A/Ns: I hope everyone is staying safe as they can right now. The world is a mess and the States is busy adding extra special crazy sprinkles right on top (I am so, so frustrated with the state of my country right now. I don't often bring politics into this forum because I rarely agree that it's the place for it, but to any readers out there of color: *you* *matter* to me. I stand with you, even if I can't understand what you go through). To any of you in cities with protests and riots right now, please stay safe. Do what you gotta do, but do it as safely as possible and help others stay safe as well!
Mental Health Note: During all of this, please, please, please pay attention to your mental health. These are really trying and dangerous times for mental and emotional well-being for us all. Talk to someone if you can (I highly recommend a trained professional, but if not that then a friend, a guardian, someone you can hopefully be open with and who is supportive in return). Stick with your friends; stay up to date with them, talk with them in any fashion you can if it can't be in person. Making sure we maintain our support pillars in a world where we can't physically see them anymore is really important. (Remember, family don't end in blood.)
And now, please enjoy what I am oh-so-happy to serve up just for you: a lengthy distraction from the world and weary woes!
Chapter References: Oh boy. Um…there's a lot. The whole story? [insert weak grin here] We're definitely bringing up the whole original Apocalypse timeline from the show (and a specific reference to 3.1 The Magnificent Seven), the Baku's Dreamland where Sam realized Dean was older than he should be (see Chapters 20-22), Meg's death right after that (see Chapter 21), John's death (see Chapters 36-37), the fight between Cas and Azazel in Rivergrove (see Chapter 77), and Uriel's death (see Chapters 94-95). Uh, I think that's it…
Chapter Warnings: Prepare for the world's longest chapter. Seriously, I think I beat my previous record. And this one is *all* chatter. It's, oh boy, it's a lot. We got tons to cover, from the apocalypse and angels to Dean's humiliation, to memes and killing Lilith, then back to Dean's humiliation, with panic attacks and a comatose Cas upstairs (and did we mention Dean's humiliation? We did? Oh, good.)
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 72
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The ribs went back in the fridge, packed away in a handy little Tupperware container that Dean stared at for a good thirty seconds, not quite believing Bobby had something so domestic lying about his house, just awaiting use. It looked fairly new, too, not something he'd had since the dinosaur age before he'd become a hunter. (Bobby had eventually pulled it out of his hands with one hell of a look.) About half the rack was left uneaten, right along with the rest of the food and most everyone's plates, and it all went into the fridge. No one had much of an appetite after hearing the world was right along on its way to ending. It would get eaten later, at least by those who weren't having the rug pulled out from under them this evening. (The Winchester-Singer-Gallagher rug was long gone by that point, nothing left to pull or even tug at.)
Andy helped Sam with the dishes diligently while Bobby and Dean packed it all up, the others trying to step in and help on occasion, but Dean knew why the four of them were hiding behind the supposed 'host' role that not a one of them had ever taken a particular liking to before. If they were too busy cleaning up, they weren't talking or taking questions. Dean could argue they were letting the information sink in for the Harvelles, Asa, and Bucky, but he also knew it was just as good an excuse to stall dropping any more bombshells (or, possibly worse in Dean's book: explain further on the ones he'd already dropped).
But eventually the dishes were done, the food was packed up, the kitchen was cleaner than it had been before dinner (or possibly ever), and their four guests were milling about the kitchen, scattered along the table or resting hips against counter tops or fridges. They were waiting, like sharks in the water, for the eventual chum they knew they'd get.
Ellen didn't even bother with preamble, looking right at Dean as soon as the sink was shut off and the last of the dishes dry. She nailed him with those sharp eyes of hers, demanding (although not in an unkind tone), "Start at the beginning."
"It's time travel, Ellen," Dean sighed, running a hand down his face and settling where he was against the kitchen counter, right in front of the sink, ankles crossed and arms following over his chest. "There's a lot of beginnings."
"Start with yer angel," Bobby suggested gruffly (less of a suggestion that way, really) from the table next to Ellen. "Can't talk about angelic DeLoreans without explaining that part first."
Dean didn't even bother telling the old man that Cas wasn't his angel. Not like anyone ever listened anyway.
"So, you're serious about the time travel?" Jo asked, the hesitant lilt of her voice and smile suggesting she was still expecting a joke out of it, even though she seemed to know it wasn't one. She was leaning against the counter as well, right next to Dean. He liked to think it was for support and not the opportunity to get more out of him by being, literally, right next to him.
(He swallowed a little roughly. Yeah, sure, it was totally about support. Cuz Jo didn't know how to play the innocent, naïve woman in need of comfort, who could then wheedle just about anything out some poor, dumb schmuck. Nope. She didn't know how to play that role at all. Not at all. Totally about support, here.)
"Yeah," Sam answered for his brother. Whether it was because he saw what Jo was doing (more like he saw what Jo was doing to Dean, who was inching his way down the counter to put that much more space between them) or he knew that one guy could only repeat himself so many times with less and less effect with each go. "I, uh, I don't know how we can prove it to you right now, but I've seen it." Sam's gaze flickered to his twenty-seven year old brother, thinking about the much older man approaching his forties that he'd seen in their dad's dream. "He really did travel about ten years back in time."
"I've seen it too," Bobby agreed, speaking more to the evidence they'd encountered since that unfortunate incident with the Baku. Dean knew things no man – psychic or not – could ever know, and acted on them with the confidence of someone who'd done it before. Besides, the man leaning against his kitchen counter now was so clearly their Dean, and so clearly not their Dean, that the honest-to-God truth was time travel made more sense than anything else at this point. Bobby believed it, believed him, which should be enough for anyone sitting at his table.
He eyed them each in turn, daring any of them to disrespect him in his own home. The truth of it was, there weren't many hunters alive who didn't respect Bobby Singer as an authority of all things supernatural and hunting, and Bobby knew it. If the boys needed that kind of clout in their corner, then he was sure as hell gonna be there to give it.
His gaze ended on Ellen, who was watching him with that scary, intense gaze of hers but no real heat or retaliation. She knew exactly what he was doing, and she'd stand by it. Something in Bobby twinged, somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. God, he sorta loved that woman. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a tease of a smirk, like she could hear his thoughts.
Bobby cleared his throat and turned back to the rest of the table. "Boy's a time traveler. Just don't ask him lotto numbers. He doesn't remember any of the important stuff."
He got a chuckle around the room for that, some a little forced, some a little too eager for the excuse to laugh, but it did help diffuse the tension all the same.
"How is that possible?" Asa asked once the last of the chuckles faded. His voice was even and almost pragmatic, like the vocal equivalent of having his hands up and offering to play referee. Putting aside Dean's inner fanboy, the serious-when-it-was-actually-necessary man from the future was starting to respect Asa Fox for how he'd handled this conversation so far.
"It's not."
His friend on the other hand…
Bucky had spent the last thirty minutes while everyone else cleaned up, processed, or pried for further information, sitting at the table with a cynical smile, nursing a beer with the kind of overconfident nonchalance that suggested he wasn't buying a word of this. Dean hadn't cared at first – he hadn't actually expected all of them to believe – but the smug attitude Bucky Sims was bringing along with it had rubbed him the wrong way minute after minute until he found his shoulders ratcheted up around his ears and his irritation levels climbing right alongside them.
Asa was ignoring his buddy for the most part, though. On occasion he would spear Buck with a warning look, but otherwise the two weren't engaging much on the topic. Asa was clearly willing to suspend some disbelief to hear the Winchesters out. Bucky thought the only reason he was bothering was an overly exaggerated loyalty to a woman he'd met only once, more than two decades ago.
"So, thing about angels," Dean started, deciding to follow Asa's lead and ignore Bucky (it was his friend, his call, after all, at least for now.). He aimed for calm and collected, like they were talking about any other topic any other day. That's what he was going for, anyway. Whether or not his brain caught on, at least his mouth seemed to have gotten the memo. "They can apparently bend time. Not often and not always well-" Bobby snorted and Dean tried not to look his way- "but they can do it when it's necessary. I don't know how it works, I never asked for details. Trust me, just getting a handle on the groundwork spins your head enough."
