Arms Wide Open. Part Three.
Part 3/13
A Change Of Dreams. [September 20th, 1998]
Dean.
“There’s a hunt. Grab your stuff,” Bobby says as he walks through the kitchen.
“Yeah, sure.” But Dean doesn’t move, he doesn’t even look up, so Bobby resorts to knocking Dean’s feet off of one of the kitchen chairs and that has Dean staring up at the man, forehead wrinkled with confusion.
“Move it, kid. We’re taking my truck.”
“What the hell? You know we can’t leave. We have to keep looking for Dad! Can’t you call someone for this?” Dean barely evades the next smack to his thigh.
“Get up, idjit. We’ve been looking everywhere, asked everyone we know, and there’s nothing more for us to do than wait. He'll turn up somewhere, you know how these things go with John. Until then you can make yourself useful. People are dying, son.” Bobby’s voice softens a little at that last sentence and Dean tries his best not to look as guilty as he feels.
“Fine.” A moment passes before he adds for good measure, “Just stop it with the smacking.” Dean glimpses a self-satisfied smirk right before Bobby turns away. “And no way am I going in your freaking truck!” he adds hurriedly.
He doesn’t really care when he hears Bobby mutter an exasperated, “Idjit.” The thought of hunting is already upping his adrenaline levels. He missed his baby just as much as the thrill of the hunt, but he's been too preoccupied with Dad being gone to appease his hunger for the open road. It'll be good to relieve some of the stress from not having found the man so far. A hunt sounds quite perfect, actually.
Bobby.
From the doorway Bobby sees the different emotions flicker across the younger man’s face and he has to bite back a chuckle when it settles on an excited grin. The kid was going stir-crazy; a little fresh air and a case will do wonders to help him stop worrying over the elusive John Winchester. Although, Bobby wonders, how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and let people know you’re still breathing? But criticizing the man only brings out Dean’s defensive streak, so Bobby resorts to calling John names in his head and sharpening his knifes over and over again. No one ever said hunters were a well-adjusted bunch.
The kid makes his way upstairs in record time and soon Bobby hears the floorboards in Dean’s room creaking. Dean has packing down to an art form, at least concerning the speed with which he does it, and right now he’s undoubtedly throwing clothes and weapons into their designated duffels. Bobby checks his watch and has to bite back another laugh when not 90 seconds later the kid stomps downstairs again, all eager and jittery. He can feel the excitement roll off of the younger man and he gives himself a mental pat on the back. So far so good: Get the kid away from the couch - check. Stop the brooding - check. Next step: kill something nasty.
Eighteen hours later finds Bobby wet and tired and Dean severely unamused. The case turns out to be beyond horrible and, as an added bonus, a total bitch to solve. Why Bobby ever thought they might get lucky with a quick and easy case, Dean doesn’t know. Although, to be fair, the newspaper article that caught the older hunter’s interest didn’t give many specifics; Dean read it on their drive to Boone, Iowa and while it had his hunter senses on high alert, too, the article indicated nothing about the brutality that awaited them.
Seven people had died already, but none of the victims knew each other and neither did their families, the city of nearly 13,000 big enough for that kind of anonymity. All deaths were gruesome and weird, and not only because blood and goo and bone was all that’d been left of the victims, which made the trip to the coroner’s office a special kind of disgusting. Everything morgue-related that comes in buckets creeps Dean out; it’s just wrong to end up under an airtight plastic lid if you ask him.
Of the seven victims, four were male, three female, and all of them somehow disintegrated into puddles of skin and strips of flesh and, oddly enough, a varying number of small and quite thin squares of melted bone: 142, 116, 98, 122, 106, 134 and 128. Aside from the fact that they don’t have a clue as to what’s going on - which is frustrating enough in itself - the evil sucker has already caused so much grief that the so far fruitless investigation sits like lead in their stomachs. Whoever did this can’t get burned crispy enough, as far as Dean's concerned.
Bobby, king of researchers, is able to trace the victims to a coven of four. It took them a few days, though, and another woman has died; another family has lost a daughter, a sister, an aunt. This time there’s 102 of those nonsensical bone squares left. Fucking covens, always meddling with things better left alone. Always fucking messy, too, what with all the spit and blood and animal parts, and honestly, what is it with witches and being savage? What was the reason again that people stopped burning them? Dean never got that.
They discover the coven’s ritual site in an abandoned warehouse in one of the shadier areas of town. Luckily they don’t trigger any hidden spells or curses, but not for lack of trying, as Bobby announces after looking at the symbols covering a majority of the warehouse’s walls. Apparently the coven has no grasp on the finer points of magic. They mixed various spells from the many books that are lying around, which in turn led to many runes cancelling each other out. Most of the symbols are nothing but a bunch of gibberish.
After studying a few of the open books and the handwritten notes scattered over the coven’s altar - and, man, do they need to leave cut up chickens and rabbits out in the open like that? - it turns out that these nutjobs tried to continue the work of an even bigger wacko: some megalomaniacal serial killer by the name of Joash Mocatta who decided liquefying human flesh would be the best way to break the human soul’s endless cycle of reincarnation and lift them to the next stage of existence. Dean always suspected that people were way crazier than the supernatural sons of bitches he usually hunts, but this level of lunacy has even him surprised.
And of course, because purifying people by liquefying them isn’t weird enough, the coven added a little twist of creating a game of pairs out of each victim’s bones to pay homage to their role model. Evidently, Mocatta had been a passionate aficionado of that game; so much so that he was rumored to have slain his first victim over a lost tournament. Talk about overkill.
Finally the altar is destroyed and the tomes confiscated - which means they will either be added to Bobby’s extensive library on the occult or they will find a dark and cozy place in their very own curse box, depending on how dangerous their contents turn out to be - and the population of Boone, Iowa can go back to their uneventful little lives.
It’s already evening by the time the warehouse is nothing more than a smoldering pile of brick and scrap metal, so they decide to spend another night in the hotel. Bobby wants to get to the books first thing, and since caution is never wrong in such cases, Dean is left with dinner duty.
Just as he enters Bobby’s room balancing two huge pizza boxes and a six-pack of some local brew, Bobby’s phone rings. The table is occupied by heaps of books so Dean turns to the bed instead, but he pauses mid-step when the one-sided conversation registers in his brain.
“Yeah, Clive it’s me. Geez.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Dumbass!”
“Well if you think you- what… uh… oh. No, we’re still looking.”
“Are you sure? When?”
“Nah… no, listen! We’ll do it ourselves… yeah, we just finished a job so we’re good to go. We’ll check it out. But thanks anyway.”
“Sure thing. You too.”
As soon as Bobby snaps the phone shut, Dean practically jumps the older man.
“What is it, Bobby? Was that about- about Dad?” Damn, he hates when he sounds like a little boy. When Bobby nods, all thoughts about food and sleep are forgotten. They're ready to leave not fifteen minutes after the call.
Bobby.
The trip to Dunn takes them two days, because Bobby insisted that driving for 18 hours straight after a week of sleep deprivation was nothing he would ever like to try. Nevertheless, both men are exhausted when they arrive in the quaint little town; the aftereffects of the witch hunt still lingering with both of them and making them yearn for some shut-eye before confronting John about his latest vanishing act. But they know they can’t risk it; whatever John is hunting right now might be on the move and who knows where it could take the older Winchester next.
So they start checking Dunn’s total of seven motels; agree on the stolen car story, because most people are sympathetic to it, especially if Dean cranks up the kicked puppy charm with the female population and ends his story with a pleading little head tilt. Uncle Bobby has nothing more to do than nod in the right places and throw some fond or enraged glances at his “nephew” while Dean tells his tale.
Four of the early afternoon staff turn out to be just as bored as your average underpaid motel clerk and they give them the info just to shut them up. One is clearly high on something that’s screwing with her depth perception because whenever she tries to empathically pat Dean’s hand she keeps hitting the reception desk. She is out of it enough to let them look through the hotel’s video feed without complaint, but there is no sign of John Winchester ever having been to the Captain’s Inn. They finally luck out in the sixth place, a worn down little motel just off West Cumberland Street, where the guy behind the counter does remember a recent guest driving a black truck.
“One of those huge ones? You guys, I’m so sorry. He left, like, yesterday. You just missed him.” The groan Dean can’t hold back is honestly disappointed and the young man behind the counter eyes him apologetically.
“I’m really sorry. That guy looked real mean, though. Kind of dark and dangerous. Didn't talk much, either. Maybe you should let the police handle this one, you know? He didn’t seem to be the easygoing type and, you know, he already stole your car..”
