Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rating and Warnings: NC17.  Minor character death (lots), major character death (it's only temporary), explicit violence, mentions of past underage prostitution.  And quite a bit of gore.

A/N:  If you're wondering if you've missed a chapter - you haven't.  This is technically Broken Ground part 3, but it's been so long since I wrote part 2 that it feels like a different story.  I also can't fathom how in the world I thought all of this would ever fit in one chapter.  Wtf, self.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
- Matthew 7:13, New International Version

Max Miller vanishes out of a state-run psychiatric facility on April 17^th 2007 without a trace.

Except, that's not entirely true.  If one were to report things as simply and as accurately as possible, the only thing anyone can really say is that Max Miller's body was not among those found at the Caro Psychiatric Facility on the outskirts of Saginaw, Michigan on the morning of April 18^th, 2007.  And there are plenty of traces, if you know what you're looking for.

Fifteen bodies in all, concentrated in the south wing of the building and if you were good at spatial puzzles you might notice which patient's room was smack dead center.  All with their throats slit, so much blood spilled out on cheap linoleum that they'll never manage to scrub it all clean, but that's a problem for another day.  There's sulfur lining the window sills, and a downed telephone pole right outside - hit by a freak lightning strike and a Hail Mary Hallelujah the only reason why it landed neatly on the lawn instead of taking out the power lines and the third floor recreation room.

Two other psych wards get hit that day, but no one makes the connection.  There's near on a thousand miles between each of them, for one thing.  The second one goes down in flames - electrical shortage, they say.  The third one, well, they're still trying to puzzle that out.  No one actually manages to get inside until about two p.m. the next day because the entire building, along with the eighty-seven souls inside, is frozen completely solid like a giant ice cube.  Rescue workers trade their fire hoses and their Jaws of Life for blowtorches and will spend the next eight days cutting through hall after hall, racking up a tally of the dead that will eventually come up one short.

The others, well, they get mixed in with the everyday tragedies.  Three female students at Wesleyan University are murdered in a suspected robbery; their fourth roommate is reported missing and never found.  A crowded apartment complex in Queens, New York catches fire in the early hours of the morning, taking the lives of eleven residents and leaving one young husband and father unaccounted for.

Over 800,000 people are reported missing in the United States every year, and three thousand people will die in residential fires.  Somewhere around 500 will be struck by lightning.  For all the studies and charts, news reports and surveys, no one ever really adds it all together.

Not unless you know what you're looking for.

*

"Who the fuck are you?" Sam says and doesn't give the slightest hint of dropping the crowbar.  It takes Dean a full minute to realize that even though he knows nearly every gory and embarrassing detail about Sammy's childhood, Sam doesn't know him from a fucking hole in the wall.

"Woah woah, calm down okay?  I'm Dean.  I know your Dad."

"Dean?"  Sam's eyes narrow.  "The kid that my Dad picked up?"

Kid?  "Dude, I'm older than you."  The only reason John gets away with that shit is because Dean can tease him right back about his gray chest hairs and needing a hip replacement whenever they've spent too many hours in the car without a chance to stretch.  "But yeah, I'm that Dean.  Now that we're all introduced you think you could maybe drop the crowbar?  Raised weapons make me nervous when they're aimed at my head."

Sam's eyes flick up to the crowbar and back to Dean.  "Christo."

Dean rolls his eyes but he gets the idea.  "Christo to you too, buddy.  Can the crowbar go down now, please?" 

*

The crowbar does go down, slowly.  Sam looks him up and down.  "Huh."

"Huh?"

"Uh, nothing.  Just I thought you'd be older, or younger or something.  My dad's not really the type to work with a partner."

"Yeah well, I guess I grew on him," says Dean.

"Any idea where we are?"

"Not a clue.  Last thing I knew I was in freaking Minnesota, then I woke up here."  One thing is pretty clear: they know it's not Gordon pulling the strings.  The guy is a damn good hunter, but it'd take some serious connections to steal both Sam and Dean from different states in broad daylight and bring them here...to what?  Is it some sort of sick game, what are they supposed to do here?  And fuck, what does that mean for Pastor Jim?  Dean hadn't seen him when he went through the house, but his car hadn't been in the garage either.  "You seen anyone else around?"

"No one.  Plenty of prints in the mud on the street outside, some of them look fresh."

Dean raises an eyebrow.  It sounds kind of hunter-joe of Sam.  Dean isn't sure what he'd been expecting, wasn't sure he'd even had any expectations at all up to this point.  He'd only ever seen Sam from a distance, heard (most likely heavily edited) stories about him from John.  But the Sam in front of him now seems different; colder, somehow.  He also looks a hell of a lot older - John had only ever talked about Sammy like he was still a kid - he talked to Dean the same way half the time.  But without the backpack and the tired college-kid slouch, Sam looks like he could take Dean out pretty easily. Dean has tricks of his own he can use, of course, but he's kind of hoping it doesn't come to that.

"So lead the way, young Padawan."

They both step outside, Sam taking point.  He spends as much time glancing back at Dean as he does looking forward.  Dean tries not to let it get to him, he'd probably react the same way if he woke up in fucking horrortown, USA and was expected to trust some dude he'd just met.  You never really trust someone until you've been put through the ringer with them anyway, gone toe-to-toe together, measured each other up in real combat.  The way this place looks, it'll happen soon enough.  A town like this was practically made to be haunted.  At the very best, they've got spirits.  At worst, who the fuck knows?

They edge around the patio on the house, past the steps and opting to swing over the railing on the side of the house, since the alley offers more cover than the main road.  

*

They make their way through the town, building by building.  They aren't doing anything more than a cursory sweep, really, checking for weapons or supplies and then moving on to the next building. The houses are old, made of sun-bleached wood that looks like it's been left to warp for a couple of decades or so, windows broken and dirt and dried leaves piling up in the doorways and corners.  Fat rats scurry around underneath the raised foundations, squeaking and scattering as soon as they hear Sam and Dean approach.  

Sam eases open a barn door with one hand and peeks inside, lets out a huff of relief.  "Jackpot," he says.

"What've we got?"

"Road salt.  It's not a shotgun, but it's better than nothing."

"Hell yeah it is."

Two large bags of it, sitting abandoned in the corner of a small storage shack filled with grain that's long since been eaten away by rats.  They trade a look and each take a bag, neither one of them really willing to risk being caught without a weapon.  Two houses down and they're nearly at the town square.  Sam is craning his neck to see around the next corner to move on to the next building, what looks like it might have been the post office back in the day, when Dean notices something he wasn't close enough to see before. 

There's a body hanging from the windmill.

Dean bumps Sam's hip with the bag of road salt and then nods up at the windmill when Sam turns around.  Sam's jaw goes tight, but he doesn't look surprised.  It's the first person they've seen and it's very definitely dead.  A woman, by the looks of it, slim body and lank hair swaying slightly in the wind.  Dean doesn't recognize her; the face is too bloated and discolored to seem human at all.  She's been up there at least a couple of days, maybe longer, and the only favor the rain has done her is that most of the birds haven't been out to scavenge.  Dean swallows.  He's seen some pretty sick shit in his time, but his head is still killing him and he's pretty sure the sight of birds picking away at the rotting flesh would send whatever food he had left in his stomach up pretty much instantly.

