A/N I kind of feel like I am yelling into a void with notifications being down. If you aren't getting my responses to my reviews then just know that I deeply, deeply, appreciate them, and thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Also, sorry this chapter is up later than normal. Worked was a bitch today, which it is whatever, it was just odd because it's a freakin' Tuesday.
Chapter Five
The sun was trying to shine weakly through the curtains when there was a soft knock at the door. Dean ignored it. He didn't care what it was, it could wait. Or it couldn't, but Dean wasn't going to answer. He didn't care anymore.
Dean was drained.
He hadn't shed any more tears in probably the last hour, but that was probably due to a lack of tears rather than an actual desire to stop crying. His eyes still burned, and they felt puffy and irritated.
The knock sounded again and still Dean ignored it.
After the third time the door opened slowly, but Dean continued to stare at Sam, at the face that he knew so well. It closed with a soft catch, and then there were footsteps.
"Dean?"
It was Cas, his voice deep and worried. Dean didn't say anything.
"Dean?"
Cas was now standing next to him and they both gazed down at Sam's gray face.
Dean opened his mouth and then closed it again to cut off a sob as he blinked rapidly. He was wrong about the tears. There were still some. Pulling in a shuddering breath, he reached out a hand, letting it hover over Sam's right shoulder and chest area.
"I think this is what killed him," he said, his voice hoarse with disuse.
He could feel Cas looking at him but kept his eyes determinedly on his brother. Cas moved around them, coming to stand on the other side of the bed. Silently asking for permission, Cas waited for Dean's nod before easing back Sam's shirts.
Dean had painstakingly stitched his injuries, even if he hadn't bandaged them and Cas winced as he took in the ugly wounds there.
Dean closed his eyes, unable to look at them. "He would have been bleeding pretty bad. The one in his shoulder probably nicked the artery. I mean, he was cut up and bleeding a lot in general, but those…I think those were the ones that killed him. He bled to death."
Cas smoothed Sam's shirt back into place, looking hesitantly over at Dean. "He's not in any pain now."
Dean shook his head, fighting against more tears. "I could have saved him," he managed to get out in a choked voice. "If we hadn't stopped at the bar, if we would have gotten back here just a couple of hours earlier, he would have been fine. We could have gotten him to a hospital and they would have stitched him up and given him all the transfusions that he needed. Or you could have healed him. He shouldn't have died, Cas. He shouldn't—this was preventable. I knew that he was alone. If I would have just stayed—"
A sound Dean couldn't stop, one that he didn't even really recognize forced its way up through his throat and he leaned back, blinking hard and bringing a hand up to cover his mouth, his shoulder's heaving.
Sam was dead.
Cas moved back around to stand next to him. "You didn't know. None of us did."
"I should have!" Dean couldn't meet Cas's eyes; he didn't want to see the truth and reprimand there or, worse, the forgiveness. "He's my brother, my little brother, why didn't—I should have known that he was in trouble. I should have known that he needed my help. I knew as soon as he didn't answer my text that something wasn't right but by then it didn't matter. If I had just tried to get in contact with him earlier, then I would have known. I should have been there. Sam needed me, and I wasn't there."
"You had no reason to believe that you needed to check in again. How could you have guessed that? Not when both of you believed tonight to be relatively safe and when you had called and checked in with him recently," Cas reasoned in far too practical of a tone for Dean.
"I just should have known! I should have felt it in my gut. Sam died, and I didn't—I didn't know. I was probably having a drink, maybe even flirting with that waitress or-or laughing with you guys. I should have felt his soul. He would have come and found me before the reaper took him away."
"You're not psychic, Dean, and as close as you and Sam were does not mean that you would have known or felt Sam there. It probably reassured him to see you happy one last time instead of mourning for him. This is not your fault," Cas said in that same, calm, and gentle voice—like he was trying to talk to a wounded animal—one that was starting to piss Dean off.
Cas could say anything that he wanted, but that didn't make it true. Dean should have checked in with Sam more often or, even better, he should have just stayed with Sam in the first place. He had let Sam convince him to leave him, Dean hadn't even really put up that much of a fight.
It was his damn fault, and there was no way around it.
It had no doubt been an agonizing death. Sam had suffered—alone—in the cold with no relief. Dean could have prevented that. There was no way that he was going to get around the truth of it.
"Sam wouldn't want you—"
"Don't you say that," Dean snarled, jerking his head around and finally meeting Cas's eyes. They were shining with tears of their own, but that didn't stop Dean. "If the next words out of your mouth are that Sam wouldn't want me to blame myself then you can get the hell out of here."
Cas knew better than to say anything else and he held up his hands in a silent peace offering. Dean looked away again. Cas was no doubt working up to some great speech, one where he tried to tell Dean that Sam would want him to move on, that he wouldn't blame Dean.