Bobby immediately perks up at that and switches into full investigator mode. “You said he didn’t talk much. Did he say anything about where he was going from here? Or about why he was staying here in the first place, who he was meeting, anything? ‘Cause if we could find someone who knows him, that would be really helpful.”
The clerk stares at him, a little surprised and a lot curious, so Bobby is quick to add, “For the police, I mean. If we get any of his known contacts then they could reach him through them, maybe. Every little detail might be helpful. We don’t mind doing the legwork, we just need a place to start.”
The guy just shakes his head at that and Dean’s hope plummets. “No, he never mentioned anyone or where he was going. No idea whether this was a business trip or something else or who he could have met. He was gone a lot of the time, though. Just crashed here during the nights. I did the night shift this whole week so I know. I saw his truck - uh, your truck, sorry - every night.”
“How long did he stay here?”
“He arrived September 23rd and left September 29th," the clerk says as he hits some keys. "No charges on the mini bar.” He grins at them and starts clicking his way back through the motel’s program when suddenly he slaps his forehead and his eyes go wide. “Ah, god, I’m so stupid!”
Both men respond. “What is it?”
The clerk does some more clicking. “Let me open this again real quick… there we have it. I know I’m not allowed to show you, but it’s for a good cause, right?” He winks at Dean and taps on the screen, turning it to face them.
“Your thief has a name and a home address. Now that's something the police will wanna know!” Dean tries his best to stay in character while swallowing back the bitter taste of disappointment.
“Yeah man, that’s great!” He flashes his best grateful smile at the guy. “Thank you! Let me write that down. That’ll totally help us.” While he writes down the credit card information of one Mr. Rodney Hudson, Bobby checks them in. The only available room left is a double, but sharing motel rooms is nothing new for either of them, so they don’t care. They don’t have to pretend to be exhausted and staying here is as good as anywhere else.
Bobby can’t help but wonder what lead the older Winchester to Dunn. Of course they checked the area for anything unusual during their meals on the way over, but there were no suspicious deaths or vanishings, no animal mutilations, not even a freak electrical storm in Dunn for the last 72 years. And young Martha Gleding, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in early spring of 1926 was rumored to be seen a few months later and two towns over with Harold Stance, a grade A casanova, if you were to believe the Harnett County Gazette’s news coverage of that time. So whatever John tracked here is either really good at hiding its victims or running scared with no time for snacking on the townspeople. Both Bobby and Dean hope it’s the latter, but they brace for the worst.
“I mean, honestly, ‘where community matters’? What kind of a hippie motto is that? Maybe people are all brainwashed here. Or, hey, maybe it’s body snatchers.” Dean’s mood perks a little at that, because that would mean that he could kill something evil as opposed to just getting nowhere in their inquiries about Dad. Sure, waitresses remember having served him, clerks at the gas station and the grocery store remember him paying, but that’s about it. John Winchester stayed here for six days, he ate and slept and bought some food. And then he vanished again. There's not a single hint of anything paranormal and none of the staff at the Dunn Public Library remember John at all, which means he must have conducted his research or whatever elsewhere.
They've scoured every corner of the small town, but now, three days later, they don't have a single workable lead. Dean knows that exhaustion and worry start to show in his face, but when Bobby carefully suggests that it might be time to head back to Sioux Falls, he adamantly refuses. They compromise on another day to wrap things up and Dean grudgingly agrees to follow Bobby back home when that day, too, produces no results.
The first night they’d had dinner and called it an early one, but then Dean awoke too fucking early in the morning, completely drenched and more than slightly on edge. He couldn’t say what had him freaked, and the second night played out the same way, with Dean waking up before dawn and feeling sick and tired and genuinely alarmed. The third followed suit, but despite the details of the dream slipping through his mental grasp, a feeling of urgency stayed with him. There was something that Dean was supposed to do. Something important.
Before he falls asleep on their fourth and - if it were up to Bobby - last night in Dunn, the young hunter hopes that whatever lies just out of reach, whatever his subconscious is trying to tell him, will stick with him. “Just remember it,” he whispers into the pillow, “just remember this time.” Dean knows how insane all this sounds, but there's something telling him it's in that dream with Sammy, he knows it in his gut. If he could just put his finger on it…
Dean’s thoughts slowly spiral away as he sinks deeper into the bone-deep tiredness of the last few days. He doesn’t notice the TV being turned down a notch or the blatant worry on Bobby’s face when he stares at Dean, now that there is no one awake that he needs to make a brave front for. Around Dean the colors swirl before they harden into shapes and distorted sounds are just this side of unpleasant as he plunges the pale brown bucket into the icebox, not wanting to waste precious seconds filling it up with the scoop laying on top of the cubes. Sammy is still too hot; he really needs to hurry back. Why is it always his kid that comes down with the fevers from hell?
He bangs the lid shut and turns on his heel to the sight of Dad entering the corridor from the other side, brown paper bag clutched in one hand and a white plastic one in the other, undoubtedly stuffed with salve, some chicken soup - because of course the kid can’t keep anything down except for the ‘salt broth’ as he dubbed the drink Dean plies him with when he's really sick - and, hopefully some more kiddy Tylenol because they'll be out by tomorrow morning and Sammy’s fever probably won’t break before the next night if past experiences are anything to go by. He shakes his head at his rambling thoughts, nothing worse than sick Sammy to throw him off his game.
Dean and John exchange a curt nod before they meet at the door to their room; operation “Get Sammy Better” is still active and everything else pales in comparison. Dean reaches the door first, smells the food from the bag Dad is holding, and glances to the right for a split second. There’s a blurry shape next to the ice machine; someone’s standing there and Dean’s skin starts to crawl. He opens the door quickly because he needs to get back to Sammy, check his temperature, make sure he drinks some more orange juice or something and the next thing he knows ice is crunching under his boots and he’s shakily pointing his gun at a man standing in front of the bathroom door.
The man is tall. Not as tall as Dad, but still tall compared to his own eleven-year-old height. He looks strange, uneasy somehow, but Dean can’t really say why. He's wearing a shirt and tie underneath a light brown trenchcoat, but it’s as if the issue were with the way the guy is wearing his skin and not his clothes. The man seems to be unarmed, at least as far as Dean can see, but when a pair of piercing blue eyes zero in on him and the thing - because that is not a human look, he’d swear it on the Impala - cocks his head to the side, Dean has to actively fight the urge to shoot; a double tap to the chest and a third shot aimed right between those strange intense eyes, just like Dad taught him.
“Hello, Dean,” the thing says and Dean feels the air getting heavy around him. He hears a strange kind of buzz behind the words, and although he doesn’t dare let his eyes wander from the threat his other senses tell him two things.
One: Sam’s bed is empty. He left his brother for 30 freaking seconds and there is no other way out of this room. So if the kid isn’t hiding in the bathroom or underneath the bed, this thing, whatever it is, has something to do with Sammy being gone. Which means that Dean shouldn’t shoot it before getting as much information out of it as possible. Two: There are no more signs of Dad behind him. No footsteps, no carefully measured breaths to keep his gun as steady as possible, no raspy voice demanding answers as to who the hell is standing in their motel room and what the fuck happened to Sammy.
“Who the hell are you?” Dean tries for cocky and ends up with terrified, but he couldn't care less about the tremble in his voice. He needs to know what's going on, and why, although this situation is fucked up nine ways to Sunday, it feels as if he is missing something vital.
“Where's Sammy? How did you get in?” The thing cocks its head again, just looks straight at him, and the same wave of wrong-strange-dangerous threatens to drown Dean; in response his index finger twitches on the trigger.
“Dean. This is important. You have to listen to me.”
“I don’t have to listen to you." It’s almost as if Dad’s voice is echoing in Dean’s head with instant orders: Don’t defend yourself; offence is always the better action to begin with. The thing in front of Dean hesitates, then something shifts and it’s as if Dean is catching a glimpse of something else, something too big and multi-limbed and coiling underneath the surface. Dean feels his blood rushing south, leaving him lightheaded and scared. This would be the perfect moment for Dad to sweep in and save the day once more, but Dean's alone. He tries to get a steadier grip on his gun and keep his breathing slow. He tries again. “What are you?”
The thing in front of him looks almost sad, but then again it doesn’t. Actually, it doesn’t seem to display any emotion at all and that gives Dean the creeps. The thing keeps on staring and Dean thinks it might not have blinked once since he set eyes on it.
