SPN Fic: The Unspoken (Gen, R, S2 timeframe: post-Roadkill)

[dodger_winslow]

Just for the sake of being clear: I know nothing about where the show is actually going for the season finale. This is where I went with it (so I'm sure I'll be Kripked out the ass in a couple of weeks). Several rather foundational turns of events in The Unspoken dovetail with revelations made in The Sign. I can’t call it a sequel with any measure of truthfulness, and I tried to make sure those dovetailing events were articulated solely within the confines of this piece clearly enough that you wouldn’t lose much, if anything, by not having read The Sign first. But if you want a bit more comprehensive view of where this will end, reading The Sign first might not be a bad idea.

That being said, here’s the shiny. And just in case I haven’t said it before? Writing fanfic is the most awesome way to breathe through your own issues ever. Especially when you have a show like Supernatural to use for air; and Jensen Ackles, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jared Padalecki to bring your very breath to life. In the mind’s eye, if not the camera’s.



Title: The Unspoken
Author: Dodger Winslow
Challenge/Prompt: Paranormal 25 Chart, #16 Amulet
Wordcount: 10,500
Genre: Gen
Rating: R for language
Spoilers: Probably just thru Roadkill, but let's make it Heart, just to be safe.
Disclaimer: I’m don’t own the boys, I’m just stalking them for a while.

Summary: He’d been with them for months now. Dean sensed it at odd times. Usually in the still; often in the quiet that came after blood. He thought it was grief at first - nothing more than just simple need - but he realized now it was something more. And perhaps he’d known as much since the beginning.

The Unspoken

One God, many names. All of them spoken; and in the speaking,
their power. But those who bear no name are simply The Unspoken.

He’d been with them for months now.

Dean sensed it at odd times. Usually in the still; often in the quiet that came after blood. He thought it was grief at first - nothing more than just simple need - but he realized now it was something more.

And perhaps he’d known as much since the beginning.

Dean shoved the last of his dirty clothes into a duffel, zipped it shut, and tossed it to the floor by the door. His father watched from the corner, leaning against a wall, arms crossed, expression tainted to the unmistakable hue of judgmental.

The room was beneath he and Sam’s normal standards, which was saying something. Their standards didn’t offer much clearance from below. But when money was tight in consequence to Dean’s exercised preference for spending time in the warm of fresh kill rather than hustling pool or filling out credit apps for non-existent, law-abiding citizens; even Sam could bite the bullet and fold his freakish height down to a little lower limbo to clear the line between rat-hole dive and rat-hole dive in which weary Winchesters would not sleep.

"You’re getting sloppy, son," John said.

It was the first time he’d spoken since Dean started noticing him as a familiar face among strangers, a shadow near the trees, the man in the mirror who was never there when Dean turned to see. It wasn’t much of a surprise his first words came out critical, buffed from a cutting edge only by the addition of a form of address John considered an endearment, even if Dean considered it little more than an intention to remind him of respect due and duly demanded.

"Yeah?" Dean glanced his direction, lifted an eyebrow in "fuck you" rather than inquiry. "Well, you’ll have that, I suppose." He picked up a second duffel from his unmade bed and dropped it near the scatter of weapons that spent the night on a round table watched over by the motel’s musty curtains of many colors. He’d cleaned and oiled less than half of them before last night’s deep-subject conversation with his buddies Jack and Jim numbed him to sleep, and he was under no illusions that either the unfinished task or the morning sour of a hundred and eighty proof mouthwash went unnoticed by his dad’s condemning scrutiny.

"Good way to get yourself killed," John noted as Dean stashed the weapons in the duffel; then carried it, rather than throwing it, to keep company with unwashed laundry near the door. "Keeping your tools sharp and at the ready is as much a part of the job as the hunt itself."

Dean grunted, but didn’t comment. Dropping to the edge of his bed to pull on his boots, then standing again to shrug into his jacket, he offered no explanation, excuse or apology.

"Nothing to say to that, son?" John asked as Dean picked up both duffels in one hand and opened the door with the other. "Not an ‘I’ll do better next time’ or an ‘I’m a big boy now’ or even a simple ‘fuck you, Dad’?"

Dean unlocked the Impala, tossed the dirty clothes in the back seat, then stored the weapons duffel more carefully in the trunk. John stayed where he was, leaning against the motel door and watching while Dean replaced the trunk’s false bottom and latched it back in place.

"So this is how we play it?" he asked. "I give you advice, and you ignore me like I’m not really here?"

"I’m not ignoring you," Dean said, slamming the trunk shut. "I just don’t really give a flying fuck what you’ve got to say." He shouldered past John, returning to the room and pulling the door shut behind him.

There were half a dozen tabloids scattered across the foot of Sam’s bed. Dean picked one up at random, then threw himself onto his own bed and snapped it open to a random article about a random monster terrorizing random people in some random place he’d likely already been.

"You’re pissed," John said after several minutes of silence gone stale between them. "I get that, I suppose."

"White of you," Dean said without looking up.

"You don’t seem particularly surprised to see me."

"I figured you’d show up sooner or later. You usually do."

"Not really fair," John said after a long beat. "But I’ll let it pass."

"White of you," Dean repeated. He waited for several more minutes before he asked, focus still fixed on an article he wasn’t reading, "Anything in particular on your mind? Or you just here to ride my ass for a couple of miles, tell me all the small ways in which I don’t measure up?"

"Not really fair either," John said. He didn’t offer to let this one pass though, so much as he simply failed to pursue it.

Dean snorted. "What can I say? Guess I take after my old man in that."

John sighed. It was tired sound. Weary, even. "So you through being a petulant little bitch yet?" he asked. "Or you still got a couple more rounds in you before we get down to it?"

"Nothing to get down to." Dean closed the paper, flicked it away with a small snap of his wrist. Folding both arms across his chest, he looked up to meet his dad’s gaze head-on. His eyes were closed off from his expression, guarded. In contrast, the set of his shoulders was openly confrontational. "You got something to say? Say it. Me? All I’ve got to say are things you don’t want to hear."

"Never stopped you before," John allowed dryly.

Dean snorted again. "I’m Dean," he reminded his father. "Sam’ll be back in about ten with coffee and donuts."

John rolled his tongue along his teeth, taking a moment before he said, "Sam might have been more willing to put it to actual words, but you never had much trouble letting me know what was on your mind."

"Really? What do you think’s on my mind right now?"

"Fine," John said. "Couple more rounds it is. I’ve got the rest of your life, boy. Time doesn’t mean much where I’m at."

"And where’s that?"

"For the moment, right here. Not that you seem much impressed by the effort it took to accomplish."

Dean studied him for several seconds, then asked, "Why?"

