fic: Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail (SPN; Sam and Dean; pg)
Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg; spoilers through Jus in Bello; 5,625 words
"Five dead homeless guys? This is your case? It doesn't exactly scream demonic possession."
Written for luzdeestrellas for her birthday ♥ ♥ ♥ (and also for the West Wing title project). Thanks to merryish for looking it over and amberlynne for handholding.
~*~
Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail
"Five dead homeless guys? This is your case?" Sam says, toweling his hair dry with one hand and tossing the newspaper Dean's just handed him onto the bed with the other. "It doesn't exactly scream demonic possession."
"Five in two weeks, all young guys in their twenties or thirties," Dean says. "All of 'em beaten to a pulp and all of 'em found in the same neighborhood."
"It's probably just some rough trade that got out of hand." Sam takes the towel back into the bathroom--unlike some people, who leave their wet towels lying on the carpet or the bed--and then starts pulling his clothes on. "It's sad and fucked up, but it's not our job."
"I got a feeling about this one, Sammy. You know my gut is never wrong."
"I know my whole respiratory system resents your gut's inability to process sauerkraut, and your continued insistence on eating it anyway." He doesn't think about how he'll even miss that when Dean's--if Dean--He shakes his head. He's not thinking about it.
"Whatever, Sammy. We're only a couple hours away. We should check it out."
Sam shoves his clothes into his duffel and bites back a comment on how what they should be doing is tracking the demon who owns Dean's contract, because there's only a few weeks left until it comes due, and they don't have time to be chasing down random deaths that are probably nothing but the result of urban decay and gang violence.
He can't say that, though. They've already had that conversation in every possible way and it's gotten them nowhere. And Dean does have an almost unerring instinct for finding cases that turn out to be right up their alley.
"Fine. But if you're wrong, you're doing the digging for the next two months."
Dean snorts. "Fine, but I'm not wrong."
Sam grunts noncommittally and carries his bag out to the car, determined to make sure Dean will be around to fulfill that promise.
***
Sam frowns down at the body on the metal table, then looks back up at the morgue attendant. "So you're saying these bruises were inflicted post-mortem?"
The dead man's chest and face are mottled with bruises, lip split, left eye swollen shut, like something out of a Rocky movie.
The attendant nods. "Many of them were, yes."
"Looks like he went nine rounds with Mike Tyson," Dean mutters.
"That's the weird thing," the attendant says. "The pattern of bruising suggests that the victim was upright when they were inflicted. Even the ones post-mortem."
Sam looks over at Dean, who gives him an I told you so smirk and says, "So they strung him up and beat him after he was dead?"
The attendant shakes his head. "No ligature marks on his wrists. I suppose he could have been propped up for a while when rigor mortis set in." He shrugs. "Like I said. Weird."
"And there were four others like this guy? All within a two-week period?" Dean asks, scribbling something in his notebook like the diligent reporter he's pretending to be.
"Yeah." The attendant nods towards the bank of refrigerated drawers against the wall. "Though there were old bruises on the others, as well. Like they'd been beaten repeatedly prior to death, and then whoever it was just kept going."
"Were the other victims identified?" Sam asks.
"Three were homeless John Does, like this guy. Nobody came to claim 'em, so we took DNA samples and pictures, and cremated 'em." He waves at the wall of lockers again. "Don't have room to keep them around indefinitely. The second guy we were able to identify and contact his family." He goes over to the desk, flips through some paperwork, copies a name and address onto a card and hands it to Dean. "I'd say I'm surprised anybody's actually interested in the deaths of some random homeless guys, but it's an election year."
Sam tries for compassionate but just sounds tired when he replies, "Someone's gotta look out for the poor bastards." He even still wishes it were true.
***
"Ethan was--" Rebecca Sebatsky wrinkles her nose, twists up her lips, like she's looking for the right words. "Ethan was troubled, I guess. That's what my mother used to say."
"Troubled?" Dean prompts, leaning forward and attempting to look sincere. Sam wants to elbow him, because Dean's attempts at sincere often fail spectacularly, but Rebecca's face smoothes out, her mouth curving into a rueful smile. Dean's charm with women often succeeds where his sincerity doesn't. It's one mystery Sam's never been able to solve. He'd really like more time to work on it.
"He got involved with drugs, dropped out of college, spent a lot of time living on the street." She sniffs, and rubs away the beginnings of tears under her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. "Pretty typical, I guess. He'd get clean for a few weeks or months, come home--my mother never turned him away--and then he'd fall back into the life." She shakes her head. "When Mom was in the hospital, he cleaned up his act, even got a job down at C Town. But when she died, that was it. He didn't come back from that."
The living room is small and cluttered with bookshelves and knickknacks; framed photographs line the wall along the stairway--Rebecca and Ethan and their mother over the years: baby pictures, high school graduation, family vacations. In the later ones, Ethan looks thin, Mrs. Sebatsky, worn. Rebecca's hair fluctuates between big and bigger (though at the moment, it's flat and lifeless), and Sam is distracted for a few seconds thinking about the hole in the ozone caused by the amount of hairspray she must use.
He doesn't let that show on his face.
"Do you know any of his friends?" Dean asks. "Someone who might be able to tell us what it was he was into when this happened?"
"What he was into? Are you fucking kidding me?" Her head swivels on her neck like a cobra about to strike, and her nearly non-existent accent suddenly thickens, reminding Sam that they're in New Jersey. "You think he brought his junkie friends home to meet his mother?"
"Miss Sebatsky--" Sam says, clenching his jaw so he doesn't give in to the urge to glare at Dean for setting her off.
"Yeah, sure, I have his dealer on my speed dial." She takes a sip of water from her sports bottle and then a deep breath. "Sorry. I just--" She shakes her head. "Last time we talked, he said he had a line on some kinda job over in the West Ward, but he wouldn't say what it was. I--I figured I was better off not knowing." She deflates, and without anger to prop her up, she looks small and sad. "I should've asked. I should've done something."
"There was nothing you could have done," Sam assures her, though he knows nobody in the room believes him. He stands and tucks his notebook into his pocket. "Thanks for your time, Miss Sebatsky."
She rises with them, pushes a hand through her hair, and he can see the circles under her eyes, the fine lines around her mouth. Sam guesses she's in her early thirties, but she looks older, the strain of her brother's life, and death, taking its toll. "He was my brother. I would have done anything to help him, but he was a junkie. Do you understand what that means?" Dean murmurs something that sounds like, "Yeah," but she doesn't stop talking. "I couldn't help him when he was alive, and I can't help him now that he's dead. I can't--" Her voice breaks, and it takes her a minute to get it back under control. "I hope you find the bastards that did this to him."
"We're gonna do our best," Sam promises, though he's not sure it means anything to her. He's not sure it should.
***
"Well, that was useful," Dean says, when they're back in the car. He loosens his tie, his face tight and pinched, mouth turned down in a frown, and eases the car out into the flow of traffic.
