First appeared in Grimmoire 6, from Ashton Press (2021).
The Ring of Truth
K Hanna Korossy
Sam Winchester came out of the bathroom in his "Fed suit": cheap suit and tie, nice shoes, hair combed back. So his hair wasn't exactly regulation length, and the shoes weren't your average Oxfords because sometimes they had to run for their lives in them. But nobody ever bothered with those details once they saw the suit and the (fake) badge.
His brother, Dean, already in his own wrinkled suit, was sitting on the end of his bed just putting his phone away. He nodded at Sam. "We've got a third case. Or, well, maybe. No witnesses on this one, but it's the same area."
Sam loosened his tie. Just two years back on the hunt and already he wondered how he would've been able to live in monkey-suits-and-nooses—Dean's term—for the rest of his life. "What was the cause of death?"
"Uh…" Dean glanced at the notepad in his lap. "'Suffocation by weights.'" He cocked an eye at Sam; they specialized in strange, but sometimes they were still surprised. "Guy was lifting weights in his garage, managed to bring one down on his neck."
Sam adjusted his cuff and resisted another tug at his tie. "So, another weird death."
"Yeah. No mention of a double, but that could've just been because he was alone."
The doubles were what had brought them to this suburb of Sacramento. Two people, one dead, the other a close call, both of whom apparently had a double, an identical twin, who showed up when they faced death.
Margie Shanley had died in a fall down her steep outdoor cement steps. A neighbor had sworn he'd seen a woman who looked exactly like Margie prying loose her grip on the railing just when it seemed like she might catch herself.
Kevin Cobbett had sawed into his leg while cutting out pieces of a wooden swing in his workshop. His wife had quickly helped him tie off the arterial bleed and run to call for help, only to return to find her husband's lookalike loosening the bandage. She had yelled and shoved it away, quickly stopping the bleed again. When she'd looked up again, the double was gone. Kevin had survived with nothing but a cool scar to show for his mishap.
Two—well, three now—plausible accidents, at least two with an ominous shadow who then tried to finish off the victim. It wasn't like anything Sam had heard of before, and he'd heard of a lot. Compounding the weirdness: all three incidents had been in a five-block radius. It was starting to become an unlucky neighborhood.
"So," Sam said and gave his tie one more pull. "Check out the block in the center first?"
"Makes sense." Dean stood, glancing at his watch. "People should be just getting home from work—we can make the rounds, then go pick up dinner."
Sam grimaced at the thought of the greasepit down the street Dean had already zeroed in on when they chose the motel. But with any luck, the place would carry other things besides pork and beef products. And salmonella and mad cow. With a sigh, Sam picked up his wallet and phone and stuffed them into his pockets.
Dean paused, then reached out and fixed Sam's tie with a grin. "Gotta look the part, College Boy."
Sam smacked Dean's hands away halfheartedly, even if he had good memories of his brother teaching him to tie a tie…and shave, and tie his shoes, and a hundred other things their dad had neglected. Maybe he'd have stepped up more if Dean hadn't stepped in, but Sam doubted it.
Dean was unrepentant, smacking Sam in the chest before heading out the door. "Come on, we're burning daylight."
Sam rolled his eyes. Stupid big brothers.
00000
The only redeeming part of the whole afternoon in Dean's eyes was the dinner that followed.
The interviews had been a bust. Nobody answered at three of the houses, and the rest were all normal, law-abiding citizens who were intimidated by their badges and puzzled by their questions. Hadn't noticed anything weird, no new neighbors they didn't know, no freakish accidents of their own to report. One had offered them some cookies she'd just baked—okay, so there'd been two redeeming parts—and another had slipped Dean her number, which might have enticed him more if she'd been a few decades younger. But that was it. He and Sam had briefly discussed branching out, hitting some of the streets where the people had been injured or died, but that would increase their field exponentially, and Dean's stomach was growling. And the taqueria down the street looked really inviting. Even Sam seemed unusually happy with the plentiful servings of avocado, beans, and rice.
"Okay," Dean said around a half-full mouth. The chalupas were awesome. "So I think we're gonna have to do this hard way."
Sam was giving him that constipated look that said Dean was being disgusting again, but whatever. Dean wasn't the one who blew up like a gassy balloon when he had a bellyful of refried beans, just the one who had to live with the smell. "The hard way?"
