A mari usque ad mare - Part 1 (2/14)
A mari usque ad mare - Part 1 (2/14)
6,773/28,777 of R rated Gen (with an edge of subtext) crack!fic in which Dean revisits his past in unexpected ways. (Wimples, pizza - oh, and fourteen bodies)
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Epilogue
Part 1
Dissolution
Dean liked beds. They had an open access policy that he was all in favour of. What Dean didn’t like about beds was getting out of them. Early. In winter. Early. To go on a hunt. At five o’clock in the morning early.
He dragged the covers along with him as he twisted up to sit on the edge of the mattress. He sat there with his eyes stubbornly shut for a while as he listened to some strange, giant, loud, idiot clump around the room.
‘Dea…’
‘Ngh.’ He was up, okay - almost up, wasn’t he? Was there some law that said he had to be coherent too? Besides, he was already dressed. Way ahead of the game.
‘Dean.’
A loud, talkative, gigantic, idiot. ‘Nope. No talking. New rule, Sam.’
‘Dean!’
Dean opened his eyes to see his brother’s goddamn knees right there in his space. The blanket fell off his head as he tilted it all the way back to squint up at Sam. ‘What?’ Oh. There was a God. ‘Coffee? And donuts? You know you’re my bitch now, don’t you?’
‘Shut up.’
♒
Topless. That was how Dean liked his coffee. He snickered to himself as he peeled the wussy lid off and tossed it in the general direction of the nightstand. He also preferred to be able to see what he was drinking. Most of the time anyway. God, that’s good. Black as sin, and slipped down just as easy. With the skill born of too much practice he managed to wedge a whole donut in the cup, one half happily submerged and getting its own infusion of caffeine. He didn’t even mind the sugar dusting his nose as he slurped out of one edge. After a minute he had the donut throw a U-turn and started nibbling away. It was always a race to eat them before they completely disintegrated. Dean usually won.
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘You fold your clean socks in half and then turn them inside out into little … sausages, and you think I’m gross?’ He raised an eyebrow at Sam firstly because he could, and also because - hello, Freud! ‘I thought I taught you better than that, Sammy.’
‘Jess liked t…’
Shit. ‘Dude, don’t hog all the donuts, I could …’ He barely caught the bag in time. The look on his brother’s face when he broke one down into tiny depth charges was all he’d hoped for. Dive! Dive! ‘So, tell me more about these crazy people.’
That got him the desired eye roll. ‘They’re not crazy, Dean. They’re in a persistent vegetative state according to the reports I read.’
‘Eight people in the one small town over the last how many years?’
‘Twenty-four people in thirty years. Sixteen have died since they were found.’
‘Twenty-four people just switched off all on their own? In Sisomso, Michigan? Must be a really dull town.’
‘Couples, Dean. Twelve incidents, and two people every time.’
‘No ménage a trois?’ Dean joked, because really, Sam had just asked for that one.
Sam concentrated on his own coffee for a long moment.
Huh. Not going to bite. Okay. ‘And all found the night after a full moon?’
‘Specifically a Blue Moon.’
‘Specifically,’ Dean mouthed slowly. ‘So, if they have no respect for tradition and didn’t all just go cra … vegie at the sight of the moon, then they’ve somehow been … locked inside themselves? Is that it?’
‘No, I mean … well, maybe.’ Sam looked a bit miffed.
‘So, all those reports at your electronic fingertips and Big Brother nails it?’ Dean loved it when he got to blow Sam out of the water.
‘It could be anything, Dean. We don’t have all the facts yet.’
‘Do we have enough facts to consider this a real case?’
Sammy probably frowned, but it was hard to tell under the bangs. The sigh was obvious though. ‘All those people in the one location, and a lunar cycle link? Yes, we do, and we need to do it soon.’
Dean wondered which gods he’d pissed off in a former life that this was always the way. Sometimes the timing sucked; others, well, it was positively fortuitous. Fuck, now he was starting to sound like his brother in his head. Blame it on the close quarters; forget cabin fever, Dean had the Impala Syndrome. ‘So, out with it, Astro-Boy, when is the next Blue Moon?’
‘June 30.’
Next week. Right. Gods - laughter. Freaking hysterical that was. ‘Did you spend all night researching that or do you just pull these facts out of your … head?’
‘USNO,’ Sam gritted out.
Dean did his best to look like he had a dictionary of acronyms in his head like Sammy did. ‘Oh, U.S.N.O. So, I guess we’re G.O.I.N.G. then?’
‘Anytime, Dean. I packed the car before I went and got your breakfast from the truck stop. As soon as you’re finished playing with it we can go.’
Dean coolly let that shallow remark wash over him as he walked out the door sleepily swallowing the last lumpy mouthful of coffee. Breakfast of hunters.
♒
Dean stood by his first opinion of Sisomso. Boring didn’t even begin to describe it. It was nice, which in the Winchester codebook equalled ‘get out of town quick.’ If they stayed much longer without any leads he might have to kill himself in order to get some excitement.
They’d been in town for five days now interviewing the victim’s families, in-between research sessions at the local library and courthouse. Dean felt sure that most of that time had been taken up trying to balance a teacup on his lap while he watched Cpn. Emo ooze out caring and sharing till he wanted to puke.
It was one of the few useful skills that he didn’t begrudge Sam. No one got under a grief-stricken skin quite like his brother. Dean could charm the lingerie off a shy yak if he had to, but there were times when they needed something a little more subtle. He just wished he didn’t have to participate.
‘Ma’am,’ he interrupted smoothly, ‘If you could tell us what you remember from that last day, before David and his friend Lucas left here?’
Mrs Reid twisted her handkerchief into another knot, ‘We had a … fight. Lucas was a nice boy, but we didn’t … couldn’t condone … we told them it was wrong,’ she burst out. ‘They came to tell us, to get our blessing beforehand, and we … couldn’t give it. We let him … leave, thinking …’
‘Ssh, Sandra, we couldn’t know,’ her husband leaned forward on the couch beside her. ‘There’s still a chance that he …’
Dean listened to his brother uttering all the standard platitudes, but meaning them as only he could. Much good it would do anyone, even the Reids didn’t believe a miracle was still possible whatever they said. Sixteen dead in thirty years, the others still institutionalised in exactly the same state as when they were found. He knew that all the families were praying for a quick end, and pretending they weren’t.
‘Beforehand?’ he asked quietly. No time now for sympathy, the best they could do was find out what had done this and stop it before any more families were destroyed. ‘They were leaving Sisomso?’
‘No, they … wanted to stay here. They were going down to the Eden spring. For luck, and ...’ She dissolved back into tears against her husband’s chest.
Dean looked at Sam. Same story in every case, couples going off to spend the night at the local lover’s spring. Except the water seemed to be doing more than getting people wet. Thirty years of victims and they still went?
♒
‘Why after all the stories, and what has happened over the years, did they still go?’
‘Maybe they needed to believe, Dean,’ Sammy said as they did a quick sweep of the local supermarket to top up their supplies of basics. ‘The local springs are the reason their families settled here originally. People used to come here for the spas back in the thirties.’
He brandished a bottle of Simply Sisomso at Dean. ‘Now they’ve even starting to sell water from some of the springs. The whole local identity is based on the idea that these waters are good for you. I don’t think anyone is ready to admit that it has changed. It could kill this town.’
‘Something’s already started doing that,’ Dean remarked cynically, as he reached past his brother to grab some imported water instead.
‘The real question is why is it being so selective? We talked to that one couple who admitted that they’d gone down to Eden in November 2001, same night as the other couple. And they were fine.’
Dean grimaced as they made their way down the last aisle, ‘Got one answer for you, but you’re not going to like it.’
‘What?’
‘Mr and Mrs Squeaky Clean.’
‘Broderick,’ Sam interrupted with a frown.
‘Mr and Mrs Borederick. Been married five years, and I bet they still have sex with the lights out, if they do it at all.’
‘Dean!’
‘What? Come on, admit it, they were the most asexual people we’ve met in a long time. I don’t think they’ve ever had a naughty thought in their lives. I will say though that they were perfectly suited to one another.’
‘So?’
Dean leaned over for the final items on his mental list. ‘Maybe this thing needs something more to latch on to. Thoughts, sexual energy, whatever, before it is triggered.’ He tossed his essentials into the cart.
‘Condoms, Dean?’
‘Hell, yeah,’ Dean said as he flashed an appreciative smile at a girl walking down the aisle towards them. ‘You never know when you’re going to get … Ow! What was that for?’
‘That was for thinking you needed ten boxes.’ Sam primly put half of them back on the shelf over Dean’s muttered protests that he would have shared. ‘I think you can do safety without numbers.’
