An End Has a Start (Dean/Carmen, Sam/Jess R) 10/10
Title: An End Has a Start - Part 10
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Carmen, Sam/Jess
Word Count: 5,006 (50,221 overall)
Warnings: Wishverse fic, spoilers for S1 & S2 through 2x20
Summary: After Dean wakes up in the hospital with amnesia after an apparent attempted suicide, the answers he seeks just brings more questions before turning his world completely upside down.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9
Carmen got pulled into covering half of another nurse’s shift, so she wasn’t home at noon when Dean and Sam piled into the Impala with the shotgun, salt rounds, a dozen boxes of rock salt, the notebook, and two shovels. Dean almost preferred it that way - he wasn’t sure what he would say to her if she’d been home.
Even though the drive to Oskaloosa only took half an hour, it felt like time had slowed fivefold. Sam had a hard time holding still in the passenger seat, alternating between turning around like he thought they were being followed, chewing his fingernails down to the skin, and commenting on random things they drove past. Apparently there was a high number of dead raccoons on this eleven mile stretch of Route 59. Dean was just glad that it wasn’t cattle.
The town’s only church was on the highest part of town, which wasn’t even worthy of being called a hill. Pleasant View Cemetery stretched out behind it for acres. They parked behind the church, Dean laughing at the wrought iron sign above the gate to the cemetery. “What do dead people need a pleasant view for?”
“I think the name’s for the people who visit, not the ones that get buried here,” Sam said, missing the no-shit-Sherlock expression thrown his way by Dean. He looked out over the green, manicured lawns, reading the dates on the headstones to try and determine where the older plots might be. “The cemetery is older,” Sam observed, the plaque on the gate listing an older date than the one at the entrance of the church.
“Which means…?”
“Which means the older plots won’t be directly behind the church. They could be in a corner with the newer ones fanning out in rows or in the center, building out in rings.” Following Dean to the gate and then through it once they pulled it open, Sam didn’t miss the why-the-fuck-would-you-know-that look on his brother’s face. “What? It’s common sense.”
Dean read through the gravestones, trying to head in the direction where they went back in time, annoyed but not surprised when it seemed like Sam was going to be right with his idea of the older stones being in a corner with the new ones fanning out. He wondered how far back the graves went, how far away from the church they would end up when they found Henry Wheeler. He also couldn’t help but think about what they happened if the kid’s grave was unmarked, had been washed away in a storm, or was somewhere else altogether that used to be Oskaloosa but no longer was. “Jess knows you’re, like, a fountain of weird, random shit, right?”
“Because gaining memories from a parallel version of yourself that temporarily inhabited your body and almost killed you to get back to where he came from is perfectly normal.” Sam stopped himself too late, gauging Dean’s response. He wasn’t trying to pick a fight and hoped his brother noticed that. At the same time, though, with the way the few of them who knew had been responding, Sam felt like something should be said because it was being treated just too normally.
Dean replied simply, not feeling offended at all. “Point taken.” As they kept walking through the rows and rows of headstones, Dean tried to figure out if it was possible that there were more people buried in Oskaloosa than actually living there.
Reaching the older sites, Dean and Sam split off, going up and down the rows, reading the names that had been worn down with time carefully, taking rubbings of some that looked close to try and make out what had once been there. After two hours of looking, Dean felt a wave of relief that they were at least in the right place when Sam, a few rows ahead and further away from the church than Dean, called out that he found the headstone. It was plain and small enough where if Sam stood on it both of his feet would have covered the surface. The etching on it was just as simple as the stone itself.
HENRY WHEELER
December 21, 1889 - December 21, 1898
“What now?” Sam asked. It had taken two hours to find the grave, making it about three in the afternoon. It would be dark in an hour, and Sam had no idea how long it took to dig up a grave.
“We go back to the car, making sure to count how many plots down and over this one is so we can find it, and come back when it’s dark. This is far enough from the road that being seen in passing headlights won’t be a problem, but we can’t exactly pull shovels out of the trunk and walk into the cemetery with them in broad daylight.” Dean remembered Topeka, how the lights had flickered around Donald Cooper’s house at about ten thirty and while it didn’t mean anything to him at the time, he knew it meant everything now. They would have six hours to dig up the grave and salt and burn the bones. Dean hoped graves were dug more shallowly a century ago so it would go quicker. He was definitely glad that they wouldn’t have to open up a coffin, the grave being so old that the wooden box would have rotted away decades ago. “You up for coffee?”
“I suppose.” Sam followed Dean back to the Impala, making a point of memorizing where Henry Wheeler’s grave was, that it was in the forty third row from the wrought iron gate and five over on the left side of the large path that cut down the middle of Pleasant View Cemetery.
The church and cemetery were actually just outside of the town buried amongst farm land. They passed the elementary school on their way into the main part of Oskaloosa, Sam looking at the cars in the parking lot as they passed. He wondered which car was Jaime Struthers(‘), and what she would be doing after school let out soon today. Sam doubted getting killed by the one hundred plus year old spirit of a nine year old boy was on her agenda. Dean didn’t tell Sam, but he’d planned on going by the school intentionally. He had managed to look up Jaime’s address and license plate number, so he knew she was still there when they drove on by. Dean also knew what she looked like from finding her driver’s license photo in the system, but he wouldn’t have told Sam it was her if she’d been outside of Oskaloosa Elementary when they drove by. Sam didn’t need to know what she looked like because having a face in mind might make him focus more on what would happen if they failed where Dean needed him to stay on guard. He’d done this before, in a manner of speaking. Sam didn’t even know how to handle the shotgun.
