Title: Blindly Walking
Summary: Sam is convinced something strange happening in Oregon Dean not so much. A suicide before their eyes convinces Dean that something is going on. From suicide, strange pictures and manipulated perceptions, the Winchesters find themselves doing what they do best.
Promise: I promise I will do my best to keep characters in character, preserve canon and not write Wincest. I promise to make the story believable and spell correctly. If I do not, so help me Fan Fiction Gods.
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Saturday, 10:00 AM.
An old-style Chevy Impala rolled through a town, trying to be as nondescript as possible as it rolled down the old and crumbling road. The car had a thin film of dust covering the bottom third of the car and the rear left wheel looked like it was starting to lose pressure. The car made a slight humming noise that one couldn't quite classify as normal.
The driver pulled it over and turned to his passenger. "We're here, so now I get to do what I want first. Before we get into any business."
His passenger stared at him. "And what do you want?"
"Fruit." The driver said and exited the car, heading for a fruit stand.
The town was average sized and its people were normal, simply going about their day. Small shops draped with artsy curtains and cute canvas covers stood open on every street corner and people were moving about, gearing up for what promised to be a hot Saturday morning in Oregon. Small farmers were bringing out more ice to keep their produce cold in their stands and the local pools were opening early.
Down the road was one of the aforementioned farmers' stands. Spread across it were a plethora of berries ranging from blueberries to strawberries to blackberries. They were neatly arranged with prices behind them and the berries were full, ripe and juicy. Just looking at them made peoples' mouths water. Yet, leaning over the fresh fruit stand, one individual eyed something he found much more enticing than the produce displayed on the fruit carts below—the girl that was selling it.
For all his staring, he didn't seem to garner much attention in return. She looked busy and apparently had not noticed him quite yet. While she was otherwise occupied, he looked quietly over her kulaks, tank top, apron and flip flops, deciding it was chimerical that she be able to still look good. After a moment she paid him some attention, looking up at his general direction and brushing her hands on her corduroy apron.
"What can I get you today?" She asked him. The words came out as if she had said them many times today. She tucked a strand of curly brown hair behind her ear and looked at him, only mildly interested in hearing his answer. She shuffled an ice tray to keep the fruit below cold and met the eyes of the man that was leaning toward her with all but "fruit connoisseur" written across his face.
"Well," his eyes traveled over a great many things, none of them berries. "What would you suggest?" The individual, clad in a pair of dirty jeans, a shirt and a cowboy hat, asked somewhat smugly. He adorned his face with an innocent half smile and leaned a little further over the stand so he could better inspect her face and so that she couldn't help but stare at his in return. "After all, you're the expert."
"Well, my answer would depend on what, exactly, you're looking to get," she said, looking him over as she spoke to him, "but I'm not so sure you know what you want," she continued.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I could suggest which make better pies or tell you which berries I prefer, but I don't think you're interested in that." She looked at him again and at his questioning look, she said, "because your eyes don't really seem to be on the fruit."
"Guilty as charged," he said, flashing another smile her way. "But I am, in fact, looking for the price of…" his eyes wandered down to the produce below him for a moment as he searched for something to say because, truth be told, he hadn't even looked at the berries yet. "…strawberries."
"The price of strawberries." She repeated with dubiety. "Are you sure that's the number you're looking for?" She asked, smiling slightly. It was the first hint of amusement she had shown so far. At his silence, she continued on. "Or is there something else you're hoping for?" One look at his face told her all that she needed to know by way of his intentions. In purple gel pen she wrote out a number on a sales receipt and underneath it was the word 'Jennifer'.
He took a paper from her and asked, "Now, there're no boyfriends I need to worry about, right? No jealous boyfriends that might go on a rampage if they heard my voice?" He delivered her a fake stern look from under the brim of his hat and from his expression it was obvious that he did not particularly care about the existence of said boyfriends—only about the chances of being caught by them.
She smiled once more and said, "I guess you'll just have to find out yourself, now, won't you?"
With a tilt of his head and a wink, a sly and pleased cowboy tilted his hat and continued on his way down a dusty, time-worn sidewalk. The cowboy flashed a coy smile back at the girl who fluttered her eyelashes and blew him a sarcastic kiss. The cowboy started to smoothly walk back to his car and soon found himself stumbling over a small dip as the time-worn sidewalk got the better of him.
