Thanks again to everyone following this and always to hotshow, my intrepid editor!
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dean skulked through the salvage yard, eyes and ears tuned for the gremlin. The quicker they took this thing out, the quicker he could take his car into town for a beer. As it stood, he felt too guilty abandoning Bobby and Sam just to blow off some steam, even if Sam was the cause of it.
Okay, so he tricked Sam into taking a little time off. Yeah, like that was really working out great for him so far. He had two busted ribs, could barely breathe without wincing, George was breathing down his neck almost as bad as Sam, and now Sam was pissed at him. Yeah, it was a freaking dream come true. Just typical, his dreams usually turned into nightmares. Like today.
Dean shook his head, trying to clear it of distracting thoughts as he tracked the gremlin. Turns out those things did leave prints, once you knew what to look for. Now that Dean knew, he found all kinds of places it hid to watch the house. All the hair stood straight up on the back of his neck when he found what appeared to be its favorite hiding place, with a clear view of Bobby's den. It spied on their conversations, their research, and him lying around eating pie and watching television.
He really needed to kill this thing. Dean tightened his hand on his pistol grip, hoping the holy water bullets did something spectacular when they hit something evil. He often wished they had more bullets for the Colt, it did some great stuff when it killed supernatural fuglies. If these bullets were half, or even a quarter, as effective, Dean would be ecstatic. Putting a full clip into something nasty didn't bother him if it worked. Otherwise it was just a waste of bullets that he would have to replace, and it wasn't like you could buy silver or consecrated iron bullets with a scammed credit card.
Dean followed the small marks the gremlin left behind, searching for another hiding place. If he could find all the places it liked to hide he could lay in wait for it, maybe kill it. At the very least, he could trap it. Then he could go get that beer.
A noise. It sounded like it came from just the other side of this stack of cars. Dean tensed, holding his breath to listen for the tiniest sound. It could have been a whisper of the wind, or the settling of this mound of rusting metal, but Dean did not think so. He moved slowly, cautiously. If it was that gremlin, what with the way his luck had been running this year - all bad - he would only get the chance to fire one shot off. If that.
Dean bent his body around the stacked cars, attempting to be 'one' with the shadow. He held his gun up, determined to get at least one shot in before it ran him down like it did Sam. Of course, with his luck, it probably would take up tap-dancing on his chest. Yeah, he needed that to happen.
Dean took in a deep breath, studying the stack across from him. He heard the noise again. Dean spun around the stack, gun first, to find his barrel aimed right between his brother's wide, shocked eyes.
With a huff, Dean lowered his gun, still scanning the area around them for the gremlin. "What are you doing out here?" he hissed, straining his ears for any anomalous sounds.
Sam shouted in the other direction, "Bobby! He's over here!"
Dean shot a glare over his shoulder. "Want to put up a neon sign too, while you're at it?"
Sam blew out one of those huffs that meant his brother felt almost as lousy as he did. "We were worried, Dean. You shouldn't have taken off like that."
"So, that's what it's like," Dean mumbled, attempting to move around his brother to check between the next couple of free standing stacks.
Sam's hand on his shoulder forced him to pause. "What what's like?" Sam demanded, keeping his voice low. You know, for a change.
"When the pot calls the kettle black," Dean replied, making sure to lock onto Sam's eyes when he said it for full effect. Sam did not even wince. No reaction what-so-ever. Dean had to swallow down the urge to sigh. Or take a swing. Both were really, really tempting.
"Come on," Sam said, one hand still clamped down on his shoulder. "We should have a plan first."
Dean tried to shake the hand off, but Sam's fingers were like a vice. He moved to throw Sam's hand off, but he forgot and moved just the wrong way. Pain shot up from his side, engulfing his ribcage. He slammed his eyelids shut against it, forcing himself breathe. When he opened his eyes again, finding his brother's worried face in front of his was not exactly a surprise. That sight had been far too common around here lately and it grated on his last nerve.
"Come on," Sam repeated, his voice stronger this time, "or I'll sic Bobby on you."
Dean snorted. "What good do you think that'll do you?"
