Hey lovelies,
I'm so sorry this took so long, but now that School's decided to shut up, I'll be able to churn 'em out a little faster. Finished by the first real episode of s10 sounds like a bit of a stretch, but the rest of the episodes sound like a lot of fun to write, so that may or may not happen.
Researched: Amarillo Texas, the Princess Bride Script, Amarillo Texas Native Americans
Rewatch: None
New Tags: Gore, Violence, Monsters
"Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
And I'm wondering what it is I should do
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face
Losing control, yeah I'm all over the place."
-Stuck in the Middle With You, Stealers Wheel
"No, no, I'll hold," Stan said amicably, smiling despite being over the phone, and nodding to Rachel, who gave him a sympathetic look.
The woman on the other end of the line thanked him, and dreamy hold music sounded out of the receiver. Stan sighed and pushed it into the holder, pressing for it to process as speaker, the music drifting over the office.
"On Hold again?" Rachel winced sympathetically and looked up from her computer, fingers balancing idly on the keys.
"Always," Stan rolled his eyes. "I mean, sure, Hold is a necessary evil for today's corporate world... but God is it evil."
"Talk like that is the reason you never get laid," Rachel informed him, returning to her computer, but she was still smiling to herself. "'Hold is a necessary evil'... why don't you just suck Josh-the-robot's dick while you're at it?"
"Good idea," Stan told her. "Might get me a bit extra bonus at the end of this financial year."
Rachel cracked a smile and Stan grinned at her, laughing at his own joke.
"You are so lame."
"Tell me about it," Stan said seriously. "It's really getting in the way of my womanizing vibe."
"Womanizing vibe," Rachel repeated, giving him an eyebrow and pausing from her work for a second.
He nodded seriously. "Womanizing."
"Womanizing," Rachel state again, squinting and giving him a once over. She tilted her head an pursed her lips.
"Is there an echo in here?"
"You saying 'womanizing' in the context to yourself warrants repeating about a hundred times," Rachel told him, grinning at her own joke, and Stan's heart beat painfully in his chest as he watched her shake her head an return to her work, the taste of her laughter on the back of her throat.
"Thanks, Rach," Stan said, but he couldn't help the small, fond smile and the way his eyes lingered on her, on the hand that brush the side of her cheek, wispy hair catching at the tips of her fingers as she pushed it behind her ear.
"Sir?" the tinny voice from his phone caught his attention, and in the spirit of not irritating his co-workers, Rachel especially who had perked up and given him a look as the call had been picked up.
"Yeah, hi," Stan pulled up his phone and held it by his ear, looking away from Rachel and trying his best to forget, as always, that she was just there. That she was so close, but so out of reach.
"So, I was just calling on the matter of your application for the division of a series of stocks in the company? Wrong section? No, no, that's fine."
Rachel shot him another sympathetic look.
"Sure, I'll hold."
Sam shifted through the bags that Dean had brought back from the shop and frowned as he pushed back the mushrooms and the pasta.
"Dean!"
His brother emerged into the room a few seconds later, sliding slightly as he stopped running, gliding around the corner. He was wearing his pyjamas, even though it was only 5. Sam would have made fun of him for it, if he weren't tempted to put his on as well. Having a permanent residence did have its benefits. And being comfortable and warm for most hours of the day was one of them.
Less impromptu Blue Swede sing-along's though, which Sam wasn't really all that cut up about.
"Yo," his brother greeted, unruffled and relaxed. For the first few months of finding the bunker, every squeak and every rustle had been an enemy, Sam had blinked into the darkness of his rooms. There were no windows, no way to know what the world outside was doing. Whenever Sam had thought about it, it was stifling. Like the earth was crushing around them, pushing and begging to come in. But his trust in the place had grown, and though his room was bare compared to Dean, it was more home than anything. Except, of course, the Impala.
Which was a touchy subject. Now that the car had once been a person.
"Did you buy the cheese?" Sam looked at his brother, who made a face and shrugged.
"Maybe? Was it on the list?"
Sam made a small noise of frustration. "The list that I told you to write?"
"Yeah."
Sam gave his brother a steady stare. "You didn't buy it, did you?"
Dean shrugged and made an unapologetic face. "Sorry, little bro. Must have slipped my mind."
"Well, it's not me that's gonna miss out on a toasted cheese sandwich every morning."
Dean's face cracked, crestfallen. "Oh, man."
Sam rustled through the papers again. He scowled and turned to Dean. "Seriously? Bread? Bread? Of all the food you had to buy, you forget bread?"
Dean turned away, over his lack of pre-breakfast (his words) sandwiches and rolling his eyes. "Whatever. I have flour, and yeast somewhere I think. I'll just make some."
Sam called after his retreating brothers back. "You remember yeast over bread?"
"I said that we already had yeast, not that I bought it!" Dean called back.
Sam scrunched up his face in distaste, not remembering ever going out of his way to buy ingredients for bread, and worrying that whatever it was that Dean had found being over 50 years old. But then again, Dean was always more domestic than he let on. And a much better chef. So, there was that.
Sam jerked to the sound of the door being knocked, and leaving the rest of the groceries in its bag, ran up the steps to the door to the bunker. He peered out the peep hole and opened the door, smiling at the newcomer.
"Hello, Sam," Cas announced himself, his low gravelly voice a welcome surprise as Sam met his friend eye to eye.
"Cas," Sam stated, a little breathless, but welcoming. "Hey, buddy. Haven't seen you in a while. How's heaven?"
"Heaven is good," Cas said, and he said it like he meant it. He had that little smile, the one that ticked up the sides of his vessels mouth and turned his eyes soft and still.
Sam nodded, matching his smile. "Good." He stood back. "Want to come in?"
Cas looked at him curiously, as if wondering why Sam assumed he'd be there for any other reason. But the angel just nodded and crossed the threshold.
"And Sariel, Hannah," Sam listed, walking with Cas across the foyer. "How are they?"
"Sariel is busy, but she is hopeful that our plight is heading towards a resolution," Cas said, still with that goofy, happy, true smile. This was all solving itself. This was all coming to its end. And somewhere, Sam felt a deep pang of sadness. Because they'd been through so much. He and Dean together against Azazel and Lilith and each other and now things were simpering out. And Cas, against the devil and the forces of Heaven. The world was becoming small and simple again, and Sam wasn't sure if he was sad because he had once known nothing but simplicity and now knew anything but, or whether it was because he missed it and wanted to be back in that time of naivety.
"Hannah is well also," Cas said, a little stiff and awkward after Sam hadn't given him something to go off after he'd answered his question. Sam flashed him a smile and they walked the rest of the way into the kitchen in companionable silence.
"So," Sam said finally, turning to Cas, who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room and looking around the room with idle curiosity. "Want some coffee?"
Dean appeared at the door, curious over the voices and saving Cas from having to decline Sam's offer. He was an angel. He literally did not need sustenance to survive. "Hey, look who decided to jump the nest."
"Yes," Cas agreed. "Sariel, Hannah and I have come close to finishing many of the things that we had set out to fix. The defeat of the Rebellion angels—while not a win by any means," he swallowed, uncomfortable. "Was, uh, not a setback either."
"Course not," Dean snorted. Of the three, he'd easily been the least cut up about the deaths of all the angels. Claire, he'd been worried about. Sam, even, even though his little brother felt more at peace than he had in a long time. If his brothers detachment was anything new, Sam would have been worried by it.
Cas sensed it too, but he just fidgeted and followed Sam's lead in not saying anything. "Right. But, since Sariel feels that things are evening out in Heaven, I would be allowed to come down, help out here."
"Oh," Sam said, and realised he sounded annoyed when Cas turned to him, curious and a little hurt. "No, I mean..." Sam looked to Dean behind Cas, who just shook his head and widened his eyes. "I was just surprised. I mean, we're between jobs at the moment."
"Are you?" Cas asked, bemused. "I was under the impression that there was always something to be fixed."
"Sure," Sam allowed. He looked to Dean again, this time exasperated, but Dean, again, didn't give him any assistance. Sam wondered when Cas talking to him more than Dean had suddenly become commonplace. Normally, he felt relieved and vaguely envious about Dean and Cas's relationship. Now all he felt was irritated that it didn't seem to pertain to when the Angel was acting like a rejected Prom Date. "I mean, we just got back from North Dakota, this witch thing..."
