BLOODY LINES
"It's a fucking double standard and you know it!" Sam hissed vehemently.
"Double standard, triple sundaes, quadruplet hotties on a beach, you are not putting your ass on the line and that's that." Dean growled.
"There is no other way.'
Dean gave Sam the type of glare that actually made him squirm. The ones that reached for his very soul but he didn't look away.
"It's not your fault your friends died in that fire, Sam."
"Isn't it? I could have warned them."
"Warned them how? They would have either thought you were pulling their leg or that you had cracked your marble jar and let them roll down a steep hill."
"I could have warned them." Sam repeated. "Dean, I'm not a snot nosed kid anymore. I have the right to put my ass on the line just as much as you do. So don't play that card with me ok? You're always going on about saving lives and this is the only way that we can save this girl."
"It's not the only way."
"No, Dean, I'm putting my foot down on this one. You are still recovering and I don't need your permission."
The glare came again and Sam didn't think it was possible for it to intensify. Damn, was he wrong.
"Fine, but we're doing it together."
"Shocker." Sam mumbled.
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"Bloody Mary? Really?" Arandi huffed.
"Yeah but this one not only scares the crap out of you it actually scratches your eyes out." Dean said a little too excitedly. It was sort of a first time in a long time that Dean and Sam had done the research without their wives.
"She's killing people that have gotten away with murder because she was murdered and her killer was never punished." Sam explained.
"So why didn't she go after him?"
"Bastard died of a heart attack." Dean supplied. "She tried to write his name in her blood but never finished and there was no other evidence against the murdering dick."
"Ok what are we doing?" Arandi asked.
"Sam and I are going to break into the antique store that bought the mirror that Mary was killed in front of. Somehow Mary's vengeful spirit got caught up in it and seems to be able to move through any reflective surface. Sam thinks since Jackie and Kurt died in the duplex that he fits the bill for getting away with murder."
Sam tried to mimic Dean's glare. He knew he wasn't even close the way his brother smirked at him. There was a million other ways that Dean could have said those words in front of their wives.
It was easy to tell from the tension that the brothers had argued about the whole situation.
"Sam, it wasn't your fault." Jade hugged her husband.
"We don't know that for sure. Besides Charlie is terrified and she is probably next if we don't do something tonight."
"The only reason I agreed to this whole idea." Dean grumbled.
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Dean hated when he did sloppy work. At least he felt as if he had been sloppy. He could hear his dad's voice in his head berating him. He had accidently set off a silent alarm and he was going to have to leave Sam alone while he dealt with the police outside.
This was far from the ideal he had generated in his mind of how hunting with his brother would be like now that he was all grown.
Arandi and Jade had gone to Charlie's to protect her in case Bloody Mary went after her first. There had already been another death.
He stared at the unconscious cops who he had quickly gotten frustrated with and just punched their lights out. How was he supposed to know the owner of the store was Asian when he claimed to be the son? Sam had been alone too long and he was sure that he had heard breaking glass.
He rushed back in the store praying the cops stayed out long enough for them to get out of there in one piece.
He lost his breath when he found Sam with bleeding eyes and struggling to breathe on the floor while his reflection blamed him for Jackie and Kurt's death. It said Sam could have warned them. The Sam argument that Sam had repeated to him over and over.
Dean rushed forward taking the crow bar he had brought with him and crashed it through the mirror as he turned his face away. The mirror shattered into a million pieces and for just a moment something inside his mind stirred like a lost memory but he didn't have time to chase the fragment.
He crouched down to check on his brother. Sam was breathing normal again but looking a bit dazed.
"Sammy, you alright?" Dean asked worriedly taking his brother's face into his hands to make sure that Sam's eyes weren't about to explode. He wasn't sure what to look for but he was sure that there had to be some sign.
They needed to get out of there. While he would love to think that his judo skills were the greatest in the known universe he knew that all he had done to the cops was knock them out and they weren't going to stay like that all night.
He helped Sam to his feet and Sam leaned heavily against him. They started to stagger along.
They both stopped, their hearts hammering when they heard an eerie groan and the unmistakable sound of glass being crushed under foot. They turned slowly to find Mary coming towards them walking like her entire body was broken.
Dean started to tell Sam to run for it but the most intense pain filled his head and chest and he couldn't breathe. Hot tears streamed down his face and he knew it was blood just like Sam, who was falling to the floor with him in the same agony all over again.
