There's No Such Thing As Monsters
A/N: Apologies! I tried to get this up sooner, but it's been a hectic week. I won't bore you with the details. Here's the new chapter.
Chapter Six
XXX
"What did you do to my brother?" Dean demanded, gun level.
He was cutting it close. Barely an hour until moonrise, but it had taken too long to find the connection. Dean could put things together as well as the next hunter, maybe better, but he had to admit that he'd let himself get slack since Sam jumped back in on the Great Winchester Road Trip, letting his brother do the lion's share of the research. Werewolf cases were tricky though. With spirits you could usually find out who the resident casper was by digging through the history of the house it was haunting. Werewolves could be anyone, and their victims could be as random as they could be planned.
Dean was pinning all his hopes on this. Find the werewolf, find the witch. It was the only thing he could think of that made sense. A werewolf aware of it's condition, using witchcraft to take out threats between full moons.
"Please, I don't know your brother!" the petite blonde woman sobbed, backed into a corner of her apartment.
She was a hairdresser, of all things, small and pixie-like with too many piercings and bleached hair. She couldn't have been older than 20, and the only good thing Dean could take from this whole mess was that Sammy wasn't awake to see him shoot her.
Dean hated werewolf hunts. He'd hated them even before the showdown with Madison and since then he'd avoided them whenever he could. It was Sam who'd insisted on this one – damn self-sacrificing emo that he was. Why was it that Dean got the impression that Sam was punishing himself for things he had no control over, or things that he thought he was destined to do if Dean didn't follow through with his promise? (And he wouldn't do it, damn it. He didn't think he could make himself any clearer than that. If it was the last thing he did he was going to save Sam, now and any time that required it in the future.)
Dean had tried to find an out but Sam had used the fail-safe argument that people were in danger (and damn Sam for being so logical about it), and after Dean had checked and double-checked that there were no other hunters in the area, he'd grudgingly conceded that Sam was right. They had to take it.
Anyway, Dean hated werewolf cases because beneath the monster was an innocent that he had no hope of saving, a civilian he couldn't rescue, and that wasn't what he signed up for.
He wasn't exactly sure what half of Carrie Fisher's clients had done to piss her off but from what he could figure out, Carrie had been having an affair with one of the victims, broken off when his wife (another victim) had clued on, and had some sort of rivalry going on with another. It was enough for the pieces to fall into place, and if he could just find an altar hidden away in her gaudy apartment then he could finish this up and leave it behind as a bad job, the memories of which he could chase away with strong spirits and shooting something that deserved it.
"What did you do?" Dean asked again, stepping closer to show that he wasn't messing around.
"Oh God, oh God." Carrie did a nervous little dance with her feet, hands fluttering up by her neck. "Please, just... take whatever you want. I won't call the cops, I swear, just please, please don't hurt me."
Dean hesitated. If it was an act it was a good one. Carrie had gone white, her piercings glinting in the glow from the street lights and she looked horrifyingly close to tears, but witches were good at pulling the wool over people's eyes.
"Don't move," he ordered, layering the command with a wordless threat.
Carried nodded, then stopped abruptly as though she'd just figured out that nodding was moving, staring at him with wide eyes.
Dean was glad that her apartment was nothing more than a bedsit. One room with everything crammed in. He strode to the bookcase, keeping an eye, and his weapon, on Carrie as he tugged books out, tearing off covers that might be hiding something more sinister underneath. All he found were trashy romance novels, a few textbooks for community college and the complete set of Harry Potter (a witch with a sense of humour?).
He pulled out drawers, tossed clothes on the floor, rummaged through the kitchen cupboards. He checked under the bed and in the couch and the closet. No spell books, no altar, no suspicious herbs. Of course it wouldn't be that simple.
But she was still a werewolf.
Dean took his place in front of the girl, in the centre of the room, gun raised again.
"You didn't do anything to my brother?" he asked.
Carrie shook her head vigorously. "I don't know your brother. God, I don't know your brother, I swear. I didn't do anything. Please..."
Dean's shoulders slumped. There was no evidence of witchcraft in the apartment, no reason to believe she was lying. He was back to the drawing board. Except now he could finish the case he and Sam had been working on.
Carrie must have noted the change in his demeanour because she sagged too, hands lowering a little from her position of surrender. "So... so, you can let me go. I'm..." she gulped in a breath. She looked so freaking young, damn it. "I'm sorry about, about your brother, whatever happened, but, but you can let me go now, right?"
Dean swallowed. Why did she have to be so young? "I can't." This was what he hated about werewolf hunts. "I'm sorry, I am. It's not your fault, but..."
He clicked the gun's safety off.
Carrie made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a sob. "No! No, please! You can't, you can't..." Her eyes darted from side to side, looking for an escape, looking for an excuse. Her hands reached for her abdomen, curling there. "I'm pregnant," she blurted. "Oh God, I'm pregnant, you cant – Please!"
