FIC: Supernatural - Shades of Comfort: 9- 14
Title: Shades of Comfort
Author: ghost4
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
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Chapter 9
Finding Owen turned out to be both easier and more difficult than Dean expected.
They'd walked maybe half a dozen halls, running into fewer and fewer shades as they got further from the morgue. As the number of shades lessened, they all began to relax, just a bit. And it wasn't long before Dean realized that wandering aimlessly through the halls was going to get them nowhere. They needed to think logically.
"So what would the nurses have done with unconscious patients?" Dean asked in general. "Apparently restrain them… for their own good."
Sam sent him a less than amused glance.
"Or shove things down their mouths," Gillian observed nervously.
"There is that." Dean agreed. Truth was, if that had happened to Owen, he would probably already be dead. Sam had been having trouble breathing within seconds. There was no way Owen would have survived that 'treatment' for this long. But the intubation thing might not have happened to Owen. Hospitals had a lot of treatments for different aliments.
"What else? What else might have happened?" Dean wracked his brain for things that happened in hospitals, especially hospitals that had functioned before modern medicine. The list he came up with had more possible nasty endings than good ones.
Gillian whimpered, apparently thinking along the same lines.
"Hey, c'mon, we're going to find him," Dean said, trying to smile at her.
Gillian looked up, surprised. "I know."
Dean glanced at Sam, who looked as confused as she was. "If you know, then why are whimpering?"
"I'm not whimpering."
And it was true… it was probably the first time all night she hadn't been crying.
Dean halted. "So then how was whimpering? I know I'm not crazy. Someone was whimpering -"
A soft, pathetic sob squeaked through the dark hall. "Okay, I know you had to have heard that," Dean said, irritated.
"Hear wha -" Gillian's voice cut off as Sam laid a hand on her arm.
Someone was whimpering. Pretty steadily now.
Gillian's eyes flared. "Owen! That has to be Owen! Owen!" she screamed. "Where are you?"
She bolted for the sound. They stumbled through the dark after her, down the cluttered hall to a double door. As Gillian pushed the door open, Sam snagged Dean's hand - and his lighter. He tugged it over to a plaque near the door. It read: Enemas and Purges.
"Dude," Dean said, a little bit of honest horror in his voice. "I think we found something worse than intubation."
Sam nodded bleakly.
"Guys!"
They moved, catching up with Gillian who had halted when faced with the inky blackness of the room. Dean's lighter couldn't show them much, but they could see the dull shine of dirty tile on the walls and the floor. As they moved into the room, Dean could make out what looked like shower stalls…but with open seated stools in them, and dirty, rubber bags hanging on the walls.
"Okay, this place has officially creeped me out, Sam," Dean said, knowing his face was twisted in disgust. "Really and truly."
Sam seemed to agree, his own face tight and a little green.
"Owen!" Gillian called again. "Owen, are you in here?"
There was a half sob in reply. "Gilly?"
"Owen! Owen! We're coming!" and she pushed on, dragging Sam and Dean along in her wake.
They quickly found Owen, bound in one of those weird stools in a stall in the back. He was shaking and sniffling. "Please get me loose! Now! Please!"
They all started working on the straps, as Owen trembled like a rabbit next to the highway. His shaking was making the job of feeing him hard then it had to be.
"Dude, calm down," Dean said. "You still have your pants. It can't have been too bad."
"Just get me out of here before they come back!"
"It would be easier if you'd stop. jerking. around!" The buckle came free in Dean's hands.
He gave Sam a look, and Sam rolled his eyes, freeing the guy's feet.
Owen bounded out of the chair so fast he nearly fell, and Gillian was there to catch him. They clung to each other.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Owen muttered over and over as Gillian wept against his shoulder.
"I thought I'd lost you to the darkness!" she sobbed.
"You almost did," Owen responded, sounding exhausted. "It was all I could do to hang on! There were so many of them, and all so angry!" He shuddered massively.
Dean pulled a face. "Oh, give me a break." He turned is back before he was forced to punch them both, and stepped away from the tearful reunion.
Sam stood up from his crouch, snapping his fingers to catch Dean's attention.
"What?"
He made the book sign again, and nodded at Owen.
"Do I have to talk to that guy?" Dean knew he was whining just a bit, but, damn it, it had been a long night and a bad one and he didn't want to talk to the Goth occult expert. He might just kill him, the mood he was in. He really might.
Sam gave him a familiar, irritated look. He pointed to his throat and glared.
Dean huffed. "Fine, but man, next case you have to do all the questioning."
Sam gave him a look so dry that the Serengeti looked lush in comparison.
"Okay, okay. Jeeze. If looks could kill." Dean quickly turned his attention to the little Goth who had caused all this mess. Sam looked like, the mood he was in, he might just kill him if he didn't get on with the questioning.
"Yo, Owen, can I get a minute of your time?"
The guy sniffed, stepping away from Gillian. His eyeliner had run from tears and sweat, and had become a heavy smudge across his face.
"Guy looks like a raccoon," Dean muttered to Sam.
Sam stomped on his foot.
"Ow! Dude!"
Sam just glared.
Dean shifted uncomfortably. "I'm just saying that it's just a little hard to take him seriously with him looking like an extra from the 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' video." Dean stared at the kid. "An ugly extra."
Sam shoved him, forcing him into Owen's eye line.
Owen's eyes flicked nervously between them. He was shivering. Gillian wrapped an arm around him.
Sam rolled his eyes.
"Okay, Owen," Dean started, trying to keep his tone light - but his palms itched with the urge to smack the kid upside the head for starting all this in the first place. "What do you know about the spell you used?"
Owen gulped, his eyes wide. "I didn't know it would do this! It wasn't supposed to do this!"
Sam scoffed.
Dean had to agree. "That spell did exactly what it was supposed to do, Owen."
"No!" Owen took an unconscious step back. "No, it was supposed to bring forth the ghosts - so we could document them. So people would stop laughing at me. That's all I wanted, I swear!"
"Well, whatever you wanted, this is what you did," Dean said implacably. "And now we need to know how to stop it."
"But I don't know how to stop it! Why don't we just leave?" Owen asked. He looked between them. "We should just get out of here."
"And leave this spell going so that any poor schlock who wanders in here gets to play the leading role in Misery? Yeah, that's an awesome idea."
"Well, what do you want me to do about it? I can't fight ghosts! Nobody can! They tied me up, man! There were tubes involved!" Owen shuddered like a dog shaking off water. "No. I'm getting out! And you should too." He grabbed Gillian's hand, marching past the brothers, intent on getting out while he could.
Until Sam reached out almost casually and snagged his collar. Sam, who was close to a foot taller than Owen and not in a good mood.
Dean grinned as Owen squeaked. It wasn't a friendly expression.
"Dude, my head hurts, my brother's a mute, and you started this whole thing. You're staying."
Owen's eyes darted between them. "I-I guess I can d-do that…"
*
Chapter 8 Chapter 10