Dean gritted his teeth. He had to get Sam out of there and his vision was already hedging out. This was Sam's second dose and he had to do something. Instinct told him to grab the mirror beside him and though it was very heavy he managed to heave it up in front of himself and Sam. His arms trembled from the effort and his chest ached even more. Mary stopped walking, her face once so beautiful showing from behind long hair.
She looked at her own reflection and she realized that she was just as guilty of what she was accusing others of doing. With a cry of dismay, she melted into the floor to face hell even though she had been slaughtered for falling in love with the wrong man.
Dean tossed the mirror and it shattered where Mary had stood.
The brothers able to breathe again sat still for a moment. Dean's mind working like mad on things that were just out of his grasp. His chest still panged awfully. He did the only thing he knew how. Turned the situation to humor.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, Dean."
"Just how much bad luck are we talking here?"
Sam huffed and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Dean followed, he blinked and swallowed hard.
They leaned on each other and stumbled out the back door.
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After making sure that Charlie was going to be ok and Dean and Sam being checked to make sure they were really alright, Arandi drove them as far as she could before Dean started looking green.
Sam had fallen asleep with his head on Jade's lap and as long as his legs were he was going to start cramping up.
Arandi found a place and pulled over. Dean and Sam leaned back against the car, hands stuffed in their pockets, and waited for their wives to check them in.
Dean could feel Sam's eyes on him and he waited.
"Why did your eyes bleed, Dean?"
Dean huffed an unbelieving laugh. "How many innocent people have died because I didn't figure something out fast enough or I didn't have enough bullets or I got there a day late?"
Sam stared at his brother in shock. "None of that is your fault, Dean. You're not the only hunter in the world."
"Everything is my fault, Sam, haven't you heard? Inflation, unemployment. The disappointment in your eyes, the fall of the galactic empire, all on me!"
By then Arandi and Jade were back and Arandi gave Sam a look that said 'drop it please'.
Dean took the key from her hand and headed straight to their room.
"He can't really feel like that?" Sam murmured.
"Sam, if Dean got frequent flyer miles for all his guilt trips he'd never pay for a vacation again." She said as she followed her husband.
Sam just wasn't sure how to feel about any of it.
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Arandi walked into the room and closed the door.
"Can we not talk about it?" Dean growled. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head down.
"Talk about what?"
Sometimes he was sure that he didn't deserve her.
"You should shower first; you look ready to crash."
If she only knew. He stood up slowly. "Sounds great." He sighed. His chest still ached and his head was pounding a slow dreadful beat behind his eyes.
"You go ahead and I'll get your stuff ready."
Dean took the first couple of steps towards the bathroom before he realized that none of it was going to happen when he hit his knees and was out cold before he even finished falling.
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"Dean!" Arandi cried out as she saw him crumble. She rushed to his side cursing under her breath. He wasn't giving himself enough time to heal from any of the major injuries and the smaller ones didn't even ping for Dean.
She still didn't really know how much he and Sam had had to endure from the bout with Bloody Mary. It couldn't have been a picnic for there to be enough pressure or whatever to cause their eyes to bleed.
She turned him slowly and Dean's eyes were fluttering open. "Dean?"
"Sorry." He slurred. "I was more beat than I thought."
"Dean?"
"That's it. I swear. Bad headache, nauseated as all hell, and exhausted."
She studied him closely trying to read him. "Shower in the morning it is." She sighed and helped him up.
Without another word she got him to the bed out of his clothes down to his boxers. His eyes barely opened and he was gone the second his head touched the pillow.
Arandi checked him over and made sure he didn't have a fever before she tucked him away.
She sat beside him for a few minutes just watching him before she readied herself for bed. She wasn't sure how much more she could take before she imploded.
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Feeling guilty enough for two friends dying in their home, Sam wasn't about to let down any other friends in trouble.
Dean wasn't thrilled about heading back down a long stretch of road they had just covered when Sam demanded to go help a friend who e-mailed saying that her brother was being framed for murder. She just couldn't figure out how or by who.
That was exactly it. He had demanded it and Dean knew Arandi was leaving it up to him. When it came to Sam there was just a very thin line. Stubborn as he was he knew he needed to rest a couple of days and had planned on it until this.
Dean caved only because he didn't want his brother carrying all that burden of guilt that Dean himself couldn't seem to shake. Besides Jade had laid the same strategy on Arandi. After all Sam and Jade had the same circle of friends.
Dean and Arandi had exchanged looks.
Dean busted the tire screeching U-turn and they were on their way.
