Chapter Text
“Dean? Are you awake?”
Sam Winchester listened closely to the familiar sound of his brother’s breathing. The heater of the motel room they were staying in while Dad worked a case had sputtered out, and no amount of kicking, punching, or dismantling and reassembling the thing had worked to fight off the chill in the air. It hadn’t been so bad during the day when the two had been able to play and wrestle. The night was different, though. Nighttime meant lying still in bed and letting the cold nip at you through your pajamas and blanket. It meant adding layers and layers of clothing and jackets to stay warm, and when even that wouldn’t work, it meant leaving your bed, the thin and scratchy motel blanket dragging on the ground as you carry it, and crawling into your brother’s warm arms and letting him tuck your head under his chin.
Dean’s breathing changed slightly, speeding from the deep and slow breaths of being near-asleep to ones that meant being alert to the world once more. “What is it, Sammy?”
Sam faltered. He shifted against his brother’s arms, feeling his ears start to go red with embarrassment, and mumbled something unintelligible.
“I don’t speak two-year-old.”
“‘M not two,” Sam said, still mumbling but louder this time. Sam shut his eyes and repeated his earlier remark. “I can’t sleep.”
Dean was silent. Sam would have thought he had fallen asleep, if not for the rhythm of his brother’s breathing beside him.
“Dean,” Sam groaned softly.
“Did you try counting sheep?”
“That’s what you always say,” Sam complained. “It never works.”
“Well, maybe this time it will.”
Squeezing his eyes even tighter to help him focus, Sam tried to do as Dean had asked, but all he could see was blackness. Sam shut his eyes so tight that it caused his face to twist and his nose to scrunch. And then Sam could see something. There were spots, some big and some small, some rust-coloured and some red or blue, dancing across his eyelids. Eagerness sparked through his veins, and Sam knew that if he just looked at the spots hard enough, they would twist and meld and blend into the fluffy wool of a sheep’s body, the bright sphere of the sun, the deep green of grass… but the second Sam tried to shift his focus directly onto the blobs of colour inside his head, they suddenly faded back to blackness. Sam flicked his pupils back and forth, trying to chase the spots of colour and turn them into sheep jumping over a fence, but they escaped his grasp every time, like the last piece of cereal in a bowl of milk swiftly floating away every time you tried to catch it with your spoon.
“It didn’t work.”
“That’s because you were barely at it for thirty seconds,” Dean retorted, tiredness putting an edge to his voice.
Sam opened his eyes. He tilted his head back to meet his brother’s gaze, even though the act untucked the thin motel blankets from around him and let more cold air slip through. “How long does it take to work?”
“I dunno, ten minutes? Something like that?”
“Okay,” Sam murmured before closing his eyes again. He focused as hard as he could, counting the seconds as they passed so he would know how long he had been waiting for the image to form in his mind, but there was still only blackness and mutlicoloured dots flitting behind the backs of his eyelids. He made it to a hundred and twelve seconds before he sighed, accepting that the sheep would not come and lure him into sleep, just like every other night he tried. He still didn’t understand why sheep of all things would send people into sleep, unless it had something to do with both of the words rhyming.
His lips parted with the need to tell Dean that it still wasn’t working. Dean knew lots of things, maybe this time Dean would finally tell him another way to fall asleep that didn’t involve sheep. But Dean spoke up before Sam could ask.
“You don’t have to be worried about the nightmares,” Dean said softly.
Sam froze. “I don’t have any.”
“Brothers don’t lie to each other,” Dean chastised. “I know you’ve been having them since we told you about monsters. But you don’t have to be afraid of them, Sammy, that’s why I’m here. I’ll keep you safe.”
Sam thought about how, ever since his brother had started hunting with Dad, Dean always lept out of bed when Dad came home late at night, even though Dean used to sleep so heavily that Sam would be able to sneak out of bed and watch cartoons without waking him. Sam didn’t get to bend the rules as much anymore because Dean was always keeping an eye on him. Sometimes Sam got annoyed with his brother because of all the smothering, but he knew Dean’s motivations were to keep him safe, and Dean had always been able to do it.
“I know, Dean.”
Sam shifted his weight from foot to foot, feeling awkward under the weight of his English teacher’s gaze. He really needed to get to the library before the librarian decided he wasn’t coming today; if he didn’t, Sam would be forced to spend his lunch period in the cafeteria. It would be loud in there and Sam wouldn’t have anywhere to sit.
