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“Because you’re getting sloppy.”
Sam turns on his mother and fights the urge to flip her off. At only seventeen he’s bigger and stronger than her, has a few nasty mental powers to boot but he’s pretty sure she could still kick his ass if the mood took her.
“Who taught you that insulting someone was motivational?” Sam snaps instead, fighting through the sick pain of what promises to be one hell of a head thumper. With practice, the headaches lessen in intensity but not when he’s been at it for six hours straight. He’d finally demanded a break and it had devolved into the same fight they’d been having for years.
He wasn’t good enough yet.
“Don’t get pissed. You know you lose focus when you’re angry.”
“Then stop pissing me off!” Sam yells, more frustrated than anything. He wants a nap, a coffee and a burger and he doesn’t care in which order as long as he gets all three of those things. He looks up and back but the dark haired girl behind his mother snorts and puts up her hands.
“Don’t look at me,” she says with her hands held out in a leave-me-out-of-this gesture and Mary tilts her head towards her.
“Ruby, would you give us a sec?”
“Sure, just don’t kill him,” Ruby says and even though her tone is teasing, her eyes are wary.
“Look, Sam, I know you’re tired,” Mary starts to say when Ruby disappears behind their truck but Sam holds up one hand, the other going to squeeze the bridge of his nose.
“You know what most seventeen year olds are doing right now?” he asks, trying a different tack and he should’ve known it wouldn’t get him anywhere.
“You’re not most seventeen year olds,” Mary says automatically.
“I can’t even talk to you,” Sam snaps in disgust. “It’s like trying to talk to a really deranged, revenge-driven wall.”
He stalks away and about twenty minutes later Ruby comes to find him. She’s always the peacemaker, which is hilarious considering what she is. She’s sucking on an oversized Styrofoam cup of something, bendy straw squeaking as she takes it out of her mouth.
Sam watches her approach, eyes narrowed down to slits so that the bright sunshine doesn’t drive nails into his head quite so much. She has long, tan legs in denim cut-offs and Sam can feel her eyes on him in return like the sweat trickling down his spine. She hesitates before she settles next to him, one sun-browned arm snaking through his so their elbows are linked.
Her name was Jenna Peterson and she fell off the roof of her father’s house four weeks ago. If Ruby were to lift her t-shirt, Sam would be able to see a thin, silver ghost of scar that was once the ugly wound from the fence post that ended Jenna’s life.
He tries not to think about how he and his mother made Ruby promise not to possess another living human being, how she was only allowed to shrug on a person like a discarded jacket when the previous occupant had vacated.
He tries not to think about how his gaze had lingered a little too long on Jenna at school three days before her fatal fall and how Ruby, wearing a boy whose name Sam had never found out at the time, had remarked on his interest.
He tries not to think about it but it circles his mind like water around a drain.
“You gotta ease up on your mom,” Ruby says, holding what he can now see is a milkshake under his nose. It’s banana from the smell and she knows he hates banana.
“Why are you always on her side?” Sam says, knocking the proffered drink aside with an absent hand, hating how petulant he sounds but not being able to help it.
“I’m on nobody’s side,” Ruby corrects and Sam ponders just how true that might turn out to be some day. “But she’s not doing all this for fun.”
“Fun,” Sam says slowly, sounding out the word like he’s never heard it before. “Nope, not entirely familiar with that term.”
“Don’t be a brat,” Ruby snorts, knocking her shoulder against Sam’s. “You’re going to be grateful for all of this when it counts.”
“She wants to pull me out of school,” Sam says because he knows today’s fight is just leftover raw feelings from that particularly nasty and spectacular argument a week ago. “It’s the one normal thing in my life and she wants to take it away. I hate her.”
“No you don’t,” Ruby says, pitching her cup at a nearby trashcan and missing by a mile. “But I can talk to her about the school thing if you want.”
“You? Why would she listen to you about that?” Sam snorts in derision. Ruby is tolerated by his mother because she helps and Sam can’t really remember a time when she wasn’t with them, but they’re not exactly pals. Ruby doesn’t even stay with them in the parade of crappy apartments and questionable motel rooms that they frequent. She just turns up most days and then disappears again.
He doubts his mom would want Ruby’s two cents about this particular topic.
