Criminal Minds/Supernatural Fic: When You Are Done 6/6
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When he heard the first scream, Sam’s gut tightened so much he was afraid he was going to have to stop running. If Dean died, if a fucking librarian killed Dean, Sam didn’t know what he would do. Without his brother, Sam didn’t know if he could stand Lucifer’s weekly visits; without his brother to make fun of “Lucy’s” increasingly elaborate and heart wrenching visits, Sam doubted he’d be able to continue to refuse the offer.
And then he’d doom the world. Again.
So when he passed a large hole and ran into a clearing, Castiel right on his heels, he wasn’t prepared for the intense desire to kill his brother.
Sam stopped dead at the sight. His brother was laughing. His brother and Agent Prentiss were sitting on a log laughing and Sam reminded himself that fratricide (in front of a federal agent, no less) was not the answer.
Castiel passed Sam and walked over to check on Dean and Prentiss. “Are you well?” he asked.
“Cas!” Dean exclaimed. “What are you doing here? I though you were looking for God on tacos in Peru!”
Castiel shook his head. “I am here because you were not. Your brother worried that Zachariah might have taken you. Also, I have not tried Peru yet.” Although, if Sam was reading his tone right, that was probably going to be his next stop.
“Nah, not a lot of missionaries around,” Dean replied, then burst into laughter. “Emily, this is Cas. I was looking for him last time we met. Cas, this is Emily Prentiss-she’s awesome.”
Dean finally noticed Sam standing in the shadows. “Sammy! You should have heard Emily’s story about stealing a car in Saudi Arabia-I nearly died laughing.”
Agent Prentiss waved from her perch, wiping a tear from her eye. “Please, that’s nothing compared to your pink panty story Dean.”
“Dean! Agent Prentiss, you’re both alive!” Finally, the expected rush of relief flowed through him; he was so very relieved to find them both alive. He had been entertaining visions of finding Carsen hunched over them, gun or knife in hand, their bodies barely warm. A few years ago, Sam would have been appalled at his utter lack of disgust at seeing Carsen’s ruined body a few feet away. Instead, all he felt was cold satisfaction that the man had met his just desserts.
Sam thought back to Prentiss’ last statement. “Wait a minute, pink panty story? Dean, how come I’ve never heard this story?”
Dean and Prentiss started laughing again. Sam felt the first trickle of concern at the sound. While his brother had a fondness for pranks, he’d never been the kind of fall off his chair laughing. Or fall off a log as it fit the current situation. Both Dean and Agent Prentiss were bruised and bloody; Agent Prentiss had a hell of a shiner developing along her right cheek and Dean was clutching his ribs as he struggled to get back to her former perch on the log.
Sam looked closer, noticing that Dean’s dress shirt cuffs were stained red and his wrists were bloody. And then he caught Agent Prentiss’ shiver. How he could have missed it, or his brother’s, wasn’t clear. Both were still in suits - the thin material no match for the harsh weather. Sam slid off the jacket he’d stolen from Carsen’s house and draped it over Prentiss’ shoulders.
“I’m fine,” she slurred in protest. “Dean doesn’t even have shoes, he should get the jacket.”
Dean shook his head. “‘M not even cold, you take it. We can switch off later.”
Sam looked at Castiel. “Is there anything you can do for them,” he asked quietly. “Warm ‘em up, heal them?”
Castiel shook his head sadly. “Healing has never been my strong suit.”
“Can’t you can just beam ‘em to a hospital?”
“Without regular access to the Host, my powers are limited and bringing the extra FBI agents with us from the station has strained them greatly.” He thought for a moment. “I cannot transport them without severely overtaxing my powers.”
“You’re telling me just beaming two extra people from one part of town to another is enough to knock you out of the game now?” Sam asked doubtfully.
Castiel frowned. “It has been a long week, Samuel. My quest to find my father has not been without difficulties. As it is, I have lost much time, too much time, on this adventure with little to show for it. But I will see what I can do.”
Castiel walked over to the log where Dean and Prentiss were sitting and placed two fingers on their foreheads. Dean leaned away quickly.
