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Yes, this is my 'Not Big-Bang' fic. I was late on the first deadline for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spn_j2_bigbang challenge, so i'm not there, i'm here! Yay! Heh. A lot of stuff is going up over there, though...
However, here, we have Sam/Dean and Seattle. This is Adult, so be warned.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkhavens was my excellent beta, and sweptawaybayou my cheerleader/first-reader extrordinaire. Thank you, thank you!
LJ won't let me post all at once, so it'll be in three parts, and i'll link 'em, just for convenience. Enjoy!
The title is from William Gibson's 'Count Zero' and the Latin used translates to 'Reveal yourself, in the name of God' and 'Let us proceed in peace, in the name of the Lord'. Spoilers through 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
For Sam, Seattle would always be the first city where he and Dean got a hotel room all to themselves. Of course, the reason they did was because the three of them got food poisoning at a steak house in Wenatchee and by the time they'd hit Seattle they'd had to pull over four times. Sam hadn't ever puked so much in his life.
They had stopped at the first motel they saw – a Motel 6 – and Dad had got two rooms. Dad had said he was too old to be that sick and share a bathroom. The cool factor of a separate room was totally lost on Sam and Dean for the next two days while they alternated between bathroom and beds. At one point, Dean had heroically gotten dressed and staggered to the vending machines for Sprite and crackers for all of them and then had flopped down face-first on his bed and hadn't moved for the next four hours.
"Hey Dean, remember the first time we got our own room?"
Dean laughed out loud – pointed at the Motel 6 they were just passing, making a throat-cutting gesture with his hand. A clear 'Hell yes, and we will never stay at a Motel 6 again.'
Sam laughed, too – reached behind his head with both hands and stretched as hard as he could, grimacing at the stiffness in his knees and neck. It was just past midnight, and they'd been on the road since dawn. "Here's our exit," he said, and Dean shifted the car easily across the lanes, sending them into downtown Seattle. Somewhere in the warren of streets near Pratt Park was a hotel they could afford that was close to their latest job. The trick would be to find it.
Half an hour later, they parked in front of the Union Hotel, a five-story grey building with a tattered green awning. A lighted, lettered sign in the window boasted of a 'Con-in-ntal B-ea-fast'.
"I wonder if it's the Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes kind or the stale doughnuts and bad coffee kind?" Sam said. Dean squinted out through the drizzle on the windshield, the red neon of the motel sign washing across his face like a tide of blood and Sam shuddered. "I'll just – get the room," he muttered, his good mood souring. He climbed out stiffly and pulled out his wallet, checking to be sure he had a valid credit card inside. Dean was rooting around in the floorboards, wadding up trash and shoving it all into a grease-stained fast food bag, a little frown on his face. He was unhappy about parking on the street, but it couldn't be helped. Sam took a deep lungful of the cool, wet air and went inside.
The room had dark paneling and shaggy brown-orange carpet but the towels were new and clean and the mattresses firm, so Sam counted it as a win. Dean tossed his duffel onto the closest bed and then flopped down, stretching hard. Sam shed the laptop and his own bag to the round table by the door and rubbed his hand back through his hair, trying not to stare at Dean but he couldn't help it.
*Six days...* Dean was heeling off his boots – yanking at his socks – and Sam shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair. "You wanna shower? I'm gonna get a soda or something."
Dean contemplated for a moment and then shrugged – nodded. Got up and dug a fistful of change out of his pocket and picked out the quarters, holding them out to Sam. Dean's palm was callused – the pads of his fingers were – and there was a permanent black line across the heel of his palm where a piece of charred wood had sunk deep, leaving the soot behind like a primitive tattoo.
"Something in glowstick green?" Sam asked. Dean grinned and did a little fake punch to Sam's chin and Sam grinned back. Waited a beat but Dean was turning away, taking off his own jacket – digging for his toiletries bag. Going into the bathroom and Sam sighed. Six days of silence. Six days of one-sided conversation that Dean either acknowledged with his own peculiar physical short-hand or ignored. Six days of Sam wondering if this was the day, making hopeful remarks about the most inane things. The marks of Sam's knuckles just now fading from Dean's face, the bullet wound in Dean's shoulder sore and swollen still because Dean refused to let Sam drive. Six days, and even though it had happened before, Sam hated it. He took a long breath, eyes closed. Shoved the guilt and the rage down somewhere...else; opened his eyes when he didn't feel quite so much like putting his own bruised fist through the wall. He put the quarters into his pocket, grabbed the room key and went to find a vending machine.
When Sam got back, he kicked his sneakers off and got comfortable on the bed closest to the bathroom – popped open his soda, tore open his cheese and peanut butter crackers and clicked on the TV. About ten minutes later Dean emerged, trailing wisps of steam. Scrubbing a towel through his hair but otherwise naked. His tattoos wound like snakes from wrists to shoulders to mid-back to floating ribs, stark black against his pale-tan skin. Sumerian cuneiforms and Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient blessings in Hebrew and Arabic and Old Norse; pentacles and crosses and Buddhist swastikas. There were even a sprinkling of kanji and katakana, all tied together by swooping, ragged lines that looked like what you got when the paint brush was running out of paint. To Sam, the lines were wind, or the invisible tracks of bird flight given form.
Dean pulled on a pair of jeans so worn they were practically see-through, pale grey-blue and ragged with chewed-looking holes. Sam was pretty sure he'd had them since high school.
"I got you the Chester Cheetah kind," Sam said, holding up another packet of crackers. "Cheese and bacon." The thought alone of them with Mello Yello made Sam cringe.
Dean grinned, his eyes lighting up, and sauntered over to grab his after-dinner snack out of Sam's hand. "Must be my lucky day," he said, voice a little hoarse. And just like that, Dean was back.
"Man, I hate that kind of job," Dean muttered, scraping mud off his boots with a stick. Flexing sore muscles and grimacing at the squishy feeling between his fingers. The knees of his jeans drying stiff, caustic stink of burnt bone in his nostrils. Next to him, Sam finished cleaning the blade of the shovel and stood up to his full height, stretching. His back popped audibly and they both winced.
"Kids are no fun," Sam agreed. He had mud on both hands and a streak of it smeared across his nose and cheekbone. Some in his hair, matted in with dead grass and a leaf and Dean reached out and plucked the debris free.
"Damn straight." Ten year old boy in a wreck of a home, overlooked by social services and murdered by his drunken mother and her boyfriend. His spirit lashing out at any young couple, his own tormentors years gone. "Too bad it didn't get the right people."
"Yeah." Sam rubbed his face in the crook of his jacketed arm – squinted up at the sky. For the third night in a row, it was drizzling.
Seattle in the spring-time kind of sucked. Dean blinked rain out of his eyes. "I need a beer. Ooh, and some wings."
"You had wings for dinner last night," Sam objected mildly, swinging the shovel onto his shoulder and rubbing his hand down his thigh, trying to scrub some of the drying mud off.
Dean just grinned, zipping up the hold-all and hefting it. "Yeah, and they were good. You can get fried mushrooms," he added, inspiration. Mushrooms were vegetables, right?
"We're all muddy."
"We'll say we had a flat." Dean marched off in the direction of the car, listening. A moment later he heard Sam give a gusty little laugh and then he was falling into step beside Dean, waft of raw earth and apple shampoo. Leaving the churned dirt of the grave behind, Jeremy Christopher Udall, safe in Christ's arms. It would have been better, Dean thought, if the kid's safety hadn't depended on being dead.
Once they got back out to the street, Dean spent another few minutes stomping mud out of the tread of his boots and trying to brush it off his jeans. Amazing how dirty he'd got, even though Sam had insisted on digging the bones up himself, like some kind of twisted penance. So damn obvious in the jerky snatch of the shovel from Dean's hands – in the way Sam let his hair fall down across his eyes, hiding them. 'You'll just fuck your shoulder up worse,' mumbled in a surly tone that didn't disguise the sorrow.
Dean didn't know how to tell Sam he was already forgiven – couldn't get the words past his lips. Sam thought those six days had been about anger and punishment, but Dean knew different. They'd been six days of relief and joy and thank god, thank god, thank god, got you back, Sam, got you back... Six days of struggling to push it all back – lock it all up.
So he let Sam dig the grave and buy him crappy junk food and make up to him in ways pointless and a little sad, because there was nothing to make up for – nothing to be sorry for. Ever. And Dean hated that Sam didn't know that. Dean hated that he couldn't say it without twenty-odd years of horror and panic, desperation and longing and need coming tumbling right out with it.
*You're here, and I am and we're both okay. All that matters, Sammy. All that matters.*
Sam got the shovel stowed in the trunk – slapped at his own filthy shirt and zipped his jacket half-way to hide the smears. "Not like I look like a serial killer or anything," Sam muttered, and Dean laughed.
"Nah. More like the Unabomber."
"Ha ha." Sam folded himself into the car and Dean climbed in after, rain trickling down his collar. The solid, familiar rumble of the engine turning over made him feel ridiculously happy and he snapped on the radio and drove out of the cemetery grinning, ignoring Sam's puzzled look. Singing along to Alice Cooper just to annoy his living, unpossessed, safe, safe, safe little brother.
'Hey hey hey... Me and G.B. we ain't never gonna confess...we cheated at the math test...we carved some dirty words in our desk...well now it's time for recess...'
The wings were just as good the second time and the beer was nicely chilled and all in all, it was the perfect way to relax after a fairly grisly hunt. The jukebox wasn't even too annoying, mixing in Santana and the Stones and Joan Jett with newer stuff Dean didn't really recognize. He leaned against the rough-paneled wall behind him, feet hooked through the rungs of his stool. Feeling pleasantly buzzed and tired and horny. Watching the crowd – watching Sam.
Sam was standing patiently, waiting for their order. Exchanging what looked like pleasantries with a tallish, curvy girl in low-rise jeans and stripper-hair: dark underneath, blonde on top. She was bouncy, bubbly and right up in Sam's personal space and Dean watched with a grin as Sam shifted away from her and was caught against the bar. He shot a look of pure desperation over his shoulder to Dean and Dean just laughed out loud, lifting a wing in salute and tearing off a chunk. Sam gave him the 'I will kill you' look of doom and Dean started licking his fingers clean. Scanning the rest of the bar and finding his gaze coming to rest, again, on a guy sitting in the furthest, darkest corner. The corner where the drunks sat, because you could lean into the angle of the bar and the wall and not hit the spill-sticky floor once your coordination was shot.
The guy that was hunched there looked less drunk than flat-out exhausted. Pale, skinny, his eyes shadowed by dark smudges and his hands – in ratty-looking fingerless gloves – shaking as he lit a cigarette. Dean wasn't sure why he kept looking over at the guy. The sudden flare of his lighter had attracted Dean's glance the first time, and he'd found himself looking back again and again. Occasionally there was somebody standing behind the guy, somebody almost completely in shadow. Weird shadow where maybe...there shouldn't be.
Dean frowned – scrubbed his fingers and mouth on a napkin and tipped the last of his beer into his mouth. Something...wasn't quite right. He had a good gut instinct – always had – and it had only gotten more sensitive with his two *Jesus, two* brushes with death. And his gut was telling him that something was off with that guy.
Sam finally arrived with two more beers and the second order of wings. And fried mushrooms and onion rings and Dean reached over for a ring, jerking his hand away when Sam slapped his knuckles.
"Hey!"
"Onions are vegetables, Dean. You don't do vegetables, remember?"
"I do when they're deep-fried," Dean said, faking left and snagging two rings.
"I'll remember that the next time there's fried okra on the menu." Sam unscrewed the lid on the ketchup bottle and upended it over the rings, slapping the bottom of the bottle to get the stuff out.
