Fiiiiiiiiic. (Yes, *that* one.)

I give you...the Dean/Deb. (If you're a SPN person who has no clue who Debra Morgan is, I suggest you watch this and this. Both vids are spoilery as heck for Dexter, but they're great meditations on an awesome character. And if you're a DEX person who has no clue who Dean Winchester is, I suggest you go here and watch 'Jesus Christ', and here and watch 'Sea Lion'. Again, spoilery for the show, but great character studies.)

Fandoms: Supernatural/Dexter (Yes.)
Spoilers: through DEX s1; through the first half of s4 SPN
Rating: NC-17
Notes: many thanks to my lovely betas, akamarykate and rivkat. Any remaining iffiness is mine and mine alone.
Usual disclaimers apply.

DEARLY DIVIDED by Jayne Leitch
2009

Halfway down a damp, narrow alley, a flickering neon sign does as much to turn people away from the bar as entice them into it. It's the kind of place Dean expects to find working girls getting out of the rain, mostly ignored by the sullen, isolated men more concerned with drowning their last shreds of conscious thought than scoping the goods that are too expensive for them anyway.

When he finds a pretty, fully-clothed brunette hunched over a beer at the bar, it's the novelty more than anything else--almost--that makes him take the stool next to hers. After ordering a beer of his own, he stares straight ahead and says, mock-seriously, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a rat trap like this?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her turn her head, size him up, and look away again. For a minute he thinks she's going to ignore him; then, as she lifts her bottle to take another swig, she answers in the same cool tone: "Hunting monsters."

Dean looks her over. No charms, no scars, no obvious weapons--he hadn't pegged her as a hunter, but that would explain what she's doing there, alone and obviously not making her living on her back. Sure she mentioned monsters as some kind of test, he takes his drink from the bartender and replies casually, "You too, huh?"

If it was a test, he realises, he failed: her bottle hits the bar with a thunk, and suddenly she's facing him straight-on, eyes hard and glaring. "Look, shit-sleaze, I've been tracking Verne Harlow for a fucking month. Back the fuck off my collar."

He stares. Then, shrugging off any responsibility for the crazy chick with a sailor's mouth on the next barstool, he turns back to his drink. "I don't think I was ever on your collar, but okay. He's all yours."

The heat of her glare falters a little. "You're not a bounty hunter?"

That explained it. "I am not a bounty hunter."

"Cop?"

He hides a grimace behind another pull on his beer. "More like a private investigator."

"And you're not after Verne Harlow." She says the name slowly, as if maybe he just hadn't heard it right the first time.

"Never even heard of the guy."

"Shit." Taking up her bottle again, she takes another, longer swallow. Her cheeks flush, just a little, out of embarrassment more than booze. "Sorry," she mutters, "I get--competitive."

"No problem." She actually does sound sorry; he slides her a glance and the edge of a smile and adds, "I opened with a sleazy line, anyway." She chuckles, nodding in agreement. "My name's Dean."

"Debra. Deb."

They drink silently for a minute. Over by the door, a clutch of hookers makes a noisy exit, laughing shrilly and clopping their heels out onto the pavement. "So you're a bounty hunter, huh?"

"Don't I look the type?" She says it dryly, like she's used to the question.

Dean looks her over again--obviously this time, smirking when he sees her return the attention. "Maybe," he says finally, then--just to make sure--adds, "Didn't peg you as the type to know much about monsters, though."

Apparently, it's the wrong thing to say: her grin fades immediately, and she turns back to signal the bartender for a refill. "I should," she says, her words clipped. "My brother turned out to be one."

Dean's smile fades in turn, and he wonders if this is another test. Of what, he can't figure--but he turns it back on her, giving the only honest response he's got. "Yours too, huh?"

Her startled glance makes him think he passed. She covers, though, a little too enthusiastically, taking her new bottle from the bartender and swallowing thirstily until a third of it's gone. As skinny as she is, she surprises him by looking mostly sober when she turns suddenly to face him again. "You hungry?"

*

She leads him to an all-night diner down the block. After the cool, rainy darkness of the street, they squint at the laminated menus under strip fluorescents and order plates full of overcooked grease from the bored, grey waitress.

When his burger arrives, Dean takes a hungry bite, and only chews halfway through it before asking, "So this guy you're chasing. What'd he do?"

"Sick shit." And, around relentless mouthfuls of fries and soda, Debra tells him about Verne Harlow and his psychotic belief that he has genuine magical powers; about the many times he'd been brought in for questioning related to kidnapping and homicide cases, only to be released every time for lack of evidence; about the college student who fought back and escaped a kidnap attempt a little over six months ago, who finally gave the police enough to charge him.