They should cut her down, burn the body, but it's too exposed.  Dean sure as hell doesn't want to risk going out there, not when they don't know what put her there in the first place.  Sam takes a good long look at her and then turns away.

"We've gotta keep moving," he says.

"Can't argue with that."

*

They find two more bodies in the post office, which turns out to be more like a town hall of sorts.  They're barely recognizable as human; have been here far longer than the girl on the windmill.  Their mouths hang open, jaws long since unhinged and nothing but empty, drooping sockets where the eyes should be.  Dead bodies usually don't bother Dean all that much, if they did it'd be a serious occupational issue, he thinks.  But something about these creeps him out more than it should.  Maybe it's because he can't just light them up and go, there's something wrong about knowing these people are probably trapped here, stuck by their violent deaths and Dean could set them free - but he won't.  

A fire would draw too much attention, and Dean hasn't been able to find his Bic anyway.  He's not really in the mood for all that flint and steel shit, it'd been annoying as hell to have to learn how to do it in the first place, John hovering nearby and harassing him every time he slacked off.  He never thought it would actually come in handy - he'd just make sure he always had a lighter on him.  But damn if he doesn't wish he'd practiced a little more now.  Then, if wishes were horses he'd ride the fuck outta here.

There's an iron poker lying in the dirt out behind one of the houses, so Dean ditches the yardstick and upgrades.  He swings it experimentally, trying to get the feel of it while Sam watches.  

They find a hand lying between the railings on one of the porches.  They check around the area, but can't find the rest of the body.  Sam pokes at the hand with his crowbar, flips it over to examine the painted fingernails, a small freckle near the base of the thumb.

"Anyone you recognize?"  Dean asks.

"No.  Can't hurt to check though, right?"

It's not until then that Dean realizes why the bodies bother him so much.  It isn't the bodies themselves that's the problem, it's the way Sam is reacting to them.  Dean gets it, he does, they need to keep their game faces on if they have any chance of getting out of here, but there's a difference between stoicism and stone fucking cold. 

Sam doesn't look like he's trying to cover being hurt, or scared, or nauseous.  He looks angry, more than just angry; like barely contained rage.

Dean's met guys like this before.  Hell, Gordon was just like this in those few tense moments before everything went black and Dean woke up here.  Guys like this are cold and hard as marble until they snap, taking out everything in their path, destruction incarnate.  If there was any subtle way to do it, Dean'd be out the door and off on his own again so fast it'd leave Sam's head spinning, but he can't, not really.  John gave him the chance to walk away, gave it to him every damn time they stopped in a town with a half decent motel and a bar within walking distance. 

But no.  Dean had agreed to this hunt, wanted to help find Sam and bring him home, safe.  Neither of them had really stopped to consider the possibility that Sam wasn't just in danger, he was the danger.  So Dean sticks with him, watches his back, but now he keeps his distance.

*

Three more bodies, maybe four, depending on how you count the parts.  There's no trend to the killings, at least not as far as Dean can tell.  The windmill body had been hanged, the two in the post office looked like blunt force trauma, some of the parts they'd found looked shredded - like they'd been blown up or clawed up, the bodies were in too much of a mess to tell.  Other pieces looked like they'd been cut off, quickly but cleanly.  Sam and Dean run through the list of potential monsters and come up with nothing, there's nothing that kills in all of these different ways.  Either they have a couple different evil bitches all in the same place, or they've got one very creative demon having a bit of fun.

What they don't find is any sign that anyone living has been here in a long time.  No food supplies or blankets spread out on a floor to sleep in, no campfires.  The people that were here died quickly enough that they didn't make much of a dent in their surroundings.

"I think I know where we are," Sam says out of the blue.

"You wanna share with the class?"

"Cold Oak."  Sam nods at the large bell at the end of the street.  "A town so haunted all the residents abandoned it."

"Nice to know we're somewhere so historical.  On that cheery note, I think we've got about all we're going to from this place." 

Sam looks around, eyes focused on the tree tops.  "Pick a direction?"

The sky is overcast, has been all day.  It's not raining at the moment, but it feels like it will be again sometime soon.  Dean squints up at the clouds, trying to get a read on where the fuck the sun might be.  "West?"

Sam shrugs.  "Sounds good to me."

They stick to the backs of the buildings, making their way back to the edge of town.  They race across the open ground between the last house and the cover of the trees, but nothing comes after them, at least not that Dean can tell.

*

The woods are silent.  Not quiet, not peaceful - silent.  Like every living thing is holding its breath and staying very still in anticipation.  Or maybe there's nothing living in the woods at all.  The ground is covered with dried leaves turned to mush in the rain, squelching every time either of them takes a step and it annoys the hell out of Dean.  He's not used to moving so conspicuously, not unless he means to.  He'd spent too many damn hours out in the woods with John and his crazy survival/stealth training, days and days of blindfolds and dry kindling and nothing but a bowie knife strapped to his ankle.  This isn't exactly new to him, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable or fun.

There's a sharp intake of breath and Sam stops suddenly, belatedly holding up his fist to signal a stop.  Sam's been on point, because he'd stepped out first and Dean wasn't really in the mood to argue.  Dean leans out, looking around Sam's arm to try and see what's got his guard up.  There's a person, or something that looks like it might be a person about 20 yards away, half hidden by the trees.

Sam looks back over his shoulder and meets Dean's eyes, signals with two fingers.  You go right, I'll circle around left.  Dean nods, and just barely resists rolling his eyes.  Christ, no wonder Sam and John butted heads all the time, they're both freaking bossy. 

They split up.

Dean steps from behind one tree to another, staying behind cover as much as he can.  From what Dean can see from quick glances stolen from around the trunks of trees, whatever it is they're heading towards isn't moving.

It's Nimmi.  The girl with no shadow, that Dean had last seen standing in the middle of her own apartment with her arms crossed over her chest and looking pissed.  She doesn't look pissed anymore, with her mouth hanging slack and her eyes rolled up into her head.  There's a branch stabbed right through her chest, holding her nearly upright against the tree just behind her. 

"Shit," Dean says.

"You knew her?"

"Yeah, met her once.  Shit,"  he can't help but repeat.  "She's one of us, dude."

Sam takes in the strappy heels still hanging from her limp fingers and the flowing sleeves of her shirt.  "She's a hunter?" he asks, incredulous.

"No no, she's a freaking fire kid.  Kids that the demon visited," he adds, when Sam looks like he doesn't get it.  "The ones with, you know, powers?"

Sam's eyes flick from Nimmi back to Dean.  "Shit."

"Yeah."

"You think the others we found- ?"

Dean shrugs.  Could be, but it's not like they've found enough to make a positive I.D. on anyone.

*

They move on deeper into the woods, slower now, keeping their eyes out for bodies and any other unpleasant surprises the dead terrain might have in store.  There's a whistling noise coming from somewhere off to the left, might be the wind and might be god-knows-what.  Dean keeps tabs on it, the hair on his arms pricking up in a way that makes him think it's definitely not the wind.  Sam seems to have picked up on it too, keeping his head cocked to the side listening for it.  It's irritating the hell out of Dean, the quiet and that one pathetic sound that's too far off to pinpoint.

"So about those powers," Dean says.

