A/N I honestly don't know how I feel about this one, it feels a little bit like a dumpster fire. I have desperately been trying to get if ready for posting and I don't know if everything clicked or not but here we are regardless, so I'm sorry in advance if this is not up to par! It was supposed to be a one-shot, but then it both got too long and I ran out of time to edit all of it...so I guess this is what we are doing!
Unsteady
Chapter One
The sound of smashing glass had Bobby dropping the pot that he had been scrubbing out and, hurriedly wiping his soapy hands on his pants, crossed to the window. Lifting the curtain, he felt his heart sink as he watched Dean begin to aggressively beat the trunk of the Impala.
The side window of a nearby junker had already been destroyed, and Dean didn't look to be stopping any time soon.
"Balls." Bobby dropped the curtain, shaking his head. He knew that Dean was hurting—bad—but this latest show of despair was not comforting. The level of grief that Dean had to be feeling to take a crowbar to his car, his pride and joy…not that John had deserved such a level of love and devotion in Bobby's opinion, but he didn't allow himself to fully complete that thought. It seemed like poor judgment to think badly of the recently deceased.
The clang of metal on metal ceased and Bobby peeked through the window again. Dean was just standing there, breathing heavily and staring at the badly dented trunk of his car.
Bobby hesitated. He wanted to go out there and try to talk to Dean, but he wasn't sure that was a good idea. Sam had come in right before Dean had started in on his car, and that probably meant that Dean had taken all the talking he could for the moment, and from the only person he would be willing to take it from.
Not that it mattered, because Dean was taking the decision out of his hands as he abruptly began to stride off down the driveway. The walk quickly changed into something more resembling a run and Bobby shook his head as he turned his back on the window.
Dean wasn't the only kid hurting in his house right now, and Sam would probably be more receptive, or at the very least be less likely to take a swing at him.
He found Sam staring out of the front room window at the damaged Impala as he chewed mindlessly on the nails of his right hand.
"He'll be okay, Sam, just give him some space," Bobby said gruffly and Sam slowly turned. His eyes were red, but Bobby didn't comment on it, just pulled out a bottle of whiskey that he kept for just such occasions. Pouring Sam a finger's worth of it, he offered it to him.
Sam snorted wetly, before knocking it back. "He's not okay," he said bluntly as he turned back to stare out at the Impala.
"Dean's grieving. It ain't exactly a birthday party."
"No, he's not. That's part of the problem. Hell, you've heard him! He just says that he's fine and that he's dealing but he's not. He's just bottling it all up and it's gonna keep coming out like that—" he gestured at the Impala "—and that's not healthy."
"Since when has Dean ever cared about doing it the healthy way?" Bobby asked dryly. Sam didn't react as he folded his arms across his chest, looking lost, and Bobby reminded himself that not only had Sam lost his father, but he had come very near to losing his brother as well, and he softened his tone. "He'll come around, he's just going to need a little bit of time. There isn't exactly a way to hurry grieving along."
Sam heaved a shaky sigh, rubbing a hand across his forehead. "I know, it's just…" he trailed off, unable to continue.
Bobby sighed. It wasn't all just worry for Dean that Sam was carrying around on his shoulders.
"Feelin' guilty over everything isn't goin' to fix anything, Sam. John made his own choice, you didn't push him into anything. Hell, you went toe-to-toe with the man enough times to know that he wasn't one to do anything that he didn't want to do. You aren't the one putting Dean through this," he tried, and watched as Sam's lips trembled and his eyes filled with tears.
Respectfully, he looked away and took his time refilling their glasses with the whiskey. When he looked up again, Sam was wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his arm and pointedly not looking at him.
Sam needed a win, something to take his mind off everything that had happened.
"Here." He nudged Sam's arm with the glass, and Sam took it with a trembling hand, drinking it slowly this time.
It had been so long since Bobby had been required to do this, but he guessed that distracting adult Sam probably wasn't much different than it had been when he was a kid. Give him a book, or a problem to solve, and they might not see him for hours. Used to drive Dean crazy.
"C'mon, Sam. Let Dean be, he'll be okay. I've got somethin' that I've been stumped on for a couple of weeks, now, and could use your help with."
Sam was still staring out the window, his mind clearly not on Bobby or what he was saying, and he reached out, squeezing his shoulder tightly. "Dean's got to work through this in his own way. Our job is to be there when he needs it and to make sure that he doesn't drink himself to death. Give him an hour, and if he's not back by then we'll figure it out."
Sam still didn't look sure but heaved a discouraged sigh and he finally looked over at him. "What's got you stumped?"
