Downtime – chapter 4
by: sifi.
OOooOO
Every one of his senses was on high alert as he rounded the corner of the building, the brick pressing warm and scratchy into his back. Footsteps scraped on the cement as he wheeled into the alley his eyes scanning the long varying shadows for anything living, dead, or undead.
Another scuttle caught his attention and a gray blur of something passed through the upper rim of his vision. Pigeon... he thought frowning as his cell vibrated.
"Yeah?" he answered watching a slim red ochre colored fox trot into the alley where it stopped and gazed up at him for a moment.
He shook his head as the vixen turned in a circle fast enough to look like a red blur before her shape quickly lengthened and Kitsune stood beside him, her head cocked to the side while he frowned deeply listening to his brother on the other end of the line.
"Are you kidding? We're on our way, don't do anything till we get there Dean... No! Nothing!" He listened a moment, "D...Dean... No! Promise! Dean PROMISE... we'll be there in ten minutes. Okay... just sit tight."
"What's wrong?" she asked as he strode like quicksilver out of the alley.
"Dean found... there's a spirit at the hotel..." he started.
"There are many. Did you not sense them?" She asked breaking into an easy loping jog that spurred him to do the same.
"I barely even notice the igigi anymore... there's too much more going on that's a lot more important." He huffed as they rounded the corner toward Lee Street looking more as if they were out for a jog rather than as a couple who were supposed to be having a semi-casual evening out.
"Is it the same thing that preys so heavily on you both?" She asked.
"Yeah."
"It's your offspring isn't it?" She asked shocking the young man into a skidding stop.
He turned gazing down into her eyes, his pain and expression incredulous. He tried to answer a couple times but his throat wouldn't cooperate so instead he simply nodded.
She reached up with a soft smile on her lips and cradled his cheek watching his eyes fill suddenly as his lips trembled. With ease and tenderness she drew his mouth to hers.
"Of course I know," she answered his unspoken question, "though there are surprisingly few who do. If many of her enemies knew, there'd be no stopping the hunt for her. I can think of only one who MAY actually want her to bear this child... though I doubt even he would take such a risk."
Sam cocked his head to the side, "Who?"
She half smiled, cocking her eyebrow at him expectantly.
"You don't mean..." he shook his head, "not... Lucifer..."
"Of course that's who I mean, if he thought he could use the child as a vessel into which he could be born he might allow it to be born. But I have heard many tales of Lilitu's treachery through the ages and I do not believe she..." she stopped and made sure to choose her words carefully, not wanting to say something hurtful to one of the men who'd been so kind to her, "has done what she has for anyone's welfare but her own." She shook her head and stroked his face, hoping to erase the lines and bunches that announced the arrival of yet another burden. "There will be time to talk about this later, for now you are needed here."
Wordless and obviously preoccupied he nodded, "Right." As a moment later they strode into the hotel, their expressions carefully adjusted as they smiled and moved nonchalantly to the elevator.
OOooOO
Dean paced the anteroom then strode to the bedroom and checked the tv where the screen showed him lounging on the bed, several chocolates gone from the pyramid that no longer existed, and several empties from the bar on the night table and on the bed.
"Good... just keep it up Casper Sammy'll be here in no time." He muttered pacing again back out into the anteroom where his eyes fell to the closet on the left hand wall.
The doors were folded open and all appeared as it should but for a heavy line of plaster and dust on the floor on the inner right hand wall.
"Oh man..." he turned wheeling to the main door and whipping it open just as Sam's hand was about to slide the key card into the slot, "Finally! Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, "Hi Kitsune."
"My Lord." She half bowed.
He grabbed Sam's arm, ushering them both inside and closing the door securely behind them, "Call me Dean." He corrected absently while dragging his little brother across the anteroom to the closet.
"What is it Dean what's going on?" He asked as the older man slid the long end of a wire hangar between the edge of the wall safe and the wall itself, then gave a sharp jerk.