Well, Cas could shove it where the sun didn't shine because Dean wasn't interested.
Sam was dead and the blame rested squarely on his shoulders.
Cas hesitated, glancing back over at the body on the bed, before speaking. "Jack and Mary would like to see Sam. Can they come in?"
For some reason, the words surprised Dean and he looked up again sharply. "No."
"Dean—"
"Not yet."
"They loved him too, they—"
"No." Dean glowered at Cas as he stood and pointed at the door. "Get out. I want to be alone with Sam." He couldn't handle their grief, not on top of his own.
"I don't think that—"
"Did I stutter?" Dean gestured at the door again.
Cas shook his head sadly, his arms rising slightly in a helpless gesture and then he turned to leave before swiveling back around. "There are some things that you need to hear, Dean. After you brought Sam back, Jack and I picked up Mary, and then we all went back to the funeral home to try and figure out what happened."
The sudden change of subject confused Dean and he stared at Cas for a full second, trying to get his brain to wrap around the words, before dropping back into his chair lethargically. "Did Sam kill it?" he asked dully. He hadn't looked around for a second body. Hadn't really cared about that at the moment. Even now he was fighting to dredge up any real interest, not when Sam was right next to him, dead.
He knew that he should be livid, that he should want revenge. That would come as soon as they burned Sam's body.
And they would burn his body; give him a proper hunter's funeral and everything.
Dean had thought about that long and hard through the silent hours. He couldn't disappoint Sam again, not this time and not in that way, so Sam wasn't coming back.
"No, we didn't find a second body, but we did discover some things that you should probably hear," Cas tried again.
"So it's still alive?"
"Yes, but from what we can tell, injured. There was too much blood there for it to have been Sam's alone."
Dean glanced back over at Sam, at the dark, finger-shaped, bruises around his throat, at the cuts scattered across his body. "Okay," he said stiffly. "Tell me."
"Come back into the main room." Cas came back to stand next to him, his face earnest. "Mary and Jack want to help as well. You need their input."
Dean's stomach clenched and he shook his head. "I can't leave him," he half-whispered and was surprised by the raw pain there.
Cas looked intently into his eyes. "You never left him. Sam knew that. And he'll never leave you, you'll carry him with you for the rest of your days. Right here." He reached out, briefly pressing a hand over Dean's heart.
Dean's shoulders shook under another sob. He didn't want to have to carry Sam's memory with him for the rest of his days. He wanted Sam alive.
To his surprise, Cas wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in until the side of his head was pressed against Cas's chest. The move wasn't one that he would typically associate with the angel, but Dean didn't have the energy to push away or return the hug. He just sat there, crying. Cas let him remain there until his tears had dried up again and he was just sitting there listlessly, still staring at Sam's ashen face.
At last, Cas pulled back, his hand coming to rest on Dean's shoulder.
"Dean, you've been in here for hours now. I promise you that Sam is going to be okay. Come back into the main room."
Sam was dead. Could he get any further from okay?
Cas took Dean's arm and pulled, trying to ease him onto his feet. Dean didn't resist, but he did balk at moving away from the bed. He gazed down at Sam's face, so still in death like he had never been in life, and felt sicker than he had a moment ago if that was possible.
Swallowing thickly, he wiped at his eyes with his arm and nodded at Cas. Cas nodded back at him in understanding and took the lead back out into the main room, Dean trailing listlessly behind him.
Pausing briefly to shut the door to the bedroom to keep Sam safe, Dean finally faced the others.
Mary was sitting on the couch, and it was clear that she had been crying. Jack was huddled in the corner, staring down at his feet with the same shell-shocked expression that he had been wearing back at the funeral home. Dean looked around at them and made an abrupt decision.
He wasn't going back to the bunker. Not with everyone else there, not with them all mourning Sam. That had been his and Sam's home, but it wouldn't be a home without Sam, and nothing there was important. Nothing, that was, except some of Sam's belongings. He wasn't about to let a stranger go through them and he needed to get the ones that Sam had treasured once he had the strength to.
After that, he was never stepping foot there again.
Not without Sam.
Mary stood as soon as they appeared and crossed over to Dean. "Hey," she said gently, reaching out to cup his face and Dean wanted to be comforted. He wanted to look into her eyes and see that everything was going to be alright, that they had something that they could pull out of the hat to save Sam, but there was just sadness.
Smiling weakly at him, she let him go and then reached behind her to grab a mug that was on the table and offered it to him. "You need to drink something," she said, but Dean shook his head.
Unless it was whiskey, he wasn't interested.
She continued to hold it out for a second before relenting and setting it back down.
"What did you want to tell me?" Dean asked, folding his arms across his chest as if that could ease the aching hole in his heart. Now that he was out here, he just wanted to be back beside Sam.
For a moment they were silent as Mary and Cas exchanged a look that Dean didn't have the energy to decipher.
