A Quest Like That (Supernatural, gen, 19000+ words, complete)
Title: A Quest Like That
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: none
Characters: Sam, Dean, Charlie
Word count: 19,000+
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Summary: Sam, Dean, Charlie and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Author's note: I wrote this back in January for the SPN Reversebang (the art is here) and published it on AO3 (here) but am only just getting around to uploading it to my LJ. I wasn't that happy with it initially but having read it over just now, I think it's better than I originally gave myself credit for - or at least, I did more of what I wanted than I thought I'd managed to do. The fic is set sometime in early S10.
Chapter 1
After thirty-plus years in decrepit motels, on creaking camp-beds and (too often) in the car’s back seat, Sam ought by rights to have sleeping down to an art. But it had never worked out that way. Too many nasties waiting in the shadows; too many moments shocking awake on the wrong end of a gun. He could go hours lying in the dark with open eyes, trying not to focus on just how awake he actually was. With the Mark stubbornly reasserting itself of late, even Dean’s presence wasn’t as soothing as it once had been; and judging by the silence emanating from the other side of the tent (all the way over about six inches from Sam’s right ear), his brother wasn’t doing too well at the dropping off either. You could tell when Dean was sleeping, because he snored.
Sam sighed, rolling over onto his side. An ill-placed rock dug itself promptly into his ribs.
Why was he doing this, again? Helping Charlie re-establish her presence on the LARPing circuit seemed like a ridiculous way to be passing time when his brother was threatening to go Full Metal Demon any moment now. But Sam hadn’t been able to resist the combination of Dean’s pleading puppy eyes and the lure of a friendly face. Charlie was always so straightforwardly good to hang out with, and Sam could do with a little while around someone he was certain wouldn’t try to kill him. Of course, following that thread to its end left him uncomfortably conscious that he might be putting her (and her cosplaying friends) in danger by bringing a Mark-carrying Dean into their midst. But, but, but. He had to trust his brother. Or otherwise, where would they be? God, no wonder Sam couldn’t sleep. The same feedback loop of fretful anxiety had been running in his head since Dean’s eyes first flashed back to green.
And then, through the night, a sound that sent a thrill of horror down Sam’s spine: something like the wailing of hounds. Dean’s sleeping bag rustled as Sam’s brother sat up, the whites of his open eyes glinting pale in the dark.
“D’you hear that, Sammy?”
Sam nodded, not wanting to wake the dozen or so sleepers in the tents around. The LARPers had dispersed into small groups that evening, teams competing in a Medieval-style capture-the-flag. Charlie had introduced them to the gang, a funny mix of wide-eyed teenagers and serious, jargon-spouting enthusiasts comfortable in their own expertise. None of them had known quite what to make of Dean, solid and gruff and a little too handy with a sword; and none of them had really spoken to Sam, who had been happy enough to stand quietly aside and watch the group dynamics play out. Now, though, he was mentally cataloguing the different personalities, trying to figure who would panic at the sound of a howl in the woods.
With that, the noise came again, more distinct and more disturbing than before. There were definitely several voices amongst the cry, several animals running together in pack. A threat, for certain, and one that they’d have to check out; especially because Sam was pretty sure wolves didn’t usually run this far South. And even if whatever was on hand wasn’t supernatural at all, who amongst this group of telesales agents and shop assistants would be better prepared than Sam and Dean to deal with real-life danger and blood?
Dean had obviously had the same thought, clicking on the lantern and beginning to pull on his boots. His jaw was set in a hard line that might have something to do with the fear of dogs he’d been inexpertly quashing since his return from Hell. Certainly, that explanation for this conspicuous self-control was a lot less disquieting than the alternative: that Dean was struggling against the Mark and its incessant injunction to kill.
Sam watched as his brother checked over his gun, slipping it into the waistband of his jeans as he rose to a crouch. Dean looked at Sam, then, raising his eyebrow and inclining his head towards the zippered door. Sam nodded, wiggling his feet into his own shoes, grabbing his weapon and with it, just to be sure, the small canvas rucksack he’d brought with him into the woods. After all, it was never too wise to head out into the wilderness without at least basic supplies. Dean rolled his eyes, but frog-walked out of the tent without making a comment.
Outside, and out of his four-season sleeping bag, Sam found himself shivering. It had been warm in the daylight but now, in the depths of the night, it seemed very dark and chilly under the canopy of trees. It was still only March, after all, even if they were in Arkansas.
They didn’t need to talk, not after so many years at one another’s side. Instead, as Dean headed wordlessly for the edge of the clearing, Sam cast a quick glance back over the silent, huddled tents before turning to follow his brother. They were on the edge of the woods, heading into the deeper shadow beneath the trees, when the tell-tale squeal of a zipper brought them up short.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Charlie hissed.
Sam felt Dean’s frustrated eye roll even though he didn’t see it, already swinging back around with his hands held placatory in front of him. “Don’t worry about it, Charlie,” he said in a hopeful tone, the brightness in his voice belying the solid, grim weight of certainty already settling hard in his stomach. With her boots clutched in her hand, and her hair still fluffy with sleep, Charlie shouldn’t have presented too much of a threat. But if Sam’s friend was anything, she was persistent; and the hope of an easy hunt with no civilian lives in danger had evaporated the moment she stuck her head out of her tent.
“Nice try, dudes,” Charlie said. She wriggled out of the aperture, grimacing as her socked feet touched the damp earth of the forest, then wobbling one-legged as she began to pull on her shoes. “I’m a hunter too, remember? Eleven months in Oz? You gotta stop treating me like a noob. I heard those noises too and I’m not just gonna lie here while the pair of you take on a demonic wolf-pack by yourselves.”
Dean huffed a breath of frustration through his nose, and Sam thought again of the scar burning red on his brother’s skin. They’d managed to keep it hidden from Charlie, so far, Dean constantly rolling down his flannel sleeves in a careful, concealing movement that had become habitual over the life of the Mark. It was less easy to cover up the effect that the thing was having on his state of mind. Things were beginning to slide again, back to the way they’d been before Dean had punched Sam out cold and launched himself in a crazy solo flight towards death.
It was one thing for Dean to take the Mark’s gathering violence out on Sam. He was a big boy, he could take that stuff. But Charlie, little and buzzy and bright, had found out the best of Sam’s brother and it wasn’t fair on her or Dean to shatter that trust. ‘Embarrassing’. That was how Dean had described it. Sam knew all about that kind of shame. Keeping Charlie at a cautious distance was a necessity right now, for her safety and Dean’s self-respect both.
So - “Really, Charlie,” Sam began. But then the howling came again, closer, it seemed, moving somewhere to the west of where they stood; and Dean was running towards it, out into the dark. So Sam followed, like he always did. He was conscious of Charlie where she stood, cursing and hurrying to knot the laces on her boot before she hurried after him on light, rapid feet.
The howling didn’t stop for long, erupting at intervals around, before and behind them. But it seemed to be impossible to pin down. The source of the noise was moving, constantly, twisting and turning in a complicated path that Sam couldn’t pin down with any success. So he shut his mouth, and concentrated on keeping pace with Dean. Usually, that would be no problem; it was Sam who kept himself carefully in trim, Dean who more often pulled up short with a stitch or a mumbled curse. But the demon energy that had powered Dean through that long hot awful summer seemed to have left its traces in his bones, and he was leading now, out ahead, a pale figure ducking through trees and under branches, pausing momentarily before starting out again to follow the sound.
After twenty minutes of high speed pursuit, Sam was sweating heavily, his shirt and his hoodie clinging damply to his heaving chest. He was grateful for the time he’d spent working his fitness back up to standard after his injury and grief at Dean’s loss had carved away at his muscles last year. He was in decent shape, again. But still, it was hard to keep up; and casting a quick look back over his shoulder, he saw Charlie had fallen behind, bobbing in the dappled moonlight several metres back.
Sam was about to call out to Dean, slow him down, when Charlie tripped, limbs flailing as her foot caught on a tangled root. The fall shocked a cry out of her throat, as she slammed down heavily onto her knees, branches crunching beneath her.
Up ahead, Dean stopped. “Sam?” he called.
“Charlie’s fallen,” Sam said, turning back. Reaching Charlie in a few long strides, he took her elbow and helped her to her feet. He looked down, into her face. “You OK?”
“I’m OK,” Charlie said. “Although… I think I tore my jeans.” She leant her back against the nearest tree and bent her right leg to look at it, grimacing as she prodded at the blood-stained hole in her pants. “Nice.”
Dean was jogging slowly back towards them. As he approached Sam’s side, Sam took advantage of Charlie’s preoccupation to catch his brother’s eye and ask, exaggerated, silent, “Are we lost?”
Dean’s features leapt instinctively into a glower but Sam watched as his brother caught himself, rearranging his expression into something more conciliatory. Then, he nodded. “Sorry,” he mouthed. Sam shook his head. It wasn’t Dean’s fault. Both of them should have been more careful about tracking the route.
That was all well enough; but now, here they were, out in the dark of the forest, with Sam’s backpack their only source of supplies and Charlie possibly hurt. Sam could think of a hell of a lot better places to be.
That was when he saw it. Looking down at Charlie where she hunched over her own bleeding knee, something about the trunk that she was leaning on caught Sam’s eye. The tree was massive, gnarled; its huge, twisted shape throwing Charlie into tiny relief. By the size of it, Sam thought it had to be several hundred years old, at least. And looking around, it wasn’t the only tree of its size. Far from it. All around them, huge, heavy oaks were branching upwards and outwards, limbs tangling in the air above their heads. Sam could see beeches, too, smooth grey narrow trunks contrasting with the knotted bark of the oaks.
The thing was, there shouldn’t be beech in this forest. Not this far south and west. And the oaks were equally out of place. They weren’t the American species Sam knew, their leaves all wrong and their acorns hanging on long stems. These trees belonged in the forests of Europe and Russia. They shouldn’t be here at all.
