Master Post - Prologue - Part 2 - Part 3

Dean thought he was doing a good job at being patient as Sam did his research thing before trying to offer up an explanation. He even left at one point, returning with pizza and beer, and only when Sam closed the laptop, crossing the room to join him, did he start explaining what was on his mind.

“You heard of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” Sam started, grabbing a slice and hovering over the top of the box as he ate it.

“The Iron Maiden song?”

“Uh...yes and no. The song is based on a poem published by Samuel Taylor Coleridge published back in 1798. In the poem, there's an albatross following the ship, which is supposed to be good luck, but the mariner kills it, cursing the ship. The others make the mariner wear the dead albatross around his neck, and eventually everyone in the crew dies. The mariner's curse is lifted, but he's forced to live out his life warning others by telling them what happened to him.”

Dean thought over this, recalling the shadow in the cell phone video and Kyle Brenner, the sole survivor, taking his own life. “So you think maybe the albatross is really a demon? Kid breaks the statue, gets possessed, it makes him kill everyone because of it, and when everyone's dead, it jumps to one of the other statues. Kyle couldn't take seeing his own hands off his family on top of all those other people, so he kills himself.”

“Right.” Sam opened two of the beers, sliding one over to Dean before drinking his own. “If you'd broken that statue, the demon would've possessed you, and you'd have killed everyone on board, possibly beyond considering it was docked.”

Rubbing his chest self-consciously, Dean thought of Hell, how the demons had put hot metal to their tattoos, marring them, rendering them ineffective. They'd take turns possessing them, use one to torture the other. When Castiel had pulled them out, he'd healed the brands, but the symbol was still broken. With the thought that there were no demons left on Earth and their retirement, they hadn't seen it fit to get them fixed. They didn't exactly have the time to go out and get them redone, either. A splinter flaking off the statue from getting jostled might be enough to get the demon out. “If we destroy all the statues, it'll have no where to go.”

“One of us will get possessed – it's too dangerous. What if we just move the statues? Bury them encased in cement where no one can get to them.”

The other perk of ending the apocalypse was that Sam's powers were gone, according to Cas, so Heaven should leave them alone. He had been vague about the how – either it was part of the healing when they'd been pulled out or when Hell closed and all the demons trapped on Earth were destroyed. That included the demon parts in Sam.

Dean's phone started ringing, and he dropped a half-eaten slice back into the box, wiping the pizza grease off his hands and onto his jeans, before answering. It was Agent Perez, according to the caller ID. “This is Fisher,” he said, hoping no one had seen them on the Boreas, checked it out after they left, and then found Gerald unconscious. Although, Dean suspected, if that had happened there would've been police banging on their door hours ago.

“One of the maintenance crew was found after the lunch break passed out next to the statue. He was brought to the hospital just in case, but he seems fine. The judge hurried the warrant process, and there'll be a quarantine crew in first light tomorrow to move all four statues. Where do you want them?”

Dean wondered if Agent Perez ever turned off business-mode. She was an attractive woman, and her dominating authority was kind of hot, but she really needed to let her hair down every now and then. “A completely isolated building with good air circulation.” Dean tried to think of everything they'd passed driving through the town, wondering what would be appropriate. “That airport – do they have any unused hangars?”

“If they don't, they will,” Perez replied. She hung up without another word.

“Warrant went through,” Dean explained before Sam could ask. “The four statues are going to be moved to an empty hangar at that teeny tiny airport at the edge of town. How come we hadn't figured this out earlier? If the authorities are desperate, they're more willing to help us without asking too many questions.”

Sam didn't say anything, just kept on eating and drinking his beer in silence, probably trying to figure out how they were going to handle this thing. Dean really had no idea. It wasn't that he missed his brother's evil powers, but it certainly would've put an easy ending on that demon. It also, though, might draw Heaven's attention to the fact that yes, they were still around, even when they weren't supposed to be, and Dean wasn't feeling up to getting smote. He'd been sick of being the martyr, even if Saint Dean had a nice ring to it.

