Disclaimer: Refer back a couple of chapters

A/N: There's this adorable person who I've never met in person but when I get emails from her, for some reason my mouth ticks up and I find myself smiling. MAZ101 is an awesome beta and I love that SUPERNATURAL brought me to her. And her to me.

Chapter Seven: The Bottle Let Me Down

March, 2009

Everybody has something to hide. Secrets and lies. Truths and realities. Love and hate.

Fear.

Sam could feel it. It was holding its breath behind him. It was menacing and hovered there, watching him. It was both young and old, new and used, protected and neglected. He could feel its power pull against his own; feel its energy.

Sam could hear it. It held a sound in its throat like a cricket chirping. Its small footsteps approached slowly and then ran excitedly to the center of the room, skipping and dancing on the dusty floor.

Sam could smell it. It was faint but it hit his nose in small doses. Musty and acrid, a scent he'd become accustomed to. A scent that made his salivary glands flip into overdrive. A scent so recognizable, he could taste it.

Sam turned to see it.

There was his brother, holding a power cord. He was saying something to the men, their ears still adjusting to the newfound silence, but Sam wasn't listening to Dean's words. He was watching them as they puffed out in cold clouds into the empty space.

Sam shoved off the crappy stool and reached for his Glock. It wasn't salt, but it was the only physical weapon he had on him. Not counting himself. He heard his name sound out from his brother's mouth and raised the gun up just as she appeared out of a foggy haze wearing that damned blue dress.

Jet black hair swooped away from her face, framing her beauty like a delicate watercolor. Dark brown eyes with long lashes, wild and untamed, gazed at the patrons in the tavern. Petite feet started scuttling on the floor, tiny hands reached towards Sam's brother. She was gaining color and depth. Gaining matter and substance. Becoming more solid, more real. Corporeal.

Sam watched as she brushed by Dean, her fingers grazing his shoulder. Her words were like syrup, sticking to the roof of her mouth, "Honey, don'. Don' do dat."

He could see Dean's eyes skate to the left getting a quick look at the ghost of the woman who's bones they had just burned. Sam could see his brother's face turn green with disbelief and too much Scotch.

"Oh, Christ." Sam heard Ben's harsh murmur float up from behind the bar. The big man's eyes were locked on the beauty that stole his heart once upon a time. Now she ticked and meandered her way past Dean towards the rest of the bar.

Sam pulled the hammer back on his gun. He watched as Dean attempted uselessly to grab the apparition with the cord. Sam swung the barrel at Dean and shook his head in warning.

Dean backed up. "Iron! I need iron!" He yelled to the barkeeps.

Big Ben didn't hear him, though. He was engrossed with Sam and the gun he had pointed on ghosts of girlfriends past. "Don't shoot her." Ben pleaded. "I can't watch you shoot her."

Sam dipped his chin down for a brief second and then coldly, he responded, "Then you'd better shut your eyes."

A smash of glass behind him caught him off guard and Sam twisted to see one of the whiskey bottles on top of a high shelf burst into a splattering of glass and liquid.

Jeff cried out from under the spray, his hands covered his head in protection as another bottle exploded on the other side of the shelf. Shards erupted with the force of a homerun, jagged pieces driving over to where the card players sat.

Sam felt the power singe the air. She was controlling the speed of the glass, the direction it dispersed. She wasn't menacing; she was deadly.

"Go!" Sam bellowed over the counter. "Get out of there!" He turned and glared at Valentina just as she had at him so many years ago, his gun snug in his grip and he fired a round into her chest.

The shot was nearly deafening in the small space. Sam felt his ears ring. The harshness of his breath hit his tympanic membrane, echoing painfully. He froze, fingers stilled over the trigger, smoke clearing from the barrel.

The black hair flew away from her face as the force smacked into her hard. Her shoulder jerked back and she halted for a moment. Her pale lips parted and a dry pink tongue pushed out, tracing the outline of her mouth. She almost, almost let a smile escape.

