Chapter 3 Disclosures

In the warm comfort of Bobby's living room, Dean put the book he'd been reading down and rubbed his fingers over his eyes, reaching out with his other hand for the glass that sat on the table next to the chair.

A fluttering of wings in the room and the smell of feathers made him look up.

"Crowley has succeeded in opening Purgatory," Cas said tensely, walking across and looking from Dean to Sam. "He took the souls for Hell but he released the other beings."

"All the other beings?" Bobby asked, disbelief colouring his voice.

"No," Cas told him. "I believe the natives were not freed. But the Leviathan were."

The news brought Dean to his feet almost involuntarily. "Son-of-a-bitch, just what we needed!"

"Alright, don't panic," Bobby growled at him as he paced across the room. The hunter looked back to the angel. "How long ago?"

"Last night," Cas said. "The eclipse."

"Balls."

Sam looked at Lauren. "What do they want?"

"From Terry's notes, and the little information we've been able to find in Eleanor's books, they were the dominant life-form when God created them. I would guess that's still the plan," she said.

"Refresh my memory on what Terry had," Bobby asked her.

Dean stopped as Lauren hesitated, turning around and catching the doubtful look on her face. He scowled as he looked at the floor, realising that none of them had talked about Terry since he'd gotten back, not while he was around. He'd thought it was because they'd moved on but he could see now that they probably were still discussing her, just doing it when he wasn't there.

"I'm not going to break," he said shortly to her.

Looking guiltily down at the notes, Lauren said, "Uh, well, they were supposed to come out with Castiel." She glanced up at the angel who shifted his feet uncomfortably on the floor. "Then they left him. Those are just notes from the writer's conference a couple of months before that year ended. In the books Eleanor kept, and in your books," she added, looking at Bobby. "There's more about the mythology about the first beasts, both Leviathan and Behemoth. But they're all describing what they did when they were created, before humanity was even formed so what they'll do in this time, with the world as it is now, that's the question."

"Anything on how we kill them?" Dean asked.

"Well, that's the problem. According to the mythology, there's nothing that can kill them," she told him reluctantly. "That's why God locked them away to begin with."

"Awesome," he said, throwing himself back into the armchair and staring at the angel. "Just fucking awesome."

"Cas," Sam said, throwing a nervous look at his brother but forcing himself to ask anyway. "Is there any way we could get a ride back to Terry's world and –"

"No!" Dean sat up abruptly. "No, we'll figure it out. She's safe there. She doesn't need us fucking that over as well."

"But she could have more information –"

Dean glared at him and Cas injected, "I can't, Sam. The dimensions were close then. The nearest acceptable conjunction between her world and ours wouldn't be for months now."

"And I said, no," Dean snapped. "She made her choice. We're not changing that."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"They're just humans," Chet said, looking at his fingernails.

"No, they're not just anything," the leader said, speaking through the mouth of one of the country's wealthiest entrepreneurs. "Were you not paying attention when we brain-reamed that demon?"

Chet shut up. Bibbing was one of Dick's favourite methods of punishment and he was just getting used to this body.

"They've taken down angels and demons and Crowley thought that God was lending a hand every now and then as well," Dick continued, looking at himself in the gilt-edged mirror and straightening his tie. "They have to go. Start with the VRS and the usual avenues. Once they're gone, we'll be on track to get this party going without any interference."

"Yes, boss," Chet said, getting to his feet and looking across at his partner. Edgar shrugged and rose from the sofa, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on.

"Start with the old man's place," Roman added, turning to look at them. "Crowley seemed to think that was their base of operations."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Sam looked out through the filmy sheer curtains at the kitchen window at the silent rows of junked cars.

"You sure? I don't see anything," he said to his brother. Dean was at the dining room window, eye to the crack in the heavy material over, looking obliquely across the yard.

"I'm sure," he said tightly. "You got the remote for the front fence?"

Sam nodded as Bobby and Lauren came into the dining room.

"Saw one guy from the bedroom," Bobby said to no one in particular. "Lauren saw another on the other side, down by the fields."

