Disclaimer, Summary, Rating: See Chapter 1.

THE SCENT OF YOU

Chapter 16

Instead of turning into the campus driveway, Dean carried on down South Eastern Street and parked down the block. It was barely 5:30a.m. and even though few people were currently a) around or b) interested, the Impala was just too memorable a vehicle to leave sitting in the college's parking lot for what would likely be at least a couple of hours. Particularly so if anything went pear-shaped, and as far as Dean was concerned, the only time he ever saw Lady Luck was as she drove away in a screech of flash-car tyres while laughing gleefully at him and giving him the finger.

Sam opened the door before Dean had fully come to a halt and was halfway out of the car before he noticed that Dean hadn't moved. "Dean, come on."

Instead of obeying this peremptory urging, Dean bit his lip and hesitated.

Astonished by the fact that Dean was suddenly displaying actual human vulnerability, Sam slid back into the passenger side, but swallowed back the thoughtless 'witticism' that automatically rested on the tip of his tongue as his conscience jabbed a bony finger into his belly and helpfully replayed the understandings he'd come to during his guilt trip at the hotel restaurant when he'd sneered at Dean for ordering wine instead of beer. He had a momentary but clear vision of a suspiciously mom-resembling figure standing there bearing a soapy washcloth and a threatening look towards his big mouth.

"Dean? What's wrong?" he infused the question with concern, not irritation.

"Why destroy it?"

"Huh?"

Dean looked at Sam, his eyes dark and troubled as he spoke in a rush, "Destroy the Satanic football; find the site of the discovery and cleanse it…what if that's the wrong thing to do? I mean, we're Hunters, we're on the side of Good so won't we just be helping Evil? If this came out we'd save millions of lives, and we could stop Hunting and be like regular people like you've always wanted. What if we do all this and then find the Angel Gabriel waiting for us with a flaming sword and a seriously pissed expression because the Lord wanted the Big Fugly exposed?"

Be regular people…like you've always wanted…singular not plural, you not we. Sometimes, Sam loved his big brother so much that the whole world wasn't big enough to contain the feeling. What an arrogant little snot I am, to ever have thought Dean was too shallow to be capable of deep and meaningful…Who else but Dean could manage to have a Damascene conversion and a crisis of faith at the same time?

"Because if this did come out, the Devil could claim a loophole, and the past six thousand years of humanity shitting on its own doorstep would have to be restarted all over again…"

Dean blinked. "Huh?"

"Dean, do you know what the Original Sin was?"

Dean scowled, "Something about sex, which has nothing to do with –"

"No it wasn't," contradicted Sam, waving a hand in irritation, "forget Catholicism at this point, they could never tell their ass from their elbow when it came to people bumping uglies, and forget all that reincarnation-celibacy Dalai Llama crap too. In Genesis Chapter One He told them to be fruitful, so to punish them for obedience would be cruel-"

"What was it then?" snapped Dean to head off the lecture.

"Disobedience," Sam emphasised. "All He instructed was that they not eat from one piddling little tree out of a friggin' forest. Do you know that when the Devil tried to tempt Eve, it initially didn't work?"

"Nah, it talked, she ate - exit Paradise and don't let the door hit you on the way out," Dean recited.

"The Devil tried the direct approach, but Eve corrected him, so he appealed to something more subtle – her pride. Eat the juicy fruit, honey, and you'll be a goddess. And it worked."

Dean glared, "Sam, so help me if you don't stop like you're lecturing Theology 101 and get to how this applies to our problem –"

"Dean it has everything to do with it," Sam cut him off forcefully. "Don't you see? Eve was suckered, sure, but the Bible blames Adam for sin because he knew what he was doing. When the Devil tempted Eve, he was really saying that God was deliberately withholding something beneficial from humanity, and when they ate the fruit, they were really saying that they agreed with the Devil. They brought into question the whole issue of whether God had the moral right to dictate how the universe was run. Think about that for a minute – remember when we were little and Dad's car got caught up in that civil rights riot? All those fat, sweaty dudes bellowing about 'white is might and might is right'? Who has more might than God?"

Dean blinked at this, turning the concept over, "But what about the 'right'? Okay, go on…?"

Sam wasn't worried. Dean could be the most stubborn pain-in-the-ass in the entire history of the universe but once his sharp brain saw the logic of something, he adapted. "He was the Creator of the Universe, He had every right to fricassee the lot of them and churn out a new and improved set of the literal First Couple, but that wouldn't have answered the challenge or settled the debate. He'd just been slandered by one of His own creations to two of His other creations that He had lied to them and denied them something that would help them."

"So He…?"

