's hair that had come loose from the tie in the back.

"That's because you can't."

Sam was staring at his hands, clawed as they'd been in his reach. "It's a…"

"Charm." Dean turned to face the lot, reeling his arm back. He threw the charm like a baseball. After some distance the purple bag faded into the colors of the clouds, but he saw it fall in the middle of the street, and, when he faced Sam again, knew he'd seen it, too. This was why, when Dean pulled the charm out of his pocket again, Sam's eyes grew ten sizes.

A puff of air escaped Sam's lips while he tried to form the words. A second passed and he spoke again. "Why do you have that?"

"To keep us safe, show you that you can be around me without getting killed. That the world isn't out to get us like you think it is. I don't know why it's always going in my pockets, though." He stalked back to the car and set the charm on the trunk along with his coat. Without it he thought he was beginning to feel the beginnings of rain on his arms, noticing then that he could smell it on the wind, too. The gentle hills he had been able to see in the distance no more than twenty minutes ago were now hidden behind the haze of the storm.

"Ms. Gonzalez is..."

"A witch, yeah."

"Not a drug dealer."

"Of course not," he called. "Well, she still might be, I don't know." He dug into the meat of his hands, wringing out the chill that was settling in, trying to turn his focus back to the work that had to be done. If they got caught in this rain…

A pause. "And you…had this," Sam said. "The whole time."

Dean sighed, turned to face Sam. The places behind his eyes that had gone vacant from the surprise were starting to come back to life, a fiery glint that was putting some color back in his cheeks. Sam broke his gaze from the space between them and put them on Dean. They felt like they weighed twenty pounds, ten each.

"The whole time," Sam said again. "And you had two. Two of them."

"No, that one was different as far as I know. Anything could have been in that one. I was really just the mule. As payment."

"And they were - "

"Witches, yes. Probably, I mean." Dean remembered the bug-eyed man and English woman they'd met with in Oklahoma. He should never have let Sam believe the drug story, however useful it had been at the time, let alone let him go inside, put him in that danger. This trip had been filled with stories and half truths. Despite the expression on Sam's face, he was glad to be done with them, now.

"I was going to say dangerous," Sam continued.

Dean opened his mouth to cut him off, but he wasn't wrong.

"They were dangerous, Dean."

"Fine, they were dangerous, but it's done now. And the fucking thing doesn't even work - " He threw a disgusted hand towards the charm, there one moment and gone as his hand passed over it, leaving the trunk bare. His nostrils flared as the breath left his body and he forced a trembling hand into his back pocket, missing the bag once, twice, snatching it up on the third and pulling it out like a weed. He threw it with a hiss, indiscriminate to the direction, over and over as though it was the punctuation in his words.

"And it won't -

"Fucking -

"Leave!"

It soared once more in a tall arc disappearing this time over the roof of the Chevron. The smiling cars plastered to the wall having the greatest time at Dean's anguish. This time, when the charm reassured itself into Dean's pocket, he had tired himself out. He took it out and underhanded it back onto the trunk. As his breath slowed the charm stayed put, only crumpling to the side in a fresh blow of wind. When he turned he saw Sam stood still as an onlooker with his arms dangling at his sides. His eyes were big. Dean noticed then, in an odd dip of the wind, that the empty pumps were still playing the same juke-box style music even though the entire place seemed abandoned.

'Save tonight,

'And fight the break of dawn,

'Come tomorrow,

'Tomorrow I'll be gone.'

Sam piped up, "Looks more like a curse. Then a charm."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment. "Yeah. Some luck."

"That's what happens." Sam paused, nodding, offering the hint of a shrug. "When you fuck around with witches. Or vampires. Ghosts."

"Sam."

"You get fucked. Glad we're on the same page now, at least."

"I'm not going to say sorry for trying to protect you, Sam."

"What about for lying?" The words left Sam's mouth as though it had surprised him.

"God, you love that word. No, for protecting you. Be as mad as you want, but that's my job." He knew he was becoming flustered again but his breath was coming quick and he couldn't force it to slow.

