Talk to me - 1/1
Talk To Me
Rating: R, Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 8,557
A/N: Written for spn_halloween, 2008. Prompt 60. "Dude, this mask won't come off my face." (Could be casefic or crackfic.)
Winchesters + witches (always) = Crack
99% angst-free (I can’t explain that either) crack, with no redeeming literary value whatsoever. Happy Halloween to my flist!
Thanks to secret-seer for buffing the series banner as well as reading endless emails full of onomatopoeia, and mysticmhorag for answering my last minute Biblical query.
Part One of The Spell ‘Verse
Setting: Salem, Mass. Oct, 2007
Summary: Dean has always hated witches, so how the Hell had his brother talked him into a hunt in Salem? On All Hallow’s Eve? Everything after that was Sam’s fault. Totally.
Dean has always hated witches.
I’ll kill him if he doesn’t mean Oregon. Oregon was... Oregon was... Trees! It had trees. People liked trees. Some people even hugged them, which was all kinds of weird even to Dean who thought he’d seen it all. He could pretend to like trees though. Trees were better than... He shuddered. He couldn’t bring himself to think it. Please let it be Oregon. Dean was even prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and wear a Save the Whales t-shirt if he had to.
‘Salem, Massachusetts, Dean.’
Dean hated it that his little brother knew him that well.
‘Salem, Sam? Come on, it’s like Disneyland for...’ He could say it. He knew he could. ‘Witch groupies,’ he finished so quickly that Sam would never even notice the pause. Hah!
Sam just ... paused and raised an eyebrow. Damn him. ‘I think you’ll find they probably prefer the term neo-pagan now, Dean.’
Dean did his best not to flinch. He wanted to blame Stanford and all that education for ruining Sam. But seriously? His brother had been this pedantic and politically correct since the age of six. It was an insult to the Winchester gene pool that he’d done his best to eradicate over the years by dragging Sam into as many bars as he could. Sam usually fought back by bringing along a book or some other research material. Dean always retaliated by buying Sam beer, because it wasn’t like Sam was a complete pussy and didn’t like to drink, it was just that he was usually what he liked to call “judicious” about quantity. Dean should have known way back then that Sam had set his sights on a career in law. He blamed his lack of foresight on the alcohol making him slightly fuzzy. That, and the fact that he wasn’t a damned mind reader, okay? Ninety percent of the time Sam didn’t even have enough to get mellow, and Dean was forced to do the right thing and drink the leftovers, getting more than a little handsy with anyone that smiled at him for more than a second in the process, and Sam ended up finishing his homework or whatever the Hell he’d brought to the table and trying not to grin. Game, set, smiling stalemate. One thing they always refused to admit to each other was that they were both twice as stubborn as their father in their own peculiar ways.
‘Neo-bitches, w... whatever. Don’t care what you wanna call them, Sam. Don’t trust those pointy hats, the noses, or the warts. Eww! Don’t like ‘em. Can’t make me!’
Dean crossed his arms determinedly in a strong, manly, not at all scared of you know who, kind of way. That was the end of the discussion. Dean Winchester had spoken. Salem any time of the year? No. A hunt in Salem with not much more than a week left in October? Never. Goddamn chicks in hats would be prancing all over the place just itching to… Halloween.
‘Finally decided to practise a little confrontational therapy there, Sammy?’ Because… oh, it all made so much more sense now. Hunt, sure! Bet Sam had really worked the laptop to dig up something that sounded even vaguely plausible to present to him as a case. Sam had finally decided to Winchester up, and deal with how he felt about the H word. This was all Sam’s fault.
‘Bodies, Dean. One a year since 2004. All exhibiting asymptomatic behaviour patterns in the days leading up to their deaths. Their very strange deaths.’
Sam was doing that prissy double frown and moue thing. What? Dean had looked it up once. It totally had his brother’s name next to the definition in the biggest dictionary he could get his hands on in a library when Sam wasn’t looking. Patented Sam Winchester bitch face. Irritated Dean. Didn’t work on him when Sam was five. Or eight. Never would. Didn’t work in him when Sam was thirteen. Or twenty… Damnit.
Dean guessed they were both going to Salem. A tiny scared voice in the back of his head was bravely lighting a candle and singing loudly, if a little off-key, into the dark, ‘We’re off to see the witches. The wonderful witches…’
Dean wouldn’t admit it, but he’d timed their trip east down to the last mile. He knew his baby and exactly what she was capable of under all operating conditions. He knew what she’d do for him if asked. He didn’t ask.
He eased her into Danvers at dusk. Pleaded tiredness, a refusal to hand over the steering wheel, and equally importantly his control of the tape deck at that hour. Just to be safe he backed it all up with a rousing serve of hunger, because the latter excuse always reeled Sam in. It should, Dean had been cultivating that one forever. It helped that it was usually true.
‘Mrs Danvers. Creepy.’
Sam snorted. ‘Sometimes I think that everything you know either comes from the pages of Dad’s journal or late night TV marathons.’
So? Sometimes Dean thought that Sam did all his thinking through his hair. Absorbing radical ideas like a straw sucking desperately at the dregs in the bottom of a milkshake container. Strawberry, because Sam really was that pink and emo, especially on the inside.
‘That Rebecca girl was hot though,’ Dean admitted. Every now and then it paid to tell Sam a small truth to distract him.
‘Joan Fontaine? Uh huh.’ Sam was grinning across at him from under those stupid antennas bangs of his. ‘And you’re right, the housekeeper was creepy.’
Every now and then Sam threw him a bone. Dean didn’t mind jumping for it. They both liked Hitchcock, though that Birds thing still freaked both of them out too much for repeat viewings even with the mute button on. And Dean never watched Vertigo alone. Sam was the only person who knew that about him and he hadn’t ever used it against him.
‘Come on, Sam. Last night before we hit ... Witchville.’ He was trying to desensitize himself. He knew the theory. It was just harder than he thought it would be. ‘Let’s go all out on Mr Rodriguez’s plastic.’
‘Yeah, because we both look so Mexican,’ Sam answered too sensibly.
Dean refused to comment. What if he had been thinking more about Desperado and Antonio Banderas when he filled out the application form than conforming to outdated racial stereotypes?
‘Spy kids,’ Sam muttered evilly as Dean pulled into the first cheap motel he saw on Newbury Street.
For that Sam wasn’t getting pie. The desserts were all Dean’s, even if he had to accidentally knock Sam’s off the table when it arrived.
A Motel 6? Classy, Dean. Good to know you’re not a completely cheap date.’ Sam specialised in irony, when he wasn’t busy ignoring the fact that an accommodation chain was a few steps up from a lot of the places they’d shacked up in over the years.
‘It’s rated,’ Dean protested, waving at the intermittently flickering neon sign he was forced to park under. The car park was packed, which was generally a point in a place’s favour. Except Dean had a sneaking suspicion that the cars changed on an almost hourly basis. But who was he to judge if the locals needed somewhere for a bit of nookie?
‘I don’t even want to know what you’re smirking about,’ Sam said as they checked into the only vacant room left.
‘Nothing,’ Dean replied innocently.
He just hoped there weren’t any heart-shaped pillows on the beds or little brother would have even more to bitch about. He only closed his eyes for a second as he opened the door. Maybe two seconds. Oh. Well, at least that was one thing to be thankful for. No pillows at all. Or towels, a sweep of the grimy room and bathroom revealed. Perhaps the Days Inn would have been the better choice after all. Not that he was going to admit anything. Even under interrogation.
‘At least it has a one star, Sam. That has to count for something.’ Possibly the star was for the fact that the room still had the advertised two beds in it? More likely it was for the hole in the bathroom door.
‘I don’t think that was a star on the sign. I think it was an X for very bad,’ Sam said sourly.
Steak tips and too many beers at the Four 66 Pub at 8 pm. No tips for the bartender with the lengthy pigtail and an even bigger attitude problem at 10 pm. Dean could usually make any woman smile. This one though? Was possibly possessed.
Debrief at 10.30 because Sam was just that anal. Two bottles of water during the death monologue. Bed at 12, which revealed the tragic fact that the star definitely wasn’t for the beds’ existence, or comfort levels. Up and doing laps of the neighbourhood to sweat out the rest of the alcohol from his bloodstream at 5 am because Dad was right-always go in sharp. Until then? Nngh. Fuck, that hurts.
Dean would have flipped off Sam who was looking disgustingly perky for the hour, jogging along beside him, stupid long legs easily eating up the tarmac, and deliberately not saying anything taunting about the advantages of only having had the one beer the night before. Bastard. Dean hated him for that restraint most of all. In lieu of sign language Dean pushed his muscles past the burn and raced Sam back to the motel. Sometimes winning said it all.
And sometimes he just stifled his groans and thanked the Gods for hot showers, Advil chasers, and coffee. Gallons of coffee; and his longstanding ability to steal the last breakfast jelly donut out from under his little brother’s ginormous reaching paw. Speed and pure Winchester cunning always won over height any day of the week. Heh.
8.35 am and here they finally were-five minutes behind schedule because a sign for an obscure place called Walden Pond had got Sam all excited. Since when did Sam have a thing for fishing? His baby’s engine subconsciously channelled Dean’s feelings by idling well down below the speed limit one mile outside of Salem. 5,280 feet too close to them.
Dean didn’t appreciate the shabby “Repent now, sinners!” sign on the roadside just before they crossed over into the official city limits. He made a promise to himself to come back and spray-paint over it as soon as the job was over. Dean Winchester didn’t take advice from too many people. Snarkily pious billboards weren’t on his shortlist; even if it did know more about him than it should have.
Daylight. A good time to approach the enemy. Not because they were scarier in the dark; and cast really long pointy shadows in the moonlight; or anything childish like that. Just… Well… brighter.
Salem.
Witches.
They were going in.
Well, yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.
‘What’s with all the Peabodys?’ Dean asked squinting at the sign on a museum they were driving past. ‘Here and in Danvers.’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Sam said, brightening up in a dangerously enthusiastic manner.
Oops. Down, geek boy. Down, I say! ‘No. Just thinking it’s a dumb name,’ Dean replied quickly. It never paid to give Sam the slightest hint that you actually wanted to be hit with a wave of useless information. The only time that ever came in useful was when Dean entered his brother in barroom trivia night competitions. Sam’s strangely stuffed brain had won them a lot of meat trays over the years. Sam had never objected-well, violently anyway-to being used as the Winchesters’ version of a MENSA Trojan horse. He did, however, complain bitterly once about being registered as Daffy Duck, complete with an appropriate costume Dean had gone to considerable trouble to temporarily lift from a party-hire shop. Dean still couldn’t work out why nine-year-old Sammy had run away from home for a whole twenty-four hours when Dean had brandished a Thanksgiving turkey outfit at him four towns and two months later.
Dean had winced a lot since Sam had forced him into taking this case. The sight of a familiar stylised silhouette on a broomstick as the centre of the Salem P.D.’s logo, proudly dated 1626 was enough to make him reconsider his career options. Some days being a hunter was too much, even for a Winchester.
‘Oh, that’s just wrong.’ In every conceivable way. Goddamned things were painted everywhere he looked. Tourism had a lot to answer for.
‘Hmm?’ Sammy hummed, happily scrolling through the endless case notes he had on his laptop. He ducked his head down to get a look at the signs at the next intersection. ‘Take the second next left, and then hang a right. We want 370 Essex.’
Dean prayed that wasn’t the address of the closest Motel 6. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, even with the kind assistance of Miller’s best. He’d kept turning over all night because that darned hole in the door kept looking at him. Maybe he should switch to light beer instead? Nah.
