Chapter 17 A Visit to ACME
The Sunset Fields Retirement Home sat on a four-acre block in a suburban corridor, having neither a view of any sunset, nor of fields. Dean hoped it was a metaphor, because otherwise the residents had been gypped. He put the car in Park and pulled out the keys, looking at the smooth lawn, clipped shrubs and hedges, neat concrete paths. Final resting place of the non-supernatural kind of living dead, he thought, an involuntary shiver zipping down his spine. He was hoping he'd buy it on a job, long before he ever got close to a place like this.
He got out and looked over the car roof at his brother. "And the plan is?"
"Fishing trip," Sam said, closing the passenger door and walking around the front of the car. "Hope we catch something."
"That's nice and vague."
Sam shrugged and walked up the path to the front doors. He heard the rustle of the angel's coat as Cas walked up behind him.
The recreation room of the facility was large, and eerily quiet for the amount of people it held. Dean walked along the wall, looking at the men and women sitting at tables, some talking and still animated, others staring blankly ahead of them. The walls were painted a murky yellow and mostly covered by large pin boards, covered with flyers and photographs and, he noticed as he glanced at one, peppy little self-help slogans that had the people living here still been able to understand them, would've driven to them to homicide within a week.
He dragged his attention back as a man in a grey suit approached them.
"Hello."
Dean opened his jacket, fishing for his badge. "Hi."
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah," he said, pulling out the ID and holding it up. "Agent Crosby. FBI."
"Sorry, I'm Dr. Dwight Mahoney. I run Sunset Fields," Dr Mahoney said, brushing his own identification, pinned to his suit breast pocket, self-consciously with his fingers.
"We need to question your residents," Castiel said.
"Well ... why?" he asked, looking around the room. "About what?"
"Grand larceny, mostly," Sam answered.
Mahoney's face twitched with a fleeting expression of disbelief. "Of course. Um, by all means, ask away. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know."
"Appreciate it," Sam said as the doctor walked past him, heading for his office.
"Great." Dean looked around the room. "All right, let's do this." He headed for the most aware person he could see, commenting back over his shoulder, "No flirting, you two."
Mrs Sheila Tate sat at the table, staring moonily across it at Castiel. Dean, sitting between them, looked from the woman beside him to the photograph she'd handed him a minute ago. The woman in the picture was undoubtedly her, standing on the deck of a yacht under sail, her husband's arm wrapped around her, short, curly blonde hair picked up by the wind. About fifty years ago, Dean thought, his eyes focussing appreciatively on the long, slender legs and high, full breasts packaged in a sleeveless, low-cut top and short white shorts. This was exactly why he didn't want to be here, he thought. The chick'd been smoking when she was young. Now she couldn't even figure out who she was looking at.
"You are so pretty, Charles," she said, on cue, staring at the angel. Dean looked at Castiel's uncomfortable expression for a moment, before movement behind him caught his attention. The girl walking briskly across the room was tall, with long, dark hair loose down her back and long, long legs. He watched her pass by and realised that in fifty years she could easily be as vacant as the woman he sat beside. Of course, he'd be pretty damned vacant by that time too, he considered.
"That's not my name," Cas pointed out in a low voice, glancing at Dean.
"Oh!" Sheila Tate smiled. "You look so much like my third husband."
Dean handed her back the photograph. "We're here to talk about the robbery, ma'am."
"Robbery?" She turned to look at him, her face perplexed.
"Mm-hmm," he said, drawing on his store of patience, admittedly pretty damned low. "The one the police talked to you about a few days ago?" He expanded the story when he saw that that wasn't enough. "Someone broke into your old house and, uh, stole a stack of bearer bonds and, uh, some jewellery that you stashed under your floorboards."
"Oh, my diamonds, yes. I hid them there," she said, nodding as memory returned. She looked back to Castiel apologetically. "I'm sorry, Charles. I didn't trust you. You were quite the bounder."
Dean's mouth curved up in amusement as he saw Cas' expression, a slightly hunted look in the angel's eyes.
"Did you tell anyone where your valuables were, Mrs. Tate?" Castiel asked, swallowing and firming his tone.
"I don't think so." She looked at him and rested her chin on her hand, her eyes becoming dreamy again. "But then I get a little fuzzy sometimes."
"Have you noticed anything strange lately – uh, cold spots, smells?" Dean tried again. Fuzzy, he thought. A doctor's euphemism for not here ninety percent of the time?
Sheila sat up a little, thinking about it. "Well …" she said consideringly. "There's the cat." She pointed to the other side of the room.
"The cat?" Dean turned around. There was, at least, a cat. A large, fluffy, ginger tabby sitting on a bench being stroked by a resident, wearing that slightly superior expression that felines had perfected.
"He talks sometimes," Sheila said brightly to Castiel. "Really hates that mouse."
Dean looked at her. Why not, he thought.
"I'll interrogate the cat," Castiel said, getting up. Dean didn't argue.
Sam looked around. He'd checked for EMF, discreetly, done a search of the rooms and the common areas for anything that might indicate anything, and had found absolutely nothing. The place was vaguely depressing, despite the forced cheeriness of the décor and the staff. Everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if they were trapped in molasses. He looked around the room. Close by an old man sat at a table, unmoving and staring vacantly ahead of him.
An orderly came up to the table, bending over to speak to the man. "You all done here, Stanley? All right."
He picked up the tray, its contents untouched and walked toward Sam. Sam straightened and focussed as the orderly stopped next to him.
