Personal Authors Note: Mild to moderate changes have been made to all chapters and I suggest re-reading them. Some refining and additions made and this chapter has probably been reworked the most. Also this chapter is written entirely in Dean's perspective, seeing as it's more difficult for me it was a bit of a personal challenge. Feel free to tell me how I did. See Chapter One for disclaimers and warnings.
Chapter Three, Darkening Dawn
After dawn, Dean figured it was safe to leave Cyn alone to sleep in the room, that or he'd risk waking her with his restlessness. He could remember from her days hunting with he and his father on the road, when he and Cyn had shared a bed, that she was a very light sleeper. When Dean had asked her about it, all she would tell him was that, yes, she had been a light sleeper all her life. There where many nights that he'd woken Cyn from what appeared to be a dead sleep with his constant tossing and turning.
Not wanting to risk waking her now, especially since it wouldn't have the same nice possibilities for fun once awake as it would've in their past, and Cynthia obviously really needed some good solid sleep. So, fidgety, Dean slid into his cloths a little after dawn carrying his boots and socks in hand as he headed quietly out of the room and downstairs. As Dean's nose was tickled by the smell of fresh coffee he scoffed, unsurprised at the sight of his brother with bed hair and a coffee mug in hand, behind his laptop. They shared a silent look nodding before Sam went back to the laptop and Dean headed for the kitchen and coffee.
Snorting in disbelief at the sight of a fresh fruit salad in a covered bowl in the fridge that Sam had apparently thrown together with coffee that morning. The bowl hadn't been there the night before and some of Cyn's fresh fruit was missing, Sam was such a girl, Dean thought to himself with a snicker. He contemplated several disparaging remarks for his brother but decided to keep them to himself since he knew Cyn would enjoy it for breakfast when she woke. Grabbing half a dozen ingredients from the fridge, Dean went about throwing him self a manly omelet together, while drinking some coffee.
After wolfing it down, he joined Sam in the office/library section in the front of the house to join in on the research. After finding out Sam had been up since daybreak and that he'd found nothing yet, they quietly went back to work. They had a variety of different sources to check on the net to see if they could find anything like their guy. Sam had spent the night fruitlessly combing over their dad's diary to see if he ever mentioned hunting anything like this and watching over a sleeping Kimmie, so neither of the girls was alone during the night.
"The girls sure are sleeping late." Sammy commented around twelve thirty.
"You probably would too Sammy, if you'd just had some of your life force sucked outta you." Dean replied sarcastically.
"I can't believe we still haven't found anything. Do you think, maybe we should call dad?" Sam asked looking up at Dean with big inquiring brown eyes that hadn't changed much since Sam was young.
"Right, cause he is so easy to get a hold of lately." Dean replied rolling his eyes at the thought.
"Yeah, but, Dean, he sent us on this one. If Cyn is really that important to him, which you never fully explained by the way. How did she get dad to break his number one rule?" Sam asked Dean in confusion, Dean smiling at the memory.
"He'd picked up on a Black Dog in this little vacation spot in Washington. There had been three different fatalities in the area, two 'wild animal maulings' and one 'car accident' being the most recent. A Black Dog had killed Cyn's parents in that crash, jumped on their car, killing her mom and father in front of her. If another car hadn't driven by when it did and driven off the Black Dog she would have been killed as well." Dean said shaking his head.
"So dad talked to her?" Sam asked and Dean nodded.
"She wasn't in a very good place at the time. She was vocal about it not being a car accident and that something killed them. No one listened but when she talked to us, she was upfront about what all she saw. It was obviously hard for her and she was still really freaked out by it but she made sure to tell us everything.
"Dad and I staked out her place since we knew the Black Dog caught her sent and wouldn't stop until it had killed her." Dean told him laughing to himself as he remembered what had happened shaking his head. "One moment, we were watching her moving some firewood and the next we had these two great big German Shepherds staring us down growling like they wanted to tear out our throats. So long as we didn't move, they wouldn't act like they were going to actually attack, just waiting for Cyn to show up. She called them off and invited us in since we 'insisted on hanging around' the two dogs following her around like shadows." Dean told him.