"Man, okra isn't a vegetable, it's some kind of demonic...substance." Sam glanced up from his ketchup wrangling, grinning, and Dean took a sip of his new beer. "Okay, guy over at the corner of the bar. Does he seem...weird? To you?"
Sam dripped ketchup over a couple of the rings and then glanced over. Looked again a moment later, frowning. "Is there – I thought I saw two people over there."
"Me, too."
Sam sighed and the bottle burped out a huge glop of ketchup. Dean rescued a drowning ring and crunched it in half. "So... Maybe somebody died here in a fight or something? Town drunk passed on right there?"
"Maybe." Sam finally put the bottle down and snatched a wing from Dean's plate. "We'll check it out tomorrow."
"Tomorrow!" Dean barked, fighting the grin that threatened. "What d'you think this is, vacation?"
"I think it's foreplay," Sam said, and licked barbeque sauce off his thumb with a slow lap of curling tongue.
Dean let his grin morph into something a little less gleeful and a little more 'gonna have that'. "Guess you are the brains of this outfit."
"You know it. Um –" Sam gave Dean a mock-quizzical look from under his bangs. "And – what are you, again?"
Dean kicked him under the table. But not hard, because he had his steel toed boots on. "I'm the coolest big brother in the history of ever, Sam-I-am, and don't you forget it."
The dryer was making this fucked-up squealing sound. The belt inside was loose or something and it wasn't stopping and it was putting Sam's teeth on edge. But he'd fed his last three quarters into that dryer and didn't feel like getting more change since the change machine in the laundromat was broken and the closest place to get change was the gas station down the street. And it was raining. Again.
*Rain sucks,* Sam thought, aware that he was sulking. Not particularly caring, because Dean wasn't there to see him sulk and make fun of him. Dean was back at the hotel cleaning every weapon they had and overhauling the contents of the trunk, muttering darkly about damp and clumping and rust. Like one particle of oxidation would dare bloom across Dean Winchester's perfectly kept, perfectly oiled weapons. Sam grinned to himself at the mental image of rust sheepishly detaching itself from the barrel of Dean's .45 and sidling away.
Twenty more minutes on the dryer. Sam got up and stretched – strolled slowly around the perimeter of the Duds'n'Suds, lingering in front of the corkboard by the door. Checking out the 'for sale' notices: somebody had Rottweiler/Shepherd pups; somebody else had a cockatiel they didn't want anymore. Sam flipped through a few 'car for sale' pages, squinting at the smudgy print-outs of battered Hondas and rust-bucket Pontiacs. The dryer's squeal stuttered and then came back even stronger and Sam reached up to rub his forehead. No wonder the place was deserted.
Clothes finally dry and clean, Sam shoved everything into the duffel and shouldered it – zipped his jacket up and headed out. Three blocks to the hotel, and hopefully Dean would be done being OCD guy by the time Sam got back. As he trudged up the street, there was a strangled sound of pain off to his right. Up in the shadows between two tall buildings.
*Dark alley. How convenient,* Sam thought, hesitating. It could be a stray dog, mating raccoons, a dying pigeon. Hell, it could be about anything in a city, but Sam was pretty sure the noise was human. With a tiny sigh he propped the duffel against the alley wall and took out his flashlight. Five steps in, the fuzzy beam of rain-diffused light found something. A man, crouched down over another, a bulky coat hiding his upper body. His fingers were at his lips, as if he were eating, and he stared straight at Sam, eyes squinted against the flashlight beam. As soon as their gazes met, Sam felt the blood drain from his face. It made his lips feel cold. He knew this man, and something... Something was...off, something was wrong, pressure and hum... This man was – he was...
Five minutes later, feeling in his pocket for the room key, Sam froze. Stood there, staring at the lopsided 14 on the peeling varnish of the door. *What the hell...?* He shoved the key into the lock and got the door open – slammed it shut, hurrying across the room to Dean, who was sprawled on the bed, remote in hand. "Dean, man, something weird just happened."
"I've told you over and over, Sammy, there's no such thing as a Sock Monster in the dryer."
"Shut up." Sam dropped the duffel on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching down to work off his soaked sneakers as he talked. "I was coming back here and I heard this noise, up this alley and there was a man..."
"Tell me you remembered our 'Stranger Danger' talk," Dean said in his best 'my poor, slow brother' voice.
Sam huffed, exasperated. "It was that guy from the bar. You know, with the weird shadow?" Dean nodded, looking serious now. "I recognized him and then...I was here. About to open the door. It was like he just...erased himself or something. Made me forget about him."
Dean frowned and scooted higher on the bed, bunching a pillow behind him. He clicked the TV off and tossed the remote down. "What, you think he whammied you or something? Pulled an Andy?"
"I don't... You knew Andy did it after, right? I mean – you remembered?"
"Yeah. Could'a strangled him."
Sam rubbed his head again, willing the tension away. "It wasn't like that, it was like... Like he just didn't want me to notice him anymore or something."
"Huh."
"Yeah." Sam kicked his sneakers away and pushed his hand back through his damp hair. Peeled off his wet socks and tossed them toward a corner. The room - Dean - smelled warmly of gun oil and microwave popcorn and shampoo, Dean's wet towels haphazardly draped over a chair-back, a brace of knives and Dean's .45 scattered across the dresser top. It all seemed so damn normal and Sam sighed. "I dunno, maybe I'm just...imagining it."
"Maybe." Dean hitched himself sideways, making room, and Sam climbed wearily up beside him – leaned back against the padded headboard. "Or, maybe this guy's not human. Or he's got...powers. Either way, seeing him twice, city this size? Gotta mean something."
"Yeah. Yeah, maybe." Sam slumped lower, getting comfortable. Dean leaned over and retrieved the remote and turned the TV back on and Sam finally gave in and curled on his side, pillow squished under his head and his arm over Dean's thighs. After a minute Dean's hand swept lightly over his hair, tangling and gently tugging, and Sam closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Pike Place Market was too touristy for Dean – hell, for anybody with a grain of sense in their head – but there they were, idling along. Breathing in lungfuls of fish smell and ocean smell and exhaust. Hoping to run across that guy again, since a day's worth of combing newspapers and online archives hadn't given them anything definitive. It was a big city, and people died, and a lot of the time nobody knew why. Autopsies were too expensive to do on every homeless tweaker the cops found. The Market was old, and there were tunnels and street people and tourists, which all added up to 'people going missing and nobody noticing'.
Dean twisted out of the way of a family of entirely too many who were gazing around like they were in a cathedral, cameras at the ready. His boot skidded on half-melted ice and Sam's hand on his elbow was all that saved him from going down in a fishy, embarrassing sprawl. "Jesus. Let's go back down stairs."
"You just wanna hit that comic book store again," Sam said, edging away from more fish and ice and tourists.
"Well, yeah." Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. He trusted Sam – one hundred percent – but this whole thing seemed like a dead end. So, yeah, the guy they'd both seen seemed kinda....weird. But hell - they were kinda weird. Didn't mean a thing. "Or, hey, there was that Chinese place, you hungry?"
"I could –" Sam started, but stopped himself as wailing sirens abruptly got a lot louder and a lot closer. Sam tipped his head toward the street and Dean nodded and they both made their way outside, slipping past the slowly gathering crowd. Two police cars and an ambulance were converging across the open square in front of the market, sirens winding down and lights flashing.
"Well, fuck." They couldn't even go check it out, since the last thing they needed was some enterprising cop recognizing them. "Hey, Sam, let's –"
"Dean, look." Sam was staring intently and Dean followed his gaze, searching the shadows of the soft, blue twilight. "It's him."
"Son of a bitch." They watched as the guy ambled across the cobbles of the square, headed directly for the wide, concrete stairs that would take him down a couple levels. "Feel like takin' a walk?" Dean said, and Sam gave him little sideways grin. They turned away from the police and the crowd and whatever trouble had been found and followed.
The stairs led out onto another street and the wide, slate-grey expanse of the Sound. The sun was just down, the last of the light a seam of pure vermillion between water and clouds. Their quarry was walking slowly along the water's edge, hands in the pocket of his coat, shoulders hunched. Dark, knitted cap pulled down over his ears, ratty jeans. He looked homeless, or maybe like a student – somebody with no fixed address or reliable income. Somebody that most people instinctively avoided – didn't see – forgot. Dean wondered how much of it was human nature and how much was deliberate on the guy's part.
Even now, following him, Dean kept getting distracted. Distracted by the lights on the water; some gaily lit party-cruiser drifting past. Crowds of people going in and out of restaurants and stores – cars speeding past, throwing up diamond sprays of water from the puddled street. Sam was staring into store windows – ruffling his fingers through the racks of free publications outside of a candy store. Standing and watching a lone sea gull ride the thermals, pointed wings and sharp, white head all but glowing against the wine-dark sky.
"Sam – Sam! Where'd he go?"
"Huh?" Sam turned slowly, eyebrows raised, and then his gaze sharpened as he scanned the street. Dean was glaring at the passing cars – at the row of stores that glowed golden, filled with too many damn people and none of them him.
"What the hell is he doing? How is he doing it?"
"Maybe it's a glamour," Sam muttered. He stalked a few feet down the sidewalk and then turned and came back. "But that's usually associated with –"
"With fairies, Sam. I don't think this guy's a fairy."
"Not like we'd know! I mean – if they always use a glamour to hide, how would anyone every really know what they look like?"
Dean just stared at Sam a minute, baffled. "Dude, he's not a fairy. He's probably – oh, man! Of course."
"What?"
Dean grinned, striding away down the sidewalk. "Remember the last time we were here? We went to that weird store with all the fake taxidermy monsters and the fuckin' – Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice and shit like that?"
Sam wrinkled his forehead up, thinking, and then he grinned. "Yeah! And the mummies. There was all kinds of weird stuff in there... The people that owned it had some book for Dad; it was like some kind of supernatural post office or something."
"Yeah. Bet that's where he is." Dean swallowed and walked a little faster, wishing for a second he hadn't remembered. Wishing he could ignore the sudden image of his Dad that his memory conjured up, picture perfect down to the scuffed hiking boots and three days of unshaved beard. Image that came with his dad's sudden grin – that raspy laugh. Longing and grief blossoming like a spiked and poisonous flower in Dean's gut, too quick and too hardy to kill. God, he missed his dad. Missed him so fucking much.
Sam crowded into him, ostensibly making way for an older couple who were too tottery to dodge traffic. Crowded him, put his hand on Dean's chest for one moment, heat and the solid weight of him, flash of that little, sorrowful smile. 'I know, I remember, I'm sorry...'
Dean just breathed – nodded – carried on, giving Sam's arm a little pat. 'It's okay. Job to do. I'm fine.'
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe was just like Sam remembered it. Cases and cases full of 'genuine shrunken heads', skulls and bones and old coins, Native American art and Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls. There were also cheap plastic trinkets and spinning racks full of gag jokes; itching powder and fake dog shit and loaded dice. Paradise, back when they'd been here before, both of them still young enough to appreciate every last mocked up mermaid and stuffed jackalope head. Too distracted by the mundanely weird to notice that quite a lot of real weird was mixed in, hiding in plain sight.
Sam hadn't missed the flash of pain in Dean's expression – had known exactly what it meant, to remember that they'd been here with Dad. Sam wished they could just skip every town and crossroads and cemetery where the three of them had ever been, but too much of the country was shadowed by John Winchester's ghost.
They wandered past the salt water taffy display and stopped to let a woman maneuver an oversized stroller past them. Sam realized with a little start that he was leaning against the fortune telling machine. She sat in her glass-walled box, serenely staring out at them, her hand poised above her cards. Estrella's Prophecies in scrolly letters above her. Sam hated those things. They'd creeped him out all his life, and this one was particularly...horrible.
