“I don’t regret a damn thing.”
One Hundred Seventy-Six Days
Vegas was awesome.
The women were smokin hot, the casinos were loud and distracting, there was always something to do. It was the exact place that Dean needed to hide away at for a while.
It was going a way to helping the kid too, Dean could tell every day when the shadows under his eyes lessened and his smile brightened a little more. Sam… Sam wasn't handling it well, Dean could tell. Sam was running every morning, studying ‘nothing' late in the night.
They were going to have to have ‘a talk' at some point, which Dean wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to have.
Until then… strippers.
Sam sat beside Dean and had his face all blank and uninterested, like the chicks on stage just weren't doing it for him. Dean leaned behind where Harry sat between them, hidden under his Invisible Blanket, to tease Sam.
"They have a Mickeys down the road," Dean joked. "Maybe some abs instead of boobs, huh, Sammy?"
"You're a pig," Sam whispered. His face turned all red like he didn't make his own dirty jokes on occasion. "Why the hell did you let Harry in here?"
Because Dean wouldn't be there to do it on Halloween again like he promised the kid they'd do. There weren't any more Halloweens with Harry, Dean wouldn't be there to see him turn fifteen either.
So… strip club.
"He likes it," Dean whispered. He jostled Harry's foot with his, "Don't you, kid?"
Harry didn't answer so Dean figured he was nodding his head under the invisible blanket.
"See?" Dean winked at Sam and then pulled a fifty from the cash he brought along. "Why don't you get a private dance? Loosen up."
Sam wasn't amused, Dean didn't think he would be. Dean didn't expect Sam to jump up and storm out of the club though, roughly shouldering the bouncer that stood in his way. Dean watched him go and felt Sam's grief weighing him down, the grief that Dean had been trying to hide from.
"Stay here, kid," Dean whispered to Harry, kicking him lightly again to be sure he was still in his seat. "If I'm not back in twenty, then it's time to go."
"Don't be a jerk," Harry whispered back, his voice tight. It wasn't 'man, this is the best night ever' kind of tightness, it was ‘I'm sick of my brothers fighting' kind of tightness.
Dean was sick of it too, it wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of the time he had left. Which meant he was probably going to be a jerk and he didn't want to be, which meant that the whiskey he bought on his way out the door was a damned necessity.
Sam was just outside the front door when Dean looked down the sidewalk. With all the lights and music happening, the groups of bachelor parties and birthdays and whatever the fuck else happy people celebrated walking the sidewalk, Sam stuck out like a silent and sore thumb.
"We could go gamble instead," Dean said, startling Sam and crossing his fingers that Sam would take the easy out for one more night. Sam was curled in himself against the wall, his face tucked in his knees and his arms wrapped around his head. It was a sight that broke Dean's heart, it did, but Dean couldn't always be the one to pull Sammy out of himself.
Dean wasn't going to be there soon, Sam was going to have to figure it out for himself.
"I don't want to gamble, Dean," Sam said. His voice was strained, Dean had been by Sam's side through enough tragedies to recognize the sound of his baby brother holding back tears. Dean sighed silently and slid down the wall beside Sam, sitting together hip-by-hip for the talk he didn't want to have.
"I know it, Sammy," Dean said, watching the partygoers with their carefree laughs and drunken buzzes. That was what Dean wanted, just once in his freaking life. Dean wanted to be carefree, happy, leave Sam and Harry with some good shit to remember when he wasn't there anymore.
"I can't lose you, Dean, I just can't. I can't pretend like this is fun or that every day we wake up here isn't one day closer to you leaving us." Sam sniffled and seemed to bury more inside of himself, curled up like the roly-polies used to that Dean had been fascinated with as a kid.
"I keep thinking if I hadn't messed up, it's - this is my fault, Dean, why do you have to pay for my mistake?"
"Woah, woah, stop right there, Sam." Dean tried to pry Sam's arms off his head, but the kid wasn't budging. Instead, Dean grabbed him by the back of the neck and held him firmly, made damn sure he was listening.
