A/N Well, it has been a hot minute but I'm back now and once again I've missed you all more than I could ever say. I just can't write as fast as I maybe once did between life and, well, life. If it was worth the wait or not is up for you to decide, I guess! :) Also, this one might get kind of sad at points but I fix what I break.
A heads up to those new to reading my stories, I update every Tuesday (or perhaps very early Wednesday morning if we are being honest).
Set in season 14, between Nightmare Logic and Optimism.
Chapter One
Dean was digging through the Impala's glove box when his phone began to ring. Fumbling it out of his pocket, he glanced at the screen—Cas—and then answered, shoving the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he continued to search for the battered map of the United States that he still pulled out occasionally. They didn't actually need maps that much but when Dean wanted to visualize something, he still preferred the physical one over something online.
"Hey."
"Dean, you are on speaker. Jack is here as well," Cas said and Dean nodded absently as he shoved aside a stack of napkins.
"Finish your hunt? Was it a rugaru like I said?" Dean grinned in triumph as he pulled out the map from where it had been hiding underneath some jerky that was probably long past the expiration date.
"It was. And your homemade flamethrower was…" Cas paused, and Jack interjected enthusiastically.
"Awesome! It was awesome, Dean!"
"I was going to say excessive," Cas tacked on dryly, making Dean smirk.
Shoving the napkins back into the glove box, he snapped it shut and then closed the car door. Crossing over to an old and wobbly picnic table that was next to an equally old and wobbly oak tree, Dean sat down. The area was off to the side of the motel and it would have been just as easy to go in, but it was nice out today, probably one of the last real nice days of the year.
"Efficient, that's what the flamethrower is, even if it's not as much fun as a grenade launcher."
"Grenade launcher?" Jack asked, and Dean could hear the innocent excitement in his voice.
"Oh, yeah," Dean said even as Cas sternly reprimanded,
"No, Dean."
"Fine. You and Sam can both be buzzkills, but me and Jack are going to go get some target practice in when we all get back."
"Can we?" Jack said as Dean unfolded the map and laid it out on the table. He glanced briefly around to see if Sam had returned yet from the sheriff's office. He'd called not long ago and said that he was walking back, and Dean had news.
"Yeah, we'll go find something fun to destroy. We just can't let Sam know, he's a stick in the mud," Dean said as he ran a finger down Vermont until he found Centerville. Once he had, he began to trace the roads, looking for Hettinger. "Hey," he said abruptly. "That rugaru wasn't some super charged, Michael-version, right? Just a normal one?"
"It wasn't," Cas confirmed, and Dean hated the gentle note of sympathy that had entered his friend's voice.
Michael's monsters…and well, everything that had happened while he had been possessed still made his stomach knot up and made him feel like he didn't belong in his own body. He never should have allowed Michael in. What had he been thinking? Had he honestly believed that Michael was just going to let him—his perfect vessel—go?
Closing his eyes, Dean tried to push the invasive thoughts down.
There hadn't been any other choice. It had been either let Michael in or let Lucifer kill Jack and probably torture Sam horribly before killing him as well. Dean still felt that it had been the right move to make, it just...he was having trouble stomaching what had happened.
"Are you headed back to the bunker after this? Wait, hold that thought. You're pretty close to Vermont, aren't you?" Dean had found Hettinger, and he tapped his finger on the map, thinking.
There was a short pause on the other end. "Not far, I think. We are in New York."
"Nice. Well, if you are up for it and want to, you can meet me and Sam in Vermont. Sam caught a hankering for a case up here where bodies have been disappearing from a funeral home. He didn't want to hand it off to anyone else—" He had probably more so wanted to keep Dean busy, but that didn't need to be said out loud— "so we made the trip up. We just got in last night. I was also talking to Mom, though, and she said that she might come up as well for a night or two. Says that she needs a break from Bobby. We could all make a couple of days out of it."
Mom and Bobby. That never stopped being weird and slightly wrong to Dean, but he was just going to be glad that Bobby was being left behind. He liked him, he supposed, but he wasn't Bobby and Dean was still more than a little irritated about what he'd said to Sam when Maggie had been missing. Bobby had apologized for it, or so Sam said, but Dean wasn't as quick to forgive as his brother, especially when it involved Sam.