"Sariel told me this may happen," Cas informed them seriously. He pulled a pad out of his pocket and from where Sam was standing he could see that there was a list of scrawled places. "She had a few places she was concerned about, hoped that we might be able to go check it out."
"Wait, why can't she just go and sort it out herself, Nancy Drew style?" Dean asked, moving into the conversation, ignoring Sam's 'Really? Now?' glare.
Cas gave a short, almost insulted, laugh. "Because that would be ridiculous."
"Why?" Sam asked, the question slipping out before he could think it over.
"Because she's an archangel," Cas explained, frowning as he locked from Dean to Sam. "It would be like getting a President to sign the permission form for a field trip."
"Wow, ok, got it," Dean flashed Cas a smile and grabbed an apple from the bag on the bench. "So, where's furthest away. I'm feeling up for a road trip."
"Really?" Sam asked him, raising his eyebrows. "All three of us."
"That would be incredibly inefficient," Cas interjected, looking at both of the brothers, frowning. "I will just exit into the Heavenly layer and come up the other side closer to the point in which we decide to go."
"Can we hitch a ride?" Dean asked, and when Cas looked uncomfortable, Dean backed out, smiling awkwardly.
"Heaven..." Cas trailed off, and the brothers picked up the unsaid taboo. Sam had sensed that there would have been some sort of barrier between humans and visiting Heaven before their time, and the angels response to his and Dean attempting to help Cas take Heaven back from Metatron only cemented this. Dean had either not picked up on it, or had tried to be funny. Either way, as usual, it ended up with a curdling awkward silence.
"Anyway," Sam said, a little too loudly, and Dean gave him a pointed look at the hightened volume. Sam cleared his throat. "What was the first one?"
"Series of odd deaths in Amarillo, Texas," Cas listed easily, in a fluid, memorised tone. "Sariel recommended it, as it is the most prominent across the board."
"Prominent across the board," Dean echoed, smiling with the side of his mouth and glancing again up to Sam, who gave a slight nod of approval. More along the lines of a 'Why not' shrug, but Dean took it as a go ahead anyway.
"Yes," Cas affirmed, looking slightly worried, and blankly confused.
"Well, we'll just have to reconvene in Amarillo," Dean said.
"Hey," Rachel sat down opposite him in the break room, crossing her ankles over each other, smiling at him and pulling out her sandwich. Stan swallowed his mouthful of pasta, but his voice died at the back of his throat when he saw the engagement ring on her left hand's finger twinkle as she unwrapped her sandwich.
So he just flashed a smile instead, and forked another mouthful of pasta to his mouth.
"You get through to the investor in the end?" Rachel asked, as sympathetic as she had been halfway through the ordeal.
Stan was irritated enough about that to overcome any bitterness over his and Rachel's current situation. "No! I got to his secretary and then, wham, he was out for the next week or so, on some Managers conference in Oklahoma!"
"That's annoying," Rachel agreed, and she paused, considering. "And weird. Who has a conference in Oklahoma?"
"Me and all my Okla-homies," Stan said automatically, and Rachel groaned loudly, throwing her head back and laughing.
"That was terrible."
"It was hilarious. You're terrible."
Rachel widened her eyes. "That was so automatic. How did you do that?"
"I'm constantly on the lookout for words that could have 'homies' inserted," Stan explained, fork pushing around his pasta, not wanting to stop talking to her for a minute. Not wanting to stop listening to her ever. "It's how I get my pun licence."
"The idea of a 'pun licence' terrifies me," Rachel stated, taking a bite of her sandwich thoughtfully.
"I wet my pants a bit when I found the flyer advertising it," Stan informed her.
Rachel grinned, almost laughing, with that bright spark in her eye that Stan wished he could accurately capture with a camera, or with a video. Because she was so beautiful. And her smile was half the reason he turned up to the office every morning.
"Hey, how're things going with Todd?" Stan asked, hoping he sounded nonchalant, but knowing that his heart was beating painfully, and his leg had started to tense under the table, and his face had a blush creeping up along his neck.
But Rachel's eyes brightened again, and her lips licked up in a dreamy smile. "Really well. We're going shopping for wedding cakes this weekend. Todd wants chocolate, but not everyone likes chocolate, you know? And no one could complain about vanilla."
"Vanilla ice cream is disgusting, and every ounce of it deserves to burn in the pits of hell," Stan shrugged, taking another bite of his pasta.
Rachel snorted. "Trust you to hate the staple of most desserts. How do you function at dinner parties?"
"I don't," Stan said. "I hate dinner parties."
Rachel laughed again, and Stan felt his heart just break.
"You take Constantine here to the morgue, and I'll head up the Library, check out any local lore," Dean directed, as he, Sam and Cas stood by the Impala, up on the sidewalk in one of Amarillo's more popular streets. Dean was eager to get going and sort out whatever was happening, because of all the things they'd seen recently, this was one of the more horrific.
Bodies torn apart and set alight, blood tests showing signs of blood poisoning. All of it was suspicious enough without their intervention, and Dean was sure that Cas and Sam would find plenty more to worry about when they made their trip to the Coroners office.
"Sounds good," Sam nodded, mouth slightly tighter than Dean would expect from someone who was 'sounds good' with something. Whatever, Dean wasn't going to see chopped up, burnt bodies, and Sam was going to have to deal.
"We'll take the Impala," Cas said, and though Sam sent Dean over a cheshire grin, just begging him to be spiteful and take it instead, he complied.
"Sure," he hoped he didn't sound too strangled. "Call me when you find something."
"You too," Sam said.
Dean nodded and then turned, heading off to where Sam'd figured the library was on the map as he and Sam were pulling into the city. 14th largest in Texas, which the map makers thought they might like to know, for some reason.
As he walked, Dean pushed passed people as they scurried through their lunchbreak to the diner and the restaurant down the end of the street, but he hadn't pulled away far enough before he heard Cas muttering worriedly to Sam about whether his fake FBI badge had expired, and Sam assuring him that it hadn't.
Dean felt an odd, cold pang in his stomach as he walked away. Hunting alone was good, often better. You were clearer, more focused. Liabilities and assets were controlled and tested. There was nothing but you, the victim and the monster. Hunting with a partner threw out that balance.
But Dean sort of really wished that he'd brought a buddy along to share pointed glances with and to smirk at.
But Cas was the strongest, and the most able in protecting, and while Dean knew Sam was more than capable of hunting by himself and taking care of himself, there was still that niggling panic. The one that never faded. That something could happen. And that Dean wouldn't be there to stop it.
He lost himself in his thoughts and moved automatically to the library. He only had to blink away the glare of the sun, despite the overcast day, and figure out which street to turn down once. Other than that his actions were automatic, robotic, irreversible.
He glanced up when he came to the library. It wasn't anything top of the range, but like all smaller city libraries it would serve its purpose.
Dean crossed the road, huddled his jacket a little more thickly around his shoulders as a gasp of cold air slammed down the road as he reached the steps and jogged up to the door, pressing the door open and stepping into the warm interior.
He made his way over to the information desk. He knew that of all the places to start looking, there was the most helpful. He could look through all the books on the reference shelves and potentially take an hour to scour through what information was relevant and what wasn't, or he could go to a librarian and get the information if it was available, and leave if it wasn't.
The man behind the desk was pretty much exactly what Dean would have expected out of a librarian. Rimless glasses perched uneasily on a beaked nose, with a pinched face and darting, large eyes. He had to be in his early 40's at least, but Dean figured that librarians had a pretty low-level stress environment in which they worked, and he could have been a lot older.
"Hey," Dean hit his palms attentively on the desk, not loud enough for it to be violent, but strong enough for the librarian to blink up from his computer.
"Hello," the man seemed a little intimidated, but Dean didn't have the time to worry about that. "Welcome to Amarillo Library. How may we help you?"
"Hi, thanks," Dean smiled tightly, in forced politeness. "I was wondering, I'm doing a paper for the college paper on the towns mythological history, and was wondering if you had any books on that?"
"Oh," the man said, giving Dean a once over, obviously unconvinced that Dean was of the college age.
Dean cleared his throat awkwardly. "I initially majored in English. Decided to come back, try my hand at the paper business."
"In this climate?" the Librarian asked, and finally as he shifted, the folds of his knitted vest fell open, so Dean could read his name. And he was not disappointed.
"Well, Marv," Dean shrugged. "I suppose I'll be able to write on this climate. Now, what have you got for me?"
