My most sincere and heartfelt thanks go to all those who have reviewed, favourited and alerted this story so far.
An extra special thank you goes to my good pal Sharlot for all the hard beta work she has put into this story. Oh, and the extended Dean POV in this chapter probably wouldn't exist if it wasn't for all of her enthusiasm, support and encouragement, so this chapter is totally dedicated to her! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.
o0o0o
Chapter 11 – Panic Attack
Dammit, but Sam was really taking his sweet time in fetching dinner. Dean frowned, trying to fidget himself into a more comfortable position on a mattress that felt as jagged and lumpy as a dried out riverbed. He tutted sternly and huffed out an enormous sigh, turning the air around him blue with unvoiced curses and expletives as if Sam, wherever the hell he was, would hear the telepathic tirade and realise that his hungry big brother was friggin' fed up waiting for him to drag his ass back to the motel. Not that the kid ever listened anyway. If this was some kind of juvenile prank to deny Dean his burger and his pie...there was going to be hell to pay.
Sam had been moody ever since graduation, minor moments of sulky sniffing and pouting that had been steadily growing in inverse proportion to their father's dwindling level of tolerance. More than once Dean had found himself playing referee in a series of unscheduled screaming matches, many times on the verge of throwing himself down onto the ground for the count of ten in the vain hope that it might bring the fight to a close. He'd never needed to, as it turned out, one of the combatants usually saving him the trouble by merely forfeiting and storming out for several hours.
Last night it had been their father. Dean wasn't worried...Well, he was, but John Winchester never usually strayed far after an argument, not since they'd started working on more hunts as a family. Sam finally finishing school seemed to have given with one hand and taken away with the other. Their father was around more, but Sam had lost his one mode of escapism, and was therefore more unhappy than Dean could ever remember him being. The youngest Winchester had become suspiciously secretive over the past few months too, always hurriedly shoving something into his duffel, or under his pillow whenever Dean came upon him unexpectedly. The elder hunter was curious as hell, but he had to try to respect Sammy's privacy. For now anyway.
Dean worried pensively at his lip. There was a low murmur of noise somewhere in the unformed background, peppered by swishing sounds and strangely oscillating bleeps. He found his thoughts fading into the ether as he blinked himself into an awareness that seemed all too abrupt and raw. He turned his head, alert now, to an environment that had previously been vague and unimportant. Something bright and colourful was flashing in the periphery of his vision as his eyes climbed the rainbow walls around him, exploring. The irregular strobe was endlessly compelling, but Dean found that he couldn't seem to take his eyes from the pattern that had suddenly snagged his attention. Why had he never noticed it before? The swirls and spirals were like a forest of vivid hues around him, they seemed to ripple hypnotically in a misty aurora borealis of light. He raised a finger into the air as if to touch, to feel, to connect with their beauty. There was an unpleasant trickling sensation in the pit of his stomach when his finger met no solid resistance, and Dean felt his entire body harden in a way that he couldn't comprehend. His finger drifted in and out of the wisps of colour, but the discrepancy between what vision and tactile perception were telling him seemed to be jamming something in his mental processing. He froze, hand in mid-air. Thoughts were sluggish, oozing like a polluted river, their currents splintering and separating into a delta of disconnected emotions, thoughts, conclusions, decisions. None of them made sense.
Dean blinked, fluttering his eyelashes in disorientation. Where was he? Why was he...wherever this was? He turned his head again, scanning his surroundings. None of it seemed familiar. Shapes grew fuzzy and sinister as his brain attempted to make sense of sensory information that had suddenly become incompatible, his hard-drive corrupted and stalled. He felt his breathing quicken slightly, unease settling into his bones. It looked like he was in a motel room. They all looked the same, smelled the same, had the same shabby aura. But where...? Why...? His mind stuttered, skipping over the same questions like a broken CD. Where...? Why...? There was a vacuum of air around them, his thoughts; they seemed to float in isolation. Where...? Why...? He stared forwards blankly, pupils rooted to the spot, until his eyelids seemed to thaw and close of their own accord. Where...? Why...?
All of a sudden, a clattering sound came at him from somewhere undefined and hazy, followed by a muffled grumble that startled Dean out of his inertia, charging his brain like a defibrillator. He shifted at the disturbance, wincing slightly at the pain that followed. Pain? His eyes narrowed in confusion. This was new. He squinted at his arms, his torso, his legs; examining them each in turn as he searched for its source. Slowly drawing his knee into a crook, he twitched again, raising his eyebrows in surprise. His feet were sore, he realised. And now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the soles felt cracked and itchy against the fabric of his socks. He straightened the leg out again, not wanting to put pressure on the wounds. What the hell? He frowned down at his feet in bewilderment, seeing them sticking up like skewed tombstones at the end of his legs. Huh. How had he managed that?
