And We Are Ashes: Chapter 3, Part 3
Oct. 31st, 2007 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thecatevariThis is the last bit that I wrote for last year's NaNo. I never posted it because there were a couple gaps in the end part, with Dean, but I've since filled them in. So, in the interest of cleaning my slate before NaNo starts. I really love the part with Dean. *smiles* Tomorrow, I'll start chapter 4.
"What?" Sam asks, when they are miles outside of Lawrence and its way too late and far too unwise for them to be on the road in their condition. "What didn't you tell Dad?"
And the thing is, Mary's just too fucking tired to deal with this, too stripped raw and pulped on the inside. Twenty-two years and more walls and armor than she'd even thought possible and still just…just the sight of John after all these years can just wreck her. Tear her down, break her into tiny little pieces and it's too soon, it's too soon, she's not ready, she doesn't have her defenses up yet.
"I must have been a saint in a former life," John said, tracing over her lips and chin with one callused thumb while she just leaned into the touch, the warmth of it like a spot on her skin.
"Oh?" She barely recognizes her own voice, deep and lazy, unguarded in its pleasure. "Why's that?"
"Because I know I haven't done anything near good enough in this one to deserve you," John answered with his glowing, child-like smile.
Mary jerks the car over onto the shoulder, suddenly blind with tears.
"Mom?" Sam asks, sounding alarmed.
"Shut up," she answers, doubled over the steering wheel, her whole body twisting and cramping with sobs. "Shut up, shut up!"
"Okay," Sam says. The seat sighs and squishes as he settles back deeper into it.
It's not that she hasn't shed any tears for John. She knows herself to be both hard and cold-hearted, but John—and her children—have always found and sat in the soft center of her, where the blood runs thickest and most dangerously. So what tears she has cried have been few and grudgingly wrung out of her, her fingers pressed over her mouth to stifle the hurt, animal noises she loathes. They were cried into bathroom towels and cheap motel pillowcases after the boys were asleep. Because they'd needed her to be strong. To keep them alive, she'd needed to be strong.
She doesn't feel strong anymore. She feels old and stupid and scared, twenty-two years of watching and worrying, scheming and hiding finally buckling up and boiling over to wring this overwrought reaction out of her and as much as she hates it, she can't make it stop.
Finally, after several minutes of sitting awkwardly in the passenger's seat, Sam scoots hesitantly across the seat and puts his hand on her shoulder. She should pull away, she knows this. She should pull herself together. But she doesn't and when she doesn't, Sam reaches with the other hand and tugs her into him. She goes stiffly, resistant, but she goes, hiding her face in the soft flannel of his over shirt and shivering from head to toe as if she's frozen right through.
"Shhh," Sam says, his arms tightening around her. "It's okay. Mom, it's okay. He wasn't angry. Didn't you see? He wasn't an angry spirit, he wasn't the poltergeist. He was just…hanging on. He doesn't blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself."
"But it was my fault," Mary croaks. Her throat hurts fiercely both inside and out and she puts her fingers around her neck to ease some of the strain on her larynx.
"You didn't know what would happen," Sam says. One of his hand rubs up and down her spine exactly as she used to do with him or Dean after they'd had bad dreams. The irony pierces the ugliness around her heart and lets a little air into her lungs.
"I should have," she argues. "I should have known. I knew…" She hesitates, remembering all at once where she is and who she's talking to. Shut up, Mary, she thinks and it's Lillith's voice, rising up through her cold and practical and utterly ruthless. Shut up and get a grip on yourself.
Mary stiffens. Then, slowly, she pulls herself out of Sam's arms, withdrawing as far across the seat as she can and wiping her streaming eyes with the bunched up end of her sleeve. "I knew it was a possibility," she says, feeling like Lillith has hijacked her voice as well, spinning smooth, seamless, plausible lies like spider-silk. And I didn't tell him. I never told him."
Even though I wanted to.
"Sometimes I look at you, and I wonder…who is this magical creature that made her way into my life…"
"As I remember it was you who made your way into my life, almost running me down with your car," Mary observed, contemplating his fingers where they're twined through her own and wrapped around her thickening waist.
"Hush," John scolded. "I'm being romantical and you're fucking it up."
"Oh," she said, amused. "Sorry."
"As well you should be," he said and sniffed with theatrical hauteur. "Now. Where was I?"
"Magical creature," Mary prompted.
"Oh. Right." John cleared his throat. "Sometimes I wonder who is this magical creature who made her way into my life…" He put a silencing finger over her lips as she drew in breath to speak again and she giggled. "And…" He paused. Sighed. "Dammit, I lost my train of thought!"
Mary's giggles got more intense, doubling her up in his lap.
"Hey! Mind the goods!" he said, shifting her to a presumably less ball-crushing position, which coincidentally also turned her so he could see her face. "The point," he said, "is that sometimes I look at you and I'm just amazed. That this is my life. That we could be this happy. It makes me want to believe in magic, just to explain how this is even possible."
Mary looked away.
John put his thumb and forefinger on her chin and turned her face back towards him. "Hey," he said, "None of that, now. This is when we're happy, remember?
"I just feel like it might have been different," she says now, to John's son, a boy—a young man he never got the opportunity to meet. "If I'd told him about me. About us. About the things out there in the dark." She looks down at her wedding band, her thumb tracing over the gold as it usually does when she's particularly nervous or worried or tired.
"But you don’t know that," Sam points out, ever the logical one. It's almost enough to make her smile.
"No," she agrees, "I don't know that."
"We've come across lots of things you'd never heard of, never seen before." Sam slides back to the other side of the seat, though he remains turned half in her direction. "How long did it take you to even figure out what killed Dad?"
Oh, I knew all the time what—who—killed your dad, Mary thinks. I just didn’t know the weapon they used to do it, greedy power-mongering whores.
"You really think it matters?" she asks, looking askance. "You gonna tell me you don't feel responsible for what happened to Jess?"
She can't see it in the dark, but she knows that Sam blushes, the heat of it filling the car's interior. "That's different."
Mary's smile is Lillith's, lemon wedge thin and cruel. "No, Sam. It's exactly the same."
"I had the dreams," Sam argues, his tone going low and vicious. "I knew what was going to happen. I'd seen it." He covers his face and his voice becomes muffled. "So many times. Over and over, I saw it. And I did nothing."
"There wasn't anything you could have done, Sam."
"Well. Maybe you're right, okay? Maybe that isn't good enough." His voice roughens. "But that's why we're going to find Dean. Why we have to."
***
"This isn't right," Dean says roughly. "This isn't right."
Juliet grabs his arm, small fingers digging into his bicep. She looks so much like his mom but she's nothing like his mom. "Dean, you have to be patient," she says urgently.
"Patient?" Dean echoes, disbelieving. "Lady, I gotta be a lot of things, but patient? While that thing tortures some woman that's never done me or anyone else any harm, so far as I can tell? No." Another wavering cry of pain from the parlor and Dean twists out of Juliet's grip and walking through the beaded curtain.
"Stop it," he says to the thing masquerading as a man. He doesn't have a weapon, nothing to defend himself or the women tied in the chair. He doesn't even know what weapon would work against the inhuman thing in human's skin; nothing he's seen so far has worked. It terrifies him, this creature, this demon. Everything about this terrifies him. But he doesn't back down. His dad wouldn't have wanted him to back down.
"Stop it," he says again, stronger, his whole body stiff and braced for a blow—either physical or not. Doesn't really matter; they'll both hurt the same, leave the same marks on his skin. "Right now."
The demon turns, a smile sliding across its face like oil. "Or what?" it asks.
Or what indeed. "You need me," he says, pitching his voice low so that it stays even. "You want to find my mother, you want to find Sam, you need me."
"Really?" The demon moves, puts the woman—Missouri—between them and caresses her shoulders. "Because I think it's more like you need me."
He hears a step on the wood behind him; glancing over his shoulder, he sees Juliet in the doorway. Even after all this time, it usually takes him a second look to realize she's not his Mom. He turns back to the demon.
"Let me talk to her," he says finally. The demon scoffs. "Let me try," Dean says again, exasperated. "It can't hurt and she might talk to me."
