glasslogic | Shards of Yesterday

After two hours of meticulous searching they were grungy, dispirited, and tired of poking through filthy debris and broken glass trying to find something that buried the EMF meter’s needle. It spiked occasionally, but they could never isolate anything specific that might be linked to the spirit inhabiting the premises. Reluctantly done with the ground floor and forced to choose between going up or going down, they chose the wide metal staircase in one corner that led down to what must have been the original glassworks beneath the main floor. Even to their inexperienced eyes, much of the equipment was obviously missing. And just to make everything even more pleasant, the entire area was ankle-deep in damp sludge that must have washed down through the metal grate set into the main floor.

“By the time they closed, they must have been doing the manufacturing somewhere else and just using this place for distribution,” Sam observed.

“Yeah, otherwise this would be a retarded design for doing something that involves fire and melted sand.”

“I think the process is a little more complicated than that,” Sam said absently, examining a wide, flat metal plate on a pivot stand.

“I know what glass is, Sam. I don’t care what else they do to it -- it’s melted sand. And that requires a hell of a lot of heat. It’s not the kind of thing you want to do under a half-floor of metal sheeting and wooden planks. I don’t know why you--” he cut himself off abruptly and froze as a sudden breeze stirred out of nowhere and blew the dust and dirt off the edge of a rotting shelf.

“Do you feel that?” Dean asked Sam in a low voice.

Sam nodded grimly, already picking his way back towards the stairs.

“So much for it being out of juice,” Dean growled as more dust and dirt began to sift into the air.

By the time they reached the ground floor again the gentle breeze had become a full-blown wind and the air was alive with dust and papers. Sam watched one of the smaller pieces of jagged glass slide across the floor and swore, picking up his pace as they made their way towards the propped open door of the main entrance.

“Maybe this is all it’s got?” Dean yelled over the growing racket. Sam didn’t bother trying to reply.

They were less then twenty feet from the doorway and Sam could almost taste the outside air when the ear piercing squeal of twisting metal sliced through the din and a massive shelf of glass sheeting tore from it’s braces and slammed over onto the floor between them and the exit. The explosion sent them both diving for cover. The wind died as if a switch had been thrown and in the deafening silence that followed they could clearly hear the tinkle of settling glass in the level below.

Dean’s swearing was probably audible all the way out into the street. The massive rack of twisted metal had fallen in a way nature would have never allowed and completely blocked the doorway. The force of its impact had embedded it into the wooden beams of the floor, cracking some of the timbers so that even the footing around it was bad. Broken and cracked sheets of glass stood like frozen blades in the wreckage and glittered ominously in the beam of their flashlight.

“We can climb over it?” Sam suggested without much hope.

Dean gave him a withering look.

“Do I look like I want to spend the next week in the ER, Sam? Besides, the floor is screwed up too now, and neither one of is exactly a lightweight. Remember what’s under there?”

“More racks of glass.”

“Exactly. Falling would be like a death sentence. But the brick outside has deep grout and looked like plenty of hand-holds. We should be able to scale down no problem -- if we can just get to it.”

Sam refrained from commenting on the probable strength of those hand-holds and instead shined his flashlight up at the half-stories above them. Some of the wood was missing and the metal plating looked like more rust than solid sheets anymore. The framework was probably stable enough, but stepping in the safe places would be half memory, and half luck.

“Let’s do it,” Sam said finally, lacking a reasonable alternative. They crept cautiously back to where the nearest staircase began, but as soon as Dean set a hand on the rail a shard of glass as long as his arm picked itself up off the floor and slammed into the wall over his head. Sam knocked a desk over and they both ducked behind it just as the whirlwind of destruction exploded back to life in the stale air of the warehouse, this time with enough force to hurl even heavier projectiles.

“I thought you said this thing was exhausted?” Dean snarled into Sam’s ear where they crouched together behind the makeshift barrier as the storm raged.

“I said it should be exhausted!” Sam snapped back. “Do I look like the fucking Ghost Whisperer to you, Dean?”

“Remember what I said about ideas, Sam?”

Sam’s acidic reply was bitten off when his attention was caught by a figure that had suddenly appeared behind them. Recognition flooded his entire body with relief.

“Castiel!”

“Cas?” Dean whipped around, then cringed as a metal chair hit the wall behind them. “Where?”

Sam stared at him in bewilderment. “What do you mean ‘where’?! He’s right there!” Sam flung out a hand, pointing to where Castiel was standing not even five feet away watching the chaos around them with an expression of mild interest.

Dean’s expression went from hopeful to horrified in the space of a heartbeat.

“He can’t see or hear me, Sam. You’re just going to upset him,” Castiel said calmly.

Sam’s relief vanished in a heartbeat as he understood.

