Disclaimer All recognizable characters/settings belong to their creators. The stories listed here are transformative works, from which I've made/am making no financial profit.

Warnings Language; references/allusions to torture and non-con.

15. Girl from the North Country

Dean is thinking really hard, or at least he's trying to, keeps turning his mental ignition key and hearing the starter motor grind away in there. He has this feeling he's on the cusp of something, and he wishes he could remember what he dreamed because he's full sure the answer was in there somewhere, but every time he thinks the engine is going to catch it dies on him. It makes him think abstractedly of the old Charger he liberated from Bobby's mountain of junkers and tooled around in for a few weeks before his dad bailed on him, how the starter motor jammed every damn time, and he had to stow half a broom handle under the front seat and pop the hood to give the part a wallop with it before he turned the key.

His leg is a dull, throbbing ache now, stretching up his thigh and across his pelvis. His shoulder still screams a torrent of abuse at him every time he moves his head, and it's oozing, suppurating. Every time he tries to walk his fingers around to his back pocket he gasps, shakes with the red hot agony, even as he knits his brows together in frustration because he can't remember why it is he needs to reach the pocket, and thinks he should just damn well stop because it isn't worth the effort. So he slumps back, thinks of the bitchface his brother is going to pull when he catches up with him, because Sam was right and it is that demon bitch just like he thought.

He dozes for a while, caught in the twilight between wake and sleep. He can't drift off properly because every time he does, that reflexive twitch that heralds slumber triggers pain that scorches up his neck and down his arm, and the shock of it has him jerking fully awake, cursing weakly because he thinks she's done some real damage. It occurs to him that she might have sliced through some tendons, and he wonders if he'll ever be able to swing that arm properly again.

When his body finally succumbs to exhaustion she comes to him and rouses him, nibbles her way to his mouth, cold lips. "You're gonna melt on my tongue," she murmurs, and Dean is frozen, repelled, wonders what she'd do if he hurled right in her face, wishes he had a full gut so he could.

As she makes her way down his body, Dean stares up at nothing, and his mind keeps grinding unproductively, a rainbow colored spinning pinwheel of doom that makes him think of busty asian beauties dot com crashing Bobby's old iBook so hard and so thoroughly the old man had to pitch it in the trash.

There's something he's supposed to remember, but his shoulder is on fire and his brain is non-responsive, stuck in an infinite loop, so Dean force-quits.

Alastair brings more food and that's just nine kinds of crazy. And Dean can hear this voice in his head, something about lunch, blue eyes brimming with kindness, compassion, care.

His voice is weak and hoarse because he's so thirsty, and his tongue is thick and throbbing because somewhere along the line he bit it so hard his teeth met in the middle. But even though he knows damn well it'll end in tears, he asks what the fuck is going on with the food. "What the fuck is going on with the food?"

The meatsuit sits back on his heels, regards Dean for a few seconds, and curls up one side of his mouth. "Told you. She don't cook."

"You never fed me proper food before," Dean slurs back at him.

"Hot damn. Don't take her long to send you guys off the reservation," the meatsuit sniggers, and then he leans in close. "Sub. All the meats. Remember?" He busies himself unwrapping it, poking a straw down into the paper cup. "Got a Cuban this time," he goes on. "Coffee too. Caffeine. She likes it when you guys stay awake."

A moment passes while Dean collects himself. "I mean before that," he croaks out finally. "Before. Downstairs."

The meatsuit chuckles, shuffles backwards on his ass, and leans against the wall opposite. "You're losin' it, buddy. There is no before."

There's something so familiar about it, the concept of not having had a before, and Dean blinks hard, tries to work his way through it all, the flow chart in his head, storyboards like they use when they make movies, the what, where, when, and who of his life up until Hell, and the meatsuit nudges his foot with his boot.

"You gonna eat it?"

Dean is thrown for a second. "Eat what?"

"The sub," the meatsuit clarifies. "She'll get real mad if you don't eat, boy. You don't wanna see her mad, believe me."

Dean snorts. "Seen her mad already," he mutters. "Queen bitch."

The meatsuit nods in agreement. "She's a demon alright."

