Solitary Man – chpt 7
by: sifi
"Dean! Talk to me!" Sam called out and for an instant Dean felt like hanging up. Let him worry for a change, see what it feels like… selfish freakin' bastard!
"Yeah I'm here…" he groaned sitting up and dusting the cubes of safety glass off himself, "Damnit! Lost another window! My poor baby…" he stroked the dash and watched a trio of police cars whip by, closing in on the hospital. In his ear, Sammy was rocketing questions he felt more than just a little disinclined to answer.
Turning the rear view mirror after patting himself down to make sure he wasn't sporting any deadly holes in his person, he looked for the source of the blood on his face. He wiped the side of his head which now bore numerous scratches from the glass as it shattered.
"Shut up Sam…" he snarled feeling the heat of his anger boiling up from his depths, "Just shut the hell up… I don't even know why I'm bothering to talk to you…"
"Dean… I'm sorry…Look I promised dad I wouldn't call you, I wouldn't talk to you until we figured out a way to handle this but I couldn't…I couldn't keep it…" Sam stammered.
Dean felt his belly quiver as a shaky chuckle of disbelief huffed quietly out, "Dad was in on this?"
"Yeah… look Dean there's stuff going on you don't know…Where are you? Are you in Chicago?" Sam pleaded.
He palmed the blood off his face and sighed watching his hand tremble while his lips started to go numb from pressing them together so hard and he nodded, "Y'know what Sam?"
"What?" Sam asked almost timidly on the other end of the line as Dean pressed 'end' and shut the phone off.
"Later," he breathed and pulled out of the parking lot.
"You know you already forgive him…" he heard Laura's voice smiling softly in his head, Yeah, I know…and thank God he's alright…but I'm so damn mad right now… let him sweat a little. "I suppose that's probably fair… it's not nice… but it's probably fair," Yeah, it's fair. He nodded to himself and drove out of the city proper where he found an inexpensive motel for the night.
--
Dean sat in his room, sheets of information spread on the table before him deep in the process with the pen in his mouth and the T.V. on in the background. Sam always crabbed that it was a distraction while he was doing his research or fact checking but Dean found it soothing. Silence was a distraction to him. A pinch in the new tissue on his belly drew him out of the comfortable dark recess that was his nap.
He sat up straight feeling his spine pop in a few places as he did so and looked at the clock on the nightstand. 9:21… still early…that's good…I think I saw a bar down the street when I pulled in… I think it's time for a little fun, hustle a little pool, throw some darts, maybe pick up a girl…his belly clenched inside at the thought, Yeah… that'd be great, get another innocent person killed…oh man! his breath stopped in his throat, Laura and Cassie…Laura will probably know enough to be on the look out…no "probably" isn't good enough… he pulled out his cell and dialed Laura first. He didn't know whether or not he'd get her voice mail, but when it kicked over he wasn't surprised. She was after all, working a case. He left her a message to keep her eyes open just in case whatever was doing this was targeting people who meant anything to him and reluctantly disconnected the line. He dialed Cassie's number, his mind racing as the phone on her end rang, Yeah, this is gonna be great… hi Cassie… how've you been? Has anything evil come to try and kill you and carve things into your corpse? Oh well, I just wanted you to know that could happen cause you know, we had a relationship and there's something out there killing and carving women I've cared about or… slept with… he shook his head and pursed his lips. The phone kept ringing, Oh God… please answer please answer please answer please answer…. He thought, prepared to visualize the worst as the answering machine finally clicked on.
"Cassie! Cassie it's Dean pick up if you're there!" he instructed firmly, waited a moment and repeated himself.
"I'm here… I'm here Dean…hold on I just gotta put this bag down…" she answered breathlessly, "…there…okay, I'm back… what's up?" she asked.
Dean sighed audibly and began to break the news that she could be in danger. He spent the next twenty minutes on the phone with her as she fortified the doors of her house with salt and made the rest of the place as secure as possible, just as he instructed.
Once he was satisfied that Cassie's corner of the world was as secure as it could be considering the circumstances, he sat scrolling through his phone book, counting but continuing past the ten messages from his brother, the most recent being about an hour ago. He needed to put names and faces to locations and thereby approximate dates. I should call him back… or at least answer the next time he calls… he thought then noticed something a little strange, Huh…go figure…well it's not like I've really been myself since the…Since the night we almost died? the harsh little voice inside him sneered, yeah… since then. Still, that's kinda weird…but I didn't even know her then, he thought. The night he'd spent with Trish had happened on a relatively routine haunting he and Sam had taken care of sometime between that whole Tulpa thing in Richardson Texas, and the issue with the Merchant Family Portrait that had nearly killed Sam and Sarah.
But it was before Meg almost getting us dead… so it was definitely before Sarah…huh…From that night with Trish to now…Let's see, there was Brandy and her friend Marissa in New York…yeah, nice night…he smiled to himself and nodded wondering if he should call but running up against a mental kind of brick wall, they don't even know about any of this, Trish was a friend of the family that was being haunted…crap… so what do I do? he wondered, Go to the bar, hustle some pool, get a few bucks into your pocket and head to New York first thing in the morning. He nodded swiping his jacket off the chair and left to do just that.
--
Sam pulled into the Stevenson Motel his eyes grainy and bleary as he put the car in park and dialed Dean again.
