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“You, um, sure you’ll be good?” Sam asks. He’s loading a duffle into the back of Eileen’s Plymouth. Dean follows with a bag of weapons.
“I’ll be good, Sam, promise,” Dean says, trying for a smile. His cheeks are brittle rubber bands nowadays, old and used and liable to snap, but he does his best so Sam won’t see the strain. He dumps the bag into the trunk next to Sam’s. It lands with a clatter of metal and hard wood. Dean hasn’t picked up a weapon in about a week. He took a sawed off down to the range after it kept jamming, wanted to make sure it worked smooth, now. But there was an unfamiliar tremor in his hands while he gripped it, messed up his grouping.
“Yeah, well, call if you need anything,” Sam huffs. Eileen’s shit is already in the back even though she had to run back in because she forgot her phone charger. Sam shuts the trunk, slam softened by the immensity of the garage. Dean figured it would echo, but the whole bunker seems to absorb sound rather than reflect it, sucking it into its cavernous hallways and strong concrete walls.
“It’s me, Jack, and the dog,” Dean says. “What could we possibly need?”
Sam shrugs. “Call anyway. Keep us updated.”
Dean gets it: Sam’s hesitancy to leave him alone. True, things were pretty rocky during Chuck’s big summer blowout, what with the drinking until he passed out and choking up his guts afterward. That one hazy night where Dean ranted about what Chuck would think if Dean just blew his fucking brains out.
But it’s been better since then. Dean doesn’t even drink anymore. Much. Back to his regular eleven o’clock, two o’clock, five o’clock, sometimes seven o’clock beer and a shot of whiskey to help him sleep at night. But he’s not passing out anymore. He’s not yelling anymore either. Hasn’t bit Sam or the kid’s head off in weeks.
Anyway, Dean’s even teetering on the edge of functional four out of every five days. At least enough that he makes toast and eggs every morning while Sam’s on his run and in time for Eileen and Jack to roll out of bed. He keeps up with the laundry as long as the kid folds. He even makes dinner as long as it’s something simple: soups, chilies, giant casseroles that will last them a couple nights. Except Sam and Eileen usually handle the grocery shopping. Dean tries not to leave the bunker if he can help it. Sam even walks Miracle for him.
But Dean gets why Sam’s worried. Dean’s never been a super silent kinda guy. And maybe Sam’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, the timebomb to tick toward detonation. Eye of the hurricane type of shit.
“You, too,” Dean says hastily.
It’s Sam’s turn to look wry. “It’s just a salt and burn. We’ll be fine.”
“Just wanna stretch your legs,” Dean repeats Sam’s speech from last night, when he came into Dean’s bedroom, laptop balanced on his arm. “A milk run. Get back into the swing of things. Needed an excuse to bone your girlfriend away from prying eyes.”
“Jesus,” Sam says, rolling his eyes huge. Something triumphant pops, cracks, fizzles inside Dean’s chest, not quite enough to turn his smile genuine, but he thinks, God, I love this kid.
Impulsively, Dean drags Sam into a hug. Nothing crazy. Just a thump on his back. But it’s still enough to input a blank look of surprise onto Sam’s face.
“You know I love you, right?” Dean asks, gruff. Like they say this every day. Like the last time Dean told Sam I love you wasn’t back when one or both of them was dying.
“Yeah,” Sam says, eyebrows near his hairline, which is saying something. “Course. Love you, too.”
Eileen is back, spiraling a black cord around her fist. She stuffs it into her back pocket by the time she gets to the car. There’s a tiny bounce in her step, sending her hair bobbing from one side to the other. It’ll do her good to get out of the bunker for a while, Dean knows.
“See you later, Dean,” Eileen says, waving.
“Take care of this lug for me, huh?” Dean asks, nudging Sam with his elbow.
