A/N: Thank you so much to Guest, ImpalaLove, SassyGrl23, athiusa, and toridw317 for reviewing! You guys are amazing, and yes, this will eventually be Dean/OC. I hope everyone likes this chapter.
Song: Helter Skelter by The Beatles
CHAPTER 5
Helter Skelter
It is late at night when they arrive in Pennsylvania. There is nothing for them to do but grab a bite to eat, book a room, and wait until tomorrow to search for the gate and hit up the hospitals and prisons.
They have already driven through more states than Claire has seen in her entire life.
She hasn't had a vision since last night in Madison, so she fully expects to have one tonight. She tries not to think about this as she shovels French fries into her mouth.
There are monsters here.
Sam is in dire trouble, Dean immediately assumed. And maybe he wasn't wrong. But since this prophecy he has become almost rabid in his desire to find his brother. He somehow manages to brood even while stuffing fast food down his throat.
"Don't you ever get sick of cheeseburgers?" asks Claire, trying to lighten the mood.
"Hell no. Cheeseburgers are God's greatest creation."
"God?"
"You know what I mean." Simple words mean complex things now. He doesn't like it. He wishes things could go back to the way they were before, when he didn't know the words to an exorcism by heart and he drank more coffee than booze. The Dean who spent forty years in Hell laughs at the futility of this.
He gets that grief-stricken look in his eye again and Claire brushes her hand over the one that isn't holding the greasy burger. She has come to learn that Dean is a tactile person. What he did for her back in Madison, while it might have seemed somewhat insignificant, was monumental. It wasn't anything he said, but his touch and presence was an anchor, an anchor that she hadn't realized she needed so desperately.
He prefers actions to words, the physical to the intangible. Her life has been ruined by words, so she is happy not to use them.
Those green eyes lock hers, swimming with puzzlement and surprise, but he doesn't pull away.
"Claire," he starts gruffly, looking back down at his ketchup-smattered plate, "what is it you're getting outta this?"
She rips her hand away with superhuman speed; fast enough for him to forget it was ever there in the first place.
"The truth." Her tone is hard and cold.
He looks up again. "You're not still holding out for some psychic savior?" It stings that he would mock her only glimmer of hope, especially when she tries her best to foster his.
"I help you, you help me. Isn't that how it goes?"
"I guess," he mumbles through a mouthful of half chewed food.
He's started doing this. Whenever they broach something serious, he changes the subject. Whenever she shows him any sincerity, he panics. It's like all his emotional reserves are occupied by family or pseudo-family and the fact that he's spending so much time with someone who doesn't fit into one of these categories is sending him off-kilter. Because at his core, Dean is (was) a people person, and he likes (liked) making friends. But things have changed and here's this girl and what's the point?
One time, when he was around seven, Sam found a stray kitten under one of the cars in a Kentucky motel parking lot. It was a skinny, flea-ridden, orange tabby in terrible shape.
"C'mon, Sammy. Leave it," Dean had shrewdly ordered.
But he didn't listen, never listened.
Dean was allergic and Dad told him right off the bat that he had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to animals, but little Sammy hid it in the bathroom and took care of it all the same. He fed it with an eyedropper and washed it with a toothbrush because it was too afraid of a direct stream of water, all the while knowing he would have to leave it behind in the end.
Cut to two weeks later, he named it something stupid like Fluffy or Felix or Garfield and it could hop and meow and its fur had regained its luster. Sam cried like a baby – big, wet tears, snot flowing out of his nose, the whole nine yards – when they left that thing in the same parking lot where they'd found it.
Dean never understood it. He had warned him. Sam had known all along what was going to happen. Little Fluffy or Felix or Garfield almost certainly got run over by a car within the month; Sam had spent all that time fawning over him for no reason.
As tempting as it is to save a kitten, sometimes, when you know it's gonna end bloody, you just gotta leave it. If you don't, you're only hurting yourself.
Dean had never much liked cats. But when he got older, he realized he liked people. And somewhere along the way, he's picked up not an orange tabby, but an orange-haired bartender.
"Dean?"
"Huh?"
"You ready to go?"
"Wha-yeah, yeah. Let's go." He throws some cash down on the table and follows her out.
. . .
There were no visions that night. Not a word. It was almost doubly scary because the anticipation was crushing and constant. At least after the visions come, there is relief. Now, now there's this terrifying waiting, this sense of impending agony. The calm before the storm isn't really calm at all.
Dean is not pleased that the connection has gone quiet, and he's not hiding it as well as he thinks.
"You sure you didn't see anything?" he asks as they cruise through town. "Not even a dream?"