Sam had given everything that he had and then some to those hunters, why couldn't they just be grateful instead of demanding? Why couldn't they see that they were slowly killing him?
There was silence on the other end and Dean waited, his elbows perched on the table as he looked down at the map. New York wasn't that far, especially if they were on the east side of the state.
"What do you think, Jack? Either way is fine with me." He heard Cas ask in a muffled voice as if he had covered the phone with his hand. He couldn't hear Jack's response very well, but it sounded like a yes. He hoped that it was. He was fine with it being just him and Sam—in some ways he craved it—but Jack in particular brought lightness and innocence back into their sometimes very dark world and they needed that.
Dean looked up from the map in time to see Sam crossing the street towards the motel, a folder clutched in one hand. He watched his brother, half hidden behind the oak tree, and felt his heart grow heavy.
Sam's shoulders were slumped, and he was rubbing at his forehead with his free hand like he was fighting a headache or was dead tired. It was probably both. He was crushing himself with everything that he was trying to do and carry, and, as proud as Dean was of his brother, it worried him more.
Sam's steps slowed even further before he came to a complete stop just a few feet in front of their door, and Dean watched as he took a deep breath before he straightened. Squaring his shoulders, Sam plastered his, 'everything's fine, I'm fine' look on his face before entering the room.
Sam wasn't fine.
"Dean? Are you still there?"
Dean glanced absently at his phone, his thoughts still on his brother. "Yeah, hold on. Sam just got back, lemme go grab him."
Hurriedly folding the map back up, he crossed the parking lot and opened the door to see Sam throwing his suit jacket onto the table.
"Cas and Jack are on the phone," he said as a way of greeting and then put the phone on speaker.
"Hey!" Sam called over with a smile. He began to roll up his shirt sleeves and came to stand next to Dean. "Finish the hunt with no problems?"
"Yes. There were no issues." Cas said and Sam nodded in satisfaction.
"They're still in New York, I asked them if they wanted to meet us here," Dean explained and Sam nodded again. Dean turned back to the phone, raising his voice slightly. "So we aren't actually in Hettinger right now. We are in a town about two hours north of that, but there are some people that we need to talk to in Hettinger. If we meet you there then we can do that and maybe go to the bar afterwards and take the rest of the night off?"
"If we go to a bar I can try to beat Cas at pool again," Jack chimed in excitedly and Sam smiled, shaking his head even as Dean smirked. Both Cas and Jack were terrible at pool—at least compared to them—and it would no doubt be entertaining.
"It sounds like a plan, then," Cas said dryly.
"Right. Do you need directions to Hettinger?"
"No," Cas responded instantly. "Google is less confusing than you are."
"I feel like I should be offended by that," Dean said indignantly and Sam laughed.
"He's not wrong," he said and Dean shoved him playfully.
"I taught you to drive, didn't I? Never led you astray? Besides, I think that I know the back roads of the United States better than most anyone else."
"So? Knowing something and explaining it to someone else is completely different. Also, I do most of the navigating if needed because you are the one behind the wheel, dumbass."
"I'm going to hang up now. I'll call you when we get close so that we know where to meet up," Cas interjected quickly before the line went dead.
Sam shook his head again with a smile and moved to sit down at the small table, pulling his laptop towards him. "So, what's in Hettinger?"
Dean made his way to the coffee pot and topped off his half-full mug before pouring a fresh cup for his brother. He offered it to Sam, who absently took a sip before shoving it aside so that he could pull his laptop closer.
"Mary Jones, Christina Wentworth, and Lance Deringer all died in Hettinger. Not only that, but they all died at the same hospital."
Sam looked up at that, his face creasing into a frown. "I mean, I didn't think Hettinger was that big of a town. It probably only has one hospital."
"Right, but for whatever reason these were the only bodies that have gone missing, even though the funeral home has had four other bodies brought in who died here in Centerville between when the first body disappeared and now, and they weren't touched. Also, you will be interested to know that Wentworth and Deringer didn't even live in Hettinger. Both lived here in Centerville. Wentworth was in a car crash while passing through Hettinger and Deringer went in for a broken leg that he had gotten after a hiking accident."
