A/N: I'm so sorry for the wait again, guys. I guess that's the problem when its a work in progress. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and showed their support, you guys keep me going with this :)
#SPN#
Chapter 17
"Leave it alone," Dean's gruff voice instructs for the umpteenth time, leaning over to shove a couple of their bags to the back of the trunk.
Sam frowns beneath the streetlights of the Redfern Grove Motel parking lot. Since when does his brother have eyes in his butt cheeks to go with the ones in the back of his head? Because surely that's the only way Dean could've known Sam's pulling at the irritating fabric wrapped around his neck.
The dark blue scarf one of his brand new 'accessories'. Cas had pulled it out of one of the bags he had brought to the hospital, along with a thick earflap hat Sam refused to wear. Only after being told in no uncertain terms that he would not be leaving Grey Willow Medical Clinic until the items resided on his person did he concede to Cas' demand; his brother just sitting back, watching in amusement and not making one move to help Sam out.
Not even when Cas tied the tassels together under Sam's chin with some kind of super-duper-only-known-to-former-angel-knot. And Sam knows that because he's tried to undo the damn thing several times and it won't budge.
Of course, the orange cast encasing his thumb, hand and arm up to his elbow is not helping the coordination of his fingers. Nor the gloves, one of which is stretched to cover the hand portion of the cast.
"It's itchy," Sam complains, continuing to tug at the scarf.
He lets out a silent cheer when it unravels into two lopsided strips hanging either side of his neck. A cheer that dwindles rapidly as he realises Dean has straightened up and turned around to head back into the motel room, the expression on his face one of exasperated displeasure.
"I don't like it," Sam pouts, hoping his brother will relent on his having to wear it.
"You don't have to like it, Sam," Dean replies grasping hold of the two ends and straightening them out. "It's there to keep you warm," he adds, wrapping the scarf back around Sam's neck. "Now leave it alone," Dean repeats more firmly this time, stepping around Sam, a yelp leaving Sam's mouth when his brother's hand connects with his bottom on the way passed.
And damn if that doesn't remind him he's still got a spanking to face sometime today for his behaviour yesterday.
And as his brother exits their room once again, Sam attaches his lips to the straw of his tumbler, sipping at his juice to prevent himself grumbling something he shouldn't within earshot of the man. He refrains from offering assistance to his brother as he has already tried that. All it got him was his juice thrust at him with an instruction to drink it down.
"Gonna need go potty 'fore we get anywhere," Sam grumbles around his straw.
"Then we'll stop," Dean says, dumping the last of their bags into the trunk, his gaze directed towards the office with a frown.
"You hate stopping."
"No, what I hate is my little brother being dehydrated. So, you drink. And we'll make the necessary stops. What the hell's taking Cas so long?"
"He's only been a couple minutes, Dean," Sam admonishes lightly, turning his own gaze towards the office. It is just past midnight, the office is quiet and low-lit and Sam is unable to make out a Cas shaped presence through the windows, but nothing seems out of the ordinary.
"Well go see what's keeping him so freaking long," Dean instructs as he locks the trunk.
"All by myself? But there's lots and lots of dangerous space between the office and you," Sam points out teasingly, while studiously ignoring the little boy inside of him asking why big brother isn't going to hold his hand to cross the parking lot.
Because that's always been the rule, right? Even if the office is only twenty feet away, it's still a parking lot. He's meant to hold Dean's hand.
#
Dean startles in surprise at his brother's words; realising his own stupidity in asking Sammy to go to the office. A force of habit after ten years on the road together. Before the spell heightened his emotions; causing his heart to clench painfully and his gut to twist in knots whenever Sammy is out of his sight.
Only now further intensified thanks to Crowley's actions.
Anything could happen in the separation of twenty feet. Sammy hadn't been much farther away than that from Dean when the kid was taken right out of that diner. A kidnapping that had ended with … No. Dean swallows back those memories, he cannot deal with those surfacing right now. Not with everything else they have going on. It's just too damn much.
"You're right, Sammy," he says gruffly, clearing his throat to loosen the tightness. "C'mon."
Dean grasps hold of his kid's right wrist. He doesn't care if Sam has a problem with it. Dean would just rather know that Sammy is right there, the better to ensure his kid's safety. So, when Sammy starts wriggling and pulling his wrist, Dean opens his mouth to deliver a reprimand. Only to snap it closed a second later in surprise when a sharp pull upwards slides Sam's wrist free of his hold and the large hand slips into his instead.
He remains silent, just gives the hand a quick squeeze, while glancing out of the corner of his eyes at Sammy as they head towards the office. The boy is slightly bent forwards, happily chugging away at the juice in the straw sippy-cup held in the crook of Sammy's arm. As if the two of them holding hands is the everyday norm for them, when it hasn't been in over a decade.
Longer?
Dean has to wrack his brain as to when the rule regarding the holding of hands in the street or a parking lot changed, and then stopped altogether.
Was Sammy ten? Twelve? Hell, fifteen?
Dean honestly can't remember.
He is aware it was probably more than unusual to be a teenager okay with little brother holding his hand. But Dean as always hadn't cared about the 'norms', only the safety of his kid. And Sam had been plenty tiny he passed for a much younger child anyway.
How many times had Dean reiterated the kid had to hold his hand while crossing a street or parking lot until it stuck? Or the amount of times Dean had stepped out into the street first. Or walked the side of the sidewalk closet to the street. Hell, he's pretty sure he still unconsciously does that now, the behaviour an ingrained habit.
But the hand holding had stopped at some point.
Reaching the office, and with his hand still clasped in Dean's, Sammy jumps up the three steps one at a time. He's far too awake now for this time of night when he should have been in bed two hours prior. And Dean knows they are going to have problems maintaining a strict bedtime for Sammy in the coming weeks.
He sighs. And lets Sam push open the motel office door as the kid reaches it first, the bell ringing overhead as Sam bounces his way over the threshold. Dean rolls his eyes, too tired for an energetic Sammy, but knowing he'll deal with it anyway.
"Cas, c'mon, hurry up, Dean's getting …"
Dean frowns when Sam trails off and freezes just inside the door. Dean wastes no time pulling his gun. He pushes Sammy forward and then back so he can step inside, surprised to see Cas slamming the motel manager's face into the doorframe of the partially open door behind the tall desk.
#
Frozen and wide-eyed, Sam watches as blood sprays off to the side as the guy's nose breaks with a crunch of sinew on impact with the doorframe. It's the same guy Sam had asked if Redfern Grove had a library. The creepy guy who wouldn't stop staring at him.
Sam barely registers being moved aside by his brother, too shocked by witnessing Cas' temper. He has seen Castiel angry before – he has been at the end of that anger before – but the former angel is downright furious.
Maybe even more so than he had been with Crowley.
And that really scares Sam.
But when Cas wraps his hands around Creepy Guy's neck and squeezes, it awakens Sam from his daze. He jumps forward, pushing through the swing-gate even as Dean throws himself over the tall desk.
#
Dean launches himself over the desk and charges towards Cas. He wraps his arms around Cas from behind and starts pulling the other man away. It's difficult. Cas is just as strong as Dean and clearly doesn't want to be pulled away from the guy he's trying to strangle to death.
Even when Sam puts his weight behind pulling Cas away, the former-angel is like an immovable statue, the rage pouring off him practically planting him to the floor.
Dean lets out a growl. "Move away!" he barks at Sam, the kid immediately releasing his hold to do as told.
It allows Dean better access to curl an arm around Cas' neck and squeeze in just the right spot. He yells at Cas to stop until Cas has no choice but to release his hold on the motel manager or risk passing out himself. The guy hits the deck, coughing and gasping for air.
Sam crouches down beside the manager, asking if he's okay. Which he immediately knows is a stupid question. The guy's nose is undoubtedly broken. It is definitely split across the bridge and Sam has no doubts the guy will be sporting two swollen black eyes within a day. Though it could have been worse; Cas could have used his full strength. A strength that would have caved the manager's face in and achieved the goal Cas still seems just as intent upon, even now he has been pulled away.