"Dad got caught by two dogs?" Sammy said with a smile and soft laugh. "How'd he handle that?"
"Well, let's just say, he fell in love with those dogs. Dad told Cyn what was going on, with the Black Dog and when she found out what was happening she offered herself up as bait. It was obvious the Black Dog scared the hell out of her but she wouldn't let that phase her one bit. I never met a braver girl in my life, she'd stared one of those things in the face after it killed both her parents and was almost been killed by it. She knew it was sheer luck that she survived and yet was still willing to go back for more.
"She wanted a shot at it too but most of all she just wanted it dead. So we set it all up and laid in wait for the Black Dog to come for her. Everything seemed to go wrong and Cyn almost died, her dogs distracted it long enough for her to get away, giving their lives. Dad injured fatally it before handing the gun to Cyn and letting her take the kill shot.
"Afterwards, she told us that she planned to find out what she could about the supernatural and hunt evil stuff like we did. Dad tried to talk her out of it, but she was insistent, in the end he felt it was better to keep her with us and train her so she didn't 'get her fool self killed' as he put it too her." Dean said with a smile.
"Wow, I just, I can't believe it." Sam said shaking his head a small smile on his face.
"Believe it, Sammy, those too, they got close in their own way. Dad always thought of her as a daughter, treated her like a part of the family. She got him to open up in a way I had never seen before, got him to laugh and smile again, brought a little life back into the old man." Dean said shaking his head at the memory sadly.
"Cyn and I got close when we were working her case and we just naturally drew closer over time. Dad found out and he told us 'don't let it interfere with your job' and that if we were 'going to act like adults we'd better behave like them to'." Dean told him.
"So dad gave you his blessing. Wow. So what happened? If you guy's got so close how'd you two break up?" Sam asked him and Dean frowned.
"I messed up. Cyn and I had a bad case and we both let our feelings interfere with our work. I got my ass handed to me, and Cyn almost died, I'd tried to do the job myself. Knew Cyn fit the profile for the spirits victims and if she got near the body she'd be a prime target. So I went myself and ordered her behind, surprisingly, she listened…at first." Dean shook his head standing to pace.
"She showed up and the spirit did what I thought it would, more or less zeroed in on her. I destroyed the remains just in the nick of time and when we got back to the hotel I went across the street to the local bar. I got plastered before walking back, a mission in mind. I was breaking it off and things somehow escalated then, both of us doing and saying things we both regretted, no one more so then me." Dean told him.
"So, it ended badly." Sam stated more then asked.
"Bad enough that she wasn't willing to call me for help on this case." Dean told him shaking his head. "I messed up big time, Sam, even dad knew it when we met up the next time and she wasn't there. I could tell she hadn't called him and told him what'd happened, he was surprised at first and asked me where she was. I told him we'd broken up, then he just gave me this look and shook his head sadly, not saying a word."
"These kinds of things happen in relationships, Dean, especially young ones. You can't blame yourself, it takes two people." Sam told him.
"Trust me Sam, that fight was totally on me." Dean told him shaking his head. "What I did to her Sam…I pray dad never finds out."
"Why, what did you do, Dean? It couldn't be that bad." Sam assured him faith for his big brother obvious in his voice.
It crushed Dean, the thought of ruining that faith but he needed Sam to know. He wanted Sam of all people to understand exactly what happened that night between them. Little as Dean liked sharing it, Sam was the one person he would tell, the only person. He and Sam had always been close, that was why his brother leaving for collage had felt like Sam was leaving him.
"I was drunk, which wasn't an excuse. She tried to reason with me at first, but I was too angry to let her. I called her all kinds of names and kicked her out in the middle of the night. Finally she went off eventually telling me that maybe it wasn't a bad thing Mom wasn't here today to see it." Dean told him Sammy's eyes widening in shocked surprise, a small spark of anger behind even Sammy's eyes at the words.
