Chapter title is from song by Rolling Stones.

30

Play With Fire – Rolling Stones

She'd hotwired her car.

Getting them an adjoining motel room was a courtesy. He should have known better. His spidey sense of them dropped off his radar abruptly sometime between 3 and 4—hex bags, dammit, he thought he'd been through her stuff—and if he had been asleep at all, they'd have lost them by the time he rousted Sam out of bed and into the Impala.

"We're driving around in circles, you know." Sam remarked mildly as he read the road signs flashing past green and white in the misting rain.

"No shit. What'd you think was going to happen? She's not going within a hundred miles of her bat cave with me around. She's not stupid."

Sam slanted him a look at the aggravation in his voice.

They were meandering south, vaguely following the broad turns of the Susquehanna through the Endless Mountains. There'd been a stretch about fifty miles back when they'd gone off onto a dirt track, when for a moment he'd thought she was going to do the sensible thing and find a neutral bolt hole and stop. Get some rest. If he remembered correctly, Rufus had a backup-backup cabin around here somewhere. But no. It was just another long, muddy, bumpy loop, and he was going to have to wash Baby off again when they stopped for the night.

Her attempts to ditch him today were only half-hearted. Unlike yesterday's erratic pain-in-the-ass weaving through city traffic, today they were far out into the countryside on a quiet two-lane road. And Sam was right; they were just going around in ever widening circles as the morning wore on.

She had to be dead beat.

"C'mon, Sam. Maybe we should just go. How do we know we're not the problem? Maybe they'd be better away from us. I'm the one the angels want."

Sam didn't even bother arguing. Sam just gave him The Look.

Fine. So he hadn't forgotten about the ghost. Or the ghouls.

Between the four of them, someone was a monster magnet.

Someone was trouble.

It was true the ghost from last night hadn't targeted the kid or the girl. The transparent, shabbier version of Elmer Fudd had just appeared in their room, and randomly picked Sam to throw across the length of it with a crash before he could say boo. The noise brought her running from next door in time to see him swatting at the flickering shade, the kid two steps behind her.

Next thing he knew, he heard car doors being opened and slammed shut. If she was going to pull a runner, it was a prime time, while he had his hands full.

He really wasn't expecting her to come back. But she did.

With the kid.

She handed the kid the sawed-off. He had a nasty flashback to Ben in that grungy warehouse when Toby took the gun from her and positioned it awkwardly against his shoulder as she rattled off instructions in a curt, clipped voice while she worked laying down the salt line all around them and an unconscious Sam. A lamp crashed over his head before he swung through Elmer again. He barked at her.

"Can you hold him off? His bones are clear across town."

The look she gave him was glacially eloquent.

Not an idiot.

She took the gun from the kid and handed the boy an iron crowbar the kid could barely lift, never mind swing. She bent down to check Sam's pulse.

He let go of the breath he'd been holding when she gave him a short nod—he's fine. Of course, she topped that off with the impatient glare he was coming to know—what are you waiting for? Bones to burn?

Digging graves still took time. By the time he got back, Sam was weaving groggily around with the crowbar in one hand and the kid stuck to one leg, anchoring him inside the ring of salt. She was somehow clear across the room, sitting up with a grimace, the remnants of the heavy and ancient television in pieces around her.

He wasn't going to ask.

The ghouls had come bumbling around just before dawn. He thought Sam was sleeping off the bump on his head when he ducked out to take care of it. It hadn't taken long. But when he got back, Sam's eyes were wide open and he got it with both barrels.

"What was that?"

Sam was looking at the blood on the First Blade.

He didn't answer while he found something to clean the blood off with.

"Dean."

"Ghouls."

"HERE?"

He resigned himself to the third degree.

"Out back a ways."

"How many?"

"Just two. I heard them."

He didn't say felt, but Sam's face darkened unhappily. Luckily, Sammy moved on.

"This is bad, Dean. I mean, angels are dicks, but they've always been so…stuck up. If they're actually using monsters to do their dirty work for them, then that's a whole different…I don't even know what that is."

