A/N: OK, now lets leave Sam's nasty fate and jump forward again to Dean's POV. Since Chapter I Dean has been living with the loss of his brother for a couple of months and he's not taking it well, as you would expect. Poor sad guy, he's going through hell.
Howlround (Chapter VI: Interlude) by frostygossamer
Timeline: Winchester residence - Two months from today
Late one evening, Carmen pulls up outside Dean Winchester's place and waits in her car a minute while she decides how she is going to approach this. The guys at the garage suggested she should go over and see Dean, their boss and buddy, because he hasn't been in to work for several days. In fact, Dean has been around the shop hardly at all in the last couple months. She couldn't say no. She worries about him too.
Two months have passed since Dean got the news his only brother lost his life in some freak accident down at the South Pole. Carmen shivers. To die so far from civilization, so far from home. Not a fate she would have chosen for her worst enemy, let alone Sam. She only met him that once but he seemed like such a nice guy, and Dean was so devoted to him. The poor schmuck.
Climbing out of the car, Carmen retrieves a deep-dish apple pie from the passenger seat. She baked it specially, knowing Dean is partial to a piece of pie. It is wrapped in a red and white checked dish towel, so it is still warm and smelling delicious. She hopes it can help raise Dean's spirits, by even a little bit.
Dean sits in his kitchen with an almost empty bottle of whiskey on the table beside him. He is deliberately torturing himself by going through a shoebox full of dog-eared snaps of you-know-who. His forefinger sadly traces the ditzy grin on each rendering of the late Sam's goofy face. Then his doorbell buzzes. With a tired sigh he rises from his chair and goes to answer the door, ready to give whoever is daring to disturb him an earful.
However, this is only Carmen wearing a sad, soft smile and bearing pie.
"Thought you could use a little home-baking, sweetie. It's cinnamon apple. My mom's special recipe."
Dean shakes his head. Even apple pie can't shift the cloud of depression he is under these days. And he can live without the sympathy everybody seems to be falling over themselves to give him. He shrugs sullenly.
"Honey, I appreciate that you made the effort. But pie ain't gonna cure me."
He walks straight past the girl into the night, leaving her standing there feeling confused and useless.
"Guess I'll put this in your kitchen, huh?" she calls after him, framed in the open doorway.
Her question is drowned out by the engine of Dean's Impala as he pulls away.
~O~
Dean drives around aimlessly for a couple hours, until the rhythm of the road isn't dulling his brain enough anymore, then he parks up at a random bar. From the colourful promotional crap outside, it looks like this is some kind of a trendy college hangout. But what does he care? As long as they have alcohol and plenty of it.
One step inside, he sees he is right about the students. The place is full of happily laughing twenty-somethings. The ambient music is current chart, not his taste, and way too loud. He climbs on a barstool and orders a double whiskey from the pretty blonde bartender. He takes only a passing interest in her low-buttoned shirt, which isn't like him but lately he hasn't been himself.
On the next stool a large faux-cowboy type is annoying a slight Asian youth who clearly does NOT want to hang with him. The kid is nursing a beer and it looks like it isn't his first of the night by a long way. The guy's big mouth is soon annoying Dean too. He taps him on the shoulder.
"Buddy, you wanna take your beer and find a table?"
The guy spins on his stool. "Hey! Wha-?" he splutters.
He looks damn scary from the front, busted nose and ruddy face, but Dean has dealt with bigger bullies in school and he isn't in a friendly mood.
"You wanna leave that kid alone and go finish up your beer in peace? Or you wanna find out how it works as a hair treatment?"
The big guy frowns and turns a little redder, but Dean's manner suggests he isn't joking around. He has his no-bullcrap face on and there is something grim about it. Even a roughneck would think twice about tackling Dean in this sort of humour. The guy opens his mouth, but sensing if he backtalks the new arrival it is going to end in a fistfight, he shuts it again and stands, picking up his bottle.
"Sure thing, bud," he mutters, as he moves away.
Dean turns back to the bar as the blonde pours his drink and wordlessly tosses down a bill. That is all the interaction he plans to have tonight. After a minute or two the Asian youth coughs and addresses him.
"Uh, thanks. That guy was becoming a pain."
"Don't mention it," responds Dean, not even turning around.
He really did only challenged the roughneck to shut him up. He isn't interested in starting a conversation with anyone else. The youth notices the cold shoulder but he is already squiffy enough to ignore it.
"I'm Kevin, by the way. Glad to meet you."
