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The bunker…well.
What to say about the bunker?
It was home, that’s the first thing any of them would have to say about it. Not that anyone in town was asking, or even knew that they lived in a bunker in the first place. For all anybody in town knew, they lived on the outskirts in some quaint old farmhouse. Something with faded curtains and moth-eaten sofas. No need to ask questions, so they didn’t; no questions meant no answers, which Sam and Dean were more than happy to not give. Nobody in town needed to know that at the end of each day, they went home to an underground bunker.
The bunker was a lot of things. First and foremost, it was the Men of Letters’ American headquarters, an archive of everything they had ever known, one of the greatest collections of occult knowledge under the sun. As legacies, Sam and Dean not only had a right to be there, but felt they had an obligation, as well. Their grandfather gave them that key, and they owed it to him – at the very least – to look after it.
But it was a little…weird. Even by their standards.
It wasn’t just the whole underground secret society thing. Wasn’t just the industrial kitchen and the map room and the stacks upon stacks of ancient occult texts. It wasn’t even what could be found in those texts. No. No, it was about how the bunker…well….
Construction was completed in the 1930s, and there were art deco touches throughout, but it felt much, much older. The Men of Letters were antiquarian occultists who must have had an affinity for a more Victorian style, for the Queen Anne, making for an eclectic mix of styles in a structure that seemed to breathe, even to bleed. Sometimes the concrete walls would grow damp, and in the areas that weren’t so well-lit, it was hard to tell what exactly it was they were damp with. Brackish water, maybe, or perhaps some growing moss. Probably something natural. Dean swears he saw green slime in the infirmary of all places. And it had only oozed blood the once.
The lights were all old oil lamps or candelabras, with a couple of candlelit chandeliers hanging in the crow’s nest and library. It was funny, because they turned on with a flick of a switch, but again – there was no point in asking questions. By nature, it meant that the bunker was a little darker, but the way the flicker of the flames caused the shadows to dance along the walls simply added character. Besides, the lights weren’t anywhere near as strange as some of the paintings. There were portraits of the old tenants, of their ancestors, of famed occultists and religious and intellectual figures (and a government-issued framed photograph of President Eisenhower hanging by the front door), and their eyes seemed to track every movement. (Yes, even Ike’s.) The landscapes were even more strange, not so much for their experimental use of color, but for the feeling that if you inspected them too closely, you might just get sucked in.
That isn’t all.
When Sam and Dean arrived in 2013, they quickly learned that the bunker’s ever-moving, ever-changing halls were home to more than just the books.
xXx
Mrs. Butters was the one who found Sam and Dean standing struck dumb in the library that first day. Mrs. Butters: the bunker’s doting household manager, a matronly wood nymph in tweed. The Men of Letters had once been her boys, but the bunker? Oh, the bunker was her home. And not just hers – she made it exceptionally clear to Sam and Dean that first day that she and her staff had been taking care of the bunker since the previous tenants had vacated it, and they weren’t going anywhere. She had of course been kind about it, but Sam and Dean would have been hard-pressed to contradict her.
“I have loved living and working here, and I love this bunker,” Mrs. Butters told them with a smile, the brightest thing in a room lit by flame. “And I want you boys to have a home to carry out your important work in. But you must understand – this bunker is many things, and if you want it to be as much a home for you as it is for us, you must respect it.”
“Us?” Sam repeated.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Butters said gravely. This is the first time Dean can remember hearing the bowels of the bunker seem to moan back in response. “Oh, boys – this bunker is teeming with more life than you could ever imagine.”
xXx
At night, sometimes, the crackling static of the old Edison Phonograph could be heard playing, or the Victrola. The bunker entertaining itself, perhaps. The witching hour was always the spookiest, when the strangest of strange things occurred. Hearing Bert Firman or the California Ramblers crooning through the dark wasn’t an odd occurrence, and it was one that Sam and Dean got used to, almost welcomed when it did happen. Dean would wake up in the morning whistling “Ain’t She Sweet”, and as he made coffee and chatted with Sam about a new case, the other tenants puttering about around them, all would seem right with the world.
xXx
It was their definition of normal, which was always a little different from everybody else’s, and they were okay with that. They wouldn’t trade it for the world. None of it.
But it did all take some getting used to.
xXx
The fun part, though, was that once Sam and Dean had gotten used to it, they got to watch everybody else grapple with it all. From Mrs. Butters to Epimetheus to Amenhotep to Magic Mirror, and not to mention the nature of the bunker in which new rooms would appear out of nowhere and the whole structure would seem to sigh from time to time, it all made for quite the learning curve for their guests.
xXx
There were rules. Mrs. Butters made sure they knew them from day one, and they were now posted in the kitchen, all typed up, and went a little somethin’ like this:
- Amenhotep is out of his sarcophagus more often than not. His original wrappings are long gone, so a constant stockpile of TP is necessary. (He thinks the toilet paper is funny. Don’t offer linens – he’ll just bitch. Just ask Sam.)