The demon digs its borrowed fingers into Missouri's shoulders until she makes an indistinguishable noise, whether of indignation or pain, Dean can't tell. "Such a soft heart," the demon purrs. "And so pretty when you beg."
"I'm not begging," Dean says steadily.
"All right," the demon agrees abruptly. "I was getting bored anyway. And we can always hurt her more, if your little…humanitarian effort doesn't work, right?"
"Yeah, sure." Dean's stomach churns. "Whatever. Just go, okay?"
The demon comes over to him, stands too close. Its hand shoots up to grip his chin. "You're a good boy, Dean. You've got a lot of…" Its tongue steals over its lips, oddly reptilian. "…promise. It'd be a shame to see all that promise snuffed out because you can't keep a civil tongue in your mouth." The demon squeezes, painful pinching pressure that forces Dean's mouth to open. Dean tries to twist away out of pure reflex, but the demon's arm might as well be made of stone. "Don't mistake our arrangements as friendship, Dean. We're not friends."
It releases him all at once, so fast that Dean staggers back a step. "How could I forget?" Dean mutters, rubbing his jaw. It's going to bruise.
"See that you don't." The demon's pus yellow eyes flash a little brighter before it turns and pushes past Juliet, shoving her into the doorframe. Juliet doesn't make a sound. Her pale gaze touches Dean in some kind of wide-eyed warning before the goes too, leaving Dean alone with the bound psychic.
Juliet said that Missouri was a friend of his mother's from back when they lived in Lawrence. He doesn't really remember her, but his memories of Lawrence are full of holes and of the part right after his dad died, he can't really recollect anything at all. Not for months. Still, it's hard to imagine Mary and Missouri together, even though he knows she had to have had friends before…before. Dean wipes his damp palms on his jeans.
There's duct tape across Missouri's mouth. Carefully, Dean peels it aside. Underneath, her lip is split. He dabs it clumsily with the tail of his shirt until she jerks her head away, glaring at him with scornful eyes. "Dean Winchester," she says harshly and he doesn't wonder how she knows his name, "what on earth do you think you're doing?"
"You have blood," he explains. "On your lip."
She makes a disgusted noise in her throat, still full of piss and vinegar even after whatever the demon's done to her. "I know that! I mean what are you doing here, boy, following that thing around. It's evil." She shakes her head. "Don't you see how evil it is?"
"I know what it is," Dean says dully, looking down at his feet. He hates this. He doesn't even have the words for how much he hates this.
But it's got to be done.
Dean hunches a shoulder. He doesn't know how to answer her question. He hasn't been able to answer it sufficiently for himself. And as ever, his confusion just makes him surly. "You don't understand."
"I surely don't," Missouri answers in that same light, bitter tone. "What would your mama think, if she could see you now?"
The mention of his Mom brings the pulsing redness of his rage back to the front. "What do you know about my Mom?" he demands roughly.
"I know she'd smack you right upside the head if she saw you consorting with that….that thing in sheep's clothing," Missouri retorts hotly, head tilted back to look at him. "And I know she and Sam were here looking and worrying 'bout you."
"What?" Dean's legs feel unsteady for a moment, he takes an uneasy step back before he catches himself. "What…? Why would she do that? Why is Sam not in school? I told them not to look for me."
Again that thick, coughing noise from the back of her throat. "Boy, you must be stupider than you are pretty if you think your mama was going to sit on her hands on your say-so. Mary Winchester hasn't ever listened to a word anyone's got to say about nothing except her own." She pauses, gives him a hard look that's less angry than intense. "You need to get out of here, Dean. Get out of this, whatever it is. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and you and I both know…" He feels almost hypnotized by her eyes. "Some mistakes can't be rectified, once they're made."
Dean shakes his head again. "You don't understand," he repeats, glancing back at the curtained doorway and wondering if Juliet or the demon can hear them. The thought of what the demon will do to Missouri if he doesn't get the answers it wants makes him feel queasy. "Please…." and that's a word he almost never says, "just tell it what it wants to know and we'll leave you alone, I promise."
"You promise," Missouri echoes, disdain thick on the words.
"I can't do much," Dean admits. "But…I can keep it from hurting you, if you just give it whatever it's asking for. Please."
"And what if I don't?" Missouri's voice lowers, turning somber, reflective. "You gonna stand by while it kills me? You gonna walk out of here with my blood on your hands?"
"No," Dean answers, though he's still not sure he could really do anything to stop the demon if it does decide to really hurt—or kill—Missouri. "No, I won't. I just…"
"Dean, you're in over your head, baby," she says.
"Maybe so. But I don't see anyone else here, do you?"
"You're in danger, you know. Your whole family's in danger."
The tightness in his chest hardens, until he feels like there's a layer of Kevlar between his skin and organs. "Lady, my family's been in danger for the last twenty-two years. You think that's anything new to me?"
Missouri shakes her head. "Oh, Dean. Baby. What are you doing?"
"Finding out the truth."
***
The night clerk is flirting with him. Another time, that might have been fun, especially with his mom out of the picture for the foreseeable future. His sex life is always easier to manage then, if only to avoid the significant looks she gives him the morning after or the glee she takes in exploiting his hangovers.
Not that either one ever stops him, you understand.
It was easier too when Sam was there to occupy her attention. Now she focuses on him, but it's superficial. Seeing without really seeing. They have their roles to fulfill in the family and Dean's was never to be the protected one, the center. Sam has always been the living half of the binary star Winchester life revolves around and with him gone, the balance is too, two ghosts instead of one. Their orbit's been crooked ever since.
Most of the time he succeeds in not being too bitter about that.
But most of the time isn't all the time, isn't tonight, as a matter of fact, and what he wants isn't to fuck this girl—or any other girl—or to drink himself stupid or any of the hundred other things he could do to fill up all this lonely, solitary time. He just wants to be quiet and alone and maybe go to bed early for a change. None of which he'd ever admit to his mom or any other living soul, but there it is.
So he extricates himself from the conversation ("…hit the road early; you know how it is, always working, on the road, yeah….") and exits the office as quickly and gracefully as he can.
Once outside in the bathwater-warm Indian summer night, the lights of the office behind him and all the night's darkness in front, he remembers the other reason he wanted to be on his own tonight; the sense of uneasiness that's plagued him all night returns, skittering down the back of his neck like a bug. The sensation is so vivid, so distinct, that he's scratching at his nape before he catches himself and lets his hand fall back to his side again.
The parking lot is close to deserted; the summer is over, taking back its bounty of road-trippers and family vacationers and leaving mostly wanderers like him and Mom. The wind is blowing, tossing the few trees and making it difficult to pick out any one movement over another; dried and fallen leaves skitter across the pavement, confusing sounds.
Dean isn't aware of how long he's standing there, gawping, until the clerk, Madeline-call-me-Maddy pushes the office door open and peeks out at him. "Everything all right, Dean?"
He startles. Not a lot. Just a little, under his skin where no one but him would notice, and he turns and gives her the full wattage of his smile. "Everything's great," he says. "Just…lost my train of thought for a second. You have a good night, all right?"
Her face falls a little at the clear dismissal in his tone, but she'll get over it pretty quick, Dean's sure. There aren't any girls pining away for Dean Winchester, that's for sure. He steps down off the concrete stoop and rounds the corner back towards his room, feeling a little too tight in his skin, a little too aware of everything around him.
If he thinks about it, the feeling's been there longer than just tonight; a growing sense of something unseen but just at the edge of his vision, the feeling he's being followed without being able to pinpoint any pattern that would prove the sensation anything more than just paranoia.
You're getting old, Winchester, he thinks without any real urgency. Old and spooked. Get your head out yer ass.
Still, he doesn't dawdle on his way down the lot to his room, pausing only on the threshold to scan the night for…whatever. Whatever it is.
Nothing happens. No vampire—ha, vampires; that makes him laugh every fucking time—steps from behind a car or tree to leer significantly at him. Sarah Connor doesn't show up to grab his arm and say tersely, "Come with me if you want to live."
Scratching the back of his neck again, Dean goes inside and locks the door.
