09x09 - Once Upon a Timepiece - Part Four: Checkhov's Gun
Episode Number: 09x09 of Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Once Upon a Timepiece
Subtitle: Checkhov's Gun
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 1,800
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence
Status: Complete. Feedback appreciated.
Dean and Sam rounded on the Antiquities Shoppe, which was an old shop set up to sell antiques and other odds and ends.
"This is it?" Sam asked.
"Sam," Dean whispered and nodded his head towards the courtyard opposite them. "Look."
Alex played percussion there, and it echoed hugely. A tall, narrow-shouldered man approached her and showed her something in his hand. She nodded and stopped her music.
After a minute, he began to play his flute. Alex added rhythm, and they jived with one another.
"Birds," Sam muttered to Dean.
Birds gathered around, as if listening the music. As people passed by, a few tried to touch the birds, mostly children, and the birds allowed them to. They didn't even flinch.
"Pied Piper," Dean whispered to his brother. "Am I right?"
"Can't be sure," Sam whispered. "But Ed wrote about a guy named Hiren, a hunter, well, a normal hunter, who is really Yang Oerlang."
"Not the Pied Piper."
"Not really, but has power over animals, kind of."
Then something very surprising happened. A tall man with a sturdy, solid build strode towards the music, and as he approached, he suddenly disappeared. But the birds hopped away from his general path, as if he was still there, just not visible.
"Uh, ghost?" Dean offered. "Invisible man."
"Fox-Fire," Sam whispered. "I read that one, about a farmer imbued with powers from swallowing fox-fire, including invisibility."
"I say we tear up this joint," Dean said, stepping away from the mayhem besetting the courtyard and into the shop.
Edward panicked. The book was gone. The book was gone. The book was just gone!
Maybe the FBI took it from him, maybe someone else stole it, but that didn't matter. Now he was screwed.
He needed proof. Or at least something that engendered some kind of doubt in reality. He needed something.
Edward scrambled around his house, pulling out books, and heirlooms, and finally photographs. That's it. He needed to find the right photographs. Then the FBI would have to believe him.
As if they could arrive any second, Edward hurried through every photo in his house.
"Hello," Sam said to the only man in the store. "We're looking for the owner."
"You foun' him," the man replied.
"I'm Agent Andrews," Dean said, holding out his badge. "What's you're name?"
"Nicholas Sweeney. Nick."
"Nick, we're here to ask you about some items you've sold," Sam said. "A pocket watch with this symbol on it." He indicated the symbol on the book cover.
Nick looked at it, "Tha's the character for 'tear' in Chinese. Sold tha' to Ogden months ago."
"Where did you get them?"
"Wha'?"
"You sold them, fine, but where did you get them?"
"Uh, I can look i' up - "
"Please," Sam said.
With a nod, Nick swept to the back of his store.
Sam casually pulled out his EMF reader and popped on his special specs for hex bags before. He made short work of the store.
"Well?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing but the book."
Nick came back out. "That watch came in before I owned this store," he said.
"From?"
"Dunno, cher," Nick replied. "It wa' here when the store opened."
"You've no records of that?" Sam asked.
"It was o'er fifty years ago," he snapped.
"Okay, what about the book?"
"What book?"
"This book," Sam held it up again.
"Cher, we don't sell books here. We ne'er have."
"You're saying this book isn't from your shop?"
"Yeah, tha's righ', I am," Nick replied.
"Ogden," Dean and Sam said simultaneously.
"Thanks," Sam said over his shoulder as they ran out the door.
Ogden wasn't at his house anymore. Why would he be? He sent them on a goose chase and made off with that time.
"Damnit!" Dean cursed as he climbed back into the passenger seat.
"We should talk to Ed," Sam said.
"What? Sam, it's not him, it's gotta be this Ogden guy."
"Maybe, but he gave Ed the book, right? So maybe Ed knows more."
Edward opened the door as if he expected guests. He looked over-caffeinated and ignored Sam entirely.