Dean noticed him jerk away and his eyebrows went up, and then his gaze found the fortune teller. "Hey, Sammy, I'm pretty sure I got some change – wanna get your fortune told?"
"Dude, shut up. We're working," Sam snapped, and Dean chuckled. Then his gaze slid past Sam's shoulder and his grin turned feral.
"Gotcha, motherfucker," Dean muttered. Tiny nod, and then Dean was going right, Sam left. They ended up at the back of the shop, neatly flanking their prey. He just stood there, hunched into his coat, staring intently at Sylvester the mummy. "That's pretty freaky," Dean said, and the man flinched a little – glanced over at Dean and then up at Sam. Sam felt that same weird sensation of wrongness. Almost like he'd stepped into an invisible cloud of gnats, or bees. Humming, down in his bones – wash of prickly tingles over his skin as something...pushed.
"Not gonna work this time," Sam breathed, gritting his teeth – making himself notice details because that's what this was. This was distraction, forgetfulness – blurring. The guy was young-looking, probably no older than twenty-five. Light brown hair poking out from under the navy-blue cap, curling a little in the steamy warmth of the store.
Too-pale skin, shadowed eyes...eyes... Sam's chest hurt and he realized he wasn't breathing and he sucked in a hard, gasping breath, stumbling back a step from that gaze. Twin wells of darkness but something there, something in the depths. Something flickering, twisting... Age and sorrow and pain. The hollow, endless stare of someone who has seen, and seen, and seen...too much.
"Sam... Stop it –" There was a thump and Sam blinked, dazed. Saw Dean with his fists, white-knuckled, twisting in the worn canvas of the guy's coat. Shoving him hard up against the glass-sided coffin that housed the mummy. "Sese revela, in nomine Dei!," Dean hissed, face to face and unblinking. Whatever glamour or power the guy had was visibly crumbling under the sheer intensity of Dean's unwavering glare.
"What? Get off me –" the man struggled, thin fingers scrabbling at the slick leather of Dean's jacket and Dean slammed him back again, all but growling.
"What are you?"
"What? I – I'm just – a man, just – let go!"
"Dean –" Sam crowded a little closer to both of them, hoping to block the view of any random tourist or store employee. "We should take this outside."
"I think we're fine right here," Dean said, and the man shot a look of panic at Sam.
"I'm not making any trouble, you just – just let me be or I'll –"
"You'll what?" Dean asked, and then the lights flickered. Flickered again as a murmur of dismay went up from shoppers and employees alike. Sam glanced around, his fingers on the butt of the gun in his waistband. Wrought iron, blessed and anointed, but useless against some things.
"I'll call for help," the man said, and his panic was gone. Replaced by a coldness – an indifference that made Sam's hackles rise.
"Yeah? Better call an army, then," Dean snarled. The lights flickered again and then went out and Sam cursed, fumbling in his pocket for his flashlight. "Sam?"
"Right here," Sam said, pressing the switch. The man was paler than before, if that were possible – so pale he looked dead, his lips faintly blue and his eyes seemingly sunk back into their sockets, shadowed and wild. The air was moving – pushing – spinning around the three of them and the temperature dropped so suddenly Sam winced, feeling the dull ache of it in his lungs. Something was happening in the rest of the store – things were hitting the floor with thumps and crashes. Someone shouted – someone else screamed and Sam watched a formless mass of white dive toward them from the ceiling.
"Dean – get down!"
"Deryn!" the man shouted, wrenching at Dean's arms and Dean half-turned, reaching for his gun. Too late, too late – the wind blasted them, hard enough to rock Sam back on his feet and the thing – the form – acquired saucer-wide eyes and a screaming maw of a mouth that shot straight down – right at Dean.
Dove through him, screaming, and Dean yelled and ducked, and Sam did, and Dean's gun went off with a thunderous boom, the stink of gunpowder whirled away by the wind. The man twisted free and stumbled into the mummy case – rebounded off of it and ran and then the thing came back. It knocked Sam's flashlight tumbling through the air and whipped around, the tail-end passing through Sam's shoulder and throat and Sam choked, feeling as if his flesh and blood had turned to ice and back in a handful of seconds. It hurt, and Sam rolled away and came up in an unsteady crouch, panting.
All over the store things were flying off the shelves and people were shouting – screaming. Dean was scrabbling over the floor, backing up fast from the thing – spirit – whatever it was. It glowed a sickly greenish-white. A corpse-light, like some kind of fungus on a long-dead tree trunk. In the wan illumination Sam could see Dean raising his gun again and he launched himself forward, knocking into Dean's leg and making his brother jerk the gun down and away.
"Sam, what the fuck!"
"Too many people! We need to get out of here, Dean!"
"Shit –" The spirit whirled around Dean like a tornado, all eyes and mouth and tattered edges and then it was gone, flying up and diminishing into a brilliant flare of light that quickly extinguished. The wind it had caused fell still just as suddenly and the air started to warm, rich with ozone and the faintest traces of cold earth and burning. The lights came back up with a little whump, buzzing, and voices rose from the people sprawled here and there, full of fear and pain. Several people were hurt, hit by breaking glass or falling items and the store itself was as mess.
"Jesus. What the hell?" Dean pushed himself to his feet, unsteady, and Sam caught the hand Dean held out and hauled himself up. His throat felt raw from the cold and Dean winced, massaging his chest where the spirit had gone straight through.
"I dunno, but we need to get out of here before the cops show up."
"Fuck. Yeah. You okay, Sam?"
"I'm good. It went right through you, man – are you okay?"
"I'm good. That fuckin' hurt." Dean shoved his gun out of sight and they picked their way through the debris to the front door, trying to look as shell-shocked as the rest of the crowd. It wasn't hard.
Once out on the sidewalk Sam took a deep breath of the cool, rain-washed air, the drizzle falling across his face like a fine mist. The thick smells of cooking coming from next door made him feel faintly sick and he walked fast, Dean at his shoulder. "You think he had anything to do with what happened before? All those cops?"
"Maybe," Dean said. He settled his jacket across his shoulders a little more securely and scanned the street, his gaze flickering alertly from shadow to shadow. "Guess we'd better find out."
The place was called The Green Tortoise and it was a hostel. One that believed in good, old-fashioned hippy values, apparently. Like shared meals, un-laundered sheets and pot. Dean looked around himself with a little grimace. They'd stayed in places like this a few times, because they were unbelievably cheap. But everybody was too friendly – too eager to get to know you. They'd made Dad jumpy as hell.
It was kind of freaking Dean out, too, because these people were definitely in some kind of Summer of Love flashback, all long skirts and tie-dye and unwashed dreadlocks. Strings of Mardi-Gras beads and peace signs on leather thongs.
"So, yeah, the cops." The guy behind the information desk looked stoned, which was no big deal. But he was also giving Sam the once-over one too many times and Dean was about ready to crack some skulls. A skull, in particular. "We had to call 'em 'cause Cherry found Thatcher in the Preacher's room. Cops said it was probably an overdose but Thatcher, man, he didn't do hard stuff."
"The Preacher?" Sam said, and the guy – Blaine or Blade or something – nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, that's what everybody calls him. He talks about the Bible a lot. Or – you know – holy kind of stuff. And he never has anybody up to his room or anything. Cherry wants to date him but I told her, I said – dude, he's like celibate or something." Blaine or Blade nodded again – waved at somebody across the room.
"Huh." Sam was looking at the wall behind the guy, where dozens of photos were tacked up. Some were curling from age, the color washed out, some were brand new. Sam gestured to one near the middle, the edges gone a yellowish color. "Hey, that's him – with the girl in the feathers? He's the guy we met before."
Blaine-Blade looked where Sam was pointing and smiled. "Yup, that's the Preacher, man. He's always sending people here." Dean leaned over the counter, studying what he could see of the image. It was the same guy, for sure. Wearing a different coat – something longer – and wire-rimmed glasses. But the same. He looked like he'd been ambushed, his expression a little startled and a little annoyed, the girl that was clinging to his arm looking desperate. Happy New Millennium! on a banner behind them.
"So – he was here in 2000?" Dean asked, and the guy rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, he was, but that was taken in two-thousand and one. The actual first year of the new millennium."
"Yeah, right, whatever. Look, can we just go up to his room and wait for him? We had some business to discuss."
"The sale of illegal substances and alcohol are banned at the Tortoise," Blaine-Blade said, rapid monotone that made it clear he was saying it for the sake of saying it. "He's in 215. So, you guys gonna need a room?"
"Oh, uh – you know – we'll get back to you," Sam said, flashing that smile, and Dean ground his teeth when Blaine-Blade grinned back. "Thanks, though."
"No trouble at all, man."
"Jesus. Come on." Dean stalked away toward the stairs, Sam trailing him.
"Dude, what?"
"That guy was this close to getting himself smacked," Dean muttered, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind him, Sam laughed.
"Ooh, Dean, you know how hot it makes me when you're all growly and jealous like a big old poppa bear!" he squeaked, mocking falsetto and Dean resisted the urge to turn around and smack Sam.
"He was just getting too friendly."
"Yeah, so? Give me some credit." Dean stopped in front of the Preacher's room – reached out to turn the knob, only to have Sam smack his hand away. "Dude – no touching." Sam pulled a bandana from his jeans-pocket – looked down the deserted hall and then tried the door knob. Locked. "Is it clear?"
"It's clear," Dean murmured, leaning against the door and shielding Sam from casual glances, should anyone come out of a room or up the stairs. Sam knelt down, his little zippered case of picks in his hands, selecting two and getting to work.
The lock ticked over in moments and Sam flashed Dean a wide, wicked smile and stood up, tucking his picks away while Dean opened the door. With a bandana, thank you. Sam made a little sound of approval that made Dean roll his eyes, but he used the same square of dark-blue cloth to flip on the light switch while Sam pressed the door gently shut.
The room was about ten by ten, with worn linoleum on the floor and an iron-frame bed in the corner. There was a rickety-looking writing desk and chair in the opposite corner, along side a small chest of drawers. One of those plastic, zippered 'closets' that you hung on the wall was next to the single window. There were pictures cut from magazines tacked up on the dingy walls, their edges ragged. A little radio sat on top of the dull-brown chest of drawers, along with a scattering of change, a pack of cigarettes and a used ashtray, and a couple of Styrofoam cups from a gas station. There was a scuffed, green Army footlocker at the foot of the bed, and that was all. The air was chilly, acrid with that dead cigarette smell.
'Bleak' was the word that came to Dean's mind. Bleak and uninviting, right down to the institutional white sheets and Army blankets on the bed and the muddy blue curtain that shaded the window. "Jeez. He's lived here for how long?"
"Yeah, kind of..."
"Pathetic." There was a padlock on the foot locker and Dean bumped it with the toe of his boot. Sam hauled out the picks again and Dean went to the window beside the 'closet', looking out. The view was one of the market and the square and Dean leaned there while Sam worked on the lock, hoping to spot the Preacher before he got upstairs.
But it was dark outside, and the light mostly came from the market or passing cars or colored neon. Spotting a moving shadow – someone who was trying to deliberately fade into the background – would be hard. Between perusals of the square, Dean unzipped the closet and riffled through the handful of worn jeans, flannels and sweatshirts hung inside.
"Got it," Sam said, little snick of the lock opening, and Dean glanced at his watch.
"Almost three minutes – you losing your edge?"
"The lock's kind of rusty," Sam said, and lifted the trunk lid. The footlocker itself looked old – older than the one their Dad had brought home from Vietnam. Dented plywood, the green paint dull and rubbed off on the corners. Simple latch and padlock, wooden handles on the sides that were chipped and loose. Old, and it made Dean feel a little spooked, for some reason.
