Owen was terrified. He'd seen some strange shit, but whatever was standing before him, the thing that could look like an ordinary man had it not been for the wicked smile that played across his lips, filled him with a brewing sense of dread. Owen wished not to remove his eyes from the unrestrained menace, yet he forced himself to turn his head for a second to check on Jack and Gwen. He also saw Tosh, who was on the other side of the "man", running to retrieve her gun, which appeared to have also been thrown across the concrete by some invisible force.
The thing began to slowly approach him, and Owen held his hands up in the air. "What are you going to do?" he mocked, though now was not an appropriate time to let his big mouth loose. Still, he found he could not restrain himself. "Rip me apart like some savage animal? You're no better than a weevil, and you're about as ugly as one, too." The last part, he knew, was entirely a lie. The man was actually quite handsome, even as his demonic grin transformed into a small snarl.
"I don't want to hurt anybody," the thing said, only three feet away now. He stopped, his head tilting off to the side as he studied Owen. "I prefer to finish my business cleanly. You know." He slid an index finger across his neck, then shrugged.
Owen gaped. "You can't honestly think that that makes it any better."
"You're right," the thing agreed. "I don't. I just can't stop. It's kind of a bad habit of mine."
Then suddenly, bang! bang! bang! Three shots were fired from Gwen's gun. All of them went right into the thing's chest. He looked down with a look of shock, his hands fumbling with his shirt, where a growing patch of dark red was spreading, causing the cloth to glisten and turn a shade blacker in the feeble light of the now setting sun. Swaying slightly, he looked back up, with an expression of hurt and betrayal. "Well, what was that for?" The expression changed to one of amusement as he not only remained alive, but also leaped toward Owen with the speed of someone who had not just been shot three times.
"Owen!" Tosh yelled, throwing his gun back towards him. He caught it right before the "man" landed upon him. But it was too late.
They both had disappeared.
Sam impatiently checked the time on the little clock on the wall, which hung crookedly and had a minute hand that would occasionally jump back, only to speed forward again like a jolty amusement park ride. He tapped his foot incessantly and glanced, a sheepish and apologetic smile on his face, toward the girl at the counter of the pizza shop.
Where was Dean? Sam was growing more and more anxious by the minute. He'd talked on the phone with his older brother not a quarter of an hour ago, yet he could feel in his bones that something had gone awry. Dean was never more than five minutes late, if what he was doing didn't involve pie or monsters trying to kill him.
Though, there was one thing. It was something that hung on the edge of Sam's mind every day, something that wouldn't release its grip on his thoughts. Sam couldn't help but wonder if maybe Dean had finally…
No, he refused to believe it. Dean was strong, and he had always been the best big brother, if at times a bit stubborn. Dean was a hunter, he ganked monsters. He didn't allow himself to become one of them. Except, lately his violent episodes had been becoming more frequent and intense, and Sam had noticed the increasing amount of effort he had to put into calming his brother down.
No. Sam looked at his feet and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Dean had to have just run into some trouble navigating his way to Jubilee Pizza. After all, they were in an entirely different country, and the rules of the road had to be different.
Sam noticed the girl at the counter giving him a wary look out of the corner of her eye. He cleared his throat as his cheeks and ears became hot. He realized he had been standing by the door for the last fifteen minutes without giving her any explanation as to why he wasn't ordering anything. "My, uh…my brother is running late."
"That's okay," she said in response, though her expression said otherwise.
After checking the clock once more, Sam sighed. As he opened the door and stepped out into the chill wind that was picking up, bells tingled above him on the door. He barely heard them, though. His attention had been grabbed by something in his peripheral vision that had moved. Ducking, he slid a knife out of his pocket (he and Dean hadn't even bothered to try smuggling guns through customs) and moved so his back was against the wall.
The temperatures had noticeably dropped since he'd entered Jubilee Pizza just a little less than half an hour ago. It was mostly the wind's work, with its frigid touch. Sam wanted to wrap his jacket closer around his body and be warm.