♒
‘I hate it when you’re right about sex, Dean.’
‘You must hate me a lot then.’ Dean managed to keep his smirk even after dodging the book thrown at his head. ‘Library book, Sammy, you know what they do to you in hell for that.’
‘Bite me.’
‘Not tonight, Samantha. Now, tell me exactly why I’m right about sex?’
‘Think about it Dean.’
‘Sex?’ Dean could feel his eyes begin to …
‘Sisomso to Dean. No, not sex. Water. Purity. Water washing away sin; cleansing, ridding people of evil.’
‘So, people go out there to get lucky under a full moon, and then whammo?’
Sam groaned, ‘Not exactly how I was going to phrase it, Dean, but yes, whammo. No more impure thoughts.’
‘No more thoughts full stop?’
‘Looks like.’
‘That explains the Blandericks. No fun, no sex, no danger. But what’s doing it? Someone, or something?’
‘I’m not totally sure, yet.’
‘Let me know when you are, because I really need to kill something soon.’
♒
‘I still say we should check out the veggies,’ Dean said with a hopeful look at his brother.
‘Victims, Dean.’
‘Whatever. I could give them the once over, while you keep on hitting the books.’
‘Nice try,’ Sam remarked acidly as he pushed another stack of research material towards him.
Damn. That didn’t work. What about reason? ‘We always talk to the victims.’
‘When they can talk. And when they’re not in the care of the Sisters of Saint Mary of the Springs. Nuns, Dean. The only men in the hospice are patients. I think we’d stand out.’
Nuns. Chicks in uniform.
‘Dean!’
‘What?’
‘I don’t even want to know where that mind of yours goes. The only positive thing I can say is at least you are an equal opportunity pervert. Do you think you could just turn it off, or dial it back a bit until this is over, Dean?’
Off? Why? ‘But …’
‘Not going there, Dean. And stop thinking about your purchases.’
Oops.
‘Just because you buy something, doesn’t mean you have to use it straight away. I’m sure they’ll keep.’ He reached into the grocery bag on the floor, stopped, and rummaged some more. ‘Dean? I put five back, so why are there are now thirteen boxes of condoms in here?’
Dean just grinned, because he really was that good. ‘Magic?’
‘Hmpf,’ Sam snorted derisively as he pulled out a violently purple box and flipped it over. ‘Extra strength and extra sensitivity?’
Heh. And extra …
‘In your dreams, Dean.’ Sam shoved one of the boxes right in his face. ‘See? 2013-08-05, looks like you’ve got a good few years left before you need to panic.’
Dean’s eyes uncrossed from the label a bare inch from his nose. He’d never had to consider those expiration dates in his life. Years? Turn it off? Sam wasn’t serious was he? Because that thought was enough to make him more than a little worried.
Turns out younger brothers were completely without feeling. ‘So,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Now we’ve got that problem out of the way, let’s see what we can dig up here.’
♒
After two hours Dean knew Sisomso was definitely going to be the death of him. He’d surfed pointlessly through eight local history books while Sam was still scratching away on what looked like his third pad of notes for only two books. He split open the dullest looking text and sighted through the spine at his brother contentedly barricaded behind his own wall of books. Bored now. He sorted his pile by colour. Still bored. Then he rearranged them in ascending order of size. Then reversed that. Oh, God, please don’t let me start to alphabetize.
Sam pushed his current book aside with an irritated mutter.
Dean came to attention. All hands on deck! ‘Found anything, Sammy?’
‘Bits and pieces. You?’
Um. ‘Not yet.’
Sam slanted a glance at his upside down pyramid of books.
Dean fidgeted. Come on. Find me something to shoot, anything.
‘Pizza?’ Sam’s voice was annoyingly understanding.
Yeah. Food, that’d do. Although, he had another idea … ‘I’ll go!’
‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to interrupt your research.’ Make that annoyingly sarcastic.
‘No, I’m good.’
‘And Dean?’
Dean looked back from the doorway. ‘Yeah?’
‘Tomorrow we’ll get into the hospice as health inspectors or something, okay?’
‘kay.’ Dean only pouted a bit; it wasn’t that he liked wearing disguises or … um … anything really kinky. It was just that he knew he could have positively worked a wimple.
♒
It wasn’t one of his better getaways; even Dean had to admit that. Clattering down dark tiled corridors, still busy cursing heaven over the clamour of what sounded like at least twenty-one bells going off above his head. But he was sure about one thing; it was the perfect place for a little blasphemy.
When he parked the Impala back outside their motel fifty-five minutes later he was proud that the only swearing he was doing by then was under his breath.
‘Dean.’ Sam, just looming there against the door to their room, all long lean limbs, arms firmly crossed and waiting.
Shit. Sometimes Sam used every word in his nerd centre to make his point, but right now he only needed the one. Dean really didn’t want to have to deal with whatever was going on in his brother’s head. He’d had a two bad hours, okay? Couldn’t the amazing Kreskin pick up on that, and just chill? He took a deep breath. Now or never. He grabbed the boxes off the bench seat and got out of the car. Coolly. Nothing to see here. ‘Hey, Sammy.’
‘Long queue?’
Yup. Sammy was in a mood. The less he said, the more Dean knew to worry. Only two ways to deal with that, and this definitely wasn’t the time and place for his preferred option. Go, door number two; talk right through it. ‘So, I worked out what Sisomso means,’ he said cheerfully as he shouldered past his brother. God, his feet were killing him.
‘Oh?’ Sam, still leaning, this time inside the now locked and chained door.
Damn he was good, but then he’d learnt from the best. Dean preferred it when it wasn’t used back against him though. ‘It’s got to be Italian for pizza on a Saturday night.’
Sam shifted a fraction, and waited.
Talking, I can do that. Dean tossed the takeout boxes on the table next to a still excited police scanner and tucked his right foot surreptitiously behind his left calf and rotated the ankle. Ah. ‘Must have been everyone in town inside Mama Joes.’
Sam’s legs waited. His arms were even more patient. Sam’s eyes flickered briefly down to Dean’s feet and back up to his face, never, ever, rising above his eyes. Sam. Waiting.
Dean could feel a headache starting to build. Fucking wimples.
♒
‘At least I got us a church discount on the pizzas.’
Sam. Waiting.
‘I …’ Dean flicked off the scanner. He didn’t need a soundtrack to this argument. Besides, the scanner seemed to have taken Sam’s side squeaking out some nonsense about wanting an all-points bulletin for some bow-legged nun. Typical. He wrenched the heels off and threw them in a corner. At least he had something else to measure pain against the next time he got shot.
Sam. Waiting.
He pulled out two chairs, and draped himself over them both thankfully. Ow. Getting off his feet hurt even more if that was even possible. Circulation was a bitch.
Sam. Waiting.
Getting most of a double-crust Mama steak special into his mouth gave him a valid excuse not to continue the argument for a while. He smiled through the pizza at his brother, flipped the lid open on the other box and nudged it an inch closer to Sam’s side of the room.
Sam. Waiting.
Dean yanked the despised wimple off and waved it a few times over the vegetarian pizza. Just enough to send the smell right over to the door. That’ll do it.
Sam. Waiting.
Fuck. But on the good side, Mama knew how to make pizza.
Sam. Waiting.
Beer, that was what they needed. The local beer, unfortunately, was not a tourist attraction.
Sam. Waiting. Damn. He was going all the way with this fight. And Sam could outwait Buddha, so Dean Winchester was … what the hell, he should be able to outwait his brother just once, shouldn’t he? Ten minutes, he could do that.
Nine. Dean knocked the cap off another beer against the table edge and relaxed back over the chairs. God, still tastes like cat’s piss. He smiled over the bottle at Sam as the pungent liquid slid slowly down.
Eight bottles of beer on a wall … No, think about something else. ‘Bout time he got some more car wax because he hadn’t had a chance to treat her right lately. Goddamn hunts played merry hell with his buff ‘n polish schedule.
Seven. Sam’s eyes. Waiting. He’d never been able to … Hold on. The melting point for silver is …
Six. ‘What do you want me to say, Sammy? That you were right, and it was a bad idea?’
Sam proved that eyebrow lifting was genetic.
Five. ‘You. Were. Right.’
Sam.
Waiting.
‘Totally right.’
Sam. Waiting.
‘No, possibly I shouldn’t have broken into a hospice run entirely by nuns, and attempted to interrogate a veggie … victim.’
Sam. Really and truly waiting.
‘While I was dressed as a nun.’
Sam. Still being Sam.
‘In heels.’
Sam. Stubborn as their father.
‘On my own.’
The smile thing probably had something to do with genes too.