- If you rile up the monster heads too much, they’ll knock their jars off the shelf. No provoking. The skulls are pretty cool, but don’t be afraid to tell them to shut up if you have to. They’ve been known to keep people up at night.
- If you find yourself lost, the best thing to do is stay put. New rooms and hallways are constantly popping up, so send out a prayer or distress call – someone will find you.
- Magic Mirror can be summoned in any mirror, but he maintains the right to disappear if he gets fed up with your questions.
- Off #4, Magic Mirror’s original frame must never, EVER, be thrown out or destroyed. Throwing it out could risk him either moving locations or disappearing forever. Destroying it means he will DEFINITELY disappear.
- Epimetheus can and will throw shit if you piss him off. He’s real gentle, but you’ll know when to stay out of his way.
- Hilda makes a lot of noise. No, there’s nothing that can be done about it. No, do NOT suggest using WD40.
- ERNESTO CANNOT BE TAKEN OUT OF HIS CHEST. JUST LEAVE HIS HEAD IN THERE. YOU CAN OPEN THE CHEST, YOU CAN MOVE THE CHEST, BUT LEAVE HIS HEAD WHERE IT IS.
- Please do not use the séance room if you have no idea what you’re doing. Inviting spirits into this place is already tricky work without a seasoned psychic or medium at the helm.
- Yes, the furniture moves from time to time. Yes, certain pieces have even been known to talk. Don’t freak out, just have a conversation or let it take you where it’s going – a couch can get sick of staring at the same thing day after day.
- Don’t worry if the walls start to ooze – they do that every now and then. The bunker will take care of it itself, so no need to clean it up. But if you ever see them ooze blood, let someone know.
- No, we don’t know how we get electricity. No, we don’t know how the pool still looks so good. We don’t know how we get water or power or ANYTHING. We likely don’t have the answer to your questions. This is one of the few cases where ignorance truly is bliss.
xXx
“Samuel, dear, are you heading to the workroom?”
Sam stopped at the sound of Mrs. Butters’ voice. He had Ernesto’s chest in hand and was headed for the séance room. “Uh…no. Why?”
Mrs. Butters sighed. “Your brother has been in there all day, hasn’t come out once. Not once, Sam! I know he’s busy, but he’s so consumed with his work that he hasn’t eaten, and he needs to keep his blood sugar up. He gets cranky,” she added, and Sam rolled his lips to keep from smiling.
“I’m sorta headed in the opposite direction. Maybe have Epi check in on him.”
“Already down there. He’s been keeping guard at the door.”
Epimetheus had once been the Men of Letters’ doorman-slash-butler-slash-butt of the joke back in the day. He was named for Epimetheus, from Greek myth, brother of Prometheus. Where Prometheus was bright and ingenious, Epimetheus was foolish and slow. (Damn you, Mr. Ganem!) The half-giant had a clear attachment to Dean, sort of in the same way Jack did. Actually, now that Sam thought about it, Epi and Jack got along very well. The three of them were an odd trio, for sure, but Sam and Dean had always welcomed their fellow misfits with open arms. For the most part.
They had gotten better about it.
Sam twisted his mouth. “Well. If I’ve got time, I’ll go see what’s keeping him.”
“Thank you, dear. Make sure to stop by the kitchen first, I’ll have you take him a sandwich.”
With a nod, Sam kept on down the hallway and into the crow’s nest. The séance room was off the library, and the workroom was near the garage, so it really wasn’t on his way – and to be quite honest, Sam hadn’t even noticed that Dean had been holed up in there all day. His mind had been other places, on other things. The whole bunker was bustling today, and Sam knew the structure itself could sense the anticipation. One could always tell; the wicks in the oil lamps would burn more brightly, glowing a green, or a blue, or even gold. The paintings on the walls seemed to come alive, with the grasses of the landscapes swaying in the breeze and fair-skinned and flaxen-haired portraits of maidens anxiously braiding their hair. A new room might appear, or a new maze of corridors. But today, it was mostly a glow and an energy because Sam was able to cut through to the séance room on the same path he usually took without any unexpected detours.
The séance room was, as the other rooms were, windowless; dark without the candles sitting on the shelves and on the table. The candles were beautifully crafted, coming in various colors – deep purples and reds and ambers and inky blacks – with designs pressed into the wax, little flowers and flecks of gold leaf for decoration. Years of use had burned them down to varying heights, leaving them with waxy teardrops, but Sam lit them all every time. He needed each of them; every one of them was important to the process. Ernesto’s presence, as well, was important. It was all part of the ritual.