Sam's eyebrows rose at that. "A broken leg? Who dies of a broken leg? Did they do an autopsy?"
"Oh, they did and this is going to thrill your little psychopathic heart." Dean reached across the table, tapping at the report he had emailed and printed after talking to the hospital staff on the phone. Sam reached for it, scanning it quickly.
"Insulin? He died of an Insulin overdose?" Sam shifted in his seat, hunching down to better read the report. "It doesn't look like he was even a diabetic, why would he be taking…but then again, insulin is incredibly dangerous if given in the wrong amounts. They probably just thought he was having a reaction to another drug when he slipped into a coma."
"Right? And here is where it gets even odder. Wentworth's injuries were pretty bad from the car crash, but the doctor didn't think she should have died. She also abruptly slipped into a coma while they were treating her for a head injury. I don't think that they performed an autopsy, but I would bet you all the money in my wallet that insulin would have been found if they had."
Sam's mouth dropped open a little even as he continued to read the reports. "Huh. That's…yeah, that's a lead. And what did Mary Jones die of? She lived in Hettinger, didn't she?"
"Yeah, she did. She had cancer, pretty late stage. That one wasn't so much of a surprise although she too slipped into a coma right before she kicked the bucket. She was going to be buried up here in Centerville because that is where most of her family currently is. That's why she was in Phillip's funeral home."
"So…the bodies disappear from the funeral home in Centerville, but this all started in Hettinger," Sam mused aloud and Dean sighed softly, scratching at his forehead before meeting Sam's eyes.
"Are we sure that this is our kind of thing? They aren't dying from some sort of supernatural cause, and it could just be some seriously screwed up human who has a disturbing fetish for dead people."
Sam screwed up his face before shaking his head. "No. This is our kind of thing, I just don't know what it is yet."
Dean thought about debating it. He still wasn't as sure as his brother, but Sam's instincts were his own and if Sam's senses were tingling about this one then it probably was something supernatural.
"So, are you going to go interview the hospital staff or family in Hettinger?" Sam asked, bringing the mug of coffee to his lips. His phone pinged and Sam abandoned the cup in favor of his phone. He checked it, and Dean could see the brief spark of relief that was almost instantly swallowed up by the seemingly ever-present worry that was drawing increasingly dark circles underneath Sam's eyes.
"How many hunters do you have out right now?" Dean asked as casually as he could as he leaned back in his seat.
"Only seven, if you don't count Cas and Jack," Sam said distractedly as he typed out a reply. There was always someone out on a hunt, always someone for Sam to be concerned about and waiting for an update from.
Dean reached out, tapping the report to get Sam's attention back on him and their hunt. "So? Hettinger?"
Sam nodded slowly, still looking at his phone. "No, yeah. We need to pursue that and it is worth the three of you checking it out. Hey, did Mom ever get back to you about if she is coming?"
"No, she didn't," Dean said hurriedly as he frowned and added on. "What do you mean the three of us? You're coming, right?"
Sam stared at his phone for a second, looking resigned, before lowering it with a sigh. "When I was talking with the sheriff, he was notified that another body was being brought into the funeral home tonight. Their funeral isn't set to take place for another two days, but the sheriff was going to send a couple of armed officers over to watch the body anyway."
"And what does that have to do with you not coming to Hettinger?" Dean challenged.
"Because we still don't know what is taking bodies or how they are doing it. I couldn't feel good about myself if I let some totally unprepared officer possibly face off against a monster. We'd be prepared for that—hell, we would even be fine if it was just some insane idiot—but they wouldn't be. They'd just die."
Dean chewed on his lower lip, trying to think of a way around Sam's reasoning. "I mean, fine. I get your point, but what are the chances of them even trying to take the body tonight? Weren't all the other ones taken the day before the funeral? And—" he added, sticking a finger in Sam's direction. "Did this dude die in Hettinger? If not, I doubt whatever freak is out there is even interested in it."
"Well, now that you've mentioned it…"
"You've got to be kidding me," Dean spat, shaking his head.
"Nope. Rob Mills. Died in Hettinger two days ago, so you should ask about him too when you go there. And you know, here's what I don't get. If they are killing them in Hettinger, why are they waiting to take the bodies? That's clearly their end goal."
