Primal- Seeing is believing, Part 1 too

[adrenalineshots]

Sam figured the best place to start was with the family of the last victim, Karl Hoffman. Besides, the Hoffmans lived only a couple of streets away from the motel where he and Dean were staying.

The woman that answered the door had red-rimmed eyes and a mop of hair that hadn’t seen a brush in days. “Mrs. Hoffmann?” Sam ventured.

At the woman’s nod, he fished out his ID. “I’m agent Johnson. Mind if I come in?”

Sam would say that Mrs. Hoffmann moved like a zombie, but he had faced zombies before. They moved much faster and lively than the person in front of him now.

He could barely recall the days after Bobby’s death, but Sam imagined that he and Dean had looked not so different from the grieving woman. The shock of losing a loved one so suddenly and so brutally could send the senses into overload, shut down feelings completely. A defense mechanism, he figured.

It also meant that Mrs. Hoffmann wasn’t going to be of much help to them.

“Mrs. Hoffmann, I’m really sorry to disturb you at this time, but there are a few things that need clarification in your husband’s case, and if we are to find those responsible for the m-“ Sam stopped short of saying mutilations. There was no point in reminding the poor woman of that. “Tell me about the last time you saw him. Did he seem worried, afraid, acting out of the ordinary?”

The woman blinked, appearing momentarily confused as to why there was a stranger sitting in her coach. Her eyes filled with fresh tears, falling silently and unnoticed, like they’d become an ordinary thing.

“We went to bed late. Karl was having one of his bouts of insomnia from the accident and I...”

“Accident?” Sam prodded.

“Car crash, last year. My Karl was in a bus accident, came out of it with just some bruises, but scared out of his wits from what had happened,” she said, hands twisting in her lap. “It was a very close call and I was so thankful back then to have him home, safe and sound and now...”

“So, he had trouble sleeping?”

Mrs. Hoffmann nodded. “I ended up staying with him, that last night, watching a movie...”

She paused again, looking so lost and pained that Sam actually reached forward, afraid that she was going to keel over. “Mrs. Hoffmann?”

The woman pressed a hand to her chest, the look of confusion not leaving her face. “The movie... I can’t remember which movie it was.”

Sam breath caught in his chest. The pain of losing Jess seemed like a lifetime ago, but he could still remember the desperate need to remember every single detail of their life together; he could still remember the panic he had felt when he forgot what Jess’ hair used to smell like.

“It will come to you,” he offered reassuringly. He paused long enough for the widow to settle some before pressing the matter once more. “And after going to bed. Did you hear anything, feel anyone in the house?”

Mrs. Hoffmann shook her head. “I... nothing,” she said, a barely contained sob constraining her throat. “I was lying right next to Karl and I didn’t even wake as someone did... did all those awful things to him!”

The precarious hold the woman had been keeping on her emotions was only obvious as she let go of all restraints and started wailing in front of Sam.

He felt like an ass, knowing he had pushed the poor woman over the edge, no matter how gentle his questioning had been, and knowing that there was nothing he could do for her except finding the thing that had killed her husband.

Feeling helpless, Sam’s eyes darted around the room; he was trying to decide whether he should attempt to comfort her or get up to find a family member who could, when a man’s voice saved him the decision.

“What the hell are you doing to my mother?”

Sam got to his feet slowly. People tended to get jumpy when they realized just how big he was and the guy’s mother crumpled on the couch, her face washed in tears, wasn’t going to help his case of innocence.

When he realized that the kid -because despite the strong, deep voice, the guy in front of him couldn’t be more than seventeen- wasn’t holding any sort of weapon, Sam reached into his pocket and showed his fake ID once more.

The kid gave him the stinky-eye anyway, as he made his way over to consol his crying mother. “I think you should leave now, agent,” he said, managing to make the last word sound like a cuss.

Sam nodded; he couldn’t agree more. “Just one more thing,” he ventured. From the looks the kid and his mother were giving him, Sam figured ‘one’ was really all he was going to get. “Did Mr. Hoffmann go to the beach in the days prior to his death? Or maybe visit a construction site?”

The twin looks of confusion were answer enough for the hunter.

“My dad hated the sea and he worked as a desk clerk for a law firm so, no, I don’t think my father was at the beach in the middle of his work week. Close the door on your way out, will you?”

Sam did just that.
:o:

There was no one home at the Faerydaes’ place. Which meant that Dean had wasted a huge chunk of his rapidly diminishing day on a wild goose chase.