"Long story short, the moronic asswipe of a judge low-balled his bail," she says, smudging mayonnaise around on her plate with a half-eaten fry. "The bastard skipped town as soon as he got out of lockup. One day after his hearing--*one* day--the cops found his torture chamber in a secret basement under a shed at the back of his property. There was this table where he'd killed his victims in, like, ritual sacrifices, a rack where he hung the corpses, bowls full of bones and dried blood, walls painted with weird-ass words and magic symbols. Creepier than fuck, apparently." She looks at him like she's waiting for him to be disgusted, or disbelieving; when Dean looks straight back, unblinking, she gives a little shrug and pops the fry into her mouth. "He's gotten sloppy on the run, though. A couple weeks ago, there was a hit on his credit card in Pensacola; a few days ago, I got a tip he was caught on video surveillance at a gas station in Mandeville. Smart money has him running for the border, but then you'd think he'd find a boat and cut across the Gulf, right?"

Dean shrugs. "Not if he needs supplies first. Supplies he can't get in Mexico."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Magic stuff. Amulets, effigies, specially-prepared herbs. Femurs."

She snorts, shaking her head. "Right. 'Cause a psychopath like Harlow believing in magic makes it real. And even if it was, as if there'd be places selling black magic shit that I could track."

"Not places so much as people, and I already have." Deb stares at him, wide-eyed. Dean smiles crookedly. "Guess I shouldn't have said I wasn't on your collar."

Her jaw drops. Dean thinks it'd be funny if she weren't starting to fume. "You lying *asshole*--!"

"I didn't know we were after the same guy, okay?" He leans forward, lowering his voice. "My line of work, I...keep tabs on a certain type of crazy. All I knew when I came down here was that there'd been some talk in what you might call the supernatural community--"

"Oh, you are fuckin' *hilarious*."

"--Talk that somebody was looking to do something real bad. Trying to buy stuff on the black market that nobody should ever be getting their hands on, that kind of thing." Leaning back again, he continues, "I didn't know it was Harlow until you told me about the crap he's into, I swear. And I'm not looking to horn in on your bounty."

She arches an eyebrow, skeptical. "'Supernatural community'," she repeats, scoffing. "So the kind of monsters *you* hunt--"

"Are real." He can see her writing him off, the look in her eyes and the smirk on her face as familiar as family. There was a time he would've had to argue with her, explain the danger, make her see it; now, he doesn't see much point to putting in the effort, and finishes, simply, "Don't think they aren't."

"Whatever." And if she remains not at all convinced, at least she stops looking actively pissed off.

*

Given how quickly Debra finished eating and left the diner after he'd shown his interest in Harlow's occult activities, Dean assumed he'd freaked her out, maybe even spooked her off the case. So when she hammers on the door to his motel room just after ten the next morning, his surprise overpowers his suspicions: he stashes the weapons he'd been cleaning under his bed and lets her in with a smile, not realising she has a gun until she pulls it from under her jacket and aims squarely at his chest.

"You're Dean Winchester. You're Dean motherfucking Winchester!"

He stands very still. "Actually, it's 'Everett'. After my grandpa; Dad's side." His own gun is in its holster, strapped to the leg of the night table. Her hands are steady; he couldn't get to it if he tried. "Lemme guess: you looked me up."

She snorts. "I used to be a cop, dipshit, and now I'm a *bounty hunter*. You bet your cocksucking ass I looked you up." One-handed, she goes into her jeans' pocket and pulls out the napkin he gave her last night with his alias and motel scrawled on it, 'just in case'. "'Dean Mahagov'--known alias of Dean *Everett* Winchester, wanted for fraud, breaking and entering, destruction of property, grave desecration, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, homicide--*multiple* homicide--"

"Huh." He smiles again, can't help himself. "You know how long it's been since somebody read me that spiel?"

She echoes his smile back at him, her eyes glinting. "Oh, I'm guessing it's been a while, since your jacket also lists *two* death certificates, the last one from way back in *2008*. And since both those certificates were signed by law enforcement--one by a goddamn *FBI agent*--I really think you shouldn't be my fuckin' problem." Her manic grin disappears. "Which makes me wonder: why the hell *are* you my problem?"