As he pulled up outside a tastefully renovated brick mansion. 1855-whole town seemed to be positively littered with freaking signs with dates on them-had obviously been a good year for buildings.
‘Sammy!’
‘What?’ His brother had his gun out and ready, though he was discretely keeping it low of the open window on his side of the car.
‘Library!’ Dean wailed piteously.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dean. The books weren’t going to leap out, chain you to the bedpost and make you read them, you know.’
Bet that’s Sam’s version of a wet dream. Maybe they couldn’t. Then again, maybe they could. They were shifty little fuckers, especially the older ones. Dean had his limits, and this on top of the witches was just too much to bear. Though he wasn’t averse to the recreational use of handcuffs on occasion...
‘Dean?’
‘Huh?’ He felt better for some unknown reason.
‘I’m so glad I can’t read your mind, Dean. So very, very glad.’
Dean was glad too. Really, really glad.
Sam weakened and re-directed them to a motel instead. He didn’t often need to give in. Dean figured his brother was just biding his time. He could distinctly feel a library looming on the horizon of his future. Fate was cruel.
‘The fucking Black Cattery?’ Dean took it all back. It wasn’t fate that was cruel. It was little brothers. Bastards. He wasn’t a pet. He was a man. He … felt like clasping his hands protectively over his dick to prevent any accidental neutering. What kind of self-respecting town let a motel call itself a cattery? There should be a law. He put his hands in his pockets, willed his hackles back down, and tried not to look too wild-eyed. This was going to end in tears. He just knew it.
‘It’s Salem, Dean. You’d have better luck winning the lottery, or getting laid by a librarian, than finding a room that doesn’t push the town’s historical image.’
Dean obviously had a different image of the town than it’s founding fathers had. Catteries.
He revised his opinion about brothers immediately. Possibly not all little brothers were cruel. Just his. And as for sex and libraries? Sam was warped. Probably had been for years. Dean really needed to get Sam away from all those nasty books. Before it was too late.
An hour later the room had grown on Dean.
Like a terminal tropical fungus that started innocently between your toes, before it swarmed over every inch, devouring you as it climbed ever higher.
He was man enough to admit he found the room slightly … disturbing. It was almost enough to make him want to go and pick out colour samples at the hardware store and redecorate the room for the duration of the hunt. How long could it take him to paint everything a nice restful shade of taupe anyway? Particularly when he could use Sam to do all the high bits?
‘Fuck it! Let’s go back to that damned library, do the research, and then get stuck into the interviews, Sam.’
Dean was almost willing to admit Sam’s initial plan of attack-by-book had been right. In about seven months time, perhaps, he’d tell Sam. For now, as long as he made it sound like his own idea he could hold his head as high as those stupid pointy hats.
‘Three bodies isn’t a very big pattern, Sam.’ He didn’t mean it. Hell, the sooner they found out who or what was doing the killings and ended it the better. It was bad enough that they already had three deaths; the higher the number, the more it weighed on Dean’s conscience. All those what ifs. What if we got here last year? The year before? Found the cause before it all began? Before anyone died, and any families had to suffer the way they had after their mother was killed.
Sam nodded soberly. He usually knew exactly what Dean wasn’t saying. ‘Either we missed some deaths here, or this started up somewhere else, or someone or something’s being extraordinarily careful.’
Dean wanted to say a resounding “No!” to the first two options. No more bodies. No other places to look. He knew Sam was thinking the same thing he was. Or they only need one person each time. An annual cycle of killings. Ritual and blood. Death magic. Considering where they were, the circumstantial evidence was compelling; no matter what Sam’s legal commonsense was telling him. The Winchester in them both was shouting “Witchcraft!”
Dean had always hated witches.
Forty-eight hours of research and interviews with the victim’s friends and families later, they still held the same opinion.
Three deaths, and it had started here.
And the same objective. Salem was where they were going to finish it.
George Edgar Montgomery Jones, Jr. Age 29. Photocopier technician. Died October 31st, 2004. Jumped off the roof of the Canon showroom with six reams of blank paper tied around his neck, and a stomach full of forty-two bottles of Noodler’s Polar Black Bulletproof fountain pen ink. Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
Patricia Ann Bellamy. Age 17. Student. Died October 31st, 2005. Rammed her head repeatedly through the office window of the local Deaf and Dumb centre.
‘Centre for people with speech…’
‘Tom-ah-to, tom-ate-o, Sammy.’
Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
Marcus Leidner. 42. Bible salesman. Died October 31st, 2006. Choked to death on the carefully torn up pieces of his number one best seller. Apparently Acts 2:17 was a particular favourite. But not before he’d carefully cut out his own tongue with a pair of his wife’s sewing scissors and pinned it to his minister’s church notice board in the positions vacant column. Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
‘Ouch!’ Dean said uncomfortably.
No connection between the victims, except for the fact that they all supposedly killed themselves while everyone else around them was sticking candles in homemade Jack-o’-lanterns and getting ready to celebrate another wholesome American tradition.
No pattern at all, except for the fact that those close to them reported that: “He kept babbling. Just wasn’t making any sense;” “She just flipped out, man. Must have had a bad trip. Totally gaga;” “He was speaking in tongues.” None of which made it into any of the official police reports, naturally enough.
‘So they could speak, just not comprehensibly. No signs of stroke or anything else medical that might explain impaired or confused speech.’ Sam was still pouring over the autopsy results.
‘Nonsense,’ Dean said shortly.
‘No, it’s not nons…’ Sam objected. ‘Oh.’
‘Yup. Someone twisted their voices.’
‘To stop them telling?’ they both burst out simultaneously. ‘Or…’ It was an early side effect of what was happening to them? ‘Huh.’
‘Well, that’s a new one,’ Sam said.
Unfortunately not everything they came across was in their father’s journal. Not yet.
The victims it turned out did have one thing in common besides their place of residence. They might have all lived in Salem, but strangely enough none of them cared for their hometown’s position as a supernatural wanna-be Mecca.
George didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t replace a part for. And he’d been heard to say repeatedly-before he stopped making sense, that is-that the tourists should be banned altogether, or at the very least stopped from parking illegally right in front of each and every entrance to a company he was trying to gain admittance to in order to fulfil a service call.
Patricia told her school friends it was all a stupid load of dusty superstitions that had no place in a new century. She also thought fluorescent orange and lime green striped leggings were a better fashion choice than black robes and wouldn’t be caught dead in a hat.
Marcus was prone to sententiously quote Exodus 22:18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
Seemingly none of them liked witches at all.
Dean got that. More so, he was beginning to see a second pattern layered beneath the first, and Sam wasn’t that far behind him. Although Dean was probably alone in repeating the non-specific threat of “Die, witch! Die!” under his breath to the tune of “Who let the dogs out?”
Timelines sucked. Slowly. Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days…
‘You finished yet?’
‘Gimme a minute, will ya?’
Sam was such a princess about his precious research. So Dean’s wasn’t a Technicolor marvel of one tiny fact linked to another in a never-ending daisy chain. Dean splashed some more Liquid Paper on his page and blew on it hopefully, while hiding it from his brother’s view. He snuck a look at Sam’s masterpiece. Michelangelo could have taken lessons in forced perspective from it. Nerds always had to go one step further than everyone else. Goddamn teacher’s pets. Sam’s was prettier.
‘Ready?’
Dean huffed. It wasn’t a race, surely? ‘Here.’
Making allowances for the obvious differences in style, temperament, and technique-Sam had hand-bolded major points of intersection, and he had different sized and coloured arrows. Bootlicker!-and Dean’s sea of corrections, they’d both plotted virtually identical journeys for the victims in the weeks leading up to their deaths.
All three of them had visited the Broomstick Boutique Bakery on the day before the onset of their symptoms.
‘Let’s go play witch bingo!’ Dean was feeling happy for the first time since Sam had started this.
The first stage of bingo involved a little B&E. Same old, same old. Except…
‘If I see a black cat, we’re out of here, Sam.’
‘Fuck you, Sylvester!’ Sam said with a laugh as he finished picking the lock and waved Dean in through the bakery’s back door with a grandiose gesture of politeness.
Dean didn’t bother wasting time killing him. Sam may have done the whole Stanford thing, but Dean? He’d majored in cartoons for years. If he was Sylvester, there was only one thing Sam could be. Dean was so buying his brother a packet of birdseed for breakfast in the morning.
The second stage of bingo involved a careful, C.S.I. approved, double-gloved examination of the bakery’s contents. Dean got a little over eager halfway through the night and spilled a container of confectioner’s sugar which was a bitch to clean up, but tasted mighty fine when he licked his latex fingers.
‘Dean!’
It was a shame they didn’t find any damned clues except for ingredients and industrial-sized kitchen equipment.
The third stage of bingo involved too many hours in the Cattery. If they were going to be there for much longer Dean swore he was going to start crying, ‘Miaow.’
It didn’t involve an early morning jog around historic Salem. Dean had no intention of accidentally mingling with any more witches than he had to. Who knew how many might be into exercise? It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. He let Sam go instead after he made him promise to collect coffee on his last lap.
The fourth and final stage of bingo involved parking the Impala subtly two cars down from the bakery’s automatic doors just after it opened the following day. The bakery’s continually opening and closing, to a ceaseless parade of smiling customers, doors. The doors that kept wafting an exotic and absolutely enticing aroma right through their open windows.
‘Oh my God! What is that smell? That’s… whatever that is I want some. Time for second breakfast, Sam.’
‘Sssh,’ Sam hissed. ‘Stakeout. Undercover. Low profi… Oh shit! Dean, get back here!’
Inside was better. Dean couldn’t even begin to describe how much better. It was probably what a gourmet would call …
‘Awesome!’
Focus on the case, Dean. ‘Ooh, pie!’ So many pies, so little time. Case. Case. Case. What was that smell? Cinnamon… nutmeg… ginger… maple syrup? What else? He couldn’t think about that now. He had to stay alert. This building held the answers to how and why those people had died. They needed to find ou… Pies. Lots of pies.
‘Can I help you?’ The shop assistant fitted one of his two favourite types exactly. Gorgeous. Smiling. Smelling so good. And right there within touching distance. Way prettier than Sam’s chart. Sam.
‘You most certainly can,’ Dean smiled back at her fuzzily. He was a little warm. Must be the ovens. They needed ovens to cook all those wonderful pies. He remembered the ovens from the night before. They’d looked a lot like real ovens, only bigger.
‘What can I get you?’
Hard question. There was so much to choose from, and those smells. He couldn’t concentrate. He wanted. ‘I…’ He shrugged. He’d never be that far gone that he couldn’t work his charm to his best advantage.
‘I’d appreciate your help. What would you recommend to a new customer?’
She dimpled as she murmured, ‘New blood.’
Dean thought that was adorable. She looked like a fluffy white Persian kitten. It made him feel all… He had no idea really. But he liked it. He liked the tasting platter she held out even more. Yummmm. He needed. What? Maybe some more of those tiny sugared gingerbread things.
He wondered if she tasted as delicious as she looked.
‘Dean!’
Sam. Party pooper.
‘Hey, Sammy! Long time, bro!’
‘Bro? Dean?’
‘Tha’s me,’ Dean slurred brightly. Sammy always was the quick one. ‘He used to go to Stanford, you know,’ he confided to that ever so helpful assistant. ‘Big head. Full-ride!’
She looked suitably impressed which was good, because if she hadn’t Dean would have dumped her then and there. Nobody dissed his Sammy.
