“You can’t kill him!”
September 9
Harry stood outside the motel for a moment, just catching his breath and calming down. It was late, already fully dark out, and the only lights came from the street lamps.
Dean gave Harry a handful of dollars and told him to ‘go find some snacks’, but Harry was wary about leaving even for a short walk down the road to the fuel station. It wasn’t the dark or the unfamiliar town they were in for a second day, it was the two men screaming at each other inside the room that made Harry wary.
Would his brothers kill each other while Harry was gone? What if one of them left in a huff? What if they both left and forgot Harry was still there?
It sounded unlikely, but with the way that Sam and Dean had been screaming at each other all afternoon, Harry thought it could still happen.
Their ‘case’ was supposed to be rubbish, just an excuse to cheer Sam up. Dean said it was rubbish and that they’d show up, say it was nothing, and convince Sam to go to university and stop blaming himself for being possessed.
Instead, just when Harry and his brothers were preparing to leave, a student was attacked and they had to stay… which, would probably have been fine, except the student had been attacked by an alien, the ‘case’ made no sense at all, and Harry’s brothers had lost their bloody minds.
Dean had made a snide comment about the university student who said he’d been kidnapped by aliens. Sam snapped that Dean wasn’t being very kind. Dean rolled his eyes and said they would stay to figure out what ‘weird shit’ was happening. Then Sam was mad about his laptop being used by Dean. Dean swore he didn’t touch Sam’s laptop. Harry didn’t know anything about viruses and laptops, but Harry knew the air being let out of the Impala tires as retaliation couldn’t possibly be good for the car.
By the time Harry had been subtly asked to leave the room, his brothers had decided it was likely a real case and they were having a full-blown screaming match.
Harry sighed and then began a slow walk to the fuel station, thinking about the harsh words his brothers screamed at each other the whole time.
“I ONLY TOOK THIS CASE TO GET YOU TO QUIT BLAMING YOURSELF FOR EVERYTHING!”
“I DO NOT NEED BABIED, DEAN! YOU’VE GOT TO LET ME JUST DEAL WITH SHIT ON MY OWN!”
“OH SINCE WHEN DO I GET TO LET YOU DO ANYTHING ALONE?!”
Harry wished they’d never taken the case. What had started as something fun - maybe a ghost, maybe just a weekend in a new place - had turned into a massive headache.
Harry bought a bag of crisps in the fuel station and a drink. He wasn’t exactly hungry, but he did want something to snack on while he finished his letter to Rita. The letter she sent Harry, sending it to the Burrow and reaching Ron, was brief, just asking him for how he discovered everything about his parentage.
Harry had scrapped two replies already, unsure how to word everything without Hermione there to help. If Harry said he learned it from Sirius Black, would he be dragged to the Minister and interrogated about his whereabouts? Or could he use Rita’s interest in Harry’s life to help Sirius in some way?
There was a solution there somewhere, Harry just needed to find it.
Harry had found a bench midway between the fuel station and the motel. If Harry looked right and squinted, he could see the shadow of Dean’s car in the parking lot. If Harry looked left, he could see the fuel station still lit up and taking customers.
The bench was a good place to sit, think, and not listen to any screamed insults about destructive pranks. All Harry wanted to do was find a solution to the Rita Skeeter situation before arriving at Hogsmeade the next weekend. If he waited, Hermione and Ron would probably help him write out a letter. If he could do it before then though, he imagined they’d be quite impressed with him.
“I knew you could figure it out!” Hermione would beam, just as she had at the end of second year.
“Good job, mate!” Ron would say, patting Harry’s back like he did after quidditch games.
Harry just needed to figure out a solution.
After what felt like a rather long time of just sitting and finding no solution - should Harry be honest? Lie? Write down the exact thing he told the Minister? - Harry hoped his brothers had stopped their arguing so he could return to their room. Harry walked slowly toward a rubbish bin to toss the crisps bag he’d emptied while he thought.
If his brothers would stop fighting and destroying each others belongings, maybe one of them would help him.
“So a lion walks in a bar, right?”
