Smokin' Holes Where My Memories Used to Be 2/4--SPN fic
Title: Smokin' Holes Where my Memories Used To Be
Author: borgmama1of5
Wordcount: 18,600
Rating: PG13
Genre/pairing: gen
Spoilers: through 4.11
Beta: sandymg
Artist:quickreaver
quickreaverDisclaimer: Sam and Dean and the rest of Supernatural do not belong to me. They would know how to talk to each other if they did…
Summary: November 2008. With Ruby's help, Sam and Dean have just manipulated the angels and demons to allow Anna to escape. Now Bobby has sent them to check on another set of omens in Chicago--only this time the trap is for them.
One brother wakes up in a warehouse with mutilated bodies--the other wakes up in a hospital ER--and neither has any memory of being a Winchester. Without any recollection of their own names, much less having a brother, how will they reconnect? And will Ruby help or hinder?
Author’s Thanks: To sandymgfor her excellent beta and even more importantly, unflagging encouragement! To quickreaver for the most amazing art-I never dreamed my words could inspire something like these pictures! And to reapertownusafor all the effort coordinating this big bang project!
Smokin' Holes Where my Memories Used To Be
Title quote from Ken Kesey
Takes place between between 4.11 ‘Heaven and Hell’ and 4.12 ‘Family Remains.’
Part 1: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/63528.html
***
Mitch jumped at the banging on the shelter door. What part of ‘Closed from 8 PM to 6 AM’ couldn’t be understood from the sign? They were at capacity again tonight, so he wasn’t going to be able to help anyway.
He looked out the peephole and shit, it was Jacob. With someone standing behind him. He loved Jacob’s burning desire to help, to give the less fortunate a break, to bend rules into unrecognizable shapes, but sometimes …
“Mitch, you got room for one more?”
The impossible request was uttered with such a convincing smile, positive the answer would be yes, and Mitch fumbled over a straight-out rejection.
“Jacob, I … We’re … “
Jacob shifted his stocky form closer to the door and lowered his voice, trying to be discreet while pleading the out-of-luck man’s case.
“It’s just one more, Mitch, and I think he’s in real trouble - he got mugged and he doesn’t remember his name or anything. Probably someone’s looking for him and, well, he’s not a regular, know what I mean? It’s awful cold for a newbie tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Jacob, I can’t. We’re full up, no more beds. Take him to the police station. Or the hospital.”
“I tried. He won’t go.”
The stranger must have overheard their quiet discussion anyway, for he spoke up.
“No big deal. I’ll manage. Thanks anyway.” He turned to shuffle away, and Mitch damned the pleading look in Jacob’s eyes.
“Wait. Look, I don’t have any mattresses left. But if you’d be okay with sleeping on the floor, I’ll find you a corner. It’s gonna go down below zero tonight. You shouldn’t be out there.”
As the man stepped closer to the door that Mitch was opening, Mitch shivered at the bleak desolation he saw on the battered face. He was used to seeing hopelessness and despair on the street people who came to Great Hope, but seldom such utter abandonment, and it hurt to see. He couldn’t be annoyed with Jacob for bringing the man here after all.
After brushing a hand over his close-cropped hair, Mitch gestured the stranger into his office. “Paperwork, you know.” Jacob followed after.
“Is there anything left in the kitchen?” Jacob asked.
That was a good idea. “Go ahead, see what you can scare up. It won’t be a full meal,” he turned to the street person, “but …”
A dirty hand swiped across the violence-marked face. “Thanks. I … whatever. Thank you.”
“Your name?”
“J-John Do … Smith. Yeah, John Smith, I guess. Better than John Doe, right, John Doe is usually a dead guy?”
“Jacob said you were mugged and have amnesia. Why don’t we take you to the hospital?”
“Already been. Couldn’t help. Can’t remember.”
John was twisting agitatedly in his chair.
“What about the police? If someone filed a missing person report …”
John started to get up. “No. No police. No one’ll report me. I’ll go.”
Dammit, Mitch didn’t want to make him leave.
“It’s okay, just sit back down, Jacob is getting you something to eat, and I won’t send you anywhere. You can stay here overnight.”
Mitch breathed out when the man sat back down on the folding chair.
“When did this mugging happen?”
“Today?” There was the disconnected expression common to substance abusers and alcoholics who’d been on a bender - no sense of days, or time. But the man hadn’t smelled like booze.
“Are you a user? I have to ask, you’ll still be allowed to stay the night, but I have to have the truth.”
“No!” Honest affront in that one word.
“Okay, didn’t mean anything, just have to ask.”
Jacob came back at that moment with a sandwich and cup of coffee, and John looked so damned grateful it hurt.
Some nights Mitch felt that he was one drop of freshwater in a saltwater ocean, and things were never going to improve. But tonight he would find a place for one more lost soul to sleep in relative safety. If that was all he could do, so be it. It would have to suffice.
Jacob stayed in the office with John while Mitch dredged up two threadbare blankets and scoped out where to put John. Corner of the dining room, he finally decided. If he took John upstairs to the dormitory rows of cots, the night security staff would have to report Mitch exceeding the shelter body count, and he didn’t want to put them on the spot. And since Mitch would be in his office all night, he could wake John and get him out before anyone would be the wiser.
Mitch couldn’t help feeling perturbed, though, when he had to show John the corner he was getting.
“I am sorry … there just aren’t any empty beds.”
“Floor’s fine. Warmer than sleeping on the sidewalk.”
Mitch watched the man sandwich himself between the thin blankets and returned to worrying about the budget.
It was around four a.m., because he’d done his upstairs check with Wayne and Jamal, the night staff, when he heard the groan followed by a heart-stopping whimper. When “No, no, no!” came from the dining room, he hurried over to where he’d thought John was sleeping soundly.