"It's creepy, right? A lot of these people – like Stanley, there – they just tune out and live in their own heads. It's like maybe the real world is too much for them, and they just run and hide, you know?" the orderly said, looking back at the man.
"Hmm." Stanley? Sam looked at the old man. What was too much for you, Stanley? He knew what'd been too much for him. Not the real world but a lack of a real world. No more family. No more duty. No more anything but emptiness and truth and pain as far as the eye could see. He knew why Dean wouldn't – couldn't – let him go. He'd been there too. In that howling wasteland. People hadn't seen him, not really. Hadn't been able to because most of him had already been gone.
Then one person had. And he'd held on.
You got the look. The one a lot of guys get after they've been through the meat grinder – the one that lets you know they've seen a lot of crap they can't forget. The second their feet hit solid ground, they start running, and they don't stop – not till they find something to hold on to.
Stan Richardson's voice was in his mind. Amelia's father had just been protective, he knew, just been trying to look out for his little girl. Yeah, I held on. We held on. When you lose everything, that's what you do. You hold on. You hold onto someone who sees you, despite the fact that you're barely there.
"Hey, what've you got?" Dean walked up, a faint line creasing his forehead as he looked at his brother's introspective expression.
"Hey," Sam said, pushing his thoughts aside and dragging himself forcefully back. "Um, nothing. Uh, no hex bags, no EMF. You?"
Dean shook his head, looking around. "Nada. Half the folks I talked to don't even remember being robbed."
Sam looked at the pinboard beside him. Against the brightly-coloured paper background, a number of photographs were pinned up. His attention sharpened on one of them, memories of an older time pushing out the more recent ones.
"Dean, um ... you remember a guy named Fred Jones?" he asked, brow wrinkling as he tried to force those memories to come into focus. "I think he was a contact of Dad's, lived outside of Salt Lake?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, sure. Guy gave me my first beer. I don't even think I was double digits."
"Right, yeah. Me, too," Sam said quickly. He'd been eight, if he remembered that right. "Um, he was psychic, right?"
"More than that. He was psychokinetic plus a bunch of other stuff, Dad said. A bunch of really out-there stuff," Dean corrected him, remembering the pages in the journal that detailed some of the things Fred could do.
"Crap, that's right," Sam frowned as he remembered something else. It'd seemed like magic at the time. "He made me ice-cream, for my float."
Dean looked at him for a moment. "So?"
"Made it from nothing, Dean. From the air," Sam said, his mouth twisting up to one side slightly.
"Whoa. What made you think of Fred?"
"'Cause he's in room 114," Sam said, pointing to Fred's picture.
Dean looked at him for a moment, then turned around, seeing Cas still talking to the cat, a few feet away. He hissed at the angel. "Cas. Let's go."
Castiel stared at the cat a moment longer and glanced up at Dean. "I've almost cracked him."
"Now." Dean followed Sam down the hall.
Room 114 was a small room with a bed, a chest of drawers, a closet and a television set, screwed high up on wall. The walls were a bright salmon pink, the trim white. Dean flinched slightly as he walked in. In a wheelchair in the centre of the room, Fred Jones sat staring at the television.
"Mr. Jones?" Sam walked up to the chair. "Hey, it's, uh, Sam Winchester." He crouched down until he was at Fred's eye-level and looked at him. Fred didn't move, didn't blink.
Dean stood in front of the chair. The features were the same but that was all. He remembered the slightly bitter, bubbling taste of the beer filling his mouth, and his father talking to Fred, long into the night, him and Sam sleeping in camp beds on the screened-in porch, the whine of insects in the warm summer darkness. He remembered a tall man, sandy hair, warm, hazel eyes and a dry sense of humour, a dominant expression of amused watchfulness. All that had gone from the man sitting in front of him.
"Fred?"
He glanced up and behind him at the television blaring and switched it off, looking back down at the man in front of him.
"Fred! Hey!" He raised his voice, clapping twice loudly.
Sam looked at him and shook his head. Fred hadn't blinked, hadn't shown any response at all.
"So, you really think this one man is causing all of these ... pockets of unreality?" Cas asked, looking at Fred doubtfully.
Dean nodded. "Well, if he is, he'd be surrounded by a circle of crazy, right?" He looked around the room, spotting a heavy book on the cupboard behind him. "Hang on."
He picked up the book and held it in front of him, then slammed the cover into his forehead. Sam jumped slightly at the unlikely clanging noise the impact made, eyes widening as he heard the distinctive cartoon bird noises that such a hit invariably brought with it in 'toon land. Dean shook his head and the birdsong disappeared.
"Bingo." He looked at his brother. Sam nodded, looking back down at Fred.
The angel frowned at him. "But how?"
"Fred's got juice. I mean, an average psychokinetic can move things with his mind, but a guy like Fred – he wasn't average," Sam told him, more of those childhood returning. In his mind's eye he saw the scoop of ice-cream forming in mid-air above his glass of beer, the air growing colder around them as Fred had concentrated on it. It'd been vanilla, that ice-cream, and when it was fully formed it'd dropped into the beer, steaming slightly as it'd melted. "Dad wrote some of the things he could do in the journal – Fred had – has, I guess – a whole bunch of … I dunno, superpowers, including what he described as 'creativity'. When he got worked up, he could 'create' anything – including things that didn't operate by the laws of physics."
Dean nodded in reluctant agreement. "All right, so where's his 'Off' switch?"
"I don't know." Sam glanced at him. "I'm not even certain if he knows we're here."
Fred hadn't moved at all, still staring up at the dark television screen, his gaze fixed.
