Primal- Seeing is believing, Part 2 too
Dean drove around aimlessly. When Sam had texted him, telling that the mysterious words meant ‘sweet dreams’ and that they were probably hunting the Sandman, Dean had smiled. They’re lives were weird.
Still, it made perfect sense. Sandman was probably some rogue fairy, killing off people instead of making them dream of ponies and cotton candy and all kinds of shit people would expect from a children’s story tale.
Dean had read a lot about fairies after his unfortunate brush with them. There were still black spots and fuzzy moments in his memory of the event -parts that he really had no interest in remembering- but Dean had figured that the more he knew about his enemy, the better.
Dean imagined that this Sandman freak would need some place to rest his creepy sandy feet during the day, while he wasn’t out murdering people or beating up hunters. Fairies like caves and lakes, preferably a combination of both and if there was one thing that New Orleans didn’t lack, it was rivers and lakes.
If he allowed himself to think about it, Dean could remember in exact detail what this particular fairy had looked like. Unlike the shimmering light of bulbous and nervous energy being that he had killed with a microwave, or the surly, homeless look of the killer sent by the king of the fairies to kill him, Sandman had looked like a black hole where all light got sucked in. Like a negative picture, in fact, the kind of image you see when looking at old photos’ negatives.
He guessed that with all the types of fairies that there were, each of them would look and feel different.
Dean stopped the car suddenly and back up a couple of feet. Turning, he looked deep into the forest and searched for the thing that had caught his attention.
There.
A shimmering light, skirting just behind the trees, going in and out of sight like a breadcrumbs trail made of energy. Rolling the car into park at the edge of the road, Dean grabbed his shotgun loaded with salt rounds, packed a few extra ones in his pocket and walked into the woods.
:o:
The woman who answered the door had light blue eyes that seemed devoid of color in the late afternoon sun.
“Mrs. Faerydae?” Sam offered. He’d seen pictures of the whole family in the local newspaper. He knew she was Brian’s widow. The lines of pain had never really left her face.
The woman nodded briefly.
“My name is John Stewart,” Sam went on, pulling an old and faded library card. Just as long as she didn’t look too closely, it would do. “I’m with the Archeological Institute of America. The AIA is honoring a number of prestigious names in the field and Dr. Faerydae’s will be featured as one of the most preeminently honored,” he stopped for breath, glad that the woman hadn’t slammed the door in his face yet. “I was hoping you could help us with some of the more personal aspects of his life and career?”
Mrs. Faerydae looked at Sam for the longest time, her gaze seemingly cutting right through him. Despite the fact that he had been spinning bullshit just as a means to talk to a witness, her silent contemplation had Sam sweating under his cheap suite.
Coming to a decision, she stepped to one side. “I have an appointment in forty minutes,” she said dryly, motioning him in. “You have twenty of those.”
She didn’t offer him coffee, tea or even a glass of water. She just sat in front of Sam, on the hard leather couch and stared at him with those cold eyes, waiting.
In his head, Sam was going through every piece of information he had been able to gather about the first victim. There had been a few papers published by the late Faerydae but, as far as Sam had been able to find out, nothing in the two years prior to his death.
Looking around the living room, it was plain to see the archeologist’s influence in the decoration. Sam felt like he was inside a museum; the place even smelled like one.
Faerydae’s area of expertise had been Ancient Greek history, something that Sam could’ve easily guessed by the number of vases and amphorae of all sizes and shapes scattered across the room.
“We have copies of all his papers and research, of course,” Sam started, “but what we were hoping you might help us with was the period in between his publication and the day of his death. Was he working on anything in particular, any kind of research that we might-“
“Steal?” she cut in bitterly. “Use it to poke more fun of him?”
“I’m…” Sam stammered, caught off guard by her tone and sharp accusations. The bitterness in the woman’s voice made him rethink his strategy. It felt like he had just stumbled over a nest of hornets. “I’m sorry… I have no id-”
“Don’t play me for a fool, Mr. AIA,” she spat back at him. “You know as well as I do that Brian never got the respect of his peers in life and sure isn’t going to get it now that he’s been dead for over a year. And all because of his stupid obsession about lost cities and ancient gods that no one really gives a damn about!”
