Falling Slow, for Lennelle, 2/5
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spn_summergenPART TWO
Sam half-expected Dean to put in Stairway to Heaven when they got in the car. Dean swore by it, and he’d been throwing Sam little looks from the moment the doors had closed. But Dean chatted through the drive—about it being a shame Jack had broken the Ma’lak box (“Even assuming it was strong enough to contain Him, how would we get Him in?” Sam countered), wondering if they could have used the egg thing (“The Hyperbolic Pulse Generator.”) to expel God (“Is he even in a host?”), which led to a debate on if Chuck existed outside of God, or if Chuck had created the body solely as a receptacle to exist on earth.
Between Dean’s distraction techniques and being away from the Bunker (which was where they apparently always killed each other), Sam relaxed. Dean sent him after eggs, spinach, and avocado, and Sam figured since he was here, he would pick up turkey bacon. Maybe he could return the favor and tell Dean it was real bacon. If Dean let him get out of the store with it.
Which reminded him that he wanted apples, and if he was going to pick up apples, he might as well get some peaches—even if they weren’t from Georgia—and maybe some grapes, a mango or two, some pomegranates and plums. . . . He had to circle back to the front of the store for a basket to dump everything in before he finished. The eggs took him near Dairy, so he grabbed some more yogurt, some cheese that wasn’t Kraft singles, and then down the cereal aisle to pick up another box of his cereal.
Movement out of the corner of his eye, dark and too fast to be another customer, turned his head. The aisle behind him was empty. No one passed by in the few seconds he watched, even though the store was fairly busy.
Unease niggling at him, Sam shifted the basket to his left hand and got a grip on the gun concealed in his waistband as he eased quietly to the end of the aisle. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he hesitated just out of sight, then stepped out.
Nothing.
No monsters. No people. No noise. Like the moment he’d left the aisle, everyone had been teleported out of the store. He stayed where he was for a long minute, listening and tense, eyes peeled, but nothing changed. The feeling of being watched crept back over his shoulders.
Sam freed his gun, held it ready at his side with his finger off the trigger, and stalked back down the cereal aisle to the front of the store. He half-expected and was prepared for a dark shape to lunge at him from the top of one of the shelves, but he came out the other side without anything happening.
Except there were people milling around, their chatter a high-ish hum over the A/C blasting from the vents. Dean looked at him from the nearest register, eyebrows going up when he spotted Sam’s gun.
“You get everything?” he asked easily.
“Yeah.” Sam moved quickly next to him, dropped the basket on the cart, and tucked the gun back out of sight. He didn’t think his face was red, but he felt hot and sweaty and wanted to sink through the floor. He couldn’t look at Dean.
“Problem?”
“No.” Not if he didn’t count going crazy as a problem. Or—maybe djinn poison? But where would he have come in contact with a djinn?
Dean didn’t call him on it, possibly because the cashier finished with the customer before them and Dean could never resist charming a woman, particularly a young, attractive woman. Sam looked at the gum and mints and chocolate set up by the register as they started talking, the words punctuated by beeps, and grabbed a pack of gum more for something to do with his hands than because he wanted the gum.
Dean glanced at him when he tossed it in the basket, but didn’t protest. Sam knew Dean was really worried when his brother didn’t comment on the turkey bacon. It went into the bags with everything else. Dean paid. Sam smiled when the cashier wished them a good day, and picked up his share of the bags.
He glimpsed a familiar face, fangs distorting his lips, in the glass entrance door. When he looked back, it was gone.
“You coming, Sam?” Dean called from outside the exit door.
“Yeah,” Sam said. He jolted into motion, but couldn’t help one more glance. Nothing. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
*
Dean waited until they’d packed everything into the car, until they’d closed the doors behind them and had at least the semblance of privacy. “Sam,” he started.
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t feel different. I don’t feel wrong. I don’t know what’s going on, if Sergei left something behind or if Chuck is pushing at me, if it’s bleed-over, or—or—or stress or something.”
Dean let the silence hang, just a second. “Can stress cause hallucinations?”
“Um. Sort of? But usually not unless there’s some kind of mental illness involved as the underlying cause.”
“Sort of?” Dean asked. He put the car in reverse, then twisted around to see out the rear window.
“Some people have reported visual and auditory hallucinations during periods of intense negative emotions, such as stress and grief. The idea is that it triggers mental processes that the brain has trouble controlling. They tend to include memories or previously seen images and are more frequent in older populations.”
“Well,” Dean said, “it’s not like there’s any shortage of stress or grief in this job.”
Sam huffed an unamused laugh. “Yeah.”
Dean looked at Sam before pulling out into the sparse Lebanon traffic. “We’ll figure it out,” he promised.
Sam tilted his head back to stare up at the Impala’s roof. In all the years they’d had this car, they hadn’t really done anything to it. “Chuck first.”
Dean didn’t argue, but he didn’t agree, either.
*
There were seven other cars in the two-pump gas station’s parking lot—one at the other pump, the rest parked in front of the convenience store. The two-tone Oldsmobile parked by the dumpster around the side belonged to Jack Jackson, the store’s owner and manager and only full-time employee. Sam didn’t recognize any of the others.
He also didn’t see Dean.
Sam couldn’t say why that made him anxious. He and Dean went places alone or with other people all the time, especially since they brought the refugees over from the Apocalypse world and Michael possessed Dean. Which could have been a reason to be anxious except Michael was dead. But he didn’t like not being able to see Dean.
The restlessness drove him out of the car. A man who looked to be about the age John would’ve been came out as Sam crossed the parking lot. He climbed into his car without a glance at Sam. Sam watched him until he backed out, started to pull away.
The bell chimed when he opened the door. Mr. Jackson looked up, chinned an acknowledgement. Sam lifted a hand in response, even as he scanned the store. There were three people in line, two by the drink coolers, three in the chips and candy bar aisle, one looking at phone chargers (probably from out-of-state), and two looking at postcards. The ages ranged from about thirteen to forty-five.
Dean wasn’t one of them.
He checked the mirrors as started for the back of the store, hoping he’d just missed him, and started when his brother’s face was staring back at him, face pale and drawn, eyes burning. When he saw that he had Sam’s attention, he bared a mouthful of fangs.
Then he turned his attention to a teenaged girl debating candy bars with her friend.
Sam kept his gaze locked on his brother as he picked up his pace, struggling to balance speed with not drawing attention to himself. He was too far away to stop him if Dean decided to go for the bite.
Dean moved slow, though, a cat toying with a mouse—not that the mouse, the girl, knew it.
He saw her look up when Dean approached, watchful, then Dean must have said something because she laughed and glanced bashfully at her friend. The friend drew closer, but so did Dean, and so did the girl. She twirled her hair and ducked her head bashfully, but she never stopped smiling.
Sam reached the end of the aisle and powered around the corner. “Dean,” Sam said as soon as he cleared the shelving.
The girls drew back, eyes wide, and shifted further behind Dean. Sam stopped just inside the aisle, kept his hands loose and his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He could get to Dean in under five seconds, if he had to, with his reach. He just had to hope that was fast enough, which wasn’t a guarantee. Vampires were fast.
But he couldn’t think of any way to get an unwilling Dean out that wouldn’t cause a scene. And he didn’t have anything that could seriously hurt Dean if he decided to do lunch. He looked helplessly between the girls and his brother. He didn’t know what to do.
Dean didn’t have the same problem. He smirked, and casually drew the girl, blonde and blue-eyed and just a little over five feet, under his arm. She pulled in on herself, but she didn’t fight him. That close, Dean could rip out her throat before Sam could twitch. “Hey, Sammy,” he said, warm and easy. “Me and Darlene, here, were just talking, getting to know each other. Ain’t that right, Darlene?”
“Allie and I should probably be leaving, actually,” Darlene answered, her voice shakier than she probably intended. “Her mom’s expecting us.”
“For lunch, right?”
It took a moment, but Darlene nodded. “We’re having burgers.”
“Burgers. I love me a good burger. Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
“Leave them out of this, Dean.” The part of him that knew his brother, had grown up with his brother, didn’t think Dean would actually hurt either girl. Thought he was too protective. But the Dean he knew never would have brought them into this in the first place. There were other people in the gas station he could have chosen—including a woman more his age that he probably could have talked out of the gas station in his sleep.
No, the monster he’d become, there was no telling what he would or wouldn’t do. And he knew Sam, too, knew Sam would be more protective of kids about Jack’s age—about the age Jack had looked, since he hadn’t lived long enough to actually reach that age.
“I was telling Sammy just yesterday that it’d been a long, long time since I’d had me a nice, home-cooked hamburger. Does your mom make them, Allie? Does she roll the ground beef into balls by herself, squish them flat?”
“Y-yeah.”
“I think that sounds awesome. Doesn’t that sound awesome, Sammy?”
Sam dared a glance at the mirror at the front of the store. The three people who’d been waiting in line were gone. He couldn’t see the two who’d been looking at postcards. The guy who’d been perusing phone chargers took his bag from Mr. Jackson and headed out as Sam watched. That left the two by the drinks, who’d picked drinks and had wandered to the chips on the next aisle over, and the teenage boy he’d thought had been with the girls, who’d picked his candy and now headed to the counter. “We can make burgers at home, Dean.”