Dean gave up entirely at that point and grudgingly admitted ‘Maybe the fishnets weren’t the best decision either.’
♒
‘Got one important thing out of it though,’ Dean said as he gratefully started peeling the stockings off.
‘Besides the knowledge that some things work better with hairless legs?’
Right. Everyone has to be a fashion critic. And like Sam knew anything about style. Seriously, just look at those shirts he’d been wearing lately. You couldn’t blame all that bad taste on Goodwill. He on the other … Shit. Damn things had somehow become twisted and caught halfway. This was suddenly more complicated than getting the things on in the first place. Dean hopped around the room doubled over trying desperately to yank and … ‘Ow! Fuck.’ Yup, the stockings had done a good job of trying to obey Sam’s wishes. Little crawlers. ‘Laugh it up, Sam. Just be glad I didn’t have to go chick speed shopping for you too. We’d still be stuck in the hell that is Wal-Mart on a weekend.’
‘Two words, Dean. Opaque lycra.’
Dean wasn’t blushing, so he wasn’t trying to change the subject at all when he finally got free of the Devil’s nylon minions and managed to say, ‘Veggie was right, I got a look at most of the survivors before that nosy Dominican caught me, and about the only thing they are reacting to is light. Definitely nobody home. In any of their homes.’
Sam started saying something about the cerebral cortex, which Dean filed under Geek in his mental trash can as he juggled pizza slices and clothes.
‘Someone did a number on their brains, Sam. That’s pretty high-powered stuff.’
‘I did some more research while you were out playing Victor Victoria,’ Sam said as he finally turned away from Dean and started in on his own pizza.
Huh. And? ‘And?’
‘There’s anecdotal evidence going right back to the early settlers that this spring seemed to be some sort of proving ground for couples. Lots of tales of indecisive lovers spending the night there and coming back with their minds made up one way or the other.’
‘Such as?’
‘They either came back a permanent happy couple, or they broke up there and then. No in-between. Maybe there’s something in those myths about water being a mirror to one’s soul.’
‘I think I skipped over those stories for the ones with monsters and fighting in. So, if you’re into the whole romance and truth thing, the spring wasn’t doing a bad job until the last few decades?’
‘The seventies is when people started turning up … damaged.’
‘Water spirit?’
‘Don’t think so. They have their own reasons and patterns, and this much of a reversal doesn’t fit. I’m thinking …’
‘Someone, or something interfered?’ Dean interrupted.
‘Yeah, upset the balance, either accidentally or deliberately. I think someone’s taking the idea of holy water to another level.’
‘I’ll vote for the later,’ Dean said bitterly. ‘This has a whole “vengeance is mine” feel about it. Besides, accidents wear off. Revenge, over this length of time? That takes a lot of work and concentrated hate.’
‘I think a lot of the energy might be coming from the spring itself. It’s a double spring, and that is unusual for a start. Add in a full moon, and a blue one at that. This is old magic, Dean.’
‘You know I hate mumbo jumbo, give me a nice monster or a demon any day.’
‘A nice monster?’
Dean shrugged. ‘You know what I mean, Sam. I like my evil …’
‘Dark side up?’
Dean winced. California humour. It just wasn’t all there. Sam was better off away from Stanford before all the Winchester was leeched out of him. ‘Just once I’d like us to drive into town, hunt the monster down, and torch it before the hour is up.’
‘Yeah, right, Dean. Like that is ever going to happen. Besides you love hunting.’
‘When I’ve got something to damn well hunt; research makes my head hurt.’
‘That’s too much hair gel, Dean. The only thing the books will do to you is …’
‘Rot my brain? Seriously, Sam, find us something to hunt before I go skinny-dipping in that spring to get our answer.’
♒
‘Start with the old people? Sure, Dean, we’ll just interrogate everyone in town over the age of fifty.’
‘Forty. Might have been an early starter.’
‘Two words, Dean. Ageing population. That isn’t exactly going to narrow down our suspects.’
‘So, let’s start with the regular religious whackos, and anybody uptight.’
‘Uptight? You going to add the nuns to the list, while we’re targeting the puritans?’
Already on my list. ‘Failing that I say we stake out Adam and Eve.’
‘Adam and … what?’
‘The springs. Double. Eden? Duh! Hey, you’re actually going red. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Blushing at the idea of A&E getting it on. You know the Bible was kind of hot, there were all sorts of things going on in it.’
‘That’s not why I’m blus… I’m not blushing, I’m … Fuck! Stop poking me.’
Dean gave that plea some consideration, but then he thought that it did Sam a lot of good to be a little less serious every now and then. Besides he was having too much fun to stop now. Well he was, right up until his brother managed to flip him over the table and onto the cracked lino. Ow. Sometimes he forgot that he’d taught Sam most of his moves. ‘Get off me you big lug.’
Sam grinned down at him, happy with the current situation. ‘Not till you spit it out. Exactly how did you plan on staking out the springs, Dean?’
‘The two of us, my baby, all the weapons, and a six-pack and …’ Oh. Lovers’ springs … couples. Oops. ‘Uh.’
‘Now look who’s blushing!’
‘Am not.’
‘Are too.’
‘Am …’ Damnit. Think fast. ‘No problem, Sammy. If we don’t come up with a real suspect before tomorrow night’s blue moon we’ll just have to go down there with a rug and pretend we’re having a … picnic. Turn the music up loud. It’ll be dark, so no one will be able to tell what we’re doing. Nobody in town knows we’re brothers anyway, they’ll just assume we’re … we’ll be the perfect bait for this weirdo. We just need to lie there and wait, and grab the person before they zap us.’
‘That’s your plan? Lie back and think of Kansas?’
‘Simple, like the water,’ Dean grinned, only a little uncomfortably. He couldn’t always be expected to think of everything, could he? ‘Don’t always need to over think things, Sam.’
‘Is that the whole plan?’
‘Stake-out. Beer. Gotcha. Hurt them till they reverse it. Hurt them a lot more, kill them maybe. Adios Sisomso.’
‘Anything else?’
Dean thought for a moment. ‘Nope, those are pretty much the finer details. Masterful, huh? You all right Sam? You look kind of pale.’
Sam winced. ‘You won’t care if I add a few bits here and there?’
Dean gestured generously, ‘Sure, but nothing too frilly. That always comes back to haunt us.’
♒
‘You’re still pissed it wasn’t one of the nuns, aren’t you?’ Sam was roaming distractedly around their motel room, actively not packing.
Yes. ‘No.’ Dean had been ready in under five minutes, and was now fighting the instinct which told him to drag Sam out to the Impala, push him in the passenger seat, and just go.
‘Would it make you feel better if we found out one of them helped him plan it?’
Yes. ‘Hell, yeah!’
‘Tough, Dean. It was the butler on his own, at the springs, with a hell of a lot of candles, and sooner or later you’re going to have to get over that.’
‘He was a hydrologist, not a butler,’ Dean snapped back before he could even think. Damn. He wasn’t pouting. Honestly. ‘Don’t know why a hydrologist would retire to Sisomso anyway.’ So, he was pouting now, but who could blame him? Besides, staging a well-timed tantrum gave both of them something else to focus on for a moment rather than brooding about how the hunt had ended.
‘The waters?’ Sam suggested deceptively mildly.
Dean glared at him. He hated it when his brother refused to have the decency to be irritatingly smug to have won that round. It gave Dean absolutely nothing to play off.
Dean presumed that hydrologists (or butlers), like elephants, had to go somewhere to die. Apparently that place was Sisomso. At least he hadn’t picked Florida.
♒
‘We’re just lucky that I finally found those weird letters to the editor he wrote back before he started all this.’ Sam was back on his laptop again, cascading through all his notes, still trying to find answers, and more reasons not to leave. ‘Nothing after the first set of victims though. Looks like that was when he started to clamp down on that part of himself, in public at least.’
Dean tried not to let the thought of what Harvey had done as an outlet for all that craziness disturb him, and didn’t bother to point out to Sam that they would have been a whole lot luckier if the bad guy had been standing on a street corner when they arrived brandishing a placard proclaiming “Unclean!”
‘I still don’t get how he went from starting up the Safeguard Sisomso Springs Society back in the early Seventies, to this. It’s a long way from his “keep our waters clean” platform to using what he held sacred to kill people.’ The more Dean saw of so-called “normal” people, the less he understood their motivations.
‘No way we’re ever going to find out now,’ Sam said soberly.
‘Yeah, way to go, Sam. Kill the senior citizen before I get to use the thumb screws on him.’ Fuck. Too late to take that back. ‘Sammy, I ….’ Dean leant forward across the corner of the table to cup his hands around his brother’s downcast head. ‘He didn’t give us any choice.’ He pulled Sam closer, thumbs soothing up and down his neck. ‘I wasn’t quick enough.’ I should be carrying this death, was all he could think of, not Sammy. Sam had never learnt how to let anything go.