Dean sighs. Raising his hands slowly in a placating gesture--aiming to get her guard down so he can move close enough to disarm her--he begins, "Okay, look. Obviously, you were a good cop--"

"Blow me, jerkoff. I sucked shit as a cop." She raises her chin a little, as if daring him to agree--or maybe disagree; when he doesn't, she nods, one corner of her mouth twitching up. "Which is why I need to ask," she adds, and suddenly the accusation in her voice is replaced by what sounds to Dean like plain, honest curiosity, "did you do all the things in that file?"

Dean works not to let his relief show--not that he wouldn't have lied if she'd worded her question a little differently, but he thinks honesty's a helpful bonus right now--gives her the most trustworthy look he can muster, and says earnestly, "No."

She looks at him for a moment, hard, the edges of her teeth digging into her bottom lip. Then, nodding, she flicks the safety, lowers her gun and holsters it. "Okay."

Dean waits for the catch. Deb just gives him a look and walks past him to wander the room. "You believe me?"

She huffs out a laugh. "No. But my intuition's fucked. That's *why* I sucked shit as a cop: kept thinking the innocent ones were guilty, and couldn't see the guilty ones right in front of my fuckin' face."

He stares at her, watching for any hint that she's about to pull out her gun again and blow his head off. "So...because you think I'm guilty, you're gonna trust me."

"That's the plan." Turning, she fixes him with a warning glare, raising one hand in a sharp gesture. "Don't make me regret it, or I swear to ass-bleeding Jesus I will make you pay."

He shakes his head, bemused. "No regrets. I promise."

She nods--then, almost too casually, adds, "I looked up your brother, too. Your files make it look like you were the bad-ass and he's, like, your sidekick."

Her scrutiny makes him feel like he's been caught in lie. He shrugs, as noncommittal as possible. "Our files are wrong about a lot of things."

"So you aren't still travelling together?" When he responds with a tight shake of his head, she adds, "So if it's just you, why've you got two beds?"

Turning, Dean looks impassively at the second bed, its sheets crisp and undisturbed. "Habit."

*

They spend the rest of the morning on their laptops and cellphones, sharing information freely with their sources but speaking only sparingly to each other. At one o'clock, Deb says, "Fuck it," and goes for pizza; Dean takes the opportunity to pull his weapons cache out from under the bed and pack everything up.

He's just returned from loading the Impala's trunk when Bobby calls back. "Got a lead for you."

Dean sighs with relief. "Oh, man, it is about time we got somethin'. What is it?"

"Gave a call to a friend of mine, lives in Crowley; she's high up the pecking order of the Voodoo community down there, has her fingers in a lot of pies. When I told her you were after Harlow, she knew the name right off--said he was nosing around a couple days ago, lookin' to buy certain items from anyone who'd sell to him."

"What sort of 'items'?"

"Nothing any of Jeanette's people would trade. He was looking to collect a bunch of stuff for dark black magic, and they didn't want any part of it. But there's a man named Lyle Ramsay over in Jennings who knows Harlow from way back, owes him for something. Jeanette says he might have been persuaded to put Harlow up for a day or two."

"Lyle Ramsay, lives in Jennings." The sound of a key in the lock makes him turn; when Deb comes in with two pizza boxes balanced on her arm, he holds his hand up for quiet. "Thanks, Bobby."

"Dean." He'd already moved to end the call; he knows what's coming, but puts the phone back to his ear anyway. "Be careful."

He makes a derisive noise. "Sure. 'Cause being careful matters so much these days."

"*Hey.*" It's loud in his ear, angry. The kind of angry Dean's been used to hearing from Bobby for years. "It *matters*."

Debra's watching, alert and curious. Dean turns his back on her. "Thanks, Bobby."

*

After Dean gives her Ramsay's name, Deb makes a call and gets his address. They're on the road within fifteen minutes of Bobby's call, and Dean has to admit the job's a hell of a lot easier when law enforcement's working *with* him.

Because Deb's car's back at her hotel--and because no matter what he lets Bobby think, Dean refuses to approach the potential hideout of a warlock without his full arsenal on hand--they take the Impala. "Is that a *tape deck*?" Debra says, grinning, as she pulls her long legs into the car and settles herself on the passenger seat.

Dean opens his mouth on auto-pilot, framing the first word of the old lecture--then, surprised at himself, shuts it again, clenching his jaw. "Listen to whatever you want," he says instead, and peels out of the motel parking lot while she reaches for the tuner dial.

Having someone else in the car again is disconcerting. Even after Deb gives up on the radio and picks AC/DC out of his box of ancient tapes, Dean grinds his teeth through her attempts to start conversation, and half an hour into the drive they're both silent, staring moodily out the windows.