Castiel looked down at the man pensively. "Do we have to ... kill him?"
"Excuse me, agents."
Sam, Dean and Castiel turned around to see Dr Mahoney and an orderly standing in the doorway. "I believe that you've done enough questioning of my patients."
Sam glanced at Cas, knowing the doctor had heard the angel's question. He nodded quickly, wondering if the doctor had heard any of the conversation before that.
They left the room, and walked down the hall, back to the building's foyer.
"Real freaking smooth," Dean muttered to Castiel.
Cas looked back down the hall. "Well, we don't have to leave him. I could teleport him."
Sam's head snapped around. "Fred's radioactive, Cas. You zap him – no telling what will happen."
"Me and Sam will circle back tonight, get Fred nice and clean," Dean said, glancing up at the security camera that was watching them. "What you can do, is go 'Invisible Girl' and keep an eye on him. You hear me?"
There was no response and he and Sam stopped, looking behind them. The angel had vanished.
Dean turned back and started walking again. "Good."
The ride back to the motel was silent, Sam sitting, hunched up in the corner between the seat and door, staring out through the windshield, his gaze unmoving, not taking in the surroundings. Dean glanced across at him, wondering what his brother was brooding over.
Well, there's a nice, wide variety of topics to choose from, he recognised wryly. Crowley's plans. The Trans' safety. Kevin's inability to read from the stone piece they had. Fred's nuclear capabilities. Cas' ill-conceived notion to become a hunter … and whatever it was that was still eating through Sam like acid, something he thought was the mixed-up emotions about a girl he'd lost and a normal life and the possibility that that was retreating further and further from him with every day that passed.
He exhaled softly, pulling into the motel parking lot. Sam hadn't mentioned it again, since Whitefish. But he'd seen the moments, the times where his little brother had gone into his memories and stood or sat there, as still and unmoving as Fred'd been, lost in something that was still important to him, still had a vice-grip hold on him.
Sam turned and looked at him as he stopped the engine.
"How long do we baby-sit Cas on hunts?"
Dean shrugged. "Until he gets it out of his system, I guess."
He couldn't tell Sam what the angel had confided to him. It wasn't his to tell, and he and Sam no longer had that bond of trust that might've made it safe otherwise. Cas was looking for something, something to do with his half-human, half-angel existence and he couldn't – he wouldn't – cut the angel loose until he'd found it.
"He'll screw us up, you know that, right?" Sam's voice held an undercurrent of something.
"He might," Dean agreed, getting out of the car, hearing the squeak of the passenger door opening behind him. The heavy clunks of the doors closing again were almost simultaneous.
"And you're okay with that?" Sam asked, disbelievingly.
"No, I'm not." Dean opened the room door and walked in, dragging his jacket off and pulling off the tie that'd been half-throttling him all day. "He needs some time to adjust, Sam. We can give him that."
He glanced over his shoulder at his brother. "That okay with you?"
Sam scowled as he took his suit off. "Have to be, won't it?"
Dean walked to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer, passing one to his brother as he went past to his bag. There wasn't any point in continuing the conversation. He could see that Sam was churning over something, but he didn't think it was the angel. And he didn't feel up to getting into the real problem right now.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes and set the beer on the nightstand, going into the bathroom. Long, hot shower, and most of the tiredness would disappear, he knew. Held off for another few hours, anyway.
Sam pulled out jeans and shirts from his bag, dragging them on and shaking out the suit, finding hangers in the closet to hang it up again. He could use a shower, to loosen the tension, get some relief from the lack of sleep. He twisted the top off the beer and swallowed a mouthful, sitting on the edge of the bed and listening to the shower running. Dean'd use up all the hot water anyway, he thought caustically.
Anger was threading its way through him again. Slowly, right now, but it was building. He wasn't sure why. Seeing Fred, having those memories pour back in. The low-grade irritation of having to deal with Cas on a constant basis. The memories of the last year, rising again. All of the above, he thought sourly.
He didn't know what he was doing. Didn't know what to do. There was Kevin and shutting the gates. And there was the fact that he couldn't go back – ever – to the life he'd hoped would be his. That wasn't even Dean's fault, but somehow he wanted it to be. Wanted to have a real and present target for his feelings, which were all over the place.
The question is – what are you running from, Sam?
Was he still running? Still hiding? He shook his head impatiently. What he'd had, what they'd had together … that'd been real. More than holding on, they'd looked to the future, both of them, even if they hadn't talked about it. A real future together.
Not possible now, he thought, and the vein of anger got a little thicker. He couldn't remember how it'd been with Jess, the big things, sure, but not the little things, not the little details of living with her, not the daily minutiae of life with her. How her hair had smelled. The exact colour of her eyes. What she'd liked on her toast in the mornings. Those things had gone, been crushed and buried by the crap his life had turned into. He knew those things about Amelia. He couldn't bear the thought of forgetting that too, having it wiped out.
He got up and walked to the table, opening the laptop and sitting down, watching it load. Fred was radioactive, he thought. They needed a way to get through to him, and he wasn't at all sure that they'd be able to find one. How'd you get through to someone who wasn't present at all? Someone who was locked up in a world of their own making?
The Impala pulled up behind the retirement home, and Dean and Sam got out.
"I'll get Fred," Sam said.
Dean nodded. "I'll meet you out here."
He walked around to the front doors and ran up the steps. Cas' message had been incoherent and he didn't like to think of what he was going to find. Coming around the corner of the hallway into the recreation room, he stopped and stared at the pink and brown goop that covered what looked like every inch of every surface in the room.