“With pleasure,” Eileen says, winking. Dean steps forward and hugs her, too. It’s different than hugging Sam, mostly because Sam is so large – even as the bulky meat of him turns toward wiry muscle as he gets closer to forty. Eileen is a tiny, a bird-like, graceful frame yet all solid muscle – coiled like a tight metal spring. She reacts quicker than Sam, too. Actually has time to bring up her arms to squeeze Dean around the torso before he lets her go.
The smile she gives him is puzzled but pleased. Dean brings up his hand, pointer finger and thumb extended into an L, and pinky up – Dean’ll never get over its resemblance to devil’s horns. Eileen’s smile turns into one of her toothy grins, and she sends him back an I love you of her own.
“Alright, get out of here, you crazy kids,” Dean says. Eileen climbs behind the wheel. Sam folds into the passenger seat. Dean waves at them as they go, red taillights disappearing up the ramp. They’re leaving you, the well-worn voice warns inside his head. Everyone leaves you.
I love them, Dean thinks, silencing the other voice with an aborted gasp. Death rattle.
OOO
Dean makes chicken dumpling soup for him and Jack that night, mostly because the kid goes crazy for dumplings. Carefully picks out the carrots, peas, and chicken until all that’s left is cloudy lumps of dough. He smiles through a mouthful, a little sloppy. Broth trickling out of the corner of his mouth.
“Heard of a napkin, kid?” Dean asks, handing Jack one of the napkins Sam keeps in a stack on the table. Jack takes it out of Dean’s fingers and dabs at his mouth. There’s a bandaide around his right index finger, remnant of a paper cut, deceptively shallow for how much it bled. Even though he’s all de-powered now, he still knows how to read and insists he help with research whenever possible.
“S’good!” he says, swallowing.
“Better be,” Dean says. He follows his own spoonful with a swig of bitter beer. The alcohol lands heavy in his stomach.
Jack scrapes his bowl clean. He runs his finger along the edge, licking the last of the broth off the tip. He smiles at Dean, a little embarrassed, when he sees Dean looking at him, lips pursed around his finger.
Dean’s smiling a little, too. Soft enough it doesn’t make his jaw ache.
“I, um,” Dean starts, clog high in his throat, so the words come out a little smushed. “I wanted you to know that I love you, kid. Don’t know if I, ah,” Dean fades away, because the look on Jack’s face just about rips him apart. Sam and Eileen’s surprise was bad, but Jack’s is worse. Cracks Dean’s ribs open at the roots.
“Oh,” Jack says.
“I should of – told you that before,” Dean says haltingly. He can’t stand the kid’s warm, liquid eyes. Blue eyes. Familiar eyes. Dean remembers Dad not looking at him, shutting his eyes so he didn’t have to see Mary’s green, Mary’s lashes, Mary’s blond hair. Dean makes himself look Jack in the face, even though it’s like squinting into the sun. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of shit.”
“I didn’t realize,” Jack says, wide-eyed. Beautiful. “Thank you.”
“Don’t gotta thank me, kiddo,” Dean says. “It’s just the way it is.”
Dean remembers being really little, when Mom was still alive. Waving at Dad out the window as he left for work. Shouting, Love you, Daddy. Dean doesn’t remember the inevitable transition from Love you too, Dean to me too, bud to that’s enough, Dean.
“Ah, me too,” Jack says hastily. “You, I mean. I love you, too.”
Thank you, Dean thinks. He smiles again, not so easy this time. “Come on, go get yourself another bowl. I know you want it.”
OOO
“What did you mean?” Sam asks, voice fuzzy through the cellphone Dean has propped against his ear with his shoulder. Reception’s never been great in the bunker, but it’s even worse outside on the hill, away from the signal booster Sam picked up from the Walmart in Hastings. “When you said you loved me in the garage?”
Dean’s face goes a little warm. He didn’t think he’d have to explain himself. “What do you think, Mr. Law School?”
“No – I meant, are you okay?”
Oh. Sam means: should I lock the medicine cabinet? Should I set you up in a nice comfortable room with soft walls? Surely, they trust him enough not to do something like that with just the kid or dog to find him.
