Notes:
Thanks a lot, girl in the forest, for your review :)
I hope the other readers will follow shortly wink wink Yeah I know, I'm being a pain in the butt, but I'd really like to know what you guys think about this story.
Also, the story is COMPLETE. I'm only going through each chapter, making some minor corrections here and there and will update frequently. So don't worry that you'll never get to read the ending.
So, be nice, and leave us some feedback, pretty please :)
Title: Master of Puppets
Chapters: 3 of approx. 6-9; Part I of a series of 5 stories that are supposed to end Season 3 'our way'.
Master of Puppets – Chapter 3
After they had eaten they returned to the motel to freshen up. The red Buick had been outside as they both had noticed, so their unwanted companions hadn't checked out yet.
Sam ruffled his hair out of its straightened state, leaving the bathroom to find his brother lounging on his bed. "So what now? The hospital?"
"Yeah", replied Dean, "when Jerry Springer's over." And with that Dean looked back at the TV, grinning as a couple engaged in a violent fist fight in front of the audience.
Sam smirked but didn't join watching. He went over to the window beside the door, pushing the curtain aside just a bit to look out. They'd been here since yesterday evening now, and so far had not much more than vague notions. And it didn't sit all that well with him.
"Oh man, this is priceless", Dean laughed at the TV. "Hey Sam, stop staring out of the window like an old woman and watch this."
He was just about to turn around when his eyes caught a motion on the other side of the L-shaped motel block. The corners of his mouth twitched. "Dean, they're leaving."
"Huh?" His brother turned around to shoot Sam a quizzical look, but then he seemed to realize who Sam was talking about. "Where are they going?"
"I haven't had any visions in quite some time now, remember?" Sam remarked dryly, following the young women's movements with his eyes. "But as for now, just to their car."
Maybe it was because the talk show was interrupted by commercials or because his curiosity got the better of him that Dean finally got up from the bed, joining his brother at the window and looking out. The girls were now again dressed in normal clothing, both jeans and casual jackets, as they got into their car and drove off. "Doesn't look like they checked out yet. Let's go."
Incredulous, Sam stared at his brother. "Go where?"
"Find out what these chicks are doing here", answered Dean, smirking, and opened the door.
"What?"
He quickly followed Dean out, trying to keep his voice low. "What
the hell are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that we've no
clue what these girls are doing here. They could be here to sabotage
us for all we know. So…" Dean looked around the area to check
if they were unobserved before he took his lock picks out of his
pocket. "You saw them leaving. Which room was it?"
"I'm not telling you! You can't just break in there on some random idea of yours."
"It's not like we're stealing anything", Dean replied, his voice slightly annoyed but calm enough not to rouse any possible listeners. "Come on, Sam. Or do you want me to break into every single room here? Although, maybe not every room. You were looking that direction, so there are only three possibilities", he added, smirking, pointing his chin into the direction of the three remaining rooms on their right side.
Sometimes his brother was just impossible. With a disbelieving shake of his head Sam relented, pointing at one of the three doors with his chin.
"See? Wasn't that hard", Dean said as he walked over to the right room, again checking if the coast was clear, and then, after a few skillful movements the door clicked open.
Without any other choice left, really, Sam followed his brother to the door he had just opened. He remained at the threshold though, just taking a quick glance inside while Dean walked in. The room looked very much like their own, same furniture, same positions.
Dean turned to stare at Sam, indicating with a quick jerk of his head for him to enter as well. When the door was finally closed, Dean resumed to look around for any items of interest – just what exactly it was that he was looking for Sam didn't know.
"Newspaper", Dean said when he stood beside one of the two beds, moving towards the nightstand and shrugging before his glance fell onto a slightly crumpled t-shirt on the bed. "Oh, Iron Maiden." Another of those impish grins appeared on Dean's features as he picked the t-shirt up, examining it and holding it towards Sam for him to see it. "Which one of the two do you think wears this for sleeping?"
"If you're already in here, do something useful!" Sam replied, his gaze wandering over the newspaper on the nightstand, the bed he was standing next to, and the traveling bag half lying underneath it. "What exactly do you think you'll find here?"
Dean just shrugged and walked over to the closet, opening it to find the pantsuits the girls had worn this morning, neatly put on the hangers. "That's why these things looked better than our suits", he said. Both Dean and Sam never paid too much attention to tidying up their clothes, normally just leaving them in their bags.
The younger brother had to agree with that, taking in the folded pieces of clothing in the bag he was standing next to, tearing his eyes away immediately as he saw what must have been underwear.