"You are NOT gonna believe this you guys..." he grunted giving a sharp tug on the metal which brought that side of the safe away from the wall and gave him a solid grip.
"Is this where..."
"Yeah." He grunted.
"Move over lemme help."
"I got it Sam, you don't need to take any chances."
"Dean..." even his voice was scowling, enough so that Dean stopped trying to jimmy the heavy alloy cube out of the wall.
"Fine," he slid into the closet grasping the far side of the thing while Sam got a handle on the nearest. He didn't want the younger man overtaxing himself, but Sam wouldn't be coddled and he could at the very least respect that, especially with Kitsune there.
"The spirits are running interference for you Dean?" She asked, her voice coming from the bedroom area.
"Looks like... I'm guessing it's all tied in with a surveillance camera in the air duct in the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom." He explained as they eased the safe from the wall and set it down in the middle of the closet floor.
"Oh my GOD!" Sam gasped, slapping his hand over his nose and mouth as the odor wafted up to him through the hole. "How long...?"
Dean shook his head, "Had to be fairly recent or the stench wouldn't be so bad."
"The bodies are stuffed into the wall!?" the younger brother half demanded, his face betraying his disgust.
"Oh yeah... dude you have no freakin' clue... course I only have whatever clues he, she... uh... whatever... showed me... God only knows how many others there are or were..." he shook his head, something in his expression setting off alarm bells in Sam's guts.
The diminutive woman stood beside her lover for a moment, her immortally perceptive gaze taking in every nuance in the older brother's face just as easily as she could feel the change in pitch when Sam's level of tension changed. She stepped forward expecting the young avatar to do exactly as he did when he laid a gently restraining hand on her arm.
She turned, favoring him with a kind smile of gratitude, and as she knew he would he released her. He is a being to be treasured. I will kill her for the hurt she has brought him, brought them BOTH. She thought as she peered into the columnar space between the closet wall and the building's outer wall.
"Flashlight please?" She asked.
A moment later she turned with a faint frown bowing her mouth, "The wall penetrates at least by one level into the ground and there are pieces that have spilled over. I think there's luggage down there too."
Dean nodded, he'd seen it too once the smell dissipated enough for him to really get a good look.
"Which explains why you sensed so many spirits." Sam nodded taking and pocketing the flashlight she returned to him. He glanced between the woman and his big brother, "This is your trip and your find Dean... how do you want to handle it?" he asked.
Dean shook his head and shrugged, his expression not just blank but genuinely open, "I don't know... we don't do people Sam..."
"I know," he nodded remembering just a couple weeks ago when Dean had said the same thing to him after he'd nearly beat a man to death while under the influence of a drug made from the venom of an Asag.
"These people deserve justice."
Sam pursed his mouth and glanced over his shoulder into the room, "No..." he shook his head knowing his brother well enough to know he had something insanely dangerous planned, like using himself as a decoy.
Dean turned the younger man around and led him back to the bedroom, then stationed him at the edge of the bed exactly where he'd been held captive and forced to watch it all, "Convince him." He commanded to the open air then watched the screen change as the first woman was once more shown face down on the bed.
"What're you doing? No... Dean... lemme up... Don't..." Sam struggled against the supernatural hold on him while Dean returned to the anteroom shaking his head, "I can't watch it again Sammy... I'm sorry."
"Oh God... No... no no no ... DEEEEAAAANNN!" Sam's voice trembled from the bedroom a moment later, "Please...stop..."
"Hoshit..." Dean lurched off the sofa and dashed to the bedroom, the connection hitting him hard, it was painful enough for him to have watched what happened to his little brother so recently, but it was Sam who'd actually endured it... and here he was forcing him to watch someone else's violation. "Okay, okay let him go... we're gonna help you!" he ordered crouching in front of the younger man, blocking his view from the set. "I'm sorry Sam...I'm sorry, I didn't think..." he shook his head grabbing the young man by the face and looking deep into his eyes, "Sammy?"