"Agent, I knew you'd be back, and I don't have the book anymore, so I made this for you. Come on in."
He had laid out his dining room wall like a detective board.
"You see this?" he pointed to a child's photo. "This is me. I'm four."
"Okay - "
"And look at this," he pointed to another photo. He was the same age, singing with Alex, who looked just the same in the photograph as she did when they saw her today.
"Is that Alex's sister?" Sam asked.
"No, that's Alex. See?" Over three dozen other photographs documented Edward's childhood, teenage years, and even adulthood next to the ever-same Alex.
"Woah," Sam said, spotting Mervin in the same light. "And this is?"
He pointed to a man with a pipe in his mouth. "That's Siler, but his real name is Molo."
"I saw this guy," Dean commented. He meant Ariq, the man with the crutch.
Edward said, "He's called Ariq here, but he's actually the bonze, that's a kind of monk, from a story called the Miserly Farmer."
Sure enough, Edward had six people whose faces never changed in all his twenty-two years and the photographs to prove it.
"I lost the book," he whined. "So I needed to show you this. I needed you to see I'm not crazy."
"The man who gave you the book, Ogden, was he one of the people who never changed?"
"Yes! But I don't have photos of him."
Dean cut in. "Listen, Ed, we're glad you told us all this. We're going to take over from here."
"Take over?"
"We're going to free them from the curse," Sam said.
"How?" Ed asked. "I've already tried true love's kiss, salting the edges of the town, even tried to convince some of them of their past. Nothing works."
"None of those would break any curse," Dean said.
"What?"
"Leave it to us, the experts," Sam said. "If you get in our way, you might keep them stuck here forever."
Edward nodded.
"You should get some sleep," Sam suggested before they left.
"I say we destroy that book and be done with it," Dean said as soon as they were back in the hotel room.
Sam was on the phone. "No, everything's fine, Cas. Yes, I will tell Dean to call you as soon as we get done."
He hung up. "Cas gave me something that'll help us destroy this thing, we need - "
"Hoodoo? I brought all of it."
"Really?"
"We're near New Orleans, dude, hell yeah."
"You sure destroying this will work?"
"We've got freaking fairy tales here, Sam, I'm not sure of anything, butif that guy at the store was right, about the watch being here for fifty years at least, we gotta assume whoever put the whammy down must be dead."
Dean and Sam spent the next day wandering around Grand Isle, trying to see if destroying the book worked.
No. The white mule appeared and disappeared. Rocks turned into silver and gold, and all the while, flowers bloomed and animals gathered like they were in a fairyland.
"What the hell?" Sam asked. "Shouldn't this all be better now?"
"Yeah, well, I'm thinking that Ogden guy screwed us," Dean said.
Sam looked at his watch. "School gets out here at 2:05 pm."
"Thanks, Dr. Random."
"He's a teacher, Dean, I say we grab him at work."
"You think he's at work?"
"We should try."
Dean's phone rang. "Hello?"
"Dean, good, I got you, you need to get out of that town," Cas said.
"What why?"
"Demonic omens, a lot of them," Castiel said carefully. "And the angels know about it, they'll probably be there soon."
"When did they start?"
"Five days ago," he said. "I'm not sure what's going on, but it's not good."
"Cas, we can't blow town, this case here, we need to figure it out. I don't think the weirdo crap here is just a coincidence. Whatever's coming here, they're coming for whoever the hell is in this town."
"Dean, you're not making sense."
"Look, we're staying, okay?"
"I will join you."
"No, Cas, you can't," Dean said.
"You have Sam's truck, don't you?"
"Yeah, but - "
Cas hung up.
"Damnit," Dean said, rushing back to the truck with a confused Sam in his wake.
Sam took the wheel. Dean took shotgun.
"Cas," Dean whispered, poking his head to the window to the truck cap.
"Hello Sam, Dean," the angel said mildly. "What's going on?"