“You aren’t Castiel,” he said sickly.

“Sam, who the fuck are you talking to?!” Dean demanded, stress and fear hardening his voice as he yelled above the din.

Sam just stared helplessly at the figure that was not Cas, and not even real -- unsure of how to answer Dean’s question.

“I am real,” not-Castiel answered his thought, sounding somewhat offended.

“No, you aren’t,” Sam hissed.

“Sam, you are seriously starting to damage my calm,” Dean growled. He clamped his fingers around Sam’s wrist and squeezed to get his brother’s attention. “Keep it the fuck together. You can talk to the voices in your head later.” He shoved them both flat just as a particularly large piece of glass sailed over their make-shift barrier and shattered on the metal beam at their back.

When Sam managed to get back into a half-way sitting position, not-Castiel was still standing there, unmindful of the debris that occasionally flicked through his form.

“It will stop soon, you know,” Sam’s imaginary guest assured him.

Sam turned away, trying to ignore the figure. Dean was watching him with eyes dark and fearful. Sam tried to give him reassuring look, but Dean appeared anything but comforted by the effort.

“It doesn’t have the strength to keep this up for long,” not-Castiel continued. “Keep your head down and you’ll be fine.”

“Who does it look like now?” Dean asked. “And don’t even try to tell me you can’t still see it. You’re paying attention to something and it sure as hell isn’t me or this freaking ghost that’s trying to kill us.” He pulled the side of his leather jacket out to protect them from another spray of shards.

“Funny he should mention ghosts,” the not-Castiel said casually, looking out into the depths of the warehouse over their makeshift barricade. “This one has power, but not a lot of precision. If it could aim, you both would have been skewered ten minutes ago.”

“It’s... still Castiel.”

Dean’s eyes grew wide with renewed horror. Preoccupation with survival had distracted him from connecting the dots earlier, but it was suddenly too obvious to ignore. “Castiel-the-angel-who-sent-us-to-this-wonderland-of-fucked-up Castiel? The one that would talk only to you?!”

“Yes,” not-Castiel agreed. “Except not really.”

“Uhhh...” Sam looked uncertain. “He says ‘yes.’ Maybe.”

“He says--" Dean broke off into a storm of sulphurous swearing. “I want my fucking cookie back! Of all freaking times, Sam! Shake it off, I need you here now. You can be crazy later.”

Heavy plates of glass started wobbling and falling from the air.