‘Can Sam have some?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. She was nice. He already knew what she’d say.
‘Go on, Sammy. Try these ones in the middle… Oh, I must have eaten them all. Never mind. Have some of the other ones. Bet they’re almost as good.’
‘Maybe tomorrow, Dean. We’re running kind of late for work,’ Sam said apologetically. He had his arm firmly around Dean’s shoulder.
‘Saaaam! You’re touching me! In public.’ Dean was having trouble remembering if Sam had had one of his ten percent alcohol days yesterday. It was the only explanation for the way his brother wasn’t letting go and kept whispering ‘Christo’ in Dean’s left ear.
‘Geroff! That tickles!’ He pushed uselessly on Sam’s suddenly immobile shoulders. When did he get so big?
Sam was acting as if Dean couldn’t stand up on his own two…
‘Whoa! That was a close one, wasn’t it, Sammy?’ he giggled.
‘Sure was, bro. Think you’ve overdone the sugar for today. What say we get you back home for a nice lie down?’
Bed. Bed sounded amazing. Dean wanted nothing more than to be totally horizon… vertic… flat for a while. He thought the walls and the ceiling should stay flat too. Be more restful that way. Bed. Sam was right. Dean should tell him that before his girly feelings got squished.
‘Bed … Ooh look, party favours!’ Cool pointy hats, and extendable whistles, ‘Whoooooo, whooooo!’ Okay they didn’t sound as good as they looked.
‘Masks!’ Dean finally managed to slip the black elastic of his choice behind his head. Huh. Tiny eyeholes. Where was Sam?
‘Sammy?’ Sam should have one too. But Dean was wearing the best one. ‘You wanna borrow mine, Sammy?’ He didn’t feel so good any more. ‘Sammy?’
‘I got you, Dean.’
Thank God! Dean had gotten a bit turned around in all those shelves. For a minute he felt he was somewhere much more dark and scary. Silly Dean. What had he been doing? Oh yeah. Mask. Stupid thing kept slipping. Samm...
He couldn’t see! He needed to…
‘Dude, this mask won't come off my face!’
‘Dean? I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath and trust me, okay?’
‘m’kay,’ Dean whispered in a tiny voice.
Sam took Dean very gently by the shoulders and ripped the mask off.
‘Ow! That hurt,’ Dean moaned pathetically. ‘Gigantic bully!’
‘Better now?’
‘No! Oh, I can see! Way to go, Sam!’ Dean blinked up at his brother. Sam looked annoyed and frightened.
‘Don’t be afraid, Sammy,’ Dean said, reaching up to give Sam a series of tender little kitten pats all over his face. ‘I’ll protect you.’
‘I know you will, Dean. Maybe later, okay? Time to go.’
‘Okey dokey!’
Dean wobbled his way towards the door with Sam’s assistance.
‘Thanks for the treats!’ he yelled back at the nice lady, waving madly with his free hand before he bumped into the door.
‘Eek!’
‘Dean? Just take a step back so I can finish opening it, and we’ll be fine. We need to leave now.’
Huh. Sam was using his big voice. He meant it.
Dean shuffled awkwardly back a few feet, catching a distorted reflection of his new friend in the glass as Sam opened the door for him.
Ick. She didn’t look pretty any more. She looked all old, and mean, and … witchy, as if she was wearing a mask too. Weird.
‘Bad door,’ Dean muttered.
‘m not a cat!’
‘No, Dean. You’re not.’
Dean was glad Sam agreed with him. If he hadn’t he’d have started doubting himself. Those black cats kept tiptoeing around the walls, and looking at him. Like they were hungry. For a minute Dean was nostalgic for the Danvers’ Motel 6. Only a minute though.
‘ma head hurts, Sammy!’
‘Got to lie you down, and find out what’s wrong with you.’ Sam was feeling his forehead. ‘You’re awful hot, Dean. I think you’re running a temperature.’
‘I’m good! Just tired,’ Dean yawned, and tried to curl up in a ball in the middle of the bed.
‘Can I have your pillows, Sam?’
‘Whatever you need, Dean.’ Sam started to build a careful polyester wall around Dean’s head.
Duh! ‘Not, for my head, dummy! Want to snuggle.’ Dean batted Sam’s hand away and stole one of the pillows and wrapped his arms securely around it. That was better. Soft.
‘Dean?’ Hard fingers were prodding him in his side. ‘Maybe lying down isn’t a good idea after all. Come on, you can’t go to sleep yet. How about some coffee?’
‘Donwancoffeeeeewannanap!’ Sam was mean. Probably came of being so tall. Air must be thin, and cold, and mean up there.
‘Damn it, Dean! I need you!’
‘What?’ Dean let go of the pillow and wavered upright immediately. Ow! ‘Sammy?’
Sam helped hold him in place and held a flask to his lips. ‘Here, drink some of this.’
Huh. Holy water. Dean rolled his eyes even though it hurt. ‘Boring.’
‘Damn! Thought that’d work.’ Sam reached out and snapped something sharply under his nose.
‘Ugh! Sammy! Yuck.’ Fucking ammonia ampoules.
‘You back with me?’
‘No?’ If he said that maybe Sam would just go away and let him sleep?
‘Dean?’
Damn. Sam was tough. And Dean was just so tired. ‘Coffee?’ Perhaps that would help. He guessed Sam wasn’t so dumb after all. In the meantime Dean tilted forward, slung his arms around his brother’s back, nuzzled his nose under Sam’s chin, and settled in for a short...
‘Damnit, Dean!’
‘Meep?’ Sam was shaking him like he was a rag doll. That wasn’t very friendly. The bed was nicer, and it wasn’t even related to him.
‘Shit! Oh God, should have shot you before you got in the door. It’s like sending in a child with a giant target painted on their forehead. You fit the Goddamn profile, Dean!’
‘Ssh,’ Dean said hopefully. Sam was loud. He didn’t need Sam’s voice inside his head. There wasn’t enough room in there for both of them. Besides Sam fit the profile too. Almost. But he was taller, that should have evened things up. Profiles. Dean was having trouble remembering if they were bad things. Judging by the look on Sam’s face they were.
‘Dean? Talk to me!’
‘Glipp. Ooooff!’ No, that wasn’t what he meant to say.
‘Dean?’
‘Urkkk?’
‘Fuck!’
The last thing Dean managed to think before he collapsed backwards unconscious onto the nice bed was, Pointy!
Mmmm. Dean liked this bed. It was friendly, and warm, and nice, and cuddly, and ... occupied by someone else. Someone bigger than him, holding him safe. That seemed wrong. Or at the very least, a little unfair. It was his bed, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t he be the holder, not the holdee?
He yawned and reluctantly opened one eye. Best to scope out the situation and get ready to react accordingly. He was a damn good hunter. He could deal with it. Dean Winchester could deal with any...
Yikes! He was staring directly into an angry bearded face. Not exactly the best medicine he needed the way his head was feeling.
‘Dean?’ The mouth was moving but the sound was coming from behind him. And now from right in front of him too.
‘Uh?’ He swung his aching head around. Sammy. ‘Zowie!’
And turned back again. Bobby. ‘Flrbbbbb!’
He was surrounded on all-okay, two-sides by hunters. Tired, worried hunters.
‘Rakkkkk?’
It took a lot of coffee, and some definitely illegal drugs that Bobby insisted he swallow before he got up, but things were making more sense now. Slightly more sense. Okay, almost no sense at all. Meep?
‘You got zapped, Dean.’
‘Zapppp!’ Dean agreed, thankful they had some words in common. He liked it so much he repeated it. ‘Zap!’
Sam sunk his head into his hands briefly before Dean hugged him, because hugs made everything better.
‘Uh, Dean. Do you remember you’re not into being touchy-feely?’ Sam queried with an embarrassed cough.
Well, yeah. But...
Fucking witches. They’d really put the whammy on him. Dean growled.
‘Grrrrrrr.’
Neither Sam nor Bobby needed a translator for that.
Dean grabbed his gun. Die, witch. Die.
‘Bang! Bang!’ he said concisely.
‘Sam? Think you’d better take that away from him till he’s better.’ Bobby said not very helpfully.
Dean frowned as Sam peeled his fingers off the gun and tucked it away out of sight. Dean could have taken Sam, but he still felt more like hugging him.
He made a fist and punched the air instead. ‘Kapow! Crunch!’
‘Well, he’s certainly still in there,’ Bobby said in a relieved tone. ‘No doubt about what he wants to do, or what he’s trying to say.’
‘He just can’t use proper English,’ Sam said thoughtfully. ‘Every word sounds like… onomatopoeia!’
‘Pee?’ Dean asked with a frown. He hated it when Sam used big words. It was too much like Latin.
‘Words that sound like what they sound like. I mean, what they represent.’
Dean nodded. Noisy words. Sam could have just said that in the first place. Like comics. He loved comics. He’d never thought about what it was like to have everything he said come out in speech balloons though.
‘Pop!’
‘None of the victims went crazy,’ Sam said finally. ‘All those witnesses were telling the truth, they just couldn’t understand what they were hearing.’
Bobby read back through their notes. ‘Victim number one “babbled,” number two was…’
‘Gaga!’ Dean interjected to prove he was totally on the ball, even if his mouth needed re-tuning. Now he knew how Patricia had felt before she killed herself. He hoped he didn’t end up channelling everything that happened to all the other victims.
‘Gaga,’ Bobby repeated while Sam thumped Dean proudly on the arm.
Dean stayed strong and didn’t try to sneak a hug. He felt warm and fuzzy though. Best he’d felt since he was in that bakery smelling all those pies. He was completely healthy. No temperature, no childish behaviour. Must have all been the first stage symptoms. Just as well because he’d never live it down if he couldn’t kill that damned witch because he thought she was nice. There was nothing wrong with him apart from that onowhatsit thing and the irrational desire to hug his brother while his heart went tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump.
‘Bam!’ That witch was going down before things got even more weird. Oh, and before he tried to kill himself.
Bobby continued. ‘And number three spoke in tongues.’
Marcus, Dean thought. Poor religious bastard. Talk about ironic ways to kill yourself. Or did they?
Sam as always was on his wavelength, even allowing for the verbal interference. ‘And the ways they died. They all related to language, or the lack thereof.’
Dean snorted-luckily he could still do that. Who the heck had said “lack thereof” in the past two centuries apart from his nerdy brother?
‘Baa.’
That got him blank looks so he tried it again with attitude.
‘Baaaaaa.’
Sam threw a dirty sock at him. His aim was too good.
‘Blech!’ Dean spat the woollen sock out of his mouth. That was gross...
‘Ah-choo!’
Great, not only had the witch infected him with an evil word thing, and Sam had practically rammed his germy socks down his throat-Dean didn’t hold with the old fashioned notion that families should share everything-, and now he was coming down with a cold. Or maybe, he was simply allergic to Sam’s malodorous big feet?
‘Before I was so rudely interrupted,’ Sam continued prissily, placing a large hand firmly over Dean’s mouth to prevent any further outbreaks. ‘I was going to say that either they were trying to tell us something...’
A clue, Watson! Dean pretended to smoke a pipe but Sam’s hand got in the way.
‘... or the witch was rubbing it in as viciously as she could.’
Dean thought they’d covered that the other day, but he could have been mistaken. He really needed a hug. He nudged Sam and waggled his eyebrows.
‘Ribbet, ribbet.’
‘What?’
‘Ribbet, ribbet,’ Dean said loudly.