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After brief introductions once they reached St. Louis. Rebecca told them how her brother Zach had been with her when the police claimed that Zach's girlfriend had been killed. To make matters worse they had Zach on video entering his girlfriend's place moments before her death.
"He was here with me at that time I swear. I wouldn't lie for him for something so serious." Rebecca sniffled. "How can one person be at two places at one time?"
The hunters exchanged looks.
"We can check into it see what we find?" Sam offered giving his concerned head tilt and soft voice.
"I don't want anything that could get my brother in more trouble."
"No problem. My brother Dean and his wife are both in law enforcement."
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Dean and Sam watched the surveillance tape of Zach that Rebecca had managed to swipe from his lawyer while the women worked on snacks.
To anyone that watched it was clearly Zach entering the building. To a hunter's trained eyes, the brief eye flash told them it wasn't Zach but something that looked just like him.
"Shapeshifter." Dean grumbled. "Their eyes do that on videos and photos."
"We need to see the crime scene. See if we pick up any clues to where this thing might be or who it's pretending to be now."
"You know your friend in there isn't going to believe any of this."
If we can clear her brother she might believe anything."
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"The cops are claiming that Zach paid someone to mess up the crime scene. Why would you jeopardize this for us, Sam?" Rebecca paced furiously.
Apparently a nosy neighbor had seen Dean and Sam enter the closed off apartment.
"We were trying to find something the police might have missed."
"Did you?"
"No…...we…."
"If this is how you're going to help then just leave!"
"Hold your fucking horses you, ungrateful bitch!" Arandi moved forward as Rebecca backed up wide eyed until she hit the wall.
Dean wrapped his hand around Arandi's arm gently keeping her back. He didn't dare push to have that fury directed at him.
"Sam bent over backwards to get us to come here and help you and your brother and you're going to stand there with your privileged life attitude and look down your nose at us because we didn't snap our fingers and fix everything in one day so that you could go back to Paris?" Arandi hissed.
Jade moved forward ready to try to save what she could of Rebecca if things got worse.
"Arandi, baby." Dean soothed.
Rebecca fish mouthed. She looked ready to run, she had apparently never crossed paths with someone like Arandi. Mostly because there was no one else like Arandi. "You're right. Everyone else already thinks that Zach is guilty. I'm sorry. So very sorry."
Dean pulled Arandi back a little more. "Let's go get some air."
Arandi glared at Rebecca until they were out of sight.
"You forgot all the stories I told you about big sis?" Jade snickered with relief.
"I thought you might have exaggerated a bit."
"Honey, I actually mellowed them up a bit."
Rebecca took a stuttered breath. "I won't forget that ever again."
"Not if you value your appearance and your ability to walk without assistance." Sam chuckled as he shook his head.
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Dean leaned back against the rock wall on the veranda of the fancy house where Rebecca's parents lived. He watched Arandi pace like a caged tiger.
"Honestly, this is the kind of friends Sam and Jade have made? Snotty, I can't dirty my hands, what is Wal-Mart, rich brats?"
Dean shrugged. "Stanford ain't exactly a community college."
"Jade ever acts like that and I will…..." She growled.
"I think she knows since you basically scared the snot out of Rebecca."
"I didn't even touch her."
"You're gorgeous when you're furious."
"Yeah, well if she pulls that shit again I'm going to win Miss Universe."
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Dean and Sam talked to neighbors' just blocks from where Zach's girlfriend had died. It had happened again. A man claiming that he was in another state when his wife had been killed was being led away in handcuffs. Video showed him coming home within an hour of his wife's death.
"The video shows them entering but not leaving." Sam huffed as he Dean searched the back of the building. "No one is seen leaving actually so even if it changed appearance where is it going?" Sam touched a smear of blood on a wooden fence. "Seems pretty fresh."
Dean turned in a circle trying to spot anything that would give them a clue. He stepped back and looked down as he felt a burst of air go up his jeans. More blood on the cover of a man hole.
The brothers exchanged looks.
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"We may have found its lair." Dean was telling Arandi on the phone. "Yeah, we found some gross looking shedding all blood, skin, and goo with nails and ears and crap. So it has to shed to change appearance. We're going to check it out, you and Jade stay close to Rebecca. Love you too."
The brothers walked slowly through the corridors trying to breathe through the stench. Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other.
"I think we're getting close." Dean grimaced.
