A/N: Okay, yet another round of apologies. My mom had a heart attack, and now she is set up for triple bypass surgery in a few days. She's actually doing really well right now, considering, so I am getting some writing done, just a little slower than normal. Normally, if I was going to post a chapter of "How To Fix A Winchester" I aim for Friday morning, but I'm guessing you will all forgive me.
I got lots of exciting prompts! Yay. Okay, this is my response to Wholocked221's prompt "a creature kidnapping Sam, and Dean rescuing, with awesome Bobby optional".
So, Wholocked221, thanks so much for your review and time, and I hope you like your chapter. The Selkie storyline just sort of came to me, I hope everyone has fun reading.
As Always,
EverReader
How to Fix a Winchester -Chapter Seven
"The Unfortunate Thing About Picnics"
Selkies.
In the movies, Selkies are romantic.
Scottish mermaids, with the bodies of seals when at home in the ocean, and possessing the bodies of beautiful, nubile young women when on dry land. The coastline is full of quaint, charming legends of lonely fishermen catching a Selkie, making her his wife by hiding her sealskin, landlocking the young woman for the rest of her life, unless she managed to find her skin.
Romantic, right ( in a Stockholm syndrome kinda way)?
The reality?
Not quite so romantic.
Also, not just Scotland.
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Harper's Ferry, Maine, was a small fishing town, a village really.
Nothing more exciting than the reading of old Lady Kennebec's will had happened in the last forty years. Everyone in Harper's Ferry knew everyone else (and their business).
So you can only imagine the uproar when three of the town's most eligible bachelors went missing.
One at a time, stolen away from the docks, their boats, and in one case, the beach itself. Jonas Gentry's girlfriend Liza Beth, swore she'd only ran back to her car for cooler for their picnic lunch, but when she returned, Jonas had vanished.
And one by one, the sea returned the young men back to the little town of Harper's Ferry.
Though they weren't exactly in the same condition as when they were taken.
That would have been a little bit difficult, seeing as they were dead.
Each man's body was found, skinned, and floating near the shoreline, a macabre find for they leery fisherman simply looking for the catch of the day.
Each man taken alive, and returned...well, not so much.
Exactly three days later.
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Sam awoke with a groan, clutching his pounding head.
The room, if you could call it that, was dark and damp, and the floor, when he ran his hand across it disorientedly, appeared to be...stone?
Okay.
Not a room at all then. A cave or a cavern, near the sea, by Sam's guess. The floor and walls were clammy, and he could smell salt and seaweed.
That would mean the roaring sound he heard was the surf, and not his head, which would be a truly excellent starting point.
If Sam had had any idea where he was, why he was there, or how exactly he had come to be there at all.
Feeling his face, his fingers encountered a tacky, stiffened substance that experience told him was blood.
Moving his arms and legs, everything else appeared to be in working order, though the chain on his ankle was less than promising.
Also, he couldn't remember for certain, but he doubted that when this little adventure had started, he had been shirtless, sans shoes and socks as well.
He was also missing his knife, his lock pick, his second knife, and his phone.
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"Damn it, Bobby, where the hell are you? You should be here by now!" Dean growled anxiously, pacing back and forth in the confines of the small motel room.
"I'm less than an hour out, now!" Bobby snapped in a worried growl of his own.
"Now, calm the hell down and tell me what happened again, from the beginning, slowly."
"We don't have time for this, Bobby. Sam disappeared twelve hours ago. Those guys showed up three days later, and the coroner said the fact that they were skinned was just icing on the cake. They were drowned first, some of them several hours before this freak filleted them."
"Start at the beginning!" Bobby ordered again, and this time, Dean obeyed.
"We were down at the docks..." He began.
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Sam remembered what happened, now.
Well, sort of.
The part where he woke up chained, half naked in a cave by the sea was still a little disconcerting, but at least he remembered the basics.
He and Dean had picked up a case as a favor to Bobby.
A friend of a friend had retired to Harper's Ferry years back, and her nephew, Jonas, had been found, skinned and floating among the rocky shoreline a few miles outside of town. As Jonas was the third victim, Bobby had agreed to look into the case, but then Rufus had needed help from someone who spoke Greek, so Sam and Dean had agreed to hit the town for Bobby in the meantime.
Dean had been of the opinion that is was most likely a simple human serial killer (only Dean could class a human being who voluntarily murdered other human beings in large numbers as simple).
Sam hadn't been so sure, however.
