Author: Mirrordance
Title: Open, Shut
Summary: A street prophet foresees a deadly goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby 's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-Family Remains.
Hey guys!
A few posts ago, I deluded myself into thinking (and consequently announcing) that posts would be weekly. I'm ending up doing it every few days, sheesh. I did say I get undisciplined when responses excite me :) Granted... I'm not hard to excite haha, in the sense that I don't really get a lot of reviews (I was advised that pacing my posts would help with that but I'm really just terrible at self-control; an unfinished fic just presses all my OCD buttons haha). This means I'm not sure if the fic is being read widely or if it's well-received, but nevertheless, I do hope that those of you who read Open, Shut find it enjoyable :) Thank you for your time. Thanks plus hugs go to reviewers however, haha! Anyway, c&c's are as welcome as always, and without further ado: Chapter 3: Count the Costs. 'Til the next post!
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Open, Shut
" " "
3: Count the Costs
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Dean had a pretty long and considerable experience in pretending that he knew exactly what he was doing in front of people in the academe. All the act that came with the hunt was a given, sure, but when he was younger, the act was practiced and perfected first and foremost with adults involved in Sammy's education– his teachers, his counselors, his coaches, his school nurses, etc.
And so he strolled down the corridors of the school with a smart, confident step, walking alongside the people he had requested to see: Mr. Morrison who was the President of the school, and Mr. Almay who was a Professor in the Science department.
"We're a small town," Morrison said, "So it's not a big facility. Pre-school, elementary, high school and a small technical college, mostly devoted to studying the operations of our plant and others like it. Enrollment's been down across the board but then again, we're one of those skewed populations in a dying town. More old than young people out here, the demand for what we got to offer's gone down, plant hasn't been employing like she used to, and everyone's movin' out, unfortunately. You should have seen this place back in the day though."
"The old plant not going the way she used to?" Dean asked.
"Oh no, she's perfect," Almay argued, "Runnin' like a trooper. We're just getting eatin' up by the competition, 's all."
"Another company?" Dean asked.
"Nope," Almay said, "It's the damned free market, son. It's just capitalism."
"There's an economic philosopher who once said something like 'capitalism is an economic success and a sociological failure'," Dean said, remembering something Sam had mentioned at one time or other. He knew from experience that saying things like that appealed to academics he was trying to get information from, and more importantly when he needed to pick up post-grad chicks from a bar.
Morrison's eyes lit up, "An interesting concept. You wouldn't recall--"
"No," Dean said quickly, before he could be grilled further. He added in a slight tone of condemnation to ensure that they skipped the topic all the sooner, "And anyway this is neither the time nor the place."
"Of course, officer," Morrison said at once, "I apologize I do get carried away by such things..."
"As I mentioned," Dean said, "Me and my esteemed colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security are randomly checking the emergency-preparedness of towns across America." He raised his hand up as if to calm his audience, "Not that we have received any terrorist threats to your home, but you know, what with the nature of terrorism and all."
"It could be at anytime and anywhere," Almay said with a nod, "By virtually anyone. It's about fear, and symbolism. Terrorists hitting a small place like ours... it's like saying no one is safe anywhere."
"Yeah, exactly," Dean said with a magnanimous wave, "Right on the nail, doc."
"Well we appreciate your precision," Morrison said, "And are very relieved that someone's paying attention to our little town. You can expect our complete cooperation."
"Exactly what I was counting on," Dean grinned.
"What do you need from me, officer?" Almay asked.
"I want you to explain to me how big any potential plant disaster could be," Dean said, "Spell the worst kind of destruction to me, in the largest possible radius."
"And from my office?" Morrison asked.
"I want to see an evacuation drill," Dean said, "You have that in place, right? You're supposed to."
"Of course!"
"And I want a rundown on how many buses and drivers you got," Dean replied, "How many teachers and nurses, everyone on staff. I also want the number of students per level. And I want you to explain to me what kind of alert system you have to contact parents in an emergency."
" " "
Numbers, Sam thought, miserably. He was starting to feel very sick of them as he flipped through ledgers and contracts and employee information.
I can drown in all this paper, he thought, And no one's gonna find me for days.
