The problems with picking Sam Winchester as the target, he quickly realizes, are as follows: the dude is massive (seriously, talk about the Incredible Hulk's more attractive and less green cousin), apparently has more martial arts under his belt than a Street Fighter character, and only, apparently, gets really pissed off when someone starts crapping on his brother. And Trent learns all of these simultaneously, when he threatens Thing 1 and immediately ends up face down under the hand of a giant, pissed off Thing 2.
He has a taser, so it all works out- for him, of course, not so much for the guy on the other end -but he would have preferred not have the wind knocked out of him considering he's not really at peak athleticism here, and he also has to drag this numbskull down an entire flight of stairs alone.
Well, anyway. He manages. It takes another round of tasering- break a few eggs to make an omelet, yada yada -but he gets Thing 2, with copious swearing, groaning, and complaining, down the small set of basement stairs and shackled up before he starts to stir.
"You got him." Brian's voice filters down the stairs, and Trent squints in annoyance. Of course Brian arrives just as all the heavy lifting comes to an end. His friggin' brother, swear to god. He weighs like, twice as much as Trent and still manages to quicksilver his way out of doing anything that isn't categorized as friendly torture. "Taser?"
Trent slaps it into his brother's hand, grumbling.
"Anyway," Brian continues, handing the taser off from one hand to another, back and forth as he casts a perfunctory, dismissive look at Sam. "You know what you have to do?"
"Yes," Trent mutters irritably, still annoyed that his brother left him with the dead weight. He hadn't even really wanted to do this; they'd been living alright in the Williamson house, taking it easy, but Brian had gotten bored and curious and nothing good happened when Brian was bored and curious.
Thing 2 is blinking, but he's not all there; Brian certainly isn't about to make his life any easier. Trent just does what he has to, but Brian actually... well, enjoys it. Sick puppy always did like throwing rocks at birds as a kid. "Are you sure about the location of the amulet?"
Brian's hands slide into deliberate stillness, eyes cutting toward Trent and yep, Trent feels that one slice right down to his core. "My intel has never failed me," Brian says coldly. Trent's never been able to keep eye contact when Brian stares into him like that, but what else did he expect (re: sick puppy)? In any case, Trent decides, an amulet that supposedly grants the wearer silver immunity is way too valuable to pass up; at least in that aspect, he agrees with his psycho brother.
He leaves behind a pile of Trent-shaped skin and steps into Sam Winchester's, easy as pie. Between the two of them, they strip Sam down easy enough, leaving him in a white t-shirt and boxers and Trent with like, fifty layers of clothing.
He'd been warned about it being angst central up in Sam's head, but between the dead mom, the dead dad, the dead girlfriend, and the soon to be dead brother, Trent thinks this might just be the most screwed up meat suit he's shifted into- and the last guy had had rabies.
Of course, he had been pre-rabies Trent. Post-rabies Trent was not a good look.
"Keep me updated," Brian says distantly. He's playing hot potato with the taser again, and the last thing Trent catches a glimpse of as he trudges up the stairs is Brian narrowing in on Thing 2, light jumping at the bit as it crackles from the Taser. He can't help a wince of sympathy; if Thing 2 gets out of this alive, it's not gonna be easy adding taser torture to the Angst List.
—
Dean, as it turns out, is incredibly easy to find. In the time that Thing 2 had come to investigate the house that Trent and Brian had been ... occupying, Dean had both picked up intel on shifter incidents around the suburb of East Aurora and had basically explicitly stated in a voicemail that he was "at the diner with the waitress who looks like Betty Boop, but boopier." God. Trent knows of the diner, though (for ... completely unrelated reasons), and dimples a smile at the waitress as she greets him. Trent's never been greeted like that a day in his life; he hadn't found Sam quite as movie-star attractive as his brother, but as he's deluged with a wave of, "oh, isn't he just the cutest," from a table of little old ladies having their Sunday gossip, he realizes that he actually has something going with Sam's shaggy hair and dimples.
Dean's grinning at him when Trent plunks down into the seat opposite from him, trying to get used to his too-long legs. He feels so gangly, yet ... graceful, somehow. "Aw, Sammy. Looks like you made friends. Hey, maybe, uh, Dolores over there will take you on a date to bingo night."