The groundwork didn't come with non-linear, overgrown gardens and ripples in a pool that was somehow not a pool and oh, yeah, those weren't ripples either, because fuck your life. Groundwork was simple. Pretty much: 'follow the rules from Back to the Future and you'll be fine.' Groundwork was good. Dean really didn't want to get into anything more complicated than that because he knew his tongue would mess it up even more than his brain already had (it wasn't like the whole time concept was a clear, logical thing up there to start with. Cas shoulda sent Sam back. He was the smartone). If he tried anything more complicated than the basics, Dean would just sound even crazier than he already did, and that was plenty crazy enough, even for a group of hunters.
"Wait, you've done this more than once? Time traveled?" Jo's eyes were both narrowed on him and also somehow wide. Women, man. How did they even do that? The look wasn't one of suspicion, at least. More along the line of incredulity with just a dash of more-playful-than-not sarcasm, just for extra flavor.
"Uh…couple times," Dean admitted, feeling embarrassed about that though not entirely sure why. Probably because there was no way they'd believe him. Traveling through time once was already asking a lot for people to believe. Four trips, though? Like time travel was a ride at the amusement park you had to be yei high to ride and you did it just for kicks. Yeah, he probably should have lied about that part. Dean rubbed the back of his neck (cuz, too late now). "Cas sent me back three times before this. Those trips were nothing like this though."
First, because he'd always returned. But this trip had always been a one-way ticket, even before he knew he was taking a trip at all.
"The other trips, they weren't about changing or stopping anything." Or learning that he couldn't stop things, like his mother's deal or her death. Which was too much of a reminder most days and turned his stomach. Cas had promised they could change things. They had changed things. Dean cleared his throat and fought to focus on the present (which was equally "fun". One catastrophe at a time, he supposed). "Once of 'em was to get Phoenix ashes to, uh, well, for, uh…for a thing. It's not important."
Dean waved away the explanation that was Eve, realizing he'd dug himself a deep enough grave as was and should probably quit while he was already behind.
"But they're extinct." Asa was rocking the frowny face hard from his spot leaning against the counter on the other side of Jo. "No one's seen a Phoenix in centuries."
"If they ever existed in the first place," Bucky muttered into his beer but was, for the most part, ignored.
"Hence the need for time travel, buddy." Dean's smile was a tight one, more teeth than mirth, but it wasn't as caustic as it otherwise could be. Asa's eyes widened further as his brain made the connection it had previously missed. Yeah, it took time (ironically) to wrap your brain around time travel.
"Cas?"
Dean turned back to Jo, his arms tightening over his chest subconsciously. It had nothing to do with her or even her question. More of a protective instinct he couldn't shake. A need to feel that warmth in his chest (which still hadn't returned since Rivergrove) and keep the angel right where he was (a need that had only increased since learning his friend was possibly fading in there).
"Yeah, Cast-" Dean cut himself off, realizing even as he spoke that names had power, and maybe he shouldn't be handing that power out so freely. He trusted Jo and Ellen. Trusted that they would trust him or, at the very least, trust Bobby. But Asa and Bucky were unknown. Despite the slow-building trust and respect he had for the former, there was something distinctly uncomfortable (sitting in Dean's stomach, right below the angel in his chest) about giving Bucky the guy's full name.
At least…for now. Maybe Bucky would change his tune or Asa would bring him around, but Dean wasn't risking the only angel on their side (not to mention his (future?) best friend) on a maybe.
(Of course, none of these hunters knew Enochian warding or spells yet enough to know the power of having an angel's name, but they all knew how to research and were versed well enough with demons and pagans to understand the concept and go from there. So Dean was going to play it safe.)
"Cas," he repeated a little more firmly. If anyone suspected there was more to the angel's name, they didn't say anything. "Angel of the Lord, if you can believe it. He helped us with the apocalypse the first time. Kinda gave up everything to make sure our side won."
"Our side?" Ellen echoed, eyebrows up. "And whose side is that exactly?"
"Humans'," Sam picked up on the next beat, almost before Ellen was done asking the question. "The apocalypse is a showdown between Heaven and Hell, and neither of them seem to care what happens to those of us caught in the middle."
"You're telling me Heaven-"
"Doesn't care who lives or dies. Yeah, that's exactly what we're telling you." Dean's harsh words cut through Asa's abruptly. Given the lack of discussion on Heaven being real or not, it looked like they had a semi-believer, at least, on their hands. Another hunter like Sammy, who didn't have a problem believing in Heaven, maybe even angels and God. Asa Fox wouldn't be the first or the last hunter to do so, though each one still struck Dean as so damn weird. Dean had to remember to sort of pull his punches here, though. "Turns out, angels are winged dicks."
Only sort of, of course. Jo snorted, even as Sammy gave his brother a look.
"Most of them," Sam emphasized snidely from the far side of the table, still glaring at Dean, who rolled his eyes (because of course he hadn't meant Cas. Just every other angel). "Cas thinks there might be other angels who'll stand with us. If she can get to them first, she might be able to convince some of the angels to join our side."
"Don't count on it, Sammy," Dean grumbled under his breath, arms still crossed tight across his chest. There was a dull ache there that was, for once, all his own.
"Uh…she?" Jo glanced between the two brothers, one eyebrow elegantly raised in that oh-so-judgmental Harvelle way. "Dean called him a 'he' a minute ago."
Oh goody. And they were on to his favorite part of the 'angels are real' talk.
"Uh…yeah." Dean cleared his throat, scratching just beneath his ear in nothing short of stalling while Sam, conveniently, decided he didn't want a part of this conversation after all. "Angels don't actually have a gender. They take on the, uh, appearance of whatever vessel they're using."
Three of the four hunters new to angel lore stiffened (Bucky was still busy snorting softly into his beer every other sentence) and Dean tried not to tense in response. This might have been why he wasn't bringing up Cas's full name or the fact that she was currently asleep upstairs. There wasn't a hunter alive who handled the vessel concept with elegance or ease.
"Vessels?" Ellen's voice was tight. Anyone used to dealing with demons, or at least having heard the horrors of possession, would be. She glanced at Bobby, who gave her the kind of look that suggested patience was a virtue. The look he got back was anything but virtuous.
"Angels true forms are, uh, kinda hard for most people to see without…erm…exploding." Dean frowned at the word choice. Probably not helping Cas's case here. "So they have to possess a human to interact with us. But," and Dean definitely stressed the exception before people could start casting stones, "unlike demons, they have to have permission."
"They seek out the devout," Sam added, standing in Cas's corner with his brother, even knowing it wasn't the easiest corner to defend. But that was Sam Winchester for you.
The corner of Dean's mouth twitched up, remembering how Sammy had just accepted him at his word when he'd told the kid Cas wasn't a demon. That he was an angel, of all things. He'd trusted it because he trusted Dean. Damn, but Dean didn't deserve his kid brother.
The younger Winchester had as much of a sympathetic, I-understand-this-is-hard-to-believe-and-feel-for-your-situation, puppy dog look as he could get right now, hands spread out on the table in a placating, understanding way. Dean wanted to shake his head but didn't dare. Sammy was going to get these people to listen. He always did. And Dean wasn't about to interrupt that.
"They look for people who have faith in God and, well, angels, and they request permission to use their bodies for their work on earth."
"So, what? It's a noble possession?" Bucky snorted, finishing off the last of his beer. However, since he didn't believe angels were real to start with or that one sent Dean back in time, his opinion on the matter was disqualified. At least in Dean's book.
"It's not great," Dean admitted, ignoring Bucky Sims to look between the Harvelle women because, while not voicing their doubt quite so disrespectfully, he knew it was still there. Dean could see it in their faces. "Even Cas knows it's not an ideal situation. My Cas- uh, the one from 2016-" Dean winced, realizing he was now just as guilty of calling the angel 'his' and would forever face backlash anytime he told everyone else to stop doing it- "he had a male vessel, Jimmy, and he always regretted taking the guy away from his family, alright? So this time, Cas found- uh, the Cas from this timeline that's helping us now, I mean, found a woman in a coma, braindead with no surviving family. He's- um, she's trying to minimize the collateral damage."