“I don’t want to take up your time, so I’ll try to make this quick.”
The teacher pushed a small stack of papers stapled together toward him from across her desk. Right beside his name was the letter C marked in red ink, and Sam’s lips parted in surprise. “I got a C?”
Mrs. Kumpfmiller nodded, her eyes staring intently at his as though searching for something. “Do you know why?”
Sam shook his head. Frustration blossomed in his chest-- no one else in class had gotten their creative writing assignments back yet, and he hadn’t even gotten the chance to look over his, so how could he possibly know why? “Was there some mistake?” That was the only explanation that made sense.
“The point of this assignment was to explore the importance that setting has in works of literature, Mr. Winchester. Your work was extremely compelling.”
Sam fidgeted again, glancing down at his creative writing assignment. He had written about a boy who found a Kitsune alone in the woods. Her mother had died in the woods, and so had the boy’s mother. They were both afraid of following that same path, so they had decided to run away together to a small town where everyone knew each other, and everyone knew them, too. Knew they weren’t the kind of people who deserved to die alone in the woods, and that they wouldn’t leave anyone else to that fate, either.
“And the setting did hold an importance,” Mrs. Kumpfmiller admitted. “The woods represented the isolation and fear persistent in both characters’ lives, and the small town represented a new, hopeful beginning for the both of them. But one of the requirements for this assignment was to use imagery and diction to create a world that was immersive and realistic for the reader.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mrs. Kumpfmiller sighed. “It was too dialogue-heavy, and there was little to no acknowledgment of the setting other than quick, throw-away lines. Instead of telling the reader that your characters are in the woods, you needed to show the reader. Don’t tell the reader that the dark woods make your main character nervous. Tell the reader that twigs snapped sharply under the main character’s foot like brittle bones, that the shadows between trees writhed out of the corners of the character’s eyes, that the shriek of birds rang out like frightened screams. The dialogue was good, Mr. Winchester, but this assignment required you to invoke emotion with narration and imagery, and I’m afraid your paper was lacking.”
“I…” Sam faltered. Mrs. Kumpfmiller’s eyes were not unkind as she gazed at him, but he felt like he was being accused. He had thought he’d done well on that paper, especially because he had written about something that mattered to him. Wasn’t that what people said about writing good fiction? Use real-life experiences and write what you know? Except, somehow, he had failed in something he hadn’t known it was possible to fail in. “But people only ever skim over those kinds of details in books. I don’t get why I’d lose so many points over it.”
Mrs. Kumpfmiller’s brows lifted. “Samuel. People don’t skip over the narration like that. Not in my class, at least. I’d hardly understand the point of reading or writing if you didn’t let yourself become utterly immersed in the world the story takes place in.”
Sam felt his cheeks start to go red and he tried to shrug her off as casually as he could. “I always read the narration. But unless it’s talking about how the characters are feeling or it’s helping the plot along, I just skim it. It’s boring otherwise.” Why would he fill his writing assignment with boring bits that readers would just skip over anyway? He wasn’t sure why his teacher was even thinking about it; he certainly hadn’t.
“You’ll miss out on important foreshadowing if you read and write that way. If nothing else, I think you’d find the subject more interesting if you took the time to see all that the worlds being described in books have to offer in your head.”
Sam frowned as Mrs. Kumpfmiller handed him his assignment. He didn’t think reading was boring at all. He loved putting himself in characters’ shoes, trying to imagine all the emotions they felt as they made their journeys toward self-actualization and making their world a better place. He loved trying to guess where plots were going, loved that feeling of correctly predicting the direction the story would go, and of being completely blind-sided by plot twists that he should have seen coming. He loved that no matter where he was, whether he was at Bobby’s or in Dad’s car or stuck at a motel, he would always have books there if he had nothing, or no one, else in his corner. He didn’t think reading itself was boring at all, he just didn’t see the point in getting caught up in details of a setting that didn’t do anything at all for the reader. Why was that so hard to understand?
“I want to give you a second chance,” Mrs. Kumpfmiller said. “You’re a good kid, Mr. Winchester, and getting a C just isn’t like you.” The teacher hesitated, her eyes darkening and fingers tapping against her wooden desk as though fighting with herself about something. “Is everything… alright? Here at school, at home?”