“I’m fine, Sam.”
“Cause I could – Jody could come down. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“Sammy,” Dean says, soft. Sam cuts off with a tiny stutter. Dean knows he wants to say more. Wants to spill more of the worries swirling around his humungous brain. “I’m fine. I promise.” I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you unless I can’t help it.
“Cause you gotta know,” Sam starts, a high, desperate tone in his voice. “That I – if something happened –”
“I know,” Dean says. “How’s the case?”
“It’s – simple. We’ve got it down to two graves. Called in a fake gas leak at the library. Everyone’s out. We’ll finish tomorrow.”
“Great,” Dean says. “Listen, I gotta grab Mir. He’s off chasing rabbits. Someone didn’t take him for a morning run today.”
“Whatever,” Sam says, voice almost back to normal. Dean resolves to text him more often, just so the kid won’t worry so much.
“Love you, bitch.”
“I –” Sam’s voice catches. “Love you, Dean.”
OOO
“How you hanging in there?” Jody asks him from the other side of the phone. Dean’s in bed, staring at the ceiling. He shouldn’t have picked up the phone.
“Fine. How’re you?”
“Same old,” Jody replies, sighing. Dean can tell she’s tired. Hell, maybe he’s just so used to his own exhaustion he hears it reflected back at him from everyone else.
The ceiling overhead is heavy. It would crush him if it fell in. Cracked in half and showered downward like an open wound. Burry him under tons of dirt and concrete and metal. They’d never find a body. Just dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Dean closes his eyes, feels his chest rise, feels it fall. His ribs are encased in cement, sharp edges and crumbling weight.
“You know,” Jody says. “I tried out that peach cobbler recipe you sent me. Didn’t come out nearly as good as yours. But it was serviceable. Girls ate it up.”
“Yeah?” Dean says, tight throat, unspeakably grateful when Jody continues.
“And Donna came over with a new hotdish the other week – pulled pork. Figured you boys would get a kick out of it. I’ll get her to send you the recipe.”
Jody doesn’t seem to be bothered when Dean doesn’t reply.
“Alex moved to night shifts,” Jody says. “She’s bone tired, but she’s happy to have weekends free again. You know – for her latest boyfriend. Name’s Eddie. He’s nice enough. Maybe not a whole lot going on upstairs. But he treats Alex like she’s a princess. All chocolates and flowers and holding the door open. I’m not sure how long she’ll put up with it. Claire can’t stand him, of course. But Claire’s not around too often, you know her. She and Kaia are on a case more often than not. At least they’re together, right? I think they’re roundabout your parts this weekend – I’ll tell them to stop by for dinner. Maybe you can get them to take a breather. But I guess they’re young. Better to use their energy while they’ve still got it. And Patience is still showing us all up, of course. Straight As this past semester, took Calc III over the summer, and now she’s in twenty-one credits for the fall, plus the rowing team and peer tutoring Physics. Running QA for Claire and Kaia in her free time. Girl must have eight hands.”
Jody rambles aimlessly for a while longer. Laughs about the werewolf hunt she and Donna tackled that turned out to actually be a meth lab. Complains about a high school prank that resulted in twenty fireworks blowing a hole through the gym ceiling. She got chewed out by her neighbor for bringing store bought muffins to the bake sale for the elementary school’s football uniforms.
“You stick in there, Dean, okay?” She says before she hangs up.
“Okay,” Dean croaks. He hasn’t said anything in a while. “Jody?”
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“I, ah – give my love to everyone up there.”
“We send it right back down to you all,” Jody tells him warmly.
“And thanks,” Dean says.
“I’ll talk your ear off any time,” Jody promises. “Gotta look out for my boys, don’t I?”
“I love you, Jodes.”
“Love you, too, Dean.”