Sam had trailed off, his frown troubled, remembering the same thing he was remembering. That gray douchebag in Geary; willing to make a deal with him, demon Knight of Hell that he was, in order to get to Crowley.

The SUV's turn signal clicked on, bringing his attention back to the present. She was pulling off into the parking lot of a roadside diner. He glanced at his watch as he turned to follow. Maybe it was just bad luck. Maybe it was only coincidence. But the way their lives tended to run—he glanced over at Sam, at the silent things Sam was thinking.

Yeah.

The small diner wasn't very crowded, too early for the lunch rush, if there even was a lunch rush around these parts. He spotted Zee and Toby easily in the far corner booth, closest to the back exit. That figured. She had the wall at her back and a clear view of the floor and the entrance. Defensive maneuvers 101, lessons Dad had drilled into him from word go, in their first days on the road. She was watching them come in now, the coolness of her expression downright chilly. There would have been a blast of frost blowing them right back out the door if she could've had it her way.

Unfortunately, Sam was made of tougher stuff and woo-by caring shit. He let Sam get two steps ahead of him before he reluctantly moved, as if tugged along on an invisible tether.

Sam picked the easier target to deal with.

"Hey Toby. Mind if we sit with you?"

Toby automatically scooted over to make room on the bench seat.

Sam sat.

Which left him standing and the ninja staring, pointedly, at all the other empty booths and tables.

Toby looked at both of them expectantly.

She was as stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery. She made room for him reluctantly, begrudging every inch of her space and her freedom. When he sat he blocked her exit, hemmed her in, and she did not like it one bit. He got it. No hunter got into bed (well, not bed here, exactly) with a demon willingly. It was something that had stuck in his craw every time he'd had to do it. But she was one stiff breeze from toppling over, a white knuckled grip on the mug of coffee in front of her like she could suck warmth and wakefulness out of it. The kid wasn't in much better shape, but at least Toby looked like he'd gotten some shut-eye since the morning.

Slowly it dawned on him why she was driving all over hell and gone, aside from the obvious. It was the oldest trick in the book—cue up a soft rock station, down a straight stretch of highway doing 70, and Sam dropped off like a light, lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the wheels turning on the road. No doubt it worked the same on the kid, chewing on his lower lip now as he tried to choose between a grilled cheese and a small hamburger.

A plump waitress bustled up to their table with a coffee pot and two more menus. With a practiced flick of her wrist she topped off Zee's coffee and handed them their menus. The few streaks of gray running through her hair didn't dim the warmth of her smile. A well-washed tag on her uniform proclaimed her to be a Gertrude.

"What can I get you boys to drink?"

"Um, coffee, black, for me." Sam answered quickly, probably still trying to shake the Easter egg bump on his noggin.

"Yeah, same."

"Two coffees. I'll give you folks a few more minutes?"

They nodded stiffly all around. Yeah, things weren't awkward at all.

The diner menu was short and to the point. Sam turned it over, looking for more vegetables, but the back of the menu was blank.

"Here you go." Gertrude was back with two brimming mugs of joe. She set those down in front of them and looked around expectantly. "Have we decided?"

For some reason she decided to start with him, staring at him expectantly with chocolate brown eyes, her pencil tapping rapidly on her pad. He thought about crying off, but Sam glared at him insistently from the other side of the table. He sighed.

"I'll have the small hamburger, hold the fries."

Gertrude's eyebrows shot up with surprise. Maybe he looked like a fry type of guy. Who knew? With a bit of a sniff Gertrude turned to Zee.

"Just coffee's fine for me, thanks."

He felt totally gypped. If the ninja could sit there and just nurse her coffee, so could he. Coffee was bitter, mildly ashy, but at least still vaguely coffee-grounds-like. He could totally use a pass on forcing hamburger maggots down his throat. And really, between the two of them, she needed the food more. It made zero difference to his fighting form whether he ate or not, but if she continued to pick at food the way she had been doing, she wouldn't be toppling over in a stiff breeze, she'd be blowing away.

