A/N: Were you guys getting worried? Life got crazy, but I'm still all in if you are. So, this chapter totally steals a line from one of my favorite all time shows, Doctor Who. Smile if you recognize it.
Reviews are love. So is cold medicine, which I need and am about to take. Hopefully, lots of updates this weekend, so stay tuned. I want to get an update up for Tuesday's Child and All The Pretty Monsters, one update on How To Fix A Winchester, and maybe, just maybe, the second chapter of Little Lost Things.
Also, if you are needing a dose of season ten angst, check out my maybe-one-shot, All The Truth There Is In Me.
Because, you know, Supernatural isn't angsty enough or anything.
As Always,
EverReader
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox. Just playing in it for a while.
Prisoner of War – Chapter Thirty Four
"Pretend To Be A Hero"
They searched the bus high and low, to no avail. Dean didn't even spare a glance for the old, tattered bible laying under the driver's seat.
What self respecting ghost would haunt a bible, after all? Especially a teenaged ghost.
In fact, there was little of a personal nature located anywhere on the bus, though Dean did locate a small, wallet sized photo of Dirk tucked into the dash.
"This him?" He asked, looking over at Sam for confirmation.
Sam nodded tiredly. "Yeah. He was sixteen when he overdosed, so that's probably a few years prior."
"Any idea why he overdosed?" Dean asked, studying the picture. Dirk Chambers had been no lightweight, but quite a bit of it appeared to be muscle. It was hard to picture someone his size being bullied...
Sam shook his head. "The newspaper interviewed a few classmates at the time, but no one really had anything flattering to say about him."
"So, you're thinking that he was bullied also?" Dean asked as they exited the bus. A pregnant moon hung low overhead, heavy and orange.
Sam sighed. "Well, that's the weird thing. His grades were so-so, except in shop, at least until they closed the program the fall of his sophomore year. From the sounds of it, Dirk wasn't the one being bullied, he was the bully. According to his records, he picked fights with a bunch of other students, mostly younger, smaller ones. Then, a few months before he died, he got into a bigger fight with another kid, but this time, he lost. He was suspended, and then, a few weeks later, he dropped out for good. About a month after that, he killed himself."
Dean frowned in thought, looking back at the bus. "Sounds like Dirk got a taste of his own medicine and didn't care very much for it. Hey, what are you doing!"
Sam had taken his butterfly knife and stabbed it, hard, into the front tire of the bus. "This bus is going to be full of kids tomorrow, and every one of them is a target unless we do something to stop Dirk."
He preceded to do the same to the rest of the tires, with clinical, methodical precision.
Dean shook his head. The moon cast strange shadows across the landscape of Sam's face, and for an instant, Dean was able to see the underlying architecture, to glimpse what Sam would look like as an adult, once time had worn away the last of his childhood's soft edges.
"Okay, I get your reasoning, but don't you think the next step should be talking to Dirk's dad?" Dean was surprised Sam was so willing to just destroy school property, but perhaps this case was upsetting him even more than Dean realized. School sucked bad enough without it becoming a case, too.
Even before Dirk's ghost had gotten up close and personal with Sam in the old science building, Sam had seemed driven, more so than usually, and Dean was worried that Sam's health was once again going to suffer because of it.
Sam looked up at Dean from where he was kneeling by the last tire. "Yeah, well, this kills two birds with one stone. Now, Dirk's dad won't be driving this bus tomorrow, and since he won't be at work, he'll be at home waiting for you to interview him."
"Waiting for us to interview him." Dean corrected automatically, determined not to give way on this.
Sam's description of the incident at school earlier had given Dean chills. Not because anything truly bad had happened, but because of how easily it could have. Sam had been all alone, and not for the first time, he wished he was still in school with his kid brother.
Back when he had still gone to school, he had hated every moment, feeling trapped, confined. But at least he had always been just a few hall ways away from his brother.
Now Sam was all on his own, and obviously, high school was a dangerous place.
Sam stood wearily. "Dean, I need to be at school in case something else happens there. Plus, I've already missed too much class. Someone's going to start asking questions, and Dad wants to keep using Caroline as a base. That won't work if Department of Family Services is jumping on our asses because I'm always absent."
Dean nodded, knowing everything Sam said made perfect sense.
And...he didn't care.
"Nope." Dean said in a tone that invited no argument. "You're going with me to the interview. I'm through with you playing ghost bait. Besides, you're better with witnesses than I am. I need your help with the questioning."
Sam made a face. "No you don't."
Dean shrugged. "Okay, I don't need you there. But I want you there. Besides, you look like hell, Sam. If you get sick again on my watch, Dad will have my hide. Give yourself a break already. We can do the interview, find whatever it is Dirk's latched onto, torch it, and then you can catch up on your sleep. I don't like the sound of your cough, man."
