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Chapter 2: Killer Tattoos, Apparently.
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Dean pulled the Impala into the dirt parking lot of a dingy Best Western and shut off the engine. His fingers uncurled from the steering wheel and he pulled back his sleeve, examining his left hand. The image of the centipede had certainly gotten darker, and was it his imagination or had the tattoo gotten bigger? As he looked at it a fresh wave of pain hit his hand. Dean's eyes squeezed shut and he rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He was glad Sam and Cas hadn't come to the store with him. He was acting like a girl.
The pain disappeared a second later, as abruptly as it had come, leaving him trembling and cold sweat standing out on his forehead. He held up his hand. The centipede had definitely gotten bigger this time: the tattoo stretched a full inch farther up his arm. He flexed his fingers, trying to work the stiffness out of them. Dammit. Why couldn't things be normal, for once? It was one thing after another.
He and his brother couldn't catch a break. The Universe wouldn't even let them have a breather before it threw something else at them.
"You look like shit."
Dean nearly jumped out of his skin. Bobby was sitting in the back seat of his car, perfectly outlined in the rear view mirror. Dean didn't turn around, he knew how these things worked. Bobby didn't have the best control over his ghostitude, and someone turning around and looking right at him often broke the spell at the best of times. The worst? He stayed invisible and wafted cold air around a room like a bad AC unit.
"Yeah," Dean muttered, going back to studying his hand, "Tell me something I don't know."
Bobby snorted. "Sooner or later kid, your cavalier attitude is gonna bite you in the ass."
"You may have mentioned that a time or two before. Do you know what this is?" Dean asked, waving his new tattoo.
Bobby shook his head. "Other than the fact that it's formal kanji, no. I suggest you get someone to read it for you."
"Perfect. I woulda never thought of that." Dean rested his forehead on the Impala's steering wheel again, eyes closed. The tattoo was starting to burn again, a dull throb that radiated up his arm and back down to his fingers.
"I didn't say I couldn't help," Bobby snapped, "Don't write me off. I got a buddy that could help you out."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Pull out yer dad's journal. This time you won't have to pay some two bit sushi chef."
Dean popped open the glove box and retrieved the small ratty book that held his dad's legacy.
"Open it to the addresses," Bobby ordered.
Dean did as he was asked. "Bossy much?"
"Shut up and toss it back here."
Dean rolled his eyes and held the journal over his shoulder, not looking backwards. "I feel like I'm thirteen again and holding the truck stop bathroom door shut for Sammy."
There was no retort.
"Bobby?"
Dean glanced into the rear view mirror and saw that Bobby had pulled another disappearing act. He sighed and flipped the journal open to the addresses, then raised an eyebrow when he saw the name and number that had been scorched into the page: Kaneto Otowa, and then the number for a Shinto monetary.
He snapped the journal closed and stuck it into his jacket. That would be something to look into tomorrow, but for now a beer, bed, and the newest Busty Asian Beauties mag. His ass was beat and it had been a very trying day. He locked the Impala and headed for the hotel room, opening and closing his left hand. The burn had faded, but the limb felt stiff and slightly numb, like the ink centipede was sucking the feeling out of his hand. He clenched his fist. The stupid thing needed to be off him, and yesterday. The night air was a cool relief from the baking heat of the day, but for some reason he couldn't calm down. For once he didn't appreciated the wet smell of steaming pavement after the light storm that had passed through earlier in the day.
He was jacked, and on top of that his hand was starting to hurt again.
Save for Cas, the cramped dingy hotel room was empty. Sam was gone, Dean figured he'd gone to the nearby coffee house to use their free internet; the hotel charged an ungodly amount for their WiFi. Dean snagged a beer from his bag and popped the cap.
"When did you start drinking so much?" Cas asked quietly.
Dean shrugged. "Can't remember."
"Does it help?"
Dean looked into the amber liquid in his beer, contemplating it, and set the bottle down. "Not really."
Castiel cocked his head to the side, an inscrutable expression on his face and one Dean knew all too well. Cas was two parts oblivious and one part weirdly omniscient. He called Dean on his bullshit with uncomfortable precision. Which was why Dean really wasn't wanting to get into it with the angel, not tonight. With the mark burning him like clockwork, he felt raw and laid open and on edge.