“Sure, we could,” Dean agreed. “But it wouldn’t be as fun. Home’s gotten a little quiet, these days. Empty Nest Syndrome,” he added to Darlene. “Lost our boy not that long ago. I kinda miss him. And Sammy, here, he’s not real great about expanding his horizons. Thinks we should all stay in and be vegetarian monks.
“Me, I’m looking for something with more meat on its bones. Something I can really sink my teeth into, you know?”
“I-I. I guess?” Darlene answered, and sucked in a breath when Dean pulled her tighter into his side.
Dean inhaled, nose drawing up the side of her head, not quite touching. “You know, the best steaks—but this goes for burgers, too. The best steaks are still bloody. You need a bit of blood to really get the full flavor. The rarer, the better.”
Darlene hummed nervously. “I don’t. I like my burgers medium well.”
“Everyone has different tastes,” Dean said easily. “But you don’t know what you’re missing. I could help you out with that.”
“What—what do you mean?”
Dean’s smile was all teeth—wolfish, would’ve been the term—with no sign of fangs. “You’ll just have to invite me and Sammy along to lunch to find out. We’ll make a game of it. You girls wanna play a game?”
“This isn’t a game,” Sam interrupted, before either girl could make a mistake that would cost them their lives. Because no matter how scared they’d been before, Sam knew the effect his brother could have on women.
“Sammy’s a bit of a stick in the mud, but I know he’ll loosen up in no time.”
“What do you want, Dean?”
Darlene tensed, whites of her eyes showing as Dean’s grip abruptly tightened to bruising. She tried to pull away, but Dean held her effortlessly in place. “You’re hurting m-me, Dean.”
“I want you to join me, Sammy.”
“I can save you. Cure you. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
Dean laughed, loud enough to finally draw attention from the other patrons and hard. “You’re weeks and weeks too late to save me, brother. But you’re right. It doesn’t have to end like this. Say you’ll come with me, and Darlene and her friend, Allie, walk out of here with all their blood.”
They both knew Sam was going to say yes, was going to say what he needed to in order to protect the girls, but Dean wouldn’t believe an easy capitulation. Maybe he wouldn’t believe Sam, period. “I came here with you, Dean. We rode together.”
Dean’s free hand curved around his body, picked a lock of hair and slowly curled it around his finger while Sam felt the tension grow, gain weight. “I could always keep this one to be your first,” Dean said like he couldn’t feel it, “if you wanted. Would you like that? The young ones taste better. They haven’t aged ennough to get bitter.”
“I want you to let her go, Dean.”
“And then what? Then you shoot me with the gun tucked at the small of your back?”
“Waste of a bullet, right? We both know nothing I’ve got on me is going to hurt you. We both know I’m going to follow you out of this store.”
“Let me turn you, Sammy. Join me. Right here, right now.”
“Not here,” Sam countered. He flickered his glance conspicuously at the security camera that had dutifully been capturing their every move.
Dean followed the glance, then smirked. “Wanna do it in the car, then? I’ll be gentle.”
“Fine,” Sam agreed shortly. “Now, let her go.”
Dean did. Darlene immediately darted out of reach and Allie grabbed her hand, the pair of them high-tailing it through the door. The bell rattled, loud and flat. “After you,” Dean said pleasantly, sweeping his arm out with a bow.
Sam scoffed. “While there are still people in here? I don’t think so. You first.”
Dean’s eyes glittered with malic when he straightened. “You’ll be singing a different tune once you’ve fed. But fine. Just don’t take too long, brother. I get bored easily.”
Without another word, Dean sauntered toward the front door. It was a straight shot, which made it simple. He trailed Dean at a—well, not a safe distance, exactly, but one that would let him react if Dean deviated from the plan.
He didn’t.
“Everything ok, Sam?” Mr. Jackson asked.
Sam took his eyes off Dean to smile at the man. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Jackson. Thank you.”
When Sam pushed through the door, bell jingling, Dean was nowhere to be seen. “Dean?”
Nothing.
Sam kept his head on a swivel as he crossed the parking lot. The Impala sat alone at the pump, no one around her or in her that he could see. At the passenger-side door, he took the time to surveil the parking lot, then the road on the other side. No Dean had to mean, despite what he’d told Sam, that he was hunting.
Sam drifted back to the trunk without taking his eyes off his surroundings, then popped the trunk and pulled open the secret compartment. Their dead man’s blood was too congealed to be useful, so he picked up a machete, tucked it under his jacket, and closed the trunk. But that still left the question of where to find Dean.
The bathrooms were around the side of the building. He’d start there.
He was acutely aware of how much open space separated him from the side of the building, how visible he was to potentially prying eyes within the convenience store. It felt like there was a neon sign pointing out the machete tucked against his side, like anyone who looked would know he was going to kill his brother.
When he reached the relative safety of the side of the building, he dropped the blade into his hand, angled his body so it concealed the sharpened steel from anyone passing on the road. He could hear movement behind the closed bathroom doors. Too much movement? Sounds of a struggle?
He resettled his grip, swallowed, exhaled deliberately—tried to convince himself he could lift the machete and strike his brother’s head from his shoulders if he needed to. Dean would do the same for him.
The bathroom door cracked open.
A solid body pressed him to the wall, trapping his right arm against concrete. “Sam,” Dean’s voice growled in his ear. “What the hell?”
A woman stepped out of the bathroom—the one about Dean’s age, dark hair, round face, red lipstick. She was still primping her hair as she stepped out, but she halted, gave them a weird look, when she saw them. Sam wondered, half-heartedly, what they looked like, Dean pressing him bodily into the wall. He hoped she couldn’t see the machete. That would be hard to explain, no matter what she thought they were doing. She gave them a wide berth as she passed. Neither Dean nor Sam moved.
“Let me see your teeth,” Sam demanded when he couldn’t see her anymore, the grate of her shoes on the sand-covered concrete fading.
“That again?” Dean frowned, gaze dropping to the machete, before he reached up and bared fang-free gums. “We good?”
Sam nodded.
Warily, Dean stepped back. He didn’t stop Sam when he continued stalking to the bathroom, but he did follow. No one else had come out, and he hadn’t seen any evidence she’d been bitten, but he needed to check.
He flung the door open. Basic tile, sour, musty smell, one toilet, one sink, no people. No vents or other openings that could have admitted a child, let alone a grown man. He moved to the second door, marked for men, knocked, and received no answer. He flung that door open, too. The smell was more pungent, but the rest was the same.
Sam sheathed the machete, turned shamefaced back to Dean. And could see the differences between this Dean and the one he’d seen in the stores—the fuller face, the darker skin tone, shorter hair. Worried eyes free of the hunger that haunted vampires.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“Thought I saw a vampire,” Sam answered. Machete safely hidden under his jacket, he stalked back to the Impala.
“Think we would’ve seen the signs if there were vampires this close to home, Sam.”
“Yeah, probably.”
He dropped heavily into the passenger’s seat, wasn’t surprised when Dean stopped him from closing the door to take the machete, deposit it back in the Impala’s trunk. He gave Sam a long look while he settled behind the wheel. “I want Cas to look you over again when we get home,” he said.
“Ok,” Sam agreed. It couldn’t hurt.
*
“Cas!” Dean bellowed as soon as their boots hit the landing inside the Bunker.
“Dean,” Sam complained, but his brother didn’t so much as twitch, just gathered him with a look and led the way down the stairs.
Castiel met them by the map table, his concern shifting to consternation when neither had any visible injuries. Sam tried to look apologetic in case his—weird as it was to think—prayed “I’m sorry,” didn’t get through.
“Fix Sam,” Dean ordered, stopping with his arms crossed and his legs braced wide like he was digging in for a fight. Sam rubbed a hand over his eyes as Eileen joined them.
Castiel’s brow folded. “Pardon?”
“He’s seeing things again. So—” A handwave. “—work your mojo.”
“My mojo,” Castiel repeated. He looked at Sam, who shrugged and grimaced. “You believe these hallucinations to be caused by a mental imbalance?”
“I think either you or that Russian witch doctor messed him up when you were playing God, and you need to fix it.”
“Gee, thanks, Dean,” Sam murmured.
“Shut up, Sam. You know this isn’t normal.”
“What in our lives is?”
Dean glared, but otherwise ignored the bitter comment. Sam couldn’t really blame him for that. Sam didn’t even really disagree with Dean that something was wrong. He just didn’t think Castiel would be able to help. Dean waved Castiel forward.
The angel approached Sam obediently and, after a brief nod from Sam, pressed his palm to Sam’s forehead. He closed his eyes. For fifty-three seconds, Castiel didn’t move except for the slight rise and fall of his chest, but Sam grew steadily tenser. It felt a little like a dentist drilling into an incompletely numb tooth, the pressure discernible but not yet pain, the way the whole body locked up in preparation for the onset of it.