He takes some extra precautions that night, laying down salt lines and cat's eye shells, putting a little effigy of Papa Legba, the Keeper of the Doors by the room's entrance. He doesn't feel any better after doing it, but it's something. He climbs into bed wondering if this is what the onset of full-on crazy is like and is asleep within minutes.
His sleep is uneasy and his dreams chaotic and disturbing, but that's the worst of it and he wakes up a long time before dawn with his heart triphammering in his chest, his whole body rank and slick with sweat.
Dean gives up on sleep and goes into the bathroom to shower and pack up. He needs to get to Jericho anyway, no point in hanging around this one-horse burg. He's on the road in forty minutes, ten of it because he stopped for the coffee that steams black and heavy in his right hand. It helps wake him up. He considers calling his mom, but he's got nothing of any significance to report and she's probably busy. Neither one of them are idle chatters and he guesses that's a good thing, because then he might end up saying something stupid-ass, like, "Hey, I think someone—or something might be following me and I'm a little freaked out. How are you?"
Dean snorts, rolls his eyes, turns up the music and drives west.
It's easy to lose himself in the driving, a kind of Zen state in which he doesn't have to think about anything…not that there's much to think about anyway. Mom's in New Orleans, on some voodoo gig. He's on his way to Jericho for this missing kid and eventually, when all the dust has settled, he'll see if he has enough time to swing up and check in on Sammy before he has to meet up with Mom again. His life is very uncomplicated like that.
His phone chirps at him. Thinking it might be his mom, Dean nestles his now mostly empty coffee between his legs and picks up the line. "Hello?"
"Dean?" It's Jo, Ellen Harvelle's daughter. He thinks she's got a bit of a crush on him. She's cute enough, but she's a little young for his taste and he knows that Ellen would have his testicles in a meat grinder if he ever laid a hand on her and so he sort of lets her hero worship from afar.
"Hey, Jo," he says, hiding his disappointment. "What's going on?"
"Not a whole lot," Jo says. "I was wondering when you thought you might be heading this way again."
And this is why he was against Ellen having his number in the first place. But there was always the chance something legitimate might come up and the fact that Jo can't stay out of anything—including stuff that's locked or nailed down—is, generally speaking, the lesser of two evils. "Um. Probably not for a while. I'm on a gig for my mother. Why, what's up?"
Jo sighs. "Oh, Dean. You're always on a gig for your mother."
Dean frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're twenty-six years old. You're a grown man. When are you going to get out from under your mom's shadow?"
Ire spurts hot and sudden in his chest. "First of all? I don't think the girl that ran home the minute things got a little too tough at college has any room to talk about me being under anybody's shadow," he says roughly. "Second? My family needs me. My mom needs me and I'm sick of you acting like there's something wrong with that."
"That's completely unfair!" Jo flares. "I didn't quit college because I wanted to, you jerk, I came home because my mom needed me."
"And mine doesn't?" Dean demands. "Get the fuck off your moral high-horse here, Jo. What the hell did you call for, anyway? Just to ruin my day?"
"No," Jo says. She sounds tired. "No. Okay, I'm sorry. I was just… I was just thinking maybe you could look into this case I'm putting together."
"You're putting a case together?" Dean asks, amused.
"You don't have to be a shit, Dean. I said I was sorry," Jo says primly. "Anyway, if you're not going to be coming this way any time soon, I guess it doesn't really matter."
"No," Dean says. "I'm on my way to California and I don't know when we're coming back that way."
"California? Are you going to see that brother of yours?" Jo sounds interested now. She's never met Sam, but—when she's not all up in Dean's face—she seems exceptionally interested in Sam.
"I don't know." He wonders if Jo would be so interested if he told her about the pretty blonde Sam moved in with last year. "Depends on if I have time."
"Oh," Jo says vaguely. "Well, good hunting, anyway. "You be careful out there, Dean."
"Yeah," Dean answers. "You take care of your mom and Ash. I'll seeya when I see you."
Dean lets the phone tumble into the passenger's side seat after he ends the call and picks up his coffee again. He hasn't actually talked to his mom in a couple days, but that's not all that unusual. He's just reminded—yet again, because this is becoming a more frequent occurrence—how much he hates being out on his own with no back up and no one else to talk to.
It's not like he and Mom would talk about all that much or that deeply. The virtues of Brian May's guitar over Stone Gossard—he couldn't believe that his mom's a Pearl Jam fan, though she gives him a lot of flak for liking Queen, so he guesses it evens out. The quality of the meal they'd just had at the last diner behind them. The particulars of whatever lead or case they're chasing just then.
And it's not that Dean thinks of himself as any great conversationalist either. A lot of the time, they just sit quiet, grooving on whatever's coming out of the radio. But he's finding there's a big difference between choosing not to say too much and having no one there, even if you wanted to say something.
"This sucks out loud," he says, not for the first time, and turns the radio up loud enough that he can't even hear himself think.
***
It's after dark when he pulls into Jericho. It's more than dark; it's buttfuck late, and apparently none of the motel offices are open twenty-four hours. Dean calls in to his mom, gets her voicemail and curls up in the back of the Impala under a couple of mover's pads from the trunks. It's not the most comfortable fit—he may not be Sammy's size, but it's only a matter of a few inches—but it's not the first time and it's probably not the last and Dean tries not to think about it too much.
And so it goes.
The next day, he checks into the motel first thing and showers for a long time, warming the chill out of his bones. He puts up his research; he gets along with computers fine—a hell of a lot better than his mom, for sure—but a lot of the time, he likes to see it stretched out in front of him, arranging and rearranging papers and artifacts in different configurations as the pattern starts to emerge. They don't know much yet and so he resigns himself to research for the rest of the day.
The feeling of uneasiness, of presence, just gets worse and he stops being able to pretend that it's just the loneliness or concern about the case. Contact with his mom continues to be sporadic and in his free time, he worries about that too. He's never said anything, but with Sam gone, she's only gotten more distant and—with all these solo hunts—Dean figures it's only a matter of time before she cuts him loose too.
He wonders what he'll do then. He likes Ash well enough, but he doesn't want to be Ash, living up in some roadside back room and working for room and enough beers to forget whatever the hell it is he's trying to forget.
He goes out and talks to Joe Walsh and then it's back to the library for some more research to confirm his suspicions. Dinner at the diner, noodling around on the laptop in between bites of some of the best homemade meatloaf he's ever had and some of the worst potatoes.
A while ago he set up a Yahoo account (upto_eleven) through an anonymous remailer and started up a conversation with Sam without his brother being any the wiser about who is at the other end of the pixels. It's one way of keeping in touch; keep an eye on the kid. And anyway, though it's sometimes hard not to blow his cover as a fellow college student, especially when everything he knows about college comes from the movies, it's nice to be able to talk to Sam again in any capacity, even if it is just commonplaces and bullshit about zombie movies.
He and Sam talk some smack for a while ('omg, dude. there is NO WAY pamela anderson's boobs are better than lara croft.' 'Lara Croft isn't even REAL, you twit.' 'who uses words like twit, asswipe?') but then Sam has to study (of course) and Dean logs off.
The back of his neck itches.
He's tired, but he feels twitchy about going back to the motel. He goes to the bar instead and sits owl-eyed over his two-and-a-half bottles of beer before getting picked up by a very pretty and almost scarily-perky brunette named Lyla. Frantic kisses and dry humping in the shadowy alcove to the bathrooms, two fingers pushed up inside her until she whines and scratches and wraps her leg around his hip, heel digging into his ass. Out to the car and she's on her knees, pinning him to the car's hood with surprisingly strong hands. Back to her house and she's crying and yowling loud enough to wake the whole damn neighborhood, let alone her poor housemate in the next room.
"You can't stay," she mumbles afterwards, sucking kisses across his neck, his chest, his belly, ending in a sloppy gentle smooch to his cock. She tosses her hair back over smooth shoulders and smiles at him. "I got an early class."
It keeps him from having to figure out how he's going to get out gracefully. He twines his fingers through her thick, silky hair and kisses her one last time and then gets up and dresses. After the workout Lyla put him through, he thinks he should feel more relaxed, but the minute he hits the open air, he feels the live wire hum return to the space between his shoulders.
He drives back to the motel, a leaden sense of foreboding in his stomach. Stop kidding yourself, Dean thinks. Think.