“Dean?” said Sam. OK, so he was about to get teased for his nature knowledge but right now it seemed like solving the mystery was a little more urgent. In fact, he needn’t have feared. Dean was looking up into the canopy overhead with the same expression of wide-eyed concern that Sam could feel on his own face. Something was definitely wrong.
“Everything OK?” Charlie asked, straightening up with one hand on the trunk of the tree. Then, looking at them more closely, “What is it?” she said.
“I think something’s off about the forest,” Sam said. Better to warn her than to put her in danger by shutting her out. He watched her, looking around her, figuring it out.
“Huh,” she said.
They all drew closer together, moving forward in a cautious group for lack of anywhere else to go. There was no longer a noise to follow: the hounds had been silent since Charlie went flat on her face. But there was no point turning back, not when they had no idea from which direction they’d come.
Leaves rustled underfoot, branches creaking as the darkness of the night started to shade into the soft pearl-grey of dawn. It took a long time, in the depths of the forest, to get properly light, but it was almost there by the time that Sam began to open his mouth and ask if they should stop and review. It seemed crazy, this, pacing forward petrified with no idea where they were actually heading. And he did have a compass; which might be of pretty limited use in finding the campsite, sure, but which could at least help them aim themselves away from the heart of the forest, towards the boundary at the south or the east and to civilization.
But before Sam could speak, he felt Dean’s hand on his shoulder. “Look,” Dean said.
Sam followed his brother’s pointing finger with his eyes. Up ahead, the light between the trunks of the trees seemed brighter than it did behind them. It looked like the forest was beginning to thin. He allowed himself to hope. Maybe he was wrong about this wood. Maybe they had somehow, inexplicably, found their way back to the road. Maybe this would all be over and they’d be back in camp by lunchtime, explaining themselves to their concerned teammates and laughing at their own lack of nous. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
As they reached the edge of the trees, Sam felt his jaw slackening in surprise. Beside him, Charlie gasped and Dean swore softly under his breath. Rather than the tarmacked or gravelled road for which Sam had been hoping, the land immediately in front of the forest line was covered in grass and wild flowers. It fell away into a sleep slope, at the bottom of which was a wide, fast-flowing river. On the other side, the bank rose steeply again. Climbing from its peak were the strong stone walls of a castle.
It was a massive building, heavy and solid with crenellated turrets and small arrow-slit windows. The river ran around the hill on which it sat, forming a natural moat; and the main gate was covered by an enormous wooden door, firmly and forbiddingly closed. From the height of the forest it was possible to see that there were additional buildings within the keep. From these sprang further turrets of varying heights and shapes, stacking behind and around one another to form a final effect that wasn’t quite Disneyland, Sam thought, but which certainly had an air of unreality.
Dean turned to Charlie. “Well, Toto. We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.
Chapter 2
Dean was cold and miserable and really not very sure how he was supposed to scale a forty-foot stone wall. Impressive as the castle had looked on first appearance, it was beginning to seem like there couldn’t be anyone inside. They’d made it all the way from the forest, down the hill and across the river without seeing any sign of activity from within the walls; they’d stood outside of the gates and shouted in French, English and half-forgotten lines from Monty Python for what felt like hours but there had been no response. Dean had been willing to leave the whole thing behind them; but just as they were considering their options the rain had begun to come down. It was light at first, just a chilly kind of drizzle; but before too long it was pounding on their shoulders, soaking clammy into Dean’s jeans and the flannel of his shirt.
When the lightning started, they all three had to agree that a retreat back to the forest didn’t seem like the best course of action; and there was no other obvious source of shelter in sight. So, into the castle it had to be, somehow. Which was where they were right now: cold and sodden and plumb out of ideas, stuck at the foot of these massive fortifications designed to keep out hordes of Viking raiders, or something, and certainly more than a match for two hunters and a techie fresh out of Oz.
So Dean thought, at least.
Then Charlie piped up. “I’ve got an idea.” They both looked at her. “Don’t castles usually have, like, a drain? Think about the vulnerability at Helm’s Deep, you know, where the orcs put the bomb. Or, how Daenerys’ soldiers get into Meereen. It’s the castle’s most vulnerable point.”
“OK…” Sam said reluctantly.
So Charlie led the way, around to the back of the castle and down to a point where the stone walls dropped straight down into the river.
“There it is,” she said. Leaning forward and craning his neck, Dean saw where she was pointing at - a low archway and a metal grid that covered it, low down at the level of the water.
“How are we going to get through the grate?” Sam asked.
Charlie grimaced. “I guess we swim under.”
Oh great, Dean thought. So much for getting dry. But it didn’t seem like there was any real option. Who knew how long the storm would go on? And there was always the hope, inside the castle, of grabbing some food; finding some weapons or equipment or people, just anything that might help them begin to get home. So he sighed, bent over and began to unlace his boots, stringing them around his neck. Beside him, Sam was doing the same, shucking out of his great Sasquatch shoes and shoving them into his backpack, stripping off his outer layers and bundling them across his shoulders.
“Come on, Charlie,” Dean said. And she did, gritting her teeth and sliding into the river, slipping along with the current until she was clinging onto the grate.
Soon Dean and Sam joined her and, “Ready?” she said.
Dean wasn’t, really; the river was cold and suspiciously cloudy, and he wasn’t totally sure that he wanted to put his head underwater just yet. But it was too late. Charlie had already vanished under the surface, and before he could begin to worry she’d popped up, bobbing happily, on the other side of the grate. “It’s fine,” she said. “Easy, really!”
And then Sam was gone, splashing down beside him, and so Dean gritted his teeth and went too, climbing his hands down the grate until he reached the bottom, swinging himself under and then letting the air in his lungs pull him up. He came up sputtering to see Sam grinning before him, splashing him with icy, muddy water before kicking away.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dean said, glowering at Charlie because she was the only one in range. She widened her eyes in mock-fear, turned and headed after Sam, under the castle walls.
Thankfully, getting out at the other end of the tunnel didn’t require another ducking; and it wasn’t long before Dean finally found himself standing on the cobbled stones of the castle courtyard. He took a breath, looked around, waited for somebody to come and clap them in cuffs. Irons. The dungeons. Whatever. But everything was silent. Nothing moved. He looked back at Charlie and Sam, who was shaking his head like a wet dog just out of the sea. “Come on, then,” he said. “We might as well get properly inside. I suppose a fire is gonna be too much to ask for, but it’s worth a look.”
Hoping he was exuding more authority than he actually felt, Dean strode out across the yard, aiming for a doorway in the wall in the opposite side. He had to bend his head as they passed through; this place seemed to be designed for somebody smaller than him and Sam and their all-American height.
Whoever actually owned this place, it rapidly became clear that they were not home. The door opened easily under Dean’s hand, latch lifting without a squeak. Inside was a long gallery, lined with unlit torches; heavy tapestries hung on the walls. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust; enough to signify neglect but not so much as to show dereliction. It felt like whoever lived here had simply… vanished away.
“Do you think we should build a fire?” asked Sam, quietly. They were cold now, Charlie beginning to shiver, wet clothes dripping softly on the hard stone floor.
“I guess?” Dean said, doubtfully. “Should we try and find the kitchens?”
Sam nodded. “I guess there might be some firewood or something in there. Most of these rooms just have empty grates. And I’d rather not start chopping up the furniture just in case.”
“Which direction, then?” They had no idea, of course. So Dean took the lead, walking at random through the rooms, following the natural logic of the building. At last, turning a corner, he found himself… well… somewhere.
“Son of a bitch!” said Sam behind him.
“The Great Hall,” Charlie breathed.
She wasn’t wrong; the place was enormous, its wood and plaster ceiling hanging at a dizzying height above their heads. The floor was covered with straw, whose musty odour made Dean wrinkle his nose.
“Dude,” he said. “Gross. I can feel the fleas crawling over this stuff. What happened to castles being fit for a king?”
Charlie laughed. “Dude. You’ve got to be kidding. This is the smell of -“
“authenticity?” Dean finished. “Yeah, OK. I could do with a little less authenticity and a little more bleach.”
He looked at Sam - who had crossed over towards the far side of the hall, his boots stirring more unpleasant smells out of the dirty debris. He had stopped, now, directly in the path of a shaft of light from one of the leaded windows. It lit the curls of his still-damp hair like a halo, silhouetted his broad shoulders and the tentative hunch of his back; emphasising the uncertainty that had somehow grown up around Dean’s brother over the past couple of years. When Sam was young he had been strident and passionate and always defiant, chin jutting and arms wide as he leant towards their father in another disagreement. Sam had still been that way when Dean had picked him up from Stanford, spiky and self-assured despite the rawness of his grief. But at some point, things had changed. When Sam got out of the cage, perhaps, got his soul stuffed back in and a load of someone’s guilt along with it. Before that, even. When he opened the box and let Lucifer out and started not to feel so sure about the steps that his feet were taking.
Whatever way it was, this quiet fearful man with the sharp cheekbones and elbows made Dean uncomfortable. He wanted, sometimes, to shake Sam up, tell him to sort it out and stop pansying around and get back to being himself. But then. He wasn’t one to talk, right now, about being himself. Not with the Mark throbbing on his forearm and the constant urge to bloody violence tickling like an itch under his skin.
Sam looked around, face half-shadowed, beckoning Dean and Charlie over with a lifted arm. “Guys!” he said. “Charlie! You’re not gonna believe this!”
By the time Dean had picked his way across the cleanest parts of the straw to reach them, Charlie was stood at Sam’s side, her mouth a round O of astonishment and delight. The pair of them were looking at a piece of furniture, stood on the raised wooden dais that filled one end of the hall, furthest from the door through which they’d entered. It was an enormous circular table, dotted around with tall-backed chairs and with names etched into the table before every seat. Dean cast his eye over them, surreptitiously trying to determine what had got Sam and Charlie so hot and bothered. Hector. Tristan. Pellinore. Mordred. Lance - oh. Lancelot.