Blanket kicked away, the man was spread-eagled on the floor, arms and legs rigidly extended even as his torso jerked and his head twisted from side to side. The frantic “no’s” were interrupted by moans of pain and breathless pants.
One of the guards was sure to be down in a moment. Mitch crouched beside John’s side and carefully touched his shoulder. The response was immediate and devastating-John arched up, screamed, “You motherfucking son-of-a-bitch!” and then howled like he was being tortured. What the hell had happened to this guy?
Mitch could hear footsteps on the stairs, but his immediate concern was waking John from his nightmare. He pushed John’s shoulder more forcefully and murmured “Wake up” in his calmest voice.
John was reduced to animalistic grunts as his entire body shuddered. “John, you’re in Great Hope shelter. Come on, wake up!”
“Mitch, what’s going on?”
At that moment John screamed “Don’t touch me!” and rolled toward Mitch, knocking him onto his back, spewing garbled curses as he wrapped his hands around Mitch’s throat.
Jamal was an ex-football player but as he grabbed John’s shoulders to pull him off Mitch, John turned and shoved him away as if Jamal was a little kid.
“John! John!” Mitch scrambled to his feet, out of John’s reach, but still trying to break through to his consciousness.
John’s raised fist was halfway to connecting with Jamal’s face when he froze and whispered, “Dad? Where?” and Mitch could see the ferocity vanish with the slump of John’s body.
“What did … oh, god, I didn’t know … I’m sorry …”
John stumbled to the closest table and leaned against it, breathing hard.
“John was having a nightmare,” Mitch said for Jamal’s benefit. “But he’s awake now, you can go back upstairs. He’ll be okay. Right, John?”
“Uh, yeah, ‘m okay now.”
“I dunno Mitch, I don’t think I should leave you alone with him … I think he should leave now.” Jamal gave Mitch a look that said ‘I know what you were trying to do, putting him down here’ and Mitch figured if Jamal escorted John out immediately the infraction might be covered up - but he couldn’t throw John out just yet.
“Couple minutes, Jamal, let me get him some coffee before I turn him out, okay? It’s bitter cold out there right now.”
Mitch knew his crew, and while Jamal was the most hard-nosed when it came to the shelter ‘guests’ towing the line, still he worked here because he cared.
Jamal’s glare confirmed he didn’t like Mitch’s words, but he growled, “Fifteen minutes, then I’m coming back down and this guy is gone.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“Just sit. Jamal gave me fifteen minutes so let me get you something to take.”
Returning with coffee he’d reheated in the microwave and the fixings for a couple sandwiches, Mitch sat across from John who drained the cup of sludge without a word.
“You have nightmares this bad often?”
The silence fell heavy between them before John let out a whispered, “I don’t know.”
“I’m really sorry to have to send you back out before dawn, but we have strict rules we have to follow to stay open.”
“ ‘S okay, I understand. Don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Here.” Mitch handed over the two ham sandwiches and walked him to the door. “Wait a minute.” He ducked into his office and rifled through the center drawer.
“This is a pass for the CTA. If you get on the subway, you can change between trains without having to repay. Just don’t stay on any one line too long.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
Mitch looked into his eyes apologetically. He knew he would never see John again.
***
“We’re going back to that warehouse,” Sam said, squinting into the sliver of light poking through a gap in the boarded front window. Even though she hadn’t yet opened her eyes, he’d known Ruby was awake. Not bothering to wait for a response he reclaimed the car keys from Ruby’s jacket pocket.
She grabbed his arm, but let go abruptly at his rigid stare. “What the hell for, Sam?! We should be looking for Lilith!”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, but -“
The night had been fitful and he’d slept only a little. Mostly his sleep had been filled with snatches of horrendous dreams featuring creatures out of horror movies. And voices -- deep, raspy, male -- yelling, urging, prodding, arguing. Furious and anguished. But always, always there. “I need to figure out what happened to me, and how to get my memories back. If you don’t want to come along, fine, tell me where you want to be dropped off.”
“You’re a fucking asshole. Can we at least have some breakfast first?”
He’d found a dozen credit cards yesterday, all different names, in the glove box, and he pulled one at random after he’d parked in front of a shabby storefront with a sign identifying it as ‘Yellow Rose, serving breakfast from 5 a.m.’
“It wouldn’t kill you to eat at a decent restaurant once in a while,” Ruby whined.
He had no patience for her. “You can eat wherever you want. I’m eating here.”
As he figured, she followed after him, grumbling.
“Coffee for you two?”
The middle-aged waitress was clearly a morning person from her cheerful inquiry. Sam nodded, checked that there was creamer and sugar on the table.
“What’ll it be?”
“Vegetarian omelet. With toast. And orange juice.”
“That comes with hash browns as well.”
“Yes” was out before he realized hash browns were always too greasy for him. “Do you want them?” he asked Ruby across the table.
“Hash browns are disgusting. Is it too early for French fries?”
As the waitress confirmed it was too early for fries and Ruby frowned in disappointment, he couldn’t stop thinking about the hash browns. He didn’t eat them and yet it was wrong not to order them.
“Did my brother eat hash browns?”
“Dean eats - ate everything. The greasier the better.”
“How long has he been … gone?”
Ruby looked at him carefully. “Dean was hellhound chow about six months ago.” She scraped the edge of the cheap paper napkin with a long fingernail. “Why you asking?”
“Just … He must have eaten my hash browns. For breakfast. Other times, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he did.”
As he ate, he considered what to do next. He couldn’t leave Chicago not knowing what had attacked him in the warehouse. If he was a hunter, then clearly the hunt wasn’t finished. He wasn’t surprised, though, when Ruby protested that his intention was suicidal. And her condescending attitude irked him.
“I said before, you’re free to leave. I’m willing to drop you at a train or bus station and you can get as far away as you like. But I’m not leaving until I’ve found out who messed with my head, and why. I want my memories back.”