Sam shrugged from beside him, directing Dean toward the house. "No idea, but he got you to admit to those ribs, so I figure he has something on you."
Dean scowled at the memory. "You planning to start using the same tactic?" Yeah, he really needed that to happen, too.
"I'd have to know what it was first," Sam replied, his tone off just enough to make Dean look over. Sam's face was shadowed with a strong emotion Dean could not identify.
"What's wrong with you?" Dean asked, still unable to free his shoulder and continue the hunt.
"Huh?" Sam shoved Dean up Bobby's front steps.
"You look like you have a stomach ache or something. What's wrong with you?" Dean demanded.
"You mean other than the fact I pissed my brother off enough to make him sneak out of the house with two broken ribs and a totally screwed up side in order to hunt a gremlin by himself?" Sam shrugged, opening the door. "Not much." He glared down at Dean.
Dean glared back as he went into the house. Bobby stood in the kitchen doorway, looking about as happy as Sam. Great.
"So am I grounded again?" Dean asked, crossing his arms over his chest. His left hand rested on his bicep, so it would not have to touch that broken rib.
"Dean," Bobby growled, "I thought you had more sense than that."
"Fooled you too, huh?" he quipped, leaning against the nearest wall.
"Should have known better," Bobby muttered. "Being John's boys and all."
Dean smiled at that, earning another scowl from Bobby. As angry as he still was with Dad, it felt nice to be compared like that. It meant some part of Dad lived on, in him. He knew that was what Sam thought he was doing, taking up the hunt. Sam had that same obsessive quality as Dad, and he didn't notice when they took on too much. Again, just like Dad. Hunting with Sam was easy, Dean realized, because Sam had the exact same expectations as Dad. Dean did not even have to make any observations or comments, because Sam was perfectly happy to do all the research and draw all the conclusions and put Dean right in the line of fire to get it. Just like Dad.
"Dean?" Bobby asked, head cocked to one side and a concerned look on his face. Had Dean gone to la-la-land for a minute there? Did he miss something? "Are you okay?"
Dean nodded, stiff and silent. Maybe he could blame the pain pills he hadn't taken. There was a gremlin outside, he reminded himself, he did not need to phase out like that.
"Did you find anything outside?" Sam demanded, stepping forcefully between Dean and Bobby.
Dean glared back, shrugged. And why the hell should he answer?
"Dean?" Bobby repeated, nodding at Sam.
Dean ground his teeth, unsure if he wanted to answer. On the one hand, both Sam and Bobby really ticked him off. Between Sam's temper tantrums and Bobby threatening to make him strip in the corner, he'd just as soon take off and be on his own. But there was no way he could do that. That would leave Sam on his own, and that was the last thing that needed to happen. He had to watch out for Sam, make sure nothing happened to him. He knew that yellow-eyed-son-of-a-bitch wanted Sam and Dean was determined to make sure that didn't happen. Not on his watch.
"It's been watching us," he said, looking at Bobby instead of Sam.
"You figured out how to track it?" Bobby asked, holding up a hand to Sam.
Dean glanced at his brother, who stood there mouth open, clearly ready to ask a question. Dean nodded, tearing his eyes from Sam to look at Bobby again. To his surprise, Bobby grinned.
"In that case, I have an idea on how to catch it." Bobby repositioned his cap. "But you two boys are gonna have to help me put it together."
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Sam followed his brother and Bobby outside. Dean pointed out a spot directly across from the living room windows where the stacks of cars created a spot that remained shadowed all day.
"Right there," Dean said. "Looks like its favorite spot."
"How can you tell that's its favorite spot?" Sam demanded. Just throwing out statements like that sounded too much like Dad and his need-to-know crap; Sam wanted, needed, the facts. Dad wasn't perfect and neither was Dean.
The look Dean gave him was odd. Sam expected his brother to get angry, like Dad used to, or insulted. Instead Dean pointed at the ground. "See those scratches in the dirt? They're from its claws. There are more on these cars." Dean motioned just above eye level. Sam stepped forward for a better look. The scratches were faint and Sam would have dismissed them as normal for a salvage yard, but it looked like Dean was right. The scratches definitely appeared to be regular and even, made by a creature and not just metal on metal. "This area," Dean was saying, "has the most I've found, so it spent a lot of time here."