"Why us?" Sam asked, looking back out into the yard, his thumb rubbing lightly over the trigger button.

"No clue."

"How do they even know about us?"

"Crowley let them out," Lauren said quietly behind Sam. "Maybe they talked to him on the way through?"

"Lying sack of –" Dean cut himself off as he saw the furtive movement between the fence and the cars. "Sam, light it up!"

There were fourteen buried mines between the rickety steel fence and the first line of junkers closest to it. Bobby'd insisted on them getting a couple of crates from their father's lockup in New York after Crowley's invasion. The line of six, on the left-hand side of the auto yard's rusted iron gates went up with a thunderous roar, earth and corrugated steel sheet and razor wire and bits of rusted cars flying in every direction and a monster cloud of black smoke and dust rising in a mushroom-shape above the yard. Dean swung around and raced for the side of the house, hitting the back door then the porch steps in two strides and spotting the intruder that Lauren had seen halfway up the narrow alleyway between the piles of cars.

His automatic was in his hand and he skidded to a halt, pumping all thirteen shots, at a range of no more than fifteen yards, into the man standing there. The bullet holes riddled chest and shoulders, neck and face in neat, tight groupings and the man jittered and jigged on the spot, finally falling backwards with a thump on the damp dirt when the gun fell silent.

Dean moved toward him cautiously, and stopped as the dude got back to his feet, watching with a sour kind of incredulity as the black and bloodied holes in the guy's skin closed up one by one, pushing the bullets out first, leaving a pile of squashed slugs around his feet.

"Nice shooting," the man said, one brow lifted. He was in his mid-forties, Dean thought, pocked tan skin and black hair and dark eyes showing a Latino descent.

"You should've called for an appointment."

"We thought that dropping in would be more spontaneous," the man said, smiling at him. "I like your set up."

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Everything."

"Naturally," Dean muttered to himself as he took a step back, putting the gun back in his coat. His hand closed around the rough hilt of the machete, strapped to his thigh in a leather sheath. It hissed slightly as he drew it out.

"You can't kill us," the man said cheerfully, walking toward him. "But we can kill you – eat you all up!"

"We'll see about that," Dean said. He took a step toward the guy and swung the blade, dropping and launching forward as the guy ducked and evaded. There was a thud as the head hit the nearest junker and he looked down at the headless body, face screwed up in disgust as he watched a stream of black ooze spill from the neck and spread across the dirt.

"That's…just gross."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Got a body," he called out when he saw Sam and Bobby dragging plastic bags around from the front fence. "And a head."

"Hard to say what we got," Bobby said, lifting his head to look at the younger hunter. "Pieces everywhere."

"Well, I guess we can kill them –"

On the porch, Lauren's eyes widened. "Dean! Watch out!"

He ducked to one side, hitting the ground and rolling hard, feeling something heavy and unyielding bounce off his leg and something in the leg flex sickeningly with the impact.

The guy he'd killed lifted the iron piping he was carrying for another hit, taking a step closer and gunfire filled the air, the sharp yaps of his brother's auto, and the deeper booms of Bobby's pump-action shotgun. The guy stopped, the bullets and pellets driving into his body absorbed and spat out almost as fast.

It was just a delay, Dean thought, rolling to his feet and grunting as his leg gave way under him. He hobbled-ran to the shed, wondering distractedly how the hell he was gunna change gear with his left leg apparently unwilling to take any weight, and then he was at the driver's door, throwing it open and sliding inside.

The Impala started immediately and his leg delivered a bolt of pain that went right up his backbone into his skull when he shoved his foot down on the clutch. Shaking and swearing and sweating, Dean used his right foot awkwardly to get the car into reverse and backed out of the shed, increasing speed as he aimed the car for the man still standing in front of the house.

He didn't hear Bobby scream as he thumped into the body with the trunk of the car, just caught a glimpse of Lauren's horror struck face when he hit the brake.

"Hurry up!" he yelled through the window.

