The drive into Joliet hadn't been particularly exciting- but then again, riding in the back of an ambulance with a dead kid sort of predetermined any kind of mood. This is was sort of the opposite of how he had wanted to spend today. It's not that he wasn't excited to have a lead in the case… but at the same time, this was really not the kind of lead that he ever wanted to have.
Murder bothered him on fundamental level.
No one had the right to take life away someone else- and yes, Sam was painfully aware of what a glaring hypocrite that made him.
But a little girl?
He was sick just thinking about it.
The autopsy was hard to watch, and he hated Dean a little for volunteering him to oversee it. Yes, it was good that one of them went, kept an eye out for the kind of thing that only they might notice being grossly out of place. But it could have been Dean.
It could have been both of them in the back of the ambulance.
But he knew better than to argue with Dean where Castiel was involved.
If his brother was going to do a graveyard tour with the Angel, it was best that Sam kept clear.
He didn't have anything particularly useful to add to that odd little development- at least he didn't have anything useful that Dean wanted to hear.
So Sam took the half hour ride to Aurora and watched police officers and the coroner fingerprint and dissect a little girl not even old enough to wear makeup. He stood near the back corner of the room, letting the glorified mortician do her job, letting two very firm thoughts settle heavily in his gut. The first being that that he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight- the second, that as soon as they found out who did this (and they would) Sam was going to kill them. It was the only consolation in all of this[ that there would be one less monster in the world.
"The tissue has been damaged by exposure to this heat-" the coroner, Alice Something-or-other, glanced over her shoulder at Sam. "But it looks like signs of frost bite on what's left of her feet and hands."
Sam grunted softly and came closer, looking at the soft bruising in the empty nail beds like he analyzed this kind of thing for a living and could see what Alice saw perfectly.
"The body must have been kept in a cold environment for at least a few hours before her death." Her voice was a little muffled behind her little surgical mask, but she didn't sound particularly happy. "Cold exposure might actually be the cause of death."
Hypothermia? Sam hadn't really expected such a mundane form of murder. Dean might be right about this one being just a human. A crazy one, but human was human.
Then again, in this heat wave someone dying of frostbite was anything other than mundane and it kept the supernatural avenue of their psycho killer wide open. It didn't make him feel any better. He wasn't sure why he thought that it would.
"So, we're looking for someone with a large freezer maybe?" Sam looked very firmly at the coroner, she wasn't much more than a pair of eyes behind goggles, a surgical mask and an attractive, matching hair net… but she was so much easier to look at than the little girl.
"You're looking for whatever you feel like looking for, mister FBI. I'm just telling you what I see." She reached out with a gloved hand, moving the green vanity sheet down from the kid's chest, pointing with a surprisingly steady finger at three small burns along the arch of her tiny ribs, little dots aligned like the corners of a triangle. "She's got two more on her back. One over the lumbar, the other over her left kidney."
Sam looked over the coroner's head (not with any difficulty as she didn't even come up to his shoulder), down at the burns. He had seen similar before, but they looked off somehow. "Cattle prod?" The words felt like a sickness. He was going to need a drink tonight. Maybe four.
"Could be. I'll run some tests- include the pictures I took in her file." Alice moved the cloth back into place, smoothing it gently over the marks she had already made, the Y shaped incision she had carefully stapled closed. The metal prongs looked heavy and pale against the girls skin- railroad tracks running over the ruined dips and curves of her body.
Sam took a careful step backwards, settling into his corner where he couldn't see things so well.
Sam caught his breath, feeling a little light headed from the chemical smell of the little room.
He hated autopsy rooms.
He hated this whole thing.
Later, once the kid was carefully tucked into the wall cabinet, its little door latched, and the two of them were out in the safety of the hall, Alice asked if he wanted to get a drink.
Under other circumstances, he would have said no. He was on a case, had to get back to his partner, he could think of at least a handful of other excuses- but Alice had pulled off her mask and hairnet, tossing them into a red bio-bin beside the door.
She looked up at Sam, long dark hair pulled back from her pale face, delicate lips and eyes that looked grey and tired. She wasn't beautiful in the traditional sense- but she wasn't bad either. She looked like someone's older sister who you would sneak covert looks at from time to time, but knew to leave alone because she wasn't interested in dealing with your bullshit. And maybe that was a little too specific- but Sam had spent a fair amount of his formative years in highschool watching Dean getting the side eye from girls like Alice.