Bobby smiled and led the way back into the study. "You ever heard of Gideon Wells?"
Sam shook his head, watching mutely as Bobby shuffled around in his desk drawer until he found the manila envelope that he had shoved in there probably about a month ago now. He tossed it over to Sam, who tipped the contents out and onto the desk.
Bobby leaned against his desk, watching with a smirk of satisfaction as a spark of interest appeared in Sam's eyes as he began to examine what Bobby knew were letters dating from 1808.
The kid hadn't changed that much.
"From what I can tell," he began to explain, "those were written by Gideon Wells, who was a hunter during the early 1800s. Gideon wrote those letters to a couple of his relatives right before he disappeared out West after he took part in the Pike Expedition. They never saw or heard from him again."
"And you want me to look into these why?" Sam asked even as he sank down to sit in one of the chairs across from the desk.
"Because from what I can make out in those letters, he was fixin' to go hole up in some predetermined spot out West that he discovered while on the expedition, to hide from the monsters that he was convinced were coming after him. More importantly, he talks about how he was taking his collection of diaries out there, to keep them safe as well."
Sam was nodding along with him. "So if we find this cabin, there might be a chance of finding some new or useful lore."
"Right."
Sam looked up from the letters, frowning a little. "How'd you even get a hold of this stuff?"
Bobby half shrugged. "Helped the great-great-great whatever niece of Gideon with a little ghost problem she was having. She gave me those afterward. Apparently, their family all believed the poor man to be insane and he became the butt end of a lot of jokes, I think. She had quite a hard time wrapping her head around the idea that monsters are indeed real and that he wasn't crazy."
Sam scoffed lightly even as he spread the letters out across the desk and Bobby could practically see the gears in his head starting to turn until the fire there died as quickly as it had come. He hesitated, glancing back towards the yard, and Bobby sighed.
Winchesters.
"Sam, he's tough."
"I know."
Sam didn't look like he knew it, though, his face a picture of misery as he began to leaf half-heartedly through the letters.
Well, Bobby would take what he could get.
One of Bobby's phones began to ring in the kitchen and he quickly exited. It wasn't long before he found himself doing research across from Sam on a poltergeist in Michigan.
He couldn't deny that there was something soothing about doing research with Sam and, although Bobby would never admit it save under pain of torture, it warmed his heart. It brought back countless memories of Sam curled up on his couch reading Run, Jane, Run, or later, The Lord of the Rings, while Bobby did his work.
Dean, while heaven knew the kid was smart, had had little desire to participate and it had become Sam and Bobby's thing. Sam had always been more driven by academics than his brother, though, and Bobby could distinctly remember when he had heard through the grapevine that Sam had left hunting and gone to Stanford with a full-ride scholarship. He'd been damn proud of him for getting out of the life and doing something for himself, he'd even sent him a few hundred bucks anonymously through the mail.
And then he heard about what had happened to Sam's girl and had known that it would only be a matter of time before Dean and Sam knocked on his door.
The demons and a dead father…now that had come as a little bit more of a surprise. So had the weight of the world that both brothers shouldered far too readily.
They weren't the same kids that Bobby had grown to love maybe too deeply, and he was still figuring them out again, but John had dumped them on his doorstep one last time and he'd be damned if he failed them now.
Both Sam and Bobby looked up when, only about a half-hour later, the sound of tinkering came from the yard. Sam immediately rose, crossing to the door and peeking through the window. Whatever he saw lightened the lines in his face and he dropped down more easily into the chair.
"Dean back?" Bobby prompted, knowing full well the answer. Sam nodded.
"Working on the Impala again."
"Good."
Bobby returned to his book and Sam to the letters, and Bobby couldn't help but noticed that it was with more enthusiasm this time. He had made copies of them and was highlighting different sections while his laptop was also open, adding an almost silent hum to the otherwise quiet room.
Dean didn't come in until it was well past dark and he didn't look Bobby in the eye as he mumbled something about a shower and then disappeared upstairs. Bobby had saved a plate of dinner for him and he brought it upstairs to the room that the boys were sharing before returning to the kitchen where a cold bottle of beer was waiting for him.
He had expected for that to be the last that he saw of either of the Winchesters for the night, and was just preparing to turn in himself when he heard Dean's voice coming from the study.
"Sam. Close the damn books, it's late."
Bobby just resisted rolling his eyes. If one Winchester wasn't worried about the other then the other one immediately took up the flag. Idjits, both of them.
"In a minute…" he heard Sam reply, his voice distant and distracted.
"Dude, I'm serious. It's late."
"I told you, in a minute."