Sam groaned. ‘You haven’t been turned into a frog, Dean. You never were a prince, and I’m certainly not kissing you to turn you back!’
‘Drip, drip.’ Sam could be really thick on occasions.
‘Frog? Water? Drink?’ Sam asked despairingly. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me! I wish you could just writ... Shit!’
He grabbed a pad and pen and thrust it at Dean, beaming widely.
‘Huh.’ Not so dumb.
Dean grinned back and proceeded to scrawl ‘Smooch?’ happily across the paper.
No, that wasn’t right. Damned witch hadn’t just stolen his ability to speak, but his only other means of communication too. Pointy-nosed bitch!
He tried again, writing, ‘Moooo!’ and ‘Muuhhhrrr!’ before he came close with the cry of a hippo. ‘Huuuuuuuuuugh!’
‘Oh!’ Sam said, finally catching on. ‘You want a hug, Dean?’
Dean flushed, but nodded. Now wasn’t the time to get bashful.
Sam’s long arms swallowed him up, and for a few fleeting moments Dean knew that everything was going to be all right.
Or it would be as soon as he killed the witch.
Um, except that all Sam’s talk of water had had an unfortunately predictable effect on his metabolism.
‘Splish, splash, tinkle,’ Dean said.
‘You idjuts settled down now?’ Bobby asked grumpily.
Dean kicked Sam in the ankles, and Sam whacked him hard with the pillow that Dean was pretending wasn’t the one he’d been hugging the day before.
‘Wee woo! Wee woo!’ Dean shouted when it looked like Sam was going to win the battle.
Sam just thrust one of their fake F.B.I. IDs in his face. ‘Federal trumps local any day.’
Sometimes Dean realised that Sam had learnt too much from him while they were growing up.
‘Boom!’ Bobby yelled. ‘Now will the two of you stop acting like you’re both six all over again?’
‘Clang,’ Dean agreed sadly. The fight had been almost as good therapy as that hug.
They both sat bolt upright on the end of the bed with their serious faces on. It was easier if they didn’t look at each other.
Bobby looked at them sternly. ‘It’s Halloween today, dumbasses. Tonight if you want to get picky. Time of death for all the victims was close to midnight. We’ve got three hours to end this before Dean does something stupidly symbolic like burying himself under a pile of dictionaries.’
‘Tick, tock,’ Dean sighed mournfully. He was trying not to think about Bobby’s suggestion. Dictionaries? Heavy, man. He’d just bet that witch would love Dean Winchester to go out like that. Probably make him go back to that library Sam was so fond of and do it in the middle of the reading room. What an awful way to go.
‘Dean!’
He jumped back from the driver’s side of the Impala. How’d he gotten outside? Vroom!
‘Where were you going, Dean?’
‘Uh.’ Library.
‘Gasp!’
Sam dragged him back inside and shoved a chair under the door handle. ‘Dean?’
Dean pointed at Bobby and then at the biggest book Sam had left lying around. It wasn’t his fault the witch had obviously made him suggestible.
‘Aroooo!’ he howled. He damned popular culture for promulgating stereotypes but somewhere out there he knew that witch was flying across the face of an undoubtedly full moon cackling at his fate.
‘Do we have a plan?’ Bobby asked as he yanked his baseball cap more firmly down over his lank grey hair.
‘Yes,’ Sam said.
‘Woof! Woof!’ Dean agreed. Storm the bakery, and kill the witch!
‘No, Dean. You’re staying here,’ Sam insisted.
‘Bah!’
‘You’re the one she’s trying to kill. I’m not handing you over to her on a platter!’
Sam was flaring his nostrils and even his bangs were getting agitated. It was kind of scary. Dean inched a little closer. A stealth hug might calm him down.
‘Chirp,’ he cheeped soothingly as he reached out.
Sam was good. He grabbed Dean’s hands and aborted his emotional attack before he could reach his target.
‘Don’t even try to sweet talk me, Dean Winchester!’
Dean blinked angelically up at Sam. How could his brother even think he’d be that devious?
Sam tapped him on the nose. ‘Nuh uh. I know you, remember?’
Darn.
‘Fizz,’ Dean muttered as he gnashed his teeth in frustration.
‘You really think he’s safe to be left alone?’ Bobby asked reasonably.
Sam did his own share of teeth grinding. ‘No,’ he admitted at last. ‘But…’
‘But, nothing. He’s coming with us where we can keep a close eye on him. Besides, he can still shoot straight, even if he sounds like a two-year old with a toy gun.’
Dean nodded. This was why Bobby was totally awesome. Bobby deserved a hug too.
‘Coo,’ Dean said as he happily attached himself like a limpet to Bobby’s back.
‘Get off me, boy. I’m not your teddy bear,’ Bobby snarled.
Dean pouted and held onto Sam’s free hand instead. Bobby evidently had issues with public demonstrations of affection. That made Dean sad, but he stopped himself sniffling. Plenty of time for that after the battle.
‘Right. Grab your weapons and let’s go.’
‘Cock a doodle doo!’
One of the problems with witches was their noses. Their long, pointy, incredibly sensitive, noses. They could smell things. They could smell people. They could smell hunters.
They were polite though. They’d left all the lights on in the bakery to welcome their visitors.
‘Aarrgh!’
‘Hush, Dean. There’s three of us, and only one of her,’ Sam said.
Reassurance was all well and good, but Dean was worried that the witch had more than numbers on her side. Magic had a way of magnifying things. Not always for the best either.
‘Clink.’ Damn that hadn’t sounded at all brave.
‘Ahem. Crinkle. Clap?’ Or that. Die, witch! Die! That was better, even if he was the only one who could hear it.
‘It’ll be okay, Dean. We’re going to get her. She’s not leaving here alive.’
Wow! Sam sounds just like Dad. Dean missed his father.
‘Clippity-clop.’
‘Oh for Pete’s sake!’ Bobby grumbled. ‘You two take the front, as she’s already laid out the welcome mat for you. I’ll take the back. Give me five, and go.’
‘Eeeyuh,’ Dean agreed, beating his brother to it. Hee.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four… He glanced at Sam standing firmly bicep to shoulder with him. …issippi, five.
‘Ding, dong!’ He shouted.
‘Customers! And so late on such a festive night too.’ She was positively purring as she stalked forward with an old-fashioned wicker basket in her hands. ‘And you brought a friend along. How nice. Now don’t be shy in the back there. Why don’t the four of us sit down for a nice cup of my ginger tea? Or are you just here to trick or treat? You all look a little old for that, I must say. And costumes are mandatory. We are in Salem after all. Can’t let traditions fall by the wayside,’ she shook her head sadly at the very thought.
‘I don’t think so, bitch,’ Sam said as he kept his gun centred on her chest.
Go, Sammy! Dean cheered silently. He liked it when Sam talked dirty. Dean was aiming his own pistol a little lower. Covering all the bases as it were. He could see Bobby focussed on a headshot. One. Two. Three. Oh right, the plan. He could wait a few minutes. Then they could get on with the hugging.
‘My, my,’ she tsked. ‘Such language, and from such a nice, studious-looking young boy. Or are you?’ She licked her lips, as she looked Sam up and down.
‘Oy!’ Nobody insulted, and then perved on his Sam, especially not a witch.
‘Oh, look. It talks! Or does it?’ she snickered. ‘When did you last wind it up? You really should pay attention to those pesky little details. You never know when these things will run down and die on you. They don’t make hunters like they used to.’
Stuff the plan! ‘Yadda yadda, CROAK,’ Dean said as plainly as he could.
‘Goddess! That’s so annoying. He must have been driving you both crazy. Going a little mad on the inside are you, Dean?’
Dean yodelled at her and decided he was going to use all the bullets in the clip. Plan. Plan. Plan. Any minute now.
Sam’s look said it all. Sic her, Dean!
Dean did.
‘Burble! Wheeze! Chatter! Bringg-bringg! Arf! Bumble! Klonk! Swish! Aw! Cuckoo! Babble! Scrunch! Jingle! Badaboom! Flick! Caw! Bamf! Plonk! Yelp! Bark! Oink! Lap! Bawl! Howl! Bash! Sizzle! Glug! Bay! Crash! Beep! Hoo hoo! Chirr! Squirt! Biff! Blam! Blare! Chug! Zonk! Flap! Burp! Clickety-clack! Sniff! Bleep! Thud! Grunt! Bling bling! Zzzz! Rattle! Blast! Whock! Gibber! Snore! Blurp! Eek eek! Buffet! Chuckle! Whimper! Blip! Flutter! Bwee! Hee haw! Clobber! Bonk! Mrow! Blurt! Neigh! Bow-wow! Titter! Whump! Yip! Boo!’
‘ENOUGH!’ She screeched, taking her sinister hand off the basket long enough to make a brief obscure gesture.
‘Phew!’ Dean said, gratefully taking a long deep breath. ‘Fuck that for a joke, bitch!’
‘So... daughter of a witch!’
She just smirked at him. ‘The truth never hurts, even from a Winchester.’
‘You set us up. How did you know we were coming?’
‘Oh, sweetheart. We could smell you before you even got into town. All that delicious pain and rage. And you hated us so very much. How could we not? You were broadcasting so strongly I’m surprised your brother didn’t go deaf on the trip.’
Huh?
‘How could we not know that John’s boys were coming for us? We were looking forward to playing with you. It’s been so long since we talked with a Winchester. It’s been a blast. Our best year ever, and not over yet.’
She simpered, pulling the red-checked napkin back to reveal the contents of the basket. ‘I baked something especially for you, Dean.’
What the fuck? Dean knew better than to look inside it. ‘No way in Hell, am I eating anything else you cooked, you pointy-hatted madwoman.’
She didn’t look pretty or smell nice any more, and Dean definitely didn’t feel like hugging her. She’d released the entire curse.
One. Two. Three.
‘Tzing!’ went three bullets straight to their targets.
‘Hey, Sammy? Bet you didn’t have time to worry about the whole Halloween thing this year, did you?’ Damn, he was good.
‘You weren’t supposed to keep taunting her after she lifted it, Dean! God, you’re so stupid sometimes. She could have done anything to you!’
Huh. Sam was mad. Spitting chips mad. Hmmm. He’d have to get out of the habit of using those sorts of words.
‘Had to make sure, didn’t I, Sam? I gave you the high sign as soon as I knew. We got her. End of story.’ She kept saying “we.” Dean hoped she was just that deluded. He guessed Salem was going down on 2008’s calendar, just in case. Damn it. But next year they were staying at a Holiday Inn. He was torching the Black Cattery at dawn. Damned feral cats!
‘Damn it, Dean! Are you even listening to me?’ Sam was shaking him, and ignoring Bobby’s careful prodding of the body.
What do you call a dead witch? A bloody bitch. Heh!
Oops. Fuck. There was another one. This was harder than it looked. He was going to have to buy a dictionary after all.
‘Dean?’
‘I heart you too, bitch.’
Sam shook him once more. Hard. ‘Be careful, Dean. Or I might just have to... hug you.’
Dean positively didn’t let out the smallest sputter, wail, groan, or screech, or even mentally go, ‘Uh-oh.’ He did; however, start edging surreptitiously towards the door in order to get a little further away from Sam. Better safe than emo any day.
And because the better part of valour was distraction, there was only one thing he could think of to say.
‘Hey, Sammy. Did you just hear a crack? Or was that a metal teeth chomp?’
Dean has always hated witches.
The only difference now is that he finally has good reason.