He had come from the local library, the municipal records, company records, anything at all in town that held record-this and record-that, gaining unlimited access by virtue of the town people's helpfulness, the use of his shiny new Department of Homeland Security ID, and the abuse of his standard earnest-look. He had sifted through everything and brought copies back of what he felt were necessary, or required further reading. He was starting to get cross-eyed and hungry and impatient. He rubbed at his face wearily.
Numbers swam before his eyes.
Dean had called him the genius of the family just the night before, hadn't he? But sometimes, sometimes Sam really wondered about what-might-have-beens. While Dean was hardly a fan of mathematics, he understood that he needed it in life and so, as he did in hunting, excelled in it also. While Sam was great with the humanities: literature and history when they were younger and eventually philosophy and the law, it was the practical and the physical that Dean had an aptitude for: the sure and quantifiable sciences like math and physics and chemistry. They both equally sucked at art. Either way... if Sam had less of a sense of self-preservation, he would have been calling his older brother geek-boy instead of letting it happen the other way around.
It was Dean who had taught him his homework, and it was Dean who hunted at night and went to tests the next day, passing with nothing more than whatever he remembered. Sam had marveled as a kid about the grasp Dean had for the sciences, the quick, instinctive logic.
And so his mind drifted past the ledgers to the conversation of the night before, Dean's current mathematical fixation. Sam had decided to call it quantifiable retribution, this decision of Dean to pursue a numerical approach to salvation and penance. It was... mildly deluded, to be generous. But maybe there was something in Sam that hoped it was true too; maybe if they solved this problem, Dean would go back to who he was, before he--
A steaming cup of coffee drifted into his line of vision, so close to his nose it was blurry. He jumped and found his brother looking at him suspiciously.
"Losing your touch there, Sammy?"
"I was distracted," Sam said, accepting the offering, "Thanks. I really needed this."
"You should've slept more last night," Dean said with a shrug, "Sorry I woke you."
"About that--"
"I don't even remember much," Dean said. He chuckled, but his eyes were begging Sam to just drop it, "That whiskey was good. For a poor guy, Reade has a very respectable stash."
We'll discuss this later, Sam promised his brother with a pointed look, like, when we're not on the brink of a major disaster.
"So how do you like this town, huh?" Dean asked as he sat on the floor across from Sam and all his papers, "Everyone knows everybody. The coffee's free. The diner people are all like, 'Free stuff for the Department of Homeland Security guys.' They're all kinda giddy about the attention."
"I can imagine it gets lonely here," Sam conceded, "And as if this town wasn't dying already, now they have something like this about to happen to them."
The brothers raised their heads at a new arrival, and their brows rose at the sight of Paul Reade, looking neat and almost dapper in a pair of clean slacks and a polo.
"What?" he asked.
"Not up to looking like a nutjob preaching the end of the world at the supermarket today?" Dean asked.
Reade just shrugged, "Well I got you bastards on my back now, so... why bother." He sat with them, and Sam and Dean looked at each other in wonder, not quite used to the casual intrusion.
"There's something you boys aren't asking me," Reade said.
"How we're going to die?" Sam clarified, "Well, we won't be asking 'cos we won't be sticking around that long, so why bother? Like we said, we do what we can, and then we leave town before the night of the full moon." He looked at his brother pointedly.
"You know what I'm afraid of?" Reade asked, "What if we can't change the future? What if us tinkering around town is what causes the thing to blow up? Or what if we move everyone out and they're supposed to die anyway, so they die on the road from something else? This applies to you boys too, you know."
"You changed your future," Dean pointed out, "You saw your wife trying to kill you, and you escaped it. The future can be changed."
"I didn't see myself dying," Reade pointed out, "I saw her trying to kill me. Even after my visions saved me from her first attempt, it didn't stop her from trying again. I barely got out of that one. She didn't stop trying. Maybe death's the same. What if it's all... you know, destiny?"
"I don't believe in that crap," Dean said, "You do what you can while you can, and deal with what's in front of you. We can't not try, man. 'Sides, if you believe in that destiny shit, then maybe you're destined to know about this and stop it, right?"
"Yeah," Reade said, scratching the back of his neck, "But you know... in the interest of... of information being power and all, I think I should tell you how you both croak in this mess."