Sam sighed, tilting his head back into the cradle of Dean’s hands. ‘I wish I could have stopped him without …’ killing him.
‘Our plan was dead in the water as soon as he saw us,’ Dean admitted, resting his forehead against Sam’s with a sigh.
♒
Sam had spent an impossible day desperately narrowing down the long list of possible suspects to three strong probables: the dippy manager of the new age store (who was a little too knowledgeable about manipulating crystals); the local antiquarian (access to the relevant esoteric texts); and Graham Harvey (resident hydrologist, pillar of the community, and self-appointed “protector” of the Springs). Dean had done his best to make a case for Sister Julie - mostly on the grounds that as the nursing order’s Mother Superior she was in the best position to cover her tracks and ensure that none of the victims ever recovered, but Sam had, rightly as it turned out, ignored his pleas.
It was probably fate that had seen them staging their third break-in right in the middle of Harvey’s Blue Moon Eve ritual. Admittedly Dean’s sardonic ‘So I’m guessing you dripping your own blood into that candle isn’t a good sign of your innocence?’ wasn’t calculated to create a good first impression. But nothing explained the way something in the room suddenly seemed to stop and then change as soon as Dean got close to their target. He’d taken one stunned look into Dean’s eyes, and then those of Sam looming to the rear and Dean could have sworn he saw something literally snap inside the man, all that cold, calculating rage dissolving into astonished awe and recognition before reforming into a tidal wave of terror that peaked with him lunging at Dean with the knife he’d been coolly using on himself minutes before.
At Dean, momentarily frozen by a similar sense of knowing, of wrongness and the frantic thought that he had to get Sammy out of there fast. And that second of inaction was all it took for him to lose control of the situation and let his attacker get too close.
But Sammy had reacted faster, shoving Dean to the right, gun coming up, and firing five bullets straight into his chest. And so Graham Harvey had died, right there on the damp concrete floor of his basement between the bloody altar and his leaking washing machine, with his eyes still locked on Dean’s in shock, saying ‘It can’t be …’
♒
‘What couldn’t be?’ Sammy asked, breaking away from Dean at last.
‘Dunno,’ Dean said, deliberately dismissive. He refused to think about any of it, it was better left alone. ‘He was crazy, who knows what he was thinking? None of that’s important. What is; is that he brought his death upon himself. But if you want to blame someone else, blame me for freezing. You saved me, and you didn’t have the time to try and disable him, he was coming at me and you took him down like Dad taught us. If he was coming at me now would you do anything different?’
‘No!’ Sam said instantly, eyes suddenly full of that same pure fury that had burnt in them when Harvey had come so close to killing Dean.
‘See?’ Dean slapped Sam reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Sam. We got the bad guy, and it’s over. Sisomso gets to go back to normal, and we get to leave.’
‘I’m not sure it can ever get back to normal. I killed their Mayor, Dean!’
‘Well, I’m sure the town will get over that just as soon as they get a good look at what was in his basement. We left enough evidence down there for even the local cops to figure out he was behind everything that happened at the springs. If not exactly how he did it.’
‘I wish we knew how,’ Sam said with a confused frown. There had been nothing in any of Harvey’s vitriolic notes about the victims to explain his method of wiping their minds clean. Just a lot of confused nonsense about people needing to be purified, some random strings of numbers, and one out-of-place doodle of a flower of all things. ‘The water tested clean, no poisons or unusual levels of trace-elements ever turned up in the victims’ blood work. There weren’t any spells anywhere in his house, just the ramblings of a madman, nothing to say how he harnessed this power. If we only knew, we could work out how to fix things, cure those people still lying in that hospice.’
‘I know, Sammy. Maybe now he’s gone, everything he started will eventually wear off.’ Dean was offering faint hope and he knew as well as Sam how unlikely that was. The damage had been done. The only good to come out of it was that it could never happen again. It was past time to leave town.
♒
The picnic rug was a particularly hideous nylon tartan number. They’d borrowed it from Bobby years before, and nothing killed it. Blood, ash, slime, it was still as scarily vibrant as the day it was made. Dean personally thought the rug was possessed; there were times when he swore it was watching them. Like now. And he thought the rug definitely had the wrong idea. It seemed to be judging them even more sternly than the damned crow that was eying them sarcastically as it paced up and down on the tree branch above them.
‘Move over,’ he said quietly. He knew a whisper could carry further than a lowered voice.
‘Why?’
Dean withdrew the arm he had casually looped around Sam’s neck and drew a line between them in the darkness. ‘You’re on my half.’
‘Your half? What are you, eight?’ Sam said. ‘Besides, aren’t you the same Dean Winchester who insisted I “snuggle up and make it look good” only an hour ago?’
‘That was then,’ Dean objected illogically. ‘And I don’t think there’s much chance of anyone coming out here now. They’ll all be at home ringing their neighbours to tell them they never trusted Mayor Harvey from the start.’
‘But …’ Sam started to protest before untwining himself and pulling off Dean with a huff.
‘No one here to see us but the stars.’ Dean kept his tone disinterested and his eyes on the rug just in case.
Sam stomped to his feet, not bothering to be quiet any longer. ‘No wonder you only ever have one-night stands with girls if this is how you treat them. You have no sense of ro … agh!’ he growled in frustration.
‘Just for that you’re not getting another Valentine’s Day card from me ever again,’ Dean said in mock threat as he bounced to his feet beside him.
‘I think you’re getting me confused with your car, Dean,’ Sam snapped.
‘Ooh, low blow, Sammy. Jealous?’
‘I think you’re perfect for each other,’ Sam said sincerely as he angrily stuffed the rug back into the tote bag that had been doing its best to masquerade as a picnic basket.
Dean felt much better when the rug was out of sight. It really was a disturbing tartan.
‘We tracked down the person responsible for all this. He’s dead. You wanted to leave. Hell, you were packed and trying to move me along before the police even found the body! So what made you change your mind and convince me to come and stake out the springs under a blue moon with you when you said it was all over?’
‘I just needed to be sure, Sammy,’ Dean said as he ducked for the third time.
‘Sure of what? There was no evidence that he had any accomplices. I killed him! Can’t this just be done?’ Sam realised he’d been waving the bag dangerously through the air for emphasis, and put it carefully back on the ground.
‘I don’t know what, okay?’ Dean hated it when Sammy questioned him about something that he couldn’t quantify. ‘Something just felt off - unfinished. You were right. We needed to find out how he did it. I just hoped we’d find it here if we followed the sequence through to the end.’
‘Hell, Dean,’ Sam said with feeling as he abruptly relaxed. ‘Do you have to be so blasted logical sometimes about covering all the bases?’
Ah, busted. Sammy had worked it out too quickly, that was the disadvantage with being partners with someone who knew you better than you knew yourself most of the time. Dean shrugged at his brother. ‘Had to try the warm and fuzzy, and the anger. Wasn’t sure if there was something out here that was capable of using people’s emotions as a catalyst to trap them.’
‘And here I was more worried about the police,’ Sam said ironically.
‘I think the police are the last of our worries,’ Dean said confidently. ‘They’re so busy trying to keep a lid on the Psycho Killer Mayor thing, that they won’t be wanting to look too closely at who might have done it. Soon enough half the town will be lining up to take credit for that act of public service.’
‘Are we finally finished here, Dean?’ Sam asked.
‘Guess so,’ Dean answered with a puzzled look. ‘We’ve been out here forever getting all touchy feely under the moonlight, and we’ve done the fight scene, and still nothing. Did you feel anything at all?’
‘Well, the earth didn’t move for me, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Sam said.
Dean flapped a hand in irritation. ‘No big revelation. You and me together against the world for the rest of our lives, that kind of deal?’
‘Nothing I didn’t already know,’ Sam answered steadily, his gaze equally unwavering.
‘Me either,’ Dean said eventually, bending over to pick up an interesting stone from the water’s edge to distract himself from all that emotion. ‘I could have sworn there was something out here.’ He rubbed his fingers absentmindedly over the time-worn grooves in the surface before holding his find up to show it off to Sam. ‘Cool rock, hey, Sammy?’
‘Dean!’ Sam suddenly had a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. ‘I don’t think …’
Dean ignored him, twisting easily under the grip to turn towards the water again. He laughed back at his brother as he flicked his wrist out to send the stone skipping away over the moonlit surface of the spring. ‘Come on Sammy, this is all over. Let’s get the hell out of here and celebrate.’
The broken caw of Sam’s screamed warning was the last thing Dean heard as the water claimed him back.