“Really, Sam, are the things you can’t remember all that important? Okay, you don’t remember your family or your childhood, but think about it - right now you aren’t feeling all sad and depressed about your life, and trust me, you had a really shitty childhood, and you were so broken up when your brother died, you could barely function! How can it be bad not to remember that? ‘Cause it looks to me like you still know the important stuff, how to hunt … tell me, do you remember how you were handling demons? Because taking out Lilith was really the top thing on your agenda before this happened.”
Sitting awake before the fireplace during the night he had tried to elicit recollections of his childhood, his family, his brother. But that only caused his mind to become cloudy and vague, and he was left with the feeling of trying to bat away fog that was too insubstantial for him to move, yet obscured his vision with its opacity.
However when he focused his thoughts on practical knowledge he remembered werewolves were vulnerable to silver, ghosts to rocksalt. He concentrated now on Ruby’s question of demons, and searched for something to tell him what she meant.
Fire surged through him, a rush that started his blood thrumming, and he knew. Suddenly he had to get out of the smothering tightness of the diner, so he threw twenty dollars on the table and bolted out the door.
Heart pounding, he dropped into the driver’s seat of the Impala. He had pulled a demon out of its host body with the power of his mind. What kind of a human could do that?
Ruby banged on the passenger door window but he ignored her until she came around to his door and opened it.
“Move over,” she ordered.
He shook his head so she reached behind him to unlock the rear door, then slid in, muttering.
“What the fuck got into you, Sam?”
“You know what I did.”
“Ya gotta be a little more specific, Sammy.”
It was a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t call me that!”
“Okay, don’t get your undies in a knot! What am I supposed to know that you did?”
“To the demons. With my mind. Sending them back to Hell.”
“Yeah. You’re the only hunter that can do that. Which is why you’re the only one who can go against Lilith.”
Ruby’s matter-of-factness calmed him Slightly. But it changed nothing. He wasn’t leaving Chicago without answers.
***
The lukewarm coffee had tasted like mud, but John had swallowed it anyway to get the taste of fear out of his mouth. He wanted to push the nightmare back into the impenetrable cloud hiding the rest of his memories, except he knew this. had really happened to him and he didn’t want to give up the only concrete thing he could say was true.
The first hook pierced his scapula, hooked around his clavicle, and he could feel his bones being separated and the muscles shredding as it pulled.
The second hook impaled the opposite thigh and he screamed as his femur snapped and his leg was ripped off.
Tears rolled down his face as he pleaded ‘no’ when the tip of another hook dug itself into the small of his back, and he swore as it penetrated his kidneys, then settled against his spine.
“I’m disappointed today, you’re giving in much too easily. Where’s that Winchester stoicism?”
Something pushed against the hook in around his collarbone and he arced away from the burning touch. It came again, and suddenly he could move and he struggled to get his hands around the thing that was torturing him, but another demon attacked from behind.
He would go down fighting the bastards!
Someone was calling “John!”
His father? He froze, trying to find his dad. If they were together, they’d stand a chance …
Then he was in a dining room, about to punch a man, just a man, no hooks, no blood, no taunting voice … no Dad.
Sandwiches stuffed in his jacket pocket, John wavered down the sidewalk.
***
Ramon St. Clair had spent more than half of his thirty-three years on the street, not including the eighteen months he’d spent in jail. He knew which abandoned buildings had a corner safe enough to sleep overnight, which restaurant dumpsters offered the best chance of salvaging a meal, which street corners were the best for handouts. And he knew what trouble looked like, and how to avoid it.
Most of the time.
But not today.
He hadn’t been paying attention and now he was boxed in on the icy concrete slab behind the vacant beauty shop. And while there were apartments above the empty storefront, the residents were not going to stick their noses out to investigate the sounds of violence in the alley. No, they would simply turn up their TVs to drown it out.
The four thugs surrounding him didn’t plan to rob him - they knew he had nothing of value. Their eyes shone with the adrenaline fever of bored punks looking to prove their manhood. By beating someone up. Today, him.
Attempting to deflect them by making himself too pathetic of a target, Ramon reached in his pocket for the four dollars he had panhandled earlier, thickened his West Indies accent.
“Hey mons, look Nina’s shop, I bring her d’money to fix m’dreads, mon, and she be all gone now! I don’ need money now, you take it, you get the ‘do instead o’me.” He waved his arms theatrically. “I go now, find Nina, find her ghost mebbe, don’ no where she be, do you know mon?”
The closest man snaked out one hand to take the money while his other hand fisted in Ramon’s jacket and immobilized him.
“Yeah, we’ll take your money, and then we’re gonna teach you a lesson. We don’t like fuckers like you in our neighborhood. Brings down the property values.”
They all snickered. The leader released his grip and snapped Ramon’s head back with a punch that split his lip. That was the signal for all of them to begin pounding him, fists slamming his face and ribs. If there’d been only two of them he would have fought, he could throw a decent punch, but he didn’t stand a chance against four. He made himself stay limp, knowing that resistance would only stoke their frenzy.
He gasped at the unexpected hit to his kidney and felt his legs weaken. He struggled to stay upright, knowing if he went down on the frozen snow they would use their boots on him and he might not walk away from that.
Amazingly, the next meaty smack of knuckles hitting face didn’t cause him more pain, and Ramon was disoriented as one of the attackers swore. Then he registered the bulldog of a man who’d just given one of his tormenters a bloody nose.
“Four to one sucks, you asswipes,” the stranger growled as he chopped the leader’s throat with his hand and jabbed a kneecap with his boot.
A gut-punch staggered his rescuer but he continued swinging. It flashed through Ramon’s mind that he could run, but that would still leave four against one. Instead he threw all his weight into slugging the ear of the closest man and when that thug turned, Ramon kneed him where it counted. The guy dropped. In another minute all four were on the ground.