Then it was over. Castiel removed his hand and studied Sam with a pinched look that didn’t inspire confidence.
“Well?” Dean demanded.
“If there is something wrong with Sam, besides the obvious wound inflicted by the Equalizer, I cannot find it.” He glanced at Dean, but directed the next words to Sam. “The energy surrounding the wound appears the same as when I initially observed it. If there is lingering ill effect from my search or from Sergei’s machinations, I’m sorry, but I can’t find any evidence.”
“That’s fine, Cas,” Sam said. “Thank you.”
“Fine?” Dean demanded hotly, but Sam wasn’t going to let Dean berate their friend when this wasn’t his fault.
“Dean,” he stressed, in the way that said Shut up, don’t be an ass. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
For a moment, Sam expected Dean to explode. To yell, to get in his face, to gesture emphatically—maybe even hit him. Then Dean took the anger and frustration—and fear—Sam could see building under the surface, and buried it deep. “Fine,” he said. “I’m just gonna—”
He stalked away in lieu of finishing the statement, passing through the Library without pause and disappearing into the bowels of the Bunker. Sam figured he’d probably head out to the garage at some point, tinker with the cars. Maybe look for a hunt.
Eileen smiled a little cautiously. “Did you get anything for lunch?” she said, hands moving through the signs.
“Groceries,” Sam answered. “I’ll get them.”
“Let me know when you make lunch. I’ll help.” Eileen went back to the table. To researching, which Sam hadn’t done enough of, and this search had been his idea.
He was a little surprised to find Castiel still close, and still watching him, when he turned to head back outside.
“Do you feel well, Sam?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, and then because he felt Castiel deserved a little more than that, he added, “A little tired, maybe. But what hunter isn’t?”
“You said before that you thought you were seeing God’s endings. If that’s true, it’s possible God could be transmitting on purpose.”
“On purpose? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
But “to distract you” was the obvious answer. It sounded like something Chuck might do. He clapped Castiel on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
“You’re welcome.”
Castiel left, then, taking the back way out of the War Room, and Sam made his way back up the stairs to grab the grocery bags. There weren’t so many that he couldn’t gather all of them in one trip, and he turned Castiel’s words over in his head as he worked. The visions, or whatever, were certainly disruptive. They had Sam jumping at shadows, and the uncertainty wasn’t doing anything for Dean’s relationship with Castiel. They’d proven time and time again that they were strongest together. So, it could make sense that Chuck might be using the connection to get into his head, throw them off their game—distract them.
But if Chuck couldn’t see them fumbling, that wouldn’t be very entertaining. Unless he wasn’t sending the visions on purpose, and whatever was going on with vampire Dean was another one of his endings.
But, then, how could he interact with it? Unless he wasn’t, really, was just reading Chuck’s script. And that was a terrifying thought, because the dreams hadn’t felt like him, not even when he’d felt like Sam. These—these did. And if Chuck could manage that, how were they supposed to keep from giving him His ending?
*
Gunfire rattled from further in the building. Somewhere, someone tripped the alarm and the Bunker lights dimmed, replaced by red lights that pulsed with the wail of the alarm. Sam remained where he was, seated at the Library table, and pressed his hands against the cool surface as a reminder to be patient.
Dean must have entered through the garage. The hunters would take care of the demons Dean had brought with him, or they would take care of each other, and Dean would come to him. Just the idea made his blood sing. The last time he’d faced Dean and the Mark of Cain, he’d needed Castiel to save him. This time, he would put up a better fight. This time, he intended to win. To save his brother. Even if saving him just meant keeping him from living as a monster.
Sam stood when his sense of his brother and his demons moved right outside the Library. He faced them calmly, unsurprised when five demons flanked Dean through the doorway. If they’d been wearing six-shooters, the tableau might have come from an old Western, Good and Evil facing off at High Noon in the town square.
Not that this was the town square. And the sides were a little unbalanced.
Time to even the odds. With a quiet smile, Sam closed his eyes, inhaled—wrapped his will around the ash and brimstone energy that called to him as one of their own. When he exhaled, he pulled that energy free, wrenching the demons from their hosts.
The meatsuits dropped like so many discarded puppets with their strings cut.
That was always the way this was going to end. No matter who he or Dean brought in, this final battle was always going to be between him and Dean, alone.
Dean grinned, wolfish, with the same hunger in his eyes. “Shouldn’t have done that, Sammy. This could’ve been quick.”
“You don’t want quick,” Sam countered. He pulled the demon-killing knife into his right hand, an angel blade into the left. Dean answered with the First Blade. Both knew which was more deadly, particularly to Dean. “You might regret that.”
“You definitely will.”
Sam couldn’t have said who moved first—he’d been pressing at Dean’s will with his own, so he’d felt the shift in focus, in intent, and moved to meet it. The first blows were quick, testing. They fell hard as the brothers circled.
One-hundred eighty degrees from where they started, Dean again grinned at him from across the room. “You should have let me go, little brother. It didn’t have to end like this.”
“It always had to end like this, Dean. You knew, once you surrendered to the Mark, it would never have let me live.”
Dean’s jaw set. He charged. Not headstrong, not reckless—strong, controlled, inexorable. Sam met him in the middle and lowered his shoulder, used his superior bulk to plow Dean into the table. The Blade raked down his flank, drawing blood. Sam drew his right arm back, landed a punch to Dean’s right cheek that snapped his head back, another that snapped his nose, gushing blood down the front of Dean’s shirt. He raised his arm again, blade angled down, and put his weight behind the blow.
Dean caught his wrist, twisted it to the side so the knife drove into the table. Then he used that point to leverage Sam off, get on top, and grab Sam by the shoulders. He continued the roll and threw Sam into the bookcase. Sam hit sideways, shoulder to hip, and crashed to the ground amid a cascade of snapped wood and books.
Sam slapped his hand down on the angel blade that had slipped free and pushed to his knees.
Dean’s boot caught him in the diaphragm. Sam’s lungs seized up, his brain lighting up with panic when his lungs wouldn’t expand. Dean kicked again. Sam felt his rib give, tasted blood in his mouth.
“How do you like that, Sammy?” Dean grabbed his collar, hauled him up to his feet. He casually spun the blade, reversing his grip, and lifted it high. “Shame you couldn’t put up a better fight.”
Still struggling to breathe, Sam raised his hand and let the power coursing wild through his veins loose.
Dean flew back. He hit the opposite bookshelf, bringing the shelves down in a cascade of books the old Sam would have mourned. This Sam didn’t have time. He finally drew a rasping breath as Dean got his feet under him. Sam wiped the blood from his chin and pushed to his feet as Dean did the same.
“Not bad, little brother.” Dean flipped the Blade to point at him. “But not enough.” He charged.
Sam ducked low and left, drew a long line of blood along Dean’s ribs. Dean’s elbow caught him behind the right ear. Sam stumbled, dropping his head between his shoulders to protect it, and Dean’s Blade lashed across his bicep. Sam blocked the next strike, forced Dean wide, and sent a strong hook to plow into Dean’s face.
Dean caught his wrist before the blow landed, stepped in close, and plowed his forehead through Sam’s nose. Sam stumbled back, but Dean still had control of his wrist. He twisted, slung Sam around and tossed him at the other table. Sam hit it with his hip. The legs squealed as they were forced across the floor. Sam caught his weight with his hand, got his other up to deflect the Blade. Dean followed up with a left cross that busted Sam’s bottom lip.
Sam’s feet went out from under him. He kicked out at Dean on his way down, but the older hunter danced out of reach, then darted in close. He grabbed Sam’s collar and hauled him to his feet, shoved him back into the wall. Sam hit, slapped his hands back to break the fall, and surged forward when Dean closed, slipping past his guard for a hard jab at his chest, a kick that buckled his knee.
Dean went down, and Sam kicked—a snap kick that caught Dean under the jaw. Dean flew, landed hard on his back. Sam followed, flowing down to straddle Dean high so he couldn’t buck, wrapped his hands tight around Dean’s throat.
Dean bucked, but Sam held on, rode Dean’s struggle across the floor until Dean unexpected jerked sideways hard enough to upset Sam’s balance. He lost his grip, just for a second, and Dean forced his arms between Sam’s. He forced his arms apart, ripping Sam’s hands off his throat, and curled up as Sam fell forward.
His head slammed into Sam’s cheek. Sam felt the crack. He reeled back. Dean grabbed his arm, twisted and threw Sam off, got Sam on his back and pinned. He punched once, twice, three times, catching Sam in the same cheek each time, and shattered the bone. Sam pushed at him, but he couldn’t see out of that eye. His limbs felt sluggish. He clawed at Dean’s hands when his brother hauled him to his feet. He swayed when Dean let go, peered with bleary eyes at the figure before him.
Then Dean planted his hands solidly on Sam’s chest and shoved, and Sam reeled back into the wall. He gasped as he hit, broken rib shifting painfully, and stumbled a step forward.
Dean bent and picked up the Blade, then he lunged, slammed Sam solidly into the wall and pinned him in place with his forearm forcing Sam’s chin high. Sam’s breath rasped in his chest. Blood coated his throat. “This isn’t over,” Sam promised.