The deaths had a ritualistic feel to them. Also, the three young men had all been in excellent physical condition, which, though not making it impossible for a human to be the culprit, certainly made it less likely.
There was no sign of struggling at any of the crime scenes, and no one had heard anything either.
He and Dean had gotten into town two days ago (though he supposed his sense of time left something to be desired at this point, thanks to his head injury) and they had started interviewing witnesses.
Sam had been thinking along the lines of some kind of merfolk or siren, which would explain the lack of struggle. They'd had trouble finding any concrete evidence, however, so they had decided to try and interview some of the older fishermen again.
Harper's Ferry's oldest generation of sailors were a surly bunch, and he and Dean had been forced to move their interrogation into the local bar in hopes that the whiskey would loosen up tongues.
Finally, one man, Walter, had seemed to take a shine to Dean.
Hoping to encourage the two men to talk, Sam had stepped outside of the bar.
That was when he'd heard the cry for help.
It was the oldest trick in the book and every hunter knew it, but as a feint, it remained devastatingly effective, because no hunter, no matter how seasoned, would knowingly ignore a cry for help.
Sam Winchester was no exception.
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"And when I came out of the bar, Sam was just gone. I found his cell phone on the ground in about seven pieces out toward the far end of the dock, but that was about it."
There was a pause as Bobby digested the information Dean had relayed.
"What about the legend that old fisherman told you, that Walter guy?" He asked after a moment.
"He said the local legend was that old man Harper used to run a ferry between the docks here and Seala island. One day he came back from the island with a wife, real pretty. Said she grew up on the island, but none of the local island families would claim her. Right after his first son was born, he came in to a bunch of money, used it to found the town."
Seala, huh. That's Irish for seal. " Bobby said musingly.
"Seal? What does that have to do with anything?" Dean asked distracted.
"I don't know for sure yet, but I'll be there soon."
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Sam was freezing. He wasn't sure how long he'd been...wherever he was.
It was fairly secluded, that was certain. Sam had tried yelling for a few hours, but he'd finally stopped when his voice had gone out.
He'd also tried escaping the chain on his ankle, but despite it's age and the rust that coated it, it held fast.
After what seemed like an interminable time, he heard the soft shuffle of light footsteps on the sand. He blinked in surprise when his captor came into view.
"You?"
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"It's a what?" Dean said incredulously.
"A Selkie." Bobby repeatedly patiently.
"You mean, one of those seal/girl things, right? They kill people?" Dean asked.
"Normally, no. Selkies are very passive. It's the human factor that makes them unstable. Legend has it that all Selkies are female. Once a Selkie has been captured, her husband would bury her sealskin somewhere she'd never find it, to prevent her from returning to the ocean." Bobby said.
"Why wouldn't he just burn it?" Dean queried.
"Burying a Selkie's sealskin on your property reportedly brings good fortune." Bobby explained.
"The story fits." Bobby confirmed. " Harper's children and his grandchildren and his great grandchildren were all boys, so the Selkie gene would have passed them over. Only girls carry the gene, but if the Selkie was born on dry land she would have to perform a ritual in order to create a skin for herself."
"Let me guess. Does this ritual involve human skins?" Dean asked in dread.
"You got it. One skin for every generation away from the sea." Bobby confirmed grimly.
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"Liza Beth?" Sam asked, caught completely off guard.
"Actually, it's Elizabeth, not that any of the yokels around here ever get it right." The girl said. She was beautiful, with long hair and longer legs.
Suddenly, something clicked in Sam's weary brain. Through chattering teeth, he muttered.
"Seala...Seal. You're a..." He coughed. "A..selkie." He'd curled up as best he could to conserve his body heat, but it had been hours at this point, making it a soon to be lost battle.
"Aren't you a clever one. For a man." She added as an after thought. "But you only got it partially right. My great-great grandmother was a Selkie. Harper captured her and buried her skin. She was trapped on dry land for the rest of her life. That would have been the end of it, but I came along."
Sam shook his head, wondering if his hypothermia was making it hard to follow along with her reasoning.
"Do you know what it's like, being trapped in this body? This isn't who I am, it's not who I'm supposed to be. I can hear the sea, in my head, like my pulse, all the time, no matter what I'm doing, where I am. I spent years looking for a ritual that would let me return. And I finally found one." She said, eyes alight with a maniacal gleam.
"Sk..kins" Sam guessed.