"Oh. You got my message. Good," Castiel said, walking over to him. He glanced at Cas, noting distractedly that the angel was still pristine.
"What the hell happened?"
Cas gestured vaguely around. "There was a pastry mishap."
Dean blinked. "Okay, and?"
"And the frosting reached near-supersonic speeds. I thought –"
"Hey," Sam said from behind them, his voice hard.
Dean turned to look at him. "Hey."
"Fred's gone."
"What?" Castiel stared at Sam.
"Oh, fan-freaking-tastic," Dean said, looking at the angel. "Way to take your eye off the ball."
He turned as the pretty brunette wheeled Mrs Tate toward them, both women still speckled by chocolate cake and pink icing.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said, looking at them. Dean raised a brow.
"Well, trust me, sweetheart, you got bigger fish."
Mrs Tate pulled down the mask that covered her mouth, looking up at the angel adoringly. "Charles, she's wearing my diamonds."
The young woman tried to push the wheelchair past them, and Cas' hand flashed out, catching her wrist under the sparkling bracelet.
"Wait," he said, looking at her.
"What? What's wrong?" she asked.
Cas lifted her arm. "This is Mrs. Tate's bracelet. Where did you get it?"
Sheila smiled up at him.
The girl looked from Castiel to Dean.
"Answer the question," Dean said sharply.
"My boyfriend gave it to me." She shrugged, looking at them blankly.
"Who's your boyfriend?" Sam stepped closer.
"Uh, Ty. Tyler, he works here." She looked around vaguely.
"Orderly, tribal tattoo?" Sam asked, the young man's face flashing into his mind. She nodded.
"Where's he live?" Dean snapped.
Buffington Road, Oklahoma City
Three of the six streetlights were out on the narrow road. Dean drove slowly down, Sam leaning out the window with a flashlight, checking house numbers.
"Sixty-four. That's it," he said, and the black car drew in alongside the curb smoothly, headlights doused and engine off.
"Front or back," Sam asked, looking at the dark house as they got out of the car.
"Back." Dean walked around the car.
They walked down the cracked concrete drive, and into the small dirt yard behind the house. The lock was simple, and Dean opened the door, flicking his flashlight on and shining the beam around the room. Kitchen. He headed for the door on the other side.
The living room was small and crowded with furniture, boxes and junk. And, he thought, someone had had a fight in here, looking at the knocked over lamps and scattered papers. "Hey," he said, picking up a printed piece of paper from a stack on a chair. "Bearer bonds. Maybe these belonged to Sheila Tate."
Castiel looked around the room. "So this man is our thief."
"Yeah." Sam played his light over the floor, holding it steady when he saw the legs protruding from behind an upended table. "Dean."
Dean moved across the room and the flashlights showed the young orderly lying on the floor behind the table, his hands pressed over his stomach. He reached behind him and hit the lights, dragging the table out of the way as Tyler opened his eyes and lifted his head. The movement set off a coughing fit.
"Cas," Dean said quietly and moved aside as the angel crouched beside the man on the floor. Tyler tried to sit up, to move away.
"Stay still. Move your hands," Castiel said, lifting the man's hands aside and holding his loosely curled hand above the abdomen. From his palm, light strengthened, and the angel pressed his fingers against the blood-soaked singlet, hand arched over the wound. Tyler gasped, twisting as the light penetrated through skin and muscle, into the torn and bleeding organs.
Castiel stood up and moved back as the young man felt the pain vanish. He leaned up, gingerly lifting his shirt to look at his stomach. The bullet hole was gone.
"How did you –?" he started to say, staring at the smooth, blood-smeared skin.
"Guy eats his Wheaties," Dean cut him off and grabbed his arm. "Sam, come on."
They hauled Tyler to his feet, keeping a firm grip on him as he struggled to see past them, pointing at the angel.
"What did you –?"
"Get up." Dean and Sam lifted him off his feet and into a chair. "Come on. Sit down."
"What did you just do to me?!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Dean raised his voice, leaning on the chair back beside the orderly. "Listen to me. Where is Fred Jones?"
Tyler looked at him, then at Sam and Castiel. "I – he – he took him."
"Who?" Dean yelled at him, leaning over him, his face hard.
"Mahoney! The doc!" Tyler shrank back in the chair. "Dr. Mahoney. That guy's evil, man, okay?"
"Why?"
"He's using Mr. Jones," Tyler said, shaking his head.
"How?" Sam stepped closer, looking down at the man.
"Look, all Fred does is watch cartoons, but he is magic, okay?" He swallowed nervously, the words spilling out in a flood. "A few weeks ago, I–I slammed my foot in his door. I smashed it flat – and I mean flat. And then when I shook the thing, it popped back up, like something out of a cartoon or whatever."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know," Dean said impatiently, straightening up.
"So I told Dr. Mahoney, and then he started doing experiments," he said, looking nervously from Dean to Sam. "Just – we just wanted to see what he could do."
"What about the robberies?"
"Oh, Mahoney's been skimming off Sunset Fields for years. A lot of those folks – they got stuff stashed away, like, off the books, like," he babbled. "So Mahoney would track down the loot, and then we would take Fred for a drive."
Dean looked at his brother, his expression sour. "Right, and use his bubble of weird to rip people off." He looked back at Tyler. "How did you end up gut-shot?"
"Mahoney!" He looked down at his stomach for a moment. "After – after he anviled that guard, he started freaking out, and then–and then you showed up, and then the cake blew up in the day room, and then he lost it."
Sam's brow creased. "What does that mean, 'he lost it'?"