They found a mom and pop restaurant in town that had a pot of coffee brewing behind the counter, so they parked on the street and went inside. Sam wouldn’t admit it to Dean, but he was too nervous to eat, and watching his brother work his way through a slice of pie that he ordered from the spinning display was making him nauseaous. He only agreed to the coffee because he wanted to stay awake and didn’t think sitting around the graveyard for an hour just waiting was going to help his nerves.
“Are you going to be quietly freaking out for the rest of the night?” Dean asked around bites from the apple pie and a sip of coffee. They’d slid into a booth by the door so when the time came they could just slap down some cash and leave without walking by the rest of the people there and drawing too much notice. “Because I’d really rather you get it all out now than later when we’re a little preoccupied with this whole saving someone’s life thing.”
Sam’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “I didn’t ask to be a part of this.”
“That’s right, you didn’t,” Dean replied, putting down the fork and facing his brother directly. “But I didn’t either, and you told me you’d help. I couldn’t have done any of it without you, so you’re gonna deal and everything will be fine. I know you’re not fucked up like I am right now, but I swear, if I could give back what I know I would. Everytime I think something I have to try and figure out who it came from first, and it’s got old really quickly.”
“I just feel like I’m in the dark here. You at least have the benefit of knowing what to do, what could happen, how this shit works.” Sam rubbed at his face, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. For someone that was planning on making a living by picking and choosing the right thing to say, he was having a hell of a difficult time finding the words. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. When you got stabbed, I kept thinking how you were going to die, and you spent Mom’s birthday trying to fix things with us, and I just… tossed you aside. Things are so fucked up right now but I feel like I actually have a brother, not just some asshole that shares my parents and stole my prom date. This job, it’s dangerous, and I don’t want to feel that way again.”
Dean, not knowing what to say, opted to stay silent. He knew he couldn’t promise that nothing would happen to either of them. He recalled memories of dying, of Sam possessed, off (of) getting shot and stabbed and clawed and bit by all manner of creatures. The only way he could promise nothing would happen was if he finished this job and then was done, determined to keep himself and his family safe by not putting himself in dangerous situations or risking things going after his family because of him.
“You sure you don’t want any pie?” Dean said instead, seeing the crestfallen expression on Sam’s face clear as day, but Dean wasn’t one for making promises he couldn’t keep. He watched his brother until Sam turned to the glass of water he’d asked for, finding something fascinating at the bottom of it as Dean returned to his pie and coffee, keeping an eye on the clock and the rapidly diminishing level of the sun in the sky.
+
Half an hour of digging and Sam stared at the ground, distraught that they’d only two feet deep. The ground was frozen, so getting started was slow, but the further down they got the looser the soil felt, so Sam knew it would be easier and speed along soon, but it was still disheartening to see how little dirt they’d moved in comparison to how much his back was hurting from using the shovel. He liked to think he was in good shape and blamed his stiffness entirely on how not ergonomically designed the shovel was.
Dean wasn’t feeling much better but for completely different reasons. He had a nagging feeling that things were supposed to be going faster combined with the fact that the muscles in his abdomen weren’t completely healed made life more difficult than it needed to be. The sky completely dark now, Dean grabbed the matchbook out of the back pocket of his jeans and lit the kerosene camping lanterns he had brought along, propping them up in a triangle around the site they were digging at. Dean also had a flashlight that he put on the ground right next to the small headstone.
“I don’t think that’s helping much,” Sam said, the light from the beam not making any difference when combined with that coming off of the lanterns.
“It’s not to help us see,” Dean said, resting his foot on the back of the shovel’s blade, resting for a moment. “Spirits disrupt electricity. The lanterns won’t be affected, so the flashlight might be all the warning we get.”
“You think he’ll come after us?” That was a possibility Sam hadn’t put much thought into. He tried to maintain a brave face but knew that he was failing miserably. Sam looked at the shotgun that they’d brought out with a can of gasoline and a couple of boxes of salt, wishing he knew how to use it as for the first time he entertained the possibility of actually needing to.
“Wouldn’t you if someone was trying to ruin your century long murdering spree by destroying your body?” Sam’s eyes looked wide, but it also could have been a trick of the light. Or at least Dean liked to think that’s what it was. “Don’t hesitate to shoot me if the spirit gets between us.”
“You want me to shoot you,” Sam said, tone more disbelieving than a question. His eyes were definitely wide now.
“It’ll sting like a bitch, but I’d much rather that than get made a crispy critter by our friend Henry. I swear I’ll kick your ass if you let him kill me.” Dean smiled at his brother but Sam clearly didn’t see the joke. Dean sobered up, realizing that Sam wasn’t going to be any fun at all during this.
They went back to digging in silence, the sound of metal breaking through the rocky soil almost deafening in the emptiness of the cemetery. Dean eventually started humming, and Sam found himself digging in time to the beat, finding it strange that he didn’t think it was odd that they were digging up a grave from 1899 in almost complete darkness with the intent of desecrating the remains. He kept thinking of all the people Henry Wheeler had already killed, most especially about Donald Cooper, and how he didn’t want that to happen to Jaime Struthers because of the kids she worked with and her boyfriend that was fighting for the country in Iraq and would be coming home in three months.
“You think Charlie had any idea that this was what we’d be doing when she suggested we bond?” Dean asked out of the blue, trying to stay optimistic to make sure Sam didn’t decide to say fuck this shit and go sit in the Impala until Dean was ready to give up too. He used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the sweat off his brow. The air temperature wasn’t quite as low as freezing but his damp skin wasn’t helping to make him feel any warmer.
“Maybe,” Sam said, glancing at his watch, he hoped, too quickly for his brother to notice as he noted the time to see about how much they had left to dig the remaining four feet of soil between them and Henry Wheeler’s corpse. “She did give you Missouri’s card - seems like too much of a coincidence to be completely random, don’t you think?”