“See you in hell, Sammy.” The tip of the Blade kissed Sam’s skin, just under his bottom rib. Dean paused, leaned closer. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said, but there was no love there, no remorse.
Sam gathered what strength he had left and hocked a glob of bloody sputum in Dean’s face. It struck high on Dean’s check and dripped.
The Blade plunged between his ribs, through his lungs, into his heart. Blood slid past his lips when they parted, thick and dark. Dean drew the Blade free and stepped back.
Sam’s body hit the ground, eyes open and fixed.
*
Sam blinked. He sat at the table furthest from the War Room, not propped against the wall. The lights were their normal white, not pulsing red. There were no bodies on the floor, no Dean. Sam took a deep breath, and pressed his hand to his chest when it ached. He didn’t know if the feeling was phantom pain from a blow that never fell or grief over the loss of a brother that wasn’t his, but it was sharp.
And brief. The next time he inhaled, the pain was gone, leaving only the memory of it as a vague echo. Like a ghost.
Relaxing after it wasn’t as easy, and Sam’s eyes drifted over the walls, the books, the tables and chairs, and knickknacks aimlessly. There was no one else in the Library with him, no one to offer a distraction from his thoughts, or from the part of his mind that tried to insist that shelf had broken, that chair had toppled and splintered, that lamp had busted. That was where he’d died.
It wasn’t the first time he’d died, wasn’t even the first time he’d seen himself die, wasn’t particularly traumatic, either, as far as possible deaths went—he’d had similar nightmares when Dean had actually borne the Mark of Cain and was losing control, nightmares that had scared him bone-deep because they were possible—but this unease was tied to too much that he didn’t know, and he couldn’t shake it. Not here.
Sam pushed to his feet, bracing against the arms of the chair when his legs proved shaky. A wave of light-headedness greyed out his vision at the top, and he had to grab onto the table to keep his feet. Because of the vision?
The episode let up. His vision cleared, and with it a more likely explanation presented: low blood sugar. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Too bad the idea of food turned his already queasy stomach. He probably didn’t have much choice, though, if he wanted to avoid an unpleasant meeting with the floor and the mother-henning that would follow from Dean, Castiel, and Eileen.
But first, he had to take care of a more pressing issue. One that took precedence unless he wanted to make a mess and give Dean teasing fodder for the next millennium.
He moved quickly. The hallway was quiet. His footsteps sounded loud echoing off the concrete walls, too loud. He found himself twisting to look behind him every few steps, checking to make sure no one was behind him, their footsteps lost beneath the thud of his.
He didn’t need to. He knew he didn’t need to—the only people in the Bunker were friends. But it wasn’t exactly a stranger he expected to jump him.
He huffed. “You’re being ridiculous,” he told the walls.
“You know how to make it stop,” Dean’s voice said.
Sam whirled. The hall behind him was still as empty as the hall before him had been.
Movement out of the corner of his eye—
He hit the wall on his shoulder, hands up to guard his face, his neck. Then the weight that had knocked him off balance, the arms that had wrapped him vanished.
With his back to the wall, Sam could see each way down the hall with the smallest tilt of his head when he lowered his arms. Empty hallway greeted him. Whatever he thought he’d seen, whatever he thought he’d felt, whoever he thought he’d heard, there was no one with him.
Slowly, Sam lowered his arms and eased back to standing. The hallway remained clear. Sam rolled his shoulder, watching back the way he’d come until the quiet click of dress shoes drew his attention the other way.
Castiel rounded the corner from the next cross-corridor, likely coming from his room. “Sam?” He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Sam huffed a half-hearted chuckle, rubbing his eyebrow when Castiel tilted his head. “Yeah, uh, just got a little dizzy.”
“A little dizzy.”
“Low blood sugar,” he explained.
“Ah.” Castiel squinted at him, then, and seemed almost to scan him. “Yes, you do appear to be hypoglycemic. I’ll make you something to eat.”
“No, that’s—ah—” Castiel kept walking, completely ignoring Sam’s protests. For half a second, Sam considered going after him, but decided just as fast that it wouldn’t do any good. He exhaled the impulse through his noise, dropping his hands to hang by his side. “Thanks, Cas.”
If the angel heard him, he didn’t comment. Well, Sam reasoned, he could thank him when he got his food.
Nothing else happened while he emptied his bladder, thank—someone who wasn’t God. He stopped by his room to grab a notebook and pen, then stopped by Eileen’s room to see how she was doing, if she wanted something to eat, but she didn’t answer.
Castiel met him at the kitchen door. He had a plate in one hand, a glass in the other, and an apologetic look on his face. “It’s not much.” He’d stacked two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on half the plate, and split the other half between a handful of carrots and chips, and filled the glass with milk—a meal he’d frequently prepared for Jack.
“No. No, it’s great. Thanks, Cas.”
“I wasn’t sure where you’d want it.”
“Oh, uh—” Sam started, trying to figure out how he could take both items with the notebook in his hand. “Here’s fine. At the table,” he clarified, when Castiel’s eyebrow climbed.
“Very well.”
Castiel turned on his heel, set both items down on the table in Sam’s usual spot, then turned back to the counter and grabbed a second plate and glass.
“Cas?”
The angle stopped before setting them opposite. “I thought I would join you.”
“But you don’t eat.”
His lips compressed into a line. “I find myself wanting to reconnect with—with Jack. He shared meals with you.”
Sam nodded. He thought it was more that Castiel didn’t want to grieve in solitude, and Sam felt bad that he hadn’t made more of an effort to be there for Castiel. He’d gotten so used to the way Dean grieved, it hadn’t occurred to him that Castiel might need something different. And, he’d been more than a little preoccupied, with everything. Tthe reminder felt like a sucker punch. “Sounds good,” he managed.
They sat down. Sam ate in silence and Castiel picked. Food disappeared from Castiel’s plate, but Sam hadn’t seen him take more than a handful of bites. It didn’t feel much like the meals he’d shared with Jack, but it wouldn’t. Jack had been—Jack. So kind and endlessly curious, determined, and so helpful. So willing to learn, so afraid of doing the wrong thing, of losing the people he’d loved. He’d been every bit a Winchester, even if he hadn’t shared their blood.
It hurt, thinking of Jack, so bad sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Combined with everything else he’d lost—with everything they’d lost—in just a few short months—if he thought about it too long, he knew he’d lie down and never climb back up.
Dean helped, and Cas and Eileen, Jody. The girls. Remembering what they still had helped. Having a purpose helped, too.
Sam cleared his throat. “Hey, Cas, do you know where Eileen is?”
“She said she found a case.”
“A case?” Sam wracked his brain, trying to figure out when she’d even been looking for one, and came up blank. “Did she say where?”
“I don’t think so. Is that a problem?”
“No,” Sam answered automatically. She was a grown woman, a hunter. She was fine. “No,” he repeated, more firmly, for himself as well as Castiel. “It’s fine. What about Dean?”
“In his room, I think.”
“Ok.” He took the last bite of his second sandwich, surprised to see he’d eaten so much, then brushed the crumbs from his hands. “Thanks, Cas. This really hit the spot.”
“You’re welcome.” Castiel gathered the dishes and put them in the sink.
“I’m just gonna—” He pointed, but couldn’t get the word go out with Castiel looking so sad. Not that he was crying or anything so emotionally demonstrative, or even paying attention to Sam, but Sam had never seen the angel look so small, and he’d seen him without his Grace.
Castiel nodded.
Sam hesitated at the door. He turned. “Hey, Cas. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Said flatly, with that dead look daring Sam to push the issue, it was obviously a lie, but—well. People in glass houses.
“Good. Okay.”
In the hallway, a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye drew his gaze to the end of the hall, but when he looked directly at it, there was nothing there.
Breath on the back of his neck made him whirl, breath caught in his throat.
The space was just as empty as the hallway had been. His jaw set. This was ridiculous. He was a seasoned hunter. He’d survived hell and everything his brain had thrown at him after, and jump-scares were what was getting to him?
“Don’t you want to come with me, Sam? You said we were in this together. Or did you only mean when things were good?”
Sam pressed his palms into his eyes and refused to look. “When have things ever been good?” he asked.
Dean—fake Dean, whatever—didn’t answer. When Sam opened his eyes, he was alone.
He had to get out of here.
He moved quickly, poking his head through the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Cas. How long ago did Eileen leave?” She was a seasoned hunter, but she only recently became not dead. She didn’t have a bodycam or a radio—not that the radio would have done her any good—and she was hunting alone. If something happened, there’d be no one nearby. He’d have no idea what happened to her. But, most importantly, she wasn’t here.
“About an hour ago.”
“Did she say what she was hunting?”
“No. Sam, what—”
“Thanks, Cas!” He hurried away before Castiel could try to talk him out of it, or offer to go with, or—worse—suggest he take Dean. Because him trailing Eileen wasn’t bad enough. He just didn’t have any other choice. He knew he didn’t have the focus to hunt alone, but he needed to do something.
He just hoped a hunt would help him feel less like he was going crazy.