He had just opened his mouth to say something as his ears picked up the sound of something he so did not want to hear right now – footsteps from outside.
Dean had obviously heard the same, stopping dead in his tracks, looking over to Sam and listening. And there, just a moment later, they heard soft voices from outside.
"… always forget something, Kat."
"Yeah I know, sorry, but I need my cell."
Staring at each other, eyes wide, both brothers didn't know what to do in the first momentum of shock. Then they both moved at once, heading for the bathroom only to realize that the door had been only half-closed. If they closed it now, it would clearly look suspicious to the girls.
"Get in there!" Dean whispered, shoving Sam into the shower and pulling the curtain shut just in the moment when the door to the motel room was opened.
"Right, I always forget how much you depend on that thing," they now heard the voices clearer, the one of the blonde girl as Sam remembered. He glared hard at his brother, silently saying, Just for the record, this is entirely your fault!
"Like you didn't", the brunette replied. "Okay, got it, let's…" The girl was silent for a moment, so was the blonde, until the first spoke up again. "Oh, hang on, let me change this sweatshirt now we're here anyhow."
Sam tried to keep his breathing steady and silent, listening intently to whatever was going on out there. Neither he nor Dean moved, standing close together behind the shower curtain. He just hoped the girls would be gone in a few moments and they could get out of here so he could underline his thought with a smack to Dean's head.
But that would have to wait.
Quicker than either of them had heard it coming the curtain was ripped open, and before Sam even realized what was goingon, he saw Dean being grabbed by the collar of his jacket and pulled out of the shower. Tangled up in the shower curtain he stumbled forward and just managed to roll himself over so he didn't end up flat on the stomach. Instead he was lying on his back, and before Sam could get out of the shower cabin himself, he heard two weapons unbolting. The brunette woman was aiming her pistol straight into Dean's face while the blonde stood behind her, gun pointing towards Sam.
Instinctively, his hands were up, adrenaline rushing through him. "Whoa, stop, don't shoot!" the words stumbled out of his mouth, quickly trying to estimate their chances of getting out of here in one piece. Blue eyes stared icily at him, and he didn't quite dare to look away, having the irrational thought that there would indeed be bullets flying if he did.
"No way in hell you are FBI agents."
"Told you so", added the brunette, her eyes fixed on Dean, face full of concentration and anger.
"And you're no PIs." Even though he was lying flat on his back, the brunette's foot on his stomach, Dean just couldn't stop being smart.
"What the frigging hell were you doing in our room? And who are you?"
"Look, we can explain, all right?" Sam tried, his tone, he hoped, calming. "Just put the guns down. Please."
The brunette studied him for a moment, then exchanged a quick glance with the blonde. Both pistols sank and the brunette stepped back from Dean, enabling him to get back to his feet.
"You like to play it rough, don't you?" he asked, rubbing his stomach.
"Shut up. Meggie, check them for guns."
Eyes still fixed on him attentively, the blonde first stepped forward and reached for Sam, jerking up his shirt to take an practiced look at his sides and back, then reached out to Dean to do the same there.
Sam swallowed, his throat a little dry. Good thing they didn't have their guns on them just now.
"That tickles." Dean wore an almost dirty smirk, one eyebrow raised towards the blonde girl.
"You think you're very funny, right?" Instead of the blonde, Meggie (apparently they had give fake names, too), replying to Dean's remark, it was the brunette. Judging from the way she was glaring at Dean it seemed like he should rather not get anywhere near the blonde. "But if you don't want to explain what the hell you were doing in our room,we can always just call the cops."
"And explain to them why you're running around with guns. Oh, and posing as private investigators."
"All right, now stop that," the blonde said now, redirecting their gazes to her. She motioned, gun still in her hand but not aimed anymore, towards the door of the small bath room. "You're the ones breaking into our room, you're answering the questions. Now get out of the bathroom, it's far too cramped in here for any of this."
Both women were keeping a close eye on the brothers as they walked out towards the sleeping area, not daring to sit down somewhere.
"Now, explain", ordered the brunette coolly.
Sam took a deep breath, and his eyes flickering to Dean for a second who returned the gaze. His own suspicion about the young women being some kind of hunters had only hardened with these last few minutes, but still they had to be careful, in case he was wrong.
His eyes fixed on the girls again. "We're trying to find out more about Rupert Newell's murder," he started carefully. "Which I guess you… do as well?"
Both girls nodded.
"Yes, that's why we're here." The brunette's features showed slight confusion as she eyed the two brothers.