“See?” not-Castiel said calmly. “All out of juice.”

~~~~~
“I cannot believe your timing, Sam!” Dean was still raging as they climbed with snail-like slowness up the ancient metal stairs minutes later, testing each one as they went.

“It’s not my timing, Dean!” Sam argued. “This isn’t something I have control over!”

“I should have known,” Dean went on as if Sam hadn’t spoken at all. “I should have freaking known. Cas isn’t above doing the douchey thing and ordering us around, but talking only to you? That should have been a dead giveaway -- but since when do the monsters in your head dress up like angels?!”

“I don’t know,” Sam said in a voiced laced with annoyance. “I guess parading around like you or Lucifer was getting old!”

“Does this mean you’re going to be adding to your collection of crazy?” Dean demanded. “At some point in all of this, are you going to be trapped in your skull with the ghost of Dad?”

Sam paused mid-step and blinked.

“Don’t worry,” Dean growled, continuing up the staircase without even bothering to take in Sam’s reaction. “I’d kill you myself first.”

“Thank you,” Sam said with complete sincerity.

“I thought--" Dean bit off whatever he was going to say with a sudden shake off his head.

“You thought what?” Sam asked, following Dean’s unspoken words. “You thought I was getting better?”

Dean snorted and tested the ground as he reached the first elevated floor. It seemed stable so he cautiously committed his weight. “No, not even in my dreams can I convince myself we might get that much of a break. But I thought things were at least a little quiet for a few days!”

“They were.” Sam shrugged. “Apparently that’s over now.”

“Yeah, apparently.”

“It’s not really, you know.”

Sam swore and almost fell over the railing in surprise as the whatever manifested on the landing next to Dean and looked down at him.

“What isn’t really?” Sam snapped.

“It’s back?” Dean asked in resigned tones.

Sam nodded and joined him, giving not-Cas a dirty look. “Yeah.”

“Can you ignore it?”

“Your little vacation from the hallucinations the barrier breakdown in your head is causing -- it’s not really over,” not-Castiel informed Sam. “I’m not one of them. Tell Dean you get to keep the cookie.”

“If you aren’t one of them, then what the hell are you?” Sam demanded.

“I guess that’s a no then,” Dean grumbled.

Sam looked between the two in exasperation. “It says it’s not a hallucination, Dean.”

“Of course it does, Sam. That’s what all the hallucination’s say.” Dean looked around speculatively. “Tell you what, you stay here and talk to your imaginary buddy while I go scope out this level. Think you and your new friend can handle that?”

“He really hasn’t changed much,” not-Cas observed, watching Dean pick his way carefully across the floor slowly without waiting for a reply from Sam.

“Changed since when, and what the hell are you if not some manifestation of the Cage?”

“Since the last time I met him,” not-Castiel said, still watching Dean’s painstaking progress. “I’m exactly who I appear to be, Sam”

“What?” Sam asked, confused. Not-Castiel turned in a slow circle, coat pulled wide open.

“I don’t understand.” Sam said after watching for a minute. “You’re not Castiel.”

“Right,” the hallucination agreed. “I’m not. Come on, Sam,” it prodded when Sam just looked blank, “you’ve been through a lot, but it can’t be that big of a step. If I’m not Castiel, then I must be--” Not-Castiel waited expectantly. The expression looked odd on a face that usually only reflected dispassion, or mild confusion. The human expressions, casual speech-- Sam suddenly got it.

And couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten it earlier.

“Jimmy Novak,” Sam said flatly.

“See? That wasn’t such a big step,” Jimmy said.

“What about Novak, Sam?” Dean called from deeper in the level.

“Uh. It’s not Cas. It’s--“

“Why the hell would you be hallucinating about Jimmy Novak?” Dean asked, baffled.

Sam crossed his arms and stared the hallucination in the eyes. “I don’t know, hopefully it’s about to tell me.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I’m not a hallucination, I’m like any other restless soul displaced when they slough off their mortal coil.”

“He still insists he’s not a hallucination,” Sam called.

“Oh good,” Dean replied in a distracted tone, obviously not taking Sam seriously.

“Say’s he’s a ghost.”

“Oh god,” Dean groaned. “Is he haunting this freaking factory? Because if he is, tell him I’ve got a bone to pick.” Dean muttered something else, but Sam couldn’t make it out over the sounds of things breaking as his brother tipped something over trying to get closer to the windows.

“I don’t feel like I really have your full attention.” Jimmy snapped his fingers and suddenly, instead of the second floor of the glass factory, Sam found himself standing in a completely white room. White walls, white floor, white ceiling.

Just him and his hallucination of the late Jimmy Novak.

“That’s better,” Jimmy said.

“What did you do,” Sam demanded, looking around wildly.

Jimmy shrugged and leaned back against the wall. “Whatever I wanted. I told you, I’m not one of your hallucinations, Sam. This little fracture with reality you have going on is convenient for more than just the horrors lurking in the recesses of your brain. Ghosts, for instance, can wiggle right in if they have enough focus and motivation. It wasn’t really that hard to slip inside the crack and make myself comfortable.”

“You can’t be a ghost,” Sam hissed. “Jimmy Novak isn’t dead.”

