Dean sat in the passenger seat of the Impala, head leaning against the window, haggard gaze lost on the suburbia scenery slowly rolling by. His right arm, bone recently set into its rightful place, rested limply over his lap.
Sam could almost be tricked into thinking that Dean was sleeping, but he knew better than that. Dean hardly slept now.
After they had banished Raphael, Balthazar and every other angel in the vicinity of the broken Nail, they'd made their way out of Marcus' house before the guards gave up on being obedient and decided to get back at work.
The minute they had crossed the gates out of Marcus property, Dean had adamantly asked that they drive by Lisa's house before anything else. There had been something in his brother's voice that made Sam reluctant to point out that Lisa was a couple of states away, that there was no way they could get there in less than a day. Sam was sure that Dean had no idea where he was.
Fortunately for all of them, Dean had finally passed out on the drive to the motel.
In that nightmare place where Marcus had trapped Dean's mind, Lisa had been dead for over four years; Ben had just died in Dean's arms; Sam had never left Hell. The second Dean had opened his eyes, Sam knew it was that world that he was seeing around him, not Bobby sleeping in the other bed or Sam, sitting at the table, biting his nails.
Instead of ignoring the unshed tears in his brother's eyes, instead of giving him any pretense of privacy that both would be painfully aware of being fake, Sam had grabbed Dean and the Impala and given his brother what he needed: the reassurance that Lisa and Ben were both alive and well.
Heck, he had promised as much they had been fighting on that rooftop, Dean half crazy with drugs and pain. Sam prided himself for keeping his promises.
"We're here," he whispered, knowing fully well that the words were unnecessary. Dean probably knew that neighborhood like the back of his hand.
He parked the car under a maple tree, red leaves reflecting the light of the setting sun. "Wanna go over there?" Sam offered.
The door to Lisa's house was closed, the fading light of day found lights glowing softly on the ground floor and the porch. A hint of music escaped the opened window and Dean leaned in to it.
Lisa was singing along. Her husky voice never failed to spread a wave of warmth from Dean's stomach to his groin, even if she couldn't sing for shit.
Not this time though. The feeling of loss was too great to allow for any other sentiment.
The scene inside Lisa's house wasn't all that hard to imagine. After all, he'd been fortunate to have been a part of it, for real, for twelve months. All Dean needed to do was close his eyes and he could see them: Lisa moving around the kitchen, fixing Ben's dinner; Ben, in his usual spot by the kitchen counter, complaining about the vegetables that Lisa insisted to be a permanent fixture on his plate.
Dean opened his eyes, feeling that his heart was at last subsiding inside his chest. The dining room table, nearest to the opened window, was already filled with people. He could see Ben, his back to the window; he could see Lisa, walking around getting food on the table; he could see a tall black guy, yellow sweater and glass of wine in his hands, sliding around Lisa and affectionately kissing her neck before sitting across from Ben.
Dean smiled sadly, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes. It seemed like Castiel had done more than heal Lisa when he'd gone around righting Crowley's wrongs. Mark, or Matt, whatever the man's name was -Lisa's new boyfriend-, the first casualty of Crowley's plan, was now alive and well.
And it wasn't even that Lisa had a new love in her life, and that that man was sitting in what used to be Dean's place at the table, that he was replacing Dean in Lisa's bed. No, the real kick to the gut was the fact that he seemed to fit in there a hell of a lot better than Dean ever had and definitely ever could.
"Do you want to…" Sam offered, unsure of how to end that sentence. Do you want to knock on their door? Do you want to talk to them? Do you want to undo Castiel's memory wipe? Turn back time?
Dean shook his head. It was impossible to take the place of someone who had never existed. "Just drive, Sam," he whispered. "Let's get out of here."
He had seen enough.
Forbes' list of the most rich and powerful men on Earth was well known by all. The official one, anyway, the one that every Joe, Mary and Paul had access to.
There was another list though. Privy only to very select eyes, a list of names that only those who were somebody in high places were made aware of. A list where very few were added.
Marcus Finnegan was one of the names on that list. In fact, his was among the top five.
He was a man who had everything he could possibly wish for, a man to whom nothing was refused, a man whose reach was vast and powerful.
And yet, there was one thing that had long eluded Marcus. A priceless find he longed for but was unable to procure. So far.
Immortality.
Having spent a lifetime making his fortune one of the largest in the world, Marcus figured he deserved another lifetime in which to spend it, where he could enjoy the fruits of his labor. And another after that; and another; and another...
Like every other search for immortality, his had started with the most logical path: science. Every probable theory in cryogenics and cell regeneration – and even those less probable – had come under his scrutiny. And, just as quickly, each had been discarded, either for the simple fact that they were too crazy to actually be called science, or because they were so far behind in their development stage that Marcus would either be dead or a very old man when those theories became practical.
No... Marcus needed something graspable, something within reach and in the realms of the possible. And he needed it now, while he still had the vigor of life. Forty was the new twenty, someone had told him once, and Marcus wanted a solution for his quest before he turned forty-one.
Then, in a conversation with a friend, Marcus discovered there were more venues than science. A lot more. A whole new world of possibilities.
Trevor Bins, one of the few people Marcus considered a friend, one that he didn't maintain for the sake of business but because he actually enjoyed the company of the man, had first brought it up, and before he knew it, Marcus found himself headed down a different path.
Over a game of chess that he was already losing and a bottle of expensive brandy that was swiftly disappearing, Trevor had let out that the ghosts of the slaves murdered on the grounds of his family property, some three hundred years before, had once haunted his house. He had told Marcus of the cracked walls and swinging chandeliers, about the dragging noise of invisible chains in the night, about the whip lashes that had appeared on his back out of thin air.
"I was helpless... hopeless, my friend," Trevor had told him, the terror of what he'd been through still not quite gone from his eyes. "And then this man, a rugged looking fella, came to me and offered to get rid of my problem. A hoax, I was sure, meant for nothing else but to rob me of my money..."
"Tell me you didn't…" Marcus began but he saw the truth of it in Trevor's downcast eyes. "Oh, you idiot... how could you fall for such a dumb trick?"
Trevor met his gaze this time, his chin raised in defiance. "I was desperate and any solution at the time was a valid solution." Marcus sighed. Trevor went on, unperturbed. "And the fact is that he searched the grounds, dug up some bones, burned them and all the disturbances stopped."
Trevor was one of the sanest people Marcus knew and the scars on his back left little room for doubt about the truth of his claims. It was that truth that had drawn Marcus to spend hours and hours in searching, no longer looking to science, but now, to the occult and the supernatural.
The man who had taken care of the ghosts had left a card with Trevor. He was the first hunter that Marcus hired to find him a way to beat mortality.
Trevor Bins was the only there when the gold plated coffin carrying his friend Marcus descended on the cemetery's wet dirt. He was the only one mourning the death of the man who wanted to live forever.
The end