"I mean he's on his way back to the bank right now for one last score," Tyler said, looking at him. "Doc's blowing town. I mean, he said that Fred was a loose end. He was gonna kill him. And then, I–I like Fred, so I said that if he hurt the guy, I'd go to the cops. And I didn't know that he had a gun. And he shot me!"
Dean nodded. "Okay."
Sam looked around the room. "You get this cleaned up and everything – everything that doesn't belong to you – goes back. Right?"
Tyler nodded fast. "Absolutely. No problem."
They walked out of the house, back to the car.
"Do you think Mr. Jones knows what's happening?" Castiel asked, pausing by the rear door.
Dean walked around the front and opened the driver's door. "I don't know. Seems to me like Fred's living in a dream world, not seeing how it is at all."
Sam looked at him over the roof, sliding into the car as his brother got in. He was, he thought. That's exactly what he was doing. A world he'd created, in his head, to make life bearable. The thought skated perilously close to what he didn't want to think about, and he shook it off impatiently.
"Back to the bank."
"Yeah, pedal to the metal," Dean agreed and pulled out.
Dean pulled into the alley and stopped the engine, getting out of the car. He looked at Sam.
"All right. Jones has got to be close. I'll hit the bank. You see if you can find him," he said. Sam nodded, striding fast down the alley to the street, Castiel following.
Dean started walking down the alley, looking for the bank's rear exit door. The big, white frosted glass windows had to be the rear wall, he thought, slowing down as he passed them. He stopped when he saw the circle. Black. Perfectly round. A little under eye-level on the brick wall of the bank. He reached out tentatively, his fingers passing through into the black, disappearing from view as they penetrated. He snatched them back, looking at them nervously, then reached out again. His arm went into the circle and kept going.
Weirder and weirder, he thought, laughing softly. He couldn't feel anything in there, no boundary or obstacle, no temperature difference or change in the texture of the air. Pulling his arm out, he looked at the hole.
"Awesome."
A quick glance around showed no one watching, no one there. He turned back to the circle and climbed into it.
Cars were parked along the street that lay perpendicular to the alley, and Sam bent and looked into them as he and the angel walked quickly along the sidewalk. Castiel quickened his pace, a frown drawing down his brows as he felt the surge of the field.
"Can you feel that, Sam? The power?" He stopped beside a van, and Sam came up beside him. It pulled at him, that strength, and he looked in the window, teeth gritted against the almost-uncomfortable sensation as he moved around to the rear door. It wasn't like anything else he'd felt. Almost electrical in nature, but constant, not fluctuating. A field of generation that twanged on the nervous system of his vessel.
The interior of the van was mostly dark, except for one corner. Cas and Sam saw Fred sitting in his wheelchair against one side, his face lit up by the flickering images on the screen he held in his hands.
Sam climbed into the van, going straight to the wheelchair and kneeling beside it.
"Fred, hey," he said, looking at the man's fixed expression. "Fred, hey, buddy. Hey." He gripped Fred's hand, squeezing hard. "Hey, Fred? Listen to me. Can you hear me? Fred!"
He glanced around as Castiel came up beside him. "If we could just talk to him. Hey, buddy. Hey, wake up. Wake up."
The angel leaned forward, putting one hand over Sam's and the other over Fred's. Light began to seep from him.
"Cas?" Sam looked up at the angel's face when he didn't answer, his expression drawn in concentration.
"Wait," he said, looking down at the strengthening light and realising what Cas was going to do. "Wait!"
Argentine light flooded out from the angel, blinding and whining with its own high-pitched frequency. Sam screwed up his eyes, turning his head away as the light doubled in brilliance again, wiping out everything.
Sam opened his eyes and looked around. He was standing in a desert, under a bright blue sky. A painted desert. A flat two-dimensional desert under a flat two-dimensional sky. This is impossible, he thought.
"Aha!"
He turned around as a cartoon zipped up the road between himself and the angel, disappearing over the horizon, a bright yellow explosion appearing below the lip of the hill a second later, followed by a mushroom cloud, the colours bright and vivid.
Sam looked at Castiel. "Cas, uh, where are we?"
"Inside Mr. Jones' mind," Castiel looked around and back to him. "You said you wanted to talk to him."
"Who the hell are you?"
The angel and Sam turned to see Fred, on his feet, arms crossed over his chest, his face hard as he stared at them. The sky shattered, with the sound of breaking glass, falling around them. Behind it, the scene had become distorted, black and white and grey, bands of static fritzing up and down. Signal lost, Sam thought irrelevantly. Too many motel rooms with crappy antennas and struggling to watch shows on televisions just like this.
He looked at the man standing in front of him. "Fred. Fred. Um, hey, it's–it's me. I'm, uh – I'm Sam – Sam Winchester."
Fred's eyes narrowed, his head tilting slightly as he looked more closely, memory returning and the hostility fading from his face. "John's boy?"
"That's right," Sam said, relief filling him. He stepped closer.
"The scrawny one? It's only been three, four years since I've seen you, you-you –" Fred said. Behind them, the background was flickering with colour and shades of grey. Sam tried not to look at it.
"More like, uh, twenty," Sam said quickly, cutting him off. "Uh, listen, Fred, I'm gonna need you to focus."
"How did you –?" Fred stopped, his eyes narrowing as he studied the young man. Irrelevant, he thought. How he got in. The question was …
"Why are you here, Sam?"
Sam looked at him, wondering how to word what he needed to say. He drew in a deep breath.
"What you can do, Fred – it's out of control. Out of your control. And someone out there's using it, using you."