No, this demon would have to be dealt with the old-fashioned way – an exorcism, plain and simple. But this time it would be anything but simple. They'd have to destroy the statues that weren't containing the demon first, so then it had no where to hide, but once either of them broke that last statue, the demon would come surging out to possess them. Dean didn't think they could do an exorcism on the statue itself – sure, they'd done it to the plane, but the demon had been controlling it. With the statue it was like...a cocoon or something, just waiting inside. It could leave on its own, as it had done with Gerald, but once they started the exorcism, it would just go back into the statue.

“What if we both destroyed the statue at the same time?” Dean tried. “It can't possess both of us – that could buy some time.”

“We'd have to hit it at precisely the same time, which is just too easy to screw up.” Dean could tell his brother was thinking hard based on the way his face was screwed up, forehead furrowed and mouth in a slight frown. “What if we get someone else to do it? The two of us restraining this demon will have a better shot than one.”

“Yeah,” Dean chuckled darkly. “That'll be easy to do. Oh, excuse me, dude, could you smash this statue in for us? Thanks.”

They had no other choice but to destroy the statues – that much they both seemed to agree on. Dean thought of something Sam had said earlier, how these disaster-causing demons were older. They were more primitive, it seemed, acting on instinct like animals instead of plotting like men. It would come right out of that statue, straight for its target since that was all it was waiting for.

“I'll break it,” Dean volunteered, forcing himself not to laugh at the are-you-fucking-insane look his brother was throwing his way. “You perform an exorcism faster than I do, it only makes sense.”

“Do you have more to this plan or am I supposed to hope for the best?”

“This demon wants destruction – that's all it wants. It doesn't really think about it, right? So if the person who destroys its statue, who its about to possess, happens to be standing in the middle of a great big devil's trap, it's not going to take the time to notice, now, is it?” Dean just hoped Sam didn't see the one potential flaw – what if this demon were so ancient the devil's trap didn't work? They hadn't used one on the plane, so they really didn't know.

Sam didn't seem to be thinking of that, though. He looked concerned and a little scared. Fear wasn't something Dean had gotten used to seeing on his brother's face; he'd seen it on his own after his first stint in Hell but never Sam's. “You really think you can handle being possessed again? After...”

“Different breed of demon, right?” He shrugged, playing nonchalant despite the unease in his stomach. He still had nightmares about them inside him, them making him cut into his own brother. This demon killed, though – quick, messy, not intending to torture the victims farther than the fear they'd felt at being hunted and seeing others get killed. If Dean was right, he'd be trapped, but the demon wouldn't be able to leave him because Sam would still be there, alive, on the ship. When the exorcism was done, it wouldn't have a statue to return to, and Dean liked to think with the words banishing it to Hell, and with Hell being closed, it would just perish like those who were trapped had been. “You don't think it'll work.”

“I think it's the best idea so far,” Sam admitted, “but I don't like it.”

“It's our last hurrah, remember? Hey, come on, I can't pass up my last chance to be possessed!” Dean forced himself to smile, to play it off as a joke, trying to remember where he heard that smiling acted against your gag reflex. This wasn't supposed to be demons. Why couldn't it have been a ghost or a curse like they'd thought until they went to burn the statue? They'd be in Daytona now, at some sleazy bar, Dean trying to pick up anything cute with a nice rack, and Sam looking like he thought he was going to catch a venereal disease just from sitting down.

“I still don't like it,” Sam replied, finishing his beer and cracking open another one.

Dean didn't remember going to bed that night so much as passing out, and when he woke up his boots were still on, but at least the sleep had been dreamless, no thoughts of Hell or of catching himself in the mirror to see dark, inky eyes and a sadistic grin jolting him awake in a cold sweat.