The next-door neighbor, eager to be of assistance and who seemed to know an uncanny amount of information on the Faerydaes’, had assured Dean that they still lived there but had been out all week, visiting family. They’d be back the following day.

Which meant that Dean couldn’t delay his visit to Madame Lapin any more.

Truthfully, he could just turn around and forget Benny’s advice about consulting the woman altogether. There had to be other ways to find out what had been done to him and if there was some way to reverse it...

The thought hit Dean for the first time, the idea forming even as he tried the words in his mind. He wanted to see the tattoo and its effects undone.

Despite the tactical advantage that it might -that it had proved to- give him in the middle of a fight, it was something that Dean could not control. It was a part of himself that he could not control, like a foot that decides to go left when all the rest of the body is going right.

Setting his mind to the task and ignoring the thundering in his heart as the night’s dreams replayed over and over in his head, Dean pressed his foot to the accelerator.

It was unsettling to arrive at the address Benny had given him and find the house familiar. No, more than that... it was the exact same one Dean had seen in his dream. It didn’t bode well for the rest.

The two-story house stood isolated at the end of a short private lane, the roof barely seen from the main road.

Madame Lapin didn’t live in a cave like the woman he had met in Purgatory, but her house possessed the same gravity to it, like the weight a mountain was pressing down on it, eager to flatten all who stood within the confines of its walls.

Outside, the place was just one more Victorian style house, front porch and second floor balcony decorated with white fences and green vines.

The boards under his feet creaked under his weight as Dean mounted the steps to ring the doorbell. It did not quiet his unease when the door opened before his fingers had reached the button.

“Please, come in,” a young man dressed in loose black pants and a matching linen shirt ushered him inside. “The Madame will be with you in a second.”

Dean took one fleeting look back, staring longingly at his car. He could still turn back, say he had the wrong house, tell the kid in the Neo outfit that he’d changed his mind. This part, however, hadn’t been in his dream and Dean found himself curious about whether he had just been imagining things or if his nightmare had been something else.

Inside, the light was so dim and golden that Dean expected the place to be lit by candles instead of electricity. There was a large room to his right and another to his left. The imposing feature of the lobby, however, was the long mahogany staircase that formed a Y before reaching into the second floor.

Dean wanted to make some joke about ‘Gone with the wind’ but he found his tongue dry and his hand reaching for the reassuring touch of his gun.

True power gave off a certain kind of energy, like the world was a little tighter, a little thicker around certain people. It was there now, the same as it had been in his dream. It caressed him, constricted around him like a veil of tar.

“You can feel it.” The voice was sweet and tender, a touch of smoke and whiskey making it sound like an old friend. “As I can feel you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean could not help it. The words -the exact same words she had spoken to him before- had barely registered and the sword was already in his hands, senses struggling to find the threat his brain assured him was there.

The woman that walked down the main stairs was a little bit older than him, hair decorated with glinting metal beads and a long, tight fitting dress the exact same color as her dark skin, making it appear as if she was wearing nothing at all.

Dean tried to keep track of her steps, watching her every move with the alertness of a starved man looking at his meal. He found that it was impossible.

Light seemed to flicker off her, shimmering and pulling the woman out of focus, like a broken record skipping notes. Dean tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword, knowing what would happen next. Inside, he was kicking himself for so foolishly walking into such an obvious trap.

“Relax, mon chéri,” she beckoned him. The gentleness of her voice urged him to do just that. “I don’t bite.”

The tone of her words made Dean’s eyes snap open. He hadn’t even seen her move, and yet the woman was standing right in front of him. Her green eyes were inches from his own, so pale that they seemed to have no color at all.

“Benny told me all about you,” she whispered sweetly, her hand pressing against the still fresh gunshot wound in his arm.

Dean gasped. Not because the touch was overly painful, but because it felt like electricity was running through his body, igniting every cell with light and heat.

The woman gasped as well, her hand recoiling from the touch, her serene expression shattered by revulsion. Her face was such that Dean resisted the urge to check himself for some nasty body odor.

“So much death,” Madame Lapin whispered, taking a step back. She brushed her fingers against her dress, as if trying to clean the touch away. “Pauvre infant...”

Dean’s eyes hardened, the sword melting away in the air. Now he knew what she had sensed, felt, whatever, when she touched him. It was a part of who he was, something he could not escape or change about himself. He was a killer, Dean knew that; he had accepted that fact long ago. He would not, however, stand there and be judged by a complete stranger.