“You can call me Castiel,” it finally says. It tries to smile and all Dean’s instincts are screaming at him to gank the thing already and a look of confusion settles in its face as if it expected something else than the kid with the gun to hiss at him. “Dean. This is important,” it insists. “He's gone.”
The shadows behind it start to grow and darken and fuck, Dean is so screwed. He can’t shoot the thing without knowing about Sammy. But he doesn’t want to die here, either.
“You have to find him, Dean.”
“What?”
“John Winchester is important. You have to find him, Dean.”
Dean reels back. This is all wrong. How is he supposed to find Dad when something inside his head keeps screaming at him to find Sammy? This makes no sense; he’s supposed to protect his brother and now he's failed, there's nothing left of the kid but the smell of sweat and sickness lingering in the dingy room, but Dad’s still here, so why is Dad gone? Dean feels like throwing up.
“Why is he gone?” Dean's surprised that he's coherent enough to talk to the thing.
“I do not know that. He is important. I need to find him but he is hidden now, which is why I need your help. You have to find him. He might be in danger. Go to Mishawaka.”
This makes less and less sense. Dean’s head hurts like he fell six flights of stairs. “What’s in Mishawaka?”
The thing keeps staring at him. Dean feels like punching it in the face. “John Winchester," It says. "He was there. Now he is not. Find him, Dean. Go to Mishawaka.” The pressure in Dean's temples reaches a really painful level and he wonders whether Dad would be disappointed if he screamed like a girl before his head exploded. He probably would be.
Something grips Dean’s shoulders and he jerks away and tries to turn around without losing aim on the thing, but whatever has him starts to shake him and oh god, he's going to die. He can’t take a shot at anything if he’s shaking like this. But he'll be damned if he goes down without a fight, so if he has to resort to punching and kicking, that’s what he’ll do. His eyes snap open - which is really weird, because they weren’t closed before, were they? - and Dean recognizes that Bobby’s worried expression is hanging mere inches from his face just in time to abort the punch and leave the older hunter with a bruise to his cheek instead of a broken nose.
“What the- hey!” Bobby lets go of Dean’s shoulders and stumbles away before he slightly raises his hands and instantly adapts the universal stance of people trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
“Easy, kid. You awake now?” Bobby’s tone implies that this is not the first time he's asked and although Dean doesn't think he's all there yet, he’s definitely awake so he nods, slumping back against the headboard. He needs a moment to make sense of the mess in his head. This time he remembers some things. He knows he dreamt of 1990, and that it was all wrong, again, but most of the details are already dimming. What he does remember isn’t helping to fight of the sense of dread that gripped him - a piercing blue-eyed stare, and Dad missing, the urge to look for him stronger than ever; finally being told to go to Mishawaka, wherever the hell that is.
Dean opens his eyes and sees that Bobby is sitting on his own bed now, examining him closely. Swell, Dean thinks drily, this will be a bitch to explain.
With the first light of the day Bobby and Dean leave for Mishawaka, a city about 12 hours away in northern Indiana. Dean was surprised to find little resistance on Bobby’s part when he recounted the dream and kept rambling about it, but Bobby said that prophetic dreams weren’t exactly unheard of among hunters. That shut Dean up for a while.
It takes them a couple of days, but they actually find the motel Dad stayed in. As luck would have it, one of the gas station clerks down the street remembers him talking on the phone and apparently Dad had agreed to meet someone in Fort Stockton, Texas. When they walk back to their cars, both hunters are mulling this new piece of information over.
“I don’t get it, Bobby.” Bobby’s eyebrows rise up at the frustration in Dean’s voice, but Dean ignores him and continues. “I mean, what the hell is he doing? This is a little too erratic to be hunting something, don’t you think? First Washington, then North Carolina, then Indiana, and now what, Texas? Come on.”
“Hm. I don’t know, Dean. I think he’s hunting, all right - just not your run-of-the-mill monster. I think he might be looking for information instead. He’s done that before. Remember 1994?” Bobby shrugs, leaning back against the side of his truck and eyeing the younger hunter. Dean starts to squirm under the sudden attention. He knows he looks wrecked, he hasn’t slept much and the possibility of him being a psychic or prophet or whatever isn’t exactly helping. As far as he can tell, he hasn’t dreamt at all since he was told to go to Indiana, but he’s not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.
Bobby keeps talking. “Besides, it doesn’t really matter, does it? If John went to Texas, that’s where we’re going, too.” The older hunter sounds so confident, and Dean can do nothing but nod and feel grateful for the rock that is Bobby Singer.
Fort Stockton turns out to be a bust. Dad was there, that much they are told from another very empathic receptionist who basically started drooling as soon as she set eyes on Dean. She tells them that Dad arrived on the evening of October 3rd and left again on October 5th, which means he's got at least a three-day head start on them.
Their moods sour further when no leads are forthcoming. Dad’s trail gets colder every day, and to make matters worse, Dean starts dreaming again. It’s the same thing every night, but this time around he's aware that he’s sleeping and that’s disturbing. He's still eleven and panic continues to overwhelm him at the realization that he is alone with this monster - in his head, nevertheless - and that he doesn’t know how to fight. But at the same time he’s nineteen, a hunter as skilled as they come. He still has to master balancing the two mindsets, but at least he has more control than in previous nights - or so he hopes.
After five nights of the blue-eyed bastard with the ill-fitting skin visiting his nightmares - telling him to find Dad but not giving any more clues as to where to look for him - Dean is almost convinced that he’s no psychic after all. Or if he is, he must be the worst one ever, because his dreams do nothing except make him constantly tired and on edge.
“You know,” Bobby says over breakfast a couple of days later, “I think we should change our approach. Maybe there’s more to this dream thing than we thought. It might be worth looking into.” Bobby dips a bit of toast into some bacon grease and Dean can actually see the older hunter bracing himself before he continues.
“Staying here won’t do any good. John is gone for good and you know it. I think we should look into these dreams instead. Might be a clue we’re not seeing yet there. So. We’re heading back to Sioux Falls today.” Dean’s first impulse is to argue, but who's he kidding. Bobby's right. They should get back to the salvage yard where Bobby can put his research skills to better use and keep the monster out of Dean's dreams. He snorts at himself as soon as he thinks it, and gulps down the rest of his coffee. Fourth cup this morning and he’s still tired as fuck. Dean sighs and tries not to look dead to the world. Bobby puts his fork down and rolls his eyes. Yeah, who's he kidding, indeed.
“I just don’t understand, Bobby." Dean says over a mouthful of toast. "If I’m no prophet, then this must be some kind of dream-stalking monster, right? But what kind of monster doesn’t harm its prey? Also, whatever it is, it did say the truth about Mishawaka. How did it know that?” Bobby frowns and gets back to the last bits of bacon on his plate.
“Dunno,” Bobby says in-between bites, “maybe you should try to shake things up a little. You know, to see what happens.”
This time it’s Dean who lets the fork sink back to the table. “You mean, like, attack it?” That might actually work. He tries to hide a smirk at the thought of kicking that sonovabitch out of his head, but damn, he’s tired. Bobby, of course, is not.
“Well, yeah. Maybe. But only after you actually sleep first.” Bobby’s voice drops and he leans forward to jab at Dean’s shoulder. “There’s no way to tell what kind of powers we’re dealing with here, so don’t rush into this all gung-ho, guns a-blazing before we've had any chance to do some research.” He fixes Dean with a knowing glare. “You hear me?”
Of course Dean heard Bobby, but that's never held him back before; a fact Bobby is well aware of. So when they hole up in Emporia for the night, Bobby gets them a room with two queens and doesn’t even try to pretend that it was the last one available. But this time Dean is actually looking forward to falling asleep.
“What are you?” Dean asks and he notes with some satisfaction that neither his voice nor his gun is trembling, “What do you want?”
“I am looking for John Win-“
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that one before. He’s important and all that.” Dean waves dismissively, slows his breathing and takes aim. “You have three seconds to tell me what I want to know. Where is Dad? What do you want?” The thing seems to hesitate at the new turn of events and looks at Dean's left hand, where his fingers are counting down from three. "Well?" He prompts.
If anything, the thing looks even more curious and doesn’t move. Dean shoots.
A faint rustle is all he hears as the bullet lodges itself into the bathroom door with enough force to swing it against the tiles with a bang. Huh, Dean thinks, that’s a nice trick.
“That is not necessary."
