AN: Happy 2020! So turns out, trying to write fanfiction and graduate from college at the same time? Pretty damn impossible. Yes that's right, this fall was my last semester of college! It's been like a month and it still hasn't really set in. I spent the holidays at my great-grandmother's, so even if I wanted to post this I couldn't - no internet! I got a lot of reading done, though! Thanks to everyone who left reviews in spite of my lengthy absences, ya'll rock!
Anyway, minimal notes today, I hope everyone enjoys this! See you at the end chapter for the million and one allusions I couldn't resist making.
Addendum
(n.)
A thing to be added; an addition.
Chapter Eleven
Asylum
aka
Welcome to the Devil's Playground
Rockford, Illinois: April 2018
"No, Dad was in California last we heard from him." Sam tries not to sound too disappointed. "We just thought, he comes to for munitions, maybe you've seen him in the last few weeks. Just call us if you hear anything. Thanks."
Sam hangs up.
"Caleb hasn't heard anything?" Dean asks.
They're in another motel room, Sam has spent the past hour on the phone, trying to find someone who might have a lead on their dad.
Dean is propped up against the headboard, flicking through their dad's journal almost idly. Elena is sprawled out on the bed next to him, her concentration fully on her laptop in front of her.
"Nope," Sam finally answers. "Neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim." He looks over at Dean.
"What about the journal, any leads in there?"
Dean shakes his head. "No. Same last time I looked. Nothing I can make out." He laughs wryly. "I love the guy, but I swear he writes like freaking Yoda."
"Maybe we should call the feds," Sam suggests. "File a missing person's."
Dean shakes his head. "We talked about that. Dad would be pissed if we put the feds on his tail."
"I don't care anymore," Sam declares loudly. It annoys him somewhat that Elena doesn't even seem to be paying attention to their argument. "Do you have any opinion on this, Elena?"
She doesn't respond.
Dean shakes his head, sits up so he can tug on her ponytail. She turns to look at him, clearly unaware of their entire discussion.
"What's more interesting than arguing about John Winchester?" he asks.
She shrugs. "Actually it's pretty boring," is her vague reply.
Dean nods his head. "Right," he says dryly, used to her elusiveness by now.
"After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean, he should be here, you said so yourself," Sam says, still stuck on the argument instead of figuring out whatever it is Elena's doing.
Dean ignores him in favor of finding his ringing phone.
Sam is relentless. "You tried to call him, and nothing."
"I know," Dean says shortly. "Where the hell is my cell phone?"
"He could be dead for all we know."
That catches Dean's attention immediately. "Don't say that. He's not dead, he's…" He gestures futilely.
"He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?"
Dean finds his phone at last, effectively ending the argument. He stares at it for a long moment.
"I don't believe it." He sits down, a strange expression on his face, almost smiling.
Elena sits up in response, giving him her full attention for the first time.
"What?" Sam asks.
"It's a text message." He looks over to Sam. "It's coordinates."
He's already across the room to sit next to Elena, showing her the coordinates so she can type them into her computer.
"You think Dad was texting us?" Sam asks.
"He's given us coordinates before," Dean reminds him, his focus on the computer screen.
"The man can barely work a toaster," is Sam's clever argument.
Dean shakes his head. "Elena taught him how to text last year."
When Sam looks to her for confirmation she nods her head.
"It was a tough job. He dropped me off in the middle of the Louisiana Bayou at the end of it; didn't talk to me for three weeks."
Sam can't help but feel a little alarmed by this story, despite being told many times how much Elena and John don't get along.
Dean points at her. "But he did text you."
She nods, unconcerned by John's unceremonious ditching. "That's true, he did."
Sam tries not to look too doubtful, but Dean picks up on it, as usual.
"Sam this is good news," he says, looking over at him. "It means he's okay – or alive, at least."
"Was there a number on the caller I.D.?" Sam asks, despite Dean's attention already being back on the computer.
Sensing Dean's restlessness, she shoves the computer into his lap so he can be in control. He starts typing right away. Elena rolls her eyes at him fondly.
"Nah, it said 'unknown'."
"Okay, well where do the coordinates point?"
"That's the interesting part, Rockford, Illinois."
Elena leans her head against his shoulder.
"What's interesting about Illinois?"
He pinches her shoulder at her mocking tone, causing her to pull away from him with a pout.
"I checked the local Rockford paper, take a look at this."
He points the screen so both Elena and Sam can see.
"This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out."
"Lovely narration, Dean, has the Academy heard about you?" Elena quips dryly.
Dean tugs on her hair impatiently.
"Earlier that night," he says directly to her to indicate that there's more to the story.
She raises her hands in mock surrender.
"Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum."
Sam shakes his head. "Okay, I'm not following. What does that have to do with us?"
He catches sight of the dawning look of recognition on Elena's face, realizes he's out of the loop somehow.
"Isn't that in your dad's journal?" Elena asks Dean.
Dean nods in approval, handing the journal over to her.
"Sam, she's kicking your ass."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Yeah, she's got all the gold stars, I know."
Dean ignores his snark. "Miss Gilbert would you like to read aloud for the class?"
Without missing a beat, Elena opens the journal to the correct page and reads a section from the newspaper clipping.
"'Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths'…"
Dean nods. "'Til last week that is. I think this is where he wants us to go."
Sam scoffs and shakes his head in disbelief. He stands up, facing away from them. "This is a job," he says flatly. He turns back. "Dad wants us to work a job."
"Maybe we'll meet up with him. Maybe he's there."
Sam contradicts him immediately. "Or maybe he's not. He could be sending us there by ourselves to hunt this thing-"
"Who cares?" Dean asks, interrupting him. "If he wants us there, that's good enough for me." He closes Elena's laptop with finality.
"This doesn't strike you as weird? The texting? The coordinates?" Sam can't quite let it go.
"Sam," Dean says flatly, staring him down. "Dad's telling us to go somewhere. We're going." He goes over to start packing.
Elena's silence frustrates Sam, he whirls around to look at her.
"What about you? He's only getting in contact with one of us because he wants us to do a job? That doesn't bother you?"
Elena just looks at him. "It doesn't really matter how I feel, Sam," She says evenly. "This is our job."
Sam stares. "Jesus, it's like he's brainwashed you."
Elena cocks her head to the side. "You didn't know me before I knew your dad, so how do you know if I've been brainwashed or not? Maybe this is just who I am."
He shakes his head in denial, but she doesn't let him speak.
"All I know is that Walter Kelly and his wife are dead, and it's our job to figure out what's behind it and make sure that it never happens again."
Dean nods his head in firm agreement.
"Exactly, Sammy, it's our job."
"You're Daniel Gunderson, right?" Dean asks. "The cop?"
The older black man looks up from his beer. They're in a bar in Rockford, Illinois. He nods slowly.
"Yeah," is his reticent reply.
Dean takes a seat in front of him, making Daniel's jaw tick.
"I'm Nigel Tufnel, with the Chicago Tribune. Mind if I ask you a couple questions about your partner?"
"Yeah, I do," Daniel says shortly, already in character. "I'm just trying to have a beer here."
"It won't take that long," Dean says dismissively. He points at him. "I just want to hear the story in your words."
Daniel stares at him in disgust. "A week ago my partner was sitting in that chair, and now he's dead. And you're gonna ambush me here?" It rankles him, seeing this pushy stranger in Walter's chair.
"Sorry, but I need to know what happened."
"Now Nigel, I don't know why you insist on being so callous all the time." Elena makes her entrance beautifully. "Leave the poor man alone."
He glares at her.
"Nice try, Bly, but this is my story, don't try to scoop me."
She rolls her eyes. "'Scoop' you? Give it a rest Nigel, this isn't a film noir, leave the poor man alone."
He snorts. "So you can get your hooks into him? Like hell."
She folds her arms, staring down at his seated form from her standing position. "I'm just here to have a drink, like everyone else. Now go away before I start screaming."
He huffs. She raises an eyebrow in return. With one last glare, he departs.
She turns to Daniel. "I'm so sorry about my co-worker, he has no manners whatsoever."
He scoffs, nodding in agreement. "You could say that again."
She smiles charmingly. "I feel like I should probably buy your next round, it's sort of my fault he's here."
He gives her a look.
She shrugs bashfully. "He found out I'm doing a story on your partner and decided to "scoop me"," She does air quotes with no small amount of grace. "He has a bit of a competitive streak that seems to wipe away all his humanity. I had no idea he'd follow me here, or try to talk to you before me, I am so sorry."