Sam studied his brother for a long moment before nodding reluctantly, seeming too tired to argue, which made Dean uneasy for all new reasons, because Sam had ALWAYS hated missing school.
"Okay." Sam said, meeting Dean's eyes. "But we have to wrap this up, Dean. A couple of flat tires won't keep a bus out of commission for long."
"It's okay, Sam. We'll figure it out, okay? Maybe his dad is wearing his class ring or something. Whatever he's haunting, it could be with his dad and that's why we can't find it. We can interview him tomorrow, like you said. Then, we'll have our answers." Dean said, determined that they would close this case without Sam putting himself needlessly in harm's way again.
Sam didn't reply, looking away, out the window as they headed back home, and Dean couldn't help but sigh heavily.
Dean knew school had always been Sam's haven, and he wanted Sam to have that back.
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Sam studied Dirk's father with a dispassionate eye. He waited for the usual feelings of pity and understanding to well up, but so far, it hadn't happened.
He hated to be that way, and yet...
He was so tired, emotionally, and physically.
He felt like he could sleep for a thousand years, and still feel tired. Intellectually, he knew that Dirk's father deserved compassion and pity for the loss of his child, but Sam just...didn't have it in him.
He used to have so much mercy in him, so much compassion and empathy.
Now, most days he just felt...washed out, old and faded, like an aged photograph of himself.
Carl Chambers looked much the way that Sam felt. Though comfortably plump, he had a care-worn face, and a demeanor to match.
Despite Dean's words to the contrary the night before, Dean himself took on the burden of the majority of the questioning, and Sam let him, content to simply listen.
"So, was Dirk ever...bullied in school?" Dean said, with a glance in Sam's direction. Sam knew he was surprised that Sam had withheld, so far, from the questioning, since Sam was usually pretty involved in this aspect of the case, but Sam just shook his head.
Dean knew what he was doing. He didn't need Sam.
Carl Chambers grimaced, shifting uncomfortably in his easy chair. "Well, you probably looked at his school records, for the study you're doing, I'm guessing." The man hedged, looking anywhere but at Dean directly.
"It would...really be helpful." Sam finally added as gently as he could, his words sounding empty even to his own ears.
Carl sighed. "What you guys gotta understand is that when Dirk's mother was dying of cancer, it was everything I could do just to keep up with the doctor's bills and keep a roof over our heads. Beth Ann...well, it were ovarian cancer, you see. And it was slow. Dirk was the one who took care of her, everyday, after school. He never said a word, not about how hard it were, or wearing the second hand clothes, or having to eat the free lunches. Then they closed down the shop program. He was hoping to get into a technical program before that happened, but it was like he just...gave up. His grades went downhill fast, and he started to get into fights, but..." The man shrugged helplessly. "I did the best I could. High school kids can be awful cruel, though."
Sam met Dean's eyes, nodding his agreement. Dirk was definitely a good candidate for their vengeful ghost. Everything Carl Chambers was saying only confirmed it. Sam had had no doubts, and Dean hadn't pushed to much in regards to Sam's surety, but he knew Dean felt better about hearing Dirk's story first hand from Carl.
"Carl, where did you bury Dirk, after he passed?" Dean asked gently, and Sam was struck with a sense of unreality, because wasn't the gentle questioning his job?
Dean had a tendency to be brusque and no-nonsense, while Sam had always cajoled the answers out of the witnesses.
Wasn't Sam supposed to be the good cop?
Carl shook his head. "Didn't have the money for another burial plot so soon after his mama passed on. Had to cremate him. Scattered the ashes over the lake we used to visit before Beth Ann got sick."
"Did you keep any mementos?" Sam asked, his voice sounded to loud in his ears after so much silence. "A ring maybe, or a lock of hair?"
Carl looked at him in surprise. "Actually, yeah, I did. I have a lock of hair they gave me at the hospital. It's tied up in a ribbon. I keep it in my bible."
Sam closed his eyes, feeling stupid as he remembered the tattered bible under the driver's seat of the bus.
"I bet you take it with you everywhere." Dean said consolingly, shooting a meaningful glance over at Sam.
Carl nodded. "I'm retired now, so I just do the bus routes. Started last week. I take my bible with me and head to bible study after the morning route. I missed it today, of course, with the bus being out of commission, but it's just as well."
"Why's that?" Sam asked, as if he didn't already know what Carl was going to say.
What they had been looking for had been right there under their noses, and Sam had walked away.
"I was running late last night. I left the bible on the bus, under my seat." Carl said, looking a little bemused at all their questions.
They boys looked at each other in resigned dismay.
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Dean glanced around the bus depot, frowning. He was sure this was the right spot. In fact, if he looked hard enough, he could still make out the faint tracks he and Sam had left in the gravel last night.