“I can try, for you,” Ruby clarifies, looking away from him to where the sun is starting to dip below the horizon. The warmth is leeching out of the day with the last of the light and Sam feels goose flesh break out on his arms, except for where his skin touches Ruby’s.
She always runs hot.
“Don’t bother,” Sam mutters, standing up and stretching till his back pops. “She’ll get her way, just like she always does.”
Dean stands bare-chested at the window of a small, neat apartment, smoking. He's trying to remember if the girl who belongs to the apartment is called Vicky or Nicky because he doesn't want to be that guy, the one that doesn't remember the girl's name. He supposes he's got an excuse this time in any case.
The bar he’d met her at earlier that night had been loud and she'd had to scream her name directly into his ear when she'd introduced herself.
Anyone could have misheard.
Hell, she probably thought his name was Dan.
There's a muffled bleat as his phone registers a message from his jean's pocket. Dean takes that as his cue, leaning over to retrieve and pull on pants, shirt, and jacket. He carries his boots to avoid any extra noise because he may not like being the guy that doesn't remember names but he's resigned himself long ago to being the guy that sneaks out afterwards.
He even drops the clutch and rolls the Impala down the fortuitously sloped driveway so he doesn't have to catch a glimpse of the girl in his rear vision mirror, sheet around her, looking pissed or sad.
He's seen that enough.
Dean flicks open his phone one-handed as he maneuvers around the cul-de-sac at the end of the girl's street and heads back out onto the main road. It's a set of coordinates and Dean sighs and pulls into the gas station a few blocks down so he can check where he's pointed now and where he needs to head. He spreads the folding map out on the hood of his car and draws two intersecting lines with his fingers, his destination the central point where index and index bump up against each other.
It's been a while since he's actually conversed with John Winchester.
It's probably for the best, Dean thinks as he tries to fold the map back into vaguely the same shape as it had been previously. He and his father end up fighting most times any way, mostly about how their interests have diverged. These days, Dean’s more interested in the kind of ghosts that hurt people, rather than the ones you just can’t find.
Dean decides to call regardless. He's a little hung over and a lot strung out and he's sick of being ordered around like he's got nothing better to do.
He doesn't really, but it's the principal of the thing.
Dean gets voicemail of course, and he waits until John's finished telling him how unavailable he is and not even inviting the caller to leave a message like most people do and he takes a breath.
You know what, you asshole? Next time you send me coordinates and nothing else, I'm going to track you down and kick the ever-living shit out of you. You're my father and just once I wish you would goddamn act like it and maybe give a crap about what I'm doing. You don't even know if I'm getting these messages or if that poltergeist in Poughkeepsie had my intestines for a midnight snack.
Fuck you.
Just... fuck you.
"Hey Dad, it's me. Got your message. Headed out now," Dean says and takes a moment to eye the guy at the next pump. He's got short-cropped hair and green eyes. He's maybe seventeen, most likely newly licensed and Dean leans forward a little and asks, "Your name Sam?"
The guy blinks for a second, confusion evident on his face. "Nah, Terry," he supplies.
Dean snorts and says, "Just checking," and the guy starts looking wary like Dean's that crazy guy you sit down next to on the bus, not knowing he's the crazy guy till it's too late and there was a reason the seat next to him was vacant. Dean offers what he hopes is a disarming smile but it must come out wrong because the guy suddenly looks plain frightened.
Dean finishes up as quickly as possible and leaves the gas station behind.
That's Dean's biggest problem and his greatest fear. He's spent most of his life hunting for a phantom, for little brother even though it's more an ideal than a person, especially since Dean could and would pass him in the street without even knowing him.
The romantic side of him wants to believe that there would be something about Sam that would snag his attention like a caught thread on a sharp nail. There would be his father's eyes or his mother's smile or something that would make him take a second look at the guy standing behind him in the grocery store or shaking it off next to him in a public bathroom.
Dean's romantic side has, however, taken a back seat to the realist voice within that always sounds like John Winchester in his head.
He knows he won't recognize him.
Dean's pretty sure he would recognize his mother, though. From the few scattered photographs, bent and stained from too much handling, she has the kind of classic beauty that persists. He wouldn't call it ageless because that kind of thing just isn't possible, but given the bone structure he's carrying around himself, Mary is set to settle into her looks rather than outgrow them.
Dean's tried to come up with just what he would say a thousand times to her when and if they finally do catch up with Mary Winchester but he's drawing a blank. There are a lot of options but none of those would make it passed his locked throat and jaw.