He picks up his phone and dials his mom again. As usual, it goes to her voicemail and he fights down his sense of panic that something or someone has already gotten her…or worse, that she just has no interest in taking his calls.
Be the good soldier, he tells himself. That's what Dad would want.
When in doubt, report back.
"Mom," he says. "I… I think something's following me." As he has a dozen—a hundred—times before, he glances in the mirror at the road behind him. It's empty. He wonders if he should even be bothering his mom with this. She won't appreciate him acting like a scared kid. He sighs. I don't know. I just…" He chews his lip, gnawing until he tastes blood. "Maybe it's nothing. I can't tell. It could be something to do with the case, or maybe it's something else. It's been weird since we split up. But…if you don't hear from me…I'm in trouble."
He hangs up and tries not to feel like he just did or said something final. Something that can't be taken back.
***
The motel office is closed. No one is around when Dean pulls in. His headlights flash across the façade, chasing away some shadows and creating new ones. He's been a creature of the night for more years than he can count; he's used to the hush and the still, but it feels too quiet when he turns off the engine and climbs out.
The thud of his boots, the creak of his jacket seem too loud as he heads to his room, eerily conscious of the knife hilt resting in the small of his back.
As he had a week ago, Dean stops just inside the threshold of his room and looks out into the darkness, all the hair on his body raised into tingling hackles.
There's nothing out there.
There's something out there.
Dean fumbles his EMF meter from his pocket and turns it on. Immediately, it screeches, all the lights going red so fast he sees afterimages. The needle swings wildly and then stiffens dead center. A second later, the whole thing goes dead, a curl of acrid charcoal gray smoke curling up from the inside.
Dean steps back, all the way inside the room and slams the door. His hands are shaking when he reaches for the canister of salt, the chunk of red chalk in an old aspirin bottle in his pocket. He draws every sigil of protection he can think of, draws thick lines of salt across the threshold and a huge circle in the center of the room, leaving a ritual doorway open for himself. He scatters shells and hides nuggets of quartz and tiger's eye.
He flips open his phone again with the idea of calling his mom, or even Sam; he's not sure if it's to warn them or to just say goodbye. He thinks about the EMF meter, the relative resistance of the wires and solder inside; what kind of power surge had to go through them to burn them out like a snuffed candle. He wonders if Mom or Sam will bother to avenge him, if he goes down.
Dean steps through the doorway of his circle and casts the last arc of it, closing himself inside. Around his neck, he has the charm his Dad brought back from the war and the tricken bag Elodie de Morangias made for him years ago when they spent a winter in New Orleans.
Outside, he can hear the wind pick up, throwing dirt and small pebbles against the window. With an outward calm, Dean picks up the shotgun he brought into the circle with him and checks the shells, flicks off the safety.
The sense of tension keeps winding tighter, curling into his stomach, wrapping around his spine. It feels like even his brain's tingling. His stomach hurts.
He's ready for it when the door opens. Salt starts unraveling from the line across the door but he made it thick. He raises the shotgun to his shoulder and sights. There are two people in the doorway, a man and a woman. The wind is behind them, blowing the woman's loose blonde hair into her face, obscuring it. The man behind her isn't anyone he knows but his eyes aren't human, yellow, sulfurous and split pupilled, more like feline or goat. Then the woman reaches up and drags the tangle of her hair away and Dean's looking into his mother's face.
"Dean," she says, stepping across the salt line daintily, "I think we need to talk."
***
It only takes Dean a second to realize that the woman—she introduces herself as Juliet—isn't his mother at all, only someone who resembles her a great deal. Which only makes sense, seeing as how she claims to be his aunt. His mom's sister.
"Look, lady," he says, bringing the gun back to bear though he's pretty sure it won't do any good against the demon in the door. "I don't know who you are and I'm not sure I care a whole lot, considering the company you're keeping. Now you've got less than one minute to vacate my motel room or I'm going to find out if you bleed as easy as you stepped over that line."
"Now, let's not be hasty," the demon says. When his gaze flicks to it, it smiles at him, a reptilian counterfeit of warmth.
"Thirty seconds," Dean says grimly, and pumps the slide.
"We came to help," Juliet says, empty hands raised to shoulder height.
"Yeah, well, last I looked, I wasn't in need of any."
"Your mother's been lying to you," Juliet says. "Dean. You don't even know. She's been lying to you about so much. We want to tell you the truth."
"The truth about what?"
"About your Dad." Juliet tilts her head, sidles a half-step closer. "About how he died. About why."
"I know how he died," Dean says. He's sweating now, thick, hot trickles sliding greasily down his spine, down his temples, starting to drip and sting in his eyes. "I was there."
"So was I," the demon says.
Dean doesn't think about it, he pivots the gun sideways and fires. The shot is hugely loud in the confined space and the demon is rocked back a step, a spurt of blood jetting from its heart. But a moment later, it's fine again, teeth bared in the same feral-dog smile. "So touchy," the demon says and dabs two fingers through the gore on its chest. It sticks its fingertips into its mouth and suckles on them with every evidence of pleasure. "It's a wonder you've survived this long."
"This isn't just about you," Juliet says, and he brings the gun back to sight on her again. "This is about your brother too."
"You leave Sam out of this."
"Sam is in danger," Juliet insists. "More danger than you think."
"Yeah, from you," Dean scoffs.
"No. Because of the McCoys."
Dean's eyebrows wrinkle. "Who the fuck are the McCoys?"
Juliet's smile is multifaceted, making her look even more like his mom than before. "We are," she says. "You and me, Sam and your mom. And a whole lot of other really scary, dangerous folks that you wouldn't want to meet on your best or your worst day. The McCoys are your family, Dean."
"You lie," Dean says, but it comes out weak, and sort of whispery.
"You wish," the demon purrs in reply.
"I don't… There isn't any other family," Dean insists doggedly.
Juliet comes close enough to almost put a hand on his shoulder. "That's what your mother always told you," she says gently. "But your mother lied." She looks up into his eyes, her face serious. "She's the reason your father died, Dean. She knew what would happen and she didn't do anything about it."
"My mom loves my dad."
"Not enough to save him. Did she tell you that?" Juliet puts out her hand. The shotgun jerks and rips out of his hand, flies into hers. The recoil knocks Dean on his ass. "She could have saved him. And she didn't. What makes you think she'll save Sammy any better?"
"Stop it," Dean tears away from her, retreats as far as the circle permits.
"Look, Dean…we're running out of time," Juliet says. "I know you don't believe me. Mary raised you better than that. But we'll take the time to prove it to you, show you that—unless you help us—Sam's going to die."
Dean's mouth feels dry. So dry. He doesn't know what to believe. He doesn't want to believe that his mom's a liar, that she's the one responsible for Dad's death but the possibility that Sam might be in danger, might die holds him in place while Juliet fills his ears with her words.
"Christo," he says. In the door, the demon snarls, eyes flashing like polished obsidian before turning yellow again, but Juliet only smiles.
"'Fraid not," she says. "I'm as human as you are."
"Yeah," Dean says ungraciously, "that's not saying much."
Juliet kneels down on the carpet next to him. Looking at her face, so like his mom's, he realizes how much he misses her, how much he's hated being alone these last few days, even his brief IM chat with Sam not enough to satisfy the dull ache.
Dean hates being alone.
"I'm going to tell you a story."
Dean scoffs. "That's good; I was tired anyway. I could use some sleep."
"This is a waste of time," the demon snarls from the doorway. "You should just break the circle and let me have him. I can make him talk." It looks at him with its yellow, square-pupilled eyes and Dean can't help the shiver that wracks him. "I'd enjoy making him talk."
The blonde holds up her hand. "Wait. Go outside; he won't listen to me while you're hovering there anyway. I'll come out to you, when I'm done."
Dean wants to ask, what makes you think I'll listen to you at all? but he keeps his mouth shut and thinks of how Sam would mock him for it.
The blonde turns back to him. "I'm your aunt, Dean. Youngest of your mother's sisters."
"My mom doesn't have any sisters," Dean retorts automatically, though he feels doubt creeping up from inside. He doesn't really know anything about his mom before she married his dad; she didn't like to talk about her past, her childhood, no matter how much he'd asked and after a while, he'd just stopped asking.