Inside the trunk, in the tray that sat on top was a tidy collection of things. A little canvas bag, unzipped, that showed a cup and brush, straight razor and the coiled length of a leather strop. A comb, hairbrush – toothbrush and paste. Your basic toiletry kit, all laid out with military precision. A slim silver case for cigarettes, a worn Zippo lighter that was an odd, rough black instead of polished metal. Can of Kiwi polish and a brush and cloth – what looked like a sewing kit, and a carton of cigarettes.
"Okay, so – fairly normal," Dean said, leaning down and hooking his fingers into the grooves in the tray – lifting it out. "Ah...ha. Not so normal."
Underneath was a stack of clothing; faded green and blue, stained tan. A pile of books, worn leather bindings that wouldn't look out of place at Bobby's house. And a cracked leather belt and holster with a gun in it. Dean set the tray on the floor and crouched down, lifting the belt from the locker and sliding the gun from its sheath.
"Damn – look at this."
"What?" Sam asked, taking out a book and opening it, holding it carefully.
"It's a Colt Navy revolver, Sam." Dean turned the gun in his hands, admiring the sleekness of it – the immaculate sheen. It was gorgeous, and obviously well kept. "A black powder revolver. They used these in the Civil War."
"So, he's a collector," Sam said. He turned a few pages in the book and then closed it, looking up at Dean. "Or maybe he's a hunter. This is a book of spells."
"Glamour?"
"Maybe. It's old...hand made." Sam set it aside – lifted out another. "Exorcisms...speaking to the dead...fuck. He's either a hunter or a witch."
"And there was a dead guy in his room today. I'm gonna go with witch."
"Yeah. Hunters don't hunt on their own doorstep. As a rule." Sam flipped through each book as Dean laid the gun belt down on the floor. He unfolded the topmost piece of clothing in the stack. It was a short khaki jacket with Sergeant stripes sewed to the sleeves, and an Army unit patch Dean didn't recognize. It was frayed at the edges – stained here and there. Underneath were more modern BDUs, the dull olive-green showing darker where a patch had been torn off. The name-tape said 'Stone'. Under that was a woolen greatcoat and under that –
"That's a Union Army coat," Sam said, letting the last book slither out of his fingers to the floor. He reached out and touched the double row of tarnished brass buttons.
"So he's, like – one of those guys that dresses up – runs around pretending to be a soldier?"
"A re-enactor? I doubt it." Sam peered down into the bottom of the trunk, which was lined with yellowing newspaper. "That's only a coat – there isn't a full uniform of any kind in here. And – not exactly a lot of Civil War battles fought in Seattle."
"Huh." Dean felt in the pockets of the different clothes but they were all empty, just lint and grit. "So, he's a witch with a fetish for old military uniforms or..."
"Or...something," Sam said. He was holding open the smallest book from the stack – a barely-holding-together New Testament. There was an inscription on the flyleaf in faded, brownish ink and Sam tipped it toward Dean.
"Benjamin –" Dean read aloud, stumbling a little over the old-fashioned writing style. "May God keep you...safe until He sees...fit to send you home again. Your loving Father and Mother, Wm. and Liza. Stone. Dedham, August 1861. Huh. Maybe it was his great-great granddad's or something?"
"Maybe." Sam went back through the books again, looking, while Dean did a quick search through the chest of drawers. There was nothing there but folded t-shirts and underwear, balled socks and some worn-out pajamas. Sam found two more books inscribed to 'Benjamin Stone', the written dates decades apart. Sam shut the last one and looked up at Dean, his expression troubled. "Dude, I'm kinda getting a...bad feeling about this."
"You know," Dean said, carefully re-folding the Union Army coat, "I kind of am, too." As Sam stacked the books and uniforms back into the trunk, Dean slipped the bible into his inner pocket – wiped the trunk down as Sam snapped the lock shut. Sam hadn't noticed and Dean grinned to himself – stood up fast at footsteps in the corridor. Sam stood, too – took three long, silent strides across the room and clicked the light off. They waited in the dim glow that filtered in around the curtain, breathing slow and careful. The footsteps went away down the stairs and Dean eased the door open slowly, peering through the crack. The corridor was deserted and they both slipped out and headed downstairs as fast and quiet as possible.
Part Two
spn_j2_bigbang challenge, so i'm not there, i'm here! Yay! Heh. A lot of stuff is going up over there, though...However, here, we have Sam/Dean and Seattle. This is Adult, so be warned.
darkhavens was my excellent beta, and sweptawaybayou my cheerleader/first-reader extrordinaire. Thank you, thank you!LJ won't let me post all at once, so it'll be in three parts, and i'll link 'em, just for convenience. Enjoy!
The title is from William Gibson's 'Count Zero' and the Latin used translates to 'Reveal yourself, in the name of God' and 'Let us proceed in peace, in the name of the Lord'. Spoilers through 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
For Sam, Seattle would always be the first city where he and Dean got a hotel room all to themselves. Of course, the reason they did was because the three of them got food poisoning at a steak house in Wenatchee and by the time they'd hit Seattle they'd had to pull over four times. Sam hadn't ever puked so much in his life.
They had stopped at the first motel they saw – a Motel 6 – and Dad had got two rooms. Dad had said he was too old to be that sick and share a bathroom. The cool factor of a separate room was totally lost on Sam and Dean for the next two days while they alternated between bathroom and beds. At one point, Dean had heroically gotten dressed and staggered to the vending machines for Sprite and crackers for all of them and then had flopped down face-first on his bed and hadn't moved for the next four hours.
"Hey Dean, remember the first time we got our own room?"
Dean laughed out loud – pointed at the Motel 6 they were just passing, making a throat-cutting gesture with his hand. A clear 'Hell yes, and we will never stay at a Motel 6 again.'
Sam laughed, too – reached behind his head with both hands and stretched as hard as he could, grimacing at the stiffness in his knees and neck. It was just past midnight, and they'd been on the road since dawn. "Here's our exit," he said, and Dean shifted the car easily across the lanes, sending them into downtown Seattle. Somewhere in the warren of streets near Pratt Park was a hotel they could afford that was close to their latest job. The trick would be to find it.
Half an hour later, they parked in front of the Union Hotel, a five-story grey building with a tattered green awning. A lighted, lettered sign in the window boasted of a 'Con-in-ntal B-ea-fast'.
"I wonder if it's the Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes kind or the stale doughnuts and bad coffee kind?" Sam said. Dean squinted out through the drizzle on the windshield, the red neon of the motel sign washing across his face like a tide of blood and Sam shuddered. "I'll just – get the room," he muttered, his good mood souring. He climbed out stiffly and pulled out his wallet, checking to be sure he had a valid credit card inside. Dean was rooting around in the floorboards, wadding up trash and shoving it all into a grease-stained fast food bag, a little frown on his face. He was unhappy about parking on the street, but it couldn't be helped. Sam took a deep lungful of the cool, wet air and went inside.
The room had dark paneling and shaggy brown-orange carpet but the towels were new and clean and the mattresses firm, so Sam counted it as a win. Dean tossed his duffel onto the closest bed and then flopped down, stretching hard. Sam shed the laptop and his own bag to the round table by the door and rubbed his hand back through his hair, trying not to stare at Dean but he couldn't help it.
*Six days...* Dean was heeling off his boots – yanking at his socks – and Sam shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair. "You wanna shower? I'm gonna get a soda or something."
Dean contemplated for a moment and then shrugged – nodded. Got up and dug a fistful of change out of his pocket and picked out the quarters, holding them out to Sam. Dean's palm was callused – the pads of his fingers were – and there was a permanent black line across the heel of his palm where a piece of charred wood had sunk deep, leaving the soot behind like a primitive tattoo.
"Something in glowstick green?" Sam asked. Dean grinned and did a little fake punch to Sam's chin and Sam grinned back. Waited a beat but Dean was turning away, taking off his own jacket – digging for his toiletries bag. Going into the bathroom and Sam sighed. Six days of silence. Six days of one-sided conversation that Dean either acknowledged with his own peculiar physical short-hand or ignored. Six days of Sam wondering if this was the day, making hopeful remarks about the most inane things. The marks of Sam's knuckles just now fading from Dean's face, the bullet wound in Dean's shoulder sore and swollen still because Dean refused to let Sam drive. Six days, and even though it had happened before, Sam hated it. He took a long breath, eyes closed. Shoved the guilt and the rage down somewhere...else; opened his eyes when he didn't feel quite so much like putting his own bruised fist through the wall. He put the quarters into his pocket, grabbed the room key and went to find a vending machine.
When Sam got back, he kicked his sneakers off and got comfortable on the bed closest to the bathroom – popped open his soda, tore open his cheese and peanut butter crackers and clicked on the TV. About ten minutes later Dean emerged, trailing wisps of steam. Scrubbing a towel through his hair but otherwise naked. His tattoos wound like snakes from wrists to shoulders to mid-back to floating ribs, stark black against his pale-tan skin. Sumerian cuneiforms and Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient blessings in Hebrew and Arabic and Old Norse; pentacles and crosses and Buddhist swastikas. There were even a sprinkling of kanji and katakana, all tied together by swooping, ragged lines that looked like what you got when the paint brush was running out of paint. To Sam, the lines were wind, or the invisible tracks of bird flight given form.
Dean pulled on a pair of jeans so worn they were practically see-through, pale grey-blue and ragged with chewed-looking holes. Sam was pretty sure he'd had them since high school.
"I got you the Chester Cheetah kind," Sam said, holding up another packet of crackers. "Cheese and bacon." The thought alone of them with Mello Yello made Sam cringe.
Dean grinned, his eyes lighting up, and sauntered over to grab his after-dinner snack out of Sam's hand. "Must be my lucky day," he said, voice a little hoarse. And just like that, Dean was back.
"Man, I hate that kind of job," Dean muttered, scraping mud off his boots with a stick. Flexing sore muscles and grimacing at the squishy feeling between his fingers. The knees of his jeans drying stiff, caustic stink of burnt bone in his nostrils. Next to him, Sam finished cleaning the blade of the shovel and stood up to his full height, stretching. His back popped audibly and they both winced.
"Kids are no fun," Sam agreed. He had mud on both hands and a streak of it smeared across his nose and cheekbone. Some in his hair, matted in with dead grass and a leaf and Dean reached out and plucked the debris free.
"Damn straight." Ten year old boy in a wreck of a home, overlooked by social services and murdered by his drunken mother and her boyfriend. His spirit lashing out at any young couple, his own tormentors years gone. "Too bad it didn't get the right people."
"Yeah." Sam rubbed his face in the crook of his jacketed arm – squinted up at the sky. For the third night in a row, it was drizzling.
Seattle in the spring-time kind of sucked. Dean blinked rain out of his eyes. "I need a beer. Ooh, and some wings."
"You had wings for dinner last night," Sam objected mildly, swinging the shovel onto his shoulder and rubbing his hand down his thigh, trying to scrub some of the drying mud off.
Dean just grinned, zipping up the hold-all and hefting it. "Yeah, and they were good. You can get fried mushrooms," he added, inspiration. Mushrooms were vegetables, right?
"We're all muddy."
"We'll say we had a flat." Dean marched off in the direction of the car, listening. A moment later he heard Sam give a gusty little laugh and then he was falling into step beside Dean, waft of raw earth and apple shampoo. Leaving the churned dirt of the grave behind, Jeremy Christopher Udall, safe in Christ's arms. It would have been better, Dean thought, if the kid's safety hadn't depended on being dead.
Once they got back out to the street, Dean spent another few minutes stomping mud out of the tread of his boots and trying to brush it off his jeans. Amazing how dirty he'd got, even though Sam had insisted on digging the bones up himself, like some kind of twisted penance. So damn obvious in the jerky snatch of the shovel from Dean's hands – in the way Sam let his hair fall down across his eyes, hiding them. 'You'll just fuck your shoulder up worse,' mumbled in a surly tone that didn't disguise the sorrow.