The abyss was there again, and he found himself held there, suspended, over the great gulf that had opened in his mind; that threatened to swallow him whole. And then all at once he knew the answer, a great downpour of relief raining on him in torrential sheets to fill the mental chasm until he was floating, buoyed. Then the memories were flowing freely once more. The Wendigo. That was it. The realisation seemed to crack in his head like snapped fingers. And damn but that had been one hell of a hunt. No wonder he was sore. Beaten and strung up like meat left to cure in that dank, mephitic cave, decomposing bodies rotting and decaying around him, skulls and bones piled up like pillaged treasure. Now that he thought about it, he could feel the ache in his shoulders from the cruel way he'd been bound, nose wrinkling as he noticed the stench that still clung to his clothes.
Sam had looked so worried when he'd found him, for one brief moment morphing from hardened hunter to scared little brother; the expression sending all kinds of Pavlovian, big brotherly signals shooting straight to Dean's heart. And so, hurting and exhausted as the elder hunter had felt, he'd held it together, he'd allowed himself a grunt of pain as Sam had freed him. And then he'd been fine. He was always fine. Sam needed him to be fine. He could tell the kid hadn't believed him at first, not merely accepting Dean's deflection as he might have done years ago. Stanford had apparently taught him that big brothers weren't infallible; invincible. But eventually Sam had calmed down, ceasing his hovering and allowing Dean to stride off and distract the Wendigo. Of course, that hadn't stopped the kid from mother-henning him to within in an inch of his life when they'd eventually found a motel to crash for the night. Stanford had apparently also turned his brother into a girl, although Dean wasn't entirely sure that Sam hadn't been one anyway.
The elder Winchester quirked a lip as he recalled the perma-bitchface that Sam had worn ever since they'd arrived. Dean knew he didn't make a good patient, knew that Sam knew it too. And still the kid had fussed. Dean shook his head slightly, he definitely deserved a drink after enduring that. After braving the sighs, and the pursed lips, and the hands on hips, and the sternly huffed 'Dean's. A beer. A beer sounded very good. Sounded pretty freakin' awesome actually. Something to wash away the lingering taste of decay at the back of his throat, to block out yet another near-death experience, to numb the lingering aches. Hell, yeah. He deserved a beer. He was pretty sure he'd spotted a bar on their drive through town, it was pretty much the first thing he catalogued when they went to a new place.
He'd just tell Sam...He paused, blinking again, but this time in slow, cautious waves. Where the hell was Sam? Dean gazed around the room, rubbing a hand across his eyes as his retinas continued to torment him with lines and shapes that seemed to wibble-wobble in the room's dim light. Where was Sam? Distractedly he pushed a hand beneath him, levering himself from the bed. Something unpleasant was simmering in the pit of his stomach as he jerked his head this way and that, growing more and more agitated as his blurry eyes continued to feed him squiggly forms that he couldn't make sense of. That weren't his little brother. Belatedly he sensed movement, nearly overbalancing as he whirled to face its source.
"Sammy?" He demanded of the bulky figure before him, eyeballs beginning to bulge slightly as his brain tried to create order from his chaotic senses. But Sam...Sammy was taller wasn't he? Dean paused, reviewing the last stored image he had of his brother, trying to fit the long, lean template around the squat figure in front of him. The kid had turned into some kind of gigantor over the years, growing to a size that made even Dean feel small. No, he decided, this wasn't Sam. Couldn't be. So who the hell...?
He tensed, clenching his fists as his mind – overloaded and sparking like a broken fuse – fell back into primitive mode, instincts swinging madly between fight or flight. This wasn't Sam. Wasn't Sam. Wasn't his little brother. Wasn't Sam...wasn't...wasn't, his mind stuttered, skimming over the surface of coherent thought like a stone across water until it finally lost momentum and became submerged once more. It wasn't Sam, that much he had managed to establish. So who...what? His breathing was coming in harsh pants now, great heaves that were sending little bubbles of heady panic shooting up into his already tumultuous brain. There was a low, rumbling sound. A voice? He petitioned his ears, receiving nothing but a blank shrug in return. "Who are you?" He tried to challenge, but the words left his mouth in a much higher pitch than he'd intended; squawking out like a startled crow. The figure moved forward at his command, and Dean instinctively shied away, yelping slightly as his scabbed feet pricked on the spiky carpet. "Get away from me!" He yelled, not caring now about the fear that frayed at the edges of his tone. "Who are you?" He stumbled backwards until his calves met the edge of the bed and he tumbled down onto it, a tiny flicker of clarity mercifully allowing him to force his momentum to carry him over to the other side.