Sam sat silently, waiting for the woman to vent all that had been stuck in her chest, apparently, for all this time. Hoping for more information, he decided to sit quietly and wait her out.
She got up and turned her back to him, the tension in her shoulders letting Sam know that her rage was still strong. “He gave everything, everything to his work. His life, his... family. And the only thing his colleagues ever remembered him for was his stupid ideas and this.”
Sam looked up. Over the mantle in the fireplace, in a place of honor, was two halves of a golden, broken amphora.
“Brian brought it from his last excavation site, in a small island outside of Greece,” she explained. “He believed it pre-dated all others that had been found before. Maggie, our daughter, broke it and Brian... lost it.”
Sam nodded. There was no sign of a child anywhere in the house, no scattered toys, no children’s books, not a pillow out of its place, so the idea that the Faerydaes had a daughter was slightly surprising. From the sorrow that he detected in the woman’s voice, Sam could guess that something bad had happened.
Fairies... they had been into taking first-borns, if he remembered right, but they seemed to go after the sons only. “It was an accident, I’m sure,” Sam said, trying to excuse the actions of a man he had never met. “Such an important piece, it’s understandable that Dr. Faeryd-“
“There was an outbreak of meningitis in Maggie’s school the next day,” Mrs. Faerydae went on, her eyes lost in the painful memories. Sam’s words hadn’t even registered. “Her entire class got sick. My little girl-“ she sobbed, hands clasping the shards of the broken clay like it was the only thing keeping her afloat. “My little girl was the only one who didn’t make it. Brian never forgave himself.”
Sam’s lips pressed into a hard line. The last thing he had done before John died was to try goading him into a fight. The bitter words that had left his mouth would forever be the last he ever spoke to his father and that was something that had haunted him for a long time.
To some degree, going back in time and meeting John’s younger version had helped Sam deal with that sorrow, to deal with that deep sense of unfinished business. He had been able to see a side of his father that he had never witnessed, had seen the tender side of a man who had ever only meant to love and protect his family. Sam had been able to say to his father that he loved him, even if young John hadn’t really grasped what Sam was saying.
Sam knew how truly blessed and unique his chance had been. For most people -for everyone else- regretful words and deeds taken towards those they’d love and lost stayed regretful and impossible to take until the end of their days. He couldn’t even imagine what it had felt like for Brian Faerydae to traumatize his young child over a piece of clay and never having had the chance to make it up to her.
“Brian was never the same after that,” the woman said, confirming Sam’s thoughts. “Dying... even being killed like that, was a blessing for him.”
One that she seemed to envy her husband for, if her tone of voice said anything. Sam could understand now the woman’s bitterness against archeology. In a way, it had stolen from her all that she held dear.
“It was a horrible death...” Sam prompted, hoping that she would add more details.
The woman wiped her eyes clean, smeared black mascara giving her a gaunt look. “Death comes to us all, Mr. AIA... my only regret was that I was out of town when it came for my husband. All I ever saw of what happened to him was the stain on our bed were he died and the graffiti on my wall.”
Sam’s head perked up. “Graffiti? A drawing?”
“You know how vandals are,” the woman said, dismissing the whole thing altogether as she got to her feet. “A couple of words that didn’t mean a thing. Now, if that is all...”
Closing the distance between the two of them, Sam fished a card from his pocket, a non-descript one with nothing but his phone number on it. “I won’t bother you further, Ma’am. But if do remember anything else-“
Sam stopped himself and looked a moment at the broken piece of clay on the mantel; there was a scatter of fine grains inside the broken amphora. Unable to restrain himself, Sam touched it with the tip of his finger. Sand.
“Strange, isn’t?” Mrs. Faerydae asked him. “No matter how much I clean that stupid thing, there’s always sand around it. I have no idea where it’s coming from...”