She wasn't hitting on Sam. She just needed a drink and wanted company.
Sam felt the same way.
He didn't have a car (having ridden up in the ambulance), so Alice drove them to a local bar that made its own micro brew. It came in an amber bottle with a blue label and it tasted like honey, hops, and summer nights. They both nursed their bottles and easily spoke of anything that didn't have to do with work or themselves. They settled on how the Chicago Blackhawks had done last season- and Sam knew little to nothing about hockey, but that didn't seem to matter much.
Out of the subbasement of the hospital, Alice actually had a smile, it was tired like her eyes, but it was honest and Sam liked it. He found himself smiling back easily, despite the guilt he felt over it.
And Dean was always telling him that they're allowed to be happy- but Sam doesn't think that's right. Hunting was an unholy business, cheerless and lonely.
"Your partner going to meet you up here or are they back in Millington?" She didn't have to speak loud to be heard over the late afternoon crowd. Most people were still at work or having dinner and the two of them had the bar mostly to themselves other than a handful of people clustered at the back tables.
"Partner?" For a moment Sam didn't understand, and that alone was a testament to his state of mind.
"I've never seen an FBI agent by themselves. You've got to have a Mulder around somewhere." She took a sip of her beer, hiding a little smile.
Why was Sam always Scully? "He was going over the first crime scenes." Sam hoped he was right. He didn't like to think what kind of trouble his brother would be getting up to if him and Cas had finished going through the cemetery again… but at the same time, it had been about four hours. They should be well and done by now.
"You want a ride back?" She was pulling out her wallet, setting a folded five under her empty bottle. "I live south of Millington."
"I didn't know there was anything south of Millington." Sam said with a wry smile, laying out some money of his own.
Alice took her keys out, standing- and she was about Sam's height while he still sat on his little wooden chair.
"You good to drive?" He stood too, grinning as her eyes followed him all the way up.
"It was one beer." She rolled her eyes, walking with him back to her sensible sedan.
Sam wanted to make a comment about how one beer to a normal sized person and one beer to someone as small as she was, was not the same thing- but he was a little worried that she would revoke the offer of a ride and he would have to call a cab or something. He wisely did not tease the tiny woman and let her drive him the half hour back to the little town that sprawled over a dusty mile of farm land and weeds.
They talked about travel, and Sam knew about travel better than he knew hockey- and was more than able to hold his own. Alice seemed mildly surprised that he had been to so many places, and Sam quickly excused it away with 'work' and she nodded gravely like that explained everything.
They pulled through Millington, rolling through a Stop sign on the edge of town. Down the cross street Sam could see the little cemetery and the Impala perched outside, black as death itself.
"Hold up." Sam slapped at the dash board and Alice slammed on the car's breaks, sending up a grey dust cloud behind them.
"It's more of an advisory Stop sign than a real one." She grumbled looking over at him.
Sam blinked at her, glancing at the big red sign outside his window.
"Can the FBI give traffic tickets?"
"What? No." He kind of laughed, but it sounded weak to his ears. It had been over five hours now and Dean was still in the cemetery? Some kind of bad feeling crawled from the corner of his mind and he did his best to hide it. "No." He repeated. "I- my partner's out at the cemetery still. You can just drop me off here."
She looked down the road at the only other car within eyesight of them. "I think I picked the wrong line of work, if they're dolling out monster like that." She smiled up at him, a hint of teeth. "Maybe I should look into getting a job with the Bureau." She flipped the car into park and dug in the little compartment between the seats coming up with a pen and a slightly bent business card. "Here's the office number. Call me tomorrow and I'll let you know if I've found anything about our little Jane Doe." She instructed, handing over the card. "And here's my number. Call me this weekend if you're still in town and I'll let you know if you can buy me a drink."
Sam took the card and couldn't help but smile. Dean was usually the one getting girl's numbers- but Dean wasn't here and without much hesitation Sam decided that he would take her up on the offer. It wasn't one he got nearly as often as he should.
His fingers brushed against her as he took the card, lingering for a moment longer than what was polite before he tucked the card into a pocked and unbuckled his seatbelt.