He shakes his head, looking a bit doubtful. "And you're not here to accost me in this bar?"
She shakes her head frantically. "absolutely not, I was just here for a drink to wind down from the drive. I have every intention of finding you at a more appropriate time tomorrow." She shakes her head. "This is already a tough subject, I have no intention of making this more uncomfortable than it has to be."
He examines her critically.
"What's your name, ma'am?"
"Gloria Bly."
He nods his head, deciding to accept her sincerity.
"Well Gloria Bly, buy me a drink and ask me your questions."
She smiles, nods, and waves the bartender over. When she sits down in the seat across from him, it doesn't settle heavy in him, like before.
Over at the bar, Sam and Dean watch Daniel open up to Elena without hesitation.
Sam shakes his head. "She's good. I never get over it."
Dean nods in agreement, taking a pull from his beer. "You won't. I haven't. It's like she's made for this."
Sam considers this. "How did Dad feel about it?"
Dean pauses. "I don't think he likes it, how good she is at it," he says after a while. "Not that he's not proud or anything, he just…" he trails off. "I don't think he likes that she has to do it."
Sam raises an eyebrow. That doesn't sound like their dad.
Seeing his skeptical look, Dean rolls his eyes and elaborates. "I don't think it's what Elena's family wanted for her, particularly John Gilbert, and I don't think Dad likes going against his wishes for her. That's why she's here, after all. He promised her father he'd protect her but instead she's running around the country chasing monsters. That's not safety."
Sam nods slowly. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." He pauses. "Makes you wonder what she's running from, if chasing monsters is the better choice." It's not like he hasn't asked that question before, it's just that it's almost impossible to move past.
Dean shakes his head. "Who knows."
Sam turns his attention back to Elena. Daniel Gunderson is leaning forward as he talks to her, completely engaged.
"At least she's good at it."
Dean snorts and nods in agreement. "She's a hell of a girl, that's for sure."
Sam can't help but grin at that. From his brother, that's basically a declaration of love.
Elena's tipsy when she meets them at the Impala. After their second beer, Daniel had insisted on switching to bourbon and Elena's Southern roots mean she never says no to glass or four. For her, tipsy really just means her grin's a little brighter, her giggle is just a bit more infectious, and her whole face glows like the sun even in the dim moonlight.
She wraps her arms around Dean's neck. "He's nice," she says.
Without thought, as so many of his interactions with Elena seem to happen, Dean wraps his arms around her waist. He leans back against the front of the Impala.
Dean laughs into her hair. "Oh I'm sure he's nice once you get to know him."
Elena pulls back to give him a faux-pout that she can't quite pull off convincingly, with her glowing face and shining eyes.
"Don't be mad just because you always have to be bad cop! I'm a terrible bad cop, you're so good at it, you get all obnoxious and cocky." She grins up at him, alcohol making her even more of a terrible flirt than she already is.
Sam snickers softly, catching her attention.
She points at him. "My good cop is better than yours."
He clears his throat, nods solemnly. "Oh definitely."
She nods. "I'm the best good cop."
Dean laughs and kisses the top of her head. "All right, Officer Good Cop, give us the scoop."
She nods seriously.
Sam comes over to rest against the hood beside them.
"Walter Kelly was a very good cop." She giggles at her choice of phrasing, but presses on. "Top of his class, even-keeled, he had a bright future ahead of him according to Gunderson."
Dean nods, Elena still in his arms. "What about at home?"
Sam almost wants to laugh at how perfect and comfortable they look.
"He and his wife would fight sometimes, nothing too serious, though. They were talking about having kids."
Elena's pushing up onto the balls of her feet so she can bury her face in Dean's neck, overly cuddly in her inebriated state.
Dean doesn't mind at all, just raises one hand from her waist to smooth back her hair from her face.
"So either Kelly had some deep-seeded crazy waiting to bust out or something else did it to him."
Sam nods reluctantly.
Dean absentmindedly strokes his fingers down Elena's back.
"What did Gunderson tell you about the asylum?"
Elena raises her head to look him in the eye. "A lot," she says simply, but somehow it is still a loaded statement.
"Now get me tacos and I'll tell you the rest," she says, effectively ruining the serious mood.
Sam almost busts a rib laughing. Dean is much cooler about it. He drops his head face down into her hair and only chuckles a little bit before pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. He herds the two of them into the car in search of tacos.
"I love scaling fences in the morning," Elena says sarcastically.
From the other side of the fence, the brothers watch her with amusement.
She rolls their eyes at them, unamused. Taking a deep breath she gathers up her hair into a ponytail and takes a running start. She barely touches the fence yet still lands on the other side with perfect form.
Sam and Dean applaud almost on command, so Elena obliges them with a bow.
"How are you never hungover?" Sam marvels.
She looks perfect, even though she'd had enough bourbon the night before to make Sam queasy.
Elena shrugs. "Genetics." When she laughs, neither of the brothers are sure what the joke is.
They head inside the asylum for the grand tour. Inside it's full of graffiti and empty beer cans and other liquor bottles.
Dean scans the area. "I guess teenagers always need somewhere to drink."
Elena laughs. "We used to get drunk in the old founding family mausoleums."
Sam snorts, shaking his head.
Dean nods. "Sounds about right."
"So apparently the cops chased the kids here, into the South Wing," Elena says, forging on with the more pertinent subject, their case.
"South Wing, huh?" Dean's tone indicates particular interest. "Wait a second." He pulls out their dad's journal from the inside of his jacket. "South Wing, South Wing." He flips through to where his mind had gone at Elena's description of events from that night.
Finding it, he summarizes. "1972, three kids broke into the South Wing, only one survived. The way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lighting up the place."
"Huh," Elena says. "The only thing we ever had to worry about in the Mystic Falls Cemetery was the Fell Ghost, which was just a myth." She considers this. "Or at least as far as I know, we never had any problems with it."
Dean raises an eyebrow. "No drunken teens terrorized by ghosts?"
She shakes her head. "Not by ghosts, no."
Sam gets them back on topic. "So whatever's going on, South Wing seems like the heart of it."
"Yeah but if kids are spelunking the asylum why aren't there a ton more deaths?" Dean asks.
"'Spelunking'?" Elena says, grinning a little. "It's really hot when you whip out that fancy vocabulary, Winchester."
Dean raises an eyebrow, opening his mouth to reply, but Sam cuts them off before they can get started.
"Don't make me spray you with stale beer," he threatens mildly. They both roll their eyes at him in unison, it's obnoxiously adorable. He ignores them.
He points at the door to the South Wing, where a broken chain hangs off of the handles.
"It looks like the doors are usually chained." He walks over to the door. "Could've been chained up for years."
Dean nods. "Yeah, to keep people out." He closes the journal and walks over to stand beside Sam. "Or to keep something in."
Sam considers this, then pushes open the door.
Elena sighs. "Doesn't it ever bother you that our job is to basically ignore horror movie rules of survival?"
They both look at her, waiting for an explanation.
"Horror movie rules of survival would say that we don't open the creepy door and go into the haunted wing of an abandoned asylum where a ton of people have gone crazy and died."
Sam shrugs. "You're the one who keeps saying it's our job." With that he heads through the door.
Dean at the very least, has the decency to hold out his hand to her.
She sighs again before taking it. "I need more tacos."
He laughs and nods very seriously. "Later," he promises.
They follow Sam through the door.
"Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel."
Sam glares at Dean.
"Dude, enough."
Sam is surprised when Elena chimes in.
"You do remember that my brother literally sees dead people, don't you?" She gives him a disapproving look
Dean quiets down.
"Oh yeah, sorry Jeremy."
Sam stares at Elena. She stares back.
"What?"
He shakes his head.
"I didn't know that." Sam could fill a stadium with the things he doesn't know about Elena Gilbert.
She shrugs, looking uncomfortable.
"He became a medium through a series of unfortunate events."
Seeing that she doesn't want to discuss it further, Sam just grins.
"I love those books."
She smiles back. "Me too."
Dean pipes up.
"For the record, still kinda pissed you never told us what was going on."
Elena rolls her eyes.
"It's been like three years, Dean."
He tugs on her ponytail.
"Yeah, well, it was still a dumbass thing to do."
She tilts her head to the side, almost like she can't disagree.
Dean isn't done yet. "And it completely went against the agreement you had with Dad."
Elena looks at him. "I wasn't ready to leave," she says this so softly that Sam barely hears her.