Petulance is key. Trent knows how to be a worried little brother.
"Don't call me Sammy," he snaps waspishly, his palms already sweating. If they're investigating shifters, what's stopping Dean from testing him, right here, right now? But Dean just levels a smirk at him that's one part surprised, one part indeterminable.
"Now that's something I haven't heard in a while. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed, Sammy?"
"Everything sucks, Dean," Trent snips back, Sam's bitch face amped to ultra-high. Using a lethal move this early in the game is just to get Dean convinced that this is his brother- he can take it easy once Dean's lowered his guard. "You're going to Hell, how am I supposed to ever wake up on the right side of the bed?"
That shuts Dean up, but only for .4 seconds. "You wanna talk about this now?" He asks dubiously, though there's something guarded tighter than Fort Knox in his expression that Trent reads like a children's book. Trent's good at reading people; that's why Brian dumped him on this task. Dean's obviously not all that keen on Hell, but who would be. It's Hell, not Disneyland. "In this good old slice of Americana? Come on," Dean laughs easily, clearly avoiding the question as he carves into his bacon.
"You're right. We should never talk about it," Trent snipes sarcastically, eyeing the bacon. Based on Trent's prior surveillance, Sam's a bit of a health nut; what a goddamn shame. He sighs, picking at the eggs, and Dean eyes his every movement shrewdly. Trent wonders idly if this is part of the whole 'being the older brother' thing, watching Sam play Whack-a-Mole with his fork and a chunk of egg; it seems boring as Hell.
"Sammy, you gotta eat something," Dean says after a minute of silence, his leg knocking against Trent's. It's a weird feeling... For Trent. But not for Sam. Trent thinks it's nice, actually. Brian never really talked to him all that much, growing up; he preferred mostly to play target practice with knives and apples and the top of Trent's head. The familial nudge brings him pause for a minute as he stops playing chicken with the eggs (ha-ha). "Did you find anything out when you were chatting with the Williamsons?"
"Yeah." Trent nudges the plate away with the tip of his index finger, politely ignoring the way Dean's lips thin at the movement, and then folds his hands together. For such a big guy, Sam certainly skates by eating what Trent would definitely consider ... Nothing. Mostly. He's not really sure how the Sasquatch squatches with this little in him. "Turns out there's this amulet," he says, pausing for dramatic effect when Dean's eyebrow arched upward. "Gives you silver immunity."
He waits for the pin to drop, and drop it does. Dean just blinks for a moment, then snaps his mouth shut. Open, close, a couple more times. Then, he seems to compose himself. "Well, that's pretty not-good."
Trent snorts. "What brought you to that conclusion, Einstein?"
Dean's eyebrow quirks at the jab; Trent winces. Too far, perhaps?
"C'mon, Sammy," Dean says generously, the tick to his mouth just this side of pissed. "I know it's you versus the world today, but you don't have to knock me down just 'cause I'm not a collegiate."
"Well," Trent says sarcastically, Sam's expression bitchier than ever. "As it turns out, neither am I."
A few seconds tick by. They stare at each other. Trent wonders if maybe he might have misjudged, if he needs to rein it in. He untangles his hands, rests them against denim-clad thighs, and sighs.
"Sorry," he offers, olive branch extended. Dean stares at him for a moment but grabs it, letting his shoulders relax ever so slightly. The edge in his gaze softens. "I'm tense. Because. Well, yeah. Anyway, I was thinking... Dad's lock-up, we don't really know what all he's got in there. We might actually have that amulet in our possession already."
"Hm." Dean responds to the proffered explanation with an accepting grunt, back to snarfing down the bacon like it's a precious and depleting natural resource. "We might. Ain't that lockup just a little while away from here? It's in Buffalo, right?"
"23 minutes," Trent says, just a little too eagerly. At Dean's double eyebrow-raise, he hastily adds, "I looked it up at the library on the way here. We should probably go take a look, just in case. If those shifters get a hold of it, I don't imagine anything good will come out of it."