“No zapping, orbing or beaming or whatever the hell you want to call it,” Dean said loudly. “No way. I couldn’t poop for a week last time you tried that.”
Prentiss looked concerned. “That’s not good. I wonder why?”
“It was not my doing,” Castiel protested. “Perhaps you should choose a diet with more bifidus regularis. And possibly fiber…”
“Dude, did you just reference an Activia commercial?” Dean asked incredulously.
“Angels watch TV?” Prentiss demanded. “I don’t even get to watch TV! CCD never went over this kind of thing.”
Sam felt like slapping all of them. They were stuck in the woods, two of them fairly seriously injured, and they wanted to debate Dean’s bowel function? “Hey guys, if you let the nice angel do his thing, we can get back to the issue of getting you back to civilization?”
“You know where it is?” Dean asked. “That’s m’boy!” He struggled to his feet. “Let’s go Sammy, get a move on.”
“You are well enough to travel?” Castiel questioned Dean fussily.
“Course,” Dean replied.
“I do not believe you,” Castiel said. Before Prentiss or Dean could protest, he placed his hands on their foreheads once again and closed his eyes in concentration. “Is that better?”
“Dude, you rock,” Dean replied. “My own angelic space heater! I can feel my nose again. That’s awesome, thanks.”
Prentiss nodded gratefully from her seat as well.
“It won’t last long,” Castiel warned. “I must return to my quest.”
He vanished, not even leaving a set of footprints in the snow to show he’d once been present. Sam wasn’t sure why he was surprised; Castiel tended to leave pretty quickly once the action was over. But he couldn’t help feeling a bit upset that Cas had left him alone with two broken and addled adults. Hopefully Agent Hotchner would be able to follow his trail; he’d left the older agent behind almost immediately after spotting the ATV tracks, but he’d need all the help he could find to get his brother and Agent Prentiss back to town.
Prentiss stood unsteadily and walked around the area Castiel had vanished from warily. “Did he really just disappear?”
“Angel,” Dean reminded her. “They do that. A lot as it turns out.”
“Dean,” Sam asked, “can you really walk?”
Dean looked at him flatly. “What other choice do we have?”
Sam looked down, saw his own footprints, then wanted to slap himself. The trail! Walk? He was almost as big an idiot as Bobby constantly accused him of. “Give me a minute Dean, I’ve got an idea you’re going to like so much better.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I think I hear something, I’ll call you right back,” Hotch said, ignoring JJ’s protests and hanging up his cell phone. JJ and Dave were sure to give him hell later for staying out in the field far later than he should, but there was no way he was going to abandon the search now.
A motor was approaching him, loud and high-pitched, all wrong for a car. Snowmobile or ATV, he supposed. Hotch stopped, hopefully whoever was driving could give him a clue-some area that Carsen jealously protected from trespassers, a cave system, something that might help him find Prentiss.
He didn’t expect to see his agent carefully driving the ATV, another passenger tightly gripped behind her, nor Sam Winchester casually jogging besides the vehicle. They were all smiling. And debating loudly.
“So, if sirens are real and witches are real, does that mean minotaurs, giants, and centaurs are real?” Prentiss was asking.
“I sure as hell hope not,” Dean replied. “Odysseus was kind of an ass. My best guess is half that stuff was just exaggeration.”
Before Sam could respond, Prentiss caught sight of Hotch. “Hotch!” she shouted gleefully as she stopped the ATV and let it idle. “We found you!”
“I think technically Sam found you,” Hotch stated cheerfully, shooting a relieved grin at Prentiss.
“Yay,” Sam replied wearily, “Let’s all get back to the house in one piece.”
He pulled back and murmured to Hotch, “Carsen was dead when I got there; his body’s at the end of the tracks about 3 miles back. Prentiss and Dean are both a little addled, neither are tracking well and both stopped shivering about three or four minutes ago.”
Hotch remembered just enough from his bi-annual certification to know that wasn’t a good sign. “I’ll call ahead for an ambulance.”
“Thanks,” Sam replied. “I would have, but my cell didn’t make the trip when Cas grabbed us.”
