Hunting isn't exactly a risk-free occupation.
I just thought I'd throw the obvious out there before we get going.
If you're reading this, you either hunt yourself, or you know someone who does, which means that you know that hunting pares a life expectance down more than firefighting or professional skydiving or serving in the army. If "hunter" were a legitimate occupation, no one would insure us.
Unexpected shit (sorry about the language, but you should really be used to it) is pretty par for the course in our line of work. You get hurt – I'm living proof of that. You get killed. You get turned. Your memories get wiped. You get bumped into an alternate dimension, like Faerieland (which exists, yeah, click here to read about it), and can't get out. You just disappear. You can't predict exactly when you're going to get taken out of the game, or what's going to do it. Anyone who says they can give you the details is lying.
That's why it's important to get your affairs in order as soon as you possibly can. If you've got a free weekend or whatever, this is just as important as your arsenal and your collection of lore. More important, actually, because it's what's going to come out when those two things fail you.
You're going to need the legal stuff, of course. A will. Power of attorney, just in case whatever gets you doesn't quite finish killing you. A windfall for your family, probably. But you need to tie up stuff besides that. Make sure that at least one other hunter knows where you are at all times, so that if you die on a case, someone can come in right away and finish what you started. Tell the important people in your life what they mean to you. Pay your debts. Arrange for someone to feed your pets and water your plants. Do whatever it is you need to – just be ready at all times.
- "Preparing for the Worst: Part One," posted on website of Sam Winchester
The mist curled over the edges of the cooler, wrapping around the heavy, thick gloves on Sam's hands. It dripped to the wooden floor, quickly dissipating as he kicked through it with his booted feet. Inside of its foam container, it boiled and rocked with the movement of his gait. About half of it tipped out and rolled down his stomach and thighs as he stepped over the low threshold into Dean's cell, and there was no sensation to it but a very mild, faint chill.
"Okay. Whoa." Dean got to his feet as Sam walked in, eyes wide with interest. He'd been straddling the chair that'd been provided for him, the back of it facing the open gate. Waiting for Sam. "What've you got there?"
"Dry ice," Sam replied. "Coldest thing I've got."
"You just keep dry ice lying around?" Dean asked, skeptical. He gave Sam and his cooler a wide berth as he walked further into the cell and set it down. "Why'd you bring it in here?"
"Well, I guess that I could've done it outside," Sam replied with a shrug, reaching into one of the pockets of his jeans. "But I figured that you'd wanna watch this. If not help." He was still wearing the big, bulky work gloves, so it took him a couple seconds to find what he was looking for. But his leather-covered fingers eventually closed on something thin and slippery, and he pulled out a plastic bag with an unassuming lighter in it and dangled it in front of Dean.
Dean grimaced, but didn't lean away or jump back or anything. He obviously knew what he was looking at, but Sam would have been surprised if he didn't, considering that he'd kicked it out of his hand the day before yesterday in an effort to help him. He reached up and tentatively took it, feeling it through the plastic. Sam let him.
"Jesus, Sam," Dean commented, shaking his head as he spun the thing lightly, plastic bag and all, between his fingertips. His fingers were surprisingly nimble, for being so large and rough. "Should you really be carrying this thing around in your pocket?" His voice lowered conspiratorially as he leaned forward a little. "Don't you realize what it could burn off?"
"Yeah. I thought about that." Unimpressed, Sam took the lighter back. "It's only dangerous if it's lit while it's touching your skin. I ran through a bunch of stuff on spells and curses last night, after…y'know." After they had finished kissing. Finished sitting in each other's laps on the carved-up floor in the fading light. Finished touching each other, and watching each other, and remaining completely silent about exactly how they felt towards each other. "And I think that it's a pretty basic fire charm. Which I know how to neutralize."
"You mean you're gonna kill it with dry ice," Dean summarized. "Seems like there should be an easier way. How come you don't just break it?"
"Actually, you can get rid of weaker charms that way," Sam replied, taking the lighter carefully out of the bag. "Destroying their host. So I tried to smash it with a hammer before I went to the trouble of getting the dry ice outta the freezer." He offered Dean a tight, regretful smile. "It melted the hammer."
