Author:Mirrordance
Title: Home Road
Summary:The brothers were so different sometimes.Dean after Sam died was lethal silence and a sense of suicide-Let the world end.Leave me alone.That loudly unspoken I wish I was dead.Sam was different.He had murder in his eyes.Post-3.16 and Sam finds a way.
" " "
Home Road
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7
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Hell
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"Knock it down a peg, Winchester," he felt her breath against his ear, "Someone's coming."
Dean caught her eye, and blinked at her twice, signaling that yes, he was aware and if she could please take her grubby paws from his face?
She lowered her hands to fists at her sides. Her knuckles were bruised and mercilessly cut, and he wondered briefly about how much her injuries mapped what it took to survive down here.
They crouched behind a boulder, bare fists ready for whatever lay at the other side. He could hear grunts and shuffling, and guttural crackles that bordered brutality and despair. He could hear footsteps and dragging, maybe what, five or six beings pushing someone around. There were no intelligible words, just... just animalistic, incomprehensible sounds.
Was Ruby serious when she said these things were people, once? Because nothing of what he was hearing vaguely indicated that--
"Please."
His brows rose, head swiveling toward Ruby's cold, calculating face. The damn demons were dragging around someone who was still vaguely human, all right. The voice was hoarse, not so much broken but shattered. It was accented in a way that was irritatingly familiar to him.
"Please," it came again, and in the name of god and all that is holy, of all the places in the world and beyond it, did he really have to run into Bela Talbot here?
" " "
The World Wide Web
" " "
The video went live a scant hour after Sam Winchester, late in the night, stepped into the FedEx Kinko's where Ghostfacers Team Leaders Ed and Harry were closing shop.
The images were pulled from the surveillance footage. The video was pixelated, soundless and blurry, but there was never any mistaking Sam Winchester. The height, the hair, the overbearing Winchester swagger. He kind of just... walked in the door.
Ed and Harry's backs were to him. Their mouths moved, probably saying something to the effect that the shop was closed. There was no transcript in the website, not yet, the webmasters just excitedly wanted to put the damn video up. Sam's mouth moved too, and the two young men turned, stunned, to face him.
The three of them talked, Ed and Harry's arms and hands moving animatedly. Sam played it cool, smiling tightly, talking easily. He looked like he did before his brother died (earnest, a little awkward), almost, except there was something frigid in his eyes, like, like... it was hard to put a finger on it. Like he was a young boy looking at toys, things he owned inarguably. Or... or looking at tools, things he could use.
Bobby Singer watched it, troubled, from Sam's laptop. He wasn't the only one watching, no, far from. The forum will be filled with comments in the next few hours. But some will be doing more than just watching and writing.
Gabe, Massachusetts, was on his way to have a little 'chat' with the Ghostfacers.
" " "
Hell
" " "
The grunting demons, dragging an uncharacteristically pleading and begging Bela Talbot with them, began to shuffle further away from Ruby and Dean's hiding place.
Dean craned his neck to look after them, disbelieving his eyes. Indeed, there were four demons dragging around a battered, bleeding, ragged Bela Talbot. He knew that unfortunately dreamy figure and that bitch's voice anywhere.
"This really, really is hell," he murmured, brows rising, almost casually. The situation was vaguely comedic, if your humor slanted toward the pitch black, which his did.
The world of the living hadn't been big enough for the two of them and now they were both in hell? Damn.
His eyes trailed after them, thoughtfully, with a twinge of... pity? Was that what it was?
The last time he spoke with Bela was the last time she had spoken to anybody before getting dragged to hell, he knew that for sure. He had offered her no sympathy, just... a regretful, gruff little lesson, delivered with a massive sense of frustration and self-righteousness. He was pissed as hell at her, fearful of his own time running out, and angry that the likelihood of success just dwindled further because of her intervention.
But hearing her beg, down here... dragged around, battered, bleeding... there was nothing in him that felt a sense of vindication or even instinctive satisfaction. That she got what she deserved. That she got what was coming to her. It wasn't the first time karma swung her way, and it also wasn't the first time he felt the compulsion to--
"Try not to get any ideas," Ruby told him, mildly, reading his eyes.