He got it, then, although what it really meant was something it would definitely take a while to parse. But yeah, this must - this had to be the round table. They were in Camelot.
Trying to process what that meant, Dean slowly caught on to Sam and Charlie’s excitement. The pair of them were buzzing with it, silly, pointing out the names of the knights to one another with giggles and gasps. Dean tried to remember what he knew about them all. He knew Arthur, of course, the king who (now, was this right?) had been given his sword by some mysterious woman in a lake. Dumb thing to do, Dean thought to himself - take a weapon from a secretive monster you know nothing about. The Mark burned on his forearm, accusing, and he brushed the thought away.
He knew Lancelot, too, although he couldn’t remember much about him. Dean had a lingering feeling the guy might be kind of a stud. Aside from that, these names were foreign to him. But, oh, that wasn’t quite right; he knew Sir Galahad, whose chair was actually right in front of where he stood.
Dean stepped forward, to have a closer look - and was shocked to find his passage blocked by his brother, Sam suddenly intervening with a hand on his chest.
“Sammy?” he said.
“Sorry, Dean,” said Sam, falling back with an anxious expression. “It’s just. That seat is kinda dangerous.”
“The siege perilous, right?” said Charlie.
“Siege?” said Dean.
“Seat,” said Sam. “It’s Middle English.”
“So what’s the peril?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Uh… it’s sort of… cursed.” Dean waited. “OK. There were a bunch of knights who came to join the crew, wanted to sign up to serve under Arthur and took this seat around the table. You can see, right, there’s limited space. But for some reason this particular seat was really unlucky. Everybody who sat there died, basically straight away - it just killed them, choked them up and finished them off. That was until Galahad came along.”
“He survived?”
“He survived. He didn’t know why or how, nobody did. But the fact he could sit in the Siege Perilous and live was basically a sign of his worthiness. It’s how they knew that he would be the one to find the Holy Grail. You know. He was the purest of the knights. All that.”
“Purest, huh?” Dean took an ostentatious step back, and Sam smiled, thinly, a tired effortful grimace that made Dean sad.
“No offence, Dean,” Sam said.
Dean shook his head, took off around the far side of the table to look at the throne. But he took a quick glance back, looked at Sam standing with filling eyes and gazing at Galahad’s seat, fingers flexing as if he’d almost like to touch it. Don’t even think about it, buddy, Dean thought. And then found himself flashing back, to a hotel hallway in Colorado, Sam flushed and shaking with fever, babbling about some comic book that Dean couldn’t even remember. “These trials. They’re purifying me.”
Well, everybody knew how that had turned out, and Dean was definitely not in the right frame of mind to see Sam returning to that same kamikaze, self-hating state. ‘Not clean.’ The whole thing was ridiculous - stupid. And he tried to think back, to how Sam must have been, back then when they were reading those comics, all fat little arms and dimples and curls. It hurt, thinking of that wide-eyed kid fretting over something that he felt was broken inside. Had that been Dean’s fault, somehow? No, fairer to blame Dad for it - Dad who had known something was off with Sam for years before he’d told them, and who knew how he’d shown it in the way that he handled his sons.
Charlie interrupted Dean’s thoughts. “Do you think that’s where they’re all gone? Hunting the Holy Grail?”
Sam looked thoughtful. “Could be,” he said. “Or they might have been gone for centuries.”
And then, all three of them jumped almost out of their skin as the low burr of an English voice sounded over the other side of the hall, from which they’d come.
“Not centuries. More like six months.”
There was a man standing in the doorway; a peasant, Dean supposed you might call him, dredging up the appropriate word from some dictionary part of his mind.
“Have you come here to help us?” asked the man; and then, assessing their wet clothes and concerned expressions, “Or have you come here seeking help yourselves?”
Sam stepped forward, hands upraised, sliding into his most charming mode. “We’re a little lost,” he said. “Could you tell us what’s going on? How many of you are there, here?”
The man looked bashful. “Maybe forty-odd.”
“Where are you living?”
“In the cellars, and in the kitchens,” said the man.
“Do you - are you the staff here? The servants?”
“Oh no. Not for the most part. We most of us come from the village down below.” He gestured, away from the woods, towards the land behind the castle where the three of them hadn’t yet been.
“So why are you in the castle? And where’s everybody else?” Sam said.
“Well,” the man said, awkward. “We don’t rightly know. Just that they all vanished, one by one, maybe six months back; set out with a fanfare, on a quest, like, walked out the gates, through the village, and never returned. So when the last of them left, we started to worry. The castle keeps us safe. And then when the beast came by again, well, we just took ourselves up to the castle, had Margaret let us in - she’s Jim’s daughter, she works in the kitchens - and since then we’ve been here, keeping ourselves to ourselves.” He looked guilty, shifting from foot to foot, fingers playing with the corner of his shirt.
“We’ve not broke anything,” he said. “And we’ve kept to the kitchens, to the proper parts of the castle. I only came out here
because we thought you might be them, come back. But there hadn’t been a message, you see.”
“So do you think -” Sam began - but Dean interrupted, stepping forward to catch the man’s gaze.
“Did you say something about a beast?”
As if it had been waiting on his word, there was a sudden, distant howl - the noise that had brought them into the forest and away from their camp. The villager visibly jumped.
“Aye, the beast!” he said. “Can you hear its cry?”
“Can we get up onto the battlements?” Sam asked. The villager nodded, guiding them up a staircase that led out of the hall. It was narrow and spiral, twisting around upon itself over several uneven storeys which took the group, eventually, up and out onto the walkway that ran around the castle walls.
“There it is,” said the villager, pointing with a trembling hand.
They were high up, here, where they stood; but the monstrous appearance of the thing was clear. It looked like a whole bunch of animals smooshed together: a scaly, snaky face leading on to a hairy, catlike body and the muscular haunches of a deer. But it was the sound that came out of its open mouth that really bothered Dean, sending the tingling memory of half-forgotten agony up his spine. It was hard to credit that this single creature could sound so fearsome; but all of the howling voices that had prompted them from their bed came pouring plural out of this single throat. Every time the creature bellowed, it was with the noise of a thousand hounds, booming in unison with the thrill of the chase.
“What the hell,” said Dean, succinctly.
Beside him, the villager shivered in fear. “It came through our village, rampaging.”
“Did it attack anyone?” Sam said.
Dean frowned. That seemed very much beside the point.
The village looked confused. “Everybody hid. And then sought refuge in the castle. It has been many decades since the beast last ventured this close. But with the knights gone and the place deserted… it’s lost its fear.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dean. He clapped the dude heartily on the back, then wished he hadn’t as his hand came away sticky with dirt. “We’re experts in this kind of thing. Y’know? Just… set us up with some food.”
“Maybe some armour,” Sam said.
“And we’ll be on our way,” Dean concluded.
The man looked at him anxiously, casting his eyes over their faces. “You are knights, then?”
“Yes we are!” said Charlie.
“Even the woman?”
“Uh… did you not hear me, dude? I said yes, we are.”
Sam nodded and drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. “The lady fights nobly,” he said.
The villager nodded, obsequious. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said.
Chapter 3
They might have swum ignominiously into the castle through the storm drain, but they left it next morning in decidedly more elegant style, clanking ceremoniously out through the front gate, portcullis hanging metal-toothed over their heads. “This is more like it,” said Charlie enthusiastically. “Fighting monsters! Living the dream!”
Sam looked at her, silent. Dean was already leading them, out up ahead.
And then, as they entered the dark of the forest, Sam fell to his knees with a cry, dropping his helmet, fists tangling in his hair. Shocked, Charlie crouched down beside him, patting ineffectually at his shoulders and hands.
Instantly, Dean was there beside her, shouldering her out of the way. He set his hands at either side of Sam’s face. “Sam, Sam, look at me, Sammy,” he said. But Sam moaned, turning down and away from him, curling in a ball on the ground. His eyes were closed and his whole face was contorting in pain. It looked like the world’s worst headache - like his skull was gonna explode.
Dean looked up at Charlie, “I think he’s having a vision.”
“Like in the books?” said Charlie, excited and then regretting it.
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Like in real life,” he said.
“Sorry,” Charlie said. “Sorry. Only… sometimes I kinda forget. You know. You guys were so different then than you are now. Especially Sam. I thought he got all of that stuff… out of his system?”
“Yeah,” said Dean. “Yeah. So did I.” And then Sam was waking, unclenching from his fetal position and gasping like he was coming up for air. So Dean did what he always had to, falling forward onto his knees and rubbing Sam’s back, helping him sit upright and ground himself and start feeling a little more certain about where he was. Of course, it was a shame that ‘where he was’ wasn’t back in the Bunker, where things were pretty much normal; but out here in the middle of nowhere, stuck in some kind of alternate reality that currently seemed to offer them absolutely no hope of getting back home. But, there it was; and there they were, as usual, right where they’d rather not be.
Sam’s breathing was calming now, and Dean leant forward, solicitous, trying to catch his eye. “How are you doing, bro?” he said.
Sam nodded. He still wasn’t ready to speak. So Dean continued rubbing his back, soothing circles across Sam’s shoulderblades, blushing as he caught Charlie watching his hand. Great. This was probably the kind of thing she lived for. What had she called it? A ‘broment’. Great.
“How you doin’, kiddo?” said Dean, again. This time, Sam nodded, cleared his throat. “What’d you see?”
“The Grail,” Sam choked. His skin was a nasty shade of grey, sweat standing out on his forehead. But his eyes were determined and dark.
Charlie squeaked in excitement. “The Holy Grail? You saw it?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure. It was… like, in a chapel. There was all this light.” He moved his hand vaguely in front of him. “I think it was important.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “I’d say the Grail is pretty important.”
But Sam was shaking his head. “No. Important for us.”