"Jeez." Dean examined the lighter in Sam's hand with new appreciation. "Wow. That's a lotta power – what I don't get is why you'd waste something like that on a lighter."
"You tell me," Sam said with a shrug, delving into his pockets again and coming out with another baggy, this one holding about half a cup of watery, brownish gunk.
"I just asked you."
"No, but…" Sam lifted his eyes from where he'd been working the baggie open, looking at Dean. He looked so relaxed right now, Sam noted. So…human. Knowing what he was, though, and what he was capable of, both coming from the first week and a half or so that he'd been here, it was creepy. Or, well. Maybe it was a little endearing. "You can lay curses." Half a beat of silence passed before he had to add, uncertainly, "Right?"
"Only witches can do curses," Dean responded, folding his arms across his chest and shaking his head.
"Right," Sam agreed, nodding. "And most witches draw their power from demons. It takes a handful of garden-variety demons to give one of them enough juice for a curse, but demons at your level…they can just do it. Sins, Knights, Lords." He paused for breath, then fixated on that last one. "Lords. Your, uh, Alastair is a Lord, right? White eyes? Maybe yellow?" Dean noticeably stiffened as he spoke. Sam cleared his throat, and, very tentatively, pushed on. "Didn't he teach you? Or tell you about this?"
"Uh, no. No." Dean cleared his throat, shaking his head again, then raised a hand in order to rub at his mouth. "He didn't. I didn't know I could do that." He let his hand drop, then stared at Sam, a little bleakly. Sam opened his mouth to say something, but Dean beat him to it. "Please tell me that that's not what I think it is." He nodded to the baggie.
"Holy water," Sam answered, shaking it in Dean's face and grinning as he jerked violently away. "Rock salt. Rowan sawdust. Iron filings. And the last of my saint's blood."
"Your what?" Dean asked dubiously. Then he shook his head once again. "No, no, I don't really wanna know, I don't care. Just…what're you gonna do with that stuff?" He looked wary, shifting back and forth just a little, like he thought Sam was going to throw it at him.
"I'm gonna cover the lighter with it," Sam replied, finally getting the bag open and dropping the lighter into it. He kept speaking after closing it back up and starting to shake it around. "That's what I need to do to break the charm. That, and then I need to drop it into something cold. Like dry ice. And then it'll be safe." He smirked a little. "Of course, the lighter'll be ruined, but I'm not sure that that's such a big deal."
"Do I need goggles?" Dean asked, watching Sam fish the lighter out, the mixture dripping off of it and running in rivulets down the metallic sides.
"I don't think it's gonna explode," Sam replied, but Dean took a large step backwards anyway. He guessed that he couldn't blame him, considering how bad this mixture would hurt if any of it got on him.
Sam dropped the lighter into the cooler full of dry ice.
Nothing super exciting happened, but, then again, Sam hadn't really expected it to. The metal clattered against the ice, then there was a fizzing sound, and a puff of orange-brown smoke rolled up through the cool mist wafting back and forth inside the Styrofoam box. Sam reached down into it and pulled the lighter out, showing it to a mildly-interested Dean. It had rusted instantaneously and extensively, rough and flaking with holes eaten through the metal in several places. It looked like all the fuel had drained out.
"Wow. That's sorta interesting, I guess." Dean slipped his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, which were starting to look a little grungier than normal, after two straight weeks spent in them. They'd been covered with dirt and blood even when he first arrived, and Dean definitely didn't sweat or anything like a human would, but still. "So it's safe now?"
"It's safe," Sam confirmed, nodding. "I can just go ahead and throw it away. Unless you want it, of course."
He offered the lighter to Dean, who smirked and shook his head. "I don't think so."
"You don't wanna be reminded that I owe you my ass?" Sam pressed. When Dean scowled at him, he closed his fingers around the lighter and drew it back. "All right. If you're sure. I'll just throw it away."