"No freaking clue, man. I gave up on trying to understand crazy people ages ago. Maybe it's because they did die in the hospital? More security, you know? But regardless of the why, the body should be all right for one night. You don't need to watch it. You should come to Hettinger with me."
"I'm not risking someone else's life like that," Sam said stubbornly, daring Dean to defy him.
Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration but didn't fight it.
Sam was right. They had to do this and he wasn't going to leave Sam to do it alone. Cas and Jack would be able to handle the interviews with the hospital. It was just…a night out with everyone had sounded ideal.
"Dean, you can still go," Sam said, guessing his thoughts. "It'll be easier for you to go than for us to try and explain to Cas and Jack what we are looking for over the phone."
Dean shook his head. "What have we been telling everyone, dude? Buddy system and to be extra careful until we know what Michael is up to. He's setting traps for hunters, and that's nothing to screw around with."
"I highly doubt that this is Michael's work."
"You don't know that and you weren't willing to give this case over to just anyone else. That means that you thought that it was dangerous," Dean pointed out and Sam made a face.
"I didn't give it to anyone else because I'm not sure what it is that we are after and it didn't look cut and dry. This isn't a beginner's hunt and I needed to get out of the bunker for a little bit. So did you, it just made sense."
Dean shook his head. "That doesn't mean that you should be by yourself. Hunting alone is the definition of stupid."
"I'm not—" Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm just going to be watching cameras, that's not really hunting. And like you said, none of the bodies have disappeared until the night before the funeral. I'm just going there as a precaution. Go meet Cas and Jack in Hettinger and enjoy a night out. Please. I'll be fine. I'm just going to be doing research at the funeral home instead of at the bar so it's not like I'm going to be a lot of fun even if I do go, not if my phone keeps going off." He gave Dean what was meant to be a comforting smile but it just made Dean's stomach knot up.
Dean knew that Sam was saying that just to placate him and he stared at Sam, at a loss of how to help him carry some of the weight that was crushing him.
Sam had helped him to start getting out of his funk after Michael, and he desperately wanted to do the same for him, but his brother was stubbornly refusing it. Sam wanted to go, he could read the disappointment on his brother's face, hear the excuse in his voice and he knew that he didn't want to be left behind yet again. He was just so intent on looking out for everyone else that he was starting to lose sight of the fact that he deserved good things as well. That he didn't have to suffer in place of everyone else.
Sam's phone pinged again and he rubbed a hand across his face, ending their silent conversation, before checking it.
His hands were trembling, even if it was just slightly, and Dean's frown deepened. He didn't think that he'd seen Sam eat yet today, and he knew for sure that Sam hadn't gotten much sleep. He'd still been awake when Dean had turned in after midnight, exhausted from a long day of driving, and had been up before him when he'd gotten up at six.
Lunch, and a drive—where Sam would have hopefully slept—had been in order and that was what Dean had partially been planning on. He supposed that if he was watching cameras with Sam he might be able to convince his brother to lay down on a couch or something and at least take a nap.
"Really, Sam. I'll stay with you."
"No, I'm serious. We're asking Cas and Jack to help us, the least we can do is actually work the damn case. You know what you are looking for and besides, they aren't going to have as good of a time without you there. That's why they are coming, not to find out why bodies are disappearing."
Dean hesitated, chewing on his lower lip again. Sam was still making some valid points and if they could wrap this up sooner rather than later then he might just be able to convince him to take a break before they headed back to the bunker.
If he could do that, then Dean might get Sam to eat more than a few bites and sleep for more than two hours at a time.
"Okay," he finally agreed reluctantly, trying to make his displeasure clear. "But I don't like this and if something goes bad then you are getting a big, fat, I told you so. And once we're back from Hettinger, I'll watch cameras with you. That way you're only going to be alone for a couple of hours."
"I'm not a kid, man."
Dean kept talking over Sam, intent on getting his next point across. "And before either of us go anywhere, we are getting lunch."
Sam's lips thinned into a line but before he could get bitchy over the order his face smoothed out. "Okay, we can do lunch," he said and Dean shook his head in exasperation. He probably shouldn't have been surprised. Sam—even while being so busy that he wasn't eating or sleeping—was making sure that Dean knew that he was his first priority.