“Well... this has been fun,” he said, turning away to leave. “Gimme my regards to Benny and tell him I said ‘go fuck yourself’, will ya?”

“Wait.”

Dean wanted nothing more than to get away from someone judging him so harshly, and yet he found himself stopping, waiting for what she had to say. Part of it was the hard won respect that he had for Benny, part of it was despair. After being burden with questions for so long, this was the first time Dean felt like he could find some answers. Ripping the chance away hurt.

“You presume to know my thoughts, mon chéri,” the woman said, a playful tone in her voice, “and yet Benny told me nothing about you being a mind reader.”

“Look, lady, I get it, okay?” Dean said as he turned, his gaze hard as he kept old emotions in check. “You have the mojo to see into people’s mind or whatever and you’ve seen all the crap I’ve done and that’s awe-“

Once more, the woman moved too fast for him to track, catching the hunter unaware. The hands upon his face were gentle and soft; the eyes meeting his were empty of the condemnation that Dean had expected to find.

The same kind of condemnation that he had learned to live with every time he looked in the mirror. All the lives he had taken before Hell, all the souls he had destroyed there, all the creatures he’d killed in Purgatory... the list went on and on until his hands were so deeply covered in red that nothing could ever wash it away. It was no wonder that she had sensed nothing but death when she’d touched him.

And yet... she was still there, unflinching, not moving away.

“I do not fault you for doing what needed to be done. There isn’t a single soul in the world that would,” Madame Lapin started, her eyes never leaving his. “But if you want me to help you find all there is to find about what happened to you in Purgatory, we must first shed away that guilt and blood that you carry around like a second skin,” she told him. “If I’m to look at the man that you are, we must first clean away all the gore that clings to your soul. Oui?”

Dean chuckled without any merriment. “I don’t think there’s enough bleach in the world.”

The woman smiled, exchanging her hold on his face for his hands. “Water will suffice.”
:o:

Sam walked across the campus, the unforgiving sun momentarily hidden behind the foliage of the big oak tree in the middle of the plaza that connected the main buildings of the university. All around him, students passed by, barely sparing a glance his way until collision seemed all but unavoidable.

Had he been that focused and self-centered back then, when he was in Stanford?

Sam could barely recognize himself in the mirror these days, much less see any of his old self in the guys and girls walking by, alone, in groups, all of them filled with hope and prospects of a better life.

“Excuse me,” Sam called out, his hand poised in front of a girl with two long, brown braids framing her round face. She stopped inches from colliding with his palm, a moment of annoyance registering in her face before she looked all the way up to meet Sam’s face. He forced a smile. “Hi. I’m a bit lost. Could you point me in the direction of the fitness center?”

“Straight ahead,” she said, pointing a ring-filled finger in the general direction of ‘ahead’. Before Sam could ask her to be a little more specific, she was gone.

Sam resisted the urge to turn on his heels and give up, go back to their room where the air-conditioner occasionally worked. Who the hell went to the fitness center in that kind of heat?

There had been one in Stanford as well, not that Sam had ever set foot inside it. After years of John Winchester special hunter-regime, Sam was ready for a lifetime of avoiding gyms. The woman at the campus reception, however, had told Sam that it was where he would find Mathew Glenn’s roommate.

The place, as it turned out, was impossible to miss. Glittering in the sun in all of its glass splendor, the fitness center at the University of New Orleans was an imposing two-story building that sat almost at the edge of the campus boundaries.

As soon as Sam walked inside, he wanted to kick Dean in the teeth for having given that particular witness to him. The place was like one gigantic open floor of cardio and fitness contraptions, each with one student or more attached to it. How the hell was he supposed to find one student in the middle of that?

“You’re looking for Eduardo, right?”

Sam looked at the kid standing to his right, duffel bag casually draped over his shoulder and dark spots under his armpits announcing that he was on his way out rather than arriving.

“You’re like the tenth guy that’s come snooping around campus trying to snag an interview with the poor guy.”

The grief in the kid’s voice was impossible to miss. Before it could evolve into downright anger, Sam flashed his fake FBI badge. He guessed that, given the circumstances and the visitor’s pass hanging from his neck, ‘reporter’ was the natural conclusion that any student would make.

The student’s mouth formed a perfect O, round eyes to match. Sam guessed that, while opportunistic reporters were common, FBI agents were a first for the kid. Even fake ones.

“So, do you know where I can find Mr. Gomez?” Sam asked, snapping his badge close in a practiced gesture.