"What?" Sam asks, when they are miles outside of Lawrence and its way too late and far too unwise for them to be on the road in their condition. "What didn't you tell Dad?"
And the thing is, Mary's just too fucking tired to deal with this, too stripped raw and pulped on the inside. Twenty-two years and more walls and armor than she'd even thought possible and still just…just the sight of John after all these years can just wreck her. Tear her down, break her into tiny little pieces and it's too soon, it's too soon, she's not ready, she doesn't have her defenses up yet.
"I must have been a saint in a former life," John said, tracing over her lips and chin with one callused thumb while she just leaned into the touch, the warmth of it like a spot on her skin.
"Oh?" She barely recognizes her own voice, deep and lazy, unguarded in its pleasure. "Why's that?"
"Because I know I haven't done anything near good enough in this one to deserve you," John answered with his glowing, child-like smile.
Mary jerks the car over onto the shoulder, suddenly blind with tears.
"Mom?" Sam asks, sounding alarmed.
"Shut up," she answers, doubled over the steering wheel, her whole body twisting and cramping with sobs. "Shut up, shut up!"
"Okay," Sam says. The seat sighs and squishes as he settles back deeper into it.
It's not that she hasn't shed any tears for John. She knows herself to be both hard and cold-hearted, but John—and her children—have always found and sat in the soft center of her, where the blood runs thickest and most dangerously. So what tears she has cried have been few and grudgingly wrung out of her, her fingers pressed over her mouth to stifle the hurt, animal noises she loathes. They were cried into bathroom towels and cheap motel pillowcases after the boys were asleep. Because they'd needed her to be strong. To keep them alive, she'd needed to be strong.
She doesn't feel strong anymore. She feels old and stupid and scared, twenty-two years of watching and worrying, scheming and hiding finally buckling up and boiling over to wring this overwrought reaction out of her and as much as she hates it, she can't make it stop.
Finally, after several minutes of sitting awkwardly in the passenger's seat, Sam scoots hesitantly across the seat and puts his hand on her shoulder. She should pull away, she knows this. She should pull herself together. But she doesn't and when she doesn't, Sam reaches with the other hand and tugs her into him. She goes stiffly, resistant, but she goes, hiding her face in the soft flannel of his over shirt and shivering from head to toe as if she's frozen right through.
"Shhh," Sam says, his arms tightening around her. "It's okay. Mom, it's okay. He wasn't angry. Didn't you see? He wasn't an angry spirit, he wasn't the poltergeist. He was just…hanging on. He doesn't blame you. You shouldn't blame yourself."
"But it was my fault," Mary croaks. Her throat hurts fiercely both inside and out and she puts her fingers around her neck to ease some of the strain on her larynx.
"You didn't know what would happen," Sam says. One of his hand rubs up and down her spine exactly as she used to do with him or Dean after they'd had bad dreams. The irony pierces the ugliness around her heart and lets a little air into her lungs.
"I should have," she argues. "I should have known. I knew…" She hesitates, remembering all at once where she is and who she's talking to. Shut up, Mary, she thinks and it's Lillith's voice, rising up through her cold and practical and utterly ruthless. Shut up and get a grip on yourself.
Mary stiffens. Then, slowly, she pulls herself out of Sam's arms, withdrawing as far across the seat as she can and wiping her streaming eyes with the bunched up end of her sleeve. "I knew it was a possibility," she says, feeling like Lillith has hijacked her voice as well, spinning smooth, seamless, plausible lies like spider-silk. And I didn't tell him. I never told him."
Even though I wanted to.
"Sometimes I look at you, and I wonder…who is this magical creature that made her way into my life…"
"As I remember it was you who made your way into my life, almost running me down with your car," Mary observed, contemplating his fingers where they're twined through her own and wrapped around her thickening waist.
"Hush," John scolded. "I'm being romantical and you're fucking it up."
"Oh," she said, amused. "Sorry."
"As well you should be," he said and sniffed with theatrical hauteur. "Now. Where was I?"
"Magical creature," Mary prompted.
"Oh. Right." John cleared his throat. "Sometimes I wonder who is this magical creature who made her way into my life…" He put a silencing finger over her lips as she drew in breath to speak again and she giggled. "And…" He paused. Sighed. "Dammit, I lost my train of thought!"
Mary's giggles got more intense, doubling her up in his lap.
"Hey! Mind the goods!" he said, shifting her to a presumably less ball-crushing position, which coincidentally also turned her so he could see her face. "The point," he said, "is that sometimes I look at you and I'm just amazed. That this is my life. That we could be this happy. It makes me want to believe in magic, just to explain how this is even possible."
Mary looked away.
John put his thumb and forefinger on her chin and turned her face back towards him. "Hey," he said, "None of that, now. This is when we're happy, remember?
"I just feel like it might have been different," she says now, to John's son, a boy—a young man he never got the opportunity to meet. "If I'd told him about me. About us. About the things out there in the dark." She looks down at her wedding band, her thumb tracing over the gold as it usually does when she's particularly nervous or worried or tired.
"But you don’t know that," Sam points out, ever the logical one. It's almost enough to make her smile.
"No," she agrees, "I don't know that."
"We've come across lots of things you'd never heard of, never seen before." Sam slides back to the other side of the seat, though he remains turned half in her direction. "How long did it take you to even figure out what killed Dad?"
Oh, I knew all the time what—who—killed your dad, Mary thinks. I just didn’t know the weapon they used to do it, greedy power-mongering whores.
"You really think it matters?" she asks, looking askance. "You gonna tell me you don't feel responsible for what happened to Jess?"
She can't see it in the dark, but she knows that Sam blushes, the heat of it filling the car's interior. "That's different."
Mary's smile is Lillith's, lemon wedge thin and cruel. "No, Sam. It's exactly the same."
"I had the dreams," Sam argues, his tone going low and vicious. "I knew what was going to happen. I'd seen it." He covers his face and his voice becomes muffled. "So many times. Over and over, I saw it. And I did nothing."
"There wasn't anything you could have done, Sam."
"Well. Maybe you're right, okay? Maybe that isn't good enough." His voice roughens. "But that's why we're going to find Dean. Why we have to."
"This isn't right," Dean says roughly. "This isn't right."
Juliet grabs his arm, small fingers digging into his bicep. She looks so much like his mom but she's nothing like his mom. "Dean, you have to be patient," she says urgently.
"Patient?" Dean echoes, disbelieving. "Lady, I gotta be a lot of things, but patient? While that thing tortures some woman that's never done me or anyone else any harm, so far as I can tell? No." Another wavering cry of pain from the parlor and Dean twists out of Juliet's grip and walking through the beaded curtain.
"Stop it," he says to the thing masquerading as a man. He doesn't have a weapon, nothing to defend himself or the women tied in the chair. He doesn't even know what weapon would work against the inhuman thing in human's skin; nothing he's seen so far has worked. It terrifies him, this creature, this demon. Everything about this terrifies him. But he doesn't back down. His dad wouldn't have wanted him to back down.
"Stop it," he says again, stronger, his whole body stiff and braced for a blow—either physical or not. Doesn't really matter; they'll both hurt the same, leave the same marks on his skin. "Right now."
The demon turns, a smile sliding across its face like oil. "Or what?" it asks.
Or what indeed. "You need me," he says, pitching his voice low so that it stays even. "You want to find my mother, you want to find Sam, you need me."
"Really?" The demon moves, puts the woman—Missouri—between them and caresses her shoulders. "Because I think it's more like you need me."
He hears a step on the wood behind him; glancing over his shoulder, he sees Juliet in the doorway. Even after all this time, it usually takes him a second look to realize she's not his Mom. He turns back to the demon.
"Let me talk to her," he says finally. The demon scoffs. "Let me try," Dean says again, exasperated. "It can't hurt and she might talk to me."
The demon digs its borrowed fingers into Missouri's shoulders until she makes an indistinguishable noise, whether of indignation or pain, Dean can't tell. "Such a soft heart," the demon purrs. "And so pretty when you beg."
"I'm not begging," Dean says steadily.