This at last, seems to get Dean off of his soapbox.
They're all quiet for a moment. Sam wants so badly to know what he's missing. Even what Dean knows is more substantial than what he does, and Dean has made it clear that he doesn't know what Elena is running from.
It's not the time or the place for an interrogation, or even just asking to be brought up to speed with Dean, at the very least. Instead, Sam switches back to the more reliable subject.
He points at Dean's EMF reader.
"You get any reading on that thing or not?"
Dean shakes his head. "Nah. Of course, it doesn't mean nobody's home." He continues his search, moving into the next room.
Sam is about to follow him when he realizes Elena hasn't moved at all.
"Elena?" he asks. "You finally feeling the gallon of bourbon you drank last night?" He doesn't know why he's joking, except that the look on her face scares him, and he'd like to pretend he's imagining it.
"He's right, you know."
Sam holds his breath, and waits. He might hate that look, it might scare the hell out of him, the way she can empty her face until it looks like a mask, but he wants to know.
She looks at him, her eyes hooded, like she's a stranger staring out at him from behind the most perfect porcelain mask in the world.
"I think if I'd left with them after the funeral, a lot of things would be different."
She doesn't say anything else, just leaves that endless hallway, following after Dean.
Sam can't explain why his heart is pounding like every monster he's ever faced is bearing down on him at once. Elena's pain is well-hidden, but when it hits, it steals his breath and makes him afraid. Afraid for her, afraid of her at times, even, but mostly afraid for Dean.
None of them are undamaged, that's the nature of the world they live in, but Elena is another story. Whatever secrets live inside of her, they seem too big to live inside her body, to be contained within one girl. Sam is afraid of what the repercussions will be for the ones who love her, Dean in particular. Nothing good ever seems to come from being ignorant.
Sam finds them in a room that is straight out of a horror movie set.
"Hey Sam, who do you think is a hotter psychic? Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or you?"
Apparently Dean isn't done with his bad psychic jokes.
Elena replies before Sam can.
"James Roday, definitely." She grins.
Dean snorts. "He's a fake psychic."
She shrugs. "He has gorgeous eyes, though."
He tries to pretend he isn't put out but Sam and Elena both see right through him. Elena winks at Sam discreetly. They do a low, inconspicuous fist bump so Dean doesn't realize that he's just been put in his place.
Sam looks around the room.
"I think it's a good thing we never got around to starting that drinking game about horror movie clichés."
Elena laughs, remembering the abandoned mine shaft. Dean gives them a look, clearly annoyed that he's not in on the joke.
"Blackwater Ridge," Elena says instead of explaining.
He seems to accept this as a reasonable answer, going back to looking around the room.
"Man, electroshock, lobotomies: they did some twisted stuff to these people. Kind of like my man Jack in "Cuckoo's Nest'."
Elena shakes her head at his Nicholson voice and crazy eyes.
Sam doesn't react at all.
"You guys are no fun."
Neither of them bite, so he goes back to the job. "So what do you think? Ghosts are possessing people?"
Sam considers this.
"Maybe."
Elena just shrugs. She seems almost overwhelmed by the room, staring at individual objects for far too long before she moves on to the next.
"You good?" Dean asks.
She nods slowly. "Just thinking."
He nods back.
Sam speaks. "Maybe it's more like Amityville or the Smurl haunting?"
Dean considers this.
"Spirits driving them insane? Like my man Jack in 'The Shining'."
That one falls flat too.
He hooks an arm around Elena's neck, pulling her in close. "Okay, I know Sam is a wet blanket, but since when did you join his club?"
She focuses on him, giving him a smile.
"Dean, we all know you want to run away with Jack Nicholson and have crazy babies, you don't need to say it twice."
He stares down at her, affronted. She just smiles back up at him.
Sam tries not to fall over while he laughs his ass off.
Dean opens his mouth twice before he finally manages a response.
"You know, he's not really my type."
Elena pats him on the shoulder, slipping out from under his arm.
"Sure thing, Winchester, sure thing."
She walks over to Sam, who now has his hands on his knees to brace himself for his own laughing fit. She pats his back twice.
"C'mon, big guy, we got some serious detective work to do."
"Sanford Ellicott," Dean says, holding up a plaque declaring Sanford chief of staff.
Elena nods approvingly.
"Right, we should find out more about this part of the building. See if anything happened here."
Sam knows exactly how he ends up the one sitting in the waiting room for an appointment with Dr. James Ellicott, clinical psychiatrist. He knows that he drew the literal short stick, he just maintains that Elena cheated.
Using Twizzlers as the sticks has to be against the rules, written or not.
His name is called so he heads in to do his best to dig up some dirt on Dr. Ellicott's father.
"Roosevelt Riot, best thing I got out of that quack."
Elena smiles.
"He was a little too on the nose, wasn't he?" she asks knowingly.
Sam ignores her with determination.
"In '64 they rioted, the South wing, attacked the staff, attacked each other."
Dean chimes in
"So what, the patients took over the asylum?"
"Apparently." Sam tries not to sound short, barely failing.
"Any deaths?"
As they all walk towards the car together, Elena bumps her shoulder against Dean's. Without looking, he lifts his arm and puts it around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.
"Some patients, some staff."
They arrive at the Impala.
"I guess it was pretty gory, some of the bodies were never even recovered."
"Gross," Elena says needlessly.
Sam nods grimly before continuing, "Including our Chief of Staff, Ellicot."
"What do you mean, 'never recovered'?" Dean asks.
"Cops scoured every inch of the place, but I guess the patients must have…" Sam trails off. When he continues, his speech is stilted. "Stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden?"
Dean makes a face.
"That's grim."
Elena nods into his shoulder.
"Yeah," Sam says flatly. "So they transferred all the surviving patients and shut down the hospital for good."
Dean nods.
"All right, so to sum it up, we've got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunch of unrecovered bodies."
Sam nods. "Which could mean a bunch of angry spirits."
"Good times, let's check out that hospital, tonight." Dean's tone is dry.
Elena, as ever, is razor sharp in her deadpan.
"We have the best job ever."
Sam snorts, unable to disagree.
Dean grins.
"Well you know what they say about loving your job."
Elena considers this. "Dean Winchester has never worked a day in his life, sounds about right."
Sam laughs at the affronted look on Dean's face.
"This to the man who is about to buy you more tacos? That's low!"
At the entrance to the south wing, Dean opens the door for Elena.
"Ladies first."
She smiles at him with malice. "Screw you."
She walks through the doorway, Sam and then Dean following after her. The boys turn their monster hunting toys on, Elena flicks on the flashlight. Wordlessly they move forward together as a unit.
"Getting readings?" Sam asks.
"Yeah, big time," is Dean's reply.
"This place is orbing like crazy."
Elena wrinkles her nose. "Dirty."
Dean snorts.
Sam looks at her sidewise. "How is that dirty?"
She shrugs. "I dunno, it just sounds dirty to me."
Chuckling slightly, Dean speaks. "There's probably multiple spirits out and about."
"And if these unrecovered bodies are causing the hauntings?" Sam asks grimly.
Dean's answer is succinct. "We gotta find them and burn them." He glances over at Sam. "Just be careful though, the only thing that makes me more nervous than a pissed-off spirit is the pissed-off spirit of a psycho killer."
"Really?" Elena asks conversationally. "I can think of a few things that are worse."
Dean gives her an amused look. "Oh yeah?"
She nods. "Ex-boyfriends, business school boys, soccer moms." She glances over at him. "To name a few."
He shakes his head. Sam can't help but laugh, her attempt at levity working a little too well. They're comfortable, almost, as they continue down the hallway. A rustling behind them sets them on edge again. They all turn back almost immediately.
There's nothing there, but that doesn't make any of them feel any better.
"Ghosts, Elena, ghosts," Dean says, almost reproachfully, to remind her that they're in an extremely haunted building at night, no soccer moms in sight.
She nods. "Yeah, I know."
Without exchanging a word, the three of them split up.
For a moment it runs through Sam's mind that this fits too well into the horror movie cliché drinking game he and Elena are on the verge of starting. He ignores it; they have a job to do, after all.
As he wanders around the room, he can't help but find the stillness unnerving. It feels a bit too much like waiting for a jump scare.
Instead of a jump scare there is just the distant sound of metal against metal, like the hingers of a door squeaking open.
It's not the worst possibility, but it still makes Sam turn too quickly. There's nothing behind him, of course.