"Cas! What the fuck, man?" Dean barks, furious, his grip never loosening its hold upon the struggling former-angel as he drags Cas further away, his partner's bloodied fists outstretched and still wanting to implant some serious damage.
"Fucked up twisted fuck!" Cas snarls in too good an imitation of Dean, and so very unlike his partner unless provoked.
And what the fuck could this guy have done in the space of a few minutes to have triggered Cas into such a rage? Because it takes a whole heap of shit to provoke Cas to this level of violence. Hell, Dean should know. He's been on the receiving end more than once.
But this? In front of their little boy who has already been through enough of an ordeal?
"Cas! You're scaring Sam!"
Cas stills, the words seeping in and pulling him from the red haze of rage just as Dean had been hoping. Cas turns wide eyes to Dean. "Sam …"
"Right here, Cas. I'm okay," Sam reassures, ignoring the truth of Dean's words as he helps the motel manager hold several paper towels under his bloody nose.
Cas turns his gaze to Sam and Sam is startled as the man's eyes narrow, the anger returning as he breaks free of Dean's grasp. "Get away from him!"
Sam yelps in surprise as he is sharply lifted off his feet, pulled away from the motel manager. And then Cas' hold is gone and Sam has to steady himself against the wall, watching with wide-eyed anxiousness as Dean slams Cas down, chest first, against the desk, an arm on the former-angel's back holding him in place.
"Calm. Down," Dean hisses against Cas' ear. Cas bucks against Dean's hold, but Dean slams him down again and Cas stills, letting out a groan, the red haze dissipating. "You with me?"
Cas blinks rapidly, apologetic eyes finding Sam, before he closes his eyes. "Yes."
"Good." Dean drags Cas upright, steadying him. "Now tell us what the hell is going on here."
"Do not go to him!" Cas' voice is still sharp, but controlled.
It stills Sam from moving further towards the motel manager, who is all but crawling his way into the backroom. "Tell me why I shouldn't, Cas?!" Sam snaps, fed up. "Especially when you could've given him internal injuries?!"
"The piece of filth doesn't deserve your care!" Cas snaps back.
"Why, Cas?" Dean asks calmly, or as calmly as he can manage right now. "What's he supposed to have done to cause you to be so damn reckless?"
Cas' blue eyes hold an anguish amidst the still simmering anger that Sam doesn't understand. "Sam, remain here," Cas says, gesturing Dean through to the backroom.
"Err, what? No," Sam splutters, indignant, at the same time Dean objects, "Sam's not staying out here by himself."
"Sam doesn't need to stay here," Sam objects for himself.
"This is not for Sam's eyes," Cas states firmly.
"He's not staying out here alone!"
"Very well," Cas snaps, more a growl than anything else. "I'll remain with Sam."
"Not sure I'm comfortable with that idea right now either," Dean retorts.
Cas shakes his head, before he turns his back to Sam, leaning forward to whisper against Dean's ear.
Sam can only watch as the quiet tension within Dean coils ever tighter; a threatened snake seconds away from striking. Worsened as the confusion in green eyes seeps away to be replaced by cold fury. It leaves Sam fearing for the manager's life when Dean abruptly turns towards the backroom, the manager scrambling backwards in the face of that anger.
Sam moves to follow his furious brother and stop him from doing something stupid. Cas, however, catches him around the waist and spins him away from the backroom. Steel arms are gentle in their hold, but immovable as Sam finds to his chagrin when trying to squirm out of them.
He stills at the ominous sound of the backroom door snapping closed; trapping the motel manager inside with the ball of ferocity known as Dean Winchester, who could easily go off with one single wrong move.
"Cas, we need to go in there! Dean …"
"No." Cas releases Sam enough to grasp his arm and frog-march him back through the double swing-gate into the visitor portion of the office. "We are staying here."
"Cas …" Sam immediately protests when his butt hits one of the wooden chairs standing against a wall.
"We are staying here, Sam," Cas reiterates.
"Dean looks like he wants to rip the guy's head off! The same look you shared not too long ago, Cas!" When Cas doesn't contradict him, Sam shakes his head. "That's real reassuring, Cas," he retorts sarcastically.
#
Sam gnaws on his thumb worriedly. Legs nervously bouncing up and down. While plans fly through his head (just as quickly discarded) as to how they are going to explain this one if Dean cannot control his temper.
Sam cannot lose his brother. As selfish as that may be, he has journeyed that path before and it never turned out well for anyone. And he can feel inside of him that Cas has been added to that list, perhaps not to the degree of Dean, but Sam just knows he cannot lose the former-angel either.
He's pissed at Cas for going off on the motel manager, for placing them in this position. Equally pissed at Dean for shutting him out. All because Cas doesn't want Sam to see what is inside that backroom. And why not? He has seen and experienced a damn sight more in his life than a guy with a bloody nose.
And whatever it is inside of that room could see Dean commit murder, taking him away from Sam if he were ever caught.
Shaking his head, Sam rises.
"Sam," Cas warns.
Sam rolls his eyes, crossing to the office entrance. Glancing outside into the streetlight-lit parking lot, the Impala remains the only car residing there. Seeing nothing untoward, Sam twists the lock on the door anyway and pulls down the blind. Rounding the desk, shooting a glare at Cas when he receives another warning, Sam finds the switch for the vacancy sign and switches it over to 'no vacancy'.
It wouldn't do for anyone to roll into the motel, tired from a long journey and looking for a room, only to walk into… whatever this situation is. He honestly cannot think of a good enough reason as to why Cas would be so angry with Creepy Guy. Other than perhaps doing something to Dean.
In which case, Sam would have something to say about it too.
But Creepy Guy, while creepy in the way he had stared at Sam yesterday morning, had seemed nice enough. He had even offered to let Sam browse his own books and reading material in the back room Creepy Guy now resides injured with Dean.
Speaking of which… Sam spins on his heels, his destination the backroom. Only he's once again grabbed around the waist and easily taken off his feet.
"Dammit, Cas!" Sam curses as he's deposited back on the wooden chair the other side of the tall desk.
"I said you're not going in there, Sam," Cas states firmly, using his body to block the swing gate entrance leading behind the desk.
Sam rises back to his feet, squaring his shoulders and utilising his height advantage to loom over Cas. "Well bully for you. You even know this guy's human? What if he's something else and could get the drop on Dean? What if he's got a gun hidden back there? You even think about that when you were kicking the crap out of him, huh?"
"We're going to the car," Cas states instead of answering Sam's questions, grasping Sam's arm, and tries pulling him towards the office entrance.
This time, however, Sam yanks his arm away. "Not happening."
"Sam, I will carry you out of here if I have to."
"Cas, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not leaving Dean. So, carry me to the car if you like, but I'll fight you every damn step of the way."
"You are a stubborn child, Samuel Winchester."
#
Twenty minutes' pass before Dean steps out of the backroom into the main office, slamming the door behind him, causing Sam and Cas to jump out of their staring contest. Dean raises an eyebrow at the sight of Sammy using his full height to his advantage to tower over Cas, arms crossed over his chest.
The kid's pursed-lipped bitch-face shifts to Dean, who shakes his head and shoots his own glare at Cas. He had hoped at the least that his partner would have taken Sam back to the car. However, with what he had witnessed between the two he knows the pairs presence still in the office is not just down to the former-angel.
Sam is pretty immovable himself when he wants to be.
"You kill him?" the kid questions.
"No," Dean responds. "Though he'll be wishing I had. Now, c'mon. Let's get outta here."
"Uh-uh. No. Tell me what the hell this was all about first?" Sam snaps, clearly having received no information from Cas.
"Not here."
"But …"
"Sam," Dean points at the exit. "We're leaving. Now."