An expression of unutterable sadness crossed Jimmy’s face for an instant before it hardened into lines of anger and resolve. “Oh, I am dead. I’m not even upset about it -- it was only the polite thing for Castiel to do, after all. Demons like to keep their horses all pinned up inside for that little extra hit of despair, but angels? Angels are Gods chosen ones, and they can be benevolent when they’re moved to be. I gave Castiel my body forever, a permanent residence for a spirit that didn’t have one of its own so it could move freely in the world. In return he set me free so I could pass on to whatever waits for humans on the other side.”

“Then why are you still here?”

There was a dark edge to Jimmy’s unhappy smile. It wasn’t an expression Sam had ever seen on his face before, no matter who was behind the eyes. “The reapers came, but I refused to go. Castiel promised me that Claire would be protected, that my wife and my daughter would be safe. I stayed to make sure he kept his word, to watch over them as best I could. To make sure that my sacrifice was worth it.” Almost palpable anger twisted through the words, filling the room with seething rage.

“Uh... how’s that going?” Sam finally ventured once the echoes of the outburst had died away.

“Badly.” The ghost started pacing. “Claire could feel me, it was... upsetting her. She cried all the time, woke up screaming when I watched her sleep. Amelia tried to comfort her, tell her that wherever I was she didn’t need to worry about me. But Claire just couldn’t move on when I was always right there. I tried giving them some space, but I couldn’t get far enough and still watch them like I wanted. I started only dropping in occasionally. Once a day. Then once a week. Once a month... The last time I visited my wife was starting to see another man and Claire was sleeping through the nights again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jimmy shrugged. “It’s what I wanted, to see them move on with their lives. To enjoy what I bought for them. I made the decisions that brought me to this place, Sam. I regret their necessity, but not the decisions themselves.”

Sam nodded in understanding. “I get that.”

“Yes,” Jimmy met his eyes, and the mix of resolve and pain in them was one that Sam had seen too often in the mirror, and too often in his brother. “I thought you would.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “So then -- why all this? Why are you in my head, and why the hell are Dean and I in this deathtrap of a warehouse? If you just wanted to talk--”

“Do you know what the dead can see, Sam?”

Sam shook his head mutely.

“Everything,” Jimmy whispered. “We can see everything. Even when something is hidden from us, we can see where that cloud is, what shape the shadows have. Most spirits are trapped here for a reason, so hyper focused on whatever keeps them on this plain that anything else doesn’t even register to them. But not me. I don’t have any anchor, any focus to grind out centuries of rage or fear on. I stayed for my family, by choice, and when they didn’t need me any more I decided to check in on my other big interest. Can you guess what that is, Sam? I’ll give you a hint.” He turned in another slow circle.

“Castiel,” Sam said.

“Castiel,” Jimmy echoed, expression flat. “He promised he would do whatever he could to protect my family, to protect this world. To put things back the way they were.”

“He’s trying, Jimmy. We’re all trying. Even Dean and I are doing what we can to--“

“You have no idea what’s really going on.” And Sam was suddenly absolutely certain that he didn’t. “Dean’s calling you,” the self-proclaimed ghost added.

“What did you mean about not knowing what’s really going on, Jimmy?”

“In the shadows, with the shades.” The ghost’s tone was almost singsong and his gaze was focused just over Sam’s shoulder. Sam turned, but saw nothing but white. “Castiel has more on his plate than just fixing what’s broken, Sam. You should ask yourself how much you really know about his agenda.”

“Jimmy--“

“He’s dabbling in things that are best left undisturbed. And there’s no way this ends well. You need to stop him.”

“Stop him?” Sam stared. “He’s an angel, what things are you talking about?”

“I can’t see all the details, but I don’t need to know specifics to see the color of the trouble it will bring this world. My daughter, Sam. I gave up everything. He promised!” There was a malevolent rage in that last sentence that reverberated through the air. Cracks appeared in the ceiling overhead and through them Sam could see hellfire. He swallowed hard. Wherever in his subconscious the ghost had dragged him, Sam was certain he didn’t want to have to find his own way back.

“Why’d you bring us here, Jimmy?” Sam fought to keep his tone even and reasonable. Whether Jimmy Novak was actually a ghost as he claimed, or just another hallucination, Sam’s best interest was in keeping him calm. “Why pretend to be Cas to convince me and Dean to take this job?”

Jimmy shrugged. “I check in on you and Dean from time-to-time. I played the pawn for so long; I wanted to see what it was like to do the string-pulling for a change. Isn’t this a worthy cause -- saving children from an angry spirit?”

Sam wasn’t actually sure which ghost in the warehouse was the angriest. “It’s going to kill us if we stay here.”

“Not if you destroy it first.”

“It’s throwing sheets of glass at us, Jimmy! Chairs, tables-- this is a factory. You might be a ghost, but Dean and I are flesh and blood and it’s not going to have to get much more pissed off to find something to hurl that will smear us across the wall!”

“I thought you two were supposed to be the best hunters on the planet? You’re going to run from one angry ghost?”

“Maybe not, but there’s more than one ghost in this factory, isn’t there?” Sam asked pointedly.