"Yeah, you do that." Dean turned around and went back to his chair, sinking into it and spreading his legs casually as he regarded Sam. "So." He cleared his throat, folding his arms across his chest. "What's next on the agenda?"
"Well, we got rid of the lighter," Sam replied, scooping up the cooler full of dry ice. He'd dump it outside, let it melt off. "The cabin's clean…I've written down everything that I know about you…"
Dean, staring at nothing in particular, pushed his cheek out with the tip of his tongue before glancing at Sam and quietly asking, "Everything?"
"Everything relevant," Sam amended, understanding, more or less, why Dean was worried. "Anyway. Everything that absolutely had to be finished today is, and it's not even known. Which I guess means that I can focus on…personal projects, now."
A lewd grin crept over Dean's face, and he adjusted himself, so that both of his dark nipples and the impressive bulge in his jeans were fully visible to Sam. He reached up and laced his fingers together behind his head, handcuffs sliding down his wrists. Sam was caught between rolling his eyes and actually getting aroused – god, he was desperate.
"'Personal projects'?" Dean repeated, and Sam tore his eyes away from the puff of dark blond down under each arm.
"You need a bath," he replied, walking over to Dean's chair. When he reached him, he balanced the cooler on one hip with the hand that he still held the lighter in, and used his other to tug, critically, at the fraying waistband of Dean's jeans. "And new clothes."
"Yeah, 'cause you tore up all my old ones," Dean shot back, folding his arms again. "What're you gonna do? Just have me stand up against the wall and hose me off?"
"You'll get two buckets," Sam recited. He'd given this speech about a million times before, to those monsters who needed to bathe regularly. "One full of warm soapy water, one full of cool fresh water. You'll get two washcloths, too, and a towel. You can do whatever you want with them."
"A sponge bath?" Dean asked, as Sam turned and walked out of the cell. He just left the gate open, which he'd started doing after the time he'd spent with Dean yesterday. "I want a shower."
Sam paused and glanced over his shoulder, momentarily thinking of Vaughn. After a couple of seconds had passed, during which Dean widened his eyes expectantly, he said, "Yeah, maybe in a few weeks."
Dean muttered something under his breath as Sam left, and he was honestly kind of glad that he couldn't make it out. Once he was through the back door and in his yard (and he only used the term as loosely as possible, considering that he didn't have any grass or a fence), he hiked out to toss the lighter on the increasingly-overgrown trash pile, and the dry ice was dumped out onto a patch of bare earth, far away from any trees other other plants. He watched the mist – steam – billow off of it in a specific direction, indicating a breeze so light that Sam couldn't even really feel it.
He liked being outside, usually. On a normal day, standing out under the trees and smelling the forest beat being cooped up inside with his assorted inhuman tenants by about a mile. But, today, away from green eyes and blond hair and freckles sprinkled liberally over pale, supple skin, there was space for him to start to freak out.
Sam pressed his back to the nearest tree, squeezing his eyes shut tightly and folding his arms across his chest as if he were afraid of it bursting open. What the hell was he doing? Anxiety clawed its way up into him, acid-edged razor blades. What the hell was he thinking? His breathing had sped up, and he forced himself to take slow, deep gulps of air. Panic attacks had been a big thing for him back in the first couple years after the wendigo incident, when he'd still been living with Ellen, and he didn't need a relapse.
He forced one of his hands away from his chest in order to rake it through the long waves of his hair. His palm was sweating just enough to be sticky, and several dark strands clung to it as he brought it back down. Kissing a demon. Spilling his guts to him, letting his emotions run wild with him. And not just any demon – a Knight of Hell. The last Knight of Hell. Dantalion. He needed, very badly, to do research on that name. He just hadn't had the time.
What he was doing with Dean was stupid. No, insane, actually; letting his guard down around Nadia had been stupid, but making himself this vulnerable, giving Dean this many opportunities to hurt him and this much ammunition to use against him, was just crazy. His mind had finally snapped under all the stress. The line between danger and excitement had blurred away to nothing. He'd gone for so long without sex, without a meaningful relationship, that he would now literally go for anything at all.