Lead bullets. Sam swallowed. They weren't even consecrated. They were just regular old discount store bought rounds.

Val straightened her dress out and raised her eyebrows. Then, not saying a word, she started walking again toward Sam.

He could hear Ben and Jeff scrambling away from the bar. Another burst of glass fired as a bottle of Gin was lost and Sam felt the glass enter his back like he'd been hit with tiny bullets. They sliced cold and buried hot with the burn of alcohol on his skin. She was coming for him. No matter what he did, no matter what he tried. Val was coming for him.

The lights flickered on and off again. The sound of booze trickling to the floor was met with feet stomping as the card players reached the front entry. The trio was on top of each other, trying to open the old door. They'd turn the knob to the left and the right, screaming and cursing at one another in Spanish, pushing and shoving until each one had had their hand on the knob. It still wouldn't budge.

Sam could feel his power. His blood, marked with a demonic Original Sin, was racing through his veins, warming his arteries, heating his heart. He watched Val. She was gaining distance; their eyes locked with one another. Sam wouldn't try to move from her stare. If she wanted him, he would make her fight for it. Demon or spirit, weapons or hands, he was still stronger than this.

Then Sam felt Dean clamp his hand over his arm and for a heartbeat, the night split. The heat boiling through his body, the blood bubbling under his skin cooled at the warm fingertips and the whole ride made the younger brother feel a sudden rush of dizziness.

Nothin' bad's gonna happen to you as long as I'm here.

"Dean." That one word. Sam stopped moving. He stopped blinking. He stopped breathing. And for a second, he felt himself start needing.

You don't need me…

"Sam, get down," he heard Dean order and Sam tried to bend his body over, just enough to give his brother some space, but he found that his knees weren't able to hold him up any longer and he fell to the floor in a gawky display of legs and arms.

Dean reached a swift hand over the edge of the bar just as another bottle exploded, the glass was thrown in a sharp spiral, smacking into his arm and shoulder. He bit his lip, but a yelp of pain escaped as his fingers clasped around the butt of the sawed-off Big Ben kept hidden behind the counter. He swung around and jacked the iron in a clickety-clack motion, firing both rounds of salt into Val's chest.

Her open hands splayed away from her petite body, her face turned up towards the ceiling with a curdling shriek as she vanished in a poof of graying smoke. A frosty wind blew through the bar, carrying with it the tail end of a baby's cries. It whipped the faces and hair of the men, tasting and touching each one before all fell silent.

The door flung open from the force of one of the Latino men. The frigid air from the outside mixed with the heat from the inside of the tavern and made them all shiver. There was a few seconds where no one moved, no one spoke, they just stood in the calm, realizing they were there. Alive.

In a haunted saloon.

The three card players tumbled out the door, leaving behind their prized quarters scattered all over the floor along with the dust, the glass and the trails of booze.

"You got any salt?" Sam heard Dean ask. He glanced up and watched Dean's body turn to the brothers who were stepping out of their hiding spots.

Ben was examining Jeff's bloody hand, wincing at the embedded glass that had found a temporary home there. Droopy eyes looked up. "Rock salt. Some Morton's."

Dean nodded. "Get all you have together. We need to salt the place." Sam noticed his brother's arm and shoulder looked like hamburger after the glass shattering display Val had put on. Dean pulled back some of his skin and picked a couple of shards out, scarlet plumping to the surface immediately. He sighed and grabbed a towel from behind the counter, applying pressure on the injury.

Then he started a slow slide down the dark paneling of the bar and came to rest next to his brother.

Sam was shivering. His whole body trembled, starting from his toes on up. His hands shook, his teeth chattered and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He could feel Dean shift next to him as he wrapped the towel around his arm tighter. Then he cleared his throat, alerting Sam that he was there.

Dean was there.