"What?"
"You're in no position to help anybody, Winchester," she told him, smartly, "She's nothing but a haughty bitch finally paying her dues."
"I'm trying to walk away, believe me," he said, under his breath, not even tearing his eyes from Bela and her tormentors for a moment.
She grabbed his arm to get his attention. "Dean."
"If I don't do this," Dean murmured to himself, "They'd have taken a bit of me already. I'm not doing this for her. I gotta do this for me."
"Do what?" she asked, her eyes widening.
He threw her a rakish grin.
Just before vaulting himself over the boulder and diving headfirst into the fray.
" " "
Ghostfacers HQ
Garage, Zeddmore Residence
" " "
The lights overhead blinked, making Ed and Maggie Zeddmore and their friends Harry and Spruce look up.
As always, Spruce had his camera perched at the ready. As always, Harry had a deathgrip on Maggie's hand. As always, the two group leaders glanced at each other uncertainly, wordlessly wondering if they just got (again) in way over their heads.
"Sam said we should be fine, right?" Maggie murmured, to Ed's even less subtle shushing.
"We're not supposed to mention his name," Ed snapped at her.
The lights flickered again, and then settled.
"Maybe that's just the wind," Harry said.
"When is it ever just the wind," Spruce muttered.
The group fell into unsettled silence.
The doorbell rang, making them jump.
"Should we get that?" Harry asked, "I mean demons wouldn't ring the bell, right?"
"Did anybody order pizza?" the man outside bellowed.
"Try next door!" Ed bellowed back.
"I don't think so."
The garage door jerked, and creaked, and began to lift open.
" " "
Hell
" " "
These demons were easy pickings.
They were the mindless, lost types, nothing at all strategic about their combat. It was like battling with Romero's Dead, just a lot of flailing limbs and growling. It would have been tricky battling a lot of them, but a handful wasn't so bad.
That, and when he finally stood tall, huffing and victorious, Ruby was standing behind him with bloodied hands fisted too. The demons around them were growling and crawling on the ground, temporarily downed.
"They'll be up soon," Ruby told him, "You can't kill anything down here, you can just push 'em back for a little bit. We have to get out of here."
Dean nodded, strode for Bela seated on the ground, who was staring at him, her clear eyes wide and shimmering, jewel-like.
"This is a vision," she croaked.
"No," he corrected her, "This is my nightmare. But it is nice to think you dream about me sometimes."
Her eyes flared, as if the antagonism was giving her renewed strength. He knew the feeling. Having a sworn enemy around tended to make one put up a nice little game face.
"You're real," she concluded, her voice becoming just a little bit stronger, just as his had been when he first woke to find Ruby with him, "No one can toss cheap lines like Dean Winchester."
"That's the spirit," he told her, nodding at the growling demons, "Only you can find friends in hell."
"Likewise," she snapped, glancing at Ruby, who just rolled back her eyes.
"Wow," Dean said, uneasily, looking from her to Ruby and back, "I heard all women are evil but this is just ridiculous."
" " "
Ghostfacers HQ
Garage, Zeddmore Residence
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Ed and Harry pushed their ways forward and stretched their arms open protectively before Spruce and Maggie (making sure not to obstruct the camera's view), as the disturbingly normal-looking teenager stepped inside the garage.
"Ghostfacers," he greeted them with a leer, "I'm Gabe from Massachusetts. I'm a big fan. I think there's something you can do for me."
He stepped forward. The four stepped back, and then once more for good measure.
"You really won't be getting very far, you know," the demon told them.
"Neither are you," Sam Winchester said, stepping forward from the door leading to the main house alongside Bobby Singer, prompting Harry to impressed-ly murmur, "Oh, good line...," as the garage door fell close with a loud clang.
Sam walked toward the demon, smiling a little bit, as he let his eyes drift to the Devil's Trap scrawled on the roof.
Remember what I taught you, Dean had said...
The demon growled, and stepped toward him, only to be halted by an invisible force. Sam clicked his tongue at the demon, shaking his head slightly. The demon's eyes darked to depth-less black.