There was a long line of treadmills set in front of a wall made of glass, allowing a perfect view of the green fields outside. Why would someone chose to run inside a building looking at a field, instead of running in the field, was beyond Sam’s understanding. Personally, he had always enjoyed the feeling of his feet hitting the asphalt and eating the miles away.

Eduardo was running as if the devil himself was chasing him. From the unfocused and glassy look of his eyes, Sam guessed that the kid was seeing anything but the green fields in front of him.

Waking up to find your roommate slaughtered kind of did that to normal people.

“Eduardo Gomez?” Sam called out, flashing his ID as he stood in front of the student. “I’d like to talk to you about your roommate, Mathew Glenn. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
:o:

Dean knew a little something about cleansing rituals; he had even performed a few. He’d figured he was in for some smoke-filled room, spilling some scented oils and, if he was really lucky, some slightly illegal drugs.

Madame Lapin had led him through the house until they reached an annex that was clearly used as a green house. The whole place was made of glass, but instead of cooking under the sun, the place was protected from the elements by a canopy of plants that had grown tall enough to cover most of the ceiling.

In the middle sat a pond the size of a small pool, so perfectly merged with the rest of the surroundings that Dean could not tell if the green house had been built around it or if the pound was nothing but a cleverly built pool.

“Strip.”

Dean blinked. It wasn’t like the woman wasn’t dead drop gorgeous, or that he wasn’t use to dead drop gorgeous women saying those words to him. The context, however, left him a little unease. “Excuse me?”

“Unless you want to walk home in drenched clothing, I suggest you strip before performing the cleansing ritual.”

“Sorry, lady, but I don’t think this is gonna work,” Dean said, feet planted on the dirt floor, ready to find his way out. This was all way too weird and uncomfortable for his hunter instincts and there was no way he was about to drop his guard or his clothes just because a beautiful woman asked him to. Not for a cleansing ritual, anyway. “I’ll find help somewhere else.”

“Benny didn’t mention you were this shy.” Her eyebrow rose suggestively, leaving no room for doubt that Benny had shared far too much.

Dean took a deep breath, annoyed at her tone. “Benny really should learn when to keep his damn mouth shut,” he said before pausing and looking more carefully at the woman. “How did you two meet, anyway?”

He hadn’t spared that much time considering the matter, but now that Dean thought about it, there was no way that a vampire who’d been killed over fifty years ago could’ve crossed paths with a woman who didn’t look a day over thirty-five.

Instead of looking uncomfortable with the question, the woman smiled. It made Dean feel like he was missing the obvious. But then again, the only way for her to have know Benny back then was if… “You’re a vampire too.”

The way Madame Lapin bared her long teeth in reply was too similar to Dean’s dream to make him at ease. However, instead of surging forward, as she had done then, the vampire grabbed the edge of her dress before folding her legs to sit by the pool of water, keeping her distance from the hunter. “We were turned by the same vampire, so… you could say that Benny and I are practically related. Mon petit Lapin, his little rabbit, he used to call me.”

“He never mentioned you,” Dean pointed out. His blade was but a hand away, ready to take her head off at minimal provocation.

“I abandoned the nest,” she explained. “I had my reasons, but Benny never understood them. I think he always saw my leaving as abandoning him as well.”

Dean had to look away. He could understand Benny’s sense of betrayal all too well. The sound of the door banging shut as Sam left him and dad for Stanford was one that had tormented him for years. “So, what was the plan here? I get naked, get inside the pool and you drink me dry?” the hunter accused.

“I don’t drink blood of the unwilling, Dean,” she said, the note of offense in her voice unmistakable. “I haven’t done so in a very long time, longer than you’ve been alive.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, right. I bet they just line right up for a good neck-suckage,” he added sarcastically.

“You’d be surprised, Dean Winchester,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “What do you find harder to believe: that some people would willingly offer their blood to me or that I can control myself not to abuse their trust and take too much?” Lapin asked, tilting her head in pure curiosity. “The will and power to control our instincts is a fundamental part of what makes us human… something that I know you understand better than most, n’est pas?”

Dean recoiled from the images that her words brought to mind. The fear in that man’s eyes, the taste of blood at the tip of his sword, the eagerness to go out and find more. Yes, he knew better than most what it felt like to try and control the beast in you. And he wanted it gone, no matter what. “I’m gonna regret this,” he muttered to himself, angrily peeling his coat away at the same time he toed his boots off.