For a long moment, Fred just looked at him. Using him? He thought of the times he'd seen things, heard things and pushed them back away, back down. No one could use him. God had given him a gift, a gift so enormous, so powerful, that it'd nearly killed him, several times over, but it was his to wield, his to control. No one else could access it, or force him to use it. To move. To create. To bend and distort and mould the fabric of the universe. That couldn't happen. He shook his head, looking at the ground as he began to walk. "No, no, no, no, no ... no. You're lying!"
Sam glanced around as the … space … they stood morphed gradually into a square room, the walls still shifting greys, static still humming in the background.
"This is happening, Mr. Jones. They're using you," Castiel said quietly.
Fred stopped and turned to face him. "As what –? Some kind of a damn psychic CopperTop? You plug me in, and the whole world goes wacky?" He looked at the angel disparagingly. "It doesn't work that way."
"How would you know?" Sam asking, wincing inwardly as Fred's expression hardened slightly. He could easily end up dead in here, he realised. "No offence, but it seems to me like you've been spending more time in here than you have ... out there." He gestured vaguely around.
Kid was telling the truth. Fred tasted the bitterness of it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a conversation with someone. Not in recent years, anyhow. Couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a walk outside. Couldn't remember. Couldn't remember.
"You want to know what's the worst thing that can happen to a guy that's got a mind like I got?" he ground out, looking at Sam. "Losing it."
Inside the vault, safety deposit boxes lined the walls, many of them accessed by small portable holes, giving the room an odd, polka-dotted and somewhat whimsical look . Dr Mahoney moved quickly around the narrow area, pulling out the boxes, transferring the contents to the black leather Gladstone bag sitting at one of the table. Dean slid in through the open door and cocked his gun.
"What's up, Doc?"
Mahoney looked at him warily. "You let me walk, and half of this is yours."
Dean looked at the loot spread out over the table, brow rising as he considered the offer facetiously.
"I think I'm gonna pass," he said, his expression hardening as he looked back at Mahoney. "I'm not really into stealing from sweet old ladies."
"I'm not stealing from them," Mahoney hissed at him. "I'm stealing from their children. Little bastards think they can drop their folks off at a home and visit twice a year, maybe. I took care of all these old geezers. I think I deserve –"
Dean rolled his eyes at the rationalisation. He was so goddamned sick of hearing what everyone thought they deserved, what they thought they should get, do, be.
"I don't care!" he growled. "Geez, this is the job, isn't it? You knew what it was when you took it on? Who gives a fuck if you feel hard done by? Do the fucking job and suck it up!"
"Fine," Mahoney said, shoulders slumping a little. "Have it your way."
Dean relaxed a little, straightening up. Assholes always thought they fucking deserved more than they'd signed on for. What was it about people? He glanced at the piles of bonds sitting on the shiny metal table and Mahoney threw a handful of the bonds at him, shoving him into the wall and grabbing the half-full bag from the table. Dean's foot slipped out on the papers covering the floor, his balance shot as he slid ignominiously down the metal wall.
The gun rose sharply in compensation as he pulled the trigger. The doctor should have been flung forward by the impact of the bullet. Should've had a hole in the centre of his back, black just glinting red. Should've. But didn't.
He stared at the flag that unrolled itself as it came out of the end of his gun. It said 'Bang!'
Mahoney turned to look at it, mouth stretching out in a derisive grin. "Welcome to the fun house!" He spun around and ran as Dean looked at the flag incredulously.
How did you not know that was going to happen, he asked himself furiously, scrambling to his feet and pushing off the wall to chase after the doctor. That's what always happens!
Sam looked at Fred, feeling a curious doubling sensation, seeing himself in the old man standing in front of him.
"I know it's easier, in here, Fred. I get that," he said. "But the cartoons aren't –"
"Cartoons – yeah, yeah, I always loved them when I was a kid," Fred cut him off abruptly, smiling a little at his memories. Behind them the room changed to television test patterns as he found clarity in his feelings. "They made me feel ... happy. Safe. They were ..."
The patterns disappeared, and Sam saw that Fred was searching for what he was trying to say, trying to express.
"Something to hold on to," he said softly.
Fred looked up at him, nodding. "Yeah."
Sam shook his head slightly. "They're not really something you can hold on to, Fred. They're not strong enough."
"Sammy, I can't – I can't remember – not all the time, not out there," Fred looked at him for a moment, then dropped his head. "It takes too much out of me, I don't have that strength anymore."
"You do, Fred, s'like riding a bicycle, right? You have the strength to get control–"
"No, Sam," Fred said, fear edging his voice as he realised what Sam wanted, what he was asking of him. "I don't, not anymore."
Dean shot across the tiled floor, gaining easily on the doctor. C'mon. He forced himself faster, gauging the distance between them. One good …
He jumped, his hands stretching out and his fingertips on the cord fabric of Mahoney's jacket when he felt the world freeze. He could just make out the words, mirrored in the polish of the timber counter next to him.
DEAN WINCHESTER
(HUNTERUS HEROICUS)
And lower, blurred on the shiny surface of the tiled floor.
DR. MAHONEY
(GROTESQUES VILLAINUS)
What the fuck!?
Motion and time and gravity returned together and he tightened his grip on the doctor's shoulders as they crashed to the floor, hearing the whoof of the air in the doctor's chest rushing out of his mouth. He rolled to his feet and blinked as Mahoney pulled out a large, cast-iron fry pan from … somewhere … (where?)