God freaking damn it to Hell and back. The gun wobbled in Dean's hand. She was a monster, but right now she was a terrified teenager, pregnant, unless she was grasping at straws to find something that would stop him. How could he do it? How had Sam found the strength?
The moonlight spilled through the window and Carrie's face shimmered, skin stretching grotesquely. Teeth lengthened and sharpened and her whole body seemed to ripple.
Dean swallowed down bile and shot her in the heart.
XXX
"We're never hunting a werewolf again," Dean emphatically informed Sam's sleeping figure as he banged the motel door shut.
He staggered the few steps to his bed and flopped down on his back, feet still on the carpet. He tipped his head back so that he was looking at Sam upside down. "You hear that, Sammy? Never again. Werewolves no longer have to fear the Winchesters."
Sam's face was tilted towards him, lank hair falling over one eye, lips parted slightly as he breathed steadily in and out.
Dean closed his eyes. God, but he was tired. There was only so long a person could live on caffeine and cat naps. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "So the werewolf wasn't a witch. Which means there must be some other frog-breathing, warty bitch hanging around town." He sighed. "I don't even know where to start, Sammy."
"Rosalie."
Dean snapped his eyes open. He bolted upright, previous exhaustion forgotten, and spun around, tangling in the bed sheets to land in an undignified heap on the floor by Sam's bed. "Sam? Hey, you with me?" he demanded, clambering vaguely upright and taking Sam's face in his hands, thumbs curling over his cheeks. "Sam!"
Sam's eyelids fluttered. "Go'a save... 'alie... D'n?"
Slits of hazel appeared. Dean shook him lightly and Sam's eyes opened, pupils grossly dilated.
"Sam, hey, wake up, c'mon, that's it." Encouragements tumbled from Dean's mouth as Sam gazed foggily up at him.
"... get th' Djinn?" Sam mumbled faintly. "... 'ere's Rosalie?"
"Hey, stay with me, Sammy," Dean ordered as Sam gazed through him rather than at him. "Who's Rosalie?"
But the awareness was already fading from Sam's eyes, eyelids drooping again.
"Sam!" Dean was clenching the kids face hard enough to hurt but Sam was oblivious. "Come on, Sam, help me out here. Help me fix this. Who's Rosalie? Give me a last name. Sam!"
Sam's eyes slid to the side, dull and unfocussed. "... not a warehouse...?"
"Sam, come on. Give me something to work with," Dean begged, bent so close that their foreheads almost touched. "What's Rosalie's last name?"
Sam frowned, confused, his eyes slipping closed.
"Sam!" Dean gave him another rough shake.
"Jones," Sam breathed finally. "'s Jones."
"Jones," Dean echoed, committing it to memory. "Rosalie Jones, that it, Sammy? She our witch? Sam!"
Sam was gone again, still and unresponsive on the bed, eyes closed as if they'd never opened.
"Okay." Dean let out a shaking breath, patting Sam's face absently before backing off. "Okay. Good work, Sammy. Rosalie Jones. I can work with that."
Or Bobby could. Sam was usually the go-to guy for hacking into people's records. Dean could do it too, if he had to, but Bobby would probably be faster and Dean didn't want to waste time. This could be the answer.
XXX
Dean was jolted from sleep by his cell phone vibrating in his hand, Smoke on the Water trilling out, high-pitched and electronic. He bolted upright, casting a glance at Sam – still out, of course – as he flipped it open.
"Bobby," he said, without bothering to check the Caller ID. The only people who called him were Bobby and Sam, and Sam wasn't exactly able to come to the phone right now. "What you got for me?"
"Well, I found her," Bobby's gruff tones informed him. "You sure Sam said Rosalie Jones? She don't seem like a witch to me."
"That's what he said, Bobby, so what'd you find out?" Dean sat down at the table, pulling the motel's complimentary stationary closer and picking up a pen, poised to jot down the details.
"Well, there is a Rosalie Jones in your town, kid got that right. She's a couple of months younger than Sam, no siblings, parents deceased, and currently a patient in Saint Margaret's Psychiatric Unit."
Dean's pen paused. That was unexpected. He dropped it on the table and leant back in his chair. "So what's wrong with her?"
"Paranoid Schizophrenic, apparently. Been in and out of there for a while now." Bobby paused. "Dean, if you're gonna try to interview her... you just shouldn't get your hopes up, ya hear? I don't know how reliable her information will be."
Dean ran a weary hand over his face. Okay, so he hadn't banked on the girl being coo coo for cocoa puffs, but - "She knows something, Bobby. Something about Sam. I've gotta find out what it is."
"You sure about that, Dean?" Bobby sounded doubtful. "You said Sam wasn't making much sense. Something about a Djinn and a warehouse, right?"
"He said her name, Bobby. He said he had to save her. So I don't know what's going on, what Djinns have to do with it." (And man, why did it have to be Djinn's? Like he needed the reminder of that perfect life he'd given up.) "Maybe... maybe it's something to do with Sam's visions, I don't know, but this girl's in trouble somehow, and so is Sam. She's the only lead I've got."
