Archive of Our Own

12:36 PM

In the end, Dean still really had no idea how they made it out of the house.

He knew the job was done - he had set fire to the damned diary himself. But as for actually leaving and in one piece - yeah, he drew a total blank there.

And then Birch was in his face, pissed and hollering and he had no flippin' clue what to make of that.

"What the fuck is the matter with you? You got some kind of fucking death-wish, boy?!" And Dean could only sob out a laugh because he hadn't the fucking foggiest what Birch was talking about - and he was still reeling from (well, amongst other things) his friend even thinking the work 'fuck'.

Then Twig was hauling him by his jacket, back to the truck, still muttering about fire and crazy ghosts, white about the mouth while he chewed Dean out and all Dean could do was stumble-step after him, thinking distantly about how bad his shoulder hurt and how his knee was kinda protesting his weight.

"What happened?" he slurred thickly, flinching at the drunken lisp of his words, even while his brain flitted through the idea that well, it matched his walking, at least. "Did we grab the weapons? Did the diary burn all the way? Fuck, Birch, lemme go!"

He jerked away so abruptly, Birch had no choice but to let him loose, and time yawed sideways again, leaving him scrambling at the edges of it. The next thing he knew, they were in Birch's truck, but the old man wasn't talking, was just sitting there, shaking - and Dean thought grimly that this was the reason you don't drag civvies into supernatural battles, all logic standing behind it or no. Though from what Birch next said, that wasn't the reason why he was so upset, the 'geist had hardly affected him at all. Something happened while they were there, in the house. Something that made time go wobbly and slide underneath his perception. Something not-good that had Birch all pinched and scared and waffling between anger and concern.

"Ease up old man," he joked half-heartedly, that headache he'd had earlier back with a vengeance, thumping away behind his eyeballs and sending streaks of lightning down his temples. He was relieved to find the thick slur out of his voice though, which had kinda been freaking him the fuck on out.. "You get too excited there you'll have heart-failure. I mean, I'm up on my CPR, but -"

"This ain't funny!" Birch thundered, his voice high and creaky, breaking at the end in an almost raspy screech. Sounding like a highly agitated old man as a matter of fact - something Dean found somewhat startling, even though Birch was a highly agitated old man. "You scared the shit out of me, Forrester -"

"Winchester," Dean mumbled.

"What?!"

"Winchester - m'name's Dean Winchester. If you are going to save my life, might as well know my real name." He gave a half huff of laughter, sounding uncertain as he glanced at Birch from the corner of his eye, lip curled in a self-depreciating smirk. Birch just stared at him for a moment, eyes wide, flush high on his cheeks as though he was going to start yelling again - or really have that damned heart-attack. Then he did the damnedest thing -

Birch started laughing - hard.

He slapped his knee and guffawed like Dean had told the world's best joke, gasping for each breath before losing it again in a fresh peal of laughter. Dean couldn't help it. A few seconds in, his lips began to twitch, though he couldn't, for the life of him, see what was so damned funny. It didn't take long though, for Birch's raspy giggles to get under his skin and he started laughing with him. They laughed until tears ran out of their eyes, until they had to grip the dash to keep from sliding out of their seats. Dean's ribs and face ached, his eyes stung as wave after wave of laughter (sounding slightly hysterical from the both of them) tumbled from deep down in his chest, his belly cramping from the strain of it. He was aware that to anyone passing by, they would look like two lunatics heehawing away in a beat up truck, both looking the worse for wear over it - but damn it was refreshing. It had been a long damned time since he had laughed so hard and so freely - even if he had no idea what the hell he was laughing about.

The laughter finally tapered off to giggles and mild snorts as they tried to regain their equilibrium, intentionally not looking at one another for fear of another fit. It took another few minutes for them to catch their respective breaths, swiping at eyes that still streamed with helpless tears, arms pressed across their ribs as if to hold what was left of their insides in.

"Winchester, huh?" Birch finally choked, voice breathy and thin. "Thought Forrester didn't fit - Winchester sounds much better. Like the -"

" - rifle," Dean supplied, pressing his lips firmly around the snort that tried to escape. " Yeah, like the rifle."

Then suddenly, things were serious again - the pervasive warmth the laughter had brought ebbing away slowly, the bite of autumn creeping back into the truck.

"Well, Winchester - what happened back there?" Birch finally asked, eyebrows raised in question as he contemplated the young man's profile, Dean's face honest, open and slightly scared as he returned the glance, shifting away again in discomfort to stare at the car parked next to them.