Grinning weakly despite himself, Dean looks down at the sub sitting beside his hand, studies it. A voice rings loud and clear in his head, I don't imagine Alastair was in the habit of providing a healthy lunch, and Dean finds he's laughing, shrill and wild. "Thing of it is, Alastair always bought me lunch," burbles out of him almost merrily. "Just not Cubans, well not the sandwich kind anyway. Real Cubans, some of them must have been anyway. And that sonofabitch fed me bloody chunks of those poor bastards." He can see it now in his memory bank, handfuls of raw, dripping flesh and muscle ripped out of wide-open carcasses, and, "Have some more, Dean," he hollers, "Get that long pig down you, son, that'll grow you big and strong, and I hope you like your meat rare, because—"

Dean's head slams back against the wall with the force of the slap but he still laughs so much tears start pricking the corners of his eyes.

The meatsuit is inches away, eyebrows drawn down, something like concern there, which takes the weird to a whole new level. "Snap out of it," he barks. "Snap the fuck out of it, kid. I done you right, I done all of them right. She might eat it, but I don't, and I never fed it to any of the others either."

"Cut the crap, Alastair," Dean dares to breathe out between pants. "You fed me my own innards plenty of times before, and you aren't fooling me with your—"

"That ain't my name, buddy," the meatsuit cuts in, and he's shaking his head as he butt-shuffles away again. "They all lost it eventually, but Christ, you're the craziest one she's had in here so far, and no doubt about it."

And fuck, if that doesn't get Dean's motor running, finally, and now he's heading for the highway, because that voice is back in his head, something's not right. He licks his lips, and he's cautious. "You shouldn't be able to say that."

The meatsuit rolls his eyes. "Say what?"

Dean chews his lip for a second, thinks, strategy, how the fuck to…?

"You shouldn't take the name of the Lord in vain." He puts it out there as primly and as damned clearly as he can, despite the fact his voice is a faint rasp now. "But if you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, then you might—"

"Jesus H tapdancin' Christ on the cross," the meatsuit splutters. "What the hell is it about you guys that has you saying your prayers to the Lord our God when it don't do you no good… huh." He laughs it out, manages to calm himself, wipes his eyes. "Jesus Christ don't plan on saving you, buddy, and that's a fact. It's up to her what happens to you."

Bitch-slapped by reality springs to mind, maybe even ass-reamed by fate, as Dean goggles over at the guy.

"You some batshit religious nutjob, buddy?" the man says. "Evangelist or something?"

"Like the Reverend Ike," Dean whispers back. "You aren't Alastair, are you?"

"Nope. Albert. Like the Chairman of the board." The guy must see Dean's baffled expression, because he elaborates. "Ol' blue eyes. Ma was a big fan of Frank Sinatra. Francis Albert, that's me." He sniffs derisively. "Francis is a fuckin' pansy-ass fairy name."

"Talking mule," Dean offers in return, and he sees the guy's own face crease in bewilderment. "Francis the talking mule," he clarifies. "Like Mr Ed. Only he came first." He pauses, clears his throat thickly. "My dad liked Frank Sinatra. He did it his way. My dad, I mean."

"Frank too," the dude says, nodding. "That's a great song," he adds reverently, holds out his hands for emphasis. "What is a man? What has he got?"

"If not himself, then he has not…" Dean finishes.

"I'm starting to like you." Big smile, stained, chipped teeth. "Buddy, when you call me you can call me Al."

Too fuckin' right, you big dumb piece of shit, Dean thinks. Everyone likes me in the end. Even Uriel liked me in the end. Fuck, even Alastair liked me in the end. He shivers, forces his face into a tired grin. "That's a relief. Since I face the final curtain and all."

The man cackles. "That you do. But you never know. She seems to like you better than the others. Says you're the one. Maybe that means you ain't a lost cause." He motions towards the sub and coffee cup. "You eating that?"

Dean looks down at the sandwich and his gut is shifting from side to side, part hunger, part nausea, part fear, part goddamned adrenaline. "Can't pick it up, Al," he whispers. "She cut me up too bad. Can't move my arm."

Grimace, followed by an eye roll, and the guy picks up his flashlight, launches forward onto his hands and knees, crawls over and flops down beside Dean. He makes himself comfortable, lifts the cup up to Dean's lips.

Dean sucks long and deep on the straw, gulps it down, just warm enough not to have him gagging. He leans his head back stiffly, till it rests against the wall, sighs out his relief. "I was pretty dry. Thanks."

"Nothin' like that first cup of Joe," the guy agrees, as he starts breaking off bits of the sub and feeding Dean small bites.

"Where am I?" Dean prods between chewing, and he huffs as the guy's expression goes doubtful. "It isn't like it'll make a difference if you tell me, Al, now is it?"

The man nods slowly. "I guess. You're in the elevator."

Dean frowns. "You said that before. I don't get it."