The cooler was sitting on the ground next to Sam's boots, the heels of which he was slowly digging into the dirt and the pine needles. He shook himself out of his paralysis and picked it up, walking over to the shed to put it back where it belonged. He'd spent a lot of time in there this morning, flipping through the veritable library that he kept in search of a curse that matched the one on the lighter and instructions on how to deal with it, and worries about Dean hadn't even crossed his mind. Maybe because he'd been keeping busy then.
Reason set in once Sam was moving. Or his delusion reasserted itself, depending on how you looked at it. Did he really have anything to be afraid of? What he had in there, twiddling stolen thumbs and sitting on one of his kitchen chairs, was the soul of a hunter. Blackened and corrupted, yes, but still a hunter. There was enough of the protective instinct that the job bred in most people, enough of that altruism left, for him to have ticked a cursed object out of Sam's hand for no reason other than that it was hurting him.
It was interesting, he thought as he tossed the cooler back up onto the top shelf of a wire unit. He didn't think he'd ever come across a hunter-turned-demon before. Or, if he had, they hadn't told him. And now he was wondering what Dean had sold his soul for, rather than how he was going to use the knowledge that his dad was dead against him. Either most of him really didn't think that the demon was a threat, or he really was crazy.
He pulled his boots off by the door once he got inside, crossing the wooden floor with bare feet. He'd brought two buckets with him from the shed and Dean, standing at the very edge of his Circle, watched him as he leaned against the doorway of his cell. Sam glanced over his shoulder and smiled at him as he started filling the buckets up in the deep sink.
"Miss me?" he asked, a little teasingly.
"Don't think I get lonely, actually," Dean replied, hands slipping into the pockets of his mutilated jeans. "Not anymore. Guess it's just one of the things that got sliced off down in the Pit." He shrugged nonchalantly. "But yeah. I did."
"Did what?" Sam asked, hiding a smile by digging under the sink for his industrial-sized bottle of soap.
"Miss you. You bitch," Dean replied, not a little belligerently. "Making me say it out loud. Jeez. Fuck you, I'm a demon – you didn't meet me at the damn sockhop."
"How old are you?" Sam asked, shaking his head as he picked up the buckets, both full now, and carried them over to Dean's cell. He obligingly stepped back so that he could set them down inside.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
Sam dropped the subject, returning to the kitchenette in order to get a handful of washcloths. His next stop was the bathroom, to get a towel (the towel that Vaughn had used to use…damn it). Then he ducked into his bedroom and picked up a clean pair of jeans, boxers, and a T-shirt. Dean made a face at the clothes when they were handed to him.
"These are gonna be huge on me," he complained, shaking the jeans out and eyeing them critically.
"C'mon," Sam replied, shaking his head. "I'm really not that much bigger than you." He turned around, walking back over to his desk and picking up his phone. There was a soft sound behind him as Dean set the clothes down.
"So," he began, as Sam thumbed his way down the caller ID list, looking for a specific number. "Any chance of you helping me with this bath?"
Sam smirked, glancing over his shoulder and shaking his head again. "I'm too busy."
"Personal project?" Dean swiped the fingertips of one hand unconsciously over the puckered stitches in his stomach (those really needed to come out; it looked like the wound was totally healed) as he went down to unbuckle his jeans.
"Personal project," Sam agreed, pulling the cord out of his laptop and tucking it under his arm before heading to his bedroom. He pressed the "talk" button on the phone as he finally found the number he wanted, right after passing through the doorway. He nudged the door closed with one bare heel.
Sinking down on his bed and setting his laptop aside for the moment, Sam listened to the phone ring twice on the other end before it was picked up. The dull roar and clatter that tended to fill popular bars and restaurants, even at ten in the morning, washed over him, then a woman's clear voice impatiently asked, "Hello?"
"Hi, Ellen," Sam replied, starting to chew on the inside of his lower lip. There was a beat of silence – relative silence, at least – and then Ellen snorted and bluntly asked, "D'you need money or something?"
"What? No!" Sam exclaimed, offended. The conversation had already been derailed and they weren't even two rounds in – great. "Why would I want money?"