OOO
“You didn’t tell us you got a mutt!” Claire says, part irritated, part delighted – definitely more delighted than irritated but trying to pretend it’s the other way around. Miracle’s collar jingles as he jogs up the stairs toward the girls, tongue lolling.
“His name is Miracle,” Jack says from the bottom of the stairs, bobbing from toe to heel. He’s only met Claire one other time – back a few weeks ago when Jody swung by to bring him up for a weekend in Sioux Falls. Said it’d do them all good to spend some time together. Jack came back with a tiny glass vial of black nail polish, positively gushing: She’s got a leather jacket. And she wears bracelets. She’s got four piercings in both her ears. She shaved her head on one side.
“Hey, Jack,” Kaia says with one of her kind smiles, burying her fingers to the knuckle in Miracle’s long fur. “Hey, Miracle. You’re beautiful.”
“Why the fuck you name it that for?” Claire asks, nose wrinkled. Dean sees that she has, indeed, shaved her head on one side, showing off the tiny studs running up her earlobe and a hoop in the cartilage. Kaia looks the same except she’s wearing a t-shirt that bears her arms – something Dean’s never seen her do before. Her skin is covered in thick-lined black and red tattoos.
“Don’t ask me,” Sam says. He’s standing at the top of the stairs with the girls, towering overhead and both their bags on one arm. “Dean named him.”
Claire looks up, finds Dean’s eyes. It’s the first time she’s spoken to him since she screamed at him over the phone, all those weeks ago. “Pretty stupid name.”
Dean frowns. “Don’t listen to her, Mir.” He whistles. “Come on, give the girls some space.” Miracle obediently trots back down the stairs, circling Dean once before ultimately winding around Jack’s legs and settling at his feet.
Claire, Kaia, and Sam come down the stairs. Eileen meets Claire and Kaia with hugs. Dean’s hands itch, and he rolls his fingers into fists. He’s not gonna make the first move. He put a gun to Kaia’s head the first time he met her. He’s responsible for the death of Claire’s father three times over.
“Look,” Jack says when Claire’s close enough to stick his hand in her face. He’s at least a head taller than her, but that doesn’t stop him from looking like a little kid tugging at their parent’s sleeve. “Eileen helped me!” He beams, proud, wiggling his fingers, nails darkened by Claire’s nail polish. “Except it was kinda messy so I had to pick off all the little bits that got on my skin.”
“They look great, squirt.”
Jack beams.
Sam leaves to pick up a stack of pizzas. Kaia and Claire beeline toward the showers to rinse off about an inch of grave dirt and a three-hour drive. Dean heads toward the kitchen to put a box of beer in the fridge. He turns at the sound of someone in the doorway.
“Thought you were gonna get cleaned up,” Dean says.
“Shower’s not going anywhere,” Claire replies. Her eyes are hard – not like they were when she was sixteen and caked them up with sharpy lines of eyeliner. But there’s something stony in their depth now. Blue, Dean realizes, pulse of pain in his stomach the same as when he realized it about Jack’s. Jimmy Novak hangs heavy in Claire’s face: the color and shape of her eyes, the sturdiness of her jaw, her wide forehead.
“We in a staring contest or some shit?” Claire asks.
“No,” Dean says. He clears his throat. Turns around and fishes out one of the lukewarm beers he just stuck in the fridge. “Want one?”
Claire grimaces. “No one actually likes beer, you know. It’s all just posturing.”
“That so?” Dean says, popping the cap of his beer on the lip of the counter and taking a long pull. “Tastes fine to me.”
“I rest my case,” Claire smirks.
“You’re a little shit, you know that?” Dean says.
“Sorry, I never had any role models growing up,” Claire retorts.
Dean snorts. Jesus, this kid. He takes another gulp of beer. “How are you, anyway? You and Kaia okay?”
Claire shrugs, pretending like there’s not a smile fighting to break out across her face. “We’re fine. What about you, old man?”
“What about me?” Dean says innocently.