Gertrude frowned at them, as if her inner-Mom suspected them of being on some weird Hollywood diet.

"I'll have a cheeseburger with fries." Toby piped up.

Well, at least someone was eating.

"And a milk." He and Zee tacked on simultaneously.

He would swear Sam's ears perked up when they did that. And Sammy smothered a thing, glancing down at his menu to hide the pleased in his smile. On the upside, at least that lessened the ferocity of Gertrude's glare, until Sam said, "Um, I'll have the small salad, dressing on the side, please. Thanks."

They were on some weird Hollywood diet and they were going to be crappy tippers. Even though it was so not his fault that his ginormous giraffe of a brother somehow managed to live on a lettuce leaf and two carrots half the time, Dean looked around Gertrude's round shadow towards the diner counter, where a three-tiered display of baked goods sat proudly.

"Is that pie?"

Gertrude beamed at him.

"Best pecan in the area." She boasted proudly.

He smiled his best smile. Pie was one of those things he steadfastly refused to try ever since his … change. He didn't want to know what flavor of rot his favorite thing on earth was going to turn into. So to Sam's everlasting disappointment, he stuck to the basics. The things he knew the outcome of and could steel himself for: woody paper pancakes, maggoty burgers, watery beer, and coffee-grounds-y coffee.

Sam was looking at him a little too intently. He ignored Sam's eager hopefulness and directed his attention to Toby.

"How about we get that pie to go for later, hmm, tiger?"

The kid's eyes lit up before Toby could clamp down on the reaction. It was a hook, baited with the promise of pie and a later. Toby looked across the table to the bristly female porcupine sitting next to him, wanting permission.

He felt the spike of her irritation as clearly as a kick, but Toby was doing an admirable version of Sam's puppy eyes at her. The outcome was inevitable. Frustrated but trapped, she nodded once.

Toby's answering grin was like sunshine.

Gertrude's pencil scratched merrily across her order pad and ended with a satisfied tap.

"Alrighty then. A hamburger, a cheeseburger with fries and one small salad coming up. I'll get that pie wrapped up for you boys to go."

"Sam says Dean wants to stop." Toby reported, looking up from his phone.

They were playing telephone, quite literally. She met Toby's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Ask him why."

They were somewhere in the Appalachians, deep in the mountains, not quite high enough for snow, not quite low enough for spring, passing through one skimpily populated town after another. She could see nothing on either side of the road except trees and more trees.

"Sam said Dean said 'This is as good a place as any.'"

Again, with the cryptic. She wasn't his brother. She couldn't read his mind. As good a place as any for what? She looked at the road ahead again. It looked like a dumping ground for serial killers.

"Ask him for what."

Both Toby and Sam must have repeated her inflection perfectly, because when the answer came back, it was only one clipped word.

"Lessons."

She glanced in the side mirror at the black Impala behind her, stuck to them like a thorny burr.

"Dean says there's a turnoff up ahead."

So there was.

She took a deep breath. She was sore and she ached all over and the chunk missing out of her side was…not right. Everything was not right. It took a phenomenal amount of bad luck to run into a ghost when you weren't looking for one. It took a phenomenal amount of willful blindness to ignore the vibes the brothers were giving off, twitchy and uptight like they were sure something was on their collective tail.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. Toby was still holding the phone to his ear, curiosity lighting up his face, despite everything he'd been through. There were chances she would have taken if he wasn't with her, but he was. His safety was her first priority.

She made the turn.

"C'mon Toby, give me a hand."

Sam had a box of bottles and cans and a stack of cardboard in his arms. Without pausing to consult her Toby went off, trailing along behind Sam to the far edge of the clearing in the woods.

Dean opened the trunk of the Impala. She was so out of it, and slow. He was reaching down to lift the false bottom when what lessons meant finally dawned on her. Her hand shot out and locked around his wrist to stop him before she considered the wisdom of startling a demon.

