Title: Just a Shadow of Myself
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: Dean has vanished and a shadow portrait is the only lead Sam and Bobby have to follow. Post 3x10 "DaLDoM and Tagged to "Stone Cold Crazy" the usual hurt/limp/awesome!Sam/Dean with a dash of awesome!Bobby for taste.
Author's note: Merp. :P
Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P
Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D – Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.
**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
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"I know where it is, Dean. I can get it." Sam ran his fingers along the edge of the frame as it rattled on the bed and smirked. "You're yelling at me, aren't you?" He went to the table and flipped Bobby's note over, writing his own. "I can do this, besides, Bobby already pissed off the old woman's ghost. She might not react to me and I can get in to the cellar without having to go into the motel." He straightened and smiled at the profile of his brother. "I'll be fine and you'll be back in no time."
"Sam! Don't you do this!" Dean followed his brother out the door, stalking after him. "Hey! You forgot something, genius! Get my damn picture!" Sam got behind the wheel of the Impala and Dean could only watch as the engine rumbled to life and his car eased out of the parking lot. "Dammit!" He ran back into the motel and spent an aggravating minute trying to pick up his portrait but, though he could move it, he couldn't hold on to it. He growled angrily and went back outside. "Fine. I can follow your ass down the damn block!"
Dean broke into a run after the Impala's tail lights. A hundred feet from the room, Dean felt as though he ran into a brick wall. He rebounded backward onto the ground and spent a moment letting his head clear. Dean scrambled to his feet and walked forward with his hands out, finding the invisible wall in the same place. He could do nothing but watch as the Impala turned far ahead into what he knew was the cursed motel.
"SAM! Dammit!" Dean slapped his hands into the unseen barrier in a fury, kept imprisoned by his shadow portrait.
CHAPTER 3
Dean stalked back and forth in front of the motel room waiting for Bobby to return. In his head was a constant loop of every horror scenario his mind could think up for what was happening to Sam on his own and a few that he wanted to inflict on his little brother himself for being so damn stupid. Almost an hour later, Bobby's truck rumbled back into the parking lot, and Dean snarled as the older Hunter got out and stared at the spot where the Impala should have been.
"Yes! He's gone 'cause you bought his line of crap!" Dean shouted and followed as Bobby ran inside the room. "Come on! Let's go already!"
Bobby snarled angrily and went to the table as he spied the note he had left. He picked it up and saw Sam's. "Oh, you idjit!" Bobby exclaimed. He balled up the paper and through it across the room then went to bend over the laptop and look at the blueprints. He glanced up as he heard a rattling sound and groaned, seeing the portrait still lying on the bed shaking violently."I'm guessin' you ain't got anything nice to say to me right now." Bobby dropped his head as the portrait continued to rattle imperiously.
"Alright. Alright. I get it." Bobby went to the bed and grabbed the frame. "I let him snow me, didn't I? Well, let's go find him 'cause he's gonna have more trouble than he thinks if what I think's down there's down there."
"What? What!" Dean growled and followed Bobby out to his truck. He muttered a 'thank you' when Bobby put the portrait on the passenger seat and sat on it. "What'd you find out about the crazy portrait lady?"
Bobby pulled out onto the road with a glance at the shadow portrait. "Too bad you can't tell me how long ago he left." He sighed. "The old lady's presumed dead, but her body was never found. They gave her a symbolic burial when they couldn't find her and figured she went senile and wandered off somewhere to die."
"Son of a bitch." Dean rolled his eyes "She's in that damn cellar."
"I figure she's in the cellar." Bobby said, unable to hear Dean. "Probably went down there to die…or kill herself when she cursed the place." He shook his head, feeling strange talking to an empty car even though he knew Dean could hear him. "You know he gets this cowboy crap from you, son."
"Shut up," Dean snarled, irritated that Bobby was right. He glared at the cursed motel as Bobby pulled up and parked out front beside the empty Impala. "Sam, you better be in one piece."
