Douglas dropped his keys on the foyer table and staggered into the living room, wracked with harsh, heartbroken sobs. He collapsed on the couch, face against his knees, his hands clenched over the back of his head, knotted in his hair.
June crept up with a low whine and worked her muzzle in under his arm to lick at his tear-wet face. For a long time, he didn't react, then he slid off onto the floor and wrapped his arms around her.
"Why?" he sobbed into the fur of her neck. "What am I going to do now?"
All she could offer was another low whine.
-oOo-
"I'm ok," was the first thing she said when Sam answered her call. Dean knew she'd probably caught the jolt of anxiety that flashed across Sam's face when she called off-schedule. Her voice was low, and sounded stressed even over the phone.
"You don't feel ok," Sam said.
"I'm... honestly, I don't know what I am," she sighed. "I found out what the hysterics were about. He's dying, Sam."
Whoa. Was not expecting that.
"What?" Sam blurted, looking as bewildered as he felt.
"That appointment was with a specialist, an oncologist. He's eaten up with cancer, Sam. He said that the doctor told him he's got a few weeks at the most. Some kind of jacked up super-rot they've never seen before. It's spread all over."
"He told you all this?" Sam frowned.
"No- and that's the other thing. When he calmed down a little, he called someone. The witch who'd cooked up that love-hex came over. He begged her for something, anything, to cure him or at least buy him some time. She told him that she didn't have anything that powerful, but she knew who did. But it would cost him... big."
"And the going price is?" Dean interjected, feeling his arms pucker with goosebumps. Curing some dude stuffed solid with the big C was going to take virgins' hearts and burned baby's bones level hoodoo.
"His soul. She told him how to cut a crossroads deal, what he needs for summoning, where there's a graveled road around here, what the demon will look like, everything. He's gotten the ritual offering together already. He's gonna do this tomorrow, y'all, midnight on the full moon, the whole nine."
"Where is he now?"
"In bed, drugged up on pain meds. He'll be out for hours probably."
"Sounds like prime time to Kevork this sucker. He carries around that girly little pocket pistol, right?" Dean aimed two fingers at the phone. "Double-tap him in his sleep, Cerberus. Everybody's problems solved."
"Dean, would you- June! Stop!" Sam snapped in that pissed-god tone he used when he was pulling a puppet-master on her.
Dean rubbed away his grin before Sam saw it. He'd bet the little mook already had her hand in Forsyth's trouser pocket. "Why the hell not?" he protested for her because he was also pretty sure June's jaw was locked too.
Sam massaged his forehead, and glared at him, and Dean knew June felt that dirty-diaper look too. "Sometimes the two of you scare the shit out of me. He's still not done anything we can gank him for. Making a crossroads deal is desperate and stupid, but it's not a capital offense."
Dean closed his eyes against the memories.
"So you're saying we should let him cut his deal and buy ten extra years?" June protested.
"Sam," Dean gritted, maybe too low to carry to June, "You know that's no bargain. Even if we've fingered the wrong shifter, Dougie will be better off if she pops him right now and he floats away to wherever good little monsters go when they die."
"I'm sorry, Sam, but we're assuming a lot here," June protested almost at the same time, "And if he makes an 'ass of u and me,' then Miriam pays the price. Yeah, he's gonna ask to be healed, no doubt- but we don't know what other favors he might negotiate if he is a murderer."
A look passed over Sam's face he couldn't read. "Maybe we can let him negotiate his deal whatever it is, no harm, no foul to anybody."
"What?" Dean blurted, drowning out June's identical exclamation.
"Can you meet us down the street, behind that vacant coffee shop?" Sam asked her.
"Sure. He's out for the count."
-oOo-
"Ok, so how're we gonna convince the guy he's talking to a demon?" Dean said. "Even if we could get red contacts made in time, whichever of us is wearin' 'em will be stone-blind."
Sam bailed out of the car. Dean had his pistol half-drawn before he got turned enough to see Sam grab June up in a hug that looked like he intended to absorb her right through his shirt.
Dean turned back around, fiddled with the radio and studied the defunct coffee shop's peeling sign while they had their flowered field and weeping violins moment back there. The passenger doors opened before he got the window cranked down to snap at them to hurry up, so the WinReed amoeba had managed to divide again.