Claire rolls her eyes again. Give Sam a run for his money, this girl will. “You know what I mean. You taking a swan dive off the fucking Golden Gate any time soon?”
“Jesus,” Dean sputters on his beer, not expecting that. “No! The fuck? You been talking to Sam?”
“No,” Claire says, narrowing her eyes. It occurs to Dean suddenly that Claire’s not a girl, anymore. He might never think of her as a peer, but he’s not having a conversation with a kid. “Why? Have you been talking to Sam?”
“No!” Dean says, a little more aggressively than he meant to. His smacks his bottle on the counter. He can’t have this conversation holding alcohol. “But the both of you sure do have some Radar O’Reilly shit going on.”
“God, you’re old,” Claire says. She crosses the kitchen, opens the door, and pulls out a beer. Dean raises an eyebrow. Claire sends him her middle finger with one hand. With her other, she brings the bottle to her lips and takes a sip. She makes a face.
“See?” she says. “Fucking gross.”
Dean huffs out a laugh. Tight chest. Tight throat. Every time he laughs he thinks he used to know how to do this. “You’re crazy, but I love you.”
Claire’s eyebrows arc a little in surprise. “Pretty sure you’re the one who’s crazy.”
Dean’ll give her that. “Probably.”
“Alright, well,” Claire says, heading for the door. “Gonna go drink this bitch in the shower. Save me some pizza if Sam gets back before I’m out.”
“Fat chance,” Dean calls after her.
Kaia and Claire stay the night, but they’re back on the road bright and early in the morning. Dean remembers having that kind of stamina: running through hunts like they were challenges on an obstacle course. Dean sends them off with coffee. He offers to make breakfast, but Kaia just steals one of Sam’s birdseed protein bars and Claire says they’ll stop on the way.
There are hugs all around. Dean stops Kaia before she can get away; Claire’s not paying attention, too busy getting Jack into a headlock so she can muss his hair.
“Keep an eye on her, okay?” Dean says. Kaia’s older, too, Dean realizes. Her thin face always made her look young, a little peaky, but maybe it’s something in the way she carries herself, now, because she looks like a woman. “We’re, ah, still working on it.”
“She doesn’t say it out loud, but she really cares about you,” Kaia says earnestly. “About all of you.”
“You know we –” Dean stops himself. “I care about you, too, right? We love you both. I love you both.”
Kaia’s dark eyes soften. Dean marvels that there can still be softness in someone like her – body riddled with scars inside and out. “Thank you,” she says.
Dean puts his hand against the side of her head, holds her firm and steady, the same place on her temple that he stuck the barrel of his gun, and for a moment he can’t speak. He brushes his thumb against her forehead. Kaia just lets him, stares at him calmly. There’s no trace of fear in her eyes when she looks at him now.
I don’t deserve that, Dean thinks.
She’s so strong, he thinks.
“Take care of yourself,” he says, letting his hand fall.
“You, too,” Kaia says before Claire is yelling that it’s time to rollout, and Kaia’s laughing after her girlfriend.
OOO
“Sam said not to bother you,” the slim figure in the cracked doorway’s line of light whispers. “He said you’ve been working too hard and now you’re resting.”
“Not bothering me,” Dean whispers back, voice clunky and painful in his throat. Jack shoulders the door open enough to slip through, creating a wedge of light on Dean’s floor. His socked feet pad across the concrete, soft taps.
“Can I sit down?”
Dean nods, barely. He hopes Jack can see him in the shadows.
The mattress dips as Jack props himself on the edge of the bed on one thigh, at level with Dean’s knees, turned toward Dean so he’s backlit by the hallway light, casting halloes around his feathered hair.
“Are you sick?”
There’s a puddle of black tar in the core of his stomach. He used to get angry. Frenetic and desperate with rage. Anger is so heavy now. It drips off his limbs like wax, leaves him atrophied and brittle. He can’t even lift his head.
“I wish I could heal you,” Jack breathes, taking Dean’s silence for confirmation. He reaches out a tentative hand. He brushes a finger against Dean’s arm.