"Why am I here?" John asked. "Or why did I bother?"

"Why are you here?" Dean clarified, refusing to rise to the bait.

"You know why. You’ve known since Oregon."

Dean smiled a small, grim smile. "Yeah. I figured that would get your attention."

"That what you were trying to do?" John asked. "Get my attention?"

Dean didn’t answer him.

"Well you’ve got it now, boy," John said after a long moment of silence. "So why don’t you put it to use by telling me why?"

Dean shrugged. "Guess you picked the wrong son to trust," he said.

"You’re the only son I’ve ever trusted," John snapped. "And you damn well know it. I love Sam, but he’s about as dependable as the weather forecast and twice as contrary." He pushed off the wall, took several steps Dean’s directly. "So why don’t you cut the crap and tell me when that changed?"

"What?" Dean asked. "You trusting me? Or me being able to trust you?"

John laughed, low and hard. He shook his head, rubbing at his jaw with one hand as he said, "You hadn’t put my bones to a proper salt and burn, we’d be having us a dance right about now."

"Yeah? Well lucky me I wasn’t sloppy that day, eh?"

John closed the distance between them in two long strides as Dean thrust to his feet, shoulders back, weight balanced on the balls of his feet. Ready. More than ready. They went toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose. The air snapped with electromagnetic energy discharging itself in small arcs through the room’s dirty, shag carpet; between the circuits inside the screen-dark TV, along the metal vents of the dusty air conditioning unit.

"Why did you lie to him?" John demanded.

"For the same reason you made a deal with that yellow-eyed bastard," Dean retorted. His voice was cold, harsh. More than angry, it was ugly. Filled with rage. Bitterness. Something very close to contempt.

"I made that deal out of love," John said.

Dean laughed. The venom in his expression spoke more loudly than he did when he said, "Right. Like you hunted him all these years out of love."

John tensed almost past the rim of control, then relaxed in a long, slow, sustained refusal to allow himself to do anything else. He cracked his neck, took a step back. "No," he conceded. "I hunted him to protect you. To protect your brother."

"You hunted him because it gave you a reason to go on." Dean’s words were brittle in the cold air. They tasted like a wasted life in the living, even to those who might have only heard them spoken. He stepped into the space John had put between them, invaded a concession back to a confrontation. "You hunted him for yourself," he hissed. "You hunted him out of need."

"You’re wrong," John said.

"Am I?" Dean’s voice went low, soft. It was gravel in the quiet room as he leaned in closer to his dad, spoke to John in the same voice John had once used to speak to him, in a cabin in South Dakota, soul trapped in his own meatsuit by a force so dark it didn’t actually possess a name. "Am I really, Daddy?"

John didn’t answer for a long moment. When he did speak, it was to say, "Yes, Dean. You are. I made that deal because I love you. I made that deal because there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to save you."

"You didn’t save me, Daddy," Dean whispered, his eyes glittering vaguely gold in the room’s dim light. "You condemned me."

"I did what I had to do," John said. "For you. For your brother."

"For my brother?" Dean repeated, his tone pure disdain.

"For your brother," John verified. "I did what I did for you both, to save Sammy for us all."

"Save Sammy, huh?" Dean cocked his head to one side. His eyes glowed darker, more gold. "How’s that working out for you, Johnny?"

"Let him go," John said.

"No one has me," Dean answered. "No one but you. You’ve always had me, Johnny. You’ve possessed me my whole life. You’ve owned me; owned my soul since the day I was born. Or at the very least, since the day my mother died."

"Was murdered," John corrected. "And Dean owns his own soul."

Dean smiled. "Not any more."

"Let him go," John said again.

"No one has me," Dean repeated.

A key scraped in the lock. The door opened, and Sam walked in, a cup caddy in one hand, two coffees cattycorner to one another and a bag of donuts jammed between them.

"Hey." He lifted his chin Dean’s direction in greeting as he tossed the key onto the now-empty table. "You about ready to hit it?"

"Just about," Dean said. "You didn’t get me any of that half-crap cappuccino bullshit, did you?"

Sam rolled his eyes. Pulling his own cup out of the caddy, he left Dean’s coffee on the table with the donuts as he strode across the room toward the bathroom. "You finish up with the guns?"

"Yeah," Dean lied. "So clean even Dad would approve."

"Let him go," John said again.

"Let who go?" Sam asked from where he was stuffing his toothbrush into a shaving kit, zipping it closed.

John froze. So did Dean.

Sam turned when Dean didn’t answer. "Let who go?" he asked again, tossing his ditty bag across the room to land on the bed next to his already-packed duffel. He took a deep slug of hot, black coffee, waiting for an answer that didn’t come.

John’s smile was slow with satisfaction. "He can hear me," he said.

This time, it was Sam who froze. He was looking at Dean when John spoke. A voice in the room from a man he couldn’t see wrote a thousand different scenarios through his startled expression in a single heartbeat.

"What?" Dean asked. "You look like you saw a ghost or something."

"You didn’t hear that?" Sam demanded. Every muscle in his body was knotted tense. His eyes skip-danced around the room, wary, more than a little unnerved, hitting every corner, defining every shadow.

"Hear what?" Dean asked.

"What?" John asked, speaking to Dean. "That isn’t part of the game? He isn’t supposed to be able to hear me?"

"That," Sam said. "Right there. That voice."

Dean cocked his head to one side, studied Sam with a skeptical eye. "You’re not having another one of your weirdo visions, are you?" he asked finally.

"You’ve got to be kidding me!" Sam exploded. "You don’t hear that, Dean? You seriously don’t hear it?" Edging around the general vicinity of John, Sam worked his way to his brother’s side.

"Hear what, Sam?"

"Dean can hear me fine," John said, speaking calmly, his tone an intentional reassurance for a son splitting the distance between fear, anger and panic. "He just doesn’t want you to think he can."

Sam jolted to a stop. He froze in his tracks, skin blanching, eyes going frantic in his head.

"Oh, crap." Dean stepped to Sam’s side, grabbed him by one arm. "You are having another one of your weirdo visions. Sit down, Sam. Sit down before you fall down."

Sam started to shake. He sat down more because Dean told him to than for any other reason. His knees collapsed as much as they lowered him to the foot of an unmade bed.

"When did it happen, Dean?" John asked. "When did he slip in, start sinking roots? Was it just grief that made you vulnerable? Or was it guilt over knowing how things had to have gone down?"

"Sam?" Dean knelt in front of Sam. He grabbed his brother’s chin and turned his head from side to side so he could study it, examine it. "Sam? You still with me?"

"I know what it feels like, Dean," John said. "No matter what he’s done, no matter how strong he’s gotten, I know how much of you is still inside. How much of you can still hear me even if you can’t respond."