"I don't...I don't know, Birch. I can't begin to tell you - I...I honestly have no idea," Dean confessed, gaze shifting to his hands, open and palms up across his thighs, fingers trembling with the weight of all he couldn't understand. He flexed his hands, flipping them to grip his thighs, the ache in his right knee singing as he did so, forcing him to grip harder, to breathe through the pain telegraphing up to his hip. "I can't really remember what happened after I went upstairs. I remember picking the lock on the backdoor -"

" - that was smooth there, young man - almost couldn't believe it when that damn door popped open -"

"I remember placing the first bag in a vent on the east. Then after calling out to you to place one of yours in the south, I dropped the second bag in the west. I remember I had to kick a hole in the drywall to drop it in - "

"Boy, didn't that make a racket, too," Birch sighed. "Thought we'd bring in the whole neighborhood kickin' in the walls like that..."

"And then you dropped that last one in the north -"

"And whew! Didn't know what to expect, but that light-show was spectacular!" Birch marveled, making Dean pause in his recollection to grin at him, his eyes dancing with glee.

"Wasn't it? I've always loved shit like that. S'one of the perks of the job - the special effects," Dean smiled, stopping for a moment to enjoy Birch's return grin. He shook his head after a second though and set his mind back to working out his missing time, knowing that somehow, what had happened was important - even if he couldn't remember it. Maybe that was what was so important about it, the very fact he couldn't recall what happened after they reached that attic. The best way he knew to find that missing information was to track what he knew against what Birch knew and for that, he needed to quit screwing around and focus.

"So after the initial awesomeness of that, I found the drop-ceiling to the attic -"

"They'd had the string tucked in a light fixture," Birch supplied.

"Yeah...yeah, I remember that," Dean replied softly, rolling the events in his head and lining them up as best as he could. It bothered him (fucking scared the shit out of him, really) that he couldn't remember anything beyond climbing those rickety wooden slats laughingly called steps and finding that fucking diary. He could recall with instant clarity what he had for breakfast the day he made his first kill, could recall down to the last detail the day Sam graduated from high school. He could remember things most people considered junk and went out of their way to forget - the good, the bad and the ugly - he carried it all up in his head, easily retrievable after a few seconds of thought. But this was skittering just out of his mind's reach, slip-sliding through his conscious memory like liquid smoke.

"I almost got a splinter grabbing that flimsy piece of plywood they called a railing -"

"Yeah, you had to help me up -"

"After I told you to stay down there." Dean shook his head, eyes smiling at Birch even though his mouth was a grim line. "Just had to join the party."

"Well, I always did like a good encore." Birch smiled back.

"Yeah - and I didn't want you falling on your ass - s'just easier to help you up than to argue with you."

Birch smirked and looked pleased for a split second, his face dropping a good twenty years in that moment - and Dean could almost guess at what he must have looked like as a young man. Too soon it was gone though and Twig lapsed back into a waiting stillness, allowing Dean to gather his thoughts and move from point A to point B.

"Yeah, anyway," Dean continued, wrenching his eyes away from Birch. "I helped you up and -"

"Christ, that attic was a friggin' mess - "

"And we found that damned diary almost right away. Was friggin' spooky - almost like Tomkins left it out for us."

"You had me fetch that metal pail over near the trapdoor thingummy - "

"We dropped the book in, took a second to get my lighter fluid though -"

"You had me salt it, which made sense after what you told me about ghosts and purity and crap like that -"

"I set the match to it and then -" Dean froze, eyes faraway as he caught and confronted what slid before his mind's eye, his face slack with a dim, barely-remembered terror. "And then -"

Fire, fire everywhere - a high-pitched manic giggle (so familiar) coming at him, surrounding the small space, all around him and yet nowhere. There was nowhere to go, there was no escape - they would find him and he would have to go home and face his Master, his Master who was looking at him through the endless fire, laughing as he came to haul him back where he had come from, take him back to his honorary place on the Rack because it wasn't over, it was never over -

"You froze..." Birch whispered, regret, pity and horror in his voice. "You just...locked up."