♒
Part 2
6,773/28,777 of R rated Gen (with an edge of subtext) crack!fic in which Dean revisits his past in unexpected ways. (Wimples, pizza - oh, and fourteen bodies)
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Epilogue
Part 1
Dissolution
Dean liked beds. They had an open access policy that he was all in favour of. What Dean didn’t like about beds was getting out of them. Early. In winter. Early. To go on a hunt. At five o’clock in the morning early.
He dragged the covers along with him as he twisted up to sit on the edge of the mattress. He sat there with his eyes stubbornly shut for a while as he listened to some strange, giant, loud, idiot clump around the room.
‘Dea…’
‘Ngh.’ He was up, okay - almost up, wasn’t he? Was there some law that said he had to be coherent too? Besides, he was already dressed. Way ahead of the game.
‘Dean.’
A loud, talkative, gigantic, idiot. ‘Nope. No talking. New rule, Sam.’
‘Dean!’
Dean opened his eyes to see his brother’s goddamn knees right there in his space. The blanket fell off his head as he tilted it all the way back to squint up at Sam. ‘What?’ Oh. There was a God. ‘Coffee? And donuts? You know you’re my bitch now, don’t you?’
‘Shut up.’
♒
Topless. That was how Dean liked his coffee. He snickered to himself as he peeled the wussy lid off and tossed it in the general direction of the nightstand. He also preferred to be able to see what he was drinking. Most of the time anyway. God, that’s good. Black as sin, and slipped down just as easy. With the skill born of too much practice he managed to wedge a whole donut in the cup, one half happily submerged and getting its own infusion of caffeine. He didn’t even mind the sugar dusting his nose as he slurped out of one edge. After a minute he had the donut throw a U-turn and started nibbling away. It was always a race to eat them before they completely disintegrated. Dean usually won.
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘You fold your clean socks in half and then turn them inside out into little … sausages, and you think I’m gross?’ He raised an eyebrow at Sam firstly because he could, and also because - hello, Freud! ‘I thought I taught you better than that, Sammy.’
‘Jess liked t…’
Shit. ‘Dude, don’t hog all the donuts, I could …’ He barely caught the bag in time. The look on his brother’s face when he broke one down into tiny depth charges was all he’d hoped for. Dive! Dive! ‘So, tell me more about these crazy people.’
That got him the desired eye roll. ‘They’re not crazy, Dean. They’re in a persistent vegetative state according to the reports I read.’
‘Eight people in the one small town over the last how many years?’
‘Twenty-four people in thirty years. Sixteen have died since they were found.’
‘Twenty-four people just switched off all on their own? In Sisomso, Michigan? Must be a really dull town.’
‘Couples, Dean. Twelve incidents, and two people every time.’
‘No ménage a trois?’ Dean joked, because really, Sam had just asked for that one.
Sam concentrated on his own coffee for a long moment.
Huh. Not going to bite. Okay. ‘And all found the night after a full moon?’
‘Specifically a Blue Moon.’
‘Specifically,’ Dean mouthed slowly. ‘So, if they have no respect for tradition and didn’t all just go cra … vegie at the sight of the moon, then they’ve somehow been … locked inside themselves? Is that it?’
‘No, I mean … well, maybe.’ Sam looked a bit miffed.
‘So, all those reports at your electronic fingertips and Big Brother nails it?’ Dean loved it when he got to blow Sam out of the water.
‘It could be anything, Dean. We don’t have all the facts yet.’
‘Do we have enough facts to consider this a real case?’
Sammy probably frowned, but it was hard to tell under the bangs. The sigh was obvious though. ‘All those people in the one location, and a lunar cycle link? Yes, we do, and we need to do it soon.’
Dean wondered which gods he’d pissed off in a former life that this was always the way. Sometimes the timing sucked; others, well, it was positively fortuitous. Fuck, now he was starting to sound like his brother in his head. Blame it on the close quarters; forget cabin fever, Dean had the Impala Syndrome. ‘So, out with it, Astro-Boy, when is the next Blue Moon?’
‘June 30.’
Next week. Right. Gods - laughter. Freaking hysterical that was. ‘Did you spend all night researching that or do you just pull these facts out of your … head?’
‘USNO,’ Sam gritted out.
Dean did his best to look like he had a dictionary of acronyms in his head like Sammy did. ‘Oh, U.S.N.O. So, I guess we’re G.O.I.N.G. then?’
‘Anytime, Dean. I packed the car before I went and got your breakfast from the truck stop. As soon as you’re finished playing with it we can go.’
Dean coolly let that shallow remark wash over him as he walked out the door sleepily swallowing the last lumpy mouthful of coffee. Breakfast of hunters.
♒
Dean stood by his first opinion of Sisomso. Boring didn’t even begin to describe it. It was nice, which in the Winchester codebook equalled ‘get out of town quick.’ If they stayed much longer without any leads he might have to kill himself in order to get some excitement.
They’d been in town for five days now interviewing the victim’s families, in-between research sessions at the local library and courthouse. Dean felt sure that most of that time had been taken up trying to balance a teacup on his lap while he watched Cpn. Emo ooze out caring and sharing till he wanted to puke.
It was one of the few useful skills that he didn’t begrudge Sam. No one got under a grief-stricken skin quite like his brother. Dean could charm the lingerie off a shy yak if he had to, but there were times when they needed something a little more subtle. He just wished he didn’t have to participate.
‘Ma’am,’ he interrupted smoothly, ‘If you could tell us what you remember from that last day, before David and his friend Lucas left here?’
Mrs Reid twisted her handkerchief into another knot, ‘We had a … fight. Lucas was a nice boy, but we didn’t … couldn’t condone … we told them it was wrong,’ she burst out. ‘They came to tell us, to get our blessing beforehand, and we … couldn’t give it. We let him … leave, thinking …’
‘Ssh, Sandra, we couldn’t know,’ her husband leaned forward on the couch beside her. ‘There’s still a chance that he …’
Dean listened to his brother uttering all the standard platitudes, but meaning them as only he could. Much good it would do anyone, even the Reids didn’t believe a miracle was still possible whatever they said. Sixteen dead in thirty years, the others still institutionalised in exactly the same state as when they were found. He knew that all the families were praying for a quick end, and pretending they weren’t.
‘Beforehand?’ he asked quietly. No time now for sympathy, the best they could do was find out what had done this and stop it before any more families were destroyed. ‘They were leaving Sisomso?’
‘No, they … wanted to stay here. They were going down to the Eden spring. For luck, and ...’ She dissolved back into tears against her husband’s chest.
Dean looked at Sam. Same story in every case, couples going off to spend the night at the local lover’s spring. Except the water seemed to be doing more than getting people wet. Thirty years of victims and they still went?
♒
‘Why after all the stories, and what has happened over the years, did they still go?’
‘Maybe they needed to believe, Dean,’ Sammy said as they did a quick sweep of the local supermarket to top up their supplies of basics. ‘The local springs are the reason their families settled here originally. People used to come here for the spas back in the thirties.’
He brandished a bottle of Simply Sisomso at Dean. ‘Now they’ve even starting to sell water from some of the springs. The whole local identity is based on the idea that these waters are good for you. I don’t think anyone is ready to admit that it has changed. It could kill this town.’
‘Something’s already started doing that,’ Dean remarked cynically, as he reached past his brother to grab some imported water instead.
‘The real question is why is it being so selective? We talked to that one couple who admitted that they’d gone down to Eden in November 2001, same night as the other couple. And they were fine.’
Dean grimaced as they made their way down the last aisle, ‘Got one answer for you, but you’re not going to like it.’
‘What?’
‘Mr and Mrs Squeaky Clean.’
‘Broderick,’ Sam interrupted with a frown.
‘Mr and Mrs Borederick. Been married five years, and I bet they still have sex with the lights out, if they do it at all.’
‘Dean!’
‘What? Come on, admit it, they were the most asexual people we’ve met in a long time. I don’t think they’ve ever had a naughty thought in their lives. I will say though that they were perfectly suited to one another.’
‘So?’
Dean leaned over for the final items on his mental list. ‘Maybe this thing needs something more to latch on to. Thoughts, sexual energy, whatever, before it is triggered.’ He tossed his essentials into the cart.
‘Condoms, Dean?’
‘Hell, yeah,’ Dean said as he flashed an appreciative smile at a girl walking down the aisle towards them. ‘You never know when you’re going to get … Ow! What was that for?’
‘That was for thinking you needed ten boxes.’ Sam primly put half of them back on the shelf over Dean’s muttered protests that he would have shared. ‘I think you can do safety without numbers.’
♒
‘I hate it when you’re right about sex, Dean.’