The hard surfaces of the big room echoed with the clanging each time the frypan hit him. He was the good guy, he wasn't supposed to be getting hammered by the bad guy, he thought dazedly, not even seeing the pan swinging for him again. It hit him in the face and he staggered back, glimpsing the bas relief outline of his features in the bottom of the pan as a cuckoo called from somewhere nearby, someone played a drumroll and his vision began to close out.
Hitting the ground was actually kind of a relief. He leaned on his elbow, watching the doctor's feet, multiple copies of them, shimmy and dance around each other.
"Give up! I've been dealing with this crazy for months!" Mahoney snapped at him. "And you idiot! Bringing a gun to a gag fight!"
Dean felt the ringing and clanging slowing down in his head, the doc's feet resolving themselves finally into a single pair, unmoving and right where they should've been.
"Yeah, well, I did bring this." He pulled out the can of paint from somewhere (where?) and held it up. "And 'X' marks the spot."
Mahoney's gaze snapped down to his feet, then up to the ceiling as a long, whistling noise filled the room. He dove to one side, Dean rolling clear to the other as the anvil hit the tiles, smashing the floor and sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Fred didn't want to go back. Didn't want to leave here, Sam thought, walking closer to him.
"I need you to stop this, Fred. You can do it. Just take control of it and bring us out."
Fred shook his head. "It's too hard!"
"Look, it can be nice living in a dream world. It can be great. I know that," Sam said softly, ignoring the changes to the walls of the room, focussing tightly on getting this through, getting it right. "And you can hide, and you can pretend all the crap out there doesn't exist, but you can't do it forever because ... eventually … whatever it is you're running from – it'll find you."
He looked at the old man sympathetically. "It'll come along, and it'll punch you in the gut. And then ... then you got to wake up, because if you don't, trying to keep that dream alive will destroy you. It'll destroy everything."
Fred stared at him and the colour bled out of the walls, out of the room, the light brightening until it filled everything.
Dean rolled to his feet as Mahoney grabbed his bag and ran for the hole in the wall. He saw Mahoney tuck up to jump through, and rebound to the floor with a yell, the wall as unyielding and solid in the centre of the hole as it was to either side.
"Looks like somebody turned off the boob tube," Dean commented mildly, watching him get to his feet.
The doctor scrambled to his feet, looking at him. "Good." He pulled a revolver from his waistband and pulled back the hammer, pointing it at Dean. "Means I can use this."
Dean looked at the barrel of the gun, thinking fast. Mahoney had gone for a gut-shot on the orderly, safe and hard to miss, especially at close range. It told him that the doc didn't use firearms much, wasn't much of a shot. If he broke, dove or rolled, he could get behind the counter before the doc could keep the piece steady enough on him to do any damage. He tensed, his gaze shifting to the man's face, looking for the tells that would telegraph the man's intentions –
"No!"
Fred stood in the centre of the room, Sam and Castiel behind him as both Dean and Mahoney snapped around to look at him. The old man's face was furious, and he pointed at Mahoney's gun, the barrel beginning to quiver. "You are never going to hurt anyone again!"
Mahoney gasped as the gun turned around, his hand flashing up to his wrist, trying to force it away, to pull his fingers free of the grip, of the trigger. His skin felt welded to the plastic and metal, and his eyes widened as the barrel kept curving around, the small round hole at the end becoming more and more circular as it centred on him.
Dean glanced at Fred. The old man was concentrating on the gun completely, he thought, guiding it and forcing it at the same time.
Mahoney didn't feel the muscles in his finger moving, didn't hear the loud retort as the hammer fell. Didn't feel anything as his body fell to the floor.
Fred turned away as the man dropped. Sam jumped slightly at the gunfire, seeing his brother flinch as well. It was one thing to talk about power, he knew. Another thing to see it in action. And he had the feeling that Fred had only been using a fraction of the well of power that lay hidden inside his tall, thin frame.
"And that's all, folks," Dean said quietly, looking down at the doctor, chest heaving as the adrenalin surge started to dissipate.
"My God," Fred said softly, looking around the room. The anvil. The hole on the wall. He glanced at Dean and a spark of memory hit him, those eyes, in a small boy's face, which had screwed up a little at his first taste of brew.
Sam looked at him. "Fred. You good?"
"Now I'm good," Fred said forcefully, hating the admission. He turned to Sam. "In a month, year ...?"
He sighed and closed his eyes tiredly. "Nobody gets sharper with age."
Dean watched him. There was only one end to this story, he knew. Fred knew it too. And he thought Sam knew it.
"I'm gonna lose control again, and somebody's gonna get hurt," Fred said, turning to Sam. "Again. You got to make it stop."
"There might be a way," Castiel said slowly. "The procedure will be painful, and ... when it's over, I'm not sure how much of you will be left."
Fred looked down at the anvil that lay on the floor. The devil? Or the deep blue sea? He would take the deep, blue sea every single time. He'd been hiding out for years now. There was barely any of himself left at those times, as if he'd already had one foot out the door and was just waiting for the sweet tones of a trumpet to call him home. What difference did it make now? His great and mighty power, trapped in an old and defective and failing body. He drew in a deep breath and looked at the angel.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" he snapped.
Sam stood in the day room, next to his brother and the angel, looking at Fred. The old man sat in his wheelchair, facing the window, a slight smile curving his mouth.
"Is he, uh – is he okay?" Dean asked Cas. He looked okay, better than when he'd watching the cartoons, Dean thought. Cas hadn't given them the full details on what he'd removed from Fred.
