Chapter title is from song by Aerosmith.

50

Dream On - Aerosmith

She lingered a little too long when they stopped for gas. There was only one road out of Xavier's, and it was habit, pulling into a gas station behind the Impala on the long miles to nowhere. She didn't have a destination in mind, not yet. And that hesitation was what gave Sam time to lean in through her passenger side window.

"Hey."

She raised an eyebrow.

"So." Sam smiled at her. She waited out that golden retriever smile with a skeptical silence, because she'd seen Sam's Obi Wan act. Completely unfazed by her skepticism, Sam powered on. "Garth said there may be a job down in Utah. A bunch of missing person cases that he thinks might be zombie-related. We could use a hand."

Her eyebrows shot up. She sketched a look towards the Impala, where a bonafide Knight of Hell was replacing the gas cap like an ordinary human being, and refrained from pointing out that there was no way on God's green earth that Dean Winchester would need help hunting anything, but that wasn't what Sam was talking about, was it?

Dean flicked a look their way, his expression tight and closed. Like he knew what Sam was up to, and what Sam wanted.

She should leave. There was no Toby to protect anymore. She had no need of the boys and the whirlwind of disaster they brought with them.

Sam put his hands on her window and looked hopeful, the expression on his face reminiscent of a Labrador.

Dammit.

"Fine."

Sam beamed. "Great. So we'll pick up 80 west in Rawlins?"

She nodded. It was the fastest way, usually. Sam beamed again, backing his head out of her car now that he'd gotten what he wanted. She rolled the window up behind him, avoiding a glance at the hollow emptiness of the backseat.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, ignoring the unfamiliar weight of Toby's amulet against her collarbone.

A job was probably just the thing she needed anyway.

He was following the Durango south, and he didn't know how Sam had pulled that off. But Sam seemed pleased, and it seemed settled. There was a job. She was a hunter. It wasn't really like he could tell her not to come.

And now he was standing on a red dirt hillside south of the Great Salt Lake, staring up at a giant monstrosity of a fortress halfway up the slope, a rat maze of crumbling concrete and rebar, covered over with graffiti.

"It's an old tin mill." Sam offered by way of explanation. "A lot of the soil and the water around here," Sam nodded towards the murky spring below them, "test positive for high levels of lead and arsenic."

Great. So it was a death trap in more ways than one. Dean rotated his shoulder to loosen it, preparing to teleport into it when Zee interrupted sharply, "How many?"

Sam blanched, even though Sam knew damned well why Garth had sent them on this job. He was the best choice—undead to undead, as it were—and Sam wanted to ignore that. Still, he closed his eyes so Sam wouldn't see the blackness in them, and reached, casting his senses outward and uphill, feeling for the stench of rot.

"Six." He answered, before he opened his eyes. "There's six of them. They're in the back corner." He shook his head to clear his mouth of the aftertaste, damp and decay and death. When he opened his eyes again, Sam was standing in front of him, both of their machetes in Sam's hands.

"Here." Sam offered him one of the newly sharpened machetes, hilt first.

Dean stiffened. He should have known Sam had some half-cocked notion like this in the works. It was why Sam wanted backup, when they obviously didn't need any.

"Dean." Sam said again, waggling the machete gently by the blade, insistent. "There's three of us, and you said only six of them. We can handle it. You don't have to…" Sam gestured at the air, not saying the First Blade.

"No." He said. "These are zombies, Sam. Power hungry, reassembling zombies. I'll just…"

"Maybe we don't need to go up there at all." Zee interrupted, studying him thoughtfully. "We can draw them out. Those zombies in Dolgeville—in the woods—they were supposed to be looking for Toby. But they got sidetracked, didn't they?"

She raised a pointed eyebrow at him.

Dean scowled, because the Dolgeville zombies had zeroed in on him like he was a five star Vegas buffet. If it was powers that the zombies craved, then yeah, he was a zombie magnet. The only reason the six up there weren't pouring down the hill now was because they couldn't sense him, and the only reason for that he could think of, was that hex bag she had given him was hiding him. He stared at her, stunned.

"One of us is a monster magnet." She said. "Didn't hurt to cover all the bases."

He dug into his pocket for the small leather pouch and dug it out. His fingers closed tight around it, because without it—

He held her gaze for another long second. If he decided to teleport into the zombie fray solo anyway, they couldn't stop him. But there was a risk to that too, and she knew it, because she wasn't Sam. She was here, either way, with him or for him, and that steely look said it was his choice.

With a deep breath he flicked the small bit of cowhide to her, and grabbed the machete Sam was still waggling at him before he could think twice. Before he could be bowled over by the avalanche of noise, rushing in like a riptide from all directions, swirling to fill the void. Hunger, sharp and intolerable, swamped him as the undead in the mill woke up to his presence. Beyond that, the chatter of gray things, gray things, picking away at the periphery of his awareness, all those people in town a few miles north, scratching, scratching, screeching like nails on chalkboard. And right beside him, loud, Sam, Sam's hopes and Sam's desperation, anxious and bitter, lashing like barbed wire across his skin.

The Mark on his forearm burned. An itch crawled across his palm, whispering for silence, whispering for The First Blade. His knuckles were white on the machete's handle. There was gray in his vision and gray in his heart, the world stripped of color and scratchy with static and he couldn't think. The machete trembled with the force of his grip. He focused on to the singular spot of stillness near him, amber clear, because she hadn't moved, and he couldn't hear her. He stepped closer and tried to shut everything else out.

His jaw clenched. He breathed through his nose and focused on his count. He felt the putrid sense of rot come running down the hill.

"They're coming. Get back!"