Dean ignores him. He can honestly say he doesn't feel very glad to meet anyone anymore. He may never feel glad about anything ever again. Kevin holds out his hand, offering a handshake. Even though he doesn't get an immediate response, he doesn't take it away. Dean leaves him hanging for a while but eventually concedes to a perfunctory shake. Kevin seems like a nice kid, even if he is a little smashed.
"Dean," he supplies, curtly.
He downs his whiskey in one gulp and sighs. He would go someplace quieter, if he could only be assed to leave.
"Lemme buy you another drink," suggests Kevin, signalling to the barkeep.
But Dean doesn't want to get into reciprocal drinking tonight. He has become more of a solitary drinker, silently toasting his brother with every fresh glass.
"Save it, kid. If I wanna drink, I got money in the bank."
Kevin laughs dryly. "Sure wish I could say the same."
Sounds like a sob story coming on. Dean again considers getting up and leaving, but to tell the truth he hasn't the motivation to take another step. May as well wallow in despondency with a fellow wallower. He signals the bartender for another round for them both.
"OK, let me have it, uh, Kevin. You tell me about your sorry-ass tough luck and maybe I'll tell you about mine."
With a sigh, Kevin begins. "I lost my grant from KU. And right when my experiments were beginning to look great. Initial findings were ALL positive. All I needed was more cash to built an actual device. But when I went to the committee they turned me down, laughed in my face. Then they closed down my lab, kicked me to the curb. Damn it. I KNOW I could've gotten it working."
"So you asked for more money and got canned? Same old same old."
"Yeah, but I was THIS close to a breakthrough," whines Kevin, holding his forefinger and thumb minutely apart. "If only I hadn't told them about..."
He takes another long drink from his beer and drops his head onto his arms on the bar. Dean pats him on the shoulder. He feels bad for the kid, really he does, but this is another example of how the world truly sucks. Something he is already well aware of.
"Crap happens, kid. You gotta suck it up and move on."
"Like you?" Kevin asks, pointedly.
The sensitive younger man can easily recognize a fellow suffering soul when he sees one.
"It's different." Dean cracks a cold smile. "I lost someone important to me. You don't just suck that up. Believe me, I have tried."
"Oh." Kevin feels a little sorry he spoke. He lowers his voice. "Who was it, huh? Wife? Girlfriend?"
Slowly Dean answers, "My brother. My kid brother."
Mrs. Tran's only child doesn't know a whole lot about having a brother, but he can imagine how bad he would feel if anything should happen to his mom, his only family. Family can break your heart. Losing family can wreck it.
"I'm sorry." Hardly adequate, he knows.
"Not as much as I am."
Dean sounds bitter. He knocks back his whiskey and raps on the bar for a refill. The bartender obliges. He suspects he has already drunk too much to safely drive home. Not that he really cares about his safety, but he wouldn't want to be a menace to other innocent drivers. Or worse, ding his car. May as well stay right here drinking until he falls off of the stool.
"Feel like tying one on good, Kevin?"
"Sounds like a GREAT idea."
They clink glasses.
After several more rounds, Kevin is starting to feel like Dean is the best pal he has ever had. Maybe even someone he can share with? He draws a slim box from his shirt pocket and opens it on the bar.
"Y'know what thish is?"
Dean stares at the box a second before picking up the angel feather. It twinkles under the bar lights as he twirls it in his fingers, and he is baffled.
"OK. I give up. What the hell IS it?" He snickers. "Don't tell me it's Dumbo's magic freakin' feather?"
Kevin raises his glass. "Got it in one."
~O~
Dean wakes up the next morning on his couch at home, still fully dressed and aching all over. When he did get so damn OLD? Yeah, he knows the exact day.
"GOTTA stop with the all-nighters."
His head feels like an ostrich egg trapped between the merciless jaws of a bitch hyena. He staggers in the kitchen and helps himself to a handful of Tylenol washed down with a glass of cold water straight from the faucet. It doesn't help much.
It is quarter after ten. He considers fixing himself some breakfast but the thought of food makes his stomach churn. Even the sight of Carmen's fine pie, lying on the counter with a piece missing, doesn't pique his interest, quite the reverse. It turns his stomach, so he stows it in the fridge. After pouring a mug from the bubbling coffee-maker he doesn't remember filling, he decides one piece of dry toast probably won't kill him.
The toast crumbs stick to the back of his throat.
