Author's Note: This takes place roughly before the end of the season 7, ish. I wanted to explore more of Bobby's death, mainly because I'm not ready to say goodbye to the character. It should be known that my foreign language comes watered down college classes taken for the credit and also, this lore is either made up or comes from Wikipedia, so if that irks people I'm sorry for it. I am also going to mentionthat the names I'm using for my OC characters are nods to different horror films and horror film characters in keeping with the Supernatural theme, so if you recognize any that's what I'm up to.

Feedback would be much appreciated! Please read and review, I love hearing from you!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Rising Sun

By: Lady NeverAfterNon

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Dean slumped in frustration, banging his forehead on the Impala's raised hood, and swore. The unforgiving New England sun, completely unhindered by any clouds whatsoever, was roasting the back of his neck. He had a sneaking suspicion that his skin was well on its way to winning first prize at a lobster impression contest. Despite the heat, though, woods around him smelled mucky and alive, and the humid air was teeming with bugs.

It was an all you could eat Winchester buffet. Of all the places his Baby would choose to break down, it had to be in the middle of the Adirondack Mountains, in full summer, with the local insect life hungry for plasma. He swatted another enterprising mosquito before reaching in through the driver window to turn the key again.

The Impala's engine coughed and spluttered, and almost didn't turn over. The Chevy's familiar purr was punctuated by a shudder, nearly dying before catching itself. It settled into the familiar pattern of surge, run, choke, nearly die, surge, that informed him that he had once again failed to trouble shoot the problem.

Dean bent back further under the hood, wondering what he should poke at next. The sound reminded him of a cylinder misfire, which he hoped was not it. The Impala ran on six cylinders, and one out of commission wouldn't really affect the overall performance, but the idea of allowing his Baby to run at anything less than perfect would not fly. He wished he had a computer to run a diagnostic but their chosen profession wouldn't allow it.

He and Sam couldn't afford to lug expensive automotive equipment because one, it took up too much space, and two, the supernatural critters they hunted were good at collateral damage.

"Come on baby," he muttered.

Dean pulled a hose and the engine revved strong, and it choked and nearly died when he replaced it.

Well, not a misfire then. Thank god for small graces. There was a clog somewhere in a vacuum line and it was causing the engine to shudder. Not a serious problem, not yet anyway, but without the right equipment it would be eventually.

Maybe Sammy and him could loot a automotive shop? Nah, bad idea. Dick Roman put them on the map, no need to add fuel to the flame.

Besides, a little light robbery might ruffle a certain angel's feathers. Dean had gotten pretty good at Castiel's preferred method of communication: any board game or card game anyone cared to mention. Unfortunately it didn't always work. He glanced over his shoulder.

Castiel was standing a few yards away, clutching a long bow and looking uncertain. Some habits, in this case angelic ones, died hard. Cas still hadn't come to terms with his past, and was cleverly sidestepping all of Dean's attempts at getting him to talk. Stubborn bastard.

The stench of rotten garbage and weed and cat poo hit him in the nose like a punch, and he gagged. His train of thought derailed right in its tracks.

Ugh, nothing like eau de butcher's dumpster in mid July to spice things up and make their job really pleasant.

"How's the car coming?" Sam called, "The Lindworm is on its way back around again."

"No kidding, I can smell it a mile away," Dean muttered, rooting around in the Impala's engine.

"It threw up on the trunk of your car. There's a hole melted in the frame."

Bobby's ghostly outline flickered into shape near Dean's elbow. The grizzled old hunter was barely visible in the bright sunlight, and there was an odd echo to his voice. When Garth had suggested the possibility that perhaps Bobby was haunting them, Dean had shut that idea down hard.

In hind sight though, he should have known better that to write off something so cavalierly, especially in their line of work. The first time Bobby had appeared, Dean had just gotten out of the shower. He nearly had a brain aneurysm when he saw vague outline of his mentor flickering near his towel. Yep, that had been a weird conversation, though he was beyond glad to have Bobby back.

"You know you have a clog in your line, right?"

Dean rested his forehead on the back of his filthy, sunburned hands and groaned. "Yes, Bobby. For the love of God, yes I know. Go poke at the puking turtle and leave me alone."

"It's not a turtle, idjit." Bobby flickered out, swearing cut off abruptly. The old man hadn't fully mastered all of the perks of being a ghost, but he could cause their foes a margin of discomfort. In this case, the mission was: corral a mythical lizard with an irritable stomach so they could hack it up into chunks and destroy its egg clutch so it didn't make more irritable lizards.

Sam loaded his crossbow with heavy oak bolts and then dipped the arrow's tip in a can of gasoline, all the while keeping an eye on the river.

The Lindworm's smell showed up before it did.