There was a huff of frustration and then Dean was walking into the kitchen.
"Beer?" Bobby offered from where he was sitting at the table.
Dean jumped visibly, clearly not having expected Bobby to be there, but nodded only a little warily.
Bobby tossed his now empty bottle towards the trash and stood to gather two more. When he turned, he found Dean leaning up against the doorjamb, looking into the study with much of the same expression on his face that Sam had been wearing all day.
The expression melted into something more neutral as Bobby handed him the beer, glancing into the study as well as he did so.
Sam had about five books open and spread out across various surfaces. He had also printed out what looked to be a map of the United States west of the Mississippi on several pieces of paper that had been taped together. Sam was kneeling next to them and holding a red marker between his teeth as he scrolled on the laptop that was still resting on the desk.
"He's fine, Dean," Bobby said in a déjà vu of that morning and he gestured back towards the table.
Dean sat down, rubbing at his forehead and the still-healing scar there. "You do realize that you've done something that can't be undone, right? Sam's gonna be there until the house burns down or he figures out whatever little puzzle it is that you've set for him."
Bobby shrugged dismissively. "Ah, it's good for him. He needs the distraction."
"He's doing it because then he doesn't have to think about what happened."
"Of course he is, he just needs a break, Dean. He's probably thought about it too much already."
That shut Dean down pretty damn fast, his eyes darkening and his face going hard. "I don't want to talk about it if that's what you're hinting at," he warned and Bobby backed off.
Dean wasn't ready to hear what he had to say and Bobby wasn't interested in driving him away.
They drank the rest of their beer in silence, Dean's mind elsewhere as he stared blankly at the table, his face drawn into sad lines.
Stilling a sigh, he nursed his own beer.
God help him, Bobby was going to get them through this.
#
Dean raised an eyebrow as he stepped into the study to find Sam asleep at the desk with his head resting near his laptop. Several books were open in front of him, and he had his arm draped over one of them. The map still laying on the floor looked to be completed, with a thick red line marking some sort of curving and sometimes crisscrossing path that had the occasional black dots labeling other locations next to it.
Fondness welled up in Dean, battling against the grief that was threatening to drown him. How many times had he walked in on Sam like this over the years?
The geek.
Unheralded and completely unwanted came John's voice, echoing back to him.
Either save Sam or kill him.
Dean's stomach turned nauseatingly and he quickly left. Opting to skip breakfast, he headed straight for the Impala.
The dented trunk mocked him.
I wouldn't have given you the damn thing if I thought you were going to ruin it…
Grief and anger strong enough to make him dizzy washed over him and Dean leaned against the side of the Impala, trying to swallow it down. He was fine. He was perfectly fine. It didn't matter that his hero, the man he had practically worshipped growing up, was dead. That he was never coming back. That he had left Dean with a sickening mission.
Sucking in a deep breath, Dean moved away from the back of the car and to the front. The engine still needed work and the front passenger door was bent funny from where the semi had crashed into it.
Lifting the hood, Dean let the familiar and the fixable soothe what little else could right now. Here, at least, he didn't have to think beyond what to do to get her running again.
He had no clue how much time had passed before Bobby's head popped up underneath the hood, peering inside with him.
"How's it going?"
"Fine," Dean said shortly, not in the mood for conversation.
Bobby nodded a little. "You at a breakin' point?"
Dean hesitated, but Bobby wasn't Sam so it might be safe to answer that question honestly.
"Give me another couple of minutes to finish this up," he said and Bobby disappeared, but he didn't go far, leaning up against the porch railing instead of going inside.
Making a face that only the engine could see, Dean finished tightening the bolt. Straightening, he wiped his hands on his jeans and turned to look at Bobby expectantly.
"What?"
"Sam and I are heading down to Colorado. You wanna come?"
"Why the hell are you going to Colorado?"
"Sam thinks that he has figured out the location of Gideon Well's cabin." Bobby smirked a little at Dean's apparently visible confusion and Dean scowled at him. "I won't spoil the details, Sam will no doubt give you the briefing as we drive, but he was a hunter who disappeared. Might be able to find some useful lore there."
Dean frowned. "Huh…" he said, trying to buy himself some time to think of a way out of the trip. He didn't want to drive to Colorado, especially if it was just for books, that didn't sound like his idea of a good time. Besides, the Impala needed more work and people weren't dying…why should he go?
"Look," Bobby angled himself more towards Dean. "Gonna be real honest with you. Sam's worried about you, and if you don't go then he's not gonna go. It could be good for him, good for the both of you to get out there and do something that's not huntin'."