Harry jumped and accidentally knocked the rubbish on the top of the bin to the ground. When Harry whipped his head to the side, he saw a bloke walking down the sidewalk, directly toward Harry.
It took Harry a second - a second of being frozen in place, unsure what to do - to recognize him. Dressed down in jeans and a button up black shirt, with the night shadows cloaking him, Harry almost didn’t realize the bloke approaching was the janitor from the college, Gabe.
They had just seen him earlier that day when they went to investigate the place where the student said he had been abducted by aliens. Gabe had been the one to tell them that the student was a ‘frat boy’ (something Dean told Harry meant the guy was a douche) and if aliens abducted him it was only because he’d been screwing with freshman all year.
Gabe also had shared a bag of M&M’s with Harry while they watched Sam and Dean poke around. Dean told Harry he was stupid for taking candy from strangers, but it wasn’t likely Harry would be poisoned through chocolate candies by a janitor.
Stalked though? That seemed rather likely.
“Are you following me?” Harry asked, hiding his nerves behind a hard tone.
“Me? Moi? Never!” Gabe strolled to a stop just on the sidewalk in front of Harry and he grinned. “I’m telling a joke.”
Harry raised an eyebrow and began slowly stepping sideways, preparing to run to the motel.
“Right,” he said skeptically. “I’ll just… go…”
Gabe chuckled and raised his hand to point at the motel.
“Full disclosure, I’ve got a hot date waiting for me in there.” Gabe waggled his eyebrows and Harry fought off a laugh.
“Oh, I see,” Harry said sheepishly. “Right, sorry.”
“All is forgiven, my young friend.” Gabe waved a hand out in a twirling motion and bowed. “Shall we? I, of course, will gallantly ensure you make it back to your brothers unharmed. And, in return, you shall spill the worries of your soul to me.”
Harry did laugh then as he fell in step beside Gabe, just out of arms reach in case he was actually a stalker.
“Who said my soul has worries?” Harry asked, not in any real rush to get back. If Sam and Dean were still arguing then Harry was going to sleep in the car.
“Those wrinkles on your forehead.” Gabe pretended to squint at Harry’s forehead then shuddered. “I think you’re going grey too.”
“I am not,” Harry said hotly, patting down his hair. “I’m— it’s been an odd day,” he said evenly.
A terrible day, actually.
It wasn’t even the letter Harry couldn’t figure out how to word or the boys constant bickering… It just…
“Personally, I think odd days are the best ones,” Gabe said in a cheery tone. He had his hands in his pockets and walked with something of a bounce, proving his optimism. “Normal days? Pft. Give me the odd ones anytime.”
“Odd days where your brothers are fighting nonstop and destroying each others things and where a letter you write could either help someone you care about or get you both in a lot of trouble?” Harry challenged him. “Those are days you’d like?”
“HEY!” Gabe suddenly stuck an arm out, yanking Harry back when he almost accidentally walked out in front of a car driving down the street. The car was speeding much too quickly and Harry had been counting on it stopping at the stop sign that it completely ignored.
“Bloody hell!” Harry’s heart was hammering even when the car honked at him, as if Harry were the one who ran a stop sign. Harry looked over at Gabe gratefully, feeling badly that he’d briefly considered the bloke had been stalking him. “You saved my life, mate.”
“Me? No.” Gabe laughed and there was something bitter along the lines of it. “I just knew that bag of dicks wasn’t going to stop. And,” Gabe released Harry’s arm so he could stick his hands back in his pockets, “because I’m so very wise, I also know that all brothers stop fighting eventually and that fighting doesn’t mean they don’t care about each other.”
That… that did make sense, even if it was the very root of Harry’s worry about the fighting. It bothered Harry to have anyone screaming around him, but it also worried Harry that if Sam and Dean could stop caring about each other, what hope did Harry have to not eventually be treated the same way?
“Maybe they’ll be done now,” Harry said hopefully as they crossed the road to get to the motel parking lot. He looked up at Gabe and nodded. “Thank you.”
Gabe grinned at Harry, his eyes crinkling at the edges, and he tipped an imaginary hat at him.
“Happy to help, amigo,” he quipped. “I’ll see you around.”