*
On to PART THREE...
Sam half-expected Dean to put in Stairway to Heaven when they got in the car. Dean swore by it, and he’d been throwing Sam little looks from the moment the doors had closed. But Dean chatted through the drive—about it being a shame Jack had broken the Ma’lak box (“Even assuming it was strong enough to contain Him, how would we get Him in?” Sam countered), wondering if they could have used the egg thing (“The Hyperbolic Pulse Generator.”) to expel God (“Is he even in a host?”), which led to a debate on if Chuck existed outside of God, or if Chuck had created the body solely as a receptacle to exist on earth.
Between Dean’s distraction techniques and being away from the Bunker (which was where they apparently always killed each other), Sam relaxed. Dean sent him after eggs, spinach, and avocado, and Sam figured since he was here, he would pick up turkey bacon. Maybe he could return the favor and tell Dean it was real bacon. If Dean let him get out of the store with it.
Which reminded him that he wanted apples, and if he was going to pick up apples, he might as well get some peaches—even if they weren’t from Georgia—and maybe some grapes, a mango or two, some pomegranates and plums. . . . He had to circle back to the front of the store for a basket to dump everything in before he finished. The eggs took him near Dairy, so he grabbed some more yogurt, some cheese that wasn’t Kraft singles, and then down the cereal aisle to pick up another box of his cereal.
Movement out of the corner of his eye, dark and too fast to be another customer, turned his head. The aisle behind him was empty. No one passed by in the few seconds he watched, even though the store was fairly busy.
Unease niggling at him, Sam shifted the basket to his left hand and got a grip on the gun concealed in his waistband as he eased quietly to the end of the aisle. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he hesitated just out of sight, then stepped out.
Nothing.
No monsters. No people. No noise. Like the moment he’d left the aisle, everyone had been teleported out of the store. He stayed where he was for a long minute, listening and tense, eyes peeled, but nothing changed. The feeling of being watched crept back over his shoulders.
Sam freed his gun, held it ready at his side with his finger off the trigger, and stalked back down the cereal aisle to the front of the store. He half-expected and was prepared for a dark shape to lunge at him from the top of one of the shelves, but he came out the other side without anything happening.
Except there were people milling around, their chatter a high-ish hum over the A/C blasting from the vents. Dean looked at him from the nearest register, eyebrows going up when he spotted Sam’s gun.
“You get everything?” he asked easily.
“Yeah.” Sam moved quickly next to him, dropped the basket on the cart, and tucked the gun back out of sight. He didn’t think his face was red, but he felt hot and sweaty and wanted to sink through the floor. He couldn’t look at Dean.
“Problem?”
“No.” Not if he didn’t count going crazy as a problem. Or—maybe djinn poison? But where would he have come in contact with a djinn?
Dean didn’t call him on it, possibly because the cashier finished with the customer before them and Dean could never resist charming a woman, particularly a young, attractive woman. Sam looked at the gum and mints and chocolate set up by the register as they started talking, the words punctuated by beeps, and grabbed a pack of gum more for something to do with his hands than because he wanted the gum.
Dean glanced at him when he tossed it in the basket, but didn’t protest. Sam knew Dean was really worried when his brother didn’t comment on the turkey bacon. It went into the bags with everything else. Dean paid. Sam smiled when the cashier wished them a good day, and picked up his share of the bags.
He glimpsed a familiar face, fangs distorting his lips, in the glass entrance door. When he looked back, it was gone.
“You coming, Sam?” Dean called from outside the exit door.
“Yeah,” Sam said. He jolted into motion, but couldn’t help one more glance. Nothing. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
*
Dean waited until they’d packed everything into the car, until they’d closed the doors behind them and had at least the semblance of privacy. “Sam,” he started.
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t feel different. I don’t feel wrong. I don’t know what’s going on, if Sergei left something behind or if Chuck is pushing at me, if it’s bleed-over, or—or—or stress or something.”
Dean let the silence hang, just a second. “Can stress cause hallucinations?”
“Um. Sort of? But usually not unless there’s some kind of mental illness involved as the underlying cause.”
“Sort of?” Dean asked. He put the car in reverse, then twisted around to see out the rear window.
“Some people have reported visual and auditory hallucinations during periods of intense negative emotions, such as stress and grief. The idea is that it triggers mental processes that the brain has trouble controlling. They tend to include memories or previously seen images and are more frequent in older populations.”
“Well,” Dean said, “it’s not like there’s any shortage of stress or grief in this job.”
Sam huffed an unamused laugh. “Yeah.”
Dean looked at Sam before pulling out into the sparse Lebanon traffic. “We’ll figure it out,” he promised.
Sam tilted his head back to stare up at the Impala’s roof. In all the years they’d had this car, they hadn’t really done anything to it. “Chuck first.”
Dean didn’t argue, but he didn’t agree, either.
*
There were seven other cars in the two-pump gas station’s parking lot—one at the other pump, the rest parked in front of the convenience store. The two-tone Oldsmobile parked by the dumpster around the side belonged to Jack Jackson, the store’s owner and manager and only full-time employee. Sam didn’t recognize any of the others.
He also didn’t see Dean.
Sam couldn’t say why that made him anxious. He and Dean went places alone or with other people all the time, especially since they brought the refugees over from the Apocalypse world and Michael possessed Dean. Which could have been a reason to be anxious except Michael was dead. But he didn’t like not being able to see Dean.
The restlessness drove him out of the car. A man who looked to be about the age John would’ve been came out as Sam crossed the parking lot. He climbed into his car without a glance at Sam. Sam watched him until he backed out, started to pull away.
The bell chimed when he opened the door. Mr. Jackson looked up, chinned an acknowledgement. Sam lifted a hand in response, even as he scanned the store. There were three people in line, two by the drink coolers, three in the chips and candy bar aisle, one looking at phone chargers (probably from out-of-state), and two looking at postcards. The ages ranged from about thirteen to forty-five.
Dean wasn’t one of them.
He checked the mirrors as started for the back of the store, hoping he’d just missed him, and started when his brother’s face was staring back at him, face pale and drawn, eyes burning. When he saw that he had Sam’s attention, he bared a mouthful of fangs.
Then he turned his attention to a teenaged girl debating candy bars with her friend.
Sam kept his gaze locked on his brother as he picked up his pace, struggling to balance speed with not drawing attention to himself. He was too far away to stop him if Dean decided to go for the bite.
Dean moved slow, though, a cat toying with a mouse—not that the mouse, the girl, knew it.
He saw her look up when Dean approached, watchful, then Dean must have said something because she laughed and glanced bashfully at her friend. The friend drew closer, but so did Dean, and so did the girl. She twirled her hair and ducked her head bashfully, but she never stopped smiling.
Sam reached the end of the aisle and powered around the corner. “Dean,” Sam said as soon as he cleared the shelving.
The girls drew back, eyes wide, and shifted further behind Dean. Sam stopped just inside the aisle, kept his hands loose and his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He could get to Dean in under five seconds, if he had to, with his reach. He just had to hope that was fast enough, which wasn’t a guarantee. Vampires were fast.
But he couldn’t think of any way to get an unwilling Dean out that wouldn’t cause a scene. And he didn’t have anything that could seriously hurt Dean if he decided to do lunch. He looked helplessly between the girls and his brother. He didn’t know what to do.
Dean didn’t have the same problem. He smirked, and casually drew the girl, blonde and blue-eyed and just a little over five feet, under his arm. She pulled in on herself, but she didn’t fight him. That close, Dean could rip out her throat before Sam could twitch. “Hey, Sammy,” he said, warm and easy. “Me and Darlene, here, were just talking, getting to know each other. Ain’t that right, Darlene?”
“Allie and I should probably be leaving, actually,” Darlene answered, her voice shakier than she probably intended. “Her mom’s expecting us.”
“For lunch, right?”
It took a moment, but Darlene nodded. “We’re having burgers.”
“Burgers. I love me a good burger. Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
“Leave them out of this, Dean.” The part of him that knew his brother, had grown up with his brother, didn’t think Dean would actually hurt either girl. Thought he was too protective. But the Dean he knew never would have brought them into this in the first place. There were other people in the gas station he could have chosen—including a woman more his age that he probably could have talked out of the gas station in his sleep.
No, the monster he’d become, there was no telling what he would or wouldn’t do. And he knew Sam, too, knew Sam would be more protective of kids about Jack’s age—about the age Jack had looked, since he hadn’t lived long enough to actually reach that age.
“I was telling Sammy just yesterday that it’d been a long, long time since I’d had me a nice, home-cooked hamburger. Does your mom make them, Allie? Does she roll the ground beef into balls by herself, squish them flat?”
“Y-yeah.”
“I think that sounds awesome. Doesn’t that sound awesome, Sammy?”
Sam dared a glance at the mirror at the front of the store. The three people who’d been waiting in line were gone. He couldn’t see the two who’d been looking at postcards. The guy who’d been perusing phone chargers took his bag from Mr. Jackson and headed out as Sam watched. That left the two by the drinks, who’d picked drinks and had wandered to the chips on the next aisle over, and the teenage boy he’d thought had been with the girls, who’d picked his candy and now headed to the counter. “We can make burgers at home, Dean.”