A hint of genuine smile touched Jimmy’s lips and then Sam was back in the warehouse staring into Dean’s angry, worried green eyes from inches away.

“Hi.”

“Jesus, Sam!” Dean scooted back from where he had been crouched so Sam could sit up. “What the hell was that?”

“Jimmy Novak says I get to keep the cookie,” Sam replied shakily, looking around for the ghost.

“Jimmy Novak says--" Dean began in a baffled tone, then seemed to catch the reference and his voice hardened. “Jimmy Novak is dead, Sam, or divinely possessed, or whatever the hell else you want to call it! He’s not a ghost, and he isn’t here! This is in your head, and I need you to keep it together for just a few more minutes so we can get out of here.” He grabbed Sam’s hand and hauled him to his feet. The floor groaned alarmingly under their combined weight and Sam retreated to the top stair to ease the burden.

Sam changed the subject. “Did you find us a way out?”

Dean shook his head. “Not on this floor. The entire thing is rotted out near the wall. The struts are sound, but naturally, none of them are actually under a window, and I can’t find anything I would trust my weight to that is long enough to bridge the gap between them. Whoever built this place was a moron and I’d like to beat them with a tire iron.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this kind of factory, or any kind of factory. It was supposed to be a place for livestock, Dean. They just kind of added in the rest later.”

“I don’t care.” Dean was not in the mood to extend forgiveness . “We need to check the upstairs. You think you can stay conscious long enough to do that or are you going to need another nap first?”

Sam ignored the dig. “What if that floor isn’t any better up there?”

Dean sighed and looked up to where the moonlight shone against the upper railing. “Then... I guess we get to reconsider our options.”

Sam nodded tiredly and they began the slow, careful climb to the second elevated floor. The staircase was in worse shape than the first one had been, with two of the steps even falling out completely when Dean tested them with a cautious foot. It was so nerve-wracking that by the time Sam actually reached the top floor his hands were cold and cramped from clinging so hard to the rail.

“Stay on the stairs,” Dean said tightly, moving slowly onto the floor.

“I’m not getting good feelings of safety from this staircase, Dean.”

“Then stay on the beams,” Dean snapped back, taking another step into the room. It was a reasonable direction to move, and followed along where the beams would have been on the lower floor. But Sam had spent more time examining the layout the Dean had and remembered the minor differences. He swore and lunged for his brother; getting a handful of jacket and hauling Dean back just as the ground gave way under his leading foot. They landed together in a pile in front of the stairs and immediately rolled apart, Sam onto the relative safety of the metal and Dean back on an area that had already proved it could hold him. Both of them were breathing hard and Dean’s face was white with shock. He licked his lips twice before he could speak.

“That’s, uh... thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sam replied between breaths still shaky with adrenaline, cold with the realization of what had been a split second from happening.

“I’m gonna just sit here for a minute,” Dean said.

“You do that,” Sam agreed.

After a moment, Dean sighed and climbed to his feet. “Okay, minute’s up.”

“Feel free to take a few more.”

“No,” Dean said grimly. “Every minute we take the ghost is gathering ammo. And who knows when you’re going to flip out again? Let’s get moving.”

Sam stood up and gathered his nerve, then eased onto the floor cautiously; shuffling along a few feet behind Dean. “We haven’t tried the loading doors.”

“You ever try to lift a loading door, Sam?” Dean asked dryly. “Especially the kind that is twenty feet tall for trucks? This isn’t granddad’s aluminum. Those things were powered even back in the day, and for good reason. After fifty years with no maintenance and probably rusted solidly in place? We’d be better off taking swings at the brick.”

“It might come to that,” Sam said grimly, testing a new patch of floor gingerly with one foot.

Dean said nothing.

“If we could deal with the spirit then we could take our time finding a way out,” Sam added.

“If we could deal with the spirit, Sam?” Dean asked incredulously. “Was I the only one paying attention when it turned the entire warehouse into some kind of unholy blender? We checked downstairs, we checked the basement, and I don’t know about you -- but that EMF meter is still running in my pocket and it hasn’t so much as beeped while I’ve been checking the upstairs. The only way we can deal with the spirit is by running for our lives, with possibly some casual arson tossed in. But we can decide that later. Right now, the getting out is the only thing we need to be thinking about.”

“But--"

“What part of we can’t find the remains are you having the freaking trouble with?” Dean yelled.

“Let me help.”

Sam spun at the new voice and was startled to find himself literally nose to nose with Jimmy Novak. He yelped and stumbled back onto untested ground.

“Sam, no!” Dean screamed, running towards him with painful slowness as time seemed to stretch out into infinity. Like the space of empty air suddenly beneath Sam’s feet as the floor squelched and caved inwards. He saw Dean stagger and fall, and then it was just rushing sound and weightlessness.

The thunderous crash of shattering glass was the last thing he registered before everything went black.