Ramon rifled the leader’s pocket, retrieving his four dollars and a little more, then looked at the man who had come to his aid. New street person, he quickly assessed, even bruised and unshaven he was still too clean to have been out for long. And not dressed for the weather except for the knit cap.
“We needs to get away, mon. You have a hole?”
A negative head shake.
“Follow me, then.”
Ramon hustled out of the alley, past a strip mall and gas station, until he reached the subway entrance. The stranger was right behind him.
“Don’ jump the turnstile until you hear the train,” Ramon instructed as he headed down the stairs two at a time. When he heard the growl of the subway approaching he took a running start and flipped over the gate, ignoring the yells behind him. The train ground to a stop and he pushed through the people exiting, earning annoyed glares.
As the train started moving, he snagged an open seat, only then looking to see if the other man made it.
“Right behind you.” Ramon jumped at the scratchy voice, tried to cover being startled but he could tell he didn’t succeed by the fleeting upturn of lips he saw when he looked behind him.
“Thank you for sticking your neck out, mister.” Ramon meant it sincerely, those punks wouldn’t have stopped with a little roughing up. “I’m Ramon St. Clair.”
“John. John Smith.” He didn’t add anything, just pulled his cap off to wipe his face with it. Ramon noticed the ugly mark, a two-inch burn-like oval centered over his eyebrows.
“That hurt, mon?” he gestured at John’s face. It was hard to have any kind of a private conversation over the roar reverberating from the subway tunnel as the train picked up speed.
John looked puzzled, shook his head, didn’t try to talk over the noise.
“Need a place to crash?”
A nod.
“Then just stick with me, we gonna change trains.”
***
Throwing punches had felt familiar. So had the instinct to help, he’d had a moment of clarity when he’d chanced on the thugs, and he clung to that as he followed Ramon’s route through the subway system.
When they finally exited, the stairs led up to a blighted industrial area.
“There still be some factories running, so they can’t close the stop,” Ramon explained. “But they’s some good hidey holes in the empty buildings.”
He matched Ramon’s pace without thinking, scanning his surroundings for … he didn’t know what. But this, walking alongside someone into a desolate area - this he had done before. He reached around to the small of his back, but there was no gun tucked in his belt.
There should have been.
He tuned out Ramon’s continued chatter, focusing on identifying the threads of familiar he was experiencing.
Hunting. He was used to stalking something through places like this. Saving innocents like Ramon.
They were in another alley, and he recognized the hand movements as Ramon smoothly picked the lock on the back door.
His neck hairs prickled a moment before the voice.
“Well, hello, Dean!”
He spun, why didn’t he have his gun? and involuntarily flinched at the solid black eyes of the blond woman behind him.
Ramon squealed.
“No snappy greeting today? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
A corner of his mind seized the thought I’m Dean while his body automatically moved in front of Ramon.
“You slummin’ today? Where’s your brother?”
He should know what to do holy water but he didn’t have any … he started to throw a punch but the woman gestured and he slammed against the building, the back of his head cracking painfully against brick … Another motion and Ramon flew back as well, crying in fear.
“You’re not important.” Merciless eyes glanced over Ramon and then his head jerked simultaneously with her hand wave and the snap of his neck ricocheted in the alley as Ramon’s body crumpled to the ground.
He struggled to move against the force pinning him as the demon studied him.
“You are really off your game, Dean.” She moved directly in front of him and reached out her hand. He wanted to pull away from her touch but was helpless. “What’s wrong …oh.”
Her fingers burned as they touched his forehead, but she withdrew her hand immediately.
“Well, that’s … interesting.”
She tapped her index finger against her pursed lips. “What to do with this intriguing opportunity? Killing you in this condition would be so … unsatisfying. I wonder if Alastair … No, I think he would be exceedingly disappointed to find you’ve forgotten all the fun you two had together …”
At that name a shiver flooded his mind. A flutter of fear …
“Oh, you do remember him a little? You were the teacher’s pet after all.”
She reached out her hand again, traced an irregular circle above his eyes. “A most interesting mark. It’s too bad you’re in no condition to appreciate just how many parties are interested in getting rid of you.
“I hate to say it, but a clueless Winchester is a very dull opponent.” She rested her finger on her lipsticked mouth again.
“I think … I think I’m going to let this play out. Honestly … it’s rather delicious. Perhaps it’s better you don’t remember. He doesn’t need you anymore, Dean.” She let out a purr of a laugh, fingernail trailing his cheek.
She vanished. As the weight holding him to the wall ceased, he fell to his knees.
When he could control his legs again, he stood and looked at Ramon’s body. The thought ‘someone else he’d let down’ pulsed through his mind. He bent and closed the dead man’s eyes, then started walking. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. He let his feet move without any conscious thought. When he reached an intersection where traffic was too heavy for him to cross against the red light, he turned, it didn’t matter where he was going.
Because if he stopped he would disintegrate. He was afraid, a block of lead in the pit of his stomach. Only if he kept moving could he could stave off the paralysis of not knowing.
Not knowing who he was. What he was up against. Where he belonged.
The encounter with the odd-eyed creature played on a loop in his mind. He had met things like that before, he knew it. But when he tried to extract when or where his brain froze up with a blankness that throbbed so badly he staggered into a light pole.
Brute force wouldn’t penetrate the mystery so he focused on what the demon had said.
With that word, images began to trickle through the fog, images of other creatures with black eyes and red eyes and yellow eyes and white eyes and he felt them burning and breaking and slicing and ripping his body while they taunted you’re weak and you’re worthless and a failure and everyone leaves you …
He doubled over and puked the remnants of the sandwich he’d had hours ago on top of a pile of dirty snow and a group of teenagers loudly expressed disgust but he couldn’t care.
Demons lie, Dean.
The voice in his head was bluntly factual. He fought to grasp the face that went with it, but someone banged against him and as he twisted to keep from falling, the image slipped away.
But he had something.
“Dean Winchester,” he whispered through chapped lips. He had a name.