But there would be some. This was the apocalypse, with Heaven and Hell raging on either side. There was going to be collateral damage. A lot of it.
Jo raised a hand to her forehead and buried her eyes behind it temporarily. With a heavy breath, she ran her fingers up and through her hair, turning towards Dean as she did with an almost pained expression. "This all sounds really crazy, Dean. I'm not saying I don't believe it-" she held up that same hand before he could respond- "I'm just saying. It's crazy."
"It sure as shit is," Bobby huffed, giving the kid a wry look that ended up with Jo's lips curling into a slow, crooked smile. She shook her head in disbelief, but Dean could see that it was more about the circumstances than the truth they were claiming.
"The only crazy here is all of you believing it," Bucky sniped. He was still going for that laid-back, Margaretville vibe of taking in a bad joke, but it was clear he was starting to get annoyed at being the odd man out. Not to mention ignored.
"Buck, come on." Asa nudged the leg of his friend's chair with one of his long legs, never leaving his spot against the counter. "You really think all o' these guys – some of the best hunters in the country – would make this up? Joke about it?"
Bucky stared at his friend with something between surprise and annoyance. "You can't really be buying this, Asa. The apocalypse? Time travel?"
"I may not be all on board at the drop of a hat," Asa replied, eyes narrowed at his friend, seemingly offended by something Bucky had said. "But that's the job. Believing in things no one else does. How often have we run into a hunt we couldn't explain? It's always something new, something we hadn't heard of or thought didn't exist. How's this any different?"
Bucky set his empty bottle down on the table a little harder than strictly necessary. "Because it's time travel! It's not real. It's- it's movie magic at best."
"So are vampires to the rest of the world, Buck."
"You don't have to believe me, pal," Dean cut in, voice on the edge of a warning, "but I'm not gonna stand here listening to you call me a liar much longer, either."
The room grew quiet at that. Not a threat, but a promise. The cold, dark kind that was more than frightening, more than real. It was that moment, oddly enough, that cemented Dean's story as fact in Ellen's mind. She'd met John's boys only once before that day they walked into the Roadhouse, where Dean sat at her bar and claimed to be psychic. Before that, John had only brought 'em around once, a long time ago now, when they were just kids. They'd been too young for her to be judging much of the men they'd turn into, but the one sitting before her now, with that look in his eyes, that promise of action on the tip of his tongue… That sure as shit wasn't coming off some twenty-something year old. That was older. Way older. Someone who'd been around not just the block but half a dozen more to boot. In that moment, Ellen more than believed this kid was a good ten years older than he looked, at least. Something in that look told her, though she couldn't explain it, that it might be more than just ten years, too.
Bucky broke eye contact first, looking away. He didn't answer, didn't so much as nod, but he didn't keep on with the disrespect, either. He got sullenly quiet after that, and Dean took it as the silent acceptance between hunters. The others took it as the defusing of a bomb.
"Look," Dean started again – tried again – with a punishing run of his fingers over his short hair, resettling his arms over his chest once he was done, "forget about the time travel. It's over and done with. Not even a big deal."
Someone at the table snorted and he'd bet money it was Bobby.
"What matters now," Dean emphasized with a glare to all occupants, since they were all pissing him off considering it was because of them he was here having this wonderful little chat that was going so damn well, "is the apocalypse."
"Okay," Jo reasoned, leaning back against the counter, elbows on the tile and hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans in a move caught somewhere between relaxed and defensive. But her face was set; she was on board for the Crazy Train and apparently happy to help it get moving forward. "How do we stop it?"
Dean opened his mouth to reply only to shut it immediately, brain sparking with that guilt-ridden, pessimistic little voice that was always there to remind him that he didn't actually know how they were going to stop it. If they even could. Kill Lilith, the Casses had said. Yeah, like it was just that easy.
Yet, he had to be the bearer of positive news, like it really could be that easy. Because no one wanted to hear the real truth; that they stood less than half a chance of pulling this off with any better results than the last go around. And that's if they were lucky. With the kind of shit luck the Winchesters were used to, they'd be lucky if they didn't make the whole thing go down worse.
Dean sighed, scratching at the base of his scalp and wishing this wasn't his life. Wishing he was back in 2016 dying in a graveyard beside his brother and best friend. Would certainly be easy.
(What was the line? Dying's easy, living's harder?)
Okay. So one step at a time, then. Dean forced his limbs to uncross, to leave that little sliver of angel in his chest open (vulnerable) (No, not vulnerable. At least, no more than the one upstairs) and instead braced his palms on the counter behind him, letting his upper body lean on locked elbows.
"We have to kill Lilith."
Said like that, it seemed so simple. Easy as pie. But the statement still carried the weight of the entire room and a whole world beyond. Dean could feel it, reverberating through his chest even as it left his mouth. Could see the way it settled around the others like a physical thing. A task they were all taking up just by sitting there.
God, he hoped they knew that wasn't true. They could all walk away, right here, right now, and any time after. They should all walk away.
"Who's Lilith?" Ellen was the first to ask and Dean quietly loved her for the way she didn't even blink. They were talking about the apocalypse but Ellen Harvelle was going to break it down, step by step, into any other hunt. Just like that. Just like she had in Carthage.
And how had that turned out, again? Dean's stomach tightened, turning to cement. He turned away from her.
"Demon. First one Lucifer ever turned. His 'first born' is what they call her. Princess o' Hell," Bobby answered for the older Winchester when he didn't speak up. He was eyeing Dean with a look of concern carefully hidden under gruffness and raised eyebrows. "She's the key to the whole damn thing. The Final Seal."
"Seal?" Jo looked between Bobby and the others, shaking her head a little. "What's that?"
"They're like locks on a door to Lucifer's cage." Dean cleared his throat and carried on, having buried every bit of that bitter voice that told him he was killing the Harvelle women all over again just having this conversation with them. They could still walk away from this. He'd make them walk away after this. "There are six hundred and sixty-six of 'em. Hell only has to break sixty-six, doesn't matter which, except for the first and the last. Those are set. Lilith's death is the final one, but it only unlocks the cage if the other sixty-five have been broken."
Bucky muttered something too under his breath to make out, but Dean's gaze snapped to him regardless. His carefully controlled nerves, already on edge and reaching their breaking point, snapped with it.
"Hey, pal, I didn't make this shit up, okay? So back off." Dean's voice was sharp – feral sharp – and he felt more than saw Andy and Sam both flinch at it. It was probably the only thing in the room that could have made him swallow his own words and back off too. He resettled against the counter, pointedly ignoring Bucky, who was glaring at the beer sitting in front of him and not meeting anyone's gaze in the silent, tension-filled room.
"Why don't we just stop the first seal?"
Ellen was the first to break that silence (again earning Dean's undying love and gratitude. At least until her question registered). She glanced between the boys as that broken silence shifted into a different kind. Less tension, more dread. A lot more dread, she reckoned, by the way they all immediately grew shifty, squirming in their seats like elementary school kids caught doing bad by the teacher. She raised her eyebrows, wondering what sort of ant hill she'd just gone and poked. "Wouldn't that be easier?"
"Trust me, it's not," Dean muttered, still not looking her way.
"The first seal's a mess," Bobby answered a little more directly, though no less vaguely. "Demons got a million ways of making it happen. We're working on it-" here he looked over at Dean, who pointedly glared at a spot on the kitchen floor and nowhere else- "but we can't be stupid about this. No point putting all our eggs in one rickety basket."
"Okay," Ellen agreed, despite not being entirely sure what was going on between Bobby and the eldest Winchester. Whatever it was, it clearly had to do with this seal business. Still, she let it go for now. Lord knew they had enough on their plate without internal drama to boot. "How do we kill Lilith? I'm guessing something that big and that old ain't gonna be easy?"
"Can't we just exorcise her?" Jo jumped in, sitting up a little with the idea. "You said she's a demon, so…?"
"She is, but it's not going to be that easy." Sam shook his head, sending an apologetic look her way. "We're not even sure we can exorcise a demon that powerful. And if it does work, all she has to do to put the apocalypse back on track is get topside again."