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Sam stopped and slapped a hand out to the wall beside him as his right leg buckled. "Shit," Sam groaned. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder and shoved upright again. He was stocked with salt and lighter fluid and had the sawed-off loaded with rock salt as well in case old Josephine decided to make an appearance. He stumbled around the back of the motel office and saw what he wanted - a slanted door hidden by overgrown weeds up against the back wall of the old woman's apartment.
"Gotcha." Sam set the duffel down and knelt awkwardly, pushing weeds out of the way to find the handles. He slid a hand under the rusted metal and pulled, groaning with the effort of lifting the long disused door. "Come on…dammit." He tugged again, and finally the door broke free and swung up. Sam laid it over to the side and grabbed his duffel again. He took out his flashlight and the shotgun before slinging it back over his shoulder. "Ok, Josephine." He stepped down on the first, stone step and shouted in surprise as something hard pushed him in the center of the back, toppling him forward. There was nothing to hold on to as he rolled to the bottom of the stairs and landed in a sprawl at the bottom. The door above him slammed shut and he moaned.
"Son'f'a bitch." Sam sucked in a breath and curled around his right leg, holding it with one hand and his now throbbing left elbow with the other. He'd whacked it on a step during the fall. He let go of his elbow to put a hand out over his spinning flashlight and stopped it from flashing into his eyes. He braced his bad leg and pushed until he was sitting against the cold, stone wall at the bottom of the stairs. "So much for…you being…pissed at Bobby." He gasped softly and rested his spinning head against the wall, swallowing back the urge to throw up. "Shit." At that moment, he would have given anything for Dean's disapproving glare and gentle hands helping him back up. He was lucky his head hadn't been cracked open on one of those stone stairs, and if the stars he was seeing were anything to go by, it had been close.
"Get up, Sam," He told himself and spent a long minute getting to his feet. The moment he tried to put his weight on his abused right leg, however, it crumpled, and only his grip on the wall kept him up. He panted through the pain and clamped his right hand over his thigh. He hurriedly shined the light down when he felt something wet and groaned, finding two growing spots of blood. "Great. Dean's gonna kill me," he said softly. "Get it together, already."
Sam shined his light down the narrow hall that turned only ten feet ahead and started limping in half steps, having to keep one hand against the wall to stay on his feet. He sighed and stopped, pulling the bag around in front and tugged the shotgun out, moving the flashlight to the hand keeping him standing on the wall. It put the gun in his off hand, but it was better than nothing; and a lifetime of practice with Dean and his Dad had made him a good shot no matter which hand held the weapon.
He inched on down the hall, blinking furiously while his head pounded and spots danced across his vision. Sam turned the corner and his eyes widened. Like the little apartment upstairs, the cellar was sparkling clean. It, too, was furnished with another overstuffed, purple lace covered chair, a small bed, and shelf after shelf of gleaming knick-knacks sparkling in his flashlight's beam. He hobbled further into the room, careful of his lame leg, and shined his light along the walls.
"Where are you?" Sam whispered. His frustration level rose as he saw there wasn't a single shadow portrait hung on the walls. "Gotta be kidding me." He took another stumbling step out into the room. He gasped as pain shot through his leg and tried to stop his fall to the floor with the little curio table beside him. It crumpled under his weight, and Sam went to the floor in a shower of knick-knacks as his flashlight spun off under the chair.
"Naughty…boy." The voice whispered through the room as the temperature dropped.
Sam rolled to his back and brought his shotgun up, but could see very little in the flickers of light from under the chair. The sound of his heavy breaths filled the little cellar room, and it occurred to him that, according to the floor plans, it should be much larger than it was. Sam shouted in surprise as a cold weight settled over his shoulders and he was dragged into the dark.
