Title: Behind Those Eyes
Author: Katie
Summary: A look at life of Dean Winchester between Sam leaving and the pilot.
Spoilers: None really, at least not so far but a general understanding of the show would help
Ratings: PG for language
Pairing: None
Authors Note: I hope you like it. Oh, and since I don't have a beta all mistakes are mine.
Distribution: Please! Just let me know.
Feedback: Please!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural. I wish I did though.
Chapter Two: Solo Job
Dean Winchester was 23 years old when his dad let him take his first solo job.
It was supposed to be easy, an in and out kind of job. Hell – Dean suspected that was the only reason his father had let him go alone.
Dean showed up at the house in question. Kevin something or other greeted him. The past 6 owners of the house had died within 2 years of purchasing the home and normally a hell of a lot faster than that. Why anyone would buy that home was beyond Dean, however the price of the otherwise nice home had been extraordinarily low. Dean remembered that much from the small amount of research he'd actually done.
Dean was posing as someone who was thinking of buying a near by house and was counting on his charming personality to win him a fast friend who would immediately want to share any potentially supernatural encounters with him.
"Can I help you?" Kevin asked when he opened the door.
"Yeah, my name is Kirk Hammett, and I'm thinking about buying the house down the street." Dean said mentally congratulating him self on his fast thinking. Of course, the lead guitarist of a band as big as Metallica was risky, but he lived on the edge.
Kevin had let him into his home and they'd sat and talked. All Dean knew was that so far everything was fine. Kevin has owned the house for six months and so far no flickering lights, no weird scratching, no nothing.
When Dean left it was with the promise that they would go out for drinks sometime in the near future and that if Kirk had anymore questions about the homes/neighborhood he would come see Kevin again. See – charming!
Dean settled into his beloved Impala and headed towards the motel he'd seen on his way in town. He'd never forget when he'd gotten that car. His dad had given it to him when he was 15 and a half. The same day he got his temporary license, and on his 16th birthday, right after Dean got his license John legally signed the car over to him. But that car had been his since he was 2 years old and everyone knew it. The first two words Dean had put together were 'my' and 'car'. And while he was never an overly demanding child he would point at the car and look up at his mom and dad and say "my car" on an almost daily basis. That is, until his mom died, because that's when everything changed, because as far as John (and Dean for that matter) were concerned, that was the day that Dean Winchester became an adult.
When Dean got to the motel he got a room, or rather Kirk Hammett got a room he could pay for daily as he wasn't sure how long he'd be there.
Dean entered the room that was like so many others he'd stayed in with his father and even Sam before he took off. He dropped his stuff at the foot of the bed before pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to call his dad who was working some job in Florida, or at least he thought it was Florida, when John agreed to let Dean go on this job alone he'd been so excited he hadn't paid much attention after that. Oh well he thought entering the numbers and listening to the rings. That was the deal – Dean could take this job as his own but they had to check in with each other at least once a day.
Dean told his dad all about what he found so far and John had immediately suggested more research. I hate research Dean thought to himself but instead gave a simple, "Yes, sir"
When all was said and done it was late and Dean was tired so he found so old movie on TV and half heartily watched it wiling sleep to take over.
Dean woke up ridiculously early the next morning and watched TV for a while before getting up and getting ready to go. While he was pulling his shirt over his head he could hear the TV he'd forgotten to turn off switch over to some TV show where a mom was dropping her kid off a college. Taking tons of pictures, and buying a fan and a tiny refrigerator and tons of other things the kid would never use.
For a split second Dean's mind went to Sammy. If Sam would have just told Dean, yeah he would have been angry for a while but he would have gotten over it, would have wanted his little brother to be happy. He would have driven him to Stanford and bought him things he'd never use.
Dean picked up his cell phone and highlighted 'Sammy Cell' and stared at it for a long moment before slamming the phone shut and shoving it in his jacket pocket. No, no he would not call Sam again. Dean had called Sam a total of 7 times since he'd left. The first being only 2 months after he'd gone and the last being on Sam's latest birthday. He'd left short messages on his brother's phone each time and Sam had never once picked up or called him back. He didn't want to be a part of this family anymore - fine. He thought he could just walk away, pretend he was normal - the hell with him.
Dean went to the local library and did all the research he could on the house and legends surrounding it and what he came up with was that the man who had the house built 14 years ago was named Robert Slinger and he had since died. That's it, no details, so basically he had a whole lot of nothing. Until, that is, he asked the cute librarian, Karen, if she had ever heard anything about the home.