Sam and Lauren prised the dismembered hand that had crawled out of one of the plastic bags at their feet and fastened onto the old man's shoulder, both of their faces showing revulsion under their thin-lipped determination to get it off.

Bobby staggered down the steps between them when it finally plopped off and landed in the dirt of the yard and they piled into the car, Dean hitting the clutch, accelerator and brake in quick succession (but nowhere near as fast as he would've if his leg had been okay) and three-point-turning the hell out of the dooryard and through the gates.

"Where to?"

"Sheriff," Bobby said, his face a shade between milk and ash. "Jody's house. Goddamned monster broke ma collarbone."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Two weeks later.

Dean drummed his fingers against the car's wheel, his attention on the road as they sped through open farmland in the early morning light. "Jersey Devil? Really?"

"Campers getting munched on," Sam pointed out. "I know Dad didn't think much of it –"

"Or Jim, or Caleb," Dean interjected. His leg, just a fracture the doc'd said, was itching like a bitch under the semi-pliable cast. "Or Bobby, or Rufus."

"But there's a lot of missing people who went camping in those woods and never came back," Sam continued determinedly. "And Jersey isn't exactly the predator capital of the country."

He couldn't argue with that. Three bodies in the last three weeks. Something had moved into the big stretch of woods.

Bobby was staying with Jody Mills and Lauren had gone to see a professor in Dallas, someone who specialised in biblical myth, apparently, looking for something that would help with the fact that not only were an unspecified number of Purgatory's Most Wanted out and about, but they'd somehow known about them, known Bobby's address and had been more than usually determined to get rid of them.

All that would've been fine, would've been peachy even, if behind every one of his brother's occasional deep sighs and pointed looks, there wasn't the idea in Sam's head that Terry would know more about this than they could find out any other way.

Even Cas' careful explanation of the multi-dimensional and cyclical nature of the universe hadn't stopped Sam from mentioning that option again.

It was all making it hard to think about what he was supposed to do. Keep the world safe. Keep his brother safe. Give up on what he wanted to save everyone. He thought of Melanie and looked down at the curved line at the base of his index finger. If he did find a way to get rid of it, would that help?

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

The restaurant was crowded and Dean ordered the special of the day, a turducken sandwich of gargantuan proportions.

"What've we got?" he asked his brother through a mouthful of food.

"Well, according to Ranger Rick," Sam said, his gaze following the ranger out of the restaurant. "Bear attack."

"Unlikely."

"Yeah," Sam agreed straight away. "The wounds on the last camper they found weren't bear claw. And every internal organ had been eaten. Leaves us with werewolf, except the timing's wrong. Or wendigo, but we're too far south."

"Or the new game in town."

"Why leave the bodies?" Sam shook his head. "Maybe it is the Jersey Devil."

"Ranger Rick seemed not that concerned about his partner," Dean pointed out, his eyes closed as he chewed. "Bad blood and a little Deliverance on the side?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, picking at his salad with his fork and looking around the restaurant. Aside from their waiter, who'd had an attitude from the moment they'd walked in, everyone in the place seemed…not calm, he decided with a frown. Disassociated was closer to what he was seeing. "Dean, look at these people."

Opening his eyes, Dean looked around the room. There was virtually no conversation going on anywhere, everyone was eating and sitting quietly. Most were sampling the special.

"Guess the sandwich has that effect on people," he remarked, looking back at his own and taking another bite.

"You remember anything that Bobby taught us when we kids about hunting in the woods?" Sam asked him.

"All of it," Dean told him.

"Good, we're going out for a look tonight."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Sam," Dean said, lifting the beam of his flashlight to illuminate the body hanging from the tree. "You ever see a bear carry a kill into a tree like that?"

"Cats do it, leopards and jaguar," Sam said, peering up at the gory remains. "Not that they're likely here."

"Call it in?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed, pulling out his phone as Dean started to look at the ground for tracks and trace.

"He'll be here in half an hour," Sam said a minute later.

"Lot of churned up crap here, but no tracks," Dean commented, crouching down and playing the light over the ground. He looked back up to the body. "Takes a lot of muscle to do that."