As Hotch dialed, he watched Sam jog to catch up to the ATV. The careful way he patted his brother’s shoulder, the relieved grin. Dean must have said something, because Sam grinned and laughed, the open expression making him seem years younger.
Hotch though of Sean suddenly, about the way they constantly tiptoed around the verbal minefields that dotted their childhoods and adolescences. He thought of the long pauses between conversations, the perfunctory monthly calls made to check-in rather than truly talk, the awkward moments that occurred when he realized he knew very little about his brother as a person. Hotch made a mental note to invite Sean over for a long weekend once he returned from the course he was taking in Paris.
“JJ, I found them. We’re coming in.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The sudden silence always surprised him. Every time, it was as if someone had flipped a switch. Dean Winchester and Prentiss had been bundled into state trooper cars, too far from the nearest hospital to wait for ambulances when neither patient required stabilization.
Bobby, who Rossi was positive he’d seen before, had swatted both Winchesters on the head for making him worry and left as well, following the state troopers in his beaten up van to the hospital. JJ, Reid, and Morgan had elected to go with Prentiss, and neither Rossi or Hotch had the heart to deny their requests after the long day-besides, the evidence wasn’t going anywhere, not with Carsen dead and the local police in firm control of the crime scene.
Hotch joined him in the living room, the joy of finding Prentiss alive still obvious despite his exhaustion. He dropped heavily onto one of the plaid sofas. Rossi would feel guilty for what he was about to do save for the fact he knew Hotch would do the same thing if their positions were reversed.
“So what the hell happened out there?”
“Carsen was dead when we finally found his body,” Hotch replied wearily. “Dave, his heart had been pulled from his chest…we found it a few feet from his body.”
“Somebody had a pretty ironic sense of justice,” Rossi replied. “You think Winchester…” the question trailed off.
“Neither Prentiss nor Winchester had the kind of spatter on them that would indicate they were responsible.” Hotch looked pensive. “By the time I got there with the other troopers, the coroner estimated he’d been dead about two hours or so, which backs up Sam Winchester’s story of Carsen being dead when he got to the scene. And I didn’t get a chance to ask Prentiss or Dean Winchester what happened before they were taken to the hospital.”
Rossi frowned, memories of what had been responsible for the string of murders last time he met the Winchester brothers dredged to the surface. “You think it was their kind of thing?”
Hotch shrugged and sank back into the sofa.
“Our lives have gotten inordinately more difficult since meeting them,” Rossi finally said.
“JJ told me what she and Reid found in the basement,” Hotch replied. “I’d say our life was pretty difficult even before we knew about the Winchester’s world.”
Rossi nodded pensively. “Garcia did some digging,” he mentioned after a few minutes of silence. “She talked to the former fiancé, Cathryn Harding, who I’m sure you’ll be surprised to find out is a brunette about five foot, six inches.”
Hotch groaned. “She the stressor?”
“Looks like,” Rossi conceded, rubbing his temples. “Apparently she called off the wedding to Thomas Harris when she came home one night and found her cat dead by her back door. Apparently Harris never liked the cat, but refused to take responsibility for killing it. According to Harding, she said the whole thing felt rehearsed and it was like she didn’t know him, so she called off the wedding.”
Hotch looked around the darkened room. “Probably a good call.”
“Kind of. Didn’t work out for her so well the first few years afterwards,” Rossi said. “Apparently she’d get letters, never with a postmark but she said it was obvious they were from him. They all said the same thing-she tore out his heart, he’d never love again, there wasn’t anything wrong with him, she was the one with the problem, and so on.”
“Jesus.”
Rossi nodded. “Apparently he just stopped sending them about ten years ago.”
“Because he found something better,” Hotch said slowly, his hands in his head. “He’s killing her over and over again. Did JJ and Reid tell you we found an additional three jars in the basement freezer? We may never know who they were.”
“I heard,” Rossi replied as he crossed the room. He placed an arm on Hotch’s shoulder. “He’s done now though, focus on that. C’mon, we can figure it out later, let’s go see Prentiss.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Morgan wasn’t sitting guard, not matter what Prentiss, JJ, or Reid might say. He was simply sitting in the best chair in the room, which just so happened to have a perfect view of the door, the nurse’s station, the elevators, and the stairs. Rearranging the chair’s position had nothing to do with sight lines, it had just been a matter of comfort.