"Yeah." He washed the bite down with El Sol. Tex-Mex and cold beer: it didn't get much better than that. "One of us is gonna have to almost die."
Sam coughed once, apparently having mis-swallowed. He'd gone from disgusted to horrified in a second flat, a record even for him. "What?"
"Simple." Dean wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin down. "We find an empty house at ground zero. You pull a gun on me, and we wait for my handsome twin to show up."
Okay, Sam downgraded to just looking at him like he was an idiot. Dean wasn't sure if he was relieved or offended by that. "Hold a gun on you," Sam repeated slowly.
"Yeah. Brush with death, right?"
"That wouldn't be an accident," Sam pointed out.
"We don't know that's part of the M.O. Not unless we get a case of Murder on Maple Street."
Sam shook his head. "And if…whatever this is can sense impending death, it can also probably sense that I have no intention of shooting you."
"Dude, you're overthinking this." As usual. Dean ladled on the onions; Sam wouldn't be the one with the monopoly on odors that night. "If it doesn't work, we'll think of something else. But the only way to coax this sucker out is to give it a shot." He took a breath, thumped his chest, burped. "Heh, 'shot'—get it?"
Sam ignored the clever pun, as usual. "'Something else.' Right. And even if we do get it to show, we don't know anything about it. How do we kill it?"
"We start with the stuff that usually works on shapeshifters—silver, bullets—and go from there."
Sam was back to constipated. Such a range his brother had.
Dean took a crunchy bite and chewed before he asked, "You got a better idea? I mean, you've been researching this for most of the trip here—you got anything?"
"No." It looked like it pained Sam to admit it.
"Okay, then, we go with Plan A." He gave Sam a toothy smile. "Look at it this way: how many times have you wanted to shoot me? Now here's your chance."
"That's not funny, Dean."
"It's a little funny."
At least it shut Sam up for the rest of the meal.
Four hours later, they had their house. Cruising the quiet streets, they'd found a home that was dark and still, no car in the driveway. Sam picked the lock on the back door without a sound, and they went in just as silently in case someone was home and just liked to go to bed really early. A quick sweep of the two-story house revealed it was empty, however, and the calendar in the kitchen was marked with a vacation that week, so they were unlikely to be interrupted. Would've sucked to have a family walk in on Sam's attempt to kill his brother.
Dean had quickly realized he had to keep jokes like that to himself, though. With Sam worried about his burgeoning powers and about maybe turning evil, not to mention their dad's moving final words that Dean had to save his brother or kill him, fratricide was no longer the joke it had once been between them. But that was one of the reasons why Dean was making darn sure Sam held the gun on him and not vice versa. His little brother hadn't lost that pinched look since their conversation at the restaurant.
The house confirmed empty, they set up in a back room where the lights couldn't be seen from the street. No reason to risk a neighbor noticing that the vacationing family had returned early. Dean unpacked the weapons duffel so that everything they might need would be at hand: silver knife, gun with silver bullets, iron bar, shotgun, canister of salt, and their regular blades and guns.
Sam watched him, chewing on his lip.
Their armory spread out to Dean's satisfaction, he nodded to himself, then looked up at Sam. "You ready?"
"Yes," Sam said. No, his expression said.
Dean wanted to make a quip about Sam remembering not to really shoot him, but swallowed it. Instead, he did what Sam needed, dropping a hand on his shoulder and looking him in the eye. "This is just an act, right? You got this."
Sam swallowed, nodded. No matter how much he asserted he was an adult now and Dean's equal, he just couldn't shake a lifetime of little brotherness. He backed up a couple of feet and pulled out his Smith & Wesson, pointing it at Dean.
Didn't matter who was pointing a gun at you or why, it still sent a little shiver of fear down your spine. Dean couldn't afford to let any of it show, though, just raised his hands slowly, moving back to where he could reach the weapons as well as Sam.
They stood there a minute, Dean restless, Sam still.
Starting to feel a little silly, Dean craned his neck to see and made a face. "Dude. Take the safety off."
Sam twitched but he did so.
Another minute. "Gun's loaded, right?" Dean asked.
Sam gave him a withering look. Right.
Another minute. Sam's arm had to be getting tired, but he hadn't wavered. Dean cleared his throat and lowered his hands. "Okay, so, maybe it's time for Plan B."
Sam immediately dropped his gun hand.