As the entity released him he grabbed his big brother at the shoulder, letting the older man help him to his feet, "S'okay, it's okay, I'm alright..." his eyes flicked to the set which had returned to showing phantasmic footage of Dean starting to settle in for the night. He gulped for air and forced himself to at the very least appear calm. The easiest way to do that was to keep his hands clenched and inside his pockets so Dean couldn't see them shaking.
"So you really wanna do this?" He asked a moment later, after he collected himself though his brows were still furrowed deep with worry.
Dean nodded, "I can't let it slide... I can't just..." he motioned helplessly to the tv, "... and do nothing y'know?... I can't."
Slowly the youngest Winchester nodded, "I know." Then met eyes with Kitsune who looked from one to the other and nodded a solid affirmation that whatever they chose to do, she would be there with them. "Pretty straight forward plan then?" Sam asked.
Dean nodded, "That's the best kind."
OOooOO
As soon as Sam was able to ensure that he had a stable feed from the camera in the wall, to his laptop, he and Kitsune retreated a few doors down the hall where they holed up in a linen closet while awaiting Dean's attacker.
"I don't like this," Sam muttered then glanced at the woman, "He's not at the top of his game right now... no matter what he wants us to think, he's no more healed up than I am."
He couldn't help but lean into the gentleness of her touch as her hand stroked deep into his waves.
"Please," she spoke softly.
"What?" he asked curiously.
"Let yourself see the possibility of light even if you cannot see the light itself."
Sam felt his chest hitch and shudder quietly, his brother's 'sleep' routine a familiar sight even on the computer screen. "I've never felt like this before," he admitted softly, unable for the moment to look into her eyes. A breath later he turned letting the droplets shine on his cheeks, "For almost six years now I've known that there are entities out there that have been trying to bend me to mold me or use me for their own ends. For about the last three years I've known there was something they were all terrified of awakening inside me, something they were afraid I'd learn to control,"
"The power of your origin." She nodded.
"Yeah... I didn't know about Dean... his connection seems so much more... normal, so much more natural, somehow they seem to have overlooked it, and in a way him y'know? But this... what she has planned...and all I can think is..." he shook his head.
"Why you?"
He nodded squeezing his eyes shut, "Why me?" he gasped.
"There is no shame in what you feel." She stroked his head, pressing his temple down to her forehead.
Sam shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut as he tried with every shaking breath to hold himself in check, "I'm so scared..." he quaked as her arms closed around him, neither of them heard the lock on the door turn.
OOooOO
Dean lay sprawled on his stomach, his arms curled around the pillow his breathing even and restful, almost hypnotic. On any other night the very rhythm would have had him long since asleep. As the minutes marched on, stretching forward, reaching toward morning he began to doze.
His heartbeat picked up and his senses came to full alert with the feeling that someone else was in the room.
Soft footsteps pressed into the carpeting as he lay still, forcing his body to stay relaxed, forcing his breathing to continue to be even.
Chills ran up his spine when the footsteps stopped. He could feel the weight of the killer's eyes pressing him down onto the mattress.
Sammy's right down the hall... God this is uncomfortable... is this how it felt for him? And no one's even touching me...
He fought the startle that hit when those hands grasped his ankles, hold on, just hold on... he kept his grip on the pillow as those hands slid him down the bed a bit then flipped him onto his back. His right hand remained under the pillow as the hands left him.
The footsteps came to the side of the bed, the mattress depressed with substantial weight and a moment later one of those hands came to rest on his forehead. He knew what was coming next and wasn't about to risk an eye when this son of a bitch checked for pupil response.
"Can we talk?" He sneered pressing his gun up under the man's chin. The killer moved his left hand toward his back, silver flashed in an arc as Dean's legs came up, his feet jacked into the man's chest and sent him flying across the room and into the wall.
The eldest Winchester was up in a flash striding out into the anteroom toward that black clad lump. The knife remained held loosely in his hand until Dean kicked it away then crouched before him grasping him by the shirtfront.