"What'd you do, Dean?" Sammy asked in a small voice, sounding like he might already know and just wanted Dean to tell him he was wrong.
"I was so mad at her it was like a knee jerk reaction, totally devoid of thought. I hit her Sam backhanded her hard enough to knock her off her feet, and Cyn can take a hell of a punch. It was like getting punched myself, seeing the blood on her mouth and knowing I put it there. I sobered up in that instant, but it was like time froze and by the time I snapped back Cyn was outside on her bike gunning it to life. I tried to call out to her but she either didn't hear or didn't care." Dean told Sam eyes down so he wouldn't see the disappointment there in his kid brother's eyes.
"I should've called her endlessly until she would answer or call me back. I should have tried to tell her how sorry I was for everything but I never did. I was too damn cowardly to face up to what I had done. I don't know how she could ever forgive me for the way I acted." Dean said dry washing his face.
"Dean, as far as I can tell, she already has. Cynthia doesn't seem the type to keep a secret buried grudge. If she was still pissed I doubt she would have spent the night in the same bed with you." Sam reminded him.
"Yeah, Sammy, she more or less said she's forgiven me. I remember the look in her eyes though, as the blood spilled down her chin from her lip. She smiled at me, smiled Sammy, and said thanks that she was happy I'd done that. That at least now, she knew what kind of a basterd I was before she wasted any more years on me." Dean said shaking his head as he recalled her burning words (despite the time, and the emotional turmoil and copious amounts of alcohol involved).
"She may have told me she forgave me Sammy, but she will never trust me, not like she did before that night. I know Cyn and I know some small part of her buried deep inside, is never going to be able to forgive me for it." Dean told Sam voice full of self-loathing.
"Obviously the only one who could change your mind about that is upstairs sleeping, so I'll drop it. For now." Sam told Dean serious brown eyes pinning him in warning. "Now, why don't we try calling dad? He sounded really worried on the phone, and like I said he did send us on this case, Dean. I mean, you talked to him too, I don't think I've ever heard him that worried before."
"I have, but yeah, I get your drift dude. Maybe, get he'll back to us or who knows maybe he'll actually answer his phone." Dean joked standing and grabbing his cell keying up his dad's number.
Dean wondered out to the front porch remembering from his one trip here with Cyn in the past that cell reception was best there. After his father had agreed to train Cyn he and his father had taken a short break to give her a crash coarse. She'd needed to come home for her parent's funerals and to take care of her house. After finding out that her house, sat atop a hill alone surrounded by forest his dad decided it would be ideal for most of her training.
It had been a pleasant surprise to the two Winchester men training her, what a natural Cyn had been to it. She'd actually taken archery in high school, took track, and had two martial arts under her belt. She was already highly athletic and in the end, it had all been more like a vacation for the three of them then anything. They had all worked hard yes, but they were all doing stuff they genuinely enjoyed doing.
The only dark point had been her parent's funeral, which both men attended to support her at her request. They had gotten a fair share of looks from locals and close family friends but Cyn had either ignored them or brushed them off. She had toughed it out throughout the funeral, wake, and dinner that night making jokes and burying the pain like him. It wasn't until late the night when he'd heard her crying up in her room, he'd ended up spending the night holding her while she cried. Dean would never admit to the fact that his cheeks had been wet too as she cried against him.
It had brought up a lot of buried emotions for him and thinking back Dean was sure it had probably done the same for his dad. He'd never really cried over his mother's death to young to understand the concept well enough. He'd just tried to be tough for his dad and brother, but that night a few tears fell for his mother and Cyn's lost parents. It was the first night of many they'd spend together, at first not doing much more then sleeping, until things eventually progressed. It was the morning after when his dad saw him coming out of Cyn's room that he'd given them his 'talk'.