"Sam?" Dean demanded when Sam didn’t answer. "Answer me, dude. You’re freaking me out."

"You seriously don’t hear that?" Sam whispered.

"He’s lying to you, Sam," John said. "He’s been lying to you since Crater Lake. Maybe even longer."

Sam swallowed hard, closed his eyes. "No," he said.

"Yes," John corrected gently.

"No, what?" Dean asked.

Sam didn’t answer. John watched him, studied every flicker of expression skating his younger son’s features. "You know, don’t you?" he said after a long moment. "You can feel he’s not the same, can’t you?"

"No," Sam said again, shaking his head in denial.

"Dude," Dean snapped a little angrily. "No, what? Talk to me. Tell me what you’re seeing."

"Keep your eyes closed, Sam," John instructed. "Listen to my voice without looking at his face."

"Stop it," Sam said. But he kept his eyes closed.

"He’s not your brother any more," John said. "Not the way he used to be. And you know it, don’t you? I can tell you know it at least to some degree."

"No," Sam denied a third time.

"Is somebody dying?" Dean asked. "Somebody losing their head in a flower box? Or spontaneously combusting at the Kum and Go? I’m not getting shot in the head again, am I? Because that one sucked, Sammy. I don’t want to get shot in the head again, even if it is only in one of your weirdo futuramas."

"It was what happened with Jo," John surmised. "You figured it out because he didn’t do what Dean would have done to stop you."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Sam said.

"That makes two of us," Dean offered. "Conversations with invisible people, Sam. That’s out there even for you."

"Dean would have shot you, and you know it," John pressed. "He might not have killed you, but he would have at least shot you to keep you from doing what you threatened to do."

"I don’t remember that," Sam insisted.

"Don’t lie to me, Sammy." John’s voice was sharp. Sam flinched under the application of it to his name. "I’ve been possessed before. I know what it feels like, how much you can’t hide from what they make you do. That’s the whole point, Sammy. The whole point is to make you do it, not to get it done."

"Sam, open your eyes and talk to me," Dean ordered. "Stop taking to whoever you’re talking to - or whatever you’re talking to - and talk to me." Dean shifted his hands, put them on either side of Sam’s face. He applied pressure to the flats of Sam’s cheekbones with both thumbs. "Open your eyes, Sammy," he said again. "Right now. Open your damned eyes."

Sam opened his eyes.

"I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already figured out for yourself," John went on. "You know Dean wouldn’t have let you hurt Jo. Maybe somebody else - maybe somebody you didn’t know - but not her. Not Jo. Dean would have protected you from that. He would have saved you from having to live with it later. He would have saved you from that even if it meant killing you to do it."

Sam tried to turn his head in the direction of John’s voice. Dean didn’t let him, held on to his face firmly, saying "No, no, no. Don’t look at invisible guy. Look at me, Sammy. Look at Dean. Look at your brother."

"Dean loves you, Sammy," John said. "He might not have shot you to protect Jo. But he would have shot you to protect you from hurting Jo."

"Look at your brother," Dean said again. "Right here, Sammy. Whatever invisible guy is saying, tune him out and look at your awesomely good-looking brother."

"But I didn’t ask him to do that," John said. "I never told Dean he might have to kill you if he couldn’t save you."

Sam gasped. "Dad?" he whispered.

"You’re taking to Dad?" Dean demanded. Then, almost immediately, he said, "No, Sam. You’re not talking to Dad. Dad’s dead. We burned his bones, remember?"

"I told him to protect you, Sammy," John said. "I told him you were the key, that everything would eventually come down to you."

"Dad?" Sam whispered again. He pulled his face out of Dean’s grip this time, standing as he looked for the source of John’s voice in the room.

"Oh, crap," Dean said. "Okay, Sam. I don’t know what you’re hearing, or seeing, or whatever; but you’ve got to listen to me, okay? Whatever it is, it isn’t really there. Or if it is, it isn’t Dad. It’s some other spirit, or a demon or something, but it isn’t Dad. You know it can’t be Dad. We burned Dad’s bones. Dad is gone, and he isn’t coming back."

Sam glanced to Dean, uncertain.

"We burned his bones," Dean said again. "You remember that, right? We wrapped him up like a freaking Viking, and we burned his well-salted bones to a fine, grey ash. Dad’s gone. You know he’s gone. Just like I know he’s gone. I’d be all over it if there was any possibility he wasn’t. But he is, Sammy. Dad’s gone. He’s with Mom now, so whatever’s talking to you? It isn’t Dad."

"Love, Sammy," John said. "Love can keep you here. Love can bring you back."

"Tell me you believe what I’m telling you," Dean urged. "Tell me you know a spirit can’t come back once you salt and burn their bones."

"What about Molly?" Sam asked.

"Fuck Molly," Dean snapped, frustrated. "Molly was a freak or something. The exception that proves the rule. Or maybe she never really got burned in the first place. Maybe it was one of those crematorium frauds or something. Maybe they charged her family for the full ash-in-the-wind package but tossed her body out with the daily garbage like that guy in New York did."

When Sam didn’t respond, Dean grabbed him by the arms, shook him a little to make his point. "You have got to pull it together, dude," he said. "I don’t know what happened with Molly. But I do know what happened with Dad. We both do. We performed every ritual ourselves, did everything that could be done to make absolutely certain he wouldn’t come back as one of the things he spent his life hunting. Right? Remember?"

"I don’t know, Dean …"

"You do know, Sammy. You absolutely know there is not one single hope in hell that Dad will ever come back. If there was, I’d take it. I’d grab it with both hands and kiss its ass until the day after Sunday. But there isn’t. Dad is never. Coming. Back."

"Hope is the whole point, Sammy," John said.

Sam closed his eyes again. "Stop it," he said. "Just stop it. Shut up. Leave me alone."

"I can’t, son," John said. "I wish I could, but I can’t."

"Why are you doing this?" Sam demanded. "Why now? Why here?"

"Someone - something - is fucking with you, Sam," Dean insisted. "You have got to trust me on this. If there was any chance it was Dad, I do anything to make that happen. You know I would. But there isn’t, Sam. It isn’t Dad. And you can’t let it convince you it is, or it wins."

"Because he told you I said he might have to kill you," John said. "Dean wouldn’t have told you that. Even if I told him that, he wouldn’t have repeated it to you just to keep you from ever believing it might be true. Dean would have protected you from thinking that, from fearing it. But he isn’t Dean. He wants you to be afraid of who you are. He wants you to believe you can’t be saved. He needs you to believe it, so he’s tried to make you believe I believed it. But I didn’t, Sammy. I never believed it. I’ve always known you were the key. I’ve always known you were the only hope any of us have."