"Tomorrow." She said softly, shifting back into drive as Sam climbed out of her unreasonably sized car, his legs only slightly cramped.
"Tomorrow." He agreed before closing the door. He could feel her eyes on him as he jogged across the street towards the Impala. Then she drove off in a drone of tires against grit and gravel and Sam was alone.
Which wasn't right, because Dean should be here.
The car was here.
The cemetery was small enough that Sam could practically see the whole thing from the road- and it was positively empty of anyone above ground. He sucked on his lip, already sweating through his shirt in the heat that didn't seem to care that the sun was setting and it was time to lay off for a bit.
"Dean?" He called out experimentally. When he got no answer he pulled out his phone.
It rang and rang and Sam finally got his brother's voice mail, his gruff 'You know what to do" followed by a long beep, and Sam sighed down the line.
"Hey, Dean… where are you? I'm at the car and you're…call me back." He shoved the phone back into a pocked and peeked into the windows of the car. She looked just fine.
Sam walked the grounds. They looked fine too. There weren't any signs of struggle, no odd smells. No nothing.
There should have been something.
The great nothingness stoked the discomfort in the back of his mind. "Dean?"
He felt like an idiot standing in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by headstones, calling for his brother. It didn't stop him from doing it. He just felt like an idiot while he did.
"DEAN!" He strained his voice, hearing it carry on the wind. Worry was turning to panic. Something was wrong.
On the edge of the property stood three stone mausoleums, so innocent and unassuming he felt almost obligated to ignore them. The one to the left had the grass trampled down in front of it and dusty markings on the door. As Sam got closer they looked less like smears of pale dirt and more like hastily drawn chalk symbols.
Sam frowned and pushed against the door experimentally. It didn't budge.
"Dean?" He called again, his throat feeling a bit raw by now. He pushed on the door once more, it shifted minutely under his shoulder, and this kind of excursion in this kind of heat might just kill him. "Damn it, if you're in there say something."
And Dean's voice came from a world away. "We're fucking in here you beautiful son of a bitch."
Sam was grinning, relief coursing through him. He dug his heels into the dry grass and pushed for all he was worth against the door which felt like it weighed a ton. It shifted a little more, but not like it was giving under his efforts, more like it was mocking them.
Stone ground against stone, the door opening as slow as a grudge and Sam was swearing a blue streak under his breath.
A whiff of stale air met him and then the door flew inward and Sam staggered back as Dean staggered out- bow legged and glistening with sweat. His cheeks were red, his eyes fever bright, his hair a dark mess.
He threw his arms around Sam, grinning like a maniac, and Sam couldn't help but hug back, then he grimaced, his forearms sticking to Dean's wet shirt. Gross was an understatement.
"What took you so long?" Dean was still squeezing him, tight enough that it was a little hard to breathe.
"Jesus, Dean. You're a mess. How long were you in there?"
"Too damn long." Dean finally let go, standing there, grinning up at him, eyes almost shut against the light of the setting sun.
Sam looked at him for a heartbeat, then started laughing. He had been so worried and now… now. "How did you manage to lock yourself in there?"
Dean was laughing too. "It's go no handles and some jackass sealed it against Angels." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Cas?"
Sam's good humor left in a rush. "Was he in there with you?" Oh god, that was like locking a very hungry, but very stubbornly dieting kid in a candy shop.
Sam had left them alone for over five hours, in an enclosed space- and Dean was as stubborn and strong willed as they came, but even he had a breaking point.
Ever since the first time Sam saw the two of them together, he knew that there was something going on- something that apparently neither his brother or the Angel could see. Dean always looked at Cas like he was trying to figure out what flavor the Angel would be, and Cas watched Dean… well, in ways that weren't really appropriate for public places.
He had no idea how both of them managed to remain oblivious to the huge, pulsing, mutual man-crush that they shared- but Sam was fine to stay out of the way of it. When it came to his feelings, Dean was so far in the closet he was having a tea party with Aslan.
Sam had only been dumb enough to bring it up once- because once he had the misfortune to be woken up to Dean moaning Cas' name in his sleep. Due to the close confines of the front seat of the Impala, it had been impossible to ignore the fact that Dean was rubbing himself off through his jeans. Sam only really had two options, pretend it wasn't happening, or wake Dean up and make him stop.
