Chapter 8
I'm More Than A Bird, I'm More Than A Plane
"I'm just saying," Sam argued as he sat on the broken-down bed, the one he'd forced Dean to use the night before, and flipped channels on the black-and-white TV, "that it would be easier to follow that Jen girl if you just-"
"But I can't stand to fly!"
Sam snorted. "I'm not that naïve. It's not that you can't stand it, it's that you're scared. The fearless Dean Winchester brought to his knees by a little airtime."
"We've been over this," Dean said, turning from the laptop to glare at his brother. "Planes crash."
"But-"
"People tend to crash more easily. If man were meant to fly, we'd all have wings."
Sam cocked an eyebrow, turning back to the television. "Yeah, Dean. Whatever." He turned up the volume, a story on the nightly news catching his eye. He looked back at his brother to find that the level of noise from the television had captured the older man's attention.
An attractive female reporter was standing inside a large building with white walls and an odd assortment of old wooden furniture, fading paintings, and other odds and ends scattered about.
"I'm here at the Black Rock Auction House," the reporter announced to her faithful audience, "which is currently without a proprietor. Eric Nitham went missing late last night. The hardworking husband and father of two phoned his wife to announce that he would be working late, but never went home. Mrs. Nitham called police early this morning. The first officers on the scene found the front window broken open and blood at the scene. If you have any information, please call-"
Sam clicked off the television and turned a meaningful gaze toward his brother. "Bit of a coincidence, isn't it?"
"What?" Dean asked.
"That man disappearing."
"Sam, this is New York-"
"It's Black Rock. It's a small town. There's nothing to do or see for miles. That man was kidnapped the night you put that cape on."
"You saying it's my fault some psycho decided to break into an antique shop?"
"I'm saying that the mood might not have moved the guy if he weren't being influenced by forces beyond his control," Sam said, "forces that you set into motion."
Dean scowled. "I thought you said it was Jen."
Sam stood up and grabbed his jacket off the bed, heading toward the door. "If you're too scared to follow this chick, then I will. Look up everything you can find on Smallville while I'm gone." He slammed the door, sending the loose piece of wood sliding down the doorframe and into the room.
Dean sighed and turned back to the computer screen. It wasn't necessarily that what he was doing wasn't fascinating, but he was tired of flipping through endless numbers of messages on fan-made websites about how Clark and Lana were the OTP (whatever the Hell that meant). No, wait, maybe it was Lois and Clark. Uh-uh. Clark and Lex. You could see it in their eyes.
Not to mention the discussion of what Dean, as an old-school Dukes of Hazzard fan, had termed "The Season of the Clones." Even Meteor Boy (whoever the Hell that was) was coming back, albeit in a flashback.
It was exhausting. More than exhausting, actually. He could actually feel his brain cells dying slow, painful deaths.
As if that wasn't enough, Sam's words kept ringing in his ears. It was all his fault. If he hadn't been his usual, stupid, impulsive self, then some random small-town guy might never had been kidnapped. Or worse. And it might be easier to track down the kidnapper (or worse) if he wasn't such a chicken.
So, taking a deep breath, Dean made up his mind. If countless men strapped into harnesses could do it, then why couldn't he? Maybe because he was harness-less. Yeah, that particular thought didn't help.
Taking another deep breath, Dean logged off and stood up on shaky legs, crossing the room in far more time than it should have taken, what with his recent bursts of speed and all. He picked the door up off the floor, carefully replacing it once he was outside of the room.
There was a ladder leading to the motel roof around the back of the building, and his tightly clenching fingers left indents along the sides as the climbed to the top. Once he was on the roof, Den had to admit that it was as good a bunny hill as he was ever going to find, at least for the activity that he had in mind. He inched himself toward the ledge, looking over into the packed dirt that circled the motel.
He gulped back his fear, and jumped, realizing a bit too late that, while his endurance had been pushed past the limit of a normal human's, he hadn't checked his ability to get hurt, not to the degree that he was facing now, anyway. All the powers of Superman meant all the powers, right? He sure hoped so.
That thought passed through his head in less than a second, and then he was falling- falling fast, falling free, falling face-first toward the dirt that ringed the motel. All thoughts of flight, of people dying at the hands of a villain that he had created, of anything other than the ground rushing up impossibly fast were driven from his mind as he connected with the Earth.
Dean expected to feel his nose shatter with the force of the impact. Instead, it was the ground that gave way. He could feel it sinking under him, could vaguely see dust flying up in a desperate attempt to escape the impact of his body on the dirt.
And nothing hurt.
He was surprised, to say the least. If there was one thing that Dean Winchester was used to in life, it was pain. He liked to joke, when he was drunk enough to feel comfortable discussing his mortality with whoever was closest, that getting hurt was his job. He'd been thrown into solid granite gravestones, hurtled into auditorium chairs, ripped apart inside by his own father, and forced to watch his brother die in his arms. Yes, there were two different kinds of pain, and, at the moment, he wasn't feeling either of them.
He figured, as he stood up and brushed the dust off himself, that he was running on an adrenalin rush, almost like the one he'd felt when he'd first put on the cape. That would explain why he didn't care that he'd just risked his life, why it suddenly didn't matter that he'd created a villain. He was invincible. He could do anything that he wanted without getting hurt. He'd been wishing for that kind of freedom since childhood.
Smiling, Dean looked down at the human-shaped indentation that he'd left in the dirt. He wanted to test this. He wanted to get thrown into something, to see if he could bleed, to get shot. He wanted some action. He was a hero, after all.
And he was in New York. The action was close enough that he could taste it. Or, hear it, at least.
Still smiling, Dean cocked his head to the side and concentrated, trying to pick up the sounds of someone in distress. It didn't take long for him to hear a scream and take off.