"You’re lying to me," Sam said.

"What’s he saying?" Dean asked. "Is he saying something about me? Is he telling you lies about me?"

"He can hear me as well as you can," John reminded Sam. "He just doesn’t want you to know that, doesn’t want you to realize it’s true."

Sam’s eyes popped open again. He glared straight at John, speaking to a dis-embodied voice rather than to a man he could hear but couldn’t see. "Why would he care?" he demanded. "What possible reason could Dean have to care whether or not I know he can hear you?"

"He’s saying I can hear you?" Dean was outraged. "Is that what he’s saying, Sammy? Because if he is, he’s full of shit. If I could hear him, I’d tell you. Hell, I wouldn’t have to tell you. If I could hear him, you’d be able to hear me telling him where to stick his freaking lies and how far up to stick them."

"It isn’t Dean, Sam," John said. "Not now. Not any more. He’s using Dean against us. He’s trying to break us apart by using the one thing that’s always held us together. Through thick and thin, through blood and war, through you leaving and me coming back, the one thing that has always held us together as a family is Dean. So he’s trying to use Dean to break us apart now. Don’t let him do it, Sam. If not for me or for you, then for Dean."

"What’s he saying, Sam?" Dean asked. "Is he lying to you about me? Lying more to you about me than just saying I can hear him? Is he saying I was his favorite like the yellow-eyed demon told me about you in South Dakota? I didn’t believe it, Sam. I never did. And you can’t believe it either. Dad loved us both. He didn’t have a favorite. We were a family. You can’t let whoever this liar is use Dad to break us apart. You can’t let it use Dad to destroy the family he spent his whole life trying to keep together."

John chuckled. "He’s good, isn’t he?" he noted dryly. "Taking everything I say to you and turning it around to just a slightly different tune?"

"You’ve got to stop listening to him, Sam," Dean ordered. "Just stop listening, like I did when he was lying to me about you, and about Dad."

"So you’re the smart one, Sam," John said. "You’re the one who went to that expensive college; you’re the one who’s three credits short of that expensive college degree. You’re the one who spent all those years reading all those books; spent all those nights over dinner and roadtrips in the Impala arguing with me, or with Dean, telling us both we were so full of shit our eyes were brown and you were the only Winchester ever born who could actually figure out how to grab his ass with both hands. So tell me, Sam: Do you really think he can’t hear what I’m saying to you? How much coincidence can you buy before you realize the pattern isn’t chaos? Until you realize crop failures and freak storms mean a sacrifice is in the offing?"

Sam turned, looked at Dean.

"What?" Dean demanded. "What did he say?"

"He said you can hear him," Sam said.

Dean snorted. "He can’t come up with anything better than that?" When Sam didn’t answer, he added, "He’s lying, Sam. That’s what the bad guys do. They lie. I don’t have to remind you of that, do I? I don’t have to remind you of everything that yellow-eyed bastard said in South Dakota, do I? All the lies it told? All the things it said about Mom and about pretty, little Jess?"

Sam tensed. "What did you say?"

Dean blinked. He pulled back a little from the anger in Sam’s glare; anger focused on him, anger aimed at him. "What, what?"

"What did you say about Jess? What did you call her?"

"What? You mean ‘pretty little Jess’?" It was a question this time. Dean sounded confused, a little uncertain of why he was being attacked. "Isn’t that what the demon called her in South Dakota?"

"Yeah. It is. So why did you just call her that?"

"Because that’s what the demon called her," Dean said as if the answer should be self-evident. "He called her pretty little Jess when he was telling you lies about her." Then, almost accusatorily, he asked, "Why? What does it matter what I called her? He’s just trying to confuse you, Sammy. Turn us against each other. Break us apart. Which is why you’ve got to stop listening to him; if not for me, then for Dad."

"If not for me or for you, then for Dean," John said, reminding Sam of words already spoken.

"So you think this is a demon?" Sam asked Dean. Then, more pointedly, "The demon?"

"Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just some evil-ass fugly monster bent on screwing with your head. What does it matter? The point is, whatever it is, it isn’t Dad."

"He says it isn’t you," Sam returned.

Dean threw up his hands, walked away. He ran one hand through his hair as he turned back, faced Sam from across the room. "What do you want me to say to that, Sam? I’m me. You know I’m me. But I don’t know how to prove that to you. Do you?" He had a sudden thought. "Wait. I know." He pulled Bobby’s flask out of a pocket inside his jacket. Unscrewing it, he took a long, hard pull, then said, "Not the whiskey one, Sam. The holy water one." He held his hands up, turned a slow circle. "See any smoke? A little fog coming out of my ass or something?"

"You don’t really think something like that works on something like me," John reminded Sam quietly.

"No?" Dean said. He dropped his hands, replaced the flask in his jacket. "Well I guess unless I’m actually the demon rather than just a demon, that works as proof, doesn’t it? Because other than you splashing holy water all over Dad in bum-fuck Iowa not accomplishing much more than just getting the yellow-eyed demon wet as hell, we haven’t really seen any other demonic entities who can stand up to holy water without screaming like a punk-ass bitch and blowing a little smoke, right? So I guess that rules out me being Meg at least."

"He isn’t Meg," John said. "You know who he is, Sammy. You know he’s the only one strong enough to work his way through Dean’s defenses, find a way in by using the damage I did to your brother in trading my life for his. He’s the only one who could have poisoned even a wound cut that deep; the only one who could take root, get hold of Dean’s soul, pull him under and drown him in guilt over something he didn’t do."

"So what about Ghost Dad?" Dean challenged, speaking to Sam. "He up for slamming back a little holy water to see if the smoke alarms go off?"

"I gave Dean that amulet when he was thirteen, Sam," John said, ignoring Dean, ignoring everything except what he was saying to Sam. "Jim Murphy told me something one night that scared me more than anything I’ve ever seen, anything I’ve ever heard, anything I’ve ever known. He told me he’d been waiting for a sign for twenty years to tell me about a vision he had in the desert when he was dying."

"What about it, Sam?" Dean asked. "He up for the challenge? Or is he too busy trying to distract you with more lies about things that never happened?"

"He’d never told me what turned him to God after so many years of shedding blood and walking in the shadows," John went on. "But he told me that night. He told me it happened when we were on a mission that went bad. He was dying. I had my hands in his gut trying to keep that from happening, trying to hang on to him hard enough to make him stay with me until the choppers could get to us and med-evac him out. I told him every dirty lie I’d ever heard, and made up a whole slew of new ones right there in the bloody sand while the hours dragged by, one endless minute after another. I was desperate, Sammy. Jim and I were closer than brothers. I knew he wasn’t going to make it, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do to save him, but I had to try."