Dean doesn’t squeak, not at all, and jumps away from the voice that is entirely too close for comfort behind him. The only direction away is into the beds, though, so when he crashes into the wooden frame he bites back a curse and swings around a Colt that is no longer in his hand. Shit.
“This is high quality craftsmanship, if I might say so, although I am no expert on the matter of human firearms, of course.” The pearl handles gleam in the light when the thing inspects the gun. Dean's gun, the one he had a grip on just a second ago and that he definitely didn’t drop. Shit shit shit.
“I assure you that there is no need for this display of hostility, though.” The thing shifts its attention from the colt back to Dean. "I mean you no harm, Dean Winchester.”
“Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on here?” Even to his own ears it sounds petulant. “Just tell me who you are. Please.”
The thing stares at him a little longer, but this time Dean stares right back. The thing opens its mouth again. “Very well. I am Castiel.”
“What’s a castiel?”
The thing looks vaguely offended. “It is a name. My name is Castiel.
Dean doesn’t know whether the thing doesn’t want to kill him after all or whether it might like a bit of small talk before its meals. Either way, getting more information about it can only be useful, so Dean barrels on.
“Fine with me. Castiel it is, then. But what are you, exactly, Castiel?”
“I am an angel of the Lord.” Now that’s some sick sense of humor.
Dean narrows his eyes. “There’s no such thing.”
Castiel tilts his head to the side and fixes that otherworldly stare on him. “This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.” There’s another hint of those un-humorous smiles on its face and Dean wishes he'd thought to bring his knife. The shadows behind the trench coat start to twist and expand with a rustle and then a pair of huge black wings stretch impossibly wide in the small motel room. Dean swallows audibly.
“That’s a hell of a trick, man. Almost as good as the one with the gun.” Dean nods at Castiel’s hands. “But if you were an angel, wouldn’t you be almighty or something? And can’t angels use the front door like everybody else?”
Castiel tilts his head but says nothing. Dean elaborates. “I mean, why couldn’t you just talk to me when I’m awake?”
At that, Castiel first looks bewildered and then he frowns and that’s just as creepy as the unsmiling thing.
“You know what," Dean says without waiting for an answer, "I think you’re a fraud. What the hell would an angel want from me, anyway. Or from my dad? You’re a filthy little liar, aren’t you, Castiel?” He puts all the disgust he can muster into the last word and the thing actually takes a step backwards.
“Would you believe me if I were to talk to you in person, when you are awake?" Castiel asks. "I assure you that appearing to humans in dreams has a long tradition amongst the heavenly hosts, which is why I have done so accordingly. But I can see now that that might seem a little outdated to you.”
“Yeah, sure.” Dean actually snorts before he mutters, “Angel of the Lord my ass.”
There’s another feathery rustle and a surprised shout that sounds a lot like Bobby followed by a shotgun being cocked. Dean’s eyes snap open to the older hunter who has a shotgun trained on Castiel. Who is standing at the foot of his bed.
“Who the hell are you?” Bobby nudges Castiel’s shoulder with the sawed-off for emphasis and a blink later the hunter stumbles forward and stares at his empty hands.
“I assure you, Robert Steven Singer, you don’t need to be afraid. I am not here as a threat, but as a proof of truth concerning celestial existences.”
“What?” Bobby grunts, all eloquence, and repeats, “Who the hell are you?” Castiel turns away from Bobby and faces Dean with another piercing glare.
“My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Well, fuck.
The Bald Man’s Grace. [The Lost Years]
Sam.
Of all the people in his life, he likes the bald man least. Not only because the Pain that accompanies the man’s lessons are particularly severe, but also because somehow his mere presence is enough to snap every fiber of his own black soul into sudden awareness. The knowledge of what an abomination he is has been carved into him for so long he never actually forgets it. But when the bald man comes to visit that knowledge intensifies a hundredfold, sometimes to the point where he feels the corruption festering underneath his skin burning like a layer of smoldering embers, which is exactly as fun as it sounds.
There is no pattern to these encounters, but the basic course of them is predictable; they never change much. It will be time for dinner, but no guard will bang on his door, unlock it, shove food and water inside, and lock up again. Instead a guard will bang at his door and yell at him to step out of the Box and he’ll be quick to obey. The guards might be intimidating with their single-minded dedication to educate him, but the bald man is even more menacing, with the added bonus of impatience and power - a perilous combination.
The guards will lead him to the bald man and respectfully step away a little so that he won’t be disturbed by them. Everyone, even the guards, learned very early on that the consequences of an irritated bald man were something to be avoided at all costs. He will concentrate on the ground in front of him because eye contact with anyone other than Sara is one of the mistakes that is dealt with fiercely and swiftly. Then the bald man will start to talk and he will start praying for their meeting to be over soon. This time is no different.
The guards call for him to get ready and when his door opens he squints his eyes at the sudden gush of wind that hits his face. The long months of another winter have passed and the pleasant scent of spring has him taking a deep breath. It’s not raining anymore but the smell of wet earth is still strong and he briefly wonders if moonlight can produce a rainbow as well - not that he has ever seen one, but he has read about the ones that originate from sunlight and rain - and if so, what kind of colors a moon-bow would show. Maybe greens and blues and silver, he thinks, and adds that to his mental list of things to learn about.
Stalling the bald man will get this meeting off to a bad start, so he hurries to follow the guard’s brisk pace and tries not to feel sorry for himself because there won’t be any dinner tonight. The sun has set already, but the sky is of a rich and strangely illuminated blue, so when he risks a short glance he can easily make out the familiar silhouette of the bald man, dressed in his usual suit and facing his way. The guard in front of him steps away and from the corner of his eye he sees the guard behind him follow suit. Apart from some animal sounds in the distance, maybe a bird or a nocturnal rodent, the world is quiet.
“How are you?” He knows that he is supposed to give precise answers without embellishment, so he always tries to keep them short but effective.
“I’m good. Healthy.” His eyes lock on the bald man’s tie, because being disrespectful by staring at his feet wouldn’t help matters. The man nods.
“That is good to hear. Are your lessons progressing?” Complaints will be met with indifference if he is lucky, Pain if he is not. He shrugs minimally and keeps his face as calm as possible, his breathing even.
“We just covered the seven deathly sins. In detail.” The man waves at him as a sign to keep going. “I know how to spot them and that I myself have to try hard to avoid them at all costs.”
The posture of the man stiffens. His own breaths come out shorter in response and he feels his pulse quicken.
“You have to ‘try hard’?” The man asks.
“I, uh. I have to give it my best effort at all times not to fall prey to them. People can ask the Lord for forgiveness should they stray from the right path, but I can’t be forgiven that easily.” His left hand fiddles with the hem of his sweater and his right arm hangs limply at his side, still covered in gauze and too painful to use. Remnants of the lessons he is reporting on. “I have to be very careful to not add any mortal sins to the defilement of my soul.”
Despite his best efforts his voice starts to tremble a little. The bald man doesn’t seem inclined to act on the mistake in his first answer, or so he starts to hope when the lack of instant Pain registers with his panicking mind.
“Name them. And tell me everything else that you think you should know about them.” This continues for a while, the bald man asking or stating things and him reciting what he has learned. Then the bald man asks, “What are their Latin names?”
He freezes. Latin names. Four or five of them he definitely recalls. The guards just mentioned them once, near the end of one lesson, but at that point he was already trembling on the bench, dizzy from blood loss and nauseous from the throbbing heat on his right side, so he didn’t pay as much attention as he should have. But he knows that there are no excuses for his attitude; he is lucky enough that instead of just killing him to protect humanity he has been given this chance to redeem himself. It’s not often that hellspawn is given this kind of care, and if it weren’t for the guards’ and the bald man’s endless efforts to redirect his destructive energies, he’d be suffering in hell already, that’s a fact. But being grateful is not the only thing he is expected to do. If he doesn’t prove morally corrigible and pliable enough, he will be discarded. That is why excuses won’t do, what counts are results. So. The Latin names of the seven sins. He starts to sweat in earnest now. The bald man straightens up in front of him, moonlight mirrored on the side of his head and reflecting of the buttons of his suit.
“The names!” No time, no time.
“Names, right. I’m sorry. There’s gula, avaritia, superbia, luxuria, uh. Acedia.” The bald man flexes his fingers and smiles down at him, sickly sweet and daunting.
“Uhm. There’s also…” He checks the list in his head and keeps coming up empty. The air starts to prickle around him, preceding the use of the bald man’s power. This is going to hurt, it always does, it hurts so ba- Ira. Ira and something. Ira ira ira and…
“Ira and invidia!” The man nods, once.
