Hollowing Souls

There Will Be Blood

July 28th, 2012

Whitefish, Montana

Dean's groan stirred the angel from her thoughts. Alex let out a small vocalized protest when he stretched out, kicking her with his boot-clad foot. She drew her limbs in tight, shooting him an unhappy look. They were seated on the couch in Rufus' cabin, and Dean was pouring over Kevin Tran's notebook, searching for something — anything — that could help.

"Okay, man," he finally said, dropping the notebook in exasperation, "I have read this thing more times than the Playboy in Dad's duffle."

Sam looked up from the kitchen table. "Anne Nicole?" he slowly guessed.

"Anne Nicole." Dean nodded, a reminiscent grin on his face. "Oh the good, they die young, huh?" He looked away when Sam answered with a hesitant smile that quickly faded into a grimace. The older brother sighed. "Look, we can read this till our eyes bleed. It ain't getting any clearer." He looked over at Alex with a frown. "You're sure none of this makes any sense to you."

The young angel shook her head, but reached over and took the notebook. "Uh, 'cut off the head and the body will flounder,' " she read before looking up at Dean. "Well, I think we can all agree that the head is Dick."

"Right," Dean agreed. "So uh, the bottom line is we go grab the stuff and mix ourselves a weapon." He leaned forward and grabbed his beer bottle off of the coffee table.

Sam, however, didn't seem as sure. "Look," he began, "I'm all for killing Dick. I'm just saying, what then? I mean, what about the rest of the Leviathan? Are they all just gonna . . . drop dead?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Maybe?" Sam repeated skeptically. " 'Maybe' is good enough for you right now?"

"One problem at a time, alright?" Dean set his bottle back down with a small thud.

"Okay, but it's not a crazy idea to figure out what the catch is before we go crashing the gate." Sam closed the top of his laptop as he looked over at his brother, and Dean gave a small shake of his head.

"Maybe this is the catch," he suggested, taking the notebook back from Alex. "God's not telling us every detail. You know? The Word is from God. I don't know how much better it's gonna get." The Winchester shook his head and stood up. "I don't know. I need a break."

Alex watched Dean walk away with a shake of her head. "We'll figure it out," she promised to Sam. "Soon."

Sam grunted in agreement, but looked around before changing the subject. "Hey. Have you seen Bobby anywhere? I haven't seen him since Chicago."

"Bobby?" Alex flicked her grace out, frowning to find it rippling at the wrong speed. "Dammit. I can only see him when my grace moves at a certain speed," she explained as she looked around the cabin. "It has something to do with how ghosts are on a different wave of light than we can see at —"

"Infrared," Sam agreed. "Yeah, I know."

"It's hard to keep my grace moving at the right speed." Alex sped it up, looking about as she felt the change, but didn't see the ghost of a hunter anywhere. "Huh." She frowned back at the Winchester. "Must be sulking in the basement or something? I don't know." The deep, earsplitting crack of glass had the angel looking up. "I take that back."

She jumped over the back of the couch and moved towards the sound to see Dean Winchester and Bobby Singer standing in the door to the bathroom. Dean was frowning, and his eyes flickered past the ghost to land on Alex. "I'm just sayin'," Bobby said, his voice strained as he forced himself to calm down. "I have faith that you boys will figure it out." He looked over his shoulder at Alex. "Relax. I'm fine. I just got a little carried away."