"Fine," Sam's shoulders slump. He crosses to the office entrance and twists the lock back open. He turns around in the open doorway to face Dean and Cas. "We need to call an ambulance."
"We will, Sammy. When we're not on the doorstep. Now get moving," Dean pops his brother on the butt to get him out the door.
Sam jumps down the steps, shooting a glare over his shoulder at his brother. Dean slowly arcs an eyebrow and for now it is enough to quell Sam's rising ire.
#SPN#
Dean sighs, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as he speeds them away from Redfern Grove. Cas has been silent since they left, his body tense and his face turned towards the passenger window. The only thing stopping either of them from turning right back around and putting bullets in skulls being the kid taking up the entirety of the backseat, safe and physically sound.
"So? What happened?" Said kid questions, his legs sprawled across the bench-seat of the Impala's backseat, his upper body resting back against the locked door and his tablet sitting on his lap.
Dammit. Dean would prefer to sit through an entire weekend of chick-flick movies than have this conversation with his kid. Especially if it results in Sammy knowing what happened in Redfern Grove. He's hoping Sammy can retain that innocence for a long time to come yet.
Which means, Dean just needs to figure out what to tell the kid that will not raise too much suspicion in his inquisitive baby brother's mind. Preferably, anything but the whole truth …
With the motel manager good and scared, cowering on the floor, Dean takes in the backroom. It is only small in width, but long enough for a cot in a corner and against the wall on Dean's right. The opposite wall holds a long desk with four computer monitors – modern flat-screens so unlike the old-fashioned and clunky television set they'd had in their motel room. Two large external hard drives sit on one side of the desk and Dean doesn't need to be a genius to know they hold an extensive storage capacity.
There are several photographs on the wall. Dean's eyes narrow as he takes in one of them. He tears it from the wall. "This you?" he demands, shoving the photo in front of the manager's face.
The guy nods, wincing in pain.
Dean ignores it as his gut twists. The face of the man in the picture matches that of the nosy-fucker from the first Redfern Grove Motel they had stayed in. The guy staring out the window of the room next to theirs when they arrived.
"You planned this. You and your bitch Gretchen."
A glare twists the manager's bruised and bloodied face, the first ounce of courage he's shown. "Leave her …" the guy coughs, "… out this."
Stepping over to the desk, Dean gives the mouse a nudge, the monitors flaring to life and revealing what should never have been seen on any fucking screens. Cas had told him. Dean had been furious then, but this… seeing it now in full gory detail, his little boy's intimate privacy so violated … Dean spins away, his fist connecting with the manager's face.
"Still think I should leave her outta this, you sick fuck?!"
The guy scrambles backwards with a whimper, or tries to as he has nowhere else to go. "Please. Please. I haven't done any-anything. Never touched. Never."
"You just like perving on kid's then, huh?"
"No! No, it's all her!"
"Shut up!" Dean's fist sails downwards again, fully understanding Cas' explosive anger.
The solid punch knocks the manager unconscious, the guy lucky Dean restrained his true strength. Grabbing the desk chair, Dean slams himself into it and hits the mouse, minimising the windows showing his little boy. Leaning forward to see if a scanner works, Dean spies another photograph on the wall.
One showing the manager standing outside his place of business with the motel sign visible for all to see. It will definitely suit Dean's purpose just fine. He stands, ripping this one off the wall as well, his lips curling upward into a ferocious smirk as he snaps the photo down on the scanner, shutting the lid and hitting scan.
How much Gretchen is involved will have to be decided, but Dean has no intention of letting her off scot free. They will be paying a little visit to her on the way out of town that's for sure.
"Huh, look how considerate you're being towards your own fate," Dean murmurs, snatching up a plaque revealing the name 'Richard White' engraved upon it.
Sitting himself back behind the desk, Dean employs a few tricks he learnt from Frank Devereaux. Running several backdoor quick and easy searches, he obliterates any security and protection White has hiding his IP addresses and VPN's. Then sends out a vicious virus that will eradicate all and everything that White has ever uploaded to the internet within ten minutes.
It's the fastest route and he has to chance that everything will be hit. He doesn't have the time to search the whole damn internet. Nor does he want to find out that the footage of Sam has already been uploaded. Dean's anger is only hanging on by a thin thread. If he were to find that out for definite, then Dean would commit the murder he stopped Cas from committing earlier.
After a quick scan of White's computer, Dean wishes he could eradicate the images from his brain when he's done. Richard White is a lying fucker on top of being a sick fucker. Dean doesn't consider raping and molesting teenage boys and young men as 'never touched. Never'.
He pulls up every social media site, police department website and anything else he can think of that he can access. He feels no remorse in sending out the photograph of the sadistic pedophile named Richard White. And he definitely falls into the pedophile category. Despite Sammy's size and features, all White saw was that Sam is undoubtedly the sick fuck's… type.
Dean may have no intention of killing White, no matter how furious he is, but he definitely intends to destroy the guy's life. He swings an arm around, and without looking away from the monitors, points his gun directly at White's forehead.
"Stay. Down."
"You-you gonna kill m-me?" White rushes out, nasally and coughing, as he slumps down again, the end of the baseball bat he loosely holds in his hands hitting the deck.
Dean rises, gun still trained on White. "I'm not gonna kill ya." White whimpers as Dean lowers the barrel of the gun to more sensitive parts, a blazing green-fire in the hunter's eyes. "You're just gonna wish you were dead when I'm done with ya."
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know he was your boy. I swear, I never woulda …"
Dean grabs the front of White's shirt in his fist, setting his gun between White's wide eyes. "He's my KID, you sick fuck. And nobody," Dean's voice becomes deeper and darker, "nobody messes with him. They don't touch him. They don't hurt him. And they sure as fuck don't get to look at him in his most vulnerable moments."
Dean snatches the bat out of White's hold and stands, testing the weight in his hands. Satisfied it will do the job, he swings it around and smashes it down, scattering broken pieces of technology over the desk and floor, ignoring the whimpering from behind him.
Three minutes later, Dean drops the bat to the floor, the screens and anything remotely looking to hold footage now unusable and unrecognisable as what they were.
"You've r-ruined everything… K-kill me …" White chokes out.
"Nah. That's not how letting you live works. You fucked with the wrong kid. You fucked with my kid. I think it only fair that you're here to savour the destruction of your life." Grabbing the front of White's shirt again, Dean yanks him forward, whispering words that will see White live in fear for the rest of his damned life …
"Well?"
Sam's demand brings Dean back to the present. The kid not one to normally wait patiently for answers. Even though out of the two of them, Sammy is the one with the most patience. Dean only has a wealth of true patience when it comes to his kid. And he has to give Sammy his dues for holding off on the interrogation for this long.
"The guy was an asshole, Sammy. That's all you need to know."
Sam definitely doesn't need to know that their little pitstop to Gretchen White's motel revealed a wife not only aware of her husband's 'activities' (the proof in the pudding, or in this case the half-dozen photo albums of victims Dean had found when trashing her own backroom), she's a wife fully complicit in her husband's depravity.
"Yeah, 'cause Cas just randomly kicks the crap outta people for being assholes every day of the week, right?" Sam looks at the back of their heads, the tense shoulders of his family. "So, what did Creepy Guy do, Cas? Did he do something to Dean? Threaten him?"
Cas stops staring out the window to glance over his shoulder at Sam, confused, "What would make you say that, Sam?
"Err, you going all caveman for one thing."
"Let it go, Sam," Dean says, a warning in his tone.
Sam sighs in aggravation. For as much as he wants to know what happened, he knows that tone. Dean is not going to tell him, no matter how much he pushes his brother to do just that. And Sam has no doubts that Cas will remain just as tight-lipped. So, fine, he'll let it go, but …
"What if I don't wanna sing your favourite song right now, Dean?"