Sam's eyes slit open, but he didn't look over. Didn't look anywhere, really, just dead ahead. Dean followed his gaze, eyes landing on the legs of many chairs and tables, dispersed in disarray.

"Sam?"

Sam's body stiffened. He wished he had it in him to look at his brother. But he didn't. He was readying himself to fight a demon army, to fight Lilith. But when it came to looking at Dean in the eyes, he found that that was where he was made to fail.

"You okay, man?" Dean asked, his elbow poking into Sam's side. "Did you get hurt or cut or –"

"Why?" Sam's voice was hoarse and bitter.

"Why what?" Dean continued carefully.

Sam's gaze was fixed, his eyes studying a speck of dust on the floor. "Why even ask?"

Dean made a face and a huff escaped him. "I just asked if you were okay."

"You don't even care about yourself. How can you –" Sam started, stopped and then took a deep breath before starting again. "Just stop with it."

"Stop with what?" Dean's tone had turned. Concern to angry and Sam couldn't win now if he tried. "You don't think I care about myself? What about you? When the hell did you ever stop and put yourself-"

Sam felt the abrupt break in his brother's rant and he kept his eyes glued straight ahead. Better to ignore, let it go and not pour salt over unhealed wounds.

"Get the hell up," Dean shoved off of the floor. "We have to get this goddamn place ready before she shows back up." He threw Ben's sawed-off into Sam's lap and stomped away.

Sam stared down at the gun and he swore he heard Dean mutter something about his Physical Graffiti cassette and, "Maybe it was your heart you buried."

Then Sam couldn't take his eyes off his brother.

-0-

August, 1990

It was the fifth night in a row that they had slept in the car. Dean was propped against the rear passenger door and Sam was pressed against him.

John had pulled the old Chevy into a wooded area, thick with trees which made the dark night bottomless. He had exited the Impala but had left the keys in the ignition, leaving the air condition to cool and the radio to sing his version of a rock-and-roll lullaby.

Dean's chest was rising and falling in perfect rhythm. Sam's head lifted and fell along with it like his brother was rocking the boy to sleep.

Except he wasn't. He was wide-awake, listening to Cover of the Rolling Stone pipe out the speakers. His dad was walking around the car, punching at the buttons on his cell. He'd sigh and then he'd punch again. Sam counted six rounds of the game before he got someone to answer the phone.

It was Jim Murphy.

Sam could tell by the way John leaned against the side of the car. He acted like he was giving confession. He could also tell by the way he spoke. It wasn't like he was talking to Uncle Bobby or Caleb, those guys he would shoot the shit with. No, this held a respectful edge. It was like talking to a brother, but one that John had an admiration for.

He was chattering on about yellow eyes and sulfur and demons. Sam could hear him asking questions about possession without physically possessing. Then his dad would get frustrated, not wanting to say much, holding back parts of the story. He'd try a different tactic at asking what he wanted, without saying what it was.

He asked about demons and if they could spread illness. No? He said it like he was disbelieving. Then there was a long pause where John was listening with short Uh, huhs and okays and his voice rumbled to a low bass and Sam could barely make anything out.

Sam was raised on stories of werewolves and poltergeists. He had been taken on hunts, he'd held the flashlight during grave digs, and he'd gotten to play with knives and guns. He was used to the fact that there were things in the dark that should scare him. All in all, they usually didn't.

Tonight, however, the night seemed to consume itself in more black. He listened to his father talk about the bizarre findings at the tavern and he knew he was asking questions about Sam, without using his name or implying anything. It scared him. He felt his body quiver and his skin flush in goosebumps.

"You okay?"

He hadn't even realized Dean's chest wasn't rising and falling in tempo anymore. He hadn't noticed two more songs had come and gone. He hadn't noticed the hot tears that were running sideways down his face, burning damp circles into Dean's t-shirt.

Sam couldn't answer him. John was still outside the car, still talking. And now he was laughing and Sam didn't know why. He didn't understand why.