"Gave them enough rope to hang themselves with," Sam sighed. "Genesis puts it a lot more poetically but in essence the Lord said, "Okay, fine, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you go your own way for a while. Do what you like, I won't interfere…but you can't have your cake and eat it. You want to do it your way, then do, but don't whine about split milk. No big hand will pluck that cancer-on-a-stick cigarette from your lips, no wagging finger will chastise you for being faithless to your wife and ripping apart your family, there will be no heavenly warnings when nearly a quarter of a million people die in a tsunami that you would have known all about if you hadn't been too stingy to install the warning system and too indifferent to act upon it when your government got three hours warning the thing was coming."

"I get it…God doesn't have to lift a finger, because humanity is proving all on its own that we're hopeless…all He has to do is crook an eyebrow in the direction of the Earth and silently indicate, 'take a look at that mess and tell me what you think now'. But won't Evil being proved real be a big score for His team?"

"No, because then humanity will become like the people of Burkitsville…or like Sue-Ann Le Strange instead of Layla Rourke," Sam replied earnestly. "Remember what you told me Layla said to you – that genuine faith was still having it when the miracle didn't happen? In the Book of Job, Satan basically accused human beings of serving God only for what they could get out of Him. 'Turn up the heat on Job instead of protecting him from even stubbing his toe and watch him turn on You', is what he essentially said."

"That's what Layla was talking about…" Dean's eyes darkened even further as he thought back to the beautiful, fragile woman seemingly doomed to die from an inoperable brain tumour.

"The Bible says that God wants obedience and not sacrifice. That's why God promises to get rid of all wicked people and restore the earth to a paradise home for good people…but won't tell us when, because that way people show whether they are acting out a genuine affection and devotion to Him or because they're out for what they can get. Eventually, the latter type just get bored and walk away."

Dean rubbed his hand over his face in weariness as he realised, "So, Evil is proved to really exist and humans all become good little girls and boys, but not because they suddenly love the Lord and want to do something nice for Him, but because like the twisted folks of Burkitsville they get to save their skins by fulfilling the letter of the contract while despising the spirit."

"Yeah…just like I did." The words slipped out before he could censor them.

"What?" Dean half-turned on the front seat to face him, "What are you talking about?"

It took effort to meet his brother's eyes. "When I came to Burkitsville, it was only because I knew you were in trouble, not because I believed you were right about needing to have trust in Dad for once. But when you told me what Layla Rourke said, it preyed on my mind…"

"Sammy, I didn't mean anything –" Dean began agitatedly.

"Man, I know that!" Sam rolled his eyes…I'm the one who uses words as instruments of torture…usually against you..."But I realised that a lot of my anger at Dad was my own fault, because I never gave him the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to have faith when folks all around you are walking on water but it's hardly profound. When Meg tried to use us to kill Dad in Chicago I understood for the first time how much Dad really was just doing the best he could…"

"He loves us, Sammy, he always has…" Dean was visibly upset, as he always was when it came to Sam and their father's acrimonious relationship.

"I know…but Layla made me realise…sure it would have been much easier if Dad had always had the time or the ability to explain himself to us, but half the time he was winging it on hope and prayer himself, and what great thing would it have been to obey him? I kept on insisting that I actually see the dude pouring the strychnine into the bowl, but you always had faith that Dad was trying his best, so you were willing to take his word for it." Sam said earnestly. "This is the same thing. Faith is not about the head, it's about the heart. Faith is not about a triple-figure IQ and logical deduction and some lab tech crossing 't's and dotting 'i's; it's about how you feel, it's about love and trust and hope. We're doing the right thing by destroying this because God wants people to do things for Him because they love Him, not because it's a sure-fire self-preservation technique."

This finally made Dean nod curtly and get out of the car, as Sam knew it would. Anything in the vicinity of a serious analysis regarding the underlying reasons for the at best ambivalent and at worst hostile relationship between Sam and their father made Dean recoil. Misplaced guilt again; Dean constantly lectured Sam that nothing was his fault – not mom's death, not Jessica's, not shooting Dean in the asylum, not abandoning his brother in the middle of nowhere Indiana in a sulking strop to go to California – while always finding fault in within himself for the tensions between Sam and John Winchester.

As he inserted assorted sharp and nasty things into his jacket pockets from the trunk, Sam knew very well why. Dean loved their father in the way that sons are supposed to love their dads, which was why it had always been easier for him to obey without question where Sam balked, because Sam…didn't. But Dean has always felt guilty because we all three know that I love him like that, instead of Dad…Even though it was Dad who abrogated fatherhood to Dean when it came to me, Dean has always felt like a usurper because he knows that Dad knows that though I love him… I love Dean more…Dean has always felt guilty over knowing that if it ever came down to the wire I'll choose him because he's always been more important to me.

Continued in Chapter 17…

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart