Fighting the good fight...One generation to the next...
Colt & Winchester
by
Sojourner & Bayre
Bobby Singer: Everybody got into hunting somehow.
Leaning against the open window of their weather-worn French doors, Mary Shards took in the warm, July night. The scent of lilacs and azaleas perfumed the humid air. Her home offered her a wonderful view of
Now, a few hours after
She glanced away from the tranquil lake and to the den door. Sam kept himself locked away in there too much these days. No matter, she’d done her duty, provided one son and another child on the way. Mary had her own life, water skiing in the summer—well that wouldn’t happen until next summer—the library committee, and raising funds for the hospital Sam and his brothers maintained.
It was the lot of the rich, the debutants, like her. Marry well, look good on your husband’s arm, add to his business, be a pillar of the community, an example. She could do those things. In fact, she was more than happy to do those things and never share a bed with Dr. Sam Shards again. He provided her a good home, plenty of money, and a fat trust fund for her children. She had friends and more than one offer for potential lovers, a life of her own. Maybe it wasn’t the fairytale ending she’d dreamt of as a girl, but it was a good, stable life. That’s what she’d wanted, marry more money than her father had and be secure.
Turning away, she was about to close the doors when the sound of someone clearing their throat drew her attention.
“Who is there?”
“Good evening, Mary.”
Stepping from the shadows of the tall lilac bushes lining the one side of the patio behind the house, Mary squinted at the man.
“Do I know—” Taking a step back into the house, “It’s you.”
He followed her into the room, stopping just inside the French doors, eyes drifting to the hallway and stairs beyond the living room. “It’s been ten years, but little Sammy, he’s not a baby anymore. Seems I’m about seven years too late.” He leaned forward and sniffed her neck.
Stalking around her, until he stood in the middle of the room, he smiled. It was feral and sent shivers through Mary. Eyes sliding to her stomach he sighed again and clasped his hands together in front of him.
“What do you want?” She sounded far braver than she felt. For a brief second she wondered why Sam hadn’t heard, but then he didn’t hear a lot of things going on in this house.
Waving grandly at the room and the land outside, “You have all this and your sister. The only thing I asked in return was an invitation in to visit your child. Your infant child.” Eyes flashing yellow, he smirked. “Guess things aren’t too happy in this house, all these years and only one and a half kids. Pity.” This time his eyes rose to the ceiling. He stopped directly under her son’s room. “You broke the deal, Mary.”
Mary’s eyes followed. “No.” She whispered. “He’s a little boy.”
The man with yellow eyes shrugged. “Not for long.”
She didn’t really give it much thought. Mary flung herself at him, scratching at his eyes with her nails. Bone chilling laughter erupted from him as he simply lifted one hand and tossed her away as if she was a rag doll.
Pain rocketed across her middle then blossomed out to encompass her entire body. She tried to fight, to scream, to do anything, but it was impossible. The only thing Mary could do was mourn her unborn child and hope her son was spared. Finally, the vague sensation of damp across her body and cold in her hands and feet combined with the thought there was so much blood were the last for Mary Shards.
+++++
Present Day
It was Dean Winchester’s deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret, and every time Sam witnessed it he was amazed. Simply and utterly amazed. Standing in the middle of a nice, well cut lawn, open book in one hand, Sam glanced around, seeking out his brother.
There he was, right where Sam expected him to be. Dean Winchester, world’s greatest hunter, then, now and forever—at least in Sam’s opinion—caretaker, protector, slayer of demons, the man who’d probably taken a poke at the Devil’s nose when he was in Hell, was now standing amongst baby clothes, old dishes and ugly knickknacks…bartering.
Dean loved yard sales. He’d even barter for porn. If the price was fifty cents, Dean felt the need to pay twenty-five, and usually did. The fact they mostly frequented yard sales run by women or gay men had never gotten past Sam. Dean knew what he was doing, flirting and using that disarming smile of his, and today a limp was added in for more sympathy. If it had a pulse and was interested in men, Dean had it wrapped around his little finger. Not to mention he had himself a bargain.
With a shrug and smile, Sam glanced down at the book; he’d pay the requested dollar. Dean would have it for him for a nickel. Sam couldn’t complain, heck Dean’s talents for stretching a buck had kept Sam in clothes, rarely hungry, and up to date on any technological device he’d wanted for his entire life.
The fact Dean handed over a five-dollar bill for a box tucked under his arm—clearly marked five dollars—more than a little piqued Sam’s curiosity. Juggling the book, he arched up on his toes for a better look, but the box was closed.
Hobbling across the grass, stopping for a look at a few other things along the way, Dean finally made his way to Sam’s side. Leaning over a bit, shifting the box against his side and rubbing the spot he’d just removed it from, Dean glanced at the book. “You’re not paying a dollar for that.”
“It’s my money.”
“Says the guy who doesn’t hustle it. Gimme that.”
Before Sam could do anything, Dean snatched the book and moaned and groaned his way back to the woman he’d handed over five dollars for a box to. Sam watched as she flushed, then tilted her head, giggled. She squeezed Dean’s bicep—twice. The words my brother…curious kid…gets nervous in the car…just me to take care of him…drifted at Sam. Christ, he was never going to live down the temper tantrum in the Impala, the one just a few weeks ago.
The woman took the book and set it on top of the box, patted Dean’s arm—it was sickening the way she leered at Dean’s ass when he walked away—and called a cheery good-bye to them. Sam waggled four fingers at her and offered her halfhearted smile.
Dean was grinning like he’d won the lottery when he handed Sam the book. “There ya go, Sammy.”
“Want me to carry that?” Sam reached for the box. His curiosity quadrupled when Dean shoved it away and partially behind his back. “It’s just a box, and there’s a surprise in it for you.”
“You fell through a few floors, um three I think.” It hadn’t been one of Dean’s most graceful moments.
“I can carry a box, Sam. If I have to, I can carry you too.”
“I was just saying—”
“You’re not seeing what’s in here till I’m ready to give it to you. I paid five of my hard earned dollars, not to mention the price of this…” he took the book from Sam and stopped, taking a good look at it. “Sam, this is just gross. I paid for this?”
“No, you let a sixty year old woman grope you for it.”
“Payment is payment, doesn’t have to be monetary.”
Sam snorted and trailed behind Dean to the car. “Think about it Dean, all those murders, serial killers, unsolved, uncaught. Take that one,” Sam’s finger pointed to the page Dean was staring at. “Mary Shards, over half a century later and still her murder was never solved. I’ve always wondered, now more than ever, do demons and this war have something to do with things like that? Bizarre, inhuman acts committed by humans against humans. Maybe not as much human as everyone thinks?”
Dean stopped, snapped the book shut and handed it back to Sam. He arched one eyebrow and spent a few seconds looking Sam up and down with an intense enough gaze Sam started to wonder if his clothes had melted away or turned some embarrassing shade of candy pink. “You honestly think that?”
Shrugging, Sam sniffed and wiped one hand across his nose. Stupid, dusty old junk at these things. “It’s a theory.”
“Well, aren’t you just Mr. Cheery.” Dean shook his head, opened the passenger door for Sam and shuffled to the driver’s side. The box was placed carefully in the back seat. Turning to Sam as he started the car, Dean wagged a finger at him. “No peeking, Sammy.”
Sam flipped around to face forward. “I wasn’t peeking.”
“You were peeking.”
“I wasn’t—” This time Sam was cut short by sharp, wet coughs that rattled up from his chest in quick waves, “—eeking.”
Dean gave him a more serious appraising look. “What you say we find a motel for the night?”
Sam nodded and smiled, settling back he read his book.
+++++
Pine View Motel,
They had been running since Cutter’s Landing. For nearly two weeks now, the two of them had been living out of the Impala, gas stations and diner bathrooms, rarely staying at the local motels for more than a few hours a night. Running from what exactly, Sam wasn’t entirely sure anymore. He understood Dean’s fears, knew that when Dean was scared for his brother’s safety, this was exactly what he did. Sam had been expecting Dean’s on-the-move behavior to ease down a little. Especially when the money ran out. But Dean had risked hustling pool in a few bars in the same town, the same night, and had almost walked away with a broken nose and bruised jaw for his rushed and dicey efforts.
The money had afforded them another week on the road.
Sam hoped a hunt would slow them down, and found one as soon as he could after the pool hustling disaster of
Sam had thought he’d lost Dean all over again, never wanting to relive those terrifying moments where he’d sprinted to the first floor, only to find Dean swearing, coughing, surrounded by a miasma of dust and debris, a bed from the second floor having broken his fall and joined him on his descent to the first. He was ordering Sam to get the gasoline, searching his pockets for his lighter angrily, hell bent on revenge; ignoring the fact he’d ripped open his leg on the way down. He played it off as long as he could…until he was reduced to having to ask Sam to help him move, to get off the bed.
They burned that house, watched it go up in a glorious ball of flame, Dean grinning while it was reduced to pitiful ashes. A few stitches in a rest stop bathroom, and Dean swore he was good to go.
Then they were back on the road again.
The yard sale had been a godsend as far as Sam was concerned. Dean’s eyes had lit up like they hadn’t in a long time and Sam welcomed the small break. Now he had something to read, and Dean had his mystery box. From the sound of things, they would be staying in an actual room for the night. He was silently hoping they would be able to stay longer than that, even though the set of Dean’s jaw and the determination sparked in his eyes told a different story. Sam wanted him to rest. Sam was sure demons were behind the events in Cutter’s Landing, and the things Sam and Dean had learned about each other. There was no denying they were going to have to fight this war. They could, as long as they stuck it out together, but how long were they going to keep running?
Dean had pulled into the Pine View and after grabbing the keys for their room he’d ducked back inside the Impala to grab his box, eyeing Sam suspiciously.
“Did you look?”
“No,” Sam started, a laugh burbling roughly inside his lungs and exiting as a cough instead. There had been a lot of dust at the garage sale, and he’d been telling Dean he was okay, but on the drive there, Sam wasn’t even sure he could believe that lie.
Dean didn’t look like he believed it either.
As Sam started into another coughing fit, he groaned and rolled his large shoulders forward, folding into himself before pushing open the door. He’d been noticing this coming on for a while, ignoring it. Those last few nights in the backseat had been cold, the tickle and burn in his throat, the wet heaviness in his chest, all signs he’d been trying to be blissfully unaware were even there. One sidelong look at Dean told him that he should have said something sooner.
Hunters couldn’t get sick.
Dean’s shoulders sloped, the lines in his face deepening as he studied Sam, who tried to give him a reassuring smile. It came off weary, he could feel it, and saw it reflected in Dean’s stance as he leaned into the car. Sam knew where Dean’s mind was going and he shook his head, ticking up a shoulder. He was fine. It wasn’t Dean’s fault. Sam could have made him stop at any time; let him know he needed the rest. He’d just been waiting to see how long it would take Dean to stop on his own. Sam knew that look, the one that edged his brother’s eyes and aged him at least ten years. Sam knew the Pine View Motel was going to be their new home for a while.
“I think we should stay a while,” Dean said. “Get you rested up.”
“I’m fine,” Sam shrugged, shutting the passenger side door. His voice had cracked up at the end as he swallowed another cough. “You need to get off that leg.”
“’M fine,” Dean sighed. The hobbled and painful looking gait to Dean’s walk told a completely different story.
Sam shook his head, grabbing the duffels. “Whatever, man.”
Suddenly the ache and chill that had set into Sam over the last half hour was welcomed. He decided to embrace the damn cold if it meant Dean was going to lay down on a bed tonight and hopefully stay off his leg for the next few days. Sam let the subsequent cough come as it wished, let it rattle around in his lungs as catalyst of change. They could stop running now.
Sam set the duffels on the table next to where Dean had dropped the mystery box, and started to rifle through them for a few hoodies. He’d slipped two over his head and was working on the third when he caught Dean’s look.
“What?”
“Sure you’re fine,” Dean shook his head.
“Just a little cold in here,” Sam smiled sweetly through the lie. “You gonna let me check your leg? I brought in the stuff to change the bandages.”
Dean shifted his eyes to the box. “After I show you what I got you.”
Sam recognized the not so smooth diversion of his attention. Dean wasn’t going to dodge Sam all night about that leg. But for now, mostly because Sam could feel this cold hitting fast, and arguing would only prolong how long they danced around this box, he relented and waved at the mangled and greasy cardboard.
“What did you get me?”
Dean grinned mischievously and Sam huffed. “If that is a huge box of porn, dude…”
Sam watched his brother dig into the box and hold up a dog-eared and worn-out leather book. He tossed it to Sam and waited, looking pleased with himself. It only took a few pages as Sam thumbed through it for him to realize what it was his brother had found.
“This is a hunter’s journal,” Sam’s awe wasn’t hidden from his voice. “You found a hunter’s journal at a yard sale?”
Dean nodded. “I knew I’d hit paydirt right away, and the beauty is that you can actually read this one, unlike Dad’s chicken scratch. Thought you’d like another resource.”
Sam poked his nose over the edge of the box and saw that there was more there: a hat and one really old looking camera. Sam tried to date the junk, putting it around the 1950’s. “Why did you have to get the rest of the stuff?”
Dean pulled out the fedora, flipped it around in his hand and then set it on his head, grinning. “Because I look damn good in a fedora.”
“Okay, Dr. Jones,” Sam smirked.
Dean shrugged. “Woman would only sell me the whole box. I wanted the journal, so I got these groovy door prizes as a bonus.”
Sam huffed and lifted the camera, being careful, feeling like it would bust apart in his hands. It looked like one of the old newspaper photographer’s cameras. He looked through the dusty lens at Dean in his fedora and shook his head. “Trash and treasure…” he muttered.
His brother was like a kid with that fedora. Sam was wondering if Dean would start wearing it out in public. It was going to be at least a day before his brother relinquished the dirty, old hat. Dean had set himself up against the headboard, arms crossed, fedora down over his eyes like he was ready to take a nap.
Sam took up the other bed, journal in hand, plopping down onto the creaky mattress. Sam didn’t care. After all their traveling, the noisy spring mattress felt like memory foam, and he let his achy muscles sink into the grooves.
Dean had been right about the journal’s legibility, and Sam was impressed by the organization and the span of time it covered. Over twenty years of this man’s life were archived, interspersed with the things he’d learned on various hunts. Sam flipped through the newspaper articles and pictures, coming across the names Jake and Benny more than a few times. He realized it was written from Jake’s point of view and two of them had faced a lot of the same things Dean and he had: wendigos, women in white, poltergeists, and demons.
Curious how the two started hunting, Sam went to the first entry and dove in. They weren’t always hunters and had lived somewhat normal lives up through the early fifties. He skimmed the entries, gleaming from them that Jake and Benny Colt were brothers orphaned during the Depression, born in 1925 and 1929. Jake had been with the Cleveland Police Department since his early teens and had eventually gone into the force, working two jobs and as a foot cop for a while to get his brother Ben through school. He became a detective in his late twenties and was able to dodge the war because of sketchy records, which had allowed Jake to stay and take care of Ben.
Sam read Jake’s story with an eerie sense of familiarity, likening how the guy never had a childhood, and was always looking out for his brother to someone else he knew. Sam’s eyes slid over to where Dean was, arms still folded across his chest, breaths even. He’d been quiet for a while.
“Dean?”
“Mmm.”
“Just checking,” Sam said. His eyes glanced down at the next entry in the journal and his heart caught with excitement. What were the odds?
“Dean, there’s an entry here for
“Yeah…” Dean mumbled, shifting his weight.
“The other book you got me… I was just reading about Mary Shard’s murder on this date,” Sam said, skimming the entry quickly. “Jake Colt was a detective before he was a hunter, and he worked that case. Listen to this: I’ve been pulling for Benny to take photos for us, make more than he’s making at the Press or at least on the side. Today’s his chance, and I’ll be walking the kid through my crime scenes this week. Not sure he’s got the stomach, but I know Benny’s got the heart to get done what he’s got to get done…Then he writes later that day about arriving at the Shards’ Lake Road home: The smell of blood was so thick, I hadn’t even made it to the front porch before I could tell this was personal. Benny was whiter than I’d ever seen him before we passed through that door. Welcome to your first day, Ben. He held in there. I was proud of him. But that woman…there aren’t any words to describe what happened to that poor woman…”
A light snore escaped from under the fedora, and Sam looked over at Dean, shaking his head. He’d probably passed out right after Sam had started reading. At least he was resting. Sam set down the journal and looked at the clock. It was almost
He’d grabbed a few blankets from the shelf, draping one over “Indy,” and adding the other to his bed, the chill driving him crazy. His lids were heavy and he knew a nap wouldn’t kill him. They could go get something to eat when Dean woke up. He closed his eyes, setting some internal clock for a half an hour, but not two breaths later he was blissfully oblivious to such things as time.
+++++
Jake Colt guided his car around police cars and the coroner’s wagon, stopping along the side of the wide drive and about halfway down from the house. Some had pulled their vehicles onto the lawn, but he refused to do that, be so disrespectful. Besides, his car might get stuck in the damp ground under the well-watered grass. The 1937 Chevy Sedan was heavier than many of the other vehicles already assembled in the drive and along the street near the Shards’ household.
“If you’d give up this old car and we could get something new and sporty, and smaller you wouldn’t have to worry about parking.” His brother, Ben, seemed to read his mind.
Jake’s head twisted around so he could watch the man in the passenger seat fiddle with his camera. “Ha! This baby will still be getting you from one place to the next for another twenty years.” He watched as Ben reached in the back seat for another camera bag, hauled it to his lap and started rooting around like a dog digging for its last bone. “Benny,” he laid one hand softly on Ben’s shoulder.
Ben’s head turned to the side, but he didn’t look up. Dark hazel eyes slid to meet Jake’s gaze, the brown strands of hair dripping in his eyes were impatiently brushed away. It was that fast. Jake’s kid brother stopped looking twenty-five and started looking about five. “I think another black car, though.” Ben mumbled more to his camera than at Jake.
“We’re not getting another car, Benny, this one is just fine.” It was one of the two things he and Ben had left of their parents, or any family for that matter. Jake’s fingers squeezed. “You don’t have to do this, there’s plenty of other—”
“Yes. I do.” Ben straightened and pushed against the car door until it was open, and he was standing on the lawn. “Even if it’s not what you want for me. It’s what I’m going to do.”
Stepping free of his car, Jake grabbed his suit jacket and hat. He took a deep breath, appreciating the fresh lake breeze and scent of lilacs in the air. Jacket and hat on, he stepped away from the car and waited for Ben to join him. “Ah, murder in the morning.”
Ben pulled up short next to him and openly gaped. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Benny, you take this stuff to heart too much, get yourself wrapped up in it, and it’ll kill you from the inside out. I’ve seen that happen to too many good men.”
Nodding solemnly, Ben fell into step beside him as they walked to the front of the house. Jake let his hand slide from his brother’s shoulder as they approached the front door. Everyone there, at least everyone whose opinion mattered to Jake, knew how he felt about Ben being here, doing this, but he didn’t want to embarrass the kid by coddling him either.
Jake had to be here, he was a detective with the Cleveland Police Department, and this was a huge case. It was more than a compliment and honor to be involved in this investigation. That didn’t mean he had to like it. It didn’t mean he had to like his kid brother seeing what he was about to see either.
Ben was up the stairs a few steps ahead of Jake, forever the curious little boy who had to see everything and always asking why. Jake pushed thoughts of the boy he’d raised deeper down in his mind, and concentrated on the here and now. They made their way through the front part of the house. Mary Shards’ body was in a room at the back.
Ben’s eyes widened, and he turned sideways to keep from getting run over when one of the younger uniformed cops ran by, hand over mouth. The poor guy barely made it outside before tossing the contents of his stomach everywhere. Jake felt sorry for the poor kid who was probably about Ben’s age. The first ones were always the worst.
The smell hit them then. The smell was what always did the new guys in. Jake could see where the body lay, not everything but enough to know where she was in the room. Ben stopped in the doorway, all six-foot-four of him, which meant he pretty much took up the entire doorway.
Stepping up close enough to Ben he could talk to him and not be heard by anyone else, Jake kept his voice low and spoke into his ear. “I think you’re supposed to put the camera up by your eye.” With two knuckles pressed into Ben’s side, Jake nudged him forward a few steps.
Most the color dropped from Ben’s face. His eyes went from Jake to the camera held loosely at his side. “Y-yeah.”
Jake closed his eyes for a beat, took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking right at the body. “Just take the pictures, Benny. Don’t think about her, take the pictures just like you did of the buildings and railroad tracks you’d drag me to.”
“There’s so much blood.” Ben exhaled.
“It’s just red stuff.” Gripping Ben’s shoulder for a few seconds, Jake gave him another slight push toward the body. “I didn’t work extra shifts pounding a beat and putting up with that crap security job with those annoying socialites and their bratty kids down at the
Ben visibly jerked at Jake’s last words, but it worked. He took a few deep breaths and raised the camera, getting a few shots. “Never mind the fact you took half those socialites to bed.” Ben muttered, a few adjustments to one of the camera’s dials, and he took more pictures.
Jake grinned and let the flat part of his fingers press a bit further into Ben’s side for a few seconds more before he stepped back a few paces. If Ben could sling smartass remarks, he was doing okay. Another minute and he was moving around, getting shots from different angles.
“Told ya he’d do fine.”
The voice behind him and the hand slapping his back made Jake jump. That earned a snicker from the man behind him.
“
“Captain Gareau to you when we’re on the job.”
Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Guess no matter what you do it seems Ben is bound and determined to be a cop just like his big brother.”
Snorting to cover his smile, Jake couldn’t help feeling a swell of pride in his chest. That’s exactly what Ben was trying to do, be a cop, merely a different type of cop.
His pride was overwhelmed for a moment with an anxious knot that had tied up in his gut. Benny always looking up to him had been the reason he’d had to fake that limp during the war. Ben was tall enough back then, would have lied about his age, gone to war just to be there alongside Jake. He couldn’t have that. He still got shit from
Ben stopped and straightened, glancing at Jake and
“I didn’t—” Jake pressed his lips together and shook his head again when
Using the pretext of examining the scene for evidence, Jake made sure to stick close to Ben. He wouldn’t have blamed Ben if he needed to get out of there, but he wasn’t surprised he was holding his own. Still, Jake stood at a safe distance, gaze shifting between his brother and the body, and around the room.
“Any witnesses? Leads?” Jake asked
“A few…nothing we can use.”
Jake tilted his head. “Why do you say that?”
“Trust me,” he said with an emphatic wave toward the front door. “When I asked one guy to describe the man he saw leaving the house, he told me the guy’s eyes were some strange color. If you ask me, someone’s been watching too many creature movies. Too Black Lagoon for me.”
Jake arched a brow then smirked. “Okay then.”
Ben and he had caught that show. Jake had enjoyed watching Ms. Adams prance around the screen in her bathing suit, running from the creature. Ben had wanted to discuss the likelihood there were things like that out there.
Jake looked back at Ben and something else caught his eye. A small face in the doorway staring in at the body on the ground, eyes frozen to the spot…
“Shit,” Jake breathed. “Who’s supposed to be watching the kid?”
Jake crossed the room and maneuvered the boy back outside, closing the door behind him. This was the woman’s son, Sam Jr. Kneeling in front of the kid, he could see the hollowed out depth to his glassy eyes. His gaze was still on the closed door, and Jake tried to put himself between the middle distance and the image that had to be seared into the poor kid’s brain. Sam had been the one to find the body.
“Hey, kiddo, you need to stay out here, okay?”
“She’s not sleeping, is she?” Sam asked.
For a moment he couldn’t think, Sam’s eyes melting away to Benny’s and the smell of fire and singed flesh, a painfully similar question asked through large tears and trembling lips. They’re not coming back, are they, Jake?
Jake shook his head and sucked in a breath as the boy slammed into him, wrapping small arms around his neck. Again, Jake could feel the weight of Benny’s arms as he ran them through the burning halls of their house. He closed his eyes, breathing in the lake water air, trying to reorient himself. He straightened and picked the boy up, looking around for an officer, wanting to hand Sam off.
That was when he saw Sam’s father, getting loud and angry. Dr. Shards claimed he’d been chasing the man after he’d heard a commotion, had fought with him. Now Jake could see he was being handcuffed and pushed into the back of a car. His protests reached his son who broke from his trance and looked back toward the cars. The boy wriggled free from Jake’s grasp and started to run after his father. Before Jake could catch up to him, another officer stepped in to pick him up while he screamed and struggled. Christ, what a mess…
“Were you the one watching him?” Jake barked.
“S-sorry. His aunt is coming…I turned my back for just—”
“Get him out of here and keep him away from the house!” Jake ordered, pointing toward the cars along the road. He wanted the boy as far from the scene as he could get.
He paused at the door, taking a second to clear the memories that shimmied through him of the night Ben and he lost everything but each other. Here he was almost twenty years later and still haunted and unable to escape. He pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose, took another deep breath, and ignoring Sam’s cries, pushed open the door.
+++++
Ben couldn’t mess this up. He knew what lengths his brother had gone to, to be able to get him here. It was why he was trying as hard as he was to still the tremor in his hands, wrapping them tighter around the camera until they were bloodless white. He felt Jake’s eyes on him,
Jake had left him alone to go get the boy who’d been looking in on his dead mother. Ben’s stomach had twisted at the look of devastation, and in combination with the metallic blood and some other peculiar putrid scent, he almost lost his stomach’s contents. He’d paused, placing a hand to his mouth to keep the bile down, shooting a weak smile to
He could do this. He didn’t need his brother or
That didn’t stop the wave of relief that washed over him when Jake returned, looking worn. He was about to ask if he was okay when that same scent struck out at his nose again, causing him to gag and put a hand to the back of his mouth.
“Do you smell that?” he asked, on the verge of retching.
Jake narrowed his eyes. “You mean besides a couple hours of death and the blood?”
“Something smells like…like rotten eggs.”
That received a weird look from Jake and he shrugged, crouching down near Mary’s face. He’d been saving this picture for last, trying not to look her in the eyes. He wasn’t ready for them, for the absence of light, the last moments of fear etched into the blown pupils. He swallowed against his constricting throat and shot the photo.
Something caught his eye at the crook of her unnaturally bent neck. Beneath her was a small pile of yellow powder. He touched it before thinking and drew it back to his nose, recoiling. That was where the smell was coming from.
“Jake,” Ben said, turning toward his brother. “Come look at this.”
He turned back to the woman, just in time to see her dead eyes were on him, pupil’s fixed.
The words gurgled up from a throat steeped in fluid and then all he could see were yellow-eyes and blood, Mary’s screaming shredding through his very soul…
+++++
Sam startled awake violently, flailing his arms out to stop himself from spilling over the side of his bed in a bundled mess of sheets and disorientation. He steadied himself, and instinctively sought out Dean, eyes meeting his brother’s as he too was up like someone had run an electrical current through his body. Sam watched Dean take off the fedora, Jake’s fedora, and stare at it like it would come to life at any moment, expression haunted before he turned wide eyes back to Sam.
In unison and completely at the shock of the other, they both blurted out. “Dude, I just had the most freaky-ass dream.”
Blinking, seeming to soak in what Sam was saying, Dean shuddered and threw the fedora at the end of the bed.
Tell Dean, tell Dean. Can’t tell Dean. Yellow-eyes and his mother snarling out it’s you right in front of Sam and Sam’s crib. How Azazel laughed as Mary Winchester slid up the wall, snapped his fingers and told Sam he didn’t want to see that part. He’d not stopped Sam from seeing blood being dripped in his mouth, or from Sam knowing his mother recognized a freaking demon!
Trying to get a few deep breaths was seriously hampered by his left lung trying to exit his body through his nose. That woman he’d been dreaming about, the same woman he’d been reading about earlier had looked right at him…Ben Colt…whothehellever…and said it’s you loud and clear. How could she do that?
“Sam. SAM!”
Jerking around to face Dean, Sam sat gripping his blanket like a two-year-old and stared at his brother.
“Are you listening to me?”
Sam nodded spasmodically. It’s you…it’s me…it’s you!
Dean’s head tipped to one side and frowned. “What did I say?”
“I dunno.” Sam breathed out fast. He had no clue, and Dean always saw right through him anyway, might as well confess his indiscretion now and get it over with.
“Dude, there were cops and really old, incredibly cool cars and a murder and—” Dean threw a sock at him. “Sam?”
“Cops, cool cars, murder…got it.” Oh and the fact that woman who was supposed to be dead looked right at him and said it’s you! It’s me. Sam was definitely losing his mind.
“I was wearing this, I mean he was wearing this,” Dean pointed to the fedora desperately hanging onto the corner of his bed. “It was mine, I mean his.” Dean was on his feet, arms waving around. He looked like an over excited toddler on a sugar high. “I—I mean him—we were driving around in this schweet-ass ’37 Chevy Master, a black one. There was this murder, I saw the body; it was like I was there and was supposed to solve some murder of some woman who died two freaking ass decades before I even thought of being born. You were there, but not you, some kid named Benny Colt. It was me, but it wasn’t me, it was some guy named Jake Colt, but it was like that TV show, remember we used to watch it, Quantum Leap, that guy would be someone else, but not really and I could see you, but I looked like some other guy, who was devilishly as handsome as me, almost and—”
“INHALE!”
Dean straightened, snapped his mouth shut and stared down at Sam. He reached out and poked Sam’s shoulder. “Sammy? You okay?”
“Yeah…sure…no…I dunno.” Sam looked up and tried very hard not to shake. Instead he sneezed. “I-I w-was th-there. Ben, I was Ben, or he was me.” Sam stopped and sagged, coughing out a deep sigh. “My head hurts.” Another sneeze. “It was like I was part of that guy, Ben Colt. I was there but had to do what he did and see what he saw. Feel what he felt.” Sam’s voice trailing off at the end sounded odd to his own ears. He wasn’t surprised at how Dean’s face morphed from freaked over what had happened to freaked over Sam.
Fingers fumbling loose from the blanket, he picked up the journal. “I was reading this to you. I didn’t realize right away you’d crashed out on me.” Sam opened the book to the date of Mary Shards’ murder, turned it around, and handed it to Dean. “I was tired too,” he shrugged. “So I decided to shut my eyes for a few minutes, thought I could catch a nap before we went for eats, and when I woke up I was wearing a suit that was too big and carting around a camera and taking pictures of—” It’s you! Sam’s voice caught and stayed in his throat. He bit down on his lip and stared at the carpeting between the beds.
Dean’s hand rested on his shoulder. “Sam.” Dean’s fingers tightened around his shoulder and gave an insistent shake. “Sammy, look at me.”
Sam looked up. Dean sat on the bed beside him.
“Are you okay? I know that was one grisly image, all that blood and guts hanging out, but you’ve seen bodies worse off. Real ones.”
“Did you see her move? Or hear a woman screaming? See any yellow eyes?”
Dean shook his head silently, quirked an eyebrow at Sam and lifted one hand up, letting it drop to his thigh a second later.
“I saw—Ben saw—and found sulfur. Right under Mary’s head. The whole place stunk of demon.”
“Yeah, I remember the smell alright.” Dean’s hand pulled away from Sam’s shoulder, he started flipping through the old journal. Pulling something from between the pages a smile spread slowly across Dean’s face. “Look at this, Sammy.”
Sam took the offered photograph of two men standing in front of a 1937 black Chevy Masters. “That’s them. They were there with us. They were us. We were them.”
“Great,” Dean snorted a laugh, took the picture from Sam and replaced it in the journal. “Only we could find a haunted hunter’s journal. At a yard sale!”
“Technically you found it. I was standing around minding my own business reading a book.” Sam smiled. “That’s not the weirdest part though. There was a demon there, Dean, we both saw the sulfur and how her body was…” Sam had to stop and take more deep breaths to steady his hands. He continued on quietly, “We both saw it. This murder is famous, it’s been famous for the past sixty some odd years. I wonder if they found out. If that’s why Jake and Ben got into hunting?”
“I don’t know.” Dean stood up, tossed the book into the box on the table across the room. “What I do know is what just happened, it happened and I’m not sure I want it to happen again. We went there, back then.” Dean faked a shiver and gave Sam a soft punch to his arm. “Time travel is for the birds. Not to mention creepy as Hell, and I’d know.”
Sam chuckled and grinned, feeling some of the tension ease away. “I’m not sure it was really a haunting sort of thing. More of a message maybe. A way to put the pieces together.”
“Huh?”
Drawing in another wheezing breath, Sam steeled himself and took the plunge. “There was more of it for me. I was there a few minutes longer I think. The last bits are more broken up, like a real dream, but I saw it.”
“What?”
“Yellow-eyes. No body attached, just yellow eyes. I felt them watching me, as if I was seeing what Mary Shards saw right before she died. We can use it, Dean, use that journal to find out more about Azazel.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s a name I want to keep on hearing. If I never hear it again, it’ll be too soon.” Dean heaved a sigh and Sam knew he’d hit a chord or three. “But, you’re right. This,” Dean waved one hand in the general direction of the journal, “feels like what we need to do. It feels right. If that makes sense?”
“It does.”
Christ, he had to tell Dean. He had to find a way to do what? Break his brother’s heart and drive him away forever by saying a demon fed me his blood. I’m tainted and bad and wrong. Worse yet, he was going to have to tell Dean that the mother he worshipped had some involvement with a demon, with the demon who killed her?
Sam’s stomach lurched violently and his chest constricted down to half the space needed for his lungs to work. He couldn’t get the words out. He couldn’t. A flicker of hope was if the same demon killed Mary Shards, maybe, just maybe Sam could find out why and tell Dean all the details.
It’s you.
Dean would hate him. Hate the abomination that was Sam Winchester, but at least Dean would know the truth. Sam would know the truth; he had to.
“What if some people have to, you know, maybe let demons do things…?” He didn’t even know how to ask the question.
“Anyone who lets a demon do anything to them or their family or anything is lower than the damn demons, Sam!”
Dean’s sudden explosion, while not unexpected, still had Sam cringing away. Blinking rapidly, Sam wanted to squish the tears threatening to overflow back down.
Trying to breathe deep did nothing but make cause harsh, ragged coughs to be expelled. He didn’t fight the urge to double over.
It’s you.
Dean was going to be lost to Sam all over again. The only difference was Dean wasn’t going to have to die to do it. A warm hand rubbing between his shoulder blades made him start. “I’m okay,” He barely wheezed the words out.
“Yeeaahh. Sure you are.” Dean patted his back a few more times. “Keep your ass sitting right there. No reading that—” He pointed to the box and journal, “—thing until I get back, and then not till I say you can.”
It’s you.
Sam looked up and nodded. Dean swam in waves in front of him. A box of tissue landed on the bed next to him. Images of Dean’s shattered expression when he found out…Sam had to tell him. Sam couldn’t tell him. Sam wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
That didn’t seem to be happening either.
“I’m going to go get you a gallon of Nyquil and something to eat. What sounds good?”
“Nothing.” Wasn’t that the truth too? Not only could Sam not taste anything, his stomach bounced around like a deranged ping-pong ball from all the thoughts hopping through his head.
“I don’t care if nothing sounds good. I’m getting food, and you’re damn well eating it even if I have to hold you down and force-feed you. Don’t think for two seconds I won’t either.” Dean’s voice was harsh but his eyes were soft and worried.
Sam nodded. He watched Dean walk out the door and couldn’t help wondering when he’d do that for real, when Sam would see Dean leave for the last time. When the sound of the Impala rumbling away reached Sam’s ears, he pushed off the bed. Grabbing his laptop, Sam booted it up. He was going to find out a few more details about Mary Shards’ murder if he could.
A few Google searches later and Sam’s blood was chunks of ice banging around his entire body. Both Samuel’s and Mary’s parents died not too long after Mary, which considering their ages wasn’t so unusual. It was the other people that made Sam want to puke his intestines onto the floor. No siblings alive, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no one. They were all dead. Anyone who could answer a question about Mary Shards died long ago. It was as if Mary Shards’ life had been wiped away.
Exactly like Mary Winchester’s life.
It’s you.
Ruby’s words to check out his own mother’s friends and relatives rang through his head.
It’s you.
Shutting down the laptop and gently closing it, Sam stumbled to the bathroom. He sat there, shaking, trying not to cry and playing scene after scene of what his brother was going to do when he found out about their mother, about Sam, in his head until the room spun around him.
It’s you.
Dean’s hand banging on the door and his voice asking if Sam was alive or if he’d fallen in the toilet jolted Sam somewhat back to reality. He’d have to cope. He had to get himself together and just freaking deal with this however it turned out. Then he was free to crawl away and die quietly…and alone.
+++++
Coming back to a quiet room, when Sam wasn’t curled up in bed sound asleep, was never a good thing. There had to be some noise, the drone of the television, the furious clicking of laptop computer keys, some comment flying his way about wondering if he had to go to the next town to get their food.
There was the muted silence as soon as he shut the door and nothing else, and Dean’s preliminary search for Sam in the room returned zilch.
“Sam?”
He set down the pharmacy and food he’d collected, preparing for all worse case scenarios when it came to Sam and this new development. Sam rarely got sick and when he did, well, it wasn’t anywhere in the ballpark of pretty. Kid had this unparalleled, superhuman immune system, and then every once in a while he broke down and seemed to catch everything he’d been dodging over the last year, all at once.
Putting his heart in check, trying to grasp and control frayed nerves at that thought, Dean reminded himself that this was different. There was too much that had happened between then and now for Sam to just take off. Then again…
The bathroom door was closed and he slammed his fist into it a few times, “Sam? You alive? You fall in, dude?”
Relief was short-lived as the door pulled back, draining away to worry when he saw Sam, eyes hooded, sweat saturated bangs clinging to his forehead, near translucent pallor. His brother didn’t just look sick, he looked haunted.
Dean smirked. That was close enough to what he’d been expecting. The undeniable fever burning up his little brother’s body, on the other hand, not so much. Even knowing Sam was getting sick, he wasn’t ready for it to be this fast, this soon.
“Was preparing,” Dean returned.
“For what?”
“To take care of your ass for as long as this thing lasts.”
He reached into the bag and pulled out all the medication he’d been able to round up with the last of their poker money, lining it up on the table, from Nyquil to Robitussin. And if all else failed they did have their personal cache of pharmaceuticals but staying out of the hospitals as much as they had to anymore, that was running low.
“Did you hold up a drug store, Dean?”
“One can never be too cautious, especially when your brother tends to be a walking, biological weapon when he gets sick.”
“I am…” Sam started to cough again, falling back into the bed when it was over, a frustrated sigh escaping defeated lungs. “…not.”
Sam moved like every muscle was a leaded weight, pulling his knees up and into his chest as he positioned his back against the headboard. Dean noticed Sam was dodging his gaze, avoiding eye contact. What was that about?
“You pissed at me?” Dean asked.
Sam’s eyes shot up, finally meeting his. “No. No. No. It’s uh…not that…just, not…”
“What, Sam?”
“…feeling like myself. That’s all.”
Dean didn’t like that he couldn’t tell if the glassed over look to his brother’s eyes was the fever or something else. He grabbed two pills and a Gatorade and set them beside Sam, taking a seat on his own bed.
He winced as the skin around his wound tugged too much, causing the ache there to slide effortlessly into a searing pain. Fighting the urge to grab at his leg, Dean leaned back, hoping Sam hadn’t noticed, especially when the action had torn at the shallow wound on his shoulder and lower back. Ones he’d chosen not to share with Sam with. Hearing again and again that he needed to rewrap the one on his leg was torture enough.
Sam was still staring at his sheets, pills and Gatorade remaining untouched.
“I’ve got food too. Soup if you’re not up for anything else.”
“Not hungry.”
“Not an option. Take your meds.”
“Take care of your leg,” Sam added, taking the pills, eyes challenging Dean.
“Leg’s fine, Sam.”
But it was irritating him, random bursts of pain causing him to get back up, put some weight on it. He masked the action by giving it purpose, getting himself something to eat, and grabbing the journal.
“You going to read more?” Sam asked. “How come you can and I can’t?”
“Because I’m not so sure we should be reading it in the first place. We just happen to find a book that just happens to detail one of Azazel’s targets…oh, and not to mention the book makes you trip out and relive the lives of some dudes from the fifties. That, while totally awesome, is messed up.”
“So you want to get rid of it?” Sam asked, almost too anxiously for Dean’s liking.
If Dean even so much as breathed he was going to destroy it, he knew he would have a fight on his hands. One that involved way too much pleading and begging and Sam looking pathetic, and there was no way he was winning against that right now.
“It could have the answers, Dean,” Sam tried again.
“I know that, Sam. Which is why I’m gonna be the one to read it, not you.”
Sam ticked up a brow, combativeness percolating the torn down look in his eyes, forcing Dean to rally an explanation for that statement fast.
“Maybe, just maybe, we all went down the rabbit hole because of some of your psychic mojo. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sam sighed, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “And if it wasn’t that?”
Sam huffed at that and waved dismissively at Dean. “Story hour with Dean Winchester it is. Could you read to me with a British accent? Oh, and do the voices.”
“Could you shuddup?”
Sam smiled and Dean put on the fedora.
“Is that really necessary?” Sam asked.
"I'm trying to get into character, Sam. Just shut your pie hole already."
+++++
November 18, 1954
I can’t shake that damn Shards case. It won’t leave me alone. Too many loose ends I want to tie up and I keep fumbling, unable to grasp the threads. Thing that digs under my skin the most is that everyone’s given up the chase. Evidence is being ignored, like the sulfur at the scene, and they’ve tossed out all witness accounts about the man with the unnatural, yellow eyes. Not that I can say I really blame them. But Shards is serving time and I keep thinking about that boy of his…
Since the Shards case I keep seeing similar statements, similar oddities at crime scenes, things cast aside when it comes down to solving these cases. Things I can’t help but feel would solve the case if looked into, not just written off as superstitious mumbo jumbo. Not to mention, I’m tired of finding good people—church going, hard-working, down-to-earth people—suddenly labeled as Satanists. Easier to label them and shelve them than to pull everything out and really listen to what witnesses and these people are claiming.
Benny’s noticed the same thing. Kid’s not an idiot. He pointed it out first, before I started seeing the signs elsewhere. There’s something out there. Something tearing up lives…something that leaves its…God, anyone reading this is going to think I’ve lost my mind...evil behind.
Whatever this thing is, I wish I’d never picked up its scent. I wish I didn’t care so damn much…
Anyone I’ve shared this with in confidence, well, let’s just say I know now where my loyalties lie. They have some interesting names for me now down at the station. I can’t lose credibility…I can’t lose my job…
I’ve got to leave this alone.
But I’m afraid I can’t…
+++++
It was never easy, but he was finding the initial shock, the tremors, lessened with the experience. He hoped it was never easy. With every new body he stared down the lens at, he feared becoming completely numb. He feared being able to see death and not feel a thing. He’d gained the confidence necessary to get his job done, but it still rattled him, and in a way he was glad.
Ben knelt down beside the deceased, eyes scanning for the best shot. The bite marks along her exposed shoulder caught his eye, and he focused on and captured the bloody indentations from several angles. His careful gaze moved, unaware that he was looking for something specific until he fell upon it and felt an odd tug of excitement curl up from within. Yellow powder, the smell of rotten eggs…this was another “bizarre” incident, like the Shards case. Ben looked up at Jake, who was never too far, and any excitement fizzled out at the pained expression stretching his brother’s features thin.
Pushing to his feet, angling a few more pictures from near the window, Ben backed up to where Jake was and exchanged a knowing glance.
“It’s similar to those other ones, Jake” he whispered, keeping his head down between them, pretending to change out the bulb, twisting it between nervous fingers. His observation was met with silence, and he ticked up his eyes between loose, long bangs to his brother’s stoic visage. “Say something, Jake.”
“Leave it alone.”
“Jake?”
His brother moved away from the window in a slow and terribly masked retreat, dropping his arms away from his chest and nodding to another officer as he passed. Ben fell into step behind him.
"Didn't you talk to Del?"
“No dice, little brother. Leave it alone.”
“But, Jake…”
“Go get some air, Benny.”
“Jake, come on…” Benny watched his brother’s retreating back until it disappeared into the next room, hands out to his side, pleading.
Was Jake really going to turn his back on this? Ben got it. He did. This was one more attempt on Jake’s part to keep Ben safe, but there was something here that they couldn’t ignore. Not forever.
Dropping his hands to his side in defeat, Benny did as he was told if only to quell the pinpricks of anger and disbelief burning blood in his cheeks. Stepping out onto the fire escape, the crisp, November night air slid over his sweat slick brow, easing away the heat from his face and clothing. The smell of fresh rain rolled around invigoratingly in his nostrils, giving the illusion that the grunge of the city below him had washed away.
He tugged at his shirt, peeling it away from his chest beneath his coat, sighing at the evidence of his nerves still raw around the work he was in now. It was a comfort to know his coat was hiding his weakness. Now if he could just get his hands to stop betraying him, not have to wrap them so tight around his camera. He wondered if Jake knew. Knowing him, he did.
What could he really do about the things he was seeing, and everyone else was too blind or too scared to help?
Leave it alone.
He knew in his heart, Jake wanted to do something about cases like the Shards’, but he was bound by a sense of duty not only to Ben, but also to the guys at the station. Men who’d helped a kid raise a kid. There was no room to be talking about ‘supernatural’ things, not unless you had a few screws loose. Talk like that put worry in people’s eyes, in the way they talked to you, treated you, like you’d shatter apart if they asked what was wrong.
Ben sighed and tapped the palm of his hand against the railing before pivoting to go back inside. He’d just set his hand against the window frame when he heard a metallic thunk above him, causing him to pause. Turning his eyes up trough the metal mesh, he could see someone in the shadows. The position of the dark figure made him feel like they were looking down, right at him, sending tendrils of cold up and down Ben’s spine.
“Hello?”
The shadowed figure darted back into some unseen space and Ben followed, climbing the stairs two at a time, trying not to rattle the structure right out of the wall in his hurry.
The danger of his actions wasn’t registering with him until he set foot in the apartment above, the open window the only place Ben could guess the person had gone. It was dark, save the crackling glow of snow from a TV set in the main room. Anyone could be around any corner, and he couldn’t see from where he was standing.
The buzzing of flies drew him toward the kitchen, the smell accompanying the sound making him choke back his last meal, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Reaching out for the string hanging from a bare bulb, Ben clicked on a light, illuminating the rotting food. It covered the table and counters, rancid meat tickling the gag reflex at the back of his mouth. Something scurried into the wall in his periphery, causing him to back out into the main room. Whoever ‘lived’ here, wasn’t using the kitchen.
Setting his camera down on a table by the window, Ben picked up the fire poker from the neglected fireplace and moved further into the apartment, driven by some gut feeling that had his heart lodged deep into his throat. Curiosity piqued and unrelenting, Ben opened every closet, turned on every light, and jumped at every shadow, all because he felt like he needed to be up here.
He hadn’t imagined the man looking down at him, and this was the only place he could have gone, being the top floor. From the derelict state of the apartment, he wondered if whoever was living there was in trouble, hurt…or maybe this was a squatter. In which case, Ben’s mind flashed through scenarios of having to fight off an armed man, the idea to come up here looking more and more crazy.
But every room was empty and from what he could tell, no one had passed through there in a while. He was starting to doubt he’d even seen anyone when he saw the chain still bolted across the front door…
No one around and the front door was locked.
Ben set the poker back against the wall and looked back out the window for another way down or up, another window. There was no way whoever he had seen above could have gotten past him.
Another quick sweep of the bedroom and the closets turned up nothing and he was about to give up when he heard voices coming up through the floorboards in the closet. Confused, Ben recognized one as his brother and got to his knees, shoving a few boxes to the side revealing a small hole in the floor. He could see down through a grate and into the victim’s bedroom.
Every hair on his neck stood at strict attention, gooseflesh rose on his arms as he realized what he was looking at…
God…was he…was he spying on her?
Had Jake tried to explain they’d found another one? Even after he’d said to leave it alone, he couldn’t. Ben knew it!
Losing himself for a moment in thoughts about his discovery, Jake turning to leave snapped Ben back into the reality of his surroundings. There was something terribly wrong with where he was, and what he was seeing.
“Jake!”
His voice echoed through the space, and he felt his skin bristle with fear that he’d been too loud. Even though he’d combed the place, he couldn’t shake the feeling that eyes were still on him.
Jake had startled at the sound, gaze darting the space around him as he turned three hundred and sixty degrees before looking up to the vent.
“Ben?”
“Yeah,” he answered, voice unsure, hoping Jake didn’t freak out.
“What the hell are you doing? Where the hell are you? Why am I talking to a vent?”
“You need to get up here and see this, Jake. One floor up. I used the fire escape.”
He could see Jake’s eyes widen as confusion slowly faded to fear. “How did you—? When did you—?” Clearly too flustered to grasp the English language, he’d shot out a commanding finger toward the vent. “Dammit, stay right there!”
Ben rolled his eyes and pushed back onto his haunches. “Wasn’t going anywhere,” he muttered.
Something red tugged his attention toward the back of the closet and he reached for it, coming back with cooled candle wax. Rolling it between his fingers, Ben studied where it seemed to be pooling out from a small space at the base of the wall, and he put a hand on the back of the closet and felt it move. A panel of the wall slid away revealing white candles and small bones, and a chalice…
Ben pushed away from the wall quickly, heart kicking up as he realized what was covering the small altar.
Blood. God, the whole thing was covered in blood!
+++++
What the hell had Ben been thinking? First of all, if this was nothing, and Jake doubted it was nothing, there was always the threat of the consequences of breaking and entering. But Jake didn’t really give a damn about the legal issues, Jake was thinking about how and why there would be a way to see from one apartment down into the one below, the implications of that, and how his brother was now two rooms, a fire escape, and two minutes, too far from where he was, possibly in the presence of a murderer.
He’d found the open window, Smith and Wesson drawn, eyes darting over every shadow and object for something he wouldn’t like.
“Ben,” he whispered harshly, turning the small apartment space over quickly, not only in search of his brother, but also to make sure they were alone.
After almost expelling his stomach contents from the smell that was noxiously strong in the kitchen, and almost offing a rat for moving just outside his periphery, he found Ben in the bedroom, staring at something at the back of the closet.
“Holy…” Jake cringed as he knelt down with Ben, studying the small altar.
“Just the opposite I’d think,” Ben breathed. He shivered and pushed to his feet.
Jake noted the red wax covering the floor was from ‘white’ candles and knew he didn’t have to venture a guess as to what was all over the altar.
“Where are the others?” Ben asked.
Jake huffed. “I didn’t know what you’d found. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“It wasn’t that…Come on, Benny.”
“I can do this, Jake.
Jake ran a hand down his face. “I know that.”
Ben was walking away, tossing a wave over his shoulder. He turned back to Jake in the doorway. “I get it. I do. But I’m not the one ignoring what’s happening here.”
“I’m not ignoring…wait, what are you going on about now?”
“This. This right here. The altar, and the sulfur and the murders, Jake.”
Jake rolled his eyes and waved a dismissive hand, turning away. Did Ben think he didn’t give a shit? Did he not get that this was going to get them locked away somewhere?
Separated…
“I don’t care if you don’t believe in me,” Ben started.
That wasn’t the truth and both of them knew it. And when did Jake EVER say that he didn’t believe in Ben?
“But the Jake I believe in wouldn’t just turn his back like this.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jake held out his hands, Ben’s eyes were burning with such resolve he almost felt the need to defend himself against them. “I’m trying to keep both of our heads above water here!”
“Why?”
The question was so frank and sharp, that it left him asking himself the same thing.
“Because…I…”
“If you’re worried about me. Stop.” Ben returned.
Jake nodded. This had been building up inside of him for a long time, being torn between the right thing and what would keep Ben safe. He laughed lightly, eyes seeking out cracks in the floorboards like safe-havens.
“Impossible,” he breathed. “You know that…”
Every hair on the back of Jake’s neck went rigid as Ben wasn’t the one to answer him.
“I’d worry about him.”
The voice shoved cold spikes through Jake’s heart. Snapping his head up, he had only the breadth of a heartbeat to register the man behind Ben, the black obsidian eyes, and then Ben was thrown, body crushing into the sofa.
Unconsciously Jake’s S&W was up, aimed at the man’s face, anger threading through every pulse.
“Hold it! On the ground!”
God, those eyes! What caused something like that? He couldn’t see any iris, any whites. And the way his slick smile spread, twisted the shape of his face, like this was a joke, like he was bulletproof, rattled Jake.
Ignoring Jake’s order, the man turned and started for Ben. One more warning left Jake’s lips, before the man was too close, too fast, to his brother, and then there was no choice.
Jake fired a round into the man’s leg.
The burst of crimson was the only indication the bullet embedded. The man’s leg buckled slightly then straightened. A mosquito bite would have caused someone more discomfort. The man rounded on Benny again; picking him up and shoving him back against the wall. Jake took aim, but the man’s hand shot out toward Jake and his legs were taken right out from under him, the back of his skull cracking against the ground floor.
Holy shit…
Recollecting the breath painfully ejected from his lungs, Jake rolled onto his side, mind staggering through the attack, stumbling over how it was possible. He watched as Benny was now somehow on the ground, diving for a fire-poker. He brought it around and into the man’s face, and where a bullet hadn’t even made the maniac tick, he howled as his head snapped back from the force. Turning back with black, rage-filled eyes, Jake saw the burn, the seared flesh along the man’s jaw.
Suddenly the bulletproof man was running, flinging open the front door and bolting for the exit.
Jake shoved to his feet, grabbing Ben up from the ground and hauling him to his feet. “You all right?” The question came out a more ferocious then Jake had intended, causing Ben to blink, recoil, trying to catch his breath.
Jake picked up the cold fire poker and looked at Ben, confused. What the hell had burned up that guy’s face?
A small line of blood slid its way along Ben’s hairline and Jake’s eyes widened. He grabbed for his brother’s face, tilting it toward him.
“I’m okay,” Ben groused, shoving Jake back, encouraging him to go. “Don’t let him get away!”
“Stay here,” Jake ordered, ignoring the sharp protest that followed.
Reinforcements were coming in through the window, and up into the hallway, having heard the scuffle, but Jake pushed past them all toward the stairwell at the end of the hall, slamming into a railing, catching a glimpse of the door to the alley closing.
Leaping the last few steps, Jake drove his shoulder into the alley door, stumbling out into the night. Turning quickly, catching only a shadow, he took off sprinting, something feral having taken over. This was personal, and that was before the attack on Ben. Truth. He wanted the truth and if he could catch this son of a bitch, he might have a shot at knowing.
The chase wound down behind the apartment and into the next alley, crossing the main street, Jake didn’t slow down for anything, dodging cars, pushing limbs and muscles that hadn’t run this hard in a long time in pursuit.
There was nothing slowing the man down, not the bullet lodged in his leg or the garbage strewn about the alleys. He plowed through it all like a tank, and Jake was losing ground on him. That was until the man reached the end of the alley, ready to dart into another busy road, and Ben materialized in front of him, slamming his camera into the man’s face, clothes lining him.
The camera broke apart in Ben’s hands and the man landed on his back, both looking equally shocked. Jake descended upon the man, cuffs ready, rolling him onto his face, not caring if he was face down in a puddle, fighting him the entire way.
Benny was gathering the busted pieces of his camera from the ground, face stuck somewhere between shock and awe, smile slowly creeping up the corners of his mouth as he appeared to have decided he was pleased with how that all went down. He shook out his shoulders, and Jake heard him laugh as the last wrist was cuffed.
“Interesting…weapon of choice, Ben.” Jake mused.
Ben laughed and then one look at the broken camera had him instantly deflated. “Oh man…”
“I’ll get you a new one for saving the day, Crimson Avenger” Jake said, running damage control.
The man Jake had pinned, one knee in his back, was still fighting him, but the effort was weak in comparison to what Jake had seen in that apartment. The low growls coming from him were becoming more intense and Jake narrowed his eyes. This tank of a man was…whimpering?
Jake flipped the man over and startled at the blisters forming on his face, the steam rising from his chest and open sores.
“Christ!”
The man arched his back, writhing, skin peeling back like someone had poured acid on him, and all Jake could do was watch him gurgle and spit. He was trying to get out from under Jake, the sounds he was making, growling out, were unlike anything Jake had ever heard come from the throat of a man.
The man stopped struggling, rearing up as far as he could toward Jake’s face, pit-like eyes on him, slicing right through him.
“I’m going to remember you,” he spoke, more than one voice crawling out of his throat, and skittering off the alleyway walls.
Head snapping back, the bones audibly cracking along with it, the man bucked, slamming his head back against the pavement repeatedly until something black started to slither out from his open maw.
Jake was on his feet and backing away, one hand out in front of Ben’s chest to keep him from getting near the man. But one backward glance told Jake that Ben wasn’t moving anytime soon. The kid had blanched, eyes wide and scared.
Whatever it was that was happening to the man, Jake knew there was nothing he could do to save him, and there was no way he was getting near…that thing.
Smoke, blackened and thick spewed from the man’s mouth like he was burning up from the inside out. He coughed and cried out until the last of it had been expelled, dark mist scattering to the shadows, leaving behind a mess of flesh and gibberish, of scared eyes and quaking words.
The man was looking at him, pleading with him to listen to him, that he was innocent. It was the man with the black eyes.
There was no black left outside of the man’s pupils, the whites and hazel irises returned. These were not the eyes of a killer; these were the eyes of a terrified man. The abrupt transition had Jake stunned silent, the rest of the world dead to him. Everything but those eyes.
Ben’s hand on his shoulder brought him back, realization threading through the confusion and haze. He could see the swaths of red and blue light bathing the alley, could hear the sirens behind them, and noticed the officers running in to grab the man who could no longer stand on his bloodied leg. He was screaming his innocence, fighting them…
This was not the man in the apartment…
The bells from St. Peter’s Cathedral sounded, pulling Jake’s eyes up to the stained glass windows above the alley, the angel in one looking down at him and where they had fought. They had been near a church…
He found his brother by their ’37 on the street, jaw taught, and muscles along it bounding in thought. He looked small, hunched over himself, eyes on the busted camera in his hands.
“What if there are more?”
What the hell was it even? Jake could only think of one thing as he looked back toward the church…and who the hell would believe that?
Jake leaned back against the car with Ben, shoulders slouching, trying to drain out the man pounding on the windows of the squad car.
The man could be innocent. And there was nothing he could do…at least not anything that wouldn’t cost him everything. But he knew the truth, he had seen it with his own eyes, and he was combating the doubt seeping into his mind through fragmented pieces of the logic of what he had just seen.
Jake shook his head. “Then Heaven help us.”
Whatever it had been…it had been evil. That darkness that had looked into Jake’s very core had left an imprint; had left Jake feeling like he needed to scrub it clean. He remembered being told once that evil survived because good men chose to do nothing and Ben’s words were pricking at his heart.
The Jake I believe in…would never turn his back…
He was at a crossroads and he knew the decision he made would change everything, alter it violently…
“If there are more…” Ben sighed beside him, straightening.
Jake saw something there in his brother’s eyes, something that he knew he couldn’t fight, short of locking his brother away. It was something echoing through his own resolve, something that had been tearing him apart for weeks on end.
There was no more hiding from it. Everything was about to change with Ben’s words. And Jake knew he wouldn’t be alone.
This was theirs now.
Ben pushed away from the car with purpose. “…Then I can’t do nothing.”
Nothing around him felt real, except for the ache in his back and leg, the beating of blood through his poorly healing wounds. His eyes were open, taking in the dulled out numbers on the alarm clock, the light around them getting brighter, sharper, until he had to press closed his watering eyes, unaware they’d been open for so long.
Time travel, as far as Dean was concerned, sucked out loud.
The room was dark, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. He laid there, focusing on pushing down the pain his aches had transformed into, slowly becoming aware of everything from the weight of his limbs, to the sweat soaked sheets, to the journal his hand rested upon.
I can’t do nothing…
Dean groaned. The echo of Ben’s words brought back the smell of the rain and the city and the sharp cut of police lights across his mind’s eye. He pressed the base of both of his palms up into his eyes, watched it all spark out in bright pinpricks of light, and then it was gone, darkness returned with the smell of sweat and cigarettes.
It wasn’t Sam. Sam wasn’t the reason they kept being pulled back into the past. Dean had been the one to read it this time, and the journal itself had proven to have enough “psychic mojo” of its own.
“Sam?” Dean croaked out, pushing to his elbows, sucking in a breath as the tear in his shoulder pulled against his clothing, almost bringing him back down. Gathering himself, curling up using his abdominals instead, Dean sat up, hand fumbling for the lamp beside the bed, fingers grabbing the chain and clicking on the bulb.
An empty and disheveled bed was all that greeted him in the light. Halfway up, legs tangled in the sheets, Dean was ready to start combing all of Northern Ohio when he heard a sound that both reassured him and tripped up his heart.
He could hear Sam’s retching in the bathroom.
Exhaling, silently cursing himself for the scare, especially when he’d about face planted trying to get to his feet, Dean used the wall to straighten himself and to try putting weight on his leg. It felt this way for a reason, and it wasn’t the fall. He could still hear Sam nagging him to look at it. The heat and weight of infection was all too familiar to him, and this was the last thing he needed.
Sam’s insistence that there was not a lot of work for one-legged pirate hunters made Dean cringe now.
Ever since Cutter’s Landing he was making stupid decisions. Dragging Sam around for one. Tuning out his brother’s incessant mother-hen mantras…well, he was going to have to work on that. Baby steps.
Dean stumbled the last few inches before the door, catching himself on the frame, and stared down at Sam who was draped over the bowl. The smell was enough to get him gagging, but he cowboyed up and moved in.
Sam’s look gutted him. The mixture of apology and pain and nausea etched into his expression caused Dean to pause.
“God…Sam...”
“Help me up,” Sam breathed.
“You done?” Dean asked, about ready to join him.
Sam only nodded, reaching up for Dean’s hand. Dean was helping him stand, supporting his weigh, trying to keep all of it on his good leg, but it was a precarious balancing act, and Sam looked like he was starting to have second thoughts about moving away from the bowl.
Dean saw it too late, the suppressed gag, Sam no longer pulling up but trying to get back to the bowl. He heard the expulsion and felt it, his shirt soaking, now covered in warm vomit. Sam was on the ground, down by the bowl, letting even more go while Dean stood there and pulled his shirt away from his body.
Gross…Aw…dude…Come on!
He knelt down using the sink to lower himself onto his knees, hand on Sam’s back as he finished. Dean hadn’t seen him this sick in a long time. Sam looked over at him, again, apologizing with his eyes.
“…Sorry…”
“Any way I can get it off of me quickly, without betraying my cool exterior?” Dean asked his brother, getting Sam to smile weakly before his face was back down in the bowl again.
Dean waited for him to finish, slipping off his T-shirt as quickly as he could manage over his bandages and with limited range of motion and tossed it in the corner.
Helping Sam back to bed was no fun. It had been easier to do when Sam wasn’t six foot four, just six or four and when Dean wasn’t trying to keep his balance on a bum leg. But Sam finally hit the mattress, legs curling up into his stomach, head turned into his pillow as he coughed.
Dean was feeling more and more like Igor as he hobbled about the room, getting what Sam would need. Another Gatorade, something for his stomach and a washcloth for his forehead. Then Dean collapsed into his own bed.
“We’re officially under quarantine,” Dean said. “You going to be all right, Sam?”
“Didn’t mean to throw up on you.” Sam’s voice was like gravel.
Dean shrugged. “Don’t let it happen again.”
Sam cracked a smile.
“Did you see it?”
Dean was confused for a moment by the question. He paused rubbing at his leg and tilted his head. “What?”
“Ben and Jake…they won against a demon…on blind luck,” Sam said, grinning.
Dean laughed a little, taking up the fedora on the bed next to him and rolling it over in his hands.
“The church…some random puddle was still water on sacred ground…”
“And the poker,” Sam wheezed out, ending in a cough.
“Iron?”
“Probably.”
“Lucky sons of bitches,” Dean smiled. “Wonder if they realized it…”
“It’s strange,” Sam started.
“Which part exactly? The time travel or Jake and my unparalleled great taste in cars?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I never really hear stories like theirs…hunters are usually more…”
“Revenge driven?”
“You said it, not me,” Sam sighed. “But yeah…”
“Maybe that’s coming,” Dean added, not really wanting that to be true.
“I hope not…” Sam came back. He paused, curling in on himself tighter. “I hope one didn’t lose the other…” Sam rolled onto his back like he was trying to find some position that didn’t hurt or make him feel worse. Dean saw something else there as well; the statement weighted with more then just hopes for that set of brothers. “I like…that they chose this; that they saw a need. Something they couldn’t ignore.”
“Like Hendrickson,” Dean muttered quietly, feeling the prick of loss and guilt before forcing it aside. “No offense, Sam, but there are times I have no idea why anyone would choose this.” He shook his head. “Then again, Bobby always said people got into hunting somehow. Always wondered what else, other than tragedy, brought people into a life like this.”
“Would you still be here if we never lost Mom?”
The answer for that question came easier than he’d thought it would, the truth being, something Dean had always known about himself.
“If I knew what was out there…Yeah. I would.”
“Me too. There was a time…no way…but now…”
There had been too much in their lives to turn their back on this war. Even if they could have ignorance, having been where he’d been, seeing the things he’d seen, there was a part of him that knew he would always be a hunter. There was no escaping that. And Dean wasn’t really trying.
He wanted an end, to not have to keep Sam in cheap motel rooms when he was sick or injured, or drag him around, him sleeping in the backseat of the Impala when they were on the run. He wished Sam could have had the girl and the lawyer gig. But he knew there was no going back…and he was not giving up this fight until Sam was safe and there was nothing left tearing apart lives. And he knew…that might be a long, long time…
“This is where I belong,” Sam said, drawing back Dean’s attention.
“Cheap motel rooms, sewing up our own wounds…”
“With you. Fighting. I can’t do nothing, Dean.”
Dean nodded, heart swelling at that. He tried to hide the relief from his face by looking down at the journal beside him, absently noting that he hadn’t felt pain in his leg while in Jake’s shoes…
Sam was falling asleep, the discomfort apparent in the small moans whimpered into his pillow.
Dean took up the journal and flipped through it.
Hopefully the Colts were faring better than they were.
+++++
December 3, 1954
Jake was having second thoughts on having Ben involved with the police department, not that he could do anything about it now. Ben seemed determined to do the police work on the side. Jake had been all for it, until it came down to doing it. Despite everything he’d managed to keep Ben’s life as normal as possible. As a small boy Jake had been sure Ben hadn’t been exposed to the harsher side of life. Jake never cared what he’d seen or dealt with as long as Ben was sheltered.
Ben had been a sweet, kind child who’d grown into a good-hearted, gentle-natured young man. Jake couldn’t help worrying that what he exposed Ben to now was going to change all that, change his brother into a hardened, cold man. Ben represented all the good things in Jake’s life, all the good things Jake had done with his life. He was happy, smart, and could go so far. Yet he wanted to follow Jake around taking pictures of crime and filth and the dark side of humanity.
What was Jake doing about it? He was taking Ben into yet another situation he’d hoped his younger brother never have to see.
Jake hated taking himself into these places let alone Ben. The people here were here for a reason; most of those reasons weren’t nice or pleasant. Sanitarium. It sounded so clean, so acceptable, something anyone from polite company might not find offensive. A word that didn’t conjure pictures of what was inside the walls they were about to go behind.
It was one of these places he and Ben would surely end up in if they weren’t careful. People indubitably thought the two of them crazy, and Jake wouldn’t have been the first cop in history to crack. Thing is, he hadn’t cracked. Neither had Ben.
Benny. Thinking of him locked away in one of these hell-holes, at the mercy of the other patients, without Jake. Him without Ben. It was the way it’d always been with them, they depended on each other so much. Jake didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
They were lead through the main entrance, where new patients were processed and admitted to the area reserved for criminally insane. This part could be mistaken for any hospital waiting room or a less expensive hotel. There were chairs scattered about, a few plants and a magazine rack with the latest LIFE and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC issues. Everyone was neatly dressed or in a uniform. It was quiet here unlike what was beyond the door.
Jake hated it here, bringing Ben terrified him in a way he’d not anticipated. Heart skipping a few beats when they stopped in front of the main door to the ward, Jake took a deep breath.
The orderly, intern, guard, whoever the Hell he was looked Jake up and down. Jake had been here before and it was obvious the man recognized him. He nodded and mumbled out a greeting of, “Detective.”
The man’s eyes flicked over Ben. “You both going in? You sure?”
He heard how Ben swallowed and Jake felt him tense and straighten behind Jake. Glancing back at Ben, Jake nodded. “Stay with me.”
Hell no, I’m not sure.
The protest was about to come out of Ben’s mouth; Jake saw it forming, when the orderly opened the door. Someone shrieked, and Jake felt the skin covering his forearm move and twitch into goosebumps. Ben’s lips pressed together in a thin line. Some of the color left his face, and he nodded once tightly.
Jake wanted to take Ben’s arm when they went inside. He wanted to grip Ben’s wrist as tightly as possible and not let go until they were back in the parking lot, free and clear. Better yet, he wanted to turn Ben around and shove him back outside. Instead, he let his hand drop to his gun for a few seconds. “Don’t talk to any of them. Avoid making eye contact and don’t take anything from any man here.” Stay behind me, let me hold onto your arm and keep one hand on my jacket at all times.
“Jake, I can—”
“I mean it, Ben.” Jake snapped the words out, keeping his voice low and harsh; putting all the authority he could muster into it.
Someone in one of the first rooms grabbed the wire grating covering a small window on the closed door and shook it, shouting details of how he was going to dismember them both. Ben’s mouth opened and shut fast. His eyes got a bit too round and his breathing shuddered for a few beats.
Another patient, across the hall from the first, cackled shrilly and added to the first man’s rant.
Eyes trained ahead, Jake marched down the hall doing everything he knew how to do to project authority and power. He wanted these men too afraid of him to do anything more than yell.
Ben jumped forward and scrambled to keep up.
The orderly lumbered along with them, his mouth formed a silly grin, obviously finding their discomfort amusing. He pointed to a room near the end of the hall, “In that one. He’s Chapman.”
The name had popped up more than once when Jake started quietly, at least he hoped it was quietly, looking further into some of those cases. Murders where witnesses reported things like people with unnatural eyes and sulfur sprinkled about like confetti. The man more than once seemed to pass through an area right behind those cases. Never before. Some people Jake talked to said Chapman asked the same sorts of questions Jake asked. Some people seemed relieved someone believed them, didn’t think they belonged somewhere like this.
That just brought Jake back to Ben—his Benny—locked behind one of those doors, alone, desperate, no one to listen to him. No one to believe in him. God, how could he have made that kid think, even for a minute, Jake didn’t believe in Ben? His chest tightened down with more guilt, and he swallowed away with difficulty. His mind kept skittering to sights of Ben’s face as a cold, iron door slammed shut on him.
They stopped beside the indicated door. Inside the small, Spartan room was a man. He wore the hospital attire. His dingy yellow-gray hair was shoulder length and wild, sticking out at all sorts of odd angles. He hunched on the floor, chalk in hand and was scribbling furiously.
Jake turned and shared a look with Ben. His brother swallowed, crossed his arms over his chest, hands bunched to fists and nodded. Jake took a deep breath and nodded to the orderly who opened the door and let them step inside. Once the door was shut the lock clicked into place again with a tinny echo that made Ben jerk his head around and look back at the door for a few seconds, the orderly turned away and stood in the hall waiting for them.
The man barely looked up long enough to spare them a glance. He was muttering what sounded like Latin under his breath.
“Are those religious symbols?” Ben pointed to the mess of sigils and lines on the floor.
The man stopped and peered up at them, scrutinizing first Jake then Ben. He stood slowly and moved closer to Ben. Jake’s breath caught and his heart sped up.
“You believe, boy.” One of Chapman’s fingers pointed at Ben, getting so close he nearly poked Ben’s nose.
Ben’s eyes shifted to Jake before he whispered out a hoarse, “Yes.”
“You saw one, a demon. I can smell its stink on you.” Chapman edged closer as Ben backed away until he pressed against the door.
Jake stepped between them, moving Chapman back with one hand and pushing Ben farther behind him with the other. “We were hoping you’d tell us what you know. Show us what to use, help us learn to fight.”
“Everyone thinks I’m a crazy old man.” Chapman squinted at Jake, moved around so he could gaze up at Ben again. He held up both hands, fingers wiggling back and forth. “Sees ghosts and demons and witches.”
“That might be true. But I’d like to hear what you have to say.” Jake sidestepped, again blocking his brother from Chapman.
Chapman giggled high pitched and nasally. “See that?” He pointed to his drawing on the ground. “Memorize it. It’s called a Devil’s Trap and it’s the only thing that can hold a demon at bay, it’s like a bear trap to them. Or a jail cell.”
“Can I take a picture of it?” Ben pulled the camera hung over his shoulder into his hands.
Shrugging, Chapman waved at it grandly. “Go ahead. It’s my finest work.”
While Ben took a few pictures, Jake pulled out a notepad. “What else can I use against a demon?”
“Holy water, boy. Get yourself a good supply and learn to make it. You need a rosary and the right rituals.” Chapman shuffled across his room to his bed. Reaching under his mattress he pulled out a tattered notebook. “Keep a journal, record everything so you can remember what you did the last time.” He shoved the book into Jake’s hand. “Everything is in there; how to make holy water, how to use salt to protect yourself from a spirit, weapons of this war, boy. How the lights flicker when they are nearby.”
“I’ll bring this back after I copy it, if that’s okay.”
Chapman waved him off. “No need boy. They’re out there. I’m in here.” He grinned and gave the barred door a shake, “Iron. I have what I need to stay safe. You need that to fight. I’ve been waiting for someone to pass this to. Another hunter. Another believer. That’s what we do. Old hunters don’t die, they pass on their journals.” He cracked a grin. “I got old because of that journal, so take heed, boy. Both of you boys.”
Jake couldn’t hustle the two of them out of there fast enough. He didn’t start breathing the right way until he was in his car watching Ben slide in the passenger side and pull the door shut.
“Those people were scary.” Ben exhaled.
“No kidding.” Jake tossed the journal into Ben’s lap. Ben raised a curious eyebrow at him. “Hey, you’re in charge of the homework. I hit things. Dolls love the bruises and scars.”
Ben snorted but was already flipping through the book as they drove away.
+++++
December 6, 1954
One could almost laugh with how cliché the old place was. It looked like any and every ‘haunted house’ he’d ever heard of or seen right from the cobwebs to the peeling paint and derelict state of the structure. Water damage and termites had done quite a number on the ‘old lady’ and Jake had asked Ben twice now if it looked like the house was buckling on one side.
Jake wanted this to be over quickly. Get in. Get out. Ghost gone. Go get a beer. Call it a night.
Taking up the shotgun, hearing the house groan and shutter with the wind like a challenge, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted to savor this. He was taking on something people had written off as superstition and myth. He knew the truth. He was a defender of innocence. Protector of the unaware. Guardian of the—
“Are you going to stand there all night? I’d like to get this over before Christmas,” Ben intoned.
Keeper of the smart-mouthed little brother…
Jake lifted a brow and touched the end of the shot gun to his temple. “Have to make sure I’ve thought this through. Want us burning rubber in twenty minutes, tops.”
“Do you…really need to bring the gun?” Ben asked.
“Salt shells, Ben, not going to hurt anyone accept the spirit. According to Chapman anyway…not sure if I trust the kook yet, but he’s the only one who’s made any sense about what we’ve been seeing.”
Ben leaned over into the trunk and grabbed a bag; Jake raised a brow when he saw that it was his camera bag.
“So, you want me to leave the gun because you plan on blinding the bad guy with a flash and slugging him with your camera again?"
Ben snorted and picked up his camera. “I’ve done a little research on my own, Jake. I want to try something before you go in there and start blasting holes in the walls.”
Jake waved toward the house emphatically. “It would be an improvement!”
Ben shook his head and grabbed a shovel. “Just let me try this.”
Grumbling, Jake grabbed up the bag of lighter fluid and salt, slinging it over his shoulder. “This should be a blast…”
As they approached, Jake’s former enthusiasm was digesting sourly in his stomach, creating an anxious, barbed knot. This was their first encounter with what he could only assume was a poltergeist from Chapman’s journal and from the witness accounts. What if Chapman had led them astray on how to fight these things? There had been two deaths already in the last week, kids looking for kicks. This thing didn’t just throw around tea cups and open cupboards, shaking chains and groaning because it was disgruntled. It killed. It had broken and disfigured two people, and Jake was taking Ben with him?
Jake watched Ben pull out a compass and check for north. Jake furrowed his brow.
“I read up on how to find these things,” Ben announced. “Compass points north toward a magnetic field, but if there’s another nearby it will point to that right? There’s speculation about that with spirits. Why some cultures or practices use dousing rods. Want to make sure I know what way is north before we get in there.”
“You’re such a nerd,” Jake smirked.
Ben rolled his eyes and shifted the strap of his camera bag so he could steady the compass. “Better a nerd if that keeps both of our necks from harm.”
Jake stopped before they ascended the front steps, grabbing Ben’s arm. He was having second thoughts. He didn’t want him to go.
“Jake?”
“I think you should stay outside,” Jake sighed. “This thing has killed two people already…”
“Which is why you need me in there with you,” Ben challenged. “If this thing tries anything, I can’t risk you being alone. Not to mention you just proved I might know a thing or two you don’t that will get us out of there alive.”
Jake dropped his hand from Ben’s arm. “If anything happens to you…”
“It won’t,” Ben replied. “I’ve got you here.”
There was no fighting it. Jake knew that short of shoving Ben in the trunk, he was coming. Ever since they’d met with Chapman, confirmed their fears there was more out there, more than the demons they’d crossed, Ben had been relentless in his determination to do what he could to keep these supernatural things from hurting others.
Fear had been Jake’s constant companion ever since. Fear that they would get caught. Fear that Del and the others wouldn’t understand. Fear that they would end up like Chapman…or dead…
“Come on,” Ben encouraged, nodding over his shoulder. “I’ll buy beers if you find the body first.”
Jake ticked up the corner of his mouth, grinning. “And if you find it first?”
“You’re buying of course, and you have to let me drive her,” he pointed back to the Chevy.
Jake must have paled a few shades because Ben started to laugh. “I’m not going to go for pinks in her, man.”
“Fine,” Jake caved. “But I’m going to win this bet.”
Ben huffed out a laugh which eased the tension surrounding them, alleviating the pressure that had started to press relentlessly into Jake’s heart. Once inside, however, he could feel his pulse threading, heart slamming into his throat. No matter how prepared he thought he was when his flashlight cut through the glinting dust particles and cobwebs, when the darkness around them felt like it was tangible and moving, alive and deadly, swimming and gathering them up, he found it hard to breathe.
Adrenaline was his friend. Had been when it came to chasing down the bad guys. He’d stormed after that black-eyed man, demon, whatever, without a second thought, and he needed to grab hold of some of that strength right now. It was because this was new, this was uncharted territory and he wasn’t alone. Every step, breath, twitch of Ben’s muscles focused his attention, because everything around them was a potential weapon, every shadow possibly the thing they were hunting.
Ben was focused on his compass and he stopped, breath catching, audible to Jake, and he looked down a hallway and shined his flashlight on the door at the end.
“It switched north,” Ben whispered. “It’s pointing toward that door now…”
“So our ghost is there?” Jake asked.
“Maybe…”
“Maybe?!” Jake ground out, hushed but sharp.
“Why are we whispering?” Ben asked.
Jake blinked. “Because it could…”
Ben grinned. “Hear us? Do ghosts have ears?”
“You think I know!”
They’d followed the direction of the compass, both keeping their breaths baited, steps calculated, muscles coiled and controlled. It took them nearly five minutes just to get to the door, and when Jake insisted he go first, Ben had stubbornly shoved open the door to get in front of him.
It was a kitchen.
Nothing jumped out at them from the shadows. Nothing came at them screaming. The air was still; quiet. Ben looked confused and consulted his compass. He showed it to Jake, the needle was spinning frantically.
“This has to be it…” he breathed.
Jake tightened his grip on the shotgun and looked around at the rotting wood floors and yellowed wallpaper that was curling free from the walls like it was trying to separate itself from the darkness Jake could feel permeating everything in this house.
“So they think she was buried in the walls, right? That’s the talk around town?”
“Or the floorboards. When she disappeared, and her husband split town…that was the speculation, which turned into local lore, which led people out here to see for themselves.”
Jake’s skin was crawling and he took the shovel from Ben. “Then let’s find the broad and get this over with.”
He slammed the shovel into the walls, which broke away, water weak and brittle. He noticed Benny was down near the ground opening something and dumping it onto the ground. Small metal shavings bounced off one another, rattling around the floor until they came to a halt.
“What are you doing?”
Ben sighed. “My compass can’t pinpoint it…was hoping…”
“Iron…you think the body is…magnetized?”
“If the spirit is bound to it, and charged enough to draw my compass…it was just a theory…It’s strange. The same metal used to find them is apparently a spirit repellent.”
Jake shook his head and started to smash in the walls again, grunting out something about none of this making sense as plaster and wood splintered around the end of the shovel. He stopped when he thought he heard Ben gasp, and was that…
He turned and watched the shavings move, hitting against one another as they slid across the floor. Mouth agape, expression probably matching Ben’s, awe struck and wide eyed, he watched them stand on end over one spot, spread out in a halo around a crack in the floor.
“Give me the shovel,” Ben commended, hand out to Jake.
“No way…” he breathed, handing the shovel over to his brother.
A few well-placed hits to the already cracked boards and Ben broke through into something below. He cleared away the splintered pieces and found a box, then beamed up at Jake.
“How much you want to bet there’s a body in there?”
“Don’t go ape over a box, Benny.”
Ben stood up and with a confident glint in his eyes raised the shovel again and drove it downward.
SLAM. CRUNCH. SNAP.
The last of the wood came away revealing decay and bones, sloughed off rot and hay dry remains of hair…and a smell that made Jake’s eyes water.
Ben was beaming instead of recoiling, leaning on his shovel, expression shouting ‘I told you so.’
“Looks like I win this bet,” Ben smiled, hand out. “Keys please.”
“Nerd.”
“Jerk.”
Jake grumbled and dug into his pockets. “Heads up,” he said tossing the keys to his brother. “You earned it anyway…”
He bent down to grab up the bag of salt and lighter fluid when his flashlight started to flicker.
“Oh, that can’t be good…” he muttered. Both his flashlight and Ben’s went out, plunging them into the dark. Something ripped the bag from his hand, startling him back ungracefully onto his butt. “Shit…”
“Hold on,” Ben’s confident voice gave Jake something to latch onto, a way to know where his brother was.
“Something took it right out of my damn hand…”
There was a brief flash of light that illuminated the space around them, giving them a quick snapshot of the surroundings before it was dark again. He could hear Ben moving, popping out the bulb and snapping in another.
“To your left, Jake. The bag and the matches...”
“Good thinking.”
Every hair was poised, gooseflesh rising over his arms as he crawled toward the left, going on only the quick photograph he had in his mind and Ben’s directions. His hand found the bag and he fumbled with the snaps, rummaging blind for the matches, coming up empty.
“I need light again, Ben.”
“On it,” Ben said.
Jake heard the flash, the light blinding but necessary as he was able to close his hand around the matchbook before everything was dark again.
“Guess I shouldn’t have made fun of the camera idea,” he stated, fingers flying though the book and plucking out a match. Hurry…he had to hurry. They needed light.
“That’s not why I brought it,” Ben said.
Jake struck the match, surprised how much light burst forth. He could see Ben again, but any relief was snuffed out along with the match as he saw her. Her face was covered and hidden behind blood-stained strands of matted blond hair. Her skin was as pale and dingy as the dress she was wearing. One rotting and sinew exposed hand was reaching for his brother, right before a wind slid over the match extinguishing it.
“Ben!”
There was another flash and a scream, a woman’s scream, piercing his ears, causing him to cover them in futile defense.
“Jake!” Ben shouted, but it didn’t sound scared or hurt, it was angry, determined. It fueled Jake forward. “Burn her. I’ll hold her off!”
There was another flash, a scream, and Jake was feeling out the edge of the hole that they had created. He’d just finished throwing salt and lighter fluid into the hole when he heard a crash, Ben’s muted cry…
His camera hit the floor and went off, Jake witnessing the spirit dissolve, her cries of pain at the flash not going unnoticed before she disappeared. Ben was on the floor, an end table broken beneath his body.
The flashlights sparked to life again and Jake dove for his, getting to Ben to make sure he was okay.
“See that?” Ben coughed as Jake helped him up. “That was why I brought the camera.”
“Are you nuts?” Jake asked.
“Different cultures believe…” Ben groaned as he was brought to his feet. “Pictures steal your soul. Thought it might work…”
“You thought it might work?”
“Good thing I was right, right?” Ben tried, looking for approval.
Jake went for the matches. He was ending this now. While Ben’s camera may have scared off the woman’s spirit, there was no reason she wouldn’t come back. Chapman said to burn the body, and he was going to light this broad’s fire, and take down this house along with it.
He heard her scream before he saw her, charging him from within the kitchen, materializing from literal nothing, like she was nothing more than a projection, but she slammed into him like she was made of steel and Jake’s body was flung back into the wall, multiple somethings snapping, crushing the air from his lungs.
The spirit was on him, tearing at him with her nails and screaming; he fought back, trying to hold her away from him, one hand at her throat the other searching around for something near him to use as a weapon.
Ben had tried to get to him, camera back in his hands, but the kitchen table slammed into him, pinning him against a wall.
Something had been knocked over by the table as it was thrown into his brother and it rolled into Jake’s hand; the salt canister.
He flung what he could into the woman’s face, and she disappeared, shrieking. Ben shoved the table away from himself and stumbled down beside Jake hands going to his torn shirt and the deep cuts lining his chest.
“Jake?”
“I usually like it rough, but there’s no way I’m taking that doll on a second date,” he groaned. Jake rolled forward, sucking in a breath when something pulled in a way it definitely wasn’t supposed to. He paused, wet warmth sliding from the cuts on his back and chest. He grunted and shoved to his feet, refusing Ben’s help. “Burn her, I’ll cover.”
He picked up the shotgun, keeping his brother in his periphery. It was his turn to say ‘I told you so.’
Ben lit the entire match-book and dropped it onto the body, and Jake wheezed out a sigh of relief. She was burning. It was over. Right?
If only.
She attacked again like a wild animal, spitting and hissing as she rounded on Jake from behind. He was ready this time, pivoting and firing right into her feral and blood thirsty eyes. She was gone for only a moment before coming back, low, and slammed into Jake’s midsection sending him back to the ground.
His vision danced, sparks pricking at the edges, pain sliding up and down his spine from the first impact. Ben was there swinging a fire poker which threw her away from Jake. But she was relentless, desperate.
“Shoot low…they're riding Shetlands,” Jake groaned as he kicked the shotgun to Ben, coughing, tasting blood.
Smoke was quickly saturating the room, the flames shriveling the air in his lungs. Her body was burning, but not fast enough. The heat was starting to get unbearable and the fire was catching, spreading along the walls, eating at the furniture.
For a moment Jake wasn’t there, pain and heat disorienting, swallowing him back into memories of their old home, of Ben screaming for him…
He rolled onto his side, eyes widening as Ben took a shot, backed into a corner. He couldn’t load the gun fast enough and she was scurrying, insect like, limbs bending and cracking in impossible angles, across the wall, over the fire that had separated them, lunging for his brother...
“Ben!”
+++++
Crap…crap! Ben! Ben-nnny!
SAM! Where was Sam? The poltergeist it was—and Ben…Sam…“Sammy!”
Dean went from horizontal to jackknifed vertical so fast the room swam and spun around him in nauseating waves. ‘Cause, yeah, they needed more vomit in their lives right now. Moisture trickled along the line of Dean’s sideburns and oozed in annoying, itchy paths over the knobs of his spine.
“Dhn-Dean?” Sam’s voice sounded completely panicked but it was a wet, cracking whisper with no power behind the cry. The solid thunk hitting the floor sounding like it came from something about Sam’s weight and from the direction of Sam’s bed jerked Dean completely to the present.
Sweat slithered from under Dean’s arms to course down his sides. He struggled to get out of the bed and to Sam; while at the same time was trying to bring his breathing under control. He was only partially successful.
Sam had landed between the beds on all fours, gasping and wheezing. Coughs wracked his body, making his back and chest shudder with every move. It hurt Dean just to watch.
Falling off the bed and landing on his knees beside Sam more than getting off his bed and kneeling next to his brother, Dean laid one hand between Sam’s shoulder blades. His leg and shoulder ached. Dean felt as if he’d gone nine rounds with a Wendigo, but in reality it was his own body’s reaction to his injuries. He was determined to heal whether he wanted to do anything about the infection or not.
Sam shifting under his hand, balancing on one hand while wiping the back of his other over his mouth pulled Dean’s attention back to his brother. He was a rather unattractive shade of gray. His bangs hung in stringy, lackluster slashes over his eyes. He looked up at Dean with eyes too glassy and bright, his face had no color and he was trembling.
“You’re not going to barf on me again, are you?” Dean tried to smile and failed. Leaning back on his heels, he took the hand Sam was smearing over his face in his own hand and started to pull them both to their feet.
“’M ‘orry. Didn’t know. Don’t leave, please.”
“I know you didn’t know you were going to hurl on me.” Dean pulled with a bit more insistence. “C’mon kiddo, up.”
Sam shook his head, jerked away and landed on his butt against his bed. “Don’t go ‘way.” Sam’s voice cracked with wet coughs.
Dean sighed, he was tired and sore, and he wanted Sam back in bed where he was safe and couldn’t trip on something and slam face first into the nasty carpeting on the floor and get rug burns on his nose and no doubt an infection from that too. “Course not, Sammy. Now come on.” Grasping both of Sam’s arms firmly Dean couldn’t help sucking in a harsh breath.
Sam’s skin was hot and dry.
Hauling Sam up far enough to shove him backward and get his ass on the bed, Dean gave in to the urge to comb one hand down the back of Sam’s head. He sighed again and smiled a bit. Last time he’d done this, Sam had strep throat and measles, missed nearly a month of school (and life) and pissed their dad off so badly Dean thought he’d leave Sam at the nearest APL since the town they’d holed up in had no orphanage. ‘Cause Sam just couldn’t get sick like a normal person he had to get deep down, have every symptom he can manage at one time SICK. He’d been fourteen then. He looked about four now.
Sam reached out and, using two fingers, moved Dean’s shirt up, exposing his chest. Dean watched, fascinated, as Sam’s eyes traced the exact path of the scars only Dean could see. Normally only Dean could see.
Eyes skittering over his face Sam breathed out, “Those are my fault.”
“No, they’re not.” Dean took one of the blankets and wrapped it around Sam’s shoulders. Easing him back, Dean pulled the rest of the bed covers over his brother and up to his shoulders.
“Sit tight, kiddo, I’ll be right back.”
He wasn’t a half turn away when Sam’s hand shot out and grabbed at Dean’s shirt. “I di’n mean to. Don’ go. S’rry.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom. Stay there.” Dean backed away, holding one hand out and pointing at Sam, keeping an eye on him. All this fussing over some vomit. It was nasty, but still not really disowning your brother nasty. “Not going anywhere, Sammy.” Dean said as he grabbed some ibuprofen from the bottle and water from their small refrigerator.
That seemed to ease Sam’s restlessness.
Back a minute later, Dean pressed the ibuprofen into Sam’s hand and pushed that hand to his mouth. Water followed the pills. “Take those, you’ll feel better tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.”
Sam obediently took the pills and drank. Dean pulled his shirt away from his neck and peered down. No red rash, no red bumps, maybe it was just the bubonic plague and not strep and the measles striking again. Sam was too big to dump at an orphanage or the APL. Sam took germ warfare to new and exciting levels.
Ye’ha.
Sam sat there blinking at him, not even moving the bangs falling in his eyes away. Dean completely deflated. He hated—hated—his brother hurt or sick, even if it was just a dumb cold or the flu. Seeing Sam with a splinter made his heart shiver and want to crack. Perching on the edge of Sam’s bed, Dean moved the offending bangs away for him and coaxed him to lay down more.
“I want you to get more sleep.”
Sam nodded, and Dean already missed his constant questions, theories, and general chatter.
Switching on the TV, Dean found a channel with something brainless on and turned the sound down. Sam rolled to his side, burrowed farther under the blankets and focused, more or less, on the TV. A minute later he was still awake and blinking but his eyes hazed over.
Dean chuckled and settled back on his bed with the journal. “Lights on but no one home.” He turned and watched Sam for a minute. “Hey, Sammy, next week I want you to film me with the next set of twins I can score. Dude, we can make a mint off of that!”
Sam’s finger wormed out from under the covers, waved at Dean for a second and hooked the blanket, pulling it over his head.
Dean cracked a grin, “That’s my boy.” He settled on his bed, journal in his lap, unopened.
Everything from the journal was so real. Colors, smells, textures, he didn’t just read them or picture them in his head; he lived them. They both did. They weren’t observers; they were experiencing the lives of the Colt brothers first hand. It was beyond haunting, beyond weird. Dean didn’t even have a word for what it was.
Turning his head to the side, Dean sat the journal on the table between them and watched Sam’s breathing for a bit. It brought him peace and comfort, just knowing his brother was safe and resting. Some of his earliest memories were watching Sam sleep and a warm flush spread over his chest. He understood much more about Jake Colt than his awesome taste in cars. Much, much more.
The Colts had to have gotten through their encounter with the ghost, there were many more entries, and a quick flip through assured Dean Jake wasn’t writing about Ben in the past tense. They’d survived that one together and from the thickness of the book years’ worth afterwards. Yawning, Dean slid down so he was flat on his back. The past was done and gone and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t worry about the Colts, he had enough to do worrying about Sam.
(A/N: a dude in the early sixties was slang for a geek.)
Dean completely blamed the fact he’d sat up the entire night, while Sam slept, on the Colt brothers’ journal. He’d pulled the chair between the beds and propped his feet on Sam’s bed because he was more comfortable there. It had nothing to do whatsoever with the coughing and restlessness from Sam. There was no way Dean would sit up with his brother for a stupid cold.
Dropping the journal to his knees and twisting his head back and forth to ease some kinks, Dean realized Sam’s eyes were open. He lay there, silently doing nothing but blinking at Dean.
Dean blinked back for a few seconds before realizing Sam was awake. “Hey. Been awake long?”
“Few minutes.” Sam shook his head slightly and pushed up far enough to lean against the headboard. “You’ve been sitting there all night.” It was a flat out statement, no question or even surprise implied.
“Uh…light’s better here. This is…uh—” Yeah, Dean Winchester, winner of the smoothness award. He waved one hand at the journal, closed it, and swung his feet to the ground. “You’re looking better. I think you looked better dead than you did yesterday.”
That got him a smile. “You’re changing the subject.” Pushing out of the chair and giving his back a twist, completely ignoring how Sam watched and gave him one of those quick, knowing headshakes, Dean walked across the room.
He put on some coffee then grabbed more ibuprofen and water. Back to his brother in a few quick strides, Dean perched on the edge of Sam’s bed while Sam downed the pills and bottle of water without so much as a questioning glance.
Nodding at the journal Dean left on the chair, Sam asked in a small voice, “What happened to them?”
“Apparently they had a buddy who’d done a stint in World War Two as a medic. Tracked him down, and he patched them up. That trick with the iron shavings and the compass was awesome.”
“Yeah.” Sam croaked. Dean pretended not to notice how he shivered and pulled the blankets closer. When the coffee was done, Dean held out a mug. Sam’s fingers appeared from under the blanket and wrapped around it immediately.
Picking up the journal, Dean resettled in the chair, thumbing through. “They got the salt and burn thing down with ghosts and stocked up on more supplies for the next round. Gotta give these guys credit, they didn’t give up. They had no one to teach them other than the journal they’d gotten from some old, crazy hunter named Chapman. I mean talk about on-the-job training.” Dean faked a shudder and took Sam’s mug, refilling it and his own. “Better?”
Sam nodded.
“The last one I read was them going after—and getting—a werewolf. They had balls, I’ll give them that, and ambition. Shit, what they had to work with is the stone ages compared to the technology we can get a hold of.” Dean laughed softly as he sat again in the chair. “And here I thought some of the stuff we used as kids was dark ages compared to what we have now.”
“That werewolf when we were kids scared the crap out of me. It still does.” Sam confessed quietly.
Dean snorted, “You were twelve. I have to say, it’s the ghosts that always do me in. Werewolves, vamps, some of the other things, they’re things, ya know, actual beings. But the idea something continues, thinks, acts, and it’s not really something concrete, man, that’s always creeped me out.”
“Me too.” Sam looked up at him from under his bangs, eyes earnest, face open.
It was scary, how different, and yet how much alike he and Sam were. Warm tendrils of pride shot through his chest and up his throat; closing it for a few seconds when that thought was chased by the thought that much of Sam came from Dean’s influence. Dean saw their father’s influence in Sam, but more so he saw himself in a more subtle way.
“That first one, it was the freakiest thing I think I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remember—”
“It was worse.” Sam ground out, cutting him off.
Dean nodded, reached out and patted Sam’s knee. Memory of Sam and he facing their first ghost alone—not alone with each other—when Sam was maybe ten at the most made his stomach and throat burn, leaving a sourness in his mouth. How could anyone have forced that on a ten-year-old? Yet their father saw no issue with it. Sam had been so shaken, Dean too if he was being completely honest with himself, they’d not been out of each other’s sight for probably a week. “You slept under my bed for nearly a month after that. You never did tell me how you found the body.”
“I did so.”
“You just kept saying you sniffed it out.”
“Dean! I sniffed it out. He’d only been dead a few months. Buried in a box in the cellar and not embalmed. He was juicy. And stinky.”
“Huh. I thought it was the septic tank.” Dean snickered. “Hey, get this. Ben got himself attacked by a Woman In White. Must be a little brother thing.” Dean ducked away from the hand swatting at his head. “Smart kid though, didn’t need to drive that ’37 Chevy of Jake’s through so much as a piece of paper let alone the entire front of a house.”
“I’m sure if Ben had to crash the car Jake wouldn’t have cared two hoots as long as Ben was okay. I’m very sure he wouldn’t have threatened any kind of bodily harm or death, being the world’s greatest big brother and all.” Sam’s eyes met his steadily, though Sam picked at the edge of one of the blankets.
The look Sam gave him struck Dean completely speechless. He couldn’t do more than sit and stare at Sam, knowing by his brother’s expression and tone those words really weren’t spoken in reference to Jake Colt.
“Dean? You alright?” Sam’s voice was thin, and he was still pale.
Eyes dropping back to the journal, “Yeah, Sammy, I’m good.” It was the truth too. “Around 1960 to ’61 they, Jake and Ben, they found an increase of demon activity. It’s amazing to me the details and patterns they put together with so few ways to gather the information. Dude, no Internet. No Weather Channel. No GPS. Yet they pieced together all sorts of facts on weather conditions, animal sacrifices and mutilations, crime scene accounts. Sam, these guys did shit we can’t do, and we have more ways to get information.”
“And more ways to get caught.” Sam reminded him, giving him the look that read I know you changed the subject, dumbass.
“Well, Dad wasn’t the only guy to see the patterns, but he was like them, on the job training. I don’t think Jake ever got over Mary Shards’ murder, or the fact her murderer wasn’t caught. He mentions over and over the accounts from witnesses in crimes, arson being mentioned a lot, of a yellow-eyed man. The crimes he writes about are different, but yellow-eyes are a theme. A big time theme.
“According to this Mary’s family just died off after her murder, literally. Even younger members, some were just kids. All sorts of bizarre things too. One drown, two cousins did themselves in. An aunt and uncle died of carbon monoxide poisoning it looks like from the description. Damn, accidental death when a tractor turned over on her brother and crushed him, another one hit by a car while walking home from school. The only one to live more than a few years after her was a sister. She was still alive in 1961, but it doesn’t say in here when she died.”
Sam was staring into his coffee mug. “Yeah. I saw something about that when I was flipping through.” He said in a voice so quiet it was a miracle the mug wasn’t the only one to hear him.
Now it was Dean’s turn. “Hey, Sammy?”
Sam drank his coffee more slowly, barely looking up from his mug, eyebrows pulled together. “Just weird, you know?”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Her husband was in jail when his parents and her family died, so I guess it couldn’t have been him.”
Holding one hand out, Sam sighed, put the coffee mug down and shifted around to a better position on the bed. Waggling his fingers in a give me motion, he looked up at Dean then away just as fast. “We need details on the sister.”
Dean nodded silently and handed the journal over. He swung his feet back onto Sam’s bed; letting the balls of his feet touch Sam’s crossed ankles. Sam cleared his throat, thumbed through to the right entry and started reading.
+++++
June 6, 1961, Rocky River, Ohio…
Ben looked up from the map, pointed to the next side street off Detroit Avenue, “That one.” He sighed and looked at his press pass, the one he hadn’t used in this city for a few years now. “Think we can do this?”
“As long as she doesn’t call anyone who knew us and check up on us, yeah, my badge and your press ID probably look good enough and most people aren’t going to know they’re a few years old. Just act like you’re telling the truth. We’ve been doing that, no difference really.”
Ben nodded.
Jake’s eyes turned away from Ben, scanning the addresses of the houses on his side of the street. The car slowing and Jake turning around in a drive to park along the opposite side of the street signaled they’d arrived at their destination.
This house was smaller than the Shards’ mansion on Lake Avenue. A small, neat garden ringed the house; a lush lawn sprawled in front and behind it. Crabapple trees dotted the front. Ben could see poplars and evergreens lining the back, probably along the property line. He eyed the brand new Ford sitting in the drive, dipped his head at it and laughed in earnest at the face Jake pulled.
They stopped at the front door. Jake reached out and pushed the bell.
The woman who peeked out when the door cracked open was in her forties, plump face, a neat dress that hung below her knees. Nothing at all like her socialite sister. “Can I help you?”
Jake flashed his badge and a wide, charming grin. “Patricia Reese? I’m Detective Colt, this is my brother, Ben. He’s with the Press.”
Ben nodded politely.
“No pictures.” She hissed out.
“No, ma’am.” Ben shoved his camera bag behind his back. “I’m just required to carry it at all times. Ya know, in case there’s news.”
“What do you want?” She was talking to Jake, Ben felt like a nonentity. “I’ve talked to the police, the FBI, even Dorothy Fuldheim interviewed me. What more do you want?”
“Yes, ma’am. We saw that bit on the news.” Jake drew in a deep, and Ben thought a pained breath. “I was one of the detectives called that morning. Ben took the pictures. I’ve never stopped trying to solve your sister’s murder. Ever.”
Patricia’s face softened, she opened the door all the way and stepped aside. “We can talk on the back patio.”
They followed her obediently through the house. Ben scanned each room quickly as they passed through the living room and out the large double picture window doors at the back. Pictures of Mary, Patricia, Mary’s son as a baby and others who Ben took to be her brothers and sisters, parents, in-laws, family in general, lined the wall of a hallway heading to another part of the house.
He wondered about this life: the life where he had a house, a wife, some children and a German Shepherd—and pictures on the walls. Eyes skipping to Jake’s back as they followed Patricia through the house and Ben knew. He didn’t want that life where his brother’s presence was little more than a picture on a wall. At least in this life he knew Jake was ever present, solid and dependable beside him. It was a trade off. Ben understood that. However, it was a trade off Ben was more than happy to make. Life in the suburbs or life with the only family he knew, the only person he trusted with his life. No contest really.
There’d been Darlene, how long had he known her? Ben couldn’t even remember now. He sure remembered the day she told him Jake wasn’t right for their life. Ben knew right then and there, Jake might not have been right for Darlene, but he was Ben’s family and that was all the right Ben needed. Jake had been thrilled when Ben’s relationship with Darlene went from casual dates to more. Too bad Darlene couldn’t be thrilled with Ben’s only family. It’d hurt Ben, hurt a lot, the thought that someone might expect him to cut his ties with Jake because Jake was a cop. He doubted Darlene would have given up as much as Jake to raise a sibling.
Maybe Ben could have gone far, become famous. That’s sure what Darlene and Jake both had in common. The problem was, Darlene thought Ben was supposed to go far and leave Jake behind.
Besides, life with Jake was never boring and Ben’s ribbing aside they had one cool car.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much I can tell you at this point that you probably don’t already know.” Patricia stepped from the house to the patio and motioned at the lawn chairs.
“I wanted to meet you, well again. You probably don’t remember talking to me that day. I wanted you to know Mary’s case hasn’t been forgotten and if there is anything, any tiny detail, even an unimportant one…” Jake’s voice trailed off when she shook her head.
“No.” Patricia’s fingers played along the arm of her chair. She took a deep breath and studied the two of them for several long seconds. “She was everything to me, the only family I was ever close to. When we were growing up our parents traveled for about half the year and I took care of her more than any of our other brothers and sisters. We were the last two of all the siblings and most of the time it was the two of us. The ironic thing is I should have been dead years before her. I had cancer.”
“We’re sorry.” Ben couldn’t help thinking this was a confession of sorts and had something to do with Mary’s death. He also couldn’t help noticing how Jake stiffened in his chair.
“I was in the hospital in July of 1944. I remember it so clearly, Independence Day. The doctor comes in and tells me I can go home, not a sign of it anywhere. Two days before the same doctor told me I wouldn’t live to see Christmas. Ten years later I lose the most important person in my life to that monster she married.”
Jake’s lips pressed together in a thin line. His expression was an open book to Ben. She’d lost her sister to a monster all right, but not the one she’d married. Jake had known it from those first moments Ben pointed out the sulfur, even if he had tried to deny it for a while.
“I have a post office box, the department wants to pretend this one was solved, but I know it wasn’t. If you ever think of anything, anything, please mail it here.” Jake handed her a small slip of paper.
Patricia took it and stared down at it for a while. She didn’t look up at them when she spoke. “I will. You gentlemen can just go around the house to the drive.”
They nodded and mumbled their good-byes. Ben followed Jake in silence to the car. The stiffness of Jake’s shoulders, the way his steps here mechanical, how his fists bunched told Ben his brother was angry and frustrated. The woman had been lying then and she’d been lying now. She knew something. Something she was likely to take to her grave.
Slipping into the car, Ben twisted and dropped his camera bag onto the backseat. Jake’s hands slammed hard against the steering wheel. It didn’t surprise Ben much, but he jumped and flinched nevertheless.
“Mary Shards was a nice lady. Her sister is a nice lady.” Jake pushed the words past clenched teeth and hit the steering wheel again.
Ben froze. He’d never in his life feared his brother, but he’d feared for him plenty of times and this was one of those times. “Do you think she saw something, or knows what it was?”
Jake’s lips twitched to a snarl. “No. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. That’s not the point. They deserved better, Benny. They all did. All the ones we’ve seen.” Jake turned to him, green eyes blazing with an inner fire that was intense and vibrant. “They deserved better. We’re gonna make it better. We’re gonna make it stop.” Cranking the engine over, Jake stomped on the gas and drove them away from Patricia Reese’s home.
+++++
Jake stopped the car in front of Rocky River High School. They had maybe another fifteen minutes before the students were released for the day. While they sat quietly waiting for the students to be released Jake did his best to ignore how Ben’s gaze shifted to him every few minutes. Even though Ben never seemed to mind this life they’d adopted, Jake worried about what Ben might be missing. Whenever he brought it up to Ben his brother looked at him as if he were nuts. Ben would simply shrug him off and say the only thing he was missing was living a lie.
The truth was Jake wasn’t interested in another life. Once maybe but not now. He’d met many women he was happy to spend time with, but they all wanted one thing, to settle down and have a family. By the time Jake was twenty-five he’d raised a child and put him through school. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do that again, in fact he was positive. There was a lot to be said for being the mysterious guy who came through town, wasted the monster, got a kiss or two and was on his way. Girls his age seemed silly and giggly and had no sense of duty or responsibility. He got intelligent conversation and a sense of belonging from Ben. He’d come to realize a while ago he didn’t need a wife. No hassles, no worries about paying bills and no small child looking to him to make a world gone wrong right again.
“Hey, that’s him.” Ben’s hand on his shoulder pulled Jake away from his thoughts. He followed the line of Ben’s other arm, pointing out a boy.
Opening the door and easing out of the car, Jake groaned. “Shit,” he exhaled. “I hate this beatnik hippy crap.”
Ben gave him an indulgent smile, but stayed quiet as he waited for Jake to round the front of the car. They walked across the tree lawn and into the herd of teens leaving school for the day. They made their way casually to one boy who stood off from the rest. His hair was long, blunt cut across the bottom and hung in his face. A striped shirt was pulled out of his waistband as he walked away from the school.
“Hey, you Samuel Shards?” Jake sprinted ahead, slowing when he was walking beside the boy.
The kid gave him a sidelong, suspicious look then squinted at Jake. “I know you. Who’s the goofy dude?” His chin jutted toward Ben.
“I am not.” Ben visibly bristled.
Jake bit back a chuckle, arched one eyebrow at him, “Yes, Benny, you are.”
Ben bit his lip and literally pouted.
“This is my brother, Ben. I’m Jake Colt. I…um…” how was he exactly going to say this? “I met you the day your mom died.” Jake blurted the words out, meaning more to ease into it.
Benny, the dude, rolled his eyes and sighed, muttering, “Smooth.” He took a step back and leaned against a tree.
Samuel straightened and squared his shoulders. Jaw pushed out, he glared into Jake’s eyes. “My dad didn’t have anything to do with it. No one listened, you pigs wouldn’t listen.”
The weight of small Ben transformed into that of small Samuel pressed against him and large, round eyes looking up, pleading with him to set it right…They’re not going to come back, are they Jake? She’s not going to wake up, is she?
When Ben pushed away from the tree, Jake held one hand out behind him, keeping his brother in place. Ben found the term pig far more offensive than Jake did.
“I know your dad didn’t do it. That’s why we’re here. I was hoping you could tell me something to prove it.” Jake was surprised when the boy’s face softened and all hints of hostility dropped away.
“I found her. She was so bloody.”
“I know.” Jake said softly.
“I heard her talking to someone, but it wasn’t my dad. For a few days before that I saw some old cat hanging around, he talked to my mom one day when we went to the store. He was a freak, probably tripping or something.”
“How so?” Ben asked.
Samuel waved two fingers in circles next to his eyes. “Freak had these yellow eyes. Not cool.”
“No.” Jake agreed.
“You gonna spring my dad from the slammer?”
Jake couldn’t lie to this kid, no matter how much he wanted to assure the boy his father would be free someday. “I don’t know.”
“I am. I’m going to make sure everyone knows my dad isn’t a killer.” Samuel turned and stalked away, books held tight to his side, shoulders tense, stride long.
“Whadya think?” Ben asked when the boy was out of hearing.
Jake swiveled around and started walking back to the car. “I think this whole thing is crazy.”
There wasn’t much for either of them to say. Settling into the car, Jake pulled away from the school.
“Now what?” Ben asked when they’d gone a few miles.
“Not hanging around here. I don’t want to get caught here.” Jake headed west and cut south after a few more minutes, not stopping for a few hours and when they were well outside Cuyahoga County. “Hungry?” He asked when the sun was setting.
Ben nodded. “Thought I was going to have to wait it out till breakfast.” He turned a lopsided grin to Jake.
They found a place not far outside of Elyria and stopped for dinner. “I used to bust these types.” Jake mumbled. Finishing up his meal, he turned in his chair far enough to watch the pool tables.
“Yeah, and before that you used to do what they did to make sure I got fed.” Ben laughed softly when Jake’s gaze jerked to his. “You think I didn’t know what you did when we were kids? That Del caught you picking pockets?”
“Ben—”
Ben waved him off. “I’ll grab some more beers and you go get in a game.” Ben stood up, looking down at Jake. He couldn’t do much more than sit there and stare in shock at his brother’s revelation. “Sort of proud of that, how you never thought you were too good to do what was needed. Still am.” Ben tapped the table with two fingers, grinned and tipped his head at the pool tables.
Jake swallowed around the comforting lump that’d taken up residence in his throat so unexpectedly. Sauntering to the pool tables, he grinned wide and friendly at the men already playing. “Can I get in on the next game?”
He almost felt sorry for them. Almost. Poor bastards didn’t have a clue and hustlers made the best cops. Or was it the other way around?
+++++
They really needed to consider where they were sitting and in what position when they started reading the journal. Dean woke up; his neck craned in an awkward bend, body and limbs half in the chair and half out of it, legs still up on Sam’s bed.
Dean untangled himself from the blankets, trying to stand up and do too much too fast, the chair tilting, his leg protesting his actions the entire way with sharp jabs of pain, before he collapsed in a rather unceremonious heap on the floor between their beds, groaning. Sam’s breathy laughter, unsuccessfully stifled into his sleeve, met Dean as he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, silently declaring that he was just going to take a moment right there, on the ground, and no one better have anything to say about it.
That included smart mouth little brothers.
“Smooth,” Sam coughed, poking his head over the edge, looking down at him amused. “I give that one a ten. Truly original form.”
“Shuddup,” Dean growled, pressing the base of his palms back into his eyes, like the assault would clear away the groggy remnants of sleep with each spark that dispersed across his darkened field of vision. “You sound like a chain smoker.”
Another breathy laugh rasped from the bed where Sam had ducked back out of Dean’s line of sight.
“How long were you watching?” Dean asked, crossing his arms behind his head, finding little motivation to get up right now. The floor felt nice after a night in the chair and he stretched, felt his muscles and vertebrae pop and separate, spread out.
“A while. Was wondering who would win. Dean Winchester or the chair,” Sam returned.
“I so won,” Dean came back, good leg shooting out, kicking the chair over.
There was a laugh from Sam, followed by yet another sequence of coughing. Dean winced and silently willed it away.
Sam had gone quiet and Dean flipped a balled up sock over the bed that he’d found on the floor. “You still there?”
The mattress shifted and Dean sat up using the nightstand for support. He watched Sam put his feet down on the other side of the bed, back hunched over and shoulders sloped inward. “Yeah, just need a second. This, going back and forth thing…being someone else, losing sense of time, is messing with me a little,” he said pressing fingers against the bridge of his nose.
“A little?” Dean grunted as he pulled himself up, glad Sam’s back was to him as he had to shut his eyes against the pain. “I…woke up…fully expecting there to be a nice wad of pool hustling cash in my pocket.” He turned out his pockets, frowning. “Nope. Still broke.”
He squinted at the clock, the numbers blurring together and dancing, refusing to make sense in his head. He saw numbers, but they didn’t mean anything to him. What day was it? So the clock said three…was that A.M or P.M.? He shuffled over to the window and drew back the drapes, drawing back quickly as the light hit his eyes. He heard Sam grunt his disapproval and Dean closed them.
What were they, friggin’ vampires now? “We need to get out.”
Sam fell back into bed. “Guh…I don’t want to move…still feel crappy, Dean.”
“Little fresh air might do you some good…”
“Crack the window,” Sam sighed, rolling onto his side and curling up into himself.
Dean did just that and went to see if the coffee he’d made earlier was still any good. It was cold, but he drank a little anyway, the addict inside of him winning, before starting a new pot.
“Did you see anything this time, Dean?” Sam asked, muttering into his pillow before opening his eyes again.
“Did you?” Dean asked, knowing there was one thing from their ‘Back to the Future’ experience that he did pick up on.
“The sister…” Sam replied, eyes dropping away from Dean’s.
It was the thing that had Dean curious as well. “Nineteen forty-four to nineteen fifty four, sounds like a ten year deal to me. One day her sister’s pushing the veil and the next she’s perfectly fine? Then ten years later, Mary ends up dead. Ten years to the date.”
Dean caught Sam’s wince, and he had to admit that saying the name “Mary” and talking about the yellow-eyed demon wasn’t something his spirit was able to do without flinching. Between Mary and Samuel Shards, the case unfolding before them slowly, Dean was going to start developing a nervous tick. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to like it. For the first time in a long time they were close to figuring out more of the ‘family curse.’
It did bother him that this had fallen into their laps, and watching Sam’s reactions was making Dean second guess if continuing to use the journal was a good idea. Azazel was dead, but they couldn’t move on, couldn’t move past this. Were they ready for the truth if they found it?
It made Dean’s next question one heavy with hesitation. The answer would have staggering implications for their family.
“You think?” Dean asked, easing down onto the edge of his bed. “You think Yellow-eyes was making deals?”
Sam blanched a little, turning onto his back, like he felt too vulnerable to be facing Dean at that moment. “There was no hound. Mar—She, didn’t die like…like that…” Sam swallowed, throat bobbing as he continued to stare at the ceiling, leaving Dean wondering what it was Sam was seeing in that moment; fire and blood or his last birthday and Dean’s last moment? “She didn’t even die like…like Mom.”
Dean didn’t even realize he’d begun to inadvertently rub at his scars beneath his shirt, fingers mapping out the hidden testament of his death, mind recalling each one, until he pushed to his feet to move, as if doing so would stop where his mind was going. It had. Like breaking the water’s surface to breathe, his mind cleared away before he could see it all play out again and he made the sudden shift in his actions seem purposeful, grabbing a bottle of water and a few pain-killers.
“Did Dad um…” Dean cleared his throat, gathering himself around his shattered thoughts. “Did Dad ever notice a pattern like this?”
Sam sat up weakly and looked like he was going to expel what little there had to be left in his stomach, wiping at his brow with his sleeve, moving away the soaked bangs from his forehead. How quickly they’d moved into uncomfortable territory…Dean was starting to wish that he’d never asked the question in the first place.
But it wasn’t like Sam hadn’t been thinking it. His brother had gone from waking up somewhat well and in good spirits to looking like he was trying to hold his viscera in, one arm draped protectively across his midsection, expression worried, scared. Sam shook his head to answer the question, eyes unfocused, everywhere but on Dean.
“Sadly, I think Dad wanted to find the demon so bad…he didn’t see a lot of things…or maybe he did, but he didn’t want to see them.”
Did you see something you didn’t want to see, Sammy? Dean’s throat burned to voice the question, but he swallowed it down, felt the weight of it take up residence in his gut and sour it.
“Yeah…maybe…” Dean sighed, “The things I don’t know about him…who knows?” He picked up a shirt, busying himself with something, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. He smelled a shirt and wrinkled his nose, tossing it in the corner before grabbing another and deciding it was good enough. “I’m gonna get a shower.”
“Okay,” Sam had sighed, curling up again.
“You gonna be okay?” Dean asked. How much of this was Sam being sick and how much was something else, something about all this that was tearing Sam up?
“It’s just a cold, Dean…”
“Bull,” Dean returned. “What’s eating you?”
“What if…what if I’m connected to this demon in a way I can’t change? What if I’m always going to have to live with whatever made Azazel believe I belonged to him…what if…what if a part of me is…demon?”
“It’s not,” Dean came back fast, voice stern and solid with resolve. “Not a cell in you is demon, Sam. You hear me? Just because he called you his…no…No! I won’t believe that.”
Sam’s throat bobbed again as he turned his eyes back down into his pillow, nodding.
“We’ll get the truth, Sam. And we’re in this together, right?” Dean continued. “Look, I’m scared too that we’ll learn something here, reading this journal, that we don’t want to know. But there’s no way that—”
“Dean…” Sam started.
“Yeah?”
“Never mind…” Sam started, eyes moist. “I’m tired. Just go…”
Dean stood there, unsure if he should.
“I’m okay,” Sam sighed. “I just need more sleep. Not thinking clearly.”
That did nothing to quell Dean’s worry about his brother, but Sam had turned to face the wall, announcing they were done, and it was decided.
What had he said? Had he said something wrong? Here he was trying to encourage Sam and he was being told to go away?
Dean tried his best to shrug it off, hating the way it clung to him regardless as he started a shower, letting the steam fill up the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the tub for a moment, clothes shed, towel gathered around his waist, breathing in the warm moisture that was blurring out the edges of his vision into anamorphous surreality. He embraced the moment of isolation, taking as deep a breath as he could, letting it fill him up, give him an iota of strength, before he pushed through the tendrils of vapor and dashed a hand across the grayed out mirror
And all at once it seemed to fall away into clearly cut, sharp lines of perception, the pinkish-gray webbing of scar tissue greeting him mockingly in the glass surface. His hand pressed against the reflection, once again tracing over the marks there. These were there because of Azazel, because of sacrifice in war, because of duty, and love, and honor, and fear, and the undeniable pit of sorrow born of loss.
Even though they’d won that battle against Yellow-eyes, Dean could still feel the echoes of their losses. He’d gone to Hell, they’d lost their father, and Sam was now caught up in something neither of them could understand, something that was eating away at his brother from the inside, and they still didn’t know why. All the time spent searching, and fighting, all the things they’d survived together and been through, and they were no closer to grasping the why of their family curse.
It was why Dean wasn’t going to stop reading the journal. There had to be answers somewhere. Dean feared not finding anything more than he feared using something they would have salted and burned by now. He feared getting through that book only to find that there was nothing to tell him what was happening to his brother or why or what they could do to make sure the charge their father had given him was just born of fear of the unknown. Dean gripped the sink tight, angry, frustrated…
What am I supposed to do?
Dean closed his eyes as Sam’s words filled his head, replacing his own. What if…what if a part of me is…demon?
It’s not!
Something sharp had rammed its way between his lungs and his heart, twisting hard, buckling his knees, and withering the breath in his lungs. He fell against the sink before he hit the ground, curling into himself against the pain. A high-pitched whine had spirited away all other sound, leaving him deaf and disoriented on the cold, tiled floor. The amulet felt heavy, and he could feel it burning against him, his own skin heating up like a flash fire was boiling through his blood. He grabbed it to get it away from his skin and the pain stopped, the weight lifting, and all sound tunneled back through his ears starting with the beating of his heart. The steady tempo bled back into other sounds, ears crackling like fire, burning away the invisible barrier until he could hear his own breathing and the staccato beat of the shower’s water against glass walls.
Dean sucked in a wet gasp, focusing each breath toward recovery as his skin wept out onto the tiled floor. The sweat was cooling him rapidly pulling him back toward movement, the pain dulling with each lungful of air.
What the hell?
He rolled onto his side, panic suddenly replacing pain, something inside of him telling him to move his ass, to check on Sam. Pulling on his jeans while clambering for the door, Dean forced it open with more strength than necessary, slamming it against the wall hard enough to knock a picture from the wall.
There was glass. Everywhere. Nothing, save the windows, was left unbroken. The television was gutted; the mirrored walls were shattered, the lights blown…
And Dean’s eyes fell on Sam in the middle of it all, down between the beds, covered beneath a blanket of ragged crystalline shards, unmoving.
He’d known.
Something inside of Dean had known Sam was the one in trouble. The pain he’d experienced had been his warning shot, his wake up call, his internal alarm. Whatever the hell it had been it sparked panic, twisting it up from his gut as he was consumed by new fear replacing his pain. Fear that was telling him he needed to get to Sam. Right now.
Stumbling out into the room to find it looked like someone had taken a bat to all the glass, Dean’s heart caught at the sight of Sam amongst the shards, too still.
“Sammy!”
He moved as quickly as he could over the glass, trying to place his feet strategically and still get to his brother as fast as he could. It was executed semi successfully, the few cuts he sustained to the pads of his feet ignored as he reached Sam’s side. Dropping down beside him despite shocks of pain snapping up and down his leg, Dean rolled Sam gently so he could see his face.
Dean was surprised to see Sam’s eyes open, staring back at him with startled clarity, pupils fixing before he blinked his surprise and pushed back on Dean, trying to get him away from him.
“Sam, what the hell happened?”
Sam had skittered back against the bed, knees up into his chest, face pressed into them. “I…I wanted the remote…” Sam said, the words muted against his jeans.
“What?”
“I wanted the remote,” Sam said louder.
“Sam, say something that makes sense!” Dean growled, scared, not wanting to have raised his voice, but just a few moments ago he thought he’d find Sam…he didn’t want to think about in what state he would have found Sam. “Don’t move, there’s glass everywhere.”
Sam groaned and rested his forehead back against his knees. “My head…”
Dean twisted around so he could find a path where there wasn’t glass, settling back against his own bed, watching Sam, filtering through what was going on in his own head.
“Are you hurt?” His initial inspection hadn’t shown any blood, any cuts.
Sam raised his gaze to Dean, tired and painfully dark beneath the hollows of his eyes. “You told me to practice.”
Dean blinked, even more confused.
“My abilities, Dean…” Sam groaned out, looking like he was going to be sick. “You told me to practice them...I…I wanted the remote…but I didn’t want to get up,” Sam was confessing, looking agonizingly like he’d been caught stealing candy from Dean’s bag when they were kids. Not that Dean wouldn’t have just given it to him and did. But the lines in Sam’s face were pulled so tight with fear; Dean started to realize it wasn’t about what had happened. Was Sam scared how he’d react?
“I tried to move the damn thing…bring the remote to me,” Sam continued. “But I got this…” Sam sucked in a breath and winced, fingers going to the bridge of his nose, squeezing it like another of his skull splitting episodes was about to commence again. “Headache…that took me down…and all the glass…just…”
Dean reached over and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Just, uh, take it easy until you’re better, all right?”
Sam looked up at him, eyes settling again on what Dean was constantly aware of—his scars. He hadn’t imagined Sam’s focus on them the night before. Sam saw them. He wasn’t supposed to see them…
“Hey,” Dean redirected his brother’s attention. “I know I told you to try to control this thing, but not now, not when you’re sick.”
His attempts to keep the worry from his voice had been unsuccessful as Sam looked away, reflecting back Dean’s fear in the unsure movement of his eyes as they took in the obliterated television.
Dean started to clean up what he could, aware of the cuts on his feet but trying to hide them from Sam.
“So you tried to pull a Skywalker on Hoth and blew up our TV,” Dean asked, smirking. “That’s kinda cool.”
That got a smile from Sam. Good. Smiles were good. Smiles meant little brothers weren’t freaking out to the point of facial paralysis and utter mortification.
What if a part of me is demon?
No way.
Dean instructed Sam not to move as he got to his feet, starting to pick up glass around the beds, rolling up the sheets to contain a majority of it. He’d pulled on his boots and finished up the rest while Sam watched from where he’d curled up against the nightstand.
For a moment the floor tilted violently and Dean stopped, taking a measured breath slowly through his nose, eyes closed. Why did he feel so weak? Was it this? What had happened to him before he’d found Sam? Another burst of pain through his leg when he bent to sweep up the glass near the TV made him wonder if the culprit was more practical than that.
He used a T-shirt wrapped around his arm and a jacket to get up the glass, and by the time he was on his last corner of the room he felt like he needed to lay down.
“How hard did you push?” Dean asked, his fatigue making the question have more of an edge than he’d intended. “It was just a remote for crying out loud, not a dresser.”
“Sorry,” Sam muttered.
Dean shrugged it off, shaking his head. “No…I’m…don’t apologize.” He recovered, dumping the last of it into the trash before sinking down onto the edge of his bed, exhausted. He wiped at the sweat percolating his brow and looked over at Sam who had joined him. He didn’t miss the look he got from Sam; the thanks laced through his half smile and fatigued eyes.
I’m not giving up on you. We’ll figure this out. You have to know that. Don’t you, Sam?
They both looked at the TV, wires and parts splayed every which way.
“I killed our television,” Sam groaned.
“Now we have to go out.” Dean smacked Sam’s back causing him to cough a little, glad a laugh was mixed in there somewhere.
Sam shook his head, slow smile spreading. “Yeah…without a TV, no movies, we’ll just have to… get into a good book…”
+++++
Sam eased backward onto his elbows then gingerly and with far less enthusiasm than usual flopped on his back on Dean’s bed. The change in position and elevation set off another coughing jag. He tried letting his gratitude show through when Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Sam stayed hunched over where Dean put him, really not having the energy to work out how to move or protest much at Dean’s sudden desire for mothering him.
He barely paid attention to Dean shifting off the bed and back on it again seconds later. Something soft and nice was shoved behind him right before Dean shoved against Sam’s shoulders. Sam scooted back, he’d somehow accumulated all the pillows in their room, which were now behind his back and head, and all but one blanket was bundled around him. He opened his mouth to protest, but the only thing that spewed out was wet, painful coughs. Yeah, that was convincing.
Dean stood up, hovered between the beds for a minute with hands on hips, shaking his head slightly. He patted Sam’s knee, retrieved the laptop and set it on the bed beside Sam. “You stay put.” Another pat to Sam’s knee. “Try not to bring about the end of motel TV’s everywhere.”
“Where…?” The word cracked and bit at his throat and chest.
“I’m hungry and so are you, even if you don’t know it. Sit tight, I’ll get you something warm that will go down easy and hopefully stick in there and not end up on my shirt.”
He managed to get out, “You’re not wearing a shirt.”
Dean looked down at himself and grinned. “I’ll get free food this way, Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes and watched as his brother extracted clean clothes, slipped them on, followed by his jacket. Jangling his keys, Dean waved a bye and ducked out the door.
Opening the laptop…when the heck did Dean recharge the batteries?...Sam sat and stared at it as it booted up, gazing at his reflection in the black screen. A second later the screen flicked to the loading background. Images of Mary Shards’ and pictures he’d seen of his own mother intermingled over his reflection.
It’s you. They accused.
Blinking, Sam shook his head. Great now his laptop was haunted too. The screen turned to blue.
It’s you. Sam’s a bomb. You were always my favorite, Sammy. Check out your mother’s friends and family. Dad said I might have to kill you, Sammy…it’s you…you…it’s YOU.
Sam jumped when the screen flashed to his desktop (a drawing of a devil’s trap he and Dean had done one afternoon screwing around with an art program boosted online) and icons popped up signaling the machine was ready to roll. His fingertip moved over the mouse pad, one tap and the browser opened. He needed to search out new hunts.
Man died in a locked room, maybe. Where did Dean go? Oh yeah, for food.
What happened to my mother’s friends?
Pigs roasted without fire spit…maybe…but euuwww…no. Dean just left a few minutes ago, wanted to get them something to eat. Sam hoped Dean didn’t bring back pork chops.
Every one of Mary Shards’ relatives died within a few years of her…
Four teens and six teachers commit suicide at the same school within a month…possibly. They needed to eat.
…except her sister and her son.
People found with lungs full of sand…ooohh. How long has it been? Too long, Dean’s been gone too long. Dean’s scent still clung to the pillow Sam’s head rested against.
Sam’s a bomb.
Same people have skin and muscle shredded from their limbs, looks like sand blasting…okay…yeah. Sam was alone. Maybe Dean hadn’t been gone long. Sam turned his head far enough to press his nose against the pillow, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
It’s you…
His father thought he had to be put down. He missed Dean and wished he would come back.
What happened to my mother’s friends?
Dean would go back to Hell before he killed Sam.
Always my favorite, Sammy…
So, Dean couldn’t kill Sam, but he could drive away, leave.
Dean’s going to Hell and you can’t stop it.
All alone.
Dad said I might have to kill you, Sammy. Dad said…Dad said…It’s you, Mom said that…it’s you.
They both knew what they’d created. Both knew the monster had to end. The room smelled like Dean, maybe he hadn’t been gone very long after all.
It’s you…Sam’s a bomb.
Shred the flesh from their bones, filled their bodies with grit and sand. Eat the meat. Long, bloody chunks pulled from their arms and legs…humans, the other white meat. End the monster, the monster could end him, strip his meat from his bones and eat it before filling his body with sand and grit.
Dad said…Dad said…Dad said kill me…Dad said…it’s you…Sam’s a bomb…
“Sam.”
Dad was an ass!
Something firm and warm landed on Sam’s shoulder. It’d come for him and strip his flesh and—it wouldn’t matter, Dean’s gone away. All alone. Better this way.
“Sam, take it easy there, kiddo, just me.”
Jerking upright brought a sharp jab to his chest and forced a cough to rattle around inside for a few seconds before bashing against his tongue and teeth to break out. Sam looked up in time to see Dean catch the laptop.
Sam’s eyelids drifted down then back up more slowly than he’d wanted them to. It took a few seconds to focus on Dean’s face. “You came back.”
Holding the laptop in both hands, Dean peered over the top at him. “Yeah, that’s what a food run is, Sammy. One of us goes out, gets the food, and comes back. You okay?”
“You’re limping.” Sam’s voice sounded thin and far away to his ears.
Cocking his head to one side, Dean shrugged. “At least I’m not out taking a little mental break.”
“They all died.” There he’d said it. Flat, matter of fact, without freaking out he’d spoken the words. Dean needed to know the truth, everything.
Dean’s eyes drifted to the laptop he held and faked a shudder, “Eek, no kidding. Sam this is horrible. No wonder you have nightmares.”
Sam was swaying slightly. He gripped the side of the bed with one hand. “Mom’s friends, dead, every one of them. Everyone she was related to that I could find—same thing, dead. All dead and gone.”
“How long have you known?”
Meeting Dean’s eyes was impossible, so he stared at Dean’s knees. “Ruby told me—”
Dean snorted, “Oh, fine source.”
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly so it didn’t turn into coughs, Sam continued, “Ruby told me and I didn’t believe her, so I checked. Her parents died before she married Dad. Neither of them had brothers or sisters. Well, actually Mom did, she had a big brother, but he died, he was three weeks old, it was SIDS. Just like Mary Shards, everyone in her life died.”
“Not everyone, Sam.” Dean set the laptop on the table between them and laid one hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Not us.”
That made Sam look up at Dean; really look at him. He’d kept this from his brother for more than a year. She was Dean’s mother too, maybe even more so. Dean had the right to know. There was nothing on Dean’s face other than concern.
“Is that what’s had you so worked up? Is that why you’ve been making remarks about me going away? Sam, why didn’t you just tell me?” The sheer kindness in Dean’s tone startled him. Dean should be angry with Sam for not telling him right away, had every right to be angry. Yet what seemed to concern Dean more was how this was affecting Sam.
“What difference would it have made? I didn’t know anything for sure, and I didn’t want to…” He took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, straightened his back and plunged ahead. “Everything I know about her, Mom, I know from you and a bit from Dad. I don’t remember her, what her voice sounded like, what she smelled like. I wouldn’t even know what she looked like if it weren’t for some pictures you showed me. She was my mother, but she was your mom. There’s a difference. You remember things. You didn’t get them second hand. Until we read about Mary Shards’ family in Jake’s journal, the only thing I could see happening if I told you was it would hurt you. I wanted something more concrete. And honestly, I was more concerned with keeping my brother, who was alive and who I’d known my whole life, that way than finding out facts about a dead parent I can’t even remember.”
“Not all of them died, Sam.” Dean said quietly. He stood there, between the beds hand still on Sam’s shoulder. “We’re here.” Dean’s hand fell away and a second later a container appeared under Sam’s nose. “I got you beef barley.”
He obediently took the soup and continued talking between swallows. Dean sat in the chair beside him. “There was no uncle. We never had an uncle. Mom never had an uncle. When did Dad meet Bobby?”
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