If Dean wanted it, or if it was going to help him, then Sam made damn sure that it happened. Dean's stomach churned again and his next sip of coffee tasted like ash.
Sam was handling him like glass. Because he had been possessed. And it had been horrible beyond description but if anyone understood that, it would be Sam.
Dean hadn't gotten it, not really. Hadn't understood the true horror of what Sam had been through, not until it had happened to him and now more than ever, he felt sick about the whole Gadreel mess. Sam had forgiven him long ago, but now that Dean understood what he had been truly asking of his brother, of what he had put him through…the justifications that he had made back then just didn't seem to be as valid as they once had.
Sam was also watching him with that thoughtful look that he was prone to recently and Dean cleared his throat, before standing and breaking the moment. "I'm going to go change. I'll be right back."
"Sounds good," Sam said, glancing down and his attention was already split between his phone and his laptop.
Dean turned, moving into the bedroom to change into his suit for the interviews. They had splurged on a nicer room that had a closing door that separated the bedroom from the living area with the hope that Mary would indeed come and that they could offer her some privacy.
From the living area, he heard Sam's phone go off again and he shook his head. He swore that the next opportunity that he got he was going to toss the damn thing out the window.
When he reemerged, working on tying his tie, Sam was still reading something intently on the computer. Swatting his shoulder, Dean gestured towards the door with his head and Sam rose slowly, still reading, before finally tearing himself away.
"What sounds good for lunch?" Dean asked as they headed towards the Impala.
"Not that grease-hole that you picked last night," Sam said and Dean made a face. It hadn't been that bad and the french fries had actually been pretty damn amazing.
They ended up instead at a small mom-and-pop bakery that served lunch instead. Sam halfheartedly picked at his thick sandwich even as Dean devoured his. The bread was to die for, and maybe Sam did know how to pick things occasionally.
Sam had only made it through half of his by the time that Dean was done, his mind elsewhere. Once he noticed that Dean wasn't eating, Sam set his aside. "I'll just get a to-go box and finish mine tonight."
Dean's worry spiked again. Sam wasn't exactly a small guy, and he needed to eat more, he couldn't continue on like this. He was too distracted, he wasn't taking care of himself—not that it was anything new but it was reaching new, alarming, heights.
Perhaps if they took that break then they could have a couple of needed conversations without Sam getting called away. Maybe then they'd both get their heads back on straight.
Sam offered to take a cab to the funeral home as they were headed out of the bakery, but Dean turned him down.
"It's not that far, I'll just drive you," he said and Sam didn't fight him on it.
The car ride over was silent, both lost in their own thoughts. It wasn't broken until they reached the funeral home, and Dean pulled around in the circular driveway.
"Hey, you be careful and call me if you need anything, okay?" he said, putting the car into park.
"I'll be fine. And the same goes for you. Call me, I'll have my phone on," he said, grinning a little in self-deprecation.
Dean snorted, rolling his eyes. "Like I hadn't noticed. You only get like, a thousand notifications, every hour now."
"Just trying to keep everyone safe."
"I know," Dean said more seriously and reached over to thump Sam's shoulder before hesitating. "You sure that you don't want to trade places? I can babysit and you can take Jack and Cas out to paint the town red."
Sam laughed a little, his lips quirking upwards in a sort of half smile. "No, I'm sure, Dean. They'd rather be with you and I've got a lot of work to do tonight. I'll stay busy."
Dean frowned, but didn't call Sam out on what he was sure was a slip of the tongue. He didn't know why he didn't. It was a lot to get into for one, and perhaps it was also due to a little bit of selfishness on his part. It felt good to be needed and loved, and while Dean didn't exactly need that from anyone but Sam, it still…it felt good. It meant that he hadn't totally screwed everyone over as much as he feared that he had. He just wished that Sam could see that he was wanted as well, that it wasn't them picking Dean over him.
"Okay, then. I'll see you whenever we get back. I'm guessing that it will be around midnight," Dean said and Sam nodded as he pulled himself out of the car. He turned around long enough to smile at Dean and then headed towards the polished doors of the funeral home.
Dean watched until Sam was inside, an old habit leftover from childhood despite the fact that Sam was closer to forty now than thirty.