"Fuck, I need a drink," he whispers to himself. He turns back, continuing in the original direction he was headed and almost walks directly into a ghost.
He jumps back in horror, swinging the camera out of the way, coming face to face with an old woman, a gory mess where her left eye should be.
"Dean!" he yells.
Both Dean and Elena come running.
"Dean, shotgun!"
Dean fumbles for a moment but manages to pull it out of the bag in time. One salt round to the head and the ghost is gone.
Sam finds himself sagging against the wall, studiously ignoring how gross it is as he catches his breath.
"We should probably stop keeping the shotgun in a bag," Elena observes far too casually.
Sam snorts. "You think?"
She laughs without humor.
Sam rolls his head to look at Elena.
"Is there any booze in that bag?"
Dean snorts out a disbelieving laugh.
Elena walks over to Sam immediately. She puts her hands on his shoulders, staring into his eyes intently.
Bemused, he meets her gaze.
"Are you possessed?" she asks very seriously, making him laugh.
He looks over at Dean who shrugs.
"It's a valid question."
Sam rolls his eyes.
"No, I'm not possessed, I just want a drink, okay?"
Elena scrutinizes him for a bit longer, making Dean laugh. Finally she shakes her head. "I can't believe you're really asking, but sorry, no booze this time." She drops her hands from his shoulders, stepping away from him.
Sam looks back up at the ceiling.
"Well that's disappointing."
Elena nods slowly.
"So that was weird, right?"
Dean looks over at her.
She shrugs. "She didn't really do anything, aren't ghosts usually a bit more aggressive?"
He nods. "Good point."
"Yeah, she didn't even try to hurt me," Sam says.
He considers this fact as they move into the next room, sticking together this time.
"If she didn't want to hurt me, then what did she want?" he asks.
A noise interrupts any potential response. Both brothers instantly go into hunting mode, Dean aiming the shotgun in the general direction of the noise, Sam pointing his flashlight accordingly.
Elena, on the other hand, ignores them both, more intent on smelling the room, of all things.
"Come out before my friend shoots you."
Dean looks at her, bewildered.
"Elena, what the hell?"
She points to her nose.
"Raspberry body spray," she says flatly. "I was a teenage girl once too."
A few seconds later, a blonde head of hair emerges from behind the overturned bed.
"Please don't shoot me," the girl says, eyes wide as she climbs over the bed to stand in front of them.
Dean lowers the shotgun, looking over at Elena in amazement.
She shrugs modestly. "I was more of a vanilla body spray kinda girl, myself."
Sam laughs, shaking his head.
Dean turns his attention back to the girl, who is shaking, her face covered in tears.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks bluntly. "I could've seriously hurt you."
Elena gives Sam an amused look at how quickly Dean goes into lecturing mode.
She cuts in before Dean can really get started.
"What's your name?"
The girl looks at her gratefully.
"Katherine."
Elena's mouth quirks for a second like she's amused, but she doesn't say anything.
"Kat," she adds a breath later, clearly preferring her nickname.
Elena nods. "I'm Elena, and these are my friends, Dean and Sam."
"What are you doing here?" Sam asks, trying to ask more nicely than his brother had.
"My boyfriend, Gavin—"
Dean cuts her off. "Is he here?"
She nods. "Somewhere." She sniffs. "He thought it would be fun to try and see some ghosts."
Elena rolls her eyes to the ceiling as Sam and Dean exchange annoyed looks.
"I thought it was all just…" she trails off. "You know…pretend." She wraps her arms around herself. "I've seen things," she whispers, sounding pitifully young.
Elena gives her a sympathetic look.
"I heard Gavin scream," she hurries to add.
Dean cuts in again.
"All right, Kat, Elena is gonna get you out of here, and then we're gonna find your boyfriend."
Kat shakes her head, standing firm. "No. I'm not gonna leave without Gavin." She looks between them. "I'm coming with you."
Dean looks annoyed but then he and Elena do some of their silent communication and Sam figures that Kat is probably coming with them.
"I wouldn't leave you here, either," is the only spoken part of their conversation, and it comes from Elena.
Dean rolls his eyes while he tries not to smile.
"Yeah, well, you can babysit the kid then."
He turns to leave the room like he's had the last word instead of caving in just because Elena looked at him.
Sam snorts, following after him.
Elena wraps a comforting arm around the younger girl's shoulders, leading her out.
"Let's go find your boyfriend before Dean does and then gives him a three hour lecture on the appropriate place to take someone on a date."
Kat gives her a bemused look.
"Three hours?"
Elena nods gravely.
"He's very thorough."
Kat laughs, it's shaky, but it sounds genuine so Elena counts it as a win.
Kat calls out her boyfriend's name, all the while keeping a tight grip on Elena's hand.
"Gavin?"
Elena echoes her call.
Kat glances over at her, not for the first time since they split up from the boys, her expression part shy-part curious. Elena pretends not to notice. She figures Kat will ask when she's ready to ask, and Elena is content to wait until then.
"Gavin!"
Kat clears her throat, and Elena counts down from five in her head. At the one mark, Kat speaks.
"So," she says, trailing off.
Elena looks at her, doing her best to hide her knowing smirk.
Kat stares back at her, looking overwhelmed.
Elena takes pity on her. "Is there something you want to ask me, Kat?" She keeps her tone gentle.
"What exactly are you guys doing here?"
Elena cocks her head to the side.
"What do you think we're doing here?"
Kat considers her, taking a deep breath, she finds her courage. "I think you're ghost hunters."
Elena almost laughs – almost.
Kat barrels on. "Not like, the lame tv show kind, or anything like that. Like, actual ghost hunters. The badass kind."
Elena can't help but smile at her nervous babbling.
"Nix the 'ghost', and you're right on the money." She grins then, bright enough to make the younger girl smile through her awe. "And we are most definitely the badass kind."
"So you're hunters?" Kat asks. "Of what?"
Elena shrugs. "All things that go bump in the night? I dunno, there's not really a handbook. You just kind of go with it." She considers John's journal, amends her statement. "Well, okay, actually, the handbook was written as he went along so, I stand by the second half of that, nix the first. There's a handbook, but it's all very as we go along, so – lots of room for interpretation."
Kat nods, clearly confused.
Elena smiles at her, seeing right through her thin disguise.
"Tonight, we're ghost hunters. Next week, it could be the scarecrow from that old series, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark."
Kat's eyes get impossibly big. "Harold is real?" She looks horrified.
Elena laughs and shrugs a little. "Maybe, it's kind of hard to keep track at this point." Picking their way through the debris, Kat regards her with something akin to hero worship.
"I forgot his name was Harold," Elena says somewhat absentmindedly.
Kat shakes her head. "I never could," she mutters darkly.
Elena squeezes her hand. "Hey, it's gonna be okay."
Kat looks back at her, unsure, but desperately wanting to believe in her. She nods.
"I hope so."
They exchange smiles, then continue to trudge on through the darkness.
"Gavin!" Kat calls.
For a few minutes, they just keep moving, searching for any sign of Gavin, calling out his name.
Kat is the one to break the pattern, again.
"Is your friend mad at me?" she asks, hoping she doesn't sound as young as she feels.
Elena looks back at her puzzled.
"Who? Dean?" she asks.
Kat nods.
Elena huffs out a light laugh, shaking her head.
"No," she says emphatically. "Dean is just very protective."
"Of me?" Kat asks, clearly puzzled.
Elena nods. "Of anyone who's been exposed to this world against their will." She bumps her shoulder into Kat's reassuringly. "Particularly kids and teenagers."
"Oh," Kat says.
"Sam is Dean's younger brother, Dean has killer big brother instincts. He doesn't even need to know your name to decide he's gonna protect you if it's the last thing he ever does." Elena doesn't bother hiding the overwhelming affection for Dean evident in her voice.
Kat stares at her, eyes wide. She wants to tell Elena that the way she talks about Dean makes him sound like a superhero, but she can't quite think of a way of saying it without sounding like a silly little girl, so she doesn't.
"Does he protect you?" she asks instead.
Elena nods. "And I protect him too. It's what we do."
Kat nods, privately thinking that it sounds nice, like they're equals.
Elena softens, and that's the only reason Kat realizes that she was tense in the first place.
"He hates it the most when we're in the thick of it and there are civilians around. It just makes the job harder. He'd prefer if you and all the others like you never had to see any of it."
"What about him?" Kat asks. "Does he wish he never had to see any of it?"