The shirt and jeans quickly followed. Dean’s hands paused at the hem of his boxers, his eyes looking up to find Madame Lapin’s gaze still on him. He gave her a second to look away, not because of his own modesty -something that, according to Sam, he’d been born without- but to give her a chance to keep some semblance of respect between them. When it became clear that she was as unaffected by his nudity as he was, Dean just peeled the rest of his clothes out. “What now?”

The woman nodded towards the pool, turning her back on him and walking towards a table hidden amidst the plants.

The water was cool, a contrast with the hot air outside. It felt good against his over-heated skin, instantly soothing the tension that he had been all to aware of ever since... forever, it felt.

Dean couldn’t honestly remember the last time he had allowed himself to relax in any circumstance that didn’t involve sex or booze. And even then, if he was to be honest with himself, that high strung tautness was still there, still reminding him that something was different, something was wrong.

“Close your eyes. Relax.”

Her voice was soothing, like a gentle breeze at the end of a hot summer day. Dean could smell the sun and salt in the air and his mind automatically took him to the last time he had smelt that. South Padre Island, Texas, 1989.

Dean had been ten years old, Sam had been just about to start school and dad had a busted leg that had needed some place quiet to heal right.

There were no water parks or onslaughts of tourists then and for the whole month that they stayed, Sam got to be a kid just like any other; carefree and unburden by the gloom of their unusual way of life. If they tried hard enough, they could even pass as any other family vacationing there.

Dean’d had his fun too, in between keeping up with his training and helping out John. It was impossible not to, when everything was an excuse to not wear shoes and have his feet covered in sand twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

A smile spread over Dean’s lips despite his best intentions. By the end of that month his hair had turned silver-blond, Sam’ skin had turned golden brown and the both of them had turned into savages, at least according to a very grumpy John that had to clean sand out of the Impala for months after that.

Alarmed that he had allowed himself to drop his guard so drastically in the presence of a stranger, Dean sat up straighter, ripples of water slapping against the edges of the pool and splashing the surrounding grass.

Everything was dark.

Convinced that the problem lay within himself, Dean rubbed his eyes hard, trying to see beyond the absence of light.

Dean

The name was more of a rustled of wind over leaves than an actual word.

Dean

Dean turned around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. The darkness shifted around him, only enough for him to realize that there was some light now. Dark star light, filtered through a cloudy sky, filling his surroundings with nothing but shadows and almost-shapes.

Purgatory. He was back in Purgatory. A part of him knew that this couldn’t be real, that this was not real, that it was all part of some kind of hallucination brought on by whatever crap was in the herbal concoction Lapin had used for the ritual. And yet... he hadn’t drink anything and the ground resonated solid and real beneath his boots, the cold light against his skin felt the same as it was before. Even the air smelled equally stale and moldy, like a very old forest.

Dean

The voice called from beyond the tree line and Dean followed. He had no other choice. There was something desperate about that voice, something that urged him to go to its aid, no matter what.

“Where’ya going, boy?”

Dean whipped around, his balance off as he turned too fast and slipped on some moss. He knew that voice. “Bobby?”

Even though it was almost pitch black, Dean could see ahead perfectly. The sight of the older man who was like a father to him was far from the joyous delight that Dean could have ever imagined.

Bobby’s eyes were sunken inside his skull and, without his cap on, it was impossible to miss the gaping hole in his forehead that had been responsible for his demise.

“Bobby.” The word, so short and simple, and yet somehow managed to encompass all of Dean’s sorrow and guilt. For what had become of the proud hunter, for all that had been left unsaid, for all of Dean’s failures and times he had disappointed the older man. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

In answer, Bobby took two steps and wrapped Dean in an embrace so tight that the younger Winchester could feel his bones grinding together. It was warm and strong and felt so much like home that Dean almost forgot that Bobby was dead and that none of this could possibly be real.

“Language boy,” Bobby chided, breaking contact in the same abrupt manner as he had begun it. “Hell if I know... What are you doing here?”

Dean wasn’t sure what the answer to that question was. Purgatory was supposed to be a place to work out your flaws, to make emends in hopes of becoming a better person and ascending to a higher place. At least that was what lore had everyone convinced of.

The real thing hadn’t exactly been a good-manner’s school and Dean hadn’t actually become a better person. If anything, he’d become a ruthless hunter with sharp-edged killer instincts.

But this was not the real Purgatory. And even if this was not the real Bobby, the guilty Dean felt for having failed to protect the older man was real enough. Watching helplessly as Dick Roman shot Bobby as they were running away, doing nothing but sit and watch as his doctors failed to mend the damaged caused by that bullet and then having to deal and, ultimately, end the other man’s existence by banishing his ghost, had left a gaping hole in Dean’s heart. And now he could actually do something about it.