"Dean!" It knew him, whatever...whoever it was. It knew him. The young hunter sprang upwards from where he'd landed on the floor, dropping immediately into a defensive stance as he warily eyed his unknown assailant. Dammit, where was his knife? Something had come for him. Crap, something had come for him! It was in the room. And god, but what if it had done something to Sam?
His lips disappeared as he bared his teeth. He'd kill it! He'd freakin' annihilate it!
"What the hell are you? And what have you done with my brother?" Dean snarled, body quivering and spasming. He jerked and twisted on the spot, lips twitching, arms contorting, utterly unable to keep still as fear and fury began to overwhelm him. His body felt uncontrolled, like someone had cut the puppet-strings between brain and limbs. His fists unclenched without warning, and he let out a small grunt of impotent frustration as his hands began wringing themselves of their own accord.
"Dean, stay calm, boy! It's all right. It's me. It's Bobby!" The shadowy shape moved towards him again, but gingerly this time, a predator stalking its prey. Dean's breath caught in his throat, heart beating out a furious, panicked rhythm in his chest. The fear coursed like a drug through his system. It felt alien and dictatorial; something being done to him and not coming from him. He was powerless, helplessly under its spell. He didn't understand it. It didn't feel real. How many times had he faced situations like this without batting an eyelid? But the unknowns, the uncertainties, the haziness...he didn't know what was happening. And it was terrifying. Finally, miraculously regaining control of his body, he staggered backwards once more until he realised with an abrupt jolt of potent horror that he'd backed himself into a corner.
"Bobby?" He squeaked, staring at the approaching figure in wide-eyed astonishment. "No way!" He insisted, crossing both wrists and then parting them with an emphatic swipe through the air. Shaking his head in desperate denial, he ground out the damning evidence through gritted teeth. "Last time I saw him...man, he threatened to blast dad full of buckshot. Had the gun cocked and everything. Why would he be here?"
The creature attempting to masquerade as Dean's surrogate uncle seemed to pause at that, and there was something so achingly familiar about the gesture, something that almost made the hunter's knees buckle with relief. "Dammit, Dean...You're...Son, you're not yourself right now. You need to calm–"
But they didn't, anger instead hardening his limbs, his heart. "I said stay away!" Dean growled fiercely as the intruder took another step, the space between them now too narrow for his liking. "Last time I saw him," he began again, the words close to the surface and too easily accessible in his agitated state. "...threatened to blast dad full of buckshot."
"Dean..."
"Buckshot!" Dean spat, the word catching in his teeth like morsels of chewed food. "Threatened to–to blast dad full of buckshot." He quivered with the effort of trying to make himself understood. But that phrase...suddenly it was all he could think, all he could hear, all he could feel. It birled around and around endlessly in his mind, seeming to whirl ever faster as his distress sky-rocketed. Why was this happening to him? Why couldn't he stop? But there were no other words available to him. His eyes grew glazed, unfocussed as he battled to halt the internal loop tape, trying to think of something, anything that would pull him from its interminable cycle. But he couldn't seem to escape, the words sucking him back in like quick-sand. "T–t–threatened," he stuttered, mouth opening and closing with a gagging wheeze as he tried to staunch the flow of words."B–b–buckshot."
He'd been concentrating so hard that when the figure materialised suddenly before him, mere inches from the tip of his nose, he just reacted. He flung out a fist, wild and uncoordinated, grunting in faint surprise when he felt it connect solidly with something hard and fleshy. There was a roaring hush of silence as the creature teetered precariously on the spot, wobbling like the last pin on a bowling alley, before finally crashing to the ground with a thud that seemed to reverberate around the whole room.
Dean could only stare in paralysed shock as his attacker crumbled, hands braced reassuringly against the wall behind him. He didn't quite understand what he'd just done, but the threat seemed to have vanished. Clouds of disturbed dust particles rose into the air, unfurling in large, undulating plumes before slowly separating and drifting. He watched their gentle motion, allowing it to calm him, to soothe him. He followed one mote as it twirled up and over his head, tilting his head to watch its passage. Another one tickled teasingly at his nostrils, and he raised a hand to swipe at it, sneezing reflexively as he unwittingly breathed it in. The action sent more particles scurrying, and Dean smiled slightly at the patterns they made in the air, at their complex choreography.