The sharp grin Dean lances his way just about dances with the eagerness to go kill something. Trent gulps, reminding himself that he's Sam, now; he doesn't have to worry about being the hunted. He's a hunter. He smiles back, trying not to reveal his squeamishness at the obvious eagerness dawning on Dean as he thinks about killing them. Then again, he realizes, sifting through Sam's memories, Dean would dislike shifters; it's not pretty, all this impersonation. It usually ends messy, or...
(Trent remembers the boy they've got locked in the basement of the Williamson house, at the mercy of Brian.)
...Bloody.
"Well," Dean smacks a few bills on the table, winks at the waitress, and slides his wallet into his back pocket, all smooth as butter as he makes his way for the door. "We better make sure that doesn't happen, then, eh Sammy?"
Something Trent realizes real quick is that Dean isn't just some ordinary brother. He's always hovering by Sam like the threat of cooties on a kindergarten playground, doing little things here or there that Trent quickly notices are woefully lacking from his own oh-so-brotherly relationship. Well, not that he would call Brian brotherly by any stretch of the means; by name and name alone, Brian is his older brother. But if Dean's actions are the standard for how older brothers usually act, then it makes Trent and Brian seem like passing strangers.
It's little things- thwacking Trent across the shoulder with a newspaper, flinging paper footballs when Trent's not paying attention, rolling an inconspicuous bottle full of Tylenol across the table when Trent rubs his forehead in the way he thinks Sam might when he's reading something. He's doing the finger equivalent of a brush to sweep back his hair when Dean reaches out to violently ruffle it; it doesn't do much, considering Sam's hair has this weird and magical quality of just returning to resting state no matter what happens to it, but it sends a shock of weird incompleteness through Trent. It's weird, and he hates the feeling.
Oh god, does Sam have rabies, too? What's happening to him?
"Dean, er," he clears his throat as they make the drive, his hands quaking nervously around the Icee he's holding. It's ridiculous; his throat had felt a little sore earlier, and the second he'd said as much to Dean, the other had mysteriously both found a gas station with cough drops and picked up an Icee (blue raspberry, because he's a hunter, not a heathen) for Trent. Dean hadn't even hesitated or asked Trent if he was just being overdramatic, a whiny bitch, pathetic... It's downright foreign. He slurps at it as Dean cuts his gaze toward him questioningly, finger ticking out to drop the volume from ear-hurt to conversational. Truthfully, Trent doesn't really have anything to say; there's just a lot inside Sam. It's almost too much to keep to himself, and it keeps bubbling up to the surface. "Ab... About Hell."
Dean turns up the volume- a warning.
"Just er," he says lamely, because it's kind of been eating him- and maybe Sam, too, though it's hard to tell in the muddled mess of memories -"I mean, do you regret it? Your decision."
Trent's a shifter. He's met ghosts, he knows about cold spots. None of those experiences hold a candle to how quickly the temperature drops in the Impala when the words leave his lips. He swears he sees his breath puff up when he exhales. The music suddenly feels like it's rising in a crescendo, emanating doom! doom! doom! signals as Dean's knuckles pitch white around the steering wheel. He's snipped a nerve, he has to have. He once watched 127 hours- that zinging at the nerve cut? That's how he feels now.
"No." Dean says, in a strange tone of voice that somehow combines bone-deep resignation and profound disbelief at once. "Is that what's been going on in that freaky head of yours? You think I don't wanna talk about Hell 'cause I regret making a deal for you, Sammy? Newsflash-" He mutters something, but Trent doesn't catch it. He's not sure if he wants to catch it. He makes the plunge anyway.
"C-Come again?" he questions, twisting hair between his fingers. Dean's gaze flicks toward him, and then, just like that, his expression smooths out. Some sort of choke-hold lifts from the environment of the car, and Dean reaches out to amp the volume back up with an easy, practiced shrug. "Is everything okay? Dean?"