"For the hundredth time, no. Trust me, I would know if I'd gotten a vision, and I would tell you."
"Shit," he curses. "All we've got to go off is that he's 'in the woods with monsters.' That's just awesome."
"I'm sorry," she tries, not quite knowing what she's apologizing for.
They pull into the hospital complex, behind a fleet of ambulances. Claire is fairly certain this is an illegal spot, but he doesn't seem concerned and she figures he intends to get in and out of the building as quickly as possible.
The lighting is cold and there's a vague, encompassing stink of chemicals mixed with something more obscure – death. He has always hated hospitals – especially after what happened with his dad – and he represses a shudder as they stroll through the automatic doors.
Inside, Dean does all the talking. He approaches the peroxide-blonde nurse at the front with ease and purrs, "Hi," he squints to read her nametag, "Sarah. I'm wondering if you can help me."
His attempt at flirtation falls flat as she skeptically eyes a lost-looking Claire.
"What can I do for you?" she asks dryly.
"I'm looking for my brother," he says, a bit more seriously. "He's big, about yea-high, and has a long mop of brown hair like a '70s porn star. Anyone like that come in here in the past few days? He might not have given his name…"
Sarah raises her manicured brows and turns to the computer beside her, scrolling through with a level of interest that might have indicated she was playing Solitaire instead.
"No, I'm sorry," she says eventually. "We don't have anyone fitting that description."
Dean smiles without showing his teeth. "Okay. Thanks."
He hadn't thought it would be that easy, anyway. It never is.
All at once, they're back in the Impala, on their way to the police station, and he's telling her she has to wait in the car because he doesn't have a fake badge for her. Yet. He says "yet" and a white-hot current of alarm shoots through him when he realizes his slip-up. It affects him more than it should. He leaves the car in a hurry.
The Beatles are playing. She keeps the radio on his beloved classic rock station as she waits. She likes this type of music, too. It's what she grew up listening to, it's what her dad and her brothers played on the way to every family camping trip in Canada. Her mom tolerated it, but she liked it.
It's easy to tell that Dean is the oldest child. Maybe it takes one to know one, but the nuances in Dean's behavior reveal that he's spent most of his life taking care of someone else. He walks half a step in front of her, always lets her use things first, takes the smaller bread rolls for himself. It seems entirely habitual. She used to think this was just chivalry, but that night in Madison taught her differently. She knows because she used to be a big sister, and that's exactly how she would have treated him if their positions had been reversed.
He startles her when he climbs back into the car.
"No dice," he announces.
"So, to the woods?"
"To the woods."
. . .
Dean could have spent – would have spent – the entire night scouring the forest for traces of his brother.
But when darkness falls, Claire has to put her foot down. They have been trekking over leaves and branches and trees stumps and streams for hours. He has been shouting his brother's name to the heavens, Sam, Sammy, Sam until he lost his voice. All they've found is an abandoned storage shed filled with angry raccoons.
The woods are crisp and cold now that the sun has gone away and it is easy to get disoriented. The air feels thin, fleeting in her lungs.
"Dean," she tries softly, two steps behind him as he waves his flashlight between sinewy tree trunks. "He's not here."
"You don't know that," he growls, the words rasping and straining to break free from his larynx. Manic frustration has set in. She can see he's starting to spiral. He's confused, he doesn't know what to do, and he's scrambling to find a direction. He's drowning in a cycle of disappointment and he can't bear to start at the beginning again.
"We'll try New Jersey." Her tone is soothing but it ricochets off him, wasted and ineffective.
She puts a hand on the sleeve of his canvas jacket to get his attention. He wrenches away instantly, whirling around to look at her.
"You're supposed to be the one with the insight," he snaps viciously. "You're supposed to be the one who knows where he is! Two days, and no visions. If you can't do that, can't do what you're meant to do, what friggin' God means for you to do, then what's the point of you?"
Claire drops her hand, stunned.
Dean feels repentant as soon as the words tear from his mouth, but it's already too late.
She backs away from him, beating down the lump that is searing through the lining of her esophagus, as he starts after her.
He scrubs his hands over his face. "I –"
"No, it's fine," she cuts him off. "Stay. Look for Sam. I'm going to hitch a ride back to the motel. Good luck."
There's no point in getting upset about it, she thinks.
. . .
In the dead of night, Dean stumbles into the room reeking of alcohol. Because of this, his nostrils can't detect that the room reeks of alcohol as well.
With some difficulty, his eyes scan his rotating environment.