The elder Winchester took a step forward, enjoying the movements of the dust as his body passed through their swirling mass. His foot caught slightly on an unknown object on the floor as he moved, but he dismissed it immediately, utterly entranced by the dancing motes. He raised a finger to catch one of the wafting particles, eyes lighting up as it came to rest on his skin. He zoomed in for a closer inspection, bitterly disappointed when a stray breath from his half-open mouth sent it skittering away. Frowning, he moved to snare another, much happier this time when he was able to send it on its way with a deliberate puff.
He followed the trail of another cartwheeling mote, allowing it to lead him across the room. When it drifted past the window, it seemed to burst into a flickering, orange flame. Curiosity piqued once more, the young hunter cast his gaze around, searching for the source of the fire. He cocked his head as he noticed the window's brightness. He stepped up to the pane, glancing from the intrusive street lamp that had set the dust alight, to the slowly darkening sky.
It was night.
The realisation felt unexpected, wrong somehow. Only...he didn't exactly know what time he'd actually thought it was. He shook his head with a mirthless smile. Jeez, either he was seriously whacked, or just totally bushed after a month-long marathon of back-to-back hunts. He knew he'd thrown himself head-first into whatever freaky death or weird disappearance he'd been able to get his hands on; utterly heartbroken after Sam had started ignoring his calls, but in no way ready to admit it to himself. His father had taken off some weeks ago, his parting shot a half-commanding, half-proud I know you can handle yourself. And so Dean had.
He snorted softly. Yeah, like he'd handled the gash that freakin' rawhead had given him? He could still feel the stabbing pain that sparked up his leg like a lightning bolt at every step. Sure he'd ganked the creature eventually, but it had taken him far longer than it should have. He'd lingered too long in one spot, the lumbering, fugly sonofabitch managing get in one lucky slash as fatigue had temporarily slowed its prey. Dean set his jaw in chagrin. Nice work. The clean up job on his leg had taken a dozen wonky, shaky stitches, a litany of curses, a ruined bedcover and a bottle of Johnnie Walker, chased down by the only other painkiller he'd had in his possession: beer.
The young hunter bounced his eyebrows briefly, his only outward acknowledgement of the hell he'd endured that night. He'd come close to calling his brother in desperation, blood spurting and gushing from the wound at a rate almost too quick for him to quell. But pride – and fear – had stopped him. Sam probably wouldn't have answered anyway, and where would that have left him? And dad was out of the question. He was supposed to be handling himself after all. Eventually he'd succeeded in closing the wound, light-headed and dizzy from the potent combination of alcohol and blood loss. He remembered collapsing onto the clean bed – he'd still rented twins, even after all that time – and sleeping for seventeen hours straight.
A bed sounded pretty good right then, he thought. Tiredness was sweeping over him in warm, sleepy waves. But the loneliness in the room was almost suffocating, the silence so heavy and humid that not even the television's full volume could banish it. He'd seen a bar on his way into town, he was sure. The perfect place to get so juiced that he wouldn't even notice the fact that he was returning to an empty motel room. Maybe he'd even charm himself some company while he was at it.
Decision made, Dean headed for the door. The pain in his leg forced him to limp forwards at a slower pace than he was used to, but there was no hurry. Dean was alone after all, he had no timetable to keep to except his own.
Pushing the pangs of habitual hurt aside, he flung open the door and marched outside.
o0o0o
Sam waited until he saw the decrepit-looking vehicle turn the corner; the car that Kevin Neilson had apparently traded his life to work on. And by the look of it, the mechanic had managed to do little more than provide it with some palliative care, more than likely improving its prognosis by just a few months. Even from his position several houses down, the young hunter had been able to feel its juddering, wheezing engine as it bounced along on rickety wheels. It was hardly the kind of vehicle one associated with a murderer, almost endearing in its unpretentiousness. But Sam still felt his jaw clench at the sight, entire body straining with the effort not to fire up the Impala and chase after the woman who'd hurt his brother.
He took a deep, calming breath and released his death grip on the steering wheel. No. He had a job to do, a now empty house to search. Giving himself a small, fortifying shake, he levered himself from the Impala, glancing around to assess his potential audience. He'd been checking periodically throughout the duration of his stake-out, but Fiona's exit had momentarily distracted him. The street was deserted, the mixture of wafting smells emanating from the surrounding houses indicating a high likelihood that those residing there were sitting down to dinner. A further, narrow-eyed examination of each dwelling garnered no signs of curtain-twitchers, and satisfied of his inconspicuousness, Sam stalked lithely across the road and began making his way towards his target. He stuck to the lengthening shadows amply offered by the plump trees and bushes that lined each garden boundary, head toing and froing as he moved, alert for any sound or disturbance.