"All right," the demon agrees abruptly. "I was getting bored anyway. And we can always hurt her more, if your little…humanitarian effort doesn't work, right?"
"Yeah, sure." Dean's stomach churns. "Whatever. Just go, okay?"
The demon comes over to him, stands too close. Its hand shoots up to grip his chin. "You're a good boy, Dean. You've got a lot of…" Its tongue steals over its lips, oddly reptilian. "…promise. It'd be a shame to see all that promise snuffed out because you can't keep a civil tongue in your mouth." The demon squeezes, painful pinching pressure that forces Dean's mouth to open. Dean tries to twist away out of pure reflex, but the demon's arm might as well be made of stone. "Don't mistake our arrangements as friendship, Dean. We're not friends."
It releases him all at once, so fast that Dean staggers back a step. "How could I forget?" Dean mutters, rubbing his jaw. It's going to bruise.
"See that you don't." The demon's pus yellow eyes flash a little brighter before it turns and pushes past Juliet, shoving her into the doorframe. Juliet doesn't make a sound. Her pale gaze touches Dean in some kind of wide-eyed warning before the goes too, leaving Dean alone with the bound psychic.
Juliet said that Missouri was a friend of his mother's from back when they lived in Lawrence. He doesn't really remember her, but his memories of Lawrence are full of holes and of the part right after his dad died, he can't really recollect anything at all. Not for months. Still, it's hard to imagine Mary and Missouri together, even though he knows she had to have had friends before…before. Dean wipes his damp palms on his jeans.
There's duct tape across Missouri's mouth. Carefully, Dean peels it aside. Underneath, her lip is split. He dabs it clumsily with the tail of his shirt until she jerks her head away, glaring at him with scornful eyes. "Dean Winchester," she says harshly and he doesn't wonder how she knows his name, "what on earth do you think you're doing?"
"You have blood," he explains. "On your lip."
She makes a disgusted noise in her throat, still full of piss and vinegar even after whatever the demon's done to her. "I know that! I mean what are you doing here, boy, following that thing around. It's evil." She shakes her head. "Don't you see how evil it is?"
"I know what it is," Dean says dully, looking down at his feet. He hates this. He doesn't even have the words for how much he hates this.
But it's got to be done.
Dean hunches a shoulder. He doesn't know how to answer her question. He hasn't been able to answer it sufficiently for himself. And as ever, his confusion just makes him surly. "You don't understand."
"I surely don't," Missouri answers in that same light, bitter tone. "What would your mama think, if she could see you now?"
The mention of his Mom brings the pulsing redness of his rage back to the front. "What do you know about my Mom?" he demands roughly.
"I know she'd smack you right upside the head if she saw you consorting with that….that thing in sheep's clothing," Missouri retorts hotly, head tilted back to look at him. "And I know she and Sam were here looking and worrying 'bout you."
"What?" Dean's legs feel unsteady for a moment, he takes an uneasy step back before he catches himself. "What…? Why would she do that? Why is Sam not in school? I told them not to look for me."
Again that thick, coughing noise from the back of her throat. "Boy, you must be stupider than you are pretty if you think your mama was going to sit on her hands on your say-so. Mary Winchester hasn't ever listened to a word anyone's got to say about nothing except her own." She pauses, gives him a hard look that's less angry than intense. "You need to get out of here, Dean. Get out of this, whatever it is. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and you and I both know…" He feels almost hypnotized by her eyes. "Some mistakes can't be rectified, once they're made."
Dean shakes his head again. "You don't understand," he repeats, glancing back at the curtained doorway and wondering if Juliet or the demon can hear them. The thought of what the demon will do to Missouri if he doesn't get the answers it wants makes him feel queasy. "Please…." and that's a word he almost never says, "just tell it what it wants to know and we'll leave you alone, I promise."
"You promise," Missouri echoes, disdain thick on the words.
"I can't do much," Dean admits. "But…I can keep it from hurting you, if you just give it whatever it's asking for. Please."
"And what if I don't?" Missouri's voice lowers, turning somber, reflective. "You gonna stand by while it kills me? You gonna walk out of here with my blood on your hands?"
"No," Dean answers, though he's still not sure he could really do anything to stop the demon if it does decide to really hurt—or kill—Missouri. "No, I won't. I just…"
"Dean, you're in over your head, baby," she says.
"Maybe so. But I don't see anyone else here, do you?"
"You're in danger, you know. Your whole family's in danger."
The tightness in his chest hardens, until he feels like there's a layer of Kevlar between his skin and organs. "Lady, my family's been in danger for the last twenty-two years. You think that's anything new to me?"
Missouri shakes her head. "Oh, Dean. Baby. What are you doing?"
"Finding out the truth."
The night clerk is flirting with him. Another time, that might have been fun, especially with his mom out of the picture for the foreseeable future. His sex life is always easier to manage then, if only to avoid the significant looks she gives him the morning after or the glee she takes in exploiting his hangovers.
Not that either one ever stops him, you understand.
It was easier too when Sam was there to occupy her attention. Now she focuses on him, but it's superficial. Seeing without really seeing. They have their roles to fulfill in the family and Dean's was never to be the protected one, the center. Sam has always been the living half of the binary star Winchester life revolves around and with him gone, the balance is too, two ghosts instead of one. Their orbit's been crooked ever since.
Most of the time he succeeds in not being too bitter about that.
But most of the time isn't all the time, isn't tonight, as a matter of fact, and what he wants isn't to fuck this girl—or any other girl—or to drink himself stupid or any of the hundred other things he could do to fill up all this lonely, solitary time. He just wants to be quiet and alone and maybe go to bed early for a change. None of which he'd ever admit to his mom or any other living soul, but there it is.
So he extricates himself from the conversation ("…hit the road early; you know how it is, always working, on the road, yeah….") and exits the office as quickly and gracefully as he can.
Once outside in the bathwater-warm Indian summer night, the lights of the office behind him and all the night's darkness in front, he remembers the other reason he wanted to be on his own tonight; the sense of uneasiness that's plagued him all night returns, skittering down the back of his neck like a bug. The sensation is so vivid, so distinct, that he's scratching at his nape before he catches himself and lets his hand fall back to his side again.
The parking lot is close to deserted; the summer is over, taking back its bounty of road-trippers and family vacationers and leaving mostly wanderers like him and Mom. The wind is blowing, tossing the few trees and making it difficult to pick out any one movement over another; dried and fallen leaves skitter across the pavement, confusing sounds.
Dean isn't aware of how long he's standing there, gawping, until the clerk, Madeline-call-me-Maddy pushes the office door open and peeks out at him. "Everything all right, Dean?"
He startles. Not a lot. Just a little, under his skin where no one but him would notice, and he turns and gives her the full wattage of his smile. "Everything's great," he says. "Just…lost my train of thought for a second. You have a good night, all right?"
Her face falls a little at the clear dismissal in his tone, but she'll get over it pretty quick, Dean's sure. There aren't any girls pining away for Dean Winchester, that's for sure. He steps down off the concrete stoop and rounds the corner back towards his room, feeling a little too tight in his skin, a little too aware of everything around him.
If he thinks about it, the feeling's been there longer than just tonight; a growing sense of something unseen but just at the edge of his vision, the feeling he's being followed without being able to pinpoint any pattern that would prove the sensation anything more than just paranoia.
You're getting old, Winchester, he thinks without any real urgency. Old and spooked. Get your head out yer ass.
Still, he doesn't dawdle on his way down the lot to his room, pausing only on the threshold to scan the night for…whatever. Whatever it is.
Nothing happens. No vampire—ha, vampires; that makes him laugh every fucking time—steps from behind a car or tree to leer significantly at him. Sarah Connor doesn't show up to grab his arm and say tersely, "Come with me if you want to live."
Scratching the back of his neck again, Dean goes inside and locks the door.
He takes some extra precautions that night, laying down salt lines and cat's eye shells, putting a little effigy of Papa Legba, the Keeper of the Doors by the room's entrance. He doesn't feel any better after doing it, but it's something. He climbs into bed wondering if this is what the onset of full-on crazy is like and is asleep within minutes.