Flames reached high, high towards the narrow ceiling, a face in the flames ancient and familiar, twisted with malice and hatred, just for him, reaching for him to drag him back and it would start all over again -

"Fuck..." Dean choked, lost for a moment in the sea of images that swamped him, a confused jumble of reality and nightmare. He had thought...he had thought he'd seen Alistair - just for a split second, a mere moment in time - and he had almost killed Twig and himself in his utter panic. "Oh fuck I screwed up -"

"No - no, Dean you saved us both from that crazy poltergeist," Birch said sadly, laying a grounding hand on Dean's shoulder. "I shoulda stayed put, like you told me, but -"

Dean wrenched his gaze away from fire, feeling something, someone move behind him. He turned to see Birch striding toward him, mouth moving in a soundless clutter of speech - and Birch had no idea, no idea what Alistair was capable of. There was no innocent, there was no guilty - there was only screaming and blood and fire and pain - and he couldn't lead Birch into that. He'd die a thousand deaths all over again before that happened - Alistair couldn't have the old man - he'd go Home quietly, he'd follow his Master back to the Rack if that's what it took, as long as he didn't take Birch, who was a decent, hard-working, honest soul - he didn't deserve that kind of horror, that torment -

He danced out of Birch's reach, almost knocking over the metal pail with the burning diary as he did so, narrowly avoiding burning down the house with the both of them in it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw (Tomkins) Alistair diverting his attention to Twig, that horrible, screeching laughter taking on a howling tone as the apparition aimed straight for the old man, evil intent saturating the very air as the ('geist) demon snatched at him, teeth bared in fury.

Dean did the only thing he could think to do, the instinct to protect so deeply ingrained, he didn't even register he was moving until he had grabbed Twig by the front of his jacket and swung him out of the way, shoving him deeper into the shadowy confines of the attic, barely noting the old farmer's squawk of surprise as he landed on his ass amongst the piles of ancient junk, body sprawled in a stunned heap.

But he was safe - he was out of harm's way. Hopefully Alistair would focus on Dean and Dean alone now that Twig was out of his sight-line.

He barely got time to turn around, to try and track where Alistair was, when he felt a crushing, icy hand clamp down on his right knee, the grip bruising, careless as he was yanked backwards and flung. Dean narrowly missed the drop door as he landed, one shoulder slamming into the wall, glancing off of it with a dim crack before his torso met the floor. He blinked, momentarily dazed, struggling to catch his breath, to shake the pain off and clamber back to his feet, when he was slammed back to the rotting, dusty floor, that icy claw digging into his back to lift him again and shake him, scrabbling for purchase across the worn leather of his jacket. All Dean could do was let out a high, keening yelp of terror and pain as one of the talons sunk through the stiff material, catching on the bone of his right shoulder blade and yanking. His mind somersaulted and he could feel terror, real, bone-deep, suffocating terror sink into his consciousness, ripping away at the seams of reality. The attic became his cell, his cell was the attic - and Alistair was mad, he was really fucking pissed off because his prize, his personal pet one Dean Winchester almost made it - he almost escaped.

But there was never any escape - only illusion and mad hope and false comfort and pain without end.

"Alistair - fuck! Please - I'll go back, just please -" he screamed, trying to crawl out from under the hook that had his shoulder pinned to the floor. He writhed under the terrible, chilling pressure the need to fight outweighing the need to accept - even for Birch's sake. He mustered enough strength to squint across the dark expanse of (his cell) the attic, trying to find his friend, eyes watering from the pain as the (claw) hook gave another yank, a feeble yet very painful attempt to move him. "Birch! Run - I'm sorry, I'm sorry - fuck!"

The (Hellfire) flames from the pail shot skyward once more, illuminating the dim space, dazzling Dean's eyes and highlighting Twig's crumpled form on the other side of the (Gate) trap door. He couldn't tell if the old man was even breathing, everything was so still. He feared that maybe he was too late, that Alistair had gotten to him anyway - because if any creature could torment and kill multiple souls at once - it was his Master. But as fast as the thought flashed across his mind, the flames in the pail flared once more then died, puffing out with a suddenness that left an imprint behind his eyelids. There was another earsplitting screech, the sheer noise of it felt behind his ears as well as heard, then the (claw) hook in his back disappeared, replaced by baking flames right over his head, the heat tightening his skin across his exposed neck and face, forcing him to duck down and try to cover himself.

It was over.

Dean blinked across the sudden surrounding gloom, testing his limbs cautiously as he regained his footing, making his slow, careful way to where he had last seen his friend. He was left startled and unsure of his surroundings, but he had to check on Birch, had to make sure he had survived this...whatever was happening. Alistair, poltergeist - his mind was left spinning and confused, but he was sure if anything could anchor him in the Now, it would be his newest comrade-in-arms. It took several attempts though, to get his voice working, fear had caught, lodged in his vocal-cords and he was forced to clear his throat several times before he could make any sound other than a desperate squeak.

