Chapter 2 to The Mark
"Matters of the Family"
Author: Wakingsparrow
Author's Note: Sorry, I told you I was going to jerk the time frame around! The ending to this chapter is my favorite, but I'm not sure how to work through the plot to meet up with the previous chapter just yet.
Give me your opinion, I want to hear it for better or worse! I'd love some motivation.
The first puzzle piece that lead to his less than smooth encounter with Dr. Tesner came two weeks earlier.
After Dean had packed up the cooler and holstered his gun, he began the long walk from the farthest corner of the car lot. He loathed leaving his target practice frustrated, but he was tired of trying to concentrate. As his feet carried his back between the banged up metal masses, he let his mind wander.
...
It was deceptive to say it had been a slow month…it had been an absolutely dead month as far as jobs come. There had been a case that had merely ended up being three bizarre accidents in the same town. Two states over it was a D&D nerd messing with some seriously sinister shit involving dove's blood. The spell would have made the head cheerleader fall in love with him for a grand total of 20 minutes. Bobby blamed Dean's sloppy intel mixed with his thing for cheerleaders that made that trip a near bust.
The only hunt that might have truly mattered was them putting down a restless spirit that had a thing for haunting the grieving by mimicking their deceased loved ones out of the corners of their eyes. That one had been particularly buckets of fun for two scarred hunters. You could have heard a feather drop on snow the entire ride back and neither one of the spoke of it.
Since then, Bobby had begun to dig at the 'long lost' articles. Newspapers towered up forming a massively monotonous labyrinth in a room that had once been intended for a bed and a dresser. The worn oak of the floor creaked under the files with so much as a foot step and dust from the pile longed to greet the sporadically howling wind. The haze of particles pressed into the tall windows and fogged the daylight.
Both men flipped through page after page, making a sport out of misspellings and funny last names. "Irma Wanamaker…" Dean would chuckle out from time to time. "Wanna make her do what with a mug like THAT?" The remarks would generally warrant an eye roll from Bobby, but he knew from behind the folded out manuscripts, it was accompanied with an obscured smirk.
The fact was, they were always certain they missed something no matter how thorough they had been in the past…and regretted it when one documented death turned into a long streak that they could have stopped. Thus the parchment walls shifted in some places and stacked up in others.
It was like trying to figuring out the pattern of rain drops in a downpour.
While the older hunter could rake over the yellowing serif font for days on end like a pro, Dean ultimately found himself far too restless to mull obituaries and dawdling small town hype for too long. He could oil every bolt and lug in the Impala if she weren't already preened and prepped by other days of boredom. He'd even taken up working on an old Camero, but most of the time he felt like a cheating bastard as his baby collected dust kicked up by the dry wind like moths to his bagged FED suit.
...
Dean suddenly shook his consciousness back from his memories. Realization dawned on him that he had made it back to the house and was sitting on the back porch steps already half way though a beer. Great, I'm basically either getting senile from all the concussions or I'm losing my mind. He finished the bottle in one go. Possibly both. He opened another.
The sun had gone out with a brilliant array of burnt oranges and cotton pinks and the sky was now littered with clear constellations. Heat still lingered in metal of the cars around him, though a rare breeze would come along and creak loose doors on some of them and they seemed to groan in satisfaction.
It had always been obvious to Dean why Bobby lived this far out from civilization. Prying eyes and gossipy neighbors were all literally fenced out from the Singer Salvage Yard. He had had his fill of tying to sleep with a constant roar of cars whenever he ended up in a wayside motel on a job. While a close bar would be nice, between the stock pile of rot-gut liquor and cheap beer that took up most of the fridge, there wasn't any point seeking out socialization with the backwoods' drunks of Sioux Falls.
He hadn't even been to a bar since…
"Dean, what the HELL do you think you're doing?" The dim lighting spun like a top around him as he searched for the owner of the voice. Who's voice? Wait of course…he knew. He let out a brief and brainless giggle as he went back to a glass of jack on the rocks.
There's only one person that would be looking for him, and it was the last person he wanted to deal with right now…
Dean shuttered slightly even though he was on the verge of sweating. He wanted something stronger than beer right now.
It was mid afternoon when Dean came in from wrenching away at his recent engine project for a glass of ice. By now he had figured out the room temperature tap water between the cracks of the fleeting solids allotted him two blissfully cool minutes before it was all lukewarm. You might as well drink you own sweat at that point.
"Think I got something." Bobby heaved a stack of papers onto his desk in the other room and pulled out a thick book Dean recognized as the older hunter's journal. The perspiration on the glass smudged the dirt on his fingers as it was set aside from the breaking news.
"It tracks back at least 150 years as far as I can tell."
Alright. Dean pulled the top paper off of the mound of articles and skimmed over the most recent publishing date. Not such breaking news, but still something.
Bobby tapped an inscription in his notebook. "1974. A woman claims her daughter went on a camping trip with her father and was quote 'sacrificed to wild animals'. The police report states her remains were found tied to a tree and rest had been scattered in a whole 20 yard radius. The dad was listed as missing." It seemed good timing he flipped the page and allowed the words to soak in.