As they're passing Lafayette, the tape runs out, the stereo clicking over to the static of a barren radio signal. It wakes Dean up, kicks his brain out of the thoughtless Zen-state of driving, and he realises it's been at least an hour since either of them said a word.

Glancing over, he sees her thousand-yard stare, the way she's angled her body towards the door, elbow on the lip of the window, chin in her hand. Her slumped posture's like looking at a ghost; he looks away quickly, clears his throat. "So, uh. Did you really decide to trust me because your gut told you not to?"

She startles, just a little, but comes right back with, "Who says I trust you?" When he cuts her a narrow-eyed look, she smiles, broad and cocky. "Yup. That was why."

"Seriously."

She shrugs, facing forward again--then gesturing sharply out the windshield, pretending anxious irritation. "Jesus, would you watch the road? If I'm gonna die today, I at least want it to be *after* I've taken out a real live apeshit witch."

Dean rolls his eyes and turns his full attention back to the highway, stretching clear and empty straight ahead. Beside him, Deb reaches for and fumbles through his box of tapes, and he assumes the topic's closed.

But when the opening riff of 'Enter Sandman' replaces the radio static, she leans back in her seat and says, "My dad was a cop. He met Diana Ballard at the academy; they were friends for decades, kept in touch 'til Dad died." He glances over to see her watching him, a hint of speculation lurking in her frank expression. "There's a letter from her in your file. Some of the stuff in that letter...might have helped your case with me."

He wracks his memory for the name and finds it more easily than he would've expected, considering how long ago he knew her--but then, the unexpected allies always did stick in his memory. There'd always been so few of them. "Diana Ballard. Baltimore, right?" Deb nods; he considers this, then adds, "So you'll trust your dad's judgment on people, but not your own."

"Harry was a soggy piece of shit as a dad," she answers readily, sounding maybe just a little too flippant, "but he was a good cop. He knew people--how they work, why they do what they do." Glancing away, she makes a sound that might be a laugh, drowned by the building chorus. "I used to want to be just like him."

"Yeah." He meant it to sound more like a question, or at least like a filler response that meant nothing in particular; when he catches the look she turns on him, he shrugs, determinedly casual. "Nobody ever really turns out the way they want."

She keeps looking. "Sometimes that's good, though."

Dean stares at the horizon. "Sometimes."

*

Lyle Ramsay lives in a rough old cabin set deep in a wooded lot just outside Jennings. They find him tied to a chair in his kitchen, bare and bloody to the waist, sigils and symbols carved into his skin.

Debra takes one look and breathes, "Holy Jesus mother*fuck*. Is he still alive?"

Dean, sawing at the ropes with his switchblade, pauses to feel for a pulse--then yanks his hand away when Ramsay comes to with a shudder and a fit of watery coughing. "I am," Ramsay grates, his voice sounding as mistreated as his body.

Dean sees Deb pull her cell phone from her pocket. "Don't call anybody," he barks, and when she shoots him a wide-eyed look of angry disbelief, he amends, "Not yet. Help me with him."

Together, they get Ramsay untied and help him lean forward. His cuts, most just barely scabbed over, pull open and ooze; Deb rips up a drawerful of dishcloths for bandages while Dean gets a glass of water, holds it so Ramsay can drink.

When he's drained the glass and shifted, wincing, so Deb can reach the cuts on his back, he tells them, "Harlow's gone to Sulphur."

"Why?" Dean asks, kneeling down to see his face. "What's in Sulphur?"

Even though it looks like it takes an effort, Ramsay gives him a scornful look. "Why do you think they named it that? There's a mine there--it was supposed to be a mine. Nobody could ever sink a shaft without everybody involved dying. Even after they figured out how to mine the land around it, Wrath Shaft kept killing people. Eventually, they abandoned it. They say it always stinks of fire and brimstone. Like it's a doorway straight to Hell."

Dean goes still, everything snapping into focus with the kind of clarity he lives for these days. "Devil's Gate?"

Ramsay's exhausted eyes fix on Dean's, steady. "Whatever Harlow's been trying, it hasn't worked anywhere else. He's betting it *will* work there."

Dean nods. When he looks up at Deb, she returns his gaze with wide, anxious eyes and a total lack of comprehension. "Call an ambulance," he tells her, standing. "Wait 'til they get here, tell 'em whatever you want. But don't follow me for at least a couple hours."

"What? No fuckin' *way*." She catches his arm as he tries to brush past, holds on only long enough to make sure he turns back to face her. Then, crossing her arms, she glares. "I've been trailing this sick bastard for *weeks*. I'm not just gonna stay behind while you--"

"I'm not after him to turn him in, Debra! I'm going to stop him, which I can do because I know what he is. You don't."