Marv eased off his chair and made his way around his desk, he gestured for Dean to follow him, and so he stepped into line with the man. "Amarillo and the surrounding areas had a variety of Native American tribes who called it home. There was trade between them and the tribes of New Mexico for the extensive tools in which to make weapons."
"No offence, Marv," Dean said as they made their way through the shelves to the history section. "But can we skip to the good bit?"
"Well, I don't know about how good—"
Dean gave him a look.
He cleared his throat and gave an awkward half laugh. "Yes, right. I understand. Well, the tribes in the Amarillo area were driven out and killed in the late 1700's. And then fought against their white oppressors up until the late 1800's."
"Right," Dean sighed. "Any folklore on maybe curses that the Native Americans placed on the future ancestors of those who killed them?"
Marv looked uncomfortable, running a finger absently along the books beside him. "Well, no one ever really bothered to ask, I guess. Not to mention, Amarillo isn't exactly the most documented city in America."
"Obviously," Dean agreed. He inwardly grimaced, though, and wondered where his next step should be. There had to be something that made Amarillo so spontaneously active, so alluring that even Sariel, an archangel swaying up in heaven, noticed the disturbance. There had to be something, even if it was just spontaneous. Even if it was just a random occurrence.
But maybe it was just that. Maybe it was just a random occurrence. A random town in a random country. Chosen for no reason.
Dean sighed, smiled and thanked the librarian, glancing half heartedly at the thick volumes proffered to him by the man's eager hand.
"Ah, yeah," Dean waved him off. Information about curses and the stuff of witchcraft was abundant but worthless online. It was only really here that Dean had any hope of getting some 'real' local myths on it. The rest of it, he could just look up on Sam's laptop. "I think I'll just google it."
The librarian looked disappointed, but not surprised. "Yeah. Just a little faster than leafing through a contents, hey?"
"Just a bit," Dean agreed, backing out slowly, the librarian, whether consciously or not, coming with him.
"See you around—?" The librarian let the question hold.
Dean understood immediately. "Dean," he supplied, and Marv smiled, shaking his hand.
"Marv," the librarian introduced himself.
"Mighta read that somewhere," Dean said, nodding to Marv's nametag.
"Right," Marv grinned. "Well, take care, Dean."
Dean left the librarian a little more despondent than when he arrived, but no less determined. Hopefully, Sam and Cas would have picked something out of the body.
"Agent Palmer, here to see Agent Coulson and Caffey," Dean introduced himself, flashing both the badge and a smile to the lady manning the reception at the Coroners Office. Sam had been unresponsive by phone, which meant that either he'd lost it (unlikely), was dying in a ditch somewhere (unfortunately likely) or was ignoring Dean's calls as he went through the process with Cas in the Morgue. "We're here about the recent murder of Steele Malone?"
Her brief pause as she frowned, as though she might not know what he was talking about caught his heart painfully. All of a sudden that ditch idea wasn't just a happy possibility, it was the full blown reality. Sam was dead, Cas was AWOL, and Dean had let it all go to shit. Again.
But she brightened, and any tension along Dean's body calmed as she nodded and smiled. "Of course. They said that you might join them. Big case?"
"Three man job; the biggest," Dean smiled tightly at her, not completely forgiving the girl for her brief moment of forgetfulness.
"I'll walk you," she announced, standing, smoothing her skirt and walking out from behind the desk. She smiled again, in that trained, overly bright parroted grin, and shook Dean's hand.
"Hi, I'm Hannah," she greeted.
Hannah. Dean felt a small smile threaten to spill out across his features. "Huh. You don't say?"
"Why?" She asked, curious, heading up the conversation; either way Dean was never going to be able to tell the complete truth.
"Oh, I know a girl named Hannah," Dean explained, as Hannah the Secretary (not to be confused with Hannah the angel, one of the deadliest creatures on the planet and compassionate to their cause) led him through the doors and towards the refrigerated morgue. "Yeah, met her in the last year."
Hannah still looked curious, so Dean supplied another falsity. "See, she just joined the Board of Directors of the Bureau." He smiled. "Sort of a big deal. You know how it is."
Dean wasn't even sure if there was a Board of Directors, but it satisfied his host, who led him through the doors and towards where, through a set up of windows, he could see Sam and Cas bent over a mauled body.
Hannah made a face and groaned. "Yuck."
"You took a job as a secretary at a Coroners Office and you still get grossed out by body..." Dean searched for an adequate way to describe the situation. "Uh, things."
Dean inwardly chastised himself. Stellar performance.
"Well, one, in this job climate?" Hannah gave him a pointed look. "I would have taken a job in a Funeral home. And anyway, this 'body'," she tucked her hands comfortingly under her arms after giving the finger gestures. "Isn't really much on the realm of the norm."
"Well, thanks, I think I can make my way from here," Dean smiled at her, and with a nod, she walked back to her desk, arms tucked carefully around her body the whole way.
"Dean!" Cas greeted, seeing his friend before Sam, his brother distracted and faintly disgusted by the body laid out in front of him. "We were worried that you wouldn't make it."
"Why didn't you pick up the phone?" Dean demanded.
Sam looked up and went slightly pink at the ears, and meekly from his pocket, pulled out a scrambled mess of wires and metal. "Cas made me drop it."
"No I didn't," Cas denied absolutely. "Sam dropped it because he was acting recklessly around an automobile."
"Did your phone get tossed from the window, Sam?" Dean sighed.
"Yes," Sam responded quietly, quickly, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "But it was only because Cas switched the volume up about a hundred decibels."
"You stated that you liked the song that was playing!" Cas retorted, looking dangerously close to crossing his arms.
"Sure, I didn't ask you to deafen me," Sam snapped, looking pointedly away from the angel.
Dean rolled his eyes. "I swear, you two are like infants. Is that why it took you so long to get to the bodies?"
"Yeah," Sam muttered, shuffling his foot on the ground and stuffing his phone back in his pocket.
"Right, so, other than the fact that Sam needs a new phone, what have we learnt?" Dean sighed, feeling overwearied, like a single parent or a coach of a little league baseball team with a bunch of guys who refused to play the game properly.
Sam and Cas cast off the bickering to hand over what they knew from their brief examination over the body.
"Definitely supernatural causes," Cas affirmed, taking a step closer to the body and laying his hand on the cool, silver of the table next to it. With that Dean was forced to actually look at it, and Sam sent him a knowing look when he grimaced and leaned backward. Dean decided he probably couldn't blame whoever had analysed him for not closing the eyelids, because the whole of one eye and the eyelid of the other had been completely ripped off, leaving one shiny orb in the middle of a mound of fat and flesh and bone. The organs, thankfully, had been stored elsewhere, but Dean could still see into the ribcage and through the bone on the bicep, cheek and foot. The other foot had been completely ripped off, and the man looked like he'd been ripped down the middle. He was whole enough that they'd granted his corpse privacy with a length of white sheet over the top, but Dean thought it was maybe just to block out whatever other atrocities lay to wait under the cloth.
"Cas did his mojo, and I chatted to the Coroner," Sam said. He looked over at Dean quickly. "Did you meet her? You must have."
"I, uh, no?" Dean thought back, and the only person he'd seen in the building besides Cas and Sam had been the Receptionist.
Sam frowned. "How? Ashley Rife? How could you not have? She was right by the door when we arrived."
"I met the receptionist," Dean offered. "Hannah."
Cas chuckled, and both boys turned to look at him, confused. He looked up at their inquiring glances with nonchalance. "Oh, it's just amusing. That she is called Hannah, and that my friend, the angel, is also called Hannah."
"We know," Dean told him. "We met her."
Sam gave them both disgruntled looks and turned back to the body. "Ok, so, final cause of death was a little hard to pinpoint, but Ashley thinks she's managed to nab it. And, get this, it's not what it looks like."
"You're telling me that the cause of death wasn't the dismembering?" Dean asked wearily. "Great."
"Snake venom," Sam informed him, pulling that tiny, self-satisfied smile. "Ashley sent it to the lab to get tested, but she's nearly 90% sure that that was the first cause of death."
"Must have been pretty fast acting," Dean commented, looking down at the body again, this time with a little more sympathy than distaste.
"Oh, it was," Sam gestured to the body. "The blood was only seeping out of the wounds when they were made, which means that his heart wasn't beating." Sam grimaced. "Something really wanted the poor guy dead."
