Chapter 6
The low rumble of the Impala's engine, followed by a stern command from Dean, broke Sam from his trance-like state. He silently willed himself forward, giving full attention to his feet as he approached the car. Sam could hear his heart pounding, each thump echoing louder and louder with every step taken. He wiped his sweaty palms on his unwashed jeans repeatedly, the nervous action betraying the stoic look he was trying so desperately to maintain. He let out a shaky breath as he reached for the door handle and with trembling hands, opened the door slowly, and eased into his place beside his brother.
Sam sat quietly playing with his glasses as Dean shifted the car into drive and peeled out of the parking lot reprimanding him for taking so long to get in. Dean's ribbing didn't bother him. It was his seemingly laid back attitude that grated Sam's nerves. His brother insisted on issuing sarcastic comments about every quaint two-story house in the picture perfect town along the drive, but stubbornly refused to discuss the issue at hand.
Sam, on the other hand, was experiencing thousands of rampant emotions which he knew he couldn't withhold expressing for much longer. His head throbbed under the tension, and his stomach churned as he considered the possible future that was rapidly confronting them. The source of his current uneasy state was Dean, and Sam fought hard to remember a time in his life, when his brother wasn't the cause of his turmoil. Dean was the only person on the entire planet that could turn Sam into a complete and utter wreck. And he determined that there was no way he was letting Dean off the hook for this one. Sam needed an outlet and he needed one now.
"Dean." Sam began, turning his body so that he was facing his brother, "C'mon, man. We need to talk."
"I don't want to." Dean responded deeply, his words holding a force that should've screamed at Sam to drop the issue.
"And I don't care." Sam snapped heatedly.
"Fine. Go ahead, talk." Dean relented harshly, and for a moment Sam thought his brother actually had given him the go ahead to spill and have a "chic-flick" moment that Dean claimed to despise. But he soon realized what his brother really had in mind when he caught sight of Dean's hand moving toward the volume knob of the tape deck.
Before Sam considered his options of proper response, he knocked Dean's hand away and hit the eject button hard, quickly grabbing his brother's beloved Metallica tape and angrily throwing it into the old shoebox at his feet. The action failed to yield the sense of control he was hoping for. So, he picked up the box and hurled it toward the back seat, taking immense joy in the clatter of the plastic as the collection scattered.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dean roared, fighting to maintain control of the wheel as he brought his free hand, still stinging from where Sam had hit it, firmly to the back of his little brother's head.
"If I'm gonna talk you're gonna listen, dammit!" Sam yelled, fire in his eyes.
"Only if you promise to stop destroying my stuff." Dean demanded bitterly, his tone close to resembling normal, a fact to which Sam was grateful.
"Sure, Dean, whatever."
"I'm serious, Sammy. Those tapes are the coolest non-weapon thing I own, next to my jacket, of course." Dean replied genuinely, a twinkle in his eye as he bit his lower lip to prevent a smile.
"I know, Dean. I know." Sam shook his head at his brother's statement and feeling the tension in the car subsiding, exhaled deeply before continuing, "So, uh, April 10th 2006, huh?"
"Yeah." Dean muttered
"Can I ask why?" Sam ventured, shifting slightly when Dean didn't answer right away.
"Well, like I told you, the weather's nice."
"Oh, yeah. Man, I am stupid. The weather's always nice on April 10th." Sam replied, his words dripping with sarcasm.
"Yeah, you are," Dean retorted jokingly, "And I told you--I picked April cause the weather's nice, the date had nothing to do with it."
"Okay, so why the date? What's so special about the 10th? Or this year for that matter?" Sam inquired completely intrigued as to what action or issue had determined his brother's thought process some ten years ago.
"Dude, I bet your professors hated you--with all those questions. I bet you held the class over a time or two, didn't you, college boy?" Dean laughed
"Dean." Sam chided
"Alright, man. Uh, well, when we wrote the thing, it was early January. And Dad had told me once about me not living past thirty if I wasn't more careful on the hunts and stuff. So, I figured ten more years would work. I mean, it's before thirty and doing what we do, you know?" Dean shrugged and shot a glance at Sam from the corner of his eye to see if he'd accepted his answer.
"You're totally fine with the idea of dying before you hit middle age?" Sam asked, visibly stunned.
"C'mon, Sam. It's not like we have a desk job."
"We could." Sam murmured under his breath.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. And the 10th?" Dean shook his head at Sam's insistence.