"Birch?" he asked softly, shudder running through him as he flashed on Alistair coming out of the darkness to meet him, razor shining, shining, shining. "Birch you alright? Where -"

"Yeah, I'm here -" the old man returned breathlessly, appearing out of the shadows with a suddenness that had Dean barking a startled yelp, taking two steps backwards and almost falling through the drop door behind him. Birch whipped out a hand to steady him and Dean had to bite back a groan as his fingers clamped over the area of his shoulder that had met the wall with such bruising force. The pain helped ground him though, helped him focus as he stared in bewilderment at his surroundings, finally seeing the pail with its ashy, forlorn testament to one defeated poltergeist.

"Looks like we got 'em," Birch supplied cheerfully, face tight with concern and curiosity. "Are you okay, Dean?"

Dean looked around the attic, the image of his cell melting away as if it had never been, leaving him numb and horrified. He had fallen into a hallucination in the middle of a job - and over something so damned simple as a match and a highly motivated, angry spirit. Alistair had never been here - Alistair wasn't coming. But he knew he had seen him, he had felt his presence so vividly it was burned along each nerve ending, left the taste of bile and blood thick and cold in the back of his throat. In the end, though, 'Alistair' had been nothing but a nasty poltergeist with the ability to actually manifest and take form - dangerous, but nothing the caliber of the High Inquisitor and his cronies. Shame flooded him as he tried to force himself to look Birch in the face, assure him that all was well, even as he couldn't seem to meet his eyes.

"Yeah," he croaked, trying to swallow past the lingering stench of (irrational) fear that was still caught in the back of his throat. "Yeah, I'm good."

He managed a wavering grin, shrugging off Birch's hand before turning to gather their things, the air still too close and hot for him to get a good gulp of oxygen, leaving him fighting for each breath. His eyes swam, a kaleidoscope of colors zigzagging across the lines of his vision as he tried to step forward, his traitorous legs rubbery and unwilling to hold him up, but only for a mere moment as he fought through it, willing his body to obey him - determined to get their stuff and get the fuck outta this hellhole. He registered Birch moving beside him, set to the same task and tried to tilt his head in that direction, bile churning in his gut as stars broke out in front of his eyes, little streams of light that pulsed with each throb of the headache that had never quite gone away.

"Dean?" Birch called, his voice so close and warm to his ear and yet coming from a long way away all at once, the concern bleeding through, making each word circle back to him, muffled and heavy. "Are you okay, boy?"

"I'm great," Dean gasped. His lungs squeezed in shock as the air got thinner, each intake a chore, like trying to breathe through filthy water. A ringing started up right about then, faint but there, on the edges of his hearing and Dean tried to shake it off, mildly disconcerted when his head wouldn't obey his commands. "I'm frigging...awesome -"

He felt his upper body tilt forward, his panic distant and unimportant, as everything around him folded into the dark.

"Christ," Dean gagged, tongue thick in his mouth as he leaned away from Birch's comforting hand, sure he would start heaving if the old man so much as looked at him wrong right now, never mind actually touching him. "Oh, my fucking...shit -"

But in the end, whether Twig did anything or not mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. Gravity and his queasy stomach were determined to meet and he found himself fumbling wildly for the door-handle, barely getting it open before all the coffee he had consumed that day came rushing back up in one spectacular wave. The scent of stale, burned java and that thick acidic, salt-grease odor of bile flooded his senses, overwhelming him as he retched helplessly, the mere sound of his own vomit hitting blacktop getting him started on a fresh round of pointless heaving before he had even properly finished with the first round.

Every muscle in his back and neck tensed, his stomach cramping in vague protest against the sheer violence of his sickness, which seemed to go on forever, but in reality was a mere minute or two at the most. It was exhausting, it was disgusting and it was thoroughly embarrassing. If he were Twig, he'd'a kicked his own damned sorry ass out of the friggin' truck in sheer disgust and disappointment. First he hallucinated (fucking hallucinated) in the middle of a job - and a semi-standard salt'n'burn job at that. Then he went and fainted like some willowy, romance novel chick - now this? Yeah, heaving your guts out while leaning out of your new friend's truck, praying you didn't hit the door with your upchuck was fucking stellar - perfect capper to the perfect fucking day. This could only be topped with a bullet to the brain-pan - that would make this day of awesome truly frigging complete.