They had only stayed three weeks at her home but it was the best three weeks of Dean's adult life to date. Waking up mornings to Cyn cooking breakfast in the kitchen and joking with her father, the sound of his laughter sometimes carrying up to his room. It had all felt somehow right to Dean, in a way he hadn't felt since he was a small child and his mother was still alive. When they had finally left Cyn wasn't the only one looking back longingly at the house.
Dean didn't really care that much about the cell reception, it wasn't really why he'd come out on the porch. It was more of an excuse to get some privacy when he left a message to his dad not really expecting to get him to pick up. Then again, Sammy was right about one thing, their father had been worried when he'd called them. The only other time Dean remembered hearing that kind of worry in his voice was when he talked about Sammy alone in the world at Stanford.
Their father really did consider Cyn part of the family, took her on as a surrogate daughter after her parents death. They had quickly found that they could depend on Cyn to watch their backs after her training and that they worked like a well oiled team together. The only time that Cyn and his dad had ever argued was when she had calmly informed them, that she planned to be a hunter like them. His dad had blown up and Cynthia hadn't been surprised, she more or less took it in stride. For every argument his dad came up with she had an equally good counter argument ready, stopping his dad's in their tracks.
She told them that now that she knew what was really out there in the world the best thing for her to do was to learn to protect herself. That meant learning to fight and kill her enemies learning their weaknesses and habits. She told his dad that she hoped he would help her but regardless of whether he did or not, her mind would not be changed. She'd caught Dean a little out of the blue with it all as well, even more surprised when twenty-four hours later his father returned to tell her that he'd train her.
It had been an interesting added element to the relationship Dean had with his father. They had a woman around suddenly who was nurturing, loving, and yet could scold either man with just one look. Cyn became another one of his dad's good little soldiers, following his orders and spouting out 'yes, Sir's' in the appropriate places. She did ask more questions then Dean, though unlike Sam she waited until after the hunts, and John seemed more indulgent towards them then.
During their hunts together Cyn had gotten in under John's armor and gotten the man talking again and opening up. He was telling stories about his late wife Dean never heard before and wished Sam had been there to hear. Cyn even got him to laugh and joke around with her and Dean in ways he hadn't since the boys were very little. The years of hunting had worn on him and made him colder and harder but some how Cyn had helped find the man still under all that.
It had all nearly vanished when she had gone, all that work she'd done opening his dad up. She called his dad half a month after vanishing on her bike into the dark night, letting the man who had become her surrogate father know she was okay and sorry for not calling him sooner. Dean remembered it like it was yesterday, glancing over in surprise when his father said his ex-girlfriends name into the phone he'd just answered. A mixed ball of emotions in Dean's stomach and throat while a warm smile spread over his dad's face and he gave a loud chuckle Dean hadn't heard since she'd left.
He remembered his father had talked with her for half an hour about what she was doing now. Cyn had promised to keep in touch with his dad and called him at least once a week if not more. As far as Dean knew the two of them never discussed what happened between her and Dean that night, and Dean was pretty sure his father would've walloped him a good one if he'd found out. Most of the time his dad hadn't been able to help being right in the middle of their fights since they worked together and lived in close quarters most of the time but in this case his dad seemed to believe it was best left between the two of them.
Dean ran a hand threw his hair as he looked out at the bright slightly chilly day outside. It was the wind chill factor that felt below freezing making Dean wished he'd shoved his feet in some socks at least before coming out. He wrapped his free arm around himself and tried to create some friction for warm, knowing that despite how they felt his arms would be taking care of them selves. Counting off one ring, after the cell in his hand connected, then another, Dean mentally preparing a message in his head.
"Dean?" His dad's worried voice coming over the line, live, momentarily stunned him.
"Dad?" Dean replied voice clearly surprised.
"Who were you expecting?" John asked voice sounding almost amused.
"You're voice mail. I didn't think you'd actually pick up." Dean told his father honestly.
"Dean, I've been waiting for your call. This is Cynthia, I've been worried of course I'm going to pick up." John replied voice sounding a little offended.
"Of course, sorry, dad. You've just been hard to reach lately." Dean told him.