"Sam." Dean’s voice was loud, strident. His tone was full of frustration and demand. "What’s he telling you, Sam? What kind of lies is he spinning for you now?"

"But he did make it," John said. "He lived. He shouldn’t have, but he did."

"Why are you telling me this?" Sam asked.

"Because it’s important," John returned a little sharply. "Now shut up and listen. I always figured Jim living was what turned him to the good book. Figured that was the best explanation for something I didn’t otherwise understand. He waited twenty years to tell me different. He waited until your mother came to him in a vision to tell him it was time. Time to tell me the same thing she told him that night in the desert while he was dying."

"Mom?" Sam repeated.

"What?" Dean demanded hotly. "He’s talking about Mom now? What’s he saying? What’s he saying about Mom?"

"It wasn’t your mother," John went on. "God only knows what it really was, but the way Jim took it was as an angel put to an apparition that looked like Mary so he’d recognize her years later when they met. So he’d understand what he was told that night had something to do with her, with me, with us. Jim took the angel looking like your mother as a sign … a sign so he’d know when to share what he’d been told while he was bleeding out in the desert with my hands inside his gut."

"And that vision was about Dean," Sam surmised. "About his amulet, that you should give it to him to protect him when he was thirteen."

For a long second, John didn’t say anything.

"What’s he saying about my amulet?" Dean asked.

When John spoke again, it was to say, "You know, Sam, I really thought being dead would make it easier to talk to you without getting interrupted. Honest to God, I really thought trading my life for your brother’s would at least buy me the simple respect of you shutting the fuck up and listening to what I have to say without your constant fucking commentary and incessant questions."

Sam laughed. It was a small burst of surprise and recognition.

"What?" Dean demanded.

"Nothing," Sam said. Then, speaking to where John was standing, he added, "Go ahead. I’ll hold my questions until you’re done."

This time, it was John who laughed. His low chuckle was an equal recognition of the familiarity heavy in the air between them. "I’m dead, son," he said. "It’s a little late in the game for me to start believing in miracles now."

"Don’t be a bitch," Sam said with a smile. "You said it was important, so tell me already."

"What Jim told me wasn’t about Dean," John obliged. "It was about you. He said you were the key to everything. He said the fate of mankind would come down to my pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all nine-year-old with a kind heart and his mother’s smile. He said you were the only hope we had; and he said hope was the whole fucking point."

"That isn’t what you told Dean," Sam said quietly.

"That is what I told Dean," John corrected. "It is exactly what I told Dean. It just isn’t what Dean told you."

"What isn’t what he told me?" Dean asked. Then, "What Dad told me? I told you what Dad told me, Sammy. And I told you it isn’t going to happen. I don’t give a shit what he would have done if he’d had the guts to stay alive and do it. I’m not going to kill you. Period. We’ll find a way to beat it. We’ll find a way to save you, to keep you from going darkside and becoming the demon’s hand puppet. I don’t care what plans that yellow-eyed bastard has for you or the children like you. We’ll beat him at his own game, Sammy, if it’s the last thing we do."

"That’s what brought me back, son," John said. "I heard him say it in my bones. Bones you and your brother salted. Bones you and your brother burned."

"Where were you?" Sam asked.

"What do you mean, where were you?" Dean asked hotly. "Are you buying into this shit, Sammy? You can’t seriously believe this is really Dad, can you? That I’m some kind of demon?"

"No, Dean," Sam said quietly. "I don’t believe that."

"I was with your mother," John said. "With Jim. With my parents, my little brother."

"Dad’s in hell." Dean was furious. His voice was shaking with rage and bitterness. "He traded his soul to a yellow-eyed demon because he was too fucking selfish to live without me. Too fucking selfish to let me die the way I was supposed to die instead of making me live in the hell of knowing he’d traded his soul for my life."

"I didn’t trade my soul, Sam," John said. "I traded my life. It was mine to trade, and I was done with it. I’ve been done with it for more than twenty years. I haven’t lived a day since your mother died, I’ve just survived to keep you and your brother safe. I was tired, Sam. And you were ready. Both of you were."

"No, we weren’t," Sam said.

John smiled even though he knew Sam couldn’t see him. "Yeah, Sam," he said gently. "You were. And Dean wasn’t supposed to die. I was supposed to die, in that cabin, with a sacred bullet in my heart. That was always supposed to be the way it played. It was the only alternative to the fate of mankind coming down to my pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all nine-year-old with a kind heart and his mother’s eyes. That was the only way I could save you from a fate I wouldn’t have my child carry if I could stop it: to play the game well enough to get to a moment where I had that evil motherfucker locked in so I could take him down with me, and then do it."

"I spent my whole life training for that moment," John said quietly. "My whole life training Dean for that moment. To take the shot. To kill me to save you. The only thing I forgot to consider was that it might be you holding the colt instead of Dean. That it might be you who had to not kill me in order to save him. To save Dean."

"I didn’t really consider that," John admitted. "And I should have. Or maybe I was never intended to. Maybe it was always supposed to play exactly the way it did; and you choosing not to kill me, not to sacrifice your father to kill the yellow-eyed demon, is the moment you became hope, instead of fate. The moment you became the key, instead of the lock."

John sighed, shook his head. "I don’t really know, son. And I guess it isn’t my place to know, or I would. But what I do know is this: You’re right here, right now, talking to me, because I wasn’t able to save you from what’s coming. I wasn’t able to save you from being who Jim told me you’d be one day, from who you are despite my best efforts to keep that weight from being yours to carry. To save you from being the whole point, Sammy. From being the hope for all mankind, and that hope being the whole damn point."

Dean laughed. It was a low, rumbling, growl of a laugh. An inhuman laugh.

"Well played, Johnny," he said, clapping slowly. "Very, very well played. Of course, I helped you out a little with that pretty little Jess thing. Slip of the tongue - it happens to the best of us - but still, all-in-all, quite masterful how you snaked him right out from under me with nothing more than words and the ring of sincerity in your voice."

Sam stepped back, stepped away from Dean.

"You have no idea how close you came to losing, though," Dean went on. "No idea how many times I’ve had him right on the edge, teetering there in a hurricane wind, not even a full breath short of falling into the abyss forever."

"Where’s Dean?" Sam demanded.

"Oh, he’s here. He’s always here, Sammy."

"Don’t call me that," Sam said.

Dean laughed again. "Oh, you’re breaking my heart, dude. But don’t act like it’s a total surprise. After all, I’ve been growing through him for almost a year now. You’ve seen it a dozen times. I’ve seen you see it, but you just turn away and pretend it isn’t there. Pretend there isn’t blood on his hands, splattered across his face, burning like fire in his eyes. Pretend you don’t see the stain of it spreading through his soul, feeding on his anger and his bitterness, turning the whole of him to mine." Dean’s eyes flashed gold in the darkness. "Love," he quipped. "Gotta love it."