Thankfully, Dean hadn't made Sam go through the innards like he had when he and Cas first arrived. They'd been ultimately pointless and he'd put them all back in the fridge as soon as he'd glanced at them, disgusting and ripped in half. So they were done quickly after that, taking note of who Steele Malone's closest friends and family had been.
They walked together out the front and to the Impala. Dean's walk from the library had taken 20 minutes, but the drive (without pit stops for picking up lost phonetic devices) only took about 5 from the city centre.
"So, where to next?" Cas asked, and like every other time the Winchester boys had let Cas ride shotgun on their hunting enterprise, he was overly enthusiastic, a little too kid-at-Christmastime for Sam's taste.
"Uh, I guess, witnesses?" Sam looked to Dean, who shook his head.
"No witnesses."
"Who found the body, then?" Sam asked, frowning.
Dean shrugged. "Concerned citizen."
"Great," Sam sighed.
"So..." Cas looked to Dean, and then to Sam. "We're going to now go instead to speak with..." He looked at them both slowly again. "Relatives?"
Sam smiled. In a way, the guys enthusiasm was refreshing. A welcome respite from the constant tiredness of the job when it was just he and Dean. "Nice one, Cas."
"Should we spit up, again?" Dean suggested, and Sam shrugged.
"Sure. Meet back in the motel room in an hour?"
"Spare change?"
All three turned in synch to the man who'd come over, eyes milky with cataracts and three teeth missing as he smiled up at them.
Dean looked over to Sam, who shrugged.
With a sigh, Dean dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a half handful of coins, handing them to the man with an amicable "Here, buddy".
"You take Cas," Sam said quickly, after the man had moved away.
"You don't have a phone," Dean frowned. "How am I supposed to contact you? No way, McLane."
"Well, my lack of a phone is sort of the issue," Sam gave Cas a pointed look, who rolled his eyes, dangerously close to crossing his arms and pursing his lips.
Dean sighed. "Fine. Jesus. It's like working with children."
"Not much," Dean shrugged off his jacket as he and Cas rejoined Sam a few hours later, answering Sam's greeting question. "Member of an Atheism group that met ever few weeks, not married, an impressive collection of Beatles music and a comfortable job in City Hall."
"Same here," Sam grimaced. "No murders, no overwhelming acts of goodness. I mean, as far as I can tell, he was just a normal guy."
"I agree," Cas supplied seriously, unnecessarily.
Both brothers spared a beat to look over at the angel.
"Uh, has Sariel tried to contact you?" Sam asked finally, breaking the silence and adjusting his position on the chair so that he faced both of them more clearly.
"No, but communication is difficult from Heaven," Cas told them. "She will only contact me if things are bad. Not to check up to ensure things are good."
"Right," Sam said. "So no news is good news."
"And, where will you go tonight, Cas?" Dean asked, looking over as he sat down onto his bed, elbows perched on kneecaps as he looked over to the angel. "Back to Heaven or...?"
"I thought that I'd stay here," Cas said nonchalantly. "Watch over both you and Sam as you slept. Ensure that no harm came to you."
There was a horrified, drawn out pause.
"Yeah, ok, I really think you should go back to Heaven tonight—"
"I agree. I mean, you might be able to pick up some information or tell Hannah about the receptionist that shares her name or—"
"Yeah, yeah."
Days were long at the office when Rachel went home early. She'd flashed him a smile and then she was gone. Her and her boyfriend had a reservation at a fancy restaurant with Rachel's parents.
So he'd sat around, more idle than efficient, and would have left at 5 on the dot if he hadn't a heap of overtime he needed to get through. And so it was 6 when he finally did manage to get out of there, and to top off his hell of a day, his car had stalled and refused to get going, leaving him to walk home.
Stan kicked at a stone as he marched homeward, his coat, reasonable enough for a walk to and from the car was spitefully thin for the early night time chill. He shuddered and drew in on himself, wishing for a scarf to bury his mouth in. The sun had long disappeared off the edge of the world, and not for the first time that month, Stan wished that Spring would arrive soon. For surely the ongoing painstaking cold had to have a respite at some point. And the short days, and the dead plants and the foul moods, not to mention the coffee breath and—
"Hey there," a coy voice announced itself from the mouth of an alley. Stan drew back, and frowning, turned to it. "Didn't you hear? It gets dark out after the sun goes down."
"No, really?" Stan answered automatically, and inwardly chided himself. His manager had warned him against his excessive use of sarcasm.
He looked a little harder and realised that the girl he was talking to was dressed in a short skirt despite the weather, with high heels and a face full of makeup. Her blood red lips curled into a seductive smile and—
Oh.
"Oh, no," Stan took an involuntary step backward. "No, no thank you."
The girl pouted. "No?" She sighed and tapped her fake nails on her nearly bare leg. "Too bad. You're the first I've seen in ages."
"First what?"
"Person, dummy," she laughed, and it was nice. A sprinkling, like a fresh water stream. And Stan just kept asking himself... what was the worst that could happen?
"Are you flirting with me?" Stan asked before he could stop himself.
She laughed again, and leant back against the wall, crossing her arms. "Sorta in the job description." She pouted, disappointed, and gave him a once over. "Are you sure that you wouldn't be interested? I'd reduce the price for someone of your calibre."
He knew she was just saying it, but God, it was so nice for someone to like him. Like him like that.
But she didn't. Like she'd said. She was just doing her job.
But... it was just one night—less probably—and it didn't need to mean anything, and—
"I..." Stan trailed off. He cleared his throat and straightened. "Ok."
She brightened, standing up from the wall, eyes sparkling under the neon street lights. "Really? Oh, bully for me."
Stan fidgeted, nervous. "So, how does this work, exactly? Do you come back to mine or do we go to a hotel...or to yours."
"Egh," She listed off her fingers. "Sure, and definitely not."
"So, motel then?"
"Thought you'd never ask," she smiled brightly, walking over to him and taking his arm. She smelt musky, like burning pines, pipe weed and bonfires. Her hair scratched up against the sleeve of his jacket. She paused and looked up at him. "Just one more thing."
"Oh, yeah?" Stan asked, his unsureness making him bold. "What would that be?"
"Are you in love with anyone?"
Stan swallowed. His instinctive answer had been no, but really? Even the thought of what Rachel would think if she found out what he'd done was shameful enough that he almost called it off then. But he didn't. Because after her disapproving frown, she'd go back to her boyfriend, and she'd hug him and kiss him, and Stan would be left again.
No matter the scenario, Stan was left behind.
And what harm was there in telling the truth?
"Yeah, actually," Stan told her, and decided to leave off the one-way thing.
"Oh, good, good," she smiled.
"I never got your name, by the way," Stan said, his voice catching a little awkwardly.
She laughed, that simpering stream. "Oh, that's ok. For all intents and purposes, I don't have one."
"That's preposterous. Everyone has a name." Teasing, but curious as well.
Her eyes flickered from their warm brown to a lizard green and as she smiled, her teeth filed down to points.
She shrugged, as though he hadn't wrenched his arm from her hold, as though he wasn't walking slowly backward, looking at her in fear. "Not everyone."
And the sound of two more voices was the last thing he ever heard.
"Dean, Sam, wake up," Cas's low voice sounded out across the room, and Dean tossed in his bed, the warmth of the mattress below him sweet against his cheek, hand flung out across his rumpled bed clothes.
Cas hadn't turned the lights on, and though Dean was grateful, it meant that the angel stood an impressive silhouette by the window, the light from outside framing around him like the herald of heavenly light.
Dean murmured incoherently and pushed himself to his elbows. "Cas? The hell are you doing?"
"I thought we told you to go home," Sam's dry, sleepy statement came.
"I did go home," Cas told them, miffed. "For a bit. But then I came back, because Hannah told me that she heard something on the earthly plane that had some relation to our current hunt."
"Oh?" Dean asked, not entirely believing his over-eager friend. "D'you tell Hannah that you met another Hannah?"
"I did, although she wasn't as surprised as I thought she'd be," Cas answered easily. "She said that the name was actually quite common."
"We could'a told you that," Sam muttered, his voice still thick with waking, sitting up and pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Now, what did Hannah hear exactly?"
"Just a disturbance," Cas told them, coming into the room more confidently, even going as far as switching the light on. Dean blinked as it impeded unwelcome into his eyes, and he tried to downplay the surliness as he saw the time. 3:46. And people wondered why he really kind of hated his life. "But she said it was definitely our thing."