"Fuck -" he choked, the parking lot watery looking as he blinked back tears of shock, his throat feeling raw and maltreated every time he drew breath. He registered Birch's hand before it fell between his shoulder-blades, his body coiling against the contact before it could happen, each hair on his neck shivering to life as his senses screamed to pull away - pull away or go for round two of the Purge. Amazingly though, instead of retching again, the clenched fist that sat in his middle loosened, his muscles relaxing one by one as Birch made solid contact with his back, his touch not too heavy, but not too light, just resting his fingers below Dean's collar, steady, warm and there.

"I'm..." Dean took a deep breath, wincing as the very action seemed to burn his nose and throat, the taste of vomit clinging thickly to the back of his palate. He spit reflexively, taking another couple of gulps of the crisp autumn air, willing himself to ignore the roiling feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I'm so sorry, Twig, I...god...I'm just - I'm sorry."

He barely heard Birch's whispered assurances 'Nothing to be sorry for' and 'Hold on there, Dean, that's it' as he held himself propped against the door for a minute more, catching his breath while trying (and failing miserably) to get some sense of dignity back. Birch withdrew his hand after a quick pat on his uninjured shoulder, trying to help him regain his sense of balance and something deep inside cringed at the sudden need for Twig to put his hand back on his shoulder, give him something to cement himself with. He crammed that whimpering tidbit of weakness back down, burying it deep so he wouldn't have to see it and acknowledge that he had become that guy. The guy who had just found himself shattered into a million pieces with no shards big enough to jigsaw back into the original form, the guy who was many things once upon a time, a long time ago - and was now just a cheap knock-off of that original. To say it was disheartening and depressing was a massive understatement.

At least he could say he remembered now - it wasn't so much an important event as a horrifying one, but it was emblazoned clear as crystal (to mix metaphors) into that steel trap he called a memory. Its only real importance was to highlight how even the simplest job (two-man type or no) was completely beyond him at the moment. It stunned and infuriated him, that little revelation - it made him want to scream, to hit something - to fucking kill something. But what was he going to kill? Monsters? Ghosts? Birch? Himself? Those last two were almost accomplished (and quite handily, too) a mere fifteen minutes ago by his sudden surge of PTSfuckingD and didn't that shit just take the goddamned cake, platter and frigging serving knife, right then.

Fucking pathetic.

And now he was going to make himself even more fucking popular by bawling like a damned three year old with a dropped ice cream cone. Wouldn't that just get him right back in good esteem with Twig, just going for the full fucking package, there - seeing things, fainting, puking, then weeping like a woman. Yeah, he was a damned impressive motherfucker when he wanted to be.

He took a pause in kicking himself to slouch back in his seat, giving a weak tug on the truck door to swing it shut, blocking out the sight of his own failure seeping into the cracked tar of the parking lot. He couldn't look at Twig. He couldn't face the guy who had shown more bravery, more steel in the face of the unknown than the punk-ass who had brazenly led him to it, too full of himself to comprehend that he was endangering them both. He could feel the depression from earlier that morning trying to creep back in and forcefully willed it away, too scared to face what that depression meant - what it had been trying to tell him all along.

He could feel Twig's patient gaze sweep across him, the silence in the truck oppressive even as it was warmly encompassing, the questions and the concerns teetering on the tip of Birch's tongue crowding against the very air they were breathing. The only barrier between those words waiting to happen and the silence, was Twig's willingness to give him time. And time was anything but welcome to Dean. Time meant thinking, time meant dealing - and after this fiasco disguised as a Hunt, Dean just didn't have the strength to do either.

He opened his mouth to speak and clamped his teeth shut again with an audible clack, horrified at the lump forming in his throat as he tried to come up with something adequate to say, something that would both reassure Birch and praise him in equal measure. But his quick tongue and easy wit died before words could even take shape behind his teeth, exhaustion and a unique heaviness across his insides dulling any response he could have made. He was relieved when Birch chose to speak up, his voice steady and calm, soothing even, as Dean tried to wrestle himself back to the present, back to being Dean again. The old man's prattle helped some, giving him something to focus on, to reach towards while he pulled himself together, painting a mask that would suit him when he allowed himself to move, to talk, to think again.

"As you can guess, you kinda went belly-up there for a minute - not that I can blame you. That old man packed a hell of a wallop, even as dead as he is - he tossed you around pretty good there. I managed to lower you through the drop door and by the time I got you near the ground, you were somewhat conscious again and able to stand pretty good for a fella who was half-dead on his feet." Birch chuckled lightly to himself and Dean found his lips tugging in an answering smile, blinking his eyes open wearily, though he kept his gaze firmly in his lap.