It was Cas who spoke next. "As I said before, we went back to the funeral home to see if we could figure out anything else about what killed Sam."
"Well?" Dean snapped after a pause as if they were waiting for him to applaud them for being damn hunters. "Cut to the chase, I don't—I can't sit here through nonsense."
Mary jumped in quickly. "Cas might have told you, but there was too much blood for it to have just been Sam's. In fact, I think that the majority of what was in the lobby was not his. It was whatever creature—or creatures—were there. It's possible that it was more than one that attacked Sam and, if so, they are going to be nursing their own dead and wounded."
It hadn't been a fair fight. Sam, outnumbered and alone, hadn't stood much of a chance. Dean chewed on his lower lip, fighting hard to keep the surging emotion at bay. If he had just been there…
"Unless," Cas piped up, "It was just one person or creature. It is also possible that whatever it is can't die by normal weapons. Like demons, or a vampire."
Then Sam had been screwed regardless.
"We do know that it's not human, though. Back in the garden, we did find this…." He gestured towards Mary as she pulled out a blood-stained napkin and peeled back the corners, revealing what looked like part of a fang. Dean took the napkin, examining the fang intently before shaking his head.
That didn't offer any clues, not really, except for the fact that whatever they were looking for had fangs. That didn't exactly narrow it down.
"Anything else?" Dean asked briskly, handing the napkin back.
"Yes," Cas said, returning to his phone and swiping to another picture. "Not too far from where I found Sam's body, there was this…"
There, drawn on the patio in blood was an uneven protective circle. A protective circle that Dean knew instantly. It was Sam's preferred one, the one that he drew when they were up a creek without a paddle, one that he'd forced Dean to learn just because it might save a life.
And it had. It had saved their lives more than once but when Dean had needed it most, it had failed.
"He must have—" Dean's voice cracked and he cleared it roughly. "—must have already been hurt pretty bad or knew that he couldn't escape. He probably drew that to keep himself safe." To wait for me to come with help.
"You're probably right," Mary said and Dean turned to look at her, "and I think that it did actually work. Otherwise, it probably would have taken off with his body, that is why it was there, after all."
Dean hadn't thought that he could feel any worse, but the thought of them taking off with Sam's body to go do only God knew what made his insides crawl. At least he had Sam's body with him. If there was a plus in this whole screwed-up situation, it was that.
Mary continued, "Cas didn't find Sam in that circle, so he must have tried to move eventually, maybe after it had left? Why it would leave, though, we aren't sure. The only thing we can think of is that Sam managed to scare it off somehow or it just grew bored. It is also a possibility that it can only function at certain times like a werewolf. We just don't know. Regardless, it left. Sam must have been trying to get help before…" she trailed off, glancing at Cas, but she didn't say anything else. She didn't need to.
Before Sam had collapsed from massive blood loss. Before he died.
Cas gave Dean a look that he didn't care to interpret before he said, "They didn't leave empty-handed, however. The body that Sam was guarding is gone."
Dean didn't care about that and he brushed it off before his mind caught hold of what that meant.
Sam had died trying to protect someone who was already dead. The stupid son of a bitch. Sam should have just let it go, he should have given them whatever they wanted, then he might have lived to hunt another day.
Clearing his throat roughly, Dean asked, "The funeral home—it has security cameras, right? That's why Sam was there. Did we get anything off of them?"
"No," Cas said, shaking his head. "We are guessing that after Sam drew the protective circle and then, when they weren't able to reach him, they went upstairs and in a fit of frustration destroyed surveillance equipment instead of just erasing them this time. Either that or they were looking for something else."
"So they got away with everything?"
"Not everything." Jack, who had been unusually quiet where he sat in the corner raised his head and Dean looked over at him dully, waiting for him to continue. "They didn't get away with everything. I found Sam's phone upstairs in the office, I don't know if they wanted it or not, but they had stepped on it. I found it under the radiator."
Dean frowned. "His phone, but I thought…it wasn't on him? I thought that he had that on him."
Everyone went quiet and then Cas shook his head. "He didn't have it on him. Jack brought it to me."
It was Dean's turn to go quiet and he looked away. Why hadn't Sam had his phone on him? He had been carrying that stupid thing around with him at all hours of the day, but when he really needed it, when one call could have saved his life, he hadn't had it.
He wanted to be angry, at Sam for not having his phone on him, for fighting a fight he couldn't win but he couldn't be. Not at Sam. Not right now.
"Here." Dean looked up to see that Cas was digging in his pocket and pulling out Sam's phone. Dean took it, staring at the damaged screen. They went through phones faster than just about anyone he knew. So much so that they had finally broken down and gotten an insurance plan so that the phones could be replaced without hassle. This one was nothing special, yet Dean wasn't sure if he wanted to hurl it against the wall and smash it into pieces or treasure it. It was another bit of Sam, one more piece to tie him to his brother.