Deshane Ogden walked casually through the gym to his parking spot out back. It wasn't the fastest way out, but almost no one bothered him on his walk.
A stranger bumped into him. "So sorry," the man's voice rasped. "I'm a little lost."
"No problem," Deshane said. "Where are you going?"
Dean slipped a knife to his throat.
"He's our decoy," he whispered to Deshane. "Thanks Cas."
Dean winked. He actually winked. Sam wanted to throw up a little but held back.
"Wha - what's going on?" Deshane stuttered.
"Why did you lie to us about the book?" Sam demanded. "You didn't get it from the store."
"No, I did," the man's blue face looked even sicklier. "I did buy it - "
"Where's the watch?" Dean snarled.
"Pocket, pocket," he whimpered.
"Sam?" Dean said. "You wanna do the honors?"
Sam glared at his brother; like he wanted to grope around some guy's pocket.
He didn't have to because Deshane pulled it out. Sam took it and added it to the jar of solution he and Dean used on the book the night before. He shook it, then lit the contents on fire.
"Who are you?" Cas asked Deshane.
"I'm Deshane Ogden."
"No, who are you really?" Dean asked.
Edward paced in his house. This entire situation was maddening. All the lights in his house flickered.
"Hello," a woman said. When did she arrive?
"Hello," Edward said.
"I'm Olivia, who are you?"
"I'm Edward."
"Edward," she said his name softly. "I think you know why I'm here."
"For the fairy tale characters," Edward said. "You know about them?"
"I came here to help you with them, actually. This is your destiny. To save these, you called them fairy tale characters?"
"Yes."
"It's our destiny to save them."
"Our?"
"I can help you," she said. "That's why I am here. You and me, we're two pieces of the same puzzle. You know all about them, and I know how to free them. We just need to put it all together."
Edward felt the weight lifting from his shoulders. "Great, okay, well, the book... you know what, screw the book, we don't need it, let me show you..." And he was off.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Three: Red Herring
Next Part: >>>
Part Five: Anagnorisis
Primary Post: 09x09 Once Upon a Timepiece
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Once Upon a Timepiece
Subtitle: Checkhov's Gun
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 1,800
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence
Status: Complete. Feedback appreciated.
Dean and Sam rounded on the Antiquities Shoppe, which was an old shop set up to sell antiques and other odds and ends.
"This is it?" Sam asked.
"Sam," Dean whispered and nodded his head towards the courtyard opposite them. "Look."
Alex played percussion there, and it echoed hugely. A tall, narrow-shouldered man approached her and showed her something in his hand. She nodded and stopped her music.
After a minute, he began to play his flute. Alex added rhythm, and they jived with one another.
"Birds," Sam muttered to Dean.
Birds gathered around, as if listening the music. As people passed by, a few tried to touch the birds, mostly children, and the birds allowed them to. They didn't even flinch.
"Pied Piper," Dean whispered to his brother. "Am I right?"
"Can't be sure," Sam whispered. "But Ed wrote about a guy named Hiren, a hunter, well, a normal hunter, who is really Yang Oerlang."
"Not the Pied Piper."
"Not really, but has power over animals, kind of."
Then something very surprising happened. A tall man with a sturdy, solid build strode towards the music, and as he approached, he suddenly disappeared. But the birds hopped away from his general path, as if he was still there, just not visible.
"Uh, ghost?" Dean offered. "Invisible man."
"Fox-Fire," Sam whispered. "I read that one, about a farmer imbued with powers from swallowing fox-fire, including invisibility."
"I say we tear up this joint," Dean said, stepping away from the mayhem besetting the courtyard and into the shop.
Edward panicked. The book was gone. The book was gone. The book was just gone!
Maybe the FBI took it from him, maybe someone else stole it, but that didn't matter. Now he was screwed.
He needed proof. Or at least something that engendered some kind of doubt in reality. He needed something.
Edward scrambled around his house, pulling out books, and heirlooms, and finally photographs. That's it. He needed to find the right photographs. Then the FBI would have to believe him.