"Elevator," the guy says easily. "She don't like the stink of you guys in the room, and when she closes the doors it's soundproof in here. I rigged it so it's stuck on our floor. Well…" He looks back and up. "Sort of. Slipped down a few feet, but it'll do."

"But won't someone report it?" Dean says stupidly, and the man laughs.

"No one else here. Building's condemned. Hear that noise?"

"The cussin' weather…" Dean murmurs dreamily. "Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening… Used to say that to my baby brother."

The man quirks his lips. "Oh yeah? That the Sammy she's been bitchin' on about? She sure as Hell has it in for him."

Not much point in denying that, so Dean nods.

"Well it ain't the weather, buddy." The man shakes his head ruefully. "It's the wreckers. Demolition squad. They're knocking down this whole area."

After considering that for a minute, Dean pulls a face. "Are we staying for that?"

The man pushes up, stretches, and groans. "Well, we ain't," he muses, and then he huffs out. "Don't know about you though, buddy. You'd best behave. She likes you, but…" His voice trails off meaningfully.

"She's a demon," Dean mutters, and he wonders if the fucktard really knows what he's gotten mixed up with as the man turns around and pries the doors apart.

Al turns back, considers him. "I'll leave them wedged open again," he says after a second. "I'll leave you the flashlight too. Shout if you need anything."

"Yeah," Dean breathes. "Fuckin' room service."

The man barks out an amused laugh and then heaves himself up and disappears.

Dean sits a minute, wearily ponders the sheer madness of people conspiring with demons, concludes that it must be what happens when the world ends.

And then he flips open the cellphone he lifted from the guy's pocket.

"A kid," Hudak says, and she's aghast, shaking her head. "How can a kid be responsible for this?"

Coop pauses from reading the file, throws her a sideways look, says, "You've seen Carrie. Teenage girls are the worst, Katie." He sniggers. "Makes me wonder what you were like."

"But a kid," Hudak says again. "Those bodies, the hearts… the faces. God."

"Kids raised the hard way can be moral voids," the big man says after a beat. "Most serial killers come from dysfunctional backgrounds… she could have been abused, there could be drugs, alcohol in there somewhere." He flicks through the pages. "He says Child Services never knew where she came from… it's a recipe for juvenile delinquency at the very least. She spent six months in care, doesn't seem like she mixed with anyone, so, isolation. It's textbook… lack of attention, loneliness, their minds become the object of their company, and bam – fantasy world. The two most frequently reported behaviors in serial killers are isolation and daydreaming, Katie." He picks out the FBI picture, studies it. "Seems like she's fantasizing about this Winchester character, from what her father says. And she's chasing that fantasy with the poor bastards she's killing."

Hudak shakes her head. "And no signs of abuse from the father," she murmurs. "He really was trying to help her. To the extent of covering up for her. Jesus."

Coop hums. "Well. Once we get the adoption records from DHS, at least we'll have a picture to go on. And we have the hooker's description of the accomplice."

Christ, Hudak thinks. Dean doesn't have time for us to petition for the adoption records. As the car eats up the miles, a road sign streaks up towards them, and she makes a decision. "Rest stop ahead. I need to take a leak, stretch my legs."

Shuffling the papers back inside the folder, her companion grunts. "Okey doke. Could do with a coffee myself."

"Signal… thank fuckin' God," Dean whispers as he squints down at the phone.

He taps out the digits with a careful, feeble thumb, and hits send. And he finds the phone is as heavy as a lead brick, he can't raise it to his ears, just can't push through the pain. He has to maneuver his hand across his body and up towards his right ear, sink his head down onto his chest to get his mouth as close to the receiver as he can, and when he hears the voice, he feels relief like he hasn't felt since Pontiac, when his brother wrapped him in his arms and held him so tight he could barely breathe.

"Sam," he husks out. "S'me. You need to – Sammy?"

There's nothing but silence, dead airspace. No, dammit, and Dean hears himself sob out in despair and frustration. He grits his teeth, taps it out again, waits for the connection. "Sam. Listen to me. You have to trace this call… Sam? You getting this?"

Door slamming, footsteps, and Dean's heart races as he flops his hand back down at his side, pushes the phone under his thigh. When he looks up, she's there, staring in through the gap, his nemesis, the demon bitch who sicced her dogs on him and dragged him, kicking and screaming, to Hell.

Their eyes lock for a long moment, and Dean doesn't realize he's holding his breath until she turns and disappears. And then gives himself over to the fear, the misery, and the hopelessness, because he's damned.

