Back to Dean in this chapter then plus some more clues and maybe a few answers but not too many because we still have a way to go. Your reviews make me smile like an idiot and boy have I needed some smiling material this week, so big big thank you to everyone who penned something and here's hoping you like this chapter too!
Wolfgirl2013, Thank you! Lots happening in this instalment and drama and tension and the works I hope, so happy reading!
Cheryl24, Bo? Haha, what a thought! But, uh, nope, sorry, freezing cold because I love my crazy little puppy Bobo far too much to make him a bad guy, besides, he can barely lace his own shoes at this point so murders are way beyond him (unless accidental I guess!)
SkittlezLvr79, Actually, the place that Dean ends up in isn't as bad as some of the other places he's been stuck, but I'll be honest and say the company isn't perfect since...you know, it's a murderer and everything! Still, every cloud and all that jazz!
Minnie1015, Bo is the best! I just finished writing a oneshot with him in it too, being massively unhelpful as usual, even though I am letting have one brief shining moment of brilliance here! He can have a pack on the head for the last chapter but otherwise it's back to normal!
Mandy, Oh yeah, brotherly protectiveness coming your way! Especially next chapter when Seth has a moment where he's being really cute (in my eyes anyway, but the moment is kind of gross, oops, don't want to spoil the story so I'm going to shut up now!)
LHisawesome4ever, I would imagine there is a therapist doing really well from Stephanie's various police officers, but I'm not sure Dean would ever go to therapy unless it was kicking and screaming of course! Remember his TV spot with the psychiatrist? I imagine it would be basically like that!
Daisysakura, Aww, you love your hurt Dean as much as I do! Yay! Well, he sure is in a world of trouble in this chapter but he tries to 'Dean' his way through it as usual. Expect lots of brotherly love and concern in the chapters to follow too, the next one especially!
Cherry619, Is there anything better than protective Seth and Roman? Nope. Nope I don't think there is and I'm totally glad you agree with that because we've sure got some coming up as we move through these coming chapters. Yep, still a nice set of twists still to go!
Derick lindsey, I won't lie, hurt Dean and protective brothers is my catnip and it's so much sadistic fun to write so, you got me, it happens in my stories a fair bit, but there's always room for a twist in there somewhere so hopefully I can still surprise you somewhere!
Skovko, Oh god, the image of superhero Bo is too much to handle! But what would his superhero name be though? Hmmm. I liked the idea of Cesaro being a fan boy too, I mean, he's such a grinning kid and so happy all the time that I certainly thought it hit with him!
Leigh-Annette, Hey there, thanks for stopping in and yay, another fan for the puppy Bo train! Rest assured, hurt Dean on the way along with the comforting fussing brother goodness that makes it worthwhile...or at least I hope makes it worthwhile!
Back to Dean then...
Danger Ahead
Dean was marched like some prize winning poodle through a continually twisting sequence of black and hushed streets, the two of them passing beneath the warmth of the streetlamps in a continuous exchange between electric brightness and then dark.
People were scuttling along the sidewalk all around them and laughing and drinking or clinging fast to their sober friends, but since the weather was bitter and wintry they were far too focussed on getting inside again to pay even a flicker of attention to them. Then there was the fact that Dean was walking with a giant who had an actual white eyeball which hardly helped much, since he was literally the type of guy that would have made kids run off screaming and so therefore was not a face that people tried to look at too hard.
The gun dug hard into his back against his spinal cord –
Far too close though which was a rookie mistake.
In theory if he had gathered the speed and the momentum, then Dean could have swung and knocked the weapon from his hand and in that way managed to make the playing field more even, but with people on streets he couldn't risk an errant round.
Instead he decided to try and make light chitchat,
"So where're we goin' man? Is it – is it somewhere kinda far?"
In response the killer grunted,
"Keep walking, we're almost there now."
Dean felt pretty much like he was walking to his death and the thought wasn't helped when they took the final corner and spun into a narrow space shadowed between two buildings and which was frankly the sort of place he knew the strangler liked to work.
"Uh, hey, you sure this is the way, or – ,"
"Get moving."
Dean was propelled forwards with the tip of the gun and in spite of the fact they were suddenly isolated it turned out their killer wasn't as stupid as he looked because he suddenly backed away out of the reach of swinging forearms and also out of reach of letting the tables turn.
Fuck.
Reluctantly the copper blonde stumbled on forwards, with stumbled being the appropriate word, since without the warm streetlamps the path became swallowed and then totally lost in the unrelenting gloom.