"Is it tied?"

Dean shook his head. "Hung on the branch."

"You want to get him down or me?" Sam asked, holding out his hand, fist over palm. Dean looked around and let out an exasperated breath. He stood, curling his fist over his palm in mimicry of his brother. They looked at each other and counted.

"Ha!" Dean said, for once throwing paper instead of scissors and Sam shook his head as he tucked his gun back into his coat pocket and handed Dean his rifle.

"I'm crippled anyway," Dean reminded his brother, watching his ascent.

Climbing into the tree, Sam stopped at the branch that Ranger Phil was hanging from, looking at the deep claw marks that scarred the wood. He was leaning forward to unhook the ranger's coat from the protruding branch when under there was an ominous crack and the branch gave under the combined weight of hunter and ranger.

"Sam! You alright?"

Sam grunted and rolled over, trying to get his lungs moving enough to get some air into them. "Mhmm."

Headlights splashed the trees around them and Dean dragged his brother out of the way of the four-wheel drive that bumped its way toward them.

"What'd you find?" Ranger Rick called as he turned off the engine and got out of the car.

"Your partner," Dean said, gesturing to the torn-up body clearly visible in the headlights.

"Whoa, golly, I think that's Phil," the ranger said as he walked closer to the body. "Guess we found Phil."

"Isn't that what I just said?" Dean muttered to his brother irritably. "He stoned or drunk?"

Sam shook his head, his hand closing around Dean's arm. "Listen."

Dean heard the rustle a second later, and the barrel of his rifle came up. "Hey, Rick, get back here."

"What? I got to-uh…I got to identity the body, for sure," Rick said, leaning clumsily over the remains.

"Back here, NOW!" Dean shouted, firing as he caught movement in the corner of his eye.

In front of the car, there was a flash and then the ranger was gone. Sam bolted and Dean ran-hobbled after the crashing noises they could hear in the undergrowth, flashlight beams swinging wildly from side to side as they followed the trail.

In a clearing several hundred yards from the distant glow of the car, the noises stopped and they skidded to a halt, looking around warily.

Dean tapped his ear. Somewhere nearby there were new sounds, mushy crunching and some kind of liquid gurgle. In the glow of the flashlight, Dean saw his brother's face scrunch up as he put an image to the noises.

"It's eating Rick?" Sam asked in a whisper.

"Damn, I liked Rick," Dean murmured, turning off his flashlight and closing his eyes. The barrel of his gun swung around and up, moving slowly as it tracked the sound through the canopy to one side of the clearing. He fired and there was a heavy thud as something hit the ground in the bushes.

"Good shot," Sam said admiringly, turning his light on and picking out a figure lying on the forest floor.

"Told you all that crap that Bobby showed us stuck," Dean said, following his brother. "Not much to look at."

"We need to take a look in better light," Sam told him. "We'll take him back to the cabin."

"I'm starving, this gonna take long?"

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Gerard Browder," Dean said, peering myopically at the wallet he held. His stomach was rumbling and moaning and he was craving the taste of the three-bird sandwich, saliva glands filling his mouth as he thought about it. "Two hundred and thirty eight pounds, five-nine, blue eyes, brown hair…"

Sam looked down at the body lying on the table in front of him. "Lost a bit of weight."

He poked a pencil into the bullet hole in Gerard's chest, stepping back with a look of distaste when a thin stream of grey goo ran out of it. "What is that?"

Dean walked around the table and looked at it. "Open him up and have a look?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed unwillingly. He turned to the duffle and pulled out a machete, making the first cut through the rib cage. "God."

Inside of Gerard's abdomen, every organ was flooded with the grey goo. "What is this?"

"Can we break for dinner?" Dean asked restlessly.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Two hours later, Sam stared at the sandwich sitting on the table where the late Gerard Browder had been lying and then back at his brother. Dean was sitting on the kitchen counter by the window, gazing dreamily around the room.

"Dean, you okay?"

"Never better, man," Dean confirmed, one side of his mouth lifting in a loose half-smile. "I feel…feel…great. Great."