~~~~~
Sam roused to the sound of dripping water and someone slapping at his face with hands that smelled like damp earth and blood. He opened his eyes and met Dean’s in the dim, unsteady beam of a flashlight that was flickering and trying to die.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he mumbled, then started coughing almost immediately as the thick dust in the air seemed to settle in his throat.

“I said conscious Sam, remember that?” Dean growled, sitting back with an audible groan.

Sam brushed bits of rotten wood and glass shards from his chest and tried to sit up, then sank back some when the sudden movement made his vision dance. “Where are we?”

“I think the basement broke our fall.” Dean had his jacket shrugged off and seemed preoccupied with something on his side that Sam couldn't quite make out. But Sam didn’t have any trouble seeing the scarlet stains on Dean’s fingertips when he pulled his hand back.

“Dean,” Sam breathed.

Dean looked up with a tired expression. “You know, the basement, the first floor, the ground floor, and couple of sheets of glass somewhere on the way. This is some kind of sub-basement we missed. I’m not sure if it was the glass or some rusty nails that did this,” he gestured to his side. “I’m not sure which would be better -- the possibility of tetanus or still having pieces of it in the wounds causing more damage as we try to claw our way out of here.”

Sam was more concerned about his brother bleeding to death than how they were going to get out at that moment. He scrambled to his knees despite the double vision to do his own investigation of the extent of Dean’s injuries. Dean tolerated him prodding around the wound for a minute or two before he waved Sam off and pulled his leather jacket back on with slow, stiff movements.

“It’s just some bad scratches; it’s not going to kill me. Not in the next half-hour anyways. Next time we’re going to fall through a couple of stories, remind me to zip this up. What about you, everything okay?”

Saying that he was beat to hell and his head was killing him wasn’t going to be shocking information; Sam knew what his brother was really asking and nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Nothing broken.”

“Fantastic.” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Do I need to ask why you suddenly decided to take a stroll across a rotten floor or should I just assume I know the answer and it’s going to piss me off?”

Sam didn’t bother with a reply; instead he looked up at the empty space over their heads. “I... can’t believe we survived that fall.”

“We aren’t lucky enough to just die cleanly in a fall,” Dean said in disgust. “It’s way more likely we would plummet in here, find no way to get out, and have to have a serious discussion about which one of us is going to be eaten first.” Dean was about to add something else when a low whine suddenly attracted his attention. “Do you hear that?”

Sam frowned and started sifting carefully through some of the debris that had fallen around them. The small chamber seemed entirely empty except for themselves and what had accompanied them down into the hole when they had crashed through the ceiling. Bits of three floors, rusted chunks of metal, shards of broken glass, papers, dirt... and the EMF meter, screaming for attention.

“I told you I’d be helpful,” Jimmy Novak commented casually. Sam wrenched his attention away from the meter and found the ghost standing against one of the earthen walls.

“Helpful? You almost got us killed!” Sam yelled, then immediately regretted it as the throbbing ache in his head doubled in intensity.

Dean also looked around, scowling. “I don’t care if he’s real or not. You tell that fucking hallucination of yours that as soon as I get out of here and stitched up, I’m going to find a way to beat the crap out of him. Even if I have to go back in time to do it.”

“How is that helpful right now, Dean?” Sam demanded.

“You should both shut up and start digging.” Jimmy suggested. “It might be exhausted, but I suspect it will find new energy to protect itself.”

“Protect...” Sam began, confused -- and then understanding dawned and he frantically started searching his pockets.

“What?” Dean demanded.

“It’s here. Like right here-- that’s why the meter is going off!”

“Shit.”

“Do you have your accelerant? Because mine’s not in my pocket anymore and it won’t do us a whole hell of lot of good to have done all of this and not be able to even burn the damn thing, Dean!”

“Chill out, Samantha. I’ve got the stuff right here.” Dean pulled a battered metal flask out of his pocket. “We just have to find the--” At that moment the dying flashlight finally failed and left them in near-total darkness. The thin moonlight from the factory above could barely reach through the opening created by their decent, and the other flashlight had vanished in the collapse, buried somewhere under the heaps of rubble.

“Perfect,” Dean said acidly. Sam wasn’t exactly filled with excitement either.

“Just wait.” Jimmy Novak’s disembodied voice came out of the pitch black

Sam wasn’t sure if he preferred the ghost where he could see him or not, but he definitely preferred being able to see in general. He felt a wave of relief when Dean’s lighter flicked to life, the orange glow giving a harsh illumination to his face.

“Put that out and wait,” the ghost commanded.

Sam gave Jimmy an irritated look. “We’re not going to stand here in the pitch black waiting for anything. Leave me alone.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” Dean said flatly, using the lighter to examine the perimeter of the room for an exit. After a moment he turned to look at Sam. “Did you throw something at me?”

“What?” Sam asked blankly. Then before Dean could reply, Sam felt it too. Something hit his leg. Then his chest. Then smacked against his face. It felt like paper. But then a piece of wood thudded into the wall next to him and it was past time to go.

“We have got to get out of here,” Sam said grimly. He looked around with a sense of frustrated helplessness. The room wasn’t that large and had an earthen floor, but it was still a good twenty by twenty feet and they didn’t have anything to dig with even if they had the time. “There has to be a door!”

“I’m looking!” Dean snapped, then grunted as a larger piece of debris slammed into his back

Sam ran his own hands frantically over the rough, concrete wall. “Look faster!”

“How did we not know there was a sub-basement to this place?” Dean demanded.

Sam scraped a knuckle on the rough stone and barely registered the pain. “It wasn’t in the building plans!”

“A lot of this wasn’t in the plan, Sam!”

But Sam’s attention wasn’t on the argument. Something strange was happening in the basement, something stranger than the supernatural storm of potential lethal debris starting to build in the small space. A faint blue glow was creeping mistily across the uneven ground.

“Am I imagining this?” he yelled to Dean.

“Nope.” Dean flinched from another hit and let the lighter die, the strange illumination bright enough to see by now.