Dean kicked something and then almost fell over,
"Whoa – ,"
Big fingers shot out and caught the back of his shirt, hauling him upright with a surprising dexterity for a man who liked to break or kill most of the things he touched.
"Stop."
Dean reacted to the command with a judder since it barked out around them and echoed back in off the walls but then got the sense that there was something in front of him and so lifted his hands and planted them onto a wooden gate.
His fingers found a latch,
"Uh, so – like – what now man? We goin' through this or are we – ,"
"Open it."
Crap.
Evidently their killer was a man of few syllables but he grunted in what sounded like a modicum of pleasure as the copper blonde turned the lock and then pushed his way past, tensing his whole body for some weird torture dungeon or a blood covered shack –
But finding instead a yard.
"The fuck?"
In front of him there were borders and pot plants and a little wooden table with scraps put out for the birds and in one little corner there was even an arbour shaded beneath the overhang of some brightly colored shrub. The place was admittedly overlooked by dank apartments which seemed to look up on nearly every side, but in terms of hidden gems and real estate markets, it was a tiny oasis and so therefore a real find.
The killer grunted and then grabbed hold of Dean's collar before pushing him forward and then through a door into what turned out to be a ground level apartment that had a miniscule floorspace and had clearly been purchased for the yard.
"Sit down."
It wasn't so much an invitation as an order, since the policeman was positively flung into a chair, landing with a startled sounding snort of disgruntlement as a threadbare brown couch from at least the nineteen seventies and covered into flowered material collided with his chest.
"Ow."
In the time it took him to scramble back upright – or at least into something resembling a sit – the killer had pulled a hard backed chair from the kitchen and positioned himself on it so that he could resume his white eyed stare.
Dean waved a finger,
"So, why is it that color?"
He wasn't really sure if it was safe ground to tread considering the gun hung between the killer's kneecaps but he figured at least if he could get the guy talking then it would maybe waste some time before his brothers bust in, because naturally they would and no fucking doubt about it –
Dean just wasn't sure when it would be or how long.
In the interim therefore he pressed on with his topic and the eerie white eyeball,
"Was it an accident or what?"
"I got into a fight as a kid and it just happened, the body repairing."
Dean hadn't expected an answer back and so blinked a little in response to the gruff tones before tilting his head mildly because they sounded kind of loose, like the guy was simply shooting the breeze with his buddy although it didn't stop the dangerous undertones from seeping through. He was smirking as well, or maybe that was his resting face?
Either way it looked damn creepy and the killer knew it too.
Dean huffed a breath out,
"Why m' I here man?"
If he was going to ask questions then that seemed like the most straightforward place with which to start and so he spat it out managing to sound pretty angry, since not only was he sitting having to stare down a murderer but he had also been kidnapped and potentially marched to his doom.
No damn way was he going down easy.
"I told you on the phone. You don't know the truth."
"So you're gonna give it to me, huh?" Dean raised a brow at him, "Full confession an' all that show? Because in that case m' gonna need a pen an' some paper."
He received a wry snort for his troubles,
"You hung up."
Shit.
"Hey, no, that wasn't my call alright?"
He was struggling to tell if the killer was pissed at him or merely stating the run of events or potentially even getting his kicks by fucking with him since who the hell knew what was going on in the big head? Because while the ugly face was still white eyed and fearsome, the man was also continuing to wear the little smirk that looked caught halfway between being fuelled malice and a type of amusement.
Possibly both?
In short the guy was like some asshole of a tom cat who had captured a mouse and was batting it round the room and the copper blonde shuddered with a deep weight of distastefulness as he figured that was probably how the former victims would have felt.
"I know," the strangler grunted back, "It was Calaway."
"Wait, you know him?"
"How could I not?"
"You mean from back on the first case and the papers an' that shit?"
Blowing out a sigh that turned into a grumble, the big guy settled back with a creaking of the chair, then looked across while forgetting to keep blinking which based on the twenty-something minutes they'd spent together was a problem that the asshole seemed to suffer from a bunch.
Who in the hell forgot to blink for fuck sakes?
"He told me to,"
"Huh?" Dean looked up baffled, "Who told you what?"
"He said we should kill."
It wasn't really obvious from the shortly spat out sentence if he was talking about a person or else some vision in his head, considering he had sworn that he didn't hear voices so maybe he thought his psychosis induced enabler was real?
Perhaps he was even stood in the room with them?
Not a happy thought.
"I was a normal kid once, maybe not normal like other children my age but I never hurt things, even though I wanted to sometimes. I kept it buried deep down though, deep, deep down."
