After composing themselves and nearly getting their heads blown off by an anxious teenager with a hell of an aim, Dean and Elizabeth are once more moving through the asylum in search of Sam. According to Kat, someone, who'd Sam identified as Dean himself, had called Sam's phone and asked for backup in the belly of the friggin' place. Now, as happy as Dean is that his brother would drop everything to run to his aid, he's pissed that some ghost pulled the trick in the first place.
"Sammy," Dean calls out cautiously as he rounds another corner, Elizabeth right behind him in case backup is needed. "Sam, ya down here?"
"Sammy boy," Elizabeth tries, and Dean feels as her fingers grip the back of his shirt in her nervousness. If Sam has been possessed or changed like those other guys, then they'll have a hell of a time fighting him without using their guns. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Dean jumps and Elizabeth lets out a small squeak when Sam seems to appear out of nowhere, looking more pissed off than Dean's ever seen him before.
"Man! Answer us when we're calling you." Elizabeth doesn't seem to register Sam's anger at first, walking right up to the much taller person and smacking his chest hard with the flat of her palm.
"Stop being such an ass!" Then she forces Sam down into a hug, having to stand on her tiptoes in order to accomplish the act. "Are you okay, Sammy?" That's when the anger seems to fade away and he gains a complacent expression, wrapping his arms loosely around the blonde as he hugs her back.
"Yeah," Sam answers," I'm fine." He gently removes Elizabeth's arms from around his neck and takes a step back as Dean moves forward to stand beside her. It doesn't matter who she's around, Dean always feels the need to protect these two and he doubts it'll fade over the years.
"You know it wasn't me who called your cell, right," Dean checks, giving his brother a quick once-over to make sure he's relatively unharmed.
"Yeah, I know. I think something lured me down here." Elizabeth slips her hand in Dean's, looking up at him nervously. They both know something isn't right here, the ghosts wouldn't have lured Sam down here if they didn't want to use him for something. Could this be like what happened to Elizabeth earlier? Is the real Sam stuffed in a corner of his own mind or has Ellicott sunk his claws into him? Dean isn't sure what to think, he just wants to get this job done with so he can pack their shit up and head for Oklahoma where Lilly is waiting for them.
"And I think I know who—Doctor Ellicott. That's what the other spirits have been trying to tell us." Taking advantage of the momentary lapse in attacks, Dean returns his pistol to the back waistband of his pants while Elizabeth returns hers to the brand new holster on her hip. "You haven't seen him, have you?"
"No. How do you know it was him?"
"'Cause Dean found his logbook," Elizabeth explains. "It had detailed explanations of what he put his patients through. It was disgusting, and makes Norman Bates look like a normal human being." Sam gives her a look, but Elizabeth shrugs it off and continues. "In short, the patients rioted because they wanted to give Ellicott a taste of his own handy work. The guy was a massive dick, I can't say I blame them for ganking his ass."
"Yeah," Dean adds," he was trying to perfect some kind of extreme-rage therapy. He thought if he could get the patients to vent their anger, then they'd be cured of it."
"But it only made their anger worse, think the Hulk on steroids. So Dean and I were thinking—"
"His spirit is doing the same thing to whatever poor guy finds his way down here—like with the cop, the kids from the seventies—making them so angry that the smallest things piss them off enough to send them into a homicidal rampage." Sam doesn't get the time to process the new information before Dean moves past him, still holding Elizabeth's hand. "Come on, we gotta find his bones and torch him."
That's the only thing Dean lets himself think about right then, trying to deal with things one at a time. He'll finish with this town, move on to Oklahoma for some rest, talk with Elizabeth to figure out what's going on, and then get back on the road after John.
"How," Sam calls after the pair. "The cops never found his body."
"He's got a hidden room down here somewhere," Elizabeth says, beating Dean to it with a smile. "I figure if we pull enough books off the shelves or move enough candles, then part of the wall will move and we'll find our way inside. Just keep thinking positive." She taps her temple for emphasis. "We've watched enough cheesy movies and I doubt this guy is above hiding his lab like the good doctor in Young Frankenstein. And like I said earlier, the patients went to town on him and what better place to do that than in his secret lab?"
"I don't know. That sounds kind of—"
"What," Dean asks," crazy?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we're surrounded by crazy, Sam." Dean just shrugs, moving further down the hall until he reaches a rusted iron door, opening it up and shining his flashlight inside before deciding to risk it. Elizabeth follows after him immediately, but Sam takes a bit longer, a sinister smile twisting his lips. The room they enter looks like a normal storage room with an old bookcase in the corner, covered in dust and holding a few jars of God only knows what.
"I told you, I looked everywhere. I didn't find a hidden room," Sam says smugly when he joins them.
"Well, that's why they call it hidden." Dean moves the flashlight around, trying to take in every small detail, but the grime covering every inch of the room makes it difficult to see if there's a hidden door. And then he hears something, a faint whistling sound that makes him pause and tilt his head.