Dean wavered. He didn't want to go, but Bobby was right at least about Sam throwing a hissy fit. He wasn't so sure that going all the way to Colorado was going to fix either the gaping hole in his heart or John's last request.
Bobby was waiting and Dean was sure that Sam was as well, probably secreted behind the window or the door, just waiting for him to say no so that he could jump down his throat about how Dean wasn't okay or dealing.
"Fine," Dean said, tossing the rag down and heaving a sigh. "To Colorado. Only, I'm not sitting there and listening to Sam go off about some dead dude. I'm just there to supervise so that you both don't lose your heads over some books."
#
They had all crammed into Bobby's pickup, it being about the only functional car on the lot, and had begun the twelve-hour drive to Colorado.
Most of the ride was spent in silence.
Dean had 'don't talk to me' plastered all over his face, and Sam wasn't going to push it. Not with an audience and not when Dean looked to regret his decision to come along.
Sam didn't.
Things were bad enough without Dean being left alone for who knew how long to stew in his grief. Sam also was more than grateful to not be sitting around with nothing to do at Bobby's but think. He didn't want to think about the guilt that was slowly crushing him, about how John was dead and that he would never get to talk to him. He just wanted to honor John, he wanted to help people.
He wanted to help Dean.
Bobby seemed content to sit there and hum along with the music.
When they reached Mount Rosa, their destination, Sam pulled out the map that he had marked ahead of time and began to guide them through the increasingly narrow back roads. Once the road ended, Bobby parked the truck off on the side and they dug out their backpacks, preparing to hike further in and towards the coordinates that Sam had predetermined to be the location of Gideon's cabin. He had managed to narrow it down to a five-mile search radius from clues and hints that had been left behind in the letters. He had also pulled heavily from numerous journals and reports of Pike's Expedition, cross-examining them with the information in the letters.
Gideon had wanted to be found, Sam was sure of it, because it would have been so easy to simply disappear without any hints of where he was going. He just hadn't wanted to be found by monsters. Just by the people he loved.
Sam could understand that.
It took them an hour to reach the coordinates, which they then broke down into smaller sections to hike through. Dean didn't seem thrilled about it, his body language sullen as he trailed behind both Bobby and Sam, but Bobby didn't seem to be losing interest so that was something.
Hopefully it meant that Sam hadn't dragged them out here for nothing.
Over four hours later, with a stroke of pure luck, Bobby spotted the cabin.
It was small and tucked far back into a solid grove of trees that would have been easy to miss if they hadn't been looking for it, and that was before it had had about two hundred years for the foliage to grow and further camouflage it from view.
Sam couldn't help but feel excited as they hurried towards it, turning to share a triumphant grin with Dean, and to his surprise, his brother's bad mood seemed to have been momentarily forgotten, the palpable excitement contagious.
Sam's smile grew. Dean's eyes were still overshadowed with grief, but for the moment this was a step forward if a small one.
Sam reached the door first and pulled at the handle. He wasn't surprised to find it locked. Bobby reached into his pocket, pulled out his lock-picking kit, and handed it over Dean's shoulder to Sam.
Sam crouched down to be at face level with the lock.
Dean began to examine the exterior of the cabin as Sam fiddled with the rusty door handle. "You know," he began and Sam glanced back up at Dean, ready to give him his full and undivided attention "This little uninhabited part of the forest might not make such a bad hideout. If we fixed up this cabin a little, it probably wouldn't even make such a bad summer home."
"Right," Sam scoffed, "because a two-hundred-year-old cabin would offer such an ideal situation."
Dean grinned and it made Sam smile again, some of the constant anxiety and worry that seemed to have permanently settled in the pit of his belly loosening. Bobby was right, it had been a good idea to make the drive down here. Dean was interacting with him, that had to mean something, right?
Neither of them was thinking about John.
Sam's heart sank again and he closed his eyes, the sudden grief strong, before taking a deep breath and focusing on the lock.
"We've squatted in worse. We could actually own this," Dean continued.
"That's probably because this is all you could afford with your credit score," Bobby chimed in.
Dean made a face, making Bobby snort. "I'm not buying it! We're just…moving in and declaring it ours. No one else wants it. No one else even knows where it is."
"Yeah, and you can thank me that we know where it is," Sam said pointedly. The lock finally clicked and he straightened.
They fell silent as a heavy sense of anticipation filled the air, and all three of them crowded forward as Sam eased the door open.
They leaned in eagerly in hopes of seeing…what exactly Sam didn't even really know.
None of them were expecting the old gun that was dangling from a fraying piece of rope that was attached to the ceiling. Another length of twine was hanging loosely from the door handle and looked to be attached to the trigger.