“Sure, we could,” Dean agreed. “But it wouldn’t be as fun. Home’s gotten a little quiet, these days. Empty Nest Syndrome,” he added to Darlene. “Lost our boy not that long ago. I kinda miss him. And Sammy, here, he’s not real great about expanding his horizons. Thinks we should all stay in and be vegetarian monks.
“Me, I’m looking for something with more meat on its bones. Something I can really sink my teeth into, you know?”
“I-I. I guess?” Darlene answered, and sucked in a breath when Dean pulled her tighter into his side.
Dean inhaled, nose drawing up the side of her head, not quite touching. “You know, the best steaks—but this goes for burgers, too. The best steaks are still bloody. You need a bit of blood to really get the full flavor. The rarer, the better.”
Darlene hummed nervously. “I don’t. I like my burgers medium well.”
“Everyone has different tastes,” Dean said easily. “But you don’t know what you’re missing. I could help you out with that.”
“What—what do you mean?”
Dean’s smile was all teeth—wolfish, would’ve been the term—with no sign of fangs. “You’ll just have to invite me and Sammy along to lunch to find out. We’ll make a game of it. You girls wanna play a game?”
“This isn’t a game,” Sam interrupted, before either girl could make a mistake that would cost them their lives. Because no matter how scared they’d been before, Sam knew the effect his brother could have on women.
“Sammy’s a bit of a stick in the mud, but I know he’ll loosen up in no time.”
“What do you want, Dean?”
Darlene tensed, whites of her eyes showing as Dean’s grip abruptly tightened to bruising. She tried to pull away, but Dean held her effortlessly in place. “You’re hurting m-me, Dean.”
“I want you to join me, Sammy.”
“I can save you. Cure you. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
Dean laughed, loud enough to finally draw attention from the other patrons and hard. “You’re weeks and weeks too late to save me, brother. But you’re right. It doesn’t have to end like this. Say you’ll come with me, and Darlene and her friend, Allie, walk out of here with all their blood.”
They both knew Sam was going to say yes, was going to say what he needed to in order to protect the girls, but Dean wouldn’t believe an easy capitulation. Maybe he wouldn’t believe Sam, period. “I came here with you, Dean. We rode together.”
Dean’s free hand curved around his body, picked a lock of hair and slowly curled it around his finger while Sam felt the tension grow, gain weight. “I could always keep this one to be your first,” Dean said like he couldn’t feel it, “if you wanted. Would you like that? The young ones taste better. They haven’t aged ennough to get bitter.”
“I want you to let her go, Dean.”
“And then what? Then you shoot me with the gun tucked at the small of your back?”
“Waste of a bullet, right? We both know nothing I’ve got on me is going to hurt you. We both know I’m going to follow you out of this store.”
“Let me turn you, Sammy. Join me. Right here, right now.”
“Not here,” Sam countered. He flickered his glance conspicuously at the security camera that had dutifully been capturing their every move.
Dean followed the glance, then smirked. “Wanna do it in the car, then? I’ll be gentle.”
“Fine,” Sam agreed shortly. “Now, let her go.”
Dean did. Darlene immediately darted out of reach and Allie grabbed her hand, the pair of them high-tailing it through the door. The bell rattled, loud and flat. “After you,” Dean said pleasantly, sweeping his arm out with a bow.
Sam scoffed. “While there are still people in here? I don’t think so. You first.”
Dean’s eyes glittered with malic when he straightened. “You’ll be singing a different tune once you’ve fed. But fine. Just don’t take too long, brother. I get bored easily.”
Without another word, Dean sauntered toward the front door. It was a straight shot, which made it simple. He trailed Dean at a—well, not a safe distance, exactly, but one that would let him react if Dean deviated from the plan.
He didn’t.
“Everything ok, Sam?” Mr. Jackson asked.
Sam took his eyes off Dean to smile at the man. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Jackson. Thank you.”
When Sam pushed through the door, bell jingling, Dean was nowhere to be seen. “Dean?”
Nothing.
Sam kept his head on a swivel as he crossed the parking lot. The Impala sat alone at the pump, no one around her or in her that he could see. At the passenger-side door, he took the time to surveil the parking lot, then the road on the other side. No Dean had to mean, despite what he’d told Sam, that he was hunting.
Sam drifted back to the trunk without taking his eyes off his surroundings, then popped the trunk and pulled open the secret compartment. Their dead man’s blood was too congealed to be useful, so he picked up a machete, tucked it under his jacket, and closed the trunk. But that still left the question of where to find Dean.
The bathrooms were around the side of the building. He’d start there.
He was acutely aware of how much open space separated him from the side of the building, how visible he was to potentially prying eyes within the convenience store. It felt like there was a neon sign pointing out the machete tucked against his side, like anyone who looked would know he was going to kill his brother.
When he reached the relative safety of the side of the building, he dropped the blade into his hand, angled his body so it concealed the sharpened steel from anyone passing on the road. He could hear movement behind the closed bathroom doors. Too much movement? Sounds of a struggle?
He resettled his grip, swallowed, exhaled deliberately—tried to convince himself he could lift the machete and strike his brother’s head from his shoulders if he needed to. Dean would do the same for him.
The bathroom door cracked open.
A solid body pressed him to the wall, trapping his right arm against concrete. “Sam,” Dean’s voice growled in his ear. “What the hell?”
A woman stepped out of the bathroom—the one about Dean’s age, dark hair, round face, red lipstick. She was still primping her hair as she stepped out, but she halted, gave them a weird look, when she saw them. Sam wondered, half-heartedly, what they looked like, Dean pressing him bodily into the wall. He hoped she couldn’t see the machete. That would be hard to explain, no matter what she thought they were doing. She gave them a wide berth as she passed. Neither Dean nor Sam moved.
“Let me see your teeth,” Sam demanded when he couldn’t see her anymore, the grate of her shoes on the sand-covered concrete fading.
“That again?” Dean frowned, gaze dropping to the machete, before he reached up and bared fang-free gums. “We good?”
Sam nodded.
Warily, Dean stepped back. He didn’t stop Sam when he continued stalking to the bathroom, but he did follow. No one else had come out, and he hadn’t seen any evidence she’d been bitten, but he needed to check.
He flung the door open. Basic tile, sour, musty smell, one toilet, one sink, no people. No vents or other openings that could have admitted a child, let alone a grown man. He moved to the second door, marked for men, knocked, and received no answer. He flung that door open, too. The smell was more pungent, but the rest was the same.
Sam sheathed the machete, turned shamefaced back to Dean. And could see the differences between this Dean and the one he’d seen in the stores—the fuller face, the darker skin tone, shorter hair. Worried eyes free of the hunger that haunted vampires.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“Thought I saw a vampire,” Sam answered. Machete safely hidden under his jacket, he stalked back to the Impala.
“Think we would’ve seen the signs if there were vampires this close to home, Sam.”
“Yeah, probably.”
He dropped heavily into the passenger’s seat, wasn’t surprised when Dean stopped him from closing the door to take the machete, deposit it back in the Impala’s trunk. He gave Sam a long look while he settled behind the wheel. “I want Cas to look you over again when we get home,” he said.
“Ok,” Sam agreed. It couldn’t hurt.
*
“Cas!” Dean bellowed as soon as their boots hit the landing inside the Bunker.
“Dean,” Sam complained, but his brother didn’t so much as twitch, just gathered him with a look and led the way down the stairs.
Castiel met them by the map table, his concern shifting to consternation when neither had any visible injuries. Sam tried to look apologetic in case his—weird as it was to think—prayed “I’m sorry,” didn’t get through.
“Fix Sam,” Dean ordered, stopping with his arms crossed and his legs braced wide like he was digging in for a fight. Sam rubbed a hand over his eyes as Eileen joined them.
Castiel’s brow folded. “Pardon?”
“He’s seeing things again. So—” A handwave. “—work your mojo.”
“My mojo,” Castiel repeated. He looked at Sam, who shrugged and grimaced. “You believe these hallucinations to be caused by a mental imbalance?”
“I think either you or that Russian witch doctor messed him up when you were playing God, and you need to fix it.”
“Gee, thanks, Dean,” Sam murmured.
“Shut up, Sam. You know this isn’t normal.”
“What in our lives is?”
Dean glared, but otherwise ignored the bitter comment. Sam couldn’t really blame him for that. Sam didn’t even really disagree with Dean that something was wrong. He just didn’t think Castiel would be able to help. Dean waved Castiel forward.
The angel approached Sam obediently and, after a brief nod from Sam, pressed his palm to Sam’s forehead. He closed his eyes. For fifty-three seconds, Castiel didn’t move except for the slight rise and fall of his chest, but Sam grew steadily tenser. It felt a little like a dentist drilling into an incompletely numb tooth, the pressure discernible but not yet pain, the way the whole body locked up in preparation for the onset of it.
Then it was over. Castiel removed his hand and studied Sam with a pinched look that didn’t inspire confidence.