No, what he really wanted was to jump into the Impala's passenger seat and drive around Cardiff with Dean, investigating and maybe visiting some of the local attractions as an aside. He had thought that he would finally be able to spend time with his older sibling and healthily communicate with him, as family should. After all, they only had each other, and they did have a lot of healing to do, if they ever got back to normal again.
Normal. The word seemed foreign to Sam, almost alien. He hoped that things could be the way they were when Dean first arrived to take him away from Stanford. Back then, their lives weren't quite as messy, and not so many people had died yet. Another part of Sam, perhaps more a more logical part, knew that things could never be like he wanted them to be. His and his brother's lives were so tangled in all the shit that had happened in the last ten years that even if they had a time machine, Sam doubted things could ever return to the ways they were. Even with Cas's ability to travel back in time, or hell, even if they had all the might of heaven on their side, they wouldn't be able to fix things. It's impossible to put all the toothpaste back into the tube once it's squeezed out, after all.
Nothing unusual had happened for a while, and as Sam scanned the street around him he figured the movement in his peripheral vision must've only been his imagination toying with him. He'd been on edge a lot, recently, what with Dean and all. Maybe he was hallucinating, and his nightmares were becoming false realities. Or, perhaps his eye had only been caught by a mere scrap of airborne litter, or a bat. Were bats a common sight in Cardiff?
Then Sam spied the black van, parked in the shadows. It was expertly hidden, just not hidden well enough to escape Sam's searching gaze. The vehicle was the Torchwood van that he'd seen earlier when he had been speaking to Ianto. Then, there had been a weevil in the car, making the most heartbreaking moaning noise. It had sounded to Sam's ears as though the creature had run entirely out of hope, and had become dead-like and glum like a car out of gas.
"Ianto?" he called, his voice carried away by a sudden gust of wind that snapped at his hair, making it fly across his face. He slipped the knife he was holding back into his pocket and looked around again. "I know you're there."
From around a corner bathed in shadows, Ianto appeared. He wore a guilty look.
"You followed me?" Sam said. "Or are you going to tell me you just got the munchies for a pizza?"
Ianto shook his head. "I want to help you with this 'case' you're working."
Sam snorted. "Spying on me isn't going to help. It's just creepy." He frowned. "And besides, you're already doing something. Look, my brother and I like to do certain parts of the work alone. It is great that you're offering, but no thanks. We got this."
"It sounded pretty big," Ianto said. "You could use help. And if it's like any of the things that usually go wrong in Cardiff, then you will definitely need help. You'll need the assistance of the entire team-"
"No," Sam said sternly. His fierce expression melted away after a second. "They can't know about my brother and me. It's too much of a risk," he finished quietly.
"Isn't the risk that you have on your hands if you don't tell them bigger?"
Sam regarded the agent's words with weariness. Sure, when deciding between saving possibly the world and saving Dean, he should automatically choose to save the world, even if it meant losing his brother, the only family he had left. But Sam knew he would always choose Dean. It would be okay if he saved his brother, and the world crumbled all around them. At least he wouldn't have to live the rest of his life without him.
But, was he really saving Dean by keeping him and himself a secret from the rest of the team? The way it was now, there was no risk of anyone finding out above the Mark of Cane, or recent events. Wasn't that the best way to go about this?
Yes, Sam reassured himself. It is. Sam and Dean had been able to stop the apocalypse together, they could fix whatever big thing was brewing here in Cardiff. But, Sam couldn't fix it alone, and in the state that Dean was in…
"Look, if you want to tell me something, I'm all ears. But don't snoop around," Sam said. He was afraid for Ianto, and what Dean would do to him if he ever caught him sneaking around.
Ianto put up his hands in front of him defensively. "Okay. I won't." He backed up in the direction of the Torchwood van. Before turning around and walking off, he said one thing, "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."
The van's headlights came on, lighting the pitifully bald bushes around the vehicle up like mangled Christmas trees. It came to life with a growl, and rode off, a black shadow roaring through the street until it disappeared somewhere beyond Sam's view.
Sam watched until he was left there alone in the cold.
Dean still hadn't arrived. It had now been over half an hour.
He had no idea what to do.