+

For the first time in a long time, Sam prayed as he drew out the devil's trap on the cement floor of the empty hangar. He didn't care if they weren't supposed to draw Heaven's attention – it made him feel better doing it. He and Dean had arranged the four statues like they were the cardinal points for the trap, and the wooden eyes of the albatrosses had been turned away, like the demon could see what they were doing through them, and they didn't want to give it a shot to make this plan fail. Dean was pacing with a crowbar from the trunk of the Impala as Sam drew, bracing himself, Sam was sure, for what was about to happen.

It wasn't the part with his brother being possessed that Sam was dreading but the memories that would certainly come afterwards. Demons played upon weaknesses, and those images he was certain Dean had of the demon possessing him in Hell, using Dean's body to torture Sam, would be brought back into the forefront.

Finished, Sam stood to admire the work, willing the paint to dry quickly as the can had advertised. The devil's trap was ten feet across – when Dean went to the center after the demon was released, they didn't want to take any chances of him being taller than it was wide. Sam turned to face Dean, who was flipping through the exorcism ritual Sam had marked earlier, despite being certain he still had it memorized, even after the time that had passed since the last one he performed, before he'd gone back to his powers against Dean and the angels' wishes. He didn't want to screw this up – this was his brother.

“So...” Dean paused, and Sam met his gaze. “I'm gonna stand on the trap, smash the shit out of the empty statues, then the one with the demon. It'll come flying out to possess me, and I'm gonna toss you the crowbar before it does so it doesn't throw the thing at you or make me hurt myself to try and get released. You do the exorcism, demon goes poof, and then we're sitting on the beach drinking margaritas in an hour.”

“Are you ready?” Sam asked, taking the book, not liking his brother's half-hearted shrug as he bent to check on the paint. “Dean... I can -”

“It's fine,” Dean interrupted, standing fully then stepping inside the devil's trap. “Let's hurry up and get this over with.”

Sam took the EMF meter out of his pocket and turned it on, walking in a circle around the statues, scanning each one, including the broken one that Kyle Brenner had broken on the Notos that started this whole mess. Sam went back around the circle, stopping at one of the albatrosses that wasn't giving off a reading. “This one,” he said, and Dean let loose on it with the crowbar, taking out all his stress and nervous energy on the thing, sending splinters of wood flying through the air.

Sam walked between the remaining two, wanting to be certain before telling his brother which one. The statue facing east caused a shrill beeping to come from the meter as the one facing south had nothing. Sam stood in front of the east-facing one, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, like it was watching him. “That one,” Sam said, pointing at the other intact albatross, and with a yell Dean had the crowbar embedded in the neck of the bird, wrenching it back out sharply.

Walking slowly along the periphery of the trap, Dean made his way to the remaining statue, looking passed it to Sam on the other side. “I really hope this works,” he said, a wry smile on his face. Without waiting for Sam to respond, Dean pulled the crowbar back over his shoulder, swinging powerfully at the statue, the metal impacting with the wood in a solid thud, shattering the surface. Dean drew back to the middle of the trap, Sam able to see the white-knuckled grip his brother had on the crowbar, and for what felt like an eternity, nothing happened.

Dean looked like he was about to take another swing when the demon came foaming out, shooting straight for the high ceiling of the hangar. Dean had just enough time to throw the crowbar out of the trap before the demon came slamming back down, knocking Dean flat on his back as it entered him.

There was stillness again, and Sam raised the book, starting the exorcism. “Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino qui fertis super caelum caeli ad Orientem Ecce dabit voci Suae vocem virtutis, tribuite virtutem Deo.”

Dean's body stood quickly like there were strings attached to him, eyes jet black and malicious. “The brothers Winchester,” came the voice, sounding like Dean's yet at the same time not. “I don't know whether to be upset with what you did to my kind or grateful that you took out the competition.”