Dean would've been lying if he hadn't felt as relieved as Sam looked; their dad had ingrained in them that you never pointed a gun at something you weren't willing to kill. Maybe the fratricide jokes were hitting a little too close for him, too.
Sam shifted his shoulders, gave him a look. "What's Plan B?"
He'd given this some thought but hadn't mentioned it to Sam because he knew the reaction he'd get. Dean rubbed the back of his head. "I thought maybe…you could choke me?"
Sam looked appalled, and Dean rushed on.
"Listen, you know how to do it safe—don't crush the windpipe, go easy on the carotids—"
Sam was already shaking his head. "No. I'm not—Dean, I'm not gonna throttle you. We'll think of—"
"What, Sam? Stage an accident? Send me down the stairs, or-or electrocute me? Yeah, 'cause that would be so much safer." He moved into Sam's space, tugging on the flannel shirt his brother had changed into after their interviews. "Sammy. I trust you. You can do this."
Sam's eyes were just miserable now. "Then do it to me."
"Uh-uh," Dean said without hesitation. "You already made me promise once to kill you, Sammy. I'm not doin' it again."
A few heartbeats passed, memory and regret. Sam, afraid he was becoming something evil, had begged Dean to stop him if he did, permanently. Dean, desperate to shut him up, promised. And then refused to do it when a possessed-Sam goaded him, but that was another story. In the complex mathematics of keeping his brother safe, Dean would rather leave him with the horror of choking his brother out than the horror of his brother trying to kill him.
He saw the moment Sam let that sink in, when the little brother instinct was finally reined in by the mature hunter Sam had become. His shoulders went back, his jaw set, his spine straightened out of the seemingly permanent slouch Sam had affected once he outgrew Dean. "Okay. Okay. But I decide how far to go and when to stop."
Fair enough. Dean conceded that with a raise of his hands and a step back. And then, because he was still the older brother, he smirked. "How do you want me?"
Sam rolled his eyes, but at least he unclenched a little.
They finally ended up on the floor, Dean flat on his back, Sam looming over him. Those long fingers settled so uncertainly on his neck that Dean couldn't feel any fear, just sympathy. "You got this, dude. Just pretend you're with a girl who likes it kinky."
Sam groaned, but his eyes were determined.
He was careful; Dean could feel it. The pressure increased, but not too hard on the front of his neck, not digging in to leave finger marks, barely hard enough to wind him. Dean tapped Sam on the arm, and Sam made a face but pressed harder.
When you were blacking out, your body started fighting for air, with or without your permission. Dean tried to hold back, but he bucked nonetheless, a voiceless sound rattling out of him. His hands clenched and scrabbled to grab anything but Sam. He wasn't going to make this harder for the kid. He wasn't…
His vision started to spot and narrow. He was writhing now under Sam's relentless weight. This had been a bad idea. This had been a terrible idea. He was going to die and he needed to breathe and Sam had tears in his eyes and this was a terrible idea and he needed air—
The pressure released, and Dean started coughing, sucking in oxygen. Stupid. He'd been stupid and now he'd traumatized Sam for nothing and, crap, his throat ached…
And suddenly new hands were on his throat, cold and foreign and digging in with all the malice Sam hadn't shown. Dean's eyes shot open…and he was looking into a mirror.
Not a mirror, some part of his brain knew. Not here, and not with that expression on his face, the dead look in his eyes. The intent to kill.
Dean choked, struggling in earnest now against a relentless gasp.
Dimly, he heard some gunshots. Saw movement behind the other Dean. But nothing budged the figure on top of him. Dean was going to kill himself, and his brain was too air-starved to appreciate the irony.
And then the pressure and weight were gone, and Dean could do nothing but roll onto his side and hack away, sipping painful gulps through his bruised windpipe. He couldn't think about anything but that.
"Dean!" Someone grabbed his upper arms, and he tried to pull away for a moment before realizing who it was. Sam's face hovered in front of him, pale face first disembodied, then the picture filling in with background and context and sound. Sam was holding him, talking to him, pointless prattle about breathing and taking it easy and being okay. But his brother's voice helped ground him, and Dean grabbed his shirt and held on while the world steadied.
"Wha' 'appen'd?" he finally got out, cracking and wincing.
In answer, Sam got an arm behind him to support him and moved to one side.
A Dean, so identical to him that it had the same mended sleeve and tarnished amulet, stood a few feet away. Its legs were apart and its frame was braced, expression seething. But it wasn't going anywhere. A second later, Dean saw why: a thick ring of salt encircled it.
