Chapter Two: The Song Remains The Same
"So, John, how are you coping with the news?"
They pick their way along the corridor slowly, the Doctor holding his screwdriver out in front of him. It emits a blue light and a creepy sound that makes John feel on edge.
"What do you mean?" John replies.
"You know, the whole 'aliens and demons exist run and hide in a cupboard' bomb that was just dropped. How you doing?"
"Oh. I'm okay. I think I'm doing pretty well, considering."
"Really? Cos your eyes are screaming."
John laughs nervously, his jumper starting to itch around his neck. "Yeah, well. Internally I'm freaking out, but I think I'm doing well overall."
The Doctor slaps him on the back roughly. It's meant to be friendly, but it shocks John more than anything else. "You'll be fine. It takes some getting used to, but it's nothing to be scared of in the end."
"Right." They walk in silence for a minute or so before John comments, "Sherlock seems to be doing okay, though, which helps. It's when he gets scared that something's really wrong."
John feels the Doctor look at him for a few moments while he avoids his eye. Then he says, "Why do you hang out with him, anyway?" John looks at him in surprise, so the Doctor continues. "Well, I just mean, what's in it for you?"
If he had a quid for every time he'd been asked something like this over the past year or so he wouldn't have to take weekend shifts at the surgery. He gives the answer he always gives: "I don't think that's any of your business."
The Doctor raises his eyebrows, smirking. "Oh. That's fine. Sorry. Trust issues." He grins again. "I'll get that sorted, don't worry. You'll love me by tomorrow."
"Whatever you say, mate." He highly doubts this. It'd taken a special case for John to be, as Mycroft had said, 'very loyal very quickly.'
He walks slightly behind the Doctor, not from choice, but due to the man's seemingly limitless amount of energy. Observing him, John notes the muddy trainers, worn suit, and the brown jacket folded over his arm. What is it with geniuses and big coats? he thinks, mouth setting into a line. Maybe I should get one. No, but then I'd look like I was copying Sherlock. Also too short. I hate being famous.
They find a cupboard and wander into it. The Doctor goes straight to the broom, complaining about his screwdriver "not doing wood" or something, while John's eyes immediately flick to the red cross of a first aid kit.
"Hello," he says in surprise, picking it off the top shelf. "Look here."
The Doctor turns and cries, "Brilliant! Should we head back?"
John checks his watch. "We've got three minutes, so yeah, probably."
"This was fun, eh? We should do it again some time."
John doesn't reply, just sighs and walks away, seriously considering locking the Doctor in the cupboard.
Of all the routes, of course Sherlock chose the most complicated. Friggin' typical.
He keeps up a running commentary of deductions as they walk, and Sam rolls his eyes with every unnecessary mention of soil or fungus or something that goes right over Sam's head. Sherlock's got his coat collar pulled up again, and his facial features are as sharp as his manner. Sam hates them both.
"What was her name?" Sherlock says suddenly, turning to Sam with his eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"The girlfriend that died ten years ago. What was her name?"
Sam clenches his fists, thinking don't hit him don't hit him don't hit him while counting to ten in his head. "It, uh. Seven years."
"Oh, my mistake." He waits with his eyebrows raised, like Sam's seriously going to answer that question.
"How did you know?" says Sam, voice still angry, but with a dash of defeat in there too.
"Frown lines," Sherlock dismisses with a wave of his hand. "They're like the rings of a tree trunk regarding emotional trauma."
Sam nods once tightly. "Do you see this kind of stuff in your head all the time?" He's curious, even if he wants to smother Sherlock in that stupid coat of his.
"Yes."
"Do you ever want to, you know. Not?"
A blank look from Sherlock. A deep breath by Sam.
"Do you ever want it to like, switch off?"
The taken-aback look on Sherlock's face convinces Sam that no one's ever asked him this before. He takes a few moments to think before saying, "Sometimes it gets frustrating when I don't have anything to direct my processes towards. But most of the time I'm glad it's there." Brief pause. "I get bored a lot, though."
"Okay, cool. Cool." He keeps walking casually, smiling as he does, pleased at how uncomfortable he managed to make the detective. It's not like he's a mean person but, hey. At least he didn't gank the guy.
Sherlock lags behind this time, probably because he knows he'd have to jog if he wanted to catch up with Sam now. Sam sticks his hands in his pockets and whistles gleefully. This is really not the worst situation he's been in in the past month.
The lights go out. I change.
"Shit!" Sam yells, looking around himself desperately. "We don't even know who it was in last time!"
"Wasn't me," Sherlock mutters. "I guess we'll find out when we regroup."
Sam just nods. They've reached a dead end and found nothing on the way.
"So, your parents are dead –"
"Okay how about you shut up."
"Fine."
When the lights come back on the Doctor is lying on the floor and John helps him up, withholding his panic until he knows for sure. "Was it in you?"
The Doctor nods, running both hands through his hair. "Yep."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."
"How was it for you?"
"Horrible. Come on, we have to get back." He walks off before John can say anything else.
It's something about his walk, Dean notices. It's like he's deflated a little.
