Feels like Midnight

Chapter 3

Oh all right, I'll let Sam do the talking today. He does like to talk. And talk and talk and talk.

Dean made a sound like he was drowning, half-gasping, half coughing.

Sam jumped and let the paper drop slightly so he could see Dean over the top. The sight before him made him throw the paper aside. Dean had a hand clenched in the fabric of his shirt. He was white as a sheet and he was holding himself like it hurt to breathe, his clenched hand over his heart. He brought his other hand up to his head and laid it carefully against his temple. He had a split lip and bruises blooming around his nose and one eye.

"Dean?" He didn't get a response. His brother coughed and bent double nearly putting his face in his half-eaten sandwich. Sam shoved the plate out of the way. "Dean," he said again, more urgently this time.

"A minute, S-Sam. Give me a m-minute," Dean wheezed.

Sam turned toward the waitress and had just opened his mouth to ask for an ambulance when he heard, "No. No ambulance." At least that's what he thought it was. Dean's jaw was clenched so tightly, he could hardly understand him.

Sam shifted out of the booth and moved to the other side to perch next to his brother. He laid a hand on his back and nearly removed it when Dean flinched.

"Dean?" He waited several seconds and still didn't get an answer. "Dean!"

"I hear you," Dean said, breathing through his nose, trying to slow himself down. "S'ok. Gonna be ok." Sam wasn't sure if his brother was talking to him or to himself.

"Are you sure you don't want an ambulance? I… I didn't think that thing hit you that hard," Sam grimaced, guilt washing over him. "You might have internal injuries. It threw you against that post pretty hard." Dean must have been hurt far more than he had let on. But the bruises and the split lip, those were new. And he was grabbing his chest. He'd hit his back against the post. What in the world was going on?

Dean finally raised his head and opened his eyes, eyes bright with pain, Sam noted. Dean took one more breath and then blew it out through his mouth slowly. "Not the zombie. The Clampetts. The Clampetts from hell. You don't remember?"

"Remember what?" Sam asked worriedly. "We just got here a few minutes ago. You haven't even finished your food."

Dean groaned and Sam saw several of the men at the counter turn to look at them.

"You don't remember anything?" Dean slowly raised his eyes to meet his brother's. "The house in the clearing. Sweet little Elly May with the big nasty shotgun? Nothing ringing a bell?"

Sam frowned, warning bells going off about head injuries. "What are you talking about, Dean? We haven't been to any house. That old lady lived in a trailer."

"Not her, Jethro. The other woman. She shot you," Dean said, glaring, anger rising to the surface.

"Uhh… no," Sam said, starting to get angry himself, though he wasn't sure why other than that Dean was getting angry. "The old lady tried to get us arrested for stomping on her flowers on the way to the shed. No shooting involved. Not even from the nice cops who escorted us off and told us not to come back."

Dean sat back, but stiffened when his shoulders made contact with the back of the booth. He brought his hand back up to massage his head and Sam noticed the heavy bruising on his wrist.

"How did you do that?"

"Don't worry about it," Dean exhaled again slowly. "Go sit back on your side. We need to talk and you're giving me a crick in my neck looking at you."

"Dean, you're going to fall over if I move," Sam said lowly. "You look like Quasimodo you're so hunched." Dean immediately forced himself to sit up, his face betraying nothing and Sam scowled. It was his own fault for telling Dean how worn he looked. His brother would hurt himself more just to prove how not hurt he was.

"Listen, Esmeralda… unless you're planning on dating me, move your ass to the other side. And let me say right now you're way too needy and not nearly pretty enough."

"Dean," Sam said in exasperation.

"Sam. Ass. Away." He pointed to the other side of the booth.

Sam tried to ignore the gruff tone. An injured Dean was not a pleasant person to spend an evening with. "Fine. Jerk. See if I call you an ambulance."