"He's listening to 'Ode to Joy'." Castiel said, as Fred closed his eyes and the smile widened. "He's happy."
At least someone is, Dean thought, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "All right, well, let's blow this termite terrace," he said, turning away from Fred and looking at the angel. "Cas, you get to ride shotgun. You done good."
"Thanks, but I, uh ..." Cas looked down for a moment. "I can't come. I, uh ..."
He stood in the office. Reflections, he thought, looking at Naomi. And her. Smooth, edgeless. Except for her voice, which held many edges.
"Hello, Castiel," she smiled at him. "And, no."
"No?"
"I can see what you're thinking, and I won't allow it," Naomi said firmly, the smile still curving her lips, but far from her eyes.
"You don't understand. I have been trying to pretend that I can escape what I did in Heaven, but I can't," Castiel said, looking down at her. "All that pain that I caused – I – I have to come back, to make things right."
It was essential. He didn't have a soul. Didn't have a body. But he was still one of God's sons, and he couldn't turn away from what he had to do. From the punishment he needed to face and the atonement he had to make.
"And you are ... by doing what you're told. Castiel, understand this – unless I ring my bell, you will stay out of Heaven."
He looked away, defeated. "Well, then, what should I do?"
"What do you want to do?"
"You – you what, Cas?" Sam looked at the angel, brow creased up. "Why can't you come with us?"
Another hole. He didn't know what that meant. Only that it was important, for some reason. "I ... I want to stay with Mr. Jones. Someone should watch over him for a few days, just to be safe."
"Okay, and then what?" Dean looked at him questioningly.
"Then I'm not sure," Cas said quietly, looking at him, the expression in his eyes a clear farewell. Dean's gaze cut away, uncertain of how he felt about that. He'd been prepared to keep the angel close until he'd figured that part out.
"But I know I can't run anymore," Cas continued firmly. "I need to work it out."
Sam felt a jolt inside himself. He couldn't run anymore either. No matter how much he wanted to.
Dean turned away, nodding slightly as he slapped his brother on the shoulder and walked off. "Sam, you with me?"
Sam nodded distantly to Cas and turned around, following Dean out of the room.
I-40, Mississippi
"Don's alive."
The words had hit him like a sledge-hammer, driving thought, feeling … everything … out of his mind and leaving him sitting there, feeling as fragile and vacant as an empty glass. He still couldn't quite get his head around the fact that the man he'd thought was gone, dead, buried, never to return … was sitting with her right now. Holding her, maybe.
It was a peculiar state of mind. If he'd known before, he never would've gotten involved with her. If Don had been alive but out of the picture when they'd met, he could've felt something more decisive right now than the amorphous mix of dread and pain and longing that filled him. He had no rights in this situation. He'd known that as soon as she'd looked at him. He wasn't the husband. He wasn't … anything … anymore.
Was he living in a dream world still? A world where he could forget about his past, forget all that happened and all that he'd done and just be … moment to moment, day to day. How long could've he done that, he wondered? A year? Ten? Before, as he'd told Fred, it would've backed up and punched him in the gut and he'd have to face it or ruin everything.
He'd told Stan that he'd run with the death of his brother. And that was kind of true. He'd been running long before that, though. Running from his memories. Running from the things that he hadn't wanted – couldn't bear – to look at. Choices and events. Emotions and thoughts and decisions. Grief and agonising pain and an old anger that was deeper than the ocean and wider than the plains.
He looked down at his hands, tightly clenched into fists in his lap, and made an effort to loosen them, before his brother noticed and questioned him on it. The thought brought a hollow inward laugh. Had it been him, all the time, screwed up, instead of Dean? Had Dean really been the sane one, the one who was thinking before acting?
Glancing at his brother's profile, outlined against the milky blue prairie sky, he thought of all the times he'd asked Dean, begged him, to open up, to tell him, to share the crap that had been eating through him. Definitely the pot calling the kettle black. Dean would listen, he knew. That was the strange thing. So long as it wasn't about draining his own poison, his brother was a good listener, for the most part. Really heard what you were trying to say, most of the time. But they'd both gotten out of the habit of asking. Had stopped a while ago. And the secrets were still there.
Winona, Mississippi
Dean sat in the car, in the slot in front of the room, leaning his head against the wheel. He'd gone out forty minutes ago, ostensibly to get a six-pack of beers. He needed time alone.
Sam had been getting more and more tense, the further behind they'd left Oklahoma. Twice, he'd seen his brother sitting rigidly, hands curled into fists, as they'd headed first east, then south. He had no idea what was causing it, but he recognised the signs. Pretty soon the tension would turn to anger. He exhaled and leaned back, tipping his head back against the seat and closing his eyes.
Despite the low-grade irritation of Cas' constant presence, the angel had, at least, provided a buffer between them. A barrier of courtesy, if nothing else. That was gone now. Sam'd stomped into the room when they'd arrived, throwing his bag at the foot of his bed and slamming the laptop onto the table, muttering about finding another job.
The last few weeks had been a hiatus between them, a period of truce, he guessed. Or maybe they'd been so involved in their own individual crap, they hadn't really had the time to let that crap out on each other. He didn't know.
One of the many, many things he didn't know, he thought sourly. How to deal with his own problems. How to help Sam talk about whatever it was that was bothering him. How to find Crowley … he exhaled and reached out for the six-pack beside him. Lock it down and cover it up, for now. If they found themselves with time on their hands, he might be able to get some of it sorted. But for the moment, he needed to keep his head clear. Because his brother was stewing over something, and it wouldn't be long before that pressure cooker exploded.