It was quiet when Harry walked up to the motel room. He looked over his shoulder once more only to see Gabe was walking back in the direction they came from.
“Oi! I thought you had a date?” Harry called to him, bemused.
“Eh, changed my mind,” Gabe called back. He turned around to face Harry and walk backwards. “It’s them, not me.”
Harry huffed a partial laugh and shook his head. Gabe was an odd bloke, but Harry liked him well enough. He had helped Harry not be smashed by a car, which was obviously nice of him, even if Harry thought it was rude to cancel a date by simply not showing up.
Even better than that was that Gabe’s prediction that Harry’s brothers would stop fighting had came true. When Harry entered the motel, only poking his head in at first, he saw that Sam was laying on one bed with his laptop opened and Dean was laying on the other bed, telly remote in hand.
“Hey, kid,” Dean said, eyes on the telly. “I was just about to go looking for you.”
“I got distracted,” Harry said. He took his shoes off and debated briefly before deciding he’d rather not mess up whatever research Sam was doing. Harry lightly hopped up on the bed by the window where Dean laid and made himself comfortable against the headboard.
“Distracted, huh?” Dean grinned at Harry. “You tried to find that chick from the bar, didn’t you?”
“What chick from a bar?” Sam asked quickly, forgoing his research for a moment. “Dean, don’t tell me you tried to hook Harry up with some chick?”
“I didn’t do jack,” Dean told Sam, much more snappily than how he had just been talking to Harry. “It’s called a joke, Sam, you used to know them.”
“Maybe I’d get them more if your jokes were funny instead of destructive.”
Harry groaned and covered his face with an arm when Dean snapped off at Sam, Sam argued right back.
Maybe Gabe was right about Sam and Dean still caring about each other, but he was wrong about brothers eventually… eventually…
Harry sat up straight and dropped his arm as he quickly replayed everything he and Gabe had said to each other. Had Harry…? No… not before…?
“Harry?”
Harry blinked and shook his head, only noticing then that the busting argument had been cut off when Sam and Dean both noticed the look of confusion on Harry’s face.
“You good?” Dean asked him.
“Maybe?” Harry said slowly. “Er… so I saw Gabe earlier.”
“The janitor?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.” Harry bit his hip and briefly considered saying nothing, brushing it off as Harry slipping up and not remembering it. But with the entire focus of both of his brothers on him, Harry caved.
“This probably doesn’t matter at all, but… but I think Gabe knew we were brothers,” Harry said. Because Harry hadn’t told him first, had he? Gabe said if Harry told him that tosh about the worries on his soul that Gabe would make sure he made it back to his brothers.
Which he did… by making sure Harry wasn’t hit by a car that he couldn’t have actually known was going to run a stop sign… unless he could know?
“And,” Harry was thoughtful and missed the loaded exchange between his brothers, “I think he saved my life.”
“Call Bobby,” Dean told Sam. “Tell him what we’ve got, figure out how to kill it.”
“What?” Harry yelped. Dean looked serious, no longer bickering or joking at all. “You can’t kill him!”
“Dude.” Dean shook his head at Harry and relaxed back where he’d been laying. “If Gabe’s the one that’s killing people, we take him down. That’s the job.”
Harry’s jaw dropped as he incredulously repeated that in his head. That was the job? Killing innocent… well… not innocent… if Gabe was killing people then obviously he should stop, but they didn’t necessarily need to kill him to stop him.
And really, only one bloke had died. The student was just a bit messed up from being abducted by aliens. Since Harry had faced things much worse than aliens at Hogwarts, he wasn’t wholly concerned about the student.
Sam was already on the phone with Bobby, telling him everything that had happened. Harry tried to find a way to backtrack, back to before he even said anything about Gabe.
“If it’s him, and I’m saying if,” Harry stressed, “can’t we just ask him to stop? Only one person has died and, honestly, you thought that was a suicide anyway.”
“Nah, I changed my mind when you found that stack of cash,” Dean said dismissively. He was back to flipping channels on the telly, though Harry could tell he was also listening hard to Sam as he told Bobby about their case.