"We're still not even sure this is anything but what it looks like on the surface, Dean--a bunch of homeless guys getting beaten to death."
"I'm thinking zombies," Dean says.
"You're always thinking zombies."
Dean shrugs. "Nasty fuckers, but it fits."
Sam doesn't argue. Sometimes, he wonders how Dean functions with the level of compartmentalization he's got going on inside his head.
They drive through residential neighborhoods, watch kids walking home from school and old men sitting outside of storefronts, enjoying the spring afternoon, the old bones of their bodies, of the houses, bearing up under the bright sunshine. Old and worn houses give way to shiny new offices and shops downtown, the performing arts center and the hockey arena, and then the new and shiny fades into seedy and downright disreputable.
The weight of the gun in his waistband, metal warmed to body-temperature, is comforting now, as they field hard-eyed stares from drug dealers and prostitutes, out even in daylight in a neighborhood that hasn't yet heard that Newark is having a renaissance.
He's got the Colt tucked away, too, in the inside pocket of his jacket; since they got it back from Bela, neither of them is willing to let it out of their sight, and today's Sam's day to carry it.
They stop at a light and Dean rolls down a window and beckons. The boys on the corner disperse slowly, unafraid but unwilling to be annoyed, muffled mutter of five-oh sweeping across the street. The hookers eye them warily, but one girl detaches herself from the group and comes over with less of a strut than a trudge, wide hips barely swinging.
"You know this guy?" Dean asks, pulling out the picture of Ethan Sebatsky.
Her eyes are dark and hard, and there's a red sore on her upper lip. She pokes at it with the pink tip of her tongue before shaking her head. "White boy like that be selling his ass in West Side Park, maybe. Not here."
"Thanks," Dean says, rolling the window up and rolling through the intersection as the light changes. "Garmin makes a pretty kickass GPS unit," he says after they've driven a few blocks. "You might want to look into that."
Sam's never had the same sense for back roads and shortcuts and roundabout routes that Dean has; he's always been one for straight lines and highways, cutting through obstacles instead of finding a way around.
"Dean."
"With the FBI off our backs, it couldn't hurt. I mean, don't keep it on all the damn time, but if you've got nobody to navigate while you're driving--" Dean shrugs, leaves the sentence hanging. They've already had the fight about Sam partnering with someone else if Dean dies, but Dean still doesn't know that Sam spent months hunting without him, and Sam still can't bring himself to tell him, to compound the horror of that hundred Tuesdays with another hundred days of misery, not when the clock is ticking down again.
"You can buy it for me for my birthday," he says, and Dean shoots him a rueful half-grin as they turn onto 17th Street, telling him he already did.
They look too much like cops to get anywhere with the people in the park, though one kid--he can't be more than fourteen, Sam thinks, feeling ill--tells them to come back later, "Tonight, when Jamie's here. He knows everybody, might have a line on your boy." The kid eyes Dean up and down and licks his lips in exaggerated invitation, but Dean's already turned and walked away, anxious about leaving his car untended for too long in the car theft capital of the world.
Sam looks at the kid, thin shoulders and pale grubby skin, dirty brown hair that's too long and in need of washing, sick-sweet smell of pot and malt liquor layered over sweat and body odor. "Thanks," he says, handing the kid five bucks and wondering why he and Dean ever thought they could save anyone, let alone each other.
***
Dean's shoulders are tense and his mouth pinched when he says, "We've got a few hours before it gets dark. Let's have an early dinner."
"Dean." Sometimes it feels like the only thing Sam has left to say, the only thing Dean can't argue with.
"You like Portuguese food, Sammy?"
Sam blinks. "I don't think I've ever had Portuguese food."
"Me neither. I think it's about time we did. It's supposed to be awesome."
Sam steels himself, but Dean leaves it there, doesn't add anything. He reaches out and cups the back of Sam's neck for a second, the touch warm and familiar. Sam closes his eyes, imprints the feel of it on his memory for the hundred thousandth time, and even knowing it'll never be enough, he lets himself be comforted.
***
The restaurant is more upscale than the places Dean generally picks (they keep their jackets on, and Dean only complains about it half a dozen times, and not at all once the food arrives), and dinner is excellent.
Neither of them is looking forward to the next part of the night. They head back to the hotel, Dean grumbling about fucking crazy inflation, but Sam's seen the rates charged by most hotels in the area, and he's not complaining about the Best Western at the airport. It's not like they haven't put up with much worse than the roar of engines overhead, and God knows what the local no-tell motel--usually Dean's first choice of accommodation--actually looks like. Chains are safer in big cities. Even Dad conceded that.
"We have time for a nap," Dean says as he sheds his shirt and tie, stripping down to boxer-briefs and crawling under the covers, clothes draped over the desk chair.
Sam changes more slowly, removing what he's come to think of as--what Dean's always referred to as--his dress up clothes. He can admit it now, to himself anyway, that he's never been comfortable in that skin, never felt real dressed up as a reporter or cop or insurance agent, covered in layers of respectability he'd craved but never earned. Isn't sure he'd have managed it as a lawyer, if he'd ever gotten to be one. Jess used to tell him he'd grow into it, but he never got the chance. Now he's not sure he really wanted it.
He goes into the bathroom, washes up, stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, circles under his eyes, hair dark with water and pushed off his forehead, and has to resist the urge to punch the glass, feel it shatter under his fist. He's not sure his luck could get any worse, but he doesn't want to test the theory.
Dean's curled up on his side, cocooned in the comforter and breathing deep and easy when Sam comes out. He looks over at the other bed, sighs, and slips in behind Dean. He presses his face to the sweaty nape of Dean's neck, breathing in hair gel and perspiration, holding himself ready for an elbow to the chest if Dean's actually awake enough to object.
He isn't, and Sam settles his arm over the jut of Dean's hip, fingers coming to rest on the warm skin of his belly beneath his t-shirt. Dean snuffles and rubs his cheek against the pillow, the strain around his eyes and mouth eased in sleep, and Sam feels the tension in his body seep away for a little while.
***
"I hate this," Dean mutters, ignoring the whistles and catcalls and come-ons from various hustlers and hookers and corner boys as they walk through the park.
Even in jeans and flannels, they're taken for cops (hunters), and of all the things people are offering them, help isn't one of them.
They find Jamie, though, sitting in a lawn chair, feet propped up on an old boombox blasting rap music loud enough to rattle Sam's bones, two gold teeth winking at them from his smile. He turns the radio down, says, "Kevin said you be looking for Ethan. You know he's dead, right?"
"Yeah," Dean says, and Sam is happy to let him take point for these conversations. "We're looking for who made him that way."
"Wasn't me, man. He was a good customer, always had cash to spend." Jamie cups his chin in his hand for a second, like he's thinking, then his teeth flash again, a trickster's smile Sam doesn't trust. "Maybe you should check out his friends in the basement." He points to a building fronting the park, windows boarded up and a flicker of light from the brown metal door propped open to the evening air.