"It's this stupid legend…" She started flirting with him with a shy smile. "They say the man who had that house built was murdered there two years after he moved in and that he's so mad that he couldn't live there anymore, he hunts the place, so no one can"
Dean smiled slyly and looked up at Karen, "Do you have any idea where that man is buried?"
"Why?" Karen laughed.
"Curiosity" Dean shrugged.
"Well, curiosity killed the cat" She smiled
"Damn good thing I'm not a cat" Dean smirked. Dean talked to Karen for a little while longer but aside from her phone number didn't get much more information.
Dean drove to the local cemetery and looked all over for the name Robert Slinger. This is insane, Dean thought to himself. He could spend all days at that cemetery and not cover half the ground, and for all Dean knew there were more cemeteries around town. Dean shook his head before leaving the cemetery and going to a local diner. There he met Shawnda. He stared a conversation with her that just happened to veer to the direction of the house. After 20 minutes and 3 cups of coffee Dean figured out that Robert Slingers younger brother lived about an hour away.
Dean drove to the younger brother, Eric's, apartment. He told Eric he was Mark Evans (bassist for AC/DC, but he didn't need to know that) estranged friend of Robert who just recently heard of Robert's death and wanted to pay his long overdue respects.
Eric told him that Robert was buried in a family plot that was part of a small cemetery back in Robert's home town, about 20 miles from the house Robert owned and died in.
When Dean asked Eric about Robert's death he clammed up. Said he was found in his house, dead, long, deep cuts all across his body and when Dean thought back to his preliminary research, that's exactly how all the victims in the home were found.
Dean left Eric's house and drove to the small family plot. It was surrounded, houses on one side, a grocery store and some apartments on another and the rest of the cemetery on the others. Dean really didn't want to have to dig this guy up to salt and burn the bones where there were this many people who could see. "So, we'll call this the back up plan" Dean muttered to himself.
When he left the cemetery he went straight back to the motel and called his dad, "I think I'm figuring this out" Dean said happily into the phone. Their conversation went on, Dean told John about what was happening with him and he asked John what other ways you could stop and angry sprit. John told Dean all he knew of how to purify the house itself and he told Dean of the job he was working. This is how it's supposed to be Dean thought to himself before thoughts of Sammy worked themselves into his head. Dean willed them out and focused on his dad's voice.
"You be careful" Dean's father told him.
"Yes, sir, you too" Dean added, receiving a chuckle from his father before he folded the phone shut and setting it on the nightstand.
When Dean woke up the next morning he waited until 11:00 and then went to Kevin's house. The surprise of seeing Kirk Hammett again was evident on the man's face when he invited Dean back into his home. Dean sat in a chair across from Kevin and took a deep breath while contemplating exactly how to tell this man that he needed to perform an ancient wiccan ritual in his home so he wouldn't die.
"Do you know the history of this house?" Dean asked looking the man in the eye. "The deaths that have happened here?" Dean asked wanting to know exactly how much convincing this was going to take.
The man shrugged his shoulders a bit, "I know people have died here, and I've heard ghost stories, that it's hunted or some such"
"What if they're not just stories, I mean why did you buy this house knowing its history?" Dean asked getting the feeling that something was not quite right.
"I don't believe in ghosts" The man said simply. "Now, I'm sorry to have to cut this short be I'm meeting with some friends in a little while and I really need to get ready." There was a pause, "If you don't have anything to do, you could come with" Kevin added.
Dean nodded his head, "Oh, no thank you" Dean answered. He had the unexplainable feeling that something was not right so instead of going with what he planned and telling the man that his home was haunted Dean left the home and went back to his car.
Dean got into car and drove to an ally. When he got there he went into the trunk of his car and he grabbed everything he thought he might need. Everything his dad told him he needed for the ritual, a gun loaded with rock salt, two knives, some books of information he thought he might need, he strapped a knife to his ankle and shoved a gun in the back of his pants. Hey – better safe than sorry!
Dean left his car in the ally so Kevin wouldn't see it and walked back to the house. He hid outside until Kevin left then snuck inside the house. It took him all most twenty minutes just to get thing set up and he wasn't 5 seconds into the actual ritual when he heard something hard and heavy hit the floor behind him. Dean whirled around to see random things falling from their rightful places to hit the floor with too much force. This is not going well Dean thought to himself.