Prentiss was virtually unrecognizable cocooned under heavy blankets with bruises fully developed across her cheek. Still, she was laughing at the story Reid was telling, and the sight loosened the knot that had formed in his chest at her disappearance.
He saw their slow approach, but didn’t want to interrupt the joke JJ had taken over from Reid. Dean Winchester shuffled into the room, now out of the cheap suit, dressed in jeans and a black hoodie that swallowed him. Given the man’s size, that was a pretty impressive feat. Sam Winchester hovered behind him, also dressed in civvies.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Prentiss laughed when she noticed the newcomers.
“You’re telling me,” Dean replied hoarsely. “How you doing?”
“I’m fine, the doctors just want to keep me here overnight as a precaution.” She frowned, “How’d you get out?”
“Against medical advice,” Sam replied grumpily. “Because he’s an idiot with a traumatic brain injury, why not ignore the professionals?”
“C’mon Sammy,” Dean protested. “I’m fine dude, nothing some sleep and some blankets won’t cure. No reason to be in the hospital for that.”
“Then why’s Agent Prentiss still in a hospital bed?” Sam replied waspishly.
Dean was adamant. “Dude, I’m not staying here. I promise, I’ll be the best patient ever-you and Bobby can keep me up to my eyeballs in liquids and blankets and I won’t even whine. But I’m not staying here.”
Sam didn’t look convinced, but Morgan was betting that if he’d really wanted his brother to stay in the hospital, he would be.
“We just wanted to say goodbye before we headed back to town,” Sam said.
“Well, Bobby kind of told us we had to or we’d be walking back,” Dean admitted. He looked at Prentiss intently. “You ok, with everything?”
“Yeah,” Prentiss replied, “Or, I will be.”
“So it goes,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Take care of yourself.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam poked Dean in the shoulder for the third time in the last twenty minutes. “C’mon dude, no sleep for you,” he said.
Dean batted his hand away irritably. “Not asleep Sammy,” he mumbled, his eyes barely opened. “Just enjoying the warm.”
If his brother got any closer to the Impala’s heater, Sam was afraid the vents would be permanently imprinted on his face. When he said as much, his brother opened an eye and mumbled, “I’d still be prettier than you asswipe.”
“Jerk,” he retorted.
Dean continued to doze - and Sam continued to poke him - on the drive back to their motel.
“Glad that you found me Sammy,” Dean said when they finally pulled into the parking lot, Bobby’s van parked next to their room.
“Anytime,” Sam replied, turning off the ignition. Now that they were safe (and what did it say about their lives that a motel parking lot was considered safe space), Sam exhaled loudly. “C’mon, let’s get you into the room.”
The door opened as Sam frogmarched his brother from the car. “What are you waiting for?” Bobby demanded gruffly from inside the room. “An engraved invitation? Get your sorry asses in here.”
Sam didn’t notice the coolers set on the small folding table until after he’d dumped his brother in bed and set his cell to ring in three hours. “What are those?” he asked Bobby suspiciously.
“Just tying up loose ends,” Bobby said innocently, ignoring Sam’s glare as he took in the bright yellow “crime scene” tape across each of the three coolers. “Seems like you and Dean actually like these FBI folks, didn’t think they’d appreciate a host of nasty visitors.”
Sam thought for a moment. “It’s not like they need them to make a case against Carsen. He’s dead. And they did do us a pretty big favor when we ran into them in Missouri-Agent Hotchner didn’t need to let us go. Might as well return the favor.”
“Exactly,” Bobby beamed.
At the end of the day, the good guys had all walked away. Given the last few months (years), Sam was going to count that as a win.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
~Socrates
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
EPILOGUE
Reid ignored Morgan’s steady stream of complaints with a practiced ear. Yes, it was cold, yes, it was dark, but it wasn’t like they could do this during the day. He thought Morgan had understood that when he demanded to go along.