Dean quirked a brow at Sam, as if asking if he was okay with this. Sam just nodded jerkily. There would be few things worse than watching a brother bring dragged to hell screaming, body torn and spirit wrenched after all, right? He could handle this...
"You weren't together," Reade said, and this was a weird surprise to the brothers. He nods to Sam, "You went first."
Dean's jaws tightened, and Sam reflected in macabre humor that maybe he should have checked with Dean if he was okay with hearing this.
"Yeah?" Dean asked, inexplicably irate at Reade who looked injured by the indignant, disbelieving tone. Sam didn't know how he could sum up that it was because Dean had taken insult to the idea that he wouldn't be able to protect Sam, because in Dean's eye, Sam was only allowed to die if Dean had died first in failing to protect him.
"Rocks and wood and soil and dirt raining," Reade said, "I think you get buried alive. The only thing I could see after that was your hand. It was bloodied and grimy, and it jerks like, twice, thrice, something like that. Then it just stops."
"Maybe you didn't see me pulling him out two seconds later," Dean muttered.
"Oh you weren't there," Reade said, "In my vision, I saw you and man, you did not look good either," Reade tapped beneath his Adam's apple, "Cut open here. Black stuff from your mouth."
Sam's heart sped up. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, given that both Winchesters had already died in each other's arms at least once, and each time the story was continued brutally with the remaining man coming out a little bit bent and broken, screwed in the head, going out on murderous rampages or making stupid demon deals.
Dean caught Sam's mildly panicked look, not realizing he had mirrored a similar unease earlier, "Great, man. Thanks. That was awesome. Now we know, so let's just drop this."
"Anyway like we said," Sam gulped at the thought of Dean's throat cut open and black things coming from his mouth-- "That won't happen. That won't happen 'cos we won't be here."
" " "
Bobby and Wei returned a few minutes later, a little over the end of the business day. The small group had a more than decent spread for dinner this time, since Reade was taking his 'job' very seriously; there was chicken and potatoes and a homemade gravy that Dean would be dreaming about on lonely nights.
"Where'd you get the money, man?" Dean asked, "You know, we at the Department of Homeland Security have to be finicky about the company we keep, can't be hanging around you if you've been snatching purses."
Bobby just snorted at him.
"I got savings snuck here and there," Reade shrugged, "No big deal."
"Well, you shouldn't be wastin' what little you got left on us," Dean said as he ate heartily, "We're kind of indiscriminate, most of the time."
Reade just smiled at him slightly, "So what have you guys found out? Can we stop this thing?"
"The easiest thing to check was the money trail," Sam said, "And from what I can see, no one can profit off of this business burning to the ground. They have the same insurance policy they've had the last four decades. There have been no changes in the boards of the company that could point to them going a different direction, no major changes in structure or finances. There are no competitors who might be sabotaging them; they've had a virtual monopoly in this place and in surrounding towns until cheaper imports started coming in."
"It's dying a natural death," Dean agreed, "The people I've been talking to are saying the same thing: small-town America against Capitalism and all that. You know, the Man always gets you down."
"Okay so are we officially dunking the 'plant-destruction by deliberate intent' theory?" Wei asked.
"Profit-oriented deliberate intent," Sam clarified, "I looked through disgruntled employees for anyone who's pissed enough to do this intentionally, and there's none either. Everyone working there knows everybody else, and many have been employed for over a decade."
"Union issues?" Bobby asked.
"None," Sam said.
"Any lay-offs planned because the business is slowly going bust?" Dean asked.
"No rightsizing plans either," Sam said.
"It's downsizing and everyone knows it," Dean snorted, "Okay, so no one's pissed enough to do this. Is anyone stupid enough to blow this place up?"
"Seasoned players, man," Sam said, "Pretty much all of the employees have been there a long time. And the work hours are more than fair, so people are theoretically well-rested apart from being highly-experienced. New-hires are top of the line from the local college, and the mentor-system that HR has had in place for years ensures the rookies always have someone looking over their shoulders."
"Have you looked at medical records?" Wei asked, "Psych profiles and/or neurological disorders?"
"No one's crazy and no one's sick," Sam sighed, "And because the owners have an excellent relationship with their workers, they've got good medical coverage that requires regular, comprehensive testing."