A quick glance to Dean told Sam that his brother was pondering the same: If those girls were no private investigators and no police officers either, then why the hell were they here to investigate the case? Except for the one reason Dean had abnegated previously. Mentally Sam shrugged.
"So do you already have any idea what it is you're… hunting?"
The confused look on the brunette's features became more prominent, mirrored by the blonde who looked at her companion and back at the brothers. There was awkward silence for a few seconds, the kind of moment where either all four of them were thinking the same or not.
"You're… hunters?"
Sam sighed in half relief – at least now they did know what they were dealing with. And even though they didn't have all the best experiences in working with other hunters, he just hoped those two weren't anything like Gordon.
His next glance automatically fell on his brother,and he couldn't help that barely audible smug tone in his voice as he said, "Told you so."
The sigh the brunette let out sounded somewhat exasperated. Rolling her eyes she finally let her gun disappear in the waistband of her jeans and slumped down on one of the beds. "And what kind of evil exactly did you suspect us to be when you broke into our room to snoop around our things?" She pointed to the Iron Maiden t-shirt that was now hanging from the side of the bed. Obviously, it had been what had given away their presence away.
"We're sorry, okay?" Sam tried as they really didn't have that much of a satisfying explanation, looking from the brunette to the blonde,who still held her gun loosely in her hand, watching them with slightly narrowed eyes.
"Yeah?" Now the brunette went back
to her annoyed attire, arms crossed in front of her chest. "You
didn't rummage in my nightstand, did you? Because if you had, I'd
have to kill you now." Somehow, even though she couldn't know
who of the two had touched her things, her eyes were fixed on
Dean.
"Why?" asked the accused. "What's in
there?"
"Don't even think about", she threatened.
"We didn't touch your things," Sam interjected, glaring at Dean. "And we won't. We just wanted to know what we were dealing with, and it was a bad idea coming in here."
"Right about that," the blonde muttered. "So if you're hunters, what are your names?"
"Dean and Sam Winchester", Dean answered. "And I take it, you aren't Claire Dickinson, Bruce's long lost daughter, and – what was it again?"
The brunette, however, didn't seem to feel obliged to answer that question, although she looked slightly surprised that Dean immediately drew the connection to whoever Bruce Dickinson was. Instead,her palm went to her forehead, followed by her fingers running through her chestnut brown hair. "Son of a bitch. Of all hunters out there we have to run into the morons who opened the gates to hell."
"Hey, we didn't open that thing", Dean snapped defensively. "And we already killed half of the things we'd let slip out, plus the demon that would have brought apocalypse over us if we hadn't stopped him. So you should actually get on your knees and thank us."
Laughing out in disbelief, the brunette got up from the bed again. "Are you always such an arrogant dick? If so you better get the hell out of here and let us finish our job."
"Your job? Excuse me, but we were here first."
"Prove it!"
Dean fumbled for his jeans pocket, pulling out the motel receipt. "Here, checked in yesterday at four-twenty-five. When did you two arrive?"
Sam had no idea why exactly Dean and the brunette seemed to dislike each other so much, but clearly there was open animosity right from the start – well except for the time when Dean had checked both girls out at the theater.
"This is ridiculous", answered the brunette then, throwing her hands up in annoyed defeat.
"Yes it is," Sam heard himself agree simultaneously with the blonde.
For a second there was silence hanging between them before the young woman spoke up again. "All right now, you two quit it so that we can figure out what to do." She waved a hand at the brunette in a way of introduction. "Katrina and Megan Farrell."
There was nothing he could do about the
immediate, uncomfortable memory knotting in his stomach, and he saw
that Dean also broke his glare away from the brunette to look at what
was likely her sister, before exchanging a quick glance with his Sam.
He really hadn't wanted to be reminded of the last Megan they'd
had to deal with. Only having heard the other girl calling her
Meggie, he had thought it could be short for Margaret or just plain
Meggie, not knowing whether it was spelled with an 'e' or 'a'.
But
Dean didn't let the moment last long, turning his focus back onto the
girls, sisters as it seemed. "Never heard of you. How can we
know you're no demons who try to get in our way?"
Rolling her eyes, the brunette reached inside her sweatshirt and brought forth a small trinket with the symbol against demon possession. "Should I drink some holy water too so you believe me?"
"Not necessary," Sam shook his head, and he relaxed just a little more. So they were hunters, were not possessed, had heard about what had happened at the gate and hadn't tried to kill him yet. So far so good.