Talk To Me
Tiny Bubbles
All You Want To Do - Coming: Jan 2010
Rating: R, Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 8,557
A/N: Written for spn_halloween, 2008. Prompt 60. "Dude, this mask won't come off my face." (Could be casefic or crackfic.)
Winchesters + witches (always) = Crack
99% angst-free (I can’t explain that either) crack, with no redeeming literary value whatsoever. Happy Halloween to my flist!
Thanks to secret-seer for buffing the series banner as well as reading endless emails full of onomatopoeia, and mysticmhorag for answering my last minute Biblical query.
Part One of The Spell ‘Verse
Setting: Salem, Mass. Oct, 2007
Summary: Dean has always hated witches, so how the Hell had his brother talked him into a hunt in Salem? On All Hallow’s Eve? Everything after that was Sam’s fault. Totally.
Dean has always hated witches.
I’ll kill him if he doesn’t mean Oregon. Oregon was... Oregon was... Trees! It had trees. People liked trees. Some people even hugged them, which was all kinds of weird even to Dean who thought he’d seen it all. He could pretend to like trees though. Trees were better than... He shuddered. He couldn’t bring himself to think it. Please let it be Oregon. Dean was even prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and wear a Save the Whales t-shirt if he had to.
‘Salem, Massachusetts, Dean.’
Dean hated it that his little brother knew him that well.
‘Salem, Sam? Come on, it’s like Disneyland for...’ He could say it. He knew he could. ‘Witch groupies,’ he finished so quickly that Sam would never even notice the pause. Hah!
Sam just ... paused and raised an eyebrow. Damn him. ‘I think you’ll find they probably prefer the term neo-pagan now, Dean.’
Dean did his best not to flinch. He wanted to blame Stanford and all that education for ruining Sam. But seriously? His brother had been this pedantic and politically correct since the age of six. It was an insult to the Winchester gene pool that he’d done his best to eradicate over the years by dragging Sam into as many bars as he could. Sam usually fought back by bringing along a book or some other research material. Dean always retaliated by buying Sam beer, because it wasn’t like Sam was a complete pussy and didn’t like to drink, it was just that he was usually what he liked to call “judicious” about quantity. Dean should have known way back then that Sam had set his sights on a career in law. He blamed his lack of foresight on the alcohol making him slightly fuzzy. That, and the fact that he wasn’t a damned mind reader, okay? Ninety percent of the time Sam didn’t even have enough to get mellow, and Dean was forced to do the right thing and drink the leftovers, getting more than a little handsy with anyone that smiled at him for more than a second in the process, and Sam ended up finishing his homework or whatever the Hell he’d brought to the table and trying not to grin. Game, set, smiling stalemate. One thing they always refused to admit to each other was that they were both twice as stubborn as their father in their own peculiar ways.
‘Neo-bitches, w... whatever. Don’t care what you wanna call them, Sam. Don’t trust those pointy hats, the noses, or the warts. Eww! Don’t like ‘em. Can’t make me!’
Dean crossed his arms determinedly in a strong, manly, not at all scared of you know who, kind of way. That was the end of the discussion. Dean Winchester had spoken. Salem any time of the year? No. A hunt in Salem with not much more than a week left in October? Never. Goddamn chicks in hats would be prancing all over the place just itching to… Halloween.
‘Finally decided to practise a little confrontational therapy there, Sammy?’ Because… oh, it all made so much more sense now. Hunt, sure! Bet Sam had really worked the laptop to dig up something that sounded even vaguely plausible to present to him as a case. Sam had finally decided to Winchester up, and deal with how he felt about the H word. This was all Sam’s fault.
‘Bodies, Dean. One a year since 2004. All exhibiting asymptomatic behaviour patterns in the days leading up to their deaths. Their very strange deaths.’
Sam was doing that prissy double frown and moue thing. What? Dean had looked it up once. It totally had his brother’s name next to the definition in the biggest dictionary he could get his hands on in a library when Sam wasn’t looking. Patented Sam Winchester bitch face. Irritated Dean. Didn’t work on him when Sam was five. Or eight. Never would. Didn’t work in him when Sam was thirteen. Or twenty… Damnit.
Dean guessed they were both going to Salem. A tiny scared voice in the back of his head was bravely lighting a candle and singing loudly, if a little off-key, into the dark, ‘We’re off to see the witches. The wonderful witches…’
Dean wouldn’t admit it, but he’d timed their trip east down to the last mile. He knew his baby and exactly what she was capable of under all operating conditions. He knew what she’d do for him if asked. He didn’t ask.
He eased her into Danvers at dusk. Pleaded tiredness, a refusal to hand over the steering wheel, and equally importantly his control of the tape deck at that hour. Just to be safe he backed it all up with a rousing serve of hunger, because the latter excuse always reeled Sam in. It should, Dean had been cultivating that one forever. It helped that it was usually true.
‘Mrs Danvers. Creepy.’
Sam snorted. ‘Sometimes I think that everything you know either comes from the pages of Dad’s journal or late night TV marathons.’
So? Sometimes Dean thought that Sam did all his thinking through his hair. Absorbing radical ideas like a straw sucking desperately at the dregs in the bottom of a milkshake container. Strawberry, because Sam really was that pink and emo, especially on the inside.
‘That Rebecca girl was hot though,’ Dean admitted. Every now and then it paid to tell Sam a small truth to distract him.
‘Joan Fontaine? Uh huh.’ Sam was grinning across at him from under those stupid antennas bangs of his. ‘And you’re right, the housekeeper was creepy.’
Every now and then Sam threw him a bone. Dean didn’t mind jumping for it. They both liked Hitchcock, though that Birds thing still freaked both of them out too much for repeat viewings even with the mute button on. And Dean never watched Vertigo alone. Sam was the only person who knew that about him and he hadn’t ever used it against him.
‘Come on, Sam. Last night before we hit ... Witchville.’ He was trying to desensitize himself. He knew the theory. It was just harder than he thought it would be. ‘Let’s go all out on Mr Rodriguez’s plastic.’
‘Yeah, because we both look so Mexican,’ Sam answered too sensibly.
Dean refused to comment. What if he had been thinking more about Desperado and Antonio Banderas when he filled out the application form than conforming to outdated racial stereotypes?
‘Spy kids,’ Sam muttered evilly as Dean pulled into the first cheap motel he saw on Newbury Street.
For that Sam wasn’t getting pie. The desserts were all Dean’s, even if he had to accidentally knock Sam’s off the table when it arrived.
A Motel 6? Classy, Dean. Good to know you’re not a completely cheap date.’ Sam specialised in irony, when he wasn’t busy ignoring the fact that an accommodation chain was a few steps up from a lot of the places they’d shacked up in over the years.
‘It’s rated,’ Dean protested, waving at the intermittently flickering neon sign he was forced to park under. The car park was packed, which was generally a point in a place’s favour. Except Dean had a sneaking suspicion that the cars changed on an almost hourly basis. But who was he to judge if the locals needed somewhere for a bit of nookie?
‘I don’t even want to know what you’re smirking about,’ Sam said as they checked into the only vacant room left.
‘Nothing,’ Dean replied innocently.
He just hoped there weren’t any heart-shaped pillows on the beds or little brother would have even more to bitch about. He only closed his eyes for a second as he opened the door. Maybe two seconds. Oh. Well, at least that was one thing to be thankful for. No pillows at all. Or towels, a sweep of the grimy room and bathroom revealed. Perhaps the Days Inn would have been the better choice after all. Not that he was going to admit anything. Even under interrogation.
‘At least it has a one star, Sam. That has to count for something.’ Possibly the star was for the fact that the room still had the advertised two beds in it? More likely it was for the hole in the bathroom door.
‘I don’t think that was a star on the sign. I think it was an X for very bad,’ Sam said sourly.
Steak tips and too many beers at the Four 66 Pub at 8 pm. No tips for the bartender with the lengthy pigtail and an even bigger attitude problem at 10 pm. Dean could usually make any woman smile. This one though? Was possibly possessed.
Debrief at 10.30 because Sam was just that anal. Two bottles of water during the death monologue. Bed at 12, which revealed the tragic fact that the star definitely wasn’t for the beds’ existence, or comfort levels. Up and doing laps of the neighbourhood to sweat out the rest of the alcohol from his bloodstream at 5 am because Dad was right-always go in sharp. Until then? Nngh. Fuck, that hurts.
Dean would have flipped off Sam who was looking disgustingly perky for the hour, jogging along beside him, stupid long legs easily eating up the tarmac, and deliberately not saying anything taunting about the advantages of only having had the one beer the night before. Bastard. Dean hated him for that restraint most of all. In lieu of sign language Dean pushed his muscles past the burn and raced Sam back to the motel. Sometimes winning said it all.
And sometimes he just stifled his groans and thanked the Gods for hot showers, Advil chasers, and coffee. Gallons of coffee; and his longstanding ability to steal the last breakfast jelly donut out from under his little brother’s ginormous reaching paw. Speed and pure Winchester cunning always won over height any day of the week. Heh.
8.35 am and here they finally were-five minutes behind schedule because a sign for an obscure place called Walden Pond had got Sam all excited. Since when did Sam have a thing for fishing? His baby’s engine subconsciously channelled Dean’s feelings by idling well down below the speed limit one mile outside of Salem. 5,280 feet too close to them.
Dean didn’t appreciate the shabby “Repent now, sinners!” sign on the roadside just before they crossed over into the official city limits. He made a promise to himself to come back and spray-paint over it as soon as the job was over. Dean Winchester didn’t take advice from too many people. Snarkily pious billboards weren’t on his shortlist; even if it did know more about him than it should have.
Daylight. A good time to approach the enemy. Not because they were scarier in the dark; and cast really long pointy shadows in the moonlight; or anything childish like that. Just… Well… brighter.
Salem.
Witches.
They were going in.
Well, yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.
‘What’s with all the Peabodys?’ Dean asked squinting at the sign on a museum they were driving past. ‘Here and in Danvers.’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Sam said, brightening up in a dangerously enthusiastic manner.
Oops. Down, geek boy. Down, I say! ‘No. Just thinking it’s a dumb name,’ Dean replied quickly. It never paid to give Sam the slightest hint that you actually wanted to be hit with a wave of useless information. The only time that ever came in useful was when Dean entered his brother in barroom trivia night competitions. Sam’s strangely stuffed brain had won them a lot of meat trays over the years. Sam had never objected-well, violently anyway-to being used as the Winchesters’ version of a MENSA Trojan horse. He did, however, complain bitterly once about being registered as Daffy Duck, complete with an appropriate costume Dean had gone to considerable trouble to temporarily lift from a party-hire shop. Dean still couldn’t work out why nine-year-old Sammy had run away from home for a whole twenty-four hours when Dean had brandished a Thanksgiving turkey outfit at him four towns and two months later.
Dean had winced a lot since Sam had forced him into taking this case. The sight of a familiar stylised silhouette on a broomstick as the centre of the Salem P.D.’s logo, proudly dated 1626 was enough to make him reconsider his career options. Some days being a hunter was too much, even for a Winchester.
‘Oh, that’s just wrong.’ In every conceivable way. Goddamned things were painted everywhere he looked. Tourism had a lot to answer for.
‘Hmm?’ Sammy hummed, happily scrolling through the endless case notes he had on his laptop. He ducked his head down to get a look at the signs at the next intersection. ‘Take the second next left, and then hang a right. We want 370 Essex.’
Dean prayed that wasn’t the address of the closest Motel 6. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, even with the kind assistance of Miller’s best. He’d kept turning over all night because that darned hole in the door kept looking at him. Maybe he should switch to light beer instead? Nah.