Sam’s hand clenched in his jeans as he thought of Amy. He’d never see her again because he hadn’t gotten out of the woods. Hopefully, Amy might do so someday, even if it was without him. “Yeah.”
“If you ever need to talk,” Mrs. Kumpfmiller started, but Sam was already moving toward the door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kumpfmiller, but I don’t want to be late for lunch.”
“If you’re pretending to be asleep, you’re not doing a very good job.”
Sam’s eyes fluttered open as Jessica trailed a hand over his chest, successfully grabbing his attention.
She lifted a brow at him, almost invisible in the darkness, the corner of her mouth tugging upward in a playful smirk. “You get this cute little wrinkle in your nose when you’re concentrating hard on something, you know.”
Sam held back a sigh. He shifted under the blankets, wrapping one arm more firmly around Jess’ waist and grasping her hand with his free hand. “What are you doing up?”
“Is two in the morning not a completely rational time to be awake?”
“Generally, no.”
“Thinking about finals,” Jessica admitted. “You know I flunked my last semester test; I can’t let myself mess up again.”
“You got a B!” Sam chuckled. “That’s not ‘flunking.’”
“That’s not what my parents would say.”
Sam’s heart twinged at the sad frustration in her voice.
Jess pulled away enough to look him in the face; her long hair tickled where it slid across Sam’s bare shoulder. “Sorry. I know that today…”
“It’s okay. Not like I was that close to him.”
“He’s still your father,” Jess argued, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. “And it’s his birthday.”
He couldn’t hold back his sigh this time, the words ‘don’t come back’ ringing in his ears. They had both made their choices. It felt ridiculous to still be longing for things to be different, even though this was his second year in college and Dad clearly didn’t want the same. Or, if Dad did want things to be different, then he was still too prideful or obsessed with hunting to try to be an actual father, and if so, Sam didn’t want any part of that. Acknowledging that today was Dad’s birthday, that Dad existed at all… he didn’t understand why he couldn’t help himself. Why he was still bothered by it.
“Not that Dad was ever the birthday celebration type,” Sam grunted. That had almost never happened in Sam’s childhood, and the few times it did, it was because Bobby or Dean had set it up. Sam swallowed down the regret that tried to wriggle its way inside him at the reminder of how hard Dean had tried to keep their family together even when Dean was too young to be worrying about that, and how Sam had dashed all that when he left for college. Dean had made his choice, too. Two years and his older brother had never once tried to visit, and at this point, Sam wasn’t sure he wanted him to anymore.
“You know,” Sam continued quietly. “It’s been so long I can’t even picture his face anymore.”
“You don’t remember what your dad looks like,” Jess said, humming in sympathy.
Sam started as he realized he wasn’t sure if he had been referencing his dad or his brother. He couldn’t picture either of their faces, now that Sam thought about it. But Jessica was talking about his dad, and it was of course his father’s birthday, so Sam decided he might as well have been talking about John Winchester.
“I know what he looks like,” Sam corrected. “I know he had brown hair that he always kept trimmed short from his time in the military. I remember his stubble would grow long when he hadn’t shaved in a few days, remember how much he hated the way the stubble looked and felt and would complain about it every five minutes. I remember that his eyebrows would always lift when he smiled, that even after everything his smile always made me feel--”
Sam trailed off. He didn’t know. He didn’t know how to say that the smile of a man who would scream and throw things and look straight through him and abandon two children for months at a time with no explanation somehow made him feel safe and seen. That was crazy and it didn’t make sense.
“I know what my dad looks like. It’s not like I wouldn’t recognize him if you showed me a picture, but I just can’t see him in my head.”
Jess settled back against him. The angle forced her to stop running her fingers through his hair, but the hand Sam was still holding started rubbing comforting circles against his chest instead. “I get that. It’s been four years since I last saw my parents,” Jess said, and Sam winced internally at the reminder that she had been forced out of home because her career path goals differed from what her parents wanted. “And I try to picture them, but all I get is a blurred-out image of their faces. I know it feels like giving up, like failing them,” Jess turned her head toward him, her breaths puffing against his bare skin. “But you’re not failing anyone. It’s just what happens with time.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Except something about what Jess had said wasn’t right. Sam wasn’t seeing blurry images when he tried to think of Dad, he wasn’t seeing anything at all. Just the blackness behind his eyelids and nothing else. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen blurry images of their faces when he tried to imagine Dad or Dean. Had Sam really managed to forget more about the family he had grown up with in the span of two years than Jess had in the span of four? What the hell did that say about him?
