I'm alive, which I have to say at the beginning of pretty much every story, of course. I know, I never update often enough or write enough. I really, truly mean to, but I just don't end up doing it. For any of you who are reading it, I am at some point going to continue Framing Innocence, but since so much of it was negated by season 9 so far, and because season 9 has given me some new ideas, I need to redo some of what I've already written and need to revamp my planned out story chapters. Now onto this one: If you've read my story called Hindsight, you will have an idea of what's happening here. I just really love the idea of younger Dean and Sam getting to interact with the people featured in this story, and I won't say any more for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. Enjoy!
Everything is fuzzy. The world seems to be floating in a white fog, or maybe the fog is just filling his mind. After a moment of floating pleasantly in the fog, he begins to narrow down his thoughts, and remembers that he has a body. He focuses on that, and is surprised to find that nothing hurts, nothing feels funny. Huh. Painless floating isn't what usually follows waking through a fog of confusion. He supposes he could be in the hospital, drugs masking the pain and making his mind fuzzy.
He focuses on opening his eyes, and to his surprise, it is an easy task. He is also decidedly not in a hospital. The world in front of him is a bright sea of green for a moment, and then his eyes adjust to see a modest city park, two or three people milling around on the grass and a few walking by on the nearby sidewalks.
He turns his head to the side and feels a rough, uneven surface behind his head. A tree. He seems to be sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree.
Turning further, he catches a glimpse of worn leather, and with it comes the familiar smell of leather and metal. His mind, rapidly clearing, forms a picture of his brother. Dean.
All at once, the fog clears, and his mind is filled with questions instead. He has no idea where they are, or how they got here, or what the hell is happening. Passersby don't seem to have found the two men sitting below a tree, apparently napping, strange. Nobody is giving them a second glance.
He sits up straighter, leaning further from the tree, and turns to look at his brother. Dean is leaning against the tree next to him just as he was, and blinking slowly at the sky in a way that suggests he woke up just seconds after Sam.
"Dean." His voice comes out normally, his throat isn't dry. They can't have been sitting here for long.
"Dean," Sam repeats, reaching out to place a hand carefully on his brother's shoulder. Dean's head turns slightly toward him, and he blinks a few times and focuses slowly on Sam's face.
"Sam?" he says drowsily, then starts violently and sits up straighter, looking around wildly. "What the hell…?"
"No idea," Sam says. "You okay?"
Dean pauses a moment to evaluate. "Yeah, fine. You?"
"I'm good." There's a moment's pause while they both stand up, brushing grass off of their jeans and looking around.
"Dude," Dean says, "where the hell are we?"
Sam shrugs. "Dunno. But Dean," he pauses and Dean turns to face him again. "What—do you know what we were doing before this?"
Dean's eyebrows draw together, and he thinks for a moment. "Not a clue. You remember anything?"
Sam shakes his head. "Nothing. You think it's some sort of trap? Demons maybe?"
"Yeah, maybe. Seems a little fluffy and nice for them, though, don't you think? Wouldn't think if it was demons we'd wake up in a nice park with memory loss. More like chained up in a dungeon with concussions."
"So what? How the hell did we get here, and what do we do?"
Dean glances over across the street at a bustling day club. A sign over the front just says "Angie's." There are a few lively-looking people milling around outside and a fairly steady stream going in and out. "Well, first thing's first, find out where we are." He turns and heads over toward the club.
Sam rolls his eyes—as confused and lost as they are, he's sure Dean won't pass up the opportunity to flirt with a few local women, claiming, of course, that it is crucial to 'getting a feel for the town.'
As they approach the road, a car passes by ahead of them. Dean, already crossing to the club, doesn't seem to notice, but Sam stares after it. It was very sleek, a shining silver-grey color, with low, rounded headlights unlike any he's ever seen before, and a compacted shape that seemed almost futuristic. It was possible it was a newer model of some car he just hasn't seen before, and turning back, he sees that Dean is already across the street and entering the club. Forgetting the strange car, he jogs across the road and into the club after his brother.
The inside of the club is what he might have expected. There are maybe twenty or thirty people scattered inside, all dressed reasonably well, though again he notes some strange fashions and hairstyles. Maybe this town is just into odd trends.
He spots Dean in a cleared area midway toward a small stage, where four young women wearing matching outfits are dancing to the music that's blaring through the club's speakers. It's not a song he recognizes, but then again, in the Impala with Dean he doesn't exactly get a lot of exposure to popular music. He notices that the attention of most of the club's patrons is on the girls, in fact, and supposes that they must be somewhat well known, at least locally.