Sam is still not sure this is their kind of case, and one look at that door makes him not care, hair on the back of his neck standing up and a chill shivering down his spine.
Dean nods once, short and sharp, his jaw set in a tight line. "Thanks, man."
"You know," Sam says as they walk towards the door, "we could just scrap this and go to Disney."
Dean's got his gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and one eyebrow cocked in disbelief. "You still nursing a hard-on for Ariel?"
Sam chokes back a laughing denial, all business now, as they step through the door. There's a stairwell heading down and noise rising up out of it, like a crowd cheering at some kind of sporting event.
"Hey, hey, we got some fine specimens here." The guy has both their guns pointed at his head and he manages to sound cool. "You boys looking to fight, you came to the right place." Another guy comes up the stairs behind him, shotgun in hand, but the first guy shakes him off. "No weapons, though. Mano a mano, you know what I'm saying?"
Sam glances at Dean, who gives a tiny why not? shrug, and moves to follow when the guy leads them down the stairs.
The noise gets louder, and the air is hazy and pungent with smoke, stale beer, body odor, and the damp mustiness of a basement in the spring. The first floor has been ripped out, leaving a cavernous room, noise echoing loud and fierce through the haze. A square is roped off in the center, and two guys are circling in it, shirtless and emaciated and covered in bruises. They don't look healthy enough to stand upright for long periods of time, let alone inflict that kind of damage, but one throws a pretty good punch and the other takes the hit without going down, though it takes him a few seconds to shake it off, launch a punch of his own. They start trading blows, the crowd screaming raucously, and a striped-shirted referee watching impassively.
Dean mutters, "Illegal homeless boxing? Seriously?"
Sam snorts, laughter bubbling up inside, and he has to bite his lip to keep from letting it out.
One guy knocks the other down, and the referee counts to ten before raising the winner's hand. The loser drags himself up slowly, bruises already blossoming on his face and chest.
"You boys are next," their host says, and his armed shadow gestures with the shotgun. "No shirts, no boots, no weapons, capisce?"
"Yeah," Dean says sourly, shrugging out of his jacket and pulling off his shirts. "But if any of our stuff is missing--" He slides his gun into the pile of shirts with a frown, and Sam follows suit, tucking his weapons away carefully, making sure nothing is tangled if he needs to grab something quickly.
"That's not the stuff we're interested in."
There's something in his tone that makes Sam hesitate, but Dean just snorts in derision. "Sorry, chief, you're not my type."
"Just get in the ring." The guy folds his arms across his chest and glares, which probably intimidates most of the junkies and the hustlers, but which has nothing on some of the things Sam's seen, and that's not even taking into account his father on a bad day.
When Dean squats down to untie his boots, Sam does, too. "So it looks like the digging's all yours for the next two months," he says, the words thick and dry on his tongue.
"Double or nothing," Dean says, which is as close as he'll come to admitting Sam's won. "I'm gonna kick your ass in the ring and then the digging's all yours for four months. But I get to light the matches." His voice doesn't shake; it's full of quiet conviction, as if he actually has four months and more, instead of four weeks left.
"Bring it on," Sam answers hoarsely, chest tight at Dean's hope, or maybe his capacity for self-deception, and his own inability to fulfill it, the knowledge that in four months, he'll be doing all the digging himself anyway. "And leave the knife in your boot." Dean huffs in annoyance but unstraps the knife from his ankle and drops it into his left boot.
Sam straightens to his full height, rolls his shoulders and his neck, trying to loosen up a little.
They climb into the ring, Dean bouncing on the balls of his feet, mouth curved in a cocky grin Sam can't help but return.
The referee glances between them and says, "You go down, you've got until the count of ten to get up. Fight lasts until someone goes down. One, two, three." And he steps out of the way. The crowd roars.
Dean raises an eyebrow, still smirking. "Come on, Sammy, show me what you got."
They circle, Dean still bouncing a little with adrenaline, and Sam trying to ignore the buzz of it under his own skin to concentrate on the fight. Dean swings first, telegraphed, and Sam blocks it easily, takes a swing of his own, the rhythm of it easy, familiar. He sparred with Dean every day after school for years, knows all his tricks and weaknesses. Of course, Dean'd say the same about him, but he's got the advantage in reach and weight, and deep down he's got knowledge: he knows how to hurt Dean, all the best ways to twist him up inside and break him, without even thinking about it, and he knows Dean would never deliberately hurt him. Not to put on a good show, anyway.
The crowd yells out advice and insults and offers that make Sam's ears burn and Dean snort with laughter.
Dean backs him into the ropes and says, "You're gonna stay down when I knock you down, right?"
"You really think you're gonna knock me down?"
"I'm just going by history here. After all, I am nearly undefeated against you."
"Bullshit." Sam blocks a punch, lands one to Dean's gut that makes his grin falter for a second. "I've beaten you a bunch of times.
"Funny, I don't remember that." Sam takes a couple of punches, arms up to defend his head even though Dean isn't putting his full strength behind them, and Dean says, "You are not pulling this rope-a-dope shit on me." He backs up a little, giving up the advantage to Sam, who jabs with his left hand and follows it with another, pushing Dean back into the center of the ring.
"Well, you know, they say the memory is the first thing to go, old man."
Dean's grin is wide and bright, and accompanied by a left uppercut that stings Sam's jaw, and a straight right to his temple. "Funny, I don't remember that, either."
"Ha ha."
They're pretty evenly matched when they're not fighting for their lives, and the crowd is getting restless, as if they know they're not getting the real deal.
"You know, I can take a punch," Dean says, dancing away from an uppercut that grazes his chin.
"You and your glass jaw, you mean."
"If you could manage to land one," Dean continues as if Sam hasn't spoken.
Sam is sweaty, his knuckles are bruised, and his throat is starting to itch from the miasma of smoke hanging in the air. He's annoyed that they've wasted a day chasing phantoms, and he's angry that Dean, for all his willingness to let Sam in now, is still acting like he's got all the time in the world.
The lights flicker once, and then again, and Dean freezes, eyes wide and nostrils flared, look of intense concentration on his face. Sam feels it too, the prickle of something wrong along his skin, making his hair stand on end, and he punches hard, a left jab that sends Dean's head snapping back and then a straight right that sends him down to the mat.
Dean makes to get up, and Sam glares at him, so he flops back down, mouth twisted in disgust. The ref counts him out and then raises Sam's hand in victory.
"Guess you're doing all the digging for the next four months," Sam says with forced lightness. He uses his t-shirt to wipe himself down, wrinkling his nose at the way his jeans feel cold and clammy against his belly.
"I was distracted," Dean snaps, strapping his knife back to his ankle.
"Can't get distracted in a fight, Dean," Sam answers, imitating Dad. "You're just pissed I won."