He struck himself suddenly from out of the blue, pounding a big meaty fist against his breastbone like the notion was one that he frequently struggled with and it caught Dean by surprise because he seemed almost conflicted or at least aware that murder was a terrible thing and therefore something he should have kept himself away from.
For all that had worked.
"Uh, so, when did that change?"
"When I met him."
Evidently they were back to his imaginary friend again and in turn the copper blonde nodded his head very slowly and then looked around the space.
"Is – is this guy here?"
It was probably the first time he had taken in his surroundings, the design features of which left a lot to be desired since the tiny little space that housed a kitchen and living room was clad in wallpaper that had gone out with moon boots, in lurid browns and vomit colored yellows and which heavily implied someone had lived there a long time.
In response to the question the killer screwed his face up like he was the crazy one.
"No he's isn't here, I haven't seen his ass for twenty five years now."
"What?"
Dean was nothing if not hopelessly lost because if some spooky figure had been driving on the killings then why was the asshole killing again now and how in the world did it count as psychosis if he wasn't hearing things or following orders from a ghost?
None of it made any damn sense.
Not a stitch of it.
But clearly their killer was unaware of that fact since he merely tipped his head to the other side in a thoughtful gesture before grunting a little,
"He was dark inside like me, but he was worse, he liked watching living things crumble, he liked to hear the screaming when they knew their time was up."
Dean's skin crawled and he growled the word out,
"Fucker – ,"
In order to raise the tension the bald murderer grinned back and then let out a laugh that was so fucking creepy it was like he had been practising in his bedroom at night, with a black and white horror film on pause for helpful pointers or the reanimated corpse of Vincent Price by his side.
"You think it's so wrong?"
"Kidnappin' women kickin' an' screamin' before wrappin' rope around their necks an' fuckin' stranglin' 'em to death? Yeah, you're right man, I think it's totally messed up an' here's the freakin' newsflash, so does everybody else."
In the blink of an eye the gun was trained back on his forehead and he froze like a god damn popsicle.
Fuck.
For the most part Seth usually had to remind his ass daily that there were times when it best to keep his tongue in his head, but without him there or in his ear on surveillance it was hard to remember.
But the firearm made it clear.
"Hey now – ,"
"That was him," the bulky killer snapped out, through teeth that were gritted against bubbling rage. His free hand reached up and clawed at his features like he was trying to quell the voices or scratch the skin off his face and briefly Dean sympathized because he knew what that felt like.
Except that he was not a murderer.
He swallowed a shaky breath down then held his hands up again,
"Ignore me, okay? I talk a lot of shit sometimes, my brothers are always sayin' – ,"
"I had a brother once."
"Huh?"
It seemed that just as quickly as the ferocity had risen, it had peaked and then seemingly shrivelled back up and Dean blew a sigh out as loud as he dared to as the gun trembled briefly then once more fell between the legs, still locked and loaded but not pointed at him which was definite a plus.
Hurry the fuck up boys.
"I said I had a brother – half brother actually – but I guess that's one and the same thing right? My mother used to send me to spend the summer out with them but I didn't like it there and neither did he. Real religious folks. They thought I was the devil. His mother used to call us Cain and Abel. Do you know why?"
Dean paused,
"No."
"Because they said I was the bad one and their son – my half brother – was the better one of us. But they didn't know what I knew about him."
"Which was what man?"
"He taught me everything I know."
Dean faltered then because the sentence sounded leading like he was supposed to read into it, only he had no fucking clue and no real concept of where to even start with it since he was lost and knee-deep in rambling killer weird ass talk.
He scratched at his neck,
"So was he a murderer too, huh? Like some family trade you got goin' on here?"
Big teeth glinted back in mild amusement and then the murderer glowered so darkly that he blended into the room and became at one with the eerily long shadows until only his one white eyeball showed,
"Oh you have no idea."
Dean spread his hands wide,
"I need you to level with me, okay man, because you're not exactly givin' me much to go on. I mean, I figure you must have dragged my ass here for a reason, but I'll be honest an' say I don't know what it is. What do you want from me?"
The answer was simple –
Except it wasn't because it didn't make any sense, like everything else the bastard had lectured on, from imaginary enablers to creepy brothers and religious friends.
"I wanted someone to truly see me."
"Well good news, because I've been lookin' at you for the last half hour now."
"But can you really see me?"
Dean blinked,
"You're kinda hard to miss y' know? Eight foot tall, big egg shaped bald head."