Dean hadn’t thought about it like that. Sam did seem to have a point. Nothing in his life seemed like a happy accident anymore, and while it annoyed Dean to feel like he was getting played like a puppet, it was also kind of reassuring in a sense to know that if he made the wrong choice there would be an alternate version of himself making the correct one.
Two hours after they had first broken ground, Dean and Sam found bone, the wooden coffin having long ago rotted away into nothing more than the few pieces of metal that had been constructed into it. Sam grabbed two boxes of salt, tossing one at Dean who caught it with one hand, and the plastic container of gasoline they’d also brought along. There was the distinct sound of metal parts sliding into place, Sam looking up to see Dean holding the shotgun, cocked and ready. “Just in case,” Dean said, keeping it in his right hand as he started shaking salt across the exposed bones with his left. Sam followed suit, ripping open the box of salt he was holding and watching the crystals catch the lantern light as they fell. When their two boxes ran empty, Dean tossed his to the ground, raising the shotgun so his right hand remained near the trigger while his left held the barrel. “That should be more than enough.”
Ditching the box, Sam unscrewed the cap on the red container and started to douse the bones, the smell of gasoline beginning to permeate the air. It was half gone when Sam noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye, turning his head to see that the flashlight had gone out. He looked at his brother, Dean’s posture was stiff, militant. He had noticed too and was trying to find the direction Henry Wheeler would appear in.
Dean stumbled backwards as the spirit appeared right next to him, grabbing Dean by the arm and spinning him away from the grave while wrenching the shotgun out of Dean’s hands and sending it flying. Dean landed against a headstone, the back of his skull connecting with the granite surface hard enough for him to see stars. His vision was blurry, Dean trying to shake his head clear as he watched Henry Wheeler disappear from directly in front of him only to reappear right next to his brother.
Sam saw dark, angry eyes and then felt himself go flying through the air as Henry Wheeler grabbed him, tossing him like a ragdoll away from the bones that now lay exposed and drenched with rock salt and gasoline. He watched from the ground, frozen in horror, as he saw the spirit lift Dean into the air, electricity sporadically zapping from his massless form and into Dean’s body, his brother twitching, muscles reacting from the shock. Looking around, Sam realized he had landed near where the shotgun had been sent flying out of Dean’s hands. It was already cocked - he just needing to squeeze the trigger.
Reaching out to grab the gun and standing in the same motion, remaining as quiet as possible so as not to attract attention to himself, Sam rose to his feet, bringing the shotgun to his eye to draw a line of sight down the barrel at Henry Wheeler. From twenty feet away Sam could hear Dean groaning in pain through clenched teeth as his hands tried to peel Henry Wheeler’s fingers from around his neck. Dean would manage to get some purchase, nearly able to struggle away, but then another surge of electricity would make his muscles tense then relax, undoing whatever footing he’d gained. The ghost’s back was to Sam, focused on Dean like he was trying to decide if he’d rather break pattern and kill his brother to be able to finish what he’d started or not be able to finish this cycle at all. Sam didn’t want to find out as he took aim, praying that the salt rounds wouldn’t hurt his brother too much as he knew they wouldn’t kill him. “Hey!” he yelled boldly, Henry Wheeler dropping Dean to the ground and spinning around, snarling. Sam squeezed the trigger, holding steady against the kick of the shotgun as he watched the ghost disappear into thin air.
Dean took the moment, flipping open the matchbook he’d put back in his pocket previously, relieved to find that it hadn’t fallen out when he’d gotten lifted into the air and then subsequently dropped to the ground. Dean rolled from his stomach up to his feet, ignoring his body as it cried out in pain when the parts of his skin that had been burned from Henry Wheeler’s touch came into contact with his clothes, with the ground, and quickly closed the gap between him and the open grave, sliding a match along the striking surface.
Henry Wheeler reappeared behind Dean, Sam letting out a cry of warning as he tried to reload and cock the shotgun, but his fingers kept fumbling. Time seemed to slow, Sam able to feel his heart pounding in his chest as Henry Wheeler reached out for Dean at the same time his brother let the match fall, light a dancing orange before igniting into a roaring flame. Hands mere inches from Dean’s arm, Henry Wheeler let out an ear-splitting scream, curling and writhing in agony as the body burned and the ghost caught fire as well, burning quickly into himself like a piece of paper thrown into the flames. The screeching stopped, the cemetery completely silent except for the sound of the fire licking up the sides of the grave they’d dug up and the blood roaring in Dean and Sam’s ears.
+
They hung around Oskaloosa until midnight, parking the Impala across the street from Jaime Struthers’s house and keeping an eye out just in case. Midnight came and went without incident, the ghost of Henry Wheeler no longer a problem. Sam found himself unable to stop talking, all that pent up nervous energy pouring out of him as his brain tried to process what had just happened. They had destroyed a vengeful spirit, something that two months ago Sam didn’t even believe existed, but he’d been attacked by it, shot it, and watched it burn as the bones were engulfed in flames.
Dean was glad for Sam’s incessent talking - it kept him distracted from how much pain he was in, how hot the leather seats felt against the burnt bits of skin that were exposed after Henry Wheeler’s touch had burned holes through his clothing, marking his skin with angry, red fingerprints. He drove home quickly, the roads empty at nearly one in the morning, kept waiting for Sam to comment on him doing ninety miles per hour on the most dangerous stretch of the interstate, but it never came up. They just wanted to get back to Lawrence, figure out what they were supposed to do next.
Pulling into his usual parking spot behind his apartment building, Dean was glad to see Carmen’s little Nissan a few spaces over. He looked at the building, counting windows up and over to see that the bedroom light was on.
“You coming up?” Dean asked, just wanting to crawl into his own bed with Carmen and not really feeling like driving Sam back to Mom’s house, even if it meant his brother would have to spend the night on the couch.