Dean snorts. "You only won 'cause I was distracted."
"If that's what you need to tell yourself."
He's lacing up his boots when the two guys that led them down here come over.
"Boss wants to see you," one of them says.
"We get some kinda prize?" Dean asks as they're led down a cinderblock corridor lit by a handful of flickering fluorescent lights. He and Sam exchange concerned looks; Sam's pretty sure that they can take these two guys, but he'd rather not have to shoot his way out past the rest.
"Yeah. Exactly." The guy's laugh is rough and sinister, and Sam checks to make sure his gun is in his waistband. He pushes open a door and motions for them to enter.
There's a man sitting behind the desk, skinny and dirty, face hollowed out by hunger, old before his time. "If it isn't little Sammy Winchester. And of course, big brother Dean," he says, smiling like a death's head.
They both draw on him, and Sam can hear the sounds of other guns being drawn behind them. The man raises a bony hand, fingernails long and yellow and grimy, and Sam can hear the other men shuffle out.
"Who the fuck are you?" Dean says, voice hard and the muscle in his jaw jumping with tension. The man's eyes blink beetle-black, and Dean hisses, "Son of a bitch."
"Imagine my delight when I discovered our very own boy king had come to visit." He gets up, his black eyes sickeningly wrong in a human face, even one as gaunt and gray as this one. "Or should I say, pretender to the throne. I had hopes for you, Sam. But just between you and me, Azazel was always a bit of a fuck-up, and Lilith is a stone bitch. I wouldn't bet against her."
"Is there a point to all this monologuing?" Sam asks, wishing he'd drawn the Colt instead of the nine millimeter in his hand.
"I was hoping you'd be amenable to my suggestion," the demon answers.
"We're not amenable to anything demons suggest," Dean says.
"No? That's not what Asmodai says. Though you know what they say about demons and lying." He gives them that skeletal smile again. "Maybe you're the one I should be talking to, Dean. You seem to have a propensity for making deals with demons. If Asmodai is telling the truth."
"Shut the fuck up," Dean says.
"You don't talk to him like that," Sam says at the same time.
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" The demon inclines his head. "I was hoping for a temporary alliance. This meat suit I've got is a little..." He frowns and dusts fastidiously at the stained gray t-shirt he's wearing. "Decrepit is too kind, really."
"That's what the boxing is about," Dean says, like the light bulb's just lit. "You're running a fight club to choose new bodies for your freak friends."
"And they say Sam's the brains of the operation." He shakes his head in mock sadness. "And you've broken the first rule of fight club, Dean. I'm afraid you'll have to be punished for that."
Dean snorts and Sam shoots him a please shut up look that makes him clamp his mouth shut.
"It won't work," Sam says, shifting his weight slightly. The Colt is in his left inside pocket, which means he needs his right hand to get it out.
"Oh, your little foray into body art? Don't worry about that. I can flay the skin right off you if I have to."
"Be kinda useless without skin," Dean points out, and Sam glares at him. Dean shrugs as if to say he can't help it, which is probably true.
"Touché. So it seems we are at an impasse. I need you in relatively decent shape, and you, well, you have no way out of here, short of a miracle."
"Is this where the iocane poison comes in?"
The demon leans in close to Dean then, and only years of digging graves and dealing with dead things keeps Sam from gagging on the smell. "With that smart mouth, you're gonna be real popular in hell, boy."
"I'm always a hit at parties," Dean answers, glancing sidelong at Sam.
Sam shifts his gun into his left hand and shoves his right hand into his pocket. He doesn't bother to take the gun out, just aims and pulls the trigger, shooting a hole in his jacket as well as the demon.
The two goons rush back in, eyes black and empty, and Sam shoots them both, not even stopping to watch the fireworks. Dean is pushing him, muttering, "Run, Sammy, run," as the bodies drop behind them.
There are half a dozen demons waiting for them in the hallway, and Sam's only got three bullets left. Dean pushes in front of him, pistol whipping one guy, and elbowing a second in the throat, all concentrated, lethal violence now in a way he wasn't when they were fighting in the ring.
Sam aims the Colt and says, "You let us out now, or you won't just get sent back to hell." His voice echoes oddly in the hallway and Dean shoots him a startled glance as the demons give way.
The cool spring air is a blessing after the smoke and stench of the basement, and Sam sucks it down greedily as they head to the car, slowing down once they're on the street, trying not to attract attention.
West Side Park disappears in the rearview, and Sam lets himself relax into the familiar leather embrace of the car.
***
"I'm not one to say, 'I told you so--'"
"You totally are."
"--but, goddammit, Sam, I told you so."
"The only surprising thing is that you waited so long to say it." Sam looks at his watch. "Almost twelve hours. A new record."
Dean slaps a hand down on the hood of the car and laughs in genuine amazement. "Demonic homeless guy fight club. You can't make this shit up." He glances slyly over at Sam, who pretends to ignore him. "So you owe me two months of gravedigging."
Sam shakes his head sadly. "Is this memory loss due to old age, or is it because I knocked you down last night?"
"Sam--"
"Dude, you were the one who wanted to go double or nothing."
"I was distracted, Sam. It doesn't count."
"Uh huh."
"I want a rematch."
Sam examines the hole in his jacket pocket and wonders if they have anything to patch it with. "Okay."
A plane roars by overhead, looking too huge to be real, and they both lean back against the windshield to stare up at it, the look on Dean's face one of awe mixed with fear. Sam's ears are still ringing from the sound and he almost doesn't catch what Dean says, his voice soft and his gaze still trained skyward.
"Don't make any deals, Sam, okay? No more alliances with demons."
Sam thinks of Ruby and her empty promises, of all the time they've lost and how little they have left. "Dean, I--Oh, shit."
Dean turns to face him, concern clear on his face, in his voice. "What?"
"Last night, the demon--he mentioned Asmodai." He holds out a hand and Dean puts Dad's journal in it, the worn leather and solid weight of it familiar against his fingers. He flips through the pages, finds what he's looking for. "Lord of hell, patron of gambling, lust and revenge."
"Sounds like a fun guy."
"You don't think maybe he holds your contract?" Sam recognizes the hope in his voice, his words, even though it's been too long since he's felt it.
Dean blinks and shrugs. "It's possible. We could look into it."
"I think we should." Sam's already cataloguing the references he remembers, the books that might be helpful, the names of people they can call, determined to save Dean once and for all.
Another plane roars into the air above them, and Dean leans closer, bumps Sam's shoulder with his, proof that they're both still alive, still together. Maybe, sitting in the parking lot at Ikea, watching the planes fly overhead, they've just found the key to staying that way.
end
***
Notes: The information about Asmodai comes from that always-reliable source known as wikipedia, so of course, I just made it fit what I needed. The information about Newark comes from rynnalyn, and I have twisted that to suit my needs, as well. I apologize to the denizens of Newark for misrepresenting their city.
