Author's Note: This is my first serious attempt at casefic… So I don't know how well it works as a hunt. And of course, me being me, by the end of the story it's more schmoop than anything.
To everyone to whom I owe review replies: I blame the website. ;-) It's not letting me send any messages. I'll get to them as soon as I can.
Thanks to Cheryl for all the help!
Summary: Mysterious deaths, unexplained accidents… Our boys are on the job. And everything seems normal… Until it isn't. Could be set anytime after Like a Virgin.
Traitor's Court
Chapter I: A Hazardous Profession
When Dean woke up, he knew there was something different. Not wrong, not dangerous, just… different. It was a moment before he figured out what it was: Sam's breathing. It was slow, deep, even –
Sam was asleep. And he wasn't having nightmares.
Dean smiled up at the ceiling. Soulless Sam had never slept, and after the re-souling Sam had gone back to being the nightmare-prone insomniac he had been since Jessica's death. It had been years since Dean had heard anything from Sam's bed other than tossing and turning and soft sobs into cheap motel pillows. To hear Sam sleeping peacefully…
It was surprising, because Sam had been moodier than usual since the incident with the ear worm – and had met all inquiries with, "I'm bloody fine, Dean, now shut the hell up!" Dean wasn't complaining, though. He'd take anything he could get.
Dean slipped out of bed. He shivered. It was a chilly morning in Maine, and the motel blankets were threadbare.
He dressed quickly. Since he was up, he might as well get breakfast. If he could find Sam one of his low-cal girl-drinks, it might cheer him up enough to make him decent company for a few hours.
He paused only long enough to grab the sheets from his own bed and drop them over Sam – although he doubted they'd do much good – before he grabbed the keys from the nightstand and went out.
He was back in less than half an hour. It was a small town and there hadn't been much, but he'd found a place with some health food that wouldn't clog Sam's arteries and grabbed a bag of donuts for himself. There hadn't been cinnamon or caramel or any of the other crap Sam liked to ruin his coffee with, but he'd scored some decaf. It ought to keep his little brother happy.
Sam was stirring under his cocoon of blankets.
Dean watched for a moment, irresistibly reminded of a much younger Sammy waking up in any number of nameless motel rooms. Finally he said, "Rise and shine, princess. Daylight's wasting."
Sam blinked sleepily up at him.
"Time's it?"
"Eight. You overslept, Samantha. I had to do the breakfast run."
"Sorry."
"Don't be stupid." Dean sighed. "You needed the sleep. You need more sleep, but we have a job to do."
"Nine people dead and number ten due at midnight tonight unless we stop it," Sam affirmed, pushing himself up.
"Yeah, and we know jack about what's going on, so good luck to us. Seriously, Sam, you think we should take a break after this?"
"You want a break?"
"We could use one. Tell you what, let's wrap this up today, then tomorrow I'll hustle some pool, make us enough for some nice motel where the furniture doesn't have vegetation on it, and we can spend a week drinking beer and – I don't know – hustling more pool? We can even pick a town with a library so you can go do your wussified upstairs-brain thing."
Sam's laughter didn't reach his eyes.
Four hours later, Dean didn't feel like laughing either. Nine people had died, and they seemed to have nothing in common other than the manner of their deaths. There were five men and four women, ranging in age from twenty to sixty-three, and they included an accountant, two waiters, a carpenter, a doctor, a construction worker, a lawyer, a fireman, and the head of the local police department. Three Christians, two Jews, a Buddhist, a Scientologist and two Atheists.
Each of them had died of seizures that had begun on the stroke of midnight. Three people had died before medical aid could reach them, four in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and two had been lost on the table. The doctors hadn't been able to determine causes for the seizures: there had been no blood clots, no haemorrhaging, nothing unusual. Nine apparently healthy people (except for one case of a mild peanut allergy) had simply died.
That – in other words, big fat nothing – was what Dean had found out from chatting with the local sheriff and coroner. He had gone to see the one body that was still in the hospital morgue, but that had been a washout too.
Meanwhile, Sam was making the rounds of family visits. Normally they wouldn't have separated. Quite apart from Dean's inherent instinct – stronger than ever now – to protect Sam, he liked seeing Sam puppy-dog his way into people's houses. It was a form of entertainment all by itself. But they didn't have much time. It was noon now, giving them twelve hours before whatever it was decided to claim victim number ten.
Dean pulled out his cell phone and pressed the first speed dial.
"This is Sam. Leave a message."