"Come ooooon you sick pathetic shit..." he snarled whipping the hat aside and finding himself staring into a set of dark colored very dazed eyes deep in a balding face he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before.
"You never should have done it. You shouldn't have made her feel that way." He reprimanded while shaking his head.
"Shuddup!" Dean ordered giving a 'thumbs up' and a nod to the camera in the wall before grabbing the hemp rope Sam had brought out of the trunk earlier.
OOooOO
Sam nodded relieved to see his big brother's goofy grin and 'thumbs up' signal. He wrapped his arm around Kitsune, holding her easily against him as he dialed his cell. Reveling in the moment of security and peace that came when she wrapped her arms around his slender waist and rested her ear against his chest smiling easily at the sound of his heartbeat, he sighed gratefully.
"911 Operator what is the nature of your emergency?" came a velvety male voice.
"I'm at the Hampshire in the Hail Mary suite... I just caught some bastard sneaking into my room I think he was trying to kill me!" he breathed almost desperately into the phone then flipped it closed with a smile, the operator's voice asking for a name before it cut out.
"Let's go," he smiled falling into her kiss at the same instant the room echoed with an explosive blast of compressed gas and cold white smokiness shot through the vent in the ceiling, stealing the very air from his lungs.
"What the...?!" he looked up into the unmistakable stream of fire extinguisher CO2. "A partner?" He grasped the doorknob but it wouldn't turn. "Shit..." he gasped as the gas continued to obliterate his ability to breathe. "Get on the floor!" He ordered pushing her down.
He dialed Dean just as she drew his attention to the monitor where the senior Winchester was fighting for his life. Somehow the assailant had gotten free or the partner had entered the suite and taken him by surprise. Even as the air leeched from his lungs and he began to gasp through the cottony periphery of his vision, the assailant grabbed and dragged Dean out of range of the camera leaving a smear of blood behind.
"Damnit!" he cursed knowing his brother was in serious danger.
"Son of a bitch! DEEEAAAANNNN!" he coughed pounding at the door.
He kicked at the wall hoping there was someone in the room on the other side of it and yelled, wasting what little air his body was able to utilize, "SOMEBODY HEEEEEEELP! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOOOOR!"
His gaze fell to the featureless brushed steel knob. Stars were exploding in his eyes as he turned to the woman beside him. Her lips were turning blue from oxygen deprivation and though she was trying hard to control her breathing he could see she was having great difficulty.
"Ha...hair pin?" he gasped relieved when she handed a bobby pin to him. In return he pressed his cell phone into her hand, "911..." he nodded, "Tell 'em..."
She took the phone nodding her understanding as he bit the plastic off the end of the pin and squinted, blinking hard, trying to find the access slot that would enable him to remove the knob and give them a chance to call for help and get some fresh air into the tiny closet.
The bobby pin slid from his suddenly clumsy and sausage-like fingers and a wave of vertigo left him slumped against the door.
"Sam..." she crawled to him and with the last bit of air she could muster left her human form behind to become once again the ochre colored vixen.
Her lungs expanded and her head cleared quickly as her body's oxygen requirements were fractionalized. Standing on Sam's shoulder, her back paws gripped into his skin while her front paws scratched at the door, her piercing and incessant barking more likely to alert someone to help them.
OOooOO
That's not a good sound... the thought flitted through Dean's muddled mind as he turned his attention away from the vixen's yipping and back to the task at hand so he could block the arm with the taser pressed down toward his face, hope he at least got a chance to call 911... C'mon Sammy... he felt his eyes widen as the charge arced between the poles of the device. His ears were ringing and his head was swimming, loaded with pressure that sloshed from side to side with his movements after the lamp had slammed into his skull. Gonna need stitches... AGAIN... could use a little... help... here... he groaned, drew in a deep breath and with a shift of his grip, grasped the arms above him and locked his legs around the waist before flipping to the side and literally getting the upper hand.
He pushed down as the person beneath him went into a frenzy just before he was able to press the taser down and squeeze the trigger.