“Why the hell do we need to do this again?”
Reid sighed. “The only way to get rid of a spirit is to salt and burn all parts of the body. Carsen, and his heart, were cremated so we don’t have to worry about him coming back. But so far there aren’t any evidence logs for the other bones Prentiss thinks are in the hole she was held in.”
“Humor me for a moment,” Morgan said. “We’re breaking into a federal crime scene so we can pour lighter fluid and table salt into a big pit to make sure no other ghosts start haunting the area?”
Reid winced. It wasn’t like he was looking forward to breaking the laws he had sworn to uphold. But there wasn’t anything in the FBI bylaws (and he had checked, twice) that dealt with the possibility of ghostly murderers. They had enough on their plate with human serial offenders; if breaking into the crime scene meant they wouldn’t be called back in the event that the spirits of Carsen’s other victims grew strong enough to attack innocents, than Morgan was just going to have to suck it up. “I think the clearing is just ahead, the report said it was about three miles away and we’ve done that easily.”
“Pretty boy, even if we do manage to find, salt, and burn every bone in the pit don’t we still have to worry about the hearts Carsen kept in the freezer?” Morgan asked as they continued to make their way through the fresh snow that had blanketed the area last night. “And some quack stole those before they even had a chance to enter them into the evidence log. So according to your rules, won’t Carsen’s victims still have a shot at coming back as ghosts because a part of them still exists?”
“They aren’t my rules,” Reid protested as he ducked under the police tape. “Besides, finding the bones should be relatively easy-an initial crime report claimed there was a large quantity of dermestid beetles in the area. So we’ll really only need to look for…” He froze and dropped low to the ground. There was someone else at the crime scene, walking around the perimeter of the hole Prentiss and Dean had been held in the previous day.
Reid made a sharp gesture to Morgan. The older man swore under his breath and pulled out his gun. “FBI! Put your hands up and turn around!”
A tall figure turned around slowly, then dropped his arms. “Agent Morgan? Dr. Reid? What are you two doing here?” Sam Winchester asked.
Morgan nodded at the salt shaker and lighter fluid Winchester was holding. “Same thing as you it looks like. Needed to finish the job.”
“I thought you left town,” Reid asked curiously.
Sam still looked confused. “I made Dean go with Bobby, I’m pretty sure he’s got bronchitis on top of the head injury, but the idiot won’t admit he’s sick. Bobby should be able to keep him in bed for a while at least. Only way he’d go was if I promised to take care of this.”
“You really think the other victims could become ghosts,” Morgan asked doubtfully. “Wouldn’t they have done so already?”
Sam shrugged. “You can never tell. Dean said he wasn’t even sure Grace Nichols was going to come back. He apparently spent a lot of time talking to a bone and rubbing it in hopes of awakening her spirit.”
Morgan and Reid stared.
Sam looked embarrassed on his brother’s behalf. “Not usually how we do things, but you work with what you’ve got. Now why are you two doing this-isn’t destruction of evidence a pretty big no-no for the FBI?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Reid said softly.
“Wait a minute,” Morgan said. “How much good is this really going to do? Reid was saying you needed to burn all body parts to prevent…ghosts-and the victims’ hearts were stolen.”
Sam rubbed his head. “You guys really don’t need to worry about it,” he said, discomfited.
Morgan was pissed off. “You stole evidence?”
“That’s rich coming from you, what are you here to do?” Sam hissed. He visibly calmed himself down before looking chagrined. “Besides, I didn’t steal the coolers.”
“Who did?” Reid asked.
Sam grinned. “Bobby can be a tricky guy sometimes. You guys ready to work?” He picked up a shovel and headed towards the hole in the ground.
“Wait a minute,” Morgan protested. “Why do we need a shovel? Don’t we already have a pretty big hole right in front of us?”
Sam grinned broadly over his shoulder, an expression Reid usually equated with his phys ed teachers and the trainers at the FBI academy. It was an expression that promised lots of hard work, physical pain, and the inability to move normally for a week. “Agent Reid, you read all about this. You know why we’re going to need a shovel.”
Reid swallowed. This was going to be fun.
The End
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