And there had been no way that Sam could have pretended that it wasn't happening.
Sam waking him up had somehow ended in a fist fight and a dislocated shoulder.
And so Sam hadn't brought it back up since then, because if Dean wanted to pretend that he wasn't having very loud, very wet dreams about their friend, then that was Dean's business.
"Cas?!" Dean yelled up at the sky.
"What were you guys doing in there?" Sam wasn't sure he wanted to know, but at the same time, the sudden hunch of Dean's shoulders let him know that the two of them hadn't just sat quietly telling camp stories, waiting for Sam to show up.
Other than his suddenly stiff posture, Dean showed no signs of hearing the question. "Cas!" There was an odd timber to his voice, anger mixed with something more base.
"Calm down, Dean. What, are you trying to do- summon every Cas in a fifty mile radius?"
Dean turned to him, bearing his teeth for a moment. "Shut up, Sammy." And then he looked like he was coming back to himself, and he had the decency to look apologetic and even a little embarrassed.
"You ok, Dean?" Sam reached out to touch his brother, but Dean jerked away like he had been burnt.
"Yeah." His hands moved, suddenly nervous, wiping over his face. "Yeah. I'm awesome."
If there was one thing that Sam knew, better than anything else, better than himself, it was his brother. Dean lied as easily as some men breathe- but he could never lie to Sam. This is not to say that he hadn't tried, lord knew that Dean tried, but Sam had always seen through it. Always would.
And Dean was so far from ok right now, it wasn't even funny.
Something had happened in that little stone box that had set Dean on edge and sent Cas running in the opposite direction.
Sam didn't want to speculate on what might have happened in there
The 'maybes and 'probablies' weren't the kind of daydreams that Sam liked to have, at least not about his big brother.
"Someone's been writing Angel proofing on the buildings around here." Dean said in his gruffest of voices. "You wanna' look into that or just stand around staring at me?"
Sam nodded slowly. "Yeah- seems like a good place to start."
"Just don't go inside," Dean warned sagely, "the damn thing closed itself on us when we went in."
And that sure seemed to Sam like a good sign of a bad thing- so that's what they did.
There were similar markings on the other two crypts, mostly washed away by the sprinklers, and Sam did his best to copy them down in quick scribbles on a napkin he had jammed in a pocket. There were more symbols on the roof of the buildings, or so said Dean from his perch up onto of one.
Sam craned his neck to look up at Dean, ready to help him back down in the same manner that he helped him up. "But why?" Even not knowing what they said exactly, why would someone return to the crime scene and write all over some mausoleums?
"Hell if I know." Dean called down before swinging his legs over the edge.
"So where does this get us?"
"Hell if I know that either." He jumped down with whuff on impact, knees buckling a little.
Sam wanted to lecture him, because Dean was going to break an ankle or something doing stupid things like that- but Sam kept his big mouth shut and started walking towards the Impala. "Let's come back tomorrow when the sun's up."
Sam needed to eat something, shower and drink until things got a little less complicated.
He got two out of three.
The water in their room was out, so him and Dean sat on their beds across from each other, sharing a bottle of Jim Beam and a large pizza that had to have at least six different kinds of meat on it. Dean had ordered the monstrosity, and honestly seemed fairly pleased with his decision- Sam less so, but he ate anyways because he couldn't remember if he had eaten anything since breakfast and he was starving.
He took a long draw on the whisky, feeling it burn all the way down, making his eyes water. "You wanna give Cas a call, see if he's got any ideas about those?" He nodded to the napkin he had scribbled all over, sitting beside his open laptop which had been abandoned when the pizza arrived.
There hadn't been any translations he could find in any of his references material- all he knew was that it looked vaguely like some of the enochian he had seen once or twice. But it wasn't like there was an Angel to English dictionary out there.
They had Cas though- which was basically the next best thing.
Dean got a little color high on his cheeks and stuffed a rather large bite of pizza in his mouth, mumbling around it incoherently.
His big brother was blushing, and Sam had never seen anything like it. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything- just held out the bottle of whisky and ignored any implications there might have been.
Dean strangled the bottle before taking a short swallow. "I'll call him tomorrow."
Sam wanted to argue, that they didn't need to waste anymore time, but Dean was still blushing and Sam still didn't know what to say to him.