"Peachy, Sammy," Dean answers easily, but there's that same, guarded tightness in his voice as there'd been earlier, and Trent knows he's not getting anything more out of Dean. He feels like he needs to say something else, something to bring them back, something to- to placate Dean. Placate himself. He realizes, with no small amount of horror, that he doesn't like the fact that there's this tension between them. There's this bizarre need to fix it, make it right, but he's not sure if that's Sam speaking or Trent. Maybe both. It's no secret to him that Brian doesn't care about him past pawning him off for jobs like this, but, Trent realizes as he squeezes his hand to grip Sam's shirt over his heart, this is different.
He's not sure he can- wants to give this up. Yet.
"You can talk to me about anything," he eventually settles on, aware of the thinly-concealed desperation in his tone as they pull up to Castle Storage. He glances aside to catch the blue and red logo in his peripheral, looking back at Dean just in time to catch the older Winchester just... looking at him. Brows furrowed, like he wants to say something but isn't sure how to put it into words. "Just... Yeah," he finishes lamely, now twisting harder at his hair. "Cause I'm your brother."
"No chick-flick moments, Samantha," is Dean's cheerful response. He sounds- normal, maybe, or maybe default is more the word. Trent scrambles out of the car, his expression screwing up slightly as a peach-pit of discomfort unfurls in his stomach. This is it- the final round of this game. This is where he offers to hold onto the amulet, waits just long enough for them to get back to their motel, and then sneaks off to take the amulet back to Brian. In and out. Easy-peasy. All the surveillance, the stalking, the waiting... Well, it's gotta have some sort of payoff. "Well, don't just stand there, come on!" Dean bellows invitingly over his shoulder as he makes his way toward the lockup, and Trent startles, his feet moving on their own as he quickly follows Dean's fading footsteps.
Dean's obviously gone through this rodeo before; Trent follows in his footsteps as Dean navigates the lockup, searching the shelves and using his knife to hesitantly prop open box lids to look for the amulet. "Hey, Sammy. You know what this amulet or whatever looks like?"
Yeah, he knows; Brian's intel had been on point, as usual. His brother never does anything in halves... Well, he never does anything outside of being a brother in halves. It's a black amulet on a gold chain, braided over with tiny golden threads in neat, criss-cross patterns. It's supposed to smell a little like sulfur, an agent that destroys silver... Or in this case, is wound up with magic that repels the effects of silver for a shifter to skate past hunters, unscathed.
"Think it's uh, like a pendant on a chain," he says vaguely, furrowing his brow like he's pretending to think.
"You gotta headache or something?" Dean asks, swinging his flashlight toward him with an arched eyebrow.
"No, why?" Trent's started to sweat again, because now he's not sure if he's being tested or not. He just shakes his head, hoping he doesn't look too nervous or guilty. "Just, uh, thinking... Trying to remember."
"You're giving me your headache face," is the other's response as he goes back to searching. Something like a cramp takes residence in Trent's stomach at the comment, because- seriously? The concern is almost too ... much for Trent to bear. It has to be some kind of trap, it has to be, because there's no way Dean just knows- Knows Sam's tiny facial expressions so well to know exactly how he's feeling at any given time. Nobody is like that. Brian hadn't even been like that when Trent had a debilitating migraine after a shift, once; in fact, his brother had just stepped over his body since Trent had taken the fall in front of the kitchen and blocked the way. He feels cramped- afraid -but yet yearning, somehow, wanting to be around someone who's this in-tune to him always.
"What kind of chain is it on, Sammy?" Dean asks, looking around the storage room with another inquisitive glance in Trent's direction.
"Black... And it's got a purple pendant." he blurts out, but no, that's wrong. It's a gold chain, and he knows that. He's so busy fretting he doesn't even notice that Dean's pulling out his gun, but his spine prickles when the sound of the weapon being cocked resonates around the room. His heart's in his throat as he looks down the barrel, and for just a beat he's possibly relieved that it's over, that he doesn't have to lie to Dean anymore.
"What's your game?" Dean says, all deadly angles now. "And before you lie, this puppy is loaded full of silver, and I'm done playing the waiting game. Turns out I'm not that patient." He takes aim, right for Trent's heart; Trent knows Dean's not gonna miss, not this shot. "My intel's pretty spot-on itself, so. Either you have no idea what the amulet looks like or you're lying, and if I've gotta start plugging you with silver until you speak, well," Dean's mouth twists. It's probably Trent's least favorite expression on him, this unfiltered hate (and all directed at him). "You're lucky you're even alive, considering how much you seem to be enjoying your meat suit."