Dean waited.
“I think we gotta look for the Grail.”
“Sure,” Dean said. “Right after we hunt the beast.”
Sam turned towards him, brow furrowed in fuggy incredulity. “No,” he said. “Forget the beast. Who cares about the beast? We gotta look for the Grail.”
He obviously wasn’t fully himself. Dean couldn’t remember the last time his brother had flat-out contradicted him like that. More usually, Sam would dance around their disagreements with irritating caution, trying to placate Dean before he put across his point of view, heaving a reluctant sigh before restating it with an exaggerated gentleness that usually just succeeded in making Dean mad.
But apparently Sam couldn’t win, because Dean could feel himself becoming increasingly frustrated right now. And yeah, maybe it was to do with the Mark, with the strain that came of keeping quiet the murder tempting under his skin. Or maybe, more likely, Sam was just being a bitch.
“Come on, dude,” Dean said. “We need to find this monster, right? That’s why we came here. That’s what we do.”
“Why do you always have to be charging after the nearest thing to kill?” Sam asked. “We don’t know anything about this monster. We don’t know what its deal is. It could be just, like, some mindless animal. It hasn’t hurt anyone, as far as we know.”
“Uhhhh… better hunt a monster than go off on some pointless search for, what, like a magical… shot glass? What do you think this Grail’s actually gonna do, anyway?”
Sam’s face shuttered over. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“What,” Dean said. “Didn’t see that in your dream?”
“Come on Sam,” said Charlie, bouncy, trying to mend the mood. “Or didn’t you see?”
“Not exactly,” Sam said. “I think… you know. It’s holy. It’s… kind of… purifying, I think. Something like that.”
“Something like that,” Dean said. “Great. So motivational.”
“Come on,” Sam said. “You don’t have to be a dick about it. I don’t have - I mean - when I was having visions before, years ago, they usually meant something, right?”
“Sure,” said Dean, “People were dying in those visions, Sam. What even happened in this one? You turned up in some random church and saw a glow in the dark goblet? Big deal. Let it go.”
“It’s not -“ Sam was getting frustrated, struggling upright. “Dean, it’s really important. You know, this - this purity thing -“
“Oh I get it,” Dean said, surprising himself with the force of his rage. “Ever since we got to the castle and saw that godforsaken table, the perilous seat, whatever, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And here it comes. All that horseshit you were laying on me during the trials, this crap about you not being clean. Seriously, Sam. What do you think is gonna happen? Lay hands on this magical cup and all your sins get forgiven? Yeah, good luck. Newsflash: the universe doesn’t work that way.”
“It’s not just touching the cup,” said Sam - and then cut himself short, looking at Dean with an uncertain expression that just had to signify trouble.
“What, then?” Charlie said.
Dean smiled, a shit-eating grin of the kind that he knew drove Sam crazy. “Yeah, Sammy. What then?” he said.
“Nothing,” Sam said.
“Come on, Sam,” Dean said, letting an edge slide into his voice. “Tell us. Then maybe I’ll change my mind.”
Sam looked at Charlie, looked at Dean.
“You have to drink from it,” he said. “It’s a communion chalice.”
“OK.” Dean wasn’t sure why Sam had been so reluctant to tell him. Drinking from a cup? Seemed pretty innocuous, right?
“What do you have to drink?” Charlie said.
Then Dean knew, clear as if he’d had a vision himself.
“Blood,” he said.
Sam flushed, looked down and away, raised a hand to the back of his neck. Oh yeah. That was it. Dean could feel the anger boiling over, feel the Mark start heating and his veins start bubbling and his muscles start to tingle with the need for a fight. Just let Sam try it, let him say one word and Dean would be on him like a truck.
“Is that it, Sam?” he said. “After all this time, I thought you’d put that stuff behind you. But no. Once an addict, always an addict. You’re just jonesing for a hit.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Sam said, choked. “It’s not… it wasn’t demon blood.”
“Oh right,” Dean said. “I hadn’t realised that you were such an expert psychic that you could tell the difference between blood types in your dreams. I’m so sorry. My mistake. Or is it like a connoisseur thing? Like fine wine? Do you never forget?”
And then Sam was up, in his face, pushing forward with an anger Dean had almost forgotten, something he’d not seen in Sam since… and he tried to remember. Maybe since that time he sent Sam a text that was supposed to be from his girlfriend, sent him off down to Kermit Texas while Dean made things straight with Benny. Sam hadn’t found that funny, or clever, had been simmering with righteous rage when Dean called in at his motel room the following day. But even during that confrontation, he’d held back. No. This was something Dean hadn’t seen for years, not since Sam strangled him into unconsciousness on the floor of a honeymoon suite. It was something about the blood, something about the thought of it that riled Sam like nothing else did, pressing at every one of his buttons and making him mad.
And now, “Do you think I’m an idiot?” said Sam, chest right up against Dean’s, chin jutting, arms out wide. “Do you think I’m so stupid and so un-self-aware that I’d ever, ever put that stuff into my body again? Do you think I didn’t think of it, when you turned demon, think that maybe I’d have to do it in order to get you back? Christ, Dean, I thought… and I didn’t do it, alright? I didn’t do it then and there’s no way in hell I’m going to do it now. I know… I know that I failed the trials, and that I’ve got all kinds of junk crawling inside of me. Demon blood. Gadreel’s grace. There’s no way I’m going to make myself filthier than I already am.”
Back amongst the trees where she’d retreated, Charlie shocked still. She had read this, of course. She’d read about the demon blood, a little; although Chuck’s handling of that storyline had been one of his odder narrative choices, leaving the blood stuff until the fifth series of the books so that it felt like a retcon when it was finally mentioned. She’d read a lot about Sam’s pain, and how anguished he felt; how much of a freak, how desperate, how repulsed by his own insides. But seeing it in front of her was different, more real, more painful; just like how this Camelot was dirtier, colder, less bright and celebratory then her headcanon had made it before.
And more to the point, what was up with Dean? She’d been touched, at first, by his sweetness when Sam was suffering, the way he rushed instinctively to his brother’s side. But now he seemed to be so aggressive, so confrontational, not listening to Sam at all. Maybe, Charlie thought, those were just sibling dynamics; maybe she just didn’t understand how brothers liked to relate. Or maybe, there was something else going on, something wrong that they’d not told her about. Maybe Dean was ill, or Sam was ill, and that was why Dean was angry; maybe this was all bound up with the fiasco of the trials. She didn’t know. But it seemed like they were going to get into a fight, like a real, physical, dangerous fight, right this second. She had to intervene.
“Hey, guys!” she said, straining to be cheerful, voice trembling despite her intent. “How about a deciding vote?”
They looked at her, both breathing hard, right up in one another’s faces. Dean’s hands were clenched into fists. As he saw Charlie notice, he relaxed them, splaying out his fingers, falling back.
“Deciding vote,” he said. “Sure.”
“I think…” and Charlie swallowed, because, she liked Dean, right? She felt like they’d connected, properly, like he was easier to get to know. But right now, he was also pretty scary, way more prickly and hostile than she’d ever seen him before. Probably, she was being stupid not to just agree with him. But on the other hand. Sam was right. Right? His visions had turned out to be important, way back when. And also… this was Charlie’s jam. You know. Quests. The Holy Grail.
So, “I think we should look for the Grail,” she said. And didn’t waver, because however grumpy Dean Winchester got, she felt pretty confident that he wouldn’t hit a girl.
“Oh,” said Sam, softly, like he was surprised to hear her taking his side.
And, “Oh,” said Dean, angry, starting towards her, raising his hand.
Charlie stepped backwards in dismay - but Sam was already defending her, already moving to put himself in front of Dean.
“Hey,” he admonished, and Dean shot him a look of absolute red-eyed fury that made Charlie’s stomach turn. “Careful. She’s just giving her opinion.”
“Yeah. Some opinion,” said Dean. “Whoop de do.”
“I thought… didn’t we agree that she’d cast the deciding vote?” Sam said, a little less certain.
Dean looked directly at him, then, eyebrow raised in challenge.
“We didn’t decide anything, little brother,” he said; and spun on his heel, made to start walking on in the direction that they were already heading.
“Come on, Dean,” Sam said. “Don’t be an idiot. If we get separated -”
Dean turned towards him. “Oh, right, I’m an idiot, now?” He looked at Charlie. “Don’t blame me when Sammy here goes all demonic at the slightest scent of blood. I’m going. See you back at the camp.”
Yeah, right, Charlie thought. Back at the camp. That seemed so unlikely. And her heart constricted, a little, at the thought of all her friends, out there in the woods, probably missing them all already; would they call the police? Could anybody find them, here? Would they ever get back?
“Dean -“ said Sam again, uncertain. But Dean didn’t look back.
~~~
As he paced quickly on through the trees, Dean could feel his heart pounding, thumping against the metal around his chest. This wasn’t him, walking out on Sam. Although… he’d done it last summer, hadn’t he? Run away and left his brother grieving and confused and alone; headed out with Crowley on a weird bromantic odyssey through America’s seedier small-town bars. Ugh. He shook off the thought.
What he couldn’t shake off was the Mark, burning insistent under his skin. Kill, kill, kill. The thing was getting desperate for it - Dean was getting desperate. He’d scared himself, lashing out at Charlie. She was only a kid, and yeah, so her judgement was clouded by some ridiculous obsession with ‘quests’, but she didn’t deserve to be hurt. He’d been blind, for a second, with anger, flashing forward to the comforting feel of his hand round her throat. So it was probably good that she’d chosen Sam. It might not be safe for her to be hunting with him, right now.
On the other hand. They could all be together. But Dean couldn’t worry about that, had to keep pushing forward, do what he was supposed to do, kill the beast and save the villagers. Right? And if the convenient side-effect of that was to dampen down the rushing of bloodlust in his veins, well, then that was just happy coincidence. He’d have made this choice either way around.