Twilight was fast approaching, and the young hunter knew that his ruse wasn't likely to last long. He didn't think Fiona would wait for darkness to properly fall before deciding that the mysterious caller who'd contacted her with vital information relating to her mother's death wasn't coming. In the end, Sam had opted for the one lie he'd known she'd swallow. It hadn't been hard to figure out; the younger Winchester knew it would have worked on him if it had been about Dean. He'd had to gulp back the lump of uneasy reluctance that had swollen in his throat as he'd made the call though. Manipulation was never something he enjoyed, even if it was for the murdering bitch who'd attacked his big brother. But...she'd sounded so friggin' hopeful when she'd answered his call, as if his news had been of a lottery win and not some tiny sliver of a lead. The young hunter shivered as he recalled how she'd thanked him – again blind-siding him with the sheer sincerity of it all – and he tried not to think of her scanning every nook and cranny of the quiet park where he'd sent her, eyes dimming with every disappointing second that passed. She hadn't wanted to leave her house, he remembered with a frown, had almost begged him just to tell her over the phone. Curious, but Sam wasn't willing to waste mental energy on the whys and wherefores. He'd gotten her out, that was the only thing that mattered.
Pausing at the bottom of Fiona's driveway, Sam couldn't help but think that the entire structure looked like the kind of children's playhouse he'd once seen at one of the rare birthday parties he'd been allowed to attend in his childhood; all chaste white walls, innocent picket fences and wide, guileless windows. It was a house, but it didn't look homely. There were none of the comfortable imperfections that came from somewhere truly lived in. No scuffs on the paintwork, no smudges on the windows, not a blade of grass out of place. Even the Impala, his brother's pride and joy, bore the marks of her homeyness; the smoothly worn groove on the driver's seat, the faded markings on the stereo dials, the used burger wrappers that lay just out of reach under the seats. It seemed strange that the woman would have such a rust-bucket of a car when she kept her house so meticulous, but then again, Sam could easily see his brother prioritising the Impala over any building he might ever have owned.
Dean.
The young hunter fought back a surge of fear as he wobbled precariously on the precipice over a life without his brother. He had to keep going, had to find the counter-spell that would cure Dean. He couldn't afford to waste any more time. Sam blinked away the grief that had been brimming in his eyes and blurring his vision, straightening his shoulders briskly before darting up the driveway and around to the rear of the house. The sky was growing darker by the second, and he welcomed the increased cover it afforded him even as he cursed the way time was flowing inexorably past him.
Stepping up into a tiny, quaint porch that made him feel like a fairytale giant, Sam stooped to pick the door lock. Squirming and twisting in the confined space, the process took far longer than it should have, but eventually the door was swinging gracefully open and Sam was charging through. The kitchen he discarded almost immediately after a cursory search of the drawers and cupboards. He hadn't quite been expecting to find a black magic grimoire in amongst The Baker's Bible and Superlative Salads, but then, he'd found that women often had a strange logic to storing things. When he'd lived with Jess, items that had seemingly gone missing had, in reality, been 'tidied' by his girlfriend into a place he'd never have thought of looking. He frowned, pondering the various doorways down the corridor that led from the kitchen. This might take a while.
Sam squeezed his way down the narrow hallway towards what had to be the living room. He couldn't help but wrinkle his nose as he pushed the door open; the bowl of cloyingly sweet pot pourri on the mahogany coffee table itching insistently at his nostrils and choking his lungs as it hung in drapes from the air. The suffocating aroma, in combination with the partially drawn curtains, might have given the room the atmosphere of a carnival fortune teller, if it hadn't been for the frumpy, flower patterned sofas, and the over-abundance of lace doilies. Even in the gloom, Sam could see the tracks left by a compulsive neat-freak. He passed by a row of green candles, wondering fleetingly if their perfect symmetry had been ensured by gluing them in place. He hopefully scanned a corner bookcase, thinking of how easily he'd located Sue-Ann LeGrange's little book of horrors the previous year. It was a parallel he'd rather not have been reminded of.
Dean in danger yet again; sick, withering, vulnerable. A spell-book responsible for whether he lived or died...
Sam shook his head forcefully. "Focus!" He hissed sharply to himself, angry that he was allowing his mind to wander down too well-trodden paths. There were no books of interest on the shelves, the spines telling tales of a solitary soul; knitting, sewing, cross-stitch...nothing that spoke of a life beyond the insular. The young hunter sighed, merging his eyebrows as he tried to think of other possible hiding places.