As he pulled up outside a tastefully renovated brick mansion. 1855-whole town seemed to be positively littered with freaking signs with dates on them-had obviously been a good year for buildings.
‘Sammy!’
‘What?’ His brother had his gun out and ready, though he was discretely keeping it low of the open window on his side of the car.
‘Library!’ Dean wailed piteously.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dean. The books weren’t going to leap out, chain you to the bedpost and make you read them, you know.’
Bet that’s Sam’s version of a wet dream. Maybe they couldn’t. Then again, maybe they could. They were shifty little fuckers, especially the older ones. Dean had his limits, and this on top of the witches was just too much to bear. Though he wasn’t averse to the recreational use of handcuffs on occasion...
‘Dean?’
‘Huh?’ He felt better for some unknown reason.
‘I’m so glad I can’t read your mind, Dean. So very, very glad.’
Dean was glad too. Really, really glad.
Sam weakened and re-directed them to a motel instead. He didn’t often need to give in. Dean figured his brother was just biding his time. He could distinctly feel a library looming on the horizon of his future. Fate was cruel.
‘The fucking Black Cattery?’ Dean took it all back. It wasn’t fate that was cruel. It was little brothers. Bastards. He wasn’t a pet. He was a man. He … felt like clasping his hands protectively over his dick to prevent any accidental neutering. What kind of self-respecting town let a motel call itself a cattery? There should be a law. He put his hands in his pockets, willed his hackles back down, and tried not to look too wild-eyed. This was going to end in tears. He just knew it.
‘It’s Salem, Dean. You’d have better luck winning the lottery, or getting laid by a librarian, than finding a room that doesn’t push the town’s historical image.’
Dean obviously had a different image of the town than it’s founding fathers had. Catteries.
He revised his opinion about brothers immediately. Possibly not all little brothers were cruel. Just his. And as for sex and libraries? Sam was warped. Probably had been for years. Dean really needed to get Sam away from all those nasty books. Before it was too late.
An hour later the room had grown on Dean.
Like a terminal tropical fungus that started innocently between your toes, before it swarmed over every inch, devouring you as it climbed ever higher.
He was man enough to admit he found the room slightly … disturbing. It was almost enough to make him want to go and pick out colour samples at the hardware store and redecorate the room for the duration of the hunt. How long could it take him to paint everything a nice restful shade of taupe anyway? Particularly when he could use Sam to do all the high bits?
‘Fuck it! Let’s go back to that damned library, do the research, and then get stuck into the interviews, Sam.’
Dean was almost willing to admit Sam’s initial plan of attack-by-book had been right. In about seven months time, perhaps, he’d tell Sam. For now, as long as he made it sound like his own idea he could hold his head as high as those stupid pointy hats.
‘Three bodies isn’t a very big pattern, Sam.’ He didn’t mean it. Hell, the sooner they found out who or what was doing the killings and ended it the better. It was bad enough that they already had three deaths; the higher the number, the more it weighed on Dean’s conscience. All those what ifs. What if we got here last year? The year before? Found the cause before it all began? Before anyone died, and any families had to suffer the way they had after their mother was killed.
Sam nodded soberly. He usually knew exactly what Dean wasn’t saying. ‘Either we missed some deaths here, or this started up somewhere else, or someone or something’s being extraordinarily careful.’
Dean wanted to say a resounding “No!” to the first two options. No more bodies. No other places to look. He knew Sam was thinking the same thing he was. Or they only need one person each time. An annual cycle of killings. Ritual and blood. Death magic. Considering where they were, the circumstantial evidence was compelling; no matter what Sam’s legal commonsense was telling him. The Winchester in them both was shouting “Witchcraft!”
Dean had always hated witches.
Forty-eight hours of research and interviews with the victim’s friends and families later, they still held the same opinion.
Three deaths, and it had started here.
And the same objective. Salem was where they were going to finish it.
George Edgar Montgomery Jones, Jr. Age 29. Photocopier technician. Died October 31st, 2004. Jumped off the roof of the Canon showroom with six reams of blank paper tied around his neck, and a stomach full of forty-two bottles of Noodler’s Polar Black Bulletproof fountain pen ink. Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
Patricia Ann Bellamy. Age 17. Student. Died October 31st, 2005. Rammed her head repeatedly through the office window of the local Deaf and Dumb centre.
‘Centre for people with speech…’
‘Tom-ah-to, tom-ate-o, Sammy.’
Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
Marcus Leidner. 42. Bible salesman. Died October 31st, 2006. Choked to death on the carefully torn up pieces of his number one best seller. Apparently Acts 2:17 was a particular favourite. But not before he’d carefully cut out his own tongue with a pair of his wife’s sewing scissors and pinned it to his minister’s church notice board in the positions vacant column. Coroner’s verdict - suicide.
‘Ouch!’ Dean said uncomfortably.
No connection between the victims, except for the fact that they all supposedly killed themselves while everyone else around them was sticking candles in homemade Jack-o’-lanterns and getting ready to celebrate another wholesome American tradition.
No pattern at all, except for the fact that those close to them reported that: “He kept babbling. Just wasn’t making any sense;” “She just flipped out, man. Must have had a bad trip. Totally gaga;” “He was speaking in tongues.” None of which made it into any of the official police reports, naturally enough.
‘So they could speak, just not comprehensibly. No signs of stroke or anything else medical that might explain impaired or confused speech.’ Sam was still pouring over the autopsy results.
‘Nonsense,’ Dean said shortly.
‘No, it’s not nons…’ Sam objected. ‘Oh.’
‘Yup. Someone twisted their voices.’
‘To stop them telling?’ they both burst out simultaneously. ‘Or…’ It was an early side effect of what was happening to them? ‘Huh.’
‘Well, that’s a new one,’ Sam said.
Unfortunately not everything they came across was in their father’s journal. Not yet.
The victims it turned out did have one thing in common besides their place of residence. They might have all lived in Salem, but strangely enough none of them cared for their hometown’s position as a supernatural wanna-be Mecca.
George didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t replace a part for. And he’d been heard to say repeatedly-before he stopped making sense, that is-that the tourists should be banned altogether, or at the very least stopped from parking illegally right in front of each and every entrance to a company he was trying to gain admittance to in order to fulfil a service call.
Patricia told her school friends it was all a stupid load of dusty superstitions that had no place in a new century. She also thought fluorescent orange and lime green striped leggings were a better fashion choice than black robes and wouldn’t be caught dead in a hat.
Marcus was prone to sententiously quote Exodus 22:18 “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
Seemingly none of them liked witches at all.
Dean got that. More so, he was beginning to see a second pattern layered beneath the first, and Sam wasn’t that far behind him. Although Dean was probably alone in repeating the non-specific threat of “Die, witch! Die!” under his breath to the tune of “Who let the dogs out?”
Timelines sucked. Slowly. Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days…
‘You finished yet?’
‘Gimme a minute, will ya?’
Sam was such a princess about his precious research. So Dean’s wasn’t a Technicolor marvel of one tiny fact linked to another in a never-ending daisy chain. Dean splashed some more Liquid Paper on his page and blew on it hopefully, while hiding it from his brother’s view. He snuck a look at Sam’s masterpiece. Michelangelo could have taken lessons in forced perspective from it. Nerds always had to go one step further than everyone else. Goddamn teacher’s pets. Sam’s was prettier.
‘Ready?’
Dean huffed. It wasn’t a race, surely? ‘Here.’
Making allowances for the obvious differences in style, temperament, and technique-Sam had hand-bolded major points of intersection, and he had different sized and coloured arrows. Bootlicker!-and Dean’s sea of corrections, they’d both plotted virtually identical journeys for the victims in the weeks leading up to their deaths.
All three of them had visited the Broomstick Boutique Bakery on the day before the onset of their symptoms.
‘Let’s go play witch bingo!’ Dean was feeling happy for the first time since Sam had started this.
The first stage of bingo involved a little B&E. Same old, same old. Except…
‘If I see a black cat, we’re out of here, Sam.’
‘Fuck you, Sylvester!’ Sam said with a laugh as he finished picking the lock and waved Dean in through the bakery’s back door with a grandiose gesture of politeness.
Dean didn’t bother wasting time killing him. Sam may have done the whole Stanford thing, but Dean? He’d majored in cartoons for years. If he was Sylvester, there was only one thing Sam could be. Dean was so buying his brother a packet of birdseed for breakfast in the morning.
The second stage of bingo involved a careful, C.S.I. approved, double-gloved examination of the bakery’s contents. Dean got a little over eager halfway through the night and spilled a container of confectioner’s sugar which was a bitch to clean up, but tasted mighty fine when he licked his latex fingers.
‘Dean!’
It was a shame they didn’t find any damned clues except for ingredients and industrial-sized kitchen equipment.
The third stage of bingo involved too many hours in the Cattery. If they were going to be there for much longer Dean swore he was going to start crying, ‘Miaow.’
It didn’t involve an early morning jog around historic Salem. Dean had no intention of accidentally mingling with any more witches than he had to. Who knew how many might be into exercise? It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. He let Sam go instead after he made him promise to collect coffee on his last lap.
The fourth and final stage of bingo involved parking the Impala subtly two cars down from the bakery’s automatic doors just after it opened the following day. The bakery’s continually opening and closing, to a ceaseless parade of smiling customers, doors. The doors that kept wafting an exotic and absolutely enticing aroma right through their open windows.
‘Oh my God! What is that smell? That’s… whatever that is I want some. Time for second breakfast, Sam.’
‘Sssh,’ Sam hissed. ‘Stakeout. Undercover. Low profi… Oh shit! Dean, get back here!’
Inside was better. Dean couldn’t even begin to describe how much better. It was probably what a gourmet would call …
‘Awesome!’
Focus on the case, Dean. ‘Ooh, pie!’ So many pies, so little time. Case. Case. Case. What was that smell? Cinnamon… nutmeg… ginger… maple syrup? What else? He couldn’t think about that now. He had to stay alert. This building held the answers to how and why those people had died. They needed to find ou… Pies. Lots of pies.
‘Can I help you?’ The shop assistant fitted one of his two favourite types exactly. Gorgeous. Smiling. Smelling so good. And right there within touching distance. Way prettier than Sam’s chart. Sam.
‘You most certainly can,’ Dean smiled back at her fuzzily. He was a little warm. Must be the ovens. They needed ovens to cook all those wonderful pies. He remembered the ovens from the night before. They’d looked a lot like real ovens, only bigger.
‘What can I get you?’
Hard question. There was so much to choose from, and those smells. He couldn’t concentrate. He wanted. ‘I…’ He shrugged. He’d never be that far gone that he couldn’t work his charm to his best advantage.
‘I’d appreciate your help. What would you recommend to a new customer?’
She dimpled as she murmured, ‘New blood.’
Dean thought that was adorable. She looked like a fluffy white Persian kitten. It made him feel all… He had no idea really. But he liked it. He liked the tasting platter she held out even more. Yummmm. He needed. What? Maybe some more of those tiny sugared gingerbread things.
He wondered if she tasted as delicious as she looked.
‘Dean!’
Sam. Party pooper.
‘Hey, Sammy! Long time, bro!’
‘Bro? Dean?’
‘Tha’s me,’ Dean slurred brightly. Sammy always was the quick one. ‘He used to go to Stanford, you know,’ he confided to that ever so helpful assistant. ‘Big head. Full-ride!’
She looked suitably impressed which was good, because if she hadn’t Dean would have dumped her then and there. Nobody dissed his Sammy.