Sam looked at her. He could kiss her right now. “Ma’am... would you mind if I take some pictures of this? It’s for the article.”
She looked at the broken pieces for a long time, so long that Sam feared that she was going to say no. “Do whatever you want,” she blurted out. “Brian cared more about that thing than about us anyway... it’s only proper that its picture is the one featured in the article.”
Sam stood, watching her go without so much as a goodbye. He wondered what it was like to live in the same house as something that she seemed to hate so deeply and not just simply toss it away. Right then, he could only be thankful that she never did.
:o:
Fireflies. Dean had actually been traipsing around the woods for hours chasing mother-frigging fireflies.
If Sam ever found out, Dean would never hear the end of it.
He was tired, he was dirty and he was frustrated as hell. The only thing Dean wanted in life, at the moment, was a hot shower, a cold beer and some decent sleep.
His phone stirred on top of the car’s dashboard just as Dean parked the Impala. Sam. Telling him that they were staying in room number six and reminding him that he was supposed to bring dinner.
Well... Fuck!
He’d completely forgotten about the food.
Not really in the mood to go back out and search for a place with take out, Dean got out and made his way to their room. If Sam was that hungry, he could go fetch the food himself.
Besides, they had more important things to do. Like catch that damn fairy before it killed someone else.
Sam opened the door before Dean could knock a second time. There was a gleam of excitement and a bubbly energy surrounding him that made Dean feel twice as old than what he really was.
“That a sugar rush or you just happy to see me?” Dean asked, flopping boneless on top of the nearest bed.
“I figured out what the Sandman is,” Sam announced happily. “And how to neutralize it!”
Dean raised an eyebrow. Sam sure seemed full of himself over something so basic. “Yeah, he’s a fairy and we need to send its sandy ass back to fairyland.”
“He’s a Greek god that was trapped inside an ancient Greek amphora!” Sam said, talking all over Dean’s statement.
As the silence filled the room, both brothers stared at one another, realizing that the words coming from the other were completely different from what they were expecting.
“What?” they said, once more at the same time.
Sam rolled his eyes, taking the lead before Dean could open his mouth again. “I thought about the fairy’s theory, at first,” he said turning the computer screen around so that Dean could see as well. “It is true that the Sandman is most commonly associated with fairies, but with the amount of salt that we had lying scattered in that room, there is no way any type of fairy would have been able to do anything to us.”
“Maybe this one can,” Dean countered. It wasn’t like there was an over-abundance of information on fairies.
Sam scrubbed the scruff on his face. He didn’t look one bit convinced by Dean’s argument. “There is another theory, more obscure, older, that says that Sandman is actually Morpheus-“
“The red-pill/blue-pill guy from the Matrix?” Dean offered, looking hopeful. “That dude was cool!”
Sam rolled his eyes. “The Greek god of dreams and sleep,” he offered, knowing fully well that Dean knew exactly of whom he was talking about. His brother was a bigger geek about mythology than Sam could ever hope to be. “I talked to the first victim’s family. The guy was an archeologist, brought this back with him from his last excavation,” he said, handing his phone over.
Dean grabbed it and it play. Apparently, Sam had decided that taking pictures of the... whatever that broken vase was, wasn’t enough and had filmed it from every possible angle. The short footage ended and Dean’s eyes landed on the printed pictures on top of the table, all of them featuring the same two big pieces of broken clay that he’d seen in the phone. “Very Indiana Jones of him,” he muttered, going back to the phone and playing it one more time. The inside of the pieces was red, like most clay, but the outer surface was painted white with black scribbling all over it. And there was something there, some sort of glow... “Aren’t archeologists supposed to put these things in museums, instead of at home?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t think he was all that well seen in the archeology community… this, however, is not something you would want to put in a museum,” he added, getting excited again.
“In the trash then?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “This is a very old, very powerful, hex box.”