Why did you leave us?
Why did you like Sam better than me?
Why didn't you know we would fall apart?
He's asked variations of these questions to his dad over the years and got a myriad of responses depending on how far down into the bottle his dad was. The one thing that was consistent however was John insisting that Mary loved both her sons equally and when they found her, there would be a reason.
There had to be a reason.
Dean just wasn’t sure anymore whether the lies had been for his benefit or his dad’s.
John Winchester had given up a lot, including all recognized religions, but that didn't mean he didn't have faith.
Sam fidgets right up until Mary smacks him in the back of the head.
"If you're going to do that you can go do it outside," Mary hisses out of the side of her mouth. She's looking tense like she always does when they visit a seer or psychic. They haven't found one yet that's the real deal but Mary insists that it's only a matter of time. It's one thing she won't ask Ruby to help her with because while Ruby is useful, she will never be trusted.
She's a shield and nothing more.
"She's going to be just like all the others," Sam insists, wedging his hands under his thighs in an attempt to keep still. "You picked her out of the phone book for chrissakes!"
Sam hadn’t exactly been thrilled when they’d pulled up to the white split-level with the flowerpots on the front porch. He’d been less impressed when a young girl had ushered them into a living room that had been converted into what looked like a waiting room, complete with ancient National Geographic magazines on the coffee table. A multi-colored curtain separated the living room from the rest of the house.
"Don't blaspheme," Mary scolds automatically but without any real heat and Sam rolls his eyes.
"You're kidding, right? We're here to see some witchdoctor about how to get the keys to hell and you're worried if I take the Lord's name in vain?"
Something breaks from the other room, sudden and startling and both Mary and Sam jump and then look at each other, cracking identical grins.
"Seriously hon, go see a movie or something," Mary tries, leaning sideways so she can dig her ancient wallet out of her back jeans pocket and unearth a twenty. She holds it out to Sam but he bats it aside.
"How're you gonna know if she's legit?" Sam asks levelly and Mary half-shrugs.
"I've got a little bit of a knack," she says. "I can tell."
"You can not," Sam scoffs, looking incredulous. "You nearly gave that guy in Wichita five hundred dollars for a rubber band dyed orange."
"He seemed so honest," Mary sighs and then looks at her nails. "I've always wondered, how do you... know?"
"Dunno," Sam says, retrieving his hands from under his legs and holding them out for a moment. All the blood's been pushed out of them so they're fish-white and Mary shudders slightly. "Just do."
"If I ever met a chatty teenager I'd die of shock," Mary snorts, cuffing Sam over the back of the head again, but this time it's affectionate rather than annoyed.
The curtains to the next room part and an older woman with a kind, open face and overlarge jewelry is ushering a sobbing man in a cheap suit and lopsided spectacles out. "It's alright. I see good things for you," she's insisting but this just makes the man bray harder. Mary and Sam look at each other again.
Halfway across the room, the woman seems to spot them out of the corner of her eye and she blinks. The man is left to stumble towards the front door alone, still blotting at his eyes as the woman turns all the way around so she's facing them. "I didn't hear you," she says, looking suspicious.
"We're pretty quiet," Mary says, moving to stand but the woman waves her back into the seat. She takes the seat across from the couch Mary and Sam are perched on.
"Next room's for the sightseers," she dismisses when Mary gives her a puzzled look. She looks a little frazzled as she sits and gathers a voluminous dress around herself. "I didn't... hear you."
Mary is starting to think that the woman is just plain dotty but when she cuts a glance to Sam, he's sitting rigid. Sweat has sprung up on his upper lip and his eyes have gone unfocused. "Sam?" Mary says.
“She’s legit,” he manages to get out through clenched teeth before pitching forward into darkness.
"What are you doing here?"
Dean's addressing a brown haired, blue-eyed man sitting on the low-brick wall surrounding his current motel. Dean spotted him on the way in but took his time getting a key and chatting up the fairly pretty but definitely underage girl manning the front counter. He watched the man from the office window, watched the way he feigned smoking a cigarette, bringing it up to his lips, sucking smoke in and then letting it straight out again.
He supposed the man was trying to be inconspicuous.
"Those'll give you cancer," he points out, scuffing a toe in the dust beneath his feet. The motel room key is attached to a troll doll with one leg missing and violent green hair and Dean tosses it in the air and catches it again deftly.