“I told you to wait.”

“Shut-up,” Sam snapped at the ghost. “What is this?”

“Do you want me to shut-up or answer questions?” Jimmy asked.

Dean elbowed him hard. “Stop talking to it, Sam! We’ve got a bigger problem here!”

“I don’t think ignoring it is going to make it go away, Dean.”

“Have you tried?”

Jimmy walked across the floor, heedless of the wood and glass swirling through his form. “I can’t believe you guys survived any of your cases, much less the Apocalypse. Your father must have had the patience of a saint.”

Sam ignored that and turned back to Dean who was looking around the room with narrowed eyed.

“Why are we still alive?”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Because it hasn’t managed to kill us yet?” he guessed.

“No -- seriously, Sam. Why are we still alive?” Dean asked again, eyes narrowed against the grit in the air. Another chunk of wood half as big as Sam slammed into the wall not five feet away, and a scattering of glass rained down on them as another shard hit over their heads. But the actual pieces hit the dirt without touching either of them. All around them the walls were taking a beating as heavier and heavier pieces of wreckage joined the potentially lethal dance, but none of them managed to touch Sam or Dean as the spirit pounded out its rage.

“You’re welcome.” Sam looked up and met Jimmy Novak’s eyes. The ghost held his gaze for a moment, then looked down. Sam followed the movement and saw where the dirt was being eroded beneath Jimmy’s feet.

“Dean,” Sam said, grabbing his brother’s arm to get his attention.

“I see it, Sam,” Dean smiled tightly. “Let’s dig this jackass up. I don’t know why things aren’t hitting us, and I don’t even care anymore. I just want to get this over with before our luck changes. Again.”

In the end they used bare hands to expose the skeleton embedded in the dirt floor, while all around them the spirit raged. Jimmy Novak stayed with them, standing just a few feet away and keeping a silent watch, but only Sam was aware of his quiet presence. Remnants of clothing clung to the skeleton and Sam pulled a rotted scrap of leather from what had probably been a pocket. He peeled it apart and exposed a plastic card protector. Inside an old drivers license was still legible.

“David Gray.” Sam read aloud.

“That mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Drop it back in the hole then. We’re not taking souvenirs.”

Sam nodded and tossed his find back on the body. The storm rose to a new pitch as he emptied his pockets of salt and nodded at Dean.