So where the hell was bus seventeen? It was only a little after ten in the morning. If they had gotten it back on the road already, they had some damn impressive mechanics.
"Dean!" Dean looked up at the sound of his name being shouted. Sam was jogging towards him from the depot office, looking more than a little grim.
"So..." Sam stopped to catch his breath and Dean couldn't help but wince as he heard the sound of Sam coughing once again, a deep, wet sound that had images of a bedridden Sam dancing in Dean's head.
"Apparently, they have mechanics who actually work fast..." Sam said despondently.
"You're shitting me." Dean said flatly. It was his own fault for thinking it...
"I wish. I told them I was looking for my bag that I left on the bus. It left twenty minutes ago. Their using it for a middle school field trip to the planetarium."
"Nerd heaven." Dean groaned, and Sam didn't even bother to send a bitch face his way.
"Dean, we can't wait. That bible is on that bus, which means Dirk has his pick of victims. Any kid on there is a target." Sam's voice had a tone to it Dean recognized all to well.
Guilt. Sam was blaming himself for things he couldn't possibly have foreseen.
Dean nodded, reaching out for Sam's shoulder. Sam tensed, but thankfully he didn't pull away this time.
"Okay, okay." Dean said soothingly, worried about how worked up this case was getting his brother. "Which way is the planetarium?"
"Highway Seventeen, heading east, towards Clementsville." Sam said, as they jogged over to the Impala. "Dean, hurry."
"It's going to be okay, Sammy. We're know what we're looking for know. We're gonna end this once and for all." Dean said as convincingly as he could.
Sam shook his head in self-recrimination. "Dean, I looked right at that Bible and didn't think a thing of it."
"Don't, Sam. So did I. How were we supposed to know Daddy dearest found Jesus and started using a piece of his kid as a bookmark? It's freaking creepy, that's what it is."
Sam didn't reply, but Dean could tell from the look on his face that he was still blaming himself.
They had only made it a few miles down the highway when they saw the bus pulled over to the side of the road, flashing it's emergency lights.
An older man, most likely the bus driver, was already laying splayed out on the ground, blood seeping from an small cut near his temple. Dean just hoped that was all it was, and that the man wasn't already the next victim.
The seeming culprit, a smaller kid, was currently clinging to the back of a much, much larger kid, doing his best to apparently throttle him, while his wide-eyed classmates stared out the windows, agog.
"No way that kid's a middle schooler..." Dean muttered as they got out of the Impala. "Look at the size of him!"
"Focus, Dean..." Sam said in a chiding, professional voice, as they warily circled the two fighting boys. The bigger kid should have had the advantages of both height and weight on his side, but Dirk's ghost was super-charging the smaller kid, who looked practically rabid.
Dean lunged in, wrapping his hands around the possessed kid's waist and pulling at the same time that Sam swooped in from the other side, wrestling the smaller kid's arms away from the bigger kid's neck.
The smaller kid released his hold, springing down in a way that almost reminded Dean of an angry monkey. He eyed Sam and Dean ferally as his victim slumped to the ground, thankfully still breathing.
"Sam, I'm gonna lead him from the bus. You go get the bible." Dean ordered, citing their standard play for a situation like this.
Big brother lead the monster away, little brother got the victims out, or torched whatever was anchoring the angry spirit. Dean had always been adamant about how these scenario's played out, which was part of the reason the showdown in Merit had upset him so badly.
Sam nodded once, curtly, to show he understood, and began to ease for the door of the bus, but the moment he moved, the possessed kid swung about to face him, growling like a dog who's territory had been invaded.
For a second, both brothers froze, before the possessed kid let loose another snarl.
"Yeah. Not gonna be an option, Dean." Sam said, assuming a defensive position.
"Hey!" Dean snapped at the ghost, trying to garner it's attention, but it's focus never wavered, eyes still locked on Sam.
"Looks like he likes me." Sam said in an emotionless voice. "I'll lead him this way. Get the bible once we're clear."
"LIKE HELL!" Dean exclaimed, because damned if he was going to purposefully use his little brother as ghost bait.
"Not the time to argue, Dean..." Sam half-sung uneasily as he began backing away from the bus, the possessed kid keeping eery time with him, step for step.
"Shit-shit-shit-shit!" Dean muttered furiously to himself, eyes locked on the tense duo backing away from him. "Don't engage him unless you have to, ok?, Just lead him a little further-Shit, where's your knife?" He said, suddenly realizing Sam didn't even have any weapons drawn.
"He's just a..." Sam jumped back as the smaller kid took a swing at him. "A kid, Dean. I'm not going to hurt...him." The kid swung again, and Sam jumped backward, this time only clearing the kid's arm by about an inch.
Dean forced himself to look away, knowing he had to stop the ghost, and that meant getting his ass in gear. As much as it went against every single code in his DNA, he'd have to trust Sam to face that damn ghost alone.