Dean pocketed it and then turned away. He didn't want to be here anymore, he only wanted to be with his brother.
"Wait, there is one more thing." Mary leaned forward, her expression grave, and Dean knew that he wasn't going to like whatever she was about to say. It was going to hurt and he wasn't sure that he could take that on top of everything else. Cas was looking equally hesitant and grave as he swiped to another picture on his phone.
"Sam…Sam tried to leave behind a message. We think he was in shock or close to death when he attempted it because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, it doesn't make any sense, actually."
Dean's heart stuttered to a stop. No. Nope. He wasn't—he couldn't—he didn't want to know what Sam had been trying to tell him. It was going to hurt like hell and if it was goodbye, if those were Sam's last words—Dean's eyes fluttered shut, but he also had to look. There was no way that he couldn't know what Sam's last words were.
One way or another, he had to know.
Cas was holding out his phone again when Dean opened his eyes, and Dean took it, his hands trembling more than he would have admitted to. There, scrawled almost unintelligibly with blood on the cement patio, were three or four words, only of which one was intelligible.
Dean….something that perhaps started with a D and wasn't very long, followed by a word that ended with what looked to be an A or maybe two A's but that didn't make any sense.
There might have been another word, or at least an attempt at a word after that, but it was just a smear of blood. Sam had probably either passed out…or it had been his final act.
He stared down at the picture, at his name written in Sam's blood. Had Sam known that death was waiting, that this would be his last chance to say something? That he was going to die alone? He'd probably known it in the end, had realized that Dean wasn't coming.
Dean couldn't look away from the message. It made him feel both sick but also somehow closer to Sam. This was Bobby all over again with the set of numbers that he'd written down as his dying act, only so much worse. He'd lost his father figure that time and it had been beyond bad, but he'd had Sam, and that had helped more than Sam would probably ever understand. It had been the only thing keeping him from throwing in the towel and just driving off a cliff.
Now he didn't have Sam.
Swallowing back the tears that were threatening once again, Dean tried to hand the phone back but found that he couldn't. His fingers weren't releasing when he told them to.
"Dean…?" Mary asked tentatively and Dean blinked once and then tore his eyes away from the phone, grateful for something else to focus on.
"Yeah?" His voice didn't sound like his own, and Dean cleared it before trying again.
Mary glanced at Cas, then at Jack, and then back to Dean again, looking unsure before her features hardened. "We still don't know what type of monster did this to Sam."
"I know."
"And we need to find it. To kill it." Anger was in her voice now, and Dean knew all too well the Winchester thirst for revenge when he heard it. Mary wanted to find the son of a bitch, and she wanted to kill it any way possible.
Mary chewed on her lower lip hesitantly before leaning forward, her hand clasped in front of her. "We don't know how to find it either. Sam probably scared it and it won't resurface soon if it's smart. We may never find it if we don't act now. The only thing that we know is that it is coming after the bodies of its victims." She paused significantly and Dean stared at her blankly, not getting it.
"What?"
"The quickest and easiest way to locate and kill the bitch is to lure it out," Mary began again, her eyes locked on Dean's as she willed him to understand. Dean made a face, still not getting it, and then he did.
Rage roared through him so fast that he saw red and his head spun.
"No! Absolutely not! There is no way in hell that I'm using my brother as bait!" he snarled, his hands curling up into fists.
Mary stood, wiping her hands down her jeans before crossing her arms defensively. "I'm not—Look, using Sam's body as bait would be the quickest way to get this thing's attention. No harm would actually come to him. We know that the protective circle works. We could lay one around him and then spring the trap. He would never be touched."
Dean couldn't wrap his head around it. Using Sam's body as bait? It felt beyond disrespectful. It was a dishonor to his memory and his life. Sam was a seasoned hunter—had given his whole life over to the profession—but in many ways, Dean knew that he hated it. Maybe not so much in recent years, but as a kid—hell, even as an adult—there had been so many things that he had been forced into. Sam had been manipulated and used enough in his life, but Dean refused to do it to him now in death.
It took every ounce of self-control that Dean had to not grab Mary and start shaking her. Using Sam was bait as exactly what his father would have done—hell, he had done it before—and not for the first time Dean hated both of them for it. Hated them for thrusting them into this life to begin with.
"Bait—? You would suggest—" He was having trouble getting the words out, he was so angry. He took a step towards her, looming over her as he straightened to his full height. "I don't—do you—!" Dean twisted around and hurled Cas's phone as hard as he could against the wall.
It was better than hitting Mary, but it didn't help relieve any of the horrible, burning, weight that had settled over him. He had to do something to get rid of it, he had to, otherwise it was going to consume him whole.