"I don't know," Elizabeth says," maybe Sammy's right. It's probably not—"
"You hear that?"
"What," Sam and Elizabeth ask in unison as Dean turns his back to them. He walks a few feet over to the nearest wall, crouching down in front of it and finding a small gap in the foundation, allowing wind to whip around inside, but only barely.
"There's a door here." Elizabeth takes half a step forward, squinting in order to make out the gap and missing Sam as he raises the sawed-off shotgun until it's aiming at his brother.
"Dean," he says, voice sounding rough and unused. Dean turns to look at his brother over his shoulder, green eyes going wide when Sam wraps an arm around Elizabeth's neck and hauls her against his chest tightly. Sam's nose is bleeding, a steady stream, but he keeps the bitter smile in place. "Step back from the door." Dean straightens up, casting a glance at Elizabeth; she's tugging at the burly arm around her throat, looking a little panicked, but she gives a slight shake of her head all the same. He isn't hurting her yet, but it would be cake for him to snap her neck in that position.
"Sam, let Elizabeth go and put the gun down."
"Is that an order?"
"It's more of a friendly request."
"'Cause I'm getting pretty tired of taking your orders." He raises the gun higher, now aiming it at Dean's chest. Dean gives his brother a smirk, nodding his head a little and meeting Sam's darkened eyes.
"I knew it. Ellicott did something to you, didn't he?"
"For once in your life shut your mouth."
"What are you gonna do, Sam? The gun's filled with rock salt. It's not gonna kill me." He's barely gotten those words out when Sam squeezes the trigger, the rock salt rounds digging into Dean's chest and sending him flying through the door into the hidden room with a grunt. As if the minor wounds from the shotgun blast don't hurt enough, the impact of flying through a door makes everything much worse.
"No, but it'll hurt like hell."
Elizabeth shouts his name, but Dean can barely give a feeble moan in return before losing consciousness.
The next time Dean opens his eyes he's still lying on top of the door, the pain feeling even worse now that it's had time to settle in. "Sam," he gasps out as his brother appears over him. "We gotta burn Ellicott's bones, and all this will be over. You'll be back to normal."
He looks around the room while he talks, catching sight of Elizabeth with her back propped up against the far wall. She has a bleeding lip and looks more battered than she had earlier, but it's the fact that she appears to be unconscious that has him worried.
"I am normal," Sam returns. "I'm just telling the truth for the first time." It's hard to focus on his brother's words when all Dean wants to do is go back to sleep, at least there he couldn't feel the sharp pains in his body. His chest is burning, his head is throbbing, and the shallow cuts everywhere else seem to be stinging worse than an angry wasp.
"Ugh," he moans, trying to curl in on himself.
"I mean, why are we even here? 'Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier? 'Cause you always do what he says without question?" Elizabeth lets out a soft moan, slowly raising her head and taking in the scene. "Are you that desperate for his approval?"
"This isn't you talking, Sam."
"That's the difference between you and me." Sam gestures to his head using the shotgun, looking down at Dean with a wild-eyed stare. "I have a mind of my own."
"That mind is gonna be blown away if you keep doing that," Elizabeth states as loud as she can, getting shakily to her feet.
"There's another thing, Dean." He points the shotgun at Elizabeth now, speaking through clenched teeth. "You have to drag everyone you care about down with you because you can't stand to be alone. What do you think she could be doing if you hadn't talked her into coming along with you on this suicide mission? Huh? Maybe playing with her niece or relaxing on her couch? I can promise you one thing, she wouldn't be here right now and she certainly wouldn't be wondering how long she'll live."
"So what are you gonna do," Dean asks. "Are you gonna kill us?"
"You know what, I'm sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago." Suddenly Elizabeth is crashing into Sam, having thrown herself forward in an attempt to knock him off-balance, but she only succeeds in getting thrown down beside Dean.
"Hey! You don't hit women," he shouts at the same time Elizabeth shouts," Do it then, bitch!" She and Dean share a quick look before Dean pulls out his pistol, holding it up.
"Let me make it easier for you," he says, still having trouble focusing since there are currently two Sams. "Come on, take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!" Sam grabs it out of Dean's hand roughly, Dean arching slightly in pain as Sam throws the shotgun down. "You hate me that much," he asks, watching as Sam grips the pistol and holds it a foot away from Dean's face. He can see the conflict in Sam's eyes, the tears making them look shiny.
"Sam, don't," Elizabeth starts. There's genuine fear in her eyes as she looks between the two brothers. It was fine when she was the one being threatened, but not when it's her family. Dean can sympathize with that.
"You think you can kill your own brother and your best friend? Then go ahead, but don't you lay another finger on Elizabeth. Come on, Sammy, pull the trigger. Do it!"
And Sam does it, but the Colt only makes a click to show that the clip is empty. Sam tries it a few more times with the same result until Dean raises up and grabs Sam's arm, the both of them wrestling on the floor while Elizabeth scoots away to look for the bones.