"I think there's something you can do for me," Sam told him, coolly.
"You've done this dance with others before," the demon said, "They did not break and I will not. Lilith will have you soon, and I answer only to her."
Sam shrugged, "She may or may not-- back off, Spruce," he cut himself off, as he saw the cameraman breaking slightly into the lines of the trap from the corner of his eye. God, he hated babysitting.
"She may or may not," Sam said, smoothly returning back to his train of thought, "But I'm the one you have to worry about right now."
"You're nothing."
"I'm the nothing your leader is hiding from," Sam snapped, circling the demon and saying the beginnings of an exorcism just beneath his breath. It was almost musical and casual, how he could shell out that kind of threat. The demon shuddered, and trembled.
"I'm the nothing she is afraid of," Sam said, pausing a breath from the demon's nose, just at the outskirts of the barriers of the Trap, "Tell me... if she is running scared from me, what can I do to little shit like you?"
He began the ritual again, slightly louder this time. The demon's head was twisting this way and that, until he paused.
"What do you want?" the demon gasped.
"You're here alone," Sam said, "But not for long. A scout, I bet, to make sure she can come finish the job later. Am I correct?"
The demon thought long, and hard, about answering.
Sam picked up the flask of holy water from his pocket and started fiddling with the cap, looking at the demon with a glint in his eye.
The demon opened his mouth to answer, and Sam splashed water on him then, cruelly, catching his mouth, making him curse and choke and sputter.
"You should be more afraid of me," Sam told him, "I can rule this place. I can hurt people. I can tear everyone apart until I get what I want--"
"I was gonna fucking answer--!"
"You were gonna fucking lie," Sam shouted at him, before taking a deep, shaky breath.
"I'm not the only one lying," the demon said, leering at him.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You're lying," the demon pointed out, "At least you think you are. You can rule this world? You can hurt people? Tear everyone apart? You think you're playing me, but let me tell you, you really, really can. And you probably will."
Sam's expression darkened. And he backhanded the leering face, making the Ghostfacers and even Bobby jump, surprised.
"Sam," Bobby whispered, urgently, and the younger Winchester knew what he was thinking, what he was going to say. There was a person in there...
I know, Sam glanced at Bobby, Not now...
"I guess you really should be scared then," Sam said to the demon, simply, "Answer this, then, buddy, answer this. What do you want?"
"What?"
"What. do. you. want," Sam repeated, condescending.
"I want," the demon gasped, "I want to not hurt. We can't want anything more than that."
No salvation, no relief, no heaven, no, not for a demon. He was right, there was nothing else left to ask for, nothing else attainable, at any rate. But simpler freedom from pain and torture... that was all.
"Tell you what," Sam said, "You're from hell, right? You must have done a host of really bad things. Because it was fun, maybe. Because it was easy. Because it got you off. Whatever. Either way, you ended up down there 'cos you couldn't think of anything but yourself. Now me... I'm just asking you to be exactly what you are. A selfish little mercenary. And right now, your way toward not getting hurt – getting what you want – is to not piss me off.
"So," Sam said, "Is anyone coming after you? Are you alone?"
Silence, broken by screaming and more head turning as he got a splash of holy water in his face for taking too damn long.
"I'm alone!" the demon wailed, before gathering his breath, "I'm alone."
"Good start," Sam said smartly, "Why?"
"She's looking for you, yeah sure," the demon continued, "But you're hiding well. I'm the only one who thought to look at the computers. It's not the usual way. I had to make sure I was right first. She hates mistakes."
"Where is she?" Sam asked.
"She's hiding too, you're right," the demon said, "I don't know."
Sam looked at him in a long, measuring way, and apparently decided he was telling the truth as he moved to his other questions.
"Does anyone else know you're here?"
"No," the demon replied, "No one."
"Where is Lilith keeping my brother's soul?"
"She's not," the demon said, "At least... not anymore from what I've been hearing."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"She kept him separate from everybody," the demon replied, "Safe-like, he's her only card against you. 'Sides, we all know your daddy managed to escape after Azazel threw him in with the riffraff and he just might have the balls to too. She was being careful."