There's a quaver in his hand, and Trent realizes, abruptly, that Dean's hiding that he's afraid.
"Your brother's alive," he assures for some reason. Dean's expression unfathomably darkens, and Trent's not sure why, until, well. Dean has no way to know this, but in Sam's case, being alive probably isn't doing him many favors right now; though, the older Winchester seems to guess it based on Trent's expression. "When did you find out? That I was..." He trails off, and Dean gauges him for a long moment.
"This isn't some sort of teatime conversation," he snarls, pacing around Trent like an agitated predator, but after a moment, he mutters, "I was suspicious from the beginning, from the second you told me not to call you Sammy. I gave a friend a call earlier, while I was out waiting for you by the car, just to figure out what the amulet looked like or if it even existed. Thought I'd find it, hand it over to you, see what you'd do with it." He hesitates, then pauses, while Trent reels at the realization that Dean is just as good an actor as he is. Better, probably. Dean's next words come out like an afterthought. "Then the hair."
Trent's hands reach up to pet his admittedly fluffy head in confusion. His hair? Had he styled his hair wrong? How could he have, Sam was right in front of him for reference. At his restlessness, Dean smiles, but it's sharper than a steel-edged sword and completely mirthless.
"The twisting thing. Pulling and twisting your hair."
It's just too much.
"I was supposed to get the amulet," he admits, lowering his hands slightly. Dean stops in front of him, still razor-focused on him with the sort of intensity that Trent sees in Brian's gaze when he's got his prey fixed in his sights. "Y'know, pretend to be Sam, get the amulet, take off in the middle of the night when you were asleep..." Dean's mouth twists at that, and the words obviously strike some nerve that Trent's not aware of. "...So you'd be none the wiser. We kept Sam alive, because..." His expression contorts into a rictus of distress as he looks down at his feet. Brian had said that if Trent had failed, somehow, then they needed Sam for leverage- plan B. But shifters generally tried to avoid that kind of confrontation, instead choosing to do their work slyly and undercover, so a hostage situation wasn't exactly ideal- especially with Dean's reputation of pissed-off protector preceding him. More of a chance they all die if Dean decides he wants to shoot first, negotiate later, than, well, only Trent getting found out and dying. "My brother didn't really have faith in me not to mess up, so... he's keeping Sam as leverage."
Dean's expression darkens, and Trent thinks- this is it.
"Well, then, I'm taking you as leverage. Move it." Dean barks, gesturing toward the door, and Trent finds this so unbelievably absurd that he just begins to laugh.
"Brian doesn't care about me." Yep. Still hurts to admit. "You're not going to get much out of this trade-off."
"Why wouldn't he? You're his brother, aren't you?" Dean's still glaring, but his brow is furrowed like he can't imagine not immediately wanting to do a brotherly trade-off. He clearly doesn't know Brian, not like Trent does.
"My brother's kind of a psychopath," Trent says conversationally, his expression pinching in a way that makes Dean huff and avert his gaze. Right, he's still wearing Sam's face... It's probably just weird, now. "He doesn't care about anything or anyo-" He leaps back just in time as a bullet buries itself just inches from his foot, deliberately. "What the hell, man! I'm just warning you!" he appeals, but Dean somehow looks even more pissed-off than he had just two minutes prior.
"Listen here, you son of a bitch," he hisses, wasting no time in striding toward Trent. Trent backpedals as Dean bridges the gap between them, until they're pretty much sharing a bubble. "First of all, you're roaming around wearing my brother's skin, second of all, you get all up in our business with all that- that crap about Hell, and finally, you're telling me that my brother is locked up somewhere with some psychopath who apparently doesn't care about anyone. Shooting you isn't just in the cards- it's something I'm going to enjoy," Dean jabs the gun toward him, and Trent winces at the harshness of the words. Something about his wounded expression on Sam's face has Dean pinwheeling back slightly, exhaling out an angry breath. "Stop- making that face. Stop making Sam make that face," he demands, clipped, and Trent tries to school his expression. It doesn't work; he's scared as Hell, and it's on his face. Dean doesn't lower the gun, but he takes a couple more steps back and curses under his breath, something about puppy dog eyes and whatnot. "We're getting Sam, and you're directing me," he barks, gesturing with the gun again. Trent's legs do that thing where they just walk on their own again, directing him out and toward the Impala with Dean close behind.