"Yup," Birch continued, voice a little stronger as he realized Dean was fully there with him. "Bet you've had practice at being out while standing up - looks like you have just from how much you fought me as I tried to get us outta the house. Said you could walk, though I know you weren't seein' even five centimeters in front of your face, if that - whatever you were seein', it wasn't one foot going in front of t'other, I'll tell ya that right now. Seen that look on men before, during my time in The War..."

Twig lapsed into silence, fiddling with the truck's keys, the muted jangle a comfort and a fresh ache all at once as Dean was hit with a series of sense memories of the Impala. The warm stretch and crackle of her leather seats, the feel of sunlight falling across the back of his hand, smooth breeze in his face, shivering along the seam of his throat as he coaxed her down the open road, her smells a mixture of leather, heated metal, gun-powder, blood, gasoline and motor oil - her seat-back firm against the curve of his spine, even as he melted into it, the seat itself having contoured to his shape many years ago.

He missed her with a sudden fierce ache that was as alien to him as it was familiar, before it faded again - leaving that ache more of a numb throb. That odd sense of detachment crept up, bringing with it the concern that feeling itself had become foreign and that terrified him on levels he couldn't describe. To have that mix of conflicting emotions in relation to the only true home he had ever known, well...like his feelings towards Sam, he still didn't know quite what to do with that - so he let it lie, until it could sort itself out, or until he could face it, whichever came first.

"So I...I got us out and you just seemed to snap back to yourself, I'm sure you remember that - and you seemed to be fine, seemed to be back to your old brass - at least until we got halfway to the truck." Dean could feel a cold tickle of dread start somewhere below his ribcage, webbing outwards as Birch spoke, the level of deep warmth and sympathy in his voice only fueling an urge to bolt or be sick again. "Then you...you started talking funny."

"Talking funny?" Dean asked, amazed that the words came out so calm and smooth even when Birch's hesitant tone made his stomach curl in on itself again. That deep, cloying dread intensified until his jaw actually ached with the weight of it under his skin, an electric chill racing the fragile press of his spinal column, threatening to crack the surrounding bone structure. "Talking funny, how?"

"I dunno," Twig mused, his voice wondering and afraid, though it seemed only Dean could hear it - Birch's thoughtful tone masking the wrongness of what he thought he had heard. "Sounded like foreign language - though none like I've ever heard. Don't know how sounds like that could ever come from any common human speech - was kind of spooky to tell the truth."

"Ahhh," Dean responded glibly. "Spooky. Yeah."

He forced himself to look at his friend, dreading what he would see, whether it be mild curiosity or disgust or terror. He found none of those things though, as Birch returned the glance, his face an open plain of such understanding, Dean felt like a heel for expecting anything less. He relaxed under Birch's steady, calm scrutiny, the farmer's eyes as open and honest as the sunrise, a small brittle smile playing about his wizened features.

"Is it...is it okay, if I - I ask you something, Dean?" he whispered across the expanse of the cab, like Dean carried the most ancient of secrets that would crack apart under the grind of anything less than a soft tone - which, come to think of it, might have actually been true.

"Yes, Birch - you can ask me anything," the younger man supplied, lips numb, half-catching the words as they slid across his teeth - but knowing what he said was a truth (and relief all at once). Twig could ask him anything, anything and he would gladly answer, if only to get this insane block of granite off of his chest. "Anything at all."

"Who - "

A vise squeezing, squeezing his insides (already knowing the question) even as he tried to breathe through it (to say it was to bring it home, make it real) but to do anything less was dishonest, dishonorable, disgraceful -

" - is Alistair?"

Dean bit back a sound of choked surprise. Even though he was anticipating the question, he was still worlds away from prepared, the sensation of being caught flatfooted enough to leave him dizzy and breathless.

"So you remember that name, huh?" was his smooth deflection, taking a moment to bear up under an answer, to find the truth that was embedded in the thread of lies and nightmares that made the creature that bore that name what he was, to examine it with Birch and maybe make it less daunting.

"I remember rather vaguely you mentioning that name while we were in the attic, so I wasn't sure of it then, though I might be mishearing it in all the chaos. But when we were coming back here...when you...went away again for a moment, you mentioned that name - it was clear as a bell. Really, it was the only clear thing you said. The rest was...jumbled - and it...it hurt my ears of all things." Birch looked at him from under his eyebrows as if ashamed by what he had said, but Dean nodded in acceptance, granting absolution in the roll of his shoulders and rueful quirk of his lips.