"Let him go," Sam said.

Dean cocked his head to one side. "Giving me orders, Sammy? Who do you think you are? The hope of all mankind?"

"Let him go now," Sam insisted. "Take me instead. I’ve always been the one you wanted anyway."

When Dean laughed this time, it was enough to freeze water in mid-air. "Son of a bitch, but you Winchesters are a consistent gene pool. Taking a page out of Johnny’s book, are we? Trade your life for your brother’s? How do you think that would make him feel, Sam? Aren’t you afraid he’ll hate you forever for making him live with the weight of knowing how much he costs? Buying a life he doesn’t even want for the price of not only his father’s life, but now his brother’s, too?"

"I don’t care," Sam said. "It doesn’t matter."

"It matters to him. You should hear him shrieking inside his own meatsuit right now." Dean looked at John, flashed him a delighted grin. "The mouth you’ve grown on this boy, John. He’s using descriptive blasphemies I don’t think even you know."

"He can’t give you what I can give you," Sam said.

"Are you just bragging, Psychic Boy?" Dean asked. "Or is that a proposition?"

"You know it’s true. You’ve been making plans for me my whole life. This is the only way any of them ever come true."

"So … you for Dean? Simple trade, even Steven?"

"That’s the deal," Sammy agreed.

Dean chuckled. "A serious set of lungs on him, Johnny. And very creative use of violent imagery. He has a talent for mayhem I haven’t even begun to tap yet. He’s going to be hell unleashed some day. Some day soon. Between the two of them, mankind doesn’t really have a hope, do they? Which is the whole point, isn’t it? Well. My point, at least."

John didn’t answer, but Sam did. "You don’t get us both. It’s either/or. Decide now."

"Ah," Dean sighed. "The arrogance of youth. You never should have told him he was the whole point, Johnny. He was difficult enough before; he’s going to be impossible now. You’ll never win an argument again."

"I haven’t won an argument with Sammy since he was ten," John said.

"Decide," Sam insisted. "Dean or me. Which is it going to be?"

"Decide now?" Dean said. "Okay, Sammy. If you insist: I choose Dean."

"No, you don’t." Sam’s tone was confident, almost dismissive of the very idea he could be wrong. "You want me, and we both know it."

Dean smiled. "What did I tell you, John? Impossible. But also wrong."

"He’s been wrong before," John said. "The trick is never to admit it. He learned that from me. We’re a lot alike, Sammy and I."

"I’ll change that," Dean assured him.

"Not if you choose Dean, you won’t," Sam said.

"Actually, it really only works if I do choose Dean. You see, the whole ‘have your cake and eat it, too’ thing? Not an urban myth. It’s a very achievable goal if you just remember the key to the cake is Dean."

"Dean buys you nothing," Sam insisted.

"On the contrary," Dean said. "Dean buys me you. And I have plans for you, Sammy. Big plans. Bloody plans."

"Let him go," Sam snapped.

"Why would I want to do that? Dean’s fun. He’s the perfect vessel."

"Yes," John agreed, his voice quiet. "He is."

Dean snorted, shaking his head a little. "I’ll admit, I’m a little surprised at you, Johnny. Dean’s your first born. I expected you to defend him a little more … effusively? Wax poetic about what a heroic soul he has. Give impassioned soliloquies about how strong he is, how noble, how destined for greatness. After all, he is your legacy to this world, all hope notwithstanding. Some might even say he’s the embodiment of everything you were that wasn’t destroy when I baptized his brother with your wife." Dean smiled, hard, wide, wicked. "Ah, Mary; sweet Mary. It’s always the Marys who suffer, isn’t it? You’d think they’d learn to name their daughters Janet."

"So I was telling you about Dean’s amulet," John said, speaking to Sam.

Sam frowned, thrown. "What?" he returned after a beat.

"I was telling you about Dean’s amulet," John repeated. "Telling you about giving it to him when he was thirteen, about how that was the same year Jim told me it was all going to come down to you."

For a long moment, Sam didn’t respond. Then, slowly, he said, "Yeah. You were. You said it was important."

"It is," John agreed. "Everything Jim told me that night was important. He told me a war was coming, and that preparing you to lead was the reason Mary was slaughtered, the reason I was born in the first place."

"Have you ever noticed," Dean asked, "how often it comes down to destiny and being born for no reason at all except to die for another man’s sins? Sure, the other team talks a good game about free will and self determination; but they aren’t very good about walking the walk when push comes to shove. You have to admit it, John: Sons don’t fair well on the white team, for the most part. You, of all people, should know that by now."

"I gave the amulet to Dean that year," John said, speaking to Sam and only Sam, "so when the time came, it would already be so much a part of how the world sees him no one would think to question why it even existed. What its greater purpose might be."

"It has no greater purpose," Dean said. "If you learned nothing more than this when you were dying, Johnny, I would have thought you at least learned this: things like that don’t work on something like me. There are soldiers in every war, and the games and rituals in which Humans put such faith and stock can be very effective bullets against those soldiers. On occasion, with the right sniper at the trigger of the right weapon, they can even fell a general where he stands, if he stands too close to the front lines, and if the weapon is a colt with only one more sacred bullet."

"Which is the really funny part, if you think about it," Dean went on. "Because I traded your son’s life for the colt not because I wanted it, John. But rather because I wanted you. I wanted you dead. I’ve wanted you dead for years. But the colt?" He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. "The colt was a minor inconvenience at best. You had one bullet, and I have more than one general."

"I’m sure you’re making a point here," John said. "But you aren’t making it very well."

"Oh, don’t be like that. Besides, you already know the punch line. You’ve known it for years, or you never would have been worth the effort I took to kill you."

"I don’t know the punch line," Sam said.

"Oh, you’ll love it," Dean said. "Funniest joke ever. You see the punch line is this, Sammy: I’m beyond all that. Something like that wouldn’t have worked against something like me. Any more than your holy water did in Salvation. Any more than Dean’s amulet will here. You see, I’m not a general. Meg is a general. A general who was - by the way - very, very, very disenfranchised to learn it wasn’t really Dean who evicted her from your meatsuit not so long ago, but rather me. But she’ll get over it. She was in my way, and a general should never get in the way of a God."

"I know you’re not a general," John allowed easily. "But I also know you’re not a God."

Dean’s smile lit his eyes to gold. "Semantics, John," he said. "Once you grow beyond the need of a name, they don’t have to call you God for you to be one. And I haven’t borne a name for millennia. I haven’t borne a name since before mankind infested the earth to desecrate it with the blasphemy of their pointless lives and servile adulation."