Once they're on the road, Dean's one hand on the wheel and the other still curled tight around his gun, he grits out another question. "Why the hell were you trying to play therapist with me?"
Trent rubs his chest, uncertain of how to answer without ending up dead on the side of the road. Well, he realizes glumly, that's probably where he's ending up anyway, so this is just delaying the inevitable. At least if Dean shoots him here, he won't have to worry about facing Brian. "I have Sam's memories," he mutters, and Dean skewers him with a vicious glare. "I can't help ... accessing them, they're always there. And with Sam, it's like... I feel like a pressure cooker. There's just so much... Something in me, it's like it just came out."
"Resentment, probably," Dean says, so quietly that Trent barely catches it. Though, the word sparks realization.
"Fear," he says instead, and Dean's eye twitches almost imperceptibly. "Fear that you made the deal... that you're going to Hell... that he's going to make you regret making it, eventually."
"Stop," Dean barks out, and Trent's jaw snaps shut. They drive in silence for a moment, with Dean muttering so quietly Trent can barely hear what he's saying; if he has to guess, they sound like threats. Well, at least he isn't the only little brother that's going to get chewed out this evening. "What's the deal with your wackjob brother?"
Despite how he feels about Brian, something like defensive protectiveness flares up in Trent regardless. "Don't call him that." he hesitates. "Well, er..." Didn't erase the fact that he was a wackjob. Unfortunately. "He's just... Wired differently." That's how they used to talk about it when they were growing up, at least. Brian is 'wired differently,' Trent, so don't antagonize him. Don't upset him. "Little things... Piss him off. But when he gets mad, he's not like... Like you, y'know, pissed off and all in your face. He just goes all quiet and you kinda gotta uh, figure out what you did wrong."
Dean's quiet for a minute. Only a minute, before he says, sarcastically, "Must have been great growing up with him."
Trent laughs, but a little hysterically. "Let's just say that if you don't kill me today, he just might." Well... No, maybe not. Dean seems like the type of person who'd put a quick end to Trent, whereas his own brother would probably take it slow, carving Trent's every transgression into his skin before leaving him to bleed out. Or keeping him as some experimental pet. Fear suddenly seizes him, gripping and cold, and he speaks up, finally, just as they're pulling up, headlights off, behind the house. "Hey, do you really need me for this?"
Dean just glowers at him. Trent mourns the friendly gestures from earlier. "You're my leverage. You're not going anywhere," he says, fingers flexing around the gun like he's waiting for Trent to try to book it. "Also, I'm not letting you go. You know I'm a hunter. This is what I do. Get rid of monsters. Like you."
Okay, ouch. But Trent barrels on. "Er, I know. But I was wondering if you could just do it now."
Dean isn't expecting that, because he straightens up, his hand actually loosening around the gun. A better monster would've grabbed the gun and finished him, right then and there. Trent's not a better monster, not really. He doesn't want to go inside, to face Brian again. He doesn't know how many failures it'll take before Brian just murders him, and not in a humane way, so to speak. He's terrified of his brother, he's terrified that this will be Brian's final straw. "What are you talking about?" Dean edges out, now just looking puzzled.
"I'd rather not go in and face my brother again," Trent explains, wringing his hands not unlike a distressed maiden. "To be honest, I think it'd probably be better if you just took me out here."
Dean looks ... Well, he looks like he doesn't know what to do. For a long moment, he just looks at Trent, thumb absently sidling over the muzzle of the gun as he seems to be thinking through his next decision.
"Listen, man," he says after a beat, and Trent's stomach sinks. "I need you to get my brother back, so. No can do." Well, it was worth a shot (literally), but unfortunately for Trent, Dean's wheedled out the best path to his brother. But, unbeknownst to Dean, he's in for a rude wake-up call, considering Brian cares very little about Sam's well-being and even less about Trent (and how pathetic is that?). "C'mon, get out. I ain't got much time and ..." His jaw ticks, muscle jumping. "I have no idea what condition Sammy's in, or if he can even help get himself out of this."