They stared at it, Sam cocking his head to the side.
"Was that supposed to go off and kill whoever was next through the door?" he asked, glancing back at the other two.
"Probably. That's kind of cool, actually," Dean said with another smile that almost reached his eyes.
"Not cool if it had gone off," Bobby said with such exasperation that Sam snorted. Bobby gave them both meaningful glares. "That means be careful. Who knows what other booby traps might be laying around, ones that haven't had two hundred years to break down."
"Right," Sam said seriously as he checked for any trip wires before carefully stepping over the threshold. "I don't think that Gideon was exactly mentally stable even before he went off the grid and stopped having human interactions."
Grabbing the lightly swinging gun, he carefully cut it free, just in case, and set it aside against the wall where it couldn't do any harm. It was coated in a light film of rust and he glanced up, noticing the various holes that had eroded into the ceiling.
Summer cabin, his ass.
The two-room cabin was small, and the front room yielded nothing more exciting than the gun and mouse droppings.
This time it was Bobby who carefully eased the door open into what appeared to be the bedroom.
There were no traps, but the three of them stopped, all the same, blinking in surprise.
The walls were covered in symbols that had been crudely carved into the wood. Anti-demonic possession, safeguards, a mix of Latin, and many that Sam didn't even know adored almost every inch of the walls.
"Wow." Sam turned in a small circle, looking around him.
Dean snorted. "I dunno if 'wow' is the word that I would use. Maybe unsteady and deranged psychopath. This is a little too redrum for me."
"It's not like we haven't all left motel rooms looking about the same," Bobby said with a shrug before he crossed to a dust-coated desk. "Sam, look—" he pointed to several leather-bound diaries that were resting there next to a quill and a lantern. A knife also lay haphazardly on the desk, as if Gideon had thrown it down with every intention of coming back for it only to never do so.
Picking one of the diaries up, Bobby blew the dust off the top, making Dean cough.
Sam squeezed past Dean, coming to stand next to Bobby, and tugged a second diary out for himself to peruse. Wiping the dust off with the sleeve of his jacket, he flipped it open to what appeared to be a decent drawing of a wendigo.
Squinting in the low light that was trickling in from various holes in the roof, he began to read.
Tis the eight-thousand and fifth year of our Lord, if my count be rite, and the second day of the seventh month. This mourning, I lifted my firearm against—
Sam couldn't make out the next word and leaned in closer. The handwriting matched Gideon's, not that he was worried that they had stumbled across some other hunter's abandoned cabin.
He slowly dropped down to sit on Gideon's rickety bed that was in the corner, causing a puff of dust to fly up from the faded patchwork quilt, as he continued to read. Gideon did not know how wendigos had been created—he spent a whole paragraph detailing how wendigos must have been men and woman who had sinned most abominably and offended God—but he hit everything else spot on.
Flipping a couple of pages over, Sam blinked in surprise at the drawing there. He had no clue what that creature was and he began to trace along with one finger as he tried to decipher the words.
Dean made a noise that, in better times, might have been amusement and Sam looked up. "What?"
"You're a total nerd, did you know that? Only you would get off on some dead dude's journal."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Go find something else to do. I'm trying to read."
Dean made a face that Sam ignored and then disappeared back into the front room. Bobby was flipping eagerly through one of the journals.
"Sam, look at this," he said a moment later and Sam looked up for the second time as Bobby brought the journal over. Sketched over two pages was a map of the area, with small drawings marking where the cabin was and what looked to be a few other important locations.
"One of these looks to be a root cellar, probably for rations and other supplies," Bobby said excitedly. "Gideon was just a paranoid enough bastard that he might have left something valuable hidden there. I'm going to go see if I can find it."
"Have fun. And take Dean with you before he gets bored and comes back in here to bug me," Sam said with a well-meaning smile.
"I heard that!" Dean called from the other room and Sam's shoulders relaxed. This was good, really good.
Sam waited a heartbeat to see if Dean was going to say anything else before turning back to the journal, determined now to get through the passage on what turned out to be a Nuckelavee if he was reading it correctly. He heard Dean and Bobby talking softly, and then the front door opened and closed.
He thought for sure that Dean had gone with Bobby until he heard a sudden, "No freakin' way!"
Sam looked up once more. "What?"
"Dude! You've got to come check this out! He has a freakin' sword hidden in his wall."
"What?" Sam repeated in bafflement as he closed the journal, keeping one finger there to mark his spot, and went to stand in the doorway. Dean grinned proudly at him, and this time there was no faking it.