~*~
Feedback would be awesome.
~*~
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg; spoilers through Jus in Bello; 5,625 words
"Five dead homeless guys? This is your case? It doesn't exactly scream demonic possession."
Written for luzdeestrellas for her birthday ♥ ♥ ♥ (and also for the West Wing title project). Thanks to merryish for looking it over and amberlynne for handholding.
~*~
Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail
"Five dead homeless guys? This is your case?" Sam says, toweling his hair dry with one hand and tossing the newspaper Dean's just handed him onto the bed with the other. "It doesn't exactly scream demonic possession."
"Five in two weeks, all young guys in their twenties or thirties," Dean says. "All of 'em beaten to a pulp and all of 'em found in the same neighborhood."
"It's probably just some rough trade that got out of hand." Sam takes the towel back into the bathroom--unlike some people, who leave their wet towels lying on the carpet or the bed--and then starts pulling his clothes on. "It's sad and fucked up, but it's not our job."
"I got a feeling about this one, Sammy. You know my gut is never wrong."
"I know my whole respiratory system resents your gut's inability to process sauerkraut, and your continued insistence on eating it anyway." He doesn't think about how he'll even miss that when Dean's--if Dean--He shakes his head. He's not thinking about it.
"Whatever, Sammy. We're only a couple hours away. We should check it out."
Sam shoves his clothes into his duffel and bites back a comment on how what they should be doing is tracking the demon who owns Dean's contract, because there's only a few weeks left until it comes due, and they don't have time to be chasing down random deaths that are probably nothing but the result of urban decay and gang violence.
He can't say that, though. They've already had that conversation in every possible way and it's gotten them nowhere. And Dean does have an almost unerring instinct for finding cases that turn out to be right up their alley.
"Fine. But if you're wrong, you're doing the digging for the next two months."
Dean snorts. "Fine, but I'm not wrong."
Sam grunts noncommittally and carries his bag out to the car, determined to make sure Dean will be around to fulfill that promise.
***
Sam frowns down at the body on the metal table, then looks back up at the morgue attendant. "So you're saying these bruises were inflicted post-mortem?"
The dead man's chest and face are mottled with bruises, lip split, left eye swollen shut, like something out of a Rocky movie.
The attendant nods. "Many of them were, yes."
"Looks like he went nine rounds with Mike Tyson," Dean mutters.
"That's the weird thing," the attendant says. "The pattern of bruising suggests that the victim was upright when they were inflicted. Even the ones post-mortem."
Sam looks over at Dean, who gives him an I told you so smirk and says, "So they strung him up and beat him after he was dead?"
The attendant shakes his head. "No ligature marks on his wrists. I suppose he could have been propped up for a while when rigor mortis set in." He shrugs. "Like I said. Weird."
"And there were four others like this guy? All within a two-week period?" Dean asks, scribbling something in his notebook like the diligent reporter he's pretending to be.
"Yeah." The attendant nods towards the bank of refrigerated drawers against the wall. "Though there were old bruises on the others, as well. Like they'd been beaten repeatedly prior to death, and then whoever it was just kept going."
"Were the other victims identified?" Sam asks.
"Three were homeless John Does, like this guy. Nobody came to claim 'em, so we took DNA samples and pictures, and cremated 'em." He waves at the wall of lockers again. "Don't have room to keep them around indefinitely. The second guy we were able to identify and contact his family." He goes over to the desk, flips through some paperwork, copies a name and address onto a card and hands it to Dean. "I'd say I'm surprised anybody's actually interested in the deaths of some random homeless guys, but it's an election year."
Sam tries for compassionate but just sounds tired when he replies, "Someone's gotta look out for the poor bastards." He even still wishes it were true.
***
"Ethan was--" Rebecca Sebatsky wrinkles her nose, twists up her lips, like she's looking for the right words. "Ethan was troubled, I guess. That's what my mother used to say."
"Troubled?" Dean prompts, leaning forward and attempting to look sincere. Sam wants to elbow him, because Dean's attempts at sincere often fail spectacularly, but Rebecca's face smoothes out, her mouth curving into a rueful smile. Dean's charm with women often succeeds where his sincerity doesn't. It's one mystery Sam's never been able to solve. He'd really like more time to work on it.
"He got involved with drugs, dropped out of college, spent a lot of time living on the street." She sniffs, and rubs away the beginnings of tears under her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. "Pretty typical, I guess. He'd get clean for a few weeks or months, come home--my mother never turned him away--and then he'd fall back into the life." She shakes her head. "When Mom was in the hospital, he cleaned up his act, even got a job down at C Town. But when she died, that was it. He didn't come back from that."
The living room is small and cluttered with bookshelves and knickknacks; framed photographs line the wall along the stairway--Rebecca and Ethan and their mother over the years: baby pictures, high school graduation, family vacations. In the later ones, Ethan looks thin, Mrs. Sebatsky, worn. Rebecca's hair fluctuates between big and bigger (though at the moment, it's flat and lifeless), and Sam is distracted for a few seconds thinking about the hole in the ozone caused by the amount of hairspray she must use.
He doesn't let that show on his face.
"Do you know any of his friends?" Dean asks. "Someone who might be able to tell us what it was he was into when this happened?"
"What he was into? Are you fucking kidding me?" Her head swivels on her neck like a cobra about to strike, and her nearly non-existent accent suddenly thickens, reminding Sam that they're in New Jersey. "You think he brought his junkie friends home to meet his mother?"
"Miss Sebatsky--" Sam says, clenching his jaw so he doesn't give in to the urge to glare at Dean for setting her off.
"Yeah, sure, I have his dealer on my speed dial." She takes a sip of water from her sports bottle and then a deep breath. "Sorry. I just--" She shakes her head. "Last time we talked, he said he had a line on some kinda job over in the West Ward, but he wouldn't say what it was. I--I figured I was better off not knowing." She deflates, and without anger to prop her up, she looks small and sad. "I should've asked. I should've done something."
"There was nothing you could have done," Sam assures her, though he knows nobody in the room believes him. He stands and tucks his notebook into his pocket. "Thanks for your time, Miss Sebatsky."
She rises with them, pushes a hand through her hair, and he can see the circles under her eyes, the fine lines around her mouth. Sam guesses she's in her early thirties, but she looks older, the strain of her brother's life, and death, taking its toll. "He was my brother. I would have done anything to help him, but he was a junkie. Do you understand what that means?" Dean murmurs something that sounds like, "Yeah," but she doesn't stop talking. "I couldn't help him when he was alive, and I can't help him now that he's dead. I can't--" Her voice breaks, and it takes her a minute to get it back under control. "I hope you find the bastards that did this to him."
"We're gonna do our best," Sam promises, though he's not sure it means anything to her. He's not sure it should.
***
"Well, that was useful," Dean says, when they're back in the car. He loosens his tie, his face tight and pinched, mouth turned down in a frown, and eases the car out into the flow of traffic.