Elena startles somewhat at the depth of her question. It's the kind of thing they've talked about when it's just the two of them – the open road before them, or an empty motel room, a crowded bar.
She knows the answer, but knowing that Dean would never tell that to just anyone – that it makes her special that he tells her, makes her fiercely protective of his secrets.
Elena gives her a half smile. "That's a good question."
Recognizing that her question is being ignored, Kat switches topics.
"So did I get it right? Is Dean your friend or?" A little girl talk is always reassuring in times of crisis.
Elena gives her an amused look.
"You got it right, he's my friend," she says simply, uninterested in encouraging the younger girl.
Kat gives her a look.
"My mom says men and women can't be friends."
Elena returns her look with a skeptical one of her own.
"You can be friends with anyone you want," Elena says matter-of-factly. "My two best friends from back home are a vampire and a witch." It's a not-so-subtle lead away from their current conversation, but who can resist vampire and witch best friends?
Kat stares at her, eyes wide. For a moment her mind is blank, and she's about to fall for Elena's plan, allowing it to distract her. She catches herself just in time, narrowing her eyes.
"Oh really? Anyone? Even a super hot guy?" she asks her tone snarky.
Elena shrugs, unphased by the failure of her attempt to distract a teenage girl from talking about boys.
"I dunno, the vampire's really hot too, she was a cheerleader."
Dean looks incredibly annoyed, and part of Sam wants to give him a hard time for being so cranky without his Elena, but something in the next room catches his eye and distracts him.
"Gavin?" he calls, hurrying into the room, Dean at his heels.
"Ah hell," Dean says as he catches sight of the teenage boy sprawled on the floor.
Sam kneels down next to the kid, gently shaking the unconscious teen.
Dean crouches behind him.
"Hey, Gavin."
He sits up suddenly, clearly terrified.
"Hey, it's okay," Sam says, trying to sound reassuring. "We're here to help."
"Who are you?" Gavin asks.
"My name is Sam, this is my brother Dean. We found your girlfriend, our friend Elena is with her now, looking for you." Sam offers him a hand up.
"Kat?" Gavin asks hopefully. "Is she all right?"
Sam nods. "Yeah."
"No thanks to you," Dean says, finally chiming in.
Gavin is a pitying combination of confusion, fear, and more than a little shame.
Sam rolls his eyes. "I'm really sorry about him, I have no control over what he's about to do, and no one will be able to stop him until we find Kat and Elena again."
Dean grins. "Thanks for that introduction, Sammy, but I can take it from here."
He claps Gavin on the back, comfortably tucking him under his shoulder while he leads him out into the hallway.
"All right, so, dating 101, don't ever take a girl to a haunted building, 'cause odds are the building is actually haunted, and you're just gonna end up traumatized or dead, so you better be hoping for traumatized. And I mean, why do you want to go to a gross old building anyway? You really think fear turns girls on that much? It doesn't. Plus there is never a clean surface for any of the dirty thoughts your thinking – the metaphorical kind that is.
"You know what teenage girls like? Malls. Malls are nice and clean and generally not haunted and no ghosts are gonna hurt you or your girlfriend..."
Sam tunes him out, rolling his eyes as he texts Elena to let her know they found Kat's boyfriend. There's a good chance the message won't go through with all the ghostly interference, but it can't hurt to try.
Gavin, bravely – stupidly – pipes up.
"The ghost didn't try to hurt me though."
Both Sam and Dean stop.
"What did the ghost do?" Sam asks.
"It was a girl," Gavin says, sounding almost reluctant. "She kissed me."
Dean's face contorts oddly and Sam doesn't need to be Elena to know he wants to laugh at him.
"Gross," he finally says.
Gavin nods emphatically.
"But she didn't try to hurt you physically?" Sam asks. He has a feeling that there's more to the story, and he's never been one to ignore his gut feeling.
"Dude, she kissed me. I'm scarred for life."
Dean snorts, clearly not feeling the least bit sorry for the kid. "Yeah you are, and it's all your fault."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Do you remember anything else?"
Gavin shrugs. "She uh, actually she tried to whisper something in my ear."
"What?" Sam asks eagerly.
Dean stares at him incredulously.
"I don't know, I ran like hell."
Dean gestures at Gavin like his decision was the sensible choice, clearly not on the same page as Sam.
Sam rolls his eyes.
"Let's just go find Elena and Kat so someone will be on my side, okay?" With that, Sam starts down the hallway.
Dean glares after him. "Not likely, Elena's always on my side, that's a given."
Gavin hurries to follow Sam.
"Hey, don't even think about it, I still have two hours and 55 minutes of lecturing to go here."
It's another classic creepy dark hallway where Elena's flashlight gives out.
"Fantastic," she says dryly. "Hold on, I have a lighter."
Kat's response is chilling.
"You're hurting my arm."
Elena sucks in a breath, confused. "What are you talking about?" She pulls out her lighter, of flamethrower fame, flicking it on and moving it closer to Kat.
A disembodied, corpse-like hand is clutching tightly onto Kat's arm. She stars screaming just as the hand pulls her backwards and into another room, the door slamming behind her.
"Kat!" Elena lunges forward, seconds too late.
Kat is banging on the door, begging to be let out.
Elena pulls on the door in vain.
"Kat, hold on!" Elena yells, searching desperately for some way to open the heavy duty door.
Kat is eerily silent before the screaming starts.
It feels like hours before the boys coming rushing towards her, a teenage boy who must be Gavin trailing after them, looking terrified.
"What's going on?" Sam asks.
"She's inside there with one of them," Elena says quickly, still pulling on the door.
Dean quickly pulls a crowbar out of his bag, Elena already moving out of the way so he can have at the door.
"Kat!" Gavin yells.
"Get me out of here!" is her response.
"Kat, it's not gonna hurt you!" Sam calls through the door.
Elena gives him a speculative look.
"What makes you say that?" she asks.
He turns to her.
"So far none of our ghostly encounters have been physically harmful," he points out. "They just seem to want something from us.
Elena considers this. "She did say it was hurting her arm before it pulled her into the room."
Gavin is gaping at them in disbelief.
Sam looks doubtful then. "A too-tight grip isn't necessarily deliberate though," he says finally.
"Seriously, guys?" Dean growls, still working on the door.
Elena waves him off and her rolls his eyes at her.
"Okay, what do you think she should do?" she asks Sam directly.
He nods, grateful that she's always more open-minded than his brother.
He turns back to the door, yelling his instructions to Kat.
"Kat, listen to me, you have to face it. You have to calm down."
"She's got to what?" Dean asks incredulously. Being locked in a room with a ghost is not the time to calm down.
" I have to what?" Kat asks, echoing Dean's sentiment.
"These spirits, they're not trying to hurt us, they're trying to communicate. You've got to listen to it. You've got to face it."
"You face it!" she yells back hysterically.
Elena rolls her eyes, shoves Sam out of the way.
"Kat, I need you to try. I know it sounds insane, but that door isn't opening, so you've got to do this yourself," Elena's voice is calm, but she looks worried.
Dean stares at her, completely flummoxed. She shrugs, there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. He huffs, annoyed by Sam's unorthodox method that she's choosing to back, but he nods his acceptance reluctantly.
Sam doesn't know if he should smile or roll his eyes. Of course Dean is willing to give it a shot when it's coming from Elena.
There is a long silence.
"Kat?" Gavin asks timidly.
"I hope you're right about this."
Dean directs his statement to Elena, but Sam is the one who answers.
"Yeah, me too."
After a long moment there is the sound of the door unlocking, and they all move back as it opens.
Kat is on the other side.
"Oh, Kat!"
Gavin rushes towards her, but Kat nimbly avoids him by throwing herself into Elena's arms.
Dean can't blame her. Elena's far more comforting than some dumbass teenage boy. As if to prove his point, Elena raises her hand to gently stroke Kat's hair.
Sam and Dean step around the embracing girls to investigate the room. Gavin hovers over Elena's shoulder, trying not to feel too put out that his girlfriend prefers a virtual stranger to him.
They find the room empty, nothing remarkable standing out amongst the horror and the ruin of the rest of the building.
"137," Kat says, her voice muffled by Elena's hair.
Elena pulls back slightly.
"What?" Dean asks.
"It whispered in my ear 137," Kat says, still unwilling to let go of Elena.
Sam and Dean look at each other.
"Room number," They say concurrently.
Dean kneels down to put the crowbar back into his back, Sam follows.
