1x22 -- Devil's Trap

[salver]

Bobby Singer looks out the window, past the hubcaps nailed to the black boards on the outside of the house like encroaching barnacles, and raises his eyebrows the proverbial six feet.

Anybody approaching the salvage yard that fast has business with him -- and not the kind where he's supposed to be a legitimate businessman, either. Bobby's got himself a nice-looking elephant graveyard: this is where cars go to die, and rust, and -- sometimes -- lie in wait to be dismantled for other purposes. Any way you want to look at it, there's a fair amount of metal lying around. Lots of places to hide. Lots of cover.

(And Rumsfeld the rottweiler to set up a ruckus.)

Bobby knows cars (among other things), and there's only one hunter he knows of driving a car like that. Hunters, now. Plural. It's still Team Winchester in the black Impala, but the lineup's changed. Not John and Dean, not any more: Dean and Sam. The college boy.

Ten minutes later he's got the Winchester boys inside and set up in his living room -- Sam at Bobby's desk, with a stack of books to hand and one open in front of him (and that short stack didn't even make a dent in his collection, piles twenty deep in some places spread over every flat surface and some surfaces that aren't so flat), Dean at the walls, feasting his eyes on the collection of pinned-up symbols and maps (the hunter's wallpaper, Bobby sometimes thinks to himself, without much humor) to see if there's anything familiar-looking -- while he goes looking for fortifying materials. Ammunition.

They come in two silver flasks, the first of which he passes off to Dean. "Here you go."

Comments

[hopeitsworthit]

Meg cries out again.

Dean moves in for the kill.

"Where is he?"

She grits her teeth, snarling up at him. "You just won't take no for an answer, will you?"

Dean ignores her.

"Where is he?"

Her voice is full of pain and sly satisfaction when she answers, "Dead."

In that moment Dean wants to kill her. With his bare hands.

"No! He's not! He's not dead. He can't be!"

He can't. Just--no.

[gavemea_45]

The flow of the exorcism stops.

Sam's watching Dean now instead of Meg, concern written on his face.

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean looks up at Sam, expression hard and closed.

"What are you doing? Keep reading."

Keep reading before he loses his nerve.

[gavemea_45]

His mouth is dry. Sam has to lick his lips before he's able to continue, stammering at first.

"Ab--ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine."

From the snares of the devil, free us, Lord.

Please, he thinks, sending up a desperate prayer of his own as he reads. Please help us. Help us save Dad--

"Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos."

That your Church may serve you in safety, we ask you, hear us.

The chair slews to one side, then skids forward to the edge of the circle while Meg shrieks, and Sam stares for a second-- but only that.

Please--

"Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos!

That you may destroy the enemies of your sacred Church, we ask you, hear us!

[hopeitsworthit]

"He will be!

"Wait."

Dean holds up a hand to stop Sam.

"What?"

Meg grits her teeth again.

"He's not dead, but he will be after what we do to him."

Dean clenches his jaw. He needs more than that, he needs--

"How do we know you're telling the truth?"

Her reply is simple, almost sweet. "You don't."

"Sam."

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

[gavemea_45]

Sam doesn't even get the next word out before Meg shrieks,

"A building! It's a building, okay? In Jefferson City."

[hopeitsworthit]

It's a start.

"Missouri? Where. Where? An address."

Give him an address, dammit. Give him something.

She shakes her head, voice high and tight. " I don't know."

He doesn't believe her.

[gavemea_45]

They're not likely to have another chance like this one any time soon, if ever. He's got to ask-- he can't not.

"And the demon?" Sam breaks in. "The one we’re looking for - where is it?"

Meg bows her head, sobbing for breath.

"I don’t know! I swear! That’s everything."

A beat, and then, more softly,

"That’s all I know."

[hopeitsworthit]

And whether or not that's true--

"Finish it."

[gavemea_45]

Sam's hands tighten on the book as he hesitates.

Meg has no such problem.

"What? I told you the truth!"

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean shrugs.

"I don't care."

Meg gapes at him for a second, then her eyes narrow alarmingly.