"One God," John said. "Many names. All of them spoken; and in the speaking, their power. But those who bear no name are simply The Unspoken."

"Ooooo. Very nice." Dean nodded his approval. "Did you practice that in the mirror? Oh, wait, you’re dead. You don’t show up in mirrors any more, do you; your own sons having put your meatsuit to a festive Viking barbecue as they did."

"So Molly wasn’t an anomaly then," Sam said.

"Oh, fuck Molly," Dean said congenially. "She didn’t even know she was dead."

"But her bones were burned," Sam pointed out. "So it was love that kept her here."

"Yeah. That love’s a real pain in the ass. But I’m working on it."

"I thought you were some kind of God or something," Sam said.

"Don’t be a bitch, Sammy," Dean countered. "I still own your brother’s soul."

"Hey, Dad," Sam said, his eyes never leaving Dean. "Would it piss you off here if I asked a question?"

John smiled. "I was actually hoping you would."

"What’s Dean’s amulet for?"

"It’s to keep me out," Dean said. "Which is pretty much my point, Sammy. You may be the key to the coming war; but Dean’s actually the whole point. If I control him, I control you. And I think we’ve pretty much put a cap on who’s driving the Impala these days, haven’t we?"

"Have we?" John asked.

"Must I demonstrate?"

"Please do."

Dean studied John for a long moment. "Interesting," he said finally. "You do realize I can kill him with nothing more than a thought, right? Maim him. Destroy him. Flay him alive even. Pretty much any agony you can imagine - and many more you can’t - I can do that to him, and then bring him back to do it all over again. Is that the kind of demonstration you’re looking for?"

"That would work," John agreed.

Dean just looked at him.

"I’m waiting," John prompted.

Dean reached up, put a hand on his amulet.

"Easier to tear him apart from the outside than it is from the inside, isn’t it," John observed after several seconds of silence.

Dean’s hand stayed on the amulet. The muscles of his arm quivered with a strain that spawned no movement whatsoever.

"This would be a good time for another question, Sam," John said, "if you’ve got one you want to ask."

"I think I get it," Sam said. "Not there to keep him out. It’s there to keep him in."

John nodded. "The perfect vessel," he said.

Dean snorted, but the derision was forced. "You don’t have what it takes to make the sacrifice," he said. "That’s always been your weakness, John."

"Love isn’t a weakness," John returned calmly. "And there’s no sacrifice involved. Not for us, at least."

"Dean’s not wild about roomies," Sam noted. "Should I ask about that? Or is that one of the things you’re getting to if I just shut my cakehole and let you finish what you’re saying?"

"The vessel isn’t Dean," John said. "He’s just purgatory with a sweet ride. The vessel of The Unspoken is the amulet." He smiled, his eyes dark with a satisfaction decades in the making. "So let me ask you something, Sammy: You ever try lifting your own body with nothing but your own two hands? I’m not talking about pushing off against something else, like the floor or a wall. I’m talking about using your own hands to lift your body off the ground the way you’d use them to lift any other vessel in which you weren’t residing."

"No," Sam said after a beat. "Don’t think I’ve ever tried to do that."

"Pretty fucking hard. Even for someone who presumes himself a God."

Dean whispered half a dozen profanities so ancient even John wasn’t sure of their actual translations.

"Hey," John said. "Mouth." Then to Sam, he said, "Take that nameless motherfucker off your brother, Sammy."

Sam reached out, took the amulet out of Dean’s hand and lifted it over his head. Dean staggered. He lost his balance and nearly fell. Sam grabbed him, steadied him.

"Fuck," Dean hissed, his voice hoarse with strain.

"Hey," John said. "Mouth."

"Dad." Dean shook Sam off, took several steps forward. His eyes cast around the room, trying to find John by nothing more than the sound of his voice. "Dad? Where are you?"

"Right in front of you, son," John said gently.

Dean closed his eyes. His body trembled, but it didn’t fall. "It’s really you?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Not just one more mind-fuck for the road?"

"Nope."

Dean nodded. He swallowed hard, nodded again. "It’s good to hear your voice," he said. Then, "I should kick your ass for trading your life for mine." The last came out in a near-sob. Dean responded to the raw abrasion of emotion on his voice by squaring his shoulders a little, clenching his hands to fists. The muscles along his jawline jumped and twitched. Beneath closed eyelids, his eyes moved from side to side like they were trying to find something, trying to see something he could only hear.

"The day you think you’re big enough to kick my ass," John said, "you go ahead and step up to the line to give it a whirl, son."

"You’re not in hell, then?"

"I wouldn’t do that to you, Dean. I wouldn’t have done that to your mother."

"I thought you traded your soul."

"You never did give me much credit along those lines," John allowed blandly. "I blame Jim for that. I think he convinced you early on that I was just a little bit more unstable than I ever was."

"You were plenty unstable."

"Jim says to tell you he told you so."

"Tell him I’ll believe it when I see it." Dean opened his eyes then, stared straight ahead. "Please?" he whispered.

"I can’t," John said. "I wish I could, but it isn’t the way things work."

"How do they work?" Dean asked.

"Mysteriously," John said.

Dean laughed. "You’re a jackass."

"Always have been." John stepped forward, reached out but stopped short of touching a son who wouldn’t feel him, who wouldn’t know he was being touched. "I’m sorry, Dean," he said. "I wish there could have been another way, but there wasn’t. I couldn’t let you die. I know it hurts, but I didn’t have any other choice."

"There’s always another choice," Dean said quietly. "You’re the one who taught me that. Remember?"

John dropped his hand, cleared his throat to shore up a voice struggling to keep its tenuous balance. "You have the advantage now," he said. "And you’ve got that pain-in-the-ass key to mankind’s fate who’s the whole point I told you about in the hospital."

"I assume you’re talking about me," Sam said.

"Good guess," John allowed, then went back to speaking to Dean. "But it isn’t over yet. I heard Bobby tell you there’s a storm coming, and you boys are right at the middle of it. Well, Bobby always did have a knack for understatement. It’s going to get bad, Dean. And the outcome isn’t written in stone. It’s written in hope. And that’s really the whole point."

Dean nodded. "Okay. So … I can’t see you at all then? Or Mom?"

"Not for another fifty or sixty years. Unless you don’t clean the rest of those damn guns. Then it might be a little earlier than that."

"Promise?" Dean whispered.

"Not even in jest, son," John warned, his voice grim.

"Why can’t we see you?" Sam asked.

"Because you’re not dead," John said.

"Then why can we hear you?"

"Because you’re psychic, Sam."

"What about Dean?"

"Dean’s always been able to hear me."

Sam frowned. "What’s that mean, exactly?"