Sam turned to find another pile of shedding too close to his face and he jumped back. His flashlight swinging just in time to catch the glimmering eyes of the shifter.
"Dean!" Sam yelled but his brother was already being tossed against the wall while Sam fired off three shots.
The shifter disappeared around a corner.
Sam helped Dean to his feet as Dean grimaced and favored his left shoulder. "Go get him!"
Sam took off and Dean followed a little slower and mad as hell at himself.
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Sam moaned loudly. He opened his eyes as pain flared through his neck and back. He couldn't see anything and soon realized that he was covered with a tarp.
He wriggled around grunting in pain and discomfort until the tarp slipped enough for him to see.
His memory clicked into place as he saw his brother moving around stuffing things into a duffle. Only it wasn't his brother, it was the shifter.
Somehow the shifter had gotten the jump on Dean while they were looking for him and then Sam had figured out a moment too late that the person standing next to him wasn't his brother.
Sam had pulled his gun fast enough but even standing there completely sure that the taunting jerk telling him to go ahead and kill his brother wasn't Dean. He couldn't do it, he could not in any way harm something that looked exactly like big brother.
It could cost them dearly someday if that day wasn't today.
"Where's my brother?" Sam asked groggily as tried to loosen the ropes that held his wrists together.
"I'm right here." The shifter sneered. "All in the beautiful flesh." He crouched in front of Sam. "I think I'm going to enjoy being Dean. Those three beautiful women waiting for him to…...well you get the picture."
The shifter stood and back handed Sam solidly.
"You should have appreciated your brother more he made so many sacrifices for you without so much as a thank you from your ungrateful ass."
Sam skin crawled. The thing was talking about Dean in the past tense.
"You don't think he wanted to stop hunting, go to college, have a career?"
"Dean could have all that if he wanted."
The shifter scoffed. "You really are that blind. Well, Sammy, I'm going to go take care of some needy women. I'll bring you all of the details and let you stew in them before I kill you too."
Sam fell into blackness as the shifter hit him again.
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Sam jerked awake. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed and could only pray he wasn't too late.
Somewhere behind him he heard a low pained groan.
"Dean?"
"Sam, that better be you?"
"Dean, oh thank God I thought he killed you."
"Fucker can't break the connection until he downloads everything."
"He went after the women."
"Son of a bitch." Dean growled and somehow the ropes finally gave way. Dizzy and nauseated he made his way to Sam and cut through the ropes with the small knife he had had hidden in the waist band of his jeans. "Let's go."
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Arandi, Jade, and Rebecca sat on the sofa drinking a beer and snacking on some pretzels as they waited for news from the men.
"It's been awhile." Rebecca stood up nervously.
"I know." Jade replied. "We can't risk calling them and giving them away."
A loud scraping and thud came from the front door.
Arandi stood up putting both other women behind her as she pulled her gun.
She moved towards the door and threw it open.
Dean lay back against the wall breathing hard. Bruised and bloody.
"Baby, get away from them. One of them is the shifter." He moaned.
Arandi turned to look at Jade and Rebecca just long enough for her legs to be swept out from under her and then Dean had Jade from behind, long dagger at her artery.
"One stupid move and she's redecorating the living room."
Arandi stood up. She could take the shot but it was a big risk to her sister.
The shifter moved the dagger slightly. Jade grimaced and a streak of blood appeared.
The shifter licked it slowly not taking his eyes off of Arandi. "You know he thought about fucking your sister before."
"Yeah? And I thought about taking your heart and shoving it down your throat while it's still beating." It pissed her off that this thing looked like Dean.
"Dirty talk, I like." The shifter sneered. "Why don't you let me show you how it's really done?"
"Only if you let me show you that silver does the body good."
Sam came out of nowhere tackling the shifter and Jade to the floor. Arandi pulled her dazed sister out of the way and pushed her to take Rebecca and get to safety.
Arandi aimed her gun but couldn't get the shot she needed without shooting Sam too.
The two fought punch for punch and the shifter with all of Dean's thoughts knew all of Sam's weaknesses. Sam flew into a book shelf falling to the floor in a daze.
The shifter knowing Arandi was aiming threw himself through the doorway of the game room.
Arandi checked on Sam. She heard crashing and wood and glass breaking as she moved to the doorway.
The shifter was now fighting Dean. Arandi stood where she was shifting from one to the other. They were wearing identical clothes.
They fought tooth and nail. The same fighting skill set so they knew each other's every move.