Amenhotep was already in there when Sam arrived, sitting in one of the plush chairs amongst the navy and eggplant velvet finery. The drapes hung on the wall were lined with gold cords, and the carpet beneath their feet looked like something from a traveling show. Sam set Ernesto’s chest on the credenza. “Hey, Hotep.”
“Samuel,” he greeted.
Hotep spoke with an accent, but years of exposure to the English language had made him fluent. Sam and Dean still weren’t certain how it was that the Men of Letters came to be in possession of Amenhotep and his sarcophagus, but they could only assume it had been through incredibly unethical means. Anyways, Hotep said he had decided that he liked it here (for whatever godforsaken reason) and had no plans to go back to Egypt – too hot, too dry, and no one around to kiss his feet anymore. The old pharaohs and their nobles such as Hotep were long gone.
“Samuel, do you ever think about…dressing up some for these occasions?”
Sam looked down at his clothes. He didn’t look any different than he usually did – jeans, button-up – but that was probably what Hotep was taking issue with. Which was rich, considering he walked around in lavender-scented Cottonelle. “Not really, no. I don’t really think the spirits care.”
“That’s what you think. But I suppose you and I have different ideas on the afterlife.”
“S’pose we do,” Sam said, and with the snap of a few locks he opened up Ernesto’s chest to reveal the floating head inside. “What do you think, Ernesto? Hotep says I’m not exactly the snappiest dresser.”
Ernesto pursed his golden lips. Sam wondered to himself where one would find gold lipstick, and as he did, he realized exactly what Ernesto’s answer would be. “Oh, Samuel, dear Samuel. Let’s just say your style is…very thrift store chic.”
“Figured,” Sam laughed. “Gonna bring the mojo tonight?”
Hotep eyed Sam carefully through the slit in his TP wrappings. He spared a glance to Ernesto, who bobbled his hanging head. The question was ridiculous, of course, but Sam always asked. A nervous habit, perhaps. So many of Sam’s mannerisms centered around his own skepticism of himself. Many of the bunker residents were hopeful he would one day just embrace, as dear old Dean would put it, his inner freak.
“I think the better question is, are you?” Hotep asked, a challenge in his voice.
Sam blinked once. Green eyes glowed in the dark and Ernesto and Hotep knew exactly what that meant. “Always do,” Sam answered softly, the uncertainty gone if just for a moment.
xXx
The green eyes had come about after a long while of training with Rowena and Ernesto, the three of them spending hours at a time in the séance room, time slipping past them. Rowena said it was good, that it meant Sam was embracing that side of him and his power was growing. She thought that the bunker was a perfect place for him to be, that he and the structure were feeding off each other’s energies. Dean was skeptical, as always, but told Sam it was the same green as Luke’s lightsaber and then went off to do maintenance on the conservatory that the bunker had revealed to them.
Sam saw the comparison for the olive branch that it was.
xXx
“Castiel, darling, can I borrow you for just a moment?”
Cas closed his eyes for a second and said a silent prayer. Hilda was sometimes a bit much for him to handle – he just couldn’t keep up with her energy. One of Castiel’s favorite saints had been Saint Hilda of Whitby, patron saint of learning, culture, and poetry. Kings had gone to her to seek counsel. Their Hilda liked to fancy herself a counsel of sorts, but of the more sordid kind. She was a horrible gossip, though the only people she had to gossip about were the other residents of the bunker and those she had known before she died.
Turning in the dark hall, Castiel saw the maid silhouetted in the black, light peeking through the gaps in her vertebrae and the bones of her arms and legs. The skimpy maid outfit covered her ribcage and pelvis, however, and Castiel wondered how she kept that hat pinned to her skull when she had no hair.
“How may I assist you, Hilda?”
She sashayed towards him, bones rattling and teeth chattering as she spoke. “We have to get the great room ready for company. And you’re so…buff. Help an old bag of bones out, would you?”
Cas almost couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth next. “I wouldn’t call you an ‘old bag of bones’, even though that is a very literal description of what you are,” he said, which Cas realized she would take as a flirtation.
If Hilda had eyelashes to bat, she would have. But she didn’t have eyelashes – or eyes, for that matter. “Make a girl blush, Castiel.”
“You can’t blush,” he reminded her. “You have no skin or blood.”
Hilda cackled and smacked his upper arm with her bony hand. “Oh, you are a treat. Anyways, you’re good at heavy lifting and almost none of the furniture in that room is sentient, so come and give me a hand.”
