Title: The Brothers Grim (Part 1 of 3(?))
Author: skybound2
Rating: T (PG-13)
Word Count: ~2000 this part
Characters:Dean, Sam, Bobby, OCs
Spoiler Warnings: Vague, but present, spoilers through 6x06 ("You Can't Handle the Truth")
Summary: Still dealing with learning the truth about Sam, Bobby sends the boys on the trail after a series of missing girls.
Disclaimers: Playing in Wonderland's universe. Also, I'm from the South Jersey/Philly area, so a scene in this part is written with all the love in the world and with no disrespect intended.
Author's Notes: This is being written for Thessali who won a story from me through help_nz a couple months back. Her request was for a story involving either Dean learning the meaning of charity, or Dean teaching Sam the meaning of charity, or failing that, just a gen story starring the boys. Well, I promise you that at least one of those requests has been filled :-) My apologies for taking so long to get this posted, but I kept trying to wrangle this thing into just one part, and it wasn't happening. I expect two more parts to follow in a reasonable time frame *fingers crossed* There MAY be some disturbing themes/imagery in the next part, I will warn appropriately if that is the case. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
It began as it always does: a whisper of words heard over coffee in a three stool diner; sentence fragments telling an invisible story from the depths of that archaic form of media, the newspaper; an impatient phone call telling them to get off their asses and get going, 'cause something was smelling rotten in Denmark. Or in this case, Philadelphia.
It began as it always does: the sun barely risen, an orange day-glo horizon reflecting off asphalt wet with morning dew; the Impala speeding along, carefully skirting areas of police scrutiny as best as it and its driver could manage. Chugging gasoline on its way towards their destination.
This one dug up out of a week old fifth page mention in the Philadelphia Daily News Bobby had stumbled across.
It began as it always does, it was the endings that were always changing.
~~~\/~~~
On an annoyance scale of one to ten, Dean rates being stuck in traffic at a toll booth at about four. A six if all the local radio stations are shitty. He rates being stuck in traffic at a toll booth heading over a bridge trying to leave New Jersey at about fifteen.
That number skyrockets when you add in the fog that's swarming the road in a thick soup. Hell, the Impala's bumper and the SUV in front of him are prepping for their third date at this point.
And if one more person tries to cut him off, he's gonna... "Jesus, people! It's called a blinker, use it!"
He's gonna lose his shit, that's what. "What is wrong with these people? Don't you have to pass a test to get a license around here?"
"Seriously?"
"What?"
"You're complaining about someone else's driving? You? The man who pretty much treats all street signs as suggestions?"
Dean purses his lips as he glares Sam's way. His fuse is short as it is, the last thing he needs is the sarcastic, disbelieving voice of his brother interjecting his opinions on the matter. "You got somethin' ya wanna say to me?"
A small smile flitters across his brother's face, and for a second - just a second - Dean can believe that everything between them is normal again. And that Sam's soul isn't rattling around like a pinball in hell. But that smile is just a little too cold, a little too lacking in emotion, for him to truly forget. "Just seems like a case of the kettle and the pot is all."
"How very Sesame Street of you, it's - HEY!" Dean slams his fist on the horn, the sound joining its echoing brethren all around. "What the hell? Are you blind? !"
Laughter from the passenger side of the car tells Dean that his little outburst – rude hand gestures and all – at the wrinkly old lady who just tried to merge her Mazda with his Impala hasn't changed Sam's opinion at all.
"Stuff it, Sam." He bites the words out, but they have no heat to them. The sound of his brother's good humor enough to make his own tension ease a fraction. A look back at the road, and the red light refracting off the low-hanging clouds, tells him that they are no closer to getting over the bridge now then they were five minutes ago. In need of a distraction that doesn't involve acts of homicidal road rage, he gestures to the research spread out on Sam's lap. "Anything yet?"
Sam shakes his head, "No, not really" and shuffles through the pages to get to his tablet. His response elicits a frown from Dean. The pull of the skin around his mouth reminding him that he's not quite over the winter chill, and his lips are dried out and cracking at the seams. He needs a drink. Bad. Stupid traffic.
They've come out this way partly on Bobby's say-so (following a lead on a trio of girls, barely on the right side of legal, vanished without a trace of anything but a thin coating of sulfur that the police couldn't make heads or tails of, going on a year ago now; two more had just joined their ranks) and partly because Dean is trying to cling to whatever minuscule amount of normality he can. Not an easy feat with his soulless brother riding shotgun.
They've been doing what they can to rectify that...situation. (Well, Dean and Bobby have been, Sam hasn't so much been helping as not actively hindering, which alternately pisses Dean off and makes him feel strangely proud. His brother must have enough inherent good in him that the absence of a soul hasn't turned him into a complete dickhead. 'Complete' being the operative word there.) But at the moment they are staring down a barrel of wait and see while Cas digs into some leads for them, and Dean's tired of feeling impotent (not that he would ever use that word of course) so making a go of saving damsels in distress seems an ideal way to spend his empty hours.
"Near as I can tell, the girls weren't into anything they shouldn'ta been. No history of drugs, violence... Or magic. Just typical teenagers, living on their own for the first time."
Dean thinks about all of the shit he's seen go down over the years and snorts. "Nothing typical about teenagers, Sam."