...
Sam’s face was wet when he woke up.
The pages of the book he had been reading were soaked through.
He stretched, hands moving to rub the nape of his aching neck. He should have known better than to fall asleep sitting at a crappy motel table. Sam stared down at the books haphazardly lying on the table. The one he had fallen asleep on hard large gray splotches on the pages from where he had drooled. Gross.
He hadn’t had a dream about Jessica in a long time. At least, he hadn’t had a dream about her that wasn’t a nightmare in a long time. Lately, he had been dreaming about Lillith’s white eyes in Ruby’s vessel and Dean screaming and Dean’s blood and the pounding and skittering of invisible paws and claws.
Sam didn’t know how long it had been. Didn’t know how many books about Hell and the afterlife he had read or how many demons he had tried to make a deal with or how many times Bobby had called him before he had shattered the phone under his foot.
Every time Sam thought about those damned hellhounds, he could feel it. He could feel his throat going raw from how desperately he had begged Lillith to stop. He could feel his heart speeding up and leaping into his throat whenever he remembered how Dean had screamed, the same way he had felt when he had been right there listening to it. Every time he thought about it, Sam could feel the way everything had seemed to speed up and go into slow motion simultaneously, making reality bend into a meaningless jumble of powerlessness and the thick smell of blood and the pained, desperate screams as he watched his brother get torn to pieces. When you read books, the authors always described characters suffering through trauma and shock by saying they could see the traumatic event every time they closed their eyes. That wasn’t what this was. The only thing Sam could see when he closed his eyes was the strangely coloured spots behind his eyelids that he could never quite focus on. Although Sam was certain that every time he closed his eyes, those strangely coloured spots would look more and more like blood and the flash of Lillith’s powers when she tried to kill him.
Sam didn’t know why he wasn’t seeing Dean’s death every time he closed his eyes, but he knew that everyone responded to trauma differently. Maybe re-living all those emotions and physical sensations that he had felt when Dean died was just how his brain was processing everything.
Pushing all that aside, Sam leaned back toward the books on the table. He pushed the wet one aside so it could dry and dug into another book.
Sam found the polaroid in his wallet a few days later. His credit card had been declined when he went to purchase a room at another motel, and Sam had gone through his wallet looking for a backup one. Seeing the polaroid had almost taken his breath away, and Sam had quickly thrust the new credit card to the guy behind the counter and left for his motel room the second the guy had given him the key.
Sam slid down the door after closing it behind him, curling around the photograph with his knees pressed against his chest.
One of the victims he and Dean had rescued on a case a while back had been a photographer. Well, she had wanted to be, at least, and had forced him and Dean to reluctantly submit to having their pictures taken as a way of saying thanks. He had put this photograph of him and Dean inside his wallet and promptly forgotten about it until now.
Sam felt tears slide down his face looking at the photograph of Dean, happy and smiling and putting two fingers behind Sam’s head to mimic rabbit ears. He was grateful that his brain wasn’t constantly forcing him to see Dean’s face as he died, or how pale and lifeless Dean’s face had been when he and Bobby had buried him. That wasn’t how Sam wanted to remember his brother. He didn’t want either of those times to be the last version of Dean’s face that he would see.
A few hours later and Sam’s eyes were exhausted from staring at his laptop, searching the news for signs of demonic omens since he couldn’t make a deal with any crossroads demons. There hadn’t been this much nothing from demons since before Dean had first come to ask him to hunt, when Dad had disappeared and Jessica had…
Sam tried not to think about the blood dripping onto his face, about the way he had been annoyed and disgusted because he had thought a bug had landed on him. He tried not to think about how hot it had been when the flames started blazing on his ceiling.
Instead, Sam thought about the dream he had had a few nights ago, the memory of him and Jess talking about Dad’s birthday.
