Title: The woods are lovely, dark and deep
Author: Wysawyg
Summary: Sam Winchester had begun to wonder whether the demon had forgotten his plans for him. Sam Winchester had forgotten that the demon played a long game. Dark!fic. Multi-chapter. Not WIP.
Disclaimer: Everything the light touches belongs to someone else. The darkside too. It's all Kripke and the guys and gals at the CW.
Author's Notes: Thanks as ever to my wonderful beta, TraSan. Without her, I'd be just a quivering pile of nerves on the floor.
Chapter 5
The library had been a whole heap of useless. There was nothing particularly special about the town, certainly nothing to explain why werewolves had randomly decided to mutate. The only useful piece of information that Sam had managed to find was a depiction of a forest which almost exactly matched the one Sam had seen in his vision. It was called the Starslee woods and was named after a local landowner who'd planted the wood almost a hundred and fifty years ago as a private hunting ground.
Sam made sure to hide that bit of paper from Dean. He'd no idea why the pair would end up there in the current situation but he was determined to do everything in his power to make sure that they didn't. He made a copy of it just in case and stowed it in a pocket.
Dean had deserted Sam after about ten minutes of fidgeting and driving his brother nuts. He returned a couple of hours later with a coffee in each hand, much to the disapproval of the librarian. Dean just gave her his most charming smile and sauntered over to Sam, passing over one of the coffees, "Solved the mystery yet?"
"Yeah, turned out it was Miss Scarlet in the Observatory with the candlestick. Who'da thunk?" Sam said, "Does this look like the face of someone with all the answers?"
"I dunno. I'm having a little trouble differentiating between 'Puppy has an ouchie' and 'Puppy found a new toy' faces. Just saying." Dean didn't bother sitting, just hovered over Sam, sipping away at his coffee, "Got Jefferson's herbal crap. God bless express delivery. You reckon we should slip it into the wolf-to-be's IVs and see what happens?"
Sam shook his head, "Doctors can be a bit oblivious but I think they'd notice IVs acquiring a load of green sludge, not to mention it'd probably block the tubing."
"How did you know it was green sludge?"
"Because it's Jefferson."
"True that. Seriously, if I ever get bit by a werewolf, just shoot me, don't let me anywhere near any of Jefferson's green crap." Dean finally decided Sam wasn't likely to leave the library any time soon so he swung down to sit by him. "I went to the police station on my way back. Did the good cop routine and managed to get a copy of the case file. It's got a photo-fit on the guy who attacked our three wolflings. We'll need to track this bastard down even if flubber works its magic."
Dean handed over a piece of paper and Sam frowned. "I've seen this guy before." He scrabbled rapidly through the paper amassed on his desk until he found the offending sheet, a sinking crevice swallowing where his heart used to be as he realised, "His name is Archibald Starslee and he was supposed to have died a hundred years ago."
"That makes no sense," Dean took the paper and placed it next to the photo-fit, glancing between them. "Common lore doesn't give werewolves an extended lifespan, certainly not an extra hundred years."
"Seeing as nothing about this hunt so far fits the common lore then I'd say that is pretty much par for the course." Sam sounded as aggrieved as he felt.
Next Dean asked the question that his brother was dreading, "So, where'd this guy likely hole up during the time of the month he's not man's best friend?"
"I, err," Sam fished in the pocket of his jeans and retrieved the folded sheet of paper, "I think it might be here. Starslee was a landowner, planted these woods way back. The vision I had, this is where it took place."
Dean arched an eyebrow and took the paper, "You were gonna mention this when, Sammy?"
"When it was important," Sam defended himself.
"Uh-huh. I would have said that would have been right around, oh, I dunno, how about, as soon as you found out about it. What's going on, Sam? Why are you hiding stuff?"
'If only you knew.' Sam thought to himself but verbally just said, "Because, because the victim I saw in the vision was you, Dean."
"Huh," Dean said, taking the news with a bland non-expression, "Guess we don't have to worry about tracking them down. So you saw me, getting killed in those woods." It wasn't really a question as Dean studied the piece of paper, "Guess we better go check the woods out."
Sam gave his brother the look, "What kind of fucked up logic is that? You should stay as far away from the woods as possible."
Dean shook his head, "Don't be daft. Your visions always happen, right? So I'm going to end up in the woods whether you like it or not. At least this way I end up in the woods on my own terms, preferably with a nice silver arsenal. Was it dark or light in your vision?"
"I am not helping you make the vision come true, Dean. You are in no condition to go out and get yourself killed!"
"What condition would you suggest for getting yourself killed in?" Dean quipped, "Okay, fine. Not the time for humour, getting that now and I'm fine. It barely hurts anymore." The lie was blatant as if Dean believed that not even pretending it was true would somehow convince his brother.