He is vainly trying to remember where he went the previous night, and how exactly he got home, when the doorbell buzzes. Its shrill note goes right through him. Suspecting this is Carmen again, he goes to the door. As his hand reaches for the doorknob, a weak apology for his behaviour last evening is half forming in his head. Any chick who would baked him pie really didn't deserve to be snubbed that way.
When he opens the door, he is confronted with an Asian-looking stranger, about sixteen or seventeen, who carries a large black portfolio case under his arm. Before Dean can say word one, the young stranger charges past him into the house. It takes a shocked Dean a full second to recover his voice.
"Hey!" he calls after the youth. "Did I say come in? And who the hell're you anyways?"
The stranger swiftly clears Dean's kitchen table of photos and breakfast then unzips his portfolio, excitedly spreading out drawings and diagrams all around.
"These are the plans, Dean. See. This here's the navigation assembly. The power module. This is the main regulator and here... Here's where the payload sits. Come look."
He is babbling, jabbing at a big colourful drawing with his finger. Dean stands in the kitchen doorway mystified and more than a little indignant.
"Do I even KNOW you?"
Kevin looks up at him and smiles. "You're hung over, Dean. It'll come to you in a moment. I'm Kevin. We met last night? At a bar? I told you about my experiments, that I needed new premises, new equipment. You promised me you would bankroll it all. And you gave me this."
He reaches in his pocket, produces a bank cheque and holds it out to Dean. Dean takes it from him and tries to focus his bleary eyes on it. Straight off he sees the signature on it is his - at least it looks damn like his signature - and the amount is for ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars? Who IS this kid and what is his deal?
"I did NOT sign this," he protests.
His visitor gives him an understanding smile. "Sure you did. In the taxicab on the way back here?"
Dean recalls none of it. Is this kid scamming him?
"Back HERE?" He points at the rug. "You're telling me you've already been here?"
"Sure. I slept it off on the floor. I even fixed that coffee you're drinking, and ate a piece of your delicious apple pie before I went out to-"
Dean decides he isn't standing for any more of this horsecrap. "I'm tearing up this cheque."
The youth looks alarmed. "No, no, no! Dean, I'm gonna NEED to deposit that today. I've already spent it, well, most of it. I organized us space on campus. And some of the parts I want I already had on order, so I called them up and un-cancelled. I was thinking you can deal with the engineering side, you being a mechanic and all. And I guess-"
Dean isn't getting any of this. He holds up his hand to stop Kevin in mid-flow.
"What EXACTLY am I supposed to be bankrolling here?"
The young man sighs. He is going to have to spoonfeed the poor dumb guy. Again.
"My experiments. My device. I told you how I was THIS close to getting it working and you said if this thing has a gnat's chance in a twister you'd give me every last cent you had."
Dean is speechless. He has never been in the habit of swearing away all his assets, even when drunk.
"Why the hell would I say a stupid-ass thing like that? Kid, you have gotta be crazy."
Kevin gently smiles and explains. "Because, Dean, you lost your only brother two months ago."
Oh no, he did not just go there! The holy B-word cuts Dean like a razor. That a stranger should use THAT word to him seriously bites. How dare this bozo mention his brother? Dean's eyes bulge with rage. He lunges toward the young interloper and snatches up his schematic, squinting at the words printed on it, turning it upside down, downside up.
"Yeah? Well, that didn't make me lose my mind, or my grip on reality. Why would I wanna help you build this gizmo? What the hell even IS this? Some kinda airplane? A freakin spaceship?"
The young scientist laughs inwardly, anticipating the same reaction he got from Dean last night. He holds out his hand for the blueprint.
"No, Dean, in the words of Don Draper, this is not a spaceship. It's a time machine."
Without another word Dean hands over the schematic. And the cheque.
~O~
Timeline: Kevin's rented office unit - Next day
The unit young Kevin has rented on campus is little more than a closet with power and water. But when they move Kevin's equipment in, the boy genius is energized. Everything he needs to get up and running is piled up in the centre of the floor, while Kevin excitedly dances around it checking things off on his clipboard.
"You don't know how much this means to me, Dean. No one has had this much faith in me before. Except Mom, naturally."
Dean isn't sure how strong his belief really is, but he appreciates it isn't going to encourage the kid to say so. He takes off his jacket, hangs it on the hook on the back of the door and rolls up his sleeves.
"That's it, kid. Absolute freakin' faith. I am TOTALLY signed up for this thing you're gonna do. Now where do we start?"