"Right," Sam yawned and sat up, running a hand over the back of his neck. "Well, I got my full 2 hours, so I'm set."
Dean still hadn't sat up properly, and was a step behind his brother when Cas finally took it upon himself to step out and give them a bit of privacy as they got ready to check out what was going on. But soon they were ready to go, Sam and Dean dressed up in their Fed suits, badges in their pockets and faces as presentable as could be expected at that hour of the morning.
"Gotta love the early morning shift," Dean muttered, pushing his Colt into the pack of his pants just as Sam did the same with his Taurus.
Sam gave the huff of a half hearted laugh. "Well, it's a damned sight better than late shift."
Stake outs. Ugh.
"Coffee first," Dean said finally.
And with an exaggerated, thankful nod, Sam agreed.
"Gross," Dean muttered to Sam and Cas, who looked equal parts disgusted and determined as him. Although for them, determination to solve the case and save lives was enough to get over the fact that this body was even worse than the last one.
He'd been completely torn in two, and his face had been nearly completely ripped off. If it wasn't for his wallet, which had miraculously survived the murder, they would have had nearly nothing to identify him on.
All three looked over as a woman dressed in a white lab coat marched smartly over, clipboard tucked under her arm. "Good morning, gentlemen. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd really hoped I wouldn't be seeing you again so soon."
"Or at all," Sam agreed. "Rife, this is our third partner, Palmer."
"Did you know that there was going to be more than one murder?" She asked them, almost suspicious, her no nonsense tone commanding the situation. "Is that why the Bureau sent more than two guys?"
Sam cleared his throat and looked at her expressionlessly. "That is not for concern, Ms. Rife. Now, would you be able to tell us a little about Stan Beesly? Are we certain that it's the same causes as Mr. Malone?"
"Sure of it," Ashley Rife told him grimly. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, yawning violently as she looked down over the body. "Oh, sorry. It's been a lot of early mornings and late nights recently."
"I completely understand," Dean assured her.
Rife looked down to her watch and glanced back up at them, unhurried but decisive. "There should be the results from the first venom found in the blood back now, and they said that they'd prioritise the second set to get it to me as soon as possible. Do you mind—?"
"No, no, go ahead," Sam assured her, and with a tight smile and a dip of her head, she hurried out, clip board still held under her arm.
Cas, silent through the whole exchange, stirred to life and bent over the corpse. He wrinkled his nose and squatted down next to it, narrowing his eyes.
Finally he pulled up. "The venom is the same. And he was definitely killed by the same thing."
"Right," Sam nodded, looking from Dean to Cas. "So now we just need to find a connection between the victims, and we'll have a motive."
"Or a lead to a motive," Dean reminded him realistically.
"Sure," Sam shrugged. "Ok, Dean, Cas, you guys go off and interview the family of Stan Beesly and I'll go back to the motel and do a little more research. I think I got near something yesterday, but nothing concrete yet."
"Call us if you—" Dean cut himself off and frowned at Sam. "Just, uh..."
"Or," Sam suggested. "I could use the motel phone."
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "Good idea."
"Where is the Beesly place or residence?" Cas inquired, looking over at the ruined corpse of the man in question.
"Northern end of town," Dean answered, pulling out a notepad, which he flicked to the most recent notes he'd made. "Heatherton Road. Let's go."
Before they could move, Hannah rushed into the room. The receptionist was understandably bedraggled, and the early morning saw her not wearing any makeup.
"What happened?" Sam asked her quickly.
"I was just informed by the police," she took a harsh breath and looked from Sam to Dean, flashing to Cas and then back to Sam's calming, fixating eyes. "They have a witness."
The blood rushed cool to Dean's head, and he and his brother exchanged a look.
They still decided to split up, and forwent family members for Sam staying up in the motel room and researching the hell out of their case. Cas and Dean went instead to the witness, who was a janitor in one of the buildings nearby.
He was nervous when they stepped into the room with him, eyes flicking from Cas to Dean, and then back and forward one more time, trying to figure out who exactly they were.
"Mornin', Mr. Smith," Dean smiled. "How'd you feel about answering a few questions for us today?"
"Sure, fine," Harry Smith smiled painfully, looking at Cas, who had drawn back, eyebrows cinched as he watched the scene. "And, uh, you guys are...?"
"Feds," Dean sent over a swift, easy smile. "I'm Agent Palmer, This is Agent Caffey, and we're real interested in hearing firsthand what you told the cops."
"About the guy who died?" Harry clarified, and rebuked, clearing his throat when Dean graced his question with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, yeah, obviously."
"Pretend we haven't had a chance to read your official statement," Dean suggested, pulling up at the seat on the other side of the table and pulling it out to sit on. "What happened?"
"Well, I was walking passed the window when I saw that guy talking to a Hooker," Harry explained artfully, trying to keep his hands on the table where everyone could see them. He'd seen enough cop movies to know what these two feds were probably worried about. And the fact that they'd led him into a questioning room rather than somewhere nicer spelt out how much they trusted him. "And you know, didn't think much of it. I see her with guys most nights. Sometimes, if I'm on a longer shift, I see her with a few."
"A few a night?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. "Busy girl."
"Well, she didn't go home with any of them," he shrugged. "None of 'em tickled her fancy, I guess."
"Not exactly a thrilling business move," Dean tilted his head. Dean glanced back to Cas, who understood the significance of this. If she had been acting oddly, and had been the last person that Stan had been seen with, then she was their next target.
"I guess," Harry shrugged again, a little more at ease now that they'd worked through the first uncomfortable moments.
"And you didn't hear anything else, or see anything else," Dean clarified, watching the witness hard, unblinking as Harry looked away, abashed.
"Uh, yeah, I was um..." He managed a half smile. "Listenin' to my tunes, I guess."
"You were listening to music as a man was brutally murdered mere metres away," Cas spelled out, speaking for the first time since entering the room. Since his first few disastrous, unsubtle interviews, Dean had instructed him to sit back and let Dean take the reins. Cas, as it seemed, couldn't help himself.
Harry looked directly uncomfortable this time, and a little guilty. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess."
"Well," Dean stood and pushed his chair in, looking at the man and smiling his fake smile. "We'll contact you if we have any follow up questions."
"I—"
Cas followed Dean as the two of them left Harry inside the room, nodding to the Captain as they passed, exiting quickly out of the building.
"Where do you think we should go now?" Cas asked, as they both stepped onto the road, waiting for traffic to abate, the Impala waiting comfortably across the way. "To interview the prostitute?"
"We'll get Sam first," Dean shrugged, walking in between the traffic and leaving Cas to do an awkward half jog to keep up. "See if he's found anything and then try and track her down."
Hannah moved quickly through the halls. Since Sariel's instalment, things had changed. They were no longer rigidly straight and cruelly separate. Angels were encouraged to speak to each other, to share wisdom and insight passion. And although this happened but rarely, it was a welcome respite from the ideals of the leadership that came before the forgotten Archangel.
Hannah had no time to reflect on that now though, because something was terribly, unfixably wrong. She bit her lip as she moved passed the curators, the architects, the protectors.
She'd sent them to their deaths.
Sariel's office as well had changed dramatically, and first had been the doors. Once heavy oak were now semi-opaque sliding doors, where even from the end of the corridor Hannah could make out Sariel's silhouette.
She slammed into the office, without time to ask for permission, trusting her ability to beg for forgiveness.
"Sister, I—" Sariel made out, startled by the angels intrusion.
"I apologise, Sariel, but I had no one else to turn to," Hannah stated quickly, feeling every second that ebbed a second wasted. A second were the tide could turn and everything would be lost.
"Of course, Hanael. What's wrong?" Sariel was still calm, irritatingly so for Hannah, who's mind was still spinning in desperate, fearful circles.
"It is Castiel, and the Winchesters," Hannah explained quickly, voice trembling with the effort of civility. "I have discovered what monster we have sent them to destroy. It wasn't a spirit, like we suspected."
"No?" Sariel asked, frowning. Then her eyes widened. "Hannah, what was it? It wasn't—"
"Yes, it was," Hannah let her eyes close, her forehead tense. She opened them meekly and stared forlornly at her superior. "Sariel, we have sent them to their deaths."
Dean knew something was wrong as soon as he drove back into the motel. There was nothing obviously untoward happening. The cars parked were as dusty and decrepit as they had been, and the emptied vending machine still had an opaque covering of graffiti. Through the windshield, though, a worried, grey haze covered everything in sight.
