So I could apologize yet again for being late or I could just shut up and let you read. It's a longer chapter, so hopefully that'll make up for it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER 15
"Come on, try it again," Dean urges for what seems like the hundredth time. And just like all the other times before, Ben's hand passes straight through the chair Phil had been sitting in.
"I...I can't," Ben growls, frustrated.
Dean feels his own frustration gnawing at his ribs, unable to keep it from his voice. "Ben, you held onto a pen for like six hours the other day while we were playing that dumb game. How can you not…?"
"I don't know," Ben screams. "Maybe because all of my energy lately has been focused on not freaking out and going full psycho-ghost on you, and now I'm just too damn tired."
Dean shifts against his handcuffs, feeling the slipperiness of his own blood against his fingers. The small amount of daylight that had been filtering in through the basement's single window is fading into sunset, casting a thin, orange glow along the floor near Dean's feet. "It's really that bad?" Dean asks worriedly.
Ben sighs, letting his useless hands drop away from the chair. "I'm scared, Dean. I mean there's so much inside me right now. I don't know how much longer I can do this."
"Alright," Dean reassures. "It's okay. You can hold on. We'll figure it out."
Ben takes a small step towards Dean, his face scrunching in distaste. "You don't know that," he points out.
"We will, Ben," Dean insists. "I just need you to pull it together. You gotta be strong."
The moment the words have left his mouth is the moment Dean knows he's made a mistake. An echo of memory floats up inside the space between the hunter and the ghost- another dark basement from years ago. Lisa lying bloody on the floor, and Dean spewing out those same words to a dumbstruck Ben, urging him to grab the shotgun from the duffle bag at his feet. Ben cocks his head to the side a bit, like he's listening for something. Dean wishes for his jacket as the sudden chill of Ben's emotion makes itself known in the air.
"Damn you, Dean," the kid snarls as he inches closer to where Dean sits. "You talk such a big game. You pretend you know it all. But you don't. You don't know anything. You just spew out the same words over and over again, and you don't even know if they're true. You guys could all be dead by tomorrow."
"Ben. I would never let that happen," Dean persists, but his answer only serves to drive the temperature down by a few more degrees.
"But you did, Dean. You did let it happen. You left and now I'm dead," says Ben. His tone is low, pestilent. "I'm dead," he repeats, as if he can't believe it, and Dean lets out a surprised yelp when he feels his back connect with the wall behind him, the uneven edge of it digging into his spine. Ben is glaring at him, and Dean searches for the right words this time, even as he feels his chest constrict with the intensity of Ben's hold on him.
"Ben, I'm sorry. You'll never know how sorry. But right now, I need you to do better than I could. I need you to find a way to center yourself. Find a way to save yourself this time, and don't become something you can't come back from."
"And why the hell not?" Ben counters. Beside him, the table and chair begin to shake. " At least when I'm angry, I can move things. Next time Phil Asshead comes down here, I can whip that table at him."
"Ben, no," Dean gasps. "It's not worth it."
"Oh don't go playing the martyr," Ben says, rolling his eyes. But Dean feels some of the air coming back to his lungs, a little of the tightness gone from his chest. Ben is losing steam, and Dean doesn't know whether to be grateful or worried by that fact.
"Ben, think about your mom," Dean urges, hoping that the decreased pressure is due to Ben seeing reason. "Think about how she'd feel if you go crazy before she gets the chance to say goodbye."
The table stops shaking. The chair wobbles one more time on its legs and then sits still. At first, Dean thinks it's because he's gotten through to Ben, but a moment later he hears footsteps on the stairs. Phil enters the doorway, flicking the light on, a knowing smile plastered on his face. It makes Dean uneasy, but he just stares back at Phil, trying his best to look utterly unimpressed.
"Talking to yourself down here, Dean?" Phil asks, peeking around the dark corners of the basement conspiratorially, as if playing hide and seek with a child still in plain sight.
Dean shrugs, deceptively casual. "Yeah, well. Not much else to do, seeing as it's not looking like you're gonna let me go anytime soon."
"It took me a second," Phil says, as if Dean hasn't spoken. He walks a little further into the room, and Dean watches Ben take an automatic step back. The boy's face is still filled with rage, but it is more controlled now, focused on the real enemy in front of them. Dean half expects to see the table fling itself across the room as Ben had been threatening to do just a few moments ago, but Ben seems to sense the same underlying tension that Dean does, and the room stays still. Phil continues speaking, voice soft and sticky like overworked dough. "You know, I've never fully perfected my visions. The demons I work for hate it, because sometimes it takes me a long time to figure out what will get people to a crossroads. And I was thinking..." Phil pauses, puts a finger to his chin like some cheap imitation of a Disney villain. "I was thinking: How did the Winchesters know Lisa was in danger? It's almost like you had another psychic working for you. Or a ghost." Phil smiles. "Hello, Benjamin."