"You didn't make a mistake," Dean said, as stern as he'd been a hundred times before when he told Sam an order —
"Stay in bed, Sam."
"Be inside before dark, Sam."
"Stay with me, Sam."
"This was my choice, alright? And I'd choose the same damn thing any day, any time. This is on me, not you, got it?" Dean shook Sam a little bit, just trying to get a response. "You gotta get that, Sam. You can't let this eat at you, man, you're - you're going to have to take care of shit when I'm gone."
They had a kid brother in a death tournament, they had demons walking across the earth. Sam could have his moment to melt down, but then he needed to pick himself up by the bootstraps and be ready to take Dean's place.
Sam's body shuddered and Dean stayed beside him for it, waiting. Sam wasn't crying or bawling, he was just… he was grieving.
Dean knew too well how it felt to grieve a brother, but unlike Sam, Dean only had to do it for a few minutes. The next Winchester to die was going to be Dean and he would be able to avoid all the grief and the weight of the loss, it was going to be on Sam's shoulders.
It wasn't fair, life never was.
Sam eventually lowered his arms and lifted his head, just enough to lean against the building beside Dean and look out sightlessly across the street where Dean was firmly keeping his eyes locked.
"I hate this," he said.
Dean smiled joylessly and moved his hand to pat Sam's shoulder a couple of times. "Yeah, it's not ideal. But, hey, in the meantime… there's strippers."
Sam huffed, about as amused by it all as Dean was. The chick flick moment was thankfully ended when the door to the club opened and it looked like nobody walked out at first. Harry suddenly popped up from thin air in front of them, his head did anyway.
"Everything alright?" he asked carefully, looking between them and probably checking for bruises from a fight or something.
"Peachy keen, kiddo." Dean shoved on the ground to get himself on his feet and then offered Sam his hand to pull him up as well. "What do you boys say we head back to the hotel? Order some swanky room service and watch a movie?"
"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed, easy as fuck all to please. "Sam?"
"Yeah, fine," Sam said, a little too flat to pass for ‘enthusiasm'. "I've got a case tomorrow though. I, uh… still have to work to keep my job."
There was a comment about Sam's job on the tip of Dean's tongue, but he swallowed it down. It was good, Sam's job, real responsible. Sam had an income, constant access to people who could help him with Harry when it came to magic shit, and it gave Sam a reason to not dwell.
Anything that would keep Sam from dwelling was just fine with Dean.
"Yeah?" Dean looped his arm around Sam's shoulder and they took the lead for the walk back to the hotel with Harry trailing behind. "Where's the case at? Anything interesting?"
Sam talked about the case he somehow found in all his spare time, a possible angry spirit that was killing off families in Utah. Dean bounced some ideas with him, nothing that Sam didn't already know.
When it came to hunting, Sam was already striding past Dean in knowledge. It was kind of ironic that Sam was such a bad ass hunter, considering how much he'd always talked about hating it before Dad died.
There were other things Dean would teach Sam though, things that he still didn't know yet. Dean would have to teach him how to cook something, a few meals that would keep him and Harry from living off cheap microwave shit for the rest of their lives. And he'd teach him how to move on from the impossible, how to keep moving even when everything in his body would tell him not to.
Dean laid in bed that night, not drunk enough to black out in peace, and thought about all of the shit he would teach both of his brothers. Someone needed to have a real talk about chicks and safe sex with Harry, maybe teach him a few moves for when the time came so he wasn't unprepared and fumbling like Dean had been.
Cars, Dean definitely needed to teach both of his brothers about cars before he - before he died…
What good was leaving behind his Baby if neither of the Winchesters left couldn't take care of her?
Sleep didn't come for Dean, not as sober as he was. He just laid in bed all night, listening to his brothers sleep, thinking of all the shit he needed to do and the shortening time frame he had left to do it in.
Sam was the first one awake and he slipped out of the hotel after a few minutes, off for another one of his daily runs. Dean figured he might as well give sleep up as a bad job and rolled off the couch, bouncing up on his feet to grab a shower.