"You found all this," Sam asked, "in the ten minutes you were out here?"
Dean cleared his throat. "More like twenty, Sam. I'm not as good as Dad." Dean looked away. "As Dad was."
Sam clenched his jaw. No, Dean was not as good as Dad was. Dean just might be better. Sam hated how little confidence Dean had in himself, his abilities. Unfortunately, Sam could not blame all of that on Dad, as much as he would like to. Lately he had taken over in that department, which he knew was completely unjustified. Dean never got anyone killed because he jumped the gun, like what allegedly happened between Dad and Jo's father. Sam still wondered about that one. The fault could lie with Jo's father, too. The only person who could really say was Dad, and he was gone.
"Good work," Bobby said, with that tone Sam recognized to mean he should have said something like that first.
"More like amazing," Sam insisted. He folded his arms across his chest. "So what do we do now?" He looked between Dean and Bobby. Now that Dean admitted to engineering this time at Bobby's and sneaked out of the house to hunt on his own, Sam wanted to cement his brother back into Big Brother Mode. But in order to do that, Sam needed to give back a lot of the ground he had taken from Dean in the past few months. Maybe he needed to do even more than that, but this would have to do for now. From Dean's round eyes and Bobby's pursed lips, Sam decided that he could have made that transition a little smoother. Oh well, too late now.
"Bobby?" Dean asked, but Sam could not tell if Dean was asking what to do about the gremlin or if something was wrong with Sam.
Bobby's face hardened. "Now we get ready to take it out."
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Sam used to think that Dad was a hard-ass. Now he knew that Dad took lessons from Bobby. That man was at least as enigmatic and surprising. Bobby had them rearranging nearly every stack of cars in his yard. Dean worked the electromagnet crane like a pro. Sam wondered what Dean might have done with an erector-set if they'd had one as kids. His brother certainly seemed in his element. Sam took the more dangerous position of directing Dean. Bobby disappeared about an hour ago, leaving them to follow his diagram.
Sam recognized the symbol they were building, of course. He had no idea why Bobby wanted to use that particular symbol but he had not had the opportunity to ask. Well, speak of the devil…
Bobby headed for his position as Sam watched Dean carefully lower a fourth car onto the current stack. "Hey, Bobby!" Sam waved him over.
"Looks good!" Bobby shouted at Dean as he passed. Dean flashed that really big grin Sam had not seen in months and a wave before focusing on the task at hand. "How's it going, Sam? Almost done?"
"Almost," Sam replied. He gestured to the hastily drawn symbol in his hand. "But why are we using this one?"
Bobby gave him a nasty look. "Just get it done," he snapped, walking away. Sam stared as Bobby, one of the few people Dad actually trusted, a rare living remnant from his childhood, walked away without bothering to look back.
He heard the crane stop, but could not drag his eyes away from Bobby's retreating back.
"What's going on?" Dean demanded.
Sam shrugged, still watching Bobby. "I don't know. I just asked why we were using this symbol."
"Huh." Dean shrugged, turning away. "Wonder what put him in a mood."
Now Sam did look at his brother. "Seriously? You wonder?"
Dean looked at Sam. "Yeah. I haven't seen him like this since the time he went after Dad with the shotgun. And I still don't know what that was about."
"Well, I know what this was about," Sam replied slowly, wondering just how dense Dean could be. "He's still mad at me for the way I acted inside the house."
Dean snorted through his nose. "Nah, got to be more to it than that. Tell you what, you take over for me and I'll go see what crawled up his…uh, what's eating Bobby."
Before Sam could protest, Dean headed for the house. When he just stood there watching, Dean turned around to motion to the crane. Right, he was supposed to take over the car stacking until Dean came back. Releasing a reluctant sigh, Sam headed for the crane. With the mood Bobby was in, he would probably just make things worse by going in the house anyway.