Castiel did as he was told. He wasn’t always so good at that, but it was hard to deny Hilda. They walked amiably side-by-side to the great room through halls that seemed electrified. Even on quieter days, the bunker emitted that electric energy that let its inhabitants know it was alive. The bunker knew what was happening tonight and knew company was coming. It always knew. It knew things sometimes before its inhabitants did, it seemed. The great room, for instance, only appeared when company was coming over. Granted, that was often these days, so it was a fairly permanent feature, but that was just the bunker trying to take care of those within.
After a few wrong turns, the duo arrived in the great room, which was really living up to its name today. The bunker had gone with a green color scheme, mostly emeralds and that toxic shade that the Victorians has simply loved to death. Cas thought he recalled that was what had killed Hilda: Scheele’s green, was it? It had been laced with arsenic but had been all the rage in the Victorian era. It had been in the dresses and wallpapers, and Hilda’s dead body apparently had green-tinted nails and eyes, her lips and patches of skin even dyed the same color as the walls of her home.
But this room was not laced with arsenic. It was just a good approximation of that particular shade. The bunker would never want to hurt them, and Hilda and Cas walked into the great room without a care.
As Hilda watched Cas singlehandedly pick up coffee tables and sofas as if they were feather-light, he asked her, “Have you seen Jack today?”
“Not yet. I’ve been so busy helping Mrs. Butters get ready for tonight that this is the first chance I’ve gotten to catch my breath.” She laughed. “Get it?”
“You don’t breathe,” Cas said. “Got it. So, you haven’t seen him?”
“Oh, my best guess is he’s in the portrait hall. You know how he likes to talk to them. And Magic Mirror hangs out in there a lot. You might try there.”
Cas nodded and set down the credenza. Hilda set a candelabra atop it and looked at Cas like she wanted to smile. They could somehow always tell even though she had no lips or eyes. It was something in the way she would tilt her head. “You’ve seen my portrait, haven’t you, Castiel?”
“Of course. It hangs in the portrait hall. It’s one of the few that doesn’t talk.”
Hilda crossed her bony arms over her chest, and Castiel suddenly took note of how awkwardly her uniform draped over her exposed ribs. “I was beautiful, wasn’t I?” She asked shyly, trying to make it sound as if she was sure of this fact, but she wasn’t quite selling it. “Before I became…this.”
She had been beautiful. Hilda had been a woman of great beauty. She really had looked lovely in that shade of green. And Castiel had no intention of lying to her. “You were, Hilda. However, beauty is – “
“Is only skin deep? Oh, Castiel, angel boy.” She straightened his tie, bone scratching against the cheap fabric. “Go find that son of yours. Our guest will be here soon.”
xXx
This was what Hilda was now, the remains of a woman of the British society, her bones enchanted and made to serve occult families for generations until the Men of Letters had gotten ahold of her.
Because that’s what the Men of Letters did before the massacre. That’s why they had brought them all here, to do housework and be ordered around. Hilda, Mrs. Butters, Epimetheus…they were to be studied and used.
But the Men of Letters had gotten their comeuppance, and things had changed.
xXx
“Show me again.”
Magic Mirror, his face an interchangeable mask of the comic and tragic, gave Jack a look he hoped would discourage. “Jack, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
Jack looked down at his Velcro shoes. “I know,” he mumbled miserably. “I can’t help it today, though. I just want to see her.”
Magic Mirror sighed and - one last time - disappeared from the golden frame and the black changed to show the Heaven of Jack’s mother. The boy looked up and once again saw the familiar scene of Kelly walking alongside a dog - Roosevelt, he remembered - through the countryside. She had been wearing a different dress lately, but it didn’t matter; she looked lovely in everything she wore. Jack’s heart ached watching her, longing for her to be with him and his father.
Or to be there, with her in Heaven.
The mirror went back to black, and Magic Mirror reappeared. “Do not ask me again,” he said kindly. “Just because I can show you other realms does not mean it is wise to spend so much time wishing to be in them.”
Jack already knew this, and he knew the mirror was no genie and wasn’t in the wish-granting business. He sighed and walked away from Magic Mirror and sat on one of the benches in the middle of the portrait hall. He thought about taking another crack at the book in his hand, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but he couldn’t focus right now.
The portrait hall had the highest ceiling in the entire bunker, so the residents all assumed that it must be at the deepest - or what they knew to be the deepest - point of the structure. The walls were covered floor-to-ceiling in living portraits, and Jack came here when he got lonely. The dead and the unreal made perfect company. They could get into heated debates, though, talking over each other and shouting well into the night about all sorts of things, and that’s when Dean would come down and yell at them all to shut up. But Jack loved their incessant chatter, and when he came to visit, all eyes were on him. He couldn’t deny that he enjoyed the attention, just as he enjoyed being doted on by Mrs. Butters. The bunker residents hadn’t cared that he and Cas and Sam were different, and that Dean was so…so comparatively normal.