‘You must hate me a lot then.’ Dean managed to keep his smirk even after dodging the book thrown at his head. ‘Library book, Sammy, you know what they do to you in hell for that.’
‘Bite me.’
‘Not tonight, Samantha. Now, tell me exactly why I’m right about sex?’
‘Think about it Dean.’
‘Sex?’ Dean could feel his eyes begin to …
‘Sisomso to Dean. No, not sex. Water. Purity. Water washing away sin; cleansing, ridding people of evil.’
‘So, people go out there to get lucky under a full moon, and then whammo?’
Sam groaned, ‘Not exactly how I was going to phrase it, Dean, but yes, whammo. No more impure thoughts.’
‘No more thoughts full stop?’
‘Looks like.’
‘That explains the Blandericks. No fun, no sex, no danger. But what’s doing it? Someone, or something?’
‘I’m not totally sure, yet.’
‘Let me know when you are, because I really need to kill something soon.’
♒
‘I still say we should check out the veggies,’ Dean said with a hopeful look at his brother.
‘Victims, Dean.’
‘Whatever. I could give them the once over, while you keep on hitting the books.’
‘Nice try,’ Sam remarked acidly as he pushed another stack of research material towards him.
Damn. That didn’t work. What about reason? ‘We always talk to the victims.’
‘When they can talk. And when they’re not in the care of the Sisters of Saint Mary of the Springs. Nuns, Dean. The only men in the hospice are patients. I think we’d stand out.’
Nuns. Chicks in uniform.
‘Dean!’
‘What?’
‘I don’t even want to know where that mind of yours goes. The only positive thing I can say is at least you are an equal opportunity pervert. Do you think you could just turn it off, or dial it back a bit until this is over, Dean?’
Off? Why? ‘But …’
‘Not going there, Dean. And stop thinking about your purchases.’
Oops.
‘Just because you buy something, doesn’t mean you have to use it straight away. I’m sure they’ll keep.’ He reached into the grocery bag on the floor, stopped, and rummaged some more. ‘Dean? I put five back, so why are there are now thirteen boxes of condoms in here?’
Dean just grinned, because he really was that good. ‘Magic?’
‘Hmpf,’ Sam snorted derisively as he pulled out a violently purple box and flipped it over. ‘Extra strength and extra sensitivity?’
Heh. And extra …
‘In your dreams, Dean.’ Sam shoved one of the boxes right in his face. ‘See? 2013-08-05, looks like you’ve got a good few years left before you need to panic.’
Dean’s eyes uncrossed from the label a bare inch from his nose. He’d never had to consider those expiration dates in his life. Years? Turn it off? Sam wasn’t serious was he? Because that thought was enough to make him more than a little worried.
Turns out younger brothers were completely without feeling. ‘So,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Now we’ve got that problem out of the way, let’s see what we can dig up here.’
♒
After two hours Dean knew Sisomso was definitely going to be the death of him. He’d surfed pointlessly through eight local history books while Sam was still scratching away on what looked like his third pad of notes for only two books. He split open the dullest looking text and sighted through the spine at his brother contentedly barricaded behind his own wall of books. Bored now. He sorted his pile by colour. Still bored. Then he rearranged them in ascending order of size. Then reversed that. Oh, God, please don’t let me start to alphabetize.
Sam pushed his current book aside with an irritated mutter.
Dean came to attention. All hands on deck! ‘Found anything, Sammy?’
‘Bits and pieces. You?’
Um. ‘Not yet.’
Sam slanted a glance at his upside down pyramid of books.
Dean fidgeted. Come on. Find me something to shoot, anything.
‘Pizza?’ Sam’s voice was annoyingly understanding.
Yeah. Food, that’d do. Although, he had another idea … ‘I’ll go!’
‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to interrupt your research.’ Make that annoyingly sarcastic.
‘No, I’m good.’
‘And Dean?’
Dean looked back from the doorway. ‘Yeah?’
‘Tomorrow we’ll get into the hospice as health inspectors or something, okay?’
‘kay.’ Dean only pouted a bit; it wasn’t that he liked wearing disguises or … um … anything really kinky. It was just that he knew he could have positively worked a wimple.
♒
It wasn’t one of his better getaways; even Dean had to admit that. Clattering down dark tiled corridors, still busy cursing heaven over the clamour of what sounded like at least twenty-one bells going off above his head. But he was sure about one thing; it was the perfect place for a little blasphemy.
When he parked the Impala back outside their motel fifty-five minutes later he was proud that the only swearing he was doing by then was under his breath.
‘Dean.’ Sam, just looming there against the door to their room, all long lean limbs, arms firmly crossed and waiting.
Shit. Sometimes Sam used every word in his nerd centre to make his point, but right now he only needed the one. Dean really didn’t want to have to deal with whatever was going on in his brother’s head. He’d had a two bad hours, okay? Couldn’t the amazing Kreskin pick up on that, and just chill? He took a deep breath. Now or never. He grabbed the boxes off the bench seat and got out of the car. Coolly. Nothing to see here. ‘Hey, Sammy.’
‘Long queue?’
Yup. Sammy was in a mood. The less he said, the more Dean knew to worry. Only two ways to deal with that, and this definitely wasn’t the time and place for his preferred option. Go, door number two; talk right through it. ‘So, I worked out what Sisomso means,’ he said cheerfully as he shouldered past his brother. God, his feet were killing him.
‘Oh?’ Sam, still leaning, this time inside the now locked and chained door.
Damn he was good, but then he’d learnt from the best. Dean preferred it when it wasn’t used back against him though. ‘It’s got to be Italian for pizza on a Saturday night.’
Sam shifted a fraction, and waited.
Talking, I can do that. Dean tossed the takeout boxes on the table next to a still excited police scanner and tucked his right foot surreptitiously behind his left calf and rotated the ankle. Ah. ‘Must have been everyone in town inside Mama Joes.’
Sam’s legs waited. His arms were even more patient. Sam’s eyes flickered briefly down to Dean’s feet and back up to his face, never, ever, rising above his eyes. Sam. Waiting.
Dean could feel a headache starting to build. Fucking wimples.
♒
‘At least I got us a church discount on the pizzas.’
Sam. Waiting.
‘I …’ Dean flicked off the scanner. He didn’t need a soundtrack to this argument. Besides, the scanner seemed to have taken Sam’s side squeaking out some nonsense about wanting an all-points bulletin for some bow-legged nun. Typical. He wrenched the heels off and threw them in a corner. At least he had something else to measure pain against the next time he got shot.
Sam. Waiting.
He pulled out two chairs, and draped himself over them both thankfully. Ow. Getting off his feet hurt even more if that was even possible. Circulation was a bitch.
Sam. Waiting.
Getting most of a double-crust Mama steak special into his mouth gave him a valid excuse not to continue the argument for a while. He smiled through the pizza at his brother, flipped the lid open on the other box and nudged it an inch closer to Sam’s side of the room.
Sam. Waiting.
Dean yanked the despised wimple off and waved it a few times over the vegetarian pizza. Just enough to send the smell right over to the door. That’ll do it.
Sam. Waiting.
Fuck. But on the good side, Mama knew how to make pizza.
Sam. Waiting.
Beer, that was what they needed. The local beer, unfortunately, was not a tourist attraction.
Sam. Waiting. Damn. He was going all the way with this fight. And Sam could outwait Buddha, so Dean Winchester was … what the hell, he should be able to outwait his brother just once, shouldn’t he? Ten minutes, he could do that.
Nine. Dean knocked the cap off another beer against the table edge and relaxed back over the chairs. God, still tastes like cat’s piss. He smiled over the bottle at Sam as the pungent liquid slid slowly down.
Eight bottles of beer on a wall … No, think about something else. ‘Bout time he got some more car wax because he hadn’t had a chance to treat her right lately. Goddamn hunts played merry hell with his buff ‘n polish schedule.
Seven. Sam’s eyes. Waiting. He’d never been able to … Hold on. The melting point for silver is …
Six. ‘What do you want me to say, Sammy? That you were right, and it was a bad idea?’
Sam proved that eyebrow lifting was genetic.
Five. ‘You. Were. Right.’
Sam.
Waiting.
‘Totally right.’
Sam. Waiting.
‘No, possibly I shouldn’t have broken into a hospice run entirely by nuns, and attempted to interrogate a veggie … victim.’
Sam. Really and truly waiting.
‘While I was dressed as a nun.’
Sam. Still being Sam.
‘In heels.’
Sam. Stubborn as their father.
‘On my own.’
The smile thing probably had something to do with genes too.
Dean gave up entirely at that point and grudgingly admitted ‘Maybe the fishnets weren’t the best decision either.’