(On to Chapters 4-6)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: none
Characters: Sam, Dean, Charlie
Word count: 19,000+
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Summary: Sam, Dean, Charlie and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Author's note: I wrote this back in January for the SPN Reversebang (the art is here) and published it on AO3 (here) but am only just getting around to uploading it to my LJ. I wasn't that happy with it initially but having read it over just now, I think it's better than I originally gave myself credit for - or at least, I did more of what I wanted than I thought I'd managed to do. The fic is set sometime in early S10.
Chapter 1
After thirty-plus years in decrepit motels, on creaking camp-beds and (too often) in the car’s back seat, Sam ought by rights to have sleeping down to an art. But it had never worked out that way. Too many nasties waiting in the shadows; too many moments shocking awake on the wrong end of a gun. He could go hours lying in the dark with open eyes, trying not to focus on just how awake he actually was. With the Mark stubbornly reasserting itself of late, even Dean’s presence wasn’t as soothing as it once had been; and judging by the silence emanating from the other side of the tent (all the way over about six inches from Sam’s right ear), his brother wasn’t doing too well at the dropping off either. You could tell when Dean was sleeping, because he snored.
Sam sighed, rolling over onto his side. An ill-placed rock dug itself promptly into his ribs.
Why was he doing this, again? Helping Charlie re-establish her presence on the LARPing circuit seemed like a ridiculous way to be passing time when his brother was threatening to go Full Metal Demon any moment now. But Sam hadn’t been able to resist the combination of Dean’s pleading puppy eyes and the lure of a friendly face. Charlie was always so straightforwardly good to hang out with, and Sam could do with a little while around someone he was certain wouldn’t try to kill him. Of course, following that thread to its end left him uncomfortably conscious that he might be putting her (and her cosplaying friends) in danger by bringing a Mark-carrying Dean into their midst. But, but, but. He had to trust his brother. Or otherwise, where would they be? God, no wonder Sam couldn’t sleep. The same feedback loop of fretful anxiety had been running in his head since Dean’s eyes first flashed back to green.
And then, through the night, a sound that sent a thrill of horror down Sam’s spine: something like the wailing of hounds. Dean’s sleeping bag rustled as Sam’s brother sat up, the whites of his open eyes glinting pale in the dark.
“D’you hear that, Sammy?”
Sam nodded, not wanting to wake the dozen or so sleepers in the tents around. The LARPers had dispersed into small groups that evening, teams competing in a Medieval-style capture-the-flag. Charlie had introduced them to the gang, a funny mix of wide-eyed teenagers and serious, jargon-spouting enthusiasts comfortable in their own expertise. None of them had known quite what to make of Dean, solid and gruff and a little too handy with a sword; and none of them had really spoken to Sam, who had been happy enough to stand quietly aside and watch the group dynamics play out. Now, though, he was mentally cataloguing the different personalities, trying to figure who would panic at the sound of a howl in the woods.
With that, the noise came again, more distinct and more disturbing than before. There were definitely several voices amongst the cry, several animals running together in pack. A threat, for certain, and one that they’d have to check out; especially because Sam was pretty sure wolves didn’t usually run this far South. And even if whatever was on hand wasn’t supernatural at all, who amongst this group of telesales agents and shop assistants would be better prepared than Sam and Dean to deal with real-life danger and blood?
Dean had obviously had the same thought, clicking on the lantern and beginning to pull on his boots. His jaw was set in a hard line that might have something to do with the fear of dogs he’d been inexpertly quashing since his return from Hell. Certainly, that explanation for this conspicuous self-control was a lot less disquieting than the alternative: that Dean was struggling against the Mark and its incessant injunction to kill.
Sam watched as his brother checked over his gun, slipping it into the waistband of his jeans as he rose to a crouch. Dean looked at Sam, then, raising his eyebrow and inclining his head towards the zippered door. Sam nodded, wiggling his feet into his own shoes, grabbing his weapon and with it, just to be sure, the small canvas rucksack he’d brought with him into the woods. After all, it was never too wise to head out into the wilderness without at least basic supplies. Dean rolled his eyes, but frog-walked out of the tent without making a comment.
Outside, and out of his four-season sleeping bag, Sam found himself shivering. It had been warm in the daylight but now, in the depths of the night, it seemed very dark and chilly under the canopy of trees. It was still only March, after all, even if they were in Arkansas.
They didn’t need to talk, not after so many years at one another’s side. Instead, as Dean headed wordlessly for the edge of the clearing, Sam cast a quick glance back over the silent, huddled tents before turning to follow his brother. They were on the edge of the woods, heading into the deeper shadow beneath the trees, when the tell-tale squeal of a zipper brought them up short.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Charlie hissed.
Sam felt Dean’s frustrated eye roll even though he didn’t see it, already swinging back around with his hands held placatory in front of him. “Don’t worry about it, Charlie,” he said in a hopeful tone, the brightness in his voice belying the solid, grim weight of certainty already settling hard in his stomach. With her boots clutched in her hand, and her hair still fluffy with sleep, Charlie shouldn’t have presented too much of a threat. But if Sam’s friend was anything, she was persistent; and the hope of an easy hunt with no civilian lives in danger had evaporated the moment she stuck her head out of her tent.
“Nice try, dudes,” Charlie said. She wriggled out of the aperture, grimacing as her socked feet touched the damp earth of the forest, then wobbling one-legged as she began to pull on her shoes. “I’m a hunter too, remember? Eleven months in Oz? You gotta stop treating me like a noob. I heard those noises too and I’m not just gonna lie here while the pair of you take on a demonic wolf-pack by yourselves.”
Dean huffed a breath of frustration through his nose, and Sam thought again of the scar burning red on his brother’s skin. They’d managed to keep it hidden from Charlie, so far, Dean constantly rolling down his flannel sleeves in a careful, concealing movement that had become habitual over the life of the Mark. It was less easy to cover up the effect that the thing was having on his state of mind. Things were beginning to slide again, back to the way they’d been before Dean had punched Sam out cold and launched himself in a crazy solo flight towards death.
It was one thing for Dean to take the Mark’s gathering violence out on Sam. He was a big boy, he could take that stuff. But Charlie, little and buzzy and bright, had found out the best of Sam’s brother and it wasn’t fair on her or Dean to shatter that trust. ‘Embarrassing’. That was how Dean had described it. Sam knew all about that kind of shame. Keeping Charlie at a cautious distance was a necessity right now, for her safety and Dean’s self-respect both.
So - “Really, Charlie,” Sam began. But then the howling came again, closer, it seemed, moving somewhere to the west of where they stood; and Dean was running towards it, out into the dark. So Sam followed, like he always did. He was conscious of Charlie where she stood, cursing and hurrying to knot the laces on her boot before she hurried after him on light, rapid feet.
The howling didn’t stop for long, erupting at intervals around, before and behind them. But it seemed to be impossible to pin down. The source of the noise was moving, constantly, twisting and turning in a complicated path that Sam couldn’t pin down with any success. So he shut his mouth, and concentrated on keeping pace with Dean. Usually, that would be no problem; it was Sam who kept himself carefully in trim, Dean who more often pulled up short with a stitch or a mumbled curse. But the demon energy that had powered Dean through that long hot awful summer seemed to have left its traces in his bones, and he was leading now, out ahead, a pale figure ducking through trees and under branches, pausing momentarily before starting out again to follow the sound.
After twenty minutes of high speed pursuit, Sam was sweating heavily, his shirt and his hoodie clinging damply to his heaving chest. He was grateful for the time he’d spent working his fitness back up to standard after his injury and grief at Dean’s loss had carved away at his muscles last year. He was in decent shape, again. But still, it was hard to keep up; and casting a quick look back over his shoulder, he saw Charlie had fallen behind, bobbing in the dappled moonlight several metres back.
Sam was about to call out to Dean, slow him down, when Charlie tripped, limbs flailing as her foot caught on a tangled root. The fall shocked a cry out of her throat, as she slammed down heavily onto her knees, branches crunching beneath her.
Up ahead, Dean stopped. “Sam?” he called.
“Charlie’s fallen,” Sam said, turning back. Reaching Charlie in a few long strides, he took her elbow and helped her to her feet. He looked down, into her face. “You OK?”
“I’m OK,” Charlie said. “Although… I think I tore my jeans.” She leant her back against the nearest tree and bent her right leg to look at it, grimacing as she prodded at the blood-stained hole in her pants. “Nice.”
Dean was jogging slowly back towards them. As he approached Sam’s side, Sam took advantage of Charlie’s preoccupation to catch his brother’s eye and ask, exaggerated, silent, “Are we lost?”
Dean’s features leapt instinctively into a glower but Sam watched as his brother caught himself, rearranging his expression into something more conciliatory. Then, he nodded. “Sorry,” he mouthed. Sam shook his head. It wasn’t Dean’s fault. Both of them should have been more careful about tracking the route.
That was all well enough; but now, here they were, out in the dark of the forest, with Sam’s backpack their only source of supplies and Charlie possibly hurt. Sam could think of a hell of a lot better places to be.
That was when he saw it. Looking down at Charlie where she hunched over her own bleeding knee, something about the trunk that she was leaning on caught Sam’s eye. The tree was massive, gnarled; its huge, twisted shape throwing Charlie into tiny relief. By the size of it, Sam thought it had to be several hundred years old, at least. And looking around, it wasn’t the only tree of its size. Far from it. All around them, huge, heavy oaks were branching upwards and outwards, limbs tangling in the air above their heads. Sam could see beeches, too, smooth grey narrow trunks contrasting with the knotted bark of the oaks.
The thing was, there shouldn’t be beech in this forest. Not this far south and west. And the oaks were equally out of place. They weren’t the American species Sam knew, their leaves all wrong and their acorns hanging on long stems. These trees belonged in the forests of Europe and Russia. They shouldn’t be here at all.