Claire is spread out on her bed, all hair and limbs and crinkled sheets. She is still in her street clothes, which is unusual because she – unlike him – always changes into pajamas. The whiskey numbs the twinge of remorse he might have felt upon seeing her. He got drunk because he didn't want to feel anything, and he doesn't. Next to her are three empty, travel-sized bottles of liquor from the minibar and a half-full prescription bottle. He drags his feet over to the plastic container, taking it in hand.
His eyes struggle to read the label, but the letters never quite come into focus. He abandons this endeavor after a while, deciding instead that whatever the medicine is, he thinks she probably should not have mixed it with alcohol. Nevertheless, the rise and fall of her chest assures him that she is still breathing and therefore alive. No harm done.
She must be totally passed out because she doesn't even stir as he fights his way to the bathroom. The furniture comes out on the worse end of this battle and he thinks he broke a lamp.
It isn't until he's ready to join his unconscious companion in alcohol-induced slumber that he notices the sheet of paper lying squarely on his pillow.
The words list dangerously to the right, but the handwriting is large, blocky, and legible, although at the beginning and end of the note it is decidedly shakier.
Dean –
Cas told me that visions come more easily when you're not sober, and turns out he was right. So don't worry, I didn't go on a bender for nothing – not that you would worry anyway – I just wanted to try to bring on a vision. It worked:
'It is strange here. I don't feel tired, don't feel hungry, don't feel so much of what I should. In any case, there is no water to drink and no food to eat. Just trees. Every day is the same and I don't sleep because the sun doesn't go down. It stays in the middle. It's never bright, but it's never dark, either. It's just steady and constant, like we are trapped in one moment, like no time is passing.
I'm not alone. There are monsters here. Monsters that I know, monsters that know me, monsters that I've killed, monsters that beg me not to kill them. I kill them anyway, even if I already have.'
I can't make much of this, but maybe you can.
– C
The only thought Dean has before he unwillingly falls asleep is that he has failed them again.
. . .
Both wake with pounding headaches at nearly the same time.
The air in the room is viscous and the first thing Dean wants to do is apologize, but he doesn't know quite how to form the sentence or what to say, so he doesn't say anything at all. He just rolls out of bed, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and says, "You wanna use the bathroom first?"
Claire's head is all mixed up and her eyes are swollen and aching.
"M'kay," she mumbles.
He hears the water run, after a "For the love of god, put the toilet seat down when you're done!"
This doesn't faze him as he remembers all the worse shit he's done lately. He thinks to himself, I made her wash down heavy-duty pills with tequila, rum, and vodka. It was his fault. Lots of things were his fault, but this one was direct cause and effect.
And the next thing he thinks is, Oh, and where the fuck is Sam? He rereads the note because his mind hadn't really registered it last night.
Out of the blue, his phone starts vibrating obnoxiously against the wooden surface of the nightstand.
"Hello?" he answers.
"How's it goin' down there?"
"Bobby?"
"Yeah. Find anything?"
He clenches his teeth at the morbid reminder. "Nada."
"Sorry to hear that. I may be able to help, though. You still headin' to Jersey?"
"That's the plan."
"Good. I don't think you're gonna find Sam there, but you should still go. I've been hearin' reports of some sort of monster roaming in the woods. They're callin' it the Jersey Devil."
Dean, feeling a surge of rage, forces his tone to remain even. He did not ask for a detour. "You said you could help?"
"Yeah. That stuff you said about the woods? Well, I've been doin' some research. Woodland iconography is sometimes used to describe a little place called Purgatory."
"Purgatory?"
"Yeah, as in the in-between bit."
"You think that's where Sam is?"
"Could be."
"Claire had another vision. She said Sam isn't alone, he's with a bunch of monsters – some he knows and has killed before."
"Sounds like Purgatory to me."
"How do we get there?"
"I haven't the foggiest. You're gonna need to find someone else to help you with that part. I know a good psychic in Vegas, if it comes to it. Try askin' Cas first, though."
"Okay. What's the name of the psychic?"
Dean's voice is more hopeful than Bobby has heard it in months, but he is no fool. He knows that if he gives him the name he'll go straight to Vegas.
"Not so fast. First I want you to work the Jersey Devil case, then we'll talk. Five people are dead and you're only a few hours away."
"Fine," he grits out.
"Okay. Good. Call me when you've ganked the bastard."
Bobby hangs up and it's lucky Dean is on the bed because he just lets the phone drop out of his hand. Had he been standing, it might have cracked on the ground.
Claire exits the bathroom with sopping wet hair and stares at Dean with an unreadable expression. He averts his eyes. "Give me five," he says, "And then we can get going."
A/N: Let me know what you think! Any advice is very much appreciated :)