In response to the flippancy and borderline annoyance, since the copper blonde nearly always got angry when he was stressed, the killer snorted loosely and repeated the weird head tilt like a dog that was trying to figure a new command out or considering simply trying to rip his owner's throat out.
The strangler snorted a little,
"Why have I changed what I do?"
"With your skin care routine? I mean what are we talkin' about?"
In the half light something long, thin and shiny was held up and it glinted in the fierce orange glow of the lampshade and turn the lawman's stomach.
He was holding a syringe.
"Why have I changed the way I capture my victims?"
Dean blinked back.
He had no freaking idea.
Initially they had come up with a whole bunch of reasons, from the killer getting too old and decrepit to grab people but which was quite categorically not the fucking case at all, to it being someone else like the son of the first guy which was also evidently a pretty bad misfire.
So then why had he changed things?
Dean shrugged,
"I couldn't tell you."
"Isn't that the kind of thing they pay you to find out?"
"Actually they pay me to try and find killers."
"Well congratulations because here I am."
But in spite of the grin that accompanied the statement, there was something in the murderous eyes that stayed dull and made Dean recall their short phone conversation from earlier and the fact that the man who had hit them up to gloat had instead seemed uncertain or like he needed to say something.
But what the hell was it?
Dean took his chance and slid himself slightly towards the edge of the cushions in as slow non-threatening a move as could, keeping his hands up but fixing his gaze forwards and then burning his blue orbs in across the room and locking them onto the one dark, one white one as he blew out a breath and then spoke in steady tones,
"Tell me why I'm here."
"I – I don't want the blame for this, not everything anyway because that's not how it went down."
"So how did it go down?"
"I told you, he made me do it and then he wrapped the cord and pulled while I held them down."
Fuck.
Dean let his eyes flicker shit very briefly and then bit his tongue so hard a drop of blood crept out and painted his taste buds with the sharp tang of copper as he tried not to visualize the murders too much or how fucking terrified the poor damn girls would had been.
He needed to stay calm.
Roman-level calm.
"Why did you stop killin' twenty five years back?"
"I stopped because he left me, he – he wanted to take care of his son," the killer paused and then snorted wryly, "He said he didn't need it because the anger was all out but I never bought that. It can never be over or gone from the kind of people we are."
Dean frowned,
Son?
Maybe the friend wasn't some figment because as far as he knew ghosts didn't have babies or rearrange their priorities to do less haunting of folk and in response to that thought a growing shiver ran over him because what if he was saying he hadn't been the only one? What if he was saying there had been another killer and they had worked as a double act?
His heart thudded.
Holy fuck.
But it would have explained why he had switched up his method since he was working single handed on his second go around and it would also have explained why no victims had escaped the first time, since it would have been impossible to trick and out-run a killer pair.
Dean gaped in horror,
"Are you sayin' there were two of you?"
Hearing it said aloud seemed to piss the man off and in reply the gun rose in a sudden flash of anger but then wobbled like he knew there was no going back or maybe like he had been waiting twenty five years to tell someone and getting it off his chest was some kind of a relief.
"He killed the first ones."
Dean raised his hands,
"Easy, how 'bout you tell me who this guy is first huh?"
Bizarrely the suggestion drew a flicker of raw panic then another burst of fury that lifted the gun, before that too died off and was replaced by desolation as the big ass serial killer inched towards a breakdown, which Dean was by strokes both ready to deal with and at the same time so totally out of his depth,
"I can't – ,"
"But that's why you grabbed me, right man? You wanna right wrongs here? Let people know the truth about this shit?"
He knew he was close, he could practically feel it and the killer could too because he let the gun fall, turning instead in the chair to rock a little and grip his thumping but still oversized head, like the bellowing inside it was getting too much for him.
His reply was a grumble,
"I couldn't take it."
"Take what?"
"Everyone seeing him as some big hero and the good one when it's never never been true."
Dean frowned at him,
"What the hell does that mean?"
But whatever further thought was hanging from the sentence was swiftly swept away by a sudden noise outside and as Dean swung towards it, the killer started moving with a startling turn of pace that scared the crap out of him and returned the damn gun to the copper blonde temple as his kidnapper hauled him upright then wrapped an arm around his neck, pressing on his windpipe and pushing him towards the door in the direction of the cute and well-kept little yard,
"What was that noise?"
"How the hell do I know?"
In his head though he was screaming for Roman and Seth and nor was his ass disappointed on that front –
Except his big dramatic rescue by no means turned out as planned.
All the drama in the next chapter folks, all the drama...plus, a twist?