Cas usually could get answers out of him easier than anybody else, but talking about problems was like pulling teeth. He should know: he and Sammy usually ended up beating it out of each other. There would be time for the sharing and caring later.
Tonight he just wanted to pretend that his brother didn't have issues from hallucinating Lucifer, that Cas didn't have issues from simultaneously damning his brother to insanity and saving him, and that he didn't have a tattooed bug on his arm that would zap him with debilitating pain every few minutes. Pretending to be normal didn't work very well and didn't last very long, but it was nice to shut the world out for a while.
He deciding to forgo a shower and reached for the toothpaste. His dour expression frowned back at him in the mirror and he looked old and exhausted, even to himself. He wondered if it was just the long day, or if the tattoo was doing something to him beyond cramping the shit out of his hand and driving him up the wall.
He spat green mint toothpaste into the sink just as the mark began to burn again. Yep, never a friggan' break.
Dean glanced out of the bathroom at Castiel. The ex-angel was sitting on one of the florid pastel hotel beds, morosely examining his trench coat as though it held the mysteries of the Universe.
Cas didn't try to pry again, and Dean didn't try to pick up the conversation back up. He was too freaking tired.
Castiel didn't talk much about the stint spent in the asylum with the Lucifer hallucination in his head, or of Meggie dearest playing nurse, or anything before that; he was back to claiming not to remember. They all knew better. Dean was itching to ask him about it, but didn't want to pry. If that was one thing the hunters were good at, that was glossing over the elephant in the room and pretending it wasn't bothering anybody. Castiel would come clean eventually.
For the moment the angel was content to pretend to be human, and if not forget his past, then at least refuse to acknowledge it. The only blatantly visible sign of angel mojo was the ability to break the Impala out of hiding. Nobody seemed to notice his car, and for that Dean was very grateful.
His baby was not made to be hid like a kid in a closet with the cookie jar.
Dean washed his mouth out and crashed on the unoccupied bed with a heavy sigh. Sam was going to have to take the couch when he got back from the coffee place, but eh, he snoozed he lost. Sam had no trouble sleeping anyway, now that his hallucinations were out of his head. Dean found him sleeping in the weirdest places. The elder Winchester supposed it was Sam catching up on sleep now that he was relatively torture free, but passing out at a crime scene in his FBI get up? Hilarious, and also strange.
Like a good brother, Dean had been happy to get plenty of pictures.
He grinned and rolled over, punched his pillow, and was snoring a second later.
.x.
The next morning, they went straight to the Shinto monastery and the monk who owed Bobby a favor. Kingston, New York was a town with a population of just over 23,000 and a nice spot on the map eight miles away from New York City.
Cas opted to keep the car company, and so Sam was left to keep his cranky brother from offending anyone. After admitting them immediately after they mentioned Bobby, Kaneto Otowa stared at Dean's hand lying on his small lacquered table for the better part of an hour. Otowa served them tea in little white handle-less cups while they waited. Sam seemed quite content to sit on folded knees and sip the very strong steaming green liquid, but Dean was getting restless. After fifteen minutes of sitting, Dean's knees were aching, and after twenty minutes his limbs were seizing up.
Dean opened his mouth to tell the monk to hurry the frig up, and Sam, sensing snark danger, jammed his elbow into his brother's side.
The older Winchester didn't say what he wanted to but he did stretch out his complaining limbs with a sigh. He was not made for sitting still, and the longer he was made to do it, the crankier he became. Dean glanced back at the doorway, as though he could see his beloved Chevy through the faded red plaster walls of the monastery. He wished for a clock, to better count the seconds until he could escape.
He began to drum his fingers on his thigh, missing the amused look the monk leveled at him over the tops of his thick glasses.
Sam grinned, suspecting the monk as waiting until Dean cracked. Which wasn't long.
"Oh come on," Dean muttered, breaking the silence, "This is taking forever. It's a freaking bug on my arm!"
The monk chuckled. "You lasted longer than I expected," he said through heavily accented english.