The hunters breathed through their mouths, each trying to keep the overwhelming nausea from knocking them flat. The lore Sam pulled from Google had been very forthcoming on the Lindworm's poisonous bite and aquatic habits, but the articles had neglected to touch on the fact that-

"-Ass," Dean griped loud enough so that his brother could hear him, greasy fingers slipping on the Impala's vacuum lines, "It smells like ass, Sam, and your laundry bag."

Sam rolled his eyes, not rising to his brother's bait. "Everything is ass to you, Dean. Ass and boobs."

Dean stuck his tongue out at his brother.

"I don't understand," Castiel cocked his head, perplexed, "Sam does his laundry regularly. And how could an 'ass' even get into a laundry bag? Donkeys are notoriously stubborn."

Dean sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, then wanted to punch something in frustration when he realized he'd given himself a grease unibrow. "It was a joke, Cas."

"Your jokes do not make sense."

"No shit." Dean wiped his dirty hands on a rag; Castiel was human but his sense of humor was still unfailingly absent. They'd have to keep working on that.

Dean popped up out of the engine when the Lindworm come splashing out of the river surrounding their small little island, fat little legs jiggling its large rubbery bipedal body like tapioca pudding in a ziploc baggie. The Lindworm was a tad under eight feet tall with pebbly skin a shocking shade of lime.

When they had researched the Lindworm, all of the illuminated medieval manuscripts depicted it as colorful, like some sort of tropical bird. Dean had brushed the pictures off as the results of a cloistered monk with too much time on his hands. As it turned out the Lindworm was really, really, hard to miss. On top of bright green, it had a red ruff that flared out around its head when it was mad, which appeared to be all the time.

The Lindworm hissed, sounding a lot like a pissed off cat, and bits of corrosive venom pitted the ground in front of them.

Dean gripped a wrench, his car problems temporarily forgotten, watching the Lindworm with a baleful eye. "I swear, if that- that drool hits my car again I will fuc-"

"Yep," Sam said not really caring to pay attention to how colorful his brother could get. Dean could make a sailor blush with his language when the prompting was right. Sam stooped, dipping the crossbow bolt into the campfire. The tip exploded into flames. The internet hadn't been clear on what type of bolt was needed but it had been quite specific on fire.

Dean bent back over the Impala, still keeping one eye on the battle. He trusted Sam to take care of things, but that didn't mean he had to do it nicely. Between the sun, the bugs, and the giant fat vomiting dinosaur, he was seriously losing his patience.

Bobby's fuzzy outline appeared behind the Lindworm and the grizzled old hunter shoved both fists into the Lindworm's spine. The Lindworm screeched, pausing in its assult. Sam took advantage of the pause to let fly another flaming bolt that struck the lizard in the gut.

It was a good thing the Lindworm wasn't all that bright, though.

It kept forgetting that Sam had been sticking it with flaming arrows for the better part of an hour. It would run away in pain, and then forget it was losing and come charging back a minute later. When it got close enough, Sam took careful aim at the head. The crossbow twanged and a feathered bolt appeared in the Lindworm's round glassy protruding eye. The Lindworm shrieked and then vomited another pile of grayish yellow acidic sludge that smelled even worse than its owner did.

Dean swore, wishing again that he had more than his emergency tool kit. "If it's not dead in the next thirty seconds I will beat it to death with-" he cast around looking for something suitable, "-your iPod, Sam."

"Steve Jobs didn't exactly make weapons of war," Sam said, reloading, never taking his eyes off of the angry oversized lizard.

"Actually," Castiel started, "Something amusing-.

"Don't even go there," Sam interrupted. He did not want to know.

"There's always a first for everything," Dean said, voice muffled by the clanking of his tools, "I'm hungry, I stink, my car is broken, I've donated blood to half of New York's bug population, and-"

Something in the Impala's engine compartment snapped. "Goddammit!"

Sam watched the Lindworm be violently sick again, six feet from Dean's precious car and chuckled. Poor Dean. The younger Winchester raised his crossbow and aimed again.

.x.

The woman jerked awake in the dark, not entire sure what had woken her.

Her heart fluttered in her chest like a caged bird. She rested a hand over her sternum, vowing again to watch her diet and get into better shape. The doctor had warned her that even though she was thin and not all that old, if she didn't take care of herself she could risk a stroke. She pushed the sheets back wondering if she should get out of bed. It was two A.M. and it was a long day tomorrow. The drive in to the city would take only a few hours, and she needed to be alert. The French embassy in New York was due for an inspection, and she did not relish the task of sorting through the affairs of over a hundred employees.

The dark shape of her bodyguard hulked at the foot of her bed and she relaxed. He would take care of whatever it was. He had done a customary check of the house when they had got back last night from the state dinner party, and now he could do another one. It was what he was paid for, after all.