Dean breaths a slow sigh of relief at the lightened tone, his kid giving in, for which Dean will forever be thankful. Sammy never needs to know the Whites' were perving on him. Now it's Dean's turn to continue to lighten the mood. "You're the one who loves that piece of chick-flick crap, Princess, not me."
"It's okay to admit it, Dean. We both know you have the hots for Elsa."
"Too many sharp edges with that one."
"Do I even want to know what the two of you are talking about now?" Cas queries, his expression lost.
"Frozen," Sam and Dean chorus.
"Frozen what?"
"Icicles, man," Dean responds while Sam snickers in the back.
"I think I am now versed enough in Winchester to say I will never fully understand you two."
"You love us," Sam grins, scooping up his Littlefoot from his tablet stand, tucking the small soft toy into his jacket pocket for safekeeping. "Candy, please," he requests, scrubbing at an eye.
Dean glances in the rear-view mirror, his hands finally loosening their grip on the wheel. Kid should be asleep. But Dean gets it. Sammy has been sleeping for practically half a day, and after what just happened, yeah, he's letting Sammy stay up. And eat candy. With a limit. He doesn't need to be dealing with a kid on a sugar-high along with everything else.
"One more only, Sammy," Dean says.
Cas - who now has the bags of candy because every time Sammy tried opening his candy it ended up on the seat or the floor before he got it in his mouth - shifts around so he is sitting sideways in the passenger seat. He removes the wrapping on a chew candy and holds it out to Sam, who leans forward and accepts it into his mouth.
"You said two more, right, Dean?" Sam questions between chews.
"Sam."
"What? I distinctly heard you say two. Cas, Dean said two, right?"
"Little one, you know you heard your brother say 'one only'. And you are lucky to have any candy at all, considering the time."
"Any time of day is good for candy time, Cas. Everybody knows that."
"Yes, precisely. Any time of day."
"You walked into that one, Sammy," Dean smiles lightly as he glances in the rear-view mirror at his pouting kid.
"Gabriel was in Cas' dream."
Dean arcs an eyebrow at his partner at this new information.
Cas shoots a semi-stern look at Sam, who shrugs unapologetically for raising the topic. It is not a secret. Cas had inadvertently spilled that small detail to his little one while they waited in the car for Dean to return from his 'visit' with Gretchen. Both Cas and Sam having been more or less ordered to remain in the car. Cas had been fine with it, of course, for it kept Sam away. And he was also unsure if he would have been able to hold his temper with that vulture Gretchen if he saw her face again.
"You're dreaming about Gabriel? Trickster Gabriel? That's the missing piece from your dream yesterday?"
Cas is not surprised Dean had known he had left out details yesterday when explaining the dream of that vortex and their child. The man is more observant then he likes known. "He showed up in the dream and gave me a moment of peace from having to watch our imaginary child die."
"Whoa, you didn't mention that part, Cas," Sam says quietly from the back.
"Cas, I don't mean to be a voice of reason here, but Gabriel's dead."
"He is. But Gabriel is an archangel. An archangel never truly dies. At least their essence does not. And Gabriel's essence is building in Heaven …"
"God is regenerating Gabriel? I thought God was still M.I.A."
"He is. Except He sent Gabriel to Heaven after his death to perform a job."
"In Heaven?" Sam and Dean chorus.
Cas smiles lightly. "That is what I said too. Gabriel replied that his job was, and I quote, 'Heaven. Time. Reality'."
"Yeah, cause that makes sense. What did he want with you, Cas?"
"To give me a message. For all of us. 'Knowledge seek to answers gain. Seek the Grey. Gain the Key'. Does that mean anything to either of you?"
"Never heard it before. Sammy?"
"No," Sam responds, swiping at an eye again, "it doesn't ring a bell. I'll add it to the list of research." Tapping in his tablet code, he opens his notes and adds the message to his growing list, with a side note of 'Gabriel. Heaven. Time. Reality. God?'
Dean sighs. That list of research seems to be growing ever longer by the day without yielding any answers. Save for the Venator. Mystical wolves seeming to be the easiest thing they have had to research lately.
"Why don't you put the tablet down, Sammy, and try get some sleep."
Sam stares down at the list in front of him. "I'd say okay if there wasn't so much to look into."
"I apologise for adding to it."
"Nah, it's okay, Cas. I don't think Gabriel would've come to you with a message for all of us if it wasn't important. Don't worry. We'll figure it out."
"And this time, Sammy, if you need to go to a library, better course of action is to just ask," Dean pointedly states.
Sam feels his face heat slightly at the dig towards his earlier actions. "Will do. Now that we're passed that …"
"Sam."
"What?"
"Don't give me that innocent routine, kid. You still got a butt whooping coming to ya."
"Was worth a shot," Sam mumbles, shifting on the seat and taking a moment to savour how nice it is not to be sitting on a sore bottom. He sighs. "You know, I'm kinda thinking hitting libraries isn't gonna help anyway. At least not public libraries. Maybe rare book stores that hold occult books …"
"These stores would hold something the bunker archive does not?" Cas questions.
"I know it's unlikely. But the bunker collection is sixty years old. Anything up to date is what we've added to it in the past few years. Several books and manuscripts in Uncle Bobby's collection, while old and rare, weren't already part of the bunker archive. So as much as it's a supernatural motherload, it doesn't hold everything. And right now… we kinda need that everything."
"We'll figure it out, Sammy."
"And if Rowena doesn't know anything? The spell I used to cure you predates her. What if she knows nothing about it?"
"Then we'll figure something else out," Dean states. Sam sighs. Dean looks at his partner beside him. "You're definitely sure it was Gabriel?"
"Without a doubt." Cas confirms. "I thought we were going to Seattle?" he questions when they reach a turn and Dean directs the Impala the opposite way than the signpost for Seattle.
"We're heading for the Jeffries'," Dean responds, having figured earlier it would be easier to head straight for the Jeffries' place in the small community of Yrautcnas, bordering the Olympia National Forest.
At least that way they might be able to get a few hours shut eye in a bed instead of the car, waiting for a tattoo parlour to open. Plus …
"Ooohhh, Jeffries' library," Sammy chimes in. "They do have a library, I'm remembering that right, right? Right right. Hehehe," giggles erupt from the back seat.
Dean snorts, sharing an amused look with Cas. "Put that candy away," he mouths to his partner, knowing that somehow Sam will wrangle another piece (or several) out of them if they don't store it.
And the kid has definitely had enough.
Cas leans forward, stuffing the two bags in the glove compartment.
"Candy go night-night?"
"Yep. It's way past candy's bedtime," Dean replies, not sure if he can believe what he's saying, even as he says it. Though Sammy seems to better recognise that there will be no more candy available to him tonight with those words, than Dean and Cas simply saying 'no more'.
"Past Sammy's bedtime too," Sam surprisingly announces, and promptly yawns widely. "But I no go night-night."
"You will be soon, buddy."
"Nah-uh."
"Uh-huh."
"De-an," Sam whines, tablet falling to the footwell with a soft thud when Sam slides down the door, his knees rising, "don't be a big poo-poo-head."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Get your Sasquatch-sized boots off my window."
"How'd you know?" Sammy asks, head suddenly appearing between Dean and Cas. "Do you really got eyes in the back of your head, De?" Sam's fingers go to Dean's hair, digging around and Dean winces as his hair is nearly pulled out by the root.
"Sam, please sit on your seat, on your bottom," Cas tries to wrangle the kid, who easily evades and continues pulling and prodding at Dean's hair and head.
"You won't find 'em, Sammy. They hide themselves when kid's come a-looking."
"They do?"
Sammy's voice is filled with intrigued surprise, but his inspection thankfully stops. Cas goes back to trying to get the kid on his butt and Dean really should pull over and help, but Sammy will only carry on until he falls asleep. And there's no seatbelt back there to strap the kid down.
"Yep. Plus, I've got mirrors, remember."