“It would be better, don’t you think?” Sam looked at the time, having a hard time believing that it was that late when he was still feeling very awake and alert. “Then I won’t wake up Mom. Don’t think I’ll be able to sleep after that - will probably just watch television or something until morning.”
Dean felt like he was a million years old as he pulled himself out of the Impala to the entrance of the building, climbing the five flights of stairs with Sam behind him, wondering if his brother would be quick enough to catch him if Dean just keeled over. Dean fished around the keyring for the one to his apartment, about to slide it into the hole when the door opened, Carmen’s face peeking through the open space.
She looked them over, nose crinkling as she pushed the door open wider to let Dean and Sam in. “You guys reek of gasoline and smoke.” Carmen shut the door, locking it behind them. “So… Is it over?”
“It’s over,” Dean affirmed, removing his jacket to throw it on the couch to notice that Missouri was sitting there, hands clasped in her lap as she studied them.
“I hope you don’t mind me being here,” Missouri started. “Carmen invited me over, didn’t feel like waiting all by herself.” Dean didn’t mind, was just surprised to see her, and was actually glad for the woman’s presence. Carmen liked her, he knew, and the psychic would have been able to keep her from worrying too much. “How’d it go?” she asked, eyes shifting between Dean and Sam. “I know you were successful, but I want to hear how it played out.”
Dean motioned vaguely to Sam, eyeing the bedroom and not feeling up to giving Missouri a blow-by-blow account of what happened. “You can tell her.” He watched his brother sit down next to Missouri on the sofa, telling her what had gone on starting with everything they’d packed into the Impala that morning. Dean, not feeling like he needed to hear about it since he had been there, went into the bedroom, peeling off his shirt to throw it on the bed as he entered the bathroom right off of his and Carmen’s room, hissing in pain as he poked at the various burns on his chest, shoulders, and arms, the skin feeling tight and hot.
“You look like you had a run in with a cattle prod,” Carmen said from the doorway, grabbing a wash cloth from next to the sink and holding it under the cold water tap. She took the wet cloth, holding it against a burn below his collarbone that was the shape of a hand. “These don’t look too bad.”
“They still hurt,” Dean grumbled, moving closer to Carmen as he slipped a hand up under the hem of her shirt, placing it on her stomach that was still flat for now but in a matter of time he’d be able to see the baby, to feel it. “I can’t stop,” he sighed.
“Can’t stop what?” Carmen asked, not meeting his gaze as she looked over his other burns, trying to see if any of them were at risk of becoming infected, but the hand print was the worst looking one and the skin wasn’t even broken.
“Knowing what’s out there… I want to know that you’re safe, the baby’s safe, that these things that exist won’t hurt my family because I won’t let them.”
Carmen’s gaze did meet his then - she looked surprised, scared, and like she wasn’t above kicking Dean’s ass to get him to see her way. “So what do you plan on doing? Go around the country killing ghosts? You want to keep us safe, but who is going to keep you safe?”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere - I’d stay here. I’m not planning on taking down everything, just the ones I can. If something is killing people here in Lawrence or Eudora or Perry, I’ll take care of it. I can’t pretend these things don’t exist, so I won’t.” Dean moved his hand from Carmen’s stomach to her chin. “You get that, don’t you? I just can’t pretend the world is what it used to be anymore.”
Carmen leaned into Dean, his heart beating steadily under her ear, the rhythm of which she had memorized when he’d still been unconscious at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, the beeping of the heart monitor reassuring her that Dean was alive despite how pale and still he had seemed in the bed. “Okay,” she sighed, not quite believing herself, but she could see Dean’s point. It would be like if there was an accident downtown - just because she wasn’t working didn’t mean she couldn’t help. It was basically the same idea, helping people because you could, not necessarily because you had to. “You need to promise me you won’t do anything rash, though. And you’re definitely not allowed to get killed.”
Dean kissed her, knowing he couldn’t promise anything, but he wanted Carmen to know that he would do his best. Carmen accepted this answer for now, prepared to make a bigger issue of it later on.
After his burns were treated, Dean grabbed a zip-up hoodie from the closet, putting it on carefully so it didn’t rub against any of the injuries. Sam was finishing up the story when Dean got back out into the living room, listening to his brother tell Missouri how Henry Wheeler had burned up as the bones ignited, how they watched Jaime Struthers’s dark house for five hours, putting a thick salt ring around it just in case, but the streetlights never flickered, and there never came any screams.
“And… That’s pretty much it,” Sam concluded, looking from Missouri over to where Dean stood with Carmen. “Dean and I can now say we’ve gotten our asses kicked by a nine year old boy.”
“A nine year old creepy, pissed off ghost boy with superhuman strength,” Dean amended, wanting to keep his pride in check. “Although you should’ve seen how far the thing threw Sam.”
“Threw you pretty far, too,” Sam grumbled. “And I totally saved your ass.”
“We made a good team.” Dean knew that Sam would be going back to Stanford at the end of March, but he could admit that they had worked well together, and Dean doubted he could have done it on his own, excesss memories included or not.
Sam smiled sheepishly, knowing he had never before thought he would be able to spend time with his brother without wanting to kill him, but Sam had clearly found himself proven wrong. It was an odd thing to bond over, but they had nonetheless.
“Didn’t know if this would interest you boys or not,” Missouri said, standing to get to her jacket that was draped across one of the kitchen chairs, pulling a newspaper page out of an inside pocket. “But there’s been a rash of cattle mutilations out in Onaga. Locals think its coyotes, but there hasn’t been a recorded population there in nearly fifteen years.”
Dean looked at his brother, his interest peaked. “Well? What do you say, Sam?”
“Why the hell not?” Sam grinned, going over to the desk in the corner where Dean’s computer sat. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.” Sam flipped the lid open, booting the laptop up and, once everything loaded, he got right to work.