“Dean?” said Sam. OK, so he was about to get teased for his nature knowledge but right now it seemed like solving the mystery was a little more urgent. In fact, he needn’t have feared. Dean was looking up into the canopy overhead with the same expression of wide-eyed concern that Sam could feel on his own face. Something was definitely wrong.
“Everything OK?” Charlie asked, straightening up with one hand on the trunk of the tree. Then, looking at them more closely, “What is it?” she said.
“I think something’s off about the forest,” Sam said. Better to warn her than to put her in danger by shutting her out. He watched her, looking around her, figuring it out.
“Huh,” she said.
They all drew closer together, moving forward in a cautious group for lack of anywhere else to go. There was no longer a noise to follow: the hounds had been silent since Charlie went flat on her face. But there was no point turning back, not when they had no idea from which direction they’d come.
Leaves rustled underfoot, branches creaking as the darkness of the night started to shade into the soft pearl-grey of dawn. It took a long time, in the depths of the forest, to get properly light, but it was almost there by the time that Sam began to open his mouth and ask if they should stop and review. It seemed crazy, this, pacing forward petrified with no idea where they were actually heading. And he did have a compass; which might be of pretty limited use in finding the campsite, sure, but which could at least help them aim themselves away from the heart of the forest, towards the boundary at the south or the east and to civilization.
But before Sam could speak, he felt Dean’s hand on his shoulder. “Look,” Dean said.
Sam followed his brother’s pointing finger with his eyes. Up ahead, the light between the trunks of the trees seemed brighter than it did behind them. It looked like the forest was beginning to thin. He allowed himself to hope. Maybe he was wrong about this wood. Maybe they had somehow, inexplicably, found their way back to the road. Maybe this would all be over and they’d be back in camp by lunchtime, explaining themselves to their concerned teammates and laughing at their own lack of nous. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
As they reached the edge of the trees, Sam felt his jaw slackening in surprise. Beside him, Charlie gasped and Dean swore softly under his breath. Rather than the tarmacked or gravelled road for which Sam had been hoping, the land immediately in front of the forest line was covered in grass and wild flowers. It fell away into a sleep slope, at the bottom of which was a wide, fast-flowing river. On the other side, the bank rose steeply again. Climbing from its peak were the strong stone walls of a castle.
It was a massive building, heavy and solid with crenellated turrets and small arrow-slit windows. The river ran around the hill on which it sat, forming a natural moat; and the main gate was covered by an enormous wooden door, firmly and forbiddingly closed. From the height of the forest it was possible to see that there were additional buildings within the keep. From these sprang further turrets of varying heights and shapes, stacking behind and around one another to form a final effect that wasn’t quite Disneyland, Sam thought, but which certainly had an air of unreality.
Dean turned to Charlie. “Well, Toto. We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.
Chapter 2
Dean was cold and miserable and really not very sure how he was supposed to scale a forty-foot stone wall. Impressive as the castle had looked on first appearance, it was beginning to seem like there couldn’t be anyone inside. They’d made it all the way from the forest, down the hill and across the river without seeing any sign of activity from within the walls; they’d stood outside of the gates and shouted in French, English and half-forgotten lines from Monty Python for what felt like hours but there had been no response. Dean had been willing to leave the whole thing behind them; but just as they were considering their options the rain had begun to come down. It was light at first, just a chilly kind of drizzle; but before too long it was pounding on their shoulders, soaking clammy into Dean’s jeans and the flannel of his shirt.
When the lightning started, they all three had to agree that a retreat back to the forest didn’t seem like the best course of action; and there was no other obvious source of shelter in sight. So, into the castle it had to be, somehow. Which was where they were right now: cold and sodden and plumb out of ideas, stuck at the foot of these massive fortifications designed to keep out hordes of Viking raiders, or something, and certainly more than a match for two hunters and a techie fresh out of Oz.
So Dean thought, at least.
Then Charlie piped up. “I’ve got an idea.” They both looked at her. “Don’t castles usually have, like, a drain? Think about the vulnerability at Helm’s Deep, you know, where the orcs put the bomb. Or, how Daenerys’ soldiers get into Meereen. It’s the castle’s most vulnerable point.”
“OK…” Sam said reluctantly.
So Charlie led the way, around to the back of the castle and down to a point where the stone walls dropped straight down into the river.
“There it is,” she said. Leaning forward and craning his neck, Dean saw where she was pointing at - a low archway and a metal grid that covered it, low down at the level of the water.
“How are we going to get through the grate?” Sam asked.
Charlie grimaced. “I guess we swim under.”
Oh great, Dean thought. So much for getting dry. But it didn’t seem like there was any real option. Who knew how long the storm would go on? And there was always the hope, inside the castle, of grabbing some food; finding some weapons or equipment or people, just anything that might help them begin to get home. So he sighed, bent over and began to unlace his boots, stringing them around his neck. Beside him, Sam was doing the same, shucking out of his great Sasquatch shoes and shoving them into his backpack, stripping off his outer layers and bundling them across his shoulders.
“Come on, Charlie,” Dean said. And she did, gritting her teeth and sliding into the river, slipping along with the current until she was clinging onto the grate.
Soon Dean and Sam joined her and, “Ready?” she said.
Dean wasn’t, really; the river was cold and suspiciously cloudy, and he wasn’t totally sure that he wanted to put his head underwater just yet. But it was too late. Charlie had already vanished under the surface, and before he could begin to worry she’d popped up, bobbing happily, on the other side of the grate. “It’s fine,” she said. “Easy, really!”
And then Sam was gone, splashing down beside him, and so Dean gritted his teeth and went too, climbing his hands down the grate until he reached the bottom, swinging himself under and then letting the air in his lungs pull him up. He came up sputtering to see Sam grinning before him, splashing him with icy, muddy water before kicking away.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dean said, glowering at Charlie because she was the only one in range. She widened her eyes in mock-fear, turned and headed after Sam, under the castle walls.
Thankfully, getting out at the other end of the tunnel didn’t require another ducking; and it wasn’t long before Dean finally found himself standing on the cobbled stones of the castle courtyard. He took a breath, looked around, waited for somebody to come and clap them in cuffs. Irons. The dungeons. Whatever. But everything was silent. Nothing moved. He looked back at Charlie and Sam, who was shaking his head like a wet dog just out of the sea. “Come on, then,” he said. “We might as well get properly inside. I suppose a fire is gonna be too much to ask for, but it’s worth a look.”
Hoping he was exuding more authority than he actually felt, Dean strode out across the yard, aiming for a doorway in the wall in the opposite side. He had to bend his head as they passed through; this place seemed to be designed for somebody smaller than him and Sam and their all-American height.
Whoever actually owned this place, it rapidly became clear that they were not home. The door opened easily under Dean’s hand, latch lifting without a squeak. Inside was a long gallery, lined with unlit torches; heavy tapestries hung on the walls. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust; enough to signify neglect but not so much as to show dereliction. It felt like whoever lived here had simply… vanished away.
“Do you think we should build a fire?” asked Sam, quietly. They were cold now, Charlie beginning to shiver, wet clothes dripping softly on the hard stone floor.
“I guess?” Dean said, doubtfully. “Should we try and find the kitchens?”
Sam nodded. “I guess there might be some firewood or something in there. Most of these rooms just have empty grates. And I’d rather not start chopping up the furniture just in case.”
“Which direction, then?” They had no idea, of course. So Dean took the lead, walking at random through the rooms, following the natural logic of the building. At last, turning a corner, he found himself… well… somewhere.
“Son of a bitch!” said Sam behind him.
“The Great Hall,” Charlie breathed.
She wasn’t wrong; the place was enormous, its wood and plaster ceiling hanging at a dizzying height above their heads. The floor was covered with straw, whose musty odour made Dean wrinkle his nose.
“Dude,” he said. “Gross. I can feel the fleas crawling over this stuff. What happened to castles being fit for a king?”
Charlie laughed. “Dude. You’ve got to be kidding. This is the smell of -“
“authenticity?” Dean finished. “Yeah, OK. I could do with a little less authenticity and a little more bleach.”
He looked at Sam - who had crossed over towards the far side of the hall, his boots stirring more unpleasant smells out of the dirty debris. He had stopped, now, directly in the path of a shaft of light from one of the leaded windows. It lit the curls of his still-damp hair like a halo, silhouetted his broad shoulders and the tentative hunch of his back; emphasising the uncertainty that had somehow grown up around Dean’s brother over the past couple of years. When Sam was young he had been strident and passionate and always defiant, chin jutting and arms wide as he leant towards their father in another disagreement. Sam had still been that way when Dean had picked him up from Stanford, spiky and self-assured despite the rawness of his grief. But at some point, things had changed. When Sam got out of the cage, perhaps, got his soul stuffed back in and a load of someone’s guilt along with it. Before that, even. When he opened the box and let Lucifer out and started not to feel so sure about the steps that his feet were taking.
Whatever way it was, this quiet fearful man with the sharp cheekbones and elbows made Dean uncomfortable. He wanted, sometimes, to shake Sam up, tell him to sort it out and stop pansying around and get back to being himself. But then. He wasn’t one to talk, right now, about being himself. Not with the Mark throbbing on his forearm and the constant urge to bloody violence tickling like an itch under his skin.
Sam looked around, face half-shadowed, beckoning Dean and Charlie over with a lifted arm. “Guys!” he said. “Charlie! You’re not gonna believe this!”
By the time Dean had picked his way across the cleanest parts of the straw to reach them, Charlie was stood at Sam’s side, her mouth a round O of astonishment and delight. The pair of them were looking at a piece of furniture, stood on the raised wooden dais that filled one end of the hall, furthest from the door through which they’d entered. It was an enormous circular table, dotted around with tall-backed chairs and with names etched into the table before every seat. Dean cast his eye over them, surreptitiously trying to determine what had got Sam and Charlie so hot and bothered. Hector. Tristan. Pellinore. Mordred. Lance - oh. Lancelot.