"Ghos'?" he whispered.
"No," Sam answered, but there were questions in his tone. "Iron and salt don't dispel it, just…affect it." Of the double, he demanded, "What are you?"
It sneered at them. "I am what my Lord intended. The blood and the ring finally sing together again."
Dean blinked. "'ell, tha's no' confusin'."
He'd barely finished speaking before the double stiffened…and then melted into the air.
Sam bit out a curse and made sure Dean was steady before he leaped forward. "No break in the salt," he reported after a moment. "And…no residue. I don't think it…died, or whatever. It just…vanished."
Like a ghost. Except, ghosts were bound by salt. And they didn't usually look like the living. Or try to help you along into death if you got close. Great, they were still in the dark with this one, except now Dean's throat was killing him. With a groan, he sank back to the carpet and stared at the ceiling.
He stayed there until Sam's hangdog face filled his vision and coaxed him reluctantly to his feet and back to the motel.
00000
"So," Sam said flatly, staring through the dark windshield. "That was a bust."
Dean was slumped beside him against the passenger-side door, two ice packs against his throat. He still looked too pale and weak for Sam's comfort, but his eyes were burning. He put a finger up, and Sam hurried to respond to the unvoiced thought.
"Yes, I know. The…dark double appeared. And almost killed you. If I hadn't been able to knock it into the salt ring…"
Dean tapped him on the leg this time, and Sam unclenched his jaw. Right. Dean was okay. Mostly.
Sam sighed. "And we still don't know how it got away. Or even what it is. How are we supposed to—?"
"W' fig'r t'out," Dean creaked out. He sounded like a chain-smoking frog.
Sam sighed again. Dean had that effect on him. "Yeah. I know we will. Just…" He glanced over at Dean, met those sharp eyes. Dean knew. Sam turned back to the road, fingers twisting restlessly around the steering wheel as if it were the double's neck.
Dean reached over with a pained grunt and turned the radio on, sparing them further rehashing.
At least he was steady on his feet by the time they got back to the motel; Sam didn't even help him get out of the car, although he hovered. He suspected Dean only let him because Sam still couldn't stow the fear he'd felt at seeing his brother turn blue. He did wave Sam away when he got to his bed, however, and stretched out with pained, relieved noises, the ice packs a slippery collar around his neck.
Sam watched him a long minute, then when Dean opened one eye to glare at him, finally grimaced and headed to the bathroom.
He changed into sleep pants and a t-shirt, fully intending to get some sleep, too. But Dean wheezed softly as he breathed, and the memories were too fresh in Sam's mind. He tossed a blanket over his brother, turned out the main light, and settled at the little table with the laptop to research.
A heavy hand on his shoulder startled him awake. Sam jerked up, blinking in the morning light edging the drapes. Dean gave him a knowing grin, then went to pull the curtains open.
Sam rubbed his face tiredly, wincing when he felt dried drool and the imprint of the keyboard on his cheek. Terrific; no wonder Dean was grinning. His brother had settled across the table from him, nudging a mug of coffee at him as he sipped his own, far slower than he usually drank his coffee. The ice packs were gone, but his neck was ringed with blue and red bruising.
"How are you feeling?" Sam asked.
"Had worse." Dean's voice was somewhere between a whisper and his normal volume. He sounded more gruff than usual, but not bad.
"Huh," Sam said intelligently, gulping his own coffee.
"You sleep 'nough?"
On cue, Sam yawned. "I'm fine."
Dean gave him a skeptical look but didn't press.
Sam rubbed a hand through his hair. "So, I still can't find anything in the lore that matches what we've got, so I decided to start looking at the people. Nothing really suspicious, but, get this, one guy on the center block, Mahmoud Elaidy, inherited a bunch of stuff from an uncle the week of the first 'accident.'"
Dean's raised eyebrows said, So?
"So, remember what the double said? 'The blood and the ring finally sing together again.'"
Dean gave a shake of the head: I don't get it.
"What if it was talking about a literal ring? Like an heirloom. And if it finally ended up with someone from the right bloodline…"
Comprehension dawned on his brother's face. "So, we ge'the rin'?"
Sam nodded. "We get the ring."
Dean smiled. He always did like B&Es.