Dean scowled. He hadn't heard a word from Sam since they'd parted ways three and a half hours ago. Dean had left at least six messages for his brother in that time, with every single thing he'd found out. Sam was probably just too busy to check his voicemail, but still…
"Still got freaking nothing, Sam. I'm going to pick up lunch and head back to the motel. Maybe Wikipedia will tell us what the hell this is."
The diner nearest the coroner's office was small but clean. Dean ordered two cheeseburgers to go, with a cappuccino for Sammy and a double shot of espresso for himself. The waitress who brought the food was very pretty and very eager, leaning forward to give him his bill and drawling, "So who's the other one for?"
"My little brother," Dean said, smiling. "He gets hungry."
"Well, I hope you're keeping an eye on him. This town hasn't been safe for little brothers and little sisters lately."
"What are you talking about?" Dean demanded, heart pounding.
It couldn't be their case – he'd been through the records, and a few of the victims had older siblings, but not all of them. He would've noticed – he might not be as good a researcher as Sam, but he would have noticed something like that.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. I'm sure your brother's fine."
"What are you talking about?"
The waitress shrugged. "My friend Martha's little brother vanished a few nights ago. Turned up in the morning scared out of his wits, and he won't say a word about what happened to him. And the high school principal's younger sister – she had a bad accident, broke three ribs and her right leg."
"That's it?"
"There's been more. All different things, car accidents, allergic reactions, falls. A few people have died – nobody I know, but in a place like this, word gets around."
"And there's nothing in the papers about it?"
"Well, they don't want to cause a panic, do they? Everyone's already on edge because of those seizures – they're saying it could be some kind of bioterrorism. Everyone's suspicious of everyone. And really, this is probably nothing – just one of those random things that happens sometimes, right?"
"Right," Dean said, although every instinct he had was screaming. In his experience, nothing was nothing. Not for them.
"Um… Thanks. I'd better go."
"Sure. Don't worry about your brother. I'm sure he's fine."
Yeah, right. Bloody Sam bloody never fine even under normal circumstances… With something like this happening…
Dean tried calling Sam again.
"This is Sam. Leave a message."
"Sam, answer the phone, damn it!"
"So do you know what it is? Is it… Is it some kind of terrorist attack?"
"We're working on all angles, Mrs. Munroe," Sam said diplomatically. "I promise, we're doing our best to find out what's happening."
"B-but that won't help my T-t-timmy," the lady said, her eyes filling with tears. "He's g-gone."
Sam smiled sympathetically. "Thank you so much for your time, ma'am. I know how difficult this must be for you. If someone's responsible for what happened to your son, we're definitely going to bring them to justice."
He showed himself out of the apartment, stopping short when he almost knocked over an old lady standing right outside. She had obviously had her ear pressed to the door.
"I'm sorry," Sam said. "I didn't see –"
"She's lying," the old lady hissed.
"I – who?"
"You're the man from the FBI, aren't you? What do you people think this is? Anthrax?"
"I don't think anthrax causes seizures," Sam said, trying to edge past the old lady to the stairs. "We don't yet know what it is, but we're working on it. If you hear anything –"
"Aren't you listening to me? She was lying to you. She told you Timothy Munroe was a wonderful boy, didn't she? Straight-A student, valedictorian, Harvard, Goldman Sachs, a perfect gentleman and a perfect son. She's either blind or she's lying through her teeth. He was – he killed my granddaughter."
"What?"
"Do you want a cup of tea?"
Sam hesitated, but the woman seemed harmless enough – no more than a standard neighbourhood busybody. In other words, the perfect person to give him the information that Timothy Munroe's mother couldn't – or wouldn't. He nodded and let the old woman lead him into the next apartment.
"I'm Agatha Winslow," she said, showing him a seat. "My son and daughter-in-law were killed in a plane crash twenty years ago, and my granddaughters came to live with me. Millie – she's the older one – is around your age. She lives in New York most of the time, but she comes here for long weekends when she can. And Abbie was the younger one. She was just twenty-two."
"I'm so sorry –"
"And it was all Timothy Munroe's doing! His parents have lived next door to me for thirty years and – Timothy and Millie used to date, did Mrs. Munroe tell you that?"
"No, she –"
"Well, they did. Until Timothy went to Harvard. They tried the long-distance thing, but it didn't work. By the time Timothy came back, Millie had moved to New York. Timothy lived there too, most of the time, and Millie told us they'd started seeing each other again. Then on one of his trips here to see his parents, he visited Abbie one evening when I was out."