Sam ignored this, concentrating on the text. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incusio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.” He forced himself not to think of Hell, of the ever rotating line of demons vying for their turn to possess the infamous Winchester brothers, of the feel of them inside Sam, using him to torture Dean, which had been so much more agonizing than when he was the one being tortured. He could shut down when his brother was possessed, close his eyes and the voice was different enough that he could picture someone, anyone, else in place of Dean.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” it mock-scolded, and he knew, as the demon slowly, confidently walked toward him, that it hadn't noticed it was trapped yet. It would find out shortly enough, though, as Sam watched Dean's feet get closer and closer to the edge. “You're gonna have to talk a lot faster if you want to st-” It stopped, like it had hit a brick wall, and then let out an angry hiss. It lunged for Sam, the magic stopping him, and Sam didn't even blink. “You can't destroy me! I know what dearest Dean here knows, and you don't have that demon magic anymore. You can send me away from here, but I'll just keep coming back.”

“You have no where to go,” Sam bit out, and it seemed Dean had been right about this demon acting on pure instinct since it not only hadn't noticed the devil's trap, but it was also now just noticing that the other two statues it hadn't been drawn out of were also broken. He considered, for a moment, trying to pull that power from within him, test to see if it was really gone or not, but he hadn't been able to feel it, hadn't been able to hear the siren call whispering in his ear, and where would that leave him if it weren't really gone? Stuck and doomed to no good end, just like before. “Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te, cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.”

It was flopping now, shaking as the words had their effect on the demon within his brother. “Dearest Dean's mind,” it snarled, panting. “It's like a playground in here – so much angst beneath the surface. You know, I think he enjoyed torturing you, with the evil you'd become. You were a monster too, Sammy. Why didn't he put you down like a rabid dog?”

Sam forced himself to ignore the jibes – they were nothing new after Hell. “All you demons with your verbal diarrhea.” The demon taunting Sam by claiming his brother had enjoyed torturing him was nothing compared to the nightmares about Sam doing the torturing himself. “Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt.”

It shuttered more, groaning, throwing itself at Sam but being stopped by the invisible barrier created by the magic of the devil's trap. “You would've made a great leader, Sammy. You're such a natural with that hunter's instinct. You really think that you, who was Hell's boy king, can live out a normal life?”

“Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.” The demon collapsed to the ground, howling in agony. “Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.” It thrashed, fingers clutching at the cement floor, trying to dig in, making Dean's fingernails break and bleed. “Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos.”

The demon was coughing like it had been getting strangled, rolling onto Dean's side, still managing to glare at Sam. “A normal existence is like the promised land to you people, but you'll never be able to stop. How will you sleep soundly at night, knowing we're still out there?”

Someone else will do it, Sam thought. He wasn't going to humor the demon with an answer, but he and Dean had figured it out before. With the evil still out there, still ruining lives, someone else would start off in a search for vengeance, join the others that still fought, but the Winchesters were done. They'd kept the world from ending, wasn't that enough?

“Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae te rogamus, audi nos.” The demon threw Dean's head back, hitting it against the ground, his brother's mouth gaped open and tilted skyward. Sam could see the black frothing up in Dean's mouth, the demon trying to stay, fighting. “Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo.” As the demon yelled, Sam's voice got louder, bellowing over the cries as Dean's body was being jerked around. “Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae.” Sam slammed the book shut, holding it one-handed at his side. “Benedictus Deus! Gloria Patri!”

With a roar like a freight train, the demon came tumbling out of Dean's mouth, a thick, black smoke completely enveloping his brother. It went for each statue, like it was searching for a place to go, dislodged from the statues that had been cursed with its evil, an evil that had killed the nine hundred and seventy six crew and passengers of the cruise ship Notos. With nowhere to go, Sam watched in awe as the demon disintegrated like the ones he had used his powers on, burning into nothing.

Sam rushed over to check on Dean, limp in the middle of the devil's trap. He was unconscious and his fingernails were bleeding from when the demon had clawed at the ground, but otherwise he seemed fine. Sam let out a deep, shaky breath before wrapping his arms under his brother's shoulders, hauling him up. “Well,” Sam said to no one, “that wasn't too bad.”

He just hoped that no matter what the demon had pulled out of Dean's memories, his brother would be okay when he woke up. “It's all over now,” Sam said, this time for his own benefit. He carefully put Dean in the back seat of the Impala then went back inside the hangar to clean up and destroy the statues. There was a sense of finality as he watched them burn.