Which wouldn't be the easiest of things – Azazel still hadn't shown his face and it had been more than two weeks since they'd managed to send that bastard back – but it was more than possible. And with what was riding on her getting topside, Dean bet they'd manage it pretty quick. No, an exorcism wouldn't be enough. They had to take her out before Hell found out a way to make Sam – or someone else that fit whatever fucked up rules the damn last seal required – to do it.
That reminded him; he needed to have a chat with Cas when she was back on her feet about the exact requirements of those seals. Make sure they weren't going to stumble right into any loopholes they hadn't thought to cover.
"We gotta kill her dead. Sucks, but it's the only way," Dean cut in with a tight-lipped grimace. "Holy water won't do jack squat to her. A devil's trap should keep her down, but it won't be for long."
Powers like hers? Even if they got her into the trap, it would take her minutes, at most, to break it wide open. Meg had managed it once, and she'd been way lower on the power ladder than Lilith.
Asa let out another whistle, shaking his head minutely. This was big fish they were talking about. Real big fish if a devil's trap wouldn't be enough. "How are we even supposed to kill her, if we do somehow manage to get her in a trap? Only thing I know that can kill a demon is Kurdish blade-"
"Yeah, a demon-killing knife. We'll get one of those eventually," Dean interrupted out of habit more so than impatience. He was still annoyed that they didn't have Ruby's blade, and more annoyed that they'd have to voluntarily play nice with Ruby in order to get it. "What we really need is the damn Colt."
It might not have killed Lucifer, but Dean was betting Lilith was a few tiers down the food chain and a lot closer to that 'evil' part of the Latin inscription on the gun. Lucifer might be the devil himself, but he'd started out as an angel. Something that, in hindsight, they probably should have considered before marching into Carthage.
"The Colt?" Ellen's eyebrows were back near her hairline. She checked with Bobby and back again. "As in the Colt? Samuel Colt's magical gun that can kill anything?"
Sam opened his mouth, most likely to say, 'Well, not anything it turns out-' but Dean caught his brother's eye and shook his head. Story for another time. Any other time.
"That would be the one," Bobby mumbled, getting up from his chair to grab a beer from the fridge. Andy, perched on the counter next to it, practically bumping shoulders with Asa (and wasn't that budding friendship adorable?), helpfully opened the door with his sneakered foot before the old hunter could even get to it. He got a glare for his efforts, which was returned with the sunniest smile imaginable. Bobby, while he was up and there, grabbed a round for everyone else as well, using Andy to pass them around since the kid was so eager to help. He finally got a glare in return, but it quickly morphed back into the classic Andy Smile when the kid got around to handing Jo hers.
"No one's seen hide or hair of that thing in at least a century," Asa picked up from where Ellen dropped off, clearly thinking along the same lines as she was as he accepted his beer from Andy. He did a double take Dean's way, one eyebrow up. "Unless this is another time travel thing?"
Dean actually huffed at that, shaking his head. "No. We know where it is, but we can't get our hands on it yet."
"Why's that?"
Sam and Dean exchanged a guilty look before Sam turned that look Ellen's way and answered, "We think Azazel has it."
The 'ah, I see. Is that all?' look that crossed Ellen's face only somewhat sarcastically (and rather matched the looks on Asa and Jo's faces too), pretty much ended that conversation before it had to get any more complicated. (Like, just how the magical gun that could kill anything ended up in the hands of the yellow-eyed demon.)
Eager to make sure that conversation stayed dead on arrival, Dean offered another solution. "An angel blade would work too."
"An angel blade?" Jo's eyebrows perfectly matched her mother's, both up near their hairlines.
"A divine sword made from an angel's grace," Sam offered with a weak smile, remembering how defensive Castiel had been about hers. All he'd done was ask to look at it one time. That hadn't gone all that well for him, while Dean just sat on the sidelines grinning his head off in what looked like long-awaited retribution. Sam had a feeling last time around it had been Dean getting lectured for even thinking himself worthy to touch an angel's blade. Looking back on it now, and knowing Cas better, Sam could almost see why his brother found the whole thing so hilarious. "It's their go-to weapon. It can kill almost anything."
"Well, great!" Bucky's voice was too loud and half the table winced with it. In part because it wasn't obvious whether he was serious or still the outlier at the table. The ring of sarcasm just underneath the words didn't bode well. If it was the latter, and it certainly seemed more likely to be, the rest of the room didn't really want to see how Dean responded (or Bobby, for that matter, who had made it clear he had the kid's back). "Why don't you get your angel buddy to fork over one of those and we're all set?"
"Each angel only has one, far as I know," Dean answered through, sure enough, clenched teeth and a tight expression. Otherwise Cas would have been handing them out to the boys like candy last go around No, even just the memory of Cas's face when Dean had taken Uriel's blade from the center of his burnt out wing prints was enough to make Dean's jaw ache with tension. "I'm not taking the only defense Cas has away from her. She's got her own enemies to worry about."
He conveniently didn't mention that they had a second angel blade, tucked away in his duffle bag upstairs, stolen from the corpse of an angel killed by the very same weapon. Bucky Sims of all people did not need to know there was a method for killing angels.
(Dean actually doubted Bucky was any real sort of threat. He wasn't coming across as the type of hunter who learned about a new Supernatural badass and thought, 'I gotta go kill that.' At the moment, it sure sounded more like he didn't even believe angels were real. So Dean wasn't all that worried about what he might do with the knowledge of how to kill one. Well, other than run his mouth to some hunter who might be a bit more willing to believe (and a lot more inclined to kill). Which is why, regardless of Bucky Sim's threat level (which was pathetically low in Dean's book and sinking with every word the guy spoke), Dean would not be mentioning Uriel's blade.)
"Buck," Asa cut in, not quite sharply but definitely with an edge of warning. "Come on, man. You don't gotta buy into this, but either stow it till we leave or take the jeep and I'll meet up with you tomorrow."
Asa tossed the man a set of keys and Bucky caught them with the sort of wide-eyed look of a follower who'd just been ordered off by the guy he swore to always follow. Which, given the stories Dean had heard about Asa and the similar lack of tales about Bucky, who always seemed to be with the guy and yet didn't feature prominently in the legends, was probably exactly what was going on here. Bucky looked almost hurt that his buddy wasn't backing him, but Dean couldn't call up much sympathy for the guy. He certainly wasn't reading the room well enough to know that wasn't going to be the case, here.
Bucky dropped his eyes to the keys in his hand, chancing a glance around the table but not meeting anyone's eyes long enough to gauge a reaction. With a squared jaw and a huff of air, he tossed the keys back to Asa, who caught them effortlessly, like he'd expected that to be his buddy's play.
"Yeah, alright, fine." Bucky slumped in his chair, not quite meeting Dean's gaze as he nodded his way. "Sorry."
"You don't gotta apologize," Dean answered after a beat, finally getting Bucky to actually look up and lock eyes. It wasn't often Dean was able to reign in the anger that seemed to fill every inch of his being, even on the good days. So he was trying, here, long as he could, to be civil. And he got it. He really did. He got where Bucky was coming from, so he said as much. "This shit's insane, man. Trust me, I wish I was lying. I really do."
After a prolonged moment in which Bucky Sims stared Dean Winchester dead in the eye, the older man dropped his head with a nod. He settled back in his seat, intent to stay quiet for the time being rather than make enemies of the relatively dangerous collection of people sitting around Bobby Singer's kitchen table.
Asa caught Dean's eye over the top of Jo's head and nodded to the man. Which, sure, sent Dean's inner fanboy flipping and flailing his shit, but the actual adult residing in there, too, nodded back solemnly. He understood Asa's appreciation for not kicking his buddy out just because he was acting like an ass at the moment. Dean certainly had his own such faults. He knew what it was like for Sam to stick by him anyway, regardless of how much of an ass he'd made of himself.
Ellen cleared her throat, more than happy to be the wrangler of conversational direction, here. (Men.) "So, if we can't get a blade off this angel of yours-"
"She's not mine-" Dean grumbled, while no one listened.