“We can’t kill Gabe, he’s a person, Dean,” Harry said irritably. How could Dean pretend like they were a team when it came to cheering Sam up but that Harry’s opinion didn’t matter when it came to whether or not they killed a bloke?
“Actually, he’s not.” Sam snapped his phone shut in a dramatic flourish. “Bobby thinks he’s a God. The Trickster God, to be precise.”
Harry blinked. A God? That seemed unlikely. Didn’t they study those in History in second year? Gods were meant to be all-powerful, fearsome. They didn’t go around handing out sweets and giving advice.
They also couldn’t be killed, Harry thought, so he relaxed.
“Supposedly, tricksters have a sweet tooth,” Sam told them, clicking away on his computer. “And they like just desserts.”
“Douche professor cheats on his wife, dies right after…”
“Frat boy gets himself hazed,” Sam said, picking up Dean’s train of thought.
It made no sense to Harry how two people who spent the day bickering so much could be instantly on the same page.
“Bobby also thinks that the trickster made us and that he was the one who messed with your car,” Sam said, making Dean roll his eyes.
“Bobby say how we kill him?” Dean asked.
“Oak soaked in holy water straight through the heart.”
Okay, so Gods could be killed, apparently.
“Or we just ask him to stop,” Harry said again, hoping Sam would agree with him.
Sam did not agree with Harry which was both frustrating and rude.
“Harry, this is the job,” Sam said with a pitying tone. “He’s killed people.”
“One person!” Harry cried, knowing he was being absurd. One person wasn’t okay, even if the professor wasn’t a good person. Harry just thought Gabe was funny and appreciated him not letting Harry become roadkill.
“If we give him a pass then he’s just gonna skip town and set up somewhere else,” Dean said. “Kid, we’ll do our diligence, check him out, but if he’s the one then we gank him.”
Because that ‘was the job’.
“Your job sucks,” Harry said waspishly with his arms crossed.
“Yeah,” Dean chuckled without any real amusement. “I’ve been saying it.”
Well, he was right.
Harry just wasn’t going to say that because he was also annoying.
Harry’s argument about only one person being killed was doubled the next morning. Sam and Dean decided to check around the university again to find out more about Gabe. They arrived just in time to see an ambulance pull away and Harry was ordered to wait in the car while his brothers went to talk with the officers in uniform who were still there.
It was actually rather brash of Sam and Dean to walk up to actually police officers and show them their fake badges. Sam said the badges were illegal to have and there they were, practically flaunting their crime.
The thought made Harry’s annoyance melt some. His brothers weren’t monsters, they didn’t seem to relish killing anyone. They didn’t go out of their way to target someone Harry thought was funny. In fact, if Bobby was right about who had messed with their belongings, it had actually been the opposite with Gabe targeting Harry’s brothers.
Harry still didn’t want to kill him, but he didn’t think his brothers were monsters for thinking they had to.
And Gabe clearly wasn’t helping himself any.
“That’s body two,” Dean said when he and Sam rejoined Harry in the car. Dean turned around so he could raise an eyebrow at Harry. “We need to take you home before we deal with this?”
Harry glared at his lap. “No,” he bit out. Harry wasn’t a child who couldn’t handle a case, Harry just didn’t think they should get all stab-happy over one possible suicide, one alien abduction, and one…
“How do you even know Gabe hurt this person?” Harry demanded abruptly. “There’s no proof! You’re just deciding there’s a trickster and deciding that it’s him.”
“The victim is a biochemical researcher who specializes in animal testing,” Sam told him. “And his body was found in the gutter, covered in bite marks.”
“So?” Harry asked stubbornly. That wasn’t even proof of anything supern—
“Dude, the bite marks are bunny teeth,” Dean said. He stuck his front teeth over his lower lip as if Harry didn’t know what bunny teeth looked like. “You think that isn’t both incredibly ironic and real freaking unnatural?”
Harry would not laugh. He’d only recently been able to clear his name and conscience of the deaths caused by the airplane crash. Harry would not laugh at what he thought was almost a funny way to die and have his brothers think wizards were all cruel or something mental.