"Really?" the man says, looking at the cigarette clasped between his fingers with what appears to be genuine curiosity. He shrugs and stubs the cigarette out on the brick, flicking it away with a practiced ease that wasn't evident when he was actually smoking.
"What do you want, Castiel?" Dean asks, deciding to be direct about it. He's not sure he's very impressed with the stalker he's seemed to pick up in the last couple of months. He can't figure out whether the guy is a wannabe hunter or what but the fake-goth name makes him believe that the guy is a unique type of fanboy, one that might've accidentally stumbled onto the fact that half the scary shit out there was real and wanted to make sense of it all.
Dean has seen the type before.
"I've got a job for you," Castiel says, standing up and brushing down his jeans. He's maybe twenty and has been wearing the same thing every time Dean's seen him, Metallica t-shirt and faded blue jeans. Dean's never seen a car so he figures the guy very creatively hitchhikes, being able to keep Dean in sight most of the time.
Dean wonders if maybe he should talk to his Dad about getting the guy to put his freaky tracking abilities to good use.
"Really?" Dean says, making sure his tone is thick with incredulity. He's not dismissive though because the hunt his dad sent him on turned out to be kids with too much time on their hands and overactive imaginations. He's got a few days to spare and he's at a loose end.
"Do you want to talk over breakfast?" Castiel invites, gesturing at the diner attached to the motel.
"You buyin’?" Dean asks, because the least a stalker can do is pay and then he grins when Castiel nods.
Dean orders three breakfast specials and watches Castiel merely gesture at his empty coffee cup and then smile politely at the waitress when she fills it. "You're not eating?" Dean asks, his cheeks stuffed with egg.
"I don't tend to," Castiel says cryptically and then leans back in the booth seat. Again Dean's struck by how casual it's supposed to look and how it really isn't, almost like Castiel has only seen people at ease from afar and doesn't quite have the knack.
Dean's usually good at reading people but nothing about Castiel is sitting right with him.
“Dean,” Castiel says, sitting forward and folding his hands, almost like he’s about to pray. “We have a problem.”
“If this is the part where you tell me all about your ginormous man-crush, then can we skip it? I’m not into dudes.”
Castiel blinks for a second but then does something Dean isn’t expecting.
He laughs.
“Pride goeth before a fall,” Castiel murmurs in an almost offhand way, sounding oddly amused and Dean now merely raises his eyebrows, slowing his inhalation of pancake. “No Dean, I’m not… I have business to discuss with you.”
“Business?” Dean repeats. He’s getting a very bad feeling about all of this. “Just what kind of business do you believe you and I have?”
“When I say we, I’m not referring to you or I, I’m referring to myself and my… colleagues. We all have been watching for signs and they’re starting to appear. Great evil is rising and it’s only a matter of-”
Dean holds up one hand when the waitress approaches their table with a coffee carafe in hand and smiles at her while she refills his cup. Castiel’s remains untouched and she looks at it quizzically for a moment before retreating. “Just who the hell are you?” Dean hisses, leaning across the table and leveling a finger at Castiel’s nose.
“Interesting choice of words,” Castiel says, appearing to be amused yet again and Dean rolls his eyes and starts sliding out of the diner booth. He’s shuffled his butt to the edge when Castiel’s hand shoots out and clamps down on his. “Wait, please,” Castiel says.
Dean freezes and turns slowly back to Castiel, pointedly looking at their linked hands. Castiel releases his grip and then holds the offending hand up, palm out.
“Hear me out.”
Sam is lying with a cool cloth over his eyes in the living room and Mary and Missouri Moseley are staring at each other over cups of coffee in the kitchen. Mary had taken one experimental sip and had been mostly unsurprised that it was half a sugar and a splash of milk, just the way she liked it.
“I’m sorry,” Missouri starts, casting a look at the hallway that leads to her living room. “I just assumed it was you.”
“What was me?”
“Who was shutting me out,” Missouri says with a wave of her hand around her temple. “A handful of people I’ve met over the years could do it without even realizing it. I wouldn’t have pushed so hard if I’d known Sam was… it was rude and I am sorry. Don’t know where my manners went.” She clucks her tongue. “Never met someone so young who was so strong.”
“Sam’s… gifted,” Mary says and Missouri looks back at her and grunts in assent.