"-Is she willing to join us in the fight?"
Dean almost laughed at the question, which was ridiculous to anyone who knew Cas. But these people didn't. And he shouldn't take for granted that they were willing to believe him – believe in angels and even believe in the possibility of this one angel working with them – so he hunkered down that urge to joke and nodded, solemn as possible. "Yeah. She's down."
Ellen waited a beat, watching the oldest Winchester boy, before her daughter beat her to the next obvious question.
"So…I take it we're waiting for something?" Jo glanced around for confirmation. If they had an angel and an angel blade, and all it took to stop the apocalypse was killing this one demon…there had to be a reason they were sitting around Bobby Singer's table chatting after a partially eaten meal of ribs and beer.
"Yeah," Sam answered with a weak smile. "Lilith's not on Earth right now."
Bucky snorted, calling the room's attention to himself once more, and this time he actually looked contrite about it. He raised a halfway apologetic hand. "Sorry, it…uh, it sounded…like an alien thing."
He trailed off at the end, realizing how stupid that sounded out loud, and shook his head, muttering a second apology.
Jo actually chuckled though, seeing what Bucky was on about. Sam shared a quirked grin with her while Bobby rolled his eyes. For once, though, Bucky hadn't been disrespecting his guests, so there wasn't much heat in the action.
Dean actually laughed. He grinned conspiratorially at Sam, raising his hands about a foot apart and said, with half-lidded eyes, "Aliens."
Sam chuckled back, but it was with a look of confusion, shaking his head back and forth with the Mother of all Furled Brows. "Dude, what?"
The man from the future dropped his hands. "Damnit, you're telling me the Alien meme's not a thing yet?"
Jo snickered as well, though it was clear she thought Dean might be losing his mind by the way her forehead furled right along with Sam's and she stared at him like she was definitely so much better (debatable, but not without merit, Dean thought). "What's a 'meem?'"
Dean's face went slack. "No. No, you're messing with me right?" He glanced around the table, but a couple of slow headshakes and more than one look of confusion sealed the deal. The horrifying deal. He slumped back against the counter, shell-shocked. "Memes aren't a thing yet?"
When the looks just continued, Dean threw his arms out. "How did I travel back to the friggin' stone age!"
Jo sniggered next to him and she, at least, got a conspiratorial grin out of him, annoyed as he was (because seriously. How the hell was ten years such a friggin' long time?!)
"Oh, cry me a river," Bobby groused with absolutely no sympathy, eying the kid with the kind of stink eye that reminded everyone they had better things to be talking about. "If yer done whining, can we get back to Lilith and the apocalypse?"
Ducking his head with an appropriate level of contrition, Dean cleared his throat. Even with his head down, though, he managed to catch Jo's eye again. She was staring sidelong at him and once she had his attention, she mouthed, 'I want to know what a 'meem' is.' Dean had to bite back the chuckle, but grinned her way anyway. Like kids playing under the table while the adults ordered another round of coffee and talked about boring, adult things.
Sam sent Dean a look, a kid-brother-who-sees-what's-going-on-here look, and then Dean truly did look contrite, despite the reddening of his cheeks. He and Jo weren't like that. Couldn't be like that. Even if sometimes (pretty much any time he was actually around her), a part of Dean thought otherwise.
"So, Lilith's in Hell." There was something in the way Ellen said it that had Dean looking up, and he had to fight off a second round of reddening (and he did, because he was a boss) at the very blatant look on the older Harvelle woman's face. Like she knew exactly what those kids under the table were doing while the adults sipped their coffee.
Dean cleared his throat, suddenly quite happy to move the conversation along. "Yeah. She, uh, she comes topside through a hellgate that's supposed to open later this year. In May."
Not that they could count on dates. Not only because Dean couldn't always remember the exact one, but more so because Time seemed to change shit up on them all the time, despite 'wanting to stay the same' like everyone kept friggin' telling him. His dad had died almost two months early, so no, Dean didn't really put much faith in dates anymore.
"Well, if you know when and where a hellgate's going to open," Asa reasoned, straightening up against the counter as it occurred to him just how incredibly handy having someone from the future might be, "we gotta make sure it stays closed."
Dean and Bobby exchanged a less than happy look. It was Dean who cleared his throat, though, and glanced to his left, meeting Asa's expectant look head on. "It's not that simple."
"I'm starting to get that's a theme, here," Ellen muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear but not with enough to heat or intent to derail the conversation. Bobby sent her a look he got right back in return.
"It oughta be," Asa countered, tone firm for the first time since this whole confab started. He stared at Dean, broad shoulders only getting broader. Jesus, but the guy really was huge. "Dean, that's hundreds of demons we're talking about-"
"Trust me, I know," the man from the future countered right back. He'd been the one to deal with it the first time. The one to bear the guilt of a hunter dead at the hands of seven of those demons, and his wife hell bent on getting herself killed avenging him.
For half a year after that hellgate opened, right up until his own impending death became his total focus, he'd asked any hunter they bumped into for news on Tamara. On the surface, Dean was doing it to check in on her, but deep down he knew what it was really about. He expected her to meet the short end of some monster's claws. Not out of lack of skill or stupidity, but because he'd seen the look in her eye after Isaac was killed. He'd been her rock; hunting with him was what had kept her going after the death of their daughter. Without him… Well. It was only a matter of time.
(It wasn't until years later he found out what happened to her, but he hadn't been wrong.)
"-we can't just stand back and let it happen." Asa's words weren't forceful. He didn't seem the type to yell. But he sure as hell had a commanding voice, confident and solid like stone.
"That's not what we're talking about doing!" Sam came to his brother's defense, his own defensive nature and indignation on Dean's behalf making his voice not unlike Asa's in immovability. The only difference was that his came with rising anger.
(He might not remember being blamed for letting that hellgate open, for being responsible for hundreds of demons loosed on the world, but Dean had told him enough of future events for him to imagine plenty of self-blame.)
Dean waved him off, though. He wasn't a damsel in need of defending, much as he appreciated Sam having his back. Before he could get into the complications of even attempting to change the timeline and all that came with it (even the smallest of shit, and keeping a hellgate from opening was far from small), Jo spoke up from between him and Asa.
"Look, I'm not trying to play sides between you two, but I'm with Asa on this one. Letting a hellgate open sounds, you know," she shrugged her shoulders, hands still in her pockets as she met Dean's eyes, "bad?"
The older Winchester sighed and wished, not for the first time, definitely not for the last, that he wasn't having this conversation. "I'm not saying we let it open."
"Then what are you saying, Dean?" Ellen's tone was even, her eyes hard as ever but not unkind.
Dean wanted to sigh again. Instead, he scrubbed one hand over his face, shifted his weight against the counter and went right back to crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't care if it was defensive, it was familiar and (he'd never admit it out loud) comforting.
"I…I don't know," he answered honestly, trying not to let it sound like he didn't have a clue what he was doing, even if that's exactly what was happening here. What had been happening for a whole friggin' year now. At least the group around him didn't react much to it. Didn't exchange worried looks full of doubt and accusation. They kept their eyes on him, waiting and patient, and he kind of loved them all for it. At least as much as he hated them for getting together in Bobby Singer's kitchen to play Twenty Questions with the impending apocalypse.
"Look, this time shit is complicated. There's…a bunch of crap that Cas says is gonna happen whether we try to stop it or not. And the more we try to stop..." Dean shook his head. "This isn't just about letting Lilith topside so we can gank her. For starters, Cas is pretty sure Hell will just open a different gate if we keep this one closed. But more than that-"
"If we keep acting on stuff we ain't supposed to know," Bobby took over, for which Dean wanted to friggin' kiss him, "the more demons are gonna start asking questions. Like how and why. And I don't know about you-" he eyed each of them in turn, "-but I don't really want Hell starting to think creatively. It'll cost us the one advantage we have in all this mess."
The silence that settled after that declaration was pretty solidifying. It sank over the others, the factor they hadn't been considering. The more Hell realized something was up, the more their plans were likely to change.
'Welcome to our world,' Dean thought with no small amount of bitterness.