“It is odd,” Harry said slowly, fighting a smile the entire time. “But it’s not proof that Gabe did it.”
“Fine. Let’s go find some proof then.”
Unfortunately, for Harry, they did find what Sam and Dean considered to be proof.
In Gabe’s employee locker there were piles of candy wrappers, proving a massive sweet tooth if nothing else. There was also a tabloid with an article on alien abductions buried under the rubbish and a copy of the dead professor’s book.
“We good?” Dean asked Harry.
“I still say we don’t need to kill him,” Harry insisted. “I’m telling you guys, he really saved my life.”
“So he’s got some moral code that doesn’t let him off innocent teenagers,” Sam said, just as irritatingly dismissive as Dean. “That didn’t get him a free pass to kill anyone he thinks is a douche.”
“You’re a douche,” Harry breathed, not really meaning it. It was annoying, his thoughts just being dismissed, but Harry couldn’t ignore that Sam was right either.
It wasn’t okay for anyone to go around killing people they didn’t like, Harry just didn’t feel great about them driving a wooden stake through Gabe’s heart either.
Sam and Dean had a plan before Gabe returned to the university for his shift that evening. Harry was given a choice to see the case through the end or to wait at the motel, which wasn’t a real choice, so Harry stood by quietly while Sam and Dean staged their fake fight.
They were hoping to make Gabe think they were splitting up so when Dean cornered Gabe he wouldn’t expect Sam to be preparing to strike. It was a half-arsed plan, but not everyone had Hermione Granger to help them plan things out.
Harry listened while Sam yelled about his laptop and Dean complained about his car tires. Harry looked around casually and was sure he saw a curtain in one of the facility building windows shift.
If Gabe was smart, he’d take the head start and flee.
Dean yelled at Sam about him acting immature and Sam yelled that Dean was the most immature person to live.
For a staged fight, it sounded very real.
“Good luck,” Sam whispered to Dean before he stormed away to go ‘check out the trickster’s house’.
“Who needs luck when we’ve got skill on our side, huh?” Dean asked Harry.
“He’s a God,” Harry reminded Dean, falling in step beside him anyway.
“We’ve killed Gods before,” Dean said with a smirk. He ruffled Harry’s hair and laughed when Harry smacked his hand away. “You gotta have more faith in your big brothers, little bro. We’re awesome.”
“Have you really?” Harry asked, impressed despite himself. Dean held open the door to the building for him and nodded.
“Pagan Gods are a dime a dozen, kid,” Dean said nonchalantly. He lowered his voice as they walked on silent feet through the lobby, headed to the staircase to take them up to the employee area. “And they must be a buncha homophobes too ‘cause nine times outta ten, it’s wood that kills ‘em.”
Harry didn’t exactly get the joke - though he got the gist, he’d heard enough jokes from the Weasley twins about Oliver and his wood - but he rolled his eyes when Dean glanced at him with a grin on his lips.
“That was terrible,” Harry whispered, refusing to smile.
“Give me a couple hours and I’ll have a better one,” Dean promised.
Harry huffed and fell silent as they approached the room where Dean was hoping that Gabe would be. If Dean and Sam were both unharmed in a couple of hours, after attacking a God, then Harry would laugh at whatever terrible joke Dean would have.
It turned out to be an evening of stand-up.
Gabe was waiting for them and streamers and glitter exploded when Dean took lead inside the room that had once been an employee break room. It looked much different and Harry was distracted immediately by the stage, low lights, and women in very scanty outfits who danced around two silver poles.
“You made it!” Gabe was sitting in front of the stage and when he turned around, he made a nearly comical look of shock when he saw Harry peering at the women. “Shit. Nope. Hold on…”
Gabe snapped his fingers and the women disappeared.
Harry was not disappointed.
“I was expecting Mama Bear, not Baby Bear,” Gabe said cheerily. He stood up and Harry noticed that he had forgone the janitor’s uniform for a casual pair of black slacks and another partially buttoned up shirt. It wasn’t a bad look, Harry just expected something more… Godly.
“I’m not a bear?” Harry said, assuming that a joke had been made at his expense.
Dean only touched Harry’s back, just a quick press of his hand, but it felt like a ‘be quiet’ type of touch.