They got two milkshakes for Dean for breakfast, and Sam got a short stack but decided to forego the sausages in empathy for his brother. Dean buttoned the top button of his flannel, and you had to look close to see the shadow of bruises above his collar. Still, he hunched a little while he sucked on his milkshakes, and Sam felt a confusing mix of amusement and disquiet at the sight. It tipped more toward the latter when the waitress—pretty, young, with red-dyed hair—left her number on Dean's bill even though he hadn't said a word to her. Dean's smugness was annoying, and Sam accidentally stepped on his foot when they climbed out of the booth.
They'd waited until midmorning, when most people were at work and school. Still, they parked the next block over and watched carefully as they walked, keeping an eye out for nosy retirees, landscapers, stay-at-home moms, and anyone else who might notice that two guys were walking down the street, acting shifty. There wasn't so much as a fluttering curtain, however, and Sam breathed a little easier when they passed into the Elaidy backyard.
Mahmoud and his wife, Samira, were young professionals without kids. The garage and house were empty, both spouses at work. They had a simple alarm system, but that just added about twenty seconds to Sam's break-in. Then he was waving Dean in ahead of him, giving a final glance around the back yard before slipping in the kitchen door behind him.
They didn't need to discuss the plan once inside: they'd done this too often. Sam headed down the hallway to find the inevitable study, while Dean took the steps two at a time to seek out the master bedroom.
It was actually Sam who found what they were looking for, but not in the office. Having searched through piles of mail and paperwork—the Elaidys were not exactly neat freaks—he'd ended up in the entry hall. There, a riot of color caught his eye under the hall table, and Sam pulled out a worn box covered in beautiful stamps. Egyptian stamps.
"Dean!" he called, and opened the flaps that had already been slit apart.
Dean thumped down the stairs behind him as Sam found the letter amidst the bubble wrap and scanned it. As his brother crouched next to him, Sam looked up.
"This is it. His inheritance from his uncle."
Dean frowned at the box. "Didn' even unpack't?"
"Guess he didn't care." A few things on top had been unrolled from their protective layers but then just left there. Sam started carefully laying out the objects: a carved pipe, a pair of old books, a few beautifully worked stone and metal pieces of what Sam was pretty sure were Egyptian gods.
Meanwhile, Dean had picked up the letter and was now looking at the back page. He held it up in front of Sam's face, pointing to one line in what looked like an inventory list.
One ring, gold, Eye of Horus.
"Huh." Sam dug through the box, ignoring the bigger items now, looking for something ring-sized. "The Eye of Horus is usually associated with Horus, obviously, but it's also significant for Atum."
Dean looked at him blankly.
"I read about him last night when I was researching doubles." A small package fit into his palm, but when Sam unwrapped it, he found a tiny mosaic box. He stared at it a moment, then went back in and pulled out a much larger, square box. "Atum was an Egyptian creator god. He was associated with souls, or ka, which were sometimes described as doubles that had your memories and felt what you did."
Dean gave him a fond look, mouthing, Nerd.
Sam unwrapped the box. It was made of wood with a hinged lid and a pair of upraised arms etched into the top. Opening it revealed, as he'd hoped, that it was a jewelry box. There wasn't much in it, just a pendant, a masculine chain, a delicate gold necklace, a loose stone that was maybe an opal…and a heavy gold ring shaped like the Eye of Horus. It felt worn smooth even though it bore a lifetime of nicks: it was imbued with age. And maybe power. Sam held it up on his palm for his brother to see.
Dean's eyes widened, but he was looking past Sam. And scrambling for his Colt.
Sam spun on his heel, already pushing up. It still brought him inches short of the figure who loomed before them, dressed like a figure on a sarcophagus. The…god?…looked angry, and spoke a few guttural words that were like no language Sam had ever heard but that he guessed was ancient Egyptian.
"Yeah, same to you, buddy." There would've been more bravado in Dean's line if he hadn't sounded like a pre-teen whose voice was changing.
Atum, or at least what Sam figured was Atum, snarled something at them. Then he moved to the side.
Dean and Sam stepped out from behind him.
Sam gawked. He'd seen doubles of Dean more than once, but he'd never faced one of his own. The hair, the mole, the height: everything would've made him self-conscious, but the expression on the twin's face was one Sam was sure he never wore. The cold disinterest, the arrogance, the sheer alienness of his other made him freeze.
Not Dean. "We're no' dyin' here 'oday," he announced, and shouldered Sam back so that he and his gun was between his brother and the doubles.