He'd gotten over his incredulity that Dean had hung up on him, and that he'd apparently shut off his phone, and that he hadn't told him where he was when he'd asked. The only plus at this point was that a receptionist at the Cook County Medical Examiner's office had confirmed Dean's arrival at an appointment there this afternoon. Yeah…cause Chicago's such a one horse town I should see the car as I drive right through Main street… damnit! Dean I'm sorry… but you gotta forgive me, you gotta return one of my calls, or at least listen to the damned messages! Please let me catch up.
Through the last ten messages he'd left on Dean's voice mail he'd explained over and over again what little they knew about whatever it was that wanted him broken, and he wondered why now, why for this first time he'd actually done what his father suggested and left his brothers side. Because it came from Shep that's why…Damn that man, he knew exactly how to manipulate me! That's that 'need to know' mentality again, man have I had enough of that! I'm so damned angry I can't even talk to him right now! he stopped short and chuckled to himself, Probably pretty much how Dean feels about me…damnit! To use one of his phrases, this sucks out loud!
He stepped from the car grasping his bag and meandered through the darkened lot into the office to check in.
--
Sparky's bar and grill was NOT one of those happening places a person couldn't resist going into. Dean looked around at the hard worn faces of the men and women around him. He recognized this kind of a crowd, they had their regular place at the bar, it was always the same ones that played the music and the same ones that passed out or shambled drunkenly out the door to narrowly avoid killing someone or themselves in the few short blocks between the bar and home. He shook his head, chewed on his pen cap and returned to the task at hand as the mid-forties trying to look mid-thirties bartender refilled his whiskey, slid her eyes over him in a way that made him oddly uncomfortable and fished out the two fifty from his small stack of cash under his coaster, before swinging her hips a little harder than necessary while returning to the bar proper.
A cheer went up at the bar as a local baseball game was won or lost depending on which team had been bet on and a cloud of smoke puffed past him as someone opened the door. He shook his head and returned to his list. He was making good headway, honing down the list, ruling out gender, location, and timing as his primary signals.
"Dean?" he startled and felt the hand drop onto his shoulder.
"Sam!..." he gasped standing off the stool, unable to stop the enormous grin that told his baby brother the most basic of truths, he was happy to see him and he'd been forgiven. All it takes is a look. Sam nearly felt his knees buckle when Dean grabbed him about the neck and hugged him quick and hard. "Dude! How'd you find me in a crap-hole like this?"
Sam shrugged, "The car… she… kinda sticks out… Dean I'm sorry… have you listened to any of the messages I've left you? If what dad was talking about is true then you're in serious danger man…" he said quietly while Dean motioned the bartender for two more drinks.
"No, I've been a little busy trying to figure out what this bastard's next move is gonna be, who he's gonna go after now that he's got my attention… the research has been a little slow going since my partner freakin' ditched me three days ago!" he growled too low for the other patrons to hear.
"How many more times do you want me to say I'm sorry? Do you want me to get on my knees and beg…" Sam asked.
"Dude in a place like this? You get on your knees for anything besides tossing your cookies and God only knows what these folks are gonna think's goin' on…" he joked.
"What happened to your head?" Sam asked smiling at the jibe. If Dean was already messing with him, it was just further proof he'd been forgiven.
"Some damned stray bullet shot out my baby's window by the morgue…did you check in somewhere or just start cruisin' the streets looking for classic cars? Cause you know there's more than a few of 'em in this town…" Dean asked.
"I'm at the Stevenson Motel, just down the street a bit…" he answered and grimaced shifting uncomfortably on his stool as the bartender brought their drinks over and reached for Dean's cash.
"He's buying this round," he instructed placing his hand over his money. "Pay the lady Francis," he cocked the corner of his mouth and piled his papers together in some semblance of order so he could go over them with 'Professor Peabody'.
Sam shook his head and dug out a bill for the woman who winked at him and did the 'hip sway' thing again. Sam watched her walk away trying to hide a look that said, 'my milk has chunks in it…'
Dean noted the look and smiled softly before smacking Sam on the arm, "Hey, look what she has to look at from day to day man… we're a treat,"
Sam shook his head and blinked hard a few times before smiling tightly and feeling his heart pound hard for a second. "I guess… look Dean we need to get back to the motel, we'll pick up some beers or something…" he gasped and clutched at the table, his throat tightening as huge fireworks started going off in his head.
"Sam?" Dean asked watching the color literally wash out of his face as he clutched the edge of the table. A vision? "Sam! What's wrong?" he leaned in close to his ear, "… is it a vision?"
Sam shook his head, bucked off the stool which flew clattering across the entryway catching the unwanted attention of the patrons at the bar who simply sat there staring at these unknowns as if they each had two heads.
"Sam?" Dean barked feeling his weight in his arms as his knees buckled and his body tensed.
Dean looked up, "What the matter with you people! Somebody call an ambulance!" he barked as Sam's eyes rolled back into his head and he began to seize.
At the bar, half a dozen cell phones were picked up as Sam's face turned gray before Dean's eyes. His little brothers' eyes took on a milky cast and Dean's heart began to race, "…it's a Reaper… son of a bitch! Sammy? is it a reaper?" he asked but Sam was already too far gone. He no longer struggled for breath but his body continued to seize and the gray became mottled with vivid patches of blue and purple on the surfaces of his visible skin.
"Sammy!" God he's dying in front of my Goddamned eyes! Somebody help me! he grasped the youngest Winchester to him, tears flooding his eyes and spilling onto his face as Sam's body slowly stopped convulsing and in the stillness that had filled the bar Dean heard the faintest shallow hissings of air passing through his Sam. "No… please God... don't do this to me…I need him…"
--
tbc.
Please….opinions of those I care about matter…
Thanks.
sifi