Chapter 6. Continuation 1
She was going home.
- Sorry? - Sam just asked when we were going outside.
I shook my shoulders then. But in fact, I felt like all the things I'd lost in my life, all my regrets, came out to play a sad blues for me.
"Holiday Inn" isn't for people like us, so our unhappy trio is staying in a motel on the outskirts of town. It seems that even one star is too much for him. The facilities are on the floor here, but there's a sign saying, "No use, broken," and the porter explains that it's not too cold yet, you can go to the back yard to get some bushes.
Dean waving his palm:
- The hell with it. If I need to, - he looks at the eloquent view of the beer in his hands, "your counter will be a good toilet for me.
I'll take a bite as I walk past the dazed porter, for the first time in a long time without shuffling my legs: the brothers, as if apologizing for everything that happened so far, stopped by the shoe store. I picked up some great shoes there that looked like "Dr. Martins. The red ones. Seeing my choice, Sam laughed and pushed me in the shoulder:
- I had no doubt you'd find something like that!
I smiled sarcastically in response to that remark from my younger brother, but I watched the reaction of my older brother closely. Dean and only Dean were the ones I was drawn to. He didn't pay attention predictably, he just gave the salesman the amount he needed.
The room had three beds, a table, and a couple of stools - everything. Apparently, the third tenant is supposed to be sitting on a bunk that is closer to the table. I'm waiting for the brothers to choose their beds, and only then do I throw my coat at the rest, the one closest to the door. Dean's looking at me as a student - if he asks if I'm 21 years old, I'll finally say what I think of him. But Dean doesn't ask if he's throwing me a can of beer carelessly instead.
The conversation lazily revolves around Buffalo - as I thought the Winchesters were not the first time - then moves on to other cities they've visited, and I lose count. They could have worked as geography teachers, at least in the United States.
I barely participate in the conversation, almost falling asleep again, as evidenced by the fact that I hear Scott's voice behind a thin wall. But when it gets darker outside the window, which of course has no curtains on it, I raise my head and sleep in any eye. Looks like the Winchesters are going to go to bed. And that means that now is my last chance to ask what's going on.
- Will you tell me what all this means? - I'm interested, not really counting on the answer. - All these witches and your conversations...
They look at each other briefly and Dean, with a healthy shoulder, barely nods.
- Okay, - Sam says slowly.
I'm trying not to be surprised, but I guess I'm not good with my eyes curled up and my mouth open.
- We've thought about it before," Dean explains gently, and this softness makes me lose me. He shouldn't say that. He's prickly and nervous. He's a hard wall, like a wall through which you can't get through. But now it's like Dean is taking off his shell, and there's such a fragile man underneath that you're afraid to touch him like he might break. You want to stay away from him so you don't get hurt by your own spikes. And that's why I sigh with some relief when it comes to telling Sam.
***
It turns out that this story began 30 years ago, when the ancient evil killed one woman, and her sons had to devote themselves to fighting evil.
What the Winchesters tell us is unbelievable, it's impossible to imagine, and that's why I immediately believe in their story from the first word to the last. Sam is a small storyteller, he speaks sparingly, briefly, because there are a lot of events, and for him it is the whole life. But for some reason, his words immediately flare up in my brain with clear images.
I see a woman crucified on the ceiling, she looks down with her eyes not seeing, and her hair, contrary to all the laws of gravity, surrounds her head with a halo. I see two little boys clinginging to each other and their father looking powerlessly at how the burning house collapses and buries under himself all his past life, in which he was so happy. I see a car going from state to state and not staying anywhere long, because it is being watched by cold yellow eyes everywhere. I see a deadly weapon in the uncertain hands of a teenager and the first wounds that the Winchesters darn themselves while their teeth clench a piece of rag stuck in their mouths. And here comes the second woman crucified on the ceiling surrounded by flames. Ordinary witches and vampires, ghosts and werewolves in this story alternate with exotic strokes, vendigos, shapershifters.