***
Part 3: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/64252.html
Part 4: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/64349.html
Author: borgmama1of5
Wordcount: 18,600
Rating: PG13
Genre/pairing: gen
Spoilers: through 4.11
Beta: sandymg
Artist:quickreaver
quickreaverDisclaimer: Sam and Dean and the rest of Supernatural do not belong to me. They would know how to talk to each other if they did…
Summary: November 2008. With Ruby's help, Sam and Dean have just manipulated the angels and demons to allow Anna to escape. Now Bobby has sent them to check on another set of omens in Chicago--only this time the trap is for them.
One brother wakes up in a warehouse with mutilated bodies--the other wakes up in a hospital ER--and neither has any memory of being a Winchester. Without any recollection of their own names, much less having a brother, how will they reconnect? And will Ruby help or hinder?
Author’s Thanks: To sandymgfor her excellent beta and even more importantly, unflagging encouragement! To quickreaver for the most amazing art-I never dreamed my words could inspire something like these pictures! And to reapertownusafor all the effort coordinating this big bang project!
Smokin' Holes Where my Memories Used To Be
Title quote from Ken Kesey
Takes place between between 4.11 ‘Heaven and Hell’ and 4.12 ‘Family Remains.’
Part 1: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/63528.html
***
Mitch jumped at the banging on the shelter door. What part of ‘Closed from 8 PM to 6 AM’ couldn’t be understood from the sign? They were at capacity again tonight, so he wasn’t going to be able to help anyway.
He looked out the peephole and shit, it was Jacob. With someone standing behind him. He loved Jacob’s burning desire to help, to give the less fortunate a break, to bend rules into unrecognizable shapes, but sometimes …
“Mitch, you got room for one more?”
The impossible request was uttered with such a convincing smile, positive the answer would be yes, and Mitch fumbled over a straight-out rejection.
“Jacob, I … We’re … “
Jacob shifted his stocky form closer to the door and lowered his voice, trying to be discreet while pleading the out-of-luck man’s case.
“It’s just one more, Mitch, and I think he’s in real trouble - he got mugged and he doesn’t remember his name or anything. Probably someone’s looking for him and, well, he’s not a regular, know what I mean? It’s awful cold for a newbie tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Jacob, I can’t. We’re full up, no more beds. Take him to the police station. Or the hospital.”
“I tried. He won’t go.”
The stranger must have overheard their quiet discussion anyway, for he spoke up.
“No big deal. I’ll manage. Thanks anyway.” He turned to shuffle away, and Mitch damned the pleading look in Jacob’s eyes.
“Wait. Look, I don’t have any mattresses left. But if you’d be okay with sleeping on the floor, I’ll find you a corner. It’s gonna go down below zero tonight. You shouldn’t be out there.”
As the man stepped closer to the door that Mitch was opening, Mitch shivered at the bleak desolation he saw on the battered face. He was used to seeing hopelessness and despair on the street people who came to Great Hope, but seldom such utter abandonment, and it hurt to see. He couldn’t be annoyed with Jacob for bringing the man here after all.
After brushing a hand over his close-cropped hair, Mitch gestured the stranger into his office. “Paperwork, you know.” Jacob followed after.
“Is there anything left in the kitchen?” Jacob asked.
That was a good idea. “Go ahead, see what you can scare up. It won’t be a full meal,” he turned to the street person, “but …”
A dirty hand swiped across the violence-marked face. “Thanks. I … whatever. Thank you.”
“Your name?”
“J-John Do … Smith. Yeah, John Smith, I guess. Better than John Doe, right, John Doe is usually a dead guy?”
“Jacob said you were mugged and have amnesia. Why don’t we take you to the hospital?”
“Already been. Couldn’t help. Can’t remember.”
John was twisting agitatedly in his chair.
“What about the police? If someone filed a missing person report …”
John started to get up. “No. No police. No one’ll report me. I’ll go.”
Dammit, Mitch didn’t want to make him leave.
“It’s okay, just sit back down, Jacob is getting you something to eat, and I won’t send you anywhere. You can stay here overnight.”
Mitch breathed out when the man sat back down on the folding chair.
“When did this mugging happen?”
“Today?” There was the disconnected expression common to substance abusers and alcoholics who’d been on a bender - no sense of days, or time. But the man hadn’t smelled like booze.
“Are you a user? I have to ask, you’ll still be allowed to stay the night, but I have to have the truth.”
“No!” Honest affront in that one word.
“Okay, didn’t mean anything, just have to ask.”
Jacob came back at that moment with a sandwich and cup of coffee, and John looked so damned grateful it hurt.
Some nights Mitch felt that he was one drop of freshwater in a saltwater ocean, and things were never going to improve. But tonight he would find a place for one more lost soul to sleep in relative safety. If that was all he could do, so be it. It would have to suffice.
Jacob stayed in the office with John while Mitch dredged up two threadbare blankets and scoped out where to put John. Corner of the dining room, he finally decided. If he took John upstairs to the dormitory rows of cots, the night security staff would have to report Mitch exceeding the shelter body count, and he didn’t want to put them on the spot. And since Mitch would be in his office all night, he could wake John and get him out before anyone would be the wiser.
Mitch couldn’t help feeling perturbed, though, when he had to show John the corner he was getting.
“I am sorry … there just aren’t any empty beds.”
“Floor’s fine. Warmer than sleeping on the sidewalk.”
Mitch watched the man sandwich himself between the thin blankets and returned to worrying about the budget.
It was around four a.m., because he’d done his upstairs check with Wayne and Jamal, the night staff, when he heard the groan followed by a heart-stopping whimper. When “No, no, no!” came from the dining room, he hurried over to where he’d thought John was sleeping soundly.
Blanket kicked away, the man was spread-eagled on the floor, arms and legs rigidly extended even as his torso jerked and his head twisted from side to side. The frantic “no’s” were interrupted by moans of pain and breathless pants.