"That would be the Winchester definition of barely hurts, would it?" Sam said, "How about you give me until the full moon to look stuff up before you offer yourself up as a sacrificial lamb to the wolf in dead old guy's clothing?"
"Think you are mixing your metaphors a bit there, Sam," Dean said, a delaying tactic while he thought. "Fine. I think we should get that serum stuff into the proto-wolves as soon as possible though. We don't know how long it will take to take effect. We'll do this your way, Sam. For now."
There were many times in Sam's life that eight days had seemed like an incredibly long amount of time. There was the time their father went on a long hunt, leaving Dean to look after his brother and fend off the inevitable questions from people who noticed two young boys out on their own. There was the time that Dean had disappeared on a hunt in the middle of woods, leaving Sam with nightmares of his brother's dead body lying undiscovered somewhere. As it turned out, Dean had been badly hurt but rescued by another hunter who had been coincidentally hunting the same patch. He had reunited the family as soon as the hunter grapevine caught him up with the details. There was the first eight days of being in Stanford when the halcyon rush of freedom mixed with the pressures of not having his brother as a safety net with missing his father and brother like crazy and the sour taste of their final argument. There was the eight days they'd spent in Palo Alto after Jess' death, searching for any sort of clue to what had killed her.
It was ironic that the one time Sam really wanted eight days to last forever, they sped by, just laughing whispers that rushed past him. Eight days had left him with nothing. No clue to why Archibald Starslee had lived so long. No clue as to whether the serum had had any effect on the people who'd been bitten. No clue what to do to make sure his brother didn't put one single foot into those woods.
He knew he should have rung Bobby at the third day, swallowed down pride and dialled. He knew why he hadn't. Sam trusted Bobby with his life and with Dean's life but Bobby was a hunter through and through. One word to Bobby, one mistimed pause or mis-phrased question and Bobby might find the secret that Sam desperately wanted to hide, especially from himself.
The morning of the eighth day dawned so normally that Sam couldn't believe it. He felt there should have at least been a red sky to warn of what would happen today. Instead the sun just rose, light streaming in through the window to highlight where Sam sat on his bed, eyes red-rimmed and shadowed from lack of sleep, surrounded by a self-built fort of paper and books, centred on the laptop whose hum didn't comfort anymore.
Dean slept peacefully on his front in the next bed, his healing chest allowed him that now even if his back was still too sore to rest against. Sam felt that his brother's sleep should at least be troubled, that this day should be marked with some kind of foreboding, with some marker to say it was going to be a bad day. It should be Friday the 13th. It was wrong that such a grim day was just a Tuesday the 27th.
Sam sometimes wondered if his brother was right and he really did think too much.
Sam let out an irritated huff at himself and methodically destroyed his fort before sliding off the bed and pulling himself into a long stretch, flexing the traces of sleep out of his body. He'd had to stretch in the bathroom for the past few days to avoid Dean's envious eyes. The last time Dean had attempted a bone-sorting stretch, it had left him curled in on himself whimpering on the bed while Sam force-fed him pain medication.
Almost as if sensing the stretch, Dean's eyes fluttered open and he let out a yawn before starting to shift into the back-arching stretch he usually started a morning with except that muscles remembered what the lingering dregs of sleep erased and his body refused to co-operate. Dean scowled and settled for wiggling his shoulders a little, "Got breakfast yet?"
"Morning to you too," Sam replied. "I was just about to head out. You want anything?"
"Run out of M&Ms," Dean's fingers tapped the empty yellow packet on the bedside table.
"Remember what I said about not feeding your sugar habit?"
"This is a peanut habit. Completely different."
"I'm sure the candy coating had nothing to do with the addiction."
"Just a small bag, it won't hurt," Dean pleaded, using the pout in combination with the sleep-ruffled hair and the pain lurking in his eyes to devastating effect on his defenceless brother.
"One bag and then I'm cutting you off," Sam said, pulling on his boots and heading towards the door, hesitating with his hand on the door knob, "Don't go anywhere while I'm out, okay?"
Dean snorts, "Guess I'll cancel the tickets to Disneyland. I'll be a good boy, have a nice shower and even wash behind my ears."
Sam rolled his eyes and headed out of the door.
The moon hung full and mocking in the velvet blue sky as Sam moved soundless through the trees, his eyes moving more to track his brother's movement than it was to track ahead of him for the monsters that were waiting. Sam clenched the comforting weight of the silver half-moon blade in his hand and kept a hand at his hip where the gun loaded with gleaming silver bullets sat.