"Why can't we just make something up?" The table turned, almost as one, to Bucky sitting at the head. He almost shrank back at the sudden attention, realizing as much as everyone else that he was suddenly participating like he was in on this conversation. Like he believed what they were talking about. On board the Crazy Train.
No one called him out on it, but he seemed to come to it all on his own. Bucky went back to his sullen silence after that, a little grumpy, a little surprised, and busy asking himself a bunch of questions he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to bother answering.
"It might work once," Sam offered, not unkindly given Bucky might just be coming around (though he clearly needed more time than the rest of them). "But we'll only get away with vague lies a couple of times before Hell starts poking around more seriously."
Bucky just nodded, though it was obvious from his grumpy expression that he wasn't really listening. The rest of the group turned back the conversation at hand, but Asa nudged the leg of his buddy's chair again, this time with a small smile. Bucky tried returning it, but it was weak. Asa had all the faith in the world that it would get stronger, given time.
"Way we figure it, we need to keep Hell in the dark as much as possible about this," Dean started up again, keeping his voice calm and even now that some of the tension in the room had shifted internally. "The longer we can keep 'em, the longer we have the advantage of knowing what comes next." Well, at least somewhat, but they didn't need the details of how fucking hard that actually was. "Cas says we stick to the timeline as much as possible. So that's what we're gonna do. Whatever we would do normally if we didn't know what was coming."
"No hunter would ever just let a hellgate open," Ellen offered up, gently, before anyone else could do it. Asa had probably well been on his way, but coming from Ellen it wasn't defensive or accusatory. It just was. The woman had power that way Dean would never understand (or ever be able to emulate).
"No," Dean agreed. "So we're gonna try to keep this one from opening too."
And just hope Cas was right and they didn't somehow screw their only chance to get Lilith before it was too late. Of course, Dean supposed it was far more likely Hell would get their way and they, the lowly humans, would always be scrambling to catch up, not the other way around. Figured that the one time he'd wish for the former, he had to hope they got stuck with the latter.
"So we have till May?" Ellen leaned back in her chair at the natural pause, the shift and slowing, of a ridiculously tense conversation.
Dean shrugged, even as Bobby reached across Ellen to the paper tray he kept beneath his array of landline phones. He slipped his hand under the stack of papers on the top tray, pulling a legal pad out from beneath it all. Dean recognized it immediately, its yellow pages, dog eared and worn, covered in Bobby's scrawl. Page after page of it, not that they could tell as Bobby set it down in front of him. Those were the notes he'd taken when Dean laid it all out for him, back when their Dad had narrowly escaped a Baku and Meg had taken a bullet from the Colt.
The man from the future swallowed roughly. There was a lot in there – including the death of the Harvelles at the hand of that same demon bitch and her squad of hellhounds – that he didn't want everyone in this room knowing so freely.
"Uh, we, um," Dean shook his head, looking away from that legal pad. Unfortunately, on his way to meeting Ellen's gaze, he caught Bobby's, which was both apologetic, unapologetic (they needed to know, at least some of it) and, probably the worst, sympathetic. Dean swallowed past the frog suddenly lodged in his throat and focused on Ellen's question. "We should have till May, but don't count on it."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jo jumped on the question. "Why would the date change if we don't change anything?"
"Because we have been changing things." Sam offered a half smile – weak but trying – when everyone turned towards him. He shrugged self-consciously at the attention, but his brother shouldn't be the only one handling with this, after all.
"What things?"
Dean rubbed at his chest automatically, and Jo eyed the movement like a hawk. A frowning hawk. The man from the future sighed, dropping his hand.
"Well, for one thing," he began, trepidation thick like mud in his voice. God, he didn't want to be talking about this. "We brought Cas in early. So…Hell knows there's an angel involved now."
"Fortunately, they think it's only Cas," Sam jumped in. "From what the demons have done to try and catch her, they seem to think she's working alone. That she's rogue from Heaven."
"She is rogue," Dean muttered, voice bitter with an undercurrent of worry and regret. Beside him, Jo's eyes narrowed, but Dean didn't notice it.
"What would happen if they thought she wasn't?" Ellen asked, catching on to the thread of concern in the room buried beneath the tension and dread. It was shared between the four men who knew the whole story, which was ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Ellen's head.
"Bad shit," Bobby answered with a sardonic eyebrow. "If Hell thinks Heaven's on to them, they'll only try harder. And work faster. They've already sped up their plans, far as we can tell."
"How?" When Bobby's gaze shifted to Asa, he gestured to the notes in front of him. "How can you tell they've moved up their plans?"
"Uh…" Sam exchanged a weak look with his brother when their surrogate father turned that question directly their way. Sam cleared his throat. "Our dad died two months early in, uh, in this timeline."
Silence settled thick and heavy, both out of mourning and respect. Ellen was the first to break it. She always was.
"John's death had to do with the apocalypse?" she asked softly, eyes wide and hand on top of Bobby's forearm. The older hunter didn't pull away or reciprocate, which was as good as hand-holding in Singer terms.
Sam dropped his gaze, unsure how to proceed without breaking the eggshells that topic was less than skirting.
'Ah, hell,' Dean thought.
"He sold his soul and the Colt to Azazel. To save me." Dean tried to get it out neutrally, like ripping off a Band-Aid, but all that accomplished was it coming out sharp. Harsh. Ellen's eyes widened. Beside him, Jo physically jolted.
"Jesus," Ellen whispered, taking that hand off Bobby's arm to hover over her mouth.
"There was a car crash," Sam whispered, hands in his lap, eyes locked on the table but really eight hundred miles and seven months ago in a hospital in Flint, Michigan. "Dean was, um…it wasn't good."
"Azazel set the whole thing up. Crash included." Dean's words were spat through clenched teeth, hands fisted against his torso, tight to his chest. He could still feel that gutting agony deep inside, that flare of white and explosion of pain as Cas's grace had reacted to a demon soul-searching them both. Dean should have been a goner. Sometimes he still thought his dad should have let him go. "He knew dad would sell his soul."
"Why?" All the eyes turned once more to Bucky, who looked again like he wanted to duck away from the attention. But he didn't. He squared his shoulders, gesturing with one hand. "I'm not trying to start anything. But…one soul in hell? This Azazel sounds like big fish. John was a hell of a hunter, but what's one more guy in Hell to something as big as the apocalypse?"
Bucky took the way Dean squared his jaw, the way he worked that muscle till he might hurt himself, as a sign that he'd overstepped. Which, given that he certainly hadn't made the best first impression with these guys (and he was still questioning whether they were all insane), the Winchester probably had grounds. Bucky raised his hands, not wanting a fight. Especially not one with odds seven to one.
"I didn't mean anything by it. I'll uh, shut up."
"You're not wrong." The words were out of Dean Winchesters mouth before Bucky even finished apologizing, leaving the older man to stare at him, eyes wide and eyebrows up in surprise. Dean was still clenching his jaw, but there hadn't been any heat in his words, just bitter frustration Bucky got a feeling wasn't because of him.
"Dean…?" Sam's voice was soft. Quiet. Questioning just enough to bring his brother back from whatever edge he was teetering on. "We don't have to."
The man from the future shrugged one shoulder so jerkily it nearly dislodged him from the counter. He was agitated, that much was clear. "They're gonna find out eventually, Sammy."
"Find out what, boys?" Ellen kept her tone even as the rest of them. She could sense the precipice they weren't far from. And while she wanted to know what was on the other side, she also wasn't inclined to go jumping off cliffs without some form of parachute to keep her up. When no one answered right away, Sam staring at Dean, Dean glaring at the floor, and Bobby looking between 'em both, she cleared her throat using the 'mom' setting. Even Dean glanced up, though she could tell it was a weighted, reluctant look. "At best all you got – all any of us got – is us. Together. Bad shit's coming and it's coming fast. Better to tell us now than after it's too late to help, boys. So no secrets or half-truths, here."
"Ellen," Bobby warned, worried what her pushing too hard on the boys might do. Dean was all the more likely to shut down for it. Even if she meant well, patience had never been Ellen's strong suit.