He stopped and looked at her, green gaze level and intent.

"He should know at least the basics. Self-defense. But," he paused. "Your call."

She looked over at where Sam and Toby were setting the bottles up on stumps and logs.

"No way. For real?" Toby was asking, continuing the incomprehensible conversation he had started with Sam over lunch about baseball.

"Yeah." Sam huffed a laugh. "Just like a knuckle ball. You know how to do those?"

The boy shook his head.

Sam looked around, choosing a golf ball sized rock off the ground. He took a couple dozen steps back from the can they'd just placed on a stump. With a windup and a throw, he knocked the can off the stump with a clean pitch.

"Huh. I didn't know he'd learned how to do that." Dean mused, mostly to himself.

Another huff of Sam's laughter drifted to them when Toby tried and missed the can by a mile.

Dean looked back at her again, waiting.

"Or we could just stay here, enjoy the afternoon, and have that pie."

Pecan was Toby's favorite.

She knew what sat underneath the innocuous looking gray felt in the Chevy's trunk.

The job was over. They had no right.

She let go of his wrist and stepped back.

Dean said nothing as he pulled up the cover to reveal the weapons stash, rummaging around until he came up with a modified sawed-off shotgun that looked oddly small in his big hands.

"Rock salt cartridges first." He caught her eye again. Yeah?

She nodded tightly. Fine.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to him, how good Dean was with kids, but it always did anyway. When Ben and Lisa had been around, he stayed away from them unless immediate danger was nipping at their heels. And anyway, this was Dean. Respectable was not the first word Sam would have chosen to describe his brother.

Dean's head was bent over the ash blond halo of Toby's newly cut hair, straightening Toby's aim of the shotgun towards the cardboard target a few yards off.

"Now see that? You want to look straight down there. And set your elbow like this. Got it?"

Toby frowned and gripped the shotgun more firmly. Dean settled a pair of worn orange shooting muffs over the kid's head, almost too big for him. It had been too big on his head all those years ago, and too big on Dean's head, and he was surprised Dean had kept it.

The shotgun boomed loud in the wintry air. Toby's shot missed wide right, and the kid stumbled backward, unprepared for the kick of the gun. Zee shot up from the log she was sitting on, but before she could take a step, Dean was already there, bracing the kid by the shoulders.

"Okay. Here." Dean got Toby steady and resettled the shotgun against Toby's shoulder, guiding the kid's elbow. "That wasn't bad, but don't scrunch your shoulders this time. Alright?"

Toby's face puckered with concentration as he squinted down the sight again. Dean straightened out the kid's shoulder with a gentle hand, and peered down the sight over Toby's shoulder before stepping back.

"Okay, now remember to stick your feet. If you move, the gun'll move. Got it?"

Toby darted an uncertain glance over his shoulder before planting his heels.

"Yeah. Good." Dean nodded approvingly. "Let's try that again."

It was weird, watching these lessons from a bystander's perspective, because he remembered them. He remembered Dean walking him through the same steps. Sam rubbed his hands together, whether to ward off the cold or the memory, he wasn't sure. He walked over to where Zee was sitting, and her head turned slightly, automatically tracking his movements. He tried a smile, hoping to reassure her that she was among friends and not enemies.

"Dean's watched over me doing this kind of thing since we were kids. He knows what he's doing."

She raised an eyebrow, because, yeah. He could see how 'responsible Dean' might be a hard sell.

The shotgun boomed again. Toby missed his second shot wide left, but this time held his ground with his feet. Dean frowned, kneeling down so he could sight over Toby's shoulder, re-adjusted the kid's grip and aim. He could see the grim determination in Dean's face, and he got where it was coming from.

"He's thinking of Ben."

Sam stopped, because he'd promised Dean never to bring it up again. He stopped, because Dean paused, and he knew Dean was listening in with his abnormally enhanced hearing.

"Lisa and Ben—Dean stayed with them for a year. The year after I, uh, died."