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Carmen, Sam/Jess
Word Count: 5,006 (50,221 overall)
Warnings: Wishverse fic, spoilers for S1 & S2 through 2x20
Summary: After Dean wakes up in the hospital with amnesia after an apparent attempted suicide, the answers he seeks just brings more questions before turning his world completely upside down.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9
Carmen got pulled into covering half of another nurse’s shift, so she wasn’t home at noon when Dean and Sam piled into the Impala with the shotgun, salt rounds, a dozen boxes of rock salt, the notebook, and two shovels. Dean almost preferred it that way - he wasn’t sure what he would say to her if she’d been home.
Even though the drive to Oskaloosa only took half an hour, it felt like time had slowed fivefold. Sam had a hard time holding still in the passenger seat, alternating between turning around like he thought they were being followed, chewing his fingernails down to the skin, and commenting on random things they drove past. Apparently there was a high number of dead raccoons on this eleven mile stretch of Route 59. Dean was just glad that it wasn’t cattle.
The town’s only church was on the highest part of town, which wasn’t even worthy of being called a hill. Pleasant View Cemetery stretched out behind it for acres. They parked behind the church, Dean laughing at the wrought iron sign above the gate to the cemetery. “What do dead people need a pleasant view for?”
“I think the name’s for the people who visit, not the ones that get buried here,” Sam said, missing the no-shit-Sherlock expression thrown his way by Dean. He looked out over the green, manicured lawns, reading the dates on the headstones to try and determine where the older plots might be. “The cemetery is older,” Sam observed, the plaque on the gate listing an older date than the one at the entrance of the church.
“Which means…?”
“Which means the older plots won’t be directly behind the church. They could be in a corner with the newer ones fanning out in rows or in the center, building out in rings.” Following Dean to the gate and then through it once they pulled it open, Sam didn’t miss the why-the-fuck-would-you-know-that look on his brother’s face. “What? It’s common sense.”
Dean read through the gravestones, trying to head in the direction where they went back in time, annoyed but not surprised when it seemed like Sam was going to be right with his idea of the older stones being in a corner with the new ones fanning out. He wondered how far back the graves went, how far away from the church they would end up when they found Henry Wheeler. He also couldn’t help but think about what they happened if the kid’s grave was unmarked, had been washed away in a storm, or was somewhere else altogether that used to be Oskaloosa but no longer was. “Jess knows you’re, like, a fountain of weird, random shit, right?”
“Because gaining memories from a parallel version of yourself that temporarily inhabited your body and almost killed you to get back to where he came from is perfectly normal.” Sam stopped himself too late, gauging Dean’s response. He wasn’t trying to pick a fight and hoped his brother noticed that. At the same time, though, with the way the few of them who knew had been responding, Sam felt like something should be said because it was being treated just too normally.
Dean replied simply, not feeling offended at all. “Point taken.” As they kept walking through the rows and rows of headstones, Dean tried to figure out if it was possible that there were more people buried in Oskaloosa than actually living there.
Reaching the older sites, Dean and Sam split off, going up and down the rows, reading the names that had been worn down with time carefully, taking rubbings of some that looked close to try and make out what had once been there. After two hours of looking, Dean felt a wave of relief that they were at least in the right place when Sam, a few rows ahead and further away from the church than Dean, called out that he found the headstone. It was plain and small enough where if Sam stood on it both of his feet would have covered the surface. The etching on it was just as simple as the stone itself.
HENRY WHEELER
December 21, 1889 - December 21, 1898
“What now?” Sam asked. It had taken two hours to find the grave, making it about three in the afternoon. It would be dark in an hour, and Sam had no idea how long it took to dig up a grave.
“We go back to the car, making sure to count how many plots down and over this one is so we can find it, and come back when it’s dark. This is far enough from the road that being seen in passing headlights won’t be a problem, but we can’t exactly pull shovels out of the trunk and walk into the cemetery with them in broad daylight.” Dean remembered Topeka, how the lights had flickered around Donald Cooper’s house at about ten thirty and while it didn’t mean anything to him at the time, he knew it meant everything now. They would have six hours to dig up the grave and salt and burn the bones. Dean hoped graves were dug more shallowly a century ago so it would go quicker. He was definitely glad that they wouldn’t have to open up a coffin, the grave being so old that the wooden box would have rotted away decades ago. “You up for coffee?”
“I suppose.” Sam followed Dean back to the Impala, making a point of memorizing where Henry Wheeler’s grave was, that it was in the forty third row from the wrought iron gate and five over on the left side of the large path that cut down the middle of Pleasant View Cemetery.
The church and cemetery were actually just outside of the town buried amongst farm land. They passed the elementary school on their way into the main part of Oskaloosa, Sam looking at the cars in the parking lot as they passed. He wondered which car was Jaime Struthers(‘), and what she would be doing after school let out soon today. Sam doubted getting killed by the one hundred plus year old spirit of a nine year old boy was on her agenda. Dean didn’t tell Sam, but he’d planned on going by the school intentionally. He had managed to look up Jaime’s address and license plate number, so he knew she was still there when they drove on by. Dean also knew what she looked like from finding her driver’s license photo in the system, but he wouldn’t have told Sam it was her if she’d been outside of Oskaloosa Elementary when they drove by. Sam didn’t need to know what she looked like because having a face in mind might make him focus more on what would happen if they failed where Dean needed him to stay on guard. He’d done this before, in a manner of speaking. Sam didn’t even know how to handle the shotgun.
They found a mom and pop restaurant in town that had a pot of coffee brewing behind the counter, so they parked on the street and went inside. Sam wouldn’t admit it to Dean, but he was too nervous to eat, and watching his brother work his way through a slice of pie that he ordered from the spinning display was making him nauseaous. He only agreed to the coffee because he wanted to stay awake and didn’t think sitting around the graveyard for an hour just waiting was going to help his nerves.