Movement to his right drew his attention and he saw another figure ghosting through the trees. Sam snapped a quick signal to his brother and then moved through the trees to check it out. Dean nodded an acknowledgment and kept to his own creeping pace. Sam used the shadows of the trees to move unseen behind the figure, recognising the moon-cast golden hair as the woman of the three patients from the hospital.
He obviously wasn't quite as silent as he thought because the woman spun around to face him. In one moment the moonlight revealed ordinary green eyes and in the next they were the gleaming gold of his vision-spurred nightmares. Sam raised his gun and fired off a single shot into her skull, cursing Jefferson's useless serum. The woman dropped without even a scream to the leaf carpeting of the forest. Sam slunk over to her and gently closed her eyes before stepping over the body and continuing on with the hunt.
The hoot of an owl sounded through the mostly silent forest and Sam cupped his hands to his mouth to give the response to let his brother know he was alright. Sam angled his course to head back towards his brother's position. Common sense on a hunt said to split up. Common sense when you've seen a vision of your brother's death dictates that you stay as close to him as possible.
He saw a shape ahead of him moving through the trees, slipping from shadow to shadow. Sam moved in that direction, looking to join up with his brother. It was only when a shaft of moonlight caught the right angle that Sam saw the hair was dark brown rather than his brother's dirty blonde. Up a bit further, he could make out another figure, this time with the right posture and frame to be Sam's brother. There was a monster stalking his brother and that wasn't something Sam could allow.
Sam moved closer, wanting to be sure that the serum hadn't worked before he took the man out. He deliberately stepped on a twig, the crack sounding loud in the night air. The figure span and Sam saw liquid gold in place of normal eyes and the figure took one step towards Sam, hands held outwards. Sam lifted the gun and fired once more, the silver slug finding its mark in the man's forehead.
The crack of a gun in the quiet around drew Dean's attention and the two reached the man's body almost simultaneously. Death had reverted the man's eyes back to their normal colour and Sam bent to close the man's eyelids, "Serum didn't take," He said sadly to his brother, "Caught up with the woman over there. Same gold eyes as he had."
Dean shook his head, "We should have come here first, the witches could've waited. Maybe given enough time…" Dean never seemed to dwell long on regrets in the middle of the hunt, "I thought I caught sight of something through the trees ahead. Come on."
Sam shadowed his brother's footsteps, only breaking away to seek separate cover when the moon lit up the scene too well. It took a while for his eyes to spot the shadow his brother followed, it was more inconspicuous than the other two but then it was the oldest victim, perhaps the poison coursing through it had had longer to work.
He could see the trees thinning out to a clearing up ahead and Sam's heart started to thump more staccato in his chest. The clearing looked far too similar to the sparse trees from his vision. He motioned a halt to Dean and could make out his brother's frown, even in the darkness. He slunk over to his brother's hiding place, keeping his low frame as close to the ground as possible.
"What?" His brother hissed, voice barely louder than the breeze bustling through the trees.
"This is just like what I saw in my vision." Sam replied.
Dean rolled his eyes, "No shit, Sherlock. That is what we're doing here."
"Dean!" Sam was annoyed, "I saw you die in my vision."
"You also saw all three of the hospital people attacking me in your vision. I think you and me together can handle the one that's left." Dean spoke to Sam but his eyes were fixed on tracking the one remaining through the shadows. "Come on, he's getting too far ahead." Without giving Sam the opportunity for another word, Dean broke from their current cover and made his way across to the next.
The last victim, James Marchant, stood in the centre of the clearing, a look of perplexity on his face as he span about. He looked like he was waiting for something but entirely unsure of why. Sam held his breath as Dean circled for Sam to move around to the right, come at the man at different angles: werewolf enhanced strength was nothing to laugh at.
Sam saw his eyes like liquid pools of gold under the moonlight, the last hope for Jefferson's serum fading away. He motioned to get his brother's attention and then pointed to his eyes and then to James, hoping his brother could see the same thing he did. Dean motioned across to his own eyes and then threw up his hands in a confused gesture. Obviously Dean couldn't get a good angle on him from here. Sam sighed and readied his gun.
He and Dean emerged out from the line of the forest at the same time, keeping the guns trained on James, making sure they didn't get in each other's line of fire. They had agreed tactics for this situation before leaving and Sam had had to talk Dean out of acting as bait. Instead it was Sam that drew his attention, "James."
The man's head spun to face Sam and his golden eyes seemed to gleam almost brighter, "Who are you? What are you doing out here?"