"Man, are you stupid," Dean asks as he gets to his feet. "I'm not gonna give you a loaded pistol." He delivers a hard punch to Sam's face, deciding to feel bad about it later. Sam drops like a sack of potatoes, eyes rolling up in his head.
"Dean," Elizabeth calls," where would you hide the bones of the person you hate most in this world?"
"A toilet." He walks over to the blonde and helps her up, noting the way she clutches at her ribs. "He got you good, huh?"
"I got him worse." The two split up, each of them taking a different half of the room and deciding to meet in the middle. "After you passed out, I bit his arm hard enough to draw blood and then I kicked somewhere that even brings possessed people to their knees." Dean winces, the hand not holding the flashlight going to his crotch out of instinct. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I just got the shit beat out of me by my baby brother," he admits, pushing aside curtains to look into the little nooks off to the side. They go silent as they continue to search, the beam of Dean's flashlight finally landing on a white cabinet with a tuft of white hair sticking out. "Liza, I think I got it."
"A toilet?"
"Nah, but it works in a crisis." He kneels down and pulls the doors open, the stench of rotten flesh hitting him seconds after he sees the moldering corpse and making him flinch back. "Oh, that's just gross." Elizabeth joins him, pinching her nose closed as she bends at the waist to examine the body.
"He looks like beef jerky." Dean just shakes his head with a snort, moving back a few feet and digging through his duffle until he finds the container of salt and lighter fluid. "I'll soak the bastard if you'll salt him."
"Deal."
Neither notice the flashlights flickering as they work on the corpse, the beam going out entirely halfway through the process. A faint squeak of wheels is all the warning they get before a gurney has Dean falling backwards, the gurney continuing forward to pin Elizabeth against a wall. Dean doesn't have time to worry about her for long before Ellicott is straddling his chest with his hands pressed firmly against Dean's temples, sending sharp stabs of electricity shooting through his skull. It's worse than any pain he's ever felt before, unable to do much more than gasp and whimper with the occasional scream tearing out of his throat.
"Don't be afraid," Ellicott tells him," I'm going to help you. I'm going to make you all better."
"F-fuck you," Dean manages to grit out. The spirit's face looks like it's been mashed together by a child, ashy and swollen. His remaining eye is a vivid yellow that stands out against the bloody mess that makes up the socket. "Liza?"
"I'm working on it!" He can hear the screeching protest of rubber on tile, Elizabeth's grunts of pain, and then sees a sudden burst of light on his right that nearly blinds him. Ellicott pulls back enough for Dean to squirm away, and that's when Dean realizes that Elizabeth has managed to force the gurney away and set Ellicott's body on fire. Unlike the other spirits Dean has sent to wherever ghosts went, this one doesn't mimic its body and burst into flames, this one crumbles and falls face first to the floor, its head shattering like glass.
There's shuffling somewhere behind Dean and he turns to find Sam propped up on his elbows, looking around in confusion. "Dean," he asks, voice soft. The hardness has left his face, no longer made up of tense lines or bitter hatred. Dean thinks of a time when Sam was innocent, chubby cheeks and gap-toothed grins. Part of him aches to go back to that time, but he knows that's not possible.
"You're not gonna try and kill me, are you," Dean asks, a little harsher than he means to.
"No."
"Good, 'cause that would be awkward."
"Can we just get out of here now," Elizabeth asks from across the room. "I need a fucking shower."
It's late morning when they finally make it out of the asylum, having some trouble in remembering where they left Kat and Gavin. Elizabeth doesn't waste any time with farewells, just shouldering past Gavin and climbing into the back of the Impala.
"Thanks, guys," Kat says awkwardly, her ex-boyfriend following suit.
"No more haunted asylums, right," Dean checks, waiting for their nods before letting them walk back towards Gavin's car. He and Sam turn as well, Elizabeth already in the backseat and sound asleep, clutching the TARDIS blanket tightly to her chest.
"Hey, Dean," Sam speaks up hesitantly. "I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there."
"You remember all that?" Dean wonders how much of it was just Ellicott's influence and how much was pure truth; the Elizabeth part he knows is right, but he doesn't know if he likes that his brother thinks so poorly of him when Dean used to be Sammy's hero.
"Yeah. It's like I couldn't control it, but I didn't mean it. Any of it."
"You didn't, huh?"
"No, of course not." Dean gives him a nod, not really believing his brother. He can't blame him, Dean would probably feel the same way if their lives had been reversed. "Do we need to talk about this?"
"No, no." He throws the duffle bag through the window and in the back of the car, careful to avoid hitting Elizabeth as he lets it drop to the floorboard. "I'm not really in the sharing and caring kind of mood. I just wanna get some sleep." He gets into the driver's seat and starts up the car, waiting for Sam to climb in as well before taking off.
Come as you are/as you was/as I want you to be/As a friend/as a friend/as an old enemy/Take your time/hurry up/The choice is yours/don't be late/Take a rest/as a friend/as an old memory/Come doused in mud/soaked in bleach/As I want you to be/As a trend, as a friend, as an old memory