"Yeah," he rasped thoughtfully. "I know what you mean. It just kind of...scrambles along your inner ear and digs at your mind, doesn't it?"

Twig nodded in relief and Dean gave him a trembling pat of reassurance on his arm, taking a gulping breath as he tried to find a way to explain it all.

"That language...that speech - isn't suppose to be heard out of a certain" realm "area - does that make sense? I mean, it is bad enough while there, but ten times worse when heard out here..."

Under the blue sky, over the green grass, clashing against the natural sounds of animals/birds/living things that make sense, curdling the sweet sip of oxygen that fills your lungs -

Birch tilted his head, seeming to be able to hear what Dean was saying, even as he didn't have the strength to say it. He nodded in acceptance, realizing he didn't fully comprehend what the young man was talking about, but willing to try at the very least.

Dean licked his lips, trying to find a way to make all this, all that he had seen and been through - what/who Alistair was and what that meant easier to grasp, easier to take in small chunks without choking on the terror of it.

"Alistair -"

"That's not right," Birch interrupted, shaking his head. "That doesn't - it doesn't sound...wrong enough. When you started speaking in that, that odd way - you said his name different, you...you called him -"

" - Alistair," Dean broke in, shivering as the name rolled over his tongue in that familiar, tainted way - the very taste of it vile and incomprehensible to the shape of his mouth. It came to him unbidden, the High Speech of Hell as deeply ingrained as the feel of his Colt 1911, the taste of a tired hotel room, the warm presence of his brother - even more so than all these things combined, if possible. The intonation was like a raping squeal against the vocal cords, tumbling out in a cascading hiss of slithering noise, more of a psychic scream than actual sound, the feeling of it hitting the air like a hole being ripped across the cosmos, unnatural and wrong and hateful.

Birch instinctively shrunk back into his seat, as if to escape that abomination of a word in such intimate confines as the truck, hands flying up to dig behind his ears, a muted whimper tumbling from his slack jaw. He turned a distinctive green color, gulping quickly while taking deep shallow breaths and Dean immediately felt sorry for staining the comfort of the man's machine, his eyes sorrow and terror and a bottomless calm, one steadying hand hovering over Birch's wrist, mouth twisted in a line of regret.

"I'm sorry - I'm sorry, Twig, I -"

"No." The old man swallowed, color slowly seeping back into his features. Dean could only admire his resilience as he straightened in his seat, breathing falling back into a normal rhythm after a beat or two of time, his own smile as rueful and sad as Winchester's. "I asked for it, I stepped in it - so I can't cry about it...but - that was it. Right there, it was like - like -"

"Nothing of this world," Dean replied, face hollowed out and far older than Twig could even comprehend.

If Twig himself lived to be a thousand, he would never see such lines and emptiness reflected back in the mirror and that thought alone made him quake inside with fear - not of Dean, but for him. He tightened his mouth so it wouldn't bleed out across his tongue,that useless lump of flesh almost always willing to do him in somehow. But Dean saw it anyway, his whole being absorbing what could not be said and tucking it away somewhere deep inside the safe zone of his soul. Instead of being angry, instead of being dismissive or vehement or righteous, he smiled - and it was a smile filled with such sweetness, such youth that Birch found himself staggered at the sudden switch.

He was glimpsing what Dean was, what he had been - and he was surprised that the man beside him would share such a thing. He could tell from the moment he had seen him on the side of the road that this young man carried himself wrapped in a shield, protecting himself and others around him from the raw scrape of his emotions, his thoughts - and in that one second, he could see Dean asking his permission to do just that - to crack the edge of the shield and let Twig see what was underneath.

There was no answer but one - and Twig could only hope his nod in return told Dean that he would be honored to take such a burden, such a gift and keep it safe within his own soul. Dean's eyes flickered for a moment, his thoughts flaring like a bright light for a split second, too fast for Birch to see the verdict, but he didn't have to wait long, Dean's jaw tensing once, eyes pulling away only to shift back to him, his expression as serious as the grave.

"I think...I think I can tell you what that name means, what it is about, but first I need to swing by that house just one more time. You can tool around the block while I go in - it's nothing dire, just something that needs doing before we're actually done with this Hunt. Then we need to grab some lunch as I dunno about you, but I'm kind of hungry. I hate talking on an empty stomach and well, since I seem to have lost everything on the ground out there, it's probably a good idea if I refuel before I get to talking." Birch nodded his agreement. Talking was more easily done on a full stomach, and better still when aided by something with lots of cholesterol and other stuff deemed bad for you.