It takes them several hours to get the lab up and running. Dean does the heavy lifting and Kevin the fine adjustment. When everything is set up, wiped off and plugged in, Kevin brings out his box, the ancient box handed down from his forefathers.
He sighs dramatically. "Take a seat, Dean." He wheels over a smart new office chair. "There's something I gotta show you."
Dean raises an eyebrow as he sits. He sincerely hopes the guy isn't going to show him his mental hospital discharge papers. At this point he really wouldn't be surprised. He is beginning to suspect he might have gone crazy himself.
Kevin stands in front of him with the small carved box in his hands. It is about three inches by eight long and decorated all over with neat eastern characters, on the face if it nothing special.
"Now don't say anything until I've had a chance to explain," he warns, ominously.
He opens the box and holds it toward Dean. "Take it."
The box is lined with dark red silk and in it lies a large feather. The tail feather of some very big bird maybe? An eagle? An albatross? Dean picks it up and holds it to the light. It coruscates prettily, as if it has been worked up from multicoloured rhinestone encrusted silks. Something a Vegas showgirl wouldn't be ashamed of. Dean has the vaguest idea he has seen this before someplace. As a matter of fact, he has but he was drunk out of his senses at the time.
"Ooh, sparkly!" He waves the thing a little. "Seriously. What the crap IS this?"
Kevin is kneeling on the floor now, looking up at him with big, earnest eyes.
"It's the wing feather of a genuine ANGEL," he breathes.
"The hell it is!"
OK, so he really HAS gotten a mental case on his hands. He gives a dry laugh. Yeah, and maybe he IS crazy too. He looks at Kevin, all eager and expectant, and all Dean can feel is sorry.
"Please don't tell me this whole thing's some big freakin' joke, kid. Jeez, I can't-"
Kevin fervently shakes his head. "No! No, Dean. Not a joke. Definitely NOT a joke. This feather, this exact feather has been passed down through my family for generations. It came from the wing of an actual angel, no lie."
He says this with real awe in his voice, but he can see Dean looks sceptical. He knows that look. His mom got the same one from him when she entrusted him with the feather.
"Yeah, sure, I know it sounds screwy. And you're thinking exactly what I was thinking when my mom gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. But it IS real. It really IS. AND I can prove it."
He takes the feather from Dean's hand and places it reverently on a work surface.
"Let me show you something. If it doesn't convince you this thing is the real deal then you can walk away."
Kevin plugs a small device into a wall outlet and fastens one alligator clip to the spine of the feather and another to its silky tip.
"Now I reverse the polarity..."
He adjusts a control knob, stands back and flicks the power switch. The feather raises six inches in the air and floats there for a moment before twisting oddly then vanishing. The two clips drop to the bench and Kevin flicks off the power switch. He turns to Dean with his arms smugly folded.
"The secret is to fine tune the frequency of the oscillation and a bunch of other parameters. It's kinda tricky."
He goes to the coffeemaker and fills a mug, adding milk and sugar. "You want some?" he asks, casually.
Dean stares blankly back at him. "OK. So it's gone. You got more? Because otherwise..."
Kevin takes a sip of his coffee and shrugs. "It's unreliable. That's the problem. It DOES work. Only it's erratic. What we gotta do is work out how to harness it. And that's all."
"That's all," parrots Dean, with a note of sarcasm.
What kind of proof was that meant to be? Did he miss something or is this all hokum? He gets up, marches to the door, takes his jacket off of the hook and puts it on.
"Need a drink, a REAL drink."
He grabs the doorknob and is about to stomp out when Kevin starts to chuckle.
"OK. I've hung you out long enough. Check your pockets."
Dean checks his jacket pockets and pulls out a feather, twin to the one he checked out earlier.
"NOW tell me this thing isn't a real angel feather," demands Kevin.
Dean turns the opalescent feather over and over. It IS identical. While Kevin stands grinning nervously at him, he considers it for a moment.
"This was in my pocket the entire time?"
"Yup," admits Kevin. "Showed up about an hour ago while you were in the can. Not much of a shift, I admit, but it proves the principle. And it-"
He gets cut off by Dean barking out a wry laugh. "I may regret this, Kevin, but I think I'm in."
Dean knows this is a huge leap of faith, a stupid, blind, insane, impossible leap of faith. A time travelling feather is one thing, but a time machine? Well, he is ready to take that leap. He is ready to do whatever it takes to save his brother.
After all, the alternative is unacceptable.
TBC
A/N: So Dean and his new chum are hoping to find a way to communicate with the Antarctica of Chapter V? More about that soon.