“Correct.” He tries not to sag with relief because he knows that this lesson is far from over and he needs to stay alert.
“Is there anything else that you think you should know?” This is always the tricky part. He can’t lose himself in details because the bald man doesn’t appreciate that. He can’t omit vital pieces of knowledge, either. Being quiet would be worst of all, and all of the above will lead to Pain.
“Each of the seven sins is connected to its own demon. They influence people according to the sin they represent. Most of the time people sin on their own, and that means they chose to do so. If one is confronted with a demon of sin, that choice is taken away from them. It is not possible for humans to avoid acting on a demon's behalf.” He hesitates a moment too long when he thinks about what to say next and immediately the air around him feels charged again. He has learned to recognize the subtle changes of the man’s power and he knows that when it feels like this, like hundreds of icy needles pricking his skin, it is time for Pain.
He shuts his eyes and tries to brace himself. He knows he deserves Pain when he disappoints the guards or the bald man, but for a split second he wishes he could hide himself from it. Be invisible to the man’s power. A few breaths later he is neither cringing on the floor nor spitting blood, and that is new. He carefully opens his eyes again and the man in front of him shifts his weight from left to right.
“What did you just do?” The man’s voice is low and there’s a weird tone to it. He almost sounds surprised. When he doesn’t answer immediately, because he honestly has no idea what to say, his skin prickles once more, and he screws his eyes shut. Nothing happens. The needles on his skin fade away.
“Do you- can you feel that?” The man asks. The needles on his skin are back, a little stronger this time, and he tries not to squirm.
“Yes, it’s- uhm. It feels like needles all over.” The feeling intensifies and he adds, “It’s very cold.”
He hears the guards step closer and he knows that this can’t be good and stiffens. But the man motions them away and after a moment of silence starts asking him about that power of his, what exactly it feels like, when he first noticed it, that sort of thing. He can’t answer much and he certainly isn’t as precise as he normally has to be, either, but he is still surprisingly Pain-free. That has never happened before and it confuses him.
The questions soon turn into a lecture, and he learns that the bald man’s power is called grace. It is the purest kind of force in the whole of existence, except for the Lord himself, because it is fuelled by the Lord’s own power. The bald man tells him that the grace is a positive thing, but the doomed are too far gone to be gently touched or healed by the Lord’s light; instead, they burn and suffer from it.
“Do you understand,” the bald man says and he is quick to nod in affirmation. He still isn’t sure what to make of this night’s events, but he has paid attention to the lecture, he always does. The lack of Pain has him hoping, though, and that’s something he hasn't dared to do in a long while. This is the first time his failures have not been met with Pain and he hopes that maybe tonight he finally did something right; maybe the long hours of education have paid off and he has indeed proven worthy. He might be allowed to try for redemption when the end of days is near.
The air around him shifts in an unfamiliar way and there are no frosty needles; no warning at all. In the next instance his insides are on fire and he tries to scream, to beg them not to burn him alive, but he can’t suck in enough air for more than a whimper when he crashes to the ground, twitching.
“Do not assume that you understand the Lord’s intentions, ever. You are nothing to him but a thorn in his side, a black stain on this perfect creation of his. The world would be a better place without you in it. Do not forget that. Do you hear me?”
He isn’t burning anymore, but he is quite sure that one by one, the fingers in his left hand are snapping and he throws up a mix of half-digested bread and bile and blood. He nods once more to let the bald man know that he is still listening, and in return the breaking of bones stops. Instead the sensation of needles is back on his skin and he can’t help it; he starts crying in relief. The Pain that follows is still bad, of course, but it is nothing more than usual and he probably won’t die from it, so this he knows how to deal with. He also knows that the bald man’s grace is a wonderful, terrible thing and - through his mental mantra of please, please stop it, please - he is glad not to be burnt to charcoal by it.
go back (part two) || Masterpost || continue (part four)
A Change Of Dreams. [September 20th, 1998]
Dean.
“There’s a hunt. Grab your stuff,” Bobby says as he walks through the kitchen.
“Yeah, sure.” But Dean doesn’t move, he doesn’t even look up, so Bobby resorts to knocking Dean’s feet off of one of the kitchen chairs and that has Dean staring up at the man, forehead wrinkled with confusion.
“Move it, kid. We’re taking my truck.”
“What the hell? You know we can’t leave. We have to keep looking for Dad! Can’t you call someone for this?” Dean barely evades the next smack to his thigh.
“Get up, idjit. We’ve been looking everywhere, asked everyone we know, and there’s nothing more for us to do than wait. He'll turn up somewhere, you know how these things go with John. Until then you can make yourself useful. People are dying, son.” Bobby’s voice softens a little at that last sentence and Dean tries his best not to look as guilty as he feels.
“Fine.” A moment passes before he adds for good measure, “Just stop it with the smacking.” Dean glimpses a self-satisfied smirk right before Bobby turns away. “And no way am I going in your freaking truck!” he adds hurriedly.
He doesn’t really care when he hears Bobby mutter an exasperated, “Idjit.” The thought of hunting is already upping his adrenaline levels. He missed his baby just as much as the thrill of the hunt, but he's been too preoccupied with Dad being gone to appease his hunger for the open road. It'll be good to relieve some of the stress from not having found the man so far. A hunt sounds quite perfect, actually.
Bobby.
From the doorway Bobby sees the different emotions flicker across the younger man’s face and he has to bite back a chuckle when it settles on an excited grin. The kid was going stir-crazy; a little fresh air and a case will do wonders to help him stop worrying over the elusive John Winchester. Although, Bobby wonders, how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and let people know you’re still breathing? But criticizing the man only brings out Dean’s defensive streak, so Bobby resorts to calling John names in his head and sharpening his knifes over and over again. No one ever said hunters were a well-adjusted bunch.
The kid makes his way upstairs in record time and soon Bobby hears the floorboards in Dean’s room creaking. Dean has packing down to an art form, at least concerning the speed with which he does it, and right now he’s undoubtedly throwing clothes and weapons into their designated duffels. Bobby checks his watch and has to bite back another laugh when not 90 seconds later the kid stomps downstairs again, all eager and jittery. He can feel the excitement roll off of the younger man and he gives himself a mental pat on the back. So far so good: Get the kid away from the couch - check. Stop the brooding - check. Next step: kill something nasty.
Eighteen hours later finds Bobby wet and tired and Dean severely unamused. The case turns out to be beyond horrible and, as an added bonus, a total bitch to solve. Why Bobby ever thought they might get lucky with a quick and easy case, Dean doesn’t know. Although, to be fair, the newspaper article that caught the older hunter’s interest didn’t give many specifics; Dean read it on their drive to Boone, Iowa and while it had his hunter senses on high alert, too, the article indicated nothing about the brutality that awaited them.
Seven people had died already, but none of the victims knew each other and neither did their families, the city of nearly 13,000 big enough for that kind of anonymity. All deaths were gruesome and weird, and not only because blood and goo and bone was all that’d been left of the victims, which made the trip to the coroner’s office a special kind of disgusting. Everything morgue-related that comes in buckets creeps Dean out; it’s just wrong to end up under an airtight plastic lid if you ask him.
Of the seven victims, four were male, three female, and all of them somehow disintegrated into puddles of skin and strips of flesh and, oddly enough, a varying number of small and quite thin squares of melted bone: 142, 116, 98, 122, 106, 134 and 128. Aside from the fact that they don’t have a clue as to what’s going on - which is frustrating enough in itself - the evil sucker has already caused so much grief that the so far fruitless investigation sits like lead in their stomachs. Whoever did this can’t get burned crispy enough, as far as Dean's concerned.
Bobby, king of researchers, is able to trace the victims to a coven of four. It took them a few days, though, and another woman has died; another family has lost a daughter, a sister, an aunt. This time there’s 102 of those nonsensical bone squares left. Fucking covens, always meddling with things better left alone. Always fucking messy, too, what with all the spit and blood and animal parts, and honestly, what is it with witches and being savage? What was the reason again that people stopped burning them? Dean never got that.
They discover the coven’s ritual site in an abandoned warehouse in one of the shadier areas of town. Luckily they don’t trigger any hidden spells or curses, but not for lack of trying, as Bobby announces after looking at the symbols covering a majority of the warehouse’s walls. Apparently the coven has no grasp on the finer points of magic. They mixed various spells from the many books that are lying around, which in turn led to many runes cancelling each other out. Most of the symbols are nothing but a bunch of gibberish.