As if they could arrive any second, Edward hurried through every photo in his house.
"Hello," Sam said to the only man in the store. "We're looking for the owner."
"You foun' him," the man replied.
"I'm Agent Andrews," Dean said, holding out his badge. "What's you're name?"
"Nicholas Sweeney. Nick."
"Nick, we're here to ask you about some items you've sold," Sam said. "A pocket watch with this symbol on it." He indicated the symbol on the book cover.
Nick looked at it, "Tha's the character for 'tear' in Chinese. Sold tha' to Ogden months ago."
"Where did you get them?"
"Wha'?"
"You sold them, fine, but where did you get them?"
"Uh, I can look i' up - "
"Please," Sam said.
With a nod, Nick swept to the back of his store.
Sam casually pulled out his EMF reader and popped on his special specs for hex bags before. He made short work of the store.
"Well?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing but the book."
Nick came back out. "That watch came in before I owned this store," he said.
"From?"
"Dunno, cher," Nick replied. "It wa' here when the store opened."
"You've no records of that?" Sam asked.
"It was o'er fifty years ago," he snapped.
"Okay, what about the book?"
"What book?"
"This book," Sam held it up again.
"Cher, we don't sell books here. We ne'er have."
"You're saying this book isn't from your shop?"
"Yeah, tha's righ', I am," Nick replied.
"Ogden," Dean and Sam said simultaneously.
"Thanks," Sam said over his shoulder as they ran out the door.
Ogden wasn't at his house anymore. Why would he be? He sent them on a goose chase and made off with that time.
"Damnit!" Dean cursed as he climbed back into the passenger seat.
"We should talk to Ed," Sam said.
"What? Sam, it's not him, it's gotta be this Ogden guy."
"Maybe, but he gave Ed the book, right? So maybe Ed knows more."
Edward opened the door as if he expected guests. He looked over-caffeinated and ignored Sam entirely.
"Agent, I knew you'd be back, and I don't have the book anymore, so I made this for you. Come on in."
He had laid out his dining room wall like a detective board.
"You see this?" he pointed to a child's photo. "This is me. I'm four."
"Okay - "
"And look at this," he pointed to another photo. He was the same age, singing with Alex, who looked just the same in the photograph as she did when they saw her today.
"Is that Alex's sister?" Sam asked.
"No, that's Alex. See?" Over three dozen other photographs documented Edward's childhood, teenage years, and even adulthood next to the ever-same Alex.
"Woah," Sam said, spotting Mervin in the same light. "And this is?"
He pointed to a man with a pipe in his mouth. "That's Siler, but his real name is Molo."
"I saw this guy," Dean commented. He meant Ariq, the man with the crutch.
Edward said, "He's called Ariq here, but he's actually the bonze, that's a kind of monk, from a story called the Miserly Farmer."
Sure enough, Edward had six people whose faces never changed in all his twenty-two years and the photographs to prove it.
"I lost the book," he whined. "So I needed to show you this. I needed you to see I'm not crazy."
"The man who gave you the book, Ogden, was he one of the people who never changed?"
"Yes! But I don't have photos of him."
Dean cut in. "Listen, Ed, we're glad you told us all this. We're going to take over from here."
"Take over?"
"We're going to free them from the curse," Sam said.
"How?" Ed asked. "I've already tried true love's kiss, salting the edges of the town, even tried to convince some of them of their past. Nothing works."
"None of those would break any curse," Dean said.
"What?"
"Leave it to us, the experts," Sam said. "If you get in our way, you might keep them stuck here forever."
Edward nodded.
"You should get some sleep," Sam suggested before they left.
"I say we destroy that book and be done with it," Dean said as soon as they were back in the hotel room.
Sam was on the phone. "No, everything's fine, Cas. Yes, I will tell Dean to call you as soon as we get done."
He hung up. "Cas gave me something that'll help us destroy this thing, we need - "
"Hoodoo? I brought all of it."