“Ignore him, crappy childhood,” Dean said casually. Harry bristled, it didn’t sound as if Dean’s had been very fun either.
“Hey, I can have a full circus in here if you just say the word.” Gabe held his arms out and his smile never wavered. There was something quite confident about it, as if he knew what Dean planned to do and he wasn’t worried in the slightest.
Harry wondered how many people made that mistake about Dean or Sam.
“You boys can heal those inner children and I’ll just…” Gabe made a fist and blew in it, making a puff of sparkling smoke to blow out. “Disappear.”
Dean chuckled, a short sound, and he shook his head as he advanced on Gabe with the wooden stake in hand.
“Afraid I can’t let you do that,” Dean said.
Harry knew he was lying as they absolutely could let him do that.
“No?” Gabe tilted his head to the side and Harry swore there was something uneasy in his eyes when he glanced at Harry. “You sure you don’t want to keep Baby Bear nice and safe? It sure would be a shame for him to see big bro torn to pieces.”
Harry bared his teeth in a quiet snarl. Having rabbits chew a bloke to death was one thing, but threatening Dean was another. Gabe saw his look of anger and winked, still amused, before he looked to Dean for a decision.
“I like my odds,” Dean said lightly, a clear decision.
“Yeah?” Gabe smiled widely and then there were four, five, six of him. They were all standing around the room in a circle around Harry and Dean.
“How about now?” they all asked as one. “You still like your odds?”
“Yeah, I do.” Dean lunged to the left with the stake out and his muscles tensed. The stake went straight in the Gabe’s chest, just before it - he? - flickered out of existence like something off a movie.
“Come on.” One of the Gabes leaped out and grabbed Dean hard by the wrist, jerked it harshly, and another one caught him on the jaw with a fist.
Harry didn’t remember making a conscious decision to attack the Gabe that just hit his brother, he just did it. Harry shoved him hard to get him off Dean and fell to the ground when that Gabe disappeared too.
“Gentlemen, please, we don’t have to do this,” the four Gabes left said in a creepy echo of each other. Dean yanked Harry up by his shirt and Harry wished he had any sort of weapon in his hand when the four identical tricksters attacked at once.
They all attacked Dean, but Harry wasn’t going to stand to the side while Dean got his arse kicked. Not that Dean got his arse kicked, because four Gods weren’t enough, Harry just couldn’t stand by uselessly.
Except while the punches were landing on Dean with solid sounds that were making Harry half-frantic, each time Harry swung a solid fist at one of the Gabes they disappeared. Every time. Harry couldn’t help but feel as if he were being mocked, which was daft because if Gabe would quit disappearing then Harry would happily show him that he wasn’t a - what was it? - a baby bear.
“Come on, Deano.” There was only one Gabe left when Harry struck out at another copy and it disappeared. The actual Gabe had a grin on his face and his hands innocently opened by his shoulders.
As furious as Harry had been that he hit Dean, Harry still felt a pit in his stomach as Gabe backed up to the door. With Dean on one side of the door and Sam undoubtedly on the other, Harry knew that Gabe was precisely where they wanted him.
“We can all be friends here,” Gabe said. “Your little bro, littlest bro? Yeah, your littlest bro and I are total BFF’s.”
“Harry’s got bad taste in friends then,” Dean said with just a hint of a grin where Harry could see. “Sorry, man, I respect the flair, but you can’t just go around killing people just because they’re dicks.”
Gabe’s back hit the door and Harry opened his mouth to yell something, anything.
“As opposed to what you do?” Gabe asked with a flutter of his lashes.
The door behind him yanked open and Gabe would have fallen, if Sam hadn’t immediately stepped up and drove a stake through his upper back.
Harry made a sound when Gabe fell forward, hitting his knees. Dean and Sam took a step away from him, leaving the space clear for Harry to reach him. Harry didn’t have anything to say, what could he say? But he kneeled beside him and touched his shoulder because… because Gabe had been funny and he’d kept Harry safe once and watching him die alone on a floor was horrible.