"So if these spirits aren't trying to hurt anyone—" he starts.
Dean finishes his thought for him. "Then what are they trying to do?"
"Maybe that's what they've been trying to tell us," Sam says, trying not to gloat while definitely gloating.
Dean is unamused. "I guess we'll find out."
They rise to their feet, turning to address the teens.
"So, you guys ready to leave this place?"
"That's an understatement," Kat says.
Dean nods. "Okay." He turns to Sam. "You get them out of here." He turns to Elena. "Gilbert, you're with me, we're gonna find that room."
They both nod.
Kat looks reluctant to disengage from Elena, but she does.
Dean points at Gavin.
"You remember what I told you."
He looks at Kat.
"Dump his ass."
She nods gravely.
Gavin looks offended, but he can clearly see that the room is against him, so he keeps his mouth shut.
"Stay safe," is all Elena says to Kat.
Kat smiles at her gratefully. "Thank you, Elena."
Elena turns to Dean. "You ready?"
He nods. "Always."
With that, they take off down the hallway, in search of room 137.
"So, how do you guys know about all this ghost stuff?" Kat asks Sam. Sure, Elena had already answered her questions, but Kat likes multiple answers, different perspectives.
She and Gavin are trailing after him down the hallway, hopefully in the direction of the exit. Gavin is uncharacteristically quiet, but Kat's okay with that, she's so over him.
Sam's response is much more vague. "It's kind of our job." He sounds sullen, especially compared to Elena's bright and soothing tone.
His tone, and really everything about this experience, makes Kat cranky.
"Why would anyone want a job like that?" She knows she sounds catty, but sometimes a girl just has to live up to her name.
Sam snorts. "I had a crappy guidance counselor."
For a second, Kat considers telling him that she likes Elena better, but that might be too obvious. She goes for an alternative low blow.
"And Dean, he's your boss?" she asks, playing dumb.
He looks down at her. "No," he says shortly.
She hides her pout unsuccessfully. Elena is much nicer.
As Dean and Elena make their way down yet another dark creepy hallway, Elena can feel herself getting just a bit restless. She's used to a bit more action during a hunt, and she doesn't want to pretend like she enjoys it, but the lack of jump scares is starting to put her on edge.
She glances furtively at her watch, but of course Dean catches.
"Do you have somewhere to be?" he asks dryly.
She rolls her eyes at him. "No, I just have a paper due by tomorrow afternoon."
He laughs at her quick-witted response.
"So how much of your speech did you get through?" she asks.
"I got out the highlights – "don't scare a girl just to get some action", "malls are nice", "if you ever take another girl to a haunted house you deserve to get whacked", "you deserve to get dumped", you know the important stuff." He flashes her an easy grin.
She laughs appreciatively. Cocking her head to the side, she gives him a sideways glance.
"You know," she starts casually.
Instantly he's on the alert, knowing that Elena doesn't really do "casually".
"It is a bit hypocritical to tell the boy off when you spend plenty of time scaring a girl." Her tone is light, but she manages to stay just shy of teasing, so anyone else might think she's serious.
He gives her a look. "Oh really?"
She nods seriously, her eyes sparkling. "The last two years of my life have been nothing but scary."
He laughs then. He leans over, pressing their foreheads together for a moment, close enough to make her dizzy.
"You can handle it," he says, his voice low and full of affection. He pulls back, flashes her a grin. "Besides, I don't know what the hell you mean about action."
She doesn't mean to laugh as loudly as she does, but it echoes down the hallway. He gives her an admonishing look as she claps a hand over her mouth.
They share a guilty, giddy look, knowing they should probably be taking their job a little more seriously than they are. They can't help but be themselves when they're together.
They wait for a moment, but there is only stillness and silence. They resume their walk.
Elena can't help but want the last word.
"I guess I know why you sent Sam off with the kids and asked little old me to tag along with you."
Dean raises an eyebrow at her.
She gives him a wide-eyed look.
"Well, we are alone in the dark." She smiles then, bright and mischievous.
He snorts. "Yeah, that, and Sam's been kind of a downer lately."
Elena nods her concession. "He's having a hard time adjusting, it's completely understandable all things considered."
Dean shakes his head. "He needs to get focused and do the damn job. You're supposed to be on my side."
She leans into him for a moment, reassuring and warm.
"I'm always on your side, Winchester."
"Yeah, I know." His voice is full of gruff affection.
Dean's attention snaps away from her as a door comes into view.
137 is dead center bellow the glass.
"You ready?" Dean asks this time.
"Always," Elena replies.
It takes some effort to get the door open, the hinges rusty from disuse, and a pile of upended chairs stacked in front of it. Dean giving it a good hard shove with his shoulder while Elena holds the flashlight does the trick.
There are wrecked, open filing cabinets all over the room, a desk in the corner, clearly it was some kind of office space in its heyday.
Elena finds the plaque for Dr. Sanford Ellicott on the ground. She picks it up, showing it to Dean.
He snorts. "Him again."
Elena nods in agreement. "Him again."
She drops the plaque, moving over to the desk area. Dean takes the nearest filing cabinet.
Sam finally finds an exit, but it's blocked and locked up tight.
"Okay, I think we have a small problem," he says with a heavy sigh. Backing away from the window, he turns to face the two young teenagers.
"Let's break it down," Gavin says, his tone bordering on hysterical.
"I don't think that's gonna work," Sam admits.
"Then a window," Gavin counters, sounding insistent.
Kat points out the obvious. "They're barred."
Gavin is getting more worked up. "Well how are we supposed to get out?"
Suddenly, Sam understands.
"That's the point. We're not. There's something in here. It doesn't want us to leave."
The two of them absorb his words.
"Those patients," Kat says.
Sam shakes his head firmly. "No. Something else."
"Huh," Dean says, staring at the secret compartment hidden in the wall. "Hey Elena, look, there's a secret compartment hidden in this wall."
Elena looks up from the pile of illegible and faded paperwork on the desk.
"Huh, that's more murder mystery than horror movie."
She comes over just as Dean pulls out a leather satchel.
Elena gasps in delight. "Indiana Jones was my first crush."
Dean snorts.
"Just hold up for a second and let me take a picture of you?" she asks, practically begging, holding her phone up.
He shakes his head, amused, but undistracted from his task of opening the satchel and finding out the contents.
She pouts. "You're no fun."
He brings it over to the desk.
"This is why I get paid the big bucks," Dean says sarcastically.
Elena nods. "Oh yeah, if we get out of here before last call, I'll definitely get you a drink."
He grins at her, turning back to the satchel. He pulls out a leather bound book. On the first page in immaculate script, "Patients Journal" Dean reads aloud. He flips the page to detailed drawings of bone saws and other delightful subjects.
"Yeah, it's a horror movie again," Elena says dryly.
Dean nods in fervent agreement, pulling a chair up to the desk to sit next to her.
He turns the page to a vivid lobotomy diagram.
"All work and no play makes Dr. Ellicott a very dull boy," he says under his breath.
Elena rolls her eyes, her mouth pulling up higher on one side than the other.
A spine-chilling whooshing noise sounds out through the hallway beyond the open door, causing them both to turn quickly.
Sam finds Kat and Gavin exactly where he left them.
"All right, I've looked everywhere, there's no other way out."
"So what the hell are we gonna do?" Gavin asks.
Sam shakes his head. "For starters, we're not gonna panic."
Gavin gives him an incredulous look. "Why the hell not?"
Before Sam can respond, his phone rings. He sighs. "Guess that works again."
They give him an odd look, unaware of his previous attempt to text Elena.
He ignores them in favor of answering his phone.
"Sam, it's me," Dean's tone is short and Sam can barely make it out through the static. "I see it, it's coming at me."
His eyes widen in alarm. "Where are you?"
"I'm in the basement. Hurry up."
"I'm on my way." He hangs up.
He gets straight to the point. "All right, can either of you handle a shotgun?"
They both do an excellent job of looking like deer in the headlights.
"What? No!" Gavin says like his question is ridiculous.
"I can," Kat says quickly. At Gavin's incredulous look, she shrugs and replies, "My dad took me skeet shooting a couple of times."
Sam bite backs a snort. He's generally tried to be impartial – unlike Dean and Elena – but this girl really is out of Gavin's league.
He pulls out the shotgun, handing it over to her.
"All right, here," he says, speaking quickly, "It's loaded with rock salt." She grasps ahold of it. "Now, it might not kill a spirit, but it will repel it, so if you see something, shoot."