Jack saw it as being privy to a secret. All of them had been brought to this bunker at different times for different reasons, and now that they were all here, all together, they could give the bunker what Jack suspected it had always wanted.
He studied the painting directly in front of him. A young boy and girl strolled through a forest, picking apples and splashing in the pond. Every now and then, the girl would look out at Jack from her Rococo entrapment and give him a smile, then beckon for him to join them inside their brightly colored, pastoral world. Jack wasn’t sure if that was even possible, but he couldn’t deny he wanted to try. Every time, he wanted to try.
But today more than ever.
Jack slowly rose from his seat on the tufted gallery bench and took awkward steps towards the painting. He was sure he could just reach in and -
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Looking up sharply to his left, Jack saw the portrait of Robert Winchester - Men of Letters and Sam and Dean’s great-great-great grandfather - staring back at him with small, dark eyes. The style of his portrait certainly didn’t help in making him look any kinder, what with the dark earth tones and Rembrandt lighting, but Jack had always gotten the impression that Robert Winchester may have been a great mind, but not a particularly friendly one.
“I just wanted to see if I could. An experiment,” Jack tacked on hurriedly. “All of the scientists and I were talking about the importance of experimentation as opposed to simple theorizing just the other day. You heard us.” Jack pointed at the grouping of portraits of the great scientists - Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, and others, many of whom were Men of Letters themselves. And it was true, Robert had heard their recent discussion, but he also knew a lie when he heard one.
“Of course,” Robert said, allowing for the lie. “You view art as an escape in the figurative sense - not a literal one.”
Jack didn’t know how to respond to that. Turns out, he didn’t have to.
“There you are.”
Jack turned and saw his father walking into the portrait hall, and hundreds of eyes turned to watch the angel, Robert Winchester’s included. “Cas,” Jack greeted. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s getting late, the séance will be starting soon. Sam wants as many people there as he can get, to concentrate the energies.” Cas glanced upwards. “Hello, Robert.”
“Castiel,” Robert drawled. “Your boy and I were just having a discussion on the finer points of art. Weren’t we, boy?”
While Castiel smiled at his son’s brightness, Jack felt more like sticking out his tongue at Robert Winchester. He was getting mocked by a painting - how pathetic was that?
“Yes. We were,” Jack said, hoping to keep his voice even enough so as not to arouse any suspicions from Cas. He looked to his father. “You know that Dean probably won’t be coming, don’t you?”
Cas shook his head slowly. It was news to him. “Why not? I thought he had mostly come around to Sam’s renewed abilities.”
“No, no, it’s…here, let me show you.” He led Cas back over to the gilded mirror on the opposite wall. “Magic Mirror? Show me Dean.”
Glad to not be asked to once again show the poor boy his dead mother, Magic Mirror revealed to the two where Dean was: in the workroom, with a blowtorch in hand and a mask pulled down over his face. But that was all they could really see through the flashes of fire.
“He’s working on something,” Jack said. “Something amazing.”
Before Cas could ask if Jack knew what exactly that amazing thing was, the lights began to flicker in earnest, and Epimetheus could be seen in the mirror leaving the workroom to perform his duty. Cas and Jack looked at each other through the dark, knowing this could mean only one thing:
Their guest had arrived.
xXx
Sam booked it to the crow’s nest and the front door, but he knew it was no use - Epimetheus always beat them to it. The half-giant was lumbering up the stairs as Sam came through the library, the metal clanging and shaking beneath his weight. He unlocked the steel door and found Mary Winchester standing on the other side in the cold, bright slush of February. It was a rare sunny day for the month, which contrasted quite nicely with the flickering dimness of the bunker. She smiled at the giant.
“Hello, Epimetheus,” she said warmly, and his lips curled into a small smile.
“Mary,” he greeted, taking her small hand in his, a man of few words.
Epimetheus had quite the soft spot for Mary Winchester. He loved her casserole. She had brought the ingredients to make it today, just for him.
xXx
They didn’t eat before séances anymore, not since the fifties, before the massacre. A man had come over to work with young psychic Oliver Pryce and Mrs. Butters had prepared a full three course meal before the séance…only for the man to get so spooked he got sick. Never again.
“Hi, Mom.”
Mary wrapped her arms around Sam and squeezed tight, hanging on just a moment longer than she usually would. The significance of the night was felt in that hug.
The pair sat down in the library, one of the most active rooms. At the moment, a few of the bookshelves were rearranging themselves, and Mary could feel the easy chair she was in just itching to change locations - one could always tell. “Where’s your brother?” Mary asked.
Sam shrugged. “Workroom? That’s what Mrs. Butters said, but that was hours ago.” Sam hoped the sandwich she had made Dean had gotten to him. That really had been hours ago, and Sam had been too busy cleansing and setting up the séance room to bother checking on him. What? Dean was a big boy. He could look after himself.