“That much I could figure for myself. You got none of it though. His Daddy’s side?”
Mary laughs but puts a hand to her mouth so it comes out a little garbled. “No, it really isn’t.”
“Skipped a generation then? This type of thing is usually passed along,” Missouri presses, still looking vaguely startled. “Still, I guess that explains it.”
“Explains what?” Mary asks, hackles rising automatically.
“He’s got no real control, just blunt force. If he’d pushed back…” Missouri shudders just a little. “I’m guessing my brains would be just so much mush between my ears.”
“He… has a teacher,” Mary says through gritted teeth, knowing that she’s going to have a conversation with Ruby next chance she gets.
“Really?” Missouri looks incredulous but then half-shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. “Well, tell his teacher that a little… finesse is required. Sometimes a scalpel will do. You don’t always need a sledgehammer.”
“I will,” Mary agrees but then taps her nails on the table. “Sam’s not really what I’m here about though.”
“He’s not?” Missouri asks and then taps a hand to her chest. “Sorry, I’m not used to having to guess at people’s motivations. It’s throwing me a little.”
“I mean, Sam’s involved but it’s not entirely why we’re here. I actually need information.”
“I’ll help you if I can of course,” Missouri agrees readily, pushing a plate of cookies in Mary’s direction. She takes one automatically but then merely turns it over and over with her fingers.
“We’re looking for something actually, a key.”
“I’m good with lost items,” Missouri says with a faint chuckle but her brows draw down into a frown when she registers Mary’s expression. “Why am I starting to think that I don’t need to be a psychic to be getting a bad feeling about this?”
“Maybe,” Mary says, staring at her hands. “Because I need a key to Hell.”
Castiel follows Dean back out to the parking lot.
“I wasn’t kidding,” Castiel says to Dean’s back.
“Oh really? I wasn’t actually thinking you were joking. I was more thinking along the lines of you being crazy,” Dean snorts. The Impala isn’t too far away and he’s glad he hadn’t unpacked for the night. He can leave Castiel in the dust without losing anything or needing to go back to the motel room he’d checked into. He’s in this town for some lights that could be swamp gas or drunken teenagers. Either way, not very dangerous or time-sensitive and he can do this job later when there are fewer insane people around.
“Okay, I’m not crazy,” Castiel says and then jogs around Dean until he’s in front of him. Dean tries to sidestep but Castiel moves at exactly the same time he does so that Dean ends up chest-checking Castiel. Dean puts two hands up and then one back, feeling for the knife at his spine.
“Are you going to stay the harmless kind of crazy or are we going to have a problem?” Dean demands. His fingers curl around the hilt of the dagger but he’s not willing to yank it out yet. It’s the middle of the afternoon and there’s a family of five piling out of their station wagon only a few cars down, the mother complaining loudly that they should have stopped at the last place because this one looks run-down and unhygienic.
“I’m not crazy,” Castiel says again, like with repetition he’ll make it more true. Dean eyes the family again and Castiel sighs with impatience and flicks out a hand. All five, mom, dad and three kiddies slump to the ground where they are, the smallest boy sliding out of the backseat onto the gravel because he’d been halfway out, jabbing a hand at his sister so he had been overbalanced.
“Holy… what the fuck did you just do?” Dean almost screams and he does pull the knife then, getting a handful of Castiel’s stupid faded t-shirt and tugging him close enough that he can wedge the blade up under Castiel’s jaw.
“They’re sleeping,” Castiel dismisses, gaze never diverting from Dean’s face.
“How do I know that?” Dean demands.
“Go check,” Castiel offers, shrugging as much as he can with Dean holding him close.
“Sure, right. I’ll just turn my back on you to check the people you just killed. You just hold your breath until I go ahead and do that.”
“You were concerned they would witness our altercation so I removed them from equation. They will awake feeling refreshed although, granted, a little mystified.” Castiel was sounding so maddeningly casual that Dean almost plunged the knife in on principle
Dean shoves Castiel backwards to put some space between them and Castiel goes, even though he doesn’t stumble at all and Dean suspects it’s more a case of Castiel judiciously retreating than being pushed. Dean flicks a glance to the Impala, still three car-lengths away that also means his favorite pearl-handled is also that far. He’s never going to breakfast without a piece ever again.