“Are you going to be quietly freaking out for the rest of the night?” Dean asked around bites from the apple pie and a sip of coffee. They’d slid into a booth by the door so when the time came they could just slap down some cash and leave without walking by the rest of the people there and drawing too much notice. “Because I’d really rather you get it all out now than later when we’re a little preoccupied with this whole saving someone’s life thing.”
Sam’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “I didn’t ask to be a part of this.”
“That’s right, you didn’t,” Dean replied, putting down the fork and facing his brother directly. “But I didn’t either, and you told me you’d help. I couldn’t have done any of it without you, so you’re gonna deal and everything will be fine. I know you’re not fucked up like I am right now, but I swear, if I could give back what I know I would. Everytime I think something I have to try and figure out who it came from first, and it’s got old really quickly.”
“I just feel like I’m in the dark here. You at least have the benefit of knowing what to do, what could happen, how this shit works.” Sam rubbed at his face, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. For someone that was planning on making a living by picking and choosing the right thing to say, he was having a hell of a difficult time finding the words. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. When you got stabbed, I kept thinking how you were going to die, and you spent Mom’s birthday trying to fix things with us, and I just… tossed you aside. Things are so fucked up right now but I feel like I actually have a brother, not just some asshole that shares my parents and stole my prom date. This job, it’s dangerous, and I don’t want to feel that way again.”
Dean, not knowing what to say, opted to stay silent. He knew he couldn’t promise that nothing would happen to either of them. He recalled memories of dying, of Sam possessed, off (of) getting shot and stabbed and clawed and bit by all manner of creatures. The only way he could promise nothing would happen was if he finished this job and then was done, determined to keep himself and his family safe by not putting himself in dangerous situations or risking things going after his family because of him.
“You sure you don’t want any pie?” Dean said instead, seeing the crestfallen expression on Sam’s face clear as day, but Dean wasn’t one for making promises he couldn’t keep. He watched his brother until Sam turned to the glass of water he’d asked for, finding something fascinating at the bottom of it as Dean returned to his pie and coffee, keeping an eye on the clock and the rapidly diminishing level of the sun in the sky.
+
Half an hour of digging and Sam stared at the ground, distraught that they’d only two feet deep. The ground was frozen, so getting started was slow, but the further down they got the looser the soil felt, so Sam knew it would be easier and speed along soon, but it was still disheartening to see how little dirt they’d moved in comparison to how much his back was hurting from using the shovel. He liked to think he was in good shape and blamed his stiffness entirely on how not ergonomically designed the shovel was.
Dean wasn’t feeling much better but for completely different reasons. He had a nagging feeling that things were supposed to be going faster combined with the fact that the muscles in his abdomen weren’t completely healed made life more difficult than it needed to be. The sky completely dark now, Dean grabbed the matchbook out of the back pocket of his jeans and lit the kerosene camping lanterns he had brought along, propping them up in a triangle around the site they were digging at. Dean also had a flashlight that he put on the ground right next to the small headstone.
“I don’t think that’s helping much,” Sam said, the light from the beam not making any difference when combined with that coming off of the lanterns.
“It’s not to help us see,” Dean said, resting his foot on the back of the shovel’s blade, resting for a moment. “Spirits disrupt electricity. The lanterns won’t be affected, so the flashlight might be all the warning we get.”
“You think he’ll come after us?” That was a possibility Sam hadn’t put much thought into. He tried to maintain a brave face but knew that he was failing miserably. Sam looked at the shotgun that they’d brought out with a can of gasoline and a couple of boxes of salt, wishing he knew how to use it as for the first time he entertained the possibility of actually needing to.
“Wouldn’t you if someone was trying to ruin your century long murdering spree by destroying your body?” Sam’s eyes looked wide, but it also could have been a trick of the light. Or at least Dean liked to think that’s what it was. “Don’t hesitate to shoot me if the spirit gets between us.”
“You want me to shoot you,” Sam said, tone more disbelieving than a question. His eyes were definitely wide now.
“It’ll sting like a bitch, but I’d much rather that than get made a crispy critter by our friend Henry. I swear I’ll kick your ass if you let him kill me.” Dean smiled at his brother but Sam clearly didn’t see the joke. Dean sobered up, realizing that Sam wasn’t going to be any fun at all during this.
They went back to digging in silence, the sound of metal breaking through the rocky soil almost deafening in the emptiness of the cemetery. Dean eventually started humming, and Sam found himself digging in time to the beat, finding it strange that he didn’t think it was odd that they were digging up a grave from 1899 in almost complete darkness with the intent of desecrating the remains. He kept thinking of all the people Henry Wheeler had already killed, most especially about Donald Cooper, and how he didn’t want that to happen to Jaime Struthers because of the kids she worked with and her boyfriend that was fighting for the country in Iraq and would be coming home in three months.
“You think Charlie had any idea that this was what we’d be doing when she suggested we bond?” Dean asked out of the blue, trying to stay optimistic to make sure Sam didn’t decide to say fuck this shit and go sit in the Impala until Dean was ready to give up too. He used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the sweat off his brow. The air temperature wasn’t quite as low as freezing but his damp skin wasn’t helping to make him feel any warmer.
“Maybe,” Sam said, glancing at his watch, he hoped, too quickly for his brother to notice as he noted the time to see about how much they had left to dig the remaining four feet of soil between them and Henry Wheeler’s corpse. “She did give you Missouri’s card - seems like too much of a coincidence to be completely random, don’t you think?”