"Numerics, little bro, ten years, so ten days. Believe it or not, I had a really hard time picking a day and that was the easiest way to do it." Sam smiled upon getting a window into Dean's twisted logic, but he had to admit it made sense in a screwed up kind of way.
"Well way to go, genius, 'cause now we have 2 more days left to kill this thing before it comes for you."
"At least we know it's coming." Dean replied off-handedly as the tall, gray-stone library came into view.
"Yeah, that makes it so much better." Sam shot back bitterly, "So, since you had such a hard time picking a date, choosing a way to die must've been harder, right?"
"Nope, that was easy." Dean stated lightly as he chose a parking spot far away from all the other cars.
"Really? Okay, so what'd you choose?" Sam asked nervously.
"It doesn't matter, Sammy." Dean smiled and then exited the car, starting the rather long trek toward the building. Sam quickly bolted from the car and his long legs soon met Dean's pace.
"It's Sam. And how can you say that, Dean? How am I supposed to save you if I don't know what I'm protecting you from?" Sam pleaded anxiously as they approached the entrance.
"I don't need you to save me Sam." Dean replied over his shoulder, leaving a gaping Sam behind him, as he stepped into the library.
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The musty smell of books and old leather hung in the air encompassing Dean as he entered the old building. He quickly scanned the surrounding area, only spotting a small group of high school students at the center table and two older ladies in the corner deep in conversation. Sure that neither group posed a threat of any kind; he set off to find the circulation desk. Not that a demon would chose a library as a base of operations, but it never hurt anyone to be cautious.
He frowned upon viewing the librarian. He'd hoped to find a young, attractive, preferably mid 20s, women. What he got was an older, grayer, balding, 60-something man who directed him to the town records without so much as looking at him.
Dean thanked the man, and hurried off to the back columns. He searched the leathered spines, and decided to start with 1996 seeing as that year in particular concerned him. He grabbed the book from the shelf and opened it, flipping the yellowed pages as he headed towards the study tables. He jumped slightly when he rounded the corner and saw Sam sitting at the table, drumming his fingers in impatience.
"What do you mean you don't need me to save you?" Sam whispered sharply.
"And you say I'm slow on the uptake." Dean smirked, dropping the book down on the table and taking the seat across from his brother.
"I can recall plenty of times I saved your ass over the last couple of months." Sam stated matter-of-factly.
"So you're comparing your 10 maybe 12 heroics to my lifetime of saving your ass?" Dean challenged, scanning the pages for any mention of Kingston.
"You know you're not going to find him in there. Why don't you try the year he died, dumbass." Sam stated, his tone superior.
Dean slammed the book shut and stormed off to grab another book, Sam at his heels. Dean walked slowly up and down the archive aisles, feigning a search in hopes that Sam would move on and quit following him. It didn't work, Sam stayed no more than arm's length away from him during the entire ordeal. Dean sighed angrily and "found" the right section, searching the shelves once again for the appropriate year.
"2004." Sam offered smugly.
"I know." Dean replied, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to calm himself.
"Whatever." Sam muttered as he reached over Dean's head and pulled the book out.
"Sam, look. I know you're upset. Alright, man, I get that. But I let you have your whole chic moment out in the car so could you try, just this once, to not sulk and just move on." Dean pleaded, his exasperation evident. Does he think this isn't bothering me?
"He moved here in the 70s." Sam whispered knowingly, before turning and walking off, leaving Dean to wander through the columns once again.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent in silence. Dean occupied one half of the library working on Kingston's origin in the town and Sam researching his death and subsequent burial on the other side.
The only things of value spoken between the brother's that entire evening of searching and the drive back to the motel were hoards of facts pulled from the books and articles. None of these facts brought any form of communication, they were merely stated and left at that.
They unloaded their gear, and trudged wearily back into their temporary dwelling. Sam pulled out the pieces of scrap paper he had jotted notes on, and set about entering his collected data into his computer. Dean kicked his shoes off and crawled into bed.
"Go to bed Sammy. I can't sleep with all that clicking." Dean's voice was muffled by his pillow, but Sam got the message and shut down the computer, hitting the room's lights, before settling back down into the wooden chair.
"What? You ain't sleeping?" Dean murmured twisting his neck to look at his little brother.
"No. Not until I know you're safe."
"Two days, Sammy. Not for two days." Dean moaned, settling himself back down in the sheets, smiling slightly as the sound of a gun cocking reached his ears.
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Lemme know what you think and i promise the next couple chapters will have more action/agnst! Just trying to answer questions and cover ground before the end...