(Author's note: I know I sort of blew past the Katie Cassidy being Ruby and Laurel way back in the first one but I decided to play with it here, because I can, and it's fanfic.)
We got back to the house, Coyote patched me up, again and gave me more of her healing tea to drink. It numbed a lot of the pain within an hour or so, along with three or four extra strength aspirins. I was going to try to push it and finish cleaning the guns, at least I was until she shoved me down onto the couch and basically said , "Sit, stay!" then glared at me as she started field stripping the next gun. I got the point.
Since I'd been put on couch duty I figured I should check Magnus's files that Sam had uploaded to the site so I grabbed my laptop, after assuring Coyote that was all I was doing, and clicked on the site icon that Felicity had added when they were here. Since Sam still had a vamp hanging out in the dungeon I figured I'd start there and typed vampire in the search bar. Seconds later about a hundred references to vamps popped up. "Damn, if we'd had this years ago, the hours we would have saved." I muttered. I started scrolling through the options and one caught my eye.
"On Alternative Methods of Interrogating Vampires"
That could be useful, I clicked on the link and started reading.
"Vampires, like demons, heal rapidly and are much less vulnerable to even enhanced weapons. Holy water, salt, exorcisms, none of these affect a vampire. Dead man's blood weakens them but it does not cause them much distress. If information is needed from a vampire, such as the location of it's nestmates, there is a scarcity of options to compel them to speak.
I, through much research, which, of course, has been frowned upon by the establishment, have devised a method of causing a vampire such intense pain that it will do it's utmost to share all knowledge within mere minutes of being exposed to it. It is indeed a pity that my fellow Men of Letters continue to doubt the validity of my research."
Magnus was just as arrogant on paper as he'd been in person. The guy was a genius though so I couldn't really hold it against him.
"This method requires an injection of the following components into a fairly robust specimen. If too weakened, this brew could kill a vampire immediately so it's rather important to take care to not injure it too severely before continuing. The ingredients are as follows:
Three drops each of Oils of Myrrh, Frankincense, Sage, Garlic and Cedar, placed into 100 ml of Holy Water to which two pinches of pure salt have been added. Repeat the standard purifying invocation over this mixture and then add four drops of Dead Man's Blood.
What I have discovered is that the ancient tales of vampires fearing Holy Ground and Garlic weren't incorrect, they were just not accurate. The body of the vampire, like our own skin, protects it from these things. Once they have become fully undead the body is merely a shell, the thing that keeps the vampire alive is it's blood. That is where it's true weakness is. Purify the blood and you purify the vampire. One 10 cc dose of this causes intense pain, two will send it into madness, the Hunger will be so strong as to render it incoherent, three will kill it. Of the fifteen trials I have done since discovering the power of this brew all the vampires have answered truthfully after one dose. The first thirty trials were spent adjusting dosages and verifying the full extent of it's power. If you wish to restore the vampire for whatever reason, you can feed it blood after the first dose and it will heal. All further doses the damage is irreversible.
Thus ends this experiment."
"Holy shit..."
Coyote, who had one of the shotguns apart at this point stopped what she was doing and looked over at me. "Find something?"
"Yeah, it's something all right. Take a look."
She sat down next to me and read it, her eyes were pretty wide by the end, "Holy shit is right. Who was this guy again?"
"Smartest guy of the bunch, got exiled. When we ran across him he hadn't aged in fifty years, was living in an invisible fortress and had a bunch of monsters as living zoo exhibits. I killed him with the Blade, my first kill with that thing actually." I pushed that memory aside as quick as possible. "I need to tell Sam."
"And every other hunter out there," she added.
"Nope, not right now."
Then she remembered what we were dealing with, we'd had kind of a crazy day so far so I couldn't fault her for forgetting. "Good point, scratch that idea for now."
I hit the Facetime app, his face popped up on the screen a few seconds later. "Dean?" His eyes narrowed and his face got stuck somewhere between confused, worried and wary, "Natives get restless all of a sudden?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, my face. It's not a big deal."