“I’ve heard he’s working on something,” one of the jarred heads said from across the room. “Very top-secret. A surprise.”
And then it winked. Those heads were cheeky bastards for sure.
The first time Mary had come to the bunker after being resurrected, she had felt herself go cold. Her father had told her stories of a secret supernatural society, but she had never believed it had been real, let alone that it looked like…this. And he had told her the rumors, too, about what had happened to them and that it was best to not go poking around. The Men of Letters themselves may have been pompous asses, real stuffed shirts, but the bunker itself…
The bunker was special. The beings within it were special. Those men didn’t know what they had.
“Well, that can’t be good,” Mary mused, and Sam cracked a smile. “Do you think he’ll come?”
Sam’s smile faded. “Maybe. I dunno. You know what he thinks about…well, about what I can do. No matter what he says.”
“I want to know, though,” Mary whispered. “I want to see.” Because he was hers. And she wanted to know everything about him. First tooth, first crush, first psychic vision, first séance. All of it. Sam seemed to appreciate that, and he grabbed her hand and squeezed.
Mary couldn’t be sure, but something about that touch felt electric. Like she could feel his power, dormant but surging.
I want to see what you can do, her mind whispered to the walls, and they whispered their reassurances back to her.
xXx
Making contact with the other side had gotten easier for Sam over the years, more controlled. On his terms. Pamela would have been proud. Probably would have loved the bunker, too. But since she was no longer with them, it was Rowena and Ernesto who had carried out most of Sam’s medium training. Rowena wanted nothing more than to make him, the once-boy king, her protégé; to educate the psychic wonder in all things witchcraft. Ernesto was more interested in his mediumship and getting him out of secondhand clothes, no matter how good for the environment Sam said it was.
“He’s such a gifted young man,” Mrs. Butters had said to Mary as they sat around the table waiting for the séance to begin. “Gifted, so gifted. One of our best.”
xXx
There was a long history of séances being held by the Men of Letters. Sam and Hotep added to the log after each session, Hotep helping Sam to recall details and fill in the gaps. Tonight would be no different, but the room was definitely a little cramped. Mary sat next to Sam, Hotep on his other side, Cas and Jack across from them, Hilda and Mrs. Butters filling in on the sides, and Ernesto watching over them all from his perch. Epimetheus stood guard at the door.
Sam stared at the empty seat across from him. He had saved it, just in case, but he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that Dean wouldn’t come. Dean could deal with skeleton maids, giant doormen, mummified Egyptian noblemen, and floating heads, but it didn’t matter that his eyes were the green of Luke’s lightsaber when he was keyed-in to the spirit world: Dean would always side-eye Sam for what he could do. Would always hide out in the workroom.
Some things never change.
Sam looked to his mother. At least she was here. She had once been the ghost that haunted them, but now she was here, solid, and just as strange as the rest of them. “You ready?”
Mary pursed her lips, wondering for a moment, but nodded. Your children are your children; you loved them. You learned about them and learned to love the things about them that you had always been taught was strange. Life in the bunker was bizarre anyway. Stood to reason that everyone in it would be a little peculiar, herself and her sons included.
“Alright,” Sam began calmly, taking a deep breath and focusing his energy to the center. He looked out at the sea of faces looking back at him, candlelight flickering across pale flesh and bone. Hilda was made for candlelight. “Let’s join hands.”
They did as they were told, bone reaching out to decay reaching out to flesh. Sam squeezed his mother’s hand one last time before closing his eyes and turning his focus to connecting with the dead.
“Spirits, we have gathered together tonight to commune with those who have passed over from this world to the next. Are there any souls here with us tonight?” He asked in the silence, and the group sat and watched and waited.
The candlelight flickered, and the room grew cool. Mary held her breath in anticipation. There were always spirits, somewhere, but she couldn’t get over her baby calling them into this place. And she could still feel that electricity coursing through Sam, stronger now. Could Hotep feel it? Could any of the rest of them feel it?
A few of the candles went out, and windowless drapes shuddered. Sam asked again, “Who is here with us?” Eyes still squeezed shut. “I know one of you has joined us…come forward…”
Mary heard a thumping and she wondered if it was her heart or maybe, finally -
The door crashed open, blowing out all the candles and shocking Sam out of his trance. The wind died down and candles relit themselves, as if the departing spirits didn’t want them to sit in the dark. In the backlit doorway stood Dean, appearing for the first time all day.
“You guys have to come see this,” he breathed, his perfectly white teeth suddenly the brightest thing in the room. His hair was sticking up all over the place and he brought with him the faint scent of smoke, and Mary thought to herself that her oldest probably had electricity of a different kind coursing through his veins.
Sam huffed angrily. “Dude.”