A brief, assessing glance around the small study along the corridor revealed nothing of interest – the sparse, utilitarian contents speaking of a space hardly occupied – and he crossed the room off his mental checklist. Aside from a small dining area – another fleeting examination yielding the same clinical, barren aura that he'd expected – that left the upstairs rooms. Half-way up the carpet covered stairs – a Pepto-Bismol pink that ironically made him feel faintly queasy – he came to a halt, a sudden idea stopping him in his tracks. Jess...Jess had kept all of her most treasured mementoes in a small hat-box in their bedroom closet. He remembered coming across it one Sunday afternoon, feeling his heart swell in his chest as he'd surreptitiously examined the photographs, trinkets and cards, devouring this glorious insight into his girlfriend's past.
Closing his eyes briefly until the usual stab of loss subsided, Sam started upwards once more. Maybe, just maybe – not that a grimoire was in any way a precious keepsake – he'd find what he was looking for in Fiona's closet.
The floral trend continued upstairs it seemed, adorning curtain, cushion and comforter with the kind of busy, riotous pattern he was certain his befuddled brother would have been entranced by. And there was yet another image Sam wished he could banish. The bed was a single; a rather severe looking mattress with covers that looked as if they had been ironed into place. Resisting the sudden compulsion to put a dent in its smooth surface with the tip of his finger, Sam turned to cast a quick peek out of the dormer window. Lights were glowing from the surrounding houses, the rays spilling out onto the streetscape and softening the harshness of the street lamps' coarse flares. Nobody was around, nobody to notice the strange, gigantor shape that filled their neighbour's window. There was no sign of Fiona's return either, and safe in the knowledge that his time was not yet up, Sam moved to the closet. The large unit seemed to dominate the room.
Flinging the doors wide, the younger Winchester let out a frustrated huff of breath. In complete contrast to the orderliness of the rest of the house, the space was crammed with a great haphazard jumble of items: clothing, bags, shoes, bedding...It all looked as if it was in perfect equilibrium, that if one object was removed then the whole lot would tumble. Sam surveyed it fretfully, trying to find the point of greatest structural stability. What he wanted to do was dive straight in, raking and pulling at the contents until they spilled out and revealed what he was looking for. But secrecy was paramount, and it seemed unlikely that the woman would miss the resulting detritus from his foraging on her return home.
Biting his lip, he allowed his fingers to traverse the rugged, squishy wall before him, probing and prodding gingerly. He froze as a stack of hats teetered atop their cushioned base, hands held high over his head in readiness for the potential avalanche. Seconds later he cautiously pried his eyes open, letting out a soft "huh" when nothing disastrous befell him. Emboldened, he stepped forward once more to continue his quest. After an age of fruitless searching, his hands brushed across a box-shaped outline. He felt his heart quicken, the tips of his fingers turning abruptly nerveless as a sudden surge of stage-fright assaulted him. Could this be? Not willing to trust his luck – he'd been there and done that before, after all – Sam quickly banished all thoughts of hope to the outer extremities of his mind, along with any of its extended family: anticipation, optimism, confidence. He adjusted his grip and tentatively eased the box outwards from its snug nook, feeling as if he was performing keyhole surgery as he watched the pile of objects shift ominously above him. Inch by inch the container was freed, and Sam clutched it close with a relieved sigh, before remembering with a plaintive groan that he'd have to replace it once he was finished.
Setting what appeared to be a somewhat battered looking shoebox on a small dressing table in the corner of the room – it wouldn't do to ruin the bed after all – Sam unceremoniously ripped off the lid. And gaped.
Jesus, he'd been right. He'd actually been right. There it was, sitting atop a disordered pile of photographs and papers. It was only after he'd seen it that he realised part of him had doubted he'd find it at all, that he'd been mistaken about Fiona Adams. But son of a bitch, it was true!
The book was slim and tattered, its finely engraved cover splattered with stains that Sam wasn't keen on examining in great detail. The edges of its pages were rough and feathery, the aged parchment almost downy against the exploring tread of his forefinger. It was a deep, raven black in colour, and seemed to whisper sibilant horrors into the air as Sam shifted his position to catch the fading light from the evening sky. There was a wickedness about the small object that seemed to seep through the young hunter's skin and into his core. He thought briefly of Sauron's ring, and how its darkness could corrupt the gentlest of souls. Setting his jaw, he pushed aside his instinctive edginess and wrenched it open, hardly daring to breathe as he tore at its pages. The grainy vellum slid easily past his brisk fingers as he scoured the spidery writings and scrawled drawings, stomach clenching and popping as he took in their content. Spells for literally turning people inside out, spells for removing organs, spells to gain complete control over both man and beast, dead or alive. His muscles were pulled tighter than steel cables by the time he found what he was looking for.
