A/N: The chapter we're finding out what was going on in the background right up till THAT moment and beyond.
Howlround (Chapter IX) by frostygossamer
With nowhere else to go, Dean returns to the Quonset hut to wait until everything metaphorically cools down. Using the improvised lockpick, he lets himself in and carefully closes the door behind him.
The hut has gotten mighty cold.
He daren't switch on a light but he finds the heater and warms himself a little. It is lucky he was able to steal a thick coat because his wetsuit is looking kind of shabby now. Knife fights will do that. Hungry and alone in the semidarkness, he polishes off Roy's bottle of Jack and a half package of hard lemon candy he found after combing through every cabinet and drawer in the place.
A couple hours later Dean decides he can't wait any longer. The time has come to act. Regular guy Dean is a man of peace but he has already offed two demons in self-defence. Now he is going to have to man up and take it to the rest before they can make a move.
He will start with the other guy with a monk's cell, Walt. The guy smells like a demon to Dean. As well as Walker's demon knife, he takes a heavy metal bar along with him. He may need to smash his way in.
Dean peers in Walt's window from outside. No one home. The window isn't hard to open. Clearly whoever put up these shacks didn't expect cranky penguins to be particularly interested in house-breaking.
Once he is inside the room, Dean secretes himself in a closet to wait for Walt to return.
~O~
When the occupant of the room shows up, Dean instantly recognises him as the second guy from the hut. So, yeah, definitely demon. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by another smaller guy, doctor's bag guy. Dean hesitates to take on two at one time. And he doesn't know the short guy's bona fides yet anyway.
"So how're we gonna do this?" asks Walt.
"We go through the motions," answers the doc in a bored tone.
He stands with his back to the closet grinning as Walt pulls his hoodie up over his head, momentarily covering his face. With both men's attention diverted, Dean takes the opportunity to step out of the closet and whop the shorter guy upside the head with his metal bar.
From inside his sweatshirt, Walt hears the doctor's surprised "Oof!", followed by the sound of his body hitting the floor, and flings off the hoodie. "Hey!"
Dean lunges at him, face grim and determined, knocking him to the floor, and sticks Walker's blade right in his guts, twisting. The guy doesn't have time to react. He convulses once and falls silent. The black smoke does its thing.
Wiping the blade on Walt's shirt, Dean replaces it in his pocket. Killing is starting to come disturbingly easy to him. And he isn't done yet. He needs to check out the remaining team members. He lets his eyes fall closed, steeling himself for what he has still to do.
Behind him, he hears the doctor starting to groggily move around. This guy is an unknown quantity, so Dean elects to hide out a while in Sam's empty room until he can seek out his next target.
Three more could-be demons left. Or is it four?
Chaos kicks off in the hall while Dean lies hidden under his brother's bed, his nose a little too close to Sam's sweaty thong sandals. He hears the commotion surrounding Crowley and the noisy discussion of what should be done with him. It seems the doctor is the main suspect in Walt's killing. Eventually the guy is marched away. Dean decides his judgement can wait a while.
Once Crowley is squirreled away, the station grows quiet again. Across the hall Dean can hear Singer and Turner preparing for a walk outside on the frozen snow. He wonders why they are braving the outdoors when he can see through Sam's window the blizzard has picked up to a near whiteout intensity. They will be close to blind out there.
But they ARE human. Maybe if he can catch up with them alone outside he can talk them into helping him out. He could sure do with some backup in this thing.
With that in mind, Dean gingerly slides open Sam's window and slips back out into the snow.
~O~
Out of doors the visibility is even worse than Dean had expected. He has to fight to keep his feet in the biting, lashing gale now swirling around the station's buildings. He isn't used to walking in these conditions and manages to lose his footing and fall a couple times.
He is soon struggling to follow in Singer and Turner's vanishing boot prints now new-fallen flakes blur their outlines. Close to being totally lost, he at last glimpses the two figures through the curtain of snow and is surprised to see they have been joined by a third individual.