“Hey, Baby Bear.” Gabe had blood pooling on his shirt, spreading in large dark patches across his torso until it dripped on the floor. His eyes were intense though when they focused on Harry’s. “I never - never finished that joke,” he said weakly, his breathing stuttering.
“What joke?” Sam whispered to Dean.
Dean shrugged. “No idea.”
“The lion, right?” Harry asked, embarrassed by the thickness of his voice. Gabe wasn’t a good person, obviously, but he hadn’t been a monster either. Not really.
“Yeah.” Gabe’s grin was shaky. “He walked in the bar and asked the bartender for a job…”
Gabe blinked slowly and his hands began to slip from where they’d been holding him up on the floor. Harry tried to help him lay down a little less awkwardly, but he was heavy.
Dean sighed before stepping up and lifting Gabe by the shoulders and then laying the coughing and bleeding Trickster on his back.
“Then what happened?” Harry asked when Gabe stopped coughing and his chest wasn’t moving. “Gabe? Gabe, then what happened?”
Gabe said something too quietly for Harry to hear and so Harry bent over to put his ear by Gabe’s lips.
“Tell you another time, Baby Bear,” he whispered. When Harry jerked back in surprise, he was given one wink before Gabe’s body went slack and there was nothing but silence in the room.
Silence and Harry’s ragged breathing that slowed to something less wrecked when he felt something suddenly digging in his leg from the pocket of his jeans.
Harry said nothing, did nothing. He let Dean guide him out of the building and usher him in the car after laying down a towel so the blood Harry had on him didn’t get on the seats. Sam kept shooting Harry concerned looks during the drive back to the motel, but Harry didn’t say anything.
Harry said nothing at all until he was given ‘first shower dibs’ and found a sucker in his pocket. A sucker that he didn’t buy and that had a red string tied to it.
Then Harry let out a sigh of relief and showered quickly. As soon as he was done, he tucked the sucker in a pocket of his bag and pulled out his notebook after getting dressed.
In the ten minutes Harry had been in the bathroom, his brothers worked quickly. There was a movie playing on the telly and two large pizzas opened up on Dean’s bed. The table had a case of beer and a large bottle of the soda Harry liked.
“The job sucks, but it saves lives,” Sam said after Harry dropped his bag by the duffel bags his brothers had by the door.
“Gabe would have kept killing people if we didn’t stop him,” Dean added seriously. “Dudes who cheat on their wives deserve STDs, not broken necks.”
Harry jerked his head in a semi-nod, not actually wanting to talk about their terrible job much. It wasn’t terrible, it was heroic in ways, Harry just didn’t expect their case to involve someone that wasn’t actually an irredeemable monster. Instead, he held up the notebook he had and debated briefly before deciding Sam was more likely to be helpful than Dean.
“I’m trying to write a letter and I need help,” Harry said, plopping on Sam’s bed on his stomach. “Here’s what I’ve got so far…”
They didn’t watch much of the movie that Dean had rented, but Harry did get his reply to Rita Skeeter completed. They also ate all of the pizzas, laughed when Dean tried to burp the ABC’s, and Harry and Dean exchanged a sly grin when Sam said that their case really helped him clear his head.
“I forgot how good it feels to actually save lives,” Sam said with his eyes closed and fingers laced behind his head. “Maybe I’ll see if Bobby has anything else when we’re get home.”
Harry felt his eyebrows shoot to at almost the same speed of which Dean frowned.
That hadn’t actually been the plan, Harry was sure of it. Dean wanted Sam to get excited about university, not hunting. But since Dean wouldn’t make an exception for Gabe on Harry’s behalf, Harry smirked at his oldest brother before reclining back on the bed beside Sam.
“I hope the next case is a poltergeist,” Harry said innocently, feeling Dean’s glare and refusing to look at him. “There’s one at Hogwarts and I might actually be a hero if can tell Ron the best way to get rid of him.”
Sam chuckled, Dean glared, Harry grinned.
If Dean wanted Harry to take his side then he should have taken Harry’s. Harry didn’t care if Sam went to University or not, he was just relieved that nobody was moping, nobody was fighting, and one day Harry might figure out the punchline to that joke.