It’s not your fault, Dean thinks. His tongue is swollen, wedged inside his throat.
“I wish I could do more,” Jack’s voice is thick. Dean knows the kid is crying, even if the shadow on his face prevents Dean from seeing more than the tiny glint of his eyes. “H-he’s gone because of me.”
Dean can’t tell him no. Can’t tell him he loved you. Can’t tell him anything because the words claw up his chest but lose their grip and tumble back into the tar pit in Dean’s belly. He lays his hand, palm up, on the mattress in front of Jack’s knee. Jack’s hand leaves Dean’s arm, finds Dean’s hand. Within the pressure of Jack’s narrow fingers, Dean curls his middle and index finger toward his palm: sticks out an L and his little finger.
OOO
I love you.
Dean’s choking on black tar, welling in his throat, bubbling up over his lips, and hanging in strings off his chin.
Dean wakes up suffocating, liquid pooling inside his lungs. Except he’s only sobbing.
He’s sobbing like a little kid: swallowing gulps of air, gasping, gulping, snot and tears streaming down his face. He can’t get it all up, all the black tar that coats the walls of his lungs, that rises in his throat and chokes him from the inside out. He’s dry-land drowning, whole world turning dark.
“Dean,” Sam’s voice comes from the door. “It’s okay.” Dean can’t see him, can’t see his brother through the haze of tears, the pulsing, desperate sorrow leaking from every pore. Sam reaches for him on the bed, wraps his orangutang arms around him, holds him hard enough it presses the breath from his lungs. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“He’s there,” Dean chokes. “He’s there. He’s stuck there.”
“Dean, we know there’s a way,” Sam says levelly. “We’ve seen it before. We just don’t know how yet.”
“Sammy –”
“I’m here,” Sam says. He grips Dean in his arms, pulls Dean’s head against his chest. Dean can hear his little brother’s heartbeat. “I’m here. And I love you, right? I love you, Dean.”
I love you I love you I love you Dean prays, screams. Please.
“We’re getting him back,” Sam says. “I promise.”
Afterward, when Dean is weak and trembling, but quiet, Sam leans him back against the headboard, gets him a glass of water from the rusty sink in the wall. Dean sips the cool water. It eases the burning in his throat.
“Did you hear me?” He asks.
“Miracle started barking outside my door.”
“Weird dog,” Dean scoffs.
“Smart dog,” Sam corrects him.
Dean’s tired. Eyelashes crusty with tears. Face pulled taught and itchy.
“Do you want me to stay?”
It’s been a long time since they’ve shared a bed after nightmares. Dean figures Sam’s got Eileen now. They probably wake each other up plenty of times. Hold tight, breathe the same air, damp warmth and steady heartbeats. Dean’s heart aches, a wrenching pain right in the pit of it like it’s being twisted into two. Dean nods.
Sam kicks the blankets away, shoves Dean over so he can join him on the bed.
“You’re going to be okay,” Sam says into the darkness and the silence. “I know it doesn’t feel like it. I know it sounds callous. But it’s true.”
Dean’s never told Sam, but he knows that he doesn’t have to. Sam’s guessed. Might have known it for longer than Dean did. It hurts, he wants to say, like a child tearfully revealing a splinter in their finger. It hurts so bad and I don’t know what to do.
“He told me –” Dean confesses, voice wrung dry. “He told me.”
“I figured,” Sam says steadily. He bumps his shoulder against Dean’s.
He told me that wasn’t me, Dean wants to say. He told me I’m more than hate. But what am I? Without it, what am I?
I’m nothing. I am small. Empty. Echoing. I am nothing.
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” Dean croaks.
“You’re my big brother,” Sam tells him. Simple. These are truths. These are things you hold on to. “You’re one of Jack’s dads. You’re a good man. And you love us, right?”
Dean nods, urgent. Suddenly terrified Sam won’t believe him, will call his bluff.