"Uh huh, you're in the house so is it safe to assume whoever pissed you off is still breathing?"
"Yeah, they're fine. One won't be walking for a few months, the other two will be fine in a week or two."
He pushed his hair back, ran his hand over his forehead and seemed exasperated for some reason. "Three of them? Do I want to know?"
"Remember why Coyote fought Dancing Badger all those years ago?"
"Yeah,"
"Same kind of thing. Got tired of people giving us shit so did something about it. Not important. This is."
I saw a flash of irritation and I wasn't sure if it was because I was dismissing the fight or the idea that I'd allowed someone to piss me off to the point where I'd started throwing punches. "Hold up, you're okay? Not talking about physical injuries here."
"Yes, no snapping. Promise. Get on your laptop, pull up the site and look at this link I'm sending you." I opened the chat feature that they had cleverly added to the site and pasted the link. He shifted to his laptop, got on and clicked on the link. His eyes skimmed the article, or at least that's what it would look like to most people. Sam reads whole damn paragraphs at a time and grasps everything in them, I'd always been a bit jealous about that skill.
"I've got all of that except the garlic stuff here," he said after he was done, "I know where I can get it though. I'll grab some bagged blood too, get him filled up then dose him with this stuff and see what happens. He's pretty much useless right now. I went to town on him a bit but he's too weak to even notice. If nothing else this takes a lot less effort on our part. I'll stick some extra shackles on him though, maybe use the chair that we stuck Crowley in with the neck restraints. Keep his teeth off me."
"Probably not a bad idea. We'll finish up prepping here and head out tomorrow. Hear from Oliver yet?"
"Yeah, they're going to wait for Roy and Thea to get back and then catch a flight out here. He and I both agreed that Felicity should stay there, she didn't but when I informed her we have no actual internet connections out here she sounded somewhat horrified and asked how we were surviving in such barbaric conditions. I told her that unless she had a way to hack into a non existent wifi signal in the middle of nowhere in Kansas she'd probably be happier and more useful in command central. She wasn't happy about it but she gave in."
I tried to laugh but my face hurt, "Went right for the throat on that one I see, threatened the very soul of a techie."
He smiled, "Oliver texted me later and thanked me. He wasn't making much headway. Anyway they'll be out day after tomorrow, so we have some time to kill. Felicity has gotten some hits on the faces. Not sure anything of much use, last known addresses and all that but she is running scans for any of them that pop up on surveillance cameras within a hundred miles of where we were. It's a start anyway."
"Better than nothing. Is Thea coming too?" I wasn't sure that'd be too bright of an idea.
"No, she's going to help Laurel fill in for Oliver and the rest while they're helping us."
I hadn't heard that name before, "Laurel?" He looked a bit uncomfortable, like it was a sore subject with him.
"Uh, yeah. You know the drama that Roy sort of likes to avoid?"
"Yeah?"
"Laurel was the girl Oliver was dating prior shipwreck, he came back, she found out he'd messed around with her sister and wasn't dead, things went south between them, then her sister came back "from the dead" then left again, then..you know what." He stopped, shrugged and redirected the whole topic, "Details aren't important. Let's just say lots of awkwardness ensued, but now she's helping Oliver."
"Okay, but how does all that get you looking like she bugs the crap out of you? She super annoying or something?"
"It's just that, well, she looks like the original Ruby's twin sister, like identical twin. Just creeps me out a bit. I even tested her the first chance I got just to be sure. Stuck Holy Water in her drink. She's damn lucky I didn't stab her with Ruby's knife the first time she walked into the club."
"Yikes, yeah I can see how that would drive you nuts. Thanks for the heads up so I know not to throw Holy Water in her face if I see her. That could be awkward."
He nodded, "Sure thing. Any idea on the next step?"
"No, sorry, been a bit busy this morning. Give me a few hours to roll things around in my head some more."
"Sure. See you tomorrow then?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. Oh and Dean?"
