Silver Springs | Dean Winchester

Six

Stevie

We drive well over the speed limit in the dead of night with the windows down, making our way to Colorado. Neither of us have said a word beyond him repeating what Dad had told him and we're both in a state of shock now that we've sobered up.

He turns the radio up to fill the silence and yet it only seems to make things worse.

"Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night

And wouldn't you love to love her?

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight

And who will be her lover?"

Dean looks over towards me and takes my hand in his. My breath hitches and I can feel the tremble in his touch.

His voice wavers. "It's still not too late you know."

We both know what he means, but I'm not prepared to turn back now.

"Why does it sound like you're trying to warn me?"

"I'm sure Sam's given you a list of reasons."

The sound I make is somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. "I've known you my whole life Dean, I know what I'm getting into."

"Famous last words."

My eyes roll back and I turn the question back on him. "And how do you know I'm not the one that should be warning you?"

He's caught off guard and he opens his mouth only to close it again before reluctantly meeting me halfway. "Touche." A moment of silence passes before looks over and says "You know I'd break your heart right?"

He says it like a joke, but I know he believes it. I know how he thinks of himself.

"Not without breaking yours," I say in return and his jaw clenches as he turns his head back towards the road.

We pass a road sign for the national park and he nods towards the glovebox.

"Take the pistol that's in there, it's loaded," he tells me and I do as he says. "Before you ask no, I don't have a clue in hell what he was hunting here but it's gotta be some sort of cryptid."

"So our odds would be better with silver bullets," I say and he looks over at me as he pulls onto the road that leads into the forest. "We'd be covering most ground then."

He runs the numbers in his head and nods. "Yeah, that should be right. I've got some in the back."

"Did Dad say where the car was found?"

"Just where the cars pull up before the hiking trail," he says. "We came here a few years back to check something out but we wrote it off as not being our kind of thing. There's the typical picnic area where people come for day trips and some different trails but there's no roads into the forest. If you want to go in deep you've gotta walk."

"So we find his car and go from there."

"Yeah."

His voice is strained and I want to tell him that it's going to be alright, but I'd be lying. Instead I reach over to squeeze the hand that rests on the gearstick and he exhales heavily.

The sun's started to rise by the time we pull up and sure enough John's car's there along with several others, but the others haven't been busted open like John's has.

I'm cursing under my breath as Dean practically comes to a skidding stop and throws himself out of the car before he's even pulled the key out of the ignition and I'm following him with the pistol in hand.