"Oh yeah."
Dean has to slap Sam's hand away from his rear-view mirror when the kid gives it a tug. Then Sammy lets out a squeal of surprise as he tumbles forward. He slides off the front seat and straight into the tape deck, his face squishing against it and long legs kicking up behind him as he scrabbles for purchase.
"Help me! Help me!"
Even as he grasps hold of Sam with one hand and hauls the kid back upright, Dean has to look away from Cas. His partner is clearly not impressed. While Dean is feeling hard-pressed not to laugh his ass off. And he knows he shouldn't. After all, he is driving. And that stunt could have caused an accident. But, still, just like any kid, Sammy does stupid things sometimes.
"That was scary," Sammy breathes, but there's a small grin on his lips.
"You're alright, buddy," Dean assures and ruffles his hair. "That arm okay?" Sam stares at his casted arm, before nodding vigorously. "Sometimes you gotta go with gentle," Dean murmurs to Cas, shrugging as Cas' glare intensifies.
"If we crash, he is going to end up going through the windshield. There are no seatbelts back there."
"No seatbelts anywhere," Sam sing-songs.
Cas sighs, still glaring at Dean. "Seatbelts."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Sammy, park your ass back on your seat."
"Okeydokey."
Dean and Cas snap their heads around at the thump a second later. Sammy is lying face down on the bench-seat, legs bent up at the knees with half his body hanging in the footwell.
Dean shakes his head as he returns his eyes to the road. He does his best not to jump out of his skin half a minute later when Sammy pops his head back over the front seat. Sometimes he wishes he never taught the kid the art of stealth. Or that he never forgot to replace the damn seatbelts the last time he fixed up Baby.
"I gotsa go potty," Sam announces.
Suppressing a groan, Dean glances at his watch and silently congratulates his baby brother's tiny bladder for allowing them to get this far in their journey. Considering the kid downed a tumbler full of liquid. Even if it is only twenty minutes since they left Redfern Grove. And Dean had promised they'd make the needed stops. Neither he nor Cas want Sammy becoming dehydrated again.
"Need potty," Sam reminds, fingers patting the side of Dean's face.
"I know," Dean replies, searching out a place to stop, knowing from years of experience with the face Sam's pulling that the kid won't be able to hold it much longer.
Though a little more warning to the fact Sam needed the bathroom would have been nice. Before they got to the point of busting.
Seeing no available places to take the kid, Dean knows the trees lining their route will have to do. And seeing a shoulder ahead with a good amount of tree coverage beyond the verge, Dean throws on the right blinker and pulls onto the shoulder, bringing the car to a stop.
"Cas, you need to go?"
"No. I'll wait here."
Dean nods, cutting the engine and climbing from the car, slipping his gun into his back waistband. Opening the back door, he gestures Sam out. The kid slides across the seat, before he stops and turns back to Cas.
"If you gets scared, Cassie, honk the horn, 'kay."
Cas' tense posture from events of only moments ago lessens at the words from his sweet child. "Thank you, little one. I'll be sure to do that."
Sam smiles sweetly, before pushing himself the rest of the way out of the car.
Clicking on the flashlight, Dean's fingers circle Sam's wrist and he leads his kid into the woods. They only stop when he can just about glimpse the Impala because he knows it is there. Far enough away from any traffic headlights being able to see them from the road.
Passing the flashlight to Sam, Dean quickly unfastens the tie of Sam's pyjama pants, pushing them and the boxer-briefs down enough for Sam to do his business. Sammy, however, pushes his pants and underwear down further so they bunch around his knees.
Taking the flashlight back, Dean shrugs it off with a shake of his head as he gestures Sam towards the tree. Sam doesn't make a move to step up to the tree, however, and instead glances around.
"Nobody can see you, kiddo," Dean assures his self-conscious brother. "Just go."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Um, Dean… where's the potty?"
Dean's eyebrows rise in surprise. Then he points at the tree. "That's as good as anything, Sammy."
Sammy just stands there staring between him and the tree and then states, "That's a tree," like Dean isn't already aware of that little detail.
"Yeah, Sammy. I see that. You want a different tree, 'cause," Dean gestures around at the number of other trees Sam can easily go against, "we're not lacking in them here, kiddo."
"No, I mean, that's a tree, Dean."
"And once again I already know that fact, Sammy, what …?" Dean trails off, staring at his kid who is still looking between him and the tree in utter bewilderment. As if the very concept of using a tree as a bathroom is a foreign concept to him when he has done it countless times before.
And Dean would be beyond pissed and testing the kid up the wazoo for demonic possession and other shit right now, if he wasn't already one-hundred percent confident the puppy-eyed man-child in front of him is definitely his Sammy.
The kid has only left Dean's sight three times in the past twelve hours and that was to have his X-ray and DEXA scan done, and then at the motel. And the look Sammy is wearing is familiar, though Dean hasn't seen it in a long time.
And he knows what it stems from; seeing the great John Winchester (who supposedly feared nothing) freak the fuck out and scream like a banshee because a spider jumped from the tree he was pissing against and onto his exposed dick.
In retrospect, it easily could have been a dangerous spider, but it had been funny, and their dad had even laughed once he'd zipped himself back up. That is, it had been funny right up until Dean had seen the fear in Sammy's eyes; the kid having run away from the tree (and the potty he'd been sitting on) like he'd been zapped by lightning.
And Sam being Sam, having not seen the spider, thought it was the tree that made John scream like that. And no matter how many times Dean tried to tell the kid otherwise, Sam was having none of it. At least until he got older. Then Sam hadn't had any problems pissing against trees when trees were the only available pit stop on the road.
Until now.
And while Dean has been going with the flow regarding Sam's regressive behaviour, it doesn't mean this isn't another thing being filed under his mental list titled 'what the fuck is going on?'.
Not for the first time of late has Dean had the thought that the spell somehow unlocked some of Sam's long-buried childhood memories, that are now trying to scramble Sam's adult mind. Skewing the kid's perception of which time he's living in. It would explain the regressive behaviour. And Dean's been having plenty of dreams lately from their younger years too, but seen as Dean was never really a kid to begin with… Dean stops himself with a shake of his head.
The more he thinks on all this crap the more confused he gets; each thought blending into another until he can no longer remember what the fuck he was going on about to begin with. Especially when he starts thinking on his own dreams and behaviour lately. He figured that out at least, so it is much easier to focus on Sammy.
Who's currently still standing there with his pants and underwear around his knees, shaking his head back and forth like some kind of shaggy dog with all that hair flying around. And any other day Dean might be amused by the sight, but right now Dean's honestly too frigging tired.
"Sammy, you need to pee. This is all we got."
"S'not a potty. 'S'a tree," Sammy points out, as if Dean needs that clarifying just one more time.
Calling on whoever the fuck it is that grants patience, Dean is able to calmly say, "I know that, bud," without any bite to his tone.
Because this is getting old, very quickly. They've been standing here for at least five minutes now, just waiting on Sammy to step up to the tree and take a piss. Only for the kid to tell Dean the tree is not a potty.
And around and around they go.
"Sam, c'mon, kiddo, your bottom has gotta be cold by now. You don't even have to go by the tree, just stay right there and pee."
"Nah-uh. S'not …"
"… A potty. Right. Got that, thanks, kiddo."
"Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad, Sammy."
"Are too," Sammy responds, bottom lip pushing out into a pout and fingers playing with the hem of his jacket. "You being sarcastic."
"You know that's just my usual disposition."
Sam pulls in his lip from its pout so he can smile softly. "Did you mild-meld with a dee'ary, De?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "Dictionary, bud," he states, still calling on that patience, even as he corrects his little brother's terminology for the book Sammy first read cover to cover when he was seven and consequently called 'dee-ary' because he couldn't pronounce 'dictionary'.
Such a geek.
"I gotsa go, De," Sammy brings them back to why the hell they're standing in the woods this time, his feet shuffling in the dance of every kid who leaves it too long to go potty.