The objects began to swirl around him, too fast for Dean to do anything. Periodically and without warning objects would fly at Dean hitting him, causing deep cuts where the landed and scratched down his body. After a few seconds that felt like hours a laptop computer slammed into Dean with enough force to knock him over. Dean crawled out of the house throwing a quick look over his shoulder hoping absently that Kevin didn't come home.
Dean moved as quickly as he could to the Impala and drove to the cemetery. Time for the back up plan Dean grabbed a shovel, rock salt, and lighter fluid from his trunk and slammed it shut hen he remembered all most all the rest of his stuff was currently residing in Kevin's living room.
Dean walked to the grave and being unable to think of a better way to do this shoved his shovel into the hard ground of Robert Slinger's grave. Dean dug as fast as he could but the guy was six feet under and Dean was only one man so even being as late and dark as it was, Dean did attract some unwanted attention. A woman that lived in an old house behind the cemetery and could see him from her window walked out and over to the fence that separated her back yard from the cemetery. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm umm, I work here, at the cemetery, there's just something that we have to check with this casket" Dean said and laughed internally at the cover-up that sounded stupid and unbelievable even to him.
The woman clearly didn't believe him, "Well why are you the only one out here, that's quite a bit of digging for one person"
"We're just a little short staffed at the moment and…" Dean shook his head, "Okay, clearly I don't work here, and I'm not fooling you, but I swear I'm not doing anything wrong"
"Grave robbing is wrong" The woman said harshly.
Dean had to bite back the urge to laugh, no mama, I'm not grave robbing, I just want to light this guy on fire then I'll be out of your way, oh yeah, that would go over great. "I'm not robbing him"
"Then what are you doing" The woman asked.
"Nothing" Dean answered, "just…you know…digging"
"Cute" The woman answered clearly not amused.
"I can't tell you what I'm doing but I can tell you that I'm doing it for good reason" Dean offered.
The woman shook her head and walked away. What was that, did I win? Dean thought to himself. Dig fast he thought to himself.
About 2 hours later Dean's shovel hit the casket. He pulled it open and threw salt all over the decaying body. Dean's head shot up as he heard something moving around. Upon seeing that his visitors were cops he poured as much lighter fluid on the corpse as he could before slowly and silently stepping out of the grave. He lit his Zippo and threw it into the grave and watched it erupt into flames before running back in the direction of his car.
Dean got back into his car and drove back in the direction on Kevin's house. He sat in the car and looked in the mirror. He looked like shit, cuts and a few bruises on his face and he was sure on his body. Now that his adrenalin was wearing off he felt about as good as he looked. Dean sighed before pulling his jacket out of the back seat and shrugging it on in an attempt to hide as much of his hurt as he could.
Dean walked up to Kevin's house hoping he would still be out but, no such luck. Dean knocked on the door and when Kevin answered Dean could see all the stuff on the floor and his things lying around. "Hey, Kev" Dean smirked. "I just left some stuff here" Dean pushed past Kevin not even acknowledging the questions he was being asked. Dean threw all his stuff in his bag then went to walk past Kevin again. When Kevin gave some complaint about the mess Dean responded with, "Greater good, dude, greater good" before simply leaving.
Dean called his dad. They agreed to meet at a motel in Athens, Tennessee since that was right about exactly in between the two of them. After they'd left the apartment they'd been in when Sam announced his college plans they'd never gotten a new one opting instead to just jump from motel to motel taking jobs as they came and staying only as long as the job lasted. Having a home base was really only ever for Sammy anyway, so there was no point in continuing to base out of one place for any longer than the job lasted.
Many hours later Dean arrived at the motel to find his father all ready there. Dean went to their room and sat on the left over bed and talked with his dad for a while, they talked about John's job and Dean's. And about how Dean's job had been a bit harder than expected. At that point John Winchester had to face the reality that his son was a great hunter, and he was going to have to let him take more solo jobs. But he also realized that he didn't have to worry so much, his son was a good hunter with good instincts, and he was going to be just fine.
With the TV still on both of the Winchester's fell asleep.
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This took a little longer to get out than I thought it would becaise originally this was going to posted as 2 or 3 seperate cahpters but I ultimality decided I wanted one longer one but had to finish it before I could submit. So, hope you liked it, the next chapter should be out within a week and please please please review!