After studying a few of the open books and the handwritten notes scattered over the coven’s altar - and, man, do they need to leave cut up chickens and rabbits out in the open like that? - it turns out that these nutjobs tried to continue the work of an even bigger wacko: some megalomaniacal serial killer by the name of Joash Mocatta who decided liquefying human flesh would be the best way to break the human soul’s endless cycle of reincarnation and lift them to the next stage of existence. Dean always suspected that people were way crazier than the supernatural sons of bitches he usually hunts, but this level of lunacy has even him surprised.
And of course, because purifying people by liquefying them isn’t weird enough, the coven added a little twist of creating a game of pairs out of each victim’s bones to pay homage to their role model. Evidently, Mocatta had been a passionate aficionado of that game; so much so that he was rumored to have slain his first victim over a lost tournament. Talk about overkill.
Finally the altar is destroyed and the tomes confiscated - which means they will either be added to Bobby’s extensive library on the occult or they will find a dark and cozy place in their very own curse box, depending on how dangerous their contents turn out to be - and the population of Boone, Iowa can go back to their uneventful little lives.
It’s already evening by the time the warehouse is nothing more than a smoldering pile of brick and scrap metal, so they decide to spend another night in the hotel. Bobby wants to get to the books first thing, and since caution is never wrong in such cases, Dean is left with dinner duty.
Just as he enters Bobby’s room balancing two huge pizza boxes and a six-pack of some local brew, Bobby’s phone rings. The table is occupied by heaps of books so Dean turns to the bed instead, but he pauses mid-step when the one-sided conversation registers in his brain.
“Yeah, Clive it’s me. Geez.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Dumbass!”
“Well if you think you- what… uh… oh. No, we’re still looking.”
“Are you sure? When?”
“Nah… no, listen! We’ll do it ourselves… yeah, we just finished a job so we’re good to go. We’ll check it out. But thanks anyway.”
“Sure thing. You too.”
As soon as Bobby snaps the phone shut, Dean practically jumps the older man.
“What is it, Bobby? Was that about- about Dad?” Damn, he hates when he sounds like a little boy. When Bobby nods, all thoughts about food and sleep are forgotten. They're ready to leave not fifteen minutes after the call.
Bobby.
The trip to Dunn takes them two days, because Bobby insisted that driving for 18 hours straight after a week of sleep deprivation was nothing he would ever like to try. Nevertheless, both men are exhausted when they arrive in the quaint little town; the aftereffects of the witch hunt still lingering with both of them and making them yearn for some shut-eye before confronting John about his latest vanishing act. But they know they can’t risk it; whatever John is hunting right now might be on the move and who knows where it could take the older Winchester next.
So they start checking Dunn’s total of seven motels; agree on the stolen car story, because most people are sympathetic to it, especially if Dean cranks up the kicked puppy charm with the female population and ends his story with a pleading little head tilt. Uncle Bobby has nothing more to do than nod in the right places and throw some fond or enraged glances at his “nephew” while Dean tells his tale.
Four of the early afternoon staff turn out to be just as bored as your average underpaid motel clerk and they give them the info just to shut them up. One is clearly high on something that’s screwing with her depth perception because whenever she tries to empathically pat Dean’s hand she keeps hitting the reception desk. She is out of it enough to let them look through the hotel’s video feed without complaint, but there is no sign of John Winchester ever having been to the Captain’s Inn. They finally luck out in the sixth place, a worn down little motel just off West Cumberland Street, where the guy behind the counter does remember a recent guest driving a black truck.
“One of those huge ones? You guys, I’m so sorry. He left, like, yesterday. You just missed him.” The groan Dean can’t hold back is honestly disappointed and the young man behind the counter eyes him apologetically.
“I’m really sorry. That guy looked real mean, though. Kind of dark and dangerous. Didn't talk much, either. Maybe you should let the police handle this one, you know? He didn’t seem to be the easygoing type and, you know, he already stole your car..”
Bobby immediately perks up at that and switches into full investigator mode. “You said he didn’t talk much. Did he say anything about where he was going from here? Or about why he was staying here in the first place, who he was meeting, anything? ‘Cause if we could find someone who knows him, that would be really helpful.”
The clerk stares at him, a little surprised and a lot curious, so Bobby is quick to add, “For the police, I mean. If we get any of his known contacts then they could reach him through them, maybe. Every little detail might be helpful. We don’t mind doing the legwork, we just need a place to start.”
The guy just shakes his head at that and Dean’s hope plummets. “No, he never mentioned anyone or where he was going. No idea whether this was a business trip or something else or who he could have met. He was gone a lot of the time, though. Just crashed here during the nights. I did the night shift this whole week so I know. I saw his truck - uh, your truck, sorry - every night.”
“How long did he stay here?”
“He arrived September 23rd and left September 29th," the clerk says as he hits some keys. "No charges on the mini bar.” He grins at them and starts clicking his way back through the motel’s program when suddenly he slaps his forehead and his eyes go wide. “Ah, god, I’m so stupid!”
Both men respond. “What is it?”
The clerk does some more clicking. “Let me open this again real quick… there we have it. I know I’m not allowed to show you, but it’s for a good cause, right?” He winks at Dean and taps on the screen, turning it to face them.
“Your thief has a name and a home address. Now that's something the police will wanna know!” Dean tries his best to stay in character while swallowing back the bitter taste of disappointment.
“Yeah man, that’s great!” He flashes his best grateful smile at the guy. “Thank you! Let me write that down. That’ll totally help us.” While he writes down the credit card information of one Mr. Rodney Hudson, Bobby checks them in. The only available room left is a double, but sharing motel rooms is nothing new for either of them, so they don’t care. They don’t have to pretend to be exhausted and staying here is as good as anywhere else.
Bobby can’t help but wonder what lead the older Winchester to Dunn. Of course they checked the area for anything unusual during their meals on the way over, but there were no suspicious deaths or vanishings, no animal mutilations, not even a freak electrical storm in Dunn for the last 72 years. And young Martha Gleding, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in early spring of 1926 was rumored to be seen a few months later and two towns over with Harold Stance, a grade A casanova, if you were to believe the Harnett County Gazette’s news coverage of that time. So whatever John tracked here is either really good at hiding its victims or running scared with no time for snacking on the townspeople. Both Bobby and Dean hope it’s the latter, but they brace for the worst.
“I mean, honestly, ‘where community matters’? What kind of a hippie motto is that? Maybe people are all brainwashed here. Or, hey, maybe it’s body snatchers.” Dean’s mood perks a little at that, because that would mean that he could kill something evil as opposed to just getting nowhere in their inquiries about Dad. Sure, waitresses remember having served him, clerks at the gas station and the grocery store remember him paying, but that’s about it. John Winchester stayed here for six days, he ate and slept and bought some food. And then he vanished again. There's not a single hint of anything paranormal and none of the staff at the Dunn Public Library remember John at all, which means he must have conducted his research or whatever elsewhere.
They've scoured every corner of the small town, but now, three days later, they don't have a single workable lead. Dean knows that exhaustion and worry start to show in his face, but when Bobby carefully suggests that it might be time to head back to Sioux Falls, he adamantly refuses. They compromise on another day to wrap things up and Dean grudgingly agrees to follow Bobby back home when that day, too, produces no results.
The first night they’d had dinner and called it an early one, but then Dean awoke too fucking early in the morning, completely drenched and more than slightly on edge. He couldn’t say what had him freaked, and the second night played out the same way, with Dean waking up before dawn and feeling sick and tired and genuinely alarmed. The third followed suit, but despite the details of the dream slipping through his mental grasp, a feeling of urgency stayed with him. There was something that Dean was supposed to do. Something important.
Before he falls asleep on their fourth and - if it were up to Bobby - last night in Dunn, the young hunter hopes that whatever lies just out of reach, whatever his subconscious is trying to tell him, will stick with him. “Just remember it,” he whispers into the pillow, “just remember this time.” Dean knows how insane all this sounds, but there's something telling him it's in that dream with Sammy, he knows it in his gut. If he could just put his finger on it…
Dean’s thoughts slowly spiral away as he sinks deeper into the bone-deep tiredness of the last few days. He doesn’t notice the TV being turned down a notch or the blatant worry on Bobby’s face when he stares at Dean, now that there is no one awake that he needs to make a brave front for. Around Dean the colors swirl before they harden into shapes and distorted sounds are just this side of unpleasant as he plunges the pale brown bucket into the icebox, not wanting to waste precious seconds filling it up with the scoop laying on top of the cubes. Sammy is still too hot; he really needs to hurry back. Why is it always his kid that comes down with the fevers from hell?