"All Sam ever wanted was your love and time," he snapped, rounding on Mary again and taking another step towards her, forcing her to back up. "Ever since he was a kid, he wanted to know you. And he never had that chance because you made a deal with a demon and died. Then when you came back you avoided us. You avoided him in particular because you had screwed up his life and you knew it. You didn't talk to him, you didn't reach out. You left him out."
"Dean—"
"Do you know how much that hurt him? How much he tried to conceal that hurt from both of us because he didn't want to step on my happiness or our relationship? He was broken up for months when you disappeared into the other world, more so than I was! You should have treated him better, you shouldn't have been so selfish. You should have made more time for him. That was all that he ever wanted, he didn't want you to be perfect! He just—he wanted to be close to you and now for you to try and use his body as bait?"
Dean knew that he had been selfish too. He'd always kept Mary close to his heart, even when growing up, only allowing Sam small glimpses into who their mother had been, leaving Sam to mourn a woman he only knew through muted memories that weren't even his own and a few faded photographs.
So Sam had created his own mother. One that had been different from their dad. One who would have been horrified by the idea of hunting, who would have pulled Sam out of that life. One who valued school and book smarts over physical prowess. Someone who would have been proud of him for him and not measured him against Dean. Who would have understood him and loved him.
That had been a far cry from reality, but Sam had been mature enough not to hate her when she came back far too similar to their father. When she and Dean, despite their ups and downs, had a closer relationship than they did. When they were more similar than Sam and Mary were. When Sam had once again been the black sheep and the Winchester left out of the family dynamic. Dean hadn't done anything about it because he didn't know how, but if Mary had just reached out to him—this was her fault.
"Alright, Dean, stand down, it was just a suggestion," Mary said hurriedly, holding up a hand and bracing it against his chest to keep him away from her. Dean hadn't even realized until then that he'd backed her up into a corner. Dean snorted but didn't take a step back.
"I can't believe that you, his mother, would even suggest such a thing. That will happen over my dead body."
"Dean—" This time it was Cas who tried to step in, the reprimand clear in his voice as he grabbed ahold of his arm, trying to pull him back. Dean rounded on him, and this time he didn't hesitate, shoving Cas roughly back with both hands.
Cas took it in stride, holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture for Dean to calm down. "I know that you are hurting, but—"
"Hurting?! Cas, you can't even—" And Dean just wanted the pain to stop but it was only growing, gnawing at his chest and digging into his heart. He shoved Cas again desperately. "I trusted you to look after him when I said yes to Michael. And I came back to see that Sam had worked himself to the bone. That he was exhausted and-and barely sleeping or eating."
"I did try to be there for Sam as much as he would allow, but he didn't want help. Besides, how much success have you had in getting him to do those things when we did get you back?" Cas challenged calmly and Dean didn't want calm. He wanted Cas to get angry, to fight back.
"Then why was Sam the one taking care of Nick?" Dean was yelling now, and someone in the opposite room banged against the wall to tell him to shut up, but Dean couldn't care less. This was something that had been bugging him for a while, ever since he'd gotten back to the bunker and realized that not only was Nick alive, but that Sam had been tasked as his caretaker.
Sam shouldn't have had to do that. Sam should never have had to stare into the face of his worst nightmare every single day. Only, when Dean had tried to tell Sam this, offering to take over in his stead, Sam had said that he had an easier time telling Lucifer apart from Nick than anyone else. It was probably true to some extent. Mary had spent a few bad days with Lucifer and, while Cas had been possessed by him as well, Lucifer had mostly left him alone. That was no reason for Sam to continue with the machoistic form of therapy, rather it meant that he should have never been in the same damn room as him.
Yet Sam was too good, too kind of a person. Heaven forbid that anyone else suffer, not when Sam was around, not when he could try to take it onto his own broad shoulders. Not even when it was killing him in turn.
"Sam shouldn't have had to do that," he snarled and Cas made a face.
"I know that and I did try to help, Dean, you have to understand. We all did."
"Then you didn't try hard enough!" Dean shoved Cas again and Cas still wasn't fighting him back, he wasn't even raising a finger in his own defense. "You all let him down and—"
An aborted sob from the corner cut Dean off and he looked around, one finger out and thrust in Cas's face. Jack hadn't moved from where he was sitting in the corner, but now he had both hands pressed over his mouth and tears were streaming down his face.
He looked heartbroken.
Dean stared at him. Jack. Lucifer's son. The kid that Sam had taken under his wing from the very beginning despite that. Jack had loved Sam in a simple, uncomplicated, way in return. The rest of them…they'd all treated Sam badly. They'd each hurt him in their own ways, sometimes deeply, but Jack hadn't, not really.
Jack looked away at Dean's attention, fresh tears spilling onto his cheeks, and just like that the anger fled, leaving behind only the pain that was never going to leave.
He was never going to be whole again.
He was never getting Sam back.
Blinking back his own tears, Dean moved towards Jack, ignoring how Cas started towards him like he was going to stop him, and then grabbed Jack roughly and hugged him tightly.