“And we love you,” Sam finishes. “That’s what matters, right now.”
OOO
“Hey you,” Donna says through the phone, chipper and smooth like a banana split on a summer afternoon.
“Hey D-Train,” Dean says, soft. Everything about him is soft these days. Dean’s voice feels chipped away until it’s all smooth edges. His wrists don’t feel strong enough to hold knives or guns. Sometimes Dean looks at his fingernails, scrubbed clean of dirt and blood or oil, and he marvels at their perfect square shape, nibbled down to their nubs because it ain’t like Dean ever kicked the habit of biting his nails. Soft in the head, Dad might say. “How’s business?”
“Listen, Dean,” Donna says instead of answering his question. “Finally tracked down Nick’s old van – you know, psycho Nick?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, stomach souring. “I remember.”
“Well, it was impounded over in New Castle, Delaware. They got rid of it a long time ago, but they kept the contents because it’s still an open case. And I thought it might interest you. Course the department couldn’t make head or tails of it. Truth is, neither can I.”
“He – he got any notes?” Dean says, voice dry.
“If you can call ‘em that. Ravings of a madman. Looks like pure nonsense to me. But I’m sending it down to you by mail, okay? Express.”
“Thanks,” Dean rasps. “Donna – thanks.”
“I hope it’ll be helpful.”
“Donna – I – I love you, okay?”
“Aw, you too, Deano. You too.”
OOO
“We’ll need a vessel,” Sam says pragmatically. Dean sits at the map table along with everyone else: Sam, Eileen, Jack, Jody, Donna, Claire, and Kaia – a small army of desperate soldiers, and he thinks he should be the one talking. He should lead them in this march. But his voice is a small, shrunken thing – nothing but a withered bezoar in his throat. And he’s grateful. So damn grateful for his little brother. For all of them.
“It’s a spell of Rowena’s. At least partially. I tweaked it a little. And I – I think I can do it. I’ve got enough of her notes. And I’ve been practicing. Just small summoning incantations, working out the kinks. Eileen helped me set up a witches’ circle in the woods.”
Sam doesn’t say that the last time Rowena did it, it was for retrieving Mom’s lifeless corpse. Doesn’t say it, maybe, to spare Jack. But Dean sees how Jack’s face goes tight, knuckles whiten on the lip of the table. Dean wants to reach around his back, hold him close to his side, but Jody is between them. Dean nudges Jody’s knee with his own, nods over to Jack. Jody doesn’t question him, just slings an arm around Jack’s chair, gives the kid a friendly grin. Jack’s eyes melt in gratitude.
“And I’ve gathered all the ingredients. I’ll have to work in the last place his body touched. Which means the dungeon. It’s not ideal – it’s kind of a messy spell. There’s gonna be some damage. But I – I think I can do it. Um, Jack was – Jack was there the last time. He’s familiar with the incantation. And Eileen’s seen me practice before, so they’ll be running point. Otherwise, I think the rest of you should stand clear.”
Dean’s disgusted at himself for it, but the prevailing emotion is relief. He doesn’t have to do anything for this step. He’s not even gonna have to be there when Sam tries to – tries to reconfigure a corpse out of midair. He’s not going to have to see it. He’s not gonna have to –
He’s glad. The last time there was a body – Dean will never forget the weight of it in his arms, the stiffness of its limbs as he attempted to wrap it in its funeral shroud. Dean doesn’t think he can stomach seeing that again.
“Alright,” Sam says when no one replies. There’s a heavy silence in the room, but it’s not somber. It’s purposeful, directed. All that’s left is to keep going. “I guess that’s it.” Sam claps his hands. Like it’s a signal, the rest of them rise.
Dean looks for Jack first. The kid’s nervous, Dean can tell. Jittery and shifty. Dean puts his arms around him, and Jack stills in his hold. “It’s gonna be okay,” Dean says into his hair. “You’ll do fine.”