John laughed a little. "Always with the questions," he said. "I swear to you, Sammy, even God didn’t know Brazil was the largest exporter of soybeans in the world, other than the Unites States. Nobody knew that but you. At seven. Which is why you may be the key to mankind’s future. Not that you should let that give you a big head or anything."

"So God exists then?" Dean asked.

"Ehhhh … not really as simple as all that."

Dean snorted. "Pretty evasive for a man who’s been there, done that."

"More mysterious than evasive," John said. "Probably the only accurate thing I can tell you that might make at least some sense while you’re still living is that everything you think you know is wrong."

Dean chuckled. "Which is pretty much what you’ve been telling me my whole life," he said.

"Not really fair," John allowed after a beat. "But I’ll let it pass."

"I’m just kidding."

"I know you are. I’m dead. I know everything."

"Everything?" Sam challenged, grinning.

"Well … I know who the largest exporter of soybeans in the world is."

"Other than the United States," Sam clarified.

"See?" John said, speaking to Dean. "It wasn’t me who’s been telling you everything you think you know is wrong your whole life. That was Sammy. And he’s been telling me the same thing for most of my life, too; so don’t feel like the Lone Ranger, Dean. Because you’re not. You’re never alone. Not ever. That much, I promise you is true."

"The whole mysterious thing again?" Dean asked.

"More of the ‘I’ve got my eye on you, boy, so you’d best behave’ Dad thing," John said.

Dean nodded. "So … coming war," he said after a moment. "Any advice? Helpful hints? Divine prophecies or other Godly plans of attack?"

"Bobby’s part of it," John said. "Keep him close, and watch your backs. And each others."

"What’s with the whole ‘not written in stone’ thing? I thought you had the inside track with God-of-Many-Names or something. You can’t ask Him what the spread’s going to be so we can do a little insider trading on behalf of mankind’s fate?"

"Despite what The Unspoken would have you believe," John said, "it actually is about free will and self determination. Nothing is destined until it happens. There are those who choose to die to redeem others from the fate they might otherwise suffer. Just as there are those who choose to trade their lives for the lives of those they love. It happens every day, son. Those choices are free will; and they are the very definition of love."

"Dress it up any way you want," Dean said. "It’s still the worst thing you could have done to me, and you shouldn’t have done it." His voice was low, serious, wounded.

"Some day you’ll have a child," John replied. "Until then, I don’t expect you to understand. But I do expect you to forgive me."

"Why should I?"

"Because I’m your father. And because I love you."

"Pffft," Dean said. "Ya girl."

"And Sammy?" John’s voice was quiet, gentle.

"Yeah?" Sam returned.

"Any man making the wrong choice can affect the way the world will turn for the rest of all time. That is a fundamental truth of what it is to be Human. Knowing that, I feel safer with mankind’s future riding on your choices than I would with it riding on the choices of any other man who has ever been born."

"But no pressure," Dean added.

"Jerk," Sam said.

"Bitch," Dean returned.

"I’m saying I love you, Sam," John interrupted. "I might not have said that as clearly to you over the years as I have to Dean, or as many times. And it might have gotten lost a little in all the questions you’ve asked while I was trying to tell you something important you’d rather question than believe. But if it has, I’m saying it now: I love you. I always have. I always will."

Sam looked down, cleared his throat. "Yeah. I know that."

"Remember it for me."

"I will."

"And thank you for trusting me. For hearing me. I wasn’t sure you would."

"I’m psychic," Sam said. "And you can be really hard not to hear, Dad. Even if I’m trying not to listen."

"I have to go," John said.

"God on the other line?" Dean asked. His voice broke a little at the prospect of losing even this fragile connection with his father.

"I don’t belong here any more. The world turns. It passes to the two of you, as do all things, from father to son."

"When did you turn into such a philosopher?" Sam asked.

"Being dead does that to a guy. Even a jarhead like your old man. Don’t lose the amulet."

"We’ll destroy it," Dean said.

"Oh for God’s sake, don’t do that. It’s a vessel, Dean. Break it, and the genie’s back on the rampage."

Dean blinked, startled. "Oh," he said. Then, a second time, understanding the ramifications a little more deeply: "Oh."

"Yeah," John agreed. "Oh. Keep that fucker on you at all times. It’s one of the wildcards in the game, so don’t let it get back into the deck or all bets are off."

"Keep it on us as in with us, not actually on us, right?" Sam clarified.

John snorted. "Well don’t wear the damn thing, if that’s what you’re asking. The Unspoken can only fuck with your head if you’re stupid enough to actually put it in his blender."

"So that’s the yellow-eyed demon’s name?" Dean asked. "The Unspoken?"

"Well, he fancies himself beyond a name, but that’s what we call him for the most part."

"Did he ever actually have a name?" Sam asked, curious.

"Why? You plan on summoning him out of the vessel or something? Which, by the way, don’t do."

Sam frowned. "Do we have to worry about that?"

"Probably not," John said. "Anyone tries, they’d likely get the universe’s equivalent of voicemail. But even so, only an idiot plays Russian roulette, even with an empty gun. So just keep the thing on you, or someplace you know it is safe; don’t wear it; and don’t destroy it. As long as you stick to those basics, he should be on the bench for the duration of the game. Which is a hell of an advantage in what’s coming. Because without the cohesion of The Unspoken’s leadership - without the pressure of his thirst for darkness and anarchy - that outcome we talked about? The one that’s not written in stone? It will be a hell of a lot closer to a final draft that will favor the continuation of the species than it would be if his yellow-eyed ass was still baptizing the future with the blood of their mothers."

"So you don’t know his real name then," Sam surmised. Then he added, "So even though you’re dead, you don’t know everything."

He laughed when John asked Dean, "Did he even listen to a word I said?"

"Don’t worry," Dean assured him. "I’ve got it."

"Good. Be safe, boys. I don’t have another life to spare if either one of you starts chatting up a cute reaper."

"What?" Dean asked.

"Never mind," John said. "Probably more detail than you need to remember. Just be careful. Watch each other’s backs. And remember you’re not alone in this."

"And that Sammy’s the whole point," Dean added with a small smile.

"But even so, it’s still Han Solo who gets the chick in the end," Sam pointed out.

"Who grows up to be Carrie Fisher," Dean said.

Sam snorted. "And your point is?"

"My point is he doesn’t end up polishing the brass with Princess Leia; he ends up stuck with Carrie Fisher."

"Who’s smart and funny and …"

"Not all that hot in a brass bikini any more," Dean finished for him.

"Earl," John said.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I think The Unspoken’s real name might have originally been Earl," John said. "But don’t quote me on that. I read it on the internet somewhere, but you know how writers are. They could have just been making it up."

Sam and Dean were still laughing when they realized he was gone.

finis