Leaning against the right side of his car was another figure who looked amused. "Alright, take off the hat, Cowboy," Sam Winchester said to his brother, opening the passenger-side door of the Chevy Impala they had come in.
"No," Dean countered, holding the hat to his head and opening his door as well. He winked at the girl who was now laughing at him. Then he turned his attention back to his brother. "It makes me cool."
"Yeah," Sam agreed mockingly. "So cool that you tripped over your feet and looked like a doofus in front of a girl you just hit on. The hat is totally worth it."
"Shut up." Dean said and he took his seat behind the wheel of his Impala. After he checked how he looked in the rear view mirror, he returned his attention to Sam. "Make yourself useful. You've been hinting about a case all the way here. So what is it?"
Sam smirked and said nothing. He just shrugged and looked out the window, not releasing any information. He could almost feel Dean's annoyance growing with every millisecond of silence that ensued.
Dean rolled his eyes and delivered his brother an irritated look. "Cut the crap, Sam. Now, un-shut up and tell me what the hell we're here for."
"Fine," Sam said. He reached down and pulled up several newspaper clippings from various local papers. "Look, here in The Oregonian there've been two articles about apparent suicides that happened only a week apart. And in The Argus it's the same story just another week after. I've got some from the Eugene Weekly and even the Portland Tribune. They're all within the last three months." Sam fanned out the articles for Dean to see the number of them he had found in the papers.
"So there're a lot of depressed freaks in Oregon," Dean said, shrugging and turning his rear view mirror back to an angle that would let him see the girl in the fruit stand down the sidewalk a ways. "Nothing seems all that fishy to me."
"But in every one of these articles the family and friends say there were no indications that they would commit suicide." Sam argued and he held out an article under Dean's nose so he could read it if he wanted. Dean didn't want to. "And," Sam continued, "they maintain that each of the people that committed suicide were happy people." Sam made sure Dean was looking at him. "Happy people don't just kill themselves, Dean."
"And the families of 'happy people' don't like to think that their family members will commit suicide. There's nothing strange about it, Sam." Dean said. "It's what every article you'll ever find about suicide will say. No one wants to believe it'll happen." He fixed his collar. 'Now c'mon; we're going to California to meet with one of dad's old colleagues."
"California?" Sam repeated. He shook his head so violently that his hair flopped around. "No, we're not going to California; we're staying here in Oregon and we're investigating into this further."
"No," Dean said. "We're going to California to meet this guy that dad used to work with. He might have some idea where dad is now and if not he'll at least have information for us that will help us." Dean slipped on his "driving glasses" that he thought made him look cool.
"Look, Dean, forget about dad for a minute and listen to me." Sam demanded, turning in his seat to take a more aggressive stance. "We know the patterns and we know how this stuff works. There is something going on here and you know it." Dean's silence only angered Sam further. "What I don't know is why you're willing to blow this all off for dad. We're never going to find him and you know that." His voice took on an annoyed edge. "So get a grip and think about someone else for a change."
Dean said nothing and turned to face the road. His anger bubbled just below the surface, Sam knew, but Dean did nothing to show he, too, knew it was there. He simply shifted the Impala into gear and pulled out onto the road leaving swirling clouds of dust behind. "I'm telling you there's nothing going on here and that we're going to California. End of story."
Sam slouched in his seat, angry with his brother, and glared out the window at the landscape. Written all across his face was his annoyance toward his brother who was stubbornly driving them toward I-5 to head to California. He looked down at the newspaper clippings in his hand one more time before he let them fall to the floor of the car in a flurry of paper.
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Driving down a winding scenic road outside of Bend, Sam felt his attention drawn across the road and to the Deschutes River. Around it were gorgeous cliffs he guessed to be about fifty meters high and trees that grew at strange angles. Below them lay class-three water rapids and strong currents that tore over and around sharp rocks. It held his attention for quite some time and he watched the river twist and bubble around the obstacles in its way as Dean continued driving.
After forty-five minutes, however, even the mighty Deschutes River had lost its appeal and Sam could feel himself slipping into a half-asleep daze. He settled himself down in the seat and stretched his legs as much as he could given his confined space. As his eyelids started to fall down over his eyes, the sound of wailing tires and burning gears met his ears and he sat up, twisting around in his seat in time to see a red Honda Civic flash past them on the road.