One of the guards was sure to be down in a moment. Mitch crouched beside John’s side and carefully touched his shoulder. The response was immediate and devastating-John arched up, screamed, “You motherfucking son-of-a-bitch!” and then howled like he was being tortured. What the hell had happened to this guy?
Mitch could hear footsteps on the stairs, but his immediate concern was waking John from his nightmare. He pushed John’s shoulder more forcefully and murmured “Wake up” in his calmest voice.
John was reduced to animalistic grunts as his entire body shuddered. “John, you’re in Great Hope shelter. Come on, wake up!”
“Mitch, what’s going on?”
At that moment John screamed “Don’t touch me!” and rolled toward Mitch, knocking him onto his back, spewing garbled curses as he wrapped his hands around Mitch’s throat.
Jamal was an ex-football player but as he grabbed John’s shoulders to pull him off Mitch, John turned and shoved him away as if Jamal was a little kid.
“John! John!” Mitch scrambled to his feet, out of John’s reach, but still trying to break through to his consciousness.
John’s raised fist was halfway to connecting with Jamal’s face when he froze and whispered, “Dad? Where?” and Mitch could see the ferocity vanish with the slump of John’s body.
“What did … oh, god, I didn’t know … I’m sorry …”
John stumbled to the closest table and leaned against it, breathing hard.
“John was having a nightmare,” Mitch said for Jamal’s benefit. “But he’s awake now, you can go back upstairs. He’ll be okay. Right, John?”
“Uh, yeah, ‘m okay now.”
“I dunno Mitch, I don’t think I should leave you alone with him … I think he should leave now.” Jamal gave Mitch a look that said ‘I know what you were trying to do, putting him down here’ and Mitch figured if Jamal escorted John out immediately the infraction might be covered up - but he couldn’t throw John out just yet.
“Couple minutes, Jamal, let me get him some coffee before I turn him out, okay? It’s bitter cold out there right now.”
Mitch knew his crew, and while Jamal was the most hard-nosed when it came to the shelter ‘guests’ towing the line, still he worked here because he cared.
Jamal’s glare confirmed he didn’t like Mitch’s words, but he growled, “Fifteen minutes, then I’m coming back down and this guy is gone.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“Just sit. Jamal gave me fifteen minutes so let me get you something to take.”
Returning with coffee he’d reheated in the microwave and the fixings for a couple sandwiches, Mitch sat across from John who drained the cup of sludge without a word.
“You have nightmares this bad often?”
The silence fell heavy between them before John let out a whispered, “I don’t know.”
“I’m really sorry to have to send you back out before dawn, but we have strict rules we have to follow to stay open.”
“ ‘S okay, I understand. Don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Here.” Mitch handed over the two ham sandwiches and walked him to the door. “Wait a minute.” He ducked into his office and rifled through the center drawer.
“This is a pass for the CTA. If you get on the subway, you can change between trains without having to repay. Just don’t stay on any one line too long.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
Mitch looked into his eyes apologetically. He knew he would never see John again.
***
“We’re going back to that warehouse,” Sam said, squinting into the sliver of light poking through a gap in the boarded front window. Even though she hadn’t yet opened her eyes, he’d known Ruby was awake. Not bothering to wait for a response he reclaimed the car keys from Ruby’s jacket pocket.
She grabbed his arm, but let go abruptly at his rigid stare. “What the hell for, Sam?! We should be looking for Lilith!”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, but -“
The night had been fitful and he’d slept only a little. Mostly his sleep had been filled with snatches of horrendous dreams featuring creatures out of horror movies. And voices -- deep, raspy, male -- yelling, urging, prodding, arguing. Furious and anguished. But always, always there. “I need to figure out what happened to me, and how to get my memories back. If you don’t want to come along, fine, tell me where you want to be dropped off.”
“You’re a fucking asshole. Can we at least have some breakfast first?”
He’d found a dozen credit cards yesterday, all different names, in the glove box, and he pulled one at random after he’d parked in front of a shabby storefront with a sign identifying it as ‘Yellow Rose, serving breakfast from 5 a.m.’
“It wouldn’t kill you to eat at a decent restaurant once in a while,” Ruby whined.
He had no patience for her. “You can eat wherever you want. I’m eating here.”
As he figured, she followed after him, grumbling.
“Coffee for you two?”
The middle-aged waitress was clearly a morning person from her cheerful inquiry. Sam nodded, checked that there was creamer and sugar on the table.
“What’ll it be?”
“Vegetarian omelet. With toast. And orange juice.”
“That comes with hash browns as well.”
“Yes” was out before he realized hash browns were always too greasy for him. “Do you want them?” he asked Ruby across the table.
“Hash browns are disgusting. Is it too early for French fries?”
As the waitress confirmed it was too early for fries and Ruby frowned in disappointment, he couldn’t stop thinking about the hash browns. He didn’t eat them and yet it was wrong not to order them.
“Did my brother eat hash browns?”
“Dean eats - ate everything. The greasier the better.”
“How long has he been … gone?”
Ruby looked at him carefully. “Dean was hellhound chow about six months ago.” She scraped the edge of the cheap paper napkin with a long fingernail. “Why you asking?”
“Just … He must have eaten my hash browns. For breakfast. Other times, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he did.”
As he ate, he considered what to do next. He couldn’t leave Chicago not knowing what had attacked him in the warehouse. If he was a hunter, then clearly the hunt wasn’t finished. He wasn’t surprised, though, when Ruby protested that his intention was suicidal. And her condescending attitude irked him.
“I said before, you’re free to leave. I’m willing to drop you at a train or bus station and you can get as far away as you like. But I’m not leaving until I’ve found out who messed with my head, and why. I want my memories back.”