Sam looked up and caught the waitress' eye, motioning for her to bring the check, but Dean immediately waved her back. "No hurry. Trust me. We're not going anywhere any time soon."

"You're serious?" Sam asked, dumbfounded.

"My pounding headache tells me it's very true."

"I shot you?" Sam asked again. His heart constricted painfully. He'd killed him. Sam thought of his gun sitting in the trunk and it nearly made him ill.

"Yup," Dean said casually, like it didn't really matter.

"Dean, I'm… so… I wouldn't…" How do you say I'm sorry I killed you? Hallmark didn't have anything for that. No one had anything for that.

"It's all right, Sammy," Dean smiled and if it weren't his brother, he'd have said he was being kind. "It wasn't you." The implication, of course, was that last time it had been. Though he refused to talk about it, Sam knew how much it still hurt Dean to think of the asylum. With time and distance, his brother had forgiven him… to a point. This shooting apparently didn't rankle like that had.

"Thanks. I think." This whole situation was a disaster of monumental proportions. First the zombie fiasco and now Dean was, literally, dying to get them out of here. The scary thing was that if Dean was right they couldn't leave until they'd fixed it. It was well past dark. They had no library they could visit and a quick check of the laptop showed they had no internet connection, nothing. They were on their own. The other scary thing was that not only was Dean's mind remembering, but so was his body. Dean… well he wasn't looking good. He didn't realize it, but he was starting to hunch forward again against the pain in his chest.

"Ok," Sam said, thinking out loud, "Why are you remembering everything and not me? You said we switched places this time. I should be remembering and you should have forgotten."

"No clue," Dean said, and Sam had the uncomfortable feeling he didn't really have the energy to say more than that.

Sam motioned toward the waitress again, waving her over. "You from around here?" he asked.

"Born and raised," she smiled, ripping their ticket from her booklet and setting it on the table.

"You ever heard of anything strange happening around here? A little house about a half mile up the road?"

The woman's eyes flew to his and the smile faded from her face. "That's not funny."

Dean finally looked up and focused on her. "Wasn't supposed to be," he said, no trace of his usual detached amusement showing. Of all things, he looked… interested. Sam supposed dying was enough to get even Dean's attention.

"My family used to live there," she said flatly.

Sam patted the seat next to him and scooted over. The waitress cast an embarrassed glance over her shoulder, then sat just barely on the edge of the seat.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Dean asked, and as always Sam was amazed at how much kindness his battle-scarred brother could put into his voice. It was a rare view into the Dean who might have been, a Dean who had been raised by a mother who loved him, who didn't know about the monsters. It was also the Dean who would unknowingly bare his soul because he was asking someone to do the same. "Please," he added.

She looked at Dean, studying him, trying to see beneath the surface, completely oblivious to his damaged features.

"We know there was a… shooting," Dean prompted. Sam knew that he didn't want to use the word murder. The woman was already skittish. Again the waitress studied Dean intently, remaining silent until Sam wanted to cough or drop something, anything to cause some movement.

Dean only returned her gaze, steady and relaxed. A good hunter knew how to wait. Sam doubted the waitress even knew anyone else was in the room.

"You were just a little girl. Were you there?" Dean asked quietly.

The waitress nodded.

"What happened?" he asked again.

"My sister was older than I was." She cleared her throat and began tapping the pen she held against the table, going from skittish to agitated. Sam carefully blanked his expression. Dean, he noticed, was going for distant, but sympathetic. "I… I knew she had a boyfriend. He'd come around late at night and Sis would sneak out the window. Daddy caught him one night sneaking up to the house. He'd… he'd warned him to stay away…" The waitress looked at them both, pain written on her features.

"Is there more?" Dean asked softly. "We need to know. We… we think we saw something in that field."

"That house was torn down years ago," the woman said, irritation replacing agitation. "It's been plowed over. Nothing but a cornfield now."

"Please," Dean urged again. "Just tell us what happened."