"Right," Sam muttered. His brother was stoned, presumably by the same grey goo that had filled Gerard Browder and had turned the camper into some kind of super-monster, and was no doubt turning the townspeople who were eating at Biggerson's into morons or psychopaths or both right now.

"You know," Dean continued, his voice deep and soft. "I didn't even tell her, before she went. Didn't tell her anything."

Sam looked at him, his attention sharpening. "Terry?"

"Mmm-hmm," Dean said, leaning back against the window frame. "Thought I'd have time. Thought I'd have time for a lot of things. Thought I'd be able to tell her about Hell, you know…"

He trailed off into silence and Sam cleared his throat. "What about Hell, Dean?"

"All those missing pieces. The pieces I can't find anymore," Dean said, his eyes half-closing as he appeared to think about that. "You and Lauren, man, that's great. Great."

"Yeah, it is," Sam said, recoiling as Dean's sandwich heaved and a glob of goo smacked onto the table. "Dean? You sure you feel okay?"

"Feeling…overrated, man," Dean said. "Every time I let my guard down, whammo! Right in the kisser."

"You can't give up." Sam took a step away from the table, closer to his brother. "You'll find someone else."

"Nope, no one else. No one else knows. What she did. Does. Whatever," Dean said. "S'okay. I don't care. I feel fine."

"We got to find out what these people are putting in the lunch special, Dean," Sam said, looking back at the sandwich. It gave another burp of goop and he felt his stomach turn over slowly. That stuff was in his brother.

Looking back at Dean, he asked, "Can you walk?"

"Walk? Yeah, maybe," Dean said, wriggling forward on the counter and half-falling onto his feet. "Sure, I can walk. Can't sing. Can't keep anyone. I can walk. Walk good."

"Good," Sam told him soothingly, grabbing his shoulder and keeping him upright as they went into the hall. "That's good."

"I can drive good."

"Not today."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Not them, it's me," Dean groaned from the backseat and Sam frowned, twisting around to look at his brother who was sprawled there.

"Everybody leaves."

The memory came back hard, and Sam swore under his breath as he remembered the angel's illusion of their mother and what she'd said to his brother. He'd thought Dean'd realised that had been the angel trying to break him. Had thought he'd let it go. Apparently he hadn't.

"Dean?"

"Dammit, Sammy," Dean replied, rolling onto his side. "God damn it all to hell."

"Dean? You awake?"

"No."

"That wasn't real," Sam tried again. "It was just Zachariah fucking with you."

"I know," Dean muttered. "I know that, Sammy, but they still go. Still go."

He didn't know what to say to that. Ahead, through the trees, he could see the loading dock of the Biggerson's restaurant and he slowed down, turning off the headlights as he coasted down the slight hill and stopped before the trees ended.

The binoculars brought the back of the building into focus and he watched a truck pull in. The driver got out and unloaded several dozen cartons from it, wheeling them into the store-rooms.

"Guess we follow him," Sam said softly as the truck driver came out and got back in the truck.

A snore from the back seat was the only response.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Dean woke slowly, his head throbbing and his mouth tasting like he'd spent the night eating from a trash can. He looked around and sat up gingerly.

"Where're we?"

"Midwest Meat and Poultry Distribution warehouse," Sam told him quietly from the front seat. "They deliver to Biggerson's."

"I feel like three kinds of crap," Dean grumbled.

"That, uh, sandwich had some bad side-effects."

"Yeah." He leaned back against the seat, disconnected memories filling his mind. "Did we find the ranger?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Looks like one of the missing campers went Pumpkinhead and killed the others, including Rick Evans and his partner, Phil."

"Huh."

"His internal organs were swimming in a substance that also came out of your sandwich," Sam continued, glancing at him in the rear view mirror.

"Ergh." Dean rubbed a hand over his face. He remembered talking to Sam. A lot. About things he hadn't wanted to talk about. "Any other side-effects?"

"Not really," Sam said, focussing the glasses on the door. "Oh…no."

"What?" Dean leaned forward, wincing as the sudden movement set off another firecracker in his head.