“Well?” Dean demanded.
“If there is something wrong with Sam, besides the obvious wound inflicted by the Equalizer, I cannot find it.” He glanced at Dean, but directed the next words to Sam. “The energy surrounding the wound appears the same as when I initially observed it. If there is lingering ill effect from my search or from Sergei’s machinations, I’m sorry, but I can’t find any evidence.”
“That’s fine, Cas,” Sam said. “Thank you.”
“Fine?” Dean demanded hotly, but Sam wasn’t going to let Dean berate their friend when this wasn’t his fault.
“Dean,” he stressed, in the way that said Shut up, don’t be an ass. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
For a moment, Sam expected Dean to explode. To yell, to get in his face, to gesture emphatically—maybe even hit him. Then Dean took the anger and frustration—and fear—Sam could see building under the surface, and buried it deep. “Fine,” he said. “I’m just gonna—”
He stalked away in lieu of finishing the statement, passing through the Library without pause and disappearing into the bowels of the Bunker. Sam figured he’d probably head out to the garage at some point, tinker with the cars. Maybe look for a hunt.
Eileen smiled a little cautiously. “Did you get anything for lunch?” she said, hands moving through the signs.
“Groceries,” Sam answered. “I’ll get them.”
“Let me know when you make lunch. I’ll help.” Eileen went back to the table. To researching, which Sam hadn’t done enough of, and this search had been his idea.
He was a little surprised to find Castiel still close, and still watching him, when he turned to head back outside.
“Do you feel well, Sam?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, and then because he felt Castiel deserved a little more than that, he added, “A little tired, maybe. But what hunter isn’t?”
“You said before that you thought you were seeing God’s endings. If that’s true, it’s possible God could be transmitting on purpose.”
“On purpose? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
But “to distract you” was the obvious answer. It sounded like something Chuck might do. He clapped Castiel on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”
“You’re welcome.”
Castiel left, then, taking the back way out of the War Room, and Sam made his way back up the stairs to grab the grocery bags. There weren’t so many that he couldn’t gather all of them in one trip, and he turned Castiel’s words over in his head as he worked. The visions, or whatever, were certainly disruptive. They had Sam jumping at shadows, and the uncertainty wasn’t doing anything for Dean’s relationship with Castiel. They’d proven time and time again that they were strongest together. So, it could make sense that Chuck might be using the connection to get into his head, throw them off their game—distract them.
But if Chuck couldn’t see them fumbling, that wouldn’t be very entertaining. Unless he wasn’t sending the visions on purpose, and whatever was going on with vampire Dean was another one of his endings.
But, then, how could he interact with it? Unless he wasn’t, really, was just reading Chuck’s script. And that was a terrifying thought, because the dreams hadn’t felt like him, not even when he’d felt like Sam. These—these did. And if Chuck could manage that, how were they supposed to keep from giving him His ending?
*
Gunfire rattled from further in the building. Somewhere, someone tripped the alarm and the Bunker lights dimmed, replaced by red lights that pulsed with the wail of the alarm. Sam remained where he was, seated at the Library table, and pressed his hands against the cool surface as a reminder to be patient.
Dean must have entered through the garage. The hunters would take care of the demons Dean had brought with him, or they would take care of each other, and Dean would come to him. Just the idea made his blood sing. The last time he’d faced Dean and the Mark of Cain, he’d needed Castiel to save him. This time, he would put up a better fight. This time, he intended to win. To save his brother. Even if saving him just meant keeping him from living as a monster.
Sam stood when his sense of his brother and his demons moved right outside the Library. He faced them calmly, unsurprised when five demons flanked Dean through the doorway. If they’d been wearing six-shooters, the tableau might have come from an old Western, Good and Evil facing off at High Noon in the town square.
Not that this was the town square. And the sides were a little unbalanced.
Time to even the odds. With a quiet smile, Sam closed his eyes, inhaled—wrapped his will around the ash and brimstone energy that called to him as one of their own. When he exhaled, he pulled that energy free, wrenching the demons from their hosts.
The meatsuits dropped like so many discarded puppets with their strings cut.
That was always the way this was going to end. No matter who he or Dean brought in, this final battle was always going to be between him and Dean, alone.
Dean grinned, wolfish, with the same hunger in his eyes. “Shouldn’t have done that, Sammy. This could’ve been quick.”
“You don’t want quick,” Sam countered. He pulled the demon-killing knife into his right hand, an angel blade into the left. Dean answered with the First Blade. Both knew which was more deadly, particularly to Dean. “You might regret that.”
“You definitely will.”
Sam couldn’t have said who moved first—he’d been pressing at Dean’s will with his own, so he’d felt the shift in focus, in intent, and moved to meet it. The first blows were quick, testing. They fell hard as the brothers circled.
One-hundred eighty degrees from where they started, Dean again grinned at him from across the room. “You should have let me go, little brother. It didn’t have to end like this.”
“It always had to end like this, Dean. You knew, once you surrendered to the Mark, it would never have let me live.”
Dean’s jaw set. He charged. Not headstrong, not reckless—strong, controlled, inexorable. Sam met him in the middle and lowered his shoulder, used his superior bulk to plow Dean into the table. The Blade raked down his flank, drawing blood. Sam drew his right arm back, landed a punch to Dean’s right cheek that snapped his head back, another that snapped his nose, gushing blood down the front of Dean’s shirt. He raised his arm again, blade angled down, and put his weight behind the blow.
Dean caught his wrist, twisted it to the side so the knife drove into the table. Then he used that point to leverage Sam off, get on top, and grab Sam by the shoulders. He continued the roll and threw Sam into the bookcase. Sam hit sideways, shoulder to hip, and crashed to the ground amid a cascade of snapped wood and books.
Sam slapped his hand down on the angel blade that had slipped free and pushed to his knees.
Dean’s boot caught him in the diaphragm. Sam’s lungs seized up, his brain lighting up with panic when his lungs wouldn’t expand. Dean kicked again. Sam felt his rib give, tasted blood in his mouth.
“How do you like that, Sammy?” Dean grabbed his collar, hauled him up to his feet. He casually spun the blade, reversing his grip, and lifted it high. “Shame you couldn’t put up a better fight.”
Still struggling to breathe, Sam raised his hand and let the power coursing wild through his veins loose.
Dean flew back. He hit the opposite bookshelf, bringing the shelves down in a cascade of books the old Sam would have mourned. This Sam didn’t have time. He finally drew a rasping breath as Dean got his feet under him. Sam wiped the blood from his chin and pushed to his feet as Dean did the same.
“Not bad, little brother.” Dean flipped the Blade to point at him. “But not enough.” He charged.
Sam ducked low and left, drew a long line of blood along Dean’s ribs. Dean’s elbow caught him behind the right ear. Sam stumbled, dropping his head between his shoulders to protect it, and Dean’s Blade lashed across his bicep. Sam blocked the next strike, forced Dean wide, and sent a strong hook to plow into Dean’s face.
Dean caught his wrist before the blow landed, stepped in close, and plowed his forehead through Sam’s nose. Sam stumbled back, but Dean still had control of his wrist. He twisted, slung Sam around and tossed him at the other table. Sam hit it with his hip. The legs squealed as they were forced across the floor. Sam caught his weight with his hand, got his other up to deflect the Blade. Dean followed up with a left cross that busted Sam’s bottom lip.
Sam’s feet went out from under him. He kicked out at Dean on his way down, but the older hunter danced out of reach, then darted in close. He grabbed Sam’s collar and hauled him to his feet, shoved him back into the wall. Sam hit, slapped his hands back to break the fall, and surged forward when Dean closed, slipping past his guard for a hard jab at his chest, a kick that buckled his knee.
Dean went down, and Sam kicked—a snap kick that caught Dean under the jaw. Dean flew, landed hard on his back. Sam followed, flowing down to straddle Dean high so he couldn’t buck, wrapped his hands tight around Dean’s throat.
Dean bucked, but Sam held on, rode Dean’s struggle across the floor until Dean unexpected jerked sideways hard enough to upset Sam’s balance. He lost his grip, just for a second, and Dean forced his arms between Sam’s. He forced his arms apart, ripping Sam’s hands off his throat, and curled up as Sam fell forward.
His head slammed into Sam’s cheek. Sam felt the crack. He reeled back. Dean grabbed his arm, twisted and threw Sam off, got Sam on his back and pinned. He punched once, twice, three times, catching Sam in the same cheek each time, and shattered the bone. Sam pushed at him, but he couldn’t see out of that eye. His limbs felt sluggish. He clawed at Dean’s hands when his brother hauled him to his feet. He swayed when Dean let go, peered with bleary eyes at the figure before him.
Then Dean planted his hands solidly on Sam’s chest and shoved, and Sam reeled back into the wall. He gasped as he hit, broken rib shifting painfully, and stumbled a step forward.
Dean bent and picked up the Blade, then he lunged, slammed Sam solidly into the wall and pinned him in place with his forearm forcing Sam’s chin high. Sam’s breath rasped in his chest. Blood coated his throat. “This isn’t over,” Sam promised.