"Sammy, you're standing there with everything blowing in the breeze. Either go pee or pull your pants back up and we'll go to the car. But I'm warning you right now, that we still have a forty-minute drive ahead of us, and I have no idea if there'll be another stop along the way."
Come on, kiddo, say you'll go, Dean silently pleads.
Because aside from not wanting his kid to be in pain from holding it in, Dean also doesn't want Sammy to have to face an accident. The last one Sam slept through. They won't have that luxury this go around.
Sam bites at his bottom lip as his eyes travel to the tree before returning to Dean. The kid once again shakes his head.
Dean withholds a sigh. "Then you're gonna have to hold it, baby. You think you can do that? It's gonna hurt your tummy."
Sam nods sharply and starts pulling at his clothing. "'M a big boy. Can hold it."
Yeah, a big boy who wants a potty, Dean thinks, stepping forward to unwind the boxer-briefs Sammy's twisting around the waistband of his pants.
"C'mon," Dean says as soon as he has the clothing righted. He grasps hold of Sam's hand this time rather than the kid's wrist as he had on the way in. "Quicker we get back to the impala, the quicker we get you to a potty."
The journey back through the trees is shorter than the one in. Even though Sam tripped over his own feet a couple times claiming something tripped him. But each time Dean shone the flashlight over the ground there wasn't anything there that Sam could have tripped over. More than likely tiredness was making the kid clumsy. Thankfully they reach the tree-line in under a minute without an accident of either kind.
"Whoa, hey!" Dean exclaims, startled, as Sam yanks his hand free from Dean's and starts running for the back end of the impala. Dean bolts after him, just managing to grab hold of the kid before he hits the road (parked on the shoulder or not) and spins Sam around to face him. "Sammy, what the hell you doing? You do NOT run towards a frigging road! Do I need to swat your behind for you to remember that?"
Sammy ducks his head down, casted arm trailing behind him to cover his butt. "Wasn't running towards the road, Dean, promise. Just 'pala."
"Well you weren't running to your door, kid, so what were you doing?"
"I …" Sammy raises his head back up and glances towards the trunk, his brow creased into a deep frown. "I …" Once again, he trails off.
Dean's eyes pinch as he allows a frown of his own forward. Sammy is clearly confused and unable to articulate his behaviour, so Dean decides it best to let it go and just get the hell out of there rather than push his brother right now. Opening the passenger door, Sammy slides in.
"What happened?" Cas questions as soon as Dean gets behind the wheel, glancing back at a confused Sam.
Dean shakes his head, firing the engine and getting them back on the road, the ride silent.
Trees rush by the windows as the journey eats up another five minutes. Dean glances in his rear-view mirror at his kid. Sammy is just staring quietly out the window, a grimace of pain crossing his face as he holds his body rigid in the seat.
Dean sighs. Again.
"I thought …"
Dean and Cas hold their breath, hoping for some kind of answer to what happened back there.
"Thought what, Sammy?"
Sammy stares at him in the rear-view, a faint brush of pink decorating his cheeks and across his nose as he glances at Cas and back to the mirror. "I… I thought my potty …" His eyes travel over his shoulder out the back windshield.
And Dean gets it. He finally understands what Sammy was thinking. He's pretty sure he should have figured it out sooner actually. After all, he was the one who had inadvertently brought forward Sam's thinking when in the woods he said, "Quicker we get back to the impala, the quicker we get you to a potty."
Impala equals potty to a regressed Sammy.
"You thought your potty was in the trunk," Dean states.
"Yeah."
"Well, that's an easy mistake to make, kiddo."
"Easy mistake …" Sam shakes his head. "Dean, I thought my frigging potty was in the trunk and you'd get it out and sit me on the stupid thing so I could go pee!"
"You went potty in the woods, little one," Cas interrupts, confused.
"No, he didn't," Dean corrects, hearing Sammy shifting in his seat, reminding them all that the kid still needs to go to the bathroom and if they don't get to one soon, they'll definitely be facing an accident. "Look, Sammy, I know, okay. But like I said, it was an easy mistake to make. You just got confused. Heck, your potty lived in the trunk for a good few years, didn't it?"
"I know. It's just… is none of this even bothering you, Dean? Either of you?" Sam asks, arms flapping in front of him as he tries to get his point across without actually saying anything beyond that.
"What the heck is supposed to be bothering us about you needing to go pee, Sammy? That's about the most natural thing in our screwed-up lives," Dean tells him. "If you wanna know whether it's aggravating me that you're hurting yourself right now because you couldn't go against the tree? You bet. But I get it, buddy, okay. And I'll get you to a potty."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about," Sam says so quietly Dean and Cas have to strain to hear him. "And I don't know if it's just that you've been ignoring it, or hoping its gonna sort itself out on its own. Which, you know, when does it ever? But… none of us can deny that there's something going on here beyond our control for much longer."
"Well, you're not wrong," Dean quietly states, before the car descends into silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
Dean and Cas silent because neither is quite sure how to continue to breach the topic raised. While Sam is primarily concerned with keeping control of his bladder.
Something that is becoming increasingly difficult by the second. But every time he opens his mouth to ask Dean to pull over, that he'll pee against whatever tree is available to him, the thought that he needs his potty rears its ugly head. And he's back to concentrating on the sharp and very present ache in his gut and nothing else.
Dean's eyes find the rear-view mirror again as another pained whimper leaves his kid. "Right, that's it." He pulls over onto the side of the road, gets out and pulls open Sam's door.
"What're you doing?" Sam questions through gritted teeth, not fighting it when Dean eases him around on his seat.
"I'm not having you hurting yourself like this anymore, Sam." Opening the kid's pant tie, Dean whisks both the pants and underwear under Sam's butt and down his legs, taking the slip-on boots with him as he fully removes the clothing, dumping it in the footwell.
"I can't, De," Sam's shoulders hunch as he shivers against the coolness of the seat under his butt.
"You can, buddy," Dean encourages, pulling Sammy forward so the kid's butt rests on the very edge of the seat. "You just gotta relax and let go. Your body will do the rest. I promise it'll be just like sitting on a potty."
Sam shakes his head. "No. I can't. I don't wanna mess 'Pala."
"You won't, kiddo. And even if you did, you know what, Sammy?"
Sam blinks up at him. "What?"
"Baby likes a good clean. Inside and out. And sometimes she doesn't get to have that unless we make a mess."
"She's been messed up loads. Poor 'Pala. But I can't do it."
"Sammy," Dean cups his brother's cheek, giving him a smile, "you already did, buddy."
"Huh? Did what?"
"Your tummy hurting anymore?" Dean questions. Even as concern rears its head as to why Sam didn't recognise he had started peeing when they started talking about the Impala.
"No," Sam shakes his head, because his tummy doesn't hurt anymore, which can only mean … "Oh. I did it! I go pee like a big boy, De!"
Dean chuckles lightly, the pride shining through, the same pride he held when Sammy first used a potty. And isn't that just stupid? To be proud of something his kid already long ago mastered. But Dean doesn't care if Sammy sits down to pee, or wants a potty, or hell, ends up back in diapers. All that counts, is that his little boy is happy. And Sammy sure is happy right now.
"You sure did, bud." He is careful to keep his boots out of the puddle on the ground as he helps Sammy back into his clothing, save for the kid's boots which he leaves in the footwell.
"Well done, little one," Cas praises, offering a proud smile when Sam turns towards him, a shy returning smile gracing his lips.
Dean holds up Sam's pacifier and the kid readily takes it, humming lightly in appreciation. He leans into the car, reaching over Sammy and pulls their green blanket towards his kid, covering him over. Sam grasps a fistful, pulling it up to his cheek and lightly rubbing against the fabric, his eyes already drooping and Dean situates him a little more comfortably.