"What about you?" Megan wanted to know, and even though she too looked a little more at ease, she was still eyeing them with a certain amount of caution.
Simultaneously, Sam and Dean reached for the collars of their shirts, pulling them down far enough to reveal the tattoos on their chests, right above the heart. "We thought this is a bit more permanent than an amulet that can come off", Dean added, smirking.
Both pairs of eyebrows went up, and Sam thought he saw the corners of their mouths twitch just a little.
"Impressive. All right," Megan said and only now sat down on her own bed. "So how much did you already find out about this?"
Before any of the brothers could answer, Katrina's head shot sideways to her sister, eyes wide. "You don't actually want to work with them?"
"If they already have something else, there's no need to do the same work twice," Megan just shot back.
"Fine", Katrina sighed and sat back down, this time on one of the chairs by the small table.
Both boys remained standing, and after a short, silent exchange Sam started. "It's really not that we've got much at the moment. I mean you were there this morning. We thought it has something to do with the theater being sold, that someone or something doesn't want that to happen and attacks potential buyers. We've had a similar case with an old hotel. Back then it was a ghost, but no idea what's it this time. McKenzie held something back, but since whatever happened is probably something he can't explain, he doesn't spill it. I guess you're in a better position to tell us if the Sumpters are involved since you talked to them and we didn't."
"Yeah well, Mr. Sumpter didn't really want to talk about it. He seemed pretty upset, naturally", Katrina answered and seemed to let go of her aggressive attitude for the moment. "Whatever it is, I don't think Sumpter is causing it. Our next guess would be the kids."
"No girlfriend?" Dean asked and Katrina answered: "Not that we know of."
"Did you already talk to them, the Kids?"
"No, didn't get the chance," Katrina said, "but that would have been our next step."
"And we were planning on having a look at Newell."
"So why not?" Megan said, brushing some loose strands of hair out of her face. "If we already started we can just as well end this together."
"But we always work alone", Katrina interjected. "And we've done well so far."
"Funny, like I said we've never heard of you."
"Oh just shut up", she snapped at Dean but then she sighed, looking at her sister again. "Fine then. We'll go to their high school and you two can check out Newell's corpse. Less dirty work for us."
"Right…"
For a moment Sam wondered if this really was such a good idea, trying to work with them. Hunters usually did work on their own or at most in pairs that were connected by a deeper bond like family, lovers or at least close friends, not just lose contacts. So he now had one more reason to hope this case would be solved soon, then they could all go their separate ways again.
"Why, too tough for you?" Dean asked, smirking and Katrina shot him an annoyed smile. "Think what you like. Let's go then. School's out in fifteen minutes. We'll just meet you here again in two hours. And knock next time."
Neither of them bothered with an answer this time, they just accompanied the young women outside. They didn't really have to get back to their own room since the IDs and cells were still in their pockets, and since they had left jackets and ties in the Impala before getting something to eat, all they'd have to do was put them on in the car.
As Megan was walking ahead of the rest,Sam could see Dean tilting his head, obviously checking out her ass that – Sam had to admit – didn't look bad at all in the tight, dark blue jeans. Before a smirk could really appear on his features, however, Dean was elbowed in the side by Katrina, who had been walking behind them. "Look at my sister like that again and you're demon food. I know your kind, so back off."
Dean stared at her, mouth open, instinctively rubbing his side although it couldn't really have hurt. "Christ, you're one frustrated chick, aren't you?"
"Whatever."
Sam had to bite his lower lip to keep his grin in check, trying to look innocent.
The girls got to their Buick first, and when Katrina turned on the ignition both boys almost jumped at the sudden noise of Iron Maiden's 'The Nomad', the radio turned up on full volume. Megan obviously was used to that already.
Somehow, a sense of familiarity washed over Sam, and he had to smile a little. Then, however, he raised his hand to smack his brother's head.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?" Dean yelled at his brother, glaring daggers at him.
Now Sam did grin. "I swore to myself that I'd do that as soon as we got out of that room. Serves you right."
"They could have been demons for all we knew", Dean retorted in self defense, tone still angered as he fumbled for his car keys and unlocked the Impala.
"You just can't bear the thought that I was right," the younger replied as he let himself fall into the passenger seat, content with himself again. "Besides, you keep smacking me up the head all the time."
"How was I supposed to know that something so absurd was true", he just huffed back, turning on the engine and with it the radio that thankfully wasn't as loud as Katrina's had been.
xOxOx
TBC – and if you write a few reviews it'll be soon ;)