"Huh?"

"You got any magic tricks up your sleeve?"

Sam snorts.  "Yeah, tons."

"No, really.  I mean, if we're gonna get out of this we should probably be honest about shit, right?  I can make people do things just by talking, if I do it right.  Haven't had much practice at it though - your dad is kind of weird about it."

"Like Andy?"  Sam stops and turns around to face him.

"Never met him," Dean says, but if Andy's another fire kid, then the chances are good.  "But yeah, I guess.  So?"

"So, yeah I can do some things.  Mostly it's just these dreams, premonitions."

"And?"

"And nothing.  That's pretty much it," Sam says and Dean lets it go.  If Sam wants to hide shit that's just fine, he figures that it'll all come out eventually.

"Okay then. Lead on, John Edwa- "  The ground disappears from underneath him, gravity flips sideways and Dean hits the ground, hard.  He rolls, pushes up into a crouch and reaches out to try and find the iron poker.  He comes up with a rotting branch instead, other hand grabbing at the bag of rock salt where he dropped it.  He looks up, but can't see whatever is attacking them.  Sam is somewhere behind him, and not any better off by the sound of it.

"Did you see - ?"

"No, I got nothing," Dean yells back.  Dean's head is splitting and there's blood trickling into his right eye.  He wipes his sleeve across his face an squints up into the trees again, still crouched low.  He still can't find the damn poker but he's got a handful of salt now; it's better than nothing.

Sam grunts behind him and Dean turns just in time to see him go down.  Dean flings the salt, buys a few seconds for Sam to get back on his hands and knees.  Dean's hand finally finds the poker.  Something moves just over Sam's left shoulder, nothing solid just a slight distortion in the air, and Dean takes a swing at it.  He aim is off, balance shot to shit by the head wound and he can't tell if he got anything or not.  Sam drops and rolls away, takes a backhanded swing at the same spot with the crowbar and hits something invisible that lets out a ear-splitting shriek.

It's one down but more to go; now that Dean has time to look around there's at least six or seven more out there.  Spirits or demons, Dean can't tell, but there's too many of them to fight off with salt and iron, not when it's hard as hell to even see the fuckers.

Dean slaps at Sam's shoulder, tugs at his sleeve.  "Sam, c'mon.  We gotta go."

They're up and running in seconds, not bothering to stay quiet this time.  They pass Nimmi and the empty field, back into town and Dean kicks in the door of the first building they see.  They stumble in at the same time, and Sam drops his bag of salt to rip open the top.  Dean curses - he'd left his bag back in the woods.  They both grab handfuls of salt, leaving shaky trails of it across the floor as they cover the doors and windows with jagged lines.

Dean slumps down on the floor when they're done, presses the heel of his hand to his head to stop the pounding and the blood still lazily leaking down into his eye.  "You alive?" he asks.

Sam is craning his neck around, trying to get a look at the gash on his back and holding one arm up close to his chest.  "Alive enough, I guess.  Whatever this is - it's not going to let us leave, is it?"

"I'm thinking 'no.'"

"Great."

They barricade the door closed with a heavy oak table, careful not to break the salt lines.

*

"Your - uh, your dad was at Bobby's when you got snatched, right?  He was okay?"

Sam is poking at the frayed edges of the makeshift bandage on his wrist.  He looks up.  "He was fine.  I was off ditching the car, then we were going to go find you."

"Well, bang up job on that."

Sam gives him a half-hearted grin, but he nods.  "Dad'll find us."

"How?  We're in freaking Frontierland and he hasn't slept in like a week."

"What happened?"

"We've been looking for you, dumbass.  He must be so fucking pissed now we're both missing, I mean, if he's noticed."

"It's been like ten hours, plus however long we were passed out.  He's definitely noticed by now."

"I meant me, but whatever.  Shit, I hope Pastor Jim is okay."

They sit in silence, listening as every once in a while the spirits or the wind pound at the door and then retreat.  Dean's eyes keep slipping closed and he sits up as straight as he can to try and stay awake.  Sam sees him jumping every time he wakes up, and eventually offers to take first watch so Dean can sleep for a bit.  Dean's asleep before Sam even finishes making the offer.

*

"You're right, you know," it says, picking up in the middle of a conversation that Dean can't remember.  "Sammy is missing, and that's priority one for John.  Always will be.  I wouldn't worry about it.  He'll notice you were gone when he finds you."

"Whatever."

"Aw now, don't be that way.  You're in second place, after all."  It pauses, scratches its chin like it's thinking.  "Maybe fourth.  There's Mary to consider, and his little obsession with killing me.  John is a busy man."

"And what, you think I'm jealous?  Sorry asshole, I'm not that needy."

"Oh I know you're stronger than that, Dean.  Trust me, I don't waste my time with the whiners.  But it does get old after a while,  doesn't it?  Always second place, always tagging along with someone else.  Going where they want to go, what they want to do.  It's always 'this far and no further,' that's what it's like with John, isn't it?"

"We help people.  What the hell have you ever done?  Oh yeah, nothing good, because you're a sick bastard that goes after little kids and their moms."

The demon waves it off.  "Collateral damage, what can you do?  If your mother and father had just followed directions like good little idiots they would've survived.  Pity they didn't, but you can't blame me for that."

"Fuck you, yes I can."

"I'm just saying.  If you ever want to stop being the cheap trick that always gets left behind, you just let me know.  We can work something out."  It winks.

Dean wakes up.

*

They're not really all that rested, but it's morning and they're both itching to get out of the damn building.  The problem is that there's nowhere to go - Dean is almost certain there'll be another nasty surprise waiting for them if they try to go a different direction.

"We could look through the town again, see if we missed something?" Dean suggests.

"Like a full service diner and a stocked weapons cellar?"

"Yeah, that would be awesome."

They get up slowly, stretch out all the kinks in their muscles from sleeping on the hard floor.  Sam unwraps his wrist and flexes it experimentally.  The swelling has gone down a bit,  but he winces when he tries to bend it back and shakes his head.  He re-wraps it and hoists the crowbar in his other hand.  Dean grabs the poker and the salt, they're down to one bag now. 

Sam lets Dean take point and they go through the town more slowly this time, kicking on the floorboards and knocking on walls to check for hidden cellars.  Sam finds a couple of mystery cans with faded, unreadable labels left in the back of a kitchen cupboard.  There's no way to tell how old they are, but the cans look undamaged.  Dean takes the crowbar and pries holes in the tops, and they move on eating mouthfuls of cold beans and creamed corn.  It's disgusting, and Dean keeps licking his lips to try and get the taste off his tongue.

"So how'd you end up hunting with dad?"

"Ran into him a couple of years ago, I had a freaking incubus spirit attached to me.  We got rid of the thing and then I dunno, I just never left."

"Yeah?  How'd he figure out you had something after you?"

"I don't know, your dad is kind of a freak like that.  What's it to you?"

"Just talking." 

Except they're not just talking, because Sam drops it after that and keeps shooting him these sidelong looks.  Dean doesn't know what the hell is up, but they've got other things to worry about.

*

They're not even out of the town yet when the demons attack. 