"Look at this," he said, pointing at what appeared to be a secret compartment inside the wall that had been filled with various weapons, including the sword that Dean was now holding. "So, I was thinking that the proportions of the room seemed kind of funny compared to the outside and I found some loose panels, so I pulled them open, and there all this was."
"I guess that Gideon truly was a hunter through and through," Sam said, shaking his head. If you knew what to look for, all hunters really were the same.
"We are so coming back here and making this into our own secret hideout. No one would ever find us." Dean grinned broadly as Sam made a non-committal noise. He began to carefully turn the sword around, examining it as Sam leaned against the doorjamb.
"You know, Gideon served in the Revolutionary War, that is probably where that sword is from. He served under Captain James Wilkinson, who was one of the guys who was supposed to help head and fund Pike's Expedition. That was how Gideon was chosen to join the expedition in the first place. And get this, they never actually set foot on Pike's Peak, which is named for Pike and isn't far from here but this was the mountain that they actually climbed."
Dean didn't look up from the sword. "Didn't know that, and probably will never need to know that. The only reason I know anything about Lewis and Clark was because of Sacagawea."
"She was a big part of the reason—"
Dean held up a hand, stopping him. "Sam, no offense, but I don't care. At all. I got a wall full of weapons here."
Sam huffed a little and easily pushed off the door as he returned to the bedroom and sat back down on the bed.
The small sting of hurt hardly registered anymore, he had been turned down so many times like that, although to be fair it had mainly been by John. Dean was usually good to let him prattle on, this just…wasn't the ideal time. But it did make him miss Jess. She had been willing to sit there and listen to him over a cup of coffee for however long it took for him to talk through whatever he had just learned.
The wave of longing and grief that washed over him for her mixed with that for his father, and Sam had to blink back sudden tears. At least with Jess, they hadn't exchanged angry words the last time that they had seen each other. At least Jess knew that he loved her.
His last words to John were weighing heavily on his heart, probably heavier than Dean would ever realize.
But if John would have just talked with him, explained what he had been planning to do at the hospital... A strong surge of guilt and shame tightened in Sam's gut. The horrible, horrible, truth was that Sam might not have stopped it, not if that was the only way to get Dean back. But he could have offered himself as the sacrifice instead. He had also been working on something to save Dean, and if they would have just pulled their resources together, maybe it would have been different. John knew more than Sam probably ever would about the supernatural, surely that hadn't been the only way to save Dean but then again, maybe he should just be grateful that it hadn't ended with both his father and his brother dead.
Something cold and hard settled into the bottom of his stomach at the thought of Dean not being the one to make it out of the hospital. He could live with John dead, even if it hurt like hell, but he didn't know if he could do it without Dean.
He looked over to see Dean pulling the sword halfway out of the sheath with a small grin. He looked up as if sensing Sam's eyes on him.
"This is goin' in the Impala's trunk," he said as he slammed the sword back into the sheath and Sam spluttered out a laugh.
"What are we going to do with a sword?"
"I dunno, but the more weapons you have the better prepared you are, you know what Dad—"
Dean cut himself off and Sam watched as some of the weight that had so briefly lifted from his face returned. He frowned before turning his back on Sam.
Sam didn't know how to fix this, how to make things better for Dean.
He stared helplessly at his brother for a moment, before shaking his head and turning uselessly back to the journal.
Opening it to where he had left off, he once again began to read. When that page turned out to be too difficult to decipher without putting in effort, Sam flipped to the end, reading the last entry in the journal.
I hafe seen – and know that they are coming for me. They hafe discovered my location. They are coming, and they wil atack, of that I can not be more certain. The monsters will kill me before the winter snow fals.
Gideon had been disillusioned and paranoid. The poor bastard had gone crazy before the end.
There was only one more paragraph after that, and Sam was just starting to read it when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a sudden unease filled him.
His breath plumed out in front of him, the room suddenly ice-cold.
Uh-oh.
Raising his head, Sam came eye to eye with the ghostly apparition of a wide-eyed man who was staring at him with terror. It had to be Gideon Wells, there was no one else it could be.
They both gawked at each other in an extended moment of disbelief.
Sam broke it.
"Dean, we've got—" he started to call out, rising from the bed, but he was too late. Gideon flickered out, appearing a second later right in front of Sam's face.
"Monster…" the word hissed out all around Sam as Gideon wrapped a pale hand around his throat, shoving him up against the nearest wall.
"Dean—" Sam tried to rasp out, but he needn't have worried. Dean had come at his first call.
"Oh, crap," Dean said from the doorway, his eyes going round even as he began to back up, probably to go find some weapon that could be used against the ghost.