"It's easy for you to say, Ellen," Dean said in the beat just after Bobby. "You're not the one holding all the secrets."
"We're not gonna judge you, Dean." The older Winchester turned to the woman at his side, Jo's eyes were big and honest while somehow still looking pissed off. Just like her mother, Dean thought. She tipped her head cockily, a smirk at the corner of her lips, but those eyes remained sincere. "I think the End Times coming kind of suspends the petty stuff, don't you think?"
Dean huffed, shaking his head. He didn't dare look at anyone else as he said it, just keeping his eyes on Jo as he answered her, "How about if Sam and I are the whole reason it goes down in the first place?"
Sam dropped his eyes to the table, shoulders taught.
Jo scoffed, straight up laughing in his face with the kind of innocence of someone who thought they were playing along. "Dean, come on. You're not gonna end the world. Even your ego's not that big."
When he didn't laugh with her, she glanced around the room, face slackening. But everyone was watching them, so she turned back to Dean, a little paler and a lot more shaken as she regarded him warily. It hurt to see, but he also knew Jo was anything but scared of him. Wouldn't happen in a million years, so he knew now what this look was. Disbelief, pure and simple, in the Harvelle style of suspicion and skepticism over shock and raw emotion.
"You're not serious…are you?"
Dean stared at her, into her beautiful face, full of life and laughter (even as it was slowly disappearing and in his mind's eye he watched the color drain from her face as well, leaving it ashen grey, her eyes nearly lifeless-) for as long as he could. Then he turned to the rest of the room. "The first seal on the devil's cage breaks when a Righteous Man spills blood in Hell."
Ellen sucked in a small breath, the only audible reaction in a room that could have heard a pin drop. "John was…?"
"No. Dad never broke." Dean shook his head. It wasn't just that, honestly. Dean doubted that deal his dad made had ever been entirely selfless. He loved his father, but if him sacrificing his life for his son's had been entirely selfless, John Winchester never would have asked Dean to do what he'd asked him to do next. Something even ten years later, Dean hadn't forgiven. Couldn't forgive.
The real truth of it was everyone broke. He'd learned that down in the Pit. They just broke differently. Some took the deal. Took up the knife and tore into others to save being torn into themselves. Those were the souls that turned. That twisted and knotted and burned until there was nothing left of what they'd been, not even their name. That kind of breaking left only black and pain and a need to cause it in others. Those were the souls that became demons.
But there were others. Others who never picked up the knife. Who retreated into themselves so they never could. Those people, those souls lost themselves just as surely as their counterparts. No one survived Hell. But those that didn't take up the knife eventually withered into nothingness down in its depths. They'd had a name for where those souls went, but Dean didn't remember it. Hadn't cared. He'd been more interested in the ones that turned, the ones that he could make bleed so that he didn't have to, take up the knife so he could put his down, however temporarily, until the next soul was escorted in.
Everyone breaks. Just some break differently. The only ones who make it out – and not intact, never intact – were the lucky ones who managed to escape Hell. And they were few and far between.
"Dad never took up the knife, never used it on another down there." The man from the future closed his eyes, arms crossed over the remnants of the angel who'd gotten him out after he'd broken, but before he'd lost himself completely. "But I did."
Forget a pin drop. That night in Bobby Singer's kitchen, you could hear the blood pulsing in everyone's veins. Or, more appropriately, the skip that everyone's heart took.
"Dean…" Ellen's voice was a whisper. Suddenly she understood where that feeling had come from, the one that told her this man was more than just ten years older than he should be. Now she knew why, and she wished she didn't. Wished it wasn't true.
Across the kitchen, her daughter put a hand on Dean's arm, but withdrew it again when the hunter flinched beneath her touch. He opened his eyes to give Jo a half smile, stretched across his face with force, but she understood. She nodded, backing off and tucking her hands back in her pockets.
"You've…been to Hell?" Asa asked over her shoulder, the shock and horror clear on his face. It wasn't the disgust Dean had quite been expecting. He supposed most hunters had at least thought about it – thought about selling their soul for that loved one that had gotten them into the life – but most weren't dumb or desperate enough to actually do it. That was the difference. They knew that the ones that sold their souls sealed their own fate. Dean had known that and done it anyway. Learned the hard way.
"They kill Sammy." Dean hated the way his voice caught. He knew what was coming and still he couldn't even begin to prepare for it. "May first, 2007. At least, that was the date where I came from. There's a battle between all the psychics. Azazel set it up so only one gets to walk away. And that…that wasn't Sam."
"Dean-" Sam started to climb out of his seat, but Dean shook his head adamantly. So the giant of a man settled back in the kitchen chair while his brother's green gaze flickered over to Andy, sitting in the corner, a silent compliment to this party. The kid wasn't looking up, staring at his lap. Dean wouldn't have been able to hold his gaze, either. He'd barely known the kid last time, his death just another blip on the radar, but that didn't count for nothing. And this time…
This time Dean would make sure Andy stayed out of it. He'd already faced down his psychic battle and crawled out of it, barely alive and permanently maimed. He'd done enough. Been through enough. Dean wasn't letting anything more happen to him.
"Or anyone else," he added softly, causing Andy to look over at him. And he could tell by that sad, pathetically understanding, sympathetic face – a face that didn't seem capable of hating anyone, and that just wasn't fair – that Andy understood. He'd known for a while now that he was supposed to have died at Cold Oak. That the fact he hadn't was a chronological abomination. Borrowed time, nothing more.
Well, not if Dean got any say in that.
The hunter straightened up, shoulders squaring off with a new burst of determination. It was the same determination he'd always had, reignited by the surrogate little brother who didn't deserve the fate coming to him any more than Dean's actual brother.
"I got a year," he continued abruptly, not bothering with the details. Every hunter there would immediately understand what he was talking about. "Hellhounds dragged me down in 2008." His throat worked double time, swallowing past lumps that felt more like shards of glass. But he didn't dare stop talking, or he'd hear his friends – his family – reacting to events he still pretended most days hadn't happened to him. "I broke the first seal four months later. Climbed off the rack and took up the knife in exchange for- for-"
This time when Jo settled her arm on his forearm, Dean flinched but she didn't remove her hand. He spared her a glance he couldn't hold longer than half a second, water very clearly filling his eyes. He fought it back valiantly, refusing to cry in front of a bunch of hunters. In front of his family.
"Cas dragged me out," he managed through a throat that felt like death itself. Swollen shut and hot. He could practically feel that scar on his arm – the one that wasn't there – burning in response. He probably would have reached up to grab it if Jo didn't have a hand on his lower arm. Dean shared a bitter, broken smile with the room. "Imagine that. An angel pulling my ass out of hell after I started the apocalypse."
"Okay," Ellen started with the very distinct mom tone that called for a change in direction. It was obvious Dean wanted no part in the possible pity party headed his way. She couldn't blame him, even if her heart hurt for the man who so clearly expected harsh judgement from those around him more than their sympathy. "So…don't sell your soul this time."
Dean snorted, the movement shaking his shoulders enough that Jo pulled away, giving her mom a look.
"Gee, why didn't we think of that?" Bobby interrupted from beside the older Harvelle woman, backing his boys. Ellen turned a narrowed glare on him, but there wasn't much heat. The two had always exchanged glares with the same ferocity of an old married couple bickering.
"You haven't…done it already, have you?" Jo asked hesitantly, getting very much the big brother glare right away in return. She'd take it over the scary blankness that had been all over Dean's face for the last three minutes. Like a wall had closed between him and the rest of the room. A shield, no doubt, but she didn't like it any more for its purpose.
"Okay, first off, no." Dean's adamancy – clearly affronted by her assumption – was almost adorable. Jo smiled at him, pleased when his already narrowed eyes got even narrower. "Second, not doing it this time around is the plan."
Dean speared those last words in Ellen's direction. The woman raised her hands in surrender.
There was a beat of silence, a very obvious one, which Asa eventually pointed out. "But?"
"But…" Dean sighed, and this time he did reach up and rub at his bicep. Like a phantom itch he couldn't completely scratch. "Cas doesn't think it'll be that easy."