"The leviathan are here."

"Wow, that's…that's just awesome," Dean said. "Unkillable monsters poisoning the population. That'll be easy."

Sam shook his head. "We have to find out what they're doing."

"How the hell we gunna do that?"

"Stealthily," Sam said, putting the glasses down and opening his door. "Come on."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Two days later.

Bobby winced as he turned around too fast, his shoulder aching. "They were what?"

"They're supplying those restaurants with some kind of poison…or additive…or something that's turning most of the customers into barely-functioning lumps, and some into raving psychopaths," Sam said again.

"And it's being run by some hot-shot business guy," Dean added, knocking the top of the beer he held and passing it to his brother.

"Dick Roman," Sam supplied the name as he took the beer. "That's more than just hot-shot, that's global empire."

"What'd Crowley say?"

"Said the leviathans were dicks and he'd give us a clear playing field until we ganked them," Dean told him sourly. "Not a real big help."

"Lauren called yesterday," Bobby told them. "Said she found out a few things but nothing that'll help us kill 'em or neutralise 'em."

"Well," Jody said from the doorway, plates in either hand. "You boys are welcome to stick around here for as long as you want to."

"Thanks, Jody," Sam said, taking his food from her.

"Yeah, thanks," Dean added, picking up the burger the plate she passed him held.

"You know," Jody said, seating down beside Bobby and picking up her fork. "Everything on this world has an opposite, some opposing force."

There was a moment's silence around the table, then Bobby scratched his beard. "Yeah, okay, that's true."

"So there must be something that does stop these things, right?" she asked him as she speared her salad. "All you need to do is figure it out."

Dean lifted a brow. "Well, we're working on it."

"No," she said. "I mean, maybe you guys are looking in the wrong place. You said that the angel said that the Leviathan were older than them?"

Bobby nodded cautiously. "Yeah, so?"

"But Lauren said that what was in Purgatory first was what she called the 'Old Ones', the ones that were there even before the Leviathan. So maybe you need to look for one of them."

"In Purgatory?" Dean asked. "We can't open it again –"

"And I don't want to," Sam added, memories of his time there crowding up against him.

"It's somethin', though," Bobby said thoughtfully. "I'll get onto Lauren again after we eat."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Dean, a word?" Sam said when the plates had been cleared away and Bobby and Jody had returned to the living room. "On the porch?"

Dean followed his brother out. He had a good idea of what Sam wanted to talk about and he tried to think of diversionary subjects that would derail his brother's determination.

"Even Bobby admits we should at least be thinking about going to see Terry, if Cas can get us there," Sam said when they hit the cold night air.

Dean watched his breath fog up as it left his lungs in a long, noisy exhale. "That's months away. We'll figure something out before then."

"If we don't…?"

"If we don't…and if Cas can swing it…and if it doesn't let anything else follow us across…then," Dean paused, swallowing a mouthful of icy beer from the bottle he held. "Then, yeah, maybe."

"You don't have to go." Sam looked at him, twisting around to lean on the porch railing.

Dean looked at him flatly. "No one else is going."

"Maybe it's not such a good idea –"

"It's a crap idea," Dean cut him off. "But you might be right. And Bobby. We're not going to find the tablets, not any time soon. Even if we did, we still need a prophet. So, if we can't find any other way, I'll talk to Cas."

He felt his stomach ice over and curl up at the thought, at the same time a flush of heat ran right down through his nervous system. He wanted to ask why. It was a dumb question, because who doesn't save their skin when presented with a choice like that? What sane person would stick around in a world like this when they could live a normal life in their own? Still, he wanted to see her face and ask.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

AN: I feel I should point out that there's only enough of the Season 7 episodes for Dean to think about what's going on, and to provide the ongoing background information for the story. For those who liked the re-imagined episodes of Crossing Over with Terry's inclusion, sorry, that ain't happening here, since Terry's not here, and I can't see the point of putting in the details of the episodes where I'm not changing them, since we've all seen them! I hope it's not too disorienting and confusing though!