Dean emptied his flask over the corpse, then grabbed a scrap of paper that was blowing by and lit it. Dean held the smoldering paper over the corpse for a heartbeat and gave the bones a hard look. “You were a total pain in the ass.” He let the paper fall and the body exploded into flames.

~~~~~
Almost as soon as the fire engulfed the bones everything in the air just fell, like marionettes with sheared strings. The spectral light was gone, and so was the ghost of Jimmy Novak, but the fire burning down in the shallow trench was just as good for visibility and the air felt immeasurably lighter as they resumed their slow, painful search for an exit. With the spirit vanquished, the adrenaline and sense of urgency were fading and the cold and pain of their wounds and bruises sank in with a vengeance.

“At this point, I’m about ready to call the cops myself,” Dean grumbled, staring up in dismay at the trap door they had finally spotted overhead. Sam didn’t like how fresh blood was smeared over the side of his brother’s jacket or the way he was leaning on things every time he thought Sam wasn’t looking, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it as long as they were trapped in the hole.

It only took about ten minutes to boost Dean out of the sub-basement and for him to find something tall and sturdy enough for Sam to use to climb out himself. Neither of them was excited about climbing back up to the second floor and then down the outside of the building, but they made the second trip went without incident, and once they reached a window they were surprised to find a ladder bolted into the cement barely visible beneath the thick, clinging ivy that covered the outside of the factory walls.

“Fire escape?” Dean asked, leaning far out of the window to test how it was anchored.

“Maybe,” Sam agreed. “Sure you want to risk it?”

Dean swung a leg over. “Feels solid enough, and I’m pretty certain I’m not up to scaling walls with my fingertips tonight any more. Let me get down first, then you can do what you want.”

They reached the ground without any new injuries and made it back to the Impala in less than twenty minutes. No police cars interrupted their passage; no angry spirits hurled anything through the air.

Sam insisted on driving back to the motel, and was almost alarmed when Dean agreed without an argument. But when Dean was finally seated on the edge of their bed and let Sam help him peel his shirt up, Sam was relieved to find that though bloody, messy, and no doubt painful -- the wounds were pretty much as Dean had insisted. Superficial and filthy, but not life-threatening. Dean took a shower, then sat impatiently littering the air with complaints while Sam treated the lacerations and stitched the worst of them up. By the time Sam had finished his own shower, wincing as the soap and hot water found a hundred tiny scrapes and scratches he hadn’t even noticed, Dean had passed out on the bed. Sam turned off the television and managed to roll and prod Dean under the sheets, his brother never waking much past mumbled complaints.

“I’m glad you’re both okay.”

Sam sighed and turned around. Jimmy Novak was standing by the door.

“I need you to leave me alone. I don’t know if you’re a ghost, or a hallucination, or what, but my head’s already crowded enough. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out. And then go away, for good.”

“Tired of me already?

“You almost got us killed!” Sam hissed.

“So does everyone else who sends you to do their dirty work. Do any of them apologize?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “They don’t have to. We know what the score is when we take those jobs.”

“Do you?” Jimmy’s eyes trapped Sam’s gaze with their intensity. “What was different between you taking this job for me, or taking it for Castiel? You started with the same amount of information.”

“Castiel is an angel, and he’s trying to save this entire reality! He’s also been a friend and someone we can rely on. You’re just--“

“Trying to save a few children, and bring your attention to one little, critical, misconception you and your brother seem to be laboring under.”

Sam’s nostrils flared in anger, but he kept his voice low and even. “They would have found the skeleton when they tore the building down--“

“They would have found a hole and piled another dozen feet or so of dirt on top of it.”

“--and I don’t know what the hell you think you’re talking about with Castiel! He’s fighting a war to keep people safe. So I have no idea what you can see, or think you know, but--“

“All warfare is based on deception.”

Sam frowned. “What?”

“It’s a quote I read somewhere when I was in college,” Jimmy shrugged.

“I recognized the quote; I just don’t understand the relevance.”

“Because you’re not paying attention.”

“Attention to what?” Sam demanded, exasperated.

“Shut-up, Sam,” Dean mumbled from the bed. “Turn off the lights and come to bed.”

“I hid from you the truth of my identity and you and your brother almost died. But my cause was good, and I feel justified in my actions. Do you think that Castiel isn’t equally as capable of hiding truths from you?”

“You’re saying he’s lying about what he’s really doing, with the weapons and the battles and everything else?”

“I’m saying that your ideas of what’s right, and what isn’t, and of who is right, and who isn’t, are all matters of perception. And deception. I only care about my family, but you claim to care about the world. Get to the bottom of this Sam, before it’s too late for everyone.”

In the space of a heartbeat the ghost vanished, and the strange emptiness in the vaults of his mind told Sam he was unlikely to return. He turned to the bed to find Dean looking up at him from heavy-lidded eyes.

“You should be asleep,” Sam said quietly.

“Is he gone?”

“My hallucination?” Or whatever.

“Yeah.”

Sam shrugged. “For now.”

“I’m going to find a way to fix this, Sam. I am, I swear.”

“I’m not sure that’s the biggest problem on our plate anymore, Dean,” Sam said, sliding under the covers and elbowing Dean’s good side to gain his fair share of space.

Dean scooted over with a frown. “What are you talking about? What could possibly be more important?”

Sam switched the light off and said nothing, the ache of battered muscles screaming as he settled into the mattress. The darkness in the room was easy, soft and almost comforting. Sam thought about what the ghost had said, turning it over and over in his mind while he considered everything he knew about Castiel and their unorthodox relationship with the angel. As he thought about Castiel’s odd distance and the way that even when he showed up these days he volunteered nothing and stayed for only minutes, harried and curt. He had bought Jimmy’s act because there was nothing to distinguish it from the real Castiel’s behavior for the past few months. Cas showed up just long enough to give orders and then vanished off again to whatever battle he was fighting.

Or claiming to fight. Goosebumps stood up on his skin for no reason Sam could put a finger on, things just felt... off.

Castiel said he was fighting to save the world, and for the first time Sam seriously wondered if there could be a place too far to pursue that end.

“How much do you trust Cas?” Sam asked quietly in the still night. The silence stretched so long that for a minute he thought Dean was actually asleep.

“Enough, Sam,” Dean sighed finally. “I trust him enough. And you should too, he’s earned it, you know? Go to sleep. We have enough real monsters to fight in this world without listening to whispers and delusions.” He felt Dean’s hand pat his shoulder awkwardly, and then a few minutes later the familiar rhythm of his brother's soft snores as Dean succumbed to well-earned exhaustion.

But Sam lay awake in the darkness for a long, long time.

END

Masterpost

I hope you have enjoyed this fic and the lovely artwork that inspired it!
If so, I encourage you to leave feedback here, and on the artists journal here.

Thanks to everyone who came along for the ride!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

elusive-life-77.livejournal.com

I really do like this story a lot. Even in the rough, there were parts that gave me chills (the fingernail marks in the rust, most notably).

A great ghost story!!

*hugs*

From:

Shards of Yesterday - Part II

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