“Really, Sam, are the things you can’t remember all that important? Okay, you don’t remember your family or your childhood, but think about it - right now you aren’t feeling all sad and depressed about your life, and trust me, you had a really shitty childhood, and you were so broken up when your brother died, you could barely function! How can it be bad not to remember that? ‘Cause it looks to me like you still know the important stuff, how to hunt … tell me, do you remember how you were handling demons? Because taking out Lilith was really the top thing on your agenda before this happened.”
Sitting awake before the fireplace during the night he had tried to elicit recollections of his childhood, his family, his brother. But that only caused his mind to become cloudy and vague, and he was left with the feeling of trying to bat away fog that was too insubstantial for him to move, yet obscured his vision with its opacity.
However when he focused his thoughts on practical knowledge he remembered werewolves were vulnerable to silver, ghosts to rocksalt. He concentrated now on Ruby’s question of demons, and searched for something to tell him what she meant.
Fire surged through him, a rush that started his blood thrumming, and he knew. Suddenly he had to get out of the smothering tightness of the diner, so he threw twenty dollars on the table and bolted out the door.
Heart pounding, he dropped into the driver’s seat of the Impala. He had pulled a demon out of its host body with the power of his mind. What kind of a human could do that?
Ruby banged on the passenger door window but he ignored her until she came around to his door and opened it.
“Move over,” she ordered.
He shook his head so she reached behind him to unlock the rear door, then slid in, muttering.
“What the fuck got into you, Sam?”
“You know what I did.”
“Ya gotta be a little more specific, Sammy.”
It was a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t call me that!”
“Okay, don’t get your undies in a knot! What am I supposed to know that you did?”
“To the demons. With my mind. Sending them back to Hell.”
“Yeah. You’re the only hunter that can do that. Which is why you’re the only one who can go against Lilith.”
Ruby’s matter-of-factness calmed him Slightly. But it changed nothing. He wasn’t leaving Chicago without answers.
***
The lukewarm coffee had tasted like mud, but John had swallowed it anyway to get the taste of fear out of his mouth. He wanted to push the nightmare back into the impenetrable cloud hiding the rest of his memories, except he knew this. had really happened to him and he didn’t want to give up the only concrete thing he could say was true.
The first hook pierced his scapula, hooked around his clavicle, and he could feel his bones being separated and the muscles shredding as it pulled.
The second hook impaled the opposite thigh and he screamed as his femur snapped and his leg was ripped off.
Tears rolled down his face as he pleaded ‘no’ when the tip of another hook dug itself into the small of his back, and he swore as it penetrated his kidneys, then settled against his spine.
“I’m disappointed today, you’re giving in much too easily. Where’s that Winchester stoicism?”
Something pushed against the hook in around his collarbone and he arced away from the burning touch. It came again, and suddenly he could move and he struggled to get his hands around the thing that was torturing him, but another demon attacked from behind.
He would go down fighting the bastards!
Someone was calling “John!”
His father? He froze, trying to find his dad. If they were together, they’d stand a chance …
Then he was in a dining room, about to punch a man, just a man, no hooks, no blood, no taunting voice … no Dad.
Sandwiches stuffed in his jacket pocket, John wavered down the sidewalk.
***
Ramon St. Clair had spent more than half of his thirty-three years on the street, not including the eighteen months he’d spent in jail. He knew which abandoned buildings had a corner safe enough to sleep overnight, which restaurant dumpsters offered the best chance of salvaging a meal, which street corners were the best for handouts. And he knew what trouble looked like, and how to avoid it.
Most of the time.
But not today.
He hadn’t been paying attention and now he was boxed in on the icy concrete slab behind the vacant beauty shop. And while there were apartments above the empty storefront, the residents were not going to stick their noses out to investigate the sounds of violence in the alley. No, they would simply turn up their TVs to drown it out.
The four thugs surrounding him didn’t plan to rob him - they knew he had nothing of value. Their eyes shone with the adrenaline fever of bored punks looking to prove their manhood. By beating someone up. Today, him.
Attempting to deflect them by making himself too pathetic of a target, Ramon reached in his pocket for the four dollars he had panhandled earlier, thickened his West Indies accent.
“Hey mons, look Nina’s shop, I bring her d’money to fix m’dreads, mon, and she be all gone now! I don’ need money now, you take it, you get the ‘do instead o’me.” He waved his arms theatrically. “I go now, find Nina, find her ghost mebbe, don’ no where she be, do you know mon?”
The closest man snaked out one hand to take the money while his other hand fisted in Ramon’s jacket and immobilized him.
“Yeah, we’ll take your money, and then we’re gonna teach you a lesson. We don’t like fuckers like you in our neighborhood. Brings down the property values.”
They all snickered. The leader released his grip and snapped Ramon’s head back with a punch that split his lip. That was the signal for all of them to begin pounding him, fists slamming his face and ribs. If there’d been only two of them he would have fought, he could throw a decent punch, but he didn’t stand a chance against four. He made himself stay limp, knowing that resistance would only stoke their frenzy.
He gasped at the unexpected hit to his kidney and felt his legs weaken. He struggled to stay upright, knowing if he went down on the frozen snow they would use their boots on him and he might not walk away from that.
Amazingly, the next meaty smack of knuckles hitting face didn’t cause him more pain, and Ramon was disoriented as one of the attackers swore. Then he registered the bulldog of a man who’d just given one of his tormenters a bloody nose.
“Four to one sucks, you asswipes,” the stranger growled as he chopped the leader’s throat with his hand and jabbed a kneecap with his boot.
A gut-punch staggered his rescuer but he continued swinging. It flashed through Ramon’s mind that he could run, but that would still leave four against one. Instead he threw all his weight into slugging the ear of the closest man and when that thug turned, Ramon kneed him where it counted. The guy dropped. In another minute all four were on the ground.
Ramon rifled the leader’s pocket, retrieving his four dollars and a little more, then looked at the man who had come to his aid. New street person, he quickly assessed, even bruised and unshaven he was still too clean to have been out for long. And not dressed for the weather except for the knit cap.
