AN: I'm blown away with the response I got for the first chapter during these two days. Thank you so much! Lots of virtual cookies and mental hugs go out to anyone who has reviewed, followed, marked as favorite or otherwise made their appreciation or interest knows. It means everything for me and while it's not what keeps me writing it's my fuel for going through spell checking, grammatical research, dictionaries and webpages to make this available to you in a form that's readable.
Now I give you the next chapter and hopefully you will like it, here we go:
.oOo.
Nine o'clock rolls past with no sign of Winchester, and if not for the absence of the Impala Eliot would think he left the evening before. The air is heavy with unshed rain, but the forecasts promise progressively clearing skies over the next few hours. Eliot hopes it's true.
With no decent flights and over four hours to drive back to Portland it had been a hard choice last night whether to go back for his usual equipment or just buy what he needed locally. In the end familiarity had won out, and Eliot spent most of the night in the rental car. It was worth it to have stuff he knew could stand against the fickle conditions of April.
If this had been any kind of normal hike, Eliot would have coordinated with his companion for food and equipment. As it is his fast glance into Dean's duffel yesterday told him he'd better bring everything himself. The only useful stuff he'd seen in there were a sleeping bag and a matchbox.
When Dean finally makes it to the parking lot it's fifteen minutes after the agreed time. He makes no excuses, simply rips the duffel from his trunk and locks the car.
"No entourage today?" Dean scans the open space as if expecting Parker to hide behind a lamp post.
"Dropped them off at home." Eliot admits. "No point for them to sit around here waiting."
"And of course it has absolutely nothing to do with keeping Parker away from the mountain?" Dean grins at Eliot.
"Nothing at all." Eliot agrees.
"I can hear you, you know." Parker's voice trails from Eliot's ear bud. "And I still think it's unfair I can't come! It's supposed to be some totally awesome climbing up there." She's pouting. Eliot can't believe he left the transmitter on.
"Behave and I'll take you some other time." The look Eliot receives from Dean at his seemingly random comment should really have been eternalized.
Parker makes a semi-agreeing sound and Eliot takes what he can get. "Hardison, you there?" He asks.
"Yeah man, and you owe me for leaving me with her, she's crazy!" Eliot can't find it in himself to feel sorry for the guy.
"She's you girlfriend, deal with it." Dean looks as if he might burst out a laugh but he quells it. "Now, I told you to stay out of my head. Disconnect me, keep me disconnected, and if I hear any bitching from any of you that ain't a life or death thing I'll crush your ear bud, okay?"
Hardison makes a strangled sound, and it's funny how he can worry more about his electronics than he does about his girlfriend. Then again, Parker's pretty good at taking care of herself.
"Now I'm cutting out my transmission. Cut out yours!" Eliot wastes no time to do exactly that and a second later he can hear the silence of Hardison having removed him from the main loop.
"Trouble in paradise?" Dean's question make Eliot wonder – again – why he hasn't broken the man's nose yet.
"Shut up." Eliot requests eloquently, which makes Dean's smile even bigger.
"Take this." He adds, and throws Dean the extra backpack he's brought. It's big enough to contain the stuff from Dean's duffel along with the rainwear, change of clothes (no cotton) and dried food Eliot has already stuffed in the top and side pockets. "I'm not in the mood to be slowed down just 'cause you can't pack decently."
"You're such a sissy." Dean complains, and for a second Eliot's certain he'll refuse. Not that it matters to him how Dean chooses to carry his gear, but he really wants Dean to bring the stuff already in that backpack. They are simple things that might be the difference between life and death if the weather turns bad.
"Whatever." Dean concedes after a few seconds of unrelenting silence. As he repacks Eliot gets a good look at the impressive array of weapons being brought on their trip. He can't help but wonder if he should be more worried than he is.
The trail is easy enough as they set out. This close to the parking lot it's still well trodden by dog-owners, cross country runners and miscellaneous nature-lovers. Eliot's not sure if it's because of courtesy or paranoia that he allows his heavily armed companion to take point, but maybe it doesn't matter. He does hope the man knows where he's going.
It takes them thirty minutes to get away from the constant buzz of the interstate. Eliot can feel the tranquility deep in his body with aching familiarity. Vast mountains and never-ending woods have always been his default place. It's where he goes when the reality of his life catches up. He stays the night - or week, or even month once - and it always soothes his frayed nerves and allows him to come back with new energy.
They stop for lunch around one o'clock, in a clearing that gets glimpses of sunshine in between the clouds. For once the weather forecast seems to be correct. Dean digs out a bag of M&Ms and Eliot wants to slap him.
"That's not food." He says instead.
"What?" The word is slurred around a handful of the offensive candies. "It even got peanuts!"
Eliot sighs, but leave him be. Instead he brings out his camping stove and prepares some decent lunch for himself. If Dean ends up with low blood sugar and no energy before they reach their camp it's his own damned problem.
While the water heats to boiling Dean roots around in his backpack. "You carrying anything?" He throws over his shoulder to Eliot.
Out of spite Eliot nearly rattles of the full contents of his backpack, the question is ridiculously generic. Of course he knows what Dean actually means, and decides to simply answer the intended inquiry.