"We're here to help you. We can make this all stop." Sam was filled with compassion for the man who'd simply been somewhere at the wrong place at the wrong time. Dean usually teased him that he'd bring home werewolf pups once of these days, convinced he could train them to be guard dogs. Sam usually told Dean he wasn't that fucking stupid. Some things were born dark and that was just the way it was.
"Stay back!" The man yelled, spinning between Dean and Sam, trying to keep an equal eye on both, "Here's a hint about reassuring people, don't point a gun at them."
"We have to," Sam said, feeling incredibly tired in that moment, "You've been infected by something and there isn't a cure, I'm sorry."
"Sam," Dean spoke and James' attention instantly switched back to his brother, "His eyes," Dean pointed with the gun clenched in his hands upwards, "Maybe the cure worked."
Sam frowned, James' eyes didn't look any less auric to him, "There's no change, Dean." He called back.
"Exactly," Dean answered, "That means he should be alright."
Sometimes Sam thought his brother made absolutely no sense and this was one of those moments, "No change is bad, Dean." Sam kept his gun levelled on James, even as he twisted his body to face towards his brother.
Dean dropped his gun a little, angling himself to face Sam, "You aren't making any sense, Sam. How can no change be bad? You said the others were bright gold."
James apparently decided to use the brothers' distraction as he made a dash towards Dean and Sam cursed the fact that Dean had dropped his guard. Dean took a couple of quick steps backwards, almost back into the line of the forest as he lifted his gun up. "Stay there," he called but James kept barrelling forwards.
Sam could tell his brother wasn't going to be able to bring the gun up fast enough to get a headshot so he rapidly shifted his own aim and fired. The bullet ripped through the back of James' skull, spraying blood and brain matter over Dean who was only about a foot away from him at that point.
Sam lowered his aim, releasing his two handed grip on his gun to let it dangle in his right hand and breathing a sigh of relief. That was when another shadow stepped out of the forest, Sam's brain recognised it was Archibald Starslee even as he yelled out a warning. Dean reacted too slow and he was still in a half-spin when the shadow gripped his arms, twisting them behind his back and using him as a human shield in the line of sight between Sam and Dean.
"What a treat," The voice seemed serpentine, rattles and hisses speckling through his tone. "I call for three and end up with five." He moved his neck far more sinuously than the wrinkled flesh would suggest and sniffed at Dean's neck before protruding a pink tongue and licking at the exposed skin, "Delicious."
Sam tried to steady his hands enough to get a shot at the exposed head but he was too far away and the man seemed to move too quickly. "Let my brother go."
"Or what?" The man said, high and fine, "There doesn't seem to be much you can do at the moment. Guess lunch is on me." Quicker than Sam would have believed, the man's mouth opened wider and then he sunk his teeth into Dean's neck. Sam closed his eyes for a second, clearing blurring vision and then fired. His aim was thankfully true as the silver bullet skimmed perilously close to Dean's cheek and found its home in the man's forehead. The man tumbled backwards and Dean followed, still held in a tight grip.
Sam crossed the distance in several long strides and tugged his brother away from the werewolf's grip, firing another bullet point blank into the centre of its skull, just to be sure that it truly was dead. Dean was sluggish in his arms and Sam dragged his brother away from the bodies before setting him gently on the ground, "Dean? You alright?"
"Feel funny," Dean said, eyes fluttering about.
"It's alright. I got the werewolf." Sam ripped off the bottom of his t-shirt and pressed it against Dean's neck, checking for the pulse which was racing far too fast for adrenalin alone to explain. "Come on, Dean. We got to get you back to the car. You need a hospital." And Jefferson's serum. Sam was hoping that the werewolf bite had been too short in duration to take effect.
"Sammy, everything… it's spinning. I…" Dean's body arched upwards, back so curved that Sam was sure it must be on the point of breaking before he slammed back down into the ground and he started convulsing.
Sam gripped onto Dean's shoulders, "I'll get you out of here, Dean. Just hang on." His breath caught in his throat and his brother peered blearily up at him through eyes now more gold than hazel. Sam stumbled backwards, tears stinging his eyes, "Oh god, Dean."
Dean didn't reply though his head managed to turn to face Sam a little, eyes blank even as his body continued to convulse.
Sam swiped away at his eyes, hands trembling as he lifted up the gun one final time, "God, Dean. I'm so sorry. So sorry." He raised the gun, took aim and pulled the trigger.
A/N: The Sam as a puppy references are something I couldn't resist. Refers to kroki-refur's wonderful 'Sam is a puppy' picspam which can be found on her livejournal.
Oh, and I wrote this chapter on the 18th of March, Heart aired on the 22nd. So the whole werewolves and Disneyland thing… Yeah, Kripke, outta my head!
Hope y'all still reading. Feedback, concrit or other, is adored.