It was Dean’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “Not and X-Box fan, I’m more of a Nintendo kind of guy,” he muttered, ignoring Sam’s scowl as he play the footage one more time. From some angles, there seemed to be a faint yellow glow on the inside, making it look like it was made of gold rather than clay. Fairy-dust came to mind, even if Dean was pretty sure that there was no such thing.
“You see anything?” Sam asked, watching as Dean kept staring at the image.
Dean looked at him and paused. Could Sam see the glow too or was that a trick question? Looking at his brother face provided no answer, one way or the other. “Nope,” he risked. “Just looking for the ‘made in Taiwan’ label.”
Sam pried the phone from his hands. “Stop being an ass.” He grabbed one of the pictured, a magnified print of some golden squiggle over black paint. “See these marks here?” he said, pointing to a specific point on the outside of amphora. “Took me awhile to find the correct translation online, but this is here says ‘God’ and this…” he said, pointing to another chicken scratch further below, “I’m pretty sure says ‘Capture’.”
Dean sat, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Okay… I’ll buy the whole nonsense of that thing having been made to contain Morpheus,” he said, infinitely happy for not having mentioned the decisively unnatural glow of the thing. To Sam, there was nothing but clay and old words on the thing and that was fine with him. “But what does that have to do with our case, other than you finding it at the vic’s house?”
“Because,” Sam rubbed his head, looking frustrated at his brother’s incessant questioning of his reasoning. “Okay... we know that the doc lost his wife in a car accident, a year ago, right?” At Dean’s nod, Sam went on. “And we know that the Sandman went after those who survived the crash before finishing off the doc himself.”
“Who, for all we know, could’ve been the one controlling the thing before it turned on him and bit ’im in the ass,” Dean countered.
Sam pursed his lips. “And I think the exact same the same thing happened to Brian Faerydae.”
“Why?”
Sam told him about the writing on the wall. “I think the same words were left there, as some sort of... parting gift or something.”
“Some gift,” Dean muttered. “So... he was controlling the Sandman too?” he said, making his way to Sam’s computer as he knew his brother would have proof there to back up his claim. “I mean, it kind makes sense and the guy does have a really conspicuous last name-“
“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I mean, maybe... but what really matters is that there was a similar tragedy in Brian’s life with a similar outcome. See these?”
Dean stared at the computer screen, watching as Sam opened page after page of police reports on a series of suicides dating two years back. “Jesus! These are all kids, Sam! I mean, teenagers tend to be a little bit heavy on the angst, but fuck!” he breathed out, forcing himself to look past the waste of so many young lives and looking at the details on the files. “They are also from all over the place... and there is no mention of missing eyes or anything wonky.”
“I know. However, all of them had something in common, other than the cause of death,” Sam pointed out, zooming in on one of the reports.
“Says here asphyxiation, all of them,” Dean read. “It’s a common enough way to snuff one’s life, Sam.”
“Brian’s teenage daughter died of meningitis, two years ago,” Sam went on. “Her school was hosting a m-athlete nation-wide event when there was an outbreak and a bunch of kids were infected. She was the only one who died.”
Dean looked at him, his brain working out what that had to do with everything else. And then it hit him. “The suicide kids... they were among the ones who survived.”
Sam nodded. “Not all of the kids who survived the meningitis killed themselves, granted, but every single one who did had been at that event,” he pointed. “I’m still not sure why the Sandman goes after some and not the others, but I don’t think either of these guys was in control of the Sandman. It just... latches on to their loss,” Sam said, the theory forming in his mind even as he spoke the words. “Somehow, this being is going after people who got what Faerydae’s daughter and Zimm’s wife could not... the chance to have a life.”
“You’re reaching,” Dean concluded, sitting back down. “But yeah, I kind of agree with you that might be some kind of connection between the loses those two guys suffered and the victims that the Sandman picks -sick fuck that it is-,” he pointed out, offering a white flag to his brother. “None of that, however, tells us that the Sandman is some ancient Greek god moonlighting as grief patrol. For all we know, those chicken scratches are their version of comic books.”
Sam sighed, tracing the picture’s patterns in the broken amphora. “Doesn’t tell us that he’s a fairy either.”