"Clean as a whistle," Bobby breathed, "I'm not surprised. So's the plant itself."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"Regular internal checks," Bobby said, "All properly and neatly documented, show nothing out of the ordinary. There's regular external checks from two government agencies – Mayor's office and some environmental group- that also came out clean."
"When was the last one?" Wei asked.
"They do the internal-thing weekly," Bobby said, "And the external thing every quarter. The last one of the latter was three days ago."
"Everything's right?" Dean asked, skeptically, "Well that's just wrong."
"Operations and maintenance are as clean as the people," Bobby concluded.
"But something has to go bad," Dean said, "I mean, if it's gonna explode, then there's gonna be some reason for it. If it's not one of our theories, then what the hell is it?"
"That's the scary part," Sam said, "If it's not the events caused by people's intent or stupidity, or a plant malfunction issue, then it's gonna be something we can't predict or prevent."
"Like nasty weather," Bobby elaborated with a flat frown, "A car ramming into it by accident, something random--"
"God Himself," Reade breathed.
Sam looked at Dean meaningfully, "Maybe it's time to call in some favors."
"Yeah right," Dean said sarcastically, "Sure. Lemme just get on the Cas-hotline, or light up the bat-signal."
"So how bad is this thing gonna get?" Wei asked, ignoring the in-joke he didn't understand.
"From what I was told by the local expert," Dean said, "There is enough juice in that plant to floor this town. It's flammable as hell. In terms of firepower and radius? Some big shit hitting the fan over at the plant and this town is gone. But that's the least of our problems. Fire you can eventually contain when it starts. Toxic chemicals hitting the air? Not so much. Which would have an effect on our evac plan."
"What do you mean?" Wei asked.
"Anywhere we're moving people," Dean said, "We gotta be upwind of this thing so that the toxic air doesn't follow them out. And we gotta make sure that the downwind towns from this one are warned. Either way, we do have to check the weather."
"So I guess at this point we have to focus on the evac plan," winced Wei, "'Cos more and more it looks like we can't stop this thing, especially if we don't have any other lead on what can cause this kind of explosion."
"Open and shut case, right?" Dean said wearily, "Now all we have to do is kick out 4,000 people. Great."
"At least it's simple," Sam said wryly. The brothers exchanged sour looks.
"Next pocket of civilization nearest here is a small city an hour's drive away," Wei said. "It's got two nice, big hospitals, a good-sized stadium and public spaces for medical treatment and temporary refuge. And they have a great working relationship with this town, especially from the medical people. Finn's Canyon sends folks up there all the time for complicated surgical procedures. If people can get there, they'll be well-taken care of."
"How to get them there's the problem," sighed Sam.
"Before anything else," Bobby said, "Are we sure that we really can't do anything to stop this?"
"Singer's right," Wei said, "I mean, are we all agreeing that there is nothing we can do at this point to prevent this? Because if that's the case, then we all have to start working on the evacuation plan and just totally scrap the prevention plans."
"Our theories are a bust," Dean enumerated, "And the only other possible causes for an explosion that we can think of, we can do nothing to stop. I think it's safe to say everything we're doing in terms of trying to prevent this thing from playing out is going nowhere."
"I agree," Sam said, "I think at this point we can agree that there's nothing we can do to stop this, and all we can do is get as many people out as fast as we can."
"I agree too," Reade said.
"Fine," Bobby said, "So we're emptying this town out. When?"
"Let's work backwards," Dean suggested, "We want them out by the time the sun sets on the day of the full moon, just to be sure. The sun is completely out in your vision, right?"
"Yes," replied Reade, "But there's no way to tell exactly what time it is."
"So Dean's right, we have to be conservative," Sam said, "No-sun is about as much exact time as we can get."
"Okay," Dean said, "So town empty by sundown. Most people would be home by then, especially the kids from school, so that's good. The school has evac drills but I'd rather not have any crazy parents rushing there to grab their kids, panicky things like that. Aside from the school thing, the other special places would be hospitals and hospices. I think we should empty out the sick and the old people first. They'll take longer, and if the timing gets too tight, they can't make a run for the hills."
"I want to supervise that," Wei offered, "If these immobile people aren't transferred properly, we can end up killing them."
"He's a doctor," Bobby explained.