Sam's phone beeps and he fumbles it out of his pocket, but it's just the hiss-crackle of a bad connection, and he snaps it closed.

Again, and it's the same white noise, but maybe there's a tinny, far-off voice cutting in and out, distorted. "Kathleen?" he guesses. "Is that you? I can't hear you." And then it's gone again, and Sam tsks out frustration. "Number withheld," he tells Bobby as he glances at the screen. He stuffs the phone back into his pocket, disconsolate. "Must have been Kathleen."

Bobby pushes the laptop away. "Fuckin' spell couldn't just be eye of newt and toe of frog, could it?" he grouses. He rubs wearily at his brow, throws Sam a calculating look. "Is there any possibility Ruby could be jerkin' our chain on this?"

Sam feels his tension ramp up a notch. "No. I trust her. She's on the level, Bobby."

Bobby pulls a face, mumbles some indiscernible expression of irritation, glances over again. "How long is it now?"

"Five minutes since you last asked me," Sam says quietly. He sighs then. "She said it'd take a while. They can't speak to the guy without his lawyer present, and he has to drive down from International Falls."

The old man taps his knuckles on the table top, then twists and leans back to snag his jacket, rooting in the pocket and waving a deck of cards. "Ante up, boy." He empties a shower of loose change out onto the table, starts shuffling. "Seven card stud, highest hand wins. Bring-in's a quarter."

Sam lowers himself down into the chair opposite, adds his own handful of coins to the stake and Bobby deftly divvies up the cash before he deals. Sam squints down at his cards, pushes a quarter into the center of the table.

"Raise you," Bobby responds. "And you've never even been to International Falls?"

"No." Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, clamps his eyes closed for a few seconds. "Bobby, we've been over this."

"Well, we're doing it again," the old man parries smartly. "Was Dean ever there? When you were at Stanford, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Sam says. "I'm sure he's told me about pretty much every hunt he and dad went on when I was gone, and all of his solo hunts were further south. Hibbing's as far north as we've been in Minnesota."

Bobby snorts. "Hibbing. Jesus. I'd like to wipe that place from my memory."

"Yeah." The recall of the woods, the long search, his brother's recovery, is visceral, but even so, Sam remembers something Dean said and he tacks it on the end. "Though Dean said something once… said the woods, Bender, were like a practice run for Hell."

The old man grimaces, puts his cards down. "My mind isn't on this," he grates harshly. "Jesus. We don't even know if the John Doe is even the first one. It could go back further, longer, this connection with Dean. Whatever it is."

"Maybe it isn't Dean," Sam ventures. "It could be as simple as it looks – some lunatic with an obsession for guys who look like Dean." He shrugs. "Dean looks like Dean."

Bobby huffs out. "You think he'll remember what Castiel told him in his dream? About the hexbag?"

Sam is amazed it has taken Bobby this long to get round to it. "I don't know," he says, tentative. "Ever since he came back he doesn't seem to remember what he dreams. Wakes up the next day with no memory of them."

"Or none that he'll admit to." Bobby eyes Sam hard. "Let's hope he remembers this one."

Sam doesn't really know how to phrase it because he knows there isn't any way to say it without it sounding trite, knows there aren't any words of apology that will ever be significant enough to do it justice. "I'm sorry about the hexbag," he says softly. "It was stupid of me. Careless."

The old man's answer is as withering as Sam expected. "That has to be the understatement of the fuckin' century, boy." He shakes his head. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam races it out. "It's more than just visions, Bobby, has been for a long time. I can move things with my mind, like those other psychic kids. And – other things. Ruby was showing me how to harness it, how to control it, I thought I might be able to use it, use it for—"

"Your revenge quest," Bobby cuts in, a repeat of what he said before. "Your brother told me, Sam. About the other things too. Not just moving things with your mind. Exorcising demons with it."

Sam looks down at his boots, keeps himself locked down tight, calm, even though he feels like a lit fuse and for a second he thinks of the flask, fresh from the vein, feels a sudden lurch of need-want-crave, feels his mouth go sandpaper dry with his thirst. "Castiel told Dean to stop me," he mutters, licking his lips. "Uriel said it too. And Dean, he asked me to stop. But I – didn't. And it was easier to do it if no one knew. Cas would have sensed her and told Dean about it."

He leaves it there, can feel the weight of Bobby's steady gaze as he sits there waiting for the explosion, but it doesn't come.

