Chapter Text
“Here begin the spells of coming forth by day, the praises and recitations for going to and fro in the realm of the dead which are beneficial in the beautiful West…”
Title of Spell 1, The Book of the Dead
The dream was always the same.
He stood, facing the great city, the rising sun and his army of gods at his back. If a breeze disturbed the dunes, he did not feel it. Whatever creatures may have lazed amongst the reeds bordering the river Nile were long gone, scurried away at the first hint of the momentous vibrations of his army marching in. The air behind him crackled with the power of his brethren, yet he paid it no mind. He had eyes only for the great tower, for the lone figure that stood looking down on him.
His brother. His enemy.
If he had had eyes for anything else, he might have noticed the way the city rippled with a power of its own. He might have sensed that it was not his brother's power, nor that of his brother’s followers. But he was fixated, and he dismissed the magic in the air.
It was a fatal mistake.
The spell came not from his brother, nor his brother’s demonic forces, but from a small group of humans, deep in the heart of the city.
As they spoke, he began to fracture.
It was not the natural disintegration of the soul that came with death. The spell burrowed into him, separating those nine essential facets of his everlasting, eternal self. Even as his spiritual being began to take leave of his physical form, he could see his brother atop the tower. With the eyes of his sah, he could see his brother’s being had begun to separate as well.
Desperately, he tried to will his kheperu back together, but the spell was strong, and he was breaking.
He fought it, his brother fought it, and the force with which they fought the magic leveled their armies, but he did not see it.
He no longer saw anything.
He no longer stood in front of the great city Thebes, on the cusp of battle.
Instead, the nine elements of his kheperu were being dragged, through the planes of existence to Hamunaptra, City of the Dead.
His sah , his spiritual body; his khet , his physical form; his ba , his grace, everything in his eternal life that had made him who he was; his ka , his life-force, his physical needs; his ib , his heart, (will Ammit eat it now?); his shut , his shadow, that otherworldly reflection of himself; his sekhem , his power, which formed him; his akh, his spirit; his ren , his name - it was all lost to him now, locked away, everything locked away even as it strained to be one again. He was fractured, he was falling away from himself, my name, what is my name, who am I? I know who I am, I know who I am, I know who I am -
When he woke, it was always with that same feeling, the feeling that everything which made him what he was was disjointed, broken too far apart to ever be put back together. He went over it again and again, until the sweat drenching him began to cool.
My soul is here. My body is here. My personality is here. My life-force is here. My heart is here. My shadow is here. My power is here. My spirit is here. My name is here. I know who I am. I am Dean Winchester. I know who I am.
-
Sam was convinced it was trauma, leftover from his time in the underworld. Dean wouldn’t have told him about the dream, but Jo had stumbled into his room one night when he woke up screaming, back when he first got back, and she had to go and blab about it. She agreed with Sam, but at least she didn’t try to get him to drink valerian root tea before bed.
Bobby didn’t seem convinced that it was just trauma, but he didn’t know what else to do about it. They’d tried all kinds of stress relievers, magical dream cleansing, all of it.
“Do you know how many battles have been fought around Thebes?” Bobby tossed back, when Dean suggested they research the contents of the dream.
“By gods?”
“You sure it was a god?”
“It felt powerful, Bobby.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Ash told him he probably picked up some extra spirit in his time below, some minor god that hitched a ride back topside.
“You’d better be careful,” he eyed Dean perilously, “one of these days it’s gonna come for more than your dreams.”
He’d gone to see Pamela after that, and she’d reassured him that whatever she could see of him - his soul, his spirit, it was all just him. Same as always, just Dean.
He wanted to be comforted by that. But it didn’t explain the dream.
And it didn’t explain the hunt he’d tried to go on after he got back.
That, as much as he wanted to argue with Sam - that one was pure trauma. It had to be.
So, he let Sam fret a little, he wore the amulets his brother brought back for him from the various missions he went on with the active members of the Men of Letters, and he drank the damn tea, and each time the dream came and he woke from it he went over it again and again. I am here. I am together. I know who I am. I am Dean Winchester. I know who I am.
Still, the dream came back, again and again.
-
The museum had closed early that day - there was to be a full moon, and all the Men of Letters had various preparations to complete - spells and house calls and warding and so on. Dean had decided to take advantage of the quiet and reshelve the cartload of books that had gone on loan and returned since last anyone took it upon themselves to organize the library.
He was up the ladder, returning The Rites of the Moon to its rightful place, when another title caught his eye.
“Tuthmosis? What the hell are you doing here?”
He pulled the book, considering it for a moment before checking over his shoulder - there, on the bookshelf across from him, sat the empty slot where Tuthmosis belonged.
“All right.”