"Really?"
"We're near New Orleans, dude, hell yeah."
"You sure destroying this will work?"
"We've got freaking fairy tales here, Sam, I'm not sure of anything, butif that guy at the store was right, about the watch being here for fifty years at least, we gotta assume whoever put the whammy down must be dead."
Dean and Sam spent the next day wandering around Grand Isle, trying to see if destroying the book worked.
No. The white mule appeared and disappeared. Rocks turned into silver and gold, and all the while, flowers bloomed and animals gathered like they were in a fairyland.
"What the hell?" Sam asked. "Shouldn't this all be better now?"
"Yeah, well, I'm thinking that Ogden guy screwed us," Dean said.
Sam looked at his watch. "School gets out here at 2:05 pm."
"Thanks, Dr. Random."
"He's a teacher, Dean, I say we grab him at work."
"You think he's at work?"
"We should try."
Dean's phone rang. "Hello?"
"Dean, good, I got you, you need to get out of that town," Cas said.
"What why?"
"Demonic omens, a lot of them," Castiel said carefully. "And the angels know about it, they'll probably be there soon."
"When did they start?"
"Five days ago," he said. "I'm not sure what's going on, but it's not good."
"Cas, we can't blow town, this case here, we need to figure it out. I don't think the weirdo crap here is just a coincidence. Whatever's coming here, they're coming for whoever the hell is in this town."
"Dean, you're not making sense."
"Look, we're staying, okay?"
"I will join you."
"No, Cas, you can't," Dean said.
"You have Sam's truck, don't you?"
"Yeah, but - "
Cas hung up.
"Damnit," Dean said, rushing back to the truck with a confused Sam in his wake.
Sam took the wheel. Dean took shotgun.
"Cas," Dean whispered, poking his head to the window to the truck cap.
"Hello Sam, Dean," the angel said mildly. "What's going on?"
Deshane Ogden walked casually through the gym to his parking spot out back. It wasn't the fastest way out, but almost no one bothered him on his walk.
A stranger bumped into him. "So sorry," the man's voice rasped. "I'm a little lost."
"No problem," Deshane said. "Where are you going?"
Dean slipped a knife to his throat.
"He's our decoy," he whispered to Deshane. "Thanks Cas."
Dean winked. He actually winked. Sam wanted to throw up a little but held back.
"Wha - what's going on?" Deshane stuttered.
"Why did you lie to us about the book?" Sam demanded. "You didn't get it from the store."
"No, I did," the man's blue face looked even sicklier. "I did buy it - "
"Where's the watch?" Dean snarled.
"Pocket, pocket," he whimpered.
"Sam?" Dean said. "You wanna do the honors?"
Sam glared at his brother; like he wanted to grope around some guy's pocket.
He didn't have to because Deshane pulled it out. Sam took it and added it to the jar of solution he and Dean used on the book the night before. He shook it, then lit the contents on fire.
"Who are you?" Cas asked Deshane.
"I'm Deshane Ogden."
"No, who are you really?" Dean asked.
Edward paced in his house. This entire situation was maddening. All the lights in his house flickered.
"Hello," a woman said. When did she arrive?
"Hello," Edward said.
"I'm Olivia, who are you?"
"I'm Edward."
"Edward," she said his name softly. "I think you know why I'm here."
"For the fairy tale characters," Edward said. "You know about them?"
"I came here to help you with them, actually. This is your destiny. To save these, you called them fairy tale characters?"
"Yes."
"It's our destiny to save them."
"Our?"
"I can help you," she said. "That's why I am here. You and me, we're two pieces of the same puzzle. You know all about them, and I know how to free them. We just need to put it all together."
Edward felt the weight lifting from his shoulders. "Great, okay, well, the book... you know what, screw the book, we don't need it, let me show you..." And he was off.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Three: Red Herring
Next Part: >>>
Part Five: Anagnorisis
Primary Post: 09x09 Once Upon a Timepiece
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)