Down the street, what's left of the windows in each of the buildings explode one by one.  Something slams into them like a sonic wave, nearly knocking Sam and Dean off their feet, weapons and salt clattering to the ground and the sky above them goes dark.  A thin stream of salt pours out of the bag, twisting and curling in the wind but it's nowhere near enough to ward off what's coming.  Dean reaches for the bag and is immediately thrown back, yanked around by his collar and left sprawled in the street.

"Where're they coming from?" Sam's back up already, crowbar held up with one hand and the other held out in front of him.

"I dunno!" Dean yells back, counts the salt as a loss for now and goes for his own weapon.  "Does it really matter?  How the fuck do we get rid of them?"

The demons are swirling around them, close enough that Dean can feel them brushing by, cutting.  The gash in his forehead has opened again, blood dripping down and making his right eye useless.  He squints through the wind and smoke and dust flying around.  Sam yells something behind him and goes charging off down one of the alleyways, Dean turns just in time to see his jacket disappearing around the corner.

"Sam!"  He yells and runs after, right past the bag of salt - now completely empty.  He doesn't stop to wonder about it.  At the very end of the alley, just barely visible,  is a figure standing completely still.  A thick wall of smoke flows down over the roofs of the buildings and forms between them and the figure, just as Dean sees it reach up with both hands to press on either side of its head.  Sam stops dead in front of him, mere feet away from the roiling wall of smoke and reaches out. 

There's a moment where everything seems frozen in place, and Dean is stuck ten yards away trying to figure out if it's faster to fight their way through the smoke or circle around the back.  Something shifts...a dark shadow appears just to the left of where Sam is standing, except there's no open ground there, just a window. 

The buildings on either side of them explode.

*

Dean's head is ringing, swimming.  He reaches out with one hand and hits broken planks of wood, pushes them aside and eventually feels cold mud underneath him.  He pushes himself up, rubble, wood, and ceiling shingles tumbling off of him as he makes his way upright.  Everything is silent again, or maybe his hearing is just shot to shit - he can't tell yet.  He tries to snap his fingers and hears nothing, pats himself down to check for missing bits and finds everything mostly intact.  He's got cuts and scrapes all over, too many and hopefully too minor to deal with just yet.  Without the buildings around any more it's hard to get his bearings, but he examines the area where he thinks he last saw Sam.

Something is moving over in that direction, and Dean sees a hand pop up.  "Sam, you okay?"  His voice sounds muted to own ears.

He hears something vague in response, that he chooses to take as 'Yeah, I'm totally fine.  No worries.'  The worst of the blast seemed to be farther down the alley, nothing left there but a smoking crater.  The rubble by Sam shifts again, he seems to be making his way out on his own okay.  Dean looks around again.  The demons, the dark clouds, the crazy wind, all of it seems to have vanished.  What the fuck happened?

When he turns around again, Sam is standing up mostly straight, head clutched in his hands.   Shit, concussion, Dean thinks.  He starts to pick his way over to Sam, slipping in the mud and the precariously balanced piles of rubble.  Off to the left the a pile shifts, settling.  Dean doesn't pay enough attention to notice there's another figure standing up.  "Hey, Sam!  You alright over there?" he asks again.

"I'm good, just a little - "  Sam is turning around when it happens.  Broken planks of wood, shards of glass, broken concrete from the foundations all levitate upwards at once.  The explosion reversing itself, or it kind of looks like it is.  The pieces tremble in mid-air, look like they're going to drop again but then they rally.  The largest pieces start flying straight at Sam.

" SAM! " Dean yells, voice breaking on it, throat clogged with dirt and soot.  Sam starts to duck, but there's no chance.  Dean doesn't make it in time.  Dark specks of blood fly from Sam's lips and he sucks in a deep breath, eyes wide with shock.  His brows knit together, reaching behind him, trying to figure it out.  He twists, falls to his knees and Dean finally sees it - a wide piece of glass is sticking out of his back, embedded deep and stained with blood.  Dean hears quick footsteps, someone running away - fast.  Good.  He'll fucking deal with that later.

"M-uh," Sam tries to speak but runs out of breath.

Dean reaches him just before he goes down, grabs his jacket in both hands because for some reason it's fucking critical that Sam stay upright.  "Hey, it's okay.  It's not that bad, this is nothing.  Right?"  

Sam's eyes close.  "Sam, answer me, c'mon Sammy -"  Dean gives Sam a shake, watches as his head lolls on his shoulders.  Dean pulls Sam in and looks down his back.  The blood is slowing, and that's good, the glass is blocking the wound.  Except that doesn't make sense, because the glass in his fucking spine, and Dean doesn't need to be a doctor to figure that shit out.  He presses his fingers to Sam's neck just under his chin, feeling for a pulse.  There's nothing.

*

“I don’t care where they aren’t ,  Bobby.  The demon snatches two hunters in broad daylight and no one has a goddamn lead?”

“Don’t you go yelling at me, I’m trying to help you.  And you ain’t got many friends, not that I need to remind you of that.”

Bobby looks run ragged, and John knows he isn’t doing much better.  There’s no reason for him to be doing much better.  Sam’s gone, Dean’s gone, and there’s no damn sign of the demon anywhere that he can track down.

“Supernatural crap’s gone quiet, all over the country.  I don’t know what to tell you, John.”  Bobby’s got his hat off and is rubbing his head, still watching John like he expects him to explode any moment.  John wants to, feels like his head might splatter the walls any second if only he could work up the energy for it.

“There’s gotta be something,” he says.  They’ve been going round and round with this for a while now,  neither one of them coming up with anything new.

“Well...” Bobby says and John’s head snaps up again.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna like it.  You said Sam’s got powers, now I don’t know if he’s strong enough to count but we can try.  There’re spells we can use to track down supernatural creatures.”

“My son is not a creature . ”

“You wanna try it, or you wanna sit around and argue semantics?”

Fear and pride war against each other for precious seconds.  Fear wins out.  “Fine.”

Bobby clears off his living room table, which looks like it hasn’t seen daylight in a decade or so, and John copies out a pattern of sigils in grease pencil.  They lay out the biggest map of the U.S. Bobby can find in his house and set it on top.  They light candles and say the words, but when they try to scry for Sam the crystal goes around and around.  It never sets down on one location.

“Worth a shot,” Bobby says.

“Try Dean,” John insists.  The place where Sam’d been taken from had demon written all over it, and Dean isn’t answering his damn phone.  Dollars to donuts, John is willing to bet whatever the fuck is going on it’s got to be the demon, and it’s probably taken them both.  This is their only lead right now; he’s not willing to give it up just yet.

Bobby reads off the words again, slower this time, like he doesn’t expect it to work.  The crystal drops down right away.

Bobby leans over and peers down at the map.  “Well shit.”  Then he walks off to switch the lights back on.

John picks up the crystal and looks at the map, then curses too.  Dean's in Cold Oak.  Jesus.  

*

Dean blinks, one second and the next disjointed and time skipping around out of order.  He’s not sure how long he’s been crouched on the ground clutching Sam’s jacket before the demon shows up again.

“Now, I’m not a doctor but I’m pretty sure our Sammy is good and dead by now.”  It tips its head sideways, considering.  “Definitely dead.  Shame, but that’s why we keep the heir and spare around, right, Dean-o?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”  Dean says, but he doesn’t feel the words coming out.  Everything feels numb, like Sam being gone cut the only cord keeping him anchored.  He hasn't been alone in years; he's forgotten what it felt like.