"Night, baby boy," Dean murmurs, pressing a kiss to the side of Sammy's head.
Closing the back door, Dean opens his own and closes it behind him once he's situated behind the wheel once more. Firing up the engine, he pulls them back onto the road, glancing at his partner every now and then. Cas is still sitting sideways; left leg raised on the seat, an arm atop the backrest and his chin resting on his hand as he watches Sammy sleep.
"He's okay," Dean whispers, giving the man's calf a squeeze.
"He came too close to not being so. And he's just so innocent, Dean. How do we protect him from everything in this world that wants to do him harm?"
"There's no way we can, Cas," Dean responds, honestly and wearily. "And for Sammy… it was too late to protect him from everything before he was even born."
"Does that mean we don't even try?"
"Hell, yes, we try! Or weren't you even present when you were beating the shit outta White back there, Cas? Did blind rage just take over?"
"I was conscious of my actions at first. Confused by what I was seeing on those screens through the open door, and when I realised just who I was seeing… this protective fury rose up inside of me towards Sam, towards my child …"
"Tell me something, Cas? And I'm not having a got at ya, but… when exactly did Sammy become your child?"
"When did he become yours?"
"Not talking about me." Dean shoots a look at his partner, the man slowly turning back around to face forward. "I'm just saying, you've gone from hating him to seeing him as your child …"
"I never hated Sam," Cas returns unwaveringly. "Never. I didn't understand Sam. I only ever had the teachings of Heaven. That the youngest Winchester was-was …"
"An abomination I think you called him."
"Yes. And I will forever regret it, Dean. I am not perfect. I made mistakes then. As we all did. I was blind to Sam as a human being; a sweet, caring, thoughtful, innocent child. I only saw 'the boy with the demon blood' as I was made to believe, as my actions attested to. But Sam was so very different to what he was made out to be. Different than even you, Dean, 'the righteous man'."
Dean sighs; he hates having these types of conversations with Sam, let alone Cas. And he hates those categorisations heaven tacked onto them even more. "The world isn't black and white, Cas. Especially the one we live in. Just as being human doesn't automatically make you good, being something of the supernatural variety doesn't equal evil. And it was the so-called 'boy with the demon blood' who taught the supposed 'righteous man' that." Dean glances sideways at his partner, before looking back to the road. "Sammy sees the grey. He always has. And it's got him into trouble more than once."
"I wanted to destroy White," Cas admits quietly, unnecessarily really for Dean is already aware of that. Hell, Sam is aware of that. "Not just kill him, but annihilate him," Cas' fingers curl into his palms. "And if he had managed to lay a hand on Sam …"
"White wouldn't have seen the light of day, trust me on that."
"I am not used to feeling this protective of another, Dean. I know I would kill for you, give everything for you, but now, for Sam, I'd …"
"Watch the world burn," Dean states knowingly.
"Yes," Cas recognises without pause.
"Welcome to the Dean Winchester way of things, Castiel. Strap on in, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."
#SPN#
Relief floods Dean's body as he finally turns the Impala into the Jeffries' long driveway; the trees lining the way opening up to the view of the sprawling two-storey cabin house with tall doors and even taller windows. A double garage stands alone off to the right of the house with a loft above, and another single garage-loft combo resides just behind and to the right-side of the double garage.
The exterior lights highlight several vehicles parked up on the open paved front yard, one of which is a dark blue truck that two men are quietly standing next to.
"The Jeffries' live here?" Cas questions surprised.
"Yep," Dean replies, pulling the Impala alongside the truck.
Shutting off the engine, Dean glances back at Sam's sleeping form before climbing from the car, Cas following suit. The taller of the two men steps forward; he stands the same height as Dean, a short beard and cropped brown hair sticking up as if the guy just dragged himself out of bed.
"Been too damn long, Dean," the man says, grasping Dean's outstretched hand.
"You too, Mason. Thought you were out in Denver?"
"Teaching position at SeattleU drew me back about five years ago," Mason responds, eyes shifting to Cas.
"Cas, this is Mason, Kara's son," Dean introduces. "Mason, Castiel."
"Castiel? As in the angel?" the second man questions, stepping away from the truck to stand beside Mason.
"Yes," Cas responds, making no mention of the fact he is no longer an angel. They had agreed it may be safer that way. Unless, of course, Crowley feels the need to open his mouth.
"Dean, Castiel, this is Michael. My partner."
Dean frowns and points an inquiring finger at Michael. "Why do I think I should recognise you?"
"We've met. Fitchburg, Wisconsin. About ten years ago now. You and Sam saved the town from a Shtriga."
Dean's eyes widen. Remembering back to the thirteen-year-old kid who had helped them defeat the Shtriga a decade ago to save his own little brother. And although the hair is a darker blonde and shorter, the facial features that of a man instead of a teenager, he can now see the resemblance to the kid he met.
"Oh man! You're that Michael?" Michael nods. Dean grins, slapping the kid on the shoulder. "It's good to see ya alive and well, dude. How's your little brother, err, Asher, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Michael nods, lips curved up in a little grin. "Asher's good, man. He's a shit. But he's good."
Dean chuckles. "Man, I wish Sammy was awake right now."
"We'll catch up, I'm sure. We're gonna be back later, so …" Michael shrugs one shoulder.
"You're heading out?" Dean questions, looking between Mason and Michael.
"We're gonna hit up a lead for this witch you're after," Mason responds. He holds up a hand to stop whatever protest Dean is about to make. "I'm not asking for your permission here, dude. We're capable of dealing with it."
"Specially now we know what she looks like, thanks to that drawing of her you sent out to the network," Michael adds.
The drawing was still only a rough draft, but it was a good enough likeness (at least according to Sammy and Cas) Dean had wanted to get it out there. He had taken a photo of the drawing and texted it out before they had packed up the Impala earlier. It should make it a little easier for any hunter out there helping them out with leads on the witch. Especially now, after events in Vancouver.
"You guys should get some rest," Mason states, "'cause you both look beat."
Cas snorts wryly. "We did the beating."
"Yeah, I see that," Mason's eyes rove over both Dean and Cas' split knuckles. "House is open. You remember where the guest room you guys used to stay is?" Dean nods. "Good. You're set up in there," he adds, before he climbs behind the wheel of the truck, Michael rounding the truck to get in the passenger side. "Oh," Mason pauses in closing his door. "You hear that?" he points a finger upward.
Dean frowns, but listens closer to the repetitive thuds he's been hearing since he stepped out of the car. He groans. "Woodpile?"
"Yep. Just watch out for the sharp end."
"Your mom or the axe?"
Mason and Michael laugh. "Both," they chorus.
"Gotcha. And thanks," Dean's not thanking them for the warning.
They nod in understanding and close doors before heading out.
Dean rounds the Impala and opens the driver-side passenger door, picking Sammy up into his arms. "Grab our duffles and Sam's script, would ya, Cas? Shoulda really got the ear drops in earlier."
"I'm sure it will not cause any harm to be a little delayed."
Dean doesn't respond, already ascending the stone steps with his sleeping brother on his hip. He opens the unlocked front door and enters, the warmth of the house a welcome juxtaposition to the cold outside.
He feels Sammy stir, no doubt from the change in temperature, and rubs his back, swaying back and forth a little, whispering nonsense. Sammy mumbles, eyes blinking open once to half-mast before drifting closed again and remaining closed as the kid drops back into sleep.
When Cas appears, and has closed the front door behind him, Dean quietly leads him upstairs and through the maze of hallways until they reach the guest suite in the far left of the house. There is one king standing central on the far wall and a sofa bed pulled out and made up to the left of the suite's door.
Dean crosses the room and lays Sam down on the king. Removing both the hat and scarf, he makes quick work of delivering the single drop of antibiotic eardrop into each of Sammy's ears, being careful not to allow any to run back out. He lightly scratches at Sammy's scalp when the kid fidgets, hand rising to rub at his ear in his sleep, a pained whine escaping from around the nipple of his pacifier.
