A/N : Okay, wow, did not expect this to be this late but hey, when did I ever update on time, right?
Hopefully, I'll put up the next one this weekend. But don't hold your breath lol
Thank you to all those who continue encouraging and supporting me! Leave some love in the form of a review if you can!
"He asleep?", Bobby's voice interrupted Dean's worried thoughts about his brother. Then again, when wasn't he worried about that kid?
"Yeah", Dean said, groaning as he got to his feet and stretched. "Any ideas on what happened? To your anti-demon thingy? To you?"
Bobby nodded thoughtfully, motioning for Dean to take a seat at the table, as far away from Sam as they could get, but still keeping him within their sights.
"So, we know that a demon can't touch the charm, right?", Bobby questioned, fingers tangled on the tabletop. He went on as Dean nodded. "Well, I'm guessing that the other guy here wasn't possessed when you first saw him?"
Dean had filled Bobby in on Sam's escapade with the guy's truck and their little adventure in the ten minutes Dean had gone to get supplies. Bobby had almost laughed at the choice of Dean's words when the guy had come back later to enquire about the truck.
"Yeah, he disturbed the salt line when he almost attacked Sam and made it to number one on my hitlist." Dean scowled at the memory. "But there was something strange about him afterwards", he added almost hesitantly, as if doubtful of his instincts as a hunter.
Or perhaps just guilty that he hadn't investigated further.
Either way, Bobby chose not to call him out on it.
"Right. Well, if Meg possessed him afterwards, she still wouldn't have been able to touch it. So, I'm thinking ... she had an accomplice", Bobby paused as if to re-evaluate his own ideas. "And not one of the demon kind."
Dean stared at him.
"Wait, are you telling me that you got your ass handed to you by a human?", Dean looked like he was struggling between trying not to laugh and to wrap his head around the new revelation.
"Boy, come to me on a day where you weren't handcuffed like a low rate criminal in a seedy motel", Bobby growled, glaring at Dean.
"Touché", Dean raised his hands in supplication with a grin. The smile faded off as he became more serious. "So, what, demons aren't bad enough? We got humans helping them? What the hell, Bobby?"
"I don't know. It's the most valid theory we got. Someone who made a deal? Hellhounds on their heels? Figured they could sweeten the deal with helping demons?", Bobby pulled off his ball cap, running a hand through his grey hair.
"The guy at the front desk did tell me to be safe. Gave me chills. Think he was possessed? But why not come after Sam the moment I left the room? Why wait for me to get back? Why wait till you got here?"
"Huntin' hunters? Revenge? We were all there the last time we sent her back to hell."
"Well, if it was just revenge, she picked a hell of a time", Dean muttered, glancing back to see if Sam was still sleeping. He was. He turned back to Bobby to see the older man watching Sam too.
"Think he'll be alright?", Bobby asked softly, a pain that Dean didn't want to dwell on seated deep in his eyes.
"Yeah. He - he better be", Dean croaked out, dusting off imaginary dust from his jeans, still feeling the ghost of Sam's fingers there. The dust caused his eyes to water a bit too. Strange.
Bobby cleared his throat and nodded to himself. Seemingly coming to a conclusion, he stood up. Dean quirked his brow in question.
"I'm gonna go check to see if something else is out there. Don't want to risk it. The girl looked innocent enough but who's to say Meg didn't bring backup."
Dean stood up too, frowning. "So, wait, you think Meg possessed someone, then jumped bodies, got a human working for her and brought backup? That seemed far fetched not to mention too much trouble a demon would go to just for revenge, don't it?"
"Not if she was scared", Bobby said, looking at Dean with a grimace.
Dean scoffed.
"Of what? Us? I'll admit we did send her back but no demon is anything but pissed at us, Bobby."
"Not us. Of Sam", Bobby's voice was pitched low, but Dean heard it clear as day all the same.
The silence stretched on in which Sam moaned a bit, drawing their attention to him, before curling onto his side. He looked so vulnerable that Dean couldn't help the pang of something in his chest.
"You think they know? About Sam's ...", he left the words unsaid, as if afraid that the very word would summon demons.
"It's possible, Dean. And I think - it wasn't all revenge, either."
"What do you mean?"
"A message. Or - I don't know. Proof? Dean, the last four months? Rumours have been flying about. Sam isn't the Sam you left behind. He's been leaving a trail of demons trying to find Lilith. For all we know, Meg was sent by Lilith to check out if he really did have powers and if they were powerful enough to kill her."
Bobby fell silent, breathing heavily.
Dean winced at that. Not that Sam's near-suicide hunts hadn't been filled in to him by Bobby, but it still made guilt and fear bubble up like acid. Furiously, he pushed it down. He was here now. And he would take care of his little brother and he'd be damned if he let some filthy demons get their hands on him.