Dean swerved the Impala to let the driver past and avoid being rear ended. The Impala's tires squealed in protest and the maneuver. He glanced at his speedometer which told him he was going a solid 45 mph. This maniac had to be going at least 65 mph if not faster to flash past them so quickly.
"Geez, idiot!" Dean yelled at the driver, slamming the heel of his palm into the horn and letting out a long blast. It wouldn't have made any difference if he hadn't honked—the driver was nearly a half mile ahead of them already. He pulled the car back toward the lane they should be in to avoid hitting any possible oncoming traffic. "Where the hell d'you think you're going?" Dean settled back into his seat and let his shoulders relax a little as the Honda peeled out of sight.
Sam knew now that he would not be falling back asleep. Even though nothing had really happened, he now had enough adrenaline running through him that relaxing, let alone sleeping, would not come soon. So much for his afternoon nap.
"Crazy driver," he said without any real reason. He just felt like saying something and clearing away the slowly forming terse silence so he offered up the first words that came to mind.
"Damn maniac," Dean corrected, navigating along the twisting and winding country road, checking his rear view mirror a lot more often than he had been minutes before. "People like that shouldn't be driving anyway. Dangerous driving."
"Like you should talk," Sam pointed out, thinking of a great number of times where he was sure Dean had been the one called the "damn maniac".
"Shut up."
The terse silence returned, but this time Sam didn't try to break it. He returned to staring out at the landscape that had bored him so well earlier. The river still looked like it had half a zillion miles ago. Watery. Wet. Rushing. The landscape he had appreciated earlier in the day now just seemed to be boring and dull.
"We'll be on Highway 97 soon," Dean said after a while. Sam didn't really care. He was just pleased to see that Dean didn't enjoy the silence any more than he was. "After that we'll just ride it south for a few hundred miles until we hit I-5. It's all smooth sailing from there."
"Great." Sam offered, still not particularly interested. The silence grew heavier as the minutes passed by. Dean tried to put in a tape somewhere down the road and Sam promptly ejected it and threw it out the window. This action displeased Dean. The upside was that the tape was gone and it gave him and Dean something to "talk" about for a few minutes. The downside was that the silence grew ever heavier afterward.
A glance at the fading LED clock on the console showed Sam that it was 4:00 PM. Sam had no idea how long they had been driving because he hadn't paid attention to what time they had left Bend. He was about to ask Dean when ahead his eyes were pulled away from the clock and his mind from the question he was forming.
"What the hell," Dean said, sparing Sam the need to do so as well. Smoking and hissing, a red Honda Civic was smashed squarely into a large evergreen tree at an odd angle compared to the road. The only way for the car to be positioned like that was if the driver had turned the car and aimed for the tree specifically. Dean pulled the Impala over close to the car and he and Sam rushed out. But as soon as they got to the car they could both tell that something was amiss.
"Where's the driver?" Sam asked. The driver's seat was empty and there wasn't even a drop of blood, despite the fact that the hood of the car had smashed in like an accordion and reduced the space in the cab by half. There's no way someone would have been able to just walk out of that.
"Do I look like I know?" Dean demanded.
"He had to have gotten out before the car hit the tree," Sam mused, walking around the car once. "There's no way he could have simply skipped out after the car hit."
"So he bailed before the car hit." Dean said. "What d'you think? Stuck drive shaft?"
"I dunno," Sam said.
The two of them spread out a ways, still within shouting distance, and tried to figure out where the driver had gone. There were no footprints or articles of clothing or personal belongings anywhere. It was like the driver hadn't even been there. Dean was about to tell Sam to just forget it and to get back in the car when his brother's yells caught his attention.
"Hey!" Sam yelled, starting to sprint off toward the Deschutes. "HEY!" He yelled louder, cupping his hand around his mouth to amplify the sound. Sam shook his head and continued, yelling every few seconds. Dean took off after him, trying to see what had captured his brother's attention and to stop him before he got distracted and got hurt.
"Sam! SAM STOP!" Dean hollered as loud as he could. He felt his feet slip on semi-damp leaves and he barely managed to keep himself upright. He sped after Sam, falling into a sprint now, too.
Eyes locked on a man in a brown leather jacket and tweed pants, Sam didn't even hear his brother's yells or curses as he nearly fell. He locked his focus in on the person that was heading for the river at an alarmingly fast pace. "HEY!" Sam yelled again, doing everything he could to make his voice loud and commanding. "STOP! STOP!" When it was apparent that his yells were doing nothing to stop the man, he gave up yelling and tried to run even faster.