Dean hesitates to approach this mystery man. He instead flattens himself in the snow to observe the three as they approach the outbuilding they were apparently aiming for. The well-built newcomer walks ahead with a certain air of military authority while the other two follow meekly behind. Dean is too far away to hear their conversation but the new man seems to be giving the orders.
"Looks like maybe whatsisname the boss guy?" Dean surmises.
He can't summon up the name of the guy Sam told him he would be reporting to. He makes a mental note to listen to his brother more. If he gets him home he will do everything with him more. Debating with himself whether he should approach the group, he sees them come to a halt outside a small building with 'DANGER! Explosives KEEP OUT' stencilled on its door.
Turner gets out a key and is unlocking the store when suddenly Bossguy draws a pistol on the other men. Singer and Turner put up their hands and back away, but he waves them inside the storehouse.
Bang! Bang! The muffled sound of two shots comes to Dean through the falling snow.
"Son of a bitch," he hisses.
That came out of nowhere. Who guessed Bossguy was a bad guy? No, but it makes sense the chief should be in on the demon deal. And Bossguy packs hardware? No fair. Dean doesn't get to rock a pea shooter, thanks to Kevin, so it is damn lucky he held back. Shame about Bert and Ernie though. He could have used their help.
Bossguy locks up the explosives store and starts back toward the admin block. Dean follows him, far enough behind to avoid being detected. So this guy is a demon too? Dean counts on his mittened fingers. Only three possible survivors left now.
If his brother hasn't already succumbed.
~O~
Once Bossguy is safely out of sight, Dean traipses back to the station and tries the crooked fire-door he used before. He finds it has been nailed up. Clambering through the drifts around the walls to get to Sam's window, he climbs back in, softly closing it behind him.
Shaking snow off of his boots and parka, he creeps into the passageway to take a look around. If, and it is looking like a big if now, Sam is OK he has to go save his brother's ass. Meantime he can check out the one remaining unknown. The woman.
He has his hand on Ellen Harvelle's bedroom doorknob when he hears two voices drawing closer. He quickly ducks into a storeroom and peers out the door's ventilation grill to see who this is. It is a woman, presumably Ellen since she is the only woman Dean has seen around here, and Bossguy. From their demeanour, Dean can see they are flirting around.
Bossguy whispers something in Ellen's ear and Ellen seems to like it. They don't head for Ellen's room, as ladies' man Dean would have expected, but instead walk right past Dean's storeroom and wind up in another room he hasn't checked. Makes sense the oversized room at the end of the hall is probably Bossguy's quarters.
The guy has his hands all over Ellen. Dean tuts. It doesn't look like the woman has a problem with this. But is it because she is a demon also or is she just a little slutty? He tightens his fist around the handle of Walker's demon knife. He won't have much of a chance against two demons. But maybe this woman is human? Shouldn't he try to save her?
While he is arguing with himself, someone else comes along the passageway. Dean inhales.
Sam!
Oddly, Sam seems to be stalking the other two. He moves stealthily up the passage like he is nervous of what he might see and pauses in front of the big boss's room. But he doesn't go in. Craning his neck, Dean can see him sneaking a peek into the bedroom through the crack of the door.
"You a peeper now, huh Sam?" thinks Dean, chuckling inwardly.
From his attitude, Sam isn't enjoying what he sees. Dean watches him take a step back as the sound of female laughter filters from the bedroom, then shudder as a woman's strangled cry and the noise of a body hitting the floor follows. But he doesn't move. He only stands there rigid like he can't take his eyes off of what he is seeing.
Suddenly, he is hurrying toward Dean's storeroom. Dean conceals himself in a dark corner, unseen as Sam opens the storeroom door and slips inside. Relief floods through Dean's veins with the realization Sam's behaviour shows he can't already be one of the demon-possessed. If he were he would be helping Bossguy with whatever evil he is up to not booking it out of sight.