Trent's not sure what expression he's making, but whatever it is, it causes a thundercloud to overcast Dean's.
Dean's great at multitasking; he keeps one hand and the gun trained on Trent while he picks the lock to the back door with the other. He barely even needs to look at the doorknob, and he's probably at it for like thirty seconds before the door slides open with a brisk whisper. Dean sends Trent on in first, gun resting against his back like a warning as he directs him toward the basement stairs. The guy moves like a whisper behind him, brisk and easy, and it's like- it's like doors oil themselves around him. It's like the dude has some weird hero luck going on.
Brian's upper body twists as Trent makes his way down, his brother's pale eyes meeting his expectantly before drifting on back to meet Dean's. He barely moves from where he's crouched behind Sam, like he's not at all afraid of Dean, and in fact allows his gaze to move back to Trent's. That's when Trent's regularly-scheduled, Brian-induced heart palpitations pick up restlessly. Dean takes one look past Brian's shoulder to see Sam, battered and barely conscious in his undershirt and boxers, and Trent feels himself get hoisted up.
"Sam?" Dean calls his name out like a warning. "Sammy, can you hear me?"
Sam just groans, and something that could've been a smile in another life, maybe, flickers across Brian's otherwise generally expressionless features. "Sorry, but he's a bit indisposed." One of Brian's hands twists into that fluffy mass of hair, winding around shaggy curls and yanking upward so they can all see electricity leap just centimeters from Sam's neck as he shields himself behind the younger Winchester. Dean's fist tightens in Trent's shirt. "Are you going to risk it? This is a quite lethal voltage."
"You think I can't shoot you or your brother faster than you can shock Sam?" Dean questions softly, but there's something undeniably murderous in his tone despite its quiet deliverance that causes a spark to leap down Trent's spine just like the Taser's spark. It's like Dean's yelling.
"I think it's a dangerous gamble," Brian yanks back even harder, and Sam makes an unhappy groan of a sound that makes Dean tense. He releases Trent, and Trent, still looking more like Sam than Sam himself (considering his clothing), sheepishly makes his way down the stairs as Dean keeps his hands up and in view of Brian. Sam's not looking great; there are bruises blooming over his jaw and cheekbones, and his fingers look bruised and purplish and one is definitely bent in a way it isn't supposed to be. Trent winces in sympathy; Brian's played the finger-breaking game with him before, and it's a game only in name. Trent had only left Sam hours ago, but the younger Winchester already looks worse for the wear. "Attaboy," Brian praises, drawing a cold snarl from Dean. "Now here's how this is going to go. You're going to run along and get the amulet that my useless brother miraculously didn't obtain, considering I did all the heavy work, and I'm going to keep an eye on your boy here, since we're having so much fun." He rattles Sam, not being all that careful with the taser, and Trent feels Dean tense mutinously beside him at the movement. "I can't risk going myself, considering all the nifty little traps daddy dearest probably has in place."
"Or," Dean offers coldly, like he's detached from his words and far away from the situation he's stuck in, "You release my brother, and I kill you now instead of coming back with the amulet and killing you later."
Brian laughs like Dean's being amusing, but his brother hasn't laughed genuinely for years. Maybe once, Trent remembers, they might have had fun together. But the memories of those days are fuzzy, so disconnected that Trent's not sure if they're real or if he's just making them up, cobbling them together from the memories of all the other people he's shifted into just for some semblance of the brother relationship he's always wanted. "Hand over your gun, Dean. Don't make this draw out any more, it'll just be embarrassing."
Dean tenses, but his shoulders lower as he looks from Brian to Sam to the taser, which hovers precariously near Sam's heart. After just a moment of consideration, he draws his gun out and slaps it aggressively into Brian's hand with death in his expression. Brian's eyes cut from Dean to Trent, and the sly little smile's abruptly replaced by that cold, placid mask that Trent's always been so familiar with. He's so caught up trying to convey his apology for getting caught that the crack of the gun going off doesn't register until it's all too late.