“Fine,” Dean said, throwing his hands in the air. “Let’s ignore the fact that I can actually see the bastard and, therefore, there’s not much else but a fairy that he can be... how do we catch him and know for sure?”
:o:
“Pass me another burger, will ya?”
The smell of raunchy fries and slightly burned meat was heavy inside the car, even though the windows were open all the way down.
A stake out, even after sundown, in the oppressive Louisiana heat, was the worst possible way that either of them could think of spending their night. However, inside the house across the street from the Impala, resided their best chance to get their hands on the Sandman before it killed somebody else. Sam just couldn’t understand how Dean could possibly eat in the stifling heat.
Gambling on the chance that the Sandman’s pattern remained the same, they knew that it was only a matter of time before the thing latched on to some other grieving soul, bitter about having lost someone in a tragedy of one.
Brian Faerydae had died on the same day as Zimm’s wife. On a hunch, Sam had searched for group accidents that had happened on the same day the doc had bought the farm.
Locally, they couldn’t find a single event. It had been Dean’s idea to expand the search statewide.
The number of tragedies involving more than one person was staggeringly high. However, there had been only one with a single mortal victim and -surprise, surprise- it involved the husband of a local woman.
Freakish accident, really. The guy had worked for the Baton Rouge Zoo, in charge of the African animals feed and care. One of the black rhinos had gotten spooked over something or another, broken free of his habitat and charged the full crowd that had gathered to watch the large mammals feeding time. Frank Robbie had been too close to the animal when it had its freak out and had been trampled to death. Everybody else had gotten away with bruises, bumps and a deep aversion to Zoos for the foreseeable future.
The accident had happened in the off-season, during school year, so there hadn’t been that many people around. Getting a list of names from the policemen who worked the case had been the easy part. Letting go of the names of people from outside of New Orleans was a bit more stress inducing.
Truth was, no matter how painful it was or morally wrong it tasted against their souls, Sam and Dean just couldn’t workout a way to keep an eye on the twenty-something people who had been present at the accident, people from all over the state. They were working on a hunch, a flimsy one to Dean’s view, and that was simply not enough for them to start calling every hunter they knew to keep an eye on potential victims from a potential monster that could, potentially, be after them.
Coming to a silent and mutually agreed decision, Sam and Dean had zeroed on the names of people that were from New Orleans. Given that the past five victims had been local, they were hoping that the Sandman had grown attached to the place.
They had come down to three names: Anderson, Jones and Carson, which, as far as their resources went, was still two names too much.
Sam couldn’t see the Sandman, so standing watch over one of the other houses by himself would have been of little use unless he actually stood inside the potential victims’ bed room and watch them be attacked.
As Sam, unlike the Sandman, didn’t possess the ability to be invisible, they had settled for the next best thing. Planting bugs.
Association with Frank Devereaux had been more productive than either Winchester would ever admit. After the older man’s murder, Sam and Dean had agreed that there was be no point in letting all of his paranoid-induced surveillance equipment go to waste. So, they had gotten themselves some new toys.
Planting the bugs inside all of three possible victim’s houses had been easy. Cut someone’s cable and the will gladly welcome inside their homes anyone dressed remotely as the right person to fix their problem.
Sam was working the audio, earplugs inconspicuously hidden behind his floppy hair and audio feed set to filter in through his computer. Dean’s part was to drive from one house to the next and hope that, when the sounds of distress came, they would be near enough to help.
It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t even reassuring, but with only one of them being able to see the invisible murderer, it was the best that they could do.
A couple of hours into their rotating surveillance, Dean had switched from beer to coffee. Neither of them had gotten much sleep over the last couple of days and, chasing after a monster that attacked people in their sleep, neither of them was much inclined to have any.
“What exactly is the plan if -when- we get anything on these mics?” Sam couldn’t help but ask. It wasn’t like the last time they had confronted the thing it had gone terribly well for them. In fact, his head still hurt from how not well it had gone.
Dean took a bite off his burger, chewing his options along with the meat.