The silence breaks on Phil's last, damning word, a thundering shriek of wood as Ben flings the chair across the floor of the basement and straight at Phil. The psychic dodges it easily, already whipping a container of salt from the pocket of his jacket and flinging it in Ben's direction. Dean is helpless to do anything but watch as the room comes alive around him, tools and light-bulbs and any other objects Ben can dig up whipping low around their heads, somehow always missing Dean by a few inches. Phil is dipping and dodging with a surprising level of grace, twisting nimbly away from a buzz saw as it cuts through the air right next to his ear. He whips the salt out again, this time catching Dean in the crossfire. The hunter flinches away from the kernels that land near his face. Ben attempts to do the same, but a few of the grains make contact, and Dean opens his eyes in time to watch as Ben's anger quite literally shakes every inch of his pale frame. Dean knows the exact moment that Ben becomes visible to Phil, because Phil's eyes immediately move to him and he smiles big and wide, like a twisted kid who's just pulled the wings off his first fly and is already figuring out how to catch another one.
"Ben, no!" Dean screams, but he's already too late. Ben rushes at Phil, who drops a thick, unbroken line of salt right in front of him. Each move Ben makes after that is met with another calculated movement from Phil until he has successfully imprisoned Ben within a small box of salt. Ben seethes, furious, the bloodless veins in his neck standing at attention, pumping nothing, even as he screams expletives that would almost make Dean himself blush if he weren't already terrified by the look on the kid's face. It reminds him of Sam right before he'd thrown his big brother through a wall in a Cold Spring hotel suite. Reminds him of himself, surrounded in a land full of monsters and an angel who wasn't coming to save him.
Phil is breathing hard, the salt canister bobbing a little in his trembling fingers as he slowly regains his composure. He swipes at a trickle of blood falling from his lip where something Ben threw actually caught him a bit. Dean doesn't even know what it was that got him, but he's disappointed it didn't do more damage. By the look on Ben's face, so is he. The kid looks exhausted, all of the energy drained out of him. He sits slumped within his circle of salt, chest heaving with breaths he no longer needs to take.
"Let him go, Phil," Dean warns, though there's no true threat behind the words, and Phil knows it. He runs his hands through his thinning hair, smoothing it back.
"You'll have time now. To talk," Phil says, placing the salt canister on the table. He looks sullen, like this really wasn't his idea. Like it's all gotten too far out of hand and there's nothing he can do now but ride whatever comes, become whatever he needs to in order to keep himself breathing. Dean wishes the look wasn't so familiar. It sucks the anger from him, instead fills his chest with a hopeless weight. "I can sense that there's a lot you need to say to each other, and maybe now it can be said," Phil continues. "I truly hope that you can sort things out before the auction. Come to terms with everything."
Ben rolls his eyes, but doesn't say anything.
"Can you, Phil?" Dean asks, trying one more time to use the only cards he has left in the deck. "Can you come to terms with what you're doing?"
Phil huffs out a sigh, blinking slowly down at his captives. He pauses for a long time, and Dean waits him out.
"I thought about telling my wife, once. What I've done for them," the psychic drawls. He looks off into the space behind Dean's head at something far away and not there. "What I've done to stay alive. But I think it's something I need to keep to myself. It's a burden I have to shoulder, to keep them clean, you know? To make sure they don't get dragged into the darkness. We must do that, for the people we love. We must keep our secrets, and we must sometimes travel the darker roads so that they can take the ones bathed in light. Do you understand what I mean, Dean?"
"I understand that if you leave us down here, there's no going back," the hunter answers. "You'll cross that line for good. You've been working with demons, selling other people's lives for your own. Don't you think you've done enough?"
Phil nods like he agrees. "So then, you do understand," he says, as though Dean has learned an important lesson. "You've done much the same, wouldn't you say? Deals with demons. Deals with Death himself. You even partnered with the King of Hell for a moment there, didn't you? Helped him gather up a little zoo of monsters. Not quite covered in light yourself, Dean Winchester."
Dean blinks. "Never said I was."
Phil shakes his head remorsefully and reaches slowly into his pocket again, this time pulling out Dean's cell phone.
"What are you doing?" Dean asks, instantly wary.
"Calling your brother."
"Now?" Dean asks, confused. "Don't you have to wait for this stupid auction? Showing your hand kinda early there, McDermott."
"Look, I feel bad, alright?" Phil admits, exasperated. "I know you guys care about each other. I've got a sister I'm very close to. If she ever went missing, I don't know what I'd do." He wiggles the phone in Dean's direction, unlocking it with ease and scrolling through the short contact list. "I'd just like to calm his nerves a bit."
Dean snorts. "Lemme get this straight. You're gonna calm my brother's nerves by making a call from my cell phone that I've been kidnapped? I'm not sure you've thought this through."
"Believe me, Dean, I have," Phil assures. He finds Sam's name on the list and hesitates for a moment, letting the screen go dark. Dean looks at him questioningly, but Phil turns away from him, suddenly searching for something. He speaks over his shoulder while rustling through a container in the corner of the room that Dean can't get a clear view of. "The beauty of being a psychic is that it's easier to think things through when you know the end result."