“All over now,” Sam repeated with a small smile.

+

Dean came to with a start, taking a few seconds to absorb that he was sprawled on the back seat of the Impala and that it was dark outside. He frowned, looking at his watch, but it had stopped – probably when the demon possessed him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, wincing at the pain before noticing that there was dried blood under his nails and some of them were broken.

“How are you feeling?” He heard Sam asked, and Dean looked ahead to catch his brother's gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Demon-induced hangover,” Dean grunted, sliding on the bench to sit behind the passenger seat and buckling up before Sam could get a chance to tell him to. He didn't feel up to climbing into the front – meant he'd have to use his hands to prop himself up, and Dean wanted to touch as little as possible for a while. “Where the hell are we, and how long was I out?”

“Just passed Nashville and about twelve hours.”

“Shit,” Dean said just to say something. It was a long time to be out; they'd seen people come back almost right away. He wondered if that was a side effect from Hell – not being able to bounce back as quickly because of all the times he'd been possessed. Tolerance got weaker each time or something like that. He wondered if there was a threshold from which people just couldn't come back and found a sense of relief in knowing that they were done so he wouldn't have to find out. “Hey, what happened to Daytona?” Dean asked, leaning forward so his arms were crossed, resting on the top of the front bench.

“You were unconscious, Dean, and I didn't think still being at the motel when Agent Perez started asking more questions.”

Sam had a point. For that matter, Sam always had a point. “What did you tell her, anyway?”

“Something about the fungus present has neurotoxic side effects and we burned the statues. Recommended that Albatross Adventures use something else for their statues – metal, stone, anything else. Said you got a little too close so we had to rush back to Atlanta right away to get you treatment since you had more direct contact than what Gerald had been exposed to. I broke the locks on the hangars and made a mess of it with the remaining paint, so they should think it was just a bunch of kids who went in and graffitied the place.” Sam glanced over at Dean for a moment before focusing back on the road. “Sorry about Daytona.”

“Eh, it's fine. Wouldn't be able to pick up a beer the way my fingers hurt, and at this point I really just want to go home.” Dean paused, thinking over what he just said. “How's that for something I never thought I'd say?”

Sam just smiled as Dean leaned back into the seat, wishing for a bag of ice to hold in his hands and knowing they'd have to make a gas stop at some point since as much as he loved his Impala, she had a really lousy fuel economy, and they still had about half the trip left to get to Lawrence.

He certainly hadn't thought six months ago, when waking up in that motel room, that he'd actually crave going back to retirement. “What do you mean 'don't draw the attention of Heaven unto yourselves'?” he had asked, finding nothing unusual about waking up in a rundown motel room with Sam and Castiel.

“We weren't supposed to be saved,” Sam had answered, and based on the way Cas was avoiding eye contact, Dean knew he was telling the truth. He'd been enraged – after everything they'd risked, Heaven wanted them to remain in Hell?

“You'll be forgiven if you live out your lives in peace. Father is benevolent when penance is offered, and you can achieve that by giving up this life.”

Dean had laughed out right at the suggestion. Peace? With everything they'd seen, done, knew about, they were just supposed to quit? He'd grown weary of the life, true, but talking about stopping and actually doing it were two different things. And even now they weren't ending it on their own terms so much as being ordered to, and after his two stints in Hell, Dean had no desire to go back for eternity. He supposed it was a good thing he'd always been good at following orders. He'd looked over at Sam, who seemed oddly complacent about the whole thing. Maybe he was ready to be done with it, too. “So what happens to you?”

“I disobeyed orders and will be punished as they see fit.” Castiel stood, seeming so much more comfortable in his vessel than he had that first night when Dean had unsuccessfully tried to kill him. “It was an honor,” he had said before stepping out the door, and when Dean and Sam had run outside to follow him, he was gone.