“Throwing salt at it can’t be our only option,” Sam reminded him. Sure, he hadn’t been able to convince Dean that this was a Greek god they were dealing with, but he wasn’t about to go face it under the illusion that it was a fairy either.
“You said it went away when you threw holy water at it, right?”
Sam was about to point out that they couldn’t bet their lives on something that he wasn’t sure how it worked or even if he could reproduce exactly, when one of his feeds chirped to life.
Dean saw the tension in his brother’s pose and threw the rest of the burger into the backseat as he started the car. “Tell me it’s this one...” he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else, as he looked at the house right in front of them. All the lights had gone out a couple of hours before and everything was deadly quiet.
“No such luck,” Sam replied. “It’s number two, the Jones’ place. Step on it!”
:o:
They were going to arrive too late. Dean had the most absolute certainty about that. Even driving as fast as the Impala could go, even though the house was relatively close to the one they’d been, they would not be there in time to save anyone.
The Impala screeched to a stop, Sam racing towards the house even before the tires had stopped rolling. Dean paused only long enough to pull the keys from the ignition and raced after his brother.
A small part of his brain was supplying him in great detail the many reasons why this whole thing was a bad idea.
They had no plan of attack other than attack.
They had no weapons that could work on this thing other than salt and, maybe, holy water.
They had no visual on the thing, other than what Dean could see.
And yet, somewhere inside that house, there was a person who would not see the light of the next day if Dean and Sam didn’t do something and that was reason enough to jump into it head first.
Sam hadn’t bothered to pick the lock, just lifted his foot and kicked the door in as he went. Big house like that, front lawn carefully primed and lined with delicate flowerbeds, the thing was bound to be rigged with an alarm system, something that the Winchesters were perfectly aware of. Somewhere out there a siren was blaring, cutting down the time they had even shorter.
“Windy,” Sam whispered as soon as Dean joined him inside the house.
It was the very thing that had alerted him in the first place, the only give away that the Sandman seemed to be unable to control. Or maybe it just didn’t care that people knew it was there. It carried the furious wind with it.
In the back of his mind, in that place where Dean gathered all the details that his eyes picked but he couldn’t afford to pay attention at the time, he saw a lobby that looked like the storage place of some old movie studio. Two large statues of giant heads lined the door, silent stone guardians that seemed plucked right out from Easter Island. Further ahead, there were Chinese warriors in their stone armors; stern faces looking disapprovingly at the two intruders. If Dean was a kid with a house of his own, that was exactly as he would’ve decorated it too. Maybe just replace the soldiers for a more bustier and beautiful Asian version.
Upstairs, Dean motioned silently.
The house was silent except for the weird wind whistling around them, but both knew that that didn’t mean a thing.
Sam took point, his long legs eating the steps two at a time. He waited for Dean when he reached the top, two fingers pointing to the right while he took the left.
Dean quickly searched the two rooms on his side. A study and a guest room, both empty, which meant…
“In here,” Sam yelled a few seconds later.
Dean burst through the door of the last bedroom on the left, his eyes taking in the full clusterfuck they’d gotten themselves in.
Huddled against the board of the large bed was a man, Tobias Jones, arms crossed over bent legs, face turning frantically one way and the other, trying to make sense of what was happening around him. His eyes, Dean realized with a pang of failure, were gone.
Sam, the idiot that he was, was standing in front of the terrified man, casting spurts of holy water from the flask in his hand.
“The holy water isn’t working,” Sam yelled above the wind, a touch of fear in his voice as he tossed the empty flask away. It wasn’t for himself, Dean knew that all too well, but for the poor bastard that they’d been too late to see unscathed and who would die if they did nothing. “Can you see it?”
Dean could see it perfectly fine. The Sandman was standing mostly in the corner away from the door, twirling mess of black sand, seemingly studying Sam’s actions. It seemed... amused. He could see it as the swirling being made his way towards Sam and Jones, tendrils of sand, like impossibly long arms, extending to touch them both.