His sleep is uneasy and his dreams chaotic and disturbing, but that's the worst of it and he wakes up a long time before dawn with his heart triphammering in his chest, his whole body rank and slick with sweat.
Dean gives up on sleep and goes into the bathroom to shower and pack up. He needs to get to Jericho anyway, no point in hanging around this one-horse burg. He's on the road in forty minutes, ten of it because he stopped for the coffee that steams black and heavy in his right hand. It helps wake him up. He considers calling his mom, but he's got nothing of any significance to report and she's probably busy. Neither one of them are idle chatters and he guesses that's a good thing, because then he might end up saying something stupid-ass, like, "Hey, I think someone—or something might be following me and I'm a little freaked out. How are you?"
Dean snorts, rolls his eyes, turns up the music and drives west.
It's easy to lose himself in the driving, a kind of Zen state in which he doesn't have to think about anything…not that there's much to think about anyway. Mom's in New Orleans, on some voodoo gig. He's on his way to Jericho for this missing kid and eventually, when all the dust has settled, he'll see if he has enough time to swing up and check in on Sammy before he has to meet up with Mom again. His life is very uncomplicated like that.
His phone chirps at him. Thinking it might be his mom, Dean nestles his now mostly empty coffee between his legs and picks up the line. "Hello?"
"Dean?" It's Jo, Ellen Harvelle's daughter. He thinks she's got a bit of a crush on him. She's cute enough, but she's a little young for his taste and he knows that Ellen would have his testicles in a meat grinder if he ever laid a hand on her and so he sort of lets her hero worship from afar.
"Hey, Jo," he says, hiding his disappointment. "What's going on?"
"Not a whole lot," Jo says. "I was wondering when you thought you might be heading this way again."
And this is why he was against Ellen having his number in the first place. But there was always the chance something legitimate might come up and the fact that Jo can't stay out of anything—including stuff that's locked or nailed down—is, generally speaking, the lesser of two evils. "Um. Probably not for a while. I'm on a gig for my mother. Why, what's up?"
Jo sighs. "Oh, Dean. You're always on a gig for your mother."
Dean frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're twenty-six years old. You're a grown man. When are you going to get out from under your mom's shadow?"
Ire spurts hot and sudden in his chest. "First of all? I don't think the girl that ran home the minute things got a little too tough at college has any room to talk about me being under anybody's shadow," he says roughly. "Second? My family needs me. My mom needs me and I'm sick of you acting like there's something wrong with that."
"That's completely unfair!" Jo flares. "I didn't quit college because I wanted to, you jerk, I came home because my mom needed me."
"And mine doesn't?" Dean demands. "Get the fuck off your moral high-horse here, Jo. What the hell did you call for, anyway? Just to ruin my day?"
"No," Jo says. She sounds tired. "No. Okay, I'm sorry. I was just… I was just thinking maybe you could look into this case I'm putting together."
"You're putting a case together?" Dean asks, amused.
"You don't have to be a shit, Dean. I said I was sorry," Jo says primly. "Anyway, if you're not going to be coming this way any time soon, I guess it doesn't really matter."
"No," Dean says. "I'm on my way to California and I don't know when we're coming back that way."
"California? Are you going to see that brother of yours?" Jo sounds interested now. She's never met Sam, but—when she's not all up in Dean's face—she seems exceptionally interested in Sam.
"I don't know." He wonders if Jo would be so interested if he told her about the pretty blonde Sam moved in with last year. "Depends on if I have time."
"Oh," Jo says vaguely. "Well, good hunting, anyway. "You be careful out there, Dean."
"Yeah," Dean answers. "You take care of your mom and Ash. I'll seeya when I see you."
Dean lets the phone tumble into the passenger's side seat after he ends the call and picks up his coffee again. He hasn't actually talked to his mom in a couple days, but that's not all that unusual. He's just reminded—yet again, because this is becoming a more frequent occurrence—how much he hates being out on his own with no back up and no one else to talk to.
It's not like he and Mom would talk about all that much or that deeply. The virtues of Brian May's guitar over Stone Gossard—he couldn't believe that his mom's a Pearl Jam fan, though she gives him a lot of flak for liking Queen, so he guesses it evens out. The quality of the meal they'd just had at the last diner behind them. The particulars of whatever lead or case they're chasing just then.
And it's not that Dean thinks of himself as any great conversationalist either. A lot of the time, they just sit quiet, grooving on whatever's coming out of the radio. But he's finding there's a big difference between choosing not to say too much and having no one there, even if you wanted to say something.
"This sucks out loud," he says, not for the first time, and turns the radio up loud enough that he can't even hear himself think.
It's after dark when he pulls into Jericho. It's more than dark; it's buttfuck late, and apparently none of the motel offices are open twenty-four hours. Dean calls in to his mom, gets her voicemail and curls up in the back of the Impala under a couple of mover's pads from the trunks. It's not the most comfortable fit—he may not be Sammy's size, but it's only a matter of a few inches—but it's not the first time and it's probably not the last and Dean tries not to think about it too much.
And so it goes.
The next day, he checks into the motel first thing and showers for a long time, warming the chill out of his bones. He puts up his research; he gets along with computers fine—a hell of a lot better than his mom, for sure—but a lot of the time, he likes to see it stretched out in front of him, arranging and rearranging papers and artifacts in different configurations as the pattern starts to emerge. They don't know much yet and so he resigns himself to research for the rest of the day.
The feeling of uneasiness, of presence, just gets worse and he stops being able to pretend that it's just the loneliness or concern about the case. Contact with his mom continues to be sporadic and in his free time, he worries about that too. He's never said anything, but with Sam gone, she's only gotten more distant and—with all these solo hunts—Dean figures it's only a matter of time before she cuts him loose too.
He wonders what he'll do then. He likes Ash well enough, but he doesn't want to be Ash, living up in some roadside back room and working for room and enough beers to forget whatever the hell it is he's trying to forget.
He goes out and talks to Joe Walsh and then it's back to the library for some more research to confirm his suspicions. Dinner at the diner, noodling around on the laptop in between bites of some of the best homemade meatloaf he's ever had and some of the worst potatoes.
A while ago he set up a Yahoo account (upto_eleven) through an anonymous remailer and started up a conversation with Sam without his brother being any the wiser about who is at the other end of the pixels. It's one way of keeping in touch; keep an eye on the kid. And anyway, though it's sometimes hard not to blow his cover as a fellow college student, especially when everything he knows about college comes from the movies, it's nice to be able to talk to Sam again in any capacity, even if it is just commonplaces and bullshit about zombie movies.
He and Sam talk some smack for a while ('omg, dude. there is NO WAY pamela anderson's boobs are better than lara croft.' 'Lara Croft isn't even REAL, you twit.' 'who uses words like twit, asswipe?') but then Sam has to study (of course) and Dean logs off.
The back of his neck itches.
He's tired, but he feels twitchy about going back to the motel. He goes to the bar instead and sits owl-eyed over his two-and-a-half bottles of beer before getting picked up by a very pretty and almost scarily-perky brunette named Lyla. Frantic kisses and dry humping in the shadowy alcove to the bathrooms, two fingers pushed up inside her until she whines and scratches and wraps her leg around his hip, heel digging into his ass. Out to the car and she's on her knees, pinning him to the car's hood with surprisingly strong hands. Back to her house and she's crying and yowling loud enough to wake the whole damn neighborhood, let alone her poor housemate in the next room.
"You can't stay," she mumbles afterwards, sucking kisses across his neck, his chest, his belly, ending in a sloppy gentle smooch to his cock. She tosses her hair back over smooth shoulders and smiles at him. "I got an early class."
It keeps him from having to figure out how he's going to get out gracefully. He twines his fingers through her thick, silky hair and kisses her one last time and then gets up and dresses. After the workout Lyla put him through, he thinks he should feel more relaxed, but the minute he hits the open air, he feels the live wire hum return to the space between his shoulders.
He drives back to the motel, a leaden sense of foreboding in his stomach. Stop kidding yourself, Dean thinks. Think.
He picks up his phone and dials his mom again. As usual, it goes to her voicemail and he fights down his sense of panic that something or someone has already gotten her…or worse, that she just has no interest in taking his calls.
Be the good soldier, he tells himself. That's what Dad would want.