Jack stiffened in his embrace, but he didn't pull away as the tears continued to course down his face. Dean closed his eyes and pulled Jack in tighter, hugging him hard and feeling more than a little off balance.
Sam would have been disappointed in his show of anger, but he also would have understood. He wouldn't have condemned or judged Dean for it, he would have just kept on loving him.
He missed him so much and Sam hadn't even been gone for twenty-four hours yet.
Cas bowed his head, his hands clasped in front of him and Mary shifted uncomfortably on her feet, glancing back towards the closed door that hid Sam from view. Dean's face crumpled even more and he pulled Jack in tighter, as if that would help him stay upright.
It was Jack, to Dean's surprise, who was the first to break the hug. He smiled sadly up at Dean, his lower lip quivering.
"I—I want to find the thing that hurt Sam. I want them dead," he said, and Dean nodded even as he took a step back and wiped at his face.
He didn't look over at Mary or Cas. He probably shouldn't have said those things, but he couldn't find it in himself to apologize, not when there was truth to what he had said. Dean had always been good at throwing words around, but he had rarely been good at taking them back and he didn't see a point in starting now.
"So, ah, we know the protective symbols work," he said gruffly instead. "We can draw them on the walls and windows, keep whatever it is out. Keep it away from Sam." The last part was said pointedly, but Dean didn't look over at his mother to see her expression.
He didn't give a damn if he had stepped on her feelings on the subject. He'd rather die himself than use Sam like that.
Cas nodded. "We can do that." He was looking at Dean like he expected something else, but Dean didn't have anything else to say. Cas, thank God, looked away and took over.
"Mary and I were talking. We think that the best place to start is back at the Hettinger Hospital. We need to know who was working those shifts. Again, we could be looking at a variety of people, it might not just be one. Did the hospital ever get back to you?"
It took Dean a second to realize that he was talking to him and he blindly searched for his phone. He had a handful of missed calls, the most recent from Jody accompanied by a text from her demanding for him to call her.
Was word out already?
Dean swallowed thickly and took a deep breath before he scrolled through the missed calls, looking for the Hettinger Hospital.
"They did try to call. I'm sure that means that the results are back in, otherwise they wouldn't have worried about it."
"Okay," Mary said, rubbing her hands together, her game face back on and now it made Dean feel uneasy. If she was willing to use Sam as bait, what else was she willing to do? "Then how about we take a trip back to Hettinger? We can also call around to other hospitals while we drive, see if anybody was brought in with odd injuries."
Jack nodded in mute agreement and then they all turned to look at Dean. He took a step back away from the group.
"No. You guys go. My place is with Sam," he said, and once again Mary and Cas shared a significant look. Let them think that he was broken, or that he wasn't grieving or processing or whatever. It was probably true, he just didn't care. He wasn't going to leave Sam alone.
"If you're sure," Mary said slowly, and when Dean nodded said, "We'll be there and back again before you know it."
"Doesn't matter."
"I'll stay as well," Jack said abruptly from where he was still standing next to Dean, and Cas's face softened dramatically. Dean didn't think too hard about that either, it wasn't worth it.
"Are you sure?" Cas asked him but Jack was already nodding, giving Dean a sideways look.
"Before we go, I would like to see Sam," Mary said even as she gathered up her jacket.
Dean flinched.
That was a perfectly reasonable request. She was Sam's mother, but she had just—He didn't want her anywhere near Sam right now, not after what she had just said. He opened his mouth to say as much but Cas caught his eye, nodding pointedly at Mary.
Dean made a face, the 'no' still on the tip of his tongue. "For Sam," Cas mouthed over Mary's shoulder and Dean's guts clenched. Cas didn't get to pretend to know what Sam would have wanted…but in this case, he might be right. Sam had longed for that relationship with their mother and who was Dean to deny it now?
Taking a deep breath and steeling himself, Dean nodded and crossed to the door, opening it. Mary slipped through.
Dean didn't allow the door to shut, however, and leaned against it to watch as Mary sat on the edge of the bed next to Sam's body. She took his hand gently and Dean had to look away.
Thus far he had been able to ignore the flask that was in his jacket pocket even if he was itching for a drink, but now he didn't try and stop himself. Taking it out, he took a long swallow, relishing in the burn.
It wasn't long before Mary reemerged, her eyes redder than before. "Let's go," she said to Cas in a thick voice.
Cas nodded. "Be careful. Call us if you need anything," he said to Dean and Jack and then they were gone, the door closing behind them.
Jack was giving him long, sideways, looks but Dean didn't bother to address it. Taking another swig from his flask, he moved back to the door that Mary had left open. Leaning heavily against the doorway, he stared in at Sam's body.
He should have been racing to be first in line to kill the son of a bitch, just like he had with Bobby's or Charlie's murderers, but he couldn't find the energy.