He watches Cas make his way down the hallway like it's the green mile, head constantly turning left and right like he's freaking scanning the place or something. His hands are clenched by his sides, knuckles white. Usually he'd be looser – stiff, yes, but loose, using his body as a vehicle instead of using it to show his emotion. It's weird when Cas is like this. It makes Dean worry.
"So what do you turn into?" he hears Rose say. He'd kind of forgotten she was there, walking quietly beside him.
"What?"
"You know. Vampire? Angel?" She chuckles. "Ood?"
"The hell is an ood?"
"They're just ood."
"Was that a pun?"
"I'm not sure."
Dean feels like Rose is making fun of him for some reason but he's not sure.
"No," he sighs, "I'm not a vampire. At least, not anymore."
"Do I want to ask?"
"If you want a gross story, then yeah."
"I don't want to ask."
He smirks, turning to her. "Nah, I'm all human, baby." He winks.
His head snaps up as he hears a sigh come from Cas and realises he's stopped walking and is facing them. Cas rolls his eyes, a petulantly human gesture. "I've found something," he says, and Dean fully understands the implied 'if you've quite finished'.
"Awesome, what you got?"
Instead of replying, Cas opens the door in front of them. There's nothing inside.
"Well, good job, Cas. Gold star to you for a friggin' empty room."
"Oi, I'm sure there's something else," Rose says.
"Thank you." Cas shuts the door. "If you have patience I can show you what's strange about this."
Dean doesn't reply, making his silence Cas's cue. Cas then mutters a few words in Enochian and reopens the door. It's now filled with all kinds of stuff, but Dean's eyes go straight to the food lining the walls.
"Yes please," he says, excitement lighting up his face like it's Christmas and he's ten and he actually has presents. He swans in and starts looking around gleefully, slapping Cas on the shoulder and saying, "Nice work," as he passes.
"What was that?" Rose asks Cas while Dean is parading around like a bull in a bull-food store.
"Enochian, it's the language of angels," Cas tells her, looking at Dean all the time he does. "Not many demons speak it. I assume it was used to keep other demons out."
"But it's so easy for angels to get in."
"We don't usually do things like this. We're more 'big picture' matters."
"What, like the apocalypse?" Rose jokes, nudging him with her elbow.
His face darkens. "Yes, that was a troubling experience."
She stares at him. "You're joking me."
"It was very serious."
"I don't – okay, I wanna hear more about this later, definitely."
Cas is still staring at Dean as he loads his arms with food, repeatedly swapping something out for something else that he likes better.
"Does he know?" Rose asks quietly, watching Dean too now.
"Know what?"
"How you feel about him."
Cas's face flushes pink and his eyes widen in something not too far from fear. "I don't know what you, uh, mean – I, we're colleagues. Friends. Good friends."
"I know, I know that."
There's a silence for a few moments.
"How did you know?"
"Oh, it's easy. It's the way you look at him. It's like... he's your centre of gravity."
Cas nods once, takes a quiet deep breath.
"No," he says after another pause, "he doesn't. And I'd like to keep it that way."
"I won't say anything. But, you know. You were possessed, so the demon knows."
"I don't think it does. I'm the most powerful one here, it wasn't built to possess me. It's unlikely the memory integration was very detailed. I doubt it knows my emotions." Pause. "I wasn't designed with them, they're not meant to exist." He thinks for a few moments. "It wouldn't make much difference if it knew, anyway. Whatever happens, I know that I'll fight and die for Dean."
He doesn't wait for Rose's reply, just walks into the room to help Dean carry the food. Rose sighs, leaning against the doorframe for a few seconds before following.
The room's nicer than the hallway, with some chairs and a window. It's blacked out, but it's still a nice feature. Adds depth to the whole ordeal.
John and the Doctor are the first ones back; the Doctor scans the room while John rifles through the first aid kit, muttering, "Bloody useless," as he finds plasters and smiley-face stickers. "Is he messing with us?" John says loudly, looking up to the Doctor, who replies, "Isn't that the point of this?"
He's right, but John's still pissed off. He'd feel a lot better if he wasn't worrying about someone bleeding to death. He watches the Doctor for a moment, a bit wary since he found out the Doctor had been possessed for the first part of their little trip. It'd been horrible to find out he'd been talking to the demon the whole time and had absolutely no idea that he was. It really brought home the idea that they were under this thing's power, completely. He hopes someone finds some tea.
Dean, Cas, and Rose come back next, with Dean grinning and yelling "they have pie!" and all their arms overflowing with packaged goods. They dump their stuff in the middle of the room, next to John's feeble and rather insulting first aid kit, and stand in a circle around it.
"No chips," Rose comments to the Doctor.
"I knew my hopes were futile."
"Don't give up. Crazier things have happened today than finding fresh chips in an old warehouse or whatever this place is."
No tea, John observes sadly. Ah well. Probably would have been weak, anyway, just to make him mad.
Sherlock and Sam return last, empty handed and tense. "Oh great," says Sherlock, seeing the pile in the middle, "we're the only ones who didn't bring anything back."
"Maybe because you were talking about the emotional meaning behind my hair the whole time," Sam snaps, going to stand next to Dean. They share a nod.