"What is it?" Dean's voice was a whisper and the air was warm against Sam's ear.

"I'm bad."

He felt Dean half chuckle. "No. No, Sam. You're not bad. You didn't do anything."

Sam gulped a few times, trying to swallow his tears away. "You think they're okay?" He could hear the solid lub-dub of his brother's heartbeat through the thin cotton.

Dean waited four heartbeats before asking, "Who?"

"Val and Ramona."

Two more heartbeats pumped. "I don't know." He felt Dean's head shift, his chin rub against the top of Sam's head. "Sometimes… sometimes there isn't anything we can do to help. Sometimes people are just crazy."

He didn't know why but the words only made Sam cry harder. Dean wrapped his left arm around his shoulders and hung on, as they both listened out the door while John ended his conversation with Jim.

Their dad had a nauseating smile on his face when he looked down and saw his boys' wide-eyed reflections staring back at him.

-0-

March, 2009

Salt lines on every window, door, and open crack to the building? Check. A CLOSED sign on the tavern to keep out unsuspecting drinkers? Check. Two bumbling bartender-brothers sent home after dinner? Check. All the booze left in the joint at their fingertips? Priceless.

Dean grabbed the Vodka first. He went into the bathroom, pulled the towel back, and methodically removed each and every one of the splinters of glass out of his upper shoulder. He washed it with warm, soapy water and applied the anti-biotic ointment from the first-aid kit and wrapped gauze neatly around the wound. He pulled a loose fitting black t-shirt on over it, leaving the bandage open to air.

Then he resigned himself to take care of the rest of his hurts. He turned on the faucet and let the water change from cold to hot. He scrubbed his face, his hands moving down his neck, to his back and through his hair. He grabbed a larger towel and dried himself off. His eyes caught a stray strand of water rolling down his uninjured shoulder and he shrugged, scratching it away against his chin.

Did I start all this?

He stopped and stared at himself in the mirror. Same eyes. Same nose. Same chin. Same lips. New doubts. The whole world rested in his hands. He swallowed raw and tight.

The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it.

It was his fault. He had put fate there. Every fate. He had failed and now he had to succeed. And he had no idea how he was going to do it. How was he going to lead the world to safety when he didn't even believe he could do it himself? When he didn't have the faith? He let out a long sigh and pushed away from the small sink. He tossed the first-aid kit in a silver bowl and threw the Vodka in to top it off. His hand reached for the handle and his fingers gave a quick shake.

Our fate rests with you.

Sam was sitting on the twin bed with his shirt off. He had stuffed their final two towels around his rear and was trying to get a good look at the damages in the mirror behind him. He curved to the right, bringing up his hands at different angles, reaching for the slices of glass. He'd removed one so far.

Dean sat down on the opposite side of the bed and opened the kit, taking out the tweezers. "That bitch sure took a bite out of you," he grumbled, grabbing the Vodka in his right hand.

Sam sucked in a breath and ticked his head, his eyes roaming the paneled wall. "Yeah. Dean, you don't have to-"

"Hey, Quincy, I know your arms are freaky long, but even you can't reach back here."

"You're okay to do this?"

Dean threw the silver bowl down on the bed and wiped the tweezers with some of the Vodka. He steadied Sam's back in his sight. "I'm not drunk if that's what you're asking."

Sam stayed quiet.

"Kind of wore off. The bottle let me down." Dean tilted his chin. "I'm gonna have to debris some of these. Best thing we have is the alcohol."

Sam quirked up a crooked smile and stilled. "Of course it is." He folded his arms across his abdomen and held his breath.

Dean's shifted his weight on the other side of the mattress. His hand spanned in front of him and paused over his brother's back, feeling Sam's nerves pull taut. Dean wondered if it was because of the coming pain or because of the coming touches. There were worse aches in the world than the pain of the body.