Dean didn't know how to tell Sam he was already forgiven – couldn't get the words past his lips. Sam thought those six days had been about anger and punishment, but Dean knew different. They'd been six days of relief and joy and thank god, thank god, thank god, got you back, Sam, got you back... Six days of struggling to push it all back – lock it all up.
So he let Sam dig the grave and buy him crappy junk food and make up to him in ways pointless and a little sad, because there was nothing to make up for – nothing to be sorry for. Ever. And Dean hated that Sam didn't know that. Dean hated that he couldn't say it without twenty-odd years of horror and panic, desperation and longing and need coming tumbling right out with it.
*You're here, and I am and we're both okay. All that matters, Sammy. All that matters.*
Sam got the shovel stowed in the trunk – slapped at his own filthy shirt and zipped his jacket half-way to hide the smears. "Not like I look like a serial killer or anything," Sam muttered, and Dean laughed.
"Nah. More like the Unabomber."
"Ha ha." Sam folded himself into the car and Dean climbed in after, rain trickling down his collar. The solid, familiar rumble of the engine turning over made him feel ridiculously happy and he snapped on the radio and drove out of the cemetery grinning, ignoring Sam's puzzled look. Singing along to Alice Cooper just to annoy his living, unpossessed, safe, safe, safe little brother.
'Hey hey hey... Me and G.B. we ain't never gonna confess...we cheated at the math test...we carved some dirty words in our desk...well now it's time for recess...'
The wings were just as good the second time and the beer was nicely chilled and all in all, it was the perfect way to relax after a fairly grisly hunt. The jukebox wasn't even too annoying, mixing in Santana and the Stones and Joan Jett with newer stuff Dean didn't really recognize. He leaned against the rough-paneled wall behind him, feet hooked through the rungs of his stool. Feeling pleasantly buzzed and tired and horny. Watching the crowd – watching Sam.
Sam was standing patiently, waiting for their order. Exchanging what looked like pleasantries with a tallish, curvy girl in low-rise jeans and stripper-hair: dark underneath, blonde on top. She was bouncy, bubbly and right up in Sam's personal space and Dean watched with a grin as Sam shifted away from her and was caught against the bar. He shot a look of pure desperation over his shoulder to Dean and Dean just laughed out loud, lifting a wing in salute and tearing off a chunk. Sam gave him the 'I will kill you' look of doom and Dean started licking his fingers clean. Scanning the rest of the bar and finding his gaze coming to rest, again, on a guy sitting in the furthest, darkest corner. The corner where the drunks sat, because you could lean into the angle of the bar and the wall and not hit the spill-sticky floor once your coordination was shot.
The guy that was hunched there looked less drunk than flat-out exhausted. Pale, skinny, his eyes shadowed by dark smudges and his hands – in ratty-looking fingerless gloves – shaking as he lit a cigarette. Dean wasn't sure why he kept looking over at the guy. The sudden flare of his lighter had attracted Dean's glance the first time, and he'd found himself looking back again and again. Occasionally there was somebody standing behind the guy, somebody almost completely in shadow. Weird shadow where maybe...there shouldn't be.
Dean frowned – scrubbed his fingers and mouth on a napkin and tipped the last of his beer into his mouth. Something...wasn't quite right. He had a good gut instinct – always had – and it had only gotten more sensitive with his two *Jesus, two* brushes with death. And his gut was telling him that something was off with that guy.
Sam finally arrived with two more beers and the second order of wings. And fried mushrooms and onion rings and Dean reached over for a ring, jerking his hand away when Sam slapped his knuckles.
"Hey!"
"Onions are vegetables, Dean. You don't do vegetables, remember?"
"I do when they're deep-fried," Dean said, faking left and snagging two rings.
"I'll remember that the next time there's fried okra on the menu." Sam unscrewed the lid on the ketchup bottle and upended it over the rings, slapping the bottom of the bottle to get the stuff out.
"Man, okra isn't a vegetable, it's some kind of demonic...substance." Sam glanced up from his ketchup wrangling, grinning, and Dean took a sip of his new beer. "Okay, guy over at the corner of the bar. Does he seem...weird? To you?"
Sam dripped ketchup over a couple of the rings and then glanced over. Looked again a moment later, frowning. "Is there – I thought I saw two people over there."
"Me, too."
Sam sighed and the bottle burped out a huge glop of ketchup. Dean rescued a drowning ring and crunched it in half. "So... Maybe somebody died here in a fight or something? Town drunk passed on right there?"
"Maybe." Sam finally put the bottle down and snatched a wing from Dean's plate. "We'll check it out tomorrow."
"Tomorrow!" Dean barked, fighting the grin that threatened. "What d'you think this is, vacation?"
"I think it's foreplay," Sam said, and licked barbeque sauce off his thumb with a slow lap of curling tongue.
Dean let his grin morph into something a little less gleeful and a little more 'gonna have that'. "Guess you are the brains of this outfit."
"You know it. Um –" Sam gave Dean a mock-quizzical look from under his bangs. "And – what are you, again?"
Dean kicked him under the table. But not hard, because he had his steel toed boots on. "I'm the coolest big brother in the history of ever, Sam-I-am, and don't you forget it."
The dryer was making this fucked-up squealing sound. The belt inside was loose or something and it wasn't stopping and it was putting Sam's teeth on edge. But he'd fed his last three quarters into that dryer and didn't feel like getting more change since the change machine in the laundromat was broken and the closest place to get change was the gas station down the street. And it was raining. Again.
*Rain sucks,* Sam thought, aware that he was sulking. Not particularly caring, because Dean wasn't there to see him sulk and make fun of him. Dean was back at the hotel cleaning every weapon they had and overhauling the contents of the trunk, muttering darkly about damp and clumping and rust. Like one particle of oxidation would dare bloom across Dean Winchester's perfectly kept, perfectly oiled weapons. Sam grinned to himself at the mental image of rust sheepishly detaching itself from the barrel of Dean's .45 and sidling away.
Twenty more minutes on the dryer. Sam got up and stretched – strolled slowly around the perimeter of the Duds'n'Suds, lingering in front of the corkboard by the door. Checking out the 'for sale' notices: somebody had Rottweiler/Shepherd pups; somebody else had a cockatiel they didn't want anymore. Sam flipped through a few 'car for sale' pages, squinting at the smudgy print-outs of battered Hondas and rust-bucket Pontiacs. The dryer's squeal stuttered and then came back even stronger and Sam reached up to rub his forehead. No wonder the place was deserted.
Clothes finally dry and clean, Sam shoved everything into the duffel and shouldered it – zipped his jacket up and headed out. Three blocks to the hotel, and hopefully Dean would be done being OCD guy by the time Sam got back. As he trudged up the street, there was a strangled sound of pain off to his right. Up in the shadows between two tall buildings.
*Dark alley. How convenient,* Sam thought, hesitating. It could be a stray dog, mating raccoons, a dying pigeon. Hell, it could be about anything in a city, but Sam was pretty sure the noise was human. With a tiny sigh he propped the duffel against the alley wall and took out his flashlight. Five steps in, the fuzzy beam of rain-diffused light found something. A man, crouched down over another, a bulky coat hiding his upper body. His fingers were at his lips, as if he were eating, and he stared straight at Sam, eyes squinted against the flashlight beam. As soon as their gazes met, Sam felt the blood drain from his face. It made his lips feel cold. He knew this man, and something... Something was...off, something was wrong, pressure and hum... This man was – he was...
Five minutes later, feeling in his pocket for the room key, Sam froze. Stood there, staring at the lopsided 14 on the peeling varnish of the door. *What the hell...?* He shoved the key into the lock and got the door open – slammed it shut, hurrying across the room to Dean, who was sprawled on the bed, remote in hand. "Dean, man, something weird just happened."
"I've told you over and over, Sammy, there's no such thing as a Sock Monster in the dryer."
"Shut up." Sam dropped the duffel on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching down to work off his soaked sneakers as he talked. "I was coming back here and I heard this noise, up this alley and there was a man..."
"Tell me you remembered our 'Stranger Danger' talk," Dean said in his best 'my poor, slow brother' voice.
Sam huffed, exasperated. "It was that guy from the bar. You know, with the weird shadow?" Dean nodded, looking serious now. "I recognized him and then...I was here. About to open the door. It was like he just...erased himself or something. Made me forget about him."
Dean frowned and scooted higher on the bed, bunching a pillow behind him. He clicked the TV off and tossed the remote down. "What, you think he whammied you or something? Pulled an Andy?"
"I don't... You knew Andy did it after, right? I mean – you remembered?"
"Yeah. Could'a strangled him."
Sam rubbed his head again, willing the tension away. "It wasn't like that, it was like... Like he just didn't want me to notice him anymore or something."
"Huh."
"Yeah." Sam kicked his sneakers away and pushed his hand back through his damp hair. Peeled off his wet socks and tossed them toward a corner. The room - Dean - smelled warmly of gun oil and microwave popcorn and shampoo, Dean's wet towels haphazardly draped over a chair-back, a brace of knives and Dean's .45 scattered across the dresser top. It all seemed so damn normal and Sam sighed. "I dunno, maybe I'm just...imagining it."
"Maybe." Dean hitched himself sideways, making room, and Sam climbed wearily up beside him – leaned back against the padded headboard. "Or, maybe this guy's not human. Or he's got...powers. Either way, seeing him twice, city this size? Gotta mean something."
"Yeah. Yeah, maybe." Sam slumped lower, getting comfortable. Dean leaned over and retrieved the remote and turned the TV back on and Sam finally gave in and curled on his side, pillow squished under his head and his arm over Dean's thighs. After a minute Dean's hand swept lightly over his hair, tangling and gently tugging, and Sam closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Pike Place Market was too touristy for Dean – hell, for anybody with a grain of sense in their head – but there they were, idling along. Breathing in lungfuls of fish smell and ocean smell and exhaust. Hoping to run across that guy again, since a day's worth of combing newspapers and online archives hadn't given them anything definitive. It was a big city, and people died, and a lot of the time nobody knew why. Autopsies were too expensive to do on every homeless tweaker the cops found. The Market was old, and there were tunnels and street people and tourists, which all added up to 'people going missing and nobody noticing'.
Dean twisted out of the way of a family of entirely too many who were gazing around like they were in a cathedral, cameras at the ready. His boot skidded on half-melted ice and Sam's hand on his elbow was all that saved him from going down in a fishy, embarrassing sprawl. "Jesus. Let's go back down stairs."
"You just wanna hit that comic book store again," Sam said, edging away from more fish and ice and tourists.
"Well, yeah." Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. He trusted Sam – one hundred percent – but this whole thing seemed like a dead end. So, yeah, the guy they'd both seen seemed kinda....weird. But hell - they were kinda weird. Didn't mean a thing. "Or, hey, there was that Chinese place, you hungry?"
"I could –" Sam started, but stopped himself as wailing sirens abruptly got a lot louder and a lot closer. Sam tipped his head toward the street and Dean nodded and they both made their way outside, slipping past the slowly gathering crowd. Two police cars and an ambulance were converging across the open square in front of the market, sirens winding down and lights flashing.
"Well, fuck." They couldn't even go check it out, since the last thing they needed was some enterprising cop recognizing them. "Hey, Sam, let's –"
"Dean, look." Sam was staring intently and Dean followed his gaze, searching the shadows of the soft, blue twilight. "It's him."
"Son of a bitch." They watched as the guy ambled across the cobbles of the square, headed directly for the wide, concrete stairs that would take him down a couple levels. "Feel like takin' a walk?" Dean said, and Sam gave him little sideways grin. They turned away from the police and the crowd and whatever trouble had been found and followed.