Dean longs to grab his brother and show him how glad he feels to see the guy alive and human too. But the demons are on the move again, and for now, he is forced to stay quiet while Bossguy and the woman walk the hall back to where they came from. He can sense the tension in his brother as they both listen with the same growing nausea to the two demons discussing their evil plan a couple feet away.
The moment they are gone, he moves up behind Sam and puts a gloved hand over his kid brother's mouth. It wouldn't do for Sam to let out a girly scream right about now.
Sam's body stiffens. "Fine," he snaps. "Whatever the HELL you are, go ahead. Do it now!"
~O~
Sam has no way of knowing exactly what huge monstrous thing has grabbed hold of him in the darkness of his closet hideaway. As far as he knows he is alone among aliens and has just walked in the lair of the daddy of them all.
Tough luck. Game over.
So why is it he feels like he has been here before? Hell of a time for deja vu to kick in.
Unexpectedly, the thing goes, "Shush!" right in Sam's ear and continues in a hoarse whisper, "Shut! Up! Those mothers will HEAR your dumb yakety-yak and come right on BACK here."
Sam chokes in surprise and bites down hard on the paw clamped over his mouth. The creature curses softly and lets go of him.
"The hell did you do that for?" it grumbles.
Sam wheels around, drawing his knife, ready to strike, only to find - and he has GOT to be hallucinating - his brother.
Dean is wearing Turner's big fur-lined parka jacket, hanging loose over some sort of wetsuit - kind of hacked up - fur mittens and Singer's spare boots. He is damp and bedraggled, and a trickle of blood from an nasty slashing cut has dried around his left ear.
"What the hell are YOU doing here?" Sam demands. "Man, you look like crap."
Not the fondest greeting he could have come up with.
"Oh, thanks a bunch," Dean retorts. "Kinda makes me feel all warm inside."
Sam can't get his head around this. "Dude, How did you even GET here?"
Dean stops fussing with his fur-gloved hand and grins broadly.
"Now that's a long, long story, Sammy. But first we gotta deal with Dastardly and freakin' Muttley out there."
Still a little dazed, Sam nods and turns toward the door. He grips the doorknob, but Dean stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Wait, Sam," The humour is gone from his voice. "First I gotta do this."
Sam turns back, baffled. "Do what?"
His brother grabs him in a sudden bear hug that squashes all the air out of his lungs. Momentary shock and deficiency of oxygen makes Sam's hands go limp, dropping the paint spray and matches to the floor. After an uncertain moment, he responds to the hug and places those big hands on his brother's back, gently patting. Dean holds him tight, almost too tight. Sam can feel the warmth of his skin through the wetsuit. He can even feel the beating of his big brother's heart against his chest. It beats like a steam hammer.
To Sam this show of affection is out of line and out of character for his brother. He doesn't have the faintest idea what Dean has been through in the last couple years. If he did he would be the first to argue the guy has a right to overcompensate. Right now he is weirded out.
A few seconds in, he taps Dean on the back, signalling time to let go, but Dean continues to cling to him, his chin buried in the crook of Sam's neck. It should be nice, but it is starting to get embarrassing. Sam doesn't get why his brother is so damn clingy. It isn't like him.
"Dean," he hisses. "Let me go, you dumb-ass."
Dean releases him and sniffs loudly. Is that a manly tear? Surely not.
"Man, you are NOT crying," chides Sam, grinning. "Guess you musta really missed me, huh?"
Dean shoots him a reproachful glare, releasing him. "Oh, Sammy, you so do NOT know."
Confused at not getting the expected comeback, Sam huffs inwardly as they creep out into the passage.
"We catch them off guard, we got a chance," whispers Dean.
Sam nods. "Sure," he agrees. "Two Winchesters, two bad guys. Even bet."
Who knows? Together, maybe they CAN beat the odds.
~O~
Dean, followed closely by Sam, proceeds stealthily down the passageway toward the mess hall. Bizarre as it is, Sam can't help feeling mightily relieved his brother has shown up. Now there are two of them, maybe they have a chance? Somehow nothing ever seems completely hopeless when Dean is around.
