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Chapter title is from song by Ashes Remain.
68
Right Here – Ashes Remain
She was waiting for them the next morning, sitting on the hood of the Durango as if it were just any other day, and as if this was a thing they did. Beside him Sam perked up, and he had to resist the urge to elbow Sam in the ribs for being so damned obvious.
"I'm, um…" and Sam took the room key right out of his hand. "…I'll go get us checked out."
With that Sam was gone, as fast as Sam's ginormous feet would take him.
He hefted the duffel in his hand, feeling its weight.
"So. What now?"
She slid off the Durango to face him. Her gaze was direct, and amazingly clear.
"We keep working."
He opened his mouth to protest. His world grew more twilight gray each day with demon sight, and taking chances—putting stuff off—was just foolish.
"No." She cut him off, her voice as hard as steel. "Not yet. You're the only weapon we have."
He stopped at the no-nonsense, no-sentiment in her tone, and snorted ungraciously. Of course. That was why. He was useful. And that, well. At least that made sense.
"Ramiel." He said, because that was the end game.
"Getting Heaven's Gates open again." She answered. "We find the Book, and we get those souls back where they belong."
He stared at her, because she was starting to sound like Sam. She met his gaze evenly, reassuringly still no more emotional than T2 on a good day. She took one step forward, closer to him, and laid her hand on his sleeve, right over where the Mark lay beneath.
"So you're going to keep your batshit together, for Toby's sake."
He caught his breath sharply, because he got where she was coming from, and she wasn't asking. She'd gone done and assumed he could, no muss, no fuss and no doubt at all, that he'd do it.
"I…"
"Do you want him to grow up in a world overrun by zombies?"
He opened his mouth and shut it, because she'd cut him off at the knees. Again. Maybe it was a matter of choosing lesser evils and taking her chances, but he didn't know how it was she'd bet on him, over angels.
She took another step forward, moving her hand from his sleeve to frame his jaw, and looked into his eyes, like she could see. The things he was beneath his skin, and he didn't try to hide. He held still, so very, very still, against the imprint of warmth against his cheek, wanting to turn his head into it. He didn't, because he was holding her gaze, and he couldn't break it. He would never again break it.
The corners of her lips curved up, fleeting and bittersweet. He could have imagined it, the brush of her thumb against his lips, before she dropped her hand and stepped back. He barely stopped himself from leaning forward, chasing it. He had to sit back on his heels to stop himself, and school his features hard into something unmoved and unmoving. He might be the lesser evil, maybe, and maybe he would agree to this scheme of hers, but he wanted something first.
"Don't take chances."
She didn't flinch when he tried to stare her down. He didn't know her tell, if she had one. She didn't back down an inch, and didn't fidge or fudge the way Sam would have, her answer as cool and calm as a promise.
"I won't."
Sam had beamed at the two of them when he finally ambled back from the front office, the mercurial flash of one of Sam's too-pleased smiles dashing across Sam's face, but all Sam had said to Zee was, "Where we headed?" like the we was assumed. And he should have seen it coming, when Sam later in the car said, "You know, Dean, I can get my own room."
He gave Sam the stink-eye. "It's not like that."
If anything that made Sam look at him twice, eyes too speculative and way too sharp, like he might be growing a second head off his shoulder.
"Oh." Sam said, like that single word was everything.
He gave Sam another side-eye, catching the curl of Sam's lips up on one of Sam's tiny, smug, smiles.
"Sam. Don't..."
"No."
"And no…"
"None."
He gave Sam one last forbidding look for good measure, not that it did him any good. Sam was still smiling to himself, radiating smugness.
"She's just going to ride with us for a while." He said this while keeping an eye on the Durango in the rearview mirror.
"Uh-huh."
"We're all chasing the same thing."
"We are."
"There's nothing there." He insisted.
"Heard you the first six times, Dean." Sam answered placidly, his attention on his phone. "Take a right here. We need to get on the expressway."