The stairs led out onto another street and the wide, slate-grey expanse of the Sound. The sun was just down, the last of the light a seam of pure vermillion between water and clouds. Their quarry was walking slowly along the water's edge, hands in the pocket of his coat, shoulders hunched. Dark, knitted cap pulled down over his ears, ratty jeans. He looked homeless, or maybe like a student – somebody with no fixed address or reliable income. Somebody that most people instinctively avoided – didn't see – forgot. Dean wondered how much of it was human nature and how much was deliberate on the guy's part.
Even now, following him, Dean kept getting distracted. Distracted by the lights on the water; some gaily lit party-cruiser drifting past. Crowds of people going in and out of restaurants and stores – cars speeding past, throwing up diamond sprays of water from the puddled street. Sam was staring into store windows – ruffling his fingers through the racks of free publications outside of a candy store. Standing and watching a lone sea gull ride the thermals, pointed wings and sharp, white head all but glowing against the wine-dark sky.
"Sam – Sam! Where'd he go?"
"Huh?" Sam turned slowly, eyebrows raised, and then his gaze sharpened as he scanned the street. Dean was glaring at the passing cars – at the row of stores that glowed golden, filled with too many damn people and none of them him.
"What the hell is he doing? How is he doing it?"
"Maybe it's a glamour," Sam muttered. He stalked a few feet down the sidewalk and then turned and came back. "But that's usually associated with –"
"With fairies, Sam. I don't think this guy's a fairy."
"Not like we'd know! I mean – if they always use a glamour to hide, how would anyone every really know what they look like?"
Dean just stared at Sam a minute, baffled. "Dude, he's not a fairy. He's probably – oh, man! Of course."
"What?"
Dean grinned, striding away down the sidewalk. "Remember the last time we were here? We went to that weird store with all the fake taxidermy monsters and the fuckin' – Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice and shit like that?"
Sam wrinkled his forehead up, thinking, and then he grinned. "Yeah! And the mummies. There was all kinds of weird stuff in there... The people that owned it had some book for Dad; it was like some kind of supernatural post office or something."
"Yeah. Bet that's where he is." Dean swallowed and walked a little faster, wishing for a second he hadn't remembered. Wishing he could ignore the sudden image of his Dad that his memory conjured up, picture perfect down to the scuffed hiking boots and three days of unshaved beard. Image that came with his dad's sudden grin – that raspy laugh. Longing and grief blossoming like a spiked and poisonous flower in Dean's gut, too quick and too hardy to kill. God, he missed his dad. Missed him so fucking much.
Sam crowded into him, ostensibly making way for an older couple who were too tottery to dodge traffic. Crowded him, put his hand on Dean's chest for one moment, heat and the solid weight of him, flash of that little, sorrowful smile. 'I know, I remember, I'm sorry...'
Dean just breathed – nodded – carried on, giving Sam's arm a little pat. 'It's okay. Job to do. I'm fine.'
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe was just like Sam remembered it. Cases and cases full of 'genuine shrunken heads', skulls and bones and old coins, Native American art and Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls. There were also cheap plastic trinkets and spinning racks full of gag jokes; itching powder and fake dog shit and loaded dice. Paradise, back when they'd been here before, both of them still young enough to appreciate every last mocked up mermaid and stuffed jackalope head. Too distracted by the mundanely weird to notice that quite a lot of real weird was mixed in, hiding in plain sight.
Sam hadn't missed the flash of pain in Dean's expression – had known exactly what it meant, to remember that they'd been here with Dad. Sam wished they could just skip every town and crossroads and cemetery where the three of them had ever been, but too much of the country was shadowed by John Winchester's ghost.
They wandered past the salt water taffy display and stopped to let a woman maneuver an oversized stroller past them. Sam realized with a little start that he was leaning against the fortune telling machine. She sat in her glass-walled box, serenely staring out at them, her hand poised above her cards. Estrella's Prophecies in scrolly letters above her. Sam hated those things. They'd creeped him out all his life, and this one was particularly...horrible.
Dean noticed him jerk away and his eyebrows went up, and then his gaze found the fortune teller. "Hey, Sammy, I'm pretty sure I got some change – wanna get your fortune told?"
"Dude, shut up. We're working," Sam snapped, and Dean chuckled. Then his gaze slid past Sam's shoulder and his grin turned feral.
"Gotcha, motherfucker," Dean muttered. Tiny nod, and then Dean was going right, Sam left. They ended up at the back of the shop, neatly flanking their prey. He just stood there, hunched into his coat, staring intently at Sylvester the mummy. "That's pretty freaky," Dean said, and the man flinched a little – glanced over at Dean and then up at Sam. Sam felt that same weird sensation of wrongness. Almost like he'd stepped into an invisible cloud of gnats, or bees. Humming, down in his bones – wash of prickly tingles over his skin as something...pushed.
"Not gonna work this time," Sam breathed, gritting his teeth – making himself notice details because that's what this was. This was distraction, forgetfulness – blurring. The guy was young-looking, probably no older than twenty-five. Light brown hair poking out from under the navy-blue cap, curling a little in the steamy warmth of the store.
Too-pale skin, shadowed eyes...eyes... Sam's chest hurt and he realized he wasn't breathing and he sucked in a hard, gasping breath, stumbling back a step from that gaze. Twin wells of darkness but something there, something in the depths. Something flickering, twisting... Age and sorrow and pain. The hollow, endless stare of someone who has seen, and seen, and seen...too much.
"Sam... Stop it –" There was a thump and Sam blinked, dazed. Saw Dean with his fists, white-knuckled, twisting in the worn canvas of the guy's coat. Shoving him hard up against the glass-sided coffin that housed the mummy. "Sese revela, in nomine Dei!," Dean hissed, face to face and unblinking. Whatever glamour or power the guy had was visibly crumbling under the sheer intensity of Dean's unwavering glare.
"What? Get off me –" the man struggled, thin fingers scrabbling at the slick leather of Dean's jacket and Dean slammed him back again, all but growling.
"What are you?"
"What? I – I'm just – a man, just – let go!"
"Dean –" Sam crowded a little closer to both of them, hoping to block the view of any random tourist or store employee. "We should take this outside."
"I think we're fine right here," Dean said, and the man shot a look of panic at Sam.
"I'm not making any trouble, you just – just let me be or I'll –"
"You'll what?" Dean asked, and then the lights flickered. Flickered again as a murmur of dismay went up from shoppers and employees alike. Sam glanced around, his fingers on the butt of the gun in his waistband. Wrought iron, blessed and anointed, but useless against some things.
"I'll call for help," the man said, and his panic was gone. Replaced by a coldness – an indifference that made Sam's hackles rise.
"Yeah? Better call an army, then," Dean snarled. The lights flickered again and then went out and Sam cursed, fumbling in his pocket for his flashlight. "Sam?"
"Right here," Sam said, pressing the switch. The man was paler than before, if that were possible – so pale he looked dead, his lips faintly blue and his eyes seemingly sunk back into their sockets, shadowed and wild. The air was moving – pushing – spinning around the three of them and the temperature dropped so suddenly Sam winced, feeling the dull ache of it in his lungs. Something was happening in the rest of the store – things were hitting the floor with thumps and crashes. Someone shouted – someone else screamed and Sam watched a formless mass of white dive toward them from the ceiling.
"Dean – get down!"
"Deryn!" the man shouted, wrenching at Dean's arms and Dean half-turned, reaching for his gun. Too late, too late – the wind blasted them, hard enough to rock Sam back on his feet and the thing – the form – acquired saucer-wide eyes and a screaming maw of a mouth that shot straight down – right at Dean.
Dove through him, screaming, and Dean yelled and ducked, and Sam did, and Dean's gun went off with a thunderous boom, the stink of gunpowder whirled away by the wind. The man twisted free and stumbled into the mummy case – rebounded off of it and ran and then the thing came back. It knocked Sam's flashlight tumbling through the air and whipped around, the tail-end passing through Sam's shoulder and throat and Sam choked, feeling as if his flesh and blood had turned to ice and back in a handful of seconds. It hurt, and Sam rolled away and came up in an unsteady crouch, panting.
All over the store things were flying off the shelves and people were shouting – screaming. Dean was scrabbling over the floor, backing up fast from the thing – spirit – whatever it was. It glowed a sickly greenish-white. A corpse-light, like some kind of fungus on a long-dead tree trunk. In the wan illumination Sam could see Dean raising his gun again and he launched himself forward, knocking into Dean's leg and making his brother jerk the gun down and away.
"Sam, what the fuck!"
"Too many people! We need to get out of here, Dean!"
"Shit –" The spirit whirled around Dean like a tornado, all eyes and mouth and tattered edges and then it was gone, flying up and diminishing into a brilliant flare of light that quickly extinguished. The wind it had caused fell still just as suddenly and the air started to warm, rich with ozone and the faintest traces of cold earth and burning. The lights came back up with a little whump, buzzing, and voices rose from the people sprawled here and there, full of fear and pain. Several people were hurt, hit by breaking glass or falling items and the store itself was as mess.
"Jesus. What the hell?" Dean pushed himself to his feet, unsteady, and Sam caught the hand Dean held out and hauled himself up. His throat felt raw from the cold and Dean winced, massaging his chest where the spirit had gone straight through.
"I dunno, but we need to get out of here before the cops show up."
"Fuck. Yeah. You okay, Sam?"
"I'm good. It went right through you, man – are you okay?"
"I'm good. That fuckin' hurt." Dean shoved his gun out of sight and they picked their way through the debris to the front door, trying to look as shell-shocked as the rest of the crowd. It wasn't hard.
Once out on the sidewalk Sam took a deep breath of the cool, rain-washed air, the drizzle falling across his face like a fine mist. The thick smells of cooking coming from next door made him feel faintly sick and he walked fast, Dean at his shoulder. "You think he had anything to do with what happened before? All those cops?"
"Maybe," Dean said. He settled his jacket across his shoulders a little more securely and scanned the street, his gaze flickering alertly from shadow to shadow. "Guess we'd better find out."
The place was called The Green Tortoise and it was a hostel. One that believed in good, old-fashioned hippy values, apparently. Like shared meals, un-laundered sheets and pot. Dean looked around himself with a little grimace. They'd stayed in places like this a few times, because they were unbelievably cheap. But everybody was too friendly – too eager to get to know you. They'd made Dad jumpy as hell.
It was kind of freaking Dean out, too, because these people were definitely in some kind of Summer of Love flashback, all long skirts and tie-dye and unwashed dreadlocks. Strings of Mardi-Gras beads and peace signs on leather thongs.
"So, yeah, the cops." The guy behind the information desk looked stoned, which was no big deal. But he was also giving Sam the once-over one too many times and Dean was about ready to crack some skulls. A skull, in particular. "We had to call 'em 'cause Cherry found Thatcher in the Preacher's room. Cops said it was probably an overdose but Thatcher, man, he didn't do hard stuff."
"The Preacher?" Sam said, and the guy – Blaine or Blade or something – nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, that's what everybody calls him. He talks about the Bible a lot. Or – you know – holy kind of stuff. And he never has anybody up to his room or anything. Cherry wants to date him but I told her, I said – dude, he's like celibate or something." Blaine or Blade nodded again – waved at somebody across the room.
"Huh." Sam was looking at the wall behind the guy, where dozens of photos were tacked up. Some were curling from age, the color washed out, some were brand new. Sam gestured to one near the middle, the edges gone a yellowish color. "Hey, that's him – with the girl in the feathers? He's the guy we met before."
Blaine-Blade looked where Sam was pointing and smiled. "Yup, that's the Preacher, man. He's always sending people here." Dean leaned over the counter, studying what he could see of the image. It was the same guy, for sure. Wearing a different coat – something longer – and wire-rimmed glasses. But the same. He looked like he'd been ambushed, his expression a little startled and a little annoyed, the girl that was clinging to his arm looking desperate. Happy New Millennium! on a banner behind them.