"We're still not even sure this is anything but what it looks like on the surface, Dean--a bunch of homeless guys getting beaten to death."
"I'm thinking zombies," Dean says.
"You're always thinking zombies."
Dean shrugs. "Nasty fuckers, but it fits."
Sam doesn't argue. Sometimes, he wonders how Dean functions with the level of compartmentalization he's got going on inside his head.
They drive through residential neighborhoods, watch kids walking home from school and old men sitting outside of storefronts, enjoying the spring afternoon, the old bones of their bodies, of the houses, bearing up under the bright sunshine. Old and worn houses give way to shiny new offices and shops downtown, the performing arts center and the hockey arena, and then the new and shiny fades into seedy and downright disreputable.
The weight of the gun in his waistband, metal warmed to body-temperature, is comforting now, as they field hard-eyed stares from drug dealers and prostitutes, out even in daylight in a neighborhood that hasn't yet heard that Newark is having a renaissance.
He's got the Colt tucked away, too, in the inside pocket of his jacket; since they got it back from Bela, neither of them is willing to let it out of their sight, and today's Sam's day to carry it.
They stop at a light and Dean rolls down a window and beckons. The boys on the corner disperse slowly, unafraid but unwilling to be annoyed, muffled mutter of five-oh sweeping across the street. The hookers eye them warily, but one girl detaches herself from the group and comes over with less of a strut than a trudge, wide hips barely swinging.
"You know this guy?" Dean asks, pulling out the picture of Ethan Sebatsky.
Her eyes are dark and hard, and there's a red sore on her upper lip. She pokes at it with the pink tip of her tongue before shaking her head. "White boy like that be selling his ass in West Side Park, maybe. Not here."
"Thanks," Dean says, rolling the window up and rolling through the intersection as the light changes. "Garmin makes a pretty kickass GPS unit," he says after they've driven a few blocks. "You might want to look into that."
Sam's never had the same sense for back roads and shortcuts and roundabout routes that Dean has; he's always been one for straight lines and highways, cutting through obstacles instead of finding a way around.
"Dean."
"With the FBI off our backs, it couldn't hurt. I mean, don't keep it on all the damn time, but if you've got nobody to navigate while you're driving--" Dean shrugs, leaves the sentence hanging. They've already had the fight about Sam partnering with someone else if Dean dies, but Dean still doesn't know that Sam spent months hunting without him, and Sam still can't bring himself to tell him, to compound the horror of that hundred Tuesdays with another hundred days of misery, not when the clock is ticking down again.
"You can buy it for me for my birthday," he says, and Dean shoots him a rueful half-grin as they turn onto 17th Street, telling him he already did.
They look too much like cops to get anywhere with the people in the park, though one kid--he can't be more than fourteen, Sam thinks, feeling ill--tells them to come back later, "Tonight, when Jamie's here. He knows everybody, might have a line on your boy." The kid eyes Dean up and down and licks his lips in exaggerated invitation, but Dean's already turned and walked away, anxious about leaving his car untended for too long in the car theft capital of the world.
Sam looks at the kid, thin shoulders and pale grubby skin, dirty brown hair that's too long and in need of washing, sick-sweet smell of pot and malt liquor layered over sweat and body odor. "Thanks," he says, handing the kid five bucks and wondering why he and Dean ever thought they could save anyone, let alone each other.
***
Dean's shoulders are tense and his mouth pinched when he says, "We've got a few hours before it gets dark. Let's have an early dinner."
"Dean." Sometimes it feels like the only thing Sam has left to say, the only thing Dean can't argue with.
"You like Portuguese food, Sammy?"
Sam blinks. "I don't think I've ever had Portuguese food."
"Me neither. I think it's about time we did. It's supposed to be awesome."
Sam steels himself, but Dean leaves it there, doesn't add anything. He reaches out and cups the back of Sam's neck for a second, the touch warm and familiar. Sam closes his eyes, imprints the feel of it on his memory for the hundred thousandth time, and even knowing it'll never be enough, he lets himself be comforted.
***
The restaurant is more upscale than the places Dean generally picks (they keep their jackets on, and Dean only complains about it half a dozen times, and not at all once the food arrives), and dinner is excellent.
Neither of them is looking forward to the next part of the night. They head back to the hotel, Dean grumbling about fucking crazy inflation, but Sam's seen the rates charged by most hotels in the area, and he's not complaining about the Best Western at the airport. It's not like they haven't put up with much worse than the roar of engines overhead, and God knows what the local no-tell motel--usually Dean's first choice of accommodation--actually looks like. Chains are safer in big cities. Even Dad conceded that.
"We have time for a nap," Dean says as he sheds his shirt and tie, stripping down to boxer-briefs and crawling under the covers, clothes draped over the desk chair.
Sam changes more slowly, removing what he's come to think of as--what Dean's always referred to as--his dress up clothes. He can admit it now, to himself anyway, that he's never been comfortable in that skin, never felt real dressed up as a reporter or cop or insurance agent, covered in layers of respectability he'd craved but never earned. Isn't sure he'd have managed it as a lawyer, if he'd ever gotten to be one. Jess used to tell him he'd grow into it, but he never got the chance. Now he's not sure he really wanted it.
He goes into the bathroom, washes up, stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, circles under his eyes, hair dark with water and pushed off his forehead, and has to resist the urge to punch the glass, feel it shatter under his fist. He's not sure his luck could get any worse, but he doesn't want to test the theory.
Dean's curled up on his side, cocooned in the comforter and breathing deep and easy when Sam comes out. He looks over at the other bed, sighs, and slips in behind Dean. He presses his face to the sweaty nape of Dean's neck, breathing in hair gel and perspiration, holding himself ready for an elbow to the chest if Dean's actually awake enough to object.
He isn't, and Sam settles his arm over the jut of Dean's hip, fingers coming to rest on the warm skin of his belly beneath his t-shirt. Dean snuffles and rubs his cheek against the pillow, the strain around his eyes and mouth eased in sleep, and Sam feels the tension in his body seep away for a little while.
***
"I hate this," Dean mutters, ignoring the whistles and catcalls and come-ons from various hustlers and hookers and corner boys as they walk through the park.
Even in jeans and flannels, they're taken for cops (hunters), and of all the things people are offering them, help isn't one of them.
They find Jamie, though, sitting in a lawn chair, feet propped up on an old boombox blasting rap music loud enough to rattle Sam's bones, two gold teeth winking at them from his smile. He turns the radio down, says, "Kevin said you be looking for Ethan. You know he's dead, right?"
"Yeah," Dean says, and Sam is happy to let him take point for these conversations. "We're looking for who made him that way."
"Wasn't me, man. He was a good customer, always had cash to spend." Jamie cups his chin in his hand for a second, like he's thinking, then his teeth flash again, a trickster's smile Sam doesn't trust. "Maybe you should check out his friends in the basement." He points to a building fronting the park, windows boarded up and a flicker of light from the brown metal door propped open to the evening air.