“I only really need one of you.  Two is nice, and I always like to play it safe.  But I’ve got enough grunts on the ground, or I will soon enough.  I need a leader, someone strong enough to take command.  And to be honest with you, my money was on Sammy.  Now I’m down to just young Maxwell, and you.  Max is a clever boy, strong enough in his own way, but he’s too much of a coward for my tastes.  I’d rather have you, if you catch my drift.”

“Tough luck, you’re not getting me.  Kill me or let me go, ‘cause there’s no fucking way I’m working for you.”

“Oh come on now, like you’ve never negotiated with a mark.  You’re forgetting, I know you, Dean.  I’ve known you a whole lot longer than John has, longer than anyone.  How long have we played this game?  Prove to me that you’re worth it, prove to me that you’re smart, that you’re strong.  Because you can either die right here or you can do exactly what I tell you.”

And just like that Dean remembers being five, swiping a snack pack of cookies from the cafeteria right when the lunch lady had turned her back.  In a bar at thirteen, hands going from shaky and sweaty to rock solid calm through sheer strength of will, running his first poker game hustle.  Pulling himself together after his first trick.   Prove to me that you’re smart, that you’re strong.  The same voice that taunted and cajoled to get him off the ground five years ago and propelled him into a rundown bar to try to score a wallet or a trick for some food.

Dean’s fingers feel like ice as he pries them away from Sam’s jacket.  Sam’s body tips over slowly, no hands raised to break its fall, no change in his expression.  Prove to me that you’re worth it.

“What do you want from me?” he says.

Chapter Text

The Impala whines and skids her way through the sorry dirt path that passes for a road, rain slick and uneven and not at all meant to be traveled on at the speeds John is clocking. He could care less. He’s got coordinates for Dean and maybe (maybe) ones for Sam as well, and they’re growing colder every minute that he’s not there already.

He calls Bobby.

“Run it again.”

“He’s not there?”

“I haven’t checked yet, I want to make sure they haven’t moved. Do it again.”

Bobby mutters and curses, but there are sounds in the background like maybe he’s setting it up. John stays on the line, phone tucked up against one shoulder and both hands white knuckled on the wheel.

“Still nothing on Sam but it looks like Dean is in the same place. Don’t call again unless you’ve got news, I’m trying to figure this crap out and you’re tying up my phone lines.”

“Got it. Thanks,” he mutters as he hangs up. Bobby’s a good guy but even his friendship only extends so far.

He stops outside of the town, beyond the tree line because he’s in a rush but he’s not stupid. He checks himself and his supplies, hands running on autopilot, routines he’s done a million times before. Checks the shotgun, the shells, his blades. Tighten the holsters; don’t worry about why Sam’s location isn’t showing up for Bobby’s mojo spell. He scans the surrounding area, checks his location on the map and heads out.

The town is empty, abandoned for decades, none of which surprises John. He thinks about Sam and Dean waking up here two days ago, possibly hurt, maybe still armed but it’s just as likely they’re not. It’s just as likely they’re not even here together, but that’s not really worth wasting time thinking about. He knows his boys. Find the high ground, he thinks. Find weapons, find shelter.

The thing is, there is no high ground here. Or at least, none that’s safe and stable enough to provide any kind of advantage. Most of the rooftops are caving in, and it looks like a few buildings father down have collapsed completely. He finds bodies and parts of bodies, examines one after another with clinical efficiency. Freckle on that hand, fingers too short to be Dean’s. Skin too light to be Sam’s. So it goes.

It’s not until he’s standing at the very edge of one of the collapsed buildings that he realizes it’s not simply collapsed. The building is completely destroyed, along with three others that were nearby, nothing left but rubble and a crater. There’s a lump of fabric about halfway to the epicenter; another body to check off the list.

He steps carefully, keeps low because even though he hasn’t heard or seen a damn thing move since he got here, there’s no point drawing attention to himself if he doesn’t have to. The rubble is all lightly packed, too recently destroyed to have settled down to anything even remotely stable. His knees are killing him and his back aches - too long without rest, but everything else feels sharp. The adrenaline rush will see him through, he knows, though he’ll pay for it later. (Dean’ll laugh his ass off and call him an old man, and John’ll ask if he’s actually managed to grow any chest hair yet.) Just as soon as they get through this shit.

He recognizes Sam’s shirt before he recognizes anything else.

There’s Sam’s hair, ridiculous and long despite all the times John’d told himself it was just a phase. Sam's head and neck are stiff, frozen solid in the cold. Not frozen. Rigor Mortis. The phrase hits him before the implications do. He fights it, distracts himself with wiping Sam’s hair out of his eyes, shaking his shoulders, slapping his face. Sam doesn’t wake up. Somewhere deep inside John knows he won’t, but he can’t stop trying. Shakes him. Calls his name. Feels for a pulse. Pries open his eyes, one at a time.

It’s the eyes that do it. Maybe the eyes or maybe the time it takes to get to that desperate point where he’s leaning over and panting, pushing the eyelid down and then pulling it back up again to stare at the complete lack of reaction in Sam's pupils. Sammy’s eyes, blank and dead to the world.

*

The road is innocuous enough, barely wide enough for two lanes and completely deserted. Dean is expecting an ambush, an attack, more dead bodies hanging from trees in bits and pieces. Anything. He runs
back over the demon’s instructions in his head, double checks it against his memory. He’s at point B after a quick side trip to pick up a few necessities, but there’s nothing else here.

The wind shifts, and Dean actually feels the pressure drop directly behind him. He turns.

“Hiya, Dean. I wasn’t entirely sure you’d show, thought you’d go running back to daddy. Oh but wait, it’d be hard to explain about Sam. I wouldn’t worry about it anymore. John just found the body.”

Dean takes a quick step back, shaking his head and trying his best to make his fury look like fear. It’s not entirely a front, but he can’t afford to crack right now.

It leans in like it’s about to step forward and then stops. The demon cocks its head and grins. “I don’t fall for parlour tricks, kiddo.” Impossibly bright yellow eyes flick down to the ground and then back up. Busted. He’d covered the trap with leaves and dirt, fast as he could without knowing how much time he’d have. Apparently not well covered enough.

“Here’s the thing. I like you, I really do, so you get one more chance. You also get this.” It holds out an old antique gun. “The Colt John’s been wetting his panties over. Rumor has it this thing can actually kill me,” it says, looking over the gun and with disinterest like it’s talking about the weather.

Dean takes the gun, points and shoots without really bothering to hope. The empty chamber clicks over and the demon grins.

“I’m shocked. So shocked that I took the precaution of sending the bullets on ahead of you.”

“And what the hell does that mean?”

“What that means is you need the bullets to open the door, but I’m not enough of an idiot to give them to you just like that. And to be honest I haven’t really been too impressed with your performance so far. I had high hopes for Ava, but she and Sammy struck out too quickly, big upset there, but Max was a pleasant surprise. You? You I’m still wondering about.” It shrugs. “Max’ll meet you at the gate. You two play nice and open the door, and what happens next is entirely up to you.”

“Yeah, and what’s in it for me?”

“I’ll let you live.”

“I think we both know I’m gonna need a little more than that.”