Dean thundered after the pair of them. He now saw what his brother was chasing as well as his brother. Twigs snapped loudly under his feet and now he was yelling at the figure, too. The noise they generated was quite impressive. As Dean kept running and yelling he came to a conclusion. Something wasn't right. The person wasn't even reacting. Not even so much as a glance back in their direction.
Trees flashed past each brother's peripheral vision. Their car and the scene of the Honda's collision with the tree now lay nearly a half mile back. Nothing was in focus except the single target they were both locked onto: the man that was heading for the cliff that hung over the Deschutes River.
Sam was yelling incoherently now, trying to get the person's attention. He continued yelling right up until he saw the person disappear right over the cliff's edge and plunge down toward the river. He scrambled to the edge in time to see the person disappear under the water's surface and get swept away underneath the current. Sam stayed there at the edge of the cliff, breathing hard and staring in utter disbelief at the last place he had seen the man's head disappear. He waited a moment to see the person's head come back up above the water but after a full thirty seconds had gone by with no sign of him, Sam realized that it wasn't going to happen.
He turned around. "Dean," At first he didn't see his brother and started to feel the beginnings on panic set in when his eyes fell on his brother.
Dean was already on his cell phone, trying to explain where they were to who Sam presumed were 911 operators. Their eyes met and Sam knew Dean was in just as much shock as he was. He could also tell Dean had no explanation for what had just happened. He wasn't sure which part bothered him more; the fact that it had happened or the fact that there was no reason it should have happened.
Sam shook his head and turned his attention back to the river.
"What the hell."
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"I'm tellin' you," Dean said, "we were driving down the road and this red Honda came flashing like a bat outta Hell from nowhere and he almost rear ended us." The officer nodded and motioned for him to continue. They had already told this story twice, but each time a new officer had insisted they tell it again and let them take notes.
"Then we got up here and saw the aftermath of his little competition with the tree." The officer talking to Dean and Sam was looking over his notes again. The dusty colors of dusk had started to fall over the landscape and the flashing police and ambulance lights were overpowering the colors of the sky. Sam tried to work up an expression that made him look both shocked and worried, but this scene was becoming all too familiar to him.
"We got out looking for him," Sam said, still sounding a little breathless. He could feel his head shaking slightly in disbelief as he spoke to the officer, recounting what had happened earlier. He still couldn't look properly shocked. "And I saw him running toward the river. We took off after him, yelling and screaming and he just… ran over the edge of the cliff and went in." Sam glanced over at the river. "I never saw him come back up.""
"What was he wearing?" The officer asked. His pen was poised to write.
"A brown leather coat and ugly pants," Dean said promptly. Sam treaded on his toes and Dean pulled them away, mouthing "ow".
The officer looked annoyed and said, "can you describe them better than 'ugly'? I'm afraid we can't determine everything on that kind of description."
"They were tweed," Sam said before Dean had a chance to say anything else brilliant. "I think he had blonde hair." The officer closed his notepad and headed over to the inconsolable girlfriend of the man that had gone over. She had filed a stolen car report that morning for a red Honda Civic and the only reason they had found her was because they ran the license plate's numbers through the police files upon getting to the scene.
"I don't know why he did this," she sobbed, talking to the same officer that had been talking to Sam and Dean the third time. "He was happy. We were happy together. We were going to be going on vacation to Mexico next month. Everything was planned out. He wasn't depressed or…" She continued talking but Sam had stopped listening.
Sam took the opportunity to pull Dean a little aside.
"What?" Dean asked, sounding slightly exasperated. He let his eyes flicker across Sam's face. "I know that look. What do you want?"
"He was happy, Dean." Sam said, gesturing vaguely back at the guy's girlfriend. "A girlfriend, a life, a vacation. He had a future, Dean." Sam paced around so that he was looking squarely at Dean. "And you saw him. Something wasn't right. He didn't act normally."
"Yeah," Dean ceded, giving Sam at least one point. "Something was weird about how he acted."
"Happy people don't commit suicide." Sam said.
"Happy people don't commit suicide…" Dean repeated. Dean looked out over the scene; investigators on the cliff, around the Honda and talking to the guy's girlfriend. Tape connecting trees together. Divers in the river trying to find a body that had to be halfway across the state by now.
"So are we staying?" Sam asked.
"We're staying." Dean said.