“Hey, you with the grainy face!” Dean called out, stepping in front of the Sandman; the sword was in his hand without even a conscious thought. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re truly butt-ugly?”
It didn’t actually have a face, not one that Dean could make out other than two black holes that seemed to serve as its eyes, but he could swear that it looked surprised. It couldn’t be because of the sword; Dean knew that because he had fought it before and it had been useless. Could it be... “Yeah, that’s it, shit-for-brains,” he went on, “I can see your fugly face!”
A part of Dean was pulsing with barely contained energy, waiting for the moment when the spell would brake and the Sandman attacked; the other part of his was deeply satisfied that Sam had taken the hint and was rushing past the momentary stunned monster and out of the room with Jones in tow.
The moment the terrified victim left the room, the spell was broken. A blood-curding howl ripped across the house, answered tenfold by the swirling wind.
Dean swung the sword forward, trying to get the monster’s attention back to him, but there was no point. The blood thirst was stronger as it chased after Sam and its intended victim. “Sam!”
The single word was all Sam needed to know that trouble was coming his way.
Dean chased after the Sandman, watching in horror as the swirling figure grew to twice its size, a giant hand forming in the air. Like something out of Looney Tunes, Dean watched as the huge hand closed into a fist and punched Sam and Jones, sending both of them rolling down the stairs. “SAM!”
His shout turned Sandman’s attention back to Dean, even if for a split second, and the hunter took full advantage. “You fucker!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, the sharp wind stealing his breath away. “Why don’t you sit your butt down,” he said, grabbing a hand full of salt from his pocket, “... and count me this?”
Tossing the grains of salt into the madness of flying sand felt like spitting against a storm but Dean knew that wouldn’t be a problem for a fairy.
For a split second, Dean was sure that this would all end well. He saw the Sandman pause in its attack, saw the owner of the house get up from where he’d fallen and make a blind dash for the front door, he saw Sam sit up and look up at him.
For a split second, Dean could almost taste victory and imagine that big monster brought to its knees, scooping down and counting grains of salt off the floor like any other fairy. He could imagine himself running down the stairs and brushing the dust off Sam’s clothes, scolding him for risking his life needlessly. He imagine getting back to the motel room, proudly containing himself for not rubbing in too hard that he had been right all along.
The second splinted, time started ticking again and with it reality came crashing in. The Sandman wasn’t scooping down; it couldn’t care less if Dean had thrown salt or confetti at him.
He’d been wrong.
The laughter that carried in the wind was the most chilling thing Dean had ever witnessed in his life, but all he could hear was his own voice, reminding him. He’s been utterly and completely wrong.
The front door banged closed in the wake of Jones’ escape. It might as well have been the chime of a boxing-bell, calling fighters for round two. The Sandman charged.
Dean was still kicking himself bloody for being wrong when the sound started. A grave, baritone’s sound that seemed to shake the whole house along with his insides. His eyes searched for the source, a million scenarios running through his mind, from heart-quake to airplane flying too low. Instead, he saw the big statues shaking and knew instinctively what was about to happen.
The first of the big statues started tumbling forward like an ancient tree toppling over. And then the next, and the next, and the next, a sickly domino fall that sent the very last piece straight on top of-“SAM!”
Dean knew that he couldn’t have possibly heard the sound of bone breaking over the howl of wind, his own shout and the clashing of stone against the stone as every single statue turned into crumbling pieces. And yet, in between the pained howl that Sam was powerless to contain and the sickly odd angle of his right leg, Dean was sure he had heard his brother’s bone breaking.
“Don’t move, Sam,” Dean yelled over the ruckus all around them, “I’m coming to you!”
In all honesty, Dean knew his words were pointless, only a feeble attempt to offer some reassurance to his brother... or to himself. He wasn’t exactly sure on which of the them the words were more of a waste: Sam, who couldn’t move even he wasn’t trapped under half a ton of stone statue with a broken leg, or Dean, who was pretty sure this was it for the Winchester brothers but would not abandon Sam to his fate come hell or high water.