"So – he was here in 2000?" Dean asked, and the guy rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, he was, but that was taken in two-thousand and one. The actual first year of the new millennium."
"Yeah, right, whatever. Look, can we just go up to his room and wait for him? We had some business to discuss."
"The sale of illegal substances and alcohol are banned at the Tortoise," Blaine-Blade said, rapid monotone that made it clear he was saying it for the sake of saying it. "He's in 215. So, you guys gonna need a room?"
"Oh, uh – you know – we'll get back to you," Sam said, flashing that smile, and Dean ground his teeth when Blaine-Blade grinned back. "Thanks, though."
"No trouble at all, man."
"Jesus. Come on." Dean stalked away toward the stairs, Sam trailing him.
"Dude, what?"
"That guy was this close to getting himself smacked," Dean muttered, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind him, Sam laughed.
"Ooh, Dean, you know how hot it makes me when you're all growly and jealous like a big old poppa bear!" he squeaked, mocking falsetto and Dean resisted the urge to turn around and smack Sam.
"He was just getting too friendly."
"Yeah, so? Give me some credit." Dean stopped in front of the Preacher's room – reached out to turn the knob, only to have Sam smack his hand away. "Dude – no touching." Sam pulled a bandana from his jeans-pocket – looked down the deserted hall and then tried the door knob. Locked. "Is it clear?"
"It's clear," Dean murmured, leaning against the door and shielding Sam from casual glances, should anyone come out of a room or up the stairs. Sam knelt down, his little zippered case of picks in his hands, selecting two and getting to work.
The lock ticked over in moments and Sam flashed Dean a wide, wicked smile and stood up, tucking his picks away while Dean opened the door. With a bandana, thank you. Sam made a little sound of approval that made Dean roll his eyes, but he used the same square of dark-blue cloth to flip on the light switch while Sam pressed the door gently shut.
The room was about ten by ten, with worn linoleum on the floor and an iron-frame bed in the corner. There was a rickety-looking writing desk and chair in the opposite corner, along side a small chest of drawers. One of those plastic, zippered 'closets' that you hung on the wall was next to the single window. There were pictures cut from magazines tacked up on the dingy walls, their edges ragged. A little radio sat on top of the dull-brown chest of drawers, along with a scattering of change, a pack of cigarettes and a used ashtray, and a couple of Styrofoam cups from a gas station. There was a scuffed, green Army footlocker at the foot of the bed, and that was all. The air was chilly, acrid with that dead cigarette smell.
'Bleak' was the word that came to Dean's mind. Bleak and uninviting, right down to the institutional white sheets and Army blankets on the bed and the muddy blue curtain that shaded the window. "Jeez. He's lived here for how long?"
"Yeah, kind of..."
"Pathetic." There was a padlock on the foot locker and Dean bumped it with the toe of his boot. Sam hauled out the picks again and Dean went to the window beside the 'closet', looking out. The view was one of the market and the square and Dean leaned there while Sam worked on the lock, hoping to spot the Preacher before he got upstairs.
But it was dark outside, and the light mostly came from the market or passing cars or colored neon. Spotting a moving shadow – someone who was trying to deliberately fade into the background – would be hard. Between perusals of the square, Dean unzipped the closet and riffled through the handful of worn jeans, flannels and sweatshirts hung inside.
"Got it," Sam said, little snick of the lock opening, and Dean glanced at his watch.
"Almost three minutes – you losing your edge?"
"The lock's kind of rusty," Sam said, and lifted the trunk lid. The footlocker itself looked old – older than the one their Dad had brought home from Vietnam. Dented plywood, the green paint dull and rubbed off on the corners. Simple latch and padlock, wooden handles on the sides that were chipped and loose. Old, and it made Dean feel a little spooked, for some reason.
Inside the trunk, in the tray that sat on top was a tidy collection of things. A little canvas bag, unzipped, that showed a cup and brush, straight razor and the coiled length of a leather strop. A comb, hairbrush – toothbrush and paste. Your basic toiletry kit, all laid out with military precision. A slim silver case for cigarettes, a worn Zippo lighter that was an odd, rough black instead of polished metal. Can of Kiwi polish and a brush and cloth – what looked like a sewing kit, and a carton of cigarettes.
"Okay, so – fairly normal," Dean said, leaning down and hooking his fingers into the grooves in the tray – lifting it out. "Ah...ha. Not so normal."
Underneath was a stack of clothing; faded green and blue, stained tan. A pile of books, worn leather bindings that wouldn't look out of place at Bobby's house. And a cracked leather belt and holster with a gun in it. Dean set the tray on the floor and crouched down, lifting the belt from the locker and sliding the gun from its sheath.
"Damn – look at this."
"What?" Sam asked, taking out a book and opening it, holding it carefully.
"It's a Colt Navy revolver, Sam." Dean turned the gun in his hands, admiring the sleekness of it – the immaculate sheen. It was gorgeous, and obviously well kept. "A black powder revolver. They used these in the Civil War."
"So, he's a collector," Sam said. He turned a few pages in the book and then closed it, looking up at Dean. "Or maybe he's a hunter. This is a book of spells."
"Glamour?"
"Maybe. It's old...hand made." Sam set it aside – lifted out another. "Exorcisms...speaking to the dead...fuck. He's either a hunter or a witch."
"And there was a dead guy in his room today. I'm gonna go with witch."
"Yeah. Hunters don't hunt on their own doorstep. As a rule." Sam flipped through each book as Dean laid the gun belt down on the floor. He unfolded the topmost piece of clothing in the stack. It was a short khaki jacket with Sergeant stripes sewed to the sleeves, and an Army unit patch Dean didn't recognize. It was frayed at the edges – stained here and there. Underneath were more modern BDUs, the dull olive-green showing darker where a patch had been torn off. The name-tape said 'Stone'. Under that was a woolen greatcoat and under that –
"That's a Union Army coat," Sam said, letting the last book slither out of his fingers to the floor. He reached out and touched the double row of tarnished brass buttons.
"So he's, like – one of those guys that dresses up – runs around pretending to be a soldier?"
"A re-enactor? I doubt it." Sam peered down into the bottom of the trunk, which was lined with yellowing newspaper. "That's only a coat – there isn't a full uniform of any kind in here. And – not exactly a lot of Civil War battles fought in Seattle."
"Huh." Dean felt in the pockets of the different clothes but they were all empty, just lint and grit. "So, he's a witch with a fetish for old military uniforms or..."
"Or...something," Sam said. He was holding open the smallest book from the stack – a barely-holding-together New Testament. There was an inscription on the flyleaf in faded, brownish ink and Sam tipped it toward Dean.
"Benjamin –" Dean read aloud, stumbling a little over the old-fashioned writing style. "May God keep you...safe until He sees...fit to send you home again. Your loving Father and Mother, Wm. and Liza. Stone. Dedham, August 1861. Huh. Maybe it was his great-great granddad's or something?"
"Maybe." Sam went back through the books again, looking, while Dean did a quick search through the chest of drawers. There was nothing there but folded t-shirts and underwear, balled socks and some worn-out pajamas. Sam found two more books inscribed to 'Benjamin Stone', the written dates decades apart. Sam shut the last one and looked up at Dean, his expression troubled. "Dude, I'm kinda getting a...bad feeling about this."
"You know," Dean said, carefully re-folding the Union Army coat, "I kind of am, too." As Sam stacked the books and uniforms back into the trunk, Dean slipped the bible into his inner pocket – wiped the trunk down as Sam snapped the lock shut. Sam hadn't noticed and Dean grinned to himself – stood up fast at footsteps in the corridor. Sam stood, too – took three long, silent strides across the room and clicked the light off. They waited in the dim glow that filtered in around the curtain, breathing slow and careful. The footsteps went away down the stairs and Dean eased the door open slowly, peering through the crack. The corridor was deserted and they both slipped out and headed downstairs as fast and quiet as possible.
Part Two
Tags:
Freaking weird
Re: Freaking weird
Um - what?
Glad you're enjoying!
:)
no subject
no subject
Thank you, bay-bee.
:)
no subject
Dean contemplated for a moment and then shrugged – nodded. Got up and dug a fistful of change out of his pocket and picked out the quarters, holding them out to Sam. Dean's palm was callused – the pads of his fingers were – and there was a permanent black line across the heel of his palm where a piece of charred wood had sunk deep, leaving the soot behind like a primitive tattoo.
Lovely imagery abounds in Tabaqui fic, and this is no different. Every detail is a whole story waiting to be told, and damned if I don't wanna hear every one of them.
About ten minutes later Dean emerged, trailing wisps of steam. Scrubbing a towel through his hair but otherwise naked. His tattoos wound like snakes from wrists to shoulders to mid-back to floating ribs, stark black against his pale-tan skin. Sumerian cuneiforms and Egyptian hieroglyphs, ancient blessings in Hebrew and Arabic and Old Norse; pentacles and crosses and Buddhist swastikas. There were even a sprinkling of kanji and katakana, all tied together by swooping, ragged lines that looked like what you got when the paint brush was running out of paint. To Sam, the lines were wind, or the invisible tracks of bird flight given form.
It must be amazing living inside your head.
Dean pulled on a pair of jeans so worn they were practically see-through, pale grey-blue and ragged with chewed-looking holes. Sam was pretty sure he'd had them since high school.
Dean . . . see through jeans. . . .
I'm sorry, what were you saying?
"I got you the Chester Cheetah kind," Sam said, holding up another packet of crackers. "Cheese and bacon." The thought alone of them with Mello Yello made Sam cringe.
Dean grinned, his eyes lighting up, and sauntered over to grab his after-dinner snack out of Sam's hand. "Must be my lucky day," he said, voice a little hoarse. And just like that, Dean was back.
Not that I'm feeling warm or fuzzy or anything.
Seattle in the spring-time kind of sucked. Dean blinked rain out of his eyes. "I need a beer. Ooh, and some wings."
"You had wings for dinner last night," Sam objected mildly, swinging the shovel onto his shoulder and rubbing his hand down his thigh, trying to scrub some of the drying mud off.
Dean just grinned, zipping up the hold-all and hefting it. "Yeah, and they were good. You can get fried mushrooms," he added, inspiration. Mushrooms were vegetables, right?
They most certainly are not!
Leaving the churned dirt of the grave behind, Jeremy Christopher Udall, safe in Christ's arms. It would have been better, Dean thought, if the kid's safety hadn't depended on being dead.
Ouch. That anyone has to make that kind of observation, probably fairly often, in their daily life. Man, I'll bet social workers could tell Dean some horror stories that don't even involve demons or the undead.
Once they got back out to the street, Dean spent another few minutes stomping mud out of the tread of his boots and trying to brush it off his jeans. Amazing how dirty he'd got, even though Sam had insisted on digging the bones up himself, like some kind of twisted penance. So damn obvious in the jerky snatch of the shovel from Dean's hands – in the way Sam let his hair fall down across his eyes, hiding them. 'You'll just fuck your shoulder up worse,' mumbled in a surly tone that didn't disguise the sorrow.
Dean didn't know how to tell Sam he was already forgiven – couldn't get the words past his lips. Sam thought those six days had been about anger and punishment, but Dean knew different. They'd been six days of relief and joy and thank god, thank god, thank god, got you back, Sam, got you back... Six days of struggling to push it all back – lock it all up.
Gotta lock it all up. Can't jinx it by gushing, all "thank god you're safe", even if Dean were the gushing type. Gotta tread softly till there's some distance between them and the bad. No sense counting chickens before the eggs've hatched. And so on.
no subject
*reels with giddy delight*
And second...omg! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!
Will you hate me if i don't reply to them all?