The pressure against Sam's throat increased and he gasped raggedly, tilting his head back in an effort to get some air.
"Monsters!" the word was half screamed throughout the cabin as Gideon leaned in closer, murderous intent in his wild eyes. There was nothing that Sam could do but he scrabbled uselessly at Gideon's nonexistent hands, all the same, trying to break the hold and find some relief.
Gideon abruptly released him, and Sam dropped onto his knees, coughing roughly, and looked up to see Dean charging through the door holding an iron poker. His face was stone cold, his eyes deadly.
Sam took advantage of the distraction to clumsily stagger upright, reaching for the old knife that was on the desk with the desperate hope that it was made of iron.
With one flick of his hand, Gideon sent Dean flying backward and into the main room. Before Dean could find his feet again, the door separating them was slammed shut.
Sam lunged forward, driving the knife into Gideon's back. Nothing happened and Gideon slowly turned his cold, pale, gaze onto Sam, who began to back up, looking around desperately for another weapon.
The knife was clearly not made of iron. Why had they all been such idiots? Why hadn't they come prepared for something like this? John would have been so disappointed in them.
"Monster…" Gideon hissed again, his voice quiet enough that Sam almost missed it over the heavy thud of what was probably Dean throwing himself up against the door.
"SAM!" he yelled, followed by another thud.
"I'm okay! Find Bobby!" Sam called back, trying to offer reassurance to his panicking brother even as he watched Gideon warily.
He was flickering in and out, his face alight with hatred, but Sam could still see the fear that was written there.
They had surprised Gideon as much as he had surprised them.
"What are you?" Gideon finally asked, the words swirling oddly around them. Sam held out his hands in a placating gesture.
"I'm not a monster," he said calmly. "I'm a hunter, like you, Gideon."
It was the wrong thing to say. Gideon let out an unearthly shriek and then Sam was flung back, his body pinned against the nearest wall. "How dare you use my rightful name. Speak, you bastard from hell, and tell me how you found me!"
Sam grunted, trying to fight against the invisible restraints but they only increased until he felt like he was being crushed underneath it.
"Not—" Sam tried to gasp out, fighting for air once again. "Dead, Gideon, you're—"
Everything was growing faint. He could distantly hear Dean throwing himself up against the door, could hear him calling his name, but everything was fading as blackness encroached on his vision.
Fear surged through him, not for himself, but for his brother. What would Dean do if—
Sam sucked air in desperately as some of the pressure let up and he blinked away the darkness.
"I always knew that a being from the fiery pits of hell would try and find me. To kill me," Gideon spat, his nonexistent fingers coming up to grip Sam's chin, forcing him to look directly into his pale eyes.
Sam glared back. "Gideon," he tried again, but the pressure instantly resumed a stark warning.
"Do not refer to me by my rightful name, monster. Simply tell me how you didst find me and if there are more of your kind coming. If you choose not to, then it will be to your folly." The knife that Sam had grabbed earlier flew up from where he had dropped it on the floor, coming to rest within Gideon's actual hand.
Sam watched it warily.
"Think back. You died. You're dead," he said, trying to break Gideon free of the complete denial that he was in.
He paid for his words as the knife whipped up, flaying open the skin on his cheek.
Sam flinched but otherwise didn't react as warm blood began to drip down his face. He continued to meet Gideon's eyes steadily. "You must know somewhere deep down that you're dead. You died over two hundred years ago."
The knife flew upwards again, cutting into his other cheek and Sam grunted.
"You aren't even holding the knife! How do you explain that?" he asked in some exasperation but Gideon just blinked, looking confused before his mouth thinned.
"I've tortured monsters for less, I will figure out how you came across my location, and then I will kill you and every monster that you know."
The knife trailed downwards, coming to rest against the hollow of his throat and Sam froze. A flicker of a grin crossed Gideon's face, but he must not have been ready to kill Sam just yet because the knife dropped lower, slashing a deep line across Sam's collarbone. Without giving him warning or a chance to recover, Gideon plunged the knife more deeply into the meat of Sam's left arm, cutting a jagged line down almost to his elbow.
Sam couldn't stop the cry of pain this time as blood began to rapidly soak into his shirt.
"SAMMY!" the scream came from the other room and Sam closed his eyes, trying to pull himself together.
"You're dead," he gasped out roughly, trying one last time to get through to Gideon. "Think back. You must remember dying. You chose not to move on."
Gideon just skipped over the words, apparently in utter and complete denial of what had happened to him
"How did you find me?"