"Ah," Sam said, squirming in his chair. He felt like he was in the middle of a bad soap opera.
"He said later Abbie had tried to make a move on him, but she said otherwise, and I know my granddaughter. I know Timothy Munroe, too, the most smooth-talking conman ever to graduate from college. Of course you can guess which of them Millie believed."
"So she broke up with Timothy," Sam hazarded.
Agatha Winslow looked startled. "Have you any brothers or sisters?"
"I have an older brother."
"And you still think… You must have an unusually strong relationship with him. I don't know what you or your brother would have done, but Millie was madly, desperately infatuated, and she believed every lie Timothy told her. She never spoke to Abbie after that, not once."
Sam felt a sudden chill. "Mrs. Winslow, how did Abbie die?"
"She took a fall when she was hiking in the mountains near here. The coroner ruled it an accident and closed the case."
"But you don't believe that."
"Abbie knew those hiking trails well enough to navigate them blindfolded. And it wasn't like there had been any rain or landslides or anything else to change the terrain. It was a clear spring day."
"You think…"
"Nobody pushed her, if that's what you're suggesting," Agatha Winslow said. "Millie might have been angry, but she loved Abbie underneath it all – she would never have tried to kill her. And Timothy was too much of a coward." She paused, and there was a tremor in her voice when she spoke again. "Millie hasn't forgiven herself. I don't know if she ever will. She ended things with Timothy the next day. Three days later, Timothy died of seizures."
"He wasn't the only one."
"No. It seems to be an epidemic. But if anyone deserved it…"
Sam emerged into the sunshine and checked his cell phone. Four messages, all from Dean. He listened to the first one – so Dean hadn't found much either – and then to the next three, which were increasingly urgent demands for Sam to call his brother right the hell now.
Sam shivered. The air seemed thick with menace. Suddenly he really needed to hear his big brother's voice.
His fingers shook as he punched the button for Dean. It rang once… twice… three times… and oh, thank God, Dean was answering.
"Sammy?"
"Dean." Sam didn't even try to hide the quiver in his tone. Something was wrong – very wrong, he could sense it. Like he was being watched.
"Sam, you OK? You find anything?"
"I have to talk to you."
"Yeah, me too. Can you get back to the motel on your own?"
Sam was about to say yes when he had that sense of something watching him again. He shivered and sucked in a breath. "Can you come and get me?"
Dean was sure there was a speed limit, but he really didn't care. Sam had sounded scared on the phone, and nothing was going to stand between Dean Winchester and his little brother. Especially not when "little brother" seemed to be a hazardous profession in these parts.
He reached Sam in less than five minutes, leaving several almost-accidents on the way. He heard the engine protest when he took a turn hard, and he muttered a silent apology. He knew his baby wouldn't hold it against him. Dean and the Impala had always had the same objective: keep Sam safe.
He spotted Sam as soon as he turned onto Fourth Street. The kid was easy to pick out of a crowd, and this street was empty except for Sam standing under a tree, looking around nervously.
"Sammy?" Dean pulled up, tires squealing. "I'm sorry, baby. I'll give you a rub-down tomorrow. Sam, are you all right? What is it?" Sam shook his head and went round to the passenger side. "Sammy? Did you get anything?"
"Maybe. I need to do some checking – talk to the others."
"Dude, you've spent all morning talking to people."
"I didn't know what questions to ask. Now I do."
There was something in Sam's tone that made Dean shoot him a sharp sideways glance. "Sam?"
"You were scared," Sam said slowly, and it was as though he was putting something together in his head. "Not the first few times you called, but after that. Someone told you something, didn't they? Younger sisters and younger brothers. Dying."
"Not all of them dying, but yeah. How do you know? Did you find out anything?"
"Timothy Munroe caused a rift between his high school sweetheart, Mildred Winslow, and her younger sister Abigail. They stopped speaking to each other. Abigail died a few days before Timothy. It went down in the records as a hiking accident but her grandmother thinks it was suicide."
"Sam –"
"I'm OK, Dean."
"The waitress at the diner told me younger siblings have been very accident-prone since the trouble started. Nobody's noticed because they've mostly been non-fatal and perfectly natural – nothing that would cause crime or mortality stats to spike. And they've all been different. And that means you, little brother, are staying in our motel room until we know more about what's going on. I'm taste-testing everything you eat."
"Oh, come on –"
"I'm serious, Sam. We're not taking any risks."
Sam sighed. "Fine. Am I at least allowed to use my laptop?"
"Only after I've checked the room wiring."
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