Dean hadn’t thought about it like that. Sam did seem to have a point. Nothing in his life seemed like a happy accident anymore, and while it annoyed Dean to feel like he was getting played like a puppet, it was also kind of reassuring in a sense to know that if he made the wrong choice there would be an alternate version of himself making the correct one.
Two hours after they had first broken ground, Dean and Sam found bone, the wooden coffin having long ago rotted away into nothing more than the few pieces of metal that had been constructed into it. Sam grabbed two boxes of salt, tossing one at Dean who caught it with one hand, and the plastic container of gasoline they’d also brought along. There was the distinct sound of metal parts sliding into place, Sam looking up to see Dean holding the shotgun, cocked and ready. “Just in case,” Dean said, keeping it in his right hand as he started shaking salt across the exposed bones with his left. Sam followed suit, ripping open the box of salt he was holding and watching the crystals catch the lantern light as they fell. When their two boxes ran empty, Dean tossed his to the ground, raising the shotgun so his right hand remained near the trigger while his left held the barrel. “That should be more than enough.”
Ditching the box, Sam unscrewed the cap on the red container and started to douse the bones, the smell of gasoline beginning to permeate the air. It was half gone when Sam noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye, turning his head to see that the flashlight had gone out. He looked at his brother, Dean’s posture was stiff, militant. He had noticed too and was trying to find the direction Henry Wheeler would appear in.
Dean stumbled backwards as the spirit appeared right next to him, grabbing Dean by the arm and spinning him away from the grave while wrenching the shotgun out of Dean’s hands and sending it flying. Dean landed against a headstone, the back of his skull connecting with the granite surface hard enough for him to see stars. His vision was blurry, Dean trying to shake his head clear as he watched Henry Wheeler disappear from directly in front of him only to reappear right next to his brother.
Sam saw dark, angry eyes and then felt himself go flying through the air as Henry Wheeler grabbed him, tossing him like a ragdoll away from the bones that now lay exposed and drenched with rock salt and gasoline. He watched from the ground, frozen in horror, as he saw the spirit lift Dean into the air, electricity sporadically zapping from his massless form and into Dean’s body, his brother twitching, muscles reacting from the shock. Looking around, Sam realized he had landed near where the shotgun had been sent flying out of Dean’s hands. It was already cocked - he just needing to squeeze the trigger.
Reaching out to grab the gun and standing in the same motion, remaining as quiet as possible so as not to attract attention to himself, Sam rose to his feet, bringing the shotgun to his eye to draw a line of sight down the barrel at Henry Wheeler. From twenty feet away Sam could hear Dean groaning in pain through clenched teeth as his hands tried to peel Henry Wheeler’s fingers from around his neck. Dean would manage to get some purchase, nearly able to struggle away, but then another surge of electricity would make his muscles tense then relax, undoing whatever footing he’d gained. The ghost’s back was to Sam, focused on Dean like he was trying to decide if he’d rather break pattern and kill his brother to be able to finish what he’d started or not be able to finish this cycle at all. Sam didn’t want to find out as he took aim, praying that the salt rounds wouldn’t hurt his brother too much as he knew they wouldn’t kill him. “Hey!” he yelled boldly, Henry Wheeler dropping Dean to the ground and spinning around, snarling. Sam squeezed the trigger, holding steady against the kick of the shotgun as he watched the ghost disappear into thin air.
Dean took the moment, flipping open the matchbook he’d put back in his pocket previously, relieved to find that it hadn’t fallen out when he’d gotten lifted into the air and then subsequently dropped to the ground. Dean rolled from his stomach up to his feet, ignoring his body as it cried out in pain when the parts of his skin that had been burned from Henry Wheeler’s touch came into contact with his clothes, with the ground, and quickly closed the gap between him and the open grave, sliding a match along the striking surface.
Henry Wheeler reappeared behind Dean, Sam letting out a cry of warning as he tried to reload and cock the shotgun, but his fingers kept fumbling. Time seemed to slow, Sam able to feel his heart pounding in his chest as Henry Wheeler reached out for Dean at the same time his brother let the match fall, light a dancing orange before igniting into a roaring flame. Hands mere inches from Dean’s arm, Henry Wheeler let out an ear-splitting scream, curling and writhing in agony as the body burned and the ghost caught fire as well, burning quickly into himself like a piece of paper thrown into the flames. The screeching stopped, the cemetery completely silent except for the sound of the fire licking up the sides of the grave they’d dug up and the blood roaring in Dean and Sam’s ears.
+
They hung around Oskaloosa until midnight, parking the Impala across the street from Jaime Struthers’s house and keeping an eye out just in case. Midnight came and went without incident, the ghost of Henry Wheeler no longer a problem. Sam found himself unable to stop talking, all that pent up nervous energy pouring out of him as his brain tried to process what had just happened. They had destroyed a vengeful spirit, something that two months ago Sam didn’t even believe existed, but he’d been attacked by it, shot it, and watched it burn as the bones were engulfed in flames.
Dean was glad for Sam’s incessent talking - it kept him distracted from how much pain he was in, how hot the leather seats felt against the burnt bits of skin that were exposed after Henry Wheeler’s touch had burned holes through his clothing, marking his skin with angry, red fingerprints. He drove home quickly, the roads empty at nearly one in the morning, kept waiting for Sam to comment on him doing ninety miles per hour on the most dangerous stretch of the interstate, but it never came up. They just wanted to get back to Lawrence, figure out what they were supposed to do next.
Pulling into his usual parking spot behind his apartment building, Dean was glad to see Carmen’s little Nissan a few spaces over. He looked at the building, counting windows up and over to see that the bedroom light was on.
“You coming up?” Dean asked, just wanting to crawl into his own bed with Carmen and not really feeling like driving Sam back to Mom’s house, even if it meant his brother would have to spend the night on the couch.