Dean stared at him incredulously. "You mean I've been sitting here so you could see if I cracked?"
"Yes, Mr. Winchester," the monk grinned toothily.
"You-"
Another one of Sam's well positioned elbow assaults cut off whatever Dean was going to say, and the elder Winchester glared at his little brother, rubbing his much abused ribs.
Still chuckling, the monk shoved Dean's hand back. "The centipede on your arm is haiku, praises to the goddess Izanami-no-Mikoto."
Dean frowned.
"You've got poetry on your arm, dude," Sam explained.
"That's awesome and all, but how do I get it off?" Dean waggled his fingers at the monk.
"The mark is permanent, but twenty dollars and I could write out a counter spell for you that will cancel out its affects," Otowa offered.
Dean pictured his wallet, and the lone fifty sitting in its leather folds. He hesitated. "Well-"
"Kanji must be written correctly to have full power," Otowa said sternly, "Otherwise the mark continue to torture you until you die."
Dean sighed, and handed over his fifty. "Do you have change?"
Otowa got to his feet and retrieved Dean's change, as well as strip of white rice paper covered with kanji. The monk wrapped the paper around Dean's hand, covering the centipede. Dean stared at it. Now he crackled when he moved.
"That's it?" Sam asked.
Otowa bowed. "Hai. It will halt the mark's movement and get rid of the pain."
The monk assured them to the door, bowing again. Dean didn't feel any different, save for the fact that millions of tiny red hot needles of agony weren't stabbing at him anymore. He gave an internal shrug. Oh well, they'd had weird fixes before that beyond all probability worked, it looked like this was another one.
"Hey," Dean asked, "How long do I wear my paper cast?"
Otowa smiled. "Not long, Mr. Winchester. Not long at all."
The monk's bright smile did not instill confidence, rather, it gave him the heebie jeebies. For some reason that had nothing to do with the tattoo on his hand, chills ran up and down his spine. They got out of there fast, and only when Dean swung into the driver's seat of the Impala did he fully relax. Cas was already asking questions and Sam was answering. Dean concentrated on their voices, even if he wasn't really paying attention to what they were saying.
Air rushed in his ears and his clenched hands strained at the worn steering wheel.
Bobby's friend wasn't the help he pretended. Dean had played enough poker in his life to know when someone had a bad hand. Otowa was jerking them around, he was sure of it. Why and how? He didn't know.
.x.
When the black muscle car roared out of the monastery parking lot, Kaneto Otowa shuffled back to his office. He sat back at his table, knees folded under him on an embroidered pillow. He curled his gnarled hands around the fragile china cup that held his tea. The gyuokuro was a deep, rich green, and it set off aromatic steam that filled the small room pleasantly. Otowa raised it to his lips and sipped, noting the presence that now crouched just behind him.
He knew that if he turned, he would see one of the junior monks kneeling behind him, forehead pressed to the wood floor in supplication.
Otowa set his cup down. "Izanami-no-Mikoto has marked the shorter Hunter. Follow him," he murmured in Japanese.
The monk behind him didn't move, but replied in kind. "How long do I have before his transformation is complete, Master?"
"A few weeks at most, perhaps," Otowa said thoughtfully, "Depending on the strength of his will, or how stubborn he is. I suspect it might be the latter."
"I overheard you telling him that there was a cure, sensei."
Otowa frowned over his cup, and the monk behind him seemed to sense his irritation because he pressed his forehead harder into the floor. "I told him what he needed to hear, for an old comrade's sake," Otowa said softly, "There is no escape from Izanami-no-Mikoto once she has shown her favor. The spell I gave him will slow the mark's progression and dull the pain, but more importantly it will allow you to better track him with out being conspicuous."
The younger monk said nothing.
"Follow them," Otowa said, "And observe. Izanami-no-Mikoto's mark will simply kill him if he is weak. Should he prove to be strong, the creature he will become must be exterminated. It cannot be allowed to manifest."
"Hai, Otowa-sama."
The monk left, scooting backwards on his knees. Otowa smiled, faintly, and raised his tea to his lips.
.x.
To be continued...