“I’m getting you out of here,” Dean decided, knowing even as the words came out that it was the right course, that it was the reason why he was there.

Bobby’s eyebrow quirked up. “Unless you’re suggesting we clap our ruby shoes, Dorothy, I’m not seeing any exit signs.”

“I know the way out,” Dean assured. Turning, he eyed the terrain; it was... somewhere around there.

Last time, Benny had been leading the way, but Dean was pretty sure he remembered the path. In fact, he realized as he took a good look around, they weren’t that far at all. “Through her-“

The thing that flew out of nowhere was too fast for Dean to shout out a warning or even move. Before he realized it, Bobby was on the ground, a humanoid figure attached to his chest, long fingers clawing at the hole in Bobby’s head.

“No!” Dean gulped down bile before picking up a stone from the floor and moving to action. “Stop!”

Too absorbed by the eating frenzy, the monster tearing at Bobby’s flesh never even saw Dean until the hunter bashed half her skull in.

The fact that it was a ‘her’, didn’t even register in Dean’s frantic brain, not until she had stopped moving. Blood soaked blond hair framed a familiar face as her body lay sprawled next to Bobby’s. Still, recognition took even longer to sink in but when it did...

Amy.

Amy Pond. The Kitsune, his brain supplied without being asked.

Eerie cat-like eyes stared lifelessly at the dark sky, her long clawed fingers curled over her chest still dripping blood and brains. What the hell was she doing there?

Not that matter in the least. Dean’s focus was on Bobby, who had yet to move. “Bobby?”

The older man’s head was a gory mess. Amy had managed to widen the bullet hole into a grotesque size, leaving behind a pulp of half eaten brain and broken bones.

Dead already or not, there was no way Bobby was walking away from that.

Dean lost his fight with the bile climbing up his throat and leaned against a tree to empty his stomach. The hot liquid burned his insides like fire as it pushed up. He could always blame the tears in his eyes on that.

Dean

He stumbled to his feet, not remembering how he’d fallen to his knees in the first place. The voice was closer than before.

It was a woman’s voice, he realized then. A familiar woman’s voice that he couldn’t quite place.

Something moved at a distance and Dean stopped where he stood. It was hard to see in the dim light, but he could tell that there were two beings running towards him.

He was braced for a fight, eager for it even. And then the figures came into the light and Dean felt his heart skip a beat before racing wildly.

Lisa?

Jo?

What were they doing in that place? Lisa... Lisa was supposed to be alive; he had made sure that she was alive, that she and Ben would be safe without him in their lives.

God... and Jo- she had never done a single thing wrong in her life. She had died to save him, because of him and now she was stuck in Purgatory? How was that fair?

They weren’t slowing down. The fact registered in Dean’s brain through the haze of confusion and pain and guilt that seemed set to swallow him whole.

They were not slowing down and they were racing straight at him. “What the fuc-“

Despite their shared limbless and petite stature, working as a team they presented a powerful foe. Both bodies collided with Dean at the same time, sending him flying backwards. He landed with a pained huff against a tree trunk, breath stolen from his chest and vision blinking dangerously close to black. “Jo? Lisa?” he breathed out, struggling to support his weigh on his elbows. “What the hell?”

Dean had been greeted in a rather... effusive way by women before. This was not it. There was no joy or delight there. This was so far from it that the hair at the back of his neck was standing to attention. The look on their faces... the hatred was so complete and absolute that it turned their beautiful faces into nothing but snarling masks.

Dean shuddered from seeing it aimed at him.

They didn’t give him a chance to get up or try to understand what was going on. Jo jumped to straddle his left leg and hold his arm down while Lisa took up a symmetrical position on his right. He was completely trapped under their combined weight, helpless to move a single hand. The sound of tearing cloth assaulted his ears at the same time the cold registered over his chest. “Hey! Get of-”

The protest died in his lips. Blunt fingers collided with his chest, pushing in as if skin and muscle were made of paper and straw.

Dean’s heart was beating wildly, trapped animal inside its cage, running around in circles and finding there was no place to go. Jo and Lisa were smiling, more fingers pressing against him, the warm trickle of blood starting to pool and run down to his navel.

“Stop, please,” Dean pleaded. “Why... why are you doing this?”

“Payback,” Jo hissed, lifting her fingers momentarily to lick her red-covered digits, the gesture a mock of sensuality for all the wrongness of it.