This wasn't just anyone. This was Sam. Sam was dead, and he couldn't help but feel like a large part of him had died with his brother.
He didn't care about revenge, not when it wasn't going to bring Sam back. He just wanted to stay with his brother, to soak in every last moment before he was forced to do the impossible and say goodbye.
#
Jack wiped his hands nervously down his jeans as he gave Dean another long, searching, look after the door closed behind Mary and Cas.
Dean wasn't even looking at him, a pained expression on his face as he gazed into the bedroom. That was alright with Jack. Dean scared him when he got like this, like when he had gone after Mary and Cas…but he had also hugged him. Jack hadn't been expecting that and he still wasn't quite sure what to do with it. He had never seen Dean looking so lost and alone before, not even when Michael had let him go.
Now everything was silent.
They stood there, Jack looking at Dean. If Sam had been here, he probably would have given Jack a comforting smile and then talked to Dean for him. How was he supposed to fill those shoes right now? Why did humans have to die so easily?
Jack looked down at his own hands, feeling the grief threatening to overwhelm him again and, also not for the first time, fear. Would this be what happened if he died? Would they care as they did for Sam? Jack shook the thought off. He couldn't think about that right now, not with more pressing matters on their hands.
His friend was dead, the first friend that he had ever had.
Jack's phone vibrated with an incoming text and, shooting a hesitant look over at Dean to make sure that he didn't disturb him, he pulled it out.
The text was from Cas.
Thank you for staying with Dean. You call us if you need anything at all or if Dean is about to do something that he shouldn't.
Jack took a steadier breath, looking over at Dean's rigid shoulders. He wouldn't be able to stop Dean if he decided to do something stupid, probably wouldn't be much of a speed bump, but at least Dean wasn't alone.
Sam would have wanted Jack to stay, even though Jack hadn't really wanted to. Sam would have wanted Dean to be taken care of, and if this is what it looked like then Jack was going to do it. He could do that for Sam.
Dean raised the flask to his lips again, still not paying Jack the slightest bit of attention and Jack leaned further into the couch, staring absently at the detailed wall about the hunt.
No one agreed on what they thought it was that had killed Sam. Cas and Mary couldn't even agree on how many there had been.
Jack, personally, felt like it was a ghoul—perhaps a ghoul gone rogue—but Sam hadn't thought so. At least he mentioned nothing about ghouls on the wall, and Sam did—had—an innate sense about hunting that often eluded Jack. Then again, he supposed that he hadn't been at this as long as Sam and Dean had, and experience paid off in the hunting world. Dean could probably explain Sam's thought process and why he didn't think that it was a ghoul, but Jack wasn't about to ask him about it. Not when Dean was screwing up his face again like he was trying not to cry as he continued to lean against the open doorway.
A thought struck him abruptly and he looked over at Dean, saying, "Should we—" before he fumbled to a stop, remembering that Dean wasn't to be spoken to unless absolutely necessary. Dean grunted, not looking over him but not flat-out rejecting him either. Jack took another deep breath, saying more slowly, "Shouldn't we start putting up the protective sigils, just in case?"
Dean raised the flask again, and Jack could see that his hand was shaking. "Probably," he finally said, his voice gruff and hoarse with loss. Still, he didn't make a move, and Jack took that as a sign that it was up to him to do it.
Digging a sharpie out of his bag, he shot a nervous glance at Dean, who still didn't try to stop him. Finding courage from that, Jack proceeded to mark all the entrances with the same protective sigils that Sam had used, consulting his phone and the pictures that Cas had texted over for reference. The whole time that Jack was working on the living room, he kept stealing glances at Dean and the room that lay beyond. At some point or another, he was going to have to go back into the bedroom and mark the window that was there.
He wasn't sure that Dean wanted him back there or how he would react when he tried.
He'd clearly not wanted Mary back there—he'd been so tense while she was that Jack had sat down and refused to look up, refusing to even acknowledge it. Would he feel the same way about Jack? But Jack hadn't seen Sam, not since the funeral home and when he had been covered in blood. Part of him was scared to go back there, part of him longed too.
Finally, when there was nothing else to mark, Jack took a deep breath and, with a glance over at Dean, slipped past him. Hurriedly marching towards the window, sharpie out so that Dean could clearly see his intentions, he began to draw the sigils there. Dean didn't stop him, although a palpable tension filled the air.
Jack was slower to move back to the living room once he was done as he took the opportunity to glance down at Sam. Sam's skin was an unnatural color, and his lips were blue.
He looked like Sam, but not Sam.
Fresh tears threatened in Jack's eyes and he looked quickly away, wishing that he hadn't looked at all. Why did people have to die?
After that he didn't know what to do and he returned to the couch.
Dean stood in the doorway for a long time, until he eventually moved back into the bedroom. He kept the door open this time, and Jack could see him sitting on the chair that had been pulled up next to the bed.