When in doubt, report back.
"Mom," he says. "I… I think something's following me." As he has a dozen—a hundred—times before, he glances in the mirror at the road behind him. It's empty. He wonders if he should even be bothering his mom with this. She won't appreciate him acting like a scared kid. He sighs. I don't know. I just…" He chews his lip, gnawing until he tastes blood. "Maybe it's nothing. I can't tell. It could be something to do with the case, or maybe it's something else. It's been weird since we split up. But…if you don't hear from me…I'm in trouble."
He hangs up and tries not to feel like he just did or said something final. Something that can't be taken back.
The motel office is closed. No one is around when Dean pulls in. His headlights flash across the façade, chasing away some shadows and creating new ones. He's been a creature of the night for more years than he can count; he's used to the hush and the still, but it feels too quiet when he turns off the engine and climbs out.
The thud of his boots, the creak of his jacket seem too loud as he heads to his room, eerily conscious of the knife hilt resting in the small of his back.
As he had a week ago, Dean stops just inside the threshold of his room and looks out into the darkness, all the hair on his body raised into tingling hackles.
There's nothing out there.
There's something out there.
Dean fumbles his EMF meter from his pocket and turns it on. Immediately, it screeches, all the lights going red so fast he sees afterimages. The needle swings wildly and then stiffens dead center. A second later, the whole thing goes dead, a curl of acrid charcoal gray smoke curling up from the inside.
Dean steps back, all the way inside the room and slams the door. His hands are shaking when he reaches for the canister of salt, the chunk of red chalk in an old aspirin bottle in his pocket. He draws every sigil of protection he can think of, draws thick lines of salt across the threshold and a huge circle in the center of the room, leaving a ritual doorway open for himself. He scatters shells and hides nuggets of quartz and tiger's eye.
He flips open his phone again with the idea of calling his mom, or even Sam; he's not sure if it's to warn them or to just say goodbye. He thinks about the EMF meter, the relative resistance of the wires and solder inside; what kind of power surge had to go through them to burn them out like a snuffed candle. He wonders if Mom or Sam will bother to avenge him, if he goes down.
Dean steps through the doorway of his circle and casts the last arc of it, closing himself inside. Around his neck, he has the charm his Dad brought back from the war and the tricken bag Elodie de Morangias made for him years ago when they spent a winter in New Orleans.
Outside, he can hear the wind pick up, throwing dirt and small pebbles against the window. With an outward calm, Dean picks up the shotgun he brought into the circle with him and checks the shells, flicks off the safety.
The sense of tension keeps winding tighter, curling into his stomach, wrapping around his spine. It feels like even his brain's tingling. His stomach hurts.
He's ready for it when the door opens. Salt starts unraveling from the line across the door but he made it thick. He raises the shotgun to his shoulder and sights. There are two people in the doorway, a man and a woman. The wind is behind them, blowing the woman's loose blonde hair into her face, obscuring it. The man behind her isn't anyone he knows but his eyes aren't human, yellow, sulfurous and split pupilled, more like feline or goat. Then the woman reaches up and drags the tangle of her hair away and Dean's looking into his mother's face.
"Dean," she says, stepping across the salt line daintily, "I think we need to talk."
It only takes Dean a second to realize that the woman—she introduces herself as Juliet—isn't his mother at all, only someone who resembles her a great deal. Which only makes sense, seeing as how she claims to be his aunt. His mom's sister.
"Look, lady," he says, bringing the gun back to bear though he's pretty sure it won't do any good against the demon in the door. "I don't know who you are and I'm not sure I care a whole lot, considering the company you're keeping. Now you've got less than one minute to vacate my motel room or I'm going to find out if you bleed as easy as you stepped over that line."
"Now, let's not be hasty," the demon says. When his gaze flicks to it, it smiles at him, a reptilian counterfeit of warmth.
"Thirty seconds," Dean says grimly, and pumps the slide.
"We came to help," Juliet says, empty hands raised to shoulder height.
"Yeah, well, last I looked, I wasn't in need of any."
"Your mother's been lying to you," Juliet says. "Dean. You don't even know. She's been lying to you about so much. We want to tell you the truth."
"The truth about what?"
"About your Dad." Juliet tilts her head, sidles a half-step closer. "About how he died. About why."
"I know how he died," Dean says. He's sweating now, thick, hot trickles sliding greasily down his spine, down his temples, starting to drip and sting in his eyes. "I was there."
"So was I," the demon says.
Dean doesn't think about it, he pivots the gun sideways and fires. The shot is hugely loud in the confined space and the demon is rocked back a step, a spurt of blood jetting from its heart. But a moment later, it's fine again, teeth bared in the same feral-dog smile. "So touchy," the demon says and dabs two fingers through the gore on its chest. It sticks its fingertips into its mouth and suckles on them with every evidence of pleasure. "It's a wonder you've survived this long."
"This isn't just about you," Juliet says, and he brings the gun back to sight on her again. "This is about your brother too."
"You leave Sam out of this."
"Sam is in danger," Juliet insists. "More danger than you think."
"Yeah, from you," Dean scoffs.
"No. Because of the McCoys."
Dean's eyebrows wrinkle. "Who the fuck are the McCoys?"
Juliet's smile is multifaceted, making her look even more like his mom than before. "We are," she says. "You and me, Sam and your mom. And a whole lot of other really scary, dangerous folks that you wouldn't want to meet on your best or your worst day. The McCoys are your family, Dean."
"You lie," Dean says, but it comes out weak, and sort of whispery.
"You wish," the demon purrs in reply.
"I don't… There isn't any other family," Dean insists doggedly.
Juliet comes close enough to almost put a hand on his shoulder. "That's what your mother always told you," she says gently. "But your mother lied." She looks up into his eyes, her face serious. "She's the reason your father died, Dean. She knew what would happen and she didn't do anything about it."
"My mom loves my dad."
"Not enough to save him. Did she tell you that?" Juliet puts out her hand. The shotgun jerks and rips out of his hand, flies into hers. The recoil knocks Dean on his ass. "She could have saved him. And she didn't. What makes you think she'll save Sammy any better?"
"Stop it," Dean tears away from her, retreats as far as the circle permits.
"Look, Dean…we're running out of time," Juliet says. "I know you don't believe me. Mary raised you better than that. But we'll take the time to prove it to you, show you that—unless you help us—Sam's going to die."
Dean's mouth feels dry. So dry. He doesn't know what to believe. He doesn't want to believe that his mom's a liar, that she's the one responsible for Dad's death but the possibility that Sam might be in danger, might die holds him in place while Juliet fills his ears with her words.
"Christo," he says. In the door, the demon snarls, eyes flashing like polished obsidian before turning yellow again, but Juliet only smiles.
"'Fraid not," she says. "I'm as human as you are."
"Yeah," Dean says ungraciously, "that's not saying much."
Juliet kneels down on the carpet next to him. Looking at her face, so like his mom's, he realizes how much he misses her, how much he's hated being alone these last few days, even his brief IM chat with Sam not enough to satisfy the dull ache.
Dean hates being alone.
"I'm going to tell you a story."
Dean scoffs. "That's good; I was tired anyway. I could use some sleep."
"This is a waste of time," the demon snarls from the doorway. "You should just break the circle and let me have him. I can make him talk." It looks at him with its yellow, square-pupilled eyes and Dean can't help the shiver that wracks him. "I'd enjoy making him talk."
The blonde holds up her hand. "Wait. Go outside; he won't listen to me while you're hovering there anyway. I'll come out to you, when I'm done."
Dean wants to ask, what makes you think I'll listen to you at all? but he keeps his mouth shut and thinks of how Sam would mock him for it.
The blonde turns back to him. "I'm your aunt, Dean. Youngest of your mother's sisters."
"My mom doesn't have any sisters," Dean retorts automatically, though he feels doubt creeping up from inside. He doesn't really know anything about his mom before she married his dad; she didn't like to talk about her past, her childhood, no matter how much he'd asked and after a while, he'd just stopped asking.
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Date: 2007-11-12 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 05:01 pm (UTC)The fact that Juliet told him something powerful enough for Dean to go along with letting the demon torture Missouri freaks me right the hell out.