"'What he is'?" The look on her face morphs from straightforward self-righteousness to incredulity. "You seriously believe all this magic bullshit, don't you."

He meets her gaze with cool and deadly certainty. "I do."

After a moment, she shrugs, backing off as if his apparent insanity is totally beside the point. "Fine. You can believe it; hell, that might even help us take Harlow down. But it's gonna be *us* taking him down. It *is*."

He sees her stubborn determination, obvious and undeniable in the set of her jaw, the look in her eyes. It's not worth a fight, and he nods, giving in. "Whatever."

They're heading for the door when Ramsay calls after him. "You're Dean."

It stops them both in their tracks. Deliberately not looking at Deb, Dean turns to find Ramsay standing--swaying with the effort, sluggish blood dripping all over, but standing, focused on him like a microscope. "I am."

Ramsay looks him up and down, for all the world like he can't understand what he's seeing. "Why are you here? Her, I understand, she's just after some criminal, but you..." He lets out a sigh, tired but edged. "Why bother, man? Door's closed."

Again, Dean feels the weight of Debra's attention, can almost hear her mind working, trying to figure out what she doesn't understand and can't possibly know. He smiles at Ramsay, tight and tough. "Won't stay that way forever."

Ramsay rasps out a laugh, lowers himself painfully back into his chair. "You hope."

*

Deb calls 911 from the passenger seat, relays Ramsay's address and condition in short, clipped sentences, then hangs up abruptly without giving her name. For a long minute afterward, she stares out the windshield into the glare of the setting sun, hand clenched tight around her phone; finally, she turns to Dean, hard-eyed and whip-tense. "Okay, listen. You can believe this psycho magic shit all you want, but I swear to *God*, if it dicks up this arrest--"

"Deb--"

"And it is going to be a motherfucking *arrest*, okay, because I'm a goddamn officer of the courts, Dean. I did not hear that shit you said back there about 'stopping' Harlow instead of turning him in, because if I did? I'd put a bullet through your fuckin' foot, put you on the other end of Harlow's cuffs, and give you both to the cops as a package deal with a motherfuckin' bow on top." She'd leaned toward him through her speech, intensity driving her into his space; now, her breathing harsh, she pulls back a little, stiffly. "I will not put up with that shit."

Again, he could argue. He could tell her that he doesn't just believe in magic, that it's real and he *knows* it; that Harlow knows it too, which makes him dangerous in ways she can't expect and won't be prepared for. He could tell her that he has, actually, done almost every goddamn thing she'd read in his jacket, and more, only not in the ways the cops understood or for the reasons they thought.

But again, he doesn't see any point to arguing; again, he doesn't bother. Instead he nods, acting just a little bit shaken to sell his knuckling under. "Okay."

Deb sits back and turns her head to the window, still wound tight. The engine rumble and hum of the tires on the road are the only sounds for a long, long moment; then, suddenly, she sucks in a noisy breath and says, all at once, "That's what Dexter did. My brother. He killed people. Said he only killed other killers--vigilante justice--but we couldn't ID half the bodies we even managed to find, so."

Dean already knows. He'd looked her up, too. "You believe him?"

"I wanted to." She breathes out, a long sigh that takes most of the tension in her body with it. Dean watches her slump. "But even if I did, it wouldn't matter. Wouldn't make any difference."

He thinks about that--then, staring into the oncoming night, gives a slow shake of his head. "Guess not," he agrees.

*

Wrath Mine, a fifteen minute drive past Sulphur and another ten minutes' hike on a long-overgrown track, crouches in the dank forest like a waiting monster. Its entrance, ragged from collapse and shaggy with long grasses, opens into a half-submerged cave, its walls more dirt than rock; even with their flashlights, Dean and Debra almost miss it.

Standing at the threshold of the cave's mouth, her gun out but lowered, Deb shudders. "This place looks like a fucking dwarf mine from hell."

Dean tries to see deeper into the mine, past the dusty beam of his flashlight. "You're not wrong."

A long-ago cave-in barricaded most of the main tunnel with sandy dirt and rotting debris; they take a less-blocked passage veering off to the side, and find a flickering light--red-tinged, like torchlight--reaching out from around a narrow, sand-encrusted bend. They stop in their tracks, holding their breath; Dean turns to Deb, who gives him a wide-eyed, stone-serious look in return. As if reading each others' minds, they flick the safeties of their guns in tandem and turn back--

--and they're not alone.