"Dean, we don't have time for this right now." John told him in a stern voice.
"Right. Look, dad, Cyn's in trouble." Dean told him bluntly.
"I know Dean, I got the call. Why do you think I sent you boys over there? Now, tell me what going on." His father ordered him.
"Three girl friends of Cyn's have died. They are being attacked, raped and marked by this thing that for all appearances looks like a man. The only clue left is a handprint on the victim's neck, which disappears when they die." Dean told him stopping when his father interrupted.
"And what're they authorities saying?" His dad asked him.
"Police think it's more or less natural causes, doctors still can't even pin down a cause of death. They say it's like the girl's hearts just, suddenly, stopped working. Cyn and her friend Kimmie have been attacked once already, by the pattern, they have two more attacks until they are killed. Accept, Cynthia's attacks are different, she thinks this thing is trying to make her like him." Dean told his father mind churning as he tried to recall if he was forgetting anything. "His pattern is speeding up now as well."
"This isn't good Dean." His dad told him, voice clearly worried. "She's beset by a succubus that wants her as his mate."
"Great, so you know what is, how do we kill it?" Dean asked him feeling a bit of hope.
"You don't understand, Dean, you can't kill it. You can banish it, to keep it from returning to her but then she'd go into a fatal withdrawal from the energy this demon is feeding her. In order to save her it has to die, but the only thing that can kill a succubus is another succubus, Dean." John told him.
"What, how in the hell are we supposed to do that?" Dean asked angrily.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Dean, it's impossible. Succubae are territorial, which is why they mark their victims, so the other's will know and will leave them be. They don't fight each other for food though, as far as they are concerned, there is plenty to go around. They have disputes over territory only, rarely do you every hear tell of two succubae actually killing each other." John told him.
"No, there has got to be away to help her, dad." Dean argued.
"I've never run across anything Dean. You know if I had even the smallest of leads I'd be on it. I'd put everything aside until Cynthia was safe and sound. She's been a light in our life's since she entered it, I'm not ready to let her go yet either Dean." His dad told him voice choked with emotion.
"Your talking like she's already gone! It's like you're giving up on her, like your not even going to try!" Dean exclaimed in a heated voice.
"Oh, Dean, I'm so sorry." John told him voice full of sadness. "I wish you didn't have to go threw this."
"So help me, talk to your friends. Someone has to know something dad, they have to." Dean told him.
"I'll look into it, of course I will. But if it gets bad there, you'll be doing her a favor, son. You know how Cyn would feel about becoming one of the things she hunts, Dean." His dad told him.
"I know, just, don't say it." Dean begged him.
"It has to be said. If it comes down to it Dean, your going to have to kill Cynthia." His father told him voice dark and ominous.
It was like everything was shutting down inside Dean at the words, like his brain just couldn't compute that bit of information. Sure Dean had killed a lot of things, had imagined killing all sorts of evil to protect Cyn in the job, but this was unthinkable. His very heart and soul where crying out against it in denial, it just couldn't happen this way. Dean had sworn the moment he was sure Cyn was hunting with them that he would do anything to protect her and keep her safe.
That long ago drunken night Dean had thought he was doing just that, protecting her from his family and it's curse. He'd hoped she'd even quit hunting but somewhere inside of him he knew it'd always be a part of her. He wasn't surprised when his dad had filled him in the night she'd called him, saying Cyn was still on the road hunting. They had shared a worried glance at that bit of information, he and his father, until Dean had lowered his eyes from guilt and shame.
Dean wondered now, if he had done things differently, he might not be here now. If he'd never kept himself from calling her or dropping in on her maybe she would have rejoined them. Maybe the succubus would never have seen her or gone after her friends if she hadn't been back at home. How could he know things would go so horribly wrong that night, that they would still be feeling the ripples even now?
tbc ('lovely cliffhanger, don't you thunk? Little bit shorter then I'd like, but it's for the sake of the cliffy', maniacal laughter)