He stepped out onto the road, machete raised. Sam stepped up stubbornly beside him, shoulder to his shoulder. He gripped harder onto the plain plastic handle in his hand, and stared at the brightness of the graffiti on the mill's crumbling walls. The slither of Zee drawing her sword sliced through the incessant noise. The reds and browns of the earth and the blue of the sky flooded in slowly, Sam by his side, when the first zombie popped into existence in front of them, as if it had teleported there.

Dean swore. He hadn't expected that. He hadn't sensed anything demonic about them, and he should have been able to.

His breath misted as he swung the machete. The emaciated zombie in front of him shimmered, then flickered out with a curiously electrical zap. His machete passed through a fat lot of nothing, and the momentum of his swing sent him crashing sideways into Sam. The zombie reappeared, and bared its rotten teeth at him in the creepy ass approximation of a grin.

"THEY'RE GHOSTS? HOW THE FUCK CAN THEY BE ZOMBIES AND GHOSTS?"

The double huff of Sam ducking and rolling to avoid Casper's grabbing hands was his only answer. He scrambled backward when Casper reached for him, because the sharp claws raking down his arm were not ghostly at all, and he swung his useless machete through Casper again. The zombie-ghosts flickered in around him, and flickered out again when he swung through them. Behind him he heard Zee's sword whistle through the air—again, uselessly, because it was just plain frickin' steel—followed by the crunch of gravel that was Sam's frantic scramble towards the Impala's trunk.

And there was now a ring of starving ghost-zombies gathered all around him and Zee, leering hungrily at him, because oh right, he was friggin' bait.

He cursed under his breath. "SAM!" He hollered, because they needed iron, and they needed it now. He turned a complete circle, Zee turning with him, her back solidly against him. They were completely blocked in. He batted futilely at a Casperina, empty white eyes, stringy hair and grabby hands of the worst kind. He couldn't even see a sliver of daylight where he could shove Zee through to safety.

"GUYS! DOWN!"

He heard the click of the shotgun closing an instant before Sam fired. He grabbed onto Zee, sliding one arm around her waist and pulling, securing her into the shelter of his jacket, ignoring her angry hiss and the jab of her elbow into his ribs, trying to pull out of his grasp. He yanked her closer, because there was barely a second to duck his head over hers, before the spray of rock salt seared a hot trail across the back of his neck, fiery holes peppering his back, burning through his jacket down to his skin. He grunted and breathed harshly through his nose, waiting for the pain to pass. When it dulled enough, he looked up to see clear space around them, the rock salt having done its number on the Caspers.

He released the pissed-off ninja in his arms.

"Go." He gave her a shove towards Sam. He dropped the useless machete in his hand, fingers stretching, his vision already dimming to gray, when she unexpectedly stopped, and whipped around to face him, fiery ire in her eyes.

"No." Her fingers clamped down on his right arm, biting down into the Mark. "Salt and burn, Dumbo. Rock salt and flare gun, together."

He opened his mouth to protest, because he wasn't sure that would work. It'd be better if he took care of this, and she just needed to get out of his way.

"DEAN!"

Without even waiting for him to answer, Sam lobbed their flare gun at him, the shotgun cradled in Sam's other arm. He caught the flare gun just to avoid getting hit in the head with it, and glared at the stubborn-ass ninja before him, and at Sam, and at that freaky synchronized thinking thing she and Sam were doing.

~zzzzap~

He spun on his heel, the hand not holding the flare gun pushing Zee so she was behind him, aiming and firing at the incoming because the gun was already in his hand. The boom of Sam's shotgun matched him, and with a puff of blue-lit fire, the startled ghost-zombie burst into smoky flames.

"HEADS UP!"

Sam lobbed their backup flare to him. He ditched the empty gun in his hand, caught the backup, turning and firing as Sam fired. A package of cartridges came sailing through the air but not to him. Zee caught it one-handed, had it opened, the first gun reloaded and slapped back in his hand before he could so much as say boo.

He looked at the reloaded flare gun in his hand blankly. Was this actually working?

~zzzzap~

He caught Sam's eye, and it was suddenly easy, really, to answer that brief grin that flashed across Sam's face. He raised his gun, and fired when Sam fired, old habits kicking in. Without looking back, he put his hand out behind him, feeling the swap-out of a reloaded gun against his palm. And it seemed like it should have taken longer than it did before Sam was asking, "Was that all of them?"

He felt outward, and felt nothing besides Sam.

"Yeah."

"We should call Garth." Sam gestured at the smoking piles of ash. "If their powers are always changing depending on what they ate, no wonder the others are having trouble with them."

He nodded absently. The back of his neck prickled. He turned around.

"What?"

She was glaring at him, at the back of his neck, as if the angry red welt streaking across his skin offended her personally. Her gaze skimmed up to his cheek, where he could feel the sting of another burn. It was just rock salt, and he was a demon, and what did she expect? With a careless thought he fixed it, everything as good as new again. He opened his mouth to tell her just that, when she stepped into his space and traced a finger over his newly healed skin.

He froze.

"You're an idiot." She informed him bluntly.

He could feel the touch all the way down to his toes. He held his breath, to keep himself from doing what he wanted to do. He didn't know if he was disappointed or relieved when she moved the finger against his skin and poked him in the chest with it.

"It's rock. salt." She bit the words out with spaces as if he were a particular brand of slow. "And I'm well aware of how to bloody duck. Next time…"

Next time?

"…can the heroics."

Fire. He wanted a taste of it. He licked his lips and watched her watching him, the bloom of awareness sudden in her eyes. Hastily she stepped back, as if it would lessen the building charge, and it really didn't. It was folly, all of this, all of this that Sam was trying to engineer, and he took a step back himself, trying to tamp down his not-heart racing in his chest.

"Right." He said lamely, and tried not to smile like a fool. "Next time."