How many hot showers did he have left?
They'd been in Vegas for three days, so Sam died… four days ago.
Dean had burned through half of one of his precious weeks that were left. All he did was blow a little bit of money, live it up douche style with casino games and strippers… none of that was going to matter when he was gone.
Which meant, as little as Dean wanted to, it was time to leave Vegas. It had its moments, but Dean figured the place was probably more fun when there wasn't a very short clock ticking in his chest, counting down the days until his soul was sent down to Satan's playground.
Harry was awake when Dean finished in the bathroom and Dean pasted on a breezy grin and started whistling. The kid had been feeling guilty as hell about Dean's deal, Dean knew he had, he probably still did.
Dean had been pissed at first, pissed that Harry's meddling screwed Dean into a short six months, but he was over it. Boot on the other foot, if Harry made the deal and Dean didn't, Dean would have felt guilty and knew that Harry wouldn't have wanted him to.
There wasn't time for guilt trips and spirals, Dean didn't want to waste any time with his brothers.
"Morning, kid," Dean called out. "Sleep good? Good," he said after Harry yawned and nodded. "We're heading out today, Sam's got a case in Moab, I figured we'd go and help him out."
"Really?" Harry asked, skeptical as hell. Dean couldn't blame him, Harry knew Dean had been dragging his feet kicking and screaming with all of Sam's recent cases.
"Yeah, why not?" Dean said. "It's probably just a pissed off spirit. You haven't helped out on a salt ‘n burn yet, you might just learn something."
Actually, it wasn't a bad idea for Dean to try and dig up as many cases as he could. Hunting was easier in a pair, having someone to watch each others back. If Dean was gone, he'd feel better about Sam hunting if he knew Harry was a decent enough assistant.
"Okay," Harry said, shrugging and accepting Dean's reasoning. "I - I can pack your stuff, Dean, you don't have to."
"Nah, it'll only take me a few," Dean said. He wasn't going to let Harry pack his stuff up for him in some weird show of guilt. It was another thing Dean needed to squash before it got too far, the kid feeling bad. That wasn't going to go away anytime soon, Dean knew exactly how Harry felt.
It felt shitty, having someone sell their soul for them. It felt like suddenly their life had to be ten times as important as everyone else because otherwise what was the point? Every second Dean had been breathing since the day Dad died had been borrowed time, that was it. And Dean made the right choice in the end, trading his soul for Sam. That made Dad's deal worth it, that was all.
Dean tried to think of the right words, the kind of words that Bobby would use, while he and Harry packed their crap up. Dean didn't want to make some grand speech, but he wasn't going to spend the rest of his days with Harry feeling like shit.
"Hey, kid." Dean focused hard on packing his socks up, each pair rolled neatly, while he talked. "You know when that plane was going down? Did you hear the pilot telling you all to put your face masks on?"
"Er… yeah, maybe," Harry said slowly. Hell, maybe he didn't. Maybe he'd been too jacked up with fear and magic to think straight or hear any instructions.
"They tell you that because you can't take care of anyone if you're not breathing, right? A dead guy doesn't save many lives, kid. So… I put my face mask on, okay? When I made that deal, that was me putting my face mask on so I could help Sam. And I don't regret it, I don't regret a damn thing. But now you've got to get your mask on ‘cause Sam's going to need you.
"So you gotta get past this guilt, this shit of ‘you should have done something different'. We made our choices and I don't regret mine, you shouldn't regret yours. All that's left is to get your mask on, spend some time kicking ass with me, and then you be there for Sammy, alright? I'm counting on you."
Because Harry was too much like Dean, he really was. When Sammy was gone, the first thing Harry went to do was toss himself in the flames for Sam's life. If Dean didn't want Harry doing it again, Dean needed to give him a job.
Dean took care of Sam their whole lives, Harry could do it when Dean was gone. Between the two of them, they'd figure it out.
Harry was quiet for a minute and Dean finished with his socks then started unfolding and refolding them, stalling to give Harry time to say something.