"Hell's shifty," Bobby shrugged casually when the group's attention turned his way. "We all know that. They'll find another way around it. Another way to make it happen."
"If it's not Sam, it'll be someone else. A dozen someone else's till they get what they want," Dean muttered, dropping his hand from his arm to rub at his chest instead. Jo followed the movement, once more like a hawk. Once more, Dean didn't notice, a little lost in the conversation. "I, uh…there's only so much I'll be able to take before..."
"We get it," Jo suddenly said. It was a completely supportive, not questions asked kind of tone and she stared at him with those earnest eyes. Eyes he was much more used to seeing narrowed and teasing. "Everyone has a breaking point."
The words, a mirror of his own thoughts, were almost like a slap to the face, but Dean managed not to flinch. He was pretty sure he paled but… Well, she wasn't wrong. In fact, it was the most damn supportive thing anyone could have said to him. Not expecting him to face the world alone after everything had been taken from him. After he'd somehow found it in him to still say no. He knew that wasn't a possibility, wasn't even an option. And there was Jo, holding him up and saying she knew it too and, what's more, didn't blame him for it.
But the words still hurt. Because it was a reminder that he would break, and then he'd break again, thirty years and levels of fire and pain and guilt later. If he even made it thirty, this time.
Something flickered in his chest, like a fluttering tap against the back of his sternum, and Dean sucked in a breath. He pressed a hand to his chest, blinking rapidly and not breathing in hopes of feeling it again. He didn't, his chest had gone silent, but Dean wanted to cry (because of this stupid, emotional and difficult conversation he was being forced to have, and no other reason, obviously).
That…that had been Cas. His Cas. His trenchcoat wearing, nerd angel, 'I gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition' Cas. Dean dropped his arm from his chest, crossing his arms as casually as he could manage (which was not that casually at all) and closed his eyes. Cas was in there, reminding him of that. That he'd be there for him, every version of him. Dean's hand, fisted where it was tucked into his other arm, was shaking.
Cas would come for him. He hadn't- he'd never- well, Dean hadn't gotten that far. But since they were starting to talk about him selling his soul like it would happen ('It's not an inevitably Dean', Cas's voice was in his head, even if he had trouble taking solace in it), maybe he should. Because if he sold his soul (and that was still a big if in his book), Cas was coming for him. In all her Miss Hawaii and Warrior of God glory. This Cas – the Cas of whatever year it actually was – would go after him. That…he had no doubt about that.
Maybe he could make forty years knowing she was coming for him, knowing it would end. Maybe. Dean swallowed roughly.
"Plan A is still not to sell my soul," he clarified, just to say it out loud. To make that promise to himself, once more, if to no one else. "But Plan B or – er, the overarching plan – is to kill Lilith so it won't matter whether I break the first seal or not. No final seal, no apocalypse."
"Alright then." Ellen nodded, and that was, somehow, miraculously, unexplainable, that. No one dared tell her otherwise. "We work with that. How are we gonna know if this whole thing goes down early?"
She directed her question at Bobby and his legal pad of notes, and something vaguely like relief and a lot like needing to throw up flooded Dean out of nowhere. The man from the future swallowed the feeling down, but it never made it back down past his ribs. The rest of the room turned to the conversation of stopping this Hellgate without breaking time, and Dean was bracing against the kitchen counter like he couldn't breathe. Probably because he couldn't breathe.
"I'm uh, gonna go, and uh…do…something…bathroom." Dean shook his head, blaming the utter lack of oxygen getting to his brain for that rambling, muttering mess. Luckily, most of the crew didn't pay him much attention. Dean wanted to think it was because he was a smooth operator just going to do something…in the bathroom (uh-huh, right).… The rest of him knew that he probably looked like crap warmed over and they were giving him some space to pull it together.
Sam nodded at him as he slipped out of the room, those puppy dog eyes knowing full well what was going on. He didn't look at anyone else, but no one tried to stop him so Dean slipped out of the kitchen under the guise of, uh, bathroom things, and bolted for the stairs the moment he was out of view.
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A/Ns: Oh nose, sounds like Dean's in for another panic attack. I do love tormenting that poor boy….
I had to cut it off here because, no kidding, this chapter grew to be the length of three (now it's just the length of two! Yipee!) Also, cutting it here leaves much lighter stuff for next chapter, rather than all this heavy doom and gloom (I always get self-conscious and second-guess-y with the chatter chapters, man)
The Colt: I read an interesting fanfic once upon a time that suggested the Colt didn't kill Lucifer because he was an angel and the gun had been designed to kill creatures of darkness or evil origin. It was a cool theory, since we've never been given a canon reason for why the gun can't kill five things, or what those fives things are.
More Trivia Knowledge: For your Jeopardy collection, the word 'meme' was coined in the 1970s, but the internet meme didn't really come into play until the 1990s. It wasn't until Youtube released in 2005 that memes became more widely known. The earliest news article I could find that didn't have to explain what a meme was, was from 2008, so I think I'm safe to say some hunters back in (late) 2006 probably hadn't caught on to an early internet craze yet :) Isn't research fun?!
Bucky Sims: Okay, this boy gave me some trouble all chapter long. I liked him well enough in the episode we got, at least until the end. I sort of felt a little bad for him, actually; he got judged pretty harshly by the others. Now, I get it – dude pulled a dick move and should be held accountable. But I didn't feel like he was evil or like he deserved having every hunter turned against him and shunned. I don't know, it's possible I'm in the minority on this (I mean…yeah, going through with stringing your friend up with a noose gives you a *lot* of time to second guess your life choices and Bucky didn't….), but I felt the reactions against him were a little extreme for the crime. Asa's death was accidental, the crime was that he hid it and lied. Anyway. Long story short (too late), this chapter was hard to write in that regard. I kept switching back and forth between BUCKY = EVIL TERRIBLE DIPSHIT because the show (kinda) went that way with him (debatable), but my gut instinct was to make him a halfway decent guy (because the show also kind of went that way with him?). You know, maybe a bit of a coward and a follower, not too relatable, but not a bad dude, maybe even redeemable. Anyway, I'm a *tad* all over the place with him at the moment, but I think I've got character growth set for Bucky Sims and we'll see if we can't redeem him over the next however many years till the apocalypse (which, of course, isn't coming, cuz we're *totally* gonna stop that. *cough*)
Lemme know what you all think of my take on him. We're still in the early stages, so fixes can still be made!
On the Topic of Race in Writing: Time to get real for a second, because this topic is important even if it is incredibly uncomfortable and I have my own work to do as a white woman who claims to be an ally. I currently feel pretty comfortable in my ability to write characters of color and I like to have a diverse crew whenever it's my choice to make it that way. But if I am ever off, or could improve how I write characters that are not white-cis-woman (aka: what's default relatable to me), please do not be afraid to speak up. To be perfectly honest, I struggle every damn time I write a description of a character as black or dark-skinned. I can never figure out what to say without worrying it's not cool to say it that way (and then I try and think how I'd describe a white person in reverse and get completely flail-worthy-flustered when I realize *WE DON'T FUCKING DESCRIBE WHITE PEOPLE WE JUST ASSUME THEY'RE WHITE AND HOW MESSED UP IS THAT?!*) *ahem* Anyway, if there are ways I can be improving how I write characters outside of my admittedly small, single-white-woman perspective, please let me know. I am genuinely interested in improving myself in and outside of writing (even if it's hard and sucks and I wanna whine about it a lot).
Up Next: Dean's little panic attack is gonna take him right to Cas's room (cuz…honestly, who here thought any differently once he went for the stairs?) but he's not alone. Jo's got a couple of questions, and she's way too smart for her own good. Andy's finally joining the conversation (much to several people's headache-induced surprise, this little Confab gets wrapped up with some motherly threats of being kept in the loop, and the boys get back out on the road, looking for their next hunt or any sign of Ava Wilson.
Reviews: I would really love to hear from you guys. Thoughts, opinions, predictions, or the standard-but-always-more-than-acceptable, "Like Button Pushed!" would be really appreciated in these times of isolation and discord (even if both are, unfortunately, quite necessary)