"Maybe because you kept hitting your head on the light fixtures." He stands next to John, eyeing the food, then points to something. "What's that?"
John follows his eyeline to see a black box that certainly wasn't there before. "Oh, god," he says in surprise.
Dean looks at it, frowning. "I did not pick that up. Cas? You pick that up?" Cas shakes his head. "Rose?"
"No way. Too creepy, I would have remembered." She moves forwards and picks it up. "There's nothing written on it."
"Be careful with that," warns Sam. "It could be cursed."
"Well I'm touching it, and I'm fine," she dismisses, in the same way one would respond to a mother telling you to take two jackets.
The box opens easily in her hands. Her face remains calm as she searches through the contents with her fingers briefly before pulling out some white envelopes. "Ooh, what's this," she says to herself, putting down the box and flicking through the envelopes. "Seven," she announces.
"One for each of us," Sherlock says.
"Well that's encouraging," Dean mutters.
"They have our names on them," says Rose. She picks out Sam's one, turning to him. "You mind?"
"Go ahead," says Sam immediately, before realising what he's said. John watches the hesitance and discomfort shift over his face before settling on mild concern.
Rose opens the envelope, sliding out a white card. She skims it quickly before reading it aloud. "Sam Winchester, 29. Clowns. Letting Dean down. Going back to Hell." She looks up again. "It goes on."
"You don't have to, uh, read it all," he says, before taking the card from her and turning the contents away from his brother.
"Dean, here's yours." She gives him a questioning look, and he answers it by taking the sealed envelope from her and opening it privately. Rose takes the hint and gives them out to everyone before receding back to the circle next to the Doctor. John notices that the Doctor doesn't open his, just slides it into his inside pocket and crosses his arms over his chest.
John opens his. He reads it, reseals the envelope, and slips it into his jacket pocket. He glances over to Sherlock and is surprised to see he's gone white as the paper he's still staring at.
"What's on yours?" John asks conversationally.
"Nothing. I don't have any fears, you know that." His voice is stiff. It's very obvious that he's lying.
"Let me see it then."
"Let me see yours."
They stare each other down before it's obvious that neither will give up the information, at which point John purses his lips and turns away. He catches Sherlock's smirk in his peripheral.
"It's our fears," says Dean suddenly. "It knows our fears."
"How?" Sam asks.
"I don't know, do I?"
"Is it gonna use them against us somehow? Like, get a giant clown to chase me around the building?"
"That would be hilarious," murmurs Sherlock, and Sam's face becomes the pinnacle of suppressed bloodlust.
"I don't think so," says Cas in a gravelly voice, commanding everyone's attention immediately. "I think it's a power play. It's informing us that it knows all this, that it knows a lot about us, and we should be afraid." He deliberates for a moment before continuing, his voice deeper than before. "I don't think a clown will chase you, Sam, but it's possible that one of each of our fears will be exploited. It's targeting our deepest fears. It means to pick us off one by one."
There's a dramatic, overflowing silence, until Sherlock says, "Well, isn't that inspired."
"Hold on, I thought it was gonna do pairs or something?" John asks.
"No, the pairs don't work now they brought the angel," Sherlock tells him.
"His name is Cas," Rose says, slightly irritated. Sherlock rolls his eyes.
"How does it know so much about us?" cries Dean, looking around himself, probably for a table to knock stuff off.
"Oh, I know all of you," says Rose. A smile builds in the line of her mouth.
Cas grows pale.
"Shit," Dean mutters. "You really had me going, there."
"Oh, please, it was easy. She's really very simple."
"Don't you dare," threatens the Doctor, pointing to her in anger. "Get out of her, now."
"Or what, old man?"
"Or I swear, I won't give you a second chance."
"But you're so famous for your mercy."
"Not today. Not with you. Not with Rose."
No new emotion crosses Rose's face, but the thing inside her would be a fool not to be scared. If someone looked at John that way he'd probably go straight for his gun.
Rose nods and says, "Noted," before walking away from the Doctor, passing around the perimeter of the circle they've formed around the food. "I wouldn't eat that food if I were you," she whispers in Dean's ear, "it's been there for eighteen years." He looks thoroughly disappointed.
"So was Cas right?" says Sam, his voice tight. "Are you gonna get us through our deepest fears?"
Rose shrugs. "Maybe…"
"That's a yes."
"Okay, yeah, I am," she yells suddenly, waving her arms about. "You got a problem with that?"
Sam's jaw flexes. "Yeah, I'd say I do."
Rose rolls her eyes, turning them black in the process. "So needlessly defiant. If you play along you'll all be fine."
"You mean that?"
"Of course not, who do you think I am, Mother bloody Teresa?"
"Why are you doing this?" Sherlock interrupts in the voice John recognises as meaning I'm gonna deduce the hell out of you and you can't stop me.
Rose comes up behind him, grabbing the spaces between his neck and shoulders in both hands, and leans in close to his ear. He winces slightly.
"Tut tut, Mr Holmes," she breathes. "You're not the only one who gets bored."
The lights go off. I get to work.