Sam is still not sure this is their kind of case, and one look at that door makes him not care, hair on the back of his neck standing up and a chill shivering down his spine.
Dean nods once, short and sharp, his jaw set in a tight line. "Thanks, man."
"You know," Sam says as they walk towards the door, "we could just scrap this and go to Disney."
Dean's got his gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and one eyebrow cocked in disbelief. "You still nursing a hard-on for Ariel?"
Sam chokes back a laughing denial, all business now, as they step through the door. There's a stairwell heading down and noise rising up out of it, like a crowd cheering at some kind of sporting event.
"Hey, hey, we got some fine specimens here." The guy has both their guns pointed at his head and he manages to sound cool. "You boys looking to fight, you came to the right place." Another guy comes up the stairs behind him, shotgun in hand, but the first guy shakes him off. "No weapons, though. Mano a mano, you know what I'm saying?"
Sam glances at Dean, who gives a tiny why not? shrug, and moves to follow when the guy leads them down the stairs.
The noise gets louder, and the air is hazy and pungent with smoke, stale beer, body odor, and the damp mustiness of a basement in the spring. The first floor has been ripped out, leaving a cavernous room, noise echoing loud and fierce through the haze. A square is roped off in the center, and two guys are circling in it, shirtless and emaciated and covered in bruises. They don't look healthy enough to stand upright for long periods of time, let alone inflict that kind of damage, but one throws a pretty good punch and the other takes the hit without going down, though it takes him a few seconds to shake it off, launch a punch of his own. They start trading blows, the crowd screaming raucously, and a striped-shirted referee watching impassively.
Dean mutters, "Illegal homeless boxing? Seriously?"
Sam snorts, laughter bubbling up inside, and he has to bite his lip to keep from letting it out.
One guy knocks the other down, and the referee counts to ten before raising the winner's hand. The loser drags himself up slowly, bruises already blossoming on his face and chest.
"You boys are next," their host says, and his armed shadow gestures with the shotgun. "No shirts, no boots, no weapons, capisce?"
"Yeah," Dean says sourly, shrugging out of his jacket and pulling off his shirts. "But if any of our stuff is missing--" He slides his gun into the pile of shirts with a frown, and Sam follows suit, tucking his weapons away carefully, making sure nothing is tangled if he needs to grab something quickly.
"That's not the stuff we're interested in."
There's something in his tone that makes Sam hesitate, but Dean just snorts in derision. "Sorry, chief, you're not my type."
"Just get in the ring." The guy folds his arms across his chest and glares, which probably intimidates most of the junkies and the hustlers, but which has nothing on some of the things Sam's seen, and that's not even taking into account his father on a bad day.
When Dean squats down to untie his boots, Sam does, too. "So it looks like the digging's all yours for the next two months," he says, the words thick and dry on his tongue.
"Double or nothing," Dean says, which is as close as he'll come to admitting Sam's won. "I'm gonna kick your ass in the ring and then the digging's all yours for four months. But I get to light the matches." His voice doesn't shake; it's full of quiet conviction, as if he actually has four months and more, instead of four weeks left.
"Bring it on," Sam answers hoarsely, chest tight at Dean's hope, or maybe his capacity for self-deception, and his own inability to fulfill it, the knowledge that in four months, he'll be doing all the digging himself anyway. "And leave the knife in your boot." Dean huffs in annoyance but unstraps the knife from his ankle and drops it into his left boot.
Sam straightens to his full height, rolls his shoulders and his neck, trying to loosen up a little.
They climb into the ring, Dean bouncing on the balls of his feet, mouth curved in a cocky grin Sam can't help but return.
The referee glances between them and says, "You go down, you've got until the count of ten to get up. Fight lasts until someone goes down. One, two, three." And he steps out of the way. The crowd roars.
Dean raises an eyebrow, still smirking. "Come on, Sammy, show me what you got."
They circle, Dean still bouncing a little with adrenaline, and Sam trying to ignore the buzz of it under his own skin to concentrate on the fight. Dean swings first, telegraphed, and Sam blocks it easily, takes a swing of his own, the rhythm of it easy, familiar. He sparred with Dean every day after school for years, knows all his tricks and weaknesses. Of course, Dean'd say the same about him, but he's got the advantage in reach and weight, and deep down he's got knowledge: he knows how to hurt Dean, all the best ways to twist him up inside and break him, without even thinking about it, and he knows Dean would never deliberately hurt him. Not to put on a good show, anyway.
The crowd yells out advice and insults and offers that make Sam's ears burn and Dean snort with laughter.
Dean backs him into the ropes and says, "You're gonna stay down when I knock you down, right?"
"You really think you're gonna knock me down?"
"I'm just going by history here. After all, I am nearly undefeated against you."
"Bullshit." Sam blocks a punch, lands one to Dean's gut that makes his grin falter for a second. "I've beaten you a bunch of times.
"Funny, I don't remember that." Sam takes a couple of punches, arms up to defend his head even though Dean isn't putting his full strength behind them, and Dean says, "You are not pulling this rope-a-dope shit on me." He backs up a little, giving up the advantage to Sam, who jabs with his left hand and follows it with another, pushing Dean back into the center of the ring.
"Well, you know, they say the memory is the first thing to go, old man."
Dean's grin is wide and bright, and accompanied by a left uppercut that stings Sam's jaw, and a straight right to his temple. "Funny, I don't remember that, either."
"Ha ha."
They're pretty evenly matched when they're not fighting for their lives, and the crowd is getting restless, as if they know they're not getting the real deal.
"You know, I can take a punch," Dean says, dancing away from an uppercut that grazes his chin.
"You and your glass jaw, you mean."
"If you could manage to land one," Dean continues as if Sam hasn't spoken.
Sam is sweaty, his knuckles are bruised, and his throat is starting to itch from the miasma of smoke hanging in the air. He's annoyed that they've wasted a day chasing phantoms, and he's angry that Dean, for all his willingness to let Sam in now, is still acting like he's got all the time in the world.
The lights flicker once, and then again, and Dean freezes, eyes wide and nostrils flared, look of intense concentration on his face. Sam feels it too, the prickle of something wrong along his skin, making his hair stand on end, and he punches hard, a left jab that sends Dean's head snapping back and then a straight right that sends him down to the mat.
Dean makes to get up, and Sam glares at him, so he flops back down, mouth twisted in disgust. The ref counts him out and then raises Sam's hand in victory.
"Guess you're doing all the digging for the next four months," Sam says with forced lightness. He uses his t-shirt to wipe himself down, wrinkling his nose at the way his jeans feel cold and clammy against his belly.
"I was distracted," Dean snaps, strapping his knife back to his ankle.
"Can't get distracted in a fight, Dean," Sam answers, imitating Dad. "You're just pissed I won."