“Dean, I’m telling you the truth,” Castiel says, still looking annoyingly serene about Dean holding a giant knife at chest level that mainly reinforces Dean’s impression that Castiel is certifiable.
“I’m just supposed to take your word for it that you’re an…” Dean pulls a face and then flaps his arms up and down for a moment, bringing the knife back up but this time using it to gesture with. “I mean, c’mon. You could’ve at least come up with a cooler one.”
For a satisfying moment, Castiel looks surprised. “I’m sorry?”
“Well, you could have at least told me you were Michael or Gabriel or something.”
“You’ve lost me,” Castiel says, blinking.
“I looked up your name the first time you started skulking around. I found it on Angel Of The Day. Castiel is the Angel of Thursday!” Dean snorts indelicately and shakes his head. “Way to harness those delusions of grandeur.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, pressing one hand into his left eye socket for a moment and Dean is reminded of the Preacher his father had befriended long ago, Jim Murphy.
Boy, I think you could even drive an angel to distraction.
Dean lets out a small, involuntary bark of laughter that has Castiel’s gaze narrowing. “I don’t really have time to work through your disbelief so just tell me what will make you believe and I’ll do it.”
“How about making a million dollars fall out of the sky?” Dean tries.
“I’m an Angel of the Lord, not a genie,” Castiel says.
“Worth a try,” Dean sighs. “Okay, show me.”
“Show you what?”
“The wings. They must be teeny to be hiding under that t-shirt. Is that why you went with such a crap angel name? Got wing-envy?”
“Dean, if I showed you my true form, there is a very strong possibility that your eyes would boil in your skull.”
“Well, that’s convenient for you now, isn’t it?”
“More inconvenient for you,” Castiel corrects and then nods slowly. “Very well, turn around.”
“Did you not get the memo about me not turning my back on you?”
“Turn so you cannot see me but you can see my shadow. You’ll know if I try something.”
Dean grits his teeth but then slowly pivots, keeping his gaze on Castiel’s shadow. Light suddenly flares bright behind him and sweat pops out on his neck. All of that fades into insignificance as Dean watches the shadow thrown on the ground elongate and blur. Dean’s eyes water and a dull, sick headache starts up in the back of his brain and he knows without a shadow of a doubt just who he’s dealing with.
“So, were the Angels of Monday through Wednesday already busy?” Dean asks as the light fades behind him, back to the dull of afternoon turning to dusk.
“Angel Of The Day, huh?” Castiel says with a note of exasperation in his voice.
Dean turns back and the kid that had been following him for a while now stands in the middle of the parking lot, looking completely unassuming. As he stares, the family with the station wagon starts to stir.
“We need your help, Dean,” Castiel says. “I hate to sound dramatic, but if you don’t intervene, we’re looking at the end of the world.”
Dean swallows hard. “Okay then,” he says. “Just what exactly is it you want me to do?”
Missouri wasn’t sure who coined the phrase Red Tuesday first, but it stuck.
On the second of May, nineteen eighty-three, she’d been sitting at her kitchen table with Phil Deluca opposite. Phil had stayed in her spare room because he’d had a little too much to drink after a fairly awful exorcism. Phil had grunted a little and then frowned, leaning across the table to touch one of Missouri’s cheeks. She’d assumed that he was retrieving an eyelash but when he’d pulled his hand away, the fingers he’d touched her cheek with came away coated in red.
The bleeding eyes hadn’t lasted long, but it had well and truly put the both Missouri and the man, seasoned hunter that he was, on high alert. They spent the day looking through books, calling people and finding out that the phenomenon wasn’t exactly a one-off. Every single person Missouri spoke to with even a hint of a twinkle as she called it, anyone who was usually a good source of when the wind was blowing sour, had had exactly the same thing happen.
Bleeding eyes either dead on or around breakfast time.
“That’s when you’re son was born?” Missouri presses, asking the question for about the fourth time and Mary sighs.
“Yes, nine-thirty in the morning to be exact. Probably when you were sitting down to eggs and bacon.”
“Honey,” Missouri says. “I don’t think I have to tell you, unless that’s a big old coincidence, then that’s not exactly a good sign.” Missouri eyes Mary for a moment, frowning. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I stopped being surprised a while ago when it comes to my son,” Mary says, looking at the room the boy is still laying down in. “In nineteen-seventy three I did something that killed my parents and… doomed him.”