Once the door closed behind his brother, Dean put the car back into gear and then fumbled blindly through his collection of old tapes.
Shoving one blindly into the player, he turned the music up loud enough to drown out his thoughts and hit the gas.
#
Sam listened to the powerful rumble of the Impala as Dean pulled away and shook his head.
Dean. Always the protector who never took enough for himself. It was time for Dean to take a step back and put himself first. To deal with what had happened to him in a somewhat healthy way…in a way that Sam had never been given the chance to.
Shaking off the morose thoughts, Sam looked around the entrance of the funeral home. A receptionist was watching him none too subtly from under her glasses and Sam crossed over, pulling out his FBI badge as he went.
"Agent Plant, here to see Mrs. Philips," he said and she nodded.
"She's been expecting you. Her office is just up those stairs, last door on the right."
"Thanks." Sam offered her a brief smile and then took the narrow, steep, staircase two at a time.
Mrs. Philips was sitting at her desk and nursing what looked to be a very bad headache. He imagined that losing three bodies over the last month couldn't be very good for business and probably explained the sour look on her face.
"Agent Plant," she said, looking up at his knock and then continued before he could say anything. "I hope that you catch the bastard that is behind this because that sick son of a bitch is a truly horrible person."
"I agree, and I'm going to do all that I can to put an end to this," Sam said gravely.
"You'd better. I've been losing business over this whole fiasco. I can't even understand how the hell they've been getting in to do it."
Sam didn't know exactly, but he could make some educated guesses. He'd broken into more than one funeral home in his lifetime, it wasn't actually that difficult.
"The doors didn't look forced, correct? Nor were any of the windows?" Sam asked anyway and Mrs. Philips nodded, her lips thinning.
"And the security cameras…?"
"I had them installed after the first body disappeared. Before that, there was only one, and that was on the outside. Even then, there was nothing there that we could find. Whoever is doing this knows about the alarms and cameras, even when we added new ones, and have somehow been erasing the footage." It looked like this had cost her something to admit and her shoulders stiffened as if she expected Sam to start accusing her of breaking into her own business.
She probably did. Sam knew for a fact that she was prime suspect number one to the police and only some very solid alibies had kept her from being arrested. Sam didn't know if that was going to work for him as he knew of more than one way in which she could have been in two places at once. She was on his list to look into, but he wanted to run her background and do more research before he started questioning her deeply.
"Last question," Sam said, holding up one finger. "Do you know anyone from Hettinger?"
"Hettinger?" Mrs. Phillips frowned in surprise.
"Yes. It's a small town about two hours—"
"No, no, I know where it is. I grew up there. I moved out about twenty years ago when I got married. Why do you ask? Does Hettinger have anything to do with the bodies going missing?"
"Possibly. We're still working on it, but that's for me to do tonight. You go home and get some sleep. Leave like normal and lock the doors behind you, just like you would if I wasn't here. Do not tell anyone about me, understand?" Sam said, straightening and giving a silent nod towards the door.
Mrs. Philips nodded quickly, looking taken aback by the abrupt end to their conversation. Sam didn't care. He had a lot to do, and her sticking around wasn't going to help him get it accomplished. She stood from her desk, glancing at the clock as she did so. "You'll be here when I come in tomorrow?"
"Yes." Sam nodded in affirmative and backed up a step to hold the door open for her. She stood, gathering up her purse before looking at him again.
"I have the cameras pulled up on this computer. Feel free to make yourself at home. I have some water and snacks in the bottom drawer on the far right. Everyone except Macy has already gone home. It will be just you."
"Good." Sam ushered her out of her own office and then waited several minutes for her to leave as she and the receptionist, Macy he supposed, shared a conversation before leaving together.
At last, he was alone.
With a sigh, Sam dropped into the cushioned rolling chair and leaned back, rubbing at his forehead. His head was starting to ache. Well, actually he couldn't think of a time that his head hadn't hurt since Dean had disappeared and Michael had taken his place. It just got worse sometimes, and now was one of those times.
He'd only gotten a little more than an hour of sleep last night, that probably wasn't doing him any favors.
Helping himself to some of the Advil that he had found in one of the drawers of Mrs. Phillips's desk, he focused in on the security feed. Everything looked normal, everything looked right.