Sam approaches his brother, but before he can ask whether Dean plans on gathering any info or just wants to stare at some dancing girls, the older brother grabs his arm and directs his attention to the stage.
"Check it out," Dean says, grinning, but his expression is more impressed than his usual brand of lecherous. "Not bad."
"Dean, you're disgusting. You into pedophilia now?" He's exaggerating, but not by too much. The oldest of the girls on stage looks to be in her early twenties, and the youngest can't be much older than nineteen.
"I was talking about the performance, dumbass," Dean says, elbowing Sam. "I prefer my ladies be older. Usually means they're more experienced. Really know what to do."
"Dude. Gross." But Sam is focusing on the girls performing now. It takes him a few moments to make out the moving mouths and headsets, but he realizes that they're not just dancing to the song, they're the ones singing it. He raises his eyebrows slightly. He doesn't care too much for the song, but has to admit, the girls are singing in perfect harmony, and even as they twirl and move, their voices don't waver. Maybe it's a recording of them, and they're just lip-synching.
Then, as he watches, the song goes into its last repeat of the chorus, and in formation, one of the girls lifts another over her head easily, where she contorts like a gymnast into an impossible-looking position. The other two, two beats later, flip gracefully backward onto their hands, spin in perfect unison, and just as the song ends, somersault back to finish in showy poses.
"Wow," Sam says, his voice lost in the applause of the clubgoers. The girls on stage smile gratefully and confidently, and then move forward to take the tips being offered by the people on the floor. Sam makes a face of appreciation, if you've got the talent, use it, and goes to turn to Dean, but before he can, he catches the eye of one of the dancers.
The girl's gaze settles on him for a second, passes over him, and then suddenly snaps back to his face. Her smile falters and her gaze moves from him to Dean, standing next to him, at whom she stares for at least a full ten seconds, before looking back to Sam. Her expression by now has morphed into something almost resembling horror.
Then, as if noticing that she is staring, she snaps the smile back on her face and turns back to the crowd, but Sam sees her sharply grab the wrist of one of her fellow dancers, then lean and whisper something to her. The other girl's eyes widen, and then she moves to the side and surreptitiously glances over at Sam and Dean with a similar expression of confusion and terror.
Suddenly filled with an intense foreboding, Sam snatches Dean's arm tightly, ignoring his brother's yelp of protest, and drags him backward out of the club. When they get outside, Sam leads Dean around the next corner and onto the sidewalk that runs between a brick building and a narrow, deserted side street.
Dean looks at first as though he might yell at Sam, but he must see something in his brother's face, because his expression morphs to one of concern and he asks, "what is it? You okay? What was that about?"
Sam glances to either side, knowing that they're more exposed than he would like. "Did you see the way that girl looked at us?"
Dean raises an eyebrow. "What, Sam, you afraid of chicks looking at you now?" At Sam's glare, he raises his hands defensively. "I wasn't watching them, I was looking across the floor. Why? She look funny to you?"
"No, man, she recognized us. And not in a friendly way."
Dean glanced back. "I've never seen any of those girls before."
"Neither have I. Which means either we met them in the last… however long we can't remember, or they don't know us, but they know of us."
Dean catches onto his meaning immediately, and his gaze sharpens as he glances around once more. "You think they might have been monsters of some kind? Vamps, shifters?"
"Something, maybe," Sam says, once again looking around nervously. He's sure those girls had recognized them and were now following them. The street they are on is narrow, but there are few obstacles that one could hide behind, and it is open enough that no one should be able to sneak up on them. Still, he can't shake the feeling that the girls from the club are watching them right now.
Dean opens his mouth to say something else, but there is a slight rustling noise from above them, and two of the girls from the club drop down on the side of the brothers.
Sam whirls in time to avoid the arm of the first girl, but Dean, who was facing away from the girl who dropped behind him, can't avoid the butt of the gun that comes across the back of his head, and out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees his brother drop.
The nearer of the two girls to Sam is fast, and she is already kicking out at him. He manages to duck out of the way, but she turns and kicks again at one of his ankles, and he reels backward, his right shoulder crashing into the sharp metal edge of the street sign mounted on the building from which the girls had evidently been watching him and Dean.
He barely feels the pain as the girl that hit Dean enters the fight, moving toward him quickly. He lunges toward her, hoping to grab the arm coming toward him and hopefully overpower her. The girls are quick and skilled, and it's two against one, but they are also thin and light. He may be able to win with the sheer advantage of weight.
In the second it takes him to move, however, the first girl has again closed the space between them, and as he takes one step forward, a sharp elbow rams into his upper back with hard force, forcing him to drop to one knee. Then something solid hits the back of his head, and the world goes dark.