Something was missing. Something was broken. Dean could just tell.
Cas turned to him, agitated. "There's something wrong. Dean? Dean? Is there something wrong?"
"I don't kn—"
"I think something is wrong," Cas announced, his voice a worried, near whine, breaths coming faster, eyes hard with fear. "Where is Sam? Where is he?"
Dean just swallowed and said nothing, parking the Impala with a painful, appropriate slowness, turning her off and kicking the door open, half jogging as he made his way up to their room.
"Sam?" He banged on the door, fiddling around in his pockets as he searched for his key. "Sammy? Sam!"
"Dean?" Cas looked at him, and then around them, as though Sam might appear.
Dean ignored him, feeling something red and vicious turning in his stomach. "Sam!" he banged again, and his heart leapt to his throat that with the third, decisive hit, the door swung open. It had been jammed. Because it had been broken.
Both stood there, shocked for a moment. Before charging in, Dean scanning the room quickly, from the made beds to the empty bathroom, and then to the table, where Sam's laptop was open and running, a tired whir sounding through the room.
"Sammy?" Dean asked again, this time more out of desperation than necessity. The door was broken and his brother was gone.
"Dean," Cas's voice was low and cold. He was standing over a square of ground, looking down, grim. He stared back up to Dean and nodded to where he was standing.
Dean walked over, trepidation shaping each step. He swallowed and swore when he saw what Cas was referring to. A drying drop of blood.
"He can't have been gone for too long," Cas said, keeping the conversation moving, keeping Dean out of himself.
"I know," Dean said, distracted, moving over to Sam's computer, as though maybe Sam had accidently triggered the video and had recorded the whole thing. As though maybe his little brother wasn't an expert on computer technologies. But he was distracted by what Sam had been looking at, because the more he read, the more he understood.
"Cas," Dean called over, voice breathless. "What... do you think he might have been on to something?"
Cas gave up his hunt for further clues by the doorway and rejoined Dean at the computer, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head, taking in the screen. He took a measured step back and frowned, in though, mulling over all of the evidence, all that they had seen.
His voice was dry when he spoke. "It... it does make sense."
Dean's eyes brightened and hardened. "Do you think that it took him?"
Cas hesitated.
"Cas. Do you?"
Cas nodded slowly. "I do. I think...that it took him."
And that it, Dean tasted it on his tongue. Felt the fire and the ancient history and the life of it. The life of it. "Chimera."
Cas nodded, running a hand over its head. "Perhaps it learnt that we were hunting it."
"How? I mean, we didn't even know that we were hunting it," Dean said, jittery, frustrated, every second not spent hunting this brother down a second. "That...that thing has Sam—"
"Well, we assume that the prostitute was the monster?" Cas asked, going over everything again. "But that doesn't make sense, if they'd take Sam. Because we never met her. She'd have no reason to even know who we are."
"Right," Dean agreed, watching Cas with fixed, solid eyes. "Right. So how could it be her?"
"Unless it's not her, and the janitor was confused or mislead us," Cas continued. But he backtracked, shaking his head. "No, I would have been able to sense if he were lying. He wasn't."
"Would you be able to tell if someone we met was not human?" Dean asked eagerly, as if struck. "Because then we could just take out all the people who you met—"
"No, no," Cas cut him off quickly. "Not a monster like this. They're exceedingly powerful, and they would be able to convert themselves into complete human forms. I'd only be able to tell if I concentrated very hard."
"Concentrate harder next time," Dean growled, glaring at him. "Sam is gone—"
"I'm sorry, Dean," Cas told him, angry now as well. "I didn't realise—"
"No you didn't—"
"Dean, Sam wouldn't—"
"Don't you dare bring him into this, he's my brother, I would know what—"
"Dean," Cas told him steadily, cutting him off, not throwing any words back, not pouring into the vat of anger the Winchester stored. "Dean, we need to find him. We need to think."
Dean abated, but his face was still red, and his lips still twisted, eyes still blazing. He looked down and Cas took that as Dean's admittance. Dean Winchesters great humbling.
Cas took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and thought.
If the girl was the monster, then how did it know that they were investigating it? Without the janitor as a witness, they never would have even suspected her. So then, was she the monster? But...what if it was both? What if the monster didn't know, and did at the same time?
A Chimera was a beast made up of three creatures. A lion for a head, the hide of a goat and the tail of a snake. Three things. Did it make sense, then, that there were three people? Perhaps who combined together, to make up the three components of the monster?
"Dean," Cas said quietly, turning to Dean, who was astutely aware, utterly quiet. "I think I'm beginning to understand. There are three."
"Three Chimera's?" Dean asked, haggard. "Peachy."
"No, there are three components to a Chimera," Cas explained quickly, gesturing to the screen. "Head of a lion, hide—"
"Of a Goat, tail of a serpent, yeah, I got all the info," Dean finished, urgent. "And?"
"Well," Cas said. "Doesn't it stand to reason, that if the Chimera can be in different places at once, then that the monster is made up of more than one person? It splits up into three things that appear human, and then reforms?"
"But why?" Dean asked, voicing the question that Cas had been hovering around. "Why wouldn't it just stay in its normal state?"
"Other than secrecy? I don't—" Cas frowned and paused, and Dean watched him carefully as Cas caught himself. "Perhaps it takes energy. A lot of energy, to stay bonded. They can reform for brief periods of time, but then they have to break apart."
"Aren't you an angel?" Dean sidetracked, a little wryly. "Aren't you supposed to be the expert?"
Cas frowned, feelings stung a little. He was supposed to know this. But he wasn't an expert on monstrology. God had chosen he watch over mankind, not all the things that were crawling over each other in purgatory. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry, carry on."
Cas gave him another second of his pointed glare before adhering to Dean's request and carrying on. "These deaths, we haven't been able to figure them out because they've been random occurrences, right? Just random people, no connection to the Supernatural."
"Right," Dean nodded.
"But what if they weren't victims, per se?" Cas pressed. "What if they were sacrifices?"
"To give the monster more power?" Dean figured, sorting through out loud. "So that it can stay rejoined for longer."
"Exactly," Cas breathed.
"Nice job, buddy."
Cas smiled.
"Sam's disappearance was supposed to scare us away," Dean said forcefully, bringing them back to the soul of the matter, the reason for their haste. "But we gotta McLane this bitch. Ready to Die Hard, Willis?"
"We'll split up," Cas nodded. "I'll take witnesses houses, you take police building and the Coroner's Office. Have we been anywhere else?"
Dean turned, already heading out the door. "Roger that."
"Nowhere," Cas's voice was a small, tinny ring on the other end of his cell, but Dean didn't feel any more confident that the entirety of the places that they'd been were being searched. No matter how far away Cas was, anyone might have overheard them mumbling along the street, parked with the window down. Dean was feeling his hope drift off with every second spent.
Why take him and keep him alive? If Sam had been taken to scare them off, they would have had to know that killing him would have made more of a statement. If they'd wanted Dean to leave, they surely would have known to finish Sam once and for all.
Hell, if they wanted to kill Dean, all they needed to do was to end Sam's life.
But they hadn't, and something about this tasted wrong.
The things Cas had said sounded right. And felt right. It felt like there were three components to a Chimera running around Amarillo and it felt like they were on the right track with where Sam was being held, but why Sam had been taken had only ever been brushed upon.
And that felt wrong, awkward, the wrong weight to be considering.
"Jeez, Cas," Dean said, and he wished that it didn't sound like he was irritated at his friend, but he kind of was. He was kind of irritated about everything. Angry, even. Yeah. He was furious at everything. How many times would the world take his brother, before it was kind enough to take him too?
Dean took a long, steadying breath. "Ok. Where are you headed next?"
"Coroner's office," Cas replied diligently, and in the background Dean made out the sounds of the engine of the car that Cas had stolen starting up.
Dean spoke up quickly. "No, don't. I'm just leaving. He's not here."
"I thought you were checking the police station?"
"I did," Dean responded emotionlessly. "He wasn't there either."
"Don't panic, Dean," Cas soothed. "There has to be somewhere else. We'll find him."
"It's nearly been an hour," Dean reminded Cas savagely, glaring at the woman who gave him a sideways glance as he yelled into his phone.
Cas paused, and Dean nearly growled in frustration at his quiet. "What's wrong, Cas?"