"Was," Wei snapped, "Anyway, I got that area covered."
"The hospital here has three ambulances," Dean said, "The firehouse has one and the home for the elderly has one. The elderly home also has a large bus they use for field trips or something."
"The most delicate cases go on the ambulances," Wei said as Dean handed him the registry logs from the elderly home and the hospital, "I'll figure out the triage. But definitely we'd have to start evacuation earlier in these spots; it'll take longer, and we'll probably need to make several trips."
"I think it also makes sense to get everyone out of the public spaces and back home," Sam said, "It's going to be less of our problem if people took their own cars moving out of town. And then the majority of what we have to do would just be managing traffic: keep the cars moving, keep anyone from entering the town and convert all the roads one-way, outbound."
"Let's get the Mayor's office to call in a curfew," Dean suggested, "Shops, offices, parks, whatever, everything closed by a certain hour so that everyone's at home. And then by public info – TV, radio, some police guys hitting the streets, the school has a comm system we can take advantage of – we ask everyone to evacuate the town pronto."
"Why not just order the evacuation straight out instead of sending them home first?" Sam asked.
"No," Dean shook his head, "We need to get everyone home, man, so that we don't have a bunch of headless chickens running around looking for their kids or moms and dads and brothers or boyfriends and girlfriends. Put the people who are gonna end up looking for each other together first, and then move 'em out."
"Presumably they'd use their own cars," said Sam, "But we also need to get the Mayor's office to set up public transport stops for people who don't have their own."
"We'd need to make sure every single person is informed," Bobby started listing their tasks, "Aside from managing the traffic."
"We also need to have people going door to door making sure the entire place is empty," Dean pointed out, "So the way I see it, we got Wei here on special transfers, so that means you gotta handle the medical people. Bobby, you wanna handle the managing-traffic end of this and talk to the cops?"
"Got it," Bobby said, "And I think I know where you're going with this. Sam can handle buttering up the Mayor and making sure everyone's informed--"
"Sam's good at the computer shit," Dean explained to Wei and Reade, "Not to mention my brother has this lovely persistent alto that can tell everyone to get the hell out – without panicking them."
"And where will you be?" Sam asked.
"I'll be at the tail-end of this party," Dean said with a shrug, "Make sure the place is empty. Herd the lost sheep, haul-ass on the stubborn ones who don't want to leave, muscle out the looters who stay behind."
"That's the last-one-out post," Sam said flatly, arms crossing over his chest in undisguised disapproval.
"I can handle it," Dean said smoothly, "Listen, man. We all gotta do what we're best at: the doc's got the sick and the old. Bobby's got the cars and the cops – god knows the old man doesn't have trouble with the stripes like we do. You've got the techie shit and the ass-kissing of authority figures and me... well all the bullying-evil-torture-persistence I've recently picked up has to be good for something, right?"
"What are you yammering about?" Bobby asked him, brows furrowed.
"Nothing," Dean snapped, "Sam gets it. Right, Sam?"
The brothers stared at each other for a long moment.
"As long as we get out of here before the full moon," Sam finally said.
" " "
Dean was storing some supplies in the Impala parked on the rotunda of the house when he spotted Wei smoking a cigarette while sitting on the hood of his own car. The ex-doctor looked pensive when he glanced up at Dean.
"Hey," Dean greeted as he dumped some things in the backseat and shut the door.
"Winchester," Wei nodded at him in acknowledgment. Dean was just going to walk away but damn it, he'd been traveling around Samantha long enough to pick up some sensitivities too; god knew the kid carried it around like a damn virus. Wei looked troubled, and Dean found himself muttering in irritation but helplessly walking toward him.
"You smoke?" Wei offered him an open pack of lights.
"Nah, I'm good," Dean said, "Those things are bad for your lungs, doc."
Wei snorted at him, took an indulgent puff and released it in a long exhale. "I've been looking at the hospital records."
"Yeah?"
"I told you I used to be a doctor," Wei shared, "I didn't tell you I was damn good."
"I can tell by the car," Dean said.
"I'm guessing that's where you got the 'Mid-life crisis' thing?" Wei asked.
Dean just shrugged, "I mean it's nice and all, but yeah. It was either that, or were you like, a plastic surgeon or something?"