That probably wasn't going to change.
His phone pinged and Sam checked the notification. Alyssa and Frank had made it back to the bunker safe. Good. That meant that he only had six hunter pairs out right now. Or he would until Travis finished up his research and headed out to a small town in Georgia to go on a salt and burn.
Sam stared at his phone for a moment, thinking. He wasn't sure that Travis was ready. Well, he was. He was smart and had gone on more than a few hunts, but he had never led a hunt and that was what Sam was unsure about.
All it took was one wrong decision or one piece of bad luck and then someone was going to end up dead.
Sam knew that when that inevitably happened it was going to be his fault. It didn't matter that he understood, theoretically, that he couldn't keep everyone safe and that he had done his best, but in his heart…He had let them all down the moment he had let them become hunters and helped train them, but he couldn't go back now so all he could do was try and help where he could.
Closing his eyes, Sam took a single moment for himself as he waited for the Advil to kick in. Once it had, he heaved himself out of the chair and went to scout out the funeral home so that he could be prepared on the off chance that something did happen.
The small, cramped, office upstairs was nothing like the main floor. There, three large and spacious showing rooms took up most of the space. The largest and most elegant even had a pair of sliding glass doors off on the side that led to a cement patio surrounded by a small garden.
The garden was peaceful and would have been beautiful if it hadn't been the tail end of autumn. Most of the flowers were dying now, even if the bushes were still somewhat green. A small cast iron statue of a thin and spindly angel with her wings spread had been stuck into the ground near the door. It made Sam pause for a moment, wondering briefly how the various mourners from different backgrounds might feel about that.
The basement was about as cramped as the upstairs had been, with a large storage room filled with boxes as well as the embalmment room.
Sam examined that room briefly, before pulling open the container that contained the body of Rob Mills.
This was another reason why he had needed to stay behind. They, obviously, hadn't had a chance to examine the rest of the bodies, and this one might provide further clues.
It didn't take him long to do a thorough and complete examination.
There was nothing essentially off with Rob Mills, nothing that would indicate why his body might be targeted.
Maybe it was just some witch harvesting organs or ghouls being oddly specific. Neither of those explained why someone was killing people in Hettinger and then waiting for them to arrive here before stealing them but it was a start.
Sam stopped briefly to consider that maybe Dean was right and this was a human but then changed his mind just as quickly. No. This was their kind of thing, his gut was telling him so.
His phone pinged with an incoming text and he glanced over at the metal table where he had left it. Stripping off the pair of disposable gloves that he had been wearing to do the examination, he threw them away before pushing the body back into its container.
It was a question from Travis about how to get people to open up when they clearly knew something but were unwilling to say anything. Apparently, he had been on the phone with an officer in Georgia.
Sam paused, lips pursed as he tried to figure out how to answer the question through text or over the phone. He didn't know if he knew how to answer it in general. That was something that just came naturally to him after years of doing it. He hadn't realized how much of hunting came naturally to him or had been drilled into him since he was a kid until he tried to help others do it.
Calling Travis, Sam paced the length of the embalming room as he talked him through it and listened to his rant. By the time he finished and returned to the office upstairs, it was nearing eight.
He still had hours to go before the night was over.
Settling himself into the chair, Sam pulled out his phone and a pad of paper. He hadn't been lying about having a lot to do. He needed to look further into creatures that might be interested in taking bodies and also start running background on Mrs. Phillips as well as the staff of the hospital in Hettinger. And if he wasn't working on that, then he had at least four other hunts that he could think of off the top of his head that also needed research done before he felt comfortable sending his hunters out. And then there was the whole Michael problem and figuring out why he had just abandoned Dean and what he was doing.
They had to figure that one out—if only for Dean's peace of mind—and Sam dearly wanted to give him that. Dean was too good of a person to have worry and discontent weigh him down. Dean hadn't deserved anything that had happened to him.
Sam was about three hours deep into a series of photocopies of an old scroll on Michael—and Lucifer, but Sam was diligently ignoring that bit—when his phone began to buzz with an incoming call.
Trying to mute his frustration at the interruption, he glanced over to see that it was Dean who was calling. The irritation fled as he swiped up to answer.