"Okay," Kat says. "But why are you in such a hurry to leave? Isn't Elena down there with your brother?"
"We work best as a team."
Down in the basement, Sam could hear a pin drop.
"Dean?" he calls. The silence continues. "Elena?" he tries instead.
The silence continues, so he picks the scariest door and opens it, calling their names again.
Only a couple of seconds after he steps through the door marked "hazardous" his flashlight gives out. Another door behind him slowly creaks open. Sam points his shotgun at it.
The tattered curtains and rusted medical trays are yet another horror movie set waiting to happen. Sam is frankly sick of it, and way past ready for a drink.
He enters the room on high alert, turning in every which direction, doing his best to keep everything in sight at once. An unpleasant whisper sweeps the room.
"Dean?" Sam asks.
Seconds later, a howling wind of horror responds behind him. He looks over his shoulder, seeing the shadow of a man behind the plastic curtain. When he turns to aim at it, it is seemingly gone.
He approaches slowly but steadily. When he throws open the dirty curtain, there is nothing behind it. There is however, someone directly behind him when he turns.
A man with wild white hair and yellowing eyes grasps his face, "Don't be afraid," he says sinisterly. "I'm going to make you all better," his voice is dead calm as his hands push electricity through Sam's body.
Gavin paces the hallway as Kat leans against the wall, crouched down but on high alert.
"Hey Gavin?" Kat asks out of nowhere.
He immediately kneels in front of her. "Yeah?"
"If we make it out of here alive," she tells him matter-of-factly, "we are so breaking up."
Gavin pauses, trying to think of something to say. It's not like she hadn't already confirmed it. One of their rescuers had advised her to do just that, so it's not like he doesn't know he's screwed up, but how the hell was a teenage boy supposed to know that ghosts are real before he took his girlfriend to an extremely haunted asylum and got them locked in overnight?
Before he can respond they hear a noise from the hallway. They turn, seeing a shadow on the wall.
"Did you hear that?" Kat asks.
"Something's coming."
Dean narrowly avoids being shot in the face by a teenage girl by throwing himself around the corner and directly into Elena. Elena tries very hard not to laugh at him as they stumble backwards.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it," he says.
Elena giggles, when, like any good movie cliché, she ends up pinned against the wall by Dean.
"Not in front of the children, Dean," she says in a playful whisper.
He glares at her. "Not the time or the place, 'Lena."
She bites her lip, her eyes mirthful.
"Don't shoot, it's just us," Dean says, speaking louder so the frightened teens can hear him.
He pushes off of Elena, grabbing her hand to pull her with him, trying to ignore the way his skin feels like someone set off sparklers just under the surface. Someday, this girl really is gonna be the damn death of him.
"Sorry," Kat says feebly when they come into view.
"What the hell are you still doing here?" Dean demands.
"Where's Sam?" Elena asks in a much calmer tone.
"He went to the basement," Gavin explains like it's obvious. "Dean called him."
Elena doesn't even need to look at Dean to know that's wrong, they've been together the entire time.
"I didn't call him."
"His phone rang, he said it was you," Kat says.
It settles in. Dean and Elena exchange a brief glance.
"Basement, huh?" Dean asks somewhat wearily.
They both just stare blankly back at him, completely out of their depth.
"I love basements," Elena says dryly, breaking the tension.
"All right," Dean says, grabbing a few supplies from the bag, splitting them between himself and Elena. "You two watch yourselves." At this point it isn't even really a question of if Elena's going with him. Sam is probably actively in trouble, it's always better to have as much back as possible.
Kat wishes she could trade Gavin for Elena, she'd much prefer the older girl's company, but she can see that there is no question of who is going down to the basement with Dean.
"And watch out for me," is Dean's parting shot at Kat's aim.
Elena lingers. "You two are gonna be okay up here?"
Kat knows there's only one answer, so before Gavin can start whining again, she nods.
"Yeah, we're good."
"Sammy?" Dean calls. "Sam? You down here?"
Elena is right behind him, echoing his call.
"Fucking basements," Elena mutters under her breath.
Dean snorts in agreement.
"Sam!"
Suddenly, Sam is right in front of them, perfectly still.
Dean jumps back.
"Man!" He scowls, moving closer, absentmindedly noting that Elena stays put. "Answer me when I'm calling you!"
Sam just stares at him like he's the one acting strange.
"You all right?" Dean asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam's tone clearly says he thinks Dean is overreacting.
"Are you?" Elena asks at the same time Dean asks, "You know that wasn't me calling you, right?"
Dean looks back at her, but Sam opts to answer Dean's question, stealing back his attention. "Yeah I know, I think something lured me down here."
"You think or you know?" Elena asks bluntly.
"What's up, Gilbert?" Dean asks, matching her tone.
She gestures at Sam. "He's not creeping you out? Because my skin is crawling."
Dean considers the stiff posture and blank tone.
Sam scowls, speaking before Dean can. "All men creep you out except for Dean." He rolls his eyes.
Elena stares at him. "Um no, actually, you and I are pretty good friends, and you know that so, something is clearly up."
Dean adds his two cents.
"Yeah nope, I'm with Elena, something's up. So, Sam, who did you meet in the basement? The Stepford chicks?"
"Or Dr. Ellicott?" Elena joins in.
Sam looks up at the dank, gross ceiling, clearly annoyed by Elena.
"You are just too much, Elena Gilbert. Do you ever get tired of being right?" With that he slams her through a door, locking the door before Dean can blink.
Dean dives for him and the door. "Elena!"
Sam moves smoothly away from him.
"What the hell happened to you?" Dean asks.
Sam just stares at him like he's being unreasonable.
"Let her the hell out!"
Sam continues to stare.
Dean tries to think of way to reason with him. "So, uh I guess you met Dr. Ellicott, huh? He probably tried his rage therapy shit on you too, huh?" He keeps his back flat against the door, as close to Elena as possible, to avoid any sneak attacks. He prays Dr. Ellicott doesn't try his bullshit on Elena too.
"Rage therapy?" Sam asks, like they're discussing the weather.
"Uh, yeah," Dean says, mostly going along in the hopes of stalling him. "Rage therapy, he experimented on his patients, he thought if he could get all of the anger out of them it would cure them but instead he just made them angrier until they rioted. He's still doing it, to those kids in the 70s, that cop, now you."
Sam cocks his head to the side. "Me?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "You went to Stanford, playing dumb doesn't work."
He moves to the side just enough to see Elena through the filthy glass. The room she's in seems to be empty, so he hopes it's not the secret operation room.
He doesn't want to leave her there, but Sam seems content to just stare at him, so he decides to take the chance and look for the room.
He heads down the hallway to the next door.
Sam follows. "What are you looking for?"
"Something big enough to break down the door and get Elena out," he lies. It's the only other room beside the one Elena was shoved in, so hopefully she'll explore that one, and one of them will find the room and destroy Dr. Ellicott's bones so he can have his brother back.
"The door opens the wrong way," Sam points out bluntly.
"Fuck," Dean curses. Clearly they're not gonna do this the easy way.
The room they're in is as barren as Elena's. There is silence just long enough for Dean to hear a distinct whistle.
He moves closer to the sound, hoping it won't set pod person Sam off.
He can see the door now that he's closer, but the shifting of weight and gripping of the shotgun in his hand kind of give off the impression that Sam is starting to get restless.
"Fuck it," Dean says, throwing open the door. Sam reacts instantaneously, raising his shotgun, pointing it at Dean as blood drips out of his nose.
"Step back from the door," he orders.
Dean sighs. "I really can't, you have Elena locked in some room and you know how cranky I get when she's not in my immediate sight, so…" trailing off, he shrugs.
Sam rolls his eyes. "Sounds about right, Dean can't go five minutes without Elena, I mean, I'd understand if you were screwing her but really, this is pathetic."
Dean takes a breath, trying to remind himself about the rage therapy shit despite feeling his hackles rising.
"Right, because having concern and caring for other people is your least favorite thing in the world," he says sarcastically. "Sam, this isn't you, and you know it." He raises his hands in a placating manner. "Put down the gun."
Sam glares. "Is that an order?" he asks, his tone icy cold.
"It's more of a friendly request," Dean replies.
Sam continues like he hasn't spoken at all. "'Cause I'm getting pretty tired of taking your orders."
"Go open that door, and let Elena go," Dean says firmly.
"For once in your life, shut your mouth."