He reached, gritting his teeth - it was a little too far, but he was a grown ass man with a pretty impressive arm span, he should at least be able to catch the book on the shelf, even if he couldn’t get it properly in place yet. Just a little further, and -
“Shit!”
Dean flung the book unceremoniously onto the shelf as the ladder pulled upright, his knuckles gripping the sides white as he fought to balance it. He floundered, precariously, trying both to keep his balance and somehow guide the ladder back to the shelves, and after a few moments of feeling like a drunken stilt walker, he finally managed it, wincing as the ladder landed against the shelf with a loud thump.
There was one small second of peace where he thought he’d gotten away with it, before he began to feel unbalanced again - his muscles seized, but it wasn’t the ladder that was moving this time, it was the bookshelf itself.
“No, no, no, no, shit, shit - “
The shelf tilted, Dean tried to pull the ladder back again but it was too late - he slid down the ladder before it could follow the shelf in its freefall, and watched in horror as all around the outer ring shelves toppled like dominos, one after another, clouds of dust billowing up from books that had gone undisturbed for decades, and the entire hall echoed with all the sound that the museum had been without since closing that afternoon.
Dean stood, staring as the last shelf fell, hands grasping at his hair as the dust began to settle.
“What in the - ”
He whirled around, and there was Jo, staring around the room for a brief moment before she met his gaze and burst into laughter.
“Hey, look on the bright side, at least now maybe we can start on that cataloguing Ash has been bugging us about.”
Jo, as was typical, had only laughed at him for a solid five minutes before she dove in to help, stacking the books they could easily dislodge from the fallen shelves away from the toppled units.
“I don’t want to look on the bright side,” Dean muttered. “I don’t want to think about this at all. Here, help me move this one.”
They had just managed to get one of the shelves upright again when footsteps graced the hall. Both swung around guiltily at the obscene silence that followed.
Bobby just stood there for a moment, framed in the doorway, staring around the room the exact same way Jo had, before his eyes landed on the two of them. Jo lasted about five seconds before she pointed to Dean.
“Really?” Dean muttered, and Jo shrugged.
“Damnit, boy,” Bobby sighed.
“Bobby, I swear it was an accident.”
“Oh, and here I figured you leveled the whole damn library on purpose.”
Jo quickly hid her laughter in a cough at the look on Bobby’s face. But his glare didn’t stand up for long.
“You,” he pointed to Dean, “you’re not done here, but right now we need to talk. My office. Both of you.”
As soon as they opened the door to Bobby’s office, Dean froze.
“Sam.”
“Hey, Dean.”
Sam grinned, that same sheepish grin he’d taken to wearing everytime he returned successful from a mission since Dean had been benched. Normally Dean would accept it, but this time he could see how Sam was holding himself - slouching unnaturally, favoring one side, with a slew of cuts and bruises littering his face, his knuckles.
“What happened?”
“I, uh - maybe Bobby should explain.”
“Sam and Victor ran into a group of demons,” Bobby said, leaning back against his desk.
“Demons?” Jo frowned. “I thought Crowley had his lackeys on a tight leash.”
“These weren’t deal-makers,” Victor said softly. “They were different - black eyes, not red.”
“Although, it turns out Crowley’s was where they were headed.”
“And you got into it with them?”
Sam turned to Dean again, his eyes apologetic.
“They got into it with us, Dean. They had something - another creature, captive. We didn’t know they were demons till we’d already engaged.”
“What kind of creature?” Bobby asked.
“Nothing I’d ever seen before.” That was surprising, considering how long Victor had been doing this. “It had wings, Bobby.”
“And this.”
From his pocket, Sam pulled a bronze hexagon, almost the size of a fist. He held it up, Dean nodded, and caught it as Sam tossed it to him, studying it carefully.
“You nabbed it from them?” Dean turned it over in his hands, tracing the hieroglyphs etched on the sides.
“The thing dropped it,” Victor said. “Pretty pointedly.”
“It wanted us to take it.”
“You said they were headed for Crowley’s?” Bobby asked, pulling their attention back to him. It was short-lived, however, as at that moment Dean pressed the small lever on the side of the hexagon, and it burst open, the top separating into eight jagged triangles that spread out to form the shape of a star.
“Careful,” Victor murmured, as Dean gingerly pulled the folded sheet of papyrus from the cavity that had been revealed. He set the hexagon down, unfolding the paper slowly on Bobby’s desk.
It was old - centuries old, probably, the ink and paint faded with age, torn in places and it looked as though one half was missing, but the hieratics scrawled across the paper were clear. It was a map. And not just any map, if that cartouche was legitimate.
“Sam,” Dean said, as the realization of what he was holding fully dawned on him.
“Holy shit,” Jo said, because she was smart as a whip and had figured it out as soon as he did.
“What are you thinking, Bobby?” Victor asked.
“I think we ought to pay Crowley a visit.”