The Sandman laughed, a throaty sound that made Dean think of wind running through wells and deep underground caves as he flew down the stairs to reach Sam.
Suddenly, the next twenty steps ahead of him crumbled into dust -sand, always the fucking sand- leaving nothing but a ten feet drop in his path. Dean threw all of his weight down and backwards in the last moment, the tips of his boots flirting with the edge of the drop even as his ass collided with the steps beneath him. “Fuck!”
“Dean!” Sam called from below, his voice laced with pain. “You okay?”
Dean could’ve laughed. They were both so far from okay that okay was practically a foreigner country at that point. “I’m good,” he called out, even as he could see the swirling sandy winds closing in on him. Good, in the sense that he was glad the Sandman had decided to finish him off before Sam. “Open to suggestions over here!”
Sam remained silent, except for the grunts of pain that he couldn’t quite hide. The damn fool was probably trying to drag himself from underneath the statue to come to Dean’s aid.
Dean looked around frantically, for once glad for the ever present need that monsters seemed to have to gloat and act overly dramatically when they were sure that victory was theirs. If this bastard was planning on starting some half-assed, boring monologue about... its mommy, or something, Dean was going to-
His eyes landed on the ceiling. There was a series of small white, glass bulbs scattered at regular intervals. Sam had said that the holy water had failed, but what if it wasn’t the ‘holy’ part that was important? The old Greek jar thingy that had been broken had been found at the bottom of the ocean, if Dean remembered right. Not holy water, salt water.
Maybe that was why it had worked before, back in their room, the combination between water and all the salt that they had laying around. Maybe...
With his attention split between finding a solution and keeping an eye on the Sandman, Dean failed to see when the thing made a lunge for him. The sword, helpless as it was against a monster made of air and dirt, was out even before Dean had registered the movement. It did nothing to stop the wall of sand that collided with his face, stealing his breath away.
“S-Sam,” he coughed through the grain. He couldn’t see a thing and his eyes felt like they were on fire. “Sa… light it up.”
To his ears, his own voice seemed too gruff and faint to have reached Sam one floor below. And even if it did, Dean hoped that his brother trusted him enough to bet their lives on Dean’s hunch, particularly after he had been so spectacularly wrong about the Sandman’s origins. He threw more salt at it, to make sure that there was enough of it lying around… just in case.
Dean scrubbed at his eyes desperately, his breath becoming short and labored as his mouth filled with sand faster than he could spit it out. The Sandman was standing right in front of him, Dean could feel it, he knew it from the shimmering colors that assaulted his eyes whenever he looked in that particular direction. But for the life of him, Dean couldn’t understand why the monster didn’t just finish the job while both hunters were vulnerable.
The stabbing pain that assaulted him as the sand in his eyes scrapped his eyeballs raw answered Dean’s question in flying colors. Suddenly, it was perfectly clear why the victims were all found without eyes and with their mouths sewed shut; suddenly Dean knew exactly what the Sandman’s next move would be.
Ignoring the urge to scrape his eyes out and rid them of the sand inside, Dean used his hands to clean the sand from his mouth. Already he could feel tendrils of line forming across his lips, threatening to seal his mouth shut with all that sand inside.
That was how the others had died, that was why their mouths had been shut. The bastard filled them with sand and just waited while they choked and clawed their eyes out.
His fingers weren’t working properly, Dean realized. The world was growing fuzzier at the edges and his lungs were starting to burn as bad as his eyes. There was more sand coming in than what he could fight and already the pressure was becoming more than he could handle. Dean clawed at his face, biting his lips bloody. He had survived Hell; he had survived Purgatory; he damn well was going to survive this. He just needed a little bit of air...
Dean barely registered the sirens blaring outside as the police arrived; he barely registered when water started raining down on him, blessed relief to his burning eyes.
The howl of pain and frustration that replaced the Sandman’s sickly laughter was the only indication that Dean had that they would live to fight another round. As darkness claimed him, Dean wondered in what shape he and Sam would be to fight it.
NEXT