‘Can Sam have some?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. She was nice. He already knew what she’d say.
‘Go on, Sammy. Try these ones in the middle… Oh, I must have eaten them all. Never mind. Have some of the other ones. Bet they’re almost as good.’
‘Maybe tomorrow, Dean. We’re running kind of late for work,’ Sam said apologetically. He had his arm firmly around Dean’s shoulder.
‘Saaaam! You’re touching me! In public.’ Dean was having trouble remembering if Sam had had one of his ten percent alcohol days yesterday. It was the only explanation for the way his brother wasn’t letting go and kept whispering ‘Christo’ in Dean’s left ear.
‘Geroff! That tickles!’ He pushed uselessly on Sam’s suddenly immobile shoulders. When did he get so big?
Sam was acting as if Dean couldn’t stand up on his own two…
‘Whoa! That was a close one, wasn’t it, Sammy?’ he giggled.
‘Sure was, bro. Think you’ve overdone the sugar for today. What say we get you back home for a nice lie down?’
Bed. Bed sounded amazing. Dean wanted nothing more than to be totally horizon… vertic… flat for a while. He thought the walls and the ceiling should stay flat too. Be more restful that way. Bed. Sam was right. Dean should tell him that before his girly feelings got squished.
‘Bed … Ooh look, party favours!’ Cool pointy hats, and extendable whistles, ‘Whoooooo, whooooo!’ Okay they didn’t sound as good as they looked.
‘Masks!’ Dean finally managed to slip the black elastic of his choice behind his head. Huh. Tiny eyeholes. Where was Sam?
‘Sammy?’ Sam should have one too. But Dean was wearing the best one. ‘You wanna borrow mine, Sammy?’ He didn’t feel so good any more. ‘Sammy?’
‘I got you, Dean.’
Thank God! Dean had gotten a bit turned around in all those shelves. For a minute he felt he was somewhere much more dark and scary. Silly Dean. What had he been doing? Oh yeah. Mask. Stupid thing kept slipping. Samm...
He couldn’t see! He needed to…
‘Dude, this mask won't come off my face!’
‘Dean? I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath and trust me, okay?’
‘m’kay,’ Dean whispered in a tiny voice.
Sam took Dean very gently by the shoulders and ripped the mask off.
‘Ow! That hurt,’ Dean moaned pathetically. ‘Gigantic bully!’
‘Better now?’
‘No! Oh, I can see! Way to go, Sam!’ Dean blinked up at his brother. Sam looked annoyed and frightened.
‘Don’t be afraid, Sammy,’ Dean said, reaching up to give Sam a series of tender little kitten pats all over his face. ‘I’ll protect you.’
‘I know you will, Dean. Maybe later, okay? Time to go.’
‘Okey dokey!’
Dean wobbled his way towards the door with Sam’s assistance.
‘Thanks for the treats!’ he yelled back at the nice lady, waving madly with his free hand before he bumped into the door.
‘Eek!’
‘Dean? Just take a step back so I can finish opening it, and we’ll be fine. We need to leave now.’
Huh. Sam was using his big voice. He meant it.
Dean shuffled awkwardly back a few feet, catching a distorted reflection of his new friend in the glass as Sam opened the door for him.
Ick. She didn’t look pretty any more. She looked all old, and mean, and … witchy, as if she was wearing a mask too. Weird.
‘Bad door,’ Dean muttered.
‘m not a cat!’
‘No, Dean. You’re not.’
Dean was glad Sam agreed with him. If he hadn’t he’d have started doubting himself. Those black cats kept tiptoeing around the walls, and looking at him. Like they were hungry. For a minute Dean was nostalgic for the Danvers’ Motel 6. Only a minute though.
‘ma head hurts, Sammy!’
‘Got to lie you down, and find out what’s wrong with you.’ Sam was feeling his forehead. ‘You’re awful hot, Dean. I think you’re running a temperature.’
‘I’m good! Just tired,’ Dean yawned, and tried to curl up in a ball in the middle of the bed.
‘Can I have your pillows, Sam?’
‘Whatever you need, Dean.’ Sam started to build a careful polyester wall around Dean’s head.
Duh! ‘Not, for my head, dummy! Want to snuggle.’ Dean batted Sam’s hand away and stole one of the pillows and wrapped his arms securely around it. That was better. Soft.
‘Dean?’ Hard fingers were prodding him in his side. ‘Maybe lying down isn’t a good idea after all. Come on, you can’t go to sleep yet. How about some coffee?’
‘Donwancoffeeeeewannanap!’ Sam was mean. Probably came of being so tall. Air must be thin, and cold, and mean up there.
‘Damn it, Dean! I need you!’
‘What?’ Dean let go of the pillow and wavered upright immediately. Ow! ‘Sammy?’
Sam helped hold him in place and held a flask to his lips. ‘Here, drink some of this.’
Huh. Holy water. Dean rolled his eyes even though it hurt. ‘Boring.’
‘Damn! Thought that’d work.’ Sam reached out and snapped something sharply under his nose.
‘Ugh! Sammy! Yuck.’ Fucking ammonia ampoules.
‘You back with me?’
‘No?’ If he said that maybe Sam would just go away and let him sleep?
‘Dean?’
Damn. Sam was tough. And Dean was just so tired. ‘Coffee?’ Perhaps that would help. He guessed Sam wasn’t so dumb after all. In the meantime Dean tilted forward, slung his arms around his brother’s back, nuzzled his nose under Sam’s chin, and settled in for a short...
‘Damnit, Dean!’
‘Meep?’ Sam was shaking him like he was a rag doll. That wasn’t very friendly. The bed was nicer, and it wasn’t even related to him.
‘Shit! Oh God, should have shot you before you got in the door. It’s like sending in a child with a giant target painted on their forehead. You fit the Goddamn profile, Dean!’
‘Ssh,’ Dean said hopefully. Sam was loud. He didn’t need Sam’s voice inside his head. There wasn’t enough room in there for both of them. Besides Sam fit the profile too. Almost. But he was taller, that should have evened things up. Profiles. Dean was having trouble remembering if they were bad things. Judging by the look on Sam’s face they were.
‘Dean? Talk to me!’
‘Glipp. Ooooff!’ No, that wasn’t what he meant to say.
‘Dean?’
‘Urkkk?’
‘Fuck!’
The last thing Dean managed to think before he collapsed backwards unconscious onto the nice bed was, Pointy!
Mmmm. Dean liked this bed. It was friendly, and warm, and nice, and cuddly, and ... occupied by someone else. Someone bigger than him, holding him safe. That seemed wrong. Or at the very least, a little unfair. It was his bed, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t he be the holder, not the holdee?
He yawned and reluctantly opened one eye. Best to scope out the situation and get ready to react accordingly. He was a damn good hunter. He could deal with it. Dean Winchester could deal with any...
Yikes! He was staring directly into an angry bearded face. Not exactly the best medicine he needed the way his head was feeling.
‘Dean?’ The mouth was moving but the sound was coming from behind him. And now from right in front of him too.
‘Uh?’ He swung his aching head around. Sammy. ‘Zowie!’
And turned back again. Bobby. ‘Flrbbbbb!’
He was surrounded on all-okay, two-sides by hunters. Tired, worried hunters.
‘Rakkkkk?’
It took a lot of coffee, and some definitely illegal drugs that Bobby insisted he swallow before he got up, but things were making more sense now. Slightly more sense. Okay, almost no sense at all. Meep?
‘You got zapped, Dean.’
‘Zapppp!’ Dean agreed, thankful they had some words in common. He liked it so much he repeated it. ‘Zap!’
Sam sunk his head into his hands briefly before Dean hugged him, because hugs made everything better.
‘Uh, Dean. Do you remember you’re not into being touchy-feely?’ Sam queried with an embarrassed cough.
Well, yeah. But...
Fucking witches. They’d really put the whammy on him. Dean growled.
‘Grrrrrrr.’
Neither Sam nor Bobby needed a translator for that.
Dean grabbed his gun. Die, witch. Die.
‘Bang! Bang!’ he said concisely.
‘Sam? Think you’d better take that away from him till he’s better.’ Bobby said not very helpfully.
Dean frowned as Sam peeled his fingers off the gun and tucked it away out of sight. Dean could have taken Sam, but he still felt more like hugging him.
He made a fist and punched the air instead. ‘Kapow! Crunch!’
‘Well, he’s certainly still in there,’ Bobby said in a relieved tone. ‘No doubt about what he wants to do, or what he’s trying to say.’
‘He just can’t use proper English,’ Sam said thoughtfully. ‘Every word sounds like… onomatopoeia!’
‘Pee?’ Dean asked with a frown. He hated it when Sam used big words. It was too much like Latin.
‘Words that sound like what they sound like. I mean, what they represent.’
Dean nodded. Noisy words. Sam could have just said that in the first place. Like comics. He loved comics. He’d never thought about what it was like to have everything he said come out in speech balloons though.
‘Pop!’
‘None of the victims went crazy,’ Sam said finally. ‘All those witnesses were telling the truth, they just couldn’t understand what they were hearing.’
Bobby read back through their notes. ‘Victim number one “babbled,” number two was…’
‘Gaga!’ Dean interjected to prove he was totally on the ball, even if his mouth needed re-tuning. Now he knew how Patricia had felt before she killed herself. He hoped he didn’t end up channelling everything that happened to all the other victims.
‘Gaga,’ Bobby repeated while Sam thumped Dean proudly on the arm.
Dean stayed strong and didn’t try to sneak a hug. He felt warm and fuzzy though. Best he’d felt since he was in that bakery smelling all those pies. He was completely healthy. No temperature, no childish behaviour. Must have all been the first stage symptoms. Just as well because he’d never live it down if he couldn’t kill that damned witch because he thought she was nice. There was nothing wrong with him apart from that onowhatsit thing and the irrational desire to hug his brother while his heart went tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump.
‘Bam!’ That witch was going down before things got even more weird. Oh, and before he tried to kill himself.
Bobby continued. ‘And number three spoke in tongues.’
Marcus, Dean thought. Poor religious bastard. Talk about ironic ways to kill yourself. Or did they?
Sam as always was on his wavelength, even allowing for the verbal interference. ‘And the ways they died. They all related to language, or the lack thereof.’
Dean snorted-luckily he could still do that. Who the heck had said “lack thereof” in the past two centuries apart from his nerdy brother?
‘Baa.’
That got him blank looks so he tried it again with attitude.
‘Baaaaaa.’
Sam threw a dirty sock at him. His aim was too good.
‘Blech!’ Dean spat the woollen sock out of his mouth. That was gross...
‘Ah-choo!’
Great, not only had the witch infected him with an evil word thing, and Sam had practically rammed his germy socks down his throat-Dean didn’t hold with the old fashioned notion that families should share everything-, and now he was coming down with a cold. Or maybe, he was simply allergic to Sam’s malodorous big feet?
‘Before I was so rudely interrupted,’ Sam continued prissily, placing a large hand firmly over Dean’s mouth to prevent any further outbreaks. ‘I was going to say that either they were trying to tell us something...’
A clue, Watson! Dean pretended to smoke a pipe but Sam’s hand got in the way.
‘... or the witch was rubbing it in as viciously as she could.’
Dean thought they’d covered that the other day, but he could have been mistaken. He really needed a hug. He nudged Sam and waggled his eyebrows.
‘Ribbet, ribbet.’
‘What?’
‘Ribbet, ribbet,’ Dean said loudly.