“Just collecting what is mine,” Lisa said, her voice low and seductive, her legs grinding against his thigh.

“No...” Dean wasn’t sure what he was denying. They were tearing his heart out and yet, Dean was sure there was nothing left in there to tear out. He had loved both in different manners and had managed to disappoint them in much the same way.

His heart ached, his chest was on fire. “No!” Dean said, more conviction in his voice. A surge of adrenaline cursed through his veins and Dean pushed harder. The feeling of fingers entering his skin was alien and intrusive and God- it hurt!

A familiar tingling roamed his skin, goosebumps that made him feel wired, trapped energy that had only one way of being released.

Before Dean could form a coherent thought, the sword was out. Lisa, standing over his right arm, died instantly as the blade pierced the underside of her head. The surprise in her eyes hurt more than the gash in his chest.

Dean blinked away the wall of tears that had suddenly clouded his vision. No, no, no... this wasn’t supposed to happen! Lisa was alive- he had given up on her and Ben to make sure they stayed alive! She couldn’t be dea-

Jo snarled, wild and feral, nothing of the playful and self-confident girl Dean remembered present in her face.

Dean knew then that she was not going to stop, that she was not giving up until her hands held his cooling, unbeating heart.

He backed away from her, one hand clasped over his bleeding chest, the other holding the bloody sword in front of him. “Please, Jo... don’t made me do this.”

She raised her hand, fingers clawed like five daggers ready to finished the job and rip his heart out.

Dean couldn’t force himself to kill her- again. Once had been enough to metaphorically achieve what she and Lisa were trying to do physically and Dean didn’t have in him to face that ache again.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to carry that visage of hatred as his last memory of the world of the living. This was his choice. It was best to just lay down his arms and let her-

Dean

The voice jolted him out his trance. Flight or fight kicked in before Dean could get a grasp of his reactions, arm jerking up to stand between him and a screaming Jo. The blade in his hand cut through her flesh like she was made of soft snow.

The blood that covered his hands was hot as acid and Dean wiped them to his jeans, frantic movements that still failed to be fast enough in ridding him of the feeling of failure and disgust at what he’d done.

Dean

“Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup...” Dean covered his ears, not caring about the gut-churning contact, not caring about smearing himself with the blood of the two women he’d just killed. “Shut up!”

He raced away from the bleeding corpses of Jo and Lisa, raced blindly into the darkest part of the forest, raced as fast as he could in hopes of escaping that voice. He didn’t care where he ended up, just as long as it was far from that place.

Dean

There were people around him, faces that he recognized, faces that he knew he should recognize but that sparkled no recollection. Some where nothing but dark shadows, souls he had tortured and changed, others were faces he would never forget.

Dean

Frank Devereaux, Pamela Barnes, Victor Henricksen, Nancy Fitzgerald, Meg Masters, Casey, Ronald Reznick, Marshall Hall... there were so many of them, fingers brushing against his skin, clawing at him as Dean ran blindly.

Dean

That last time, the voice was so perfectly clear and close that Dean had no choice but to stop. He knew that voice...

Looking around, searching for the woman who kept calling his name, Dean was surprised to find himself instead looking at two men that meant the world for him. “Dad?... Sam?”

For a moment, he was sure that they too would rush forward and try to kill him too. After all, who other than his own father and brother had more reason to hate him?

A father who had given his own life and soul to make sure that Dean kept on living, only to see him become this cold-hearted killer that destroyed everything he touched.

A brother who had suffered countless lectures about not using his powers, about the wrongness of being something other than human, only to realize that the person lecturing him was a bigger freak than Sam had ever been.

Dean

The voice was right there, seeming to come right from behind them even though Dean couldn’t see a thing there. Instead of attacking him, like Jo and Lisa, Sam and John were just standing, frozen in their spot. They looked... relieved to see him.

Dean’s breath shuddered, emotions bubbling inside his chest and threatening to consume him. He hugged his coat closer to him, covering his freezing chest. It was a trick; it had to be a trick.

And then his father’s expression opened into a smile and Dean couldn’t stop himself any more. God... he had missed him so much.

Dean shortened the distance between them; John’s arms opened wide, waiting to hold him. Sam stood by his side, his face dimpling as he too waited for Dean to join them.

Dean felt warm all over. He had almost forgotten where he was. He threw his arms around his father and brother, holding both close to him and breathing in the familiar scents of both men.

The smell of blood assaulted his senses.