♒
‘Got one important thing out of it though,’ Dean said as he gratefully started peeling the stockings off.
‘Besides the knowledge that some things work better with hairless legs?’
Right. Everyone has to be a fashion critic. And like Sam knew anything about style. Seriously, just look at those shirts he’d been wearing lately. You couldn’t blame all that bad taste on Goodwill. He on the other … Shit. Damn things had somehow become twisted and caught halfway. This was suddenly more complicated than getting the things on in the first place. Dean hopped around the room doubled over trying desperately to yank and … ‘Ow! Fuck.’ Yup, the stockings had done a good job of trying to obey Sam’s wishes. Little crawlers. ‘Laugh it up, Sam. Just be glad I didn’t have to go chick speed shopping for you too. We’d still be stuck in the hell that is Wal-Mart on a weekend.’
‘Two words, Dean. Opaque lycra.’
Dean wasn’t blushing, so he wasn’t trying to change the subject at all when he finally got free of the Devil’s nylon minions and managed to say, ‘Veggie was right, I got a look at most of the survivors before that nosy Dominican caught me, and about the only thing they are reacting to is light. Definitely nobody home. In any of their homes.’
Sam started saying something about the cerebral cortex, which Dean filed under Geek in his mental trash can as he juggled pizza slices and clothes.
‘Someone did a number on their brains, Sam. That’s pretty high-powered stuff.’
‘I did some more research while you were out playing Victor Victoria,’ Sam said as he finally turned away from Dean and started in on his own pizza.
Huh. And? ‘And?’
‘There’s anecdotal evidence going right back to the early settlers that this spring seemed to be some sort of proving ground for couples. Lots of tales of indecisive lovers spending the night there and coming back with their minds made up one way or the other.’
‘Such as?’
‘They either came back a permanent happy couple, or they broke up there and then. No in-between. Maybe there’s something in those myths about water being a mirror to one’s soul.’
‘I think I skipped over those stories for the ones with monsters and fighting in. So, if you’re into the whole romance and truth thing, the spring wasn’t doing a bad job until the last few decades?’
‘The seventies is when people started turning up … damaged.’
‘Water spirit?’
‘Don’t think so. They have their own reasons and patterns, and this much of a reversal doesn’t fit. I’m thinking …’
‘Someone, or something interfered?’ Dean interrupted.
‘Yeah, upset the balance, either accidentally or deliberately. I think someone’s taking the idea of holy water to another level.’
‘I’ll vote for the later,’ Dean said bitterly. ‘This has a whole “vengeance is mine” feel about it. Besides, accidents wear off. Revenge, over this length of time? That takes a lot of work and concentrated hate.’
‘I think a lot of the energy might be coming from the spring itself. It’s a double spring, and that is unusual for a start. Add in a full moon, and a blue one at that. This is old magic, Dean.’
‘You know I hate mumbo jumbo, give me a nice monster or a demon any day.’
‘A nice monster?’
Dean shrugged. ‘You know what I mean, Sam. I like my evil …’
‘Dark side up?’
Dean winced. California humour. It just wasn’t all there. Sam was better off away from Stanford before all the Winchester was leeched out of him. ‘Just once I’d like us to drive into town, hunt the monster down, and torch it before the hour is up.’
‘Yeah, right, Dean. Like that is ever going to happen. Besides you love hunting.’
‘When I’ve got something to damn well hunt; research makes my head hurt.’
‘That’s too much hair gel, Dean. The only thing the books will do to you is …’
‘Rot my brain? Seriously, Sam, find us something to hunt before I go skinny-dipping in that spring to get our answer.’
♒
‘Start with the old people? Sure, Dean, we’ll just interrogate everyone in town over the age of fifty.’
‘Forty. Might have been an early starter.’
‘Two words, Dean. Ageing population. That isn’t exactly going to narrow down our suspects.’
‘So, let’s start with the regular religious whackos, and anybody uptight.’
‘Uptight? You going to add the nuns to the list, while we’re targeting the puritans?’
Already on my list. ‘Failing that I say we stake out Adam and Eve.’
‘Adam and … what?’
‘The springs. Double. Eden? Duh! Hey, you’re actually going red. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Blushing at the idea of A&E getting it on. You know the Bible was kind of hot, there were all sorts of things going on in it.’
‘That’s not why I’m blus… I’m not blushing, I’m … Fuck! Stop poking me.’
Dean gave that plea some consideration, but then he thought that it did Sam a lot of good to be a little less serious every now and then. Besides he was having too much fun to stop now. Well he was, right up until his brother managed to flip him over the table and onto the cracked lino. Ow. Sometimes he forgot that he’d taught Sam most of his moves. ‘Get off me you big lug.’
Sam grinned down at him, happy with the current situation. ‘Not till you spit it out. Exactly how did you plan on staking out the springs, Dean?’
‘The two of us, my baby, all the weapons, and a six-pack and …’ Oh. Lovers’ springs … couples. Oops. ‘Uh.’
‘Now look who’s blushing!’
‘Am not.’
‘Are too.’
‘Am …’ Damnit. Think fast. ‘No problem, Sammy. If we don’t come up with a real suspect before tomorrow night’s blue moon we’ll just have to go down there with a rug and pretend we’re having a … picnic. Turn the music up loud. It’ll be dark, so no one will be able to tell what we’re doing. Nobody in town knows we’re brothers anyway, they’ll just assume we’re … we’ll be the perfect bait for this weirdo. We just need to lie there and wait, and grab the person before they zap us.’
‘That’s your plan? Lie back and think of Kansas?’
‘Simple, like the water,’ Dean grinned, only a little uncomfortably. He couldn’t always be expected to think of everything, could he? ‘Don’t always need to over think things, Sam.’
‘Is that the whole plan?’
‘Stake-out. Beer. Gotcha. Hurt them till they reverse it. Hurt them a lot more, kill them maybe. Adios Sisomso.’
‘Anything else?’
Dean thought for a moment. ‘Nope, those are pretty much the finer details. Masterful, huh? You all right Sam? You look kind of pale.’
Sam winced. ‘You won’t care if I add a few bits here and there?’
Dean gestured generously, ‘Sure, but nothing too frilly. That always comes back to haunt us.’
♒
‘You’re still pissed it wasn’t one of the nuns, aren’t you?’ Sam was roaming distractedly around their motel room, actively not packing.
Yes. ‘No.’ Dean had been ready in under five minutes, and was now fighting the instinct which told him to drag Sam out to the Impala, push him in the passenger seat, and just go.
‘Would it make you feel better if we found out one of them helped him plan it?’
Yes. ‘Hell, yeah!’
‘Tough, Dean. It was the butler on his own, at the springs, with a hell of a lot of candles, and sooner or later you’re going to have to get over that.’
‘He was a hydrologist, not a butler,’ Dean snapped back before he could even think. Damn. He wasn’t pouting. Honestly. ‘Don’t know why a hydrologist would retire to Sisomso anyway.’ So, he was pouting now, but who could blame him? Besides, staging a well-timed tantrum gave both of them something else to focus on for a moment rather than brooding about how the hunt had ended.
‘The waters?’ Sam suggested deceptively mildly.
Dean glared at him. He hated it when his brother refused to have the decency to be irritatingly smug to have won that round. It gave Dean absolutely nothing to play off.
Dean presumed that hydrologists (or butlers), like elephants, had to go somewhere to die. Apparently that place was Sisomso. At least he hadn’t picked Florida.
♒
‘We’re just lucky that I finally found those weird letters to the editor he wrote back before he started all this.’ Sam was back on his laptop again, cascading through all his notes, still trying to find answers, and more reasons not to leave. ‘Nothing after the first set of victims though. Looks like that was when he started to clamp down on that part of himself, in public at least.’
Dean tried not to let the thought of what Harvey had done as an outlet for all that craziness disturb him, and didn’t bother to point out to Sam that they would have been a whole lot luckier if the bad guy had been standing on a street corner when they arrived brandishing a placard proclaiming “Unclean!”
‘I still don’t get how he went from starting up the Safeguard Sisomso Springs Society back in the early Seventies, to this. It’s a long way from his “keep our waters clean” platform to using what he held sacred to kill people.’ The more Dean saw of so-called “normal” people, the less he understood their motivations.
‘No way we’re ever going to find out now,’ Sam said soberly.
‘Yeah, way to go, Sam. Kill the senior citizen before I get to use the thumb screws on him.’ Fuck. Too late to take that back. ‘Sammy, I ….’ Dean leant forward across the corner of the table to cup his hands around his brother’s downcast head. ‘He didn’t give us any choice.’ He pulled Sam closer, thumbs soothing up and down his neck. ‘I wasn’t quick enough.’ I should be carrying this death, was all he could think of, not Sammy. Sam had never learnt how to let anything go.