"All right, kid. I'll see if I can dig up anything else on her. You go ahead and do what you gotta do."
"Thanks, Bobby. I owe you one." Gees, more than one. By rights, he and Sam should have been Bobby's personal slaves by now.
"You boys owe me plenty," Bobby concurred unknowingly and good naturedly. "I'll call you back if I find something."
Dean set his phone down on the table, chewing on his lip as he stared at Sam thoughtfully. The laptop beeped a moment later, signalling the arrival of a new email. Dean opened it up and followed the attachment. Painfully slowly – damn motels and their crappy wireless – a photograph of a young girl loaded.
"Go Bobby," Dean muttered, staring at the face of Rosalie Jones, suspected witch or witness or something. Shoulder length brown hair and dark eyes; she was pretty. More Sam's type than his, though Sam was flexible that way. Dean preferred blondes. And red heads. God, he loved red heads. Anyway...
So she was a girl in a mental ward. A mental ward in the same hospital Gareth I survived a werewolf attack and all I got was a crappy hospital stay Hanks had been admitted to, where he and Sam had interviewed him the day before Sam had failed to wake up.
So they had been near her but hadn't actually met her. So what did she have to do with this?
XXX
It wasn't as difficult as Dean thought it would be to gain permission for a visit to the loony bin. A story about Rosalie being his half-cousin and a sympathetic nurse had made it almost worryingly simple.
"Oh, she'll be so happy to see you. She never gets visitors, poor girl," Sheila from reception had said, still blushing from Dean's shameless (and calculated) flirting. She was at least twice his age but Dean had long ago figured out how to use his charm to make any woman in a twenty foot radius melt.
Dean had smiled appropriately and fed the woman a story from their imagined childhood and continued on to explain that they'd lost touch and he'd only recently heard that she'd been admitted here, while thinking that they really should have better security.
Sheila clucked compassionately. "Did someone contact you about her suicide attempt?"
It was lucky that years of training had taught Dean to roll with the punches, almost like second nature, and he managed to keep his surprise under wraps. It must have been a recent attempt, as Bobby's hacking skills hadn't uncovered anything about it.
A few more meaningless exchanges about how sad it was to see someone so young so ill, another dash of charm and he was in. Granted access to her room even, where Rosalie was apparently on some form of lock down for the next few hours, which had the added bonus of privacy.
Rosalie only barely resembled the photo Bobby had sent him. It was obviously a few years old and the time between then and now had been rough. There was no smile on the girl's face and she was thin almost to the point of being bony. Her hair looked unwashed and she carried her illness in her eyes.
Dean thanked the nurse who had led him to Rosalie's room, a slightly rounded red-headed woman who, under different circumstances, he may have made a move on (those red heads), and sat down carefully on the edge of Rosalie's bed. Rosalie herself was sitting at a desk on the far side of the small room, drawing. She hadn't looked up when he came in.
Dean waited until the nurse had left before he addressed the girl.
"Hi, Rosalie," he said, keeping it simple. He'd work his way up.
"Hi," Rosalie said back, not taking her eyes from her drawing.
She didn't ask who he was, like Dean expected, but, well, she was nuts, right? So this probably wouldn't play out by the book.
"What are you drawing?" he asked, his own eyes on Rosalie's bandaged wrists. Drawing must have hurt but she didn't show any outward signs that it bothered her.
Rosalie sat, quiet and fixated.
Okay, so leading her into conversation might not work so well. Dean cleared his throat. It sounded loud over the faint squeaking of the pen. "So, I'm here because I think you might know someone. He's my brother, uh -"
He stopped as Rosalie raised her head. She eyed him steadily, with her bloodless skin and haunted gaze. She put her pen down, slowly and deliberately.
"Is this about Sam?" she asked finally.
Dean felt something jolt in his stomach. So she did know something.
"You know Sam?" he asked evenly, not letting his anticipation show in his voice. He didn't want to scare her off, and there was still a slim possibility that she was a witch. Either way, he needed to tread carefully.
"You're not real," Rosalie said abruptly, flinging the words at him like an accusation. She turned back to her picture.
Dean debated his next step. "Why do you think that?" he asked eventually.
Rosalie twirled her pen in her fingers, looking from her paper to him, a quick nervous glance, before settling on her paper again. "'cause Sam's not real so you're not real. I'm not supposed to talk to you. I'm supposed to be getting better." She huffed out a half-hysterical laugh. "I was almost getting my life back." She smiled ruefully, shaking her head.
Dean leant in closer, resisting the urge to shake the answers out of her. Sam had always been better at this sort of thing. "Rosalie," he said clearly, "Do you know where Sam is?"
Rosalie's smile dropped. She looked up at him wretchedly and fisted a hand in the ends of her hair.
"Sam's in my head," she whispered. "I don't know how to get him out."
TBC
A/N: So did ya see it coming? I'm feeling clever because Rosalie said that Sam was in her head right from chapter one XD I'd love to hear what you all think of this. Go on, click the review button.