“What if –” Jack starts, eyes bright with worry.
“Hey,” Dean interrupts him. “Then we’ll look for another way.” Jack deflates, eyebrows rise in something akin to hope, and Dean nearly can’t stomach it. Thinks he’s gonna be sick right there.
But Sam stops him with a hand to his back, pulls him back toward the present with his serious, ridiculous puppy dog eyes. “How you holding up?”
“Sam,” Dean says, thinking there’s never been a truth harder than this. “I gotta keep my head and – I – I’m not going do that if I see –”
“Okay,” Sam says at once. Dean remembers hauling his little brother out of the roaring flames, away from the charred remains of his girlfriend tacked to the ceiling. Dean can’t do that. Dean can’t inhale the ashes of someone else he loves. He can’t do that again.
Sam brings Dean into a hug. “I love you,” he says over Dean’s shoulder.
“Me too,” Dean manages.
OOO
Donna was right. Nick’s notes were the ravings of a madman, but luckily they had a few of those on payroll. With a little cajoling, Donatello emerged from retirement to transcribe them a rough list of ingredients. The underlying concept was blood magick: to construct a bond stronger than the Empty’s hold. ADT ain’t got nothing on the Empty in terms of security systems, but all they needed was the right key.
Dean folds his green jacket carefully in his lap. He’s afraid. He’s sick with it. Dean told Jack this wasn’t their last chance, but he’s not sure he believes that. I won’t survive, Dean thinks desperately. I won’t survive this.
Dean places the jacket carefully in the mixing bowl, nestling it among the acacia, oil of Abramelin, and black sand. The faded maroon handprint faces upward. Dean runs his finger down its thumb, skin bumping over the crusty edges.
“You ready?” Sam asks, and Dean sees that everyone’s watching him. The walls of the dungeon are charred black, soot worked into the cracks in the floor. Jack’s hair is still a little singed at the tips from Sam’s spell.
Dean nods. He’s sitting in the center of a salt ring. He’s got his knife at his side, held loose in his palm. Dean hasn’t drawn blood for longer than he can remember. He doesn’t know when the thought grew so repulsive to him.
“Sam,” Dean says, voice clogged. “Can you –?”
“Okay,” Sam says. He kneels across from Dean. Behind him, against the wall, covered with a sheet is the – the vessel. The body. Dean looks away, looks at his brother instead. Sam doesn’t waver when he takes the knife from Dean’s loose grip. Dean offers his palm to his brother. Sam breathes out slowly through his nose before he presses the edge to Dean’s palm.
The sting is familiar and not unexpected, but it still makes Dean grit his teeth. He reflexively closes his fist against the cut, smearing blood across his palm and fingers. He meets Sam’s eyes once more – raw, fleeting, hopeful – before he places his palm across the handprint on the jacket. It’s larger than Dean’s hand, Dean thinks abstractly, at the same time he pleads to anything left that can hear him: Please.
Dean removes his hand, blood already drying tacky against the stiff fabric. He doesn’t bother wiping it clean. He just takes out his lighter from his breast pocket. Lets the words rumble off his tongue: “qui dormiunt ad Dominum formosum, nexus noster restitutus est. Surgas ex abysso, in lumine existas!”
He flicks the lighter. The flame catches. He drops it into the bowl, and the contents ignite in a burst of sparks.
Dean feels the heat of the flames on his face before he registers the trembling in the floor. Feet shuffle nervously as people try to keep their balance. The hair at the back of Dean’s neck rise in gooseflesh. The shaking ground travels up his body, consumes him until it rattles his bones. A swirling, rushing pit spirals out from the back wall, dripping black ooze, widening until it’s large enough that a man could fit through.
“Castiel,” Dean commands into the darkness, loudly enough to be heard over the shrieking wind. He hasn’t spoken so loudly in weeks. It is something torn from his chest, rises bloody up his throat and out of his lips. “Cas, wake up.”
I got something I need to tell you.