Sam groaned. ‘You haven’t been turned into a frog, Dean. You never were a prince, and I’m certainly not kissing you to turn you back!’
‘Drip, drip.’ Sam could be really thick on occasions.
‘Frog? Water? Drink?’ Sam asked despairingly. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me! I wish you could just writ... Shit!’
He grabbed a pad and pen and thrust it at Dean, beaming widely.
‘Huh.’ Not so dumb.
Dean grinned back and proceeded to scrawl ‘Smooch?’ happily across the paper.
No, that wasn’t right. Damned witch hadn’t just stolen his ability to speak, but his only other means of communication too. Pointy-nosed bitch!
He tried again, writing, ‘Moooo!’ and ‘Muuhhhrrr!’ before he came close with the cry of a hippo. ‘Huuuuuuuuuugh!’
‘Oh!’ Sam said, finally catching on. ‘You want a hug, Dean?’
Dean flushed, but nodded. Now wasn’t the time to get bashful.
Sam’s long arms swallowed him up, and for a few fleeting moments Dean knew that everything was going to be all right.
Or it would be as soon as he killed the witch.
Um, except that all Sam’s talk of water had had an unfortunately predictable effect on his metabolism.
‘Splish, splash, tinkle,’ Dean said.
‘You idjuts settled down now?’ Bobby asked grumpily.
Dean kicked Sam in the ankles, and Sam whacked him hard with the pillow that Dean was pretending wasn’t the one he’d been hugging the day before.
‘Wee woo! Wee woo!’ Dean shouted when it looked like Sam was going to win the battle.
Sam just thrust one of their fake F.B.I. IDs in his face. ‘Federal trumps local any day.’
Sometimes Dean realised that Sam had learnt too much from him while they were growing up.
‘Boom!’ Bobby yelled. ‘Now will the two of you stop acting like you’re both six all over again?’
‘Clang,’ Dean agreed sadly. The fight had been almost as good therapy as that hug.
They both sat bolt upright on the end of the bed with their serious faces on. It was easier if they didn’t look at each other.
Bobby looked at them sternly. ‘It’s Halloween today, dumbasses. Tonight if you want to get picky. Time of death for all the victims was close to midnight. We’ve got three hours to end this before Dean does something stupidly symbolic like burying himself under a pile of dictionaries.’
‘Tick, tock,’ Dean sighed mournfully. He was trying not to think about Bobby’s suggestion. Dictionaries? Heavy, man. He’d just bet that witch would love Dean Winchester to go out like that. Probably make him go back to that library Sam was so fond of and do it in the middle of the reading room. What an awful way to go.
‘Dean!’
He jumped back from the driver’s side of the Impala. How’d he gotten outside? Vroom!
‘Where were you going, Dean?’
‘Uh.’ Library.
‘Gasp!’
Sam dragged him back inside and shoved a chair under the door handle. ‘Dean?’
Dean pointed at Bobby and then at the biggest book Sam had left lying around. It wasn’t his fault the witch had obviously made him suggestible.
‘Aroooo!’ he howled. He damned popular culture for promulgating stereotypes but somewhere out there he knew that witch was flying across the face of an undoubtedly full moon cackling at his fate.
‘Do we have a plan?’ Bobby asked as he yanked his baseball cap more firmly down over his lank grey hair.
‘Yes,’ Sam said.
‘Woof! Woof!’ Dean agreed. Storm the bakery, and kill the witch!
‘No, Dean. You’re staying here,’ Sam insisted.
‘Bah!’
‘You’re the one she’s trying to kill. I’m not handing you over to her on a platter!’
Sam was flaring his nostrils and even his bangs were getting agitated. It was kind of scary. Dean inched a little closer. A stealth hug might calm him down.
‘Chirp,’ he cheeped soothingly as he reached out.
Sam was good. He grabbed Dean’s hands and aborted his emotional attack before he could reach his target.
‘Don’t even try to sweet talk me, Dean Winchester!’
Dean blinked angelically up at Sam. How could his brother even think he’d be that devious?
Sam tapped him on the nose. ‘Nuh uh. I know you, remember?’
Darn.
‘Fizz,’ Dean muttered as he gnashed his teeth in frustration.
‘You really think he’s safe to be left alone?’ Bobby asked reasonably.
Sam did his own share of teeth grinding. ‘No,’ he admitted at last. ‘But…’
‘But, nothing. He’s coming with us where we can keep a close eye on him. Besides, he can still shoot straight, even if he sounds like a two-year old with a toy gun.’
Dean nodded. This was why Bobby was totally awesome. Bobby deserved a hug too.
‘Coo,’ Dean said as he happily attached himself like a limpet to Bobby’s back.
‘Get off me, boy. I’m not your teddy bear,’ Bobby snarled.
Dean pouted and held onto Sam’s free hand instead. Bobby evidently had issues with public demonstrations of affection. That made Dean sad, but he stopped himself sniffling. Plenty of time for that after the battle.
‘Right. Grab your weapons and let’s go.’
‘Cock a doodle doo!’
One of the problems with witches was their noses. Their long, pointy, incredibly sensitive, noses. They could smell things. They could smell people. They could smell hunters.
They were polite though. They’d left all the lights on in the bakery to welcome their visitors.
‘Aarrgh!’
‘Hush, Dean. There’s three of us, and only one of her,’ Sam said.
Reassurance was all well and good, but Dean was worried that the witch had more than numbers on her side. Magic had a way of magnifying things. Not always for the best either.
‘Clink.’ Damn that hadn’t sounded at all brave.
‘Ahem. Crinkle. Clap?’ Or that. Die, witch! Die! That was better, even if he was the only one who could hear it.
‘It’ll be okay, Dean. We’re going to get her. She’s not leaving here alive.’
Wow! Sam sounds just like Dad. Dean missed his father.
‘Clippity-clop.’
‘Oh for Pete’s sake!’ Bobby grumbled. ‘You two take the front, as she’s already laid out the welcome mat for you. I’ll take the back. Give me five, and go.’
‘Eeeyuh,’ Dean agreed, beating his brother to it. Hee.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four… He glanced at Sam standing firmly bicep to shoulder with him. …issippi, five.
‘Ding, dong!’ He shouted.
‘Customers! And so late on such a festive night too.’ She was positively purring as she stalked forward with an old-fashioned wicker basket in her hands. ‘And you brought a friend along. How nice. Now don’t be shy in the back there. Why don’t the four of us sit down for a nice cup of my ginger tea? Or are you just here to trick or treat? You all look a little old for that, I must say. And costumes are mandatory. We are in Salem after all. Can’t let traditions fall by the wayside,’ she shook her head sadly at the very thought.
‘I don’t think so, bitch,’ Sam said as he kept his gun centred on her chest.
Go, Sammy! Dean cheered silently. He liked it when Sam talked dirty. Dean was aiming his own pistol a little lower. Covering all the bases as it were. He could see Bobby focussed on a headshot. One. Two. Three. Oh right, the plan. He could wait a few minutes. Then they could get on with the hugging.
‘My, my,’ she tsked. ‘Such language, and from such a nice, studious-looking young boy. Or are you?’ She licked her lips, as she looked Sam up and down.
‘Oy!’ Nobody insulted, and then perved on his Sam, especially not a witch.
‘Oh, look. It talks! Or does it?’ she snickered. ‘When did you last wind it up? You really should pay attention to those pesky little details. You never know when these things will run down and die on you. They don’t make hunters like they used to.’
Stuff the plan! ‘Yadda yadda, CROAK,’ Dean said as plainly as he could.
‘Goddess! That’s so annoying. He must have been driving you both crazy. Going a little mad on the inside are you, Dean?’
Dean yodelled at her and decided he was going to use all the bullets in the clip. Plan. Plan. Plan. Any minute now.
Sam’s look said it all. Sic her, Dean!
Dean did.
‘Burble! Wheeze! Chatter! Bringg-bringg! Arf! Bumble! Klonk! Swish! Aw! Cuckoo! Babble! Scrunch! Jingle! Badaboom! Flick! Caw! Bamf! Plonk! Yelp! Bark! Oink! Lap! Bawl! Howl! Bash! Sizzle! Glug! Bay! Crash! Beep! Hoo hoo! Chirr! Squirt! Biff! Blam! Blare! Chug! Zonk! Flap! Burp! Clickety-clack! Sniff! Bleep! Thud! Grunt! Bling bling! Zzzz! Rattle! Blast! Whock! Gibber! Snore! Blurp! Eek eek! Buffet! Chuckle! Whimper! Blip! Flutter! Bwee! Hee haw! Clobber! Bonk! Mrow! Blurt! Neigh! Bow-wow! Titter! Whump! Yip! Boo!’
‘ENOUGH!’ She screeched, taking her sinister hand off the basket long enough to make a brief obscure gesture.
‘Phew!’ Dean said, gratefully taking a long deep breath. ‘Fuck that for a joke, bitch!’
‘So... daughter of a witch!’
She just smirked at him. ‘The truth never hurts, even from a Winchester.’
‘You set us up. How did you know we were coming?’
‘Oh, sweetheart. We could smell you before you even got into town. All that delicious pain and rage. And you hated us so very much. How could we not? You were broadcasting so strongly I’m surprised your brother didn’t go deaf on the trip.’
Huh?
‘How could we not know that John’s boys were coming for us? We were looking forward to playing with you. It’s been so long since we talked with a Winchester. It’s been a blast. Our best year ever, and not over yet.’
She simpered, pulling the red-checked napkin back to reveal the contents of the basket. ‘I baked something especially for you, Dean.’
What the fuck? Dean knew better than to look inside it. ‘No way in Hell, am I eating anything else you cooked, you pointy-hatted madwoman.’
She didn’t look pretty or smell nice any more, and Dean definitely didn’t feel like hugging her. She’d released the entire curse.
One. Two. Three.
‘Tzing!’ went three bullets straight to their targets.
‘Hey, Sammy? Bet you didn’t have time to worry about the whole Halloween thing this year, did you?’ Damn, he was good.
‘You weren’t supposed to keep taunting her after she lifted it, Dean! God, you’re so stupid sometimes. She could have done anything to you!’
Huh. Sam was mad. Spitting chips mad. Hmmm. He’d have to get out of the habit of using those sorts of words.
‘Had to make sure, didn’t I, Sam? I gave you the high sign as soon as I knew. We got her. End of story.’ She kept saying “we.” Dean hoped she was just that deluded. He guessed Salem was going down on 2008’s calendar, just in case. Damn it. But next year they were staying at a Holiday Inn. He was torching the Black Cattery at dawn. Damned feral cats!
‘Damn it, Dean! Are you even listening to me?’ Sam was shaking him, and ignoring Bobby’s careful prodding of the body.
What do you call a dead witch? A bloody bitch. Heh!
Oops. Fuck. There was another one. This was harder than it looked. He was going to have to buy a dictionary after all.
‘Dean?’
‘I heart you too, bitch.’
Sam shook him once more. Hard. ‘Be careful, Dean. Or I might just have to... hug you.’
Dean positively didn’t let out the smallest sputter, wail, groan, or screech, or even mentally go, ‘Uh-oh.’ He did; however, start edging surreptitiously towards the door in order to get a little further away from Sam. Better safe than emo any day.
And because the better part of valour was distraction, there was only one thing he could think of to say.
‘Hey, Sammy. Did you just hear a crack? Or was that a metal teeth chomp?’
Dean has always hated witches.
The only difference now is that he finally has good reason.
Talk To Me
Tiny Bubbles
All You Want To Do - Coming: Jan 2010