The two figures standing in the light do nothing. They don't have to; Dean tries not to drop to his knees when he goes lightheaded and nauseous with recognition, while beside him, Deb jolts so violently he expects to hear snapping bones. "Jesus," she whispers, hoarse with rising hysteria, "oh sweet Jesus mother*fuck*--fucker--*Dean*--"

But he expected something like this. Breathing deeply, he swallows down the shock and bile, forces himself to watch the figures with professional detachment. When they remain motionless, their expressions blank, he keys down another notch; reaching out, he puts his hand on Deb's, pushes her gun down. "It's okay," he tells her when she turns to him, terrified. "They're apparitions. They can't do anything to us."

"Appar--" She stares at him, her mouth slack, then points her shaking hand at the taller of the figures, a slender, dark-haired man with an angular face and deep-set eyes. It looks back at her dumbly, a physical manifestation with nothing inside. "That's Ru--Brian. My--h-he tried to kill me. But he *died*. *Years* ago, he--"

"Deb. Debra, listen to me. Look at me." Dean takes her chin in his hand, turns her head away from the apparition, makes her look at him instead. "That's not him. It's not even his ghost; Harlow doesn't have access to enough power to raise spirits. It's like--it's like a mirage, okay? It can't hurt you."

She fixes her tear-filled eyes on his; he can feel her shaking, but after a long moment she fights back, forces herself back together, sucks in a quavering breath and pulls out of his grip. "Okay," she whispers, and then a little stronger, "Okay. You fuckin' told me so; you *did*, and I should've just--I should've listened. Okay." She takes another breath. "So. These--apparitions. Wh. Why are they--?"

Relieved to see her dealing, Dean focuses again on business. "My guess? Harlow put a spell on the entrance. Anybody gets close enough, someone they really don't wanna see shows up to scare 'em off."

"Cock*suck*." The act of cursing seems to snap her fully back to herself, Dean notices, amused; she turns to look at the apparitions, breathing hard, but facing them straight-on. "How the fuck do we get past them?"

"We don't." At her startled look, Dean musters up a small, ghoulish smile. "We walk right through 'em."

It takes her a second, but eventually she smiles back, brittle and manic. "Of course we goddamn do." Then, with a gesture to the one that wasn't intended for her, she adds, "Fair's fuckin' fair, though. You gotta tell me who yours is."

Dean's smile dies. Following her gesture, he looks at his apparition--dark hair, tired eyes, rumpled suit inside a ripped-up, bloodstained trench coat--and fights back a shudder. "He died because of me," he says, hating the sudden rasp in his throat. "I don't know his real name."

Deb wraps her hand around his wrist, squeezes 'til his bones scrape as they walk slowly forward. Dean holds onto the solid sensation of pain as the shade of Castiel's vessel evaporates around him.

*

Verne Harlow--older than Dean expected, with white hair and a face like somebody's grandpa--huddles against the far wall of a cavern a little bigger than Dean's motel room. Before him, the grotesquely stiffening body of a young man stains the ground with a still pool of blood; behind him, the wall is covered in sigils, brown-red and stark.

As Dean and Debra step cautiously into the light--and it is torchlight, real fire warm and suffocating, filling the old, motionless air with a thick smell of oils and herbs--she swings her gun up, training it on Harlow with only a hint of a waver.

Dean doesn't bother following suit. "Relax. He doesn't have a gun." Raising his voice, he adds, "Didn't think you'd need one, did you, Verne? Not here."

Deb doesn't look away from Harlow for even a second. "Yeah? Why not here?"

Dean shrugs. As they advance--slowly, waiting for Harlow to show some kind of resistance--he explains, "You heard what Ramsay said: this place has a reputation for bad mojo. That's because it's what we in the trade call a Devil's Gate: find the right key--say, burn the right ingredients, say the right words--" He nods at the body in front of Harlow and sees the old man wince. "--murder somebody with the right knife, all at exactly the right time--you can open a door into Hell itself. Let all the demons out to party."

Deb's expression goes hard, strain tugging at the corners of her eyes and mouth. "Was that--?"

"Our welcoming committee?" He shakes his head. "Nah. That's cheap tricks, barely half a step above stage glitter in Vegas. Other than that poor bastard's stomach, our buddy Verne here hasn't opened anything."