I'm just so...wow! It's so amazing, what you wrote, and i'm so please, so pleased!! I was nervous as hell about this piece, worried it would just not go over very well at *all* and...
Yay! You make me feel so good about it all.
:)
*bounce*
Thank you thank you!
no subject
And there's that. FEeling like if you let the game face crack even a little, you'll break into all these little pieces that no one'll ever be able to get back together, let alone in the proper order.
*You're here, and I am and we're both okay. All that matters, Sammy. All that matters. . . .*
The solid, familiar rumble of the engine turning over made him feel ridiculously happy and he snapped on the radio and drove out of the cemetery grinning, ignoring Sam's puzzled look. Singing along to Alice Cooper just to annoy his living, unpossessed, safe, safe, safe little brother.
That's what it's all about.
She was bouncy, bubbly and right up in Sam's personal space and Dean watched with a grin as Sam shifted away from her and was caught against the bar. He shot a look of pure desperation over his shoulder to Dean and Dean just laughed out loud, lifting a wing in salute and tearing off a chunk. Sam gave him the 'I will kill you' look of doom and Dean started licking his fingers clean.
Yet he gets jealous of Blaine, who's got even less of a chance with Sam.
Dean reached over for a ring, jerking his hand away when Sam slapped his knuckles.
"Hey!"
"Onions are vegetables, Dean. You don't do vegetables, remember?"
"I do when they're deep-fried," Dean said, faking left and snagging two rings.
"I'll remember that the next time there's fried okra on the menu." Sam unscrewed the lid on the ketchup bottle and upended it over the rings, slapping the bottom of the bottle to get the stuff out.
"Man, okra isn't a vegetable, it's some kind of demonic...substance."
Yes. Yes, it is.
"I think it's foreplay," Sam said, and licked barbeque sauce off his thumb with a slow lap of curling tongue.
Dean let his grin morph into something a little less gleeful and a little more 'gonna have that'. "Guess you are the brains of this outfit."
So I'm guessing the UST is really just ST =)
::does the dance of wheeeeee::
"You know it. Um –" Sam gave Dean a mock-quizzical look from under his bangs. "And – what are you, again?"
Teh pretteh. Natch.
Dean was back at the hotel cleaning every weapon they had and overhauling the contents of the trunk, muttering darkly about damp and clumping and rust. Like one particle of oxidation would dare bloom across Dean Winchester's perfectly kept, perfectly oiled weapons. Sam grinned to himself at the mental image of rust sheepishly detaching itself from the barrel of Dean's .45 and sidling away.
::bg::
Now that was funny image. I can just see that Winchester glare, and the rust slowly slinking off, so as not to further rouse his ire. Heh.
"Dean, man, something weird just happened."
"I've told you over and over, Sammy, there's no such thing as a Sock Monster in the dryer."
"Shut up." Sam dropped the duffel on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching down to work off his soaked sneakers as he talked. "I was coming back here and I heard this noise, up this alley and there was a man..."
"Tell me you remembered our 'Stranger Danger' talk," Dean said in his best 'my poor, slow brother' voice.
Sam huffed, exasperated. "It was that guy from the bar. You know, with the weird shadow?" Dean nodded, looking serious now. "I recognized him and then...I was here. About to open the door. It was like he just...erased himself or something. Made me forget about him."
Dean frowned and scooted higher on the bed, bunching a pillow behind him. He clicked the TV off and tossed the remote down. "What, you think he whammied you or something? Pulled an Andy?"
I love that interplay--from snark, to serious to total belief, not pit-stops for skepticism. This is Sam, and his word is enough for Dean.
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Yeah, that's, like, totally normal.
The weird thing is, in some distant way, I'm totally jealous of their normal.
The stairs led out onto another street and the wide, slate-grey expanse of the Sound. The sun was just down, the last of the light a seam of pure vermillion between water and clouds. Their quarry was walking slowly along the water's edge, hands in the pocket of his coat, shoulders hunched. Dark, knitted cap pulled down over his ears, ratty jeans. He looked homeless, or maybe like a student – somebody with no fixed address or reliable income. Somebody that most people instinctively avoided – didn't see – forgot. Dean wondered how much of it was human nature and how much was deliberate on the guy's part.
Even now, following him, Dean kept getting distracted. Distracted by the lights on the water; some gaily lit party-cruiser drifting past. Crowds of people going in and out of restaurants and stores – cars speeding past, throwing up diamond sprays of water from the puddled street. Sam was staring into store windows – ruffling his fingers through the racks of free publications outside of a candy store. Standing and watching a lone sea gull ride the thermals, pointed wings and sharp, white head all but glowing against the wine-dark sky.
He distracts with details almost as well as you do. I know not to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain, but damnit--!
Nice prose =D
"Sam – Sam! Where'd he go?"
"Huh?" Sam turned slowly, eyebrows raised, and then his gaze sharpened as he scanned the street. Dean was glaring at the passing cars – at the row of stores that glowed golden, filled with too many damn people and none of them him.
"What the hell is he doing? How is he doing it?"
"Maybe it's a glamour," Sam muttered. He stalked a few feet down the sidewalk and then turned and came back. "But that's usually associated with –"
"With fairies, Sam. I don't think this guy's a fairy."
"Not like we'd know! I mean – if they always use a glamour to hide, how would anyone every really know what they look like?"
Dean just stared at Sam a minute, baffled. "Dude, he's not a fairy."
Okay, so much for that instant belief, just cuz it's Sammy, lmao.
Dean swallowed and walked a little faster, wishing for a second he hadn't remembered. Wishing he could ignore the sudden image of his Dad that his memory conjured up, picture perfect down to the scuffed hiking boots and three days of unshaved beard. Image that came with his dad's sudden grin – that raspy laugh. Longing and grief blossoming like a spiked and poisonous flower in Dean's gut, too quick and too hardy to kill. God, he missed his dad. Missed him so fucking much.
Wow, that was--especially the last part. Such a vivid image, painful and wrong and hurty and perfect.
That's pretty freaky," Dean said, and the man flinched a little – glanced over at Dean and then up at Sam. Sam felt that same weird sensation of wrongness. Almost like he'd stepped into an invisible cloud of gnats, or bees. Humming, down in his bones – wash of prickly tingles over his skin as something...pushed.
"Not gonna work this time," Sam breathed, gritting his teeth – making himself notice details because that's what this was. This was distraction, forgetfulness – blurring.
It noticing details is the way to keep from losing this guy, he'd lose me once and for all, sheesh. I wonder if he does it on purpose, or if it's just intimidating camouflage, like the eye-spots on those big butterflies--whatever the hell they're called. Monarchs?
Too-pale skin, shadowed eyes...eyes... Sam's chest hurt and he realized he wasn't breathing and he sucked in a hard, gasping breath, stumbling back a step from that gaze. Twin wells of darkness but something there, something in the depths. Something flickering, twisting... Age and sorrow and pain. The hollow, endless stare of someone who has seen, and seen, and seen...too much.
Huh . . . doesn't sound evil, persay. Not yet, anyway.
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"What? I – I'm just – a man, just – let go!"
If he was just a man, he'd have never said that. He'd have just punched Dean or started screaming for help with hot, but violent lunatic.
"Jesus. What the hell?" Dean pushed himself to his feet, unsteady, and Sam caught the hand Dean held out and hauled himself up. His throat felt raw from the cold and Dean winced, massaging his chest where the spirit had gone straight through.
"I dunno, but we need to get out of here before the cops show up."
"Fuck. Yeah. You okay, Sam?"
"I'm good. It went right through you, man – are you okay?"
There's a question with ramifications reaching beyond the borders of this story. Getting skelped by a crazy ghost isn't good for anyone's heart or nervous system.
::shudders::
The place was called The Green Tortoise and it was a hostel. One that believed in good, old-fashioned hippy values, apparently. Like shared meals, un-laundered sheets and pot. Dean looked around himself with a little grimace. They'd stayed in places like this a few times, because they were unbelievably cheap. But everybody was too friendly – too eager to get to know you. They'd made Dad jumpy as hell.
Jumpy?
Dude--you had me at un-laundered sheets.
"The Preacher?" Sam said, and the guy – Blaine or Blade or something – nodded enthusiastically.
::snorts::
It's totally Blaine. He's a dirty hippy. What're the odds his name is Blade?
"Yeah, right, whatever. Look, can we just go up to his room and wait for him? We had some business to discuss."
"The sale of illegal substances and alcohol are banned at the Tortoise," Blaine-Blade said, rapid monotone that made it clear he was saying it for the sake of saying it. "He's in 215. So, you guys gonna need a room?"
"Oh, uh – you know – we'll get back to you," Sam said, flashing that smile, and Dean ground his teeth when Blaine-Blade grinned back. "Thanks, though."
"No trouble at all, man."
I'm sure it's not any trouble at all. Betcha he's got a room all picked out for Sammy =D
"That guy was this close to getting himself smacked," Dean muttered, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind him, Sam laughed.
"Ooh, Dean, you know how hot it makes me when you're all growly and jealous like a big old poppa bear!"
Such pretty pictures in my head.
::wistful sighs::
"So, he's a witch with a fetish for old military uniforms or..."
"Or...something," Sam said. He was holding open the smallest book from the stack – a barely-holding-together New Testament. There was an inscription on the flyleaf in faded, brownish ink and Sam tipped it toward Dean.
"Benjamin –" Dean read aloud, stumbling a little over the old-fashioned writing style. "May God keep you...safe until He sees...fit to send you home again. Your loving Father and Mother, Wm. and Liza. Stone. Dedham, August 1861. Huh. Maybe it was his great-great granddad's or something?"
"Maybe." Sam went back through the books again, looking, while Dean did a quick search through the chest of drawers. There was nothing there but folded t-shirts and underwear, balled socks and some worn-out pajamas. Sam found two more books inscribed to 'Benjamin Stone', the written dates decades apart. Sam shut the last one and looked up at Dean, his expression troubled. "Dude, I'm kinda getting a...bad feeling about this."
"You know," Dean said, carefully re-folding the Union Army coat, "I kind of am, too." As Sam stacked the books and uniforms back into the trunk, Dean slipped the bible into his inner pocket – wiped the trunk down as Sam snapped the lock shut. Sam hadn't noticed and Dean grinned to himself – stood up fast at footsteps in the corridor. Sam stood, too – took three long, silent strides across the room and clicked the light off. They waited in the dim glow that filtered in around the curtain, breathing slow and careful. The footsteps went away down the stairs and Dean eased the door open slowly, peering through the crack. The corridor was deserted and they both slipped out and headed downstairs as fast and quiet as possible.
Yeah--unless this Civil War!guy's name is Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacCloud, so am I. . . .
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You know, as fun as the first movie was, i've never really gotten into the whole 'Highlander' fandom...
Which is probably a pity, but...you know. You takes what you gets.
:)
*bounce*
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The tv show, though, was often lots of fun, stuffed to bursting with really hot guys, and incredibly slashy. And there were kilts and swords and a panoply of sexy military uniforms through the centuries. Villains and heroes and Bonnie Prince Charlie (just in a couple episodes; he wasn't an Immortal). Roger Daltrey in a recurring role!
And there were also goofy special effects and ridiculous plots to mock. And enough regulars that there was something for everybody.
Not that I'm partial or anything. *koff koff* It's just that my Search for More Methos (points to icon) as the series ended led to my starting to read fanfic online....
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I've seen bits of the tv show, and it looked cheesy but fun. I've *read* some fanfic, and Methos...yeah.
I like him.
:)
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Too many questions. Got to go find the answers.
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:)
*bounce*
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I loved to hang out there when we lived in Tacoma - just so much fun stuff to look at and contemplate, plus the Sound!
This has been out a while - mind if ask where you found it?