"Jacques?" she called softly, "Mon ami, je suis desole, mais-"

She paused. Jacques was unnaturally still. A sense of dread settled in her stomach like something cold and slimy. Something that would watch her with eyes like luminous lamps, and teeth like needles. She swallowed, mouth dry. She fancied she could see those eyes now, hovering in the darkest corner of her room, near the ceiling. She mentally smacked herself.

She was being silly. She slipped from the sheets, bare feet resting on the cold wood floor.

She steeled her nerves. She was a grown woman, for cryin' out loud. Old, to hear Grandfather Bustillo tell it, as she was forty and she and her husband were still childless. The old geezer was still stuck in the dark ages but he was family and so he could how to stick it where it hurt. She took a deep breath, giving herself another mental smack. She needed to get a hold of herself. Grown women didn't jump at shadows.

Something soft and furry brushed her ankles.

A scream caught in her throat. An animal, perhaps? That was absurd, there were no animals in her Kingston townhouse. She leapt from the bed, darting to the doorway.

Jacques' body fell across her way and she instinctively grabbed for him in relief, thinking that the man was still asleep. He could sleep through anything. Then she really did scream. Something had scratched out his eyes, leaving nothing but bloody gaping holes. His body was cold and stiff and rubbery and very, very dead.

The woman scraped her sweaty palms on her nightgown, trying to rid herself of that unforgettable texture of death.

She dropped his body and ran for the door, white silk nightie tangling around her legs.

The pitter patter of quick soft feet followed her down the hallway, and dimly she thought she could hear something laughing. High pitched and giggly, like a child. The woman was good and scared now.

She did her best to concentrate on the pounding of her ownsteps, rather than the unnatural ones of her pursuer. Something soft and furry, but with the strength of a band of steel, curled around her ankles. She went down hard, palms stinging as they braced her fall. She began to claw at the thing cutting the circulation off in her feet, sobs threatening to choke her. Her nails scraped at nothing but animal fur; there was no flesh beneath it. Her struggling was fruitless. Whatever it was curled around her ankle held her like a steel vice. It began to pull her across the floor back toward the yawning black hole of her room to the waiting pale eyes and the pattering footsteps.

She screamed again, nails leaving jagged white lines in the wooden floor.

.x.

"Did you bring the machete?" Sam called, watching the Lindworm's final death spasms.

"Trust you boys to not be prepared," Bobby grumped, voice faint as he faded in and out, "What if it wasn't dead? What would you do then? Cross your fingers and hope for the best?"

Dean closed the Impala's hood and patted the sun warmed black metal fondly. He had finally remembered the spare hose in the trunk, miraculously free of corrosive venom. Problem solved, which meant he was pretty damn happy. He ignored Bobby's grumpiness and looked over their machetes. Unlike automotive stuff, they had a lot of machetes. "Which one, Sam? Silver or normal, or does it matter?"

"Normal, which you'd know if you hadn't snuck out to the bar."

He chose to take the high road and ignore Sam's jab at his extracurricular activities. "Comin' right up."

Dean split the Lindworm from rectum to throat with the machete, suddenly grateful for the hunting trips Bobby took them on as kids, even if he doubted the grizzled old hunter had intended the game dressing lessons for mythical territorial lizards that smelled worse than his brother's first college dorm roommate. Gutting the Lindworm wasn't all that different than gutting a deer.

The brothers rolled up their sleeves and began rooting around in the Lindworm's cooling body. The Lindworm's intestines were used in scrying, and the gallbladder had medicinal properties if prepared correctly. It was disgusting, but most hunter apothecaries paid good money for the parts: Dean was elbows deep in putrid lizard guts for a reason.

Sam gagged.

"One that barfs first has to walk back," Dean challenged.

Sam pulled out a string of intestines and rammed them into a plastic garbage bag. "You smell just as bad as I do. Your car will reek whether one of us pukes or not."

"Chicken."

"Oh that's mature. I recall someone having a tantrum with a wrench a little bit ago."

"I would have made big and ugly my bitch. Not stuck it with arrows and got puke everywhere."

"Yes," Sam said snidely, "It would have been a genius plan dude. Then I'd be picking you out of here along with entrails."

Dean raised the Lindworm's massive two chambered heart like a football. Castiel took a wise step back, and Bobby flickered into the visible spectrum long enough to slap a gray see-through hand over his gray see-through face.

"You throw that at me and I will end you," Sam warned his brother.

Dean had never been one to follow orders or requests all that well. The heart hit Sam square in the chin with a wetsplat.

"You are so dead." Sam pulled the Lindworm's stomach out, jiggling the sack like a lime colored water balloon.

Dean tried to dodge, but the rubbery stomach sack hit him square in the chest. It exploded in a shower of acid and stench, and whatever the Lindworm had eaten before it died. Dean peeled the corpse of a dead squirrel off of his stomach.