“We needs to get away, mon. You have a hole?”
A negative head shake.
“Follow me, then.”
Ramon hustled out of the alley, past a strip mall and gas station, until he reached the subway entrance. The stranger was right behind him.
“Don’ jump the turnstile until you hear the train,” Ramon instructed as he headed down the stairs two at a time. When he heard the growl of the subway approaching he took a running start and flipped over the gate, ignoring the yells behind him. The train ground to a stop and he pushed through the people exiting, earning annoyed glares.
As the train started moving, he snagged an open seat, only then looking to see if the other man made it.
“Right behind you.” Ramon jumped at the scratchy voice, tried to cover being startled but he could tell he didn’t succeed by the fleeting upturn of lips he saw when he looked behind him.
“Thank you for sticking your neck out, mister.” Ramon meant it sincerely, those punks wouldn’t have stopped with a little roughing up. “I’m Ramon St. Clair.”
“John. John Smith.” He didn’t add anything, just pulled his cap off to wipe his face with it. Ramon noticed the ugly mark, a two-inch burn-like oval centered over his eyebrows.
“That hurt, mon?” he gestured at John’s face. It was hard to have any kind of a private conversation over the roar reverberating from the subway tunnel as the train picked up speed.
John looked puzzled, shook his head, didn’t try to talk over the noise.
“Need a place to crash?”
A nod.
“Then just stick with me, we gonna change trains.”
***
Throwing punches had felt familiar. So had the instinct to help, he’d had a moment of clarity when he’d chanced on the thugs, and he clung to that as he followed Ramon’s route through the subway system.
When they finally exited, the stairs led up to a blighted industrial area.
“There still be some factories running, so they can’t close the stop,” Ramon explained. “But they’s some good hidey holes in the empty buildings.”
He matched Ramon’s pace without thinking, scanning his surroundings for … he didn’t know what. But this, walking alongside someone into a desolate area - this he had done before. He reached around to the small of his back, but there was no gun tucked in his belt.
There should have been.
He tuned out Ramon’s continued chatter, focusing on identifying the threads of familiar he was experiencing.
Hunting. He was used to stalking something through places like this. Saving innocents like Ramon.
They were in another alley, and he recognized the hand movements as Ramon smoothly picked the lock on the back door.
His neck hairs prickled a moment before the voice.
“Well, hello, Dean!”
He spun, why didn’t he have his gun? and involuntarily flinched at the solid black eyes of the blond woman behind him.
Ramon squealed.
“No snappy greeting today? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
A corner of his mind seized the thought I’m Dean while his body automatically moved in front of Ramon.
“You slummin’ today? Where’s your brother?”
He should know what to do holy water but he didn’t have any … he started to throw a punch but the woman gestured and he slammed against the building, the back of his head cracking painfully against brick … Another motion and Ramon flew back as well, crying in fear.
“You’re not important.” Merciless eyes glanced over Ramon and then his head jerked simultaneously with her hand wave and the snap of his neck ricocheted in the alley as Ramon’s body crumpled to the ground.
He struggled to move against the force pinning him as the demon studied him.
“You are really off your game, Dean.” She moved directly in front of him and reached out her hand. He wanted to pull away from her touch but was helpless. “What’s wrong …oh.”
Her fingers burned as they touched his forehead, but she withdrew her hand immediately.
“Well, that’s … interesting.”
She tapped her index finger against her pursed lips. “What to do with this intriguing opportunity? Killing you in this condition would be so … unsatisfying. I wonder if Alastair … No, I think he would be exceedingly disappointed to find you’ve forgotten all the fun you two had together …”
At that name a shiver flooded his mind. A flutter of fear …
“Oh, you do remember him a little? You were the teacher’s pet after all.”
She reached out her hand again, traced an irregular circle above his eyes. “A most interesting mark. It’s too bad you’re in no condition to appreciate just how many parties are interested in getting rid of you.
“I hate to say it, but a clueless Winchester is a very dull opponent.” She rested her finger on her lipsticked mouth again.
“I think … I think I’m going to let this play out. Honestly … it’s rather delicious. Perhaps it’s better you don’t remember. He doesn’t need you anymore, Dean.” She let out a purr of a laugh, fingernail trailing his cheek.
She vanished. As the weight holding him to the wall ceased, he fell to his knees.
When he could control his legs again, he stood and looked at Ramon’s body. The thought ‘someone else he’d let down’ pulsed through his mind. He bent and closed the dead man’s eyes, then started walking. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. He let his feet move without any conscious thought. When he reached an intersection where traffic was too heavy for him to cross against the red light, he turned, it didn’t matter where he was going.
Because if he stopped he would disintegrate. He was afraid, a block of lead in the pit of his stomach. Only if he kept moving could he could stave off the paralysis of not knowing.
Not knowing who he was. What he was up against. Where he belonged.
The encounter with the odd-eyed creature played on a loop in his mind. He had met things like that before, he knew it. But when he tried to extract when or where his brain froze up with a blankness that throbbed so badly he staggered into a light pole.
Brute force wouldn’t penetrate the mystery so he focused on what the demon had said.
With that word, images began to trickle through the fog, images of other creatures with black eyes and red eyes and yellow eyes and white eyes and he felt them burning and breaking and slicing and ripping his body while they taunted you’re weak and you’re worthless and a failure and everyone leaves you …
He doubled over and puked the remnants of the sandwich he’d had hours ago on top of a pile of dirty snow and a group of teenagers loudly expressed disgust but he couldn’t care.
Demons lie, Dean.
The voice in his head was bluntly factual. He fought to grasp the face that went with it, but someone banged against him and as he twisted to keep from falling, the image slipped away.
But he had something.
“Dean Winchester,” he whispered through chapped lips. He had a name.
***
Part 3: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/64252.html
Part 4: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/64349.html