"Well, I haven't actually talked to you in months," Ellen replied, completely unapologetic. "Just read the e-mails that you send to Ash's computer."
"They're for you, but you don't have a – "
"And your books," Ellen forcefully interrupted. "Actually, we just got your newest one. About banshees and everything? It's in the works. We've already got a waiting list."
"Okay, that's awesome, but it's not why I called," Sam said, not really paying attention. He was so used to the Roadhouse publishing and distributing his books, like they had for almost five years no, that he took it for granted. He knew that. "And I don't want money, either."
"Then what do you want?" Ellen asked. Sam heard a faint clink, and imagined her resting one hip against the bar, rattling the glasses. "You wanna know what everybody's saying about you?"
"No." Hunters were a surly bunch. Most seemed to think he was a spoiled brat, holed up in the woods and letting them do all the work.
"One guy said he sent you a cursed object. You get it?"
Sam flashed back to the lighter. That had to be it – he hadn't received any other cursed objects in a while. "Yeah, I did." Bastard could have given him a little more warning than "cursed lighter." "Tell that guy to go to hell."
"Oh, I see. It got you." Ellen sounded vaguely amused. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Sam muttered, running a hand through his hair.
"Good." A crackle on the line. "So, what do you want?"
Sam hugged through his nose, annoyed, but it didn't last long. Because that really was the only reason he'd called Ellen. Quietly, he admitted, "Information."
"I knew it." The quality of Ellen's voice changed slightly, like she'd switched the phone to her other ear. "But you've gotta know that anything I could tell you, you could probably figure out on your own in half the time. Either with your books or your computer…or your monsters."
"Not – not for this," Sam assured her, shaking his head even though he knew that she couldn't see him. "I need you to tell me something about a hunter who…disappeared. Or it might've gotten around that he made a deal at a crossroads and his time ran out."
There was a short pause. Sam had expected a barrage of suspicious questions, since he didn't really do human beings, but, after about two seconds, Ellen just said, "I'm gonna need a name, Sam. There're more hunters out there than you'd think who've sold their souls."
"I've only got the first one," Sam replied. "Dean." He paused for a second in order to worry his lower lip, then tentatively added, "He…might've known you. And Bobby, too."
"Bobby." Ellen sighed. "Sam, the only 'Dean' I can think of who knew Bobby was his son."
Sam's free hand had been resting casually on the comforter of his bed, but now it snapped into a surprised fist, squeezing the fabric and the cotton batting.
"We're…talking about the same Bobby, right?" he asked, a little dubiously. "Bobby Singer? He didn't have any kids. He wasn't even married – I know. My dad took me up to his place all the time when I was little. There weren't any pictures."
"That doesn't surprise me," Ellen replied. She sounded weary. "It was hard on him. It doesn't surprise me that he didn't tell you, either."
"Tell me what?" The question came out harsher and a lot more unhinged than he'd meant it to. Because he hadn't known, he'd never heard anything, and he felt like he should have. His job, after all, was to know. Ellen didn't comment on how he sounded, though. Thankfully.
"He was married," she replied. "A while back, and not for very long. I can't quite recall her name. I know she died giving birth, though. There was some kinda demon involved…some Japanese thing. It was the whole reason that he got into the job."
"And – and the baby," Sam prompted, uncertainly. Everybody started somewhere; he knew that. He himself had started at six months old, carried out of a burning house by his panicked father. He had never known what Bobby's trigger was. The older man had just been so solid, so knowledgeable about everything related to hunting, that Sam had sort of unconsciously assumed that he'd just always done it.
"Yeah. That was Dean," Ellen confirmed. Sam automatically imagined her nodding. "He was a lot like you, from what I understand. Raised in it, I mean. He was good at it – very good. Had a knack for the lore. And for pretty much anything with an engine; Bobby was real proud of that, I remember."
"And what happened to him?" Sam reached for his laptop now, flipping it open and pulling up a new tab in his browser. Ellen sighed heavily.