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Dean went ahead of Bobby, grateful the older man had figured out what Dean wanted with all the rocking and brought the portrait with him. It had taken Dean several minutes in the truck banging on the frame to make Bobby understand that it needed to come with them. He was not going to be stuck just out of reach because he got too far away from the damn thing again. Dean rounded the office of the motel and frowned. The cellar door was easy enough to see. Someone, likely Sam, had cleared most of the weeds from it, but it was closed.
"Why wouldn't you leave it open, dude?" Dean asked and stepped down through the doors as Bobby came into sight. "Over here!" Dean yelled and growled when Bobby couldn't hear him. Of course. Dean shrugged and ducked his head through the closed the door as he went down a set of stairs. Bobby would find it on his own soon enough.
"Sammy! You better be down here!" Dean shouted. He wished for a flashlight once his head was beneath the door. Only the narrowest slivers of light peeked through the aged wood above his head as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He saw the hall turn to the left and followed it, wishing his brother could hear him calling.
Bobby adjusted the bag on his shoulder as the corner of Dean's shadow portrait dug into his shoulder and looked along the back of the motel. It was even more overgrown than the front with weeds brushing his knees. A small, cleared area against the back wall of the office drew his eyes, and he waded through the weeds, smiling when he found the cellar door that Sam had obviously brushed off.
"Why in hell'd you close the door behind you, Sam?" Bobby asked softly. He hefted the shotgun in his hand and pulled the door up and away. "Dean, you with me, son?" He waited to feel the frame shift against his back and sighed when it didn't. "Damn." It made him nervous not getting a reaction, and he sincerely hoped bringing the thing back to the motel wouldn't affect Dean somehow. Bobby twisted on the little flashlight duct-taped to his shotgun and started down the stairs. "Sam!"
Dean looked back at the sound of Bobby's voice and then back into the darkness. He came out of the short hall into a room he could barely see. A light flashed at him from beneath what looked like a chair. Dean bent to the floor to look and his face went grim as he recognized his brother's flashlight. He shot to his feet and glared around in the gloom.
"Sam! Sam, where the hell are you?" Dean shouted. He paced the room, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder as Bobby appeared in the door and his light hit the wall opposite him. "He's not here, Bobby, but he was." Dean looked along the walls and scowled. There were no shadow portraits down here that he could see, just more of the old woman's ugly trinkets. Something crunched under Bobby's foot behind him and Dean turned to watch the older man kneel down beside an upended table in a scattering of broken, crystal figures.
Bobby picked up a couple pieces of broken crystal as a bad feeling fell into his stomach. He shined his light on the floor, following a winking trail of the broken figures that ended at the back of the room. He scowled and stood. "Room's too small from the blueprints."
"You're right," Dean murmured and walked along the trail of broken glass until it stopped at the wall. He gave a last glance to Bobby and then stepped through it, shivering at the sensation of walking through solid rock.
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Sam swallowed a shout of pain as he was thrown over a ledge and dropped several feet onto hard, wet stone. His ears were still ringing from firing his shotgun over his shoulder. All he'd succeeded in doing was getting himself tossed. He rolled slowly to his side and wrapped his hands around his right thigh, feeling the fresh blood oozing from the sodden bandage.
"Josephine!" Sam called hoarsely and took one hand from his leg, feeling around in the dim light for his shotgun or his bag. He glanced up, opening his eyes wide to try and see. There was some sort of small opening above him, twenty feet or more on down the tunnel, and Sam realized he was no longer in the celler; he'd been dumped into the sewer that connected beneath the motel. He let his head thump back to the wet stone. "Awesome."
"Broke my pretties."
Sam jumped as the woman's voice whispered in his ear. "Uh…Josephine?" He eased up so he was sitting, and used the wall to get slowly, painfully, to his feet. "Sorry about…breaking your things."
"Naughty."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I need you to let my brother go, please."
"He's naughty too." Her voice deepened, echoing angrily in the tunnel.