Jack wasn't sure that was an improvement. He was even less sure when he heard the murmur of his voice as he began to talk to Sam. Should he be stopping this? Reminding Dean that Sam was, in fact, dead? Or was it best to let him grieve like that?
Jack didn't know and he didn't like the responsibility of feeling like he had to do something. How was he supposed to help Dean? He didn't even know how to help himself.
Curling inwards into a small ball on the couch, Jack stared into the bedroom, fighting to keep the tears at bay.
Nothing felt good anymore and Jack just wanted it to all go back to the way that it had been before last night.
Why had he chosen to come on this stupid hunt anyway? They should have just gone back to the bunker after they finished with the rugaru. Then Dean might have been with Sam the night before. At the very least, Jack could have retreated to his room to mourn for Sam. He wouldn't have to worry about Dean doing something stupid, about keeping an eye on him.
Sniffing, Jack buried his nose in his arms, trying to keep his sobs muffled.
#
The body was calling to her.
She didn't know how to describe it any better than that. It was calling to her, and it wanted to be found.
This had happened with the other bodies but she hadn't paid any attention to it then. She had always known right where they were. She had known that they would be removed from Hettinger County Hospital and end up at Aunt Enda's funeral home before she'd even killed them or watched them die.
She'd picked out her victims carefully, chosen them for those exact reasons.
After that, it hadn't been hard to figure out funeral times, especially once she'd gained access to the funeral home calendar. She'd also made a spare copy of the key to the funeral home one day while Aunt Enda had been on vacation and she'd been watching her dogs. After that, it had just been a matter of learning how to briefly cut power to the cameras.
It had been easy.
This body was supposed to be easy as well, even if it hadn't been planned. No one was around to witness what she was about to do, she was just going to take it.
That hadn't exactly been what happened. Instead, he'd fought back and now her face throbbed endlessly even as new tissue and skin grew back. Her gum stung where the fang had been ripped out and her chest ached dully where she'd been stabbed repeatedly.
—And she was hungry. Hungrier than she had ever been before. After everything that her body had been through and all the healing it had been forced to do, she needed nourishment. The raw chicken and hamburger that she had been using to get by wasn't going to cut it anymore.
She needed fresh blood. Fresh meat. Her insides crawled pitifully in desperation, but she pushed the hunger back down.
She would eat, but first…first she needed that damn body and her needs were second to that.
The body hadn't left Centerville, that much she was certain of even if she didn't know how she knew that. So, after returning from taking care of the body that she had stolen from the funeral home, she wandered the streets in her truck. Sooner or later the body would let her know exactly where it was.
It wasn't natural, that feeling, or what she could do. No human should be able to do the things that she could but, then again, she wasn't completely human. Not anymore. Hadn't been for a while now but that was alright. She was better. Stronger. More powerful.
The moment that the old and run-down motel came into view, she slammed on the brakes, her whole body buzzing. The body was in there, of that she was certain. After that, it didn't take long to find the right room. Room 117. She could feel it in her very soul, or perhaps deeper.
She parked her truck in the back alleyway and then went to the door, ready to break in and reclaim what was rightfully hers, before she paused.
Faint voices were coming through the door.
She could break down the door and kill anyone there—she could feast—but no. The man who had fought her last night had been different. He hadn't been scared of her like he should have been and had known things about her that she didn't even know. He had hurt her.
What if the people guarding the body were the same? The gnawing hunger increased in protest but she shoved it aside. She was weaker than she had been before and if they possessed the same skills then she was wary of taking them all on, not until she'd eaten and regained her strength.
Making up her mind, she circled to the back of the motel, looking for a window that she might be able to sneak through. If they got in her way, she would kill them and feast on their flesh, but that was only if she had to.
She managed a small smirk despite the damaged skin around her mouth when she found a window in the back. It would be easy. She could break in, climb through, retrieve the body, and then leave.
Grabbing impatiently for the latch on the window to open it, she just managed to hold back a screech of pain as the tip of her fingers sizzled and burned. Yanking her hand back, she stared at it with disbelief.
The same symbols that had kept her from just taking the body back at the funeral home adorned the window.
She backed up a step, fear creeping in. What did they know about her that she didn't? She hesitated a moment, thinking about turning around and just leaving. But no. She couldn't. She couldn't leave it behind, it was still calling to her.
She had to have it. There would be no rest for her until then.
Her nose curled up in anticipation of pain and she reached for the window again only to draw her hand back before she could touch it.
She didn't have to be stupid about this. She couldn't touch the window, but that didn't mean that other things couldn't.
Spotting a large chunk of rock a little way down the alley she hurried over and picked it up. Hefting it in both hands, she dragged it back.
Without hesitating a moment longer, she launched the rock toward the window, destroying the symbols there and shattering the glass.