"Son of a bitch!" he hears behind him as he stumbles back into the wall, looking down at the red blooming over his- Sam's plaid shirt. Oh. Brian had shot him, with silver, and it burns. It burns bad. He goes down in a clatter of limbs, taking in the action without really seeing what's going on; all he can kind of parse out is that Dean manages to knock the gun out of Brian's hand- it clatters somewhere between Trent's arm and Dean's foot, but he can't manage to move his limbs toward it whatsoever. There's a tussle that he watches through lethargic eyes, but it ends bloody and fast; Dean slams Brian's taser-holding hand down, once, twice, thrice until his brother releases the taser, and then the older Winchester's reaching backward to grab the gun.
There's another crack.
To be honest, it's around here where Trent sort of realizes this is how it ends. He's no hunter, only a wayward monster who'd gotten caught up in a lot of bad, too quickly. Wasn't Brian's fault, though- Well, not all of it. Sure, his brother had been violent and brutal to him growing up, but that didn't mean Trent hadn't stuck around despite knowing as much. He'd stayed because Brian was his brother, because he always sort of hoped he'd be able to change him. But here they are, at the end, and all Trent is is relieved. He hadn't even wanted to really do this, maybe just find a nice dead person to copy and live as, not really bothering anyone, but more than anything, he just wanted what Brian had never given him.
"It'll be over soon." Dean's voice is low, and it cuts through the tired hubbub of Trent's brain. His voice, despite being somewhat bedraggled and coarse, still bears something like pity. Trent sleepily watches Dean's palm rest against the side of Sam's head and decides Dean must be acting all concerned because, well, he did just watch his brother get shot, in a way. That couldn't have been easy. Trent's gaze moves slowly from Dean to Brian, who's laid out in a careless sprawl that's just hard to look at it. He feels wetness well up in his eyes, but hey, he's dying, so it's not like he can't be excused for crying.
"'S my brother," he feels the need to say, like he's trying to convince himself. God, Brian. He was going to kill- he did kill Trent over a screw-up. He should've known, anyway; there was only one amulet, and no doubt Brian would have wanted him to be the guinea pig who wore the amulet just to make sure it actually worked. In the end, Brian would've just taken the amulet, anyway.
"With a brother like that, who needs enemies." Dean murmurs, somewhere off to the side. Trent thinks he makes a sound that could probably be mistaken as a laugh, or something. He's right, of course.
"Thanks," Trent thinks he manages to say. He's not sure Dean actually knows what he's thanking him for; it doesn't matter. He dies like that, on a breath of gratitude, just inches away from his own older brother.
In another life, maybe.
With a sigh, Dean pulls his gaze away from the Sam slumped against the wall, dead, to his own Sammy. It's weird, seeing Sam dead in any capacity; Dean quickly realizes he needs to get out of there. He honestly can't believe things actually turned out the way they did- sure, he'd been looking for an opening to kill, and yeah, he hadn't been planning to let either shifter out of this alive, but still... Son of a bitch had shot his own brother. Who did that?
Sam makes an aching sound under his hand, squinting about the room like he does when he's trying to understand the world around him. Dean huffs affectionately, gently hauling Sam up to lean against him. They've got a long flight of stairs to get up, and they need to start now. It's no easy task, lugging a Sasquatch around.
As he passes Sam's body- shudder -he hesitates, before pausing in front of the downed shifter. Sure, the dumb kid had aided in kidnapping his brother, which is usually grounds for murder for Dean anyway, but ... Well, with an older brother like that... Jeez. Couldn't have been easy. And anyway, the kid hadn't attended the Shifter School of Douchebaggery and gone for Dean's throat when he was acting like Sam, so... There's something to be said about that.
Dean doesn't give him much more than that. Seeing Sam like that, weak and hurt and at the mercy of a taser, is an image Dean wants to put out of his head pronto, and the kid had played a part in that, willing participant or not. But still... Even with their crap luck, with everything they have to deal with, with Hell looming in the not-so-distant future, well...
At least with the brother thing, they'd gotten lucky.