“Why exactly do you need the keys to hell?” Missouri asks slowly.
“Do you honestly want to know?” Mary says, and then huffs a laugh when Missouri drops her eyes. “Let’s just say that there’s a bastard who needs killing.”
“You can’t just… walk into Hell,” Missouri says.
“No, I can’t,” Mary agrees, her eyes once again returning to the darkened doorway. “Now, are you going to help me or am I wasting my time?”
Missouri swallows hard, gripping her coffee cup. Finally she looks up. “Ever since the morning blood welled like tears I’ve been waiting for you. Just didn’t know it then,” she says, standing up. “Now, I can’t tell you where to find the key to Hell, but I can tell you how to find out.”
“Sally Anderson.”
Dean looks across at Castiel. He’s been loitering around outside the motel for half an hour now waiting very patiently for Dean to stop freaking out.
“What’s that?” Castiel asks.
“First woman… first person I exorcised. Ended up in Three Oaks Mental Health Facility.”
“Oh.”
Dean is trying to sound neutral but he’s never been good at it. His emotions are too close to the surface, always have been. For all his bluster, Dean is aware that he’s someone people can usually get a read off if he’s not careful.
“Your first by yourself was bound to be rough,” Castiel says in a gentle tone. “You saved her life.”
“I saved her body but there wasn’t much mind left,” Dean grunts.
Dean looks back over his shoulder at the motel door. The girl had been eight and he’d wanted to wait for his father but he’d run out of time. He’d been reciting Latin as the demon squatting inside Sally Anderson, all freckles and pigtails, had been trying to run off the edge of a building. It’s small consolation that the girl is still alive when it’s really only her body, going through the motions.
“You’re wondering what my point is, right?” Dean assumes and Castiel tilts his head.
“Your point?”
“I’m just sayin’ that, y’know, your asking me for a favor is actually quite funny. You turning up today is hilarious. Where were you or one of your buddies when I had to drag a demon out of an eight year old girl, huh?”
“We can’t interfere, as a rule,” Castiel says and Dean snorts and rolls his eyes.
“Doesn’t stop the demons,” he says. “Where are their rules?”
“They don’t tend to have any.”
“Well that’s just perfect. Real fair,” Dean says and then holds up a finger, making a gun with his hand pointed in Castiel’s direction. “If you say life isn’t fair so help me I will shoot you in the head.”
“That wouldn’t kill me.”
“No? Well, it might make me feel just a little bit better.”
“Dean, you have every right to be angry. Most humans do. They feel abandoned but that’s the point of faith.”
‘Wow, you’re going to bible-bash me now?”
“No, I’m just saying that everything happens for a reason.”
“You just had to sneak one cliché in there, didn’t you?”
“Do you expect a return for what you do?”
Dean blinks and then folds his arms, eyes narrowed. “You mean like getting paid?”
“Not exactly,” Castiel says. “You spend your life helping others, ever since you were old enough to do so, ever since your father’s sole focus became finding your mother and brother and he gave up hunting.”
“You don’t know me. Stop trying to tell me my life story like you do,” Dean spits.
“You’ve watched your father spiral down into darkness, a darkness he can see no way out of and neither can you. You know what’s out there and you can’t not help. Did you ever wonder why that is?”
“If you’re going to start talking about some kind of calling then this conversation is really over.”
“There is a man in this world meant for either great or terrible things. He possesses a touch of the demonic and the divine. It’s the only way it would’ve been… fair, to use your word,” Castiel says, sketching in the air with his hands. “At the moment his path will make him do unforgivable, unredeemable things.”
“So why don’t you just take him out?”
“The decision isn’t made, the path isn’t one hundred percent certain. Plus, as I said, we can’t-”
“Intervene, yeah, yeah, I get it,” Dean says, waving a dismissive hand. “So you’re less omnipotent and more impotent.”
Castiel chuckles. “If you like.”
“So what do you want from me? Track him down, put a slug in his brainpan? I’m not real comfortable with being an assassin, even if it is sanctioned by the very highest power.”
“Dean, you’re meant for terrible or great things too. Unfortunately for you, the terrible may turn out to be the right thing. The man on the path, he is your brother.”
Dean out and out stares as Castiel raises a hand and gently lays it on Dean’s shoulder.
“Dean, you must stop your brother, or kill him.”
- Now - Part 2 -