Sam’s faint gasp of pain sounded like thunder in void of sound that suddenly engulfed Dean. He backed away, heart once more hammering against his chest.

John looked at him, such sadness and disappointment in his eyes that it made Dean feel two inches tall.

He was at lost of why his father was staring at him in such manner until he saw the red stain in John’s chest, growing bigger and bigger as the seconds ticked away.

Like two puppets whose strings had been suddenly cut, Sam and John fell to their knees, blood spreading from Siamese wounds.

“No, no, no, no...”

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. He had just got his father back. It wasn’t fair. And Sam...

Dean rummaged around, searching for the murderous bastard who had done this. Whoever it was, Dean was going to kill him for what he had done. “Show your face, you fuck!”

There was no one around, no one but him and his dying family. Desperate, Dean raced back to their side, hands over identical wounds, trying to stem the flow of red.

The more he touched them, however, the harder they bled. “What the fu-?”

Dean pressed harder, frantic hands moving across his father and then Sam, helpless to do anything for either of them.

Pale as death, his lips nothing but a white line across his face, Sam grabbed hold of Dean’s wrist. His fingers felt like ice around Dean’s skin. “Stop,” Sam breathed. “You’re killing us.”

The denial was half way through Dean’s lips when he caught a glimpse of his hands. “Oh, God-“

Each finger was no longer flesh and bone as he’d expected, but a sharp blade instead. A hand full of daggers and he had been using them relentlessly on both Sam and his father, over and over again. “... no”

He backed away, disgusted at himself. What had he done?

Dean

He had almost forgot about the voice. Why was it still tormenting him? “I got it, okay!” he screamed to the empty night. “I’m a killer, nothing but a mo-“ his voice failed him, throat drawing shut. “I’m a monster,” Dean ended with a raw whisper.

“Dean, look at me.”

He couldn’t breath, couldn’t move and yet... he found himself obeying the voice.

Beyond the bodies of Sam and John, there was a woman sitting in a pool of light. Her long, blond hair shone like a halo. It was too bright to see her face, but as she extended a hand for Dean to join her, he knew exactly who she was.

“Mom...”

She looked exactly as Dean remembered her, eyes bright and mischievous, a promise of safety and love in her smile.

“Come here, sweetie,” she beckoned to him, arms opened and inviting.

Dean held back, despite the compulsion to fall into her lure. He knew what would happen if he got too near to her, what had happened to all the people he loved and had died in this place. He was a monster, a killer, but he would not kill his mother as well.

“Nonsense,” she said, responding to his thoughts as if they had been on display for anyone to follow. “I’m a hunter too, Dean,” she went on. “I know a monster when I see it.”

Dean recoiled from her words, staring at his blood-covered fingers-turned-daggers.

“You are not a monster,” Mary went on, her gaze softening. “You are my little angel, my Dean. Come here...”

Dean took one reticent step forward before falling to his knees in front of his mother. He kept his hands behind his back, arms pressed against his body, too terrified to move.

And suddenly there were warm arms around him, smelling of clean laundry and Sunday afternoon cookies and sun and wet dirt and freshly cut grass and Dean couldn’t help but to sink into the familiarity of it all. He felt safe. He felt like he was home. “Mom...”

There was a soft hand running though his hair, raising goosebumps as it went. Dean leaned into the embrace, melting in her warmth as the traveling hand left his hair and start tracing soft patterns over his eyebrow.

For a slip second, Dean became so relaxed that he forgot why he had his hands behind his back and wasn’t hugging his mother back in the way he dreamt about for most of his life. He let go and hugged her back.

The second his fingers came in contact with his mother’s skin, Dean froze. He closed his eyes in defeat and waited for the blood to start flowing.

“It’s okay, Dean,” Mary’s voice whispered in to his ear. “Everything is okay. See?”

Startled out of his down spiral of fear and defeat, Dean’s eyes snapped open. His fingers were just fingers. There was no blood, just water.

His mother was gone. Dean splattered around, looking for Mary.

“Welcome back, mon chéri,” Lapin greeted him, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the pool. “Found what you were looking for?”

Dean took a shuddering breath. It hadn’t been real. None of it had been real. And yet... his skin felt rubbed raw, and his chest was itching, red marks on the same place where Lisa and Jo had tried to rip his heart out. And his hands looked normal again, but there was dried blood underneath his fingernails. “Wha-what happened? What the hell was that?”

“A scrubbing of the soul,” Lapin said with a soft smile, handing over a warm towel. “Dry yourself. It’s getting late.”



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