Instead, "For what it's worth, Dean said he thought you were trying to do good with it," the old man says. "He thought you might have kept on doing it because you figured it was the only way to take out Lilith."

"That is the reason, or it was… I just." He holds up thumb and forefinger, millimeters apart, leans into them, closes his eyes. "It's – more than that."

Bobby doesn't reply and Sam flicks his eyes up, sees the old man's eyes are narrowed, suspicious maybe. He takes a deep breath. "All this time I've been telling myself I was doing it for good, doing it for Dean," he says. "And I am. The thought of losing him to this again is just – fuck. Too much." He can see his knuckles flare white as he clenches his fists, and digs his fingernails into his palms, and his jaw is set so tense he can barely continue. "And I can maybe stop that if I'm strong enough. But…" He looks up at the old man again. "I've been lying to myself too, Bobby, because it's not just about Dean anymore. It's about me. It's about feeling like I'm in control. Unstoppable. Powerful. I like it. I think Dean knows. And maybe now I'll never get the chance to tell him he was right."

Bobby meets his gaze. "Dean's afraid of it," he says. "Afraid of what it's doing to you, afraid of what it might mean for you—"

"When he should have been afraid of what it might mean for him," Sam chokes out bitterly. "God, Bobby, it's part of this whole mess… me thinking I knew better, thinking I was better, smarter, stronger. Thinking I had to take charge of this because he isn't up to the job, and—"

Jesus, phone again, and Sam startles, almost drops it as he fishes it out of his pocket. "Number withheld again," he mutters. "Hello?" His heart leaps as the voice comes through crystal clear. "Kathleen? Oh thank God, you were breaking up real bad before."

She's businesslike, handing out orders like she's the boss of Sam, but it doesn't rile him. He reaches for his pen, starts taking it all down as she winds it up. "Got it. Yeah, I can hack in, I've done it before. Okay."

He stays calm as he flips open his laptop, glances up at Bobby. "She said it's definitely Dean the perp is fixing on. The guy in Stillwater identified the FBI picture, said his kid was totally obsessed with it, cut it out of the newspaper after that shit went down with Hendricksen in Monument, kept saying she knew Dean."

"So we got a name?" Bobby snaps. "Someone you recognize?"

"Yes and no." Sam chews his lip and he types. "Trenton. I don't know the name, and apparently the only time this guy drove over the county line in the last three years it was in the convoy taking him to Stillwater…"

"So how is it that his daughter—"

"He adopted her," Sam replies. "Just over three years ago, out of a children's home in St Paul."

Bobby's face is a picture. "Jesus. So she must be a young kid…" He shakes his head, scrubs at his beard. "Lilith does like to wear kids," he offers. "And it was around the time of that Monument fubar her name first came up."

Sam rubs at his own brow because it still doesn't add up. "Honestly Bobby, I don't know. That is when Ruby first mentioned Lilith, but the timescale is off. Why would she have killed these other guys when she already had Dean down in the Pit, right where she wanted him?" He drums his fingers on the table for a few seconds, turns his attention back to the screen. "Children's Home Society and… that's the one." He knits his brow, forces himself past the worry, the nagging voice of doom in his head.

"Freud once said that a child would destroy the world if it had the power," Bobby says flatly.

Sam makes an indeterminate noise of agreement, flies his fingers over the keyboard. "Trenton, Douglas… Says the kid was a vagrant, approximate age twelve or thirteen, didn't talk, no identification."

"Do they have a picture?" Bobby prods.

"I'm working on it," Sam mutters. "Department of Human Services holds the records, I just need to find a back door into their content management system."

He flies through screens, backtracks, digs deeper, takes a wrong turn and curses as he backtracks, and suddenly it flashes up, and his fingers freeze. He stares at the screen for what seems like years but really it's only seconds as it all cascades through his head, a crashing waterfall of memories, flotsam on furious whitecapped surf, like he rewound himself back to then and now he's fast-forwarding through it all, swept along like they were in the river in the woods, and he fists and unfists his hand, brings it up to his chest because it's like his lungs are caught in a vise and he can't breathe. He's vaguely conscious of Bobby sitting opposite, snapping his fingers, barely hears the scrape of the chair as the old man pushes up, walks around to look over his shoulder, shakes him even.

"Sam," Bobby is saying sharply. "What? What is it?"

She looks different, washed up, hair braided, smiling wide for the camera, and Sam thinks distantly that Bobby never really got a close look at her, never stared into her flinty, empty eyes.

His tongue is swelled and thick in his mouth as he chokes it out. "It's Missy Bender."