Dean didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he woke up, unnerved by a sudden silence, to see that the car had stopped and they were at a gas station. Dean took the opportunity to move to the front, bending his fingers experimentally and wincing at the tightness. Dean unrolled the window so he could talk to his brother outside. “Can you get me some ice?” His stomach growled, making Dean suddenly aware that he hadn't eaten in a while. “And like a sandwich or something?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam replied, almost too quickly and willingly, and Dean was under the impression he was being coddled, but he didn't particularly care and was going to take advantage of it.

He remembered being possessed, what it had said to Sam about Dean having enjoyed torturing his brother, his alleged destiny because of old Yellow Eyes, and how they could never live out normal lives, no matter how hard they tried. He also remembered it oozing around in his thoughts, picking the cobwebs off the memories he had locked away and only faced in his nightmares, but instead of leaving Dean feeling haunted and empty, it put the final nail on the coffin, so to speak. He was ready to be done.

“So, uh, are you okay?” Dean asked when Sam got back to the car, handing Dean a plastic cup filled with ice and something in plastic that claimed to be a roast beef sub. He wasn't worried so much about what was said as Sam having to see Dean possessed again and the memories that went with it.

“I'll be perfectly content to never have to deal with a demon again,” Sam responded, starting the car.

Dean cracked a grin, savoring the feeling of the cold cup in his hands. “Maybe being a lawyer isn't really the best choice, then.”

Sam laughed, then, and it was like the tension that had been in the air instantly dissipated. They had futures planned out, now, which was something they'd never had before, or at least Dean hadn't. Sam was now getting a second chance at the one he'd wanted, that he'd left for so long ago. “I don't plan on being the devil's advocate.”

“Dude, that was bad,” Dean said, groaning at the joke.

“Sorry,” Sam replied, still smiling, really not sorry at all.

Dean, not planning on sleeping for the rest of the drive, turned on some music and got to work on the sandwich, the lettuce wilted and the bread a little soggy since it had likely been sitting out longer than it had any right to, but he was too hungry to care.

He was, despite the physical pain, feeling pretty good. He'd go back to work, and Sam would start school. Maybe they'd call Bobby, talk to him about something that wasn't a ghost or a poltergeist or a vampire den preying on an elementary school in Nebraska. Maybe Sam would meet a nice, pretty girl that wasn't a werewolf or a demon and wouldn't die tragically, directly or indirectly, because of Sam. Dean thought of that world the djinn had showed him years ago, and while he knew Carmen didn't exist, it would be nice change of pace to know a girl longer than a night, one that knew nothing about the world they had grown up in. His dreams of being a family with Lisa and Ben couldn't be reality, but there was nothing keeping him from starting his own now.

“Hey,” Dean said, mouth full of roast beef and cheese. “What was something you always wanted when you were a kid but dad always said no because we moved around all the time?”

“Uh...friends?”

“No.” Dean scowled, not for the first time realizing how depressing their childhood had been.

“A birthday party? To go to Disney World? A dog?” Sam looked at Dean, who didn't appreciate being stared at like he'd lost his mind. “You want to get a dog?”

Dean shrugged. “Just thinking, now, if you wanted, well, we could. We're not going to Disney World, though – those giant animal suits with the creepy smiles hugging small children give me the willies.”

“Yet clowns don't freak you out.”

“I never said they didn't. They just don't bother me as much as they clearly bother you.”

They bantered back and forth for the rest of the drive, Dean trying to make a point that there was something creepy about people willing to pay to have their kid's picture taken with a possible pervert, which he also applied to mall Easter bunnies and Santas. Sam was trying to make a point about background checks, but Dean was still firm in his belief that people did way more messed up things for no reason than the evil sons of bitches they'd hunted.

It was either really late at night or really early in the morning, depending on who you asked, when they arrived back in Lawrence, Sam pulling the Impala into a parking space in front of their apartment building.

“Home sweet home,” Dean said as he climbed out of the car, carefully locking and shutting the door behind him. “I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to sleep for the next twenty-four hours at least.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sam agreed, and after grabbing their bags out of the trunk, they unlocked the door and went inside.

Epilogue