"Ha," Wei chuckled humorlessly, "You're all right, Winchester. I'm... surprised."
"Whadja mean?"
"Everyone had a start, right?" Wei said, "Everyone had to start somewhere, with this hunting shit. I heard about your family early on when I started. Your old man was dead by then but man, he was a legend. I mean which other crazy bastard ever dragged his two kids around hunting, right? Who hasn't heard of Winchester and his boys."
"I didn't know that."
Wei shrugged, "John and his kids were the best, they said. Crazy old man Winchester. You know... there are very few hunters who can ever be as good as you. 'Cos he started you out so damn early, and you managed to live through it."
Dean's jaws tightened, "Where are you headed with this?"
"I'm sorry I was such a dick when we met," Wei said, "I don't know where I'm headed with this either. I..." he took a desperate whiff off his cigarette, "I started hunting a little over a year ago, after my wife died. I didn't know what it was at the time, but something, some presence, just came over me. I couldn't control what I was doing. I ended up... ended up killing her. It was my hands on her neck, and it was my face she saw when the life left her eyes. I didn't understand it back then, couldn't. Black smoke came out of my mouth, and then I was me again, and I was holding her and she was dead."
"Jesus, man..."
"Not a lot he had to do with it," Wei scoffed, "Demonic possession, I learned later. But it was me, scared as shit, getting rid of the body. She's still 'missing.'"
Dean closed his eyes, imagining the horror easily.
"I wanted to find out what had happened to me," Wei said, "I ran into Bobby Singer or maybe he was the one who found me, I don't know. I first heard about your daddy from him. Widowers, you know. Wives shouldn't have to die before their husbands. Widowers go around town like a bunch of amputees, not knowing where this shirt is, how to fix the toilet, which hole the detergent and the softener goes in, what my damn allergies are."
"If Bobby trusts you, you're not bad for a guy who just started," Dean commented on his hunting skills, unsure how to speak about the other things.
"You got enough money and you can get good at something real quick," Wei said, "If you're pissed as hell, you can get good even quicker." He lit up another cigarette, "I heard about your family more and more on the road. I eventually heard some things about what you and your brother may have had to do with opening the Devil's Gate that released the demon that possessed me, that ended with my wife dead and me... here."
"We tried to--"
"I know," Wei cut him off, "You failed."
"Look, man," Dean began, "I can't apolog--"
"I don't want you to," Wei assured him, "I was a dick when we met, I said, and I'm sorry. I called you a wuss, and that when it gets too hot in the kitchen, Winchesters bolt. But I've figured out that you're not made like that. You've been at this a long time, longer than most hunters. You're still here, even with a death sentence on your head. What I'm saying is... I understand that you can't always win, even if you try your damndest. You just do what you can. You can't save everyone. Like back at the Devil's Gate, when the demon that killed my wife escaped. And like... like now.
"We're gonna end up killing some of these people," Wei concluded, "I looked at the charts. There are some terminal cases that shouldn't even be moved, some really sick people, some badly injured people. We move them cavalierly out like we plan, and we'll kill some of 'em. We probably can't get everyone out of this town, that's just the way it is. But knowing doesn't make it any easier, does it?"
Dean pressed his lips together. "What are you saying?"
"There's five of us, Winchester," Wei pointed out, "Five of us in a buttcrack town. We need more than just us. But how are we gonna sell it to FEMA, huh? How are we gonna sell it to the National Guard? 'There's this drunken supermarket street prophet who's mostly credible and he dreamed of the end of the world?' We're all we've got. And we've got too little."
Dean bit his lip in thought. "I can get the pros down here and they can get everyone out."
"Riiight..."
"I can," Dean insisted, lowering his voice as if Sam could already hear him, "I can. But you gotta promise me something."
"Oh by all means," Wei said sarcastically, "The sun and the moon to you, Winchester, if you can do that."
"Get Sam out of here," Dean said vehemently, "Alive. Knock him over the head if you have to. Don't involve Bobby 'til he's got no other move but forward and with us, because I can promise you he'll nip this at the bud. Get everyone out of here and especially Sam, and I'll bring the pros in so they can empty this place out."
" " "
He woke up early the next morning, showered, dressed. He volunteered to buy everyone breakfast.