"Survival knife, kitchen knife and a hand axe." The wilderness is really the only place Eliot carries any kind of weapons, mostly out of necessity. He does however try to keep them to a minimum.
"Okay." Dean says. "All steel?" He begins to throw stuff from his backpack in a pile.
"Yeah." Eliot agrees, he can guess where this is going. It's a hard choice if it's annoying or honoring that Dean seems set on arming him.
Two knives have found their way to the ground, followed by two flare-guns, a water bottle, a Colt, a small leather pouch and the sawed-off Parker shot the previous night.
"Look." Dean says. "I know you don't believe me but humor me, okay?" Eliot doesn't answer, won't promise anything with firearms in the picture. Instead he looks at Dean and waits for him to continue.
"Everything points to this being a black dog, or hound if you will." Eliot doesn't ask what everything is. He thinks he prefers not to know more about this madness than absolutely necessary. "They're semi-corporeal spirits in the shape of big dogs. Luckily they're rare in the States."
"Lore says iron will kill them, through the heart most likely. The bullets in the gun are pure iron, so's this knife." Dean gestures to the larger of the knives. "In the bag there you have Goofer dust. It protects you from hellhounds – who've been bred from black dogs – so it might be worth a shot. Pour it in a circle and step inside, maybe they won't be able to get you."
Eliot takes a deep breath and tells himself sternly not to argue with Dean. The smiling man is clearly insane and Eliot is seriously considering turning around and going back. But he doubts Dean can be convinced to leave his prey and Eliot still can't bring himself to leave the man out here alone. Dean's too ill-prepared for that.
"And the rest?" Eliot asks instead.
"I might be wrong and it's not a black dog." Dean shrugs. "If it moves faster than your eye can track and is sorta humanoid, shoot it with the flare gun. Fire'll be the only thing to stop it. If it's a werewolf it's completely corporeal, and the other knife's silver. Wouldn't recommend getting close enough to it to stab it in the heart but I only have silver bullets for one. If it's anything else you go for the salt-rounds, the holy water or the iron and hope for the best."
"I'm not taking the firearms." Eliot says, because he must say something.
"Yes you are." Dean simply answers, as if it's indisputable, as if it's that easy.
As a distraction Eliot pours the now boiling water into the package of what will soon be spaghetti Bolognese and stirs it with his fork.
"No, I'm not." He stares at Dean, trying to make him see how this goes far beyond his limits. Even carrying knives in this way is pushing it.
"Don't be an idiot." Dean's getting irritated. "Even in your world you are going up against rabid wolves. How do you plan to keep a pack of them away from biting distance with a knife? Cause I ain't all that hot on calling you a chopper when you've lost a chunk of your leg."
"I don'tlike guns." Eliot grinds out. It actually goes way beyond not liking, but it's his standard phrase.
"Deal with it! What use is it to have backup if they're determined to get themselves killed?"
It's a futile hope that Dean will simply understand, Eliot realizes this. At the same time he can't explain it, won't go there. He doesn't want to remember - even if he can never forget - and talking would just bring the feeling closer. Instead he takes a deep breath and looks at the sky. Hopefully it will be interpreted as trying to calm down from anger, not from the squirming discomfort deep in his stomach.
Eliot knows that with a firearm in his hands there's no middle way. A gun is only able to silence someone with a kill-shot, it doesn't leave room for quick blows to the head and subsequent unconsciousness. If you have a gun, why even bother with the latter? It's cleaner, easier, deadlier. It's dangerous in two ways. Firearms make people forget hand-to-hand combat, leaving them vulnerable if disarmed, but that never was a problem for Eliot.
The other way's worse, and far more familiar. It's about the way the killing becomes routine, and the ease with which that routine slips into a kind of addiction. The way it makes you feel alive while it secretly eats away at your soul. Then one day if you're unlucky (or maybe lucky, Eliot hasn't manage to decide which) you wake up from the haze, surrounded by blood and brain substance and piles of dead bodies of men that's more or less innocent.
"I'd rather die." Eliot admits, looking Dean in the eye to prove his point. Because he can't take the risk of falling back into the man he used to be. Not unless lives more valuable than his are at stake. Dean can protect himself.
"It's not like I'm asking you to shoot any humans." Dean's comment makes Eliot think that maybe he's caught on to some of it at least. "Hell, don't fire them at all if you don't want to. Just take them if you need them."
But Eliot can't do that either. He doesn't even want to hold a gun due to the thrill it still brings. The incident with Moreau's men is a not too far off example of how marvelous it felt when he was in it, high on adrenaline and the power of killing. It was also a lesson in the self-disgust that came afterwards.
"The rule's there for a reason." Eliot finally settles. "I'm not breaking it."
Dean studies him for a few seconds before coming to a decision. "Fine." It's said with a shrug that's probably meant to appear more casual than it does.
Eliot finds he can breathe again, but his appetite is long gone. When he forces the food down it feels like slime and tastes like sawdust. He tells himself he needs the energy and that he's had worse, both of which are true, and finishes the meal.
They pack the gear into the agreed upon backpacks, except for the iron knife. Eliot puts that one within reach to humor Dean in something. The remaining four hours up to their camp is made in silence.