Nothing Left To Fear

14

"Jus anova cupla mints, Sammy," Dean drools into his pillow as Castiel shakes him awake. Then realising what he's said he sits up almost slamming his forehead against Castiel's.

"You were having a nightmare." the angel points out.

"Yeah," Dean says swinging his legs from his bed to the floor, "something like that."

He'd been dreaming about his brother. He scrubs his face with the flat of his hand. "You think Ellen will have some coffee on?" He asks the angel.

The angel's face is sweetly resolute, not worried, almost beatific and blank. "Yes," he answers. And the conversation is changed.

It's starting to snow as they trek up to the big house where Ellen lives. It was where the camp manager lived. She claimed it for her own rather than braving winter in the cabins, and Dean was happy to give her the old house. The ground is hard underfoot, and when he stumbles on a rock that rolls from the path he catches sight of Castiel, only wearing the raggy pair of y-fronts he was in whilst Dean slept. "Don't you feel the cold?" Dean snaps at him.

"No," Castiel answers, "I think I did once, but I've forgotten how." Dean shakes his head and considers taking the blanket that he has pulled about his shoulders for the walk, and wrapping it around the angel, or taking the rock he stumbled on and throwing it at him instead. Castiel will never pass as human, not entirely.

There is a light on in Ellen's kitchen, even if she's in bed, which is unusual enough, the door is open, the light on and coffee in the pot on the stove. She's sat in front of the stove on one of the wooden chairs, wearing a wool robe over a sensible pair of men's pyjamas and thick hand knit socks. She takes one look at Castiel and shakes her head.

"I didn't notice," Dean says standing in front of the stove to warm through, even the five minute walk and he's chilled to the bone. Castiel got them both mugs down from the dresser. "Ellen, do you ever," he stops, "I mean, do you still dream of Bill?"

Ellen has an earthy laugh that is fond and warm. "The day I stop dreaming about my Bill is the day I die. You okay, Dean?"

He sits down at the chair. "Yeah, just peachy." He takes the coffee from Castiel, "go put some clothes on," he chides, "and shoes, you make me cold just looking at you."

This has happened before so Ellen keeps some clothes for him upstairs, but it means Jo might get an accidental eyeful. Ellen gets out of her hair and pulls down a bottle of cooking brandy that she has stowed away behind jars of things in the back of the cupboard. Hunters can drink and cooking brandy is better than some of them know, so given the opportunity they will steal it. She pours two healthy dollops into their coffee. "You know what, Dean," she says conspiratorially, "the day I stop dreaming of Bill is the day I don't love him any more. You haven't said goodbye, have you."

"Sammy's been dead going on four years now." Dean answers, "that sounds pretty final to me."

"Well, I aint a hunter, but I've been around them a long time," she takes a large mouthful of her coffee and swallows deliberately, "and I knew your daddy too, and I hear things, about places people can go to raise the dead, about things you can give up."

"They're just stories, Ellen." Dean cuts her off, "old hunter's tales."

"Most would ask a demon, go to a crossroads at midnight, but then you risk Hell, don't you, but there is that place way out east near Hiroshima but that takes years, don't it, and there's one somewhere near Carthage that was, probably the most powerful and dangerous of them all, I hear."

Dean tilts his head, "come out and say it."

"Did you go there to raise Sammy?"

Dean is silent for long still moments. "Yeah." He answers finally. Then drinks his coffee.

The silence is oppressive between them, settling like smoke. "You know why Azazel hates me, Ellen, I mean it's obvious why I hate him, but even when I shot his son he just plain disliked me. Now, he'd burn the world to get me and we both know it." Ellen leans on her elbows on the table in a gesture that says tell me. "That's what I learned in Carthage that was. When we burned those kids we stopped him opening the gates to Hell, we thwarted over thirty years of work by just doing what Hunters do. He had a plan, you know, he was going to let Lucifer loose, and I stopped it, by accident."

Ellen gives out a long low whistle. "Yeah, the place in Carthage, it was a bust, it was an ink mine, if you can believe it. The whole thing was a waste of time. You know what I found in the desert, Ellen, dust, dust, more dust, and more fucking dust. And Sammy would have known what I was looking for, and Sammy's gone and he aint ever coming back and I have to live with that, I have to live with it and he was my baby brother and he's gone because I wasn't quick enough to save him, because I stopped at one too many intersections or I didn't drive fast enough or I didn't cut someone up, that's how close it was, Ellen, and he's dead and I have to live with it."

Ellen pours another dollop of brandy into his coffee. "Do you want to stay here tonight? There's an empty bed upstairs."

"I don't think I'm going to sleep anymore, do you?" He asks.

"Me neither," she says, "we can drink the sun in together."

"I'll drink to that," he says raising his coffee in salute.

She clanks her mug against him as Castiel comes in, still buttoning up his fly, his shoes untied. "Oh, we're drinking, great, I'll get the moonshine in from the shed."

By morning the table is surrounded by people drinking moonshine in their coffee and not speaking of the reasons that they are there.

"To those that went before." Castiel raises his mug, it's almost pure moonshine, but it doesn't affect him.

"To Joseph and Sarah," Christian agrees speaking of his parents.

"To Bill," Ellen adds.

"To Karen," Bobby says with low gravitas.

"To Deanna." Campbell says with a broken look in his eyes. It is the name of his wife, murdered by Azazel.

"To Sam," Dean agrees and if the Campbell's don't know who he is then the steely eyed look from Ellen silences them anyway.