He left his car in the driveway, and her keys in the custody of a man he barely knew. He called for a cab and got off at the Mayor's office.
He didn't bother with the fed-suits he usually favored during an act, not this time. He strolled past the sputtering secretary to the Mayor's office, and stood right in front of Mayor Keys.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked him warily. She was a small-town Mayor on her second term, and it was a position her father and grandfather also once held. She was unused to hostility and danger, and her first stance was to listen to what he had to say.
"I've been going around town on this," he told her, tossing his makeshift Department of Homeland Security ID, "Check it out, it's a fake. M' real name's Dean Winchester. Call in the feds and check. I'm wanted for a bunch of things you never wanna hear of, and I've escaped prison more than anyone has the right to."
"Why are you--"
"Tomorrow night," Dean declared, "I rigged a bomb to go off that has the juice to floor your happy little buttcrack town. But I can be... reasonable, if you gimme a few things."
" " "
An hour after Dean Winchester volunteered to get the team breakfast, Wei walked up to Sam and asked for help to get a few more documents and supplies from his car.
"Sure," Sam said, rising from the floor where he sat in front of his laptop. Bobby Singer was in the shower, and Paul Reade was absently leafing through some of the papers on the ground.
The two hunters walked to the rotunda, Sam leading the way. He frowned at the sight of the Impala parked there.
"Dean's back?" he asked, wondering if he had missed his brother coming back while he had taken his shower earlier.
"No, I don't think so," Wei replied as he walked to his car.
"He's gotta be around here," Sam said as he looked around, "He wouldn't leave the car, there's no store you can walk to—"
His senses pricked a little too late.
He turned to face Wei, barely saw the rifle in the other man's hand before a hot flash of pain exploded from the side of his head and whited out his vision, before everything melted into thick blackness.
" " "
"We gotta get the hell out of here."
Bobby's head shot up as Wei entered the living room but left the double doors to the house wide open behind him.
"What are you yapping about?" Bobby asked, looking beyond Wei, "I thought Sam was with you?"
Wei tossed him the keys to the Impala, "Sam's busy. Pack up, now."
Bobby was hunter enough to know that sometimes explanations should come after action. But he was always just a little bit more unreasonable anytime the situation involved the Winchesters.
"Dean's not back yet," he pointed out, grabbing for his cellphone, fingers knowing exactly which buttons to press to get Dean on the phone, "And Sam--"
The combination of a discreet ring and a phone on vibrate hummed in the room. Dean's phone was in the folds of the neatly-folded sleeping bag he left behind.
"What the hell--" Bobby muttered.
"Dean ain't coming back," Wei said as he started gathering their things, "And Sam's unconscious on the passenger seat of his brother's car. We have to go."
Bobby stalked toward him threateningly, "You just said the two things that will keep me from listening to anything else you might have to say--"
Wei met the older hunter's rage-darkened eyes evenly, "Your boy just took matters into his own hands and asked me to knock his younger brother over the head and drag his ass out of danger. Sound like him?"
Bobby frowned. Hell yeah, but he needed more information than this.
"I'll talk," Wei sighed as his busy hands continued to prepare for departure, "But for god's sake, pack while listening, all right?"
"This better be good," Bobby snapped, making Paul Reade burst into action himself.
"Dean's at the Mayor's office," Wei said, "He's claiming he rigged the town with bombs. The Mayor should call in whoever she has to, to empty this place out. Dean told me to get you and Reade and Sam out and he'll take care of bringing in the pro's."
"But we were going to--" Bobby sputtered.
"I was looking at the patient stats last night," Wei winced, "I told him people were going to get killed in transit one way or another, because this is by no stretch of the imagination a five-man job. We needed to bring out the big guns, otherwise the really sick and the really hurt might as well just be left to die here if they're dying on the road anyway. He said he'd take care of it.
"This town knows who Dean was working with," Wei continued, "Small place, everyone knows everyone? If he comes up there claiming to be a terrorist with knowledge about a bomb that can tear this place to the ground, they are going to be hunting us down too, and all of us behind bars is not gonna help anybody. 'Sides, I promised the crazy bastard that I'd get his brother out if he did his end. So now we gotta go."
To be continued...