"What?"
"I'm glad you tested the waters, not that I'm saying go out and get into more fights but after the way you tore out of here and that dream. Just, I was worried."
"Me too. See ya soon."
He nodded and hung up.
Coyote had finished the shotgun while Sam and I talked and I was starting to feel guilty for not helping, or at least doing something but I knew that my hands were too damn swollen to do much and while I wasn't exactly in pain anymore, everything was throbbing. I decided to try looking through more of the information but about half an hour into that my eyes stopped being able to focus on the words. I never used to feel this wiped out after a beating. I must be out of practice, which isn't something a person ever should be in practice at. I closed the laptop and settled onto the couch so I could watch her clean guns. The repetitive sounds and motions of her hands were oddly relaxing and I let my mind drift, I had help, it wasn't just Sam and I against the world anymore. Other people could pick up the slack for once. Somewhere between her finishing the last nine mil and starting on the 45s I passed out.
"Yes, he's still asleep. I got all the weapons loaded and everything else packed. No, I tossed in a few extra things in the tea, didn't tell him, you know how stubborn he is Sam."
Coyote's voice filtered through a halfway decent dream I was having. It took me a second to process what she'd said. She'd drugged me, or herbed me, or whatever. I should have been cranky about it, but I wasn't, it actually made me feel pretty good. I never was good at letting people take care of me, not my role usually, I'd slowly learned how to let all that go over the last year but there was something about how she just did things to take care of me that still blew my mind. I decided to act like I was still out cold to see what else had been going on while I was asleep.
"The vampire thing worked?" She asked.
Wow, I must have been out for a few hours or Sam had been mainlining blood into the vamp.
"So he had no clue who Gordon is. Shit. Huh? How many? Not good. Well at least she tracked a few down. Yeah I'll run that by him when he wakes up, I agree it's a good idea. We need to make sure everyone we have helping us is really who they say they are. No, didn't miss the paranoia, guess we get to double down on that now. Yeah, all right. Get some rest. You've been on your feet for hours. Don't play the hero Sam, if we get there and you look dead on your feet I'll do the same thing to you I did to him. All right. See you tomorrow." I heard her set her phone down and felt her standing over me. She ran her hand through my hair, "Wish we could go back in time to the party and stay there," she whispered. "It's not fair, not after everything you two have been through."
I left my eyes closed as I took hold of her hand, "Hey, at least we got to have the party. Something like that will take Sam and I through a long stretch of bad if it comes down to it. We know how to appreciate the good things in life. What'd he say?"
Her hand stiffened then relaxed, "You were awake for that huh?"
"Some of it, I heard everything after you telling Sam you'd drugged me. Thanks."
"It's what I do. Vamp said that there's at least four other groups working together to track and kill hunters. He had no clue who Gordon is but the name Winchester is at the top of the capture list. There's a standing order that you and Sam are to be delivered up the food chain alive and in one piece. He says the rumor is that it's werewolves running things, not a vampire. He's heard there's a few shifters involved but no one knows for sure. They have been getting training in how to track hunters and lay kill trails to draw you guys out. The one you and Sam went to was the third one they'd done. They'd heard you'd retired so when you showed up along with Sam then bailed quick it through them off. You guys didn't follow usual hunter procedure, if you had, well you might not be here right now. That's all Sam got out of him."
And all of a sudden I felt that clock in my head again, ticking down the minutes leading towards some fan-frigging-tasticly agonizing, fucked up event. "How long was I out?"
She knew it too, "Three hours. Everything's packed."
I forced myself upright, my face throbbed a bit but everything else felt halfway decent. "Nice. I feel halfway human again. Pack any of those herbs? We'll probably need them."
"Whole backpack full."
I flexed my knuckles, aside from being swollen and tight they moved like they should. I could probably drive. "I'll tune up Baby at the Bunker, let's get on the road. Easier to coordinate if we're all in the same place." There was a second there, when our eyes met before I stood up, neither of us really wanted to leave. It hung there between us, "Ever been on a cruise?" I asked.