"It should have worked." Harlow's voice is low, hoarse. He gazes at them with utter despair, stopping them in their tracks; they watch him, wary. "It should have *worked*. I tried--I *did* everything. Everything that had to be done. I did it. I did...*everything*..."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Dean says, automatic mockery covering the way his gaze wants to stray to the body on the ground, the blood on the walls. "I'm sure you did everything just right." Harlow shudders, covers his mouth with his shaking hands. Dean frowns. "Hey. How long you been into magic, Verne?"

It earns him a glare, sparked with righteous indignation at his tone. Clenching his gnarled hands into fists, Harlow growls, "Longer than you've been alive, boy."

"Yeah?" Dean nods, focused wholly on Harlow. "That's a long time, 'cause I tell you, sometimes I feel like I've been alive forever." Making a decision, he holsters his gun, ignores Debra's warning hiss as he steps forward empty-handed. "You're done now. Whatever you knew, whatever you did, whatever you're used to--it's over. You've gotta know that already; otherwise, why'd you get so greedy, make so many sacrifices? And *people*? You had to know that was gonna get you noticed. Hell, why bother making the trip all the way here? Trying to open a Devil's Gate?" Harlow's face twists, anguished, and Dean breathes out, nodding. "You're desperate. This is your last ditch."

"Nothing worked." Dean's practically looming over him now, only the gutted body of Harlow's victim between them. Harlow, eyes welling up with tears, looks at him like he's the only one who'll ever understand. "I couldn't do anything. I couldn't *feel* anything. For *years*, I have felt. *Nothing*, and this--this was supposed to--"

"This was supposed to bring it all back. You poor, sick son of a bitch." Staring down into the old man's eyes, Dean does understand, and hates himself. "Verne. Nothing you can do is gonna bring it back."

Something in his face must give him away: Harlow's breath catches, an audible hitch in his throat. "You're him, aren't you? You're *Dean*," he whispers, pupils dilating like he's staring into a pit. Dean swallows convulsively, feeling suddenly trapped. Caught. "You could have stopped it. You--all you had to do was say no. You could--you could've *stopped* him--"

And he moves, his wiry old body quicker than Dean expects, one hand snaking out and pulling the knife from the body's gut with an obscene sucking noise, the other bracing against the wall to push him forward, right at Dean, face contorted in rage, mouth open in a wordless howl. Dean raises his arms too late, too slow to do anything but block, sees the blade flash bloody in the torchlight and waits to feel it slice into his meat and muscle and bone--

And then Debra's beside Harlow, landing a vicious kick on the back of his knee. He staggers, his cry turning to a wail of pain; the knife hits the ground and Deb kicks it out of reach. Still, he tries to lunge for it, but she presses the muzzle of her gun to the back of his neck and he stops, quivering and sobbing on all fours.

By the time Dean's able to breathe again, she's got Harlow in cuffs. As she pulls him to his feet--professional, efficient, not particularly gentle--she wonders bluntly, "Why the fuck do all these people know you?"

Dean stares at the blood on Harlow's hands, the useless symbols on the walls, the viscera spilled on the ground. "They don't."

*

They breathe deeply as they emerge from the mine, sucking in fresh air, starved for it. Holding onto Harlow with one hand, Deb pulls her cell phone from her pocket and dials, but hesitates before hitting send. "The crime scene guys aren't gonna see any apparitions, are they?" she asks, and Dean leaves her there, goes back inside, finds the conjuring runes and rubs a handful of dirt over them until the cavern entrance is empty and he's alone.

They put Harlow in the backseat--he sits like a broken marionette, carelessly, staring at nothing--then, neither of them wanting to share the car with him, lean on the hood together to wait for the police.

"That's what Sam did," Dean says after a while, distantly. Quietly. Still too loud. "My brother. He cut us off: no serious magic. No demons, no angels, no monsters, no gods."

Even though he can't see Debra's eyes, he knows she's watching him: her attention is heavy, practically tactile. "That's good, right? Put a stop to sickos like Harlow having more power than they need."

"Depends." He stares into the dark, wishing for something to see. "When did Harlow start killing people?"

"Earliest remains the cops found were almost five years old." He nods, his theory proved right, and knows the exact moment she draws the same conclusion: the car shifts as she startles. "Jesus Christ. Is that when--"

"Five years ago last May. Sammy said it was the only way to save us. The only way to win."

She breathes out, sounding a little shaky. "Was it?"

"Seemed so at the time." He clears his throat, looks down at the ground. Shakes his head. "Nah. Probably not."

*

Sulphur's quiet, sleeping, its streets barren. At the first motel they see, Deb says, "There," and Dean turns wordlessly into the parking lot.

"King bed," she tells the girl at the desk, and doesn't look at Dean as they walk the silent hall to a corner suite.