"Well, I was just considering—obviously Sam comes first, but—we need some way to kill the Chimera, and if the legend is right, then its next victim needs to lay a hand on the Chimera's chest. And it should die." Cas took another pause. "I just... we need some way to stop this thing."
"Is this really the time?" Dean demanded. "We can worry about that after we find Sam. If he's been bleeding out, he's nearly dead!"
"I understand," Cas assured him quickly. "But we need to think. Where else have you gone? Even just to research."
"We did all the research at the m—" Dean's eyes widened and his pace slowed as he thought it out. Could it be?
"Dean? Dean? What about the motel?"
"What? Why are you talking about the motel? He's not in the motel."
"I wasn't, you—"
"Cas, if I don't call you back in five minutes, I want you to come to the library and find me, ok?"
"Library, Dean, what—?"
"Hey, Cas, ok?"
"Ok."
Sam moved blearily against the floor and nearly groaned out loud when the slightest wince of his forehead sent stacks of pain toppling through his skull. It reverberated like a drum, echoing painfully, streaking like blots of lightening against his swollen mind.
After he wisely chose not to move his head again, he felt his mouth dry and metallic, and the skin of his lips cut raggedly, like he had bitten them either when he was unconscious or when he was being moved. His throat was raw and sore to breath down, and as he went to move his hands, he found them bound, chafing, bleeding, excruciating.
Even opening his eyes was a chore, so he focused on what he last remembered. He was sitting in his room, he heard the door unlock and open, heard more than one set of feet. Though that Dean and Cas must have arrived back earlier than they thought, and turned around to greet them. Had thoughts about offering them all a beer, tell them about his Chimera theory, before he felt something hard and heavy slam against the side of his head.
Sam grimaced and this time, ignored the severe pang that sliced through his head. He was sick of being knocked out.
Finally, irritated enough to spite the people who'd taken him, he opened his eyes and looked around. There wasn't much to see except for stacked chairs and an old projector. The walls were dark and bare, and all the surrounding objects seemed awkward and out of place, like Sam was in a storage room that had recently been emptied and readjusted. Sam's eyes slipped out of focus and anything else he might have been able to pick up to help him was lost.
He groaned and rested his head back, shuddering against the pain that shot through his head and down his back. There was something very wrong with him. He needed Dean, he needed to get out of here, now.
Sam immediately pretended to be unconscious again when he heard voices from outside the doorway.
"...not my fault, where else was I supposed to put him? I don't have a home, remember?"
"None of us do, idiot," the second voice snapped. Both were men, and of the two, one sounded familiar, but only very vaguely. Like Sam had heard it or one similar even only once before. "You should have just killed him."
"We could kill him now," the first voice said, and Sam felt his blood chill. There was no way he'd be able to fight them off, not in the state he was in.
The second sighed. "No, no. His brother should be on his way, and we need to keep leverage over him."
"Fair enough."
Sam adjusted himself slightly, and this time the pain was enough to tetter upon the edge of wakefulness. Any moment now and he'd slip back asleep.
He could understand that they'd want to dissuade him, Cas and Dean from the case, but killing Sam outright made a lot more sense than forcing Dean to come right to them. Perhaps they wanted to kill all three of them, rather than scare them off, but still, kidnapping seemed counterproductive.
Sam's blood chilled as he mulled through what they really wanted. And how the hell he was going to save his brother in the state he was in.
"Hey! Dean! What are you—"
"No time," Dean interrupted him smartly, stepping passed Marv, the librarian and heading for the stairs heading down that he'd noticed when he first arrived. He hadn't though anything of it, because all libraries needed archives and storage space. But now, where everywhere secret could contain his missing brother, the stairs were as promising as ever.
"Dean?" Marv hurried after him and Dean didn't stop him. "What's wrong?"
"I need to see the floors beneath the ground," Dean told him easily, marching through the library and pushing the door open strongly when he reached it. His hand slammed against the wood, and the glass rattled in its frame.
"Uh, do you have a warrant to do that?"
"No time," Dean told him, still without looking, now taking to the stairs, Marv hurrying to keep up.
"Then I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Marv told him, a little breathless. Dean didn't even see him, walking quickly down the stairs, footsteps thudding against the floor.
"Yeah," Dean replied, coming down to the bottom of the stairs, feet muffled as he hit carpet, looking left and right before deciding to try the door furthest from the stairs. He wasn't listening, and Marv could hear it in the absentness of his voice.
"Sir, without permission, you are not allowed—"
"This, is public property," Dean finally turned on him, eyes blanketed in such a consumed rage that Marv took a step back. "And if you are what I suspect you are, then a fucking warrant is the last thing you need to be worried about."
Marv stood, stunned, while Dean glowered down at him. Then Dean turned on his heel and stormed off to the end door, and Marv scurried after him like a frightened rabbit.
"Dean, I really—"
Dean ignored him and tried the door, the rattle of the lock shaking out from the handle. Dean gritted his teeth and tried again, wrist clenching as he fought to turn it.
Everything fell out of Dean's mind when he heard a tiny, worried groan of pain from behind the door. He'd know that voice blind, he'd know that voice amongst thousands, he'd hear it ringing above any other in the clashing of a chorus choir and he'd hear it calling to him from the other end of the earth. That was his brother. His brother. The last person he really had. The only person he'd ever really had.
So something blind took over him. Something beyond hot, beyond furious. That was his brother. Something barbed and hackled and mean. Something strong.
Dean turned and rammed his shoulder into the door, gritting his teeth harder and ignoring the explosion of pain as his shoulder collided with it. He knew Marv was there, watching him, expressionless and guilty as hell, but while Sam was alone and in pain, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Nothing did. Nothing but the door that was in the way. The world, for a breathless moment, was them and them alone.
On the third slam the door burst open and Dean raced into the room, looking around before falling to his knees at the side of his crumpled brother.
His eyes flicked over Sam's body, from his bound, chafing wrists to his wide, scared eyes. Sam was sick, that much was obvious. He was hardly moving himself and his face was splotchy and pale. There was dried blood in his hair and red gathered at the corners of his mouth.
"Sammy?" Dean managed, placing his hands carefully on his brothers chest, hoping that the human contact could distract him from the pain. He heard the footsteps of Marv from outside the door and clenched his hand in Sam's shirt, determined. "Hang on, bud. Cas is coming."
"Hello Dean," Marv said, voice distant and simple, eyes staring and vacant. Dean stood to meet him, and let his face drop for an instant when he saw that he wasn't alone. A woman stepped out after him, who must have been the hooker that Stan had been talking to before his death, and then a third person, a man.
Dean's face twitched with realisation. It was the homeless man, the one he'd given money to after they'd stepped out of the Coroner's office.
But still, three people. Cas had been right.
And the Librarian. Dean had been too.
"We've been—"
The woman; "Waiting—"
The third man; "For you."
Dean didn't move. "Yeah, well, I've been wanting to meet you asshats for a while as well. Wanna tell me why you tied my brother up and nearly killed him? Or should I guess?"
"We wanted—"
"Needed," the woman corrected Marv.
"Needed," Marv agreed. "You to come here. To be here."
"Why?" Dean demanded. "Because we were hunting you?"
"No, of course not," The third man said, his voice grating, harsh. "You were the final sacrifice."
Dean stilled and watched all of them, taken off guard. "What?"
"We cannot merge together for long," she explained, looking to her brothers forlornly. And Dean imagined she was the snake, slithering behind them, the final thing someone saw before their death. "But the sacrifice of sinners is a powerful thing. And sin, these days, is so easy to commit."
"Those other two men," Dean spelled out for himself. "They—"
"Atheism, and sexually perversion," she shrugged. "Two ticks. One more, and we're done."
"Why me, then?" Dean asked, thinking now. Thinking hard. Because Cas should be coming, and when Cas came, the angel would need to heal Sam first and foremost; clear his brother from harm.
But thinking of Cas, and the Chimera, and Sam, and everything—because the way to kill the Chimera, the way to eradicate it from existence—the only way to do it—had been for its next victim—its next...
Dean stood up straight and glared, heavy and angry at the monster. For what it had done to the people already dead, for what it had done to Sam.
"You forewent traditional means for technology," Marv spelt out in that easy lilt that came from memorising a set phrase. "You came into the library and preferred to use the internet over books."
"And that's a sin?" Dean demanded. "Jesus. Then couldn't anyone be picked up for anything?"
"Well, yes," the third man said, shrugging. They all smile, eerily in synch. "But you were a hunter. And you were rude. And we wanted you dead. We wanted to do it right."