"1932. Gerard Lenrick drowns himself in a bath tub after confessing in a cryptic suicide note he had murdered the elder two if his four children, though their remains where never found." The older hunter brushed aside the bookmark to finish the paragraph. "In the note, Lenrick had ranted about 'not remembering the act itself', only that he was guilty. He also professed his suspicion that his father had killed his childhood sister by throwing her into the sea, but it was written up as an accident." An old family photograph he had cut from the paper accompanied the words. The fading sepia photograph showed what looked to be his mother, brother, the murderer himself, his wife, and four kids – they at least looked pretty normal.
Bobby gave the Winchester an expectant look as he snapped the book shut and precariously balanced it on the cluttered desk.
"That's creepy and all, but it could just be a bunch of nut jobs ready for a straight jacket or death row."
"I know it's not much from the looks of it, but this wasn't just random." The past mechanic shook his head and sifted through a few of the top news prints. The stack spread around them in the available patches of the disorderly living space, certain lines circled in red ink. "…they're all from the same blood line. What's more is that from the records I have, its always two kids in a generation, and one girl the next. Just repeats over and over till the paper trail ends when original ancestors migrated here."
"So what, a family hex then?" Dean thumbed a corner of one of the papers as he skimmed an article.
"That's my best guess at it. It's a full on Kennedy. I'm working on figuring out where the descendants are right now. Even when I do, Dean, I'm not sure what we're gunna do about it. I don't know what we're up against."
Dean insisted on helping map out a family tree, but Bobby shooed him away with pen in hand absentmindedly, muttering something about 'adding more confusion as usual' and 'useless when you're hung over anyway'. He went out to the Camero, but couldn't muster the desire to get back under the hood this time. He set to cleaning the arsenal of guns worthy of a small army as today's distraction.
"You know you're gunna have to talk to him sooner or later, right?" Bobby lowered into a vinyl dining chair and glanced down at the bowl in front of him with hesitation.
It was far past twilight and crickets took up their habitual substitution for the cicadas. The kitchen light over the table cast stark shadows that made both men look about as tired as they really were. Today had been even more blistering than the last; the younger hunter had gone so far as to sport a dark green wife beater and was embarrassed to say…a pair of cut off jeans.
It's freakin' hot, okay?
Yeah? And I still look like a freakin' douche bag.
It probably wasn't healthy to argue with one's self, but it had been a persistent dispute all day at every downward sighting of his pale legs. Douche bag or not, wearing full length pants in this weather was not an option.
He slopped something indiscriminate looking that might be categorized as stew from a pot on the stove and chose not to answer Bobby's question.
Sadly man cannot live on burgers alone. Truth was that Dean would swallow thickly at the thought of any of the restaurants in town these days. Apparently he was so desperate for something different he'd even try his own cooking. He'd seen a lot of disturbing things in his life, but each new attempt he'd made took the pie.
Honestly, he itched to hit the road so badly he would either catch himself pacing a hole in the floor or staring out in the direction of the highway fiddling his car keys. What he wouldn't give for a cute blonde waitress and a horrendous truck stop menu. He longed for hills and rushing rivers as his entertainment, but most of all, he missed the company of his brother. Bobby was right, as usual, but the pride in him couldn't allow himself to admit it.
Dean joined him at the table and jammed a spoonful of the concoction into his mouth before his senses could object. The sludge didn't make him gag if he gulped it down quickly and he took that as a sign of decent improvement. Just to be sure, though, he took a substantial drag off his beer. The two men were like that for a while with only the sound of metal scraping against ceramic and intermittent crescendos of bug prattle to fill the background.
Finally he spoke.
"He made it pretty clear he didn't want to talk to me, Bobby. I'm just respecting his wishes." Hazel eyes were anchored to the meal in front of him and he could have sworn he saw something move.
The silence of their dinner had apparently built up a knot of irritation in the man across from him.
"Look, I don't know what happened between you two buffoons, but we've all seen this before." Bobby let his silverware clack against the bowl's side as he waved out his hands in frustration. "Been there, done that, for God's sake." It took a moment, but with the straightening of a ball cap, they calmly rested back on the table. He continued a bit softer this time, but with a matching edge in his tone. "Do you even know what he's up to these days? If he's alive?"
Dean's shoulders stiffened. "Gee, I dunno Bobby. He's most likely with some new friends at a slumber party making a blanket fort."
Motionless hands on the table jerked to life and slammed down on the hard wood making the recently discarded spoon clatter around the rim. "I don't care who got whose panties in a twist, but you boys ain't doing yourselves any favors by lettin' it carry on. You keep each other in check. Neither one of you has ever been better off without the other."
Dean could feel the weight of the man's severe stare practically lasering its way past the skull and into gray matter. He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, but even the crickets seemed to smell the tension and shut up. Somewhere in the back of the house a clock chimed away, but Dean didn't bother to note the hour.
"You're as damn stubborn as your father, you know that? Don't wonder why I just about shot him full of somethin' harder than rock salt on more than one occasion." With that Bobby screeched back his chair and put his bowl in the sink, clearly worn out with the one sided shrink moment to continue.
Dean dug a pattern around his bowl in the congealing slop to distract himself from anxiously bouncing his leg under the table. He could argue back, he could defend his lack of actions and then storm out of the house like a 16 year old, if it didn't mean having to think about the whole situation yet again. Don't wanna go there. No point.
Bobby sighed deeply to demonstrate his resignation.
"I think your cooking's getting better." He guffed as he stalked his way to the living room.
That at least got Dean to steal a look up from his bowl.
"Really?"
"No, you Idjit"