Dean snorts. "You only won 'cause I was distracted."
"If that's what you need to tell yourself."
He's lacing up his boots when the two guys that led them down here come over.
"Boss wants to see you," one of them says.
"We get some kinda prize?" Dean asks as they're led down a cinderblock corridor lit by a handful of flickering fluorescent lights. He and Sam exchange concerned looks; Sam's pretty sure that they can take these two guys, but he'd rather not have to shoot his way out past the rest.
"Yeah. Exactly." The guy's laugh is rough and sinister, and Sam checks to make sure his gun is in his waistband. He pushes open a door and motions for them to enter.
There's a man sitting behind the desk, skinny and dirty, face hollowed out by hunger, old before his time. "If it isn't little Sammy Winchester. And of course, big brother Dean," he says, smiling like a death's head.
They both draw on him, and Sam can hear the sounds of other guns being drawn behind them. The man raises a bony hand, fingernails long and yellow and grimy, and Sam can hear the other men shuffle out.
"Who the fuck are you?" Dean says, voice hard and the muscle in his jaw jumping with tension. The man's eyes blink beetle-black, and Dean hisses, "Son of a bitch."
"Imagine my delight when I discovered our very own boy king had come to visit." He gets up, his black eyes sickeningly wrong in a human face, even one as gaunt and gray as this one. "Or should I say, pretender to the throne. I had hopes for you, Sam. But just between you and me, Azazel was always a bit of a fuck-up, and Lilith is a stone bitch. I wouldn't bet against her."
"Is there a point to all this monologuing?" Sam asks, wishing he'd drawn the Colt instead of the nine millimeter in his hand.
"I was hoping you'd be amenable to my suggestion," the demon answers.
"We're not amenable to anything demons suggest," Dean says.
"No? That's not what Asmodai says. Though you know what they say about demons and lying." He gives them that skeletal smile again. "Maybe you're the one I should be talking to, Dean. You seem to have a propensity for making deals with demons. If Asmodai is telling the truth."
"Shut the fuck up," Dean says.
"You don't talk to him like that," Sam says at the same time.
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" The demon inclines his head. "I was hoping for a temporary alliance. This meat suit I've got is a little..." He frowns and dusts fastidiously at the stained gray t-shirt he's wearing. "Decrepit is too kind, really."
"That's what the boxing is about," Dean says, like the light bulb's just lit. "You're running a fight club to choose new bodies for your freak friends."
"And they say Sam's the brains of the operation." He shakes his head in mock sadness. "And you've broken the first rule of fight club, Dean. I'm afraid you'll have to be punished for that."
Dean snorts and Sam shoots him a please shut up look that makes him clamp his mouth shut.
"It won't work," Sam says, shifting his weight slightly. The Colt is in his left inside pocket, which means he needs his right hand to get it out.
"Oh, your little foray into body art? Don't worry about that. I can flay the skin right off you if I have to."
"Be kinda useless without skin," Dean points out, and Sam glares at him. Dean shrugs as if to say he can't help it, which is probably true.
"Touché. So it seems we are at an impasse. I need you in relatively decent shape, and you, well, you have no way out of here, short of a miracle."
"Is this where the iocane poison comes in?"
The demon leans in close to Dean then, and only years of digging graves and dealing with dead things keeps Sam from gagging on the smell. "With that smart mouth, you're gonna be real popular in hell, boy."
"I'm always a hit at parties," Dean answers, glancing sidelong at Sam.
Sam shifts his gun into his left hand and shoves his right hand into his pocket. He doesn't bother to take the gun out, just aims and pulls the trigger, shooting a hole in his jacket as well as the demon.
The two goons rush back in, eyes black and empty, and Sam shoots them both, not even stopping to watch the fireworks. Dean is pushing him, muttering, "Run, Sammy, run," as the bodies drop behind them.
There are half a dozen demons waiting for them in the hallway, and Sam's only got three bullets left. Dean pushes in front of him, pistol whipping one guy, and elbowing a second in the throat, all concentrated, lethal violence now in a way he wasn't when they were fighting in the ring.
Sam aims the Colt and says, "You let us out now, or you won't just get sent back to hell." His voice echoes oddly in the hallway and Dean shoots him a startled glance as the demons give way.
The cool spring air is a blessing after the smoke and stench of the basement, and Sam sucks it down greedily as they head to the car, slowing down once they're on the street, trying not to attract attention.
West Side Park disappears in the rearview, and Sam lets himself relax into the familiar leather embrace of the car.
***
"I'm not one to say, 'I told you so--'"
"You totally are."
"--but, goddammit, Sam, I told you so."
"The only surprising thing is that you waited so long to say it." Sam looks at his watch. "Almost twelve hours. A new record."
Dean slaps a hand down on the hood of the car and laughs in genuine amazement. "Demonic homeless guy fight club. You can't make this shit up." He glances slyly over at Sam, who pretends to ignore him. "So you owe me two months of gravedigging."
Sam shakes his head sadly. "Is this memory loss due to old age, or is it because I knocked you down last night?"
"Sam--"
"Dude, you were the one who wanted to go double or nothing."
"I was distracted, Sam. It doesn't count."
"Uh huh."
"I want a rematch."
Sam examines the hole in his jacket pocket and wonders if they have anything to patch it with. "Okay."
A plane roars by overhead, looking too huge to be real, and they both lean back against the windshield to stare up at it, the look on Dean's face one of awe mixed with fear. Sam's ears are still ringing from the sound and he almost doesn't catch what Dean says, his voice soft and his gaze still trained skyward.
"Don't make any deals, Sam, okay? No more alliances with demons."
Sam thinks of Ruby and her empty promises, of all the time they've lost and how little they have left. "Dean, I--Oh, shit."
Dean turns to face him, concern clear on his face, in his voice. "What?"
"Last night, the demon--he mentioned Asmodai." He holds out a hand and Dean puts Dad's journal in it, the worn leather and solid weight of it familiar against his fingers. He flips through the pages, finds what he's looking for. "Lord of hell, patron of gambling, lust and revenge."
"Sounds like a fun guy."
"You don't think maybe he holds your contract?" Sam recognizes the hope in his voice, his words, even though it's been too long since he's felt it.
Dean blinks and shrugs. "It's possible. We could look into it."
"I think we should." Sam's already cataloguing the references he remembers, the books that might be helpful, the names of people they can call, determined to save Dean once and for all.
Another plane roars into the air above them, and Dean leans closer, bumps Sam's shoulder with his, proof that they're both still alive, still together. Maybe, sitting in the parking lot at Ikea, watching the planes fly overhead, they've just found the key to staying that way.
end
***
Notes: The information about Asmodai comes from that always-reliable source known as wikipedia, so of course, I just made it fit what I needed. The information about Newark comes from rynnalyn, and I have twisted that to suit my needs, as well. I apologize to the denizens of Newark for misrepresenting their city.
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Feedback would be awesome.
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