Dean pales a little at that. He's afraid of what Phil hasn't said with those words. Again, he pictures himself trapped here for days, bloodying his wrists and slowly watching Ben lose himself inside his tiny prison of salt. The image of Ben, in particular, terrifies him most, gets him back to yanking against the handcuffs and the pipe that holds him. He lashes out when Phil finds what he's looking for, coming towards him with a roll of duct tape. Dean's ankles scrape loudly against the floor, but Phil dodges the kick, securing the tape around Dean's mouth and stepping away quickly, missing another swipe of Dean's legs.
"Sorry, Dean," the man explains. "I feel like you might've picked up my address from those files you have on me. Best Sam doesn't know who I am or where we are quite yet."
Dean doesn't mean to do it, but his gaze shifts over to Ben for one, tiny moment. Phil watches the movement and bonks himself on the head with an air of self-mockery. "Oh wow. That would've been stupid of me."
Phil disappears into that same darkened corner again, this time returning with the iron shovel Dean had noticed earlier when there had been more light in the room. And then, without a second thought, the psychic lunges forward and drives the shovel straight through Ben's chest. Ben shrieks and disappears instantly, and Dean screams his rage through the tape, mangling his wrists even further with the full-body outburst Phil's attack sparks from him.
He freezes a moment later when he hears the sound of an outgoing call's first ring. The jackass put it on speaker.
"Dean?" comes Sam's voice only halfway through the second ring, breathy and relieved. Dean squeezes his eyes shut against the emotion seeping through the phone.
Phil purses his lips. "No Sam, I'm sorry. But I'd like to let you kno…."
"Who the hell is this?" Sam cuts in, cold and brutal and deadly.
"I am not willing to disclose that information quite yet," Phil answers. The phone is in his left hand, the shovel in his right; the blade of it scraping along the floor as he sways slightly on his feet, like there's a slow song playing and the shovel is his dance partner. He seems slightly shaken by Sam's quick change of tone, and Dean can't help the swell of pride growing in his chest. "But I would like to inform you that your brother is safe. I will meet you in a few days time, and we will make an exchange then."
Dean almost laughs. Phil has no idea the mistake he's made in calling, though Sam's answer maybe gives him a small clue.
"You're dead, you son of a bitch," Dean's baby brother snarls. Dean can picture the look on his face, the curl of his lip and the faraway stare as he no doubt pulls the phone closer to his mouth. "You understand me? Because it won't take me a few days to find you, and when I do, you'll be a doornail before you even know I'm in the same room."
Phil fiddles nervously with the shovel, tapping his nails against the handle. "Look, this is simply a courtesy call…" Phil tries, only to be interrupted again.
"Courtesy, huh?" Sam says. "And where's my proof that Dean's even still alive?"
Phil cocks his head to the side for a long moment, gaze shifting to some far-off point, gone from the room. And then he nods. "Very well," he says, flipping the shovel around in his hand. Dean watches Phil advance on him and does his best to brace himself from the blow he knows must be coming. But instead, at that very moment, Ben reappears between them. Swiftly, without blinking, Phil swings the shovel into the kid's shoulder blades, making him disintegrate again. And again, Dean screams against the tape. Phil lowers the phone so that Sam can hear it, straightening back up a moment later.
"I'm really sorry, but that's the best I can do for now. I promise you'll see your brother again. Sorry, Sam." The line clicks, but not before Sam manages to fire off a few more ugly words. Dean is still seething, breathing hard and pulling against his cuffs.
"Now come on Dean," Phil lectures. "I know you care for Lisa's son, but you must understand that he's already dead. I'm not hurting him, not really."
Dean sputters out a few of his own choice words that Phil can't understand through the gag, trying to convey with his eyes just how deep his hatred now runs. But Phil doesn't seem particularly threatened. Instead, it again seems as though he has again gone somewhere else inside his own head for a moment. When awareness returns to his clouded eyes, he takes several steps away from Dean and begins making another salt circle. As Phil turns to leave, Ben reappears inside the newest circle. Dean's attention shifts automatically away from the retreating psychic and back to the young ghost. He lifts his bound hands in Ben's direction, trying to reach over the distance between them, asking a silent question through the tape secured over his mouth.
"I'm okay, Dean," Ben says, answering it, but he collapses onto his knees within the circle, letting out an exhausted breath. He looks gaunt and really, really dead, and Dean turns to rub his nose against his shoulder so he doesn't have to look at Ben looking like that. He pulls weakly at the cuffs again, trying to reach the tape around his mouth and not even coming close. After a while he gives up, shooting a loaded glance in Ben's direction.
"Well. Shit," says Ben. They stare at each other from across the room and say more than they've said to each other in a long time, all without opening their mouths.
NOTE: Dean calling Phil 'McDermott' is in reference to Matt Damon's character in the Poker movie Rounders. YAY REFERENCES.