Epimetheus shuffled awkwardly behind a now embarrassed Dean and looked down at his feet. “I tried to stop him.”
xXx
“I promise you guys will forgive me when you see this. Tell ‘em, Epi.”
Epimetheus towered behind the group as they stood in front of the workroom door, and even though he was clearly upset with himself for failing to guard the door and stop Dean from busting up the séance, he still admitted, “It is quite impressive.”
Dean smiled at his brother. “See?”
Sam just glared.
“You do remember what we were doing, don’t you?” Cas whispered, amazed at his friend’s ability to be both compassionate and inconsiderate in equal turns.
“Huh?” Dean asked. “Oh - sure. Right. Sorry. It’s just - look, I forgot. I’ve sorta been off in my own little world today. But I promise, this’ll make up for it.”
Mary could have guessed that, but she had picked up that her eldest could get this way. She realized that she had been right to suspect that he had been avoiding them on purpose, that he wasn’t exactly keen to watch his brother commune with the other side, forgetting they both did that sort of thing all the time. It was just different when your brother was…well, gifted. The bunker had always welcomed those who had been touched by the supernatural, be they enchanted bones or nymphs or men with powers that lay long dormant. Yes, the bunker had always loved those with peculiar gifts, but not every inhabitant had always shared that sentiment.
The bunker was a very different place now than it had been seventy years ago. If Sam and Dean had never found it, had never introduced it to themselves and Castiel and Jack and revived a new, improved era of the Men of Letters, it would not be as alive as it was now. Not at ease. It would not be whole.
It would not have what it has now.
Dean looked out at the group with a giddy look in his eye, but Mrs. Butters put a hand on his arm. “Dean, you will have to make this up to them, you realize,” she whispered sternly.
He looked at the nymph sheepishly. “I think this’ll more than do that,” he winked, and he turned back to his flustered audience. “I found this guy a while ago, but he was in pretty bad shape after all this time. I wanted to fix him up before I introduced you. Well, most of you, anyway.”
Jack looked up and exchanged excited looks with Epimetheus. They had been in on the secret for a while, knew all about the work Dean had been doing, and couldn’t wait for everyone else to learn what he had been working on.
“I’ve chipped away at this for months but today…” Dean allowed himself a small smile, “well, see for yourselves.” With that, Dean turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.
In the workroom stood the body of a robotic man. Glass paneling revealed the inner workings, the gears and cogs that Dean had painstakingly replaced and cleaned and got into working order. The top of the mechanical wonder’s head was made of glass as well, and something that resembled an atom sparked and glowed within.
“Jack, would you do the honors?”
At Dean’s request, Jack rushed forward to stand beside the mechanical man. “Everyone, meet Jude, our newest resident.”
Jack flipped a switch, and Jude opened his eyes, a set of small bulbs. Dean glanced at his mother. “He picked it. The name. Guess I was listening to a little too much Beatles while I worked.”
Mary felt a sudden lump in her throat at that and had to swallow it down.
“Hello,” the robot greeted. He looked like a model B-9, something out of Lost in Space, and had a monotone, precise, mechanical voice. He had no mouth or screen that lit up to show the soundwaves of his voice, and he remained expressionless, an unmoving face eloquent in speech. “My name is Jude. I was discovered by the Men of Letters in 1957 after they recovered me from the home of inventor and consult to the Men of Letters Dr. Elias Livingston, their last acquisition before I was put in storage and forgotten. I have been dormant for sixty-two years until your mechanically minded friend restored me. It is a pleasure to meet you all.”
Sam was tempted to ask Jude if he knew three million languages, too, but bit his tongue. He wanted to be bitter but was finding it hard. Everyone in the bunker had their gifts: Sam was the psychic, Cas the angel, Hilda the flirt…and Dean, rebuilder of machines and men. And it made Sam love him so wholly in that moment that he almost forgot what he was angry about.
“I believe I would make a welcome addition to your party,” Jude added, making his case. He almost sounded nervous. “I was built to be a helper as well as a companion. Your friends have told me much as they have put me back together and I wish to make friends of you all and help you in your endeavors.”
Dean stood at Jude’s other shoulder, and he and Jack looked out at the gathering and made their silent plea, though there was really no need. Jude had made his case well.
“A mechanical man,” Hotep mused. “My gods.”
“Well?” Jack asked, hope in his tone. “Please say there’s room for him to stay. Jude and I want to learn checkers.”
Sam and Dean locked eyes. Somewhere in the bunker the bowels groaned as it expanded and made space. Mrs. Butters was so glad for the new addition that she looked near tears, and Epimetheus thought to himself that if Jack and Jude could learn checkers, maybe he and Jude could learn chess. Mary smiled at Cas, Hilda smoothed out her dress, and Cole Porter could be heard singing on the old Victrola in the great room.