She's usually pretty good at following my random thoughts but this one completely lost her. "No. Why?"
"Me neither. We finish this, we take one. Consider it an engagement present."
I'd never seen her look that shocked, ever. "Wha...I...You're not kidding."
"No. You called it, statement of intent, you said yes. Don't most people do something to celebrate that kind of stuff?"
I kind of felt bad for her, she was trying to catch up and process the last few days. Hunter life, sometimes you sit for days doing nothing, then everything hits at once. I knew what I wanted, I'd been edging my way there, so had she and I wasn't letting us leave without making it damn clear that we were both coming back in one piece, no matter what.
I could tell the minute she'd managed to get over the shock of it, her lips curved into this absolutely stunning grin at the same time her eyes got that look. The look of a hunter heading into deep shit and making that decision to make it through. Once a hunter gets that look, not much will stop them.
"Yeah, they do. Deal. Let's get this shit over with so we can start drinking on the deck of a ship."
This wasn't the time for kisses and sex, that would come later. This was when you get your game face on and terrorize the things that terrorize everyone else. We packed the last minute shit we needed, grabbed snacks and drinks. She tossed me Baby's keys and we headed into the garage. Coyote opened the garage door as I got into the driver's seat.
Once we settled in, I started her up and ran my hand over the dash. "Sorry Baby, you're going to have to wait a bit longer for a vacation. I'll spoil the hell out of you when we get back to the Bunker though. Oh, and when we get back here, you're getting some upgrades. Just so you know."
Even though Sam had joked about tapes I had actually installed a CD player in her a few years back. Sam had resorted to using his phone and a wireless speaker set up but he'd left my collection under the passenger seat. "Hey, under your seat. Grab the CDs."
She dug under it for a second and pulled out the binder. I flipped through and found what I wanted. It wasn't the cheeriest song but it felt right for the moment. This wasn't a nostalgic fun trip, this was the last thing I'd ever wanted to do, but sometimes you have no choice. I shoved the CD in, put her in gear and backed out just as the opening notes of Metallica's Sanitarium kicked in. Coyote turned her head to look at me, "Babe?"
"I'm good. I love you and not a damn thing is going to get in the way of us getting on that ship."
She nodded, put her hand on my leg and we headed out.
By the time we got to the last verse I was ready. Fuck monsters, fuck hunting and fuck the bastards that decided to put Sam and I on a list. I pulled that coldness around the outer layers of who I was, the layers people had to see, but deep down, I'd put a huge ass wall around what Coyote and I shared, what we had together. Just as I got the last of that situated inside my head I felt this lurking, protective presence, wrapping itself around that bond. I was pretty damn sure it had grey fur, huge ass teeth and would never, ever stop fighting to protect what was behind those walls.
Born killer I may be, but that didn't mean that's all I was.
"Welcome to where time stands still
No one leaves and no one will
Moon is full, never seems to change
Just labeled mentally deranged
Dream the same thing every night
I see our freedom in my sight
No locked doors, No windows barred
No things to make my brain seem scarred
Sleep my friend and you will see
That dream is my reality
They keep me locked up in this cage
Can't they see it's why my brain says Rage
Sanitarium, leave me be
Sanitarium, just leave me alone
Build my fear of what's out there
Cannot breathe the open air
Whisper things into my brain
Assuring me that I'm insane
They think our heads are in their hands
But violent use brings violent plans
Keep him tied, it makes him well
He's getting better, can't you tell?
No more can they keep us in
Listen, damn it, we will win
They see it right, they see it well
But they think this saves us from our hell
Sanitarium, leave me be
Sanitarium, just leave me alone
Sanitarium, just leave me alone
"Fear of living on
Natives getting restless now
Mutiny in the air
Got some death to do
Mirror stares back hard
Kill, it's such a friendly word
Seems the only way
For reaching out again." (Metallica, Sanitarium)