Only a few steps more, and Dean had a clear shot for the bus door, and he lunged forward.
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Sam backed away from Dean and the bus carefully, feeling for each step as he went. He knew if he stumbled the ghost wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of his plight.
He saw Dean dart forward, but his lapse in attention cost him. Dirk (because, really, that's who Sam was facing off on right now), lunged, knocking Sam to the ground. Sam reacted instantly, twisting out of the way even as he saw stars from banging his head on the ground. Dirk's second lunge missed Sam, barely, and Sam was forced to take a swing at the kid to try and buy himself a little breathing room.
Any minute now, Dean would torch Dirk's hair, and then this would all be over.
Then, the kid said something that chilled Sam to the bone.
"Been watching you, Sammy. Something about you. Bright and shiny and dark. And so loud. All the darkness inside of you, just screaming out..." Dirk's eyes glinted maliciously. "You walk around school like you're some sort of hero, like you're one of the good guys. But hero's don't look like you. They don't bleed anger and pain and darkness, the way you do. You're not one of them, you're one of...."
Dirk stopped mid-rant, mouth opening and closing like a fish for a moment before the kid he was possessing simply pitched forward, eyes rolling up to the top of his head.
Sam caught him on instinct, lowering them both two the ground as his own legs gave out under the weight of Dirk's words.
What had Dirk been about to say? That Sam was evil, like a ghost? Like a monster?
Like a demon?
He'd been trying so hard to push that side of him down, to ignore it, to bury it, yet this ghost had taken one look at him and seen the stain on his soul?
Was he even more monstrous than he had realized?
"Sam? SAMMY?" Dimly he was aware of Dean sprinting over to him, hand's frantically checking for injury, but it was all far away, distant compared to the echos of Dirk's words in his head.
"All the darkness inside of you, just screaming out..."
"I'm fine, Dean." He felt his lips move, wooden and numb, heard the words spoken in his voice, but a part of him wondered if maybe now he was the one possessed, because he didn't particularly remember deciding to speak.
"Hero's don't look like you..."
"Yeah, no." Dean was saying (still so far away). "SAM? Sam, look at me? Did he hit you in the head? Sammy?" Dean's voice had taken on it's 'fix Sammy' cadence, the one Sam almost instinctively responded to. Just like caring for Sam was ingrained in Dean, responding to that tone was ingrained in Sam.
"Um...my head." Sam nodded blankly, still lost in Dirk's words. "He knocked me down..." He gestured at the ground, as if the gravel he was sitting on held some sort of grave secret.
"Okay. Okay, we can handle that then..." Dean was saying reassuringly. His worried cadence had altered slightly, from his 'must identify danger' voice to his 'this I know how to fix' voice. "I can hear sirens. Let's get you into the car. Unless you want the ambulance to check you out?"
Sam shook his head thoughtlessly, unsure he could even formulate a full sentence. Dirk's words were still ringing in his ears, as every frightening, abnormal, supernatural thing that had happened to him recently surged forward, swamping his mind.
Dimly, he was aware of Dean heaving him up, leading him to the car. His eyes watched as the police showed up, as Dean and a few other students gave statements. Sam had no idea what he told them, but they must have been satisfied.
A paramedic came over and shined a light in Sam's eyes for the hell of it, before Dean could cut him off, declaring that Sam had a mild concussion.
He wasn't even sure how they got to the house, once he realized they had arrived. Dean was staring at him worriedly from the driver's seat, and Sam wondered how long he'd been calling Sam's name.
"Dude, don't ask me how a head injury gave you shock, but I think it did..." Dean was saying in concern.
He was right to be. With all the crap they had dealt with, shock from emotional trauma was pretty hard to come by for the Winchesters. Dean hadn't heard Dirk, probably didn't even know they had spoken, so as far as he knew, Sam was just completely knocked on his ass by a relatively minor head wound.
Sam opened his mouth, to try and give Dean some empty reassurance, to take away the look of fear in his brother's eyes, but all he could think of was Dirk's last, unfinished sentence, and he closed his mouth again, looking at his brother helplessly.
He was all out of meaningless platitudes.
Perhaps they had flown away to wherever his hope had gone.
"Something about you..."
Dean's eyes had darkened in concern, and he got out, moving purposefully towards Sam's side of the car.
He helped Sam gently inside, like Sam was an invalid, and it only went to show how out of it Sam was that he let him without either a fuss or a fight.
He barely registered Dean getting him upstairs, and getting him into bed. Dean dimmed the lights, and Sam lay with wide, unseeing eyes as he stared at his water stained ceiling. He could feel Dean hovering, concerned in the background, but he still felt...distant, as is Dirk's words had created a chasm between him and the rest of the world, particularly his brother.
"You're not one of them, you're one of..."