The drive back was long.
Henry had his eyes closed somewhere around the state line, not quite asleep, mind drifting to what Dean had actually gone to retrieve.
A stolen object from John Winchester's old storage unit. He turned that over slowly, trying to place it.
Then it clicked.
Rabbit's foot.
He kept his eyes closed. If he was remembering right—and he was pretty sure he was—the thing was a genuine cursed object.
Touch it and your luck turned almost supernaturally good. Every break going your way, everything falling into place. Sounded useful until you factored in the other half. Lose it, and the luck flipped. Bad at first, then worse, then you were dead within days. No exceptions.
If Dean had touched it, that meant he currently had the luck of a man standing on a landmine.
Henry opened one eye and looked at Sam driving.
And then there was Bela Talbot—the "Thieving Cat," stealing cursed and supernatural objects and selling them to the highest bidder, the one who had hired the thugs in the first place to steal the rabbit's foot from the storage cell.
Henry closed his eye again.
Don't lose the rabbit's foot, Dean, he thought. We are already unlucky enough without adding a jinx to the team.
They pulled into the diner parking lot around mid-afternoon.
Sam was still finding a spot when Henry got out, pushed through the diner door, and stopped.
Dean was sitting in the corner booth exactly where he said he'd be.
Covered in noodle soup.
It was everywhere. His jacket, his shirt, his hair. A waitress was hovering over him with a stack of napkins, words pouring out of her in a continuous stream.
"I am so sorry, I don't know what happened, my hand just slipped, I've never done that before, I am so so sorry, let me get you more napkins, I can have the chef make you a fresh bowl, on the house, I am really so sorry—"
Dean sat very still in the way a man sits when he has accepted his situation but has not made peace with it.
Henry stood in the doorway and took it all in.
He smiled.
Dean's eyes cut straight to him across the diner.
Henry walked over and slid into the seat across from Dean, folding his hands on the table.
"So," Henry said. "Good trip?"
"Don't," Dean said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
The waitress was still going. "I can get you a towel, I am so sorry—"
Henry peeled his eyes away from her and looked back at Dean. "You lost it already didn't you."
Dean said nothing.
"We are so dead."
They stepped outside into the afternoon sun.
Sam took one look at Dean—soup stained jacket, two bandaged fingers, the expression of a man who had been through something—and his face did the thing it did when he already knew the answer but needed to hear it anyway.
"Dean," Sam said slowly. "You didn't lose it. Did you?"
"I didn't lose it," Dean said.
"Because Bobby was very clear that thing is extremely dangerous. You lose it, the bad luck kicks in and it will kill you. Within days." Sam gestured at the jacket. "You're already covered in soup."
"That was the waitress—"
"Dean you're a grown man, how do you lose something like that in under an hour—"
"I didn't lose it, Sam."
"Then where is it." Sam looked him over. "I'm looking, Dean. I don't see it. Where is the rabbit's foot?"
Dean shifted his weight slightly.
"I lent it," he said.
Sam stared at him.
"You lent it."
"Yeah."
"To who?"
Dean's jaw moved for a second without producing any words.
"I don't know. Happy now, Sammy?" he said, turning away.
He stepped forward—straight onto a bottle. It rolled under his foot, throwing him off balance. He stumbled, tried to catch himself, failed, and went down flat on his back.
Sam and Henry just stared.
Dean had never looked this pathetic.
"Not a word."
Sam already had his phone out.
It rang twice.
"Yeah."
"Bobby, it's Sam. We have a problem."
"What kind of problem?"
Sam looked at Dean. "Dean lost the rabbit's foot."
The silence on the other end lasted exactly one second.
"He WHAT."
Dean winced from three feet away. Henry could hear Bobby clearly without the phone being on speaker.
"How does that idjit manage to—does he not listen? Does anything I say go through that thick skull of his? I told him, Sam. I told him clear as day, you do not let that thing out of your hands—"
"I didn't mean to," Dean said loudly toward the phone.
"HE LOST IT." Bobby's voice went up a register. "That boy has got to be the biggest idjit I have ever had the displeasure of—does he not understand what happens now? The bad luck don't care, it's already started—"
"—and you tell that dunce that if he ends up dead behind a Laundromat in two days don't come crying to me because I warned him—"
"Bobby," Sam said. "How do we fix it?"
There was a long pause, the faint sound of pages turning on the other end.
"I'm looking into it," Bobby said, his voice settling into something more controlled. "Until then, keep that dumbass somewhere safe, you two track it down, and once you've got it, call me."
The line went dead, the irritation still clear in how quickly he hung up.
"So Dean, can you tell me who took it?" Sam said.
Dean shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know. It was crowded in there, could've been anyone."
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose.
"No need," Henry said.
Sam and Dean both looked at him. He was already at the back of the Impala, trunk popped, pulling out his laptop. He set it on the edge of the trunk and flipped it open, then reached back in and grabbed his ghost hacker specs, sliding them on.
*****
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