“I think we have our answer,” Sam said, and the dome atop Jude’s head lit up yellow: happiness.
xXx
With a couple of post-dinner beers between them, Sam and Dean worked together side-by-side in the workroom. Jude needed some help getting his legs under him, and Dean was there to make readjustments on his mechanics as Sam stood by with the WD40. Sam wondered if maybe Jude would get a kick out of the collection of Baum’s works they had, and could already imagine Dean calling him the Tin Man. As soon as he was comfortable walking on his own, Sam was ready to give him the grand tour of the bunker Jude had been stored in these last several, lonely decades.
Sam was helping, too, because he still had a bone to pick with his big brother.
“When you interrupt like that, it’s so fucking jarring, man. Makes me nauseas.”
Dean sighed and hung his head, saying to his knees, “Sam, I don’t know how many times I have to apologize. I really did forget.”
How lucky for Dean, that he could just push these things to the back of his head.
“That’s convenient.”
Dean looked up with a sorry expression in his eyes, and Sam felt a pang of regret. “I mean it, Sammy. I know I…look, it’s always gonna be a little weird for me, to see what you can do. And I know I haven’t always had the greatest track record when it comes to this, but I’m trying, man. I don’t think you should stop, either. We’re all a little weird – even me. Psychic shit…that’s just your weird.”
Sam blinked hard and nodded his head. “You need to come next time, then. We’re gonna try again. Mom wants to see it. She wants to see what I can do.”
There was a moment there where Dean didn’t say anything, but then he whispered, “Alright.” And he said it with such soft conviction and promise that Sam knew he didn’t have to doubt him.
What Dean had failed to give Sam all those years ago was the acceptance that he so freely showed now. When Sam was wary about living in the bunker, it was Dean who had convinced him. Home was not a thing Sam had ever really had a sense of, but watching his brother pal around with a half-giant and praise the cooking of a wood nymph had reminded him: it had never been normal that Sam was looking for. It had been safe. While they had been in its care, the bunker had made sure they were safe. It had granted Sam’s wish.
And Sam and Dean had to pay back its kindness to the beings who had come to be there before them.
Dean stood and clapped Sam on the shoulder, moving to Jude’s other side so he could adjust a joint in his polished knee. “And god, I know what happens to those in this house who treat the people it cares about like shit. Don’t think I want to risk it.”
They laughed, but Jude’s dome turned a light grey to express his confusion. Sam thought it a nice touch that Dean had included that, a way to gauge the expressionless machine’s emotions. “I am afraid I do not understand,” his mechanical voice said, with perfect enunciation. “I was a late acquisition of the Men of Letters and am unfamiliar with this bunker and their organization. Did something happen to the men who acquired me? Mr. Bowen, maybe, or Mr. Ackers?”
The brothers both slowly straightened and looked at each other over Jude’s dome, fighting back smiles. Was it a little macabre of them to laugh at something like this?
Yeah. Yeah, it was. But it served ‘em right.
xXx
See, when the Men of Letters built the bunker, they did more than ward it. All that magic ended up giving it a mind, a heart of its own.
A heart that could break.
A heart that when it saw how the Men of Letters brought these beings into the bunker just to serve them – for Epimetheus just to open doors and be made a fool of by these so-called intellectuals; for Hilda to wait on them hand and foot and be painfully reminded of her lost beauty; for Mrs. Butters to be left to take charge and forced to torture and kill – broke. Bled.
But the bunker was not a being; it was a living structure. It could not scream out and tell those men to stop, to give the supernatural beings it housed the dignity they deserved. It could not argue at the head of the table, give an eloquent speech, make its case. So, it did the only thing it could do:
Mr. Markham was boiled to death in the shower.
Mr. Ackers was drowned in the pool.
Mr. Bowen was crushed by the walls.
And Mr. Ganem, for cruelty wrought by it, was choked by his own tongue.
One by one, the bunker swallowed them whole. Every single last man there on the night of August twelfth was made to pay. On that night in 1958, the Men of Letters’ blood decorated the walls for the first and last time.
.
..
…
..
.
“So, boys,” Mrs. Butters intoned pleasantly after finishing her tale, “we will welcome you with open arms – if you promise us something.”
From the flickering darkness emerged her compatriots these last fifty-five years, and Sam and Dean stared past Mrs. Butters with wide eyes and pounding hearts. The rattling of bones and the glow of long-dead eyes stared back at them.
“What’s that?” Dean asked, wary.
“You treat us with respect,” she said, kindness in her warning. “You give us the same respect we give you, and you will have a home here forever.”
Forever, huh?
After a moment of silent consideration, the brothers shot the wood nymph twin smiles and said in unison,
“Deal.”