"Hey. Did you find anything in Hettinger?" He stifled a yawn, and leaned back, squeezing his eyes shut. He was so tired that his whole body ached, but he could sleep once he was dead. He didn't have time for that right now.
"Not as much as I would have liked. The hospital staff is seriously trying to keep this 'hush-hush' and out of the press. Bit of good cop, bad cop, did convince them to run some tox labs on all the blood that was taken as a precaution from the bodies. They'll give us a call tomorrow with the results along with a list of everyone who was working those shifts."
"I can cross-reference that with police records and background checks once we get it. That should hopefully narrow it done quite a bit."
"Don't you know that it is never that easy? Be nice if it was though." Dean snorted.
Sam rubbed at his stiff neck and gave a hum of agreement before saying, "I do think that you are on to something with the idea of Hettinger being tied into all of this. The funeral director, Mrs. Philips, she's from there as well. I'm running background on her and I'll let you know if I find anything. Maybe we are looking at more than one person, like a family or friend group. Would explain Mrs. Philips's alibi."
"Yeah, maybe. Everything quiet on your end?"
"Yeah. Not even a peep."
"Alrighty then. We can theorize tomorrow or when I get back. Oh, and I'm thinking it will be more around one instead of midnight. We haven't even left yet, we were...well, we're leaving now." A note of guilt entered Dean's voice, and Sam figured that they must still be at the bar and Dean had stepped out to cut down on the noise.
A wave of loneliness swept through Sam. He wanted to be there. Ruthlessly pushing the intrusive thought aside he forced himself to straighten. He had chosen not to go, he couldn't complain about it now. That was childish.
"That's okay. It's not like I have anywhere else to be."
"Well, sit tight, stay alert, and I'll be there soon."
With that, Dean ended the call and Sam tossed his phone back onto the desk and then stood, feeling restless.
He had chosen not to go, so why did he feel so cut off from the others?
Rubbing at his eyes, he stifled another yawn. He was just tired, that was all, and he had been sitting and doing research for too long. He'd just walk around and do a security check, and then he'd get right back to it.
A glance at the security feeds revealed that everything was normal.
Sticking his hands into the pocket of his pants, Sam wandered down to the front doors, testing their locks, before heading down to the embalming room. The body was right where he had left it.
Still, Sam lingered in the main hallway. He didn't have much of a desire to go back into the stuffy room where nothing waited for him but seemingly unanswerable questions. For once in his life he thought that if he looked at one more article or read one more book he might start screaming.
Outside, the wind was picking up and he could hear it blowing and tugging at the shutters. The shadows of a nearby tree, reflected in by the streetlights from outside, danced across the floor and Sam watched it listlessly as he sank down to sit on the bottom stair. He dropped his head into his hands, massaging his temples in an effort to ease the ache that was still there.
He was so tired.
Dean had sounded tired too, but he hadn't sounded sad. That was good. And it was good that Cas and Jack were there as well to help take Dean's mind off of everything that had happened. If Sam couldn't be there, then there was no one that he trusted more to do that.
Sighing, Sam ran a hand back through his hair with both hands and gripped it at the roots.
Dean should never have said yes for him. Dean had already done so much for him over the years and already had so much trauma and baggage because of him. Sam had never wanted him to experience this. To know what it was like to have an angel—and an archangel at that—take over your body…Sam shuddered at the memory of Lucifer that the thought evoked.
As horrible as the price had been, Sam couldn't stop being grateful that Lucifer was dead and that was just one more thing to feel conflicted about. He just…he didn't know what he wished. Actually, he did. He wished that he had been the one to pay the price for Lucifer's death.
Sam pressed his head back into his hands as if that could get rid of the negative thoughts.
Outside, the lights that flooded the entryway flickered and then went out completely, dimming the faint shadows on the floor.
Sam started, his head flying up in surprise.
The electric clock over the receptionist's desk was blank now and the faint vibrating of the heater had gone quiet. It was almost like the power to the funeral home had been cut off…
No way. No way in hell was whatever it was they were hunting trying to break in tonight. That wasn't what was supposed to happen but, even as he hurriedly stood, Sam could hear the faint sounds of gravel crunching as someone approached.
Someone—or something—was about to come through the door whether Sam liked it or not.