"Holy crap," he murmured as he studied the spell, swallowing back instinctive bile as he noted the ingredients. Animal entrails, human blood, bones...all of it speaking of pure malevolence, of evil intent. He traced a finger along the words, Latin he was sure, though in what looked to be a dialect he was unfamiliar with. Some of the terms were similar enough to recognise, insania, sentio, affectus, intereo. Their meaning more than enough to confirm the action of the spell, to explain what was happening to his brother. Madness, perception, emotion, decay. It took a deep, steadying breath before he felt able to remove his eyes from the morbid incantation. He felt hope edging its way warmly back into his good graces, steadily melting away at the frozen block of horror that stood in its path. This was the key to saving Dean. All they had to do was find a way to reverse it, and he had complete faith that Bobby would know what to do. He allowed himself a small smile as hope finally broke through, the vice that had been permanently clamped around his heart since he'd realised the extent of his brother's peril beginning to loosen. Not completely, of course, Dean still being far from alright, but enough to enable the organ to flutter with eager encouragement.
Setting the book carefully aside, he made to replace the box's lid, stopping short when he caught sight of the photograph that had lain beneath the small tome. He plucked it from the container, holding it up to the light as he had the grimoire, the figure captured in mid-motion highly familiar from his research earlier in the day. It was Moira Evans, he was certain, the picture showing her pinched, frowning features as she stood unlocking her car in what was probably a mall parking lot. It looked to have been taken from some distance away. Sam's eyes widened as he pulled out another snapshot, this time of James Carruthers leaving by the front door of what was almost certainly his parents' house. Again, the shot had been snapped covertly, the slight blurring at the edges of the picture indicative of a poorly calibrated zoom lens. The third photograph that Sam pulled out, as expected, was of Evelyn Smith; the young woman caught mid-stride as she marched down an unidentifiable sidewalk, a laden shopping bag in each hand and a scowl marring her features. Robert Kingston hadn't escaped Fiona's snap-happy camera lens either it seemed, his image captured while he stood obliviously at a coffee stand somewhere downtown. Sam felt his lips tighten into a silent growl. As if he'd needed further proof, but now at least, he knew for sure that Fiona Adams had been responsible. She'd followed her victims, marked them, and assassinated them in cold blood. This was no crime of passion. Oddly though, there were no pictures of the other victims. No photographs of Dean. Sam felt his forehead crease as he rifled through the rest of the box's contents, he didn't quite know what to make of that.
Moving to close the box once more, he dropped the lid in surprise as his phone suddenly burst into vibrating, jangling life. More startled than he should have been, he let out a shaky exhale as he pulled the phone from his pocket with quivering fingers. The caller ID wasn't a surprise, he'd been waiting for his old friend to call in for an update, but he realised how absorbed he'd been in his findings, how disturbed he'd been by what he'd discovered. Hastily he moved to the window, scanning hurriedly for the return he feared he might have missed in his preoccupation, but the coast was still clear. Watching the easy gait of a closely huddled couple as they ambled past the house and deciding that they posed no threat, Sam cleared his throat and accepted the call.
"Bobby? I think I found–" he began excitedly, his widening smile abruptly snuffed out as the elder hunter immediately cut across him. His old friend sounded decidedly strange. Hesitant...abashed. Sam felt his mouth go dry as his body tensed in readiness to receive the blows of what had to be a bad news delivery.
"Sam..." The young hunter could almost see his friend shifting the cap on his head, fidgeting with the rim of its bill. That was never a good sign. Ever. "We got ourselves a problem."
Bobby had never been one for adding a spoonful of sugar.
Sam caught his breath as his stomach plummeted to the floor, taking his heart, lungs and throat with it. It was several moments before he was able to gather them up and reassemble them into some semblance of working order. "What? What happened?" He demanded, eyes flickering as his mind began speedily shuffling through the pack of potential horrors – all of them involving his brother, always involving his brother; the cards he'd been dealt this time a mystery until Bobby played his hand.
"Your brother decided to take a walk." The words were pure Bobby; matter of fact, understated, gruff. But their delivery was muffled, as if the older man had angled himself away from the phone's speaker, as if he didn't want Sam to detect the unvoiced worry that lay heavily in his words. Too bad, Sam thought, struggling to make sense of his friend's economical response. What the hell happened? Was what he'd wanted to counter with, but instead his shell-shocked brain refused to cooperate, stumbling blindly around in dumbfounded incoherence. "He–You–But–What?" Was all he could manage as his mouth tried to produce several different questions at once.
