Chapter 11

"If you ever tell anyone I did this," Dean says, as he scrubs his face with a washcloth in a blue tiled bathroom. "I will kill you."

Sam stands in the open bathroom door, leans against the door jam. He's got an amused smile on his face, and he looks tired. "It worked, didn't it? Your face when that stewardess slipped you her number—"

"Her face when you grabbed my ass," Dean says, barely resisting the urge to stick out his tongue. "Don't forget our passports are real, Sammy. Same last name? Like that isn't going to ring any alarm bells?"

Sam's face falls, the smile melting away. "They'll assume we're married," Sam says.

"And I'm the one wearing the makeup," Dean says, wiping the last of it from his jawline. It was the only way to cover up the fact that he looks dead. "I'm not sure I like what that says about us."

It'll never not be weird, no, but when time is ticking away, people get used to letting things go. There's always a little bit of awkward, a little bit of fear, of the wrongness of the situation, in the back of Dean's mind, but there are some things you just accept.

"It doesn't say anything," Sam says. "Nothing has to say anything at all. We just are, Dean."

There's so much of him that wants to resist. There's no time for that anymore. He's approaching the three week mark, he's running out of time, and if this doesn't work, he's got to make the most of it. "Yeah," Dean says. The smile he gives Sam isn't even forced. "Yeah, we are."

---

Despite the time limit, Sam sleeps the day away. Jet lag isn't something they've spent much time dealing with, as hunters, so even long years of working on four hours a night doesn't help him.

They curl together, limbs entwined, in a bed far too comfortable and clean to belong to any motel anywhere in the world, and Dean watches Sam sleep until the room darkens and the sun slips away.

Then he wakes him gently, a fingertip tracing the edge of his lips, kisses that trail down the line of his bare shoulder. "The night awaits, Sammy," he whispers, and then grins as Sam opens his eyes.

Sam scrubs a hand over his face. "Why'd you let me sleep so long?" he asks.

"You needed it. I need you sharp. You're the brains of the operation."

Sam pulls himself up to a sitting position. He shakes his head. "Terence dropped his research, remember? We've got nothing to go on other than the stories, which are fiction, and even if they weren't, they're on record, common knowledge. Everyone else who ever came looking for the thing would have already looked in those places. We're here, but I've got no idea where to start."

"So we start with the stories," Dean says. "Joseph something or other brought it here, put his walking stick in the hill, and it sprouted, right?"

"Right."

"But what did he do with the cup?"

"He hid it beneath the well." Sam swings his legs over the edge of the bed, raises his arms high over his head as he stretches.

Dean tips his head to the side to admire the muscles moving in his brothers back. He scoots up behind him, puts his hands on Sam's shoulders, drops his lips to the back of Sam's neck. "So we just got to go get it," he says, lips moving softly over Sam's skin. "Let's go."

Sam drops his arms, rests them on his thighs. "You think it's going to be that simple, Dean?"

"It'd be nice if it was, for a change."

"Yeah." Sam sighs. "It's not a well like you're thinking. We're not going to lower a bucket and fish out the grail." He half turns to look Dean in the eye. "It's a spring, and there's evidence that it's been in use for at least the last two thousand years."

"That backs up the story," Dean says.

"Yeah. Dean, the water runs red. They say when Joseph put the grail there, it ran red with the blood of Christ."

Dean shrugs. Sam's probably getting at something, but it escapes Dean right now. "So?"

"So it might not be the grail we need at all, Dean. It could be the water."

"Magic water? How come none of those stories talk about magic water?"

"The stories are about the relic. Relics, holy relics, they were what people cared about. Now, though, it's believed that the water has healing properties. We should at least try it."

---

They're standing in the center of a winding lane, barely wide enough for a couple of cars if one sneaks up onto the grassed edge.

There's a low wall in front of them, running down one side of the lane. It's five courses high, made of rough stone, and maybe it's been there hundreds of years, maybe it's just meant to look that way. There's yellow moss in the mortar, green slime beneath the mouth of the lion's head. Water pours forth from the open mouth, splashes down onto a round stone beneath, stained red with iron.

"That's it?" Dean says.

Sam shrugs. "It comes from the well. It's the same water." He steps forward, flicking the stopper out of a flask usually used for holy water, and he holds it under the stream.

Dean waits until Sam steps back. Then he crouches, rocks on the balls of his feet as he reaches forward, hands cupped under the flow.

"Shit," he says. The water is warm, and Sam told him that already, but he's not prepared for the chill in his fingers to dissipate quite so quickly. "Jesus, Sammy. I could stay here all night."