"After that," Dean continued, voice still soft with thought, like he was making a decision as he spoke. "After that, I think we need to get moving. If you don't mind, I'd like to tell you a story. It's a rather long story, but just I ask you to just bear with me and hear me out while I tell it. I can't tell it while we're sitting still though - not here anyway. It's a story for the road, not for the parking lot of a shitty, broken-down playground, you know?" His lips shifted in a small, sad smile - eyes straight ahead on that same shitty playground, like the depressing view held all the answers he could give.

"I just - I need..." Dean trailed off on that last word, unable to articulate what he needed from Birch - but needing it all the same. "You've - you've given me alot today, Birch. I can't expect more from you than what you've already given. You've already given way more than is probably right for some strange punk-ass drifter hitching a ride to kill a poltergeist, but this...this is the only payment I can give back. I know that doesn't make any sense, but -"

"Sure it does," Birch said softly. "It makes perfect sense. The best payments are in stories anyhow, s'far as I reckon. It would be even better if this is a true story. So...is it - a true story?"

Dean looked at him then, the shine that had been such a part of him when they met slowly reawakening, giving him a look of peace. He looked like a man who had been granted redemption and had been visited by Heaven's Grace. He was such a contradiction, Dean was - and that was what made Birch so happy that out of all those who could have picked him up from the side of the road, it was one Birch 'Twig' Collins. He always did have a nose for adventure, an ear for a tale - and an eye for those rough cut gems. Nancy said he was one himself, but he didn't know about all that - he just knew that he had made an odd, but true friend - and that was worth almost eighty years on Earth if nothing else was.

He shone a grin back at Dean, leaning forward to kick start his old girl, basking in the glow of Dean Winchester's moment of happiness. It was amazing that he had missed the moment when it had slid away, but it had only been gone a short while, so that was all right. Dean grinned the grin of whispered secrets and roguish adventure and said -

"Well, it may be a true story...may not be. I feel that should all be left up to the listener, don't you think?" His green eyes were just shining with mischief.

Birch smiled so hard his cheeks ached and nodded, feeling all of twelve again with his Pappy dangling him on his knee, tall tales of knights and dragons and treasures ready to be shared until sleep called, his joy reflected in the rumbling purr of the ancient Chevy's engine as she started to life, the open road calling all adventurers as it always did, since there were roads to be imagined.

But before the promised tale could start, they had one last errand to run. It was over quick enough - he dropped Dean near the house that once belonged to a man called Tomkins (and was now just an ordinary house with a For Sale sign in the yard) with a worn-looking leather diary in his hand and took one tour around the block before picking him up again, his hands empty, but his shoulders somehow lighter. Birch longed to say something about that, but wisely kept his observation to himself, turning the old truck around to retrace the way they had come in, the quiet inside her cab making him antsy until Dean finally took a mercy on him five minutes further down the road, that smile shining and shining away on his young-old face.

"I feel," Dean started, his cadence and tone that of one used to telling stories (and fantastic ones at that). "I feel that every tale should start at the beginning. This one starts over twenty-five, twenty-six years ago in the town of Lawrence, Kansas. It starts in a rather old, two-story house, in the suburbs and while that may be important in many ways, this isn't so much about the house itself, or even where it is located even though both are kinda important in the end. No, this story is really about the people that lived inside that house and what happened to them there on the night of November 2, 1983..."

They stopped at a local Arbys and got food that was consumed without tasting, the old Chevy putting the sub-city of Bellevue in her rear-mirror, so much dust and memories, as Dean told the story of a young family and how in one night, their blissful suburban dream met its tragic end. He told Birch of a young mother who made a deal with a demon so long, long ago (and yet in such a short span from the beginning of the tale itself) to save her lover and husband-to-be, losing everything else she held dear along the way. He told of the deal, how it came due just ten years later, on the night of the second child's six month birthday and how she recognized the thing that had saved her husband, even as it destroyed her own parents - and made a valiant attempt to save her child from whatever evil the creature intended against her baby. How a wife and a mother, a keeper of complicated and dark secrets herself, a one-time hunter of evil from a long line of them, met her own end above her youngest son's crib, thus setting off a chain of events that led a stunned and grieving widower down the path of vengeance, his two small sons in tow - unwittingly putting in motion a saga that to this day continued on. The little family, now minus one, becoming legends in their own time as they followed a killer who left no trace of itself, their destinies set on the long road towards revenge...