There was a loaded silence, the younger Winchester holding his breath until his lungs started to burn in protest, mutinously refusing to take in oxygen until Bobby had explained himself and reassured Sam that he really hadn't meant what the younger man thought he had. Because Dean just couldn't–"Got a hell of a right hook. Knocked me colder than a polar bear's ass." Bobby sounded rueful now, almost amused, but again it was a deception. A con. Sam could still feel the unacknowledged concern, even stronger now than he had before.
It seemed to take an age for the meaning of Bobby's words to sink in, for Sam to fully process the implications of the other man's admission. He shook his head, racing mind skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust as it did a double take. Right hook? Knocked...? His jaw swung open and shut like an unlatched gate in high wind. Jesus, had Dean really...? It wasn't a huge stretch, Sam conceded, Dean having taken a swing at him the previous night. But oh god, what if Bobby had been hurt? "Are you alright?" He asked in a small voice, feeling suddenly childlike as he waited for the big, strong adult authority that Bobby had always been to reassure him that everything was going to be okay.
The veteran hunter didn't disappoint. "Nothin' a bottle of Jack won't fix," he muttered dryly, but Sam didn't think he'd have needed his psychic powers to be able to sense the devastated vibes that were radiating through the phone's speakers. He'd had more than ample practice at detecting deflective falsehoods from Dean, the master of Everything's fine even when the walls were crumbling down around them. The younger Winchester bent his head forward, dropping it dejectedly into his free hand. What the hell were they going to do? Yet again he'd been duped by the illusion of good fortune. Dammit, why could they never catch a genuine, no-strings-attached break? Just when he'd finally located the one elusive thing they'd needed to save Dean's life, his brother had to go and friggin' disappear on them. Again. But wait...
Sam lifted his head, a frown twisting his forehead into a collage of patterned grooves. Something wasn't adding up. The last time his brother had tried to leave the room, he hadn't even had the presence of mind to unlock the door. He'd stood instead, frantically rattling at the useless handle, growing more and more agitated when it refused to do his bidding. Sam could remember that only too easily, and the painful breakdown that had followed. With the state Dean had been in, it shouldn't have been possible for him to just...take a walk. "Bobby...How did Dean get out?" He allowed his growing anger to rumble dangerously in the depths of his tone, tectonic lines of suspicion beginning to fracture and clash beneath the surface of his calm when his old friend merely countered his question with an uneasy silence. "Bobby?" He tried again, his low level quake beginning to crescendo into something that was fast approaching apocalyptic.
There was a sigh, and a scratch of bristly beard that Sam could hear even above the ever present static. Neither were positive indications; 'reticence' and 'Bobby Singer' being two concepts that Sam didn't think he had ever linked within the same thought. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the confession that was now almost certain. "I screwed up, Sam. Forgot to lock the friggin' door. When I came to, he'd taken off."
Sam let his eyes float shut with a gentleness that stood in complete contrast to the disastrous tempest raging within, clenching his free hand into a fist and bringing it up to his closed lips. Then he erupted, the full force of his worry and frustration blasting out from him as lava flowed, ash rained down, and the temperature soared. "God dammit Bobby! You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him! What were you thinking leaving the door unlocked? You know how dangerous it is for Dean to be outside right now. I mean, what the hell?!"
Sam's sudden explosion seemed finally to shake something loose in the older man. In the deafening lull that followed, the younger Winchester could almost picture Bobby drawing himself up to his full height, chest puffed out like a posturing bird. "Watch your tone, boy! You think keepin' your brother on a leash is easy when his marbles are rollin' all over the place? I ain't some kinda friggin' ninja Sam, and Dean caught me on the hop. Thought I was some kinda...I dunno, shifter or somethin'. Looked at me like I was Lucifer himself. I couldn't stop 'im, alright? Now are you gonna waste time bitchin'...or are we gonna get out there and find your brother?"
Sam gasped back a lungful of air as he realised the truth of his friend's words. He was still angry – furious – that Dean had gotten loose, but fear was firmly back in the driver's seat, and he wasn't about to let himself be diverted again. "Yeah. Right. Of course," he ground out brokenly, sweeping a hand through his hair as the enormity of their task settled down upon his shoulders. "Jesus...he could be anywhere." Recalling the events of the previous day, his frantic, desperate search for his runaway brother, Sam felt his vision start to burn as tiny pinpricks of tearful frustration began gathering at the corners of his eyes. He couldn't go through this again. He couldn't.
But he had to.
At lease he wasn't alone this time. "Okay, you go on foot, I'll meet you in the Impala."
o0o0o
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