"Then what?" Sam asked, his mouth dry.
"He up and vanished," the demon answered, looking at Sam nervously. He turned more intimidating when he got desperate, "Vanished with that Ruby chick. Thorn on our fucking side..."
"Where the hell could he have gone?"
"Funny you should say that," the demon replied, "The only way to go is down. Down to the Pit. Hell for real, out of Lilith's safehouse."
"Damn it," Sam muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Even from beyond the grave his brother was giving him a headache...
His stupid idiot brother vanished into hell to keep from being used as a card against him. Great. Just great.
I was the one doing the rescuing here, he thought, petulantly, Not the other fucking way around.
"Her agents are looking for him," the demon said, "But it's a big place, hell. I mean someone's bound to find him, sooner or later. Lilith's not the only one looking. Everyone wants their hands on Sam Winchester's brother."
Damn it, Dean...
He tried to wrap his mind around the terrifying idea of that. He turned to another major concern, for now. How could he find Dean if the demon who enslaved him couldn't?
"We know she has the Colt," Sam said, "Why isn't she using it to open the Gate?"
"There are..." the demon hesitated, "There are others. Others like her. She opens that gate and there's no guarantee everything that comes out will follow her. She won't open it, not until she's sure everyone coming out is gonna be on her side."
"What's she doing to achieve that?"
"Well she's gotta kill you first," the demon pointed out.
"And?"
"And she's thinking up a way to kill the other leaders below," the demon replied, "But you can't kill anyone down there, at least, as far as we know. Everyone down there is already dead. And human weapons, like the Colt which can kill souls, can't cross from here to hell. The only way a demon can be killed is to be lured out here and shot with the Colt."
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Hell
" " "
"Okay, uh, reunion's over," Dean said, chuckling a little bit at their situation, "I had a blast but, oh, would you look at the time."
Ruby nodded urgently, "We gotta go."
"Go where?" Bela asked. There was a quiet alarm in her eyes, something Dean wasn't all that unfamiliar with, when he thought Ruby was leaving him.
It takes one to know one, she had once told him, right?
"What's it to you, sister?" Ruby snapped at her.
"You're getting out of here, aren't you?" Bela asked, "You've found a way—"
"What makes you think that?" Dean asked, "Can't our short history together be enough of a reason for me to want to just get away from you?"
"You can't just leave me here," she told him, quite seriously, the change dramatic in her eyes. The rare honesty was... so heavily uncharacteristic that it was devastating. Her time in hell had unmasked her. "You helped me, just now, you helped me. You have to--"
"He doesn't have to do anything," Ruby snapped.
"I'm not talking to you," Bela snapped back, turning to Dean imploringly, "You knew it was me, and yet you helped. I've fucked you over, I know, I get it, and yet you still found something in you that would help me. You've never done things halfway, Dean--"
"Oh I don't know about that... there was this chick in Texas and--" he began, not wanting to see the naked need in her eye, not wanting to have to feel pity or worse, responsibility to help her. He was just scrambling to survive, for crying out loud. Ruby was right. He wasn't in any position to be rescuing anybody.
"Help me," she begged, "Take me with you."
"She'll only slow us down, Dean," Ruby told him, "You know I'm right. And you can't trust her, you never have."
"And what would you know about that?" Bela asked her.
"I know a lot about a lot of things," Ruby told her, "Shed the frill, Dean. Besides, you really want this devil bitch back out on Earth? You'll be doing a good deed leaving her here. Let's go."
"If you go, I'll follow," Bela vowed, her expression darkening, "You'd have to hit me and hurt me 'til I can't walk and can't move, I swear to--"
"I can arrange that," Ruby said, eyes glinting.
"Dean," Bela said, "Please."
She had said that to the demons torturing and dragging her, he remembered. And now she was saying it to him. He wasn't one of them yet, no, and though he had a massive feeling he was going to regret this (which was always the case between them), he knew he was going to regret beating her up or letting Ruby do it just to keep her off their tails so much more.