The knife moved over to Sam's other arm, and Gideon placed the tip delicately against the middle of his forearm. The knife began to turn, slowly biting into the skin and then the muscle. Sam grunted, pressing his head back against the wall and blinking sweat out of his eyes. The knife began to twist faster and Sam looked away, feeling both hot and cold at the same time.
"Tell me!"
"I—"
Something crashed against the door and Gideon's head turned in that direction, his eyes flickering between it and Sam.
A moment later, he vanished.
The invisible restraints holding Sam up disappeared along with him, and he crumpled to the floor.
Gritting his teeth, Sam wrenched the knife from his arm. Blood began to rapidly leak from the now open and jagged wound but there would be time for first-aid later. Picking up the bloody knife with his left hand, he used the wall to pull himself upright.
Gideon was in the other room with Dean and he wasn't losing Dean, especially not to some ghost who didn't even know that the was dead.
Clutching the knife, Sam strode towards the door. Gideon was playing fast and hard with the rules of being a ghost, but maybe that meant that he could intimidate him in ways that they couldn't with most other ones.
Sam hadn't even reached the door, however, before the temperature of the room plummeted again and Gideon reappeared right behind him. The knife was yanked out of Sam's hand, flying towards Gideon whose face had been twisted in an undeniable mix of fear and fury.
Gideon growled low in his throat and then Sam was flying back against the opposite wall with a crack that left his head spinning.
"How did you find me?" Gideon asked again, the words louder and more disjointed than before. Whatever had happened in the other room had scared him, but Sam wasn't sure that that was a good thing.
The knife was shaking, and Sam held still, watching it with one eye even as he began to slowly raise his hands in surrender, showing that he was unarmed.
"I told you, I'm not a monster. Me and my brother, we're hunters. We came to try and find you."
"LIES!" Gideon shrieked and before Sam could do anything the knife was hurtling at him. It rammed straight through the center of his palm on his left hand and into the wall.
The blinding pain wrenched a hoarse cry from him that had Dean screaming his name again.
Dropping his head, he gritted his teeth together, trying to regain control.
Gideon's lips curled upwards into a cruel smile that showed no mercy. "You are not like me. You are filthy, a creature that deserves to die."
From underneath the lumpy pillow on the bed, another knife came flying out and came to hover with the blade pressed against Sam's pinned hand.
"How did you and your monster fiend find me?" Gideon asked, pressing the edge of the blade against his ring and middle fingers. Slowly, he began to saw back and forth and Sam's stomach turned in sickening horror. He was about to lose his fingers, he probably would have already if the knife hadn't been dull.
"I—" The skin was splitting open, blood dribbling down to mix with that from his other wounds and his eyes fluttered shut as he tried to think around the building pain.
"Speak!"
Gideon wasn't going to stop. Sam could lose a finger or two and still live to tell Gideon whatever he wanted to know. Hell, he had nine other ones for Gideon to cut off if he wanted to. His brain scrambled, trying to come up with something to stall Gideon long enough for Dean to get there because Dean was coming. Dean always came.
"Your letters! I used your letters to find you," Sam gasped out, but once again he had said the wrong thing.
Gideon's face went hard. "My letters? How did you…" he trailed off, and then his eyes widened, horror dawning across his features. "You killed my family, didn't you? I told them to come with me, to run, but they wouldn't listen and you killed them!" he snarled and suddenly the knife was clattering to the ground as Gideon pressed his hand over Sam's heart.
"No, no, I swear, they were worried about you, they wanted us to find you," Sam lied, giving up completely on trying to get Gideon to see reason, but it was too late.
Gideon's fingers were sinking into his chest, closing around his heart.
"YOU KILLED THEM!" Gideon shrieked furiously, but Sam was having trouble focusing on anything that wasn't Gideon's hand in his chest. He couldn't breathe around the awful pressure that would not let up as the life was squeezed out of him with agonizing brutality.
"Dean—" he managed to choke out even as Gideon's grip tightened, his face pressed up almost against Sam's as his hand dug in deeper. Sam might have been screaming, he didn't know anymore, he couldn't make out anything. It had all come down to the hand in his chest, the hand wrapped around his heart.
Everything had gone blurry, and he could no longer make out Gideon's features.
Somewhere, distantly, there was a loud crack, followed by another and then a voice that he knew better than his own was calling out his name.
Blinking desperately to see through his fading vision, Sam hazily watched Dean charging forward, brandishing the poker like he was some avenging warrior.
Iron, Sam thought distantly even as he tried to meet Dean's eyes, tried to communicate, but everything was going black.
The last thing that he saw before his eyes rolled back and consciousness fled was the utter terror lining Dean's face.