"I always knew it would happen this way," fake-Sam spoke up, pitch-perfect and sounding resigned and reasonable. His face had settled into something familiar now, sorrow and anxiety and uncertainty Sam recognized from every morning's ablutions. "You holding a gun on me."
Dean made a sound, but he didn't lower his weapon.
"You know I'm scared of you," double-Dean said, circling to address Sam. "Dad said I might have to kill you, that it's the only way to protect you, and he always knew his crap."
Sam stared at the fake with fascinated horror, the words a little too close to the mark.
"It's your fault we ended up here," the other Sam spat at Dean in sudden anger. "You always held me back, didn't want me to go to school, to learn too much about what was happening to me. You were so selfish."
"We tried, right, Sammy? But it's not gonna work. Let's just get it over with, you and me, together."
"You were afraid of this, weren't you?" Fake Sam's eyes suddenly turned black. "Do something right, finally. Put me out of my misery."
They wanted the Winchesters to kill each other, Sam realized. Maybe they couldn't do it themselves, or maybe this was the easiest way.
And maybe they could even make it an accident, because Dean's gun was trembling, just a tiny bit. Someone else might not have seen it, but no one else knew Dean like his brother. Sam stared at the gun, and felt himself snap out of the spell the doubles were weaving.
"Dean," he said quietly.
Dean shook his head, like he was trying to clear it, too. But Sam saw he'd already dug into his pocket with his free hand, and he held out a small box. Sam took it.
Both doubles' expressions grew alarmed. Atum shouted something, and the twins lunged for Sam.
He moved faster. Sam popped the box open, dropped the ring inside, and shut the cover.
The moment the curse box closed, there was a wail and a blast of wind. And then the room was quiet, just the two of them standing there.
Dean slowly lowered his gun. "So'ova'bish."
Sam wound a pair of rubber bands around the curse box to make sure it didn't even crack open, and shoved it into his pocket. Only then did he take a deep breath. "Yeah."
He was pretty sure he didn't imagine the box juddering and warm in his pocket.
00000
Exhausted, the Winchesters spent the afternoon sleeping at the motel and getting Dean more milkshakes and Slurpees. They set out for South Dakota as night set in. Their kind weren't day people anyway, and the sooner they got the curse box to their friend Bobby Singer, the better Dean would feel.
The radio was off, both of them lost in thought. It wasn't something Dean was crazy about, but you had to work through a hunt like this before you locked it away. It wasn't every day a realistic copy of your brother told you you should kill it. With their dad's similar words still ringing in Dean's head every single day, it was a refrain no music would drown out.
"You know that wasn't me, right?" Sam spoke softly from the passenger seat.
"What?" Dean glanced at him, brow furrowing. "'Course I did," he said automatically. A beat. "You know that's not what I think, either, right?"
Sam took a deep breath. "Sometimes. But sometimes…"
"No." Dean shook his head vehemently. "I am not scared of you. For you, sometimes, but, dude, I'm not afraid of my own kid brother." The swelling was down in his throat; he almost sounded like himself again. If a little deeper and rougher than usual, but that just helped his case.
"But Dad said—"
"Dad was wrong. Or-or he didn't know the whole story. Because no way, no way am I ending you. If things start to go bad, we'll find a way to fix it."
"And if we can't?" Sam said in a small voice.
"We will." End of discussion, as far as Dean was concerned.
There was a pause, then Sam nodded. Probably more out of wanting to believe than actually doing so, but Dean would take it for now. Sam cleared his throat. "And I never resented you, you know."
Dean chuffed. "Oh, yeah? Not even when Dad would take me on hunts and leave you behind?"
"No." Sam hadn't even had to think about it, Dean noticed. "I was lonely, and I got mad at Dad. I gave you a hard time about it too, 'cause there was no one else. But I never for a second thought you were holding me back."
Dean cleared his swollen throat. It hurt. "Okay."
"Okay." Sam sounded better, too, and there'd been nothing wrong with his throat.
"Zeppelin?" Dean asked, reaching for the radio.
"Sure, I could nap." Sam made himself comfortable against the door while the Winchester lullaby started screaming through the car.
"I'm not killing you, Sammy," Dean whispered, half to himself.
"I know," Sam muttered back. But he almost sounded sad.
Dean let the album play on repeat until they rolled into Bobby's junkyard and Sam's eyes opened again.
The End