“Tough customer. Alright then, I’ll...bring your parents back.”

Yeah right, Dean thinks. He’s hunted down necromancers before, seen more than enough seriously dark shit to last a lifetime. “Zombie mom and dad? I’ll take a pass on that one.”

The demon’s mouth curls down in disgust, eyes hard and threatening. “You know, I could always just kill you and use Max instead.”

“Then why haven’t you?” It doesn’t answer and Dean relaxes a fraction. “Yeah, I thought so. See when we found Max he was in a heavy duty looney-bin lock up. I’m thinking you can’t exactly rely on him. You need me. So what do I get out of it?”

Dean is half-convinced he can hear the demon’s teeth grinding in the silence that follows.

When it talks, each word is clipped and hard. “What do you want?”

*

“I want to make a deal.”

“John Winchester, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” She’s petite and pale, dark hair and even darker eyes.

“Bring him back,” he can’t put it any more bluntly than that. Can’t say his name, his thoughts are running in a tangled loop of bad euphemisms and last second detours.

Her expression softens and she shakes her head. “Can’t do it. I’m sorry John, some things just aren’t allowed.”

“I’m not an idiot, sweetheart. Everything is allowed if you pay the right price.”

“So I guess the question is, how much are you willing to pay?”

He lifts up the shotgun. It’s not enough to kill but it’ll hurt like a bitch. “Don’t play games with me. I know how this works, and I know what’s on the table. You can’t make the deal, fine, then I want to talk to your boss.”

“You’re not listening. I can’t give you the standard deal. Curing some poor schmuck’s cancer and handing out money like party favors is one thing, but bringing someone back from the dead? I can’t just offer you the usual payment plan.” She turns to walk away.

He flicks the safety off with an audible clack. “How long?”

She turns back, lips pressed together and her eyes look slightly wet. Almost like she’s actually sad. “I can give you one year. Sam comes back, good as new, and you get one year to say goodbye to your boys.”

There was a time when John had thought of his death as just finishing off what the demon had started when Mary died. Then his thoughts would stop mid-stride; Sam would be hungry or cold or he’d turn over in his sleep and John would hate himself. Sam is all grown up now, he can take care of himself, and Dean...if Dean’s still out there somewhere then he’ll be fine. John will make sure of it. But he can’t do that until he fixes this.

“One year. You bring Sam back, safe and whole and healthy, and you get me in one year.”

She grins, wide and genuinely happy. The perfect saleswoman. “We have a deal.” The smiles fades just as quickly as it appeared. “Try to weasel your way out of it and your boy drops dead, just so you understand.”

John nods. Swallows down his bile and leans in for a kiss.

*

Bobby Singer has exactly seven phone lines in his house, five for agency covers with small stacks of heavily thumbed cheat cards pinned to the wall just underneath, one for the neighbors and one that’s bright red with an old rotary dial - a gag gift from Jim Murphy from about ten years back. It’s perched on top of a four and a half foot pile of Sumerian codexes and Motor Trends magazines.

He has internet, dial-up because the other kind isn’t available out this far and all he uses it for is ordering parts and sometimes entertainment when he’s three sheets to the wind and when he can’t sleep, he clicks through one hack paranormal website after the next and sprays whiskey on the keyboard every time he snorts with laughter.

None of it is doing him any good at the moment. John stopped answering his phone about two hours back and all he’s gotten since is a seventeen second long voicemail message full of static and enough EVP to set every hair still left on his head on end.

The red phone rings.

“Yeah?”

“I got something.” It’s the kid over at Ellen’s place, the computer genius. He sounds hyped up but Bobby can’t tell if that’s the drugs or the intel talking.

“Something like what?”

“I can’t talk over this line, you need to come down. This is some serious shit, man.”

The kid still sounds high as kite, but everyone deals with their nerves differently. He’s pretty sure Ash is too smart to bug out over nothing, even if he was doped up to hell.

*

Sam wakes up cold. He’s used to waking up from visions, nightmares, all kinds of strange dreams but this is different. One second nothing - dead silence, and the next minute he’s awake. Did he hit his head?

“Sam?”

It takes a while to open his eyes, because he’s done this before and if he does have a concussion he knows this next part is going to hurt like hell. He opens them in increments, eyelids fluttering open and closed, tiny slices of light making their way through in intervals, like a stop motion camera. He gets them all the way open and braces himself for pain that doesn’t come. He’s still cold, but otherwise he’s fine.

“Sam,” the voice above him says more insistently.

He swallows a few times, working some moisture back down his throat before he can speak. “Wha-?”

He sits up and looks around. Tumbling down buildings with old cracked foundations, shrapnel and chunks of sun-bleached wood all around him. Cold Oak. John is crouched over him, looking pale and serious and like he’s gone way too damn long without a shave. Sam looks around again.

“Dean?”

John shakes his head. “He’s not here.”

“Where - ” Sam stops. “He was here. Dad, it was here.”

“The demon?” He doesn’t look surprised. “Gone now, by the looks of it. Lets get out of here. You okay? I mean, you feel okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sam leans back, pushes himself to his feet. John won’t stop patting at his shoulders and arms, leaning around to check his back.

John gives him a long look. “It took you a while to wake up.”

“Something happened, “ Sam starts to say and then turns around, sees the small crater behind him. “Ava.”

John looks over too. “Any civilians we need to check for?”

Sam bites down on his bottom lip, hard. “Not anymore.”

*

Bobby's nerves have been frayed and overactive ever since he'd seen John walk through the door three days ago looking like hell. Over the years he'd seen John in some pretty bad states, but nothing like now - wired up tight and snapping, moving around all the time like if he stopped he'd just collapse on the spot.

It gets to Bobby in a way that other things don't; Bobby's been in this business long enough to know no matter what happens you have to focus on what's in front of you. He can deal with the boys gone missing and the supernatural world going silent, at least as well as he deals with anything these days. He can't deal with John Winchester walking around like he's dead already and just hasn't managed to figure it out yet. Which is why when Ellen sneaks up through the back way he almost shoots her with the .45 he's got stashed underneath the dash of his truck.

"Ellen?" He blurts out, finger still a hair's breadth away from the trigger.

"Shit," she says.

A shot of holy water and a couple shots of whiskey later she leans back against the hood of an old Firebird and looks him up and down. "Roadhouse is gone. Blew out right down to the foundations."

He swallows dryly. "Jo?"

"Off somewhere in Nevada. She damn well better be safe."

"Some bad crap is going down."

She raises an eyebrow. "You think?"

"You got any leads on this thing?"

"Just what Ash found before - " Ellen looks away quickly. "This was in the lock box under the bar." She pulls out a rumpled bundle of papers and a badly folded map. They've got work to do.

*

Dean is walking alone through a cemetery in the middle of the night, and he's fully aware of how fucked up it is that he's completely comfortable with that. It's too old and too far from town to have attracted the attention of teenagers looking for a place to hang out, either that or something else is keeping them away. The hair on the back of his arms is standing up; has been since the demon showed up to chat the last time. He's fucked. He's got the gun and no bullets, and no idea where the demon is. Max must be out there, somewhere nearby or at least headed towards him right now. The kid killed Sam with his freaking mind, and Dean's fought some pretty rough ones in the past few years but he's not so sure he’ll be able to take out Max. Not if 'take out' means what he thinks it does.