"I'll take care of Sam," he finally said, quiet and serious as anything. "I promise, Dean."
Dean nodded and let the tense muscles in his shoulders relax. He and Harry? They were the same damn person. Which meant when Dean turned around, Harry had on his version of Dean's easy breezy beautiful mask on.
"Alright then," Dean grinned, he wasn't going to spend his time wallowing. "Let's get the car packed. I'll let you drive to a place we can get pancakes when Sam gets here."
"You're just saying that because it's a rental," Harry said, perking right up at Dean's promise.
"Yeah, well…" Dean grabbed the pillow off Sam's bed and threw it at Harry, nailing him good in the head with it. "We'll get you road ready then I'll teach you how to tame Baby."
It was going to be Harry's car eventually, might as well make sure he knew how to drive it.
Dean and Harry had the whole hotel room packed up with one clean outfit left out for Sam by the time Sam returned, dripping with sweat and completely out of breath. Dean sent him to the shower and then had a good time bugging the piss out of him every two seconds by yelling for him to hurry up.
"C'mon, Sam! Pancakes are waiting!" Dean yelled.
"Dean said you can drive if you're done in three seconds!" Harry yelled.
Dean chuckled and added on to Harry's taunt. "If you don't get your ass out here in two seconds then I'm letting Harry drive on the freeway!"
"The speed limit there is eighty!" Harry said, working damn hard to keep his laughter down. "The rental's nice though, I bet I can get it up to ninety!"
"Don't keep that conditioner in your hair too long, Sammy, I put nair in it!"
Dean didn't… that time. He had before though and it wound up the funniest freaking thing he'd ever done - Sam's hair fell out in a couple of little patches, just enough to make him look diseased.
"I HATE YOU BOTH!" Sam yelled from the bathroom. Dean heard the water turn off though, so he high-fived Harry on a successful mission.
It was part of getting them back to normal, the new normal. Dean wanted to have good times, have some laughs. Dean wanted to pick on Sam, tease Harry, teach ‘em both everything he had.
That way when Dean went, when the timer ended, he wouldn't regret a second of the six months he bought himself.
After they each ate as many pancakes as they could stuff in their mouths from an all-you-can-eat place on the strip, Dean took over driving to head out of Nevada. Sam took the backseat so he could set up his nerd station and get more information on the thing they were headed towards.
"So listen to this, the lore online is that this house is haunted, right?" Sam told him. "The original owner of the place inherited the money he used to build it and then got behind on the taxes. Apparently he hung himself in the basement when the bank threatened to take the house, so his family could get his - his life insurance."
Dean winced at Sam's stutter - he couldn't even freaking imagine being dead and then not-dead. It had to be trippy as hell, but Sam trooped on anyway.
"Except since it was a suicide, they didn't get a cent. The wife went crazy when the bank foreclosed on it, killed herself in the basement too. The next owners had it for a while, then the husband was found dead, exactly three weeks before the wife, the same timeline as the original owners. It sat empty for a few years, then new owners, same issue."
"Sounds like a spirit," Dean said. "Could be the husband or wife, might even be both of ‘em. So we get in, check out the house, salt and burn the bodies. In and out, no biggie."
"Hopefully we beat the new owners there," Sam said. "I only caught the case because they ran the history on the house after it sold."
"If we don't, we can send Harry up to the door in a suit and tell them there's a gas leak."
"Dude. Nobody will believe that."
No, but it made Harry laugh.
They made good time on the drive and Dean let Sam take the driver's seat when they got close, Sam was the only one of them with a phone that had some GPS on it.
"That house looks haunted," Harry said when they finally pulled up to the place. It did look haunted, Dean couldn't imagine who would spend their money on a place that screamed ‘ghost infected', but people were nuts.
"Let's check it out," Dean said. He hopped out of the car, looked around the yard and the shabby house. The place needed some work, there were boards falling off the sides and more than one window had been broken. There could be some charm there though, with enough work.