"Dean? Well, I mean…he's…" Sam sighed and snorted, sort of agreeing with her. "Ok, yeah. My brother's a pain in the ass, but he doesn't deserve what you've done to him. Please, Josephine…"
"Dented my wall." Josephine snarled.
Sam started easing down the wall toward the light. He remembered Dean punching the wall when Sam had told him about his plan to try and save him. The memory was bitter and wrapped in the agony of the venom from that night. The wounds in his thigh seemed to throb in time with the pounding of his heart. "Josephine…Dean's a good man. You have to let him go. Him…and all the others. Please."
"The others?" Josephine's voice sounded confused, and Sam narrowed his eyes, seeing a form begin to take shape a few feet away. "I can't let them go. Their souls are gone."
Sam shivered as she laughed softly. "What do you mean 'gone'?"
"They had to die to join my work." Josephine said it as though it should be obvious to him.
"You killed them?" Sam peered around the tunnel floor, trying to see his shotgun or his bag.
"They deserved death." Josephine's voice was bitter. "Naughty people…didn't like my work…my art. Now they are my art. But your brother is…different."
Sam's blood ran cold and he stopped. "Different how?"
"He wouldn't die when I took his soul." Josephine's shimmering form drew closer to him, her face slowly beginning to take shape as she stared up at him. "Something else...something evil…has hold of him." She shook her head, ghostly grey hair swaying around half-formed shoulders.
"Let him go," Sam pleaded softly.
"No." Josephine moved up in front of him, and Sam pressed back into the wall. "Naughty boy. I promise…" She raised a hand up toward his jaw. "…to hang you beside him."
Sam eyes widened in fear as her translucent fingers grazed coldly along his jaw, and he threw himself to the side, diving to the wet, stone floor in search of his shotgun as she laughed.
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Bobby banged the butt of his shotgun on the stone wall, moving along it and nodded when he got a hollow sound back. "Now, where the hell's the catch for it?" He moved along the wall, examining each brick, the little paintings in gilded frames with no luck. He went to the shelves and picked up each little dust catcher, growling with frustration when he turned up nothing.
"Mine."
Bobby spun with his shotgun raised at the voice. "Alright, you crazy old bat. Where are ya?" He jumped in surprise as the portrait in his bag dug into his shoulder as it shifted wildly. "Dean?" The bag was suddenly torn from his shoulder as he was tossed across the room into the false wall. "Ok," Bobby grunted as he sat up and gave his head a shake. "Not Dean." He pointed his flashlight and shotgun and watched his bag shred before his eyes. Dean's shadow portrait flew out of the remains and slapped into the wall with a thud, sticking there.
"You leave him alone!" Bobby roared and regained his feet in a rush.
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Dean walked slowly down a long hall in the dark. Oddly, the grey film that seemed to cover over his vision helped him see. He couldn't make out details, but he knew where the walls were and when to turn. He followed the sound of dripping water and wrinkled his nose at a smell that was all sewer and funky, stagnant water.
"Sam!" Dean shouted, and then growled because what was the point in yelling for him when Sam couldn't hear him. He heard something else above the water; it was a woman's voice raised in a laugh. Dean broke into a run, somehow knowing that it couldn't be good. "Sammy?" It didn't matter he knew his brother couldn't hear him; he couldn't stop calling for him. It was a little surreal running and not hearing his boots slap into the stone floor under him or his voice echo when he shouted. It made him feel as though he were deaf. Dean skidded to a stop at a sudden drop off, almost going over and windmilled his arms to stay standing.
"Shit!" Dean stepped back and saw he was in the entrance to the sewers proper. Twenty or so yards down from him was a small grate in the high ceiling letting the last of the daylight filter down into the tunnel. Dean's breath froze in his lungs. Beneath that light lay the still figure of his brother, face down. The spirit of an old woman stood beyond him, laughing, while a half-formed, translucent shadow portrait began to form above Sam's back, spinning slowly in the air.
"SAM!"
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To Be Continued…