Sam's cheeks deepened in color. He took a single step forward, pointing his finger in the air as though to pin the idea in place. Connecting dots, like Jameson's map of the storm. "So that means - in Alma. You had it then. In your pocket while you were promising me we wouldn't do anymore hunting."

"And we didn't do any hunting, not a lie."

"Don't play dumb, Dean."

Dean swallowed again. He shifted his weight to the other foot under Sam's intense stare, his throat tighter than a vice. But always he had his pride, and that let him speak regardless.

"What about you, huh? All this money you got. You were just going to let me run you around the country till my wheels fell off. Let me lose my job and everything in my house. You tired of running yet, Sammy?"

He used the moniker on purpose. Poke Sam where it hurt, make him feel a little of this guilt Dean was feeling himself. "You poke me in the chest all you want but I'm not the only party at fault, here."

"I'm not running from anything. My money was my business until it was important. And now it's important. What do you want me to say, Dean? You insisted on paying for everything." With every word that left Sam's mouth his volume grew, but it was all coming from his stomach, not his chest. It was assertive, deep. Strong.

"Because it's your birthday. But you are, Sam, running away like a little puss because your girlfriend dumped you and you had a fight with dad."

Sam leaned forward on the spot, his jaw falling open while his eyes grew into speculative slits. A moment passed. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Why didn't you call me?" Dean blurted.

Sam stopped short. "Call you when?"

"It was an entire year, Sam, and you didn't even try to find me." As the words let him he knew he needed the answer, whatever it was. It had been the weight on his chest, each night for the past year, in the stillness of night while he slept, where has my brother gone?

Sam's face had fallen from its high place, his eyes clearer, his mouth a slight pout in thought. "You…were gone, I thought you wanted to be gone. I told you this."

"It has to be something else, Sam - you're too stubborn to let something like that go. You…"

You hated me; you hated yourself; you hated something. Dare he speak his thoughts? Put them into the world, make them real?

No. "You had something," he went on. Paused. "Something that stopped you. I could have really used you, man."

"Well," Sam said. His weight shifted back on his heels, coming off his toes. "I could have used you, too."

They stood for a moment, not saying anything but still somehow having a conversation.

Sam broke the silence first. The hard edge was back in his features. "And I believed you, that you and me were…in this together." His brow tightened hard over his eyes. "What else are you lying about? Dad didn't even make you leave, I bet. Did he?"

"No, you're wrong," Dean said finally, the allusion in Sam's words forcing about a different magic.

"You wanted out of there as much as I did. You did it to - " Sam paused. His next words were thinner than before under the gusts of wind. "To get away. You had to have"

"I would never do that. Not in my life, Sam. You're the - " It surprised him, his own emotion. The words had their own kind of magic on him. He blinked his eyes, sniffled hard through his nose. "You're the only thing in this world that matters to me. I did it for you."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "But you're doing something to me now." He crept forward with a few more steps. "You aren't protecting me."

A wild thought crossed Dean's mind and he wondered if he were dreaming again; the outside lights flickered, wildly, like someone was jacking off the power switch. Sam's gaze flicked about, but Dean could tell he wasn't seeing anything. But Dean was. He knew what the lights meant.

"We've got to go, Sammy. We aren't safe here."

Sam's attention focused on Dean, again. "Yeah," he breathed, eyes unflinching in their stare. "You're right."

Dean strode back to the car and took up the rim and its shredded tire, dropping it harshly on the ground before forcing the flat end of the tire iron between the rubber and the metal. Alongside the inevitable slick guilt that clung to the walls of his stomach was a panic that they weren't moving fast enough, had given the storm too much time to cover the ground they'd crossed. But Dean wouldn't give up until they were sucked into the spinning tornado itself. If it was so intent on getting his blood, it was going to have to kill him. Although, their escape would go faster if he had a second pair of hands.

"Sam, come help me, we don't have - "

He made a double take over his shoulder. He was talking to nobody but himself and the wind.