Sam grabbed the EMF reader from his bag and Harry pulled his wand out, looking around all excited. Dean had done haunting so much, since before he was Harry's age, that it was almost boring.
"Hey, Sammy, why don't you give Harry the reader?" Dean suggested. The front door was locked, it didn't take much to knock it open. "We can show him how to hunt a ghost."
Sam passed the EMF reader over to Harry and started geeking out on the details, telling Harry every detail about it. Dean explored the house, starting with the basement where the couple died.
It was definitely creepy, Dean would give it that. He walked in a slow circle, touching the walls and feeling for any ectoplasm. There were a few spots that were warmer than they should be, but Dean couldn't say they were hot spots for ghost activity either until they checked it with the reader.
Harry and Sam finally made their way down to the basement and the kid could have been a mini-Sam with the EMF reader in hand while he looked around the basement.
"Yeah, this looks like a place where people died," he said. "Not all ghosts are bad, you know. I've got a friend, Nearly Headless Nick, he invited me to a party once."
"So you said," Dean snorted. "Ghosts aren't supposed to be your friends, kid. They can get hostile, sick of being stuck in the in-between. Ghosts like this? They need sent on so they don't keep killing people."
"The ghosts at Hogwarts have never killed anyone." Harry started walking in a slow circle with the EMF reader, getting some consistently low readings. "They're friendly, for the most part. Peeves is a dick bag."
Dean snorted at Harry's casual use of his own favorite expression while he started inspecting the wood beams in the ceiling. Dean had only been looking for any of them that might have some obvious damage from the deaths that happened, he didn't expect to find a sigil burned into one of them.
"Hey, Sam," Dean pointed up at the engraving he found, "what's that for?"
It was definitely a sigil of some sort, Dean knew that much. Dean didn't have them all memorized though, not like Sam did. Sam squinted up at the engraving and Dean could practically see the gears in his head turning while he probably thought about every sigil he had ever seen.
"Is it… the Sign of the Mortuary?" Sam said, like Dean had any freaking idea. "Yeah, I'd have to check, but I think it is. That makes sense, it's a pretty serious sigil to use."
"What's it mean?" Harry asked, peering up at the board while the EMF reader he held went haywire.
"If it's the one I think it is, then it's to open a place for souls to pass through to the other side," Sam said. "But that should make less ghosts fill this place, not more. Hold on, let me get a picture…"
Sam took his phone out and snapped a photo to look up. Dean figured they had enough basic info to get started on researching the sigil and where the original dead bodies were buried.
It was a clean sweep of the house, most of the readings came from the basement and the rooms were all cleared. Dean saw the ‘For Sale' sign in a dumpster out back, which meant they might not have long before some poor sack of a family showed up, but they could leave for the day, come back when they had the rest of the research done.
"You boys ready?" Dean asked. "We can go find a motel, Sam can show Harry how to hit the books."
"Yeah?" Sam asked, staring hard at Dean. "You want me to show Harry how to do the research too?"
"Yeah, I do," Dean said, meeting Sam's eyes square on. "Is that a problem?"
Sam paused on his side of the car, staring at Dean for a long moment. Dean could wait him out, he always could. Sam blinked and Dean could see that he got it then, it clicked in that genius brain of his.
"I don't want a new partner, Dean," Sam said, not loud enough that Harry would hear him from inside the car.
"Yeah, well, you're getting one," Dean said. "I gotta know that the two of you have each others backs, Sam. Like me and you always have, alright? So let's train him up, make sure he's at least half as good as you. Because if you're going to keep hunting, he's going to have your back."
That was the way family worked. Screw marriage, family were the ones that were for better or worse. Harry was going to have to watch Sam's back, Sam was going to have to take care of Harry.
Dean wasn't going to be there for much longer, he needed to spend the time he had making sure that Sam and Harry would be good. They might not be happy, they might never be rich, hell, they might turn out to fight as much as Dean and Sam did.
As long as they took care of each other, Dean could feel like his job as the oldest was done right.