He bangs the lid shut and turns on his heel to the sight of Dad entering the corridor from the other side, brown paper bag clutched in one hand and a white plastic one in the other, undoubtedly stuffed with salve, some chicken soup - because of course the kid can’t keep anything down except for the ‘salt broth’ as he dubbed the drink Dean plies him with when he's really sick - and, hopefully some more kiddy Tylenol because they'll be out by tomorrow morning and Sammy’s fever probably won’t break before the next night if past experiences are anything to go by. He shakes his head at his rambling thoughts, nothing worse than sick Sammy to throw him off his game.
Dean and John exchange a curt nod before they meet at the door to their room; operation “Get Sammy Better” is still active and everything else pales in comparison. Dean reaches the door first, smells the food from the bag Dad is holding, and glances to the right for a split second. There’s a blurry shape next to the ice machine; someone’s standing there and Dean’s skin starts to crawl. He opens the door quickly because he needs to get back to Sammy, check his temperature, make sure he drinks some more orange juice or something and the next thing he knows ice is crunching under his boots and he’s shakily pointing his gun at a man standing in front of the bathroom door.
The man is tall. Not as tall as Dad, but still tall compared to his own eleven-year-old height. He looks strange, uneasy somehow, but Dean can’t really say why. He's wearing a shirt and tie underneath a light brown trenchcoat, but it’s as if the issue were with the way the guy is wearing his skin and not his clothes. The man seems to be unarmed, at least as far as Dean can see, but when a pair of piercing blue eyes zero in on him and the thing - because that is not a human look, he’d swear it on the Impala - cocks his head to the side, Dean has to actively fight the urge to shoot; a double tap to the chest and a third shot aimed right between those strange intense eyes, just like Dad taught him.
“Hello, Dean,” the thing says and Dean feels the air getting heavy around him. He hears a strange kind of buzz behind the words, and although he doesn’t dare let his eyes wander from the threat his other senses tell him two things.
One: Sam’s bed is empty. He left his brother for 30 freaking seconds and there is no other way out of this room. So if the kid isn’t hiding in the bathroom or underneath the bed, this thing, whatever it is, has something to do with Sammy being gone. Which means that Dean shouldn’t shoot it before getting as much information out of it as possible. Two: There are no more signs of Dad behind him. No footsteps, no carefully measured breaths to keep his gun as steady as possible, no raspy voice demanding answers as to who the hell is standing in their motel room and what the fuck happened to Sammy.
“Who the hell are you?” Dean tries for cocky and ends up with terrified, but he couldn't care less about the tremble in his voice. He needs to know what's going on, and why, although this situation is fucked up nine ways to Sunday, it feels as if he is missing something vital.
“Where's Sammy? How did you get in?” The thing cocks its head again, just looks straight at him, and the same wave of wrong-strange-dangerous threatens to drown Dean; in response his index finger twitches on the trigger.
“Dean. This is important. You have to listen to me.”
“I don’t have to listen to you." It’s almost as if Dad’s voice is echoing in Dean’s head with instant orders: Don’t defend yourself; offence is always the better action to begin with. The thing in front of Dean hesitates, then something shifts and it’s as if Dean is catching a glimpse of something else, something too big and multi-limbed and coiling underneath the surface. Dean feels his blood rushing south, leaving him lightheaded and scared. This would be the perfect moment for Dad to sweep in and save the day once more, but Dean's alone. He tries to get a steadier grip on his gun and keep his breathing slow. He tries again. “What are you?”
The thing in front of him looks almost sad, but then again it doesn’t. Actually, it doesn’t seem to display any emotion at all and that gives Dean the creeps. The thing keeps on staring and Dean thinks it might not have blinked once since he set eyes on it.
“You can call me Castiel,” it finally says. It tries to smile and all Dean’s instincts are screaming at him to gank the thing already and a look of confusion settles in its face as if it expected something else than the kid with the gun to hiss at him. “Dean. This is important,” it insists. “He's gone.”
The shadows behind it start to grow and darken and fuck, Dean is so screwed. He can’t shoot the thing without knowing about Sammy. But he doesn’t want to die here, either.
“You have to find him, Dean.”
“What?”
“John Winchester is important. You have to find him, Dean.”
Dean reels back. This is all wrong. How is he supposed to find Dad when something inside his head keeps screaming at him to find Sammy? This makes no sense; he’s supposed to protect his brother and now he's failed, there's nothing left of the kid but the smell of sweat and sickness lingering in the dingy room, but Dad’s still here, so why is Dad gone? Dean feels like throwing up.
“Why is he gone?” Dean's surprised that he's coherent enough to talk to the thing.
“I do not know that. He is important. I need to find him but he is hidden now, which is why I need your help. You have to find him. He might be in danger. Go to Mishawaka.”
This makes less and less sense. Dean’s head hurts like he fell six flights of stairs. “What’s in Mishawaka?”
The thing keeps staring at him. Dean feels like punching it in the face. “John Winchester," It says. "He was there. Now he is not. Find him, Dean. Go to Mishawaka.” The pressure in Dean's temples reaches a really painful level and he wonders whether Dad would be disappointed if he screamed like a girl before his head exploded. He probably would be.
Something grips Dean’s shoulders and he jerks away and tries to turn around without losing aim on the thing, but whatever has him starts to shake him and oh god, he's going to die. He can’t take a shot at anything if he’s shaking like this. But he'll be damned if he goes down without a fight, so if he has to resort to punching and kicking, that’s what he’ll do. His eyes snap open - which is really weird, because they weren’t closed before, were they? - and Dean recognizes that Bobby’s worried expression is hanging mere inches from his face just in time to abort the punch and leave the older hunter with a bruise to his cheek instead of a broken nose.
“What the- hey!” Bobby lets go of Dean’s shoulders and stumbles away before he slightly raises his hands and instantly adapts the universal stance of people trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
“Easy, kid. You awake now?” Bobby’s tone implies that this is not the first time he's asked and although Dean doesn't think he's all there yet, he’s definitely awake so he nods, slumping back against the headboard. He needs a moment to make sense of the mess in his head. This time he remembers some things. He knows he dreamt of 1990, and that it was all wrong, again, but most of the details are already dimming. What he does remember isn’t helping to fight of the sense of dread that gripped him - a piercing blue-eyed stare, and Dad missing, the urge to look for him stronger than ever; finally being told to go to Mishawaka, wherever the hell that is.
Dean opens his eyes and sees that Bobby is sitting on his own bed now, examining him closely. Swell, Dean thinks drily, this will be a bitch to explain.
With the first light of the day Bobby and Dean leave for Mishawaka, a city about 12 hours away in northern Indiana. Dean was surprised to find little resistance on Bobby’s part when he recounted the dream and kept rambling about it, but Bobby said that prophetic dreams weren’t exactly unheard of among hunters. That shut Dean up for a while.
It takes them a couple of days, but they actually find the motel Dad stayed in. As luck would have it, one of the gas station clerks down the street remembers him talking on the phone and apparently Dad had agreed to meet someone in Fort Stockton, Texas. When they walk back to their cars, both hunters are mulling this new piece of information over.
“I don’t get it, Bobby.” Bobby’s eyebrows rise up at the frustration in Dean’s voice, but Dean ignores him and continues. “I mean, what the hell is he doing? This is a little too erratic to be hunting something, don’t you think? First Washington, then North Carolina, then Indiana, and now what, Texas? Come on.”
“Hm. I don’t know, Dean. I think he’s hunting, all right - just not your run-of-the-mill monster. I think he might be looking for information instead. He’s done that before. Remember 1994?” Bobby shrugs, leaning back against the side of his truck and eyeing the younger hunter. Dean starts to squirm under the sudden attention. He knows he looks wrecked, he hasn’t slept much and the possibility of him being a psychic or prophet or whatever isn’t exactly helping. As far as he can tell, he hasn’t dreamt at all since he was told to go to Indiana, but he’s not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.
Bobby keeps talking. “Besides, it doesn’t really matter, does it? If John went to Texas, that’s where we’re going, too.” The older hunter sounds so confident, and Dean can do nothing but nod and feel grateful for the rock that is Bobby Singer.