"Better not," Sam says, as he looks toward a light that tells them there's a car winding it's way up the lane. "Drink up, Dean."

Dean brings his cupped hands to his lips, sucks it down. It tastes of nothing, but it warms him like coffee does as it goes down, and he'd sit here all night just for that.

The car comes around the corner and bathes them in light. Dean blinks and ducks his head until it passes. Then he stands up and wipes droplets from his lips. "I'm not holding my breath," he says. "If it was the magical fountain of whatever, it wouldn't be sitting out here in the open, would it?"

A gentle smile forms on Sam's lips. "Probably not, no." He puts his hand on Dean's upper arm, slides it around to his back, then guides him across the lane to where their rental is parked. "The well itself is better protected, maybe that's why. Maybe the source is where the real power is."

"So how to we get to it?"

Sam grins. "They open the gates during the day. We'll go check it out tomorrow."

Dean pushes him away from the drivers side—which feels like the passenger side, but whatever—because he still looks trashed. He should have let Sam sleep longer.

"Left side," Sam says, as Dean pulls out.

"There is no left side," Dean says. "No right, either. This road here? There's only middle."

---

As they wander down the main street, cobbled pavement under their feet, there are still lights on in some of the stores. Every second one is a new age business of some kind or another, one sells crystals, another books. "Check it out," he says. "They're really rocking the spiritual tourism thing. Have you ever seen any town with more new age stores?"

"Lily Dale," Sam says.

"True." Dean stops, staring at the lower part of a window as he passes a store entrance. "But how many of them had hunter's signs in the window?"

Sam frowns, then follows Dean's eyes. "Huh."

Dean jerks his head in the direction of the doorway. "What the hell, huh? Go see how they do it on this side of the pond?"

Sam shrugs and gives Dean his 'why not' face, and follows him inside.

This store is bigger than stores that cater to hunters back home, bigger than those they're used to. Dean wanders aisles of books, mostly new age religion stuff with glossy paperback covers. He makes his way to the counter, where Sam is idly turning a rotary stand of postcards, some showing the Tor, others the well, there's even one with the Lion's Head on it, the fountain Dean drank from just a short time ago.

There's a kid behind the counter. He's got a stud in his nose and his hair is dyed black. "Alright?" he says, lifting his chin in a greeting.

"Where do you keep the good stuff?" Dean says.

The kid shakes his head. "Sorry?"

"The real books," Dean says. His eyes scan the items inside the glass counter, settle on an ornamental dagger. "Is that real silver?"

"Yeah, it is," the kid says, reaching down and sliding out the drawer to retrieve it. His forehead is still furrowed, and he's got one eye still on Dean, though from time to time, his gaze flicks over to Sam.

"So you got any real knives in silver?" Dean grins.

The kid stops. His eyes are locked to Dean, stay on him even as he turns his head to the side. He looks quickly at Sam, then back to Dean. "What do you mean, real?"

Sam steps back from the postcard rack, bends, and taps the glass behind the door where several sigils are painted in black on the inside of the glass. There's a pentagram there, and the Aquarian star. "Where we come from," he says, "these mean you have what we're looking for."

The kid's eyes go very wide. "Mum," he yells.

The bead curtain that shuts off the back of the store rattles behind the counter. A woman appears. She's got hair to her waist, and she's wearing so much purple crushed velvet that Dean doesn't know where to let his eyes settle. "Upstairs, Tony."

The kid scuttles into the back, disappears. His mother comes out of the doorway, looks Sam up and down, then eyes Dean. "Is there something here?"

Sam steps up to the counter. "No ma'am. Not as far as we know, anyway. But we saw the signs." He points back at the window. "We didn't know there were hunters in England at all."

"I haven't seen one since I was a girl," the woman says. "And they were rare then. Not a lot of work for them anymore." She smiles. "My dad said they were too good at what they did. Wiped out all the nasties."

"Whoa," Dean says.

Sam steps forward. "Hang on. What about ghosts? You can't wipe out ghosts." He looks up at the high ceiling. "And you've got some really old buildings in this country. You've got to have ghosts."

"We let our ghosts be," she says. "I suggest you do, too."

"Whoa," Dean repeats. "No ganking ghosts in England, check."

"Check," Sam echoes.

The woman drags her eyes from Dean, lets her gaze settle on Sam. "Your friend is a ghost, you know that, right?"

Sam's eyes go wide, and his jaw drops. "Yeah. That's... That's kind of why we're here."

Her eyes flick back to Dean, then to Sam again. "Good luck," she says.