She drops her bag just inside the door, sheds her jacket, shrugs out of her holster and sets it on the dresser. As she crosses the room she toes off her shoes, leaving a trail of dirt and damp grass across the thin blue carpet. But when she draws up next to the bed, she stops--suddenly, as if hitting a wall--and turns to face Dean, who's still standing with his back to the door.

"We don't have to do anything, okay?" She says it with blunt force, but her voice betrays her, tremors a bit with strain. Her arms sway at her sides like she wants to cross them but won't let herself. "I didn't mean--I just. Fuck." She shakes her head, quick and tight, her body tensing like a winding wire, and then she's moving back towards him, long legs taking long, awkward strides. "Every time I think I know what kinds of shit people are capable of, some asshole goes and comes up with brand new shit just to prove what a goddamn moron I am." Stopping right in front of him, just outside his personal space, she looks him over, green eyes wide in her pale face, searching. "I was wrong about you, too," she says finally, and he can't tell if there's certainty in her voice, or just hope. "Your record, my gut. Wrong. But this time--this time that's okay, it's good that I was wrong. 'Cause you've been trying to help people."

He's too tired to reassure her--or contradict her, maybe. Whatever. Instead, he meets her gaze, just as blunt as she is. "I've done some shit, too."

It makes one corner of her mouth curve up, slow and sharp and humourless. "Yeah. Who hasn't." She takes a breath, then steps deliberately closer. "We don't have to do anything," she repeats, and now her voice is steady. "But, Dean. I fuckin' want to."

She licks her lips before she kisses him, keeps her mouth closed when she does. He has equal opportunity to pull her in or push her away; after a second, he licks open her mouth and lets himself taste her, the dried gloss on her lips, the coffee bitterness on her tongue. In return she presses against him, her whole body warm and thrumming through their clothes; Dean hadn't even realised he was cold. His hands go to her hips, his fingers slipping under the hem of her shirt to dig into her skin, pull her even closer.

The kiss deepens, intensifies, sends heat coiling through his whole body until he's hard and Deb's grinding against him through their jeans. Breaking the kiss, she leans in and grazes the skin under his ear with her teeth. "Fuck me," she murmurs, low and insistent. "Fuck me, fuck me--*fuck* me--"

Dean groans, rakes his hands into her hair and kisses her again, hard. Her hands go to his belt, tear at the buckle, then his fly; when she works her way under the elastic of his boxers and roughly palms his cock, he hisses against her mouth. "Jesus, Debra--"

"Come on," she breathes, stroking him with one hand while the other fumbles with her own zipper. When her fly's undone, he hooks his fingers into her belt loops, pulls down; she lets him go and bends to writhe out of her jeans and panties, then reaches into her nearby bag and pulls out a condom. As soon as she straightens up, he puts his hands on her again, pushes himself off the door, turns, pushes her against it; she tugs his jeans down just enough for him to get his dick out and the condom on, and then she's bracing her back against the door and spreading her legs.

She's not much shorter than him; he doesn't really have to lift her, but does anyway, feels those long legs wrap around his waist under his coat and pull him tight. She moans as he sinks into her cunt, hot and slick around him; her hands clutch at his shoulders as her hips roll with his, and he hooks his hands under her thighs and fucks her.

She clenches around him when she comes, her breath hot on his face as she cries out, her body arching hard against him. The sight of her--the feel of her--takes Dean to the edge; he pushes deep, ragged and mindless, and when her legs flex tight again around his hips he comes inside her, gasping.

*

They make it to the bed eventually. Debra strips down to pale stretches of freckled skin, the long angles of her body somehow softer when she's naked. Her eyes go huge when Dean pulls off his shirt; "Holy *fuck*," she says, her gaze roaming over scars and burns and tattoos before fixing on Castiel's handprint.

Dean can't help himself, and answers, "Pretty much, yeah."

They make each other come again with mouths and tongues and hands. Afterwards they roll away from each other, and fall asleep back-to-back.

It's barely morning when Dean wakes up, light filtering in grey and weak through the motel's filmy blinds. He knows Deb's awake by the little fidgeting motions he can feel through the mattress; knows as soon as she realises he's awake by the way they stop.

They lie together silently for a while. Until:

"Your brother. He still alive?"

"No." A rustle of blankets, a body shifting beneath. "Yours?"

"Yeah."

"You ever see him?"

A shrug, directed more to the empty spaces in the room than to the person who's there.

"Sometimes I wish I could."

A pause. "Yeah."


END.