If he was expecting Zee to react, he was disappointed. It wouldn't surprise him if it was a story she already knew—because their crowd made it their business to keep one ear to the ground, and stay the hell out of Sam Winchester's way would have made it all the way around the circuit in his soulless year.

"So, long story short, we were caught up in some stuff. Demons ended up taking Lisa and Ben hostage, as leverage, to try to get us to stop looking into the thing we were looking into. Lisa got possessed—and when Dean tried an exorcism, the demon stabbed her. Herself. Lisa. The wound was fatal if Dean finished the exorcism."

He stopped again, because he'd never really understood how Dean could do it.

"Dean…exorcised the demon. I was knocked out cold in another room. Lisa was bleeding to death. We still had to make it out of a warehouse full of demons." He sighed. "It meant Ben had to man the shotgun and learn to shoot on the fly, because Dean was carrying Lisa. Close range, it wasn't like he could miss, but…"

He'd only caught a glimpse of Ben's face afterward, in the emergency room. Shattered trust, shattered faith, watching his mom nearly bite it, and the blame had to go somewhere, right?

"We got to the hospital. They gave Lisa until morning. Ben was…we'd… " Run out of options, run out of friends. Except not entirely. "Cas turned up. He fixed everything. And then," Sam paused, because Cas hadn't fixed everything. Maybe things eventually got scabbed over, but he didn't know if things ever really got fixed.

"Dean asked Cas to make Ben and Lisa forget him. A memory wipe to forget that they ever even knew him. So they could put their lives back on track. Get back to normal."

Zee turned so suddenly he flinched back. She was focused on him intently as if he was suddenly a threat, her hand already deep into her jacket, her shoulder lowered and tensed.

"No." She snapped sharply. "Don't even think about that."

Sam kept perfectly still, aware that her hand was on the razor edged wakizashi in her jacket, and aware that Dean had turned toward them, drawn by the abruptness of her movement and the tension in the air. He took both hands slowly out of his pockets, palms open and up.

"No. That's not what I meant. We won't do that. Not to you. Not to Toby." He said carefully.

Zee's hand stayed in her jacket, her eyes fixed on his face. He didn't move. He didn't try to explain that Cas probably didn't have the mojo left in him anyway. He kept his smile plastered on his face while his brain churned out a hundred questions. Hunters were a jumpy bunch as a rule, but this, this was something else. Like that anti-possession scar on her upper arm, the exact size and shape of a signet ring, burned right into her skin. He'd seen tats and charms of all sizes and shapes, but he'd never seen anything like that. It was hard to imagine what kind of thing she was caught up in that would have required measures that extreme.

Sam smiled harder.

Slowly Zee took her hand out of her jacket. She glanced over to where Dean was watching them, an indecipherable flicker crossing over her face before she turned back to look at him.

"Be sure. You don't know what you're messing with."

Sam nodded carefully, filing the vehemence of her warning away in his head. He let his hands fall to his side, a silent—all clear, I think—in answer's to Dean's unspoken—what the hell was that?

Toby set up again, drawing Zee's attention back across the clearing. Toby's third attempt was finally true, rock salt peppering holes all through the dead center of the cardboard target.

Toby turned and beamed up at Dean. And Dean grinned back, holding one hand up for a high five, only to pull it away at the last second so that Toby missed, and Toby laughed. It was the same stupid trick Dean used to pull on him, ages and ages ago, when Dean's eyes had been bright with laughter and pride.

Like an outsider looking in, he stared at Dean's grin and then at Toby, the kid's face flushed bright with happiness and belonging, and swallowed a thing that was not a thing.

Of course.

Of course.

Surreptitiously Sam chewed on his lower lip as he snuck a look sideways at the stone-faced hunter sitting next to him. In so many ways he couldn't ask for a more perfect setup than this. She wasn't defenseless, and the boy was all alone. And the two of them really did need help anyway.

A little more time with them wasn't hurting anyone.