He got it, then, although what it really meant was something it would definitely take a while to parse. But yeah, this must - this had to be the round table. They were in Camelot.
Trying to process what that meant, Dean slowly caught on to Sam and Charlie’s excitement. The pair of them were buzzing with it, silly, pointing out the names of the knights to one another with giggles and gasps. Dean tried to remember what he knew about them all. He knew Arthur, of course, the king who (now, was this right?) had been given his sword by some mysterious woman in a lake. Dumb thing to do, Dean thought to himself - take a weapon from a secretive monster you know nothing about. The Mark burned on his forearm, accusing, and he brushed the thought away.
He knew Lancelot, too, although he couldn’t remember much about him. Dean had a lingering feeling the guy might be kind of a stud. Aside from that, these names were foreign to him. But, oh, that wasn’t quite right; he knew Sir Galahad, whose chair was actually right in front of where he stood.
Dean stepped forward, to have a closer look - and was shocked to find his passage blocked by his brother, Sam suddenly intervening with a hand on his chest.
“Sammy?” he said.
“Sorry, Dean,” said Sam, falling back with an anxious expression. “It’s just. That seat is kinda dangerous.”
“The siege perilous, right?” said Charlie.
“Siege?” said Dean.
“Seat,” said Sam. “It’s Middle English.”
“So what’s the peril?”
Sam cleared his throat. “Uh… it’s sort of… cursed.” Dean waited. “OK. There were a bunch of knights who came to join the crew, wanted to sign up to serve under Arthur and took this seat around the table. You can see, right, there’s limited space. But for some reason this particular seat was really unlucky. Everybody who sat there died, basically straight away - it just killed them, choked them up and finished them off. That was until Galahad came along.”
“He survived?”
“He survived. He didn’t know why or how, nobody did. But the fact he could sit in the Siege Perilous and live was basically a sign of his worthiness. It’s how they knew that he would be the one to find the Holy Grail. You know. He was the purest of the knights. All that.”
“Purest, huh?” Dean took an ostentatious step back, and Sam smiled, thinly, a tired effortful grimace that made Dean sad.
“No offence, Dean,” Sam said.
Dean shook his head, took off around the far side of the table to look at the throne. But he took a quick glance back, looked at Sam standing with filling eyes and gazing at Galahad’s seat, fingers flexing as if he’d almost like to touch it. Don’t even think about it, buddy, Dean thought. And then found himself flashing back, to a hotel hallway in Colorado, Sam flushed and shaking with fever, babbling about some comic book that Dean couldn’t even remember. “These trials. They’re purifying me.”
Well, everybody knew how that had turned out, and Dean was definitely not in the right frame of mind to see Sam returning to that same kamikaze, self-hating state. ‘Not clean.’ The whole thing was ridiculous - stupid. And he tried to think back, to how Sam must have been, back then when they were reading those comics, all fat little arms and dimples and curls. It hurt, thinking of that wide-eyed kid fretting over something that he felt was broken inside. Had that been Dean’s fault, somehow? No, fairer to blame Dad for it - Dad who had known something was off with Sam for years before he’d told them, and who knew how he’d shown it in the way that he handled his sons.
Charlie interrupted Dean’s thoughts. “Do you think that’s where they’re all gone? Hunting the Holy Grail?”
Sam looked thoughtful. “Could be,” he said. “Or they might have been gone for centuries.”
And then, all three of them jumped almost out of their skin as the low burr of an English voice sounded over the other side of the hall, from which they’d come.
“Not centuries. More like six months.”
There was a man standing in the doorway; a peasant, Dean supposed you might call him, dredging up the appropriate word from some dictionary part of his mind.
“Have you come here to help us?” asked the man; and then, assessing their wet clothes and concerned expressions, “Or have you come here seeking help yourselves?”
Sam stepped forward, hands upraised, sliding into his most charming mode. “We’re a little lost,” he said. “Could you tell us what’s going on? How many of you are there, here?”
The man looked bashful. “Maybe forty-odd.”
“Where are you living?”
“In the cellars, and in the kitchens,” said the man.
“Do you - are you the staff here? The servants?”
“Oh no. Not for the most part. We most of us come from the village down below.” He gestured, away from the woods, towards the land behind the castle where the three of them hadn’t yet been.
“So why are you in the castle? And where’s everybody else?” Sam said.
“Well,” the man said, awkward. “We don’t rightly know. Just that they all vanished, one by one, maybe six months back; set out with a fanfare, on a quest, like, walked out the gates, through the village, and never returned. So when the last of them left, we started to worry. The castle keeps us safe. And then when the beast came by again, well, we just took ourselves up to the castle, had Margaret let us in - she’s Jim’s daughter, she works in the kitchens - and since then we’ve been here, keeping ourselves to ourselves.” He looked guilty, shifting from foot to foot, fingers playing with the corner of his shirt.
“We’ve not broke anything,” he said. “And we’ve kept to the kitchens, to the proper parts of the castle. I only came out here
because we thought you might be them, come back. But there hadn’t been a message, you see.”
“So do you think -” Sam began - but Dean interrupted, stepping forward to catch the man’s gaze.
“Did you say something about a beast?”
As if it had been waiting on his word, there was a sudden, distant howl - the noise that had brought them into the forest and away from their camp. The villager visibly jumped.
“Aye, the beast!” he said. “Can you hear its cry?”
“Can we get up onto the battlements?” Sam asked. The villager nodded, guiding them up a staircase that led out of the hall. It was narrow and spiral, twisting around upon itself over several uneven storeys which took the group, eventually, up and out onto the walkway that ran around the castle walls.
“There it is,” said the villager, pointing with a trembling hand.
They were high up, here, where they stood; but the monstrous appearance of the thing was clear. It looked like a whole bunch of animals smooshed together: a scaly, snaky face leading on to a hairy, catlike body and the muscular haunches of a deer. But it was the sound that came out of its open mouth that really bothered Dean, sending the tingling memory of half-forgotten agony up his spine. It was hard to credit that this single creature could sound so fearsome; but all of the howling voices that had prompted them from their bed came pouring plural out of this single throat. Every time the creature bellowed, it was with the noise of a thousand hounds, booming in unison with the thrill of the chase.
“What the hell,” said Dean, succinctly.
Beside him, the villager shivered in fear. “It came through our village, rampaging.”
“Did it attack anyone?” Sam said.
Dean frowned. That seemed very much beside the point.
The village looked confused. “Everybody hid. And then sought refuge in the castle. It has been many decades since the beast last ventured this close. But with the knights gone and the place deserted… it’s lost its fear.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dean. He clapped the dude heartily on the back, then wished he hadn’t as his hand came away sticky with dirt. “We’re experts in this kind of thing. Y’know? Just… set us up with some food.”
“Maybe some armour,” Sam said.
“And we’ll be on our way,” Dean concluded.
The man looked at him anxiously, casting his eyes over their faces. “You are knights, then?”
“Yes we are!” said Charlie.
“Even the woman?”
“Uh… did you not hear me, dude? I said yes, we are.”
Sam nodded and drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. “The lady fights nobly,” he said.
The villager nodded, obsequious. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said.
Chapter 3
They might have swum ignominiously into the castle through the storm drain, but they left it next morning in decidedly more elegant style, clanking ceremoniously out through the front gate, portcullis hanging metal-toothed over their heads. “This is more like it,” said Charlie enthusiastically. “Fighting monsters! Living the dream!”
Sam looked at her, silent. Dean was already leading them, out up ahead.
And then, as they entered the dark of the forest, Sam fell to his knees with a cry, dropping his helmet, fists tangling in his hair. Shocked, Charlie crouched down beside him, patting ineffectually at his shoulders and hands.
Instantly, Dean was there beside her, shouldering her out of the way. He set his hands at either side of Sam’s face. “Sam, Sam, look at me, Sammy,” he said. But Sam moaned, turning down and away from him, curling in a ball on the ground. His eyes were closed and his whole face was contorting in pain. It looked like the world’s worst headache - like his skull was gonna explode.
Dean looked up at Charlie, “I think he’s having a vision.”
“Like in the books?” said Charlie, excited and then regretting it.
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Like in real life,” he said.
“Sorry,” Charlie said. “Sorry. Only… sometimes I kinda forget. You know. You guys were so different then than you are now. Especially Sam. I thought he got all of that stuff… out of his system?”
“Yeah,” said Dean. “Yeah. So did I.” And then Sam was waking, unclenching from his fetal position and gasping like he was coming up for air. So Dean did what he always had to, falling forward onto his knees and rubbing Sam’s back, helping him sit upright and ground himself and start feeling a little more certain about where he was. Of course, it was a shame that ‘where he was’ wasn’t back in the Bunker, where things were pretty much normal; but out here in the middle of nowhere, stuck in some kind of alternate reality that currently seemed to offer them absolutely no hope of getting back home. But, there it was; and there they were, as usual, right where they’d rather not be.
Sam’s breathing was calming now, and Dean leant forward, solicitous, trying to catch his eye. “How are you doing, bro?” he said.
Sam nodded. He still wasn’t ready to speak. So Dean continued rubbing his back, soothing circles across Sam’s shoulderblades, blushing as he caught Charlie watching his hand. Great. This was probably the kind of thing she lived for. What had she called it? A ‘broment’. Great.
“How you doin’, kiddo?” said Dean, again. This time, Sam nodded, cleared his throat. “What’d you see?”
“The Grail,” Sam choked. His skin was a nasty shade of grey, sweat standing out on his forehead. But his eyes were determined and dark.
Charlie squeaked in excitement. “The Holy Grail? You saw it?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure. It was… like, in a chapel. There was all this light.” He moved his hand vaguely in front of him. “I think it was important.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “I’d say the Grail is pretty important.”
But Sam was shaking his head. “No. Important for us.”
Dean waited.