Sam sighed, tilting his head back into the cradle of Dean’s hands. ‘I wish I could have stopped him without …’ killing him.
‘Our plan was dead in the water as soon as he saw us,’ Dean admitted, resting his forehead against Sam’s with a sigh.
♒
Sam had spent an impossible day desperately narrowing down the long list of possible suspects to three strong probables: the dippy manager of the new age store (who was a little too knowledgeable about manipulating crystals); the local antiquarian (access to the relevant esoteric texts); and Graham Harvey (resident hydrologist, pillar of the community, and self-appointed “protector” of the Springs). Dean had done his best to make a case for Sister Julie - mostly on the grounds that as the nursing order’s Mother Superior she was in the best position to cover her tracks and ensure that none of the victims ever recovered, but Sam had, rightly as it turned out, ignored his pleas.
It was probably fate that had seen them staging their third break-in right in the middle of Harvey’s Blue Moon Eve ritual. Admittedly Dean’s sardonic ‘So I’m guessing you dripping your own blood into that candle isn’t a good sign of your innocence?’ wasn’t calculated to create a good first impression. But nothing explained the way something in the room suddenly seemed to stop and then change as soon as Dean got close to their target. He’d taken one stunned look into Dean’s eyes, and then those of Sam looming to the rear and Dean could have sworn he saw something literally snap inside the man, all that cold, calculating rage dissolving into astonished awe and recognition before reforming into a tidal wave of terror that peaked with him lunging at Dean with the knife he’d been coolly using on himself minutes before.
At Dean, momentarily frozen by a similar sense of knowing, of wrongness and the frantic thought that he had to get Sammy out of there fast. And that second of inaction was all it took for him to lose control of the situation and let his attacker get too close.
But Sammy had reacted faster, shoving Dean to the right, gun coming up, and firing five bullets straight into his chest. And so Graham Harvey had died, right there on the damp concrete floor of his basement between the bloody altar and his leaking washing machine, with his eyes still locked on Dean’s in shock, saying ‘It can’t be …’
♒
‘What couldn’t be?’ Sammy asked, breaking away from Dean at last.
‘Dunno,’ Dean said, deliberately dismissive. He refused to think about any of it, it was better left alone. ‘He was crazy, who knows what he was thinking? None of that’s important. What is; is that he brought his death upon himself. But if you want to blame someone else, blame me for freezing. You saved me, and you didn’t have the time to try and disable him, he was coming at me and you took him down like Dad taught us. If he was coming at me now would you do anything different?’
‘No!’ Sam said instantly, eyes suddenly full of that same pure fury that had burnt in them when Harvey had come so close to killing Dean.
‘See?’ Dean slapped Sam reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it, Sam. We got the bad guy, and it’s over. Sisomso gets to go back to normal, and we get to leave.’
‘I’m not sure it can ever get back to normal. I killed their Mayor, Dean!’
‘Well, I’m sure the town will get over that just as soon as they get a good look at what was in his basement. We left enough evidence down there for even the local cops to figure out he was behind everything that happened at the springs. If not exactly how he did it.’
‘I wish we knew how,’ Sam said with a confused frown. There had been nothing in any of Harvey’s vitriolic notes about the victims to explain his method of wiping their minds clean. Just a lot of confused nonsense about people needing to be purified, some random strings of numbers, and one out-of-place doodle of a flower of all things. ‘The water tested clean, no poisons or unusual levels of trace-elements ever turned up in the victims’ blood work. There weren’t any spells anywhere in his house, just the ramblings of a madman, nothing to say how he harnessed this power. If we only knew, we could work out how to fix things, cure those people still lying in that hospice.’
‘I know, Sammy. Maybe now he’s gone, everything he started will eventually wear off.’ Dean was offering faint hope and he knew as well as Sam how unlikely that was. The damage had been done. The only good to come out of it was that it could never happen again. It was past time to leave town.
♒
The picnic rug was a particularly hideous nylon tartan number. They’d borrowed it from Bobby years before, and nothing killed it. Blood, ash, slime, it was still as scarily vibrant as the day it was made. Dean personally thought the rug was possessed; there were times when he swore it was watching them. Like now. And he thought the rug definitely had the wrong idea. It seemed to be judging them even more sternly than the damned crow that was eying them sarcastically as it paced up and down on the tree branch above them.
‘Move over,’ he said quietly. He knew a whisper could carry further than a lowered voice.
‘Why?’
Dean withdrew the arm he had casually looped around Sam’s neck and drew a line between them in the darkness. ‘You’re on my half.’
‘Your half? What are you, eight?’ Sam said. ‘Besides, aren’t you the same Dean Winchester who insisted I “snuggle up and make it look good” only an hour ago?’
‘That was then,’ Dean objected illogically. ‘And I don’t think there’s much chance of anyone coming out here now. They’ll all be at home ringing their neighbours to tell them they never trusted Mayor Harvey from the start.’
‘But …’ Sam started to protest before untwining himself and pulling off Dean with a huff.
‘No one here to see us but the stars.’ Dean kept his tone disinterested and his eyes on the rug just in case.
Sam stomped to his feet, not bothering to be quiet any longer. ‘No wonder you only ever have one-night stands with girls if this is how you treat them. You have no sense of ro … agh!’ he growled in frustration.
‘Just for that you’re not getting another Valentine’s Day card from me ever again,’ Dean said in mock threat as he bounced to his feet beside him.
‘I think you’re getting me confused with your car, Dean,’ Sam snapped.
‘Ooh, low blow, Sammy. Jealous?’
‘I think you’re perfect for each other,’ Sam said sincerely as he angrily stuffed the rug back into the tote bag that had been doing its best to masquerade as a picnic basket.
Dean felt much better when the rug was out of sight. It really was a disturbing tartan.
‘We tracked down the person responsible for all this. He’s dead. You wanted to leave. Hell, you were packed and trying to move me along before the police even found the body! So what made you change your mind and convince me to come and stake out the springs under a blue moon with you when you said it was all over?’
‘I just needed to be sure, Sammy,’ Dean said as he ducked for the third time.
‘Sure of what? There was no evidence that he had any accomplices. I killed him! Can’t this just be done?’ Sam realised he’d been waving the bag dangerously through the air for emphasis, and put it carefully back on the ground.
‘I don’t know what, okay?’ Dean hated it when Sammy questioned him about something that he couldn’t quantify. ‘Something just felt off - unfinished. You were right. We needed to find out how he did it. I just hoped we’d find it here if we followed the sequence through to the end.’
‘Hell, Dean,’ Sam said with feeling as he abruptly relaxed. ‘Do you have to be so blasted logical sometimes about covering all the bases?’
Ah, busted. Sammy had worked it out too quickly, that was the disadvantage with being partners with someone who knew you better than you knew yourself most of the time. Dean shrugged at his brother. ‘Had to try the warm and fuzzy, and the anger. Wasn’t sure if there was something out here that was capable of using people’s emotions as a catalyst to trap them.’
‘And here I was more worried about the police,’ Sam said ironically.
‘I think the police are the last of our worries,’ Dean said confidently. ‘They’re so busy trying to keep a lid on the Psycho Killer Mayor thing, that they won’t be wanting to look too closely at who might have done it. Soon enough half the town will be lining up to take credit for that act of public service.’
‘Are we finally finished here, Dean?’ Sam asked.
‘Guess so,’ Dean answered with a puzzled look. ‘We’ve been out here forever getting all touchy feely under the moonlight, and we’ve done the fight scene, and still nothing. Did you feel anything at all?’
‘Well, the earth didn’t move for me, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Sam said.
Dean flapped a hand in irritation. ‘No big revelation. You and me together against the world for the rest of our lives, that kind of deal?’
‘Nothing I didn’t already know,’ Sam answered steadily, his gaze equally unwavering.
‘Me either,’ Dean said eventually, bending over to pick up an interesting stone from the water’s edge to distract himself from all that emotion. ‘I could have sworn there was something out here.’ He rubbed his fingers absentmindedly over the time-worn grooves in the surface before holding his find up to show it off to Sam. ‘Cool rock, hey, Sammy?’
‘Dean!’ Sam suddenly had a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. ‘I don’t think …’
Dean ignored him, twisting easily under the grip to turn towards the water again. He laughed back at his brother as he flicked his wrist out to send the stone skipping away over the moonlit surface of the spring. ‘Come on Sammy, this is all over. Let’s get the hell out of here and celebrate.’
The broken caw of Sam’s screamed warning was the last thing Dean heard as the water claimed him back.
♒
Part 2