"He's gone," she said. "Just up and disappeared. A lot like Bobby, actually." She paused. "He was really excited about something before he went. He was close to figuring it out, he said. But I don't have any idea what it was."
"Did he make a deal?" Sam asked. "Maybe for information?"
"If he did, I never heard about it," Ellen replied. "Why're you so hung up on the deal, anyway, Sam? D'you have a crossroads demon up there or something?"
"Uh, no. No. Not anymore." Sam rubbed at his face. "It doesn't matter. He lowered his hand, staring at the blinking cursor in the search bar on the screen of his laptop. "Did he have any brothers?"
"No. Of course not," Ellen replied.
"What about…cousins?" Sam continued. "Uncles, maybe?"
"As far as I know, Bobby was his only family. And vice-versa." Ellen momentarily took the phone away from her mouth with a slight crackle, and Sam heard muffled yelling. He couldn't make out any individual words. He waited until she returned with an exasperated, "Sorry," to continue.
"Kids?" he asked, though he didn't have much hope.
Ellen snorted. "Well, it's definitely possible. I never caught wind of any kids, but, like I said, he was a good hunter…and he never left a town without taking advantage of the locals' gratitude."
"Oh." Sam cleared his throat, immediately understanding. "So…okay." He glanced, involuntarily, in the direction of Dean's cell, an embarrassed flush creeping up his cheeks. "He was that kind of hunter, huh?"
"You could say that," Ellen said dryly. "I'm glad Jo wasn't around for most of the time he was here, to tell you the truth. Not to speak ill of the dead, of course." Sam bit his tongue to keep himself from blurting out his theory. His awful, impossible, world-shaking theory. "In fact, I'm glad that we hadn't found Ash yet, either."
"What year did he disappear, Ellen?" Sam asked. His hand flew over the keyboard of his laptop, and a few strokes brought up a national database that he'd used on a few separate occasions. Mostly while dealing with ghosts.
"Eighty-seven," Ellen replied. "So before you and John knew Bobby."
"Right. Bobby." Sam opened a new tab and went to a second database. "Do you know if he filed a missing person's report?"
"I'd be shocked if he didn't," Ellen answered. "He would've done anything to find that boy – though there're probably still a couple open warrants for Dean out there, too. I know he got arrested a few times, and indicted a few more."
"Yeah. That was what I was thinking, too." 1987. Dean Singer. Sam keyed it into the first database before the second. A single report came up, and Sam swore.
He couldn't help it. He'd been about to ask Ellen if she'd known any close friends Dean might have had, or lovers, maybe, but he blurted that out instead as he stared at the picture attached to the file. The man in it was younger than Sam himself, maybe a shade under twenty-one, and the quality was poor. It was probably an old picture. The hair was longer, the freckles more numerous, and there was an easiness to the green eyes and full mouth that must have faded away in the next six or seven years. But there was no mistaking that he was holding this guy out in his demon cell.
"Oh, shit," Sam said. He flicked over to the next database, accessed arrest records and warrants. "Shit, shit, shit." Mug shots, photos released to the press – Dean Singer was a tall, pale dirty-blonde with a model's pout, powerfully built and bow-legged.
And so was Knight Dantalion.
Sam clicked out of the browser, closing the window on a close-up of a battered Dean, one eye blackened and his cheek split open in four parallel slashes, glaring at the camera. He set the laptop aside and covered his face with one hand. His throat stung with bile, but he forced himself not to vomit. Not to give into that kind of weakness, even though nobody could see him right now.
"Sam?" Ellen demanded. She'd never been one to reprimand him (or even Jo, who was actually her kid) for swearing, but even she sounded a little taken aback by his profanity. "What the hell's going on?"
"I really screwed up," Sam replied, voice tight and angry. Not at Ellen – of course not. At himself.
Before she could say anything, he hung up, tossed the phone onto his bed, and forced himself to his feet. He lowered to his knees, forcing himself to go slowly, not to rush. If he got hurt, he'd regret it.
Pulling out the shotgun that he'd loaded with salt rounds, cleaned and reloaded after the demon raid, he got back up, and left his bedroom. Heading to Dantalion's cell.