"Do you have control over your third eyelids?" Sam asked her almost before they got their cheeks on the seats.
"Her whats?" Dean asked, but they both ignored him. That was getting old.
June seemed startled, but nodded. "Sure." She widened her eyes.
Dean saw a transparent film roll across her eyeballs from inner to outer corners, then slide back, as quickly as a normal blink. "Why have you never told us about this?"
"Why have you never told me whether or not you're circumcised? Geez, like it's kinda personal?"
"How does he know about it?" Dean jerked his thumb towards Sam.
Sam shrugged. "When we went near that reeking store in the mall that sells lotions and candles? She sneezed. A lot. I got a glimpse."
"Oh yeah," Dean chuckled. "I remember that. Funny as hell. Thought you were gonna shoot yourself in the foot there, McGruff."
June refused to rise to the bait, but he could tell the effort was costing her.
"Still not seeing how that…" Dean circled his finger around his eye.
"Nictitating membrane," June supplied.
"Freakazoid eye-skin," Dean continued, "Is gonna help us. It's transparent."
"Yeah, but there's this extreme body-modification fad," Sam said. "Sclera tattoos. Maybe we could adapt the idea somehow."
"Eye tattoos?" Dean echoed.
"Yeah, it started out as corneal tattooing for people with disfiguring scars and moved into the bod-mod crowd a few years ago. People have designs inked into their sclera, or they dye it some weird color." As he spoke, Sam opened his laptop and hit a few keys. He turned the computer around for Dean and June to see the images.
"Oh, nice. That's gonna get somebody killed," Dean grumbled at the screen.
June's nose wrinkled with disgust. "Gross! Why would anyone want to do that?"
"Who knows?" Sam said, clicking from the image search to information. "To stand out, to fit in, to freak out dear ol' Mom and Dad."
"To remove oneself permanently from any employment opportunity that doesn't require working a night shift behind reinforced glass for minimum wage," Dean added.
"These tattoos are permanent, but I'm thinking we could come up with some kind of temporary dye," Sam said. "Tint the membranes heavily enough, they'll look solid red at night, and she can flick them on or off at will."
June's eyebrows lifted into high arches. "You're thinking about sticking needles into my eyes?"
"Not your eyes, sweetheart," Sam said in a soothing croon. "Just your eyelids."
"Oh yeah, right. Thanks, Sam, that helps a lot!"
"You got a better idea?" Dean asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"No—but give me a few minutes and I'll do my damnedest to come up with one!"
-oOo-
She was flat on her back on the motel room's bureau, head taped down, eyelids taped open, and holding onto Dean's hand with a grip that already had him squirming.
"You sure you want to go through with this?" Sam's concerned face blocked the bright light above her for a moment.
"Are you fuckin' crazy? Of course I'm not sure. Sam, just do it. Before I lose my nerve!"
"Can you feel this?" he touched her extended membrane with a swab.
"No—well, pressure, a little."
"Ok." He blew out a deep breath. "Just… try not to watch."
Like she could avoid it. Dean knew that gleaming needle had to loom as big as a baseball bat in her peripheral vision. He wondered if she could manage not to roll her eyes to look at it.
"That look real enough to you?" Sam asked, voice tense as he straightened and laid the syringe aside.
Dean reached with his free hand and turned off the lamp. June blinked with both sets of lids.
"Real enough for a full-moon midnight," Dean nodded. "June—any tighter and stuff's gonna start snapping."
She let go of his hand with a long, shaky exhalation. "It's not so bad, actually. Do the other one, Sam. This dresser is getting uncomfortable."
Her grip transferred to the edge of the bureau, blunt nails digging into the wood. Lying like the dog she was, but Dean wasn't going to call her on it this time.
"Can you see through it at all?" Sam asked as he drew up another syringe of the luminescent red-orange dye.
"Nothing, not even light and dark."
"I was afraid of that, but you shouldn't have to keep your eyelids closed long when the deal goes down." He leaned in again.
Dean forced himself to watch again. She couldn't blink, so he refused to either.