Dean shakes his life. "Nope, never gonna happen." He considers inching backwards through the open door, but he's not entirely sure that Sam won't shoot so he stays put.
Sam says nothing, just raises the gun higher.
"What are you gonna do, Sam? The gun's filled with rock salt, it's not gonna kill me."
Sam takes him very literally, and shoots him in the chest, causing him to fly into the next room.
Dean stays on his back for a moment, dazed and winded. It's not exactly how he wanted to get into the next room, but he's a get the job done kinda guy. A second later he loses consciousness, missing Sam's acidic quip.
"No, but it'll hurt like hell."
Dean wakes up a few minutes later in far too much pain to focus on anything but his task ahead. He coughs.
"Sam, we've got to burn Ellicott's bones, and all of this will be over and you'll be back to normal."
Sam stands over him, remorseless.
"I am normal," he says with conviction. "I'm just telling the truth for the first time." He starts to move, clearly ready to monologue.
"I mean, why are we even here?" He moves closer. "'Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier?"
Dean sees movement out of the corner of his eye.
"'Cause you always do what he says without question?"
Dean stays still, hoping he doesn't bring attention to her movement.
"Are you that desperate for his approval?" Sam bellows just as Elena brings the butt of her shotgun down on the back of his head.
He crumbles to the ground and Dean has the great misfortune of having to roll out of the way and onto his wounded chest so that Sam doesn't land on him.
"I fucking hate basements," Elena says bluntly. "And ghosts, and cobwebs and dirt and every single thing about this case. I really need a fucking shower."
Dean laughs at her diatribe, then wheezes at the pain in his chest.
She hurries over to help him up into a sitting position.
"How'd you get out of the room?"
Elena raises her sleeve, which is ripped and covered in blood.
"It was attached to another room, which had a much bigger window."
He stares at her arm in concern. "And nothing to break it with?"
She rolls her eyes. "There wasn't a lot of time, Dean, I might not have been so careful when I climbed through the window."
She cuts him off before he can continue. "We have bones to burn, and very little time to do it."
He nods reluctantly. "Yeah, we do."
Getting him to stand up doesn't go so well so she leaves him propped by the doorway with ta shotgun trained on Sam while she went off in search of Ellicott's bones, taking the bag of kerosene and matches and salt with her.
She can tell that Ellicott's spirit is tagging along behind her, but it's not like she can do anything but wait for him to jump her, so she stays on the alert and keeps searching.
She finds him shoved inside of a cabinet, lab coat still intact. She dry heaves for a moment at the smell, but sets to work.
"Elena," Dean calls from across the room. She looks back at him. He points, "Flashlight." She looks down to see it flickering.
An operating table flies right at her, but she manages to dive backwards out of the way.
Dr. Ellicott appears, forcing his hands onto her face, unfortunately he doesn't manage to get out his infamous "Don't be afraid" or start the electrocuting process, because Dean shoots him.
A few stray hits of rock salt hit Elena but she barely notices as she twists, tossing her lit lighter at the already salted and kerosene coated corpse.
Elena crawls back to Dean, sitting down beside him. They watch the fire like it's the most interesting thing they've seen all night.
"I really liked that lighter," she says with a pout.
He snorts. "It was shaped like a chick in a bikini."
She nodded seriously. "Yeah, and when you lit it, her boobs lit up too, it was awesome."
Dean laughs, raising his arm with a grimace to wrap it around her shoulders.
"You are something else, Gilbert."
She leans her head against his shoulder, careful not to lean against his injuries or hers.
"So does that mean you're gonna buy me a new one?"
"Only if we can't find something better."
"Better than light up boobs? Who are you and what have you done with my Dean Winchester?"
Sam starts to stir.
"Oh hey, welcome back, asshole," Dean says cheerfully.
Sam stares blearily at the burning corpse.
"Our job is so much fun."
"Thanks guys," Kat says.
By the time they made it outside the sun was already up. The events of the previous night feel surreal in daylight.
"Yeah, thanks," Gavin says, uncomfortably aware that his day of reckoning is coming at any moment.
"No more haunted asylums, okay?" Dean says dryly.
They both nod fervently.
Elena is already sprawled out in the back of the Impala, so Gavin waits while Kat goes over to say goodbye.
Kat can see one of her boots poking outside of the window, so she circles over to the other side. She sticks her head in through the open window, her hair curtaining the two of them.
Elena squints up at her sleepily.
"Kat," she says with drowsy calm.
Kat smiles down at her. "I have no idea how to thank you, any of you."
Elena considers her through narrowed eyes. "Are you gonna break up with your boyfriend?"
Kat nods emphatically.
Elena grins back at her. "That's enough."
Dean, who heard the tail end of their exchange as he slid into the driver's seat nods in agreement.
"Yeah, that'll do it."
Kat grins at them, rolling her eyes at the same time. She pulls her upper body back out from the Impala, waves at the three of them and heads over to give Gavin hell.
Sam slides into the car last.
Dean starts the car, heading in the opposite direction.
Sam glances in the rearview mirror, sees that Elena is asleep.
"Hey Dean?" he says. "I'm sorry, man. I said some awful things back there."
"You remember all that?" Dean asks, surprised.
"Yeah." Sam nods. "It's like I couldn't control it, but I didn't mean it – any of it."
Dean glances at him briefly before focusing back on the road.
"You didn't, huh?"
Sam is momentarily taken back at his tone.
"No, of course not," he says insistently. He's not sure for who's benefits, Dean's or his own. "Do we need to talk about this?" he asks.
"No, no," Dean says far too casually. "You wanna girl talk, wait for Elena to wake up."
Sam nods.
"Let's just find a place to get some sleep."
Dean is the only person actually asleep. Sam is in bed, trying to rest despite his too awake brain, and Elena is curled up at the table, typing away on her laptop like no tomorrow. He can't tell if the constant typing is soothing or grating, so he hasn't said anything yet.
Her left arm and right leg are covered in bandages, her trip through the broken window left its mark. Most of the cuts are shallow, and small enough that she doesn't need stitches.
Sam can't forget how gentle Dean's hands were when he patched up each one after Elena scrubbed them to surgical sterility in the shower. How she seemed to go boneless under his touch, like he's the only person in the world she really trusts. It makes everything he said under Dr. Ellicott's influence sit even heavier in his stomach.
He's contemplating asking Elena if she wants to go for a run when Dean's phone rings.
"Dean," Sam calls.
He doesn't even flinch so Sam grabs his phone and answers it.
"Hello," he says. The voice on the other end causes him to sit up immediately.
"Dad?"
Elena stops typing.
tbc.
AN: Chapter title from The Devil's Playground by the Rigs. All right, here I go again, admitting that the first time I heard this song was also on an Alison DiLaurentis mix, BUT this Ali mix was made by my best friend, so, that makes it different, lol. It's honestly one of my favorite Ali mixes. RIP 8tracks.
At this point, I sorta feel like I need to start doing proper endnotes or something, because this is excessive. So here we go:
Elena's journalist alter ego is named after Nellie Bly and Gloria Steinem. While they both went undercover and made some important discoveries, Nellie Bly is most famous for going undercover in an asylum and exposing the blatant abuse of the patients, which fits perfectly with this episode. Gloria went undercover at the playboy mansion, which is just a loving nod at Dean Winchester's perverted ass in general.
James Roday is the star of Psych, a show about a man who pretends to be a psychic detective when in reality he's just extremely observant/has an eidetic memory. It's hilarious, one of my favorite shows of all time, I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Elena's first reaction to the asylum: her family has a history of mental illness — granted it was triggered by the Gilbert ring and countless resurrections, but of course being in an old asylum would be weird for her.
Swear to God I didn't remember that Sam does kinda get possessed this episode when I wrote that exchange between Sam and Elena about the booze. My sense of timing for Elena's joke is just on point.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, you know, I'm not even gonna address this one, it's the most obvious one I've ever done. See you next chapter!
Elena's lighter? Yeah, I can confirm they exist, because I gave one to my brother for Christmas when we were teenagers. Were we both grounded by our disgusted mother? Yes! Did we still think it was funny as hell? Also yes. Was I pissed when he lost it at the beach? Of course!
So sometimes when I change the endings it's because I've thought about it a lot and it becomes a very calculated move. This time? I was really hungry and I just wanted to finish the fucking chapter.
Anyway that's it, see you next chapter where I hopefully make less vague-allusions that need to be explained. Questions? Comments? Please leave a review!
xoxo
-Pixie