Again, at least.
"So, now Meg is working for Lilith? It's possible, I guess, seeing that Ruby was the only one who didn't seem to be working with her." There was a pause as Dean thought back. "Where is the blonde bitch, anyways? Sam gank her or did she leave on her own?"
"I don't know. Haven't seen her since ... that night." Bobby looked away quickly, hurriedly glossing over his hesitancy to utter the fact of Dean's death. Even though Dean was here, now. "Anyways, I'm going to check in with the reception girl to see if there is anyone staying here that she forgot to mention."
Dean nodded, wiping a hand down his face. If the evening ended in their favour, there would be at least one man they would have to talk some sense into. Maybe get some punched into him, if it were up to Dean. Hopefully it was the receptionist. He shuddered at the thought of the truck owner dude being that close to Sam.
Not that Meg being that close to him had been any better.
Dean sighed.
Talk about fucked up lives.
He watched Bobby pick up the Colt, just in case, and pull open the door, peering outside carefully. He had not even taken a step outside when he came to an abrupt stop.
"Bobby?", Dean called out carefully.
The hunter turned back to him, lips twisted in a sad grimace and shook his head.
Well, shit.
Dean moved to stand near him as Bobby pulled open the door fully. The truck dude was lying on the motel porch, head twisted unnaturally, the haunting greyness of the dead starting to creep in.
Meg had had fun.
"That ... bitch", Dean growled, fists clenched so tight they shook. He felt the familiar pang of sadness at the loss of another life. Someone he had failed to save. Someone who was just a grave consequence of something that didn't involve him. Caught in the crossfire.
Dean went still, something Bobby had said earlier strangely coming back to him now.
"Bobby, did you say a chick was at the reception?", he asked slowly.
Bobby looked at him, frown etched onto his brows and nodded. "Yeah. Why d'you ask?"
"It's her, Bobby. Who helped Meg or made a deal or whatever. There was a man at the desk when Sammy and I came in", Dean finished in a near whisper, half of him wanting to punch a hole in the nearest wall and the other half groaning under the weight of guilt. Horror and rage came back, flooding his every sense.
He could have headed her off if only he had paid more attention. She had been right there, waiting for them. Probably heard Dean on the phone with Bobby and waited to up her murder spree.
She had been right there and he had not even realized. Almost 20 years of training and he hadn't even been able to sense a demon standing two feet in front of him.
"It wasn't your fault, son. Sam was bad off and he was your priority. No one's blaming you", Bobby's voice filtered through, as he laid a hand on the younger hunter's shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. "Besides, she would have found a way to get to you. To Sam."
Dean gave a clipped nod, not entirely convinced that it wasn't his fault, but Bobby's words doing their bit to help him a little and he shook himself, concentrating on the here and now.
Bobby gave a nod in return. "I'm going to go check on her and see what's her story. Hopefully, it's not a deal", he muttered to himself. "Stay with Sam."
Dean rolled his eyes. Duh.
"Yeah, yeah. Idjit. 'You know I always do, Bobby'", Bobby growled in a poor imitation of the reply Dean gave every time he was asked that question, making Dean glare at him. Bobby chuckled and moved away and towards the motel reception.
Dean shook his head, grumbling about grumpy old men and stepped smartly back into the room, glancing one last time towards truck dude. He made a mental note to place an anonymous call to the cops.
Hopefully, one body was all the police would recover and not two or three. Dean wasn't banking on that hope, though. He suspected that the guy who Meg had been possessing when they came in was long dead.
He shut the door gently behind him and automatically moved towards Sam's bed.
The sight of his little brother soothed him instantly and he sighed softly, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed and palmed Sam's forehead. The temperature was steady, not too high but enough to make Dean worry.
He pushed away a few dirty strands away from the closed eyelids, wondering how a 24 year old adult who had gone through too much still managed to look as vulnerable and innocent as he had when he was a toddler.
"Should cut off all this hair while you're asleep, Sammy. Would save a lot of time washing up", he spoke softly, not wanting to wake Sam up but still loud enough to provide him comfort in case he neared the edge of consciousness.
As if reading his mind, Sam turned slightly into the palm that Dean lay against his cheek and Dean grinned.
"A chick-flick moment even while asleep, bitch? You've reached new lows."
He pretended that he could hear the 'jerk' in response and sat back, waiting for Bobby to come back, for Sam's next dose of meds, for Sam to wake up, for things to get better and, for once, talk to Sam and have as many chick-flick moments as he wanted.
He figured Sam would wake up for that if nothing else.
Until then, he would stay here, one hand carding through Sam's messy hair, the other on his wrist.
If someone asked, he figured that checking the radial pulse didn't exactly fall into the category of hand-holding.
A/N : So? Was it good, bad or ugly? Lol. Let me know in the reviews!