Guilt Trip
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Setting: Season 7
Between "Repo Man" and "Out with the Old"
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Dean blinked awake, squinting slightly in the early morning light, but not yet lifting his head from where it rested on the Impala's glass window. Sam sat beside him in the drivers seat, coffee in one hand and newspaper in the other, frowning at whatever article had caught his attention. A few seconds passed before Dean sat up, uncrossing his arms and stretching as much as he could inside the car.
"Ugh. What time is it?"
"About 4."
"Well I hope you got one of those for me Sammy." Dean motioned towards the coffee.
"Yep, and one better." He nodded his head towards the back seat without taking his eyes off the paper.
Dean looked over his shoulder and reached back to pick up the plastic shopping bag, yanking apart the handles.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" A rare smile that reached his eyes appeared as he pulled a plastic container out of the bag. Inside: apple pie. "Oh yes. Come to papa."
Sam had torn his eyes away from the paper to watch his brother, smiling at his excitement and enjoying Dean's pleasure second hand. Dean opened the plastic quickly, grabbing the plastic fork inside and digging in within seconds.
"Mmmm," he closed his eyes, talking with full cheeks "This is good."
Sam smiled, eyes back on the paper.
"Where'd you get this?"
"We drove passed a 24hr gas station a few miles back."
"I didn't think there'd be another for... wait where are we now?"
"A mile or so off the California/Oregon border."
"That's..." Dean paused "Did you sleep at all last night?"
Sam shuffled in his seat "Uh, I may have gotten maybe two hours... ish..."
"Come on man!" Dean was unimpressed.
Sam rolled his eyes "Sorry, Lucifer was giving me a hard time. But I'm fine." He looked straight at Dean as he talked, as if this would convince his brother that he was telling the truth. Dean stared straight back.
"No, really, how are you holding up."
Sam looked away in frustration. "I'm handling it. He's..." Dean noticed his brothers eyes flick to a seemingly empty spot in the air above the Impala's front. "It's fine."
Dean chose to let Sam get away with the lie.
"Whatever." His eyes flicked to the back seat where John Winchester's journal was lying half open. "So... unless you've been reading Dad's journal for kicks, and considering that you've been frowning at that newspaper since I woke up, I'm assuming you've got something."
Sam shook himself away from some distraction and looked back to the paper in his hands. "Yeah, look at this." He handed it to Dean, pointing to an article on the edge of the page.
Dean skimmed through it, "...quiet neighborhood... shocking.. blah blah blah... here we go; 'the confrontation early on Wednesday morning ended gruesomely with the man's death. His son has been arrested and charged for allegedly beheading his father..." Dean raised his eyebrows and looked over to Sam "Beheading? Really?"
Sam nodded "Read on."
"Ahhh... 'The suspect, Thomas Cameron... has a long standing mental illness that family and friends believe was the cause of the attack.'... Thomas Cameron... Why does that name sound familiar?"
"He was a colleague of Dad's. He worked with us on a few cases when we were kids."
"Yeah, I think I remember; 'bout medium height, dark hair... bit of an affinity for knives?"
"That could be more then a few people we know... but yes I think you've got the one. And get this; a bit further on there's a quote from his mother saying that Tom was yelling something about monsters before the decapitation."
"So what, you think that his Dad was a vamp? Or a leviathan?"
"Maybe."
"Well what are we supposed to do about it? The cops have him. We can't exactly turn up and prove him innocent; he probably did behead the guy."
"I know, but the dude saved our lives more than once Dean, I just think we should go check it out. I mean, if it was a Leviathan then there's probably something big going on, and if it was a vamp there might be a nest to look in to. Its only a 4 or 5 hour drive."
"Okay fine, lets do this, where are we headed?"
"Sacramento city."
"I'm driving."
. ~ ~ ~ ~
The door of the lift opened with a ping and three suited figures walked out of it into a long hallway. A woman lead the way and beside her two men exchanged a tired glance as she started to question them again.
"I don't mean go on about this, but why are the FBI interested in this case? It's pretty cut and dry; there are a number of witnesses and a DNA encrusted murder weapon. The SFPD can handle it."
The taller of the two suited men took the question.
"We think it might be related to with another case we've been working on, there are a number of similarities…
"Like what?"
"We can't discuss it at this time."
"You're kidding right? My team and I are working this case, we have the right to know any facts you have connected to it."
"Sorry."
"So, what, you think this psycho might have killed someone else?"
"Uh, something like that."
She decided to let the issue drop as they walked through a door into the morgue.
The shorter of the men took advantage of the pause to move the conversation back to the facts of the case. "So, the body?"
"It's in 26."
She walked over and pulled open a freezer drawer, reaching over to unzip the black body bag. Sure enough, a head unconnected from its body sat just above its decapitated corpse.
"Lovely."
The woman raised an eyebrow and was about to comment when the taller man took her attention "Ah, was there anything... odd... about the body?"
"And by odd you mean...?"
The darker haired man answered "Not normal, peculiar, different from the usual?"
"You mean apart from the decapitation?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Not that I've been made aware of."
"No, uh, black goo or anything at the crime scene? Or on the body?"
"Not that I saw... Black goo?"
The men exchanged a glance "Just something from a previous case."
"Alright then."
Silence ensued.
"Could I have a moment to talk to my colleague please Agent Skiles?"
"Sure. I have other cases to get to. I'll leave you two to it."
The agent turned to leave.
"Oh one more thing" The lighter haired man paused her. "The suspect - Thomas Cameron?"
"He's upstairs. I'll get him ready to talk to you."
"Thanks."
He turned back to the body as she left the room.
"So, what do you think Dean?"
"I don't know. No black goo, and if he was leviathan his head would have reattached by now." Pulling a plastic glove onto his hand he carefully lifted back the top lip of the unattached head and pressed on the gum. He looked up at his brother when nothing happened. "Not a vamp either."
"So what? Some other monster? Beheading works on a lot of things."
"Maybe. OR this isn't one of our things and good-old Tom just murdered his Dad for some normal reason."
"Normal reason?"
"Whatever people usually get murdered for... I don't know."
"Well we should still go talk to him." Sam frowned down at the body, rolling his eyes over it before pausing as he noticed something "Hey Dean, look at this..." He reached down to pull back the edge of the man's shirt sleeve, revealing a ring of symbols burned into the flesh around his wrist.
"What is that?"
"I don't know... but it looks familiar..."
"Some sort of binding spell? Like with you and Meg back in the good old days?"
Sam didn't appreciate the association "Maybe..."
They both spun around when they heard the doors open behind them.
"Agent Skiles?"
"I'm afraid I won't be able to let you talk to Cameron today"
"Agent, this is an FBI case, we need access, we have lead here"
"You can have all the lead you want, but you still can't talk to him. He's gone."
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To be continued...
Next: 'Well we should've seen that coming.'
Author's Note: So this is a story I started not long after I first watched the S7 episodes it is set between. Being a SPN latecommer, that was around christmas 2012 for me. Then I forgot about it. Then remembered, then forgot again. But now I've broken the barrier and begun to put it up! I have most of it written, so expect updates every week at least, and look forward to monsters and a little brotherly angst along the way.
Anyways... Hope you're enjoying it so far...!
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