"Try and relax," Dean offered as he twisted the cap and doused a generous amount of alcohol over a good portion of Sam's back.

Sam let out a hiss through his clenched teeth and bit back a cry from the base of his throat.

"Easy, Sam." Dean's voice pacified as he plucked out the first pellet of glass. He winced in sympathy at the puckered skin, the blood. It had been years for Dean. Years and years since he was on this side of the coin. Since his return from Hell, Sam had taken over patching himself up and this was the first time that actually warranted Dean's help. In an odd way, it felt completely wrong to him. And nothing could feel more right.

"Pink Floyd," Sam suddenly said and Dean's head quirked up.

"What?"

Sam's chin tilted. "What you're humming. Us and Them."

Dean opened the tweezers and let a glass pebble ping into the silver bowl. He hadn't noticed he'd been humming. "Yeah. Guess it was." He focused on Sam's back.

"I missed that, you know."

Dean's hands stopped and he felt that raw swallow again. His head involuntarily nodded. "Me, too."

"Guess you didn't get to listen to too much music, huh?" Sam's voice was edgy, trying to breathe through the pain.

Dean closed his eyes for a brief second. Forty years. Forty years without a beat, without a chord. Forty years without a pizza. Forty years without making love. Forty years without peace. Forty years without a brother. "Just what I could carry in my soul."

Sam shifted under his fingers, his breath catching in a gasp and Dean found himself falling back into the familiar rhythm. He let the humming growl from his throat and he continued until Sam's muscles eased.

"So," Dean began, "why do you think old Val's still hanging 'round?"

Dean had another piece of glass free and even upon removal, Sam's back jumped, the burn from the alcohol seeping into his open sores. He bit his inner cheek and tried to answer, but all he got out was, "Dunno."

"Well, we charred her," Dean hesitated, waited for Sam to chime in with any new information, but he didn't. "So that means she either left something behind. Something physical or…" He wiggled a piece of stubborn glass back and forth, noticed Sam grab at the edge of the mattress. "Sorry," he murmured as it slowly pulled out. He pressed the clean towel to Sam's back. "Or, her spirit's holding onto something."

Sam stuttered in a shallow breath and let it out in short laughs. It was better than the alternative. "Or someone," he commented.

Dean poured more Vodka over his brother's back and pulled his skin tight. He felt the heat under his palm and his eyes glanced at the back of Sam's head. "This one," he bit his bottom lip, "it's gonna hurt a bit."

Sam's back tensed at the words and Dean pulled the tweezers apart as far as he could, trying to find a good grip on one of the larger pieces of glass. It slipped once, the end of the tweezers hitting against Sam's tender skin. Dean blinked a couple of times at the sound Sam released. He waited as Sam's body took in a couple of cleansing breaths. Dean shook his head. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Sam sniffed. "Just get it out."

Dean's hands were on him again, pulling his skin and gingerly... gingerly he pulled the piece of glass out.

Sam turned his head to the left as Dean forced the towel back to the puncture site. He glanced up to Sam's pinched profile and met the pain with concentration.

"Us and them. And after all we're only ordinary men," He let a small smile tick to his brother as he held the pressure to the site. His voice low and soothing. "Me, and you. God only knows it's not what we would choose to do."

Sam sucked in a breath as Dean pulled the towel away.

"I'm sorry," Sam softly said, jerking his chin even more over his shoulder.

Dean wasn't sure exactly what Sam was apologizing for. The lies. The words. The little things. He proceeded on to the next pebble of glass. "Yeah, well you should be. Taking a shot like that… that was…" Dean's voice trailed off.

"Stupid," Sam answered.

Dean's eyebrow raised. "Yeah. It was." He kept his fingers moving. "I'm not useless, you know."

"I never said you were useless." Then Sam stopped. Or, maybe he did. In a matter of words. Somewhere in between the lines. And maybe he meant it, to a point. Just as much as his brother meant the things he had said.