"Bite me, you son of a bitch," Dean snarled. "And I'll be wanting those quarters back, as well."
"Fair enough," he chuckled, turning to Marv and the woman, both of whom gave him silencing glares.
"Stop," Marv said, deadly quiet, staring at Dean. "The sacrifice must begin, and our strength must be collected."
Dean watched in horror as they reached out their arms, grabbing onto each other's forearms and throwing their heads back, chanting as their skin began to bubble and hiss. The brown mixture that became their bodies melted through their fingers onto the others arm, the woman in the middle looking like she was being pulled apart. The skin melted and flayed until it had combined into a mixture of the three, barely recognisable now even as humans.
Dean strayed back by Sam and watched the transformation in horror. The chanting continued though they had no mouths, and Dean felt it thrum under his skin, sliding around at the same beat as his blood. There was something cruel in the air, something with a vicious bite, and it peered down through him like he gave it certainty of completion.
Dean took another step back as the Chimera began to take form. He swallowed and reached for his gun, the tiny slip of metal feeling inadequate as it slid into his hand. What could he do, with this, against that?
And that was a towering beast, black fur and hungry red eyes set in the face of a growling lion. The bristled fur of the lion transformed into rough goats hair from the neck down, and the four feet were like paws, with massive claws sticking out of either one. The snake tail was long and thick, a serpent coiling along the back, pink tongue flickering as it hissed, eyes as ruby red as the lion.
"Holy freakin' Hell," Dean muttered and stumbled back as the lion roared, building shaking with the sound. Dean was distracted from worrying about everyone else in the building, reflecting that he was so, so grateful he never ran into one of these during his stint in purgatory.
"D'n?" Sam's voice was blurred in the corner of the room, and he looked urgent, worried.
"It's ok, Sammy," Dean told him, flicking a smile up as he looked at his brother. "Everything's gonna be ok."
The Chimera roared again and Dean span his gun out, aiming, taking a moment, just a stilled, perfect moment, to take a breath, before he fired three bullets into its side, smiling when it roared in pain, the snakes hissed filling the room.
The snake jerked toward him and he whacked it back, swearing as he smacked it out of the way, firing again at the monsters head. He needed to get closer, but the things teeth and claws were everywhere, and of everything it was covering its chest the most.
The door slammed open and Cas called out from where he was standing. "Dean!"
"Cas?" Dean yelled, and ducked and scrambled back as the Chimera made at him again, firing more bullets into its side to keep it busy while he felt for the reload. he looked over and saw the angel making his way towards him, but Dean shook his head quickly, looking pointedly over to the corner where his brother was staring glassily at the ceiling. "Help Sam! Help Sam first!"
"Dean, we have no way to stop—"
"Don't worry, just distract it," Dean managed quickly as he slammed the gun finished, rattling with the rest of the bullets as he kicked down a row of chairs into its side and fired a few more times, face conformed into an ugly glare as he fired the rounds into its side.
Dean felt his heartbeat pick up as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the blue light of Cas's grace healing Sam's wounds. Once he knew that Sam was ok, then he would focus on killing the thing. But everything else was falling secondary. Nothing else mattered, as corny as it sounded.
Dean prepared to fire again when he blanched back, shielding his eyes, fire spurting wildly from the mouth of the Chimera.
Dean scrambled under the fallen plastic chairs and swore to himself. Now that he didn't know it could do.
Another blue light and Dean took a harsh breath, closing his eyes and praying that Cas was nearly finished with Sam.
They flew back into seeing when the result of the grace wasn't as he'd expected, Sam's healing, but a massive explosion, that seared heat along his skin, burning under his clothes. The lights in the roof crashed off, and glass fell from the ceiling. Even hidden beneath the chairs Dean huddled under his arm, blinking back into the darkness when the worst of it had fallen.
"Dean!"
Dean jerked to his feet and kept a careful hand on his gun, peering into the gloom for the monster, making his way over to where he knew Cas and Sam were. Blue light flickered from Cas's palm and Dean hurried over faster, nearly breaking into a sprint when a mewling of a wounded animal came from the side of the room.
"Sam?" Dean made as a question, coughing through the dust in the air and squatting next to Cas by his brothers limp form.
"Healed and sleeping," Cas informed him quickly, placing a hand almost absently on Sam's chest. "But we need to get all of us out of here. We need the next victim."
Dean shook his head, swallowing his next ring of coughs. "No, no, it's me. It's me. I'm the next target."
Cas's eyes widened. "Then—"
"Yeah, it all makes sense now, right?"
Cas nodded. "We need to get you to the Chimera's chest."
"How?" Dean asked, and before Cas said anything more, movement and the bright spark of the Chimera shifted from the other end of the room.
"Out of time," Cas said grimly, placing a hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean looked at him questioningly, but Cas didn't respond. There was a smash as the monster collided into the wall, and a crunch as the wall gave out. The ground shook as it righted itself, and then the walls as it roared out in anger.
The monsters hulking back came into view, and before Dean could do anything, Cas pushed him hard, and with the extra strength of an angel, Cas's shove sent him spinning over the ground and under the Chimera's neck.
It reacted slowly, poorly, healing but still put out by Cas's attack.
Dean looked up and saw its head, saw its convulsing neck and the dusty black fur of the lions head. And he saw its chest.
Without giving a second he reached up and placed his palm hard on the breastplate, feeling the convulsing and the quivering, feeling the heartbeat pick up as the body realised what was happening.
As if to lament its own passing, it roared again, and Dean stumbled up and back, watching it as it fell to its stomach, the place where he'd placed his hand flashing yellow and orange with flame. In the perfect hand print.
The body fell to the floor and its eyes closed, the red pinpricks of light flickering off. And then the thing died. It died. Something so big and so strong, and all it had taken was Dean's hand. All it had taken was Dean reaching out and touching it, pressing his palm to its heart.
The silence that fell was deafening. The building creaked and dust still fell from the ceiling, but Dean didn't care. He looked over to Cas, who, with wide eyes, was still crouched protectively by Sam's side.
Both flinched and turned when the door slammed again and someone, coughing, made their way into the room. The light from the hallway was still nearly working, and all Dean made out of the silhouette was a head of bushy hair and the pointed tip of an angel blade.
"Dean? Castiel?"
"Hannah?" Cas stood to greet his sister. He cupped his hand and light gathered in it. It reflected off the angels face, and showed her puffing, red, and angry.
"Hi," Dean waved. "We ganked a Chimera for you."
Hannah, however, wasn't amused. She waved her phone. "Someone wanna tell me why I can't reach Sam? Sariel had given orders for you to clear out. She was going to take care of it."
"Well we did," Cas said, and Dean grinned at the pride in his friends voice. "Dark Knight style."
Hannah and Cas had requested that they be delivered to the nearest portal when Dean offered, and not wanting to hang around while the angels sorted out the Chimeras body, the brothers left with the angels as soon as they could. They cleared out the motel room, payed off the deposit and drove away from Amarillo, placing the town squarely in their mirror.
"So," Dean said, finally, the first time he'd spoken to Sam and only Sam since he'd been kidnapped by the Chimera. Hannah and Cas had disappeared into the Anglican church with a small wave and smile only a few minutes ago, but the Impala was already speeding along the highway. "Crazy couple of days, huh?"
"I know, right?" Sam agreed, wincing himself at how awkward his response was.
Dean fell quiet after that. Perhaps he sensed that Sam felt useless and weak after being captured by the enemy and held.
"Ok," Dean finally sighed. "Look, Buttercup, it is not your fault that you were captured by the tiny man and held at knife point at the risk of a game of wits. If they'd decided that being tall was a sin, then they would have taken me instead."
"Right," Sam said, lips puckering into a smile at 'Buttercup'. "For the Princess?"
Dean grinned. "To the death?"
They both quoted the final bit together. "I accept!"
They laughed and Sam sat a little easier as the car rolled through the country towards the Bunker.
"Hey, is it as weird for you as it is for me that we're sitting in something that used to be a person?" Dean asked, nodding to the Impala, to the steering wheel in his hands.
Sam's eyes widened. "Yes. Oh my God. I thought I was the only one."
Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a review or a kiss or even come to my house and tell me what you thought. Actually scrap the last one. I won't have a place to put you all! HAHA! Good one. Thanks.
Anyway, see y'all for the next instalment whenever that is.
Next Chapter: Krissy and the Pussy Cats