"You son of a bitch, you promised!"

Dean's expression tightens.

"I lied! Sam?"

Silence.

Dean turns to look at his brother, expression ferocious.

"Sam. Read!"

And now it's too damn hard to hide the jitters, so Dean starts pacing.

And if his path takes him right by Sam--so much the better.

[gavemea_45]

He turns as Dean passes him, reaching out to grab him by the arm.

"Maybe we can still use her."

Sam's voice is low, but hard, and the look in his eyes is calculating.

"Find out where the demon is."

[hopeitsworthit]

"She doesn't know."

Dean's trying not to yell.

It ain't easy.

[gavemea_45]

As if it's the most obvious thing in the world--

"She lied!"

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean grits his teeth, leaning toward his brother.

"Sammy, there's an innocent girl trapped in there. We've got to help her."

They have to. It's what they do.

They save people.

[salver]

He's been in the other room this whole time. Watching out of the corner of his eye. Listening. Sam's got a good grasp on the Latin, the flow of it; Dean's got a scary grasp on how to be the bad cop.

Bobby's arms stay folded, and he listens, and he mentally reviews what he knows, what he's been told --

We've got to help her, Dean says, and that's enough to send him from the other room to three steps from Dean. Quiet (and a little strained): "You're gonna kill her."

The deal's this: the most important difference between humans and things that aren't is that humans get to know exactly what it is they're doing. They get to care that they're going to kill, and they get to care that they have to make some ugly choices. It's a responsibility. Pretty damned heavy one, too.

(Maybe John Winchester never looked at it that way, never taught it to his sons, but there's more than one hunter in this world, more than one way to go about all of this. John's got his own way, and Bobby Singer has his.)

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean stops, snapping around to face Bobby.

"What?"

What?

[salver]

"You said she fell from a building." Bobby casts a glance at the girl in the chair -- he'd buy it, from the way she looks.

He lowers his voice. "That girl's body is broken. The only thing keeping her alive? Is that demon inside. You exorcise it -- "

"That girl is going to die."

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean's expression gets tighter than before, and his voice gets softer and more intense.

"Listen to me, both of you. We are not going to leave her like that."

He can't even begin to imagine doing that.

He can't.

[salver]

It isn't that cut and dried. It isn't. It almost never is. That's a luxury that the men and women who do what they do rarely get to see, and that they certainly can't afford. If Dean's calling the shots, and calling them that fast -- is he seeing this? Is he understanding it?

"She is a human being -- "

[hopeitsworthit]

"And we are gonna put her out of her misery!"

There's no doubt in him. Not about this.

He knows what he'd want.

He knows--

"Sam. Finish it."

They're done here.

[gavemea_45]

He can't mean--

Sam stares at Dean, then darts a glance at Bobby before slowly turning to look at Meg.

She's looking back at them, waiting, her breathing rapid and filled with pain, and he finds it hard to meet her eyes.

There's got to be another way, he thinks, almost desperately.

Except that there isn't, or not one he knows of, anyway.

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean just looks at Sam, jaw set.

"Finish it."

He knows what he's doing. Now he just needs his brother to believe it.

[salver]

Yeah, well.

Bobby looks at Meg, at Sam, at Dean.

And thinks, John just has that effect on people.

[gavemea_45]

He searches his brother's face, and finds no sign of doubt. Sam swallows and lets out a breath, then turns back to face Meg, lifting the book that by now he doesn't really even need.

"Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae--"

That the enemies of your sacred Church--

"--te rogamus, audi nos."

--we ask you, hear us.

He starts pacing the circle around her again as Meg gasps, jerking in the chair, raising his voice to carry above her cries.

"Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo!"

God is terrifying in his sacred house!

"Deus Israel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi suae."

The God of Israel himself will thrust excellence and strength unto his people.

Meg screams, her eyes turning entirely black as she tries to wrench herself free of the ropes, but it's too late for Sam to stop now, even if he wanted to.

"Benedictus Deus--"

Blessed be God--

"Gloria Patri!"

Glory be to the Father!