"I know how to get rid of a ghost. Even one who doesn't want to go away. I just shouldn't have been…" Dean hitched on a lump in his throat. An admission he wasn't sure he was ready to own up to yet. "I shoulda watched my drinking."

Sam stayed quiet as Dean repositioned his hands, letting the silent drone of the room lapse into the void. Sometimes it was in the quiet that Sam best heard his brother. "Think it could be the dividing post?"

"What?" Dean pulled the glass out and shook more alcohol on the wounds.

Sam hissed loudly. "What's keeping Val here."

Dean hovered over the next buried rock, only a couple more left, he noted, as he mulled over Sam's theory. "Maybe," he decided. "Or, maybe it's the car. Ben said he still had the junkyard. How much you wanna bet the car is there?"

Sam flinched as the tweezers entered again and he let out a shaky breath. "Okay. We'd have to… burn the… car and the post."

"Yep." Dean removed the towel from the pressure point and poured the Vodka one more time. He looked at the last piece of glass. It was high on Sam's shoulder bone, sticking out like an iceberg. It was big and probably deep and the skin around it looked ugly, ripped and frayed. He tossed the tweezers down and reached up with his fingers and grabbed the edge of glass. "Probably have to tear the entire thing off the hill. Won't be a fence to separate the cemetery anymore."

"Yeah, well, maybe the former residents will rest- AAGGHH-"

Dean had the last piece of glass out, letting it drop from his hand, into the pan with the rest of Sam's shiny weapons of torment. The white, blood splattered towel was pressed hard onto his shoulder blade and Dean let his neck pull down, his head hanging low, his forehead almost resting on his hand. He shook himself back again. "Don't let anyone scratch their fingernails down your back anytime soon, Romeo."

Sam's eyes had squinted shut and were now opening again. He blinked back the moisture that had accumulated there as the Vodka poured over his back.

"I think we can make it without stitches." Then the antibiotic cream was being generously applied and the dressings were laid gently against his skin. "There you go," Dean announced and he felt Sam's back cool as he scooted away from him. Dean gathered up the leftovers of the field procedure and patted the mattress. "You take the bed tonight, Princess."

But his voice sounded bare and open like Sam's wounds. Dean felt Sam watch his movements, slow and quiet and something eased on the younger man's face.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean," Sam looked across the bed as Dean stood, throwing away the shards and unusable gauze, "that you didn't care."

You have to stop it.

Dean tried to smile but it came out too weak and faded too fast.

Sam was waiting for him to respond, but he couldn't think of anything to say so Dean kept moving instead, unfolding the blankets. Sam watched him silently for a few minutes as he rearranged himself in the bed. "You okay, man?" Sam asked, gesturing to the gauze visible under Dean's t-shirt. "Your arm is it-"

"It's fine, Sam." Dean crawled down onto the makeshift bed and laid flat, his good arm crossing over his eyes.

Sam heard another deep sigh as he reached up and flipped the overhead light off. The darkness was suffocating in the small room, the light seemed to take most of the oxygen with it as it disappeared. It wasn't without meaning, though. Whatever Dean wasn't saying, whatever Sam was holding in, camouflaged well with the background all of sudden.

Sam blinked his eyes a few times, realizing there wasn't a difference under his lids so finally he just kept them shut until his breaths evened out and his heart slowed its beat. Behind his eyes, the dark spun into a corkscrew, visions of months past taunting him from the sidelines. A light appeared at the end and something reached out a hand to him, holding it there for him to take. And for just a second, Sam thought maybe it was hope.

Playlist: Cover of the Rolling Stone (in reference to) performed by Dr. Hook

Us and Them performed by Pink Floyd, sung by Dean Winchester

A/N: I hope this isn't boring you too much. We really are on the other side of the mountain. I'd love to know if you're out there - you can always say "Hey".

The Bottle Let Me Down performed by Merle Haggard