"I hate you."

Sam grinned. "Don't dish out what you can't take."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Boys-"

Dean flicked his fingers and the dead squirrel sailed at Sam, who ducked. "Truce?"

"Truce."

"Now ain't that adult of you both," Bobby grumbled.

Castiel refused to budge from his safe distance away. The angel was typically scruffy, but he was also very fastidious in keeping himself clean. He'd nearly had an apoplexy when the Lindworm demonstrated its skills at regurgitating its stomach contents.

Dean gasped and doubled over. Something on his hand burned like white hot fire and his hand spasmed. The muscles clenched against his will, like he'd stuck a finger into an outlet.

"What is it?" Sam was by him in an instant, all the joking gone from his tone.

Dean straightened when the sharp pain left as quickly as it had come. He looked down at his left hand incredulously, like it belonged to someone else.

Where the hell had that come from? The Lindworm was poisonous, sure, but Dean hadn't been poking around in its face. The only thing on his hand was a thin strip of white paper. Watery ink calligraphy was scrawled all over it. Together they faintly resembled a bug, or some sort of snake. He plucked it off, slightly weirded out that it hadn't disintegrated in the Lindworm's stomach.

The paper came off easily enough, but the ink remained on his hand like a cheap dime store stick on tattoo.

The marks shone wetly on his skin. They wound around his thumb and across the back of his hand, stretching towards his wrist.

"It's a centipede," Sam said, squinting at it. He held his brother's wrist gingerly, as though he half expected the ink to decide to change hosts.

The ink lay inert, however. Dean flattened out his fingers, and then made a fist, waiting to see if the burning pain would return.

Castiel joined them. Dean watched the angel's face, trying to judge from his expression how serious the thing on his hand was.

Cas frowned, touching it with one finger. "It is kanji," he said finally, "A centipede made of kanji."

"What does it say?" Dean asked, frowning at it.

Castiel shrugged and looked appologetic. "I lost most of my omniscience when I murdered half of heaven and fell. I do not know."

"Great," Dean growled, shaking out his hand like he could flick the mark off.

"I am sorry, Dean," Cas said emphathetically, "I tried to get it off when I touched you. It almost felt like it was repelling me."

"You're a freaking angel!" Dean shouted.

Cas looked sad. "Not as such, not anymore."

Dean sighed, knowing he was being an ungrateful ass. He knew Castiel would help if he could. "Sorry dude," he said quietly.

The angel nodded, still looking unhappy, but at least he hadn't disappeared on them. Baby steps.

Sam chewed his lip. "Care to weigh in, Bobby? Bobby?"

All three of them looked around, noticing that Bobby had disappeared again. "Dammit," Dean said, though he wasn't really surprised. The hunter's ghost didn't last long in full sunlight.

"Don't worry," Sam said, "We'll figure this out and get that thing off of you."

"Right," Dean said, with a bravado he didn't feel.

.x.

Nathalie Bustillo's body was discovered by her housekeeper when the woman came in at seven. The panicked screaming got the attention of the neighbors, and before the homicide detectives even arrived, the news of the French Ambassador's death and that of her bodyguard were plastered all over the internet and later the six o'clock news.

When the crime scene had been photographed and gone over with a fine toothed comb, the bodies of Bustillo and her bodyguard were taken out.

The coroner noted the gaping holes where their eyes used to be, and forensics had to take a lot of pictures in order to get all the bloody feline paw prints in the house: they covering the floors, the walls, and the ceiling. the case was certainly a weird one. The detectives were stumped. Except for the paw prints, there were no signs of forced entry and the townhouse's security system was untripped and showed no signs of tampering.

The cops had no leads, but due to Bustillo's extensive connections they kept the case open, giving regular updates to the media.

Detective Jason Valdez of the Kingston Homicide Unit was more annoyed than usual when he left the scene with his partner. He didn't like the growing stack of deaths that had strange and creepy stamped all over them on his desk. It made the Kingston PD look bad because they took too damn long to solve. Sure, everybody got cold cases now and again, but dozens in the past few months? It was weird, and not good for his career.

Not to mention that he hated cats.

He flipped his collar up and hunched his shoulders against the insistent questions of the newsies clustered like roaches around the entrance to the townhouse. Nope, this did not bode well at all.

He left his partner to handle them. Krieglerson was better at dodging reporters' questions than he was. He tended to get annoyed more often than not, and usually ended up sayings something to reporters that the Police Department would regret. Valdez got into their unmarked charcoal grey Crown Vic to wait. One part of him rankled at the fact that the media dictated the pressure on the case, but the other part of him couldn't help but consider the fact that something else was going on.

He hoped it had nothing to do with the Peace Summit meeting in four weeks, that it was just random killings and bad luck. If only they could be that lucky.

.x.

To be continued...