Letting his eyes slip closed, Sam tried to imagine Dean’s face. He squeezed his eyes so tightly closed that it hurt and he was starting to feel a headache coming on from concentrating so hard, but there was nothing. Sam let out a frustrated growl, jamming the heels of his palms into his eyes as he tried to focus harder. He knew what Dean looked like. He had light brown hair and freckles, bright green eyes with flecks of gold in them, he had a strong jawline, and had just barely noticeable stubble…
Sam knew all of that, but he couldn’t see Dean’s face in his head, even though he had been staring at that polaroid of Dean almost nonstop ever since he had found it. It seemed like the only thing he could do was list off facts about Dean’s appearance in his head, the same way one might list off facts about a historical battle for a school test. Sam tried to imagine Dean, tried to imagine Dad and Jess and Bobby and Amy Pond, even tried to imagine Mom based on the memory of the picture Dad and Dean had shown him sometimes.
Thinking about Dad, Sam felt the same mixture of fear and love and frustration that he had always felt for his dad was he in front of him. Thinking about Dean, Sam felt the same annoyance and love and devotion he felt when Dean was in front of him. He could feel those things, and Sam felt certain that if he just latched onto the feelings enough, that it would somehow make it so he could see their faces in his head.
But it didn’t work. Sometimes Sam thought he saw flashes, saw something that might have been something, but it was over so quick that Sam wasn’t sure if he had seen anything if he just wanted to see and his brain was playing tricks on him.
“Dean, you’ve only just come back from Hell,” Sam said. And wasn’t that a phrase he never thought he would be saying in his lifetime? “We don’t need to be doing hunts all the time.”
“I’m sorry, is it a crime to want a little slice of normalcy?” Dean’s eyes flicked over to Sam from across the motel table.
“No, but--”
“Would you rather be chasing dead ends trying to find out what gave me a get out of Hell free card when we could be helping people, putting actual good into the world?”
Sam scowled at the clipped tone. He wasn’t stupid; Sam could tell that Dean was hiding things from him-- Hell related things-- and that the back-to-back hunts they had been on were Dean’s way of pushing it all aside. He hated how Dean would find little ways to guilt-trip him into doing what he wanted, even when Sam was only worried about him. Dean had done it for as long as Sam could remember, but he was pretty sure it had only gotten worse since Dean had gotten back topside. “Dean, this is serious.”
“Yeah, and so am I. I’m the king of serious. You have any idea of what we’re dealing with yet?”
Biting back the desire to purposefully misinterpret Dean’s question so they could have an actual conversation about the lack of any goddamn mental health in this family, Sam pulled his laptop closer and scanned the screen.
This particular case had caught Sam’s attention yesterday when he had seen news about three people who had died under circumstances that the police wouldn’t give to the public. Dean had decided that, because it was on the way to Bobby’s house from the ghoul hunt they had completed, they might as well stop and check it out. They had arrived at this motel late last night, and when Sam had checked the news this morning, he had found more details had been released.
Sam raised a brow as he looked over the new details. “Apparently, the victims were found with their stomachs resting inside their mouths.”
“Are you messing with me?” Dean asked, his hand stalling in midair where he had been lifting a donut to his mouth.
“No.” Sam waited until Dean was chewing on his donut to continue. “And did I mention that feces was found all over the crime scene and in each victim’s stomachs?”
Dean choked. One hand ghosted up to his neck while the other threw the rest of his donut back onto his plate. “Dammit, Sam!”
Fighting back a smirk, Sam reached for his granola bar and took a bite. “What is it?”
“You can’t just say shit like that when a man’s eating,” Dean cursed, his nose wrinkling as he watched Sam nibble on his granola bar. “How can you even stand to be eating when you’re reading that crap?”
“No pun intended?”
His brother glared, and Sam laughed.
“I don’t know. I just don’t think about it too deeply.”
“You can’t just not think about it! That’s not how it works.”
“Isn’t it?” Sam tilted his head at his brother.
“No!” Huffing out a disbelieving breath, Dean pushed his donut even further away from himself. “I don’t get how you can be comfortable eating with the image of-- of that in your head.”
“I guess I’m not thinking about it like that.” Sam gave his brother a curious glance. Why would he be actively trying to see the physical crime scene or cadavers in his head? It seemed like a pretty stupid thing to do, considering they didn’t have all the facts, and they were going to go visit the actual morgue and the crime scenes later. Dean was definitely being overdramatic, in any case; it wasn’t like trying to picture things in your head was ever very effective.
“God damn you for making a donut seem unappetizing,” Dean muttered, pouting.
“Whatever, Dean.”
“So Michael wiped their memories?”