Each guy holding their knife, they constantly glance right and left into each room they pass. As they near the mess Dean pauses, Sam closing up behind him. They have a whispered conversation.
"How are we gonna do this?" Sam's tone is low.
"How were YOU planning on doing it, Sam?" his brother hisses.
Sam considers. "I was thinking: take out the aliens with fire-"
Dean stops him short. "Aliens."
"Sure, Dean, they're aliens. Some extraterrestrial freakin' patient zero came down in that spaceship we found. It's killed three guys and uses some kinda gas to spread-"
Dean stops him again. "Not ALIENS, lunkhead, DEMONS. These guys are demons. There was no freakin' spaceship, no freakin' aliens, just demons."
"Ah, so you're saying the tech and the cat guys were killed by demonic beings?"
Yeah, and that sounds perfectly logical. If it wasn't Dean teling him this Sam would have laughed out loud.
"Actually no. Those three guys WERE demons. I took them out." Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "Hey, Sam, it was them or us."
"You? You took... Oh! It's YOU been sneaking around here." Sam leans against the wall and takes a breath. "So if they're not from outer space then where the crap did freakin' DEMONS come from?"
He has only just managed to get his head around the possibility of aliens. Demons seem like a step beyond. His mind is reeling.
"Don't ask me, Sammy. Van Diemen's Land?" Dean chuckles at his own wit. "Maybe there's an antipodean Hell Gate someplace. Next question, Regis."
"Dude, I'm gonna take your word for it." Sam shakes his head. "Well, um, I guess I was gonna use Rufus's explosives to blow the whole damn place and destroy all traces of the virus. Still works, huh?"
That chimes with what Dean recalls of the fateful events as detailed at the official inquiry into the destruction of the ice-station. First time through this, Sam went up with the big bang. This time, not going to happen.
Dean nods his head. "Figures. Shoulda guessed that was how it went down, Sammy boy."
"Whaddya mean WENT down?"
"Later, Sam."
Dean shows him his hunting knife. "Only these bad boys'll kill them. Found that out the hard way. Demons all carry one. This baby was Walker's."
Sam glances down at his knife - his and Dean's are identical - and Dean notices.
"Yeah, that's one of their blades, Sam. Got it from that first guy. He was Roy, right? He gave me quite some welcome. And FYI a regular knife won't leave a scratch. Somehow I'd guess a regular bullet won't touch them either."
Ahead of them, Campbell and Ellen come back out of the mess hall. Evidently they haven't found Sam where they expected. Sam and Dean duck sharply into the radio shack before they get spotted. They hear Campbell's voice issuing his orders.
"You check the radio shack. I'll check out the lab. Winchester has probably gone back outside. Weather's foul out there. He'll show up soon enough."
Ellen's footsteps turn in their direction.
"What now?" Sam sounds anxious. Dean hushes him with a finger to his own lips.
They crouch behind a workstation as Ellen approaches. There is something different, unfeminine, about the way she moves, different to the real Ellen. Sam's co-worker has definitely left the building.
"She was a good friend," Sam murmurs angrily.
Dean nods and sympathizes, "I hear ya, Sam."
Ellen marches into the radio shack with her hands on her hips and begins to search. Sam reaches out from behind the desk and grabs her ankle, pulling hard. She slams to the floor. Before she can react and scream, he crawls on top of her body, using his weight to hold her down, and claps a hand over her mouth.
"Shut! Up!" he growls.
Dean puts his knife to her neck, snarling, "Recognize this, bitch? One squeak and you're smoke."
Her eyes are like saucers as she trembles, scared. Dean swipes her with the back of his hand, knocking her unconscious. Sam finds some clean-up rags and forces one in her mouth. They gag her and bind her hands and feet, rolling her out of sight under a workstation.
"We can deal with her later, Sammy," whispers Dean. "Now we go get Mr. Big."
TBC
A/N: Reunited at last. Let's hope the boys can save the day. More coming soon.