And that's what worries him now. He's not afraid that he can't, every time he touches his hands together he can feel something crackle across his palms and the wind around him seems to be moving in a way that he doesn't want to think about too much. It's not that he can't. It's that he wonders if he won't.

He takes a wide circle around the tomb - the gate - if what the demon said is right, sticking close to the lopsided grave markers and looking for any signs of movement. Max is huddled against one corner of the tomb, looking around and pulling his hands out of his pockets every few seconds to wipe them down the front of his pants. Nerves.

Great, Dean thinks. The only thing he needs right now is for Max to get a little trigger happy with the telekinesis. There's no glass here to stab him in the back, but there's plenty of rocks and broken stones lying around. Not to mention the gun. Dean tucks the Colt away in the back of his jeans and pulls his shirt down to cover it. He takes a deep breath and stands up straight, hands open in front of him

"Hey."

Max's head whips around and he backs up a couple of steps as soon as he spots Dean. Not a particularly good start, but hey, no one's dead yet.

"You- you got the gun?"

"Yeah, I got the gun. But lets talk about this a bit. We don't have to do what it says, you know."

Max lifts his head, juts his chin out. "What if I want to?"

"You want to open that thing?" Dean nods at the gate. "We don't know what's in there, what'll happen when that shit gets out. Think about it, if it wants what's inside there so bad, why doesn't it open the gate for itself? You know why. Either because it can't, or because whatever comes out is seriously bad news and we shouldn't be anywhere near it."

Max's eyes slide back to look at the gate. "We'll be fine. He said we would."

"And why should we believe him? Look, he needs us to open the gate and that gives us some bargaining chips, right? We don't have to do what he says." Maybe if he says it enough, it'll be true. "We can both get out of this."

Max looks directly at him. "That's not what he said." Max lifts his hand and Dean feels the Colt tugged out of his jeans, a second later he's flying backwards and tumbling down. He pants on the ground, stunned and trying to get air back in his lungs.

The wind shifts abruptly above him, whipping upwards and sending leaves and dead flowers flying. "Max!" he tries to yell through the noise, but he can barely hear it himself. Dean pushes himself up, the world tilting around him, just in time to see the gun slide home in the gate. Cogs turn, the lock clicks open with an earth-shattering snap, and the doors creak open. For that first breathless second, Dean thinks nothing will come out; show's over. Then the doors slam wide, pushed open by a thick cloud of roiling black smoke that speeds out into the night, up into the sky and off to god knows where.

The force of it sends Max stumbling back, staring up at the sky, dazed.

Dean crawls forward, fighting the wind and the smoke for every inch. Around the back of the doors, it's not as bad here, and he pulls the gun out of the lock with more care than he probably needs to. Checks the rounds in the chamber almost on autopilot. Two bullets left. Gotta make them count.

Because Max isn't alone anymore.

Cold washes over him and Dean doesn't need to see its eyes before he knows it's Yellow Eyes. It's standing just beyond Max, head cocked to the side and eyes fixed on the open gate and the rush of demons still pouring out of it. Dean doesn't stand a chance of closing it with the demon and Max standing right there.

The demon is talking to Max now, one hand clamped down on his shoulder and grinning widely. It's too far away for Dean to hear. He slumps back against the door, head hanging and eyes fixed on the ground. He can't focus, and it's hard to breathe. The stone at his back is shuddering and the world tips and sways. He checks the gun one last time, hands numb but surprisingly steady.

He looks around the corner again. Yellow Eyes is standing right at the mouth of the gate, arms spread and smoke swirling around his body like a living cloak. Max is just off to the side, standing slack-jawed and pale, barely five steps from where Dean is crouched. Just as Dean lifts the colt he sees Max jerk forward and drop to the ground. The demon whips around to look, and Dean fires.

It's shockingly routine, sighting down the barrel and taking his shot. He sees the bullet hit its mark, a blossom of blood and smoke forms dead center on its forehead. Its whole body flashes and contracts, eyes wide and shocked. There are bodies moving somewhere in the distance, indistinct but approaching fast. Shit, the demon brought backup.

He's got the gate to close and one bullet left, but he can't pull himself together enough to move. He stumbles around the corner and leans all his body weight against the door, face pressed to the cold stone. It feels unexpectedly good. Whatever's coming towards him is closer now, close enough that Dean can hear them running; their boots hitting the ground with an eerily empty sound.

"Dean!" he hears and he's pretty sure he’s imagining it.

The door shifts, and the gate slams shut suddenly. He turns just in time to feel hands grab his shoulders, catching him as he crumples to the ground. It's John.

Dean leans off to the side and vomits.

*

Dean doesn't remember much about the walk back to the car. There are hands on his face, cupped under his jaw and then palming at his forehead, running through his hair. The fingers hit a tender spot and white-hot pain lances through Dean's head. He pushes away from the the hands, leans against the stone behind him and tries very hard to stay completely still.

He only gets a few seconds of peace though. Soon enough the hands are back, grabbing him under his arms and hauling him up. He stumbles along with it, tucked up against the familiar leather of John's jacket.

"Did I get it? Is it -?" he asks over and over, his thoughts jumbled and his throat feels thick and sore with bile.

He feels John's head nod against the top of his head. "Yeah kid, you got it. You're good, we're all good."

John keeps talking, but Dean doesn't hear it. Eventually he hears a car door open and he's pushed down and bundled into the back seat. His head hasn't stopped pounding and his stomach is heaving; he'd be throwing up again if he had anything left in his stomach. He hopes to god they aren't going to be driving anywhere any time soon. No way he can handle that much movement.

John is gone for what feels like forever, leaving Dean stuck in the back seat, curled up and miserable.

*

The drive back is an endless trial of bumps and turns, the hum of the engine just as nauseating as it is comforting. He drifts in and out of consciousness, John calls out from the front every so often, trying to keep him awake. Dean grunts back, garbled responses that he loses track of before he's even closed his mouth. He can still taste blood and sulfur, thick and gritty on his tongue.

There's someone else in the car, a low voice that talks almost constantly, only occasionally interrupted with short questions from John. Dean can't dredge up enough energy to follow the conversation; he just closes his eyes and drifts along, hoping that the car will stop moving soon.

Eventually it does. He stumbles out and a hand on his back guides him up a few steps and inside. Minutes later he's passed out on the couch with a cold pack wedged against the side of his head and John's hand kneading hard at the back of his neck.

*

Dean wakes up alone. It’s either late in the afternoon or very early morning, the only light coming through the dirty windows and old curtains is orange and dim. There’s a tall glass of lukewarm water sitting on top of a stack of papers piled on the coffee table, along with a couple of Ibuprofen that he drops a couple of times before successfully maneuvering them into his mouth. His head is still pounding, but better than it was last night, ...the night before? His duffel bag is stashed half under the couch - salt, fake IDs, a few weapons and a change of clothes. He can’t tell how long it’s been.

Dean’s stomach is gnawing at him, his eyes feel like they’ve been filled with sand and every muscle aches. He stands up slowly, moving like he’s seventy. He peaks out one of the windows and sees the salvage yard, pieces of memory start to reassemble. Bobby’s. Bobby must have been the other voice in the car.