"I know, buddy," Dean says quietly, drawing his kid back up into his arms, hating that he has to cause Sammy pain to keep the abrasions in his ears from becoming infected. "But they're gonna help," he reassures them both, even if Sam is still sleeping.
The bed dips beside him as Cas sits down. "Can we have Sam in with us?"
"That's the plan. Can you stay with him while I go find Kara?"
#
The axe snaps down towards Dean's head. He catches it by the top of the wooden handle, the bottom half being held in the hold of a furious woman.
"God dammit, Dean Winchester, I coulda killed ya!" Kara Jeffries yells, yanking the axe out of his hold and flinging it into the large woodpile, where it imbeds itself deeply into one of the logs.
Dean shrugs lightly, smirking. "Give me a little credit, Kara."
"Credit's due to those who don't act like an idiot, and nearly get their heads cut off! Where's the baby?" She demands, brushing away dark brown strands of hair from her face.
Dean blinks at the sudden shift. "What baby?"
She levels him with a look, bold brown eyes telling him he's being an idiot on purpose. "Sam."
Dean's eyes narrow. "Rae's got a big mouth."
"Agreed," Kara shrugs, lips quirked into a half-smirk. "Except my daughter didn't need to tell me anything, Dean. I have eyes. Or was that not Sam you carried into the house with a pacifier in his mouth?"
"Thought you were too busy working out some good old aggression on the woodpile?"
"It might come as a shock to you, Dean Winchester, but I'm capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Especially when it comes to knowing who's entering my house."
"He's inside," Dean relents. "Asleep. Cas is with him."
He sits his ass on the wooden beam of the sawhorse behind him, while Kara pulls off her gloves and digs into a bucket full of water, retrieving two beers. She swipes the bottles down with her palm, before passing one to Dean. She drops down to sit on the sawhorse beside him, swigging at her beer as Dean does the same.
"Ahhh," Dean savours the taste of the good cold beer. "You brew this?"
"Friend of ours a few houses over."
Dean nods. "Gained anymore residents?"
"A few. Mostly of the AP persuasion, but we've had a worn-out hunter here and there."
Originally established by the Jeffries' brothers as a sanctuary for weary hunters (a rarely known one), Yrautcnas has evolved into an unincorporated community over the years.
Protected by moss-covered sigils hand-carved into the many trees lining the border of the small town on the east side of Olympic National Park, the property borders of houses are each individually protected by the same warding. It's protection, however, is not fool-proof as you can't fully defend open air.
But of all the years Dean has known about Yrautcnas, its yet to have had an attack of the supernatural kind. And the only reason he does know about it is because of Bobby, through whom Sam and Dean had met the Jeffries' kids when the family lived in Sioux Falls. Sam and Dean had been fortune enough to have made a few trips out here with Bobby, the only vacation they had ever known.
It was only later that Tom and Kara upped-sticks out here fully.
The next time he had visited was with his dad for a hunt. Kara had given sanctuary to a couple with an adult-baby. Into a small community of hunters. Hunters who (even retired or on sabbatical) are a tough breed, the majority would not have the patience for such an escapism as age-play when they are placing their lives on the line every day.
Would call it soft or pathetic.
Like Dean once had.
He had followed his dad's lead (as was the usual case back then) and John Winchester had had no tolerance for the age-play, nor the idea of retiring from the life of a hunter. At least not before they had taken out the thing that killed mom. And even then, John would undoubtedly never have given up the life.
Just like us, Dean has to allow.
But Dean had also been disgusted at the thought of adults playing as children while having sex with their 'carers'. It was the only thing he had known about age-play at the time. And Dean knows when to draw a line under sex. Sawyer, Kara's eldest daughter, had filled him in on the reality of non-sexual age-play. And while Dean may not have fully understood it, he got it, especially when he realised his baby brother had some traits of a little.
Not that he had had any intention of telling Sam that.
But drawing these two very different communities together should in no way have worked, and yet, somehow Kara had managed to do so. And while Dean had not visited Yrautcnas since that time with his dad, he knows it has expanded.
Trusted hunters come for the protection, living or taking time off in the place, while the age-play side of things has moved in around them. Kara having opened a day care for littles and AB's so their parents or carers can work. And from what Dean's heard, outlying towns and cities with people involved in the age-play community also bring their 'kids' to the day care. Even if they have to travel several hours each way.
It is still strange to Dean. But he doesn't give a shit about the norms of society, so who is he to judge people's life choices? Hell, he might have a Little of his own. He just doesn't want anything to do with it if people are having sex with those 'kids' in little headspaces. Because those that are involved in that side of age-play can fuck the hell off away from him.
Dean can feel Kara side-eyeing him. "You know I'm not gonna take you and Tom up on your offer, Kara, so quit looking at me like that."
"I know. The visiting offer still stands though. Here or at the cabin. You boys used to love it here. Running around out there without many other houses around. You were a kid for a little while."
"Yeah, well …" Dean shrugs one shoulder. "Bobby used to nag us not to go further than the boundaries," he says shifting the conversation away from what can't be changed.
"You never stepped over them if I recall rightly."
"Had my kid to watch out for."
"And Bobby's hand if memory serves."
"Yeah, that too," Dean chuckles.
A comfortable silence descends upon them, both swigging away at their beers. Dean eventually figures he should bring up the reason why Kara was out here furiously hacking her way through the woodpile.
"Cas told me what happened in Vancouver."
Because as it turned out, the girl in the grainy picture Kara had sent them yesterday morning (before they realised Sammy had done a disappearing act) was a decoy. Same height and build as Rowena, and wearing a red wig, she was paid to impersonate the witch. The teenage girl had confessed everything when Kara had stuck her gun in the girl's face.
Watching Kara closely while she continues to stare off into the darkened woods before them, Dean can see that while Kara's expression remains stoic, her brown eyes fill with fury.
"Not all of it."
Dean arcs a questioning eyebrow.
"Don't get me wrong, Dean," she starts, turning to look at him, "in recent years I've met and gotten to know some good people who happen to be witches, but the bad'ens, like this Rowena …" Kara shakes her head. "Pathetic fucking witch didn't pay the kid with money, Dean. Rowena gave her a love potion."
Well fuck. That was possibly the worst move Rowena could ever have pulled with Kara around. And he knows that from experience. Because that hunt he and his dad had come to Yrautcnas for all those year ago, it was to help Kara and a couple other hunters take down a coven of witches selling to pedophiles' using love potions on kidnapped teens and pre-teens.
Love potions kill both the recipient and the bearer.
And while Dean couldn't give a shit about a bunch of pedo's getting their dues, kids' dying because of fucked up sadists?
No. Just no.
It still remains to this day (even after all he has been through) one of the worst hunts Dean has ever experienced. His first with witches, and generally why he despises them. It had also been the first time he had been grateful Sammy was away at school and not on the hunt with them.
And Kara… the coven had stood no chance against her fury.
"You get there in time to stop the kid from using it?"
"Thankfully, yes. And proceeded to explain in graphic detail what would have happened to her had she used it. Of course, now she won't be going anywhere near recreational drugs in the future either."
"You couldn't've left the girl to have a little fun?" Dean smirks lightly as Kara shoots him a half-hearted glare.
"So, what exactly is Rowena's deal?"
"Aside from being the King of Hell's mother …"
"Crowley's mother? Well that's fucked up." Dean snorts. "What'd she do to get the Winchesters' on her tail?"
Dean sighs. Normally he wouldn't air their business, but the Jeffries' are good people. Trustworthy. "If we don't hand Rowena's ass over to Crowley by a week Monday, he's gonna break any number of my kid's bones or worse."
"Correction, that's fucked up." Kara takes a swig of her beer, before she chuckles lightly, sadly. "You boy's really don't like keeping yourselves outta trouble, do ya?"