"You guessed it. One for every generation between me and the sea. You'll be the last. Four skins, taken from the land the way my grandmother's sisters have been stolen from the sea for centuries. Once I finished with you, I can return to my true home."
"Dean's coming for me." Sam said without the slightest hesitation.
She arched one graceful brow. "Then you better hope he gets here faster than the tide."
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"But are there still any Harper's around?" Dean asked, looking frantically at his watch.
Something in his gut told him they were running out of time.
"Just one." Bobby said, glancing down at his notes. "Elizabeth Harper, aged twenty-two."
"Liza Beth." Dean said grimly as the puzzle pieces started sliding into place.
"She inherited the old Harper property two years ago when her father died." Bobby confirmed.
"How do you kill a Selkie?" Dean asked darkly, and Bobby shuddered, reminding himself once again to never come between Dean Winchester and his little brother.
"Fire or Silver." Bobby stated.
Dean cocked his gun, looking up at his surrogate father. "Bullets work?"
Bobby tilted his head. "One way to find out."
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Cold.
Sam was cold. And dark.
Or it was dark. Sam was cold.
He wasn't sure anymore. The water had risen to his chest already, the cold sapping his strength as well as his ability to think clearly.
From a far away distance, he heard what sounded like struggle followed by several gunshots, but his mind was full of things...pictures, memories.
A carousel on the boardwalk in Jersey Dean had taken him to when he was seven or eight.
The soccer team Bobby signed him up for when he stayed with him the fall he was twelve.
The first time he ever saw Jess, standing in English Lit. 101, the afternoon sun lighting up her hair like gold rain.
"Sam! Sammy! SAM! Answer me, Sam?" The voice was familiar, but Sam was sleepy.
Surely he could sleep a few more minutes...
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Dean sat at the edge of Sam's bed in their dimly lit hotel.
Sam had been in and out of consciousness for the past two days. Really, he needed a hospital, but Bobby had advised against it. The iron manacle had left a distinctive mark on Sam's ankle, and Dean had been forced to kill Elizabeth Harper (and gee, wasn't he crying inside over it.)
Unfortunately, since Liza Beth had never finished her ritual, the police would find what looked like a completely human body when they discovered her, meaning Bobby and the Winchester brothers had to hightail it out of there.
"Key..." Sam muttered. "Need...It's a Selkie."
"I know, kiddo. You did good, you figured it out." Dean murmured soothingly.
Sam had been unconscious and more than half dead when Dean had discovered him, chained in a low lying cavern on the shoreline of the old Harper property. The tide had risen to Sam's chin by the time Dean had retrieved the key from around Liza Beth's neck.
Once Dean had gotten Sam away from the immediate threat of the tide, he'd been able to triage Sam's other injuries.
The head wound was troubling, but not desperately so. The hypothermia was also remedied relatively quickly.
But almost immediately, the pneumonia set in.
Sam had been chained up, under dressed in the cold and wet for several hours, and his immune system was pretty much tanked by the time Dean had gotten him out.
Dean now found himself fighting one final enemy.
Illness.
Bobby procured IV's with saline and antibiotics from somewhere, though Dean wouldn't let anyone but himself touch Sam. His big brother instincts were on high alert, and he frankly reminded Bobby of a mother bear who's cub had been injured.
It was Dean who monitored Sam's fever, and managed his medicine. It was Dean who wiped Sam's forehead, and supported his head so he could drink water whenever he had the strength.
Sam usually lacked the energy to even open his eyes, but that didn't stop his brother. Dean did whatever Sam needed, seeming to sense it even before Sam understood it. He talked continually, a flowing river of words that soothed Sam's fevered ramblings.
Once or twice, Bobby thought he heard Dean singing softly, but if the words to "Hey, Jude" passed Dean's lips, well, that was between the boys.
Finally, after eight days, Sam turned a corner for the better.
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"Has he slept at all?" Sam's weary voice startled Bobby, and he looked up from his book.
"Hey, Sam! Good to actually see your eyes open." Bobby said, closing his book and standing to walk over quietly.
"Don't wake him." Sam ordered, careful not to shift his leg from where Dean's head was laying on it.
"His neck's gonna kill him in the morning." Bobby warned.
Sam shrugged tiredly, eyes already fluttering closed again. "Not like he'd sleep anywhere else right now. Don't tell him we talked. He'll want to...talk...me...first."
"You got it, kid." Bobby said affectionately, draping a blanket over the oldest Winchester's shoulders.
"Mum's the word."