"Yeah, well, these girls were practically poster-child normal. Average grades. Decent enough to get them all into Temple, but not U. Penn. Which they all applied for - the three that went missing last year had been practically joined at the hip since birth. History is all kinds of boring. About the most exciting thing any of 'em ever did was move into their own place."
"Huh." Dean grunts, his head swimming with the memory of the last time they dealt with girls gone missing from an apartment in Philly. Remembers crawling through a wall, and Jo's voice knocking him for riding her so hard. Can practically feel the warmth of her flirty smile on his face, but the memory morphs. Quick as always to dissolve into the last time he saw her - blood staining her lips, and sickly pale skin. Looking at him with eyes that swore it wasn't his fault.
But he knows better.
The sensation of failure that swells inside of him is so abrupt he winces. Not enough for Sam to notice - not that this version of his brother would care one way or another - but enough that Dean can't pretend it didn't happen, can't pretend that he's never managed to balance out his mistakes against the successes in his life. Not when the former seem to keep piling up day after day. So he shoves the emotions deep into a box, refusing to dwell, and focuses his thoughts on the present. His voice rough around the edges when he speaks. "They weren't blondes, were they?"
"No. Two brunettes and a redhead. This isn't Holmes's M.O."
"Good. I'd of been pissed if he'd cracked through that concrete. Stealing that truck was a pain in the ass."
"Thought you said you borrowed it?"
"To-may-to, to-mah-to, Sam. What about the two that pulled a Houdini last month?"
"Just met at the start of term. First tenants of the apartment since the last batch went missing, gotta be something there for us to check out. Beyond that..." Sam shakes his head, typing away at the tablet in his lap. "Haven't had a lot of luck. Records are clamped down tight. Investigation's still ongoing. Need to poke around some more, but the service is too shoddy to do it from the car."
Dean eyes the unmoving traffic in front of him through a sliver in the fog, frustration condensing inside him heavy as the clouds. "Yeah, well, we ain't going anywhere for a while."
"Hmm. I see that." The slow roll of his brother's shoulders as he settles into the seat, an action far too relaxed to belong to Sam, draws Dean's eyes up and over. Cataloging everything from the way his fingers tap out a rhythm along with the radio, to how even-spaced each of his breaths are drawn in. And all of it, every last bit, is just a tad off - wrong - and Dean can't help the way his muscles tense. His body registering his brother as a threat, and his mind not arguing the point all that hard.
Watching Sam is an action that's as ingrained into Dean as breathing. No matter the circumstances, he's always made sure to keep his brother in his periphery, so that when things go to shit (they always do), he's ready. In the past, the times when Sam has been too far removed for Dean to keep an eye on have always left Dean feeling twitchy. A prickling sensation beneath the skin. Nerve jolts from a phantom limb. But now...now it's Sam's presence at his side that causes that uncomfortable feeling. Bugs crawling over his flesh. Dean has no idea how much longer he can handle it before he snaps.
The car lurching to the left as someone taps the passenger side jars him from his reverie. "Oh, come on!" He flinches at the sound of scrapping metal as the other driver backs up with an apologetic wave.
There aren't enough distractions in the world to keep the road rage at bay.
Dean counts to ten all the same.
~~~\/~~~
It thrums.
Pulsating beats beneath his fingers, the pads of his thumbs. Waves of ecstasy pouring through him with each pass he makes, reveling in his work. In the way that his hands can create something beautiful from something so plain.
There's a story to be told in this, a story with a name. He knows that. He can feel it, clawing up, from the pit of him...from the pit...trying to wind it's way up and through his vocal chords. To break free of his tongue, and his lips. It aches, craves, life. To be born in a slow exhale. To ring out on the little particles that make up the air, and vibrate across space, and time. To never know death.
But he won't give in. He won't. Won't let it pour from him. No. No, he'll keep it bottled and corked, shoved down deep, deep. Where no one will ever find it, and where he will remain safe.
Protected.
Rewarded. For all his efforts, and all his pain. Yes. Yes, he has earned that. His hands continue to move. Focused on his work.
"Why, why are you doing this? I don't - I don't understand." The girl, dirty ragged little thing, whines from her corner. Snuffling, noises that never stop.
"Hush now, you'll ruin my concentration."
There is no more whining, no more pleading for a long while after that. Just the hiccuping sound of her sobs, broken only by his own, steady humming. The pleasure of his work calming him.
"Please. Please, I'll do anything. Anything. Please. Just -" A shuffle, and a scratch, her body pulling closer to him, reaching out, grimy hands and grimier nails making a pass for his leg. "Just let me go."
He pauses his movements long enough to bare his teeth at her with a snarl, watches glassy eyes go wide, as she yelps and backs away. Burrows down into herself, pulling her legs away from the limp body by her side with a whimper. Trembling all over, though the heat in the room is considerable.
He stretches out a hand, tapping her on the forehead and watching her face crack with yet another sob. "Foolish girl. Whyever would I do that? Do you know the trouble I've gone through to get you here?" He spreads out his fingers across her face, and pushes, making her stumble to the ground with a satisfying thud, where she stays. Allowing him to go back to his work.
It's not often that he has such good materials to work with after all.
~TBC