Shit! his teeth snapped on his tongue as the electricity shot through his legs, not there! he shuddered internally as he felt the shock course all the way up zinging all of his sensitive spots.
He practically launched himself off the floundering body then when he was completely clear pressed the trigger down again until the assailant was done.
In the background of his awareness Kitsune's barking seemed to be fading.
"I'm coming... hang on you two..." he breathed ripping cord out of the lamps base and using it to quickly hog tie the newcomer.
"If you hurt them so help me God Julie..." he let the threat hang in the air just before he slid the ski-mask off her face. It was the pale blue dove eyes that had given her away though he still had no idea who the guy was.
From not too far off in the distance the sound of sirens began to grow as he stumbled out into the hallway and glanced dumbfounded at the almost dozen people standing by their respective room doors while the vixen's bark seemed to grind to a stop.
"Someone needs help and all you can do is stand out here!? What's the matter with you people!" he yelled furiously and threw the lock on the closet door, his blood plummeted to his feet as Sam's upper body fell out into the hallway, "If you're not gonna help then get the fuck out of here!" he cursed angrily then grasped his brother under the shoulders and dragged him out into the hall.
"Sam? Sammy?" he leaned forward pressing his ear to the young mans' chest, his eyes fell to the vixen, "they're tied up go keep an eye on them?"
With his fingers at Sam's throat he could feel a faint heartbeat so tilted his head back, opening the airway then waited a few seconds. Just as he'd hoped the young man's breathing reflex was strong once the airway was opened again. Just before he gasped, his skin began to turn from marble white to pink again and Dean rested on his heels knowing his boy would be alright.
The sound of metal and multiple footfalls from the area of the elevator drew Dean's attention down the hall as the paramedics approached their position. Against the far wall a patch of white in the shape of a fire extinguisher drew his attention and he was relatively certain what had happened.
"Are you alright?" one of the EMT's asked crouching beside him, noting the blood running down the back of his head, "What happened?"
"He needs oxygen..." he directed then looked at the others, "There's a woman in our room who could use some too... they got locked in the closet and hit with a fire extinguisher."
"Sir where's the blood coming from?" the first EMT asked raising a hand toward his head, "I'm just gonna take a look here..."
OOooOO
Three days later...
"So lemme get this straight... this guy would just randomly pick someone staying in the Hail Mary suite and kill 'em?" Sam asked slugging down the last of his water while Dean bit another piece of pizza in half.
"Apparently it wasn't that random..." he muttered around the mouthful.
"Then how'd he choose who he was going to kill?"
"Dicks. From what the detective said he stuck with folks in the suite because they could afford it and from what they found out later, this guy had run-ins with each of the folks he killed or complaints registered against him for whatever reason."
"So what was Julie's story?" Sam asked, "Y'know I knew there was something wrong with that girl."
"Good instincts Sammy... definitely very Glenn Close," Dean sat back eyeing the last piece of pizza, "Apparently she found out what Chuckles was doing and kinda went Mallory to his Mickey... this time he decided that SHE was the one who'd been slighted when I turned her down so he came after me for embarrassing her."
"He was defending her honor?" Sam asked shaking his head.
"Apparently."
Sam shook his head, "I still can't believe you turned her down."
"Dude..." Dean scowled then pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Still getting the zingers?" Sam asked watching his big brother wince. This last concussion had been accompanied by a slight depression fracture where a corner of the lamp's base tore into his head.
Dean nodded.
"Wanna go for a walk? Get some fresh air?" Sam suggested, "And some beer?"
"Yeah, good idea..." Dean grunted.
Just a couple blocks away there was a liquor store and the late summer evening's dark lavender was soothing to both of them. There was no job they had to be at, no hunt that required them, and at the moment no leads to Lilith's whereabouts.
As Dean locked the door behind them and they turned in unison to walk down the road, somewhere behind them, a digital camera clicked.
OOooOO
End.
Please R&R.
Thanks.
sifi.