“Yeah,” Dean grunted, his voice hard. “So they won’t remember anything.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Sam said softly.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
Sam shifted his gaze away from the motel bed where Castiel had been lying unconscious, pale with blood staining the skin under his nose. “Mom used to say angels were watching over us, right? That’s been bothering me because she didn’t seem very religious; she didn’t even think angels existed. Even if it’s just a vague idea hanging in their subconsciouses, they must have remembered something.”
Dean studied him for a few seconds, green eyes flicking back and forth across Sam’s face. “So what? They didn’t remember the right things. Angels are dicks, not saviors, and we’re still here, Sam. Nothing’s changed.”
Sighing, Sam ran a hand through his hair. Maybe Dean was right. Still, it felt important that Mom had remembered angels, he just didn’t know how or why.
“I should have asked her to make meatloaf.”
Sam shot his brother a confused look. “What?”
“When J-- when Dad invited us to dinner after we first showed up. I should have asked her to make meatloaf. You’ve never even had it, but damn.”
Sam leaned back in his seat. Talking about Mom’s meatloaf would definitely be better than trying to process… well, everything. Failing to save their parents. Anna’s betrayal. His own death. Castiel’s comatose state.
“Was it really that good?”
“It was more than good.” Dean’s voice softened, a small smile tugging at his lips as he shook his head. “It was heaven, man. I can still taste the Worcestershire sauce and the seasoning, can still smell the scent of Mom’s meatloaf cooking in the oven…”
Sam chuckled and raised a brow at his brother. “Look who the nerdy one is now.”
Dean’s brow furrowed as he looked at Sam like he thought his brother was insane. “Are you calling me nerdy for liking meatloaf?”
“No,” Sam said. “You call me nerdy for reading a lot. Remembering how things taste and smell like that is just a book trope, something authors use to make people feel nostalgic. Clearly you’ve been reading a lot recently; it’s messing with your brain.”
Dean’s brow furrowed further. “What are you talking about? That’s not a book trope.”
Sam faltered, the smug feeling of getting one over on his brother fading. “Isn’t it? I can’t do it.”
Every time a character went on a nostalgia trip like that in a book, Sam always paused to think about his favorite meal and tried to taste it on his tongue or recall the way it smelled, but he was never able to. Was Dean really trying to tell him it wasn’t just some fictional trope?
Dean’s lips parted, but before he could say anything, Castiel started to cry out and thrash and they were both rushing to his side. He had been having nightmares on and off; apparently, forcing yourself to travel through the time vortex when you were low on power wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“Let’s lay off the time travel for a bit,” Dean muttered when they finally got Cas to calm down.
Sam snorted. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“Oh. Great. Another friggin tulpa.”
“Actually,” Castiel said, dragging his gaze from a few tables away in the library where he had been watching a kid stick crayons up his nose while his mother had her back turned. “It’s a dragpoi dubthab.”
Dean huffed, throwing down the records he had been sorting through. “Am I supposed to have any idea what that means?’
“Sam, Dean,” the angel paused. “Is it customary to insert objects into one’s nasal cavity? What purpose does it serve?”
“What are you--” Dean twisted around in his seat to follow Castiel’s gaze, looking over his shoulder and seeing what the child was doing. “Cas. Focus, please. What’s a drag-pooey whatsit?”
Cas started to answer, and Sam laughed when the angel faltered, suddenly distracted by the child’s mother frantically telling the child to put the crayons down as she reprimanded him.
“A dragpoit dubthab,” Sam corrected his brother. “It’s a variation of tulpa made specifically to harm someone.”
“Okay? Is it harder to kill than a normal tulpa or something?”
Sam opened his mouth to say it was about the same when Cas spoke up.
“In some ways, it’s easier. There’s a spell that can disrupt the intent of the creator and destroy the malicious thought-form.”
“If we never do a tulpa case again, it’ll be too soon,” Dean muttered, drumming his fingers against the table. “What’s this spell, then?”
“The spell should be simple enough to perform,” Castiel said. “Once you combine all of the ingredients and recount the Latin vocalization, all you need to do is imagine the dragpoit dubthab deteriorating within your mind’s eye.”
“Let’s do this spell and get it over with.” Dean stood from the library table. He started to walk away but paused to point a stern finger at Cas. “And I better not catch you trying to shove things up your nose.”
Sam snickered as Cas furrowed his brow in confusion.