He hits the bathroom first. Takes a piss while he waits for the shower to heat up and then steps in to scrub off three days of blood and dirt and sulfur and god knows what else from his skin. The heat helps loosen his muscles, he rolls his shoulders and stretches out in the shower stall, checking himself for injuries. He’s got a fresh assortment of bruises and cuts, dark blue and red smudges decorating his body that won’t wash away. The lump on his head is still there, but the swelling’s gone done and it’s not throbbing with pain anymore.

He’s okay. He can’t believe he’s actually okay.

He dries off with his undershirt and changes, kicks the dirty clothes back in the duffel. He can deal with them later. He doesn’t feel fully dressed until he’s got his knife strapped inside his boot and his gun tucked back in his pants. The demon took his fucking holster when it dropped him in Cold Oak and he doesn’t have a spare in the bag.

Bobby’s in the kitchen cleaning a double barrel shotgun, rags and oil and gun parts spread out over the table. He looks up when Dean walks in and nods. Dean’s not really up for talking either - he nods back and grabs a family size bag of chips from the stash on top of the fridge. Bobby doesn’t object and Dean takes it as permission.

He’s just started crunching his way through his first mouthful when he looks up and sees Sam standing in the doorway. He stops chewing.

Sam gives a kind of awkward half-grin. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Dean mumbles back through the chips. He swallows. “Uh.” His eyes flick from Sam to Bobby and back again.

Bobby just looks confused. “What?”

“Nothing.” Dean looks back at Sam. “Good to see you’re okay, I guess.”

“Yeah, you too. I wanted to say - I mean. I’m sorry about being all suspicious when we were out there. Dad trusts you, and you killed it. So uh, thanks.”

Dean is still stuck on wondering how the fuck Sam is standing here in front of him. “Not really sure I was doing it for you, but yeah, thanks. For having my back out in Cold Oak, I mean. Your dad, is he -?”

“He’s around somewhere,” Bobby speaks up. “Out in the yard, probably drinking himself into needing a new liver.”

Dean beats a hasty retreat after that, mouth working on autopilot - saying something about ‘yeah, sounds like him’ and ‘I’m gonna go find - .’ Sam and Bobby both look a little perplexed, but they don’t try to stop him.

*

Sammy is alive, he thinks. Sam was definitely dead, he thinks. Dean saw the shard of glass go straight into his back, right through the spine and god knows what else. He felt for a damn pulse, he checked. He was so sure. He must’ve been wrong. Except he knows he isn’t.

He walks around the salvage yard for twenty minutes before he finds John sitting in the back of an old Ford pickup with more rust on it than paint. There’s a mostly empty bottle of vodka lying on its side at John’s feet, the last few mouthfuls just barely staying inside.

“What’d you do?”

John looks up blankly and nudges the bottle over to Dean with his foot. Dean picks up, takes the last swig even though he probably shouldn’t and wipes his mouth off on his sleeve. He drops the bottle.

“What did you do?”

“Dean - ”

“Sam was dead. I saw it happen. And don’t get me wrong I’m glad he’s alive, but we both know shit like that doesn’t come without a price. So what did you do, and just how much shit are we in?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Dean eyebrows shoot up. “You pulled some heavy duty necromancy crap to bring Sam back to life and it’s ‘nothing I need to worry about?’ Exactly how stupid do you think I am? ‘Cause I’d really like to know.”

John’s jaw clenches, and his eyes meet Dean’s straight on for the first time. “I made a deal. And I’m the only one who has to pay it. It’s not your problem, Dean.”

“A deal for what?”

“This isn’t about -”

“A deal for what? Your life, your soul? Are you working for the other team now, ones of hell’s bitches? Shit like that doesn’t come without a really fucking high price tag, and we both know it.”

“Do we have to do this right now?”

Dean breathes out slowly, unballs his fists. He climbs up onto the truck bed and takes a seat next to John, offering up the now thoroughly mangled bag of chips. John pulls out a flask from somewhere behind his back and they pass it back and forth in silence. Dean’s almost given up hope of getting a straight answer when John speaks.

“I made a deal. When I die,” he stops there, glances over at Dean like he’s expecting a challenge. “When I die, they get my soul.”

“Shit.”

John snorts. “Yeah, well.”

“Does Sam know?”

“No. And we’re not gonna tell him. Got it?”

“Yessir.”

John swears and his head thunks against the back window of the truck. “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever fucking do that again.”

Dean tips his head to the side and can’t hold back a grin. “What, call you sir?”

“No, smartass. Go missing.” John reaches out to smack him but thinks the better of it at the last second. His hand drops the back of Dean’s head, curled into the neck of his t-shirt. “Pull that shit ever again and I’m tying to you to the fucking car.”

“Kinky.”

“Shut up.”

Dean leans back into the touch, remembering the feel of John’s hand on his neck last night. “Sam’s going to figure it out eventually, you know. Aren’t you always talking about how smart he is? You really think you can keep dying a secret from him?”

“There’s no reason he needs to know. It’ll just fuck with his head.” John is slumped back against the back window of the truck, looking resigned.

“You sold your soul for him, you don’t think he’d want to know? Bullshit.”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Because you said so?” Dean snorts. “Fuck that, we’re talking about it. Sam’s not a kid anymore, and you damn well know it. He deserves to know.”

“Dean, stop it. This isn’t your fucking business. It’s my deal and Sam is my son, so drop it.”

Dean’s throat closes up; uncomfortable memories bubbling to the surface. “Right. Because you and your life has nothing to do with me. Sorry I forgot. I’m just the seat warmer.” It’s always this far and no further. “You know, I always thought you kept offering to set me up in a town somewhere because you wanted to get me out of this life, wanted something better for me but that’s not it, is it? I’ve been in the way of your fucking kamikaze act and you wanted me gone.

“Well fuck you too. The demon’s dead, and you’ve got Sam back. Everybody’s happy, right? I’ll see if Bobby’s got a spare ride I can borrow.” Dean sits up, yanks away from the hand on his neck and pointedly doesn’t look at John.

Before his feet have even hit the ground, John is yanking him back by his collar.

Dean ducks his head and twists, jabs back with his elbow to loosen John’s grip but apparently he’s got Dean’s shirt locked in a death-grip. Dean tumbles backwards, loosing ground. He gets his arms underneath him just as John’s hands shift to the back of his head, jamming their mouths together. It’s action borne more from desperation than affection, and it takes Dean a few moments to process it before he stops struggling.

John lets up, just a little, after Dean stops fighting him. They both hold stock still, and Dean waits for the moment to break the same way it always does between them. But that moment passes, and then the next, and finally Dean has to shift on his knees because the truck bed is so fucking uncomfortable.

He backs up just enough to look John in the eyes and swallows. John looks haggard; worn and tired and for maybe the first time Dean’s ever seen, visibly unsure of himself. Dean’s eyebrows quirk upwards and John tips his head back in answer. Ball’s in your court. Dean is more than a little pissed - five fucking years of waiting for this and John makes his move just at the moment when Dean’s finally got up the nerve to walk away.

But what it comes down to, what it always came down to every time he’d ever thought about it in the past, is that he doesn’t want to leave.

“Took you fucking long enough.”

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. - Matthew 7:14, New International Version