One tossed the other through a set of glass doors. Then they both stood up swaying glaring at each other, blood dripping from wounds. Ready to fight to the death.
"Stand down!" Arandi yelled.
Both of them opened their mouth.
"Not a fucking word!"
Arandi swung her eyes from one to the other.
They both looked her in the same imploring way. Her heart hammered. This was her worst nightmare. Only when you love someone so much, you just knew.
She aimed her gun and pulled the trigger at the Dean on the right, three silver bullets to the heart. He flew into the wall from the force and a landed spread eagle over a chest, eyes still open staring at Arandi. By far the hardest kill of her life.
A chill went up her spine. Even knowing it wasn't Dean. Her Dean. She felt a pain in her heart.
"Umm, baby, just tell me how?" Dean whispered.
Arandi walked slowly over to the dead Dean look alike. Lifted his hand with her gun. "Shifters can't stand silver." She dropped the lifeless empty of jewelry hand.
Dean looked down at his hand where his silver wedding ring sat. Thankful he wore it more often now that he didn't work on cars regularly. Even the small band of silver would have been painful to a shifter.
He shuffled painfully over to the shifter and squatted down to look at him. He trembled again at how every detail was him all over again.
Sam stumbled in, silver dagger in hand probably seeing three of everything but he was ready to fight.
His eyes landed on the two Dean's and his brother met his eyes as he yanked his amulet free of the shifter's neck.
Flashing lights streamed in through the window.
"Fuck." All three of them said at the same time. No time to catch their breath. The front door came flying in and they made a run for it. They didn't have a choice.
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Hundreds of miles later they sat at a picnic table at a rest area by a lake.
Arandi and Jade had already fixed up their men as best as they could.
They had all escaped the house before the police could find them and Rebecca had been left to tell the tale.
She finally called.
"I'm sorry, Sam. They are going to investigate the shifter and the ID he had on him. I couldn't tell them the truth without ending up in a padded room. They are letting Zach out since they found all kinds of evidence in the shifter's lair."
Sam couldn't meet Dean's eyes. This one no matter what Dean protested was all on little brother.
"I don't know how to repay you all. My brother is free because of you. Arandi had every right to want my head now."
"This is what we do, Becca."
"Tell her that I'm sorry, tell her that I will do what I can to not let anything happen to Dean."
"Done. Goodbye, Becca, tell Zach I wish we could have had a cold one at least."
"We'll have one for all of you."
Sam set his phone down and looked up at Jade. She was sitting across from him.
Dean sat on the same side as her and Arandi was sitting on the table crossed legged by him. He was leaning his head close to her knee as he picked at the burger he usually would devour in a few bites.
Sam opened his mouth.
"It's done, Sam, can't take any of it back." Dean said without looking at him.
Sam was ever the stubborn one. "You didn't even want to do this and now because of me…...
Dean's tired green eyes fell on his brother's just as tired hazel. "We saved lives in the end that's all that matters."
Sam nodded.
"Besides I expect breakfast in bed and foot massages for a month, bitch."
"Don't forget laundry." Arandi chipped in.
"And laundry."
"Kiss my ass, jerk." Sam grinned but if he had to he would do it all and more for what his brother had done for him.
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Dean managed a couple of hours of sleep before the nightmare had him sitting up harshly, breathing hard, covered in a sheen of sweat. Every fresh injury screamed and the older ones weren't keeping quiet either.
He looked around the motel room in the dim light. Nothing there. Just the tendrils of the dream sifting away, the day on repeat except in his version Arandi killed him instead of the shifter.
"Do you really think I would have shot if I wasn't a hundred percent sure?" Arandi whispered beside him.
"I know that." Dean huffed. "Didn't mean to wake you."
"You must have some doubts?"
"I saw my wife kill my look alike, give me a break. Even I have to take a minute on that. Put yourself in my shoes."
Arandi sighed. "Ok I get it. Are you alright?"
"I feel like a human crash test dummy."
Arandi sat up with an exaggerated look of shock. She reached to lay her hand on his forehead. "You admitted to feeling bad. Maybe I did kill the wrong man."
"Very funny." He scoffed.
"Hey, you're a little warm."
"Just keep adding insult to injury why don't you? First I'm the hottest man alive and now I'm just a little warm?"
"And my husband is back in two point zero seconds."
Dean grinned sheepishly. He pulled Arandi into a slow kiss. He was hurting in a million different ways but a 'little warm' just wasn't enough to get him through the long night.
TBC
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Thanks for reading!