Fort Stockton turns out to be a bust. Dad was there, that much they are told from another very empathic receptionist who basically started drooling as soon as she set eyes on Dean. She tells them that Dad arrived on the evening of October 3rd and left again on October 5th, which means he's got at least a three-day head start on them.
Their moods sour further when no leads are forthcoming. Dad’s trail gets colder every day, and to make matters worse, Dean starts dreaming again. It’s the same thing every night, but this time around he's aware that he’s sleeping and that’s disturbing. He's still eleven and panic continues to overwhelm him at the realization that he is alone with this monster - in his head, nevertheless - and that he doesn’t know how to fight. But at the same time he’s nineteen, a hunter as skilled as they come. He still has to master balancing the two mindsets, but at least he has more control than in previous nights - or so he hopes.
After five nights of the blue-eyed bastard with the ill-fitting skin visiting his nightmares - telling him to find Dad but not giving any more clues as to where to look for him - Dean is almost convinced that he’s no psychic after all. Or if he is, he must be the worst one ever, because his dreams do nothing except make him constantly tired and on edge.
“You know,” Bobby says over breakfast a couple of days later, “I think we should change our approach. Maybe there’s more to this dream thing than we thought. It might be worth looking into.” Bobby dips a bit of toast into some bacon grease and Dean can actually see the older hunter bracing himself before he continues.
“Staying here won’t do any good. John is gone for good and you know it. I think we should look into these dreams instead. Might be a clue we’re not seeing yet there. So. We’re heading back to Sioux Falls today.” Dean’s first impulse is to argue, but who's he kidding. Bobby's right. They should get back to the salvage yard where Bobby can put his research skills to better use and keep the monster out of Dean's dreams. He snorts at himself as soon as he thinks it, and gulps down the rest of his coffee. Fourth cup this morning and he’s still tired as fuck. Dean sighs and tries not to look dead to the world. Bobby puts his fork down and rolls his eyes. Yeah, who's he kidding, indeed.
“I just don’t understand, Bobby." Dean says over a mouthful of toast. "If I’m no prophet, then this must be some kind of dream-stalking monster, right? But what kind of monster doesn’t harm its prey? Also, whatever it is, it did say the truth about Mishawaka. How did it know that?” Bobby frowns and gets back to the last bits of bacon on his plate.
“Dunno,” Bobby says in-between bites, “maybe you should try to shake things up a little. You know, to see what happens.”
This time it’s Dean who lets the fork sink back to the table. “You mean, like, attack it?” That might actually work. He tries to hide a smirk at the thought of kicking that sonovabitch out of his head, but damn, he’s tired. Bobby, of course, is not.
“Well, yeah. Maybe. But only after you actually sleep first.” Bobby’s voice drops and he leans forward to jab at Dean’s shoulder. “There’s no way to tell what kind of powers we’re dealing with here, so don’t rush into this all gung-ho, guns a-blazing before we've had any chance to do some research.” He fixes Dean with a knowing glare. “You hear me?”
Of course Dean heard Bobby, but that's never held him back before; a fact Bobby is well aware of. So when they hole up in Emporia for the night, Bobby gets them a room with two queens and doesn’t even try to pretend that it was the last one available. But this time Dean is actually looking forward to falling asleep.
“What are you?” Dean asks and he notes with some satisfaction that neither his voice nor his gun is trembling, “What do you want?”
“I am looking for John Win-“
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that one before. He’s important and all that.” Dean waves dismissively, slows his breathing and takes aim. “You have three seconds to tell me what I want to know. Where is Dad? What do you want?” The thing seems to hesitate at the new turn of events and looks at Dean's left hand, where his fingers are counting down from three. "Well?" He prompts.
If anything, the thing looks even more curious and doesn’t move. Dean shoots.
A faint rustle is all he hears as the bullet lodges itself into the bathroom door with enough force to swing it against the tiles with a bang. Huh, Dean thinks, that’s a nice trick.
“That is not necessary."
Dean doesn’t squeak, not at all, and jumps away from the voice that is entirely too close for comfort behind him. The only direction away is into the beds, though, so when he crashes into the wooden frame he bites back a curse and swings around a Colt that is no longer in his hand. Shit.
“This is high quality craftsmanship, if I might say so, although I am no expert on the matter of human firearms, of course.” The pearl handles gleam in the light when the thing inspects the gun. Dean's gun, the one he had a grip on just a second ago and that he definitely didn’t drop. Shit shit shit.
“I assure you that there is no need for this display of hostility, though.” The thing shifts its attention from the colt back to Dean. "I mean you no harm, Dean Winchester.”
“Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on here?” Even to his own ears it sounds petulant. “Just tell me who you are. Please.”
The thing stares at him a little longer, but this time Dean stares right back. The thing opens its mouth again. “Very well. I am Castiel.”
“What’s a castiel?”
The thing looks vaguely offended. “It is a name. My name is Castiel.
Dean doesn’t know whether the thing doesn’t want to kill him after all or whether it might like a bit of small talk before its meals. Either way, getting more information about it can only be useful, so Dean barrels on.
“Fine with me. Castiel it is, then. But what are you, exactly, Castiel?”
“I am an angel of the Lord.” Now that’s some sick sense of humor.
Dean narrows his eyes. “There’s no such thing.”
Castiel tilts his head to the side and fixes that otherworldly stare on him. “This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.” There’s another hint of those un-humorous smiles on its face and Dean wishes he'd thought to bring his knife. The shadows behind the trench coat start to twist and expand with a rustle and then a pair of huge black wings stretch impossibly wide in the small motel room. Dean swallows audibly.
“That’s a hell of a trick, man. Almost as good as the one with the gun.” Dean nods at Castiel’s hands. “But if you were an angel, wouldn’t you be almighty or something? And can’t angels use the front door like everybody else?”
Castiel tilts his head but says nothing. Dean elaborates. “I mean, why couldn’t you just talk to me when I’m awake?”
At that, Castiel first looks bewildered and then he frowns and that’s just as creepy as the unsmiling thing.
“You know what," Dean says without waiting for an answer, "I think you’re a fraud. What the hell would an angel want from me, anyway. Or from my dad? You’re a filthy little liar, aren’t you, Castiel?” He puts all the disgust he can muster into the last word and the thing actually takes a step backwards.
“Would you believe me if I were to talk to you in person, when you are awake?" Castiel asks. "I assure you that appearing to humans in dreams has a long tradition amongst the heavenly hosts, which is why I have done so accordingly. But I can see now that that might seem a little outdated to you.”
“Yeah, sure.” Dean actually snorts before he mutters, “Angel of the Lord my ass.”
There’s another feathery rustle and a surprised shout that sounds a lot like Bobby followed by a shotgun being cocked. Dean’s eyes snap open to the older hunter who has a shotgun trained on Castiel. Who is standing at the foot of his bed.
“Who the hell are you?” Bobby nudges Castiel’s shoulder with the sawed-off for emphasis and a blink later the hunter stumbles forward and stares at his empty hands.
“I assure you, Robert Steven Singer, you don’t need to be afraid. I am not here as a threat, but as a proof of truth concerning celestial existences.”
“What?” Bobby grunts, all eloquence, and repeats, “Who the hell are you?” Castiel turns away from Bobby and faces Dean with another piercing glare.
“My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord.”
Well, fuck.
The Bald Man’s Grace. [The Lost Years]
Sam.
Of all the people in his life, he likes the bald man least. Not only because the Pain that accompanies the man’s lessons are particularly severe, but also because somehow his mere presence is enough to snap every fiber of his own black soul into sudden awareness. The knowledge of what an abomination he is has been carved into him for so long he never actually forgets it. But when the bald man comes to visit that knowledge intensifies a hundredfold, sometimes to the point where he feels the corruption festering underneath his skin burning like a layer of smoldering embers, which is exactly as fun as it sounds.
There is no pattern to these encounters, but the basic course of them is predictable; they never change much. It will be time for dinner, but no guard will bang on his door, unlock it, shove food and water inside, and lock up again. Instead a guard will bang at his door and yell at him to step out of the Box and he’ll be quick to obey. The guards might be intimidating with their single-minded dedication to educate him, but the bald man is even more menacing, with the added bonus of impatience and power - a perilous combination.
The guards will lead him to the bald man and respectfully step away a little so that he won’t be disturbed by them. Everyone, even the guards, learned very early on that the consequences of an irritated bald man were something to be avoided at all costs. He will concentrate on the ground in front of him because eye contact with anyone other than Sara is one of the mistakes that is dealt with fiercely and swiftly. Then the bald man will start to talk and he will start