“See you in hell, Sammy.” The tip of the Blade kissed Sam’s skin, just under his bottom rib. Dean paused, leaned closer. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said, but there was no love there, no remorse.
Sam gathered what strength he had left and hocked a glob of bloody sputum in Dean’s face. It struck high on Dean’s check and dripped.
The Blade plunged between his ribs, through his lungs, into his heart. Blood slid past his lips when they parted, thick and dark. Dean drew the Blade free and stepped back.
Sam’s body hit the ground, eyes open and fixed.
*
Sam blinked. He sat at the table furthest from the War Room, not propped against the wall. The lights were their normal white, not pulsing red. There were no bodies on the floor, no Dean. Sam took a deep breath, and pressed his hand to his chest when it ached. He didn’t know if the feeling was phantom pain from a blow that never fell or grief over the loss of a brother that wasn’t his, but it was sharp.
And brief. The next time he inhaled, the pain was gone, leaving only the memory of it as a vague echo. Like a ghost.
Relaxing after it wasn’t as easy, and Sam’s eyes drifted over the walls, the books, the tables and chairs, and knickknacks aimlessly. There was no one else in the Library with him, no one to offer a distraction from his thoughts, or from the part of his mind that tried to insist that shelf had broken, that chair had toppled and splintered, that lamp had busted. That was where he’d died.
It wasn’t the first time he’d died, wasn’t even the first time he’d seen himself die, wasn’t particularly traumatic, either, as far as possible deaths went—he’d had similar nightmares when Dean had actually borne the Mark of Cain and was losing control, nightmares that had scared him bone-deep because they were possible—but this unease was tied to too much that he didn’t know, and he couldn’t shake it. Not here.
Sam pushed to his feet, bracing against the arms of the chair when his legs proved shaky. A wave of light-headedness greyed out his vision at the top, and he had to grab onto the table to keep his feet. Because of the vision?
The episode let up. His vision cleared, and with it a more likely explanation presented: low blood sugar. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Too bad the idea of food turned his already queasy stomach. He probably didn’t have much choice, though, if he wanted to avoid an unpleasant meeting with the floor and the mother-henning that would follow from Dean, Castiel, and Eileen.
But first, he had to take care of a more pressing issue. One that took precedence unless he wanted to make a mess and give Dean teasing fodder for the next millennium.
He moved quickly. The hallway was quiet. His footsteps sounded loud echoing off the concrete walls, too loud. He found himself twisting to look behind him every few steps, checking to make sure no one was behind him, their footsteps lost beneath the thud of his.
He didn’t need to. He knew he didn’t need to—the only people in the Bunker were friends. But it wasn’t exactly a stranger he expected to jump him.
He huffed. “You’re being ridiculous,” he told the walls.
“You know how to make it stop,” Dean’s voice said.
Sam whirled. The hall behind him was still as empty as the hall before him had been.
Movement out of the corner of his eye—
He hit the wall on his shoulder, hands up to guard his face, his neck. Then the weight that had knocked him off balance, the arms that had wrapped him vanished.
With his back to the wall, Sam could see each way down the hall with the smallest tilt of his head when he lowered his arms. Empty hallway greeted him. Whatever he thought he’d seen, whatever he thought he’d felt, whoever he thought he’d heard, there was no one with him.
Slowly, Sam lowered his arms and eased back to standing. The hallway remained clear. Sam rolled his shoulder, watching back the way he’d come until the quiet click of dress shoes drew his attention the other way.
Castiel rounded the corner from the next cross-corridor, likely coming from his room. “Sam?” He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Sam huffed a half-hearted chuckle, rubbing his eyebrow when Castiel tilted his head. “Yeah, uh, just got a little dizzy.”
“A little dizzy.”
“Low blood sugar,” he explained.
“Ah.” Castiel squinted at him, then, and seemed almost to scan him. “Yes, you do appear to be hypoglycemic. I’ll make you something to eat.”
“No, that’s—ah—” Castiel kept walking, completely ignoring Sam’s protests. For half a second, Sam considered going after him, but decided just as fast that it wouldn’t do any good. He exhaled the impulse through his noise, dropping his hands to hang by his side. “Thanks, Cas.”
If the angel heard him, he didn’t comment. Well, Sam reasoned, he could thank him when he got his food.
Nothing else happened while he emptied his bladder, thank—someone who wasn’t God. He stopped by his room to grab a notebook and pen, then stopped by Eileen’s room to see how she was doing, if she wanted something to eat, but she didn’t answer.
Castiel met him at the kitchen door. He had a plate in one hand, a glass in the other, and an apologetic look on his face. “It’s not much.” He’d stacked two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on half the plate, and split the other half between a handful of carrots and chips, and filled the glass with milk—a meal he’d frequently prepared for Jack.
“No. No, it’s great. Thanks, Cas.”
“I wasn’t sure where you’d want it.”
“Oh, uh—” Sam started, trying to figure out how he could take both items with the notebook in his hand. “Here’s fine. At the table,” he clarified, when Castiel’s eyebrow climbed.
“Very well.”
Castiel turned on his heel, set both items down on the table in Sam’s usual spot, then turned back to the counter and grabbed a second plate and glass.
“Cas?”
The angle stopped before setting them opposite. “I thought I would join you.”
“But you don’t eat.”
His lips compressed into a line. “I find myself wanting to reconnect with—with Jack. He shared meals with you.”
Sam nodded. He thought it was more that Castiel didn’t want to grieve in solitude, and Sam felt bad that he hadn’t made more of an effort to be there for Castiel. He’d gotten so used to the way Dean grieved, it hadn’t occurred to him that Castiel might need something different. And, he’d been more than a little preoccupied, with everything. Tthe reminder felt like a sucker punch. “Sounds good,” he managed.
They sat down. Sam ate in silence and Castiel picked. Food disappeared from Castiel’s plate, but Sam hadn’t seen him take more than a handful of bites. It didn’t feel much like the meals he’d shared with Jack, but it wouldn’t. Jack had been—Jack. So kind and endlessly curious, determined, and so helpful. So willing to learn, so afraid of doing the wrong thing, of losing the people he’d loved. He’d been every bit a Winchester, even if he hadn’t shared their blood.
It hurt, thinking of Jack, so bad sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Combined with everything else he’d lost—with everything they’d lost—in just a few short months—if he thought about it too long, he knew he’d lie down and never climb back up.
Dean helped, and Cas and Eileen, Jody. The girls. Remembering what they still had helped. Having a purpose helped, too.
Sam cleared his throat. “Hey, Cas, do you know where Eileen is?”
“She said she found a case.”
“A case?” Sam wracked his brain, trying to figure out when she’d even been looking for one, and came up blank. “Did she say where?”
“I don’t think so. Is that a problem?”
“No,” Sam answered automatically. She was a grown woman, a hunter. She was fine. “No,” he repeated, more firmly, for himself as well as Castiel. “It’s fine. What about Dean?”
“In his room, I think.”
“Ok.” He took the last bite of his second sandwich, surprised to see he’d eaten so much, then brushed the crumbs from his hands. “Thanks, Cas. This really hit the spot.”
“You’re welcome.” Castiel gathered the dishes and put them in the sink.
“I’m just gonna—” He pointed, but couldn’t get the word go out with Castiel looking so sad. Not that he was crying or anything so emotionally demonstrative, or even paying attention to Sam, but Sam had never seen the angel look so small, and he’d seen him without his Grace.
Castiel nodded.
Sam hesitated at the door. He turned. “Hey, Cas. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Said flatly, with that dead look daring Sam to push the issue, it was obviously a lie, but—well. People in glass houses.
“Good. Okay.”
In the hallway, a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye drew his gaze to the end of the hall, but when he looked directly at it, there was nothing there.
Breath on the back of his neck made him whirl, breath caught in his throat.
The space was just as empty as the hallway had been. His jaw set. This was ridiculous. He was a seasoned hunter. He’d survived hell and everything his brain had thrown at him after, and jump-scares were what was getting to him?
“Don’t you want to come with me, Sam? You said we were in this together. Or did you only mean when things were good?”
Sam pressed his palms into his eyes and refused to look. “When have things ever been good?” he asked.
Dean—fake Dean, whatever—didn’t answer. When Sam opened his eyes, he was alone.
He had to get out of here.
He moved quickly, poking his head through the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Cas. How long ago did Eileen leave?” She was a seasoned hunter, but she only recently became not dead. She didn’t have a bodycam or a radio—not that the radio would have done her any good—and she was hunting alone. If something happened, there’d be no one nearby. He’d have no idea what happened to her. But, most importantly, she wasn’t here.
“About an hour ago.”
“Did she say what she was hunting?”
“No. Sam, what—”
“Thanks, Cas!” He hurried away before Castiel could try to talk him out of it, or offer to go with, or—worse—suggest he take Dean. Because him trailing Eileen wasn’t bad enough. He just didn’t have any other choice. He knew he didn’t have the focus to hunt alone, but he needed to do something.
He just hoped a hunt would help him feel less like he was going crazy.
*
On to PART THREE...
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