Her face clouded in anger. "Daddy shot him. That's what happened. And then," she hissed furiously, "my sister went crazy. She got Daddy's shotgun out of his room and shot him when he came back to the house. She shot herself after that. That's what happened. That what you needed to know? Did one of these old fools put you up to this?" She stabbed a finger toward the men sitting at the counter. "They think it's funny bringing up that night?"

"No," Dean said and put a calming hand over hers where it sat on the table. Sam knew just how much it cost his brother to purposely break his personal space rules. "They don't think it's funny. They haven't said a word," Dean soothed.

"That night… I… I just thought that if I could get here… If I could just get to the diner, someone could help me." Again she angrily looked behind her to the counter at the men all fixedly studying their coffee.

"Thank you for your help," Dean said sincerely.

"Yes, thank you for telling us," Sam added, also using his voice to soothe the woman's ruffled feathers. "Something happened to us in that field. We're just trying to figure out a way to make it right."

The waitress made an angry huffing noise and stood, although she seemed slightly mollified. "Well unless you're miracle workers, there's no making it right. Nothing but disaster has ever come of being in that field."

"You're telling me," Dean frowned.

Sam pulled several bills from his pocket and handed them to her. It was no doubt more than they owed, but he didn't mind. Even though she wouldn't remember the tip next time, the waitress was their only lead if the situation went bad again. "Thanks for the advice," Sam said earnestly. He might not remember next time, but Dean would.

"No, thank you," she said, pocketing the money and already moving away. "You boys come back now."

Dean's head snapped up so fast Sam winced. It had to have hurt him, though Dean was fighting not to let it show.

"She keeps saying that," Dean muttered. "I wish she'd knock it off. It's giving me the creeps."

"You're lucky she'll still talk to us. You look like you were in a bar fight and lost."

"Not even close," Dean coughed and clutched at his chest again. "I was suckered in by a chick and then you got yourself all possessed again. So... two chicks really." He gave him a lopsided grin.

Sam grimaced. "Great… I shot you again and I can't even remember it this time. So you get to hold it against me and I don't get the pleasure of real guilt."

"Oh don't worry," Dean assured him. "I'll make sure you feel plenty guilty. You cause me any more grief, I'm gonna call…"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Who? Dad? Cause he'll just yell at you for getting me shot."

Dean sat back in the booth, suddenly deflated, and Sam was instantly sorry he'd said it. For just a second, so fleeting he could have missed it, pain crossed his brother's face and Sam knew it was not physical. That their father still held the Shtriga hurting him against Dean, yet couldn't even be bothered to call when Dean was dying… It infuriated Sam, but it was nonetheless true. Dean didn't need to be reminded about how little their father seemed to care for his welfare.

"Sorry," Sam said, which seemed totally inadequate.

"Never be sorry for the truth," Dean sighed again and rubbed absentmindedly at his chest. Like everything else that hurt Dean, he simply accepted it. It broke Sam's heart to think, deep down, his brother didn't feel entitled to… well anything… Not consideration or kindness or even fair play… Not even from his own father. Dean didn't hold it against their father that he'd just left him without a word, that he hadn't checked on them when they were practically begging for his help. Dean didn't hold it against him, but Sam did. He might hold it against their father enough for Dean too.

"All right," Dean sat up a little straighter and it seemed to help his breathing. "What are we going to do? My ideas keep getting us shot."

"I think the problem was that we were working with only part of the story," Sam decided.

"So now we've got it. Two murders and one suicide."

They both looked up, hearing a man clear his throat. He was wearing bib overalls and a ball cap with a seed company logo printed on it. "I… I couldn't help overhearing."

Sam frowned, but motioned for the man to continue.

The man leaned over, putting his hands flat on the table. "Please," he said urgently. "You have to help us!"

Hmm… that was a little longer than expected. Sam really does like to talk a lot. This is supposed to be action/adventure. I'll try to tone it down for next time. Less with the talk, more with the smite.