“I think we gotta look for the Grail.”
“Sure,” Dean said. “Right after we hunt the beast.”
Sam turned towards him, brow furrowed in fuggy incredulity. “No,” he said. “Forget the beast. Who cares about the beast? We gotta look for the Grail.”
He obviously wasn’t fully himself. Dean couldn’t remember the last time his brother had flat-out contradicted him like that. More usually, Sam would dance around their disagreements with irritating caution, trying to placate Dean before he put across his point of view, heaving a reluctant sigh before restating it with an exaggerated gentleness that usually just succeeded in making Dean mad.
But apparently Sam couldn’t win, because Dean could feel himself becoming increasingly frustrated right now. And yeah, maybe it was to do with the Mark, with the strain that came of keeping quiet the murder tempting under his skin. Or maybe, more likely, Sam was just being a bitch.
“Come on, dude,” Dean said. “We need to find this monster, right? That’s why we came here. That’s what we do.”
“Why do you always have to be charging after the nearest thing to kill?” Sam asked. “We don’t know anything about this monster. We don’t know what its deal is. It could be just, like, some mindless animal. It hasn’t hurt anyone, as far as we know.”
“Uhhhh… better hunt a monster than go off on some pointless search for, what, like a magical… shot glass? What do you think this Grail’s actually gonna do, anyway?”
Sam’s face shuttered over. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“What,” Dean said. “Didn’t see that in your dream?”
“Come on Sam,” said Charlie, bouncy, trying to mend the mood. “Or didn’t you see?”
“Not exactly,” Sam said. “I think… you know. It’s holy. It’s… kind of… purifying, I think. Something like that.”
“Something like that,” Dean said. “Great. So motivational.”
“Come on,” Sam said. “You don’t have to be a dick about it. I don’t have - I mean - when I was having visions before, years ago, they usually meant something, right?”
“Sure,” said Dean, “People were dying in those visions, Sam. What even happened in this one? You turned up in some random church and saw a glow in the dark goblet? Big deal. Let it go.”
“It’s not -“ Sam was getting frustrated, struggling upright. “Dean, it’s really important. You know, this - this purity thing -“
“Oh I get it,” Dean said, surprising himself with the force of his rage. “Ever since we got to the castle and saw that godforsaken table, the perilous seat, whatever, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And here it comes. All that horseshit you were laying on me during the trials, this crap about you not being clean. Seriously, Sam. What do you think is gonna happen? Lay hands on this magical cup and all your sins get forgiven? Yeah, good luck. Newsflash: the universe doesn’t work that way.”
“It’s not just touching the cup,” said Sam - and then cut himself short, looking at Dean with an uncertain expression that just had to signify trouble.
“What, then?” Charlie said.
Dean smiled, a shit-eating grin of the kind that he knew drove Sam crazy. “Yeah, Sammy. What then?” he said.
“Nothing,” Sam said.
“Come on, Sam,” Dean said, letting an edge slide into his voice. “Tell us. Then maybe I’ll change my mind.”
Sam looked at Charlie, looked at Dean.
“You have to drink from it,” he said. “It’s a communion chalice.”
“OK.” Dean wasn’t sure why Sam had been so reluctant to tell him. Drinking from a cup? Seemed pretty innocuous, right?
“What do you have to drink?” Charlie said.
Then Dean knew, clear as if he’d had a vision himself.
“Blood,” he said.
Sam flushed, looked down and away, raised a hand to the back of his neck. Oh yeah. That was it. Dean could feel the anger boiling over, feel the Mark start heating and his veins start bubbling and his muscles start to tingle with the need for a fight. Just let Sam try it, let him say one word and Dean would be on him like a truck.
“Is that it, Sam?” he said. “After all this time, I thought you’d put that stuff behind you. But no. Once an addict, always an addict. You’re just jonesing for a hit.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Sam said, choked. “It’s not… it wasn’t demon blood.”
“Oh right,” Dean said. “I hadn’t realised that you were such an expert psychic that you could tell the difference between blood types in your dreams. I’m so sorry. My mistake. Or is it like a connoisseur thing? Like fine wine? Do you never forget?”
And then Sam was up, in his face, pushing forward with an anger Dean had almost forgotten, something he’d not seen in Sam since… and he tried to remember. Maybe since that time he sent Sam a text that was supposed to be from his girlfriend, sent him off down to Kermit Texas while Dean made things straight with Benny. Sam hadn’t found that funny, or clever, had been simmering with righteous rage when Dean called in at his motel room the following day. But even during that confrontation, he’d held back. No. This was something Dean hadn’t seen for years, not since Sam strangled him into unconsciousness on the floor of a honeymoon suite. It was something about the blood, something about the thought of it that riled Sam like nothing else did, pressing at every one of his buttons and making him mad.
And now, “Do you think I’m an idiot?” said Sam, chest right up against Dean’s, chin jutting, arms out wide. “Do you think I’m so stupid and so un-self-aware that I’d ever, ever put that stuff into my body again? Do you think I didn’t think of it, when you turned demon, think that maybe I’d have to do it in order to get you back? Christ, Dean, I thought… and I didn’t do it, alright? I didn’t do it then and there’s no way in hell I’m going to do it now. I know… I know that I failed the trials, and that I’ve got all kinds of junk crawling inside of me. Demon blood. Gadreel’s grace. There’s no way I’m going to make myself filthier than I already am.”
Back amongst the trees where she’d retreated, Charlie shocked still. She had read this, of course. She’d read about the demon blood, a little; although Chuck’s handling of that storyline had been one of his odder narrative choices, leaving the blood stuff until the fifth series of the books so that it felt like a retcon when it was finally mentioned. She’d read a lot about Sam’s pain, and how anguished he felt; how much of a freak, how desperate, how repulsed by his own insides. But seeing it in front of her was different, more real, more painful; just like how this Camelot was dirtier, colder, less bright and celebratory then her headcanon had made it before.
And more to the point, what was up with Dean? She’d been touched, at first, by his sweetness when Sam was suffering, the way he rushed instinctively to his brother’s side. But now he seemed to be so aggressive, so confrontational, not listening to Sam at all. Maybe, Charlie thought, those were just sibling dynamics; maybe she just didn’t understand how brothers liked to relate. Or maybe, there was something else going on, something wrong that they’d not told her about. Maybe Dean was ill, or Sam was ill, and that was why Dean was angry; maybe this was all bound up with the fiasco of the trials. She didn’t know. But it seemed like they were going to get into a fight, like a real, physical, dangerous fight, right this second. She had to intervene.
“Hey, guys!” she said, straining to be cheerful, voice trembling despite her intent. “How about a deciding vote?”
They looked at her, both breathing hard, right up in one another’s faces. Dean’s hands were clenched into fists. As he saw Charlie notice, he relaxed them, splaying out his fingers, falling back.
“Deciding vote,” he said. “Sure.”
“I think…” and Charlie swallowed, because, she liked Dean, right? She felt like they’d connected, properly, like he was easier to get to know. But right now, he was also pretty scary, way more prickly and hostile than she’d ever seen him before. Probably, she was being stupid not to just agree with him. But on the other hand. Sam was right. Right? His visions had turned out to be important, way back when. And also… this was Charlie’s jam. You know. Quests. The Holy Grail.
So, “I think we should look for the Grail,” she said. And didn’t waver, because however grumpy Dean Winchester got, she felt pretty confident that he wouldn’t hit a girl.
“Oh,” said Sam, softly, like he was surprised to hear her taking his side.
And, “Oh,” said Dean, angry, starting towards her, raising his hand.
Charlie stepped backwards in dismay - but Sam was already defending her, already moving to put himself in front of Dean.
“Hey,” he admonished, and Dean shot him a look of absolute red-eyed fury that made Charlie’s stomach turn. “Careful. She’s just giving her opinion.”
“Yeah. Some opinion,” said Dean. “Whoop de do.”
“I thought… didn’t we agree that she’d cast the deciding vote?” Sam said, a little less certain.
Dean looked directly at him, then, eyebrow raised in challenge.
“We didn’t decide anything, little brother,” he said; and spun on his heel, made to start walking on in the direction that they were already heading.
“Come on, Dean,” Sam said. “Don’t be an idiot. If we get separated -”
Dean turned towards him. “Oh, right, I’m an idiot, now?” He looked at Charlie. “Don’t blame me when Sammy here goes all demonic at the slightest scent of blood. I’m going. See you back at the camp.”
Yeah, right, Charlie thought. Back at the camp. That seemed so unlikely. And her heart constricted, a little, at the thought of all her friends, out there in the woods, probably missing them all already; would they call the police? Could anybody find them, here? Would they ever get back?
“Dean -“ said Sam again, uncertain. But Dean didn’t look back.
~~~
As he paced quickly on through the trees, Dean could feel his heart pounding, thumping against the metal around his chest. This wasn’t him, walking out on Sam. Although… he’d done it last summer, hadn’t he? Run away and left his brother grieving and confused and alone; headed out with Crowley on a weird bromantic odyssey through America’s seedier small-town bars. Ugh. He shook off the thought.
What he couldn’t shake off was the Mark, burning insistent under his skin. Kill, kill, kill. The thing was getting desperate for it - Dean was getting desperate. He’d scared himself, lashing out at Charlie. She was only a kid, and yeah, so her judgement was clouded by some ridiculous obsession with ‘quests’, but she didn’t deserve to be hurt. He’d been blind, for a second, with anger, flashing forward to the comforting feel of his hand round her throat. So it was probably good that she’d chosen Sam. It might not be safe for her to be hunting with him, right now.
On the other hand. They could all be together. But Dean couldn’t worry about that, had to keep pushing forward, do what he was supposed to do, kill the beast and save the villagers. Right? And if the convenient side-effect of that was to dampen down the rushing of bloodlust in his veins, well, then that was just happy coincidence. He’d have made this choice either way around.
(On to Chapters 4-6)