“It would be better, don’t you think?” Sam looked at the time, having a hard time believing that it was that late when he was still feeling very awake and alert. “Then I won’t wake up Mom. Don’t think I’ll be able to sleep after that - will probably just watch television or something until morning.”
Dean felt like he was a million years old as he pulled himself out of the Impala to the entrance of the building, climbing the five flights of stairs with Sam behind him, wondering if his brother would be quick enough to catch him if Dean just keeled over. Dean fished around the keyring for the one to his apartment, about to slide it into the hole when the door opened, Carmen’s face peeking through the open space.
She looked them over, nose crinkling as she pushed the door open wider to let Dean and Sam in. “You guys reek of gasoline and smoke.” Carmen shut the door, locking it behind them. “So… Is it over?”
“It’s over,” Dean affirmed, removing his jacket to throw it on the couch to notice that Missouri was sitting there, hands clasped in her lap as she studied them.
“I hope you don’t mind me being here,” Missouri started. “Carmen invited me over, didn’t feel like waiting all by herself.” Dean didn’t mind, was just surprised to see her, and was actually glad for the woman’s presence. Carmen liked her, he knew, and the psychic would have been able to keep her from worrying too much. “How’d it go?” she asked, eyes shifting between Dean and Sam. “I know you were successful, but I want to hear how it played out.”
Dean motioned vaguely to Sam, eyeing the bedroom and not feeling up to giving Missouri a blow-by-blow account of what happened. “You can tell her.” He watched his brother sit down next to Missouri on the sofa, telling her what had gone on starting with everything they’d packed into the Impala that morning. Dean, not feeling like he needed to hear about it since he had been there, went into the bedroom, peeling off his shirt to throw it on the bed as he entered the bathroom right off of his and Carmen’s room, hissing in pain as he poked at the various burns on his chest, shoulders, and arms, the skin feeling tight and hot.
“You look like you had a run in with a cattle prod,” Carmen said from the doorway, grabbing a wash cloth from next to the sink and holding it under the cold water tap. She took the wet cloth, holding it against a burn below his collarbone that was the shape of a hand. “These don’t look too bad.”
“They still hurt,” Dean grumbled, moving closer to Carmen as he slipped a hand up under the hem of her shirt, placing it on her stomach that was still flat for now but in a matter of time he’d be able to see the baby, to feel it. “I can’t stop,” he sighed.
“Can’t stop what?” Carmen asked, not meeting his gaze as she looked over his other burns, trying to see if any of them were at risk of becoming infected, but the hand print was the worst looking one and the skin wasn’t even broken.
“Knowing what’s out there… I want to know that you’re safe, the baby’s safe, that these things that exist won’t hurt my family because I won’t let them.”
Carmen’s gaze did meet his then - she looked surprised, scared, and like she wasn’t above kicking Dean’s ass to get him to see her way. “So what do you plan on doing? Go around the country killing ghosts? You want to keep us safe, but who is going to keep you safe?”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere - I’d stay here. I’m not planning on taking down everything, just the ones I can. If something is killing people here in Lawrence or Eudora or Perry, I’ll take care of it. I can’t pretend these things don’t exist, so I won’t.” Dean moved his hand from Carmen’s stomach to her chin. “You get that, don’t you? I just can’t pretend the world is what it used to be anymore.”
Carmen leaned into Dean, his heart beating steadily under her ear, the rhythm of which she had memorized when he’d still been unconscious at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, the beeping of the heart monitor reassuring her that Dean was alive despite how pale and still he had seemed in the bed. “Okay,” she sighed, not quite believing herself, but she could see Dean’s point. It would be like if there was an accident downtown - just because she wasn’t working didn’t mean she couldn’t help. It was basically the same idea, helping people because you could, not necessarily because you had to. “You need to promise me you won’t do anything rash, though. And you’re definitely not allowed to get killed.”
Dean kissed her, knowing he couldn’t promise anything, but he wanted Carmen to know that he would do his best. Carmen accepted this answer for now, prepared to make a bigger issue of it later on.
After his burns were treated, Dean grabbed a zip-up hoodie from the closet, putting it on carefully so it didn’t rub against any of the injuries. Sam was finishing up the story when Dean got back out into the living room, listening to his brother tell Missouri how Henry Wheeler had burned up as the bones ignited, how they watched Jaime Struthers’s dark house for five hours, putting a thick salt ring around it just in case, but the streetlights never flickered, and there never came any screams.
“And… That’s pretty much it,” Sam concluded, looking from Missouri over to where Dean stood with Carmen. “Dean and I can now say we’ve gotten our asses kicked by a nine year old boy.”
“A nine year old creepy, pissed off ghost boy with superhuman strength,” Dean amended, wanting to keep his pride in check. “Although you should’ve seen how far the thing threw Sam.”
“Threw you pretty far, too,” Sam grumbled. “And I totally saved your ass.”
“We made a good team.” Dean knew that Sam would be going back to Stanford at the end of March, but he could admit that they had worked well together, and Dean doubted he could have done it on his own, excesss memories included or not.
Sam smiled sheepishly, knowing he had never before thought he would be able to spend time with his brother without wanting to kill him, but Sam had clearly found himself proven wrong. It was an odd thing to bond over, but they had nonetheless.
“Didn’t know if this would interest you boys or not,” Missouri said, standing to get to her jacket that was draped across one of the kitchen chairs, pulling a newspaper page out of an inside pocket. “But there’s been a rash of cattle mutilations out in Onaga. Locals think its coyotes, but there hasn’t been a recorded population there in nearly fifteen years.”
Dean looked at his brother, his interest peaked. “Well? What do you say, Sam?”
“Why the hell not?” Sam grinned, going over to the desk in the corner where Dean’s computer sat. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.” Sam flipped the lid open, booting the laptop up and, once everything loaded, he got right to work.