"I can't trust you," he said, uneasily, wondering if her perceptive eyes could already see the decision in his, "Hand me a bone, here. If you're gonna be on my back, I gotta know you ain't holding a knife. You killed your parents, for god's sakes."
She stared at him for a long moment, then averted her eyes. She gulped, as if weighing if it would be much more bearable to stay here with her pride intact than to give him this much. Need won.
"I was just a child," she said, voice barely above a whisper, "He would come into my room and close the door behind him. She would close her eyes and pretend not to know a thing. I didn't... I didn't seek the deal. I was alone, in the swings, and the demon asked, and I just couldn't say no."
Dean's brows raised.
Everyone has a story after all...
"I'm not sorry," she said, her voice shaking, "They deserved it. I'm not sorry. I'm only sorry I'm here."
Dean knew what that felt like too. There was no part of him that regretted making the deal to bring Sam back. He was only sorry he had to pay, but hell was nothing, hell was nothing compared to living while Sam was dead.
He glanced at Ruby, and found himself wondering what her story was.
"What is this, Oprah?" she snapped at him, reading his eyes, "Let's just go. And make sure that bitch stays out of my way."
"It takes one to know one," Bela told her, primly.
Dean watched, as the two women stared at each other.
If he hadn't been sure he was in hell, he sure as hell was now. He had a feeling, however, that this brand of punishment had little to do with the deal to save Sam. This part of the punishment was all his, for all his little misdeeds with women.
"Just kill me now," he muttered under his breath as they – a miserable three now – started walking again.
" " "
Ghostfacers HQ
Garage, Zeddmore Residence
" " "
"So is that it?" the demon asked.
Sam's eyes narrowed at it in thought. "Is that the most you can tell me?"
"Yes," the demon asked, eyes shifting nervously, "You promised me... no more pain."
"No one knows where Dean is, huh?" Sam murmured, "I guess that's it, then."
"What does that mean?"
"Bobby," Sam said, "Anything else you wanna know?"
"Are you gonna let me go?" the demon asked, urgently, beginning to sense he was getting screwed over.
"No," Bobby said.
"You said no more pain!" the demon screamed, seeing Sam's lethal eyes.
Remember what I taught you, Dean had said.
"I lied," Sam said, simply, as he started the exorcism ritual over, and saw it through right to the demon's screaming, writhing, end.
" " "
The host body didn't make it.
Gabe, Massachusetts was dead. When the demon possessed his body, he was ridden long and hard and from what Sam could see, the teenager died of dehydration and exhaustion. There wasn't a mark on him, he just looked quite plainly dead.
"Call 911," Sam said to the Ghostfacers, "Tell them he knocked on your door, asked for help, said he was abducted and escaped, shortly before he collapsed and died."
A stunned Ed nodded and complied. The moment he put down the phone after giving the operator his name and address, Sam nodded at the camera still running in Spruce's hands.
"I'd delete that if I were you," Sam told him.
"Why?" Spruce asked.
"We just got the footage of the century!" Harry added, "Again. And for good this time. We won't let you mess around with it."
"I won't," Sam said, as he began to gather his things, "But you will. That footage shows you saw this guy alive, and that you lied to the cops. Kidnapping and conspiracy to murder. If you know what's good for you, delete it."
He and Bobby walked toward the doors, hearing the muffled curses of the once-again outsmarted Ghostfacers. For the first time in days, he smiled a little, remembering the time he and Dean last walked away from them. But it didn't last long. It couldn't, not alongside any memory of his brother.
Dean... where are you, bro?
He stepped into the driver's side of the Impala, and just sat there for a long moment, feeling Bobby's eyes on him.
"I'm," he hesitated, "I'm scared, Bobby."
The old man just watched his face, let him gather his thoughts, find the guts to voice them.
"I'm scared," Sam said, "That the demons are scared of me."
He started the ignition, letting the Impala's hum drown out the consequent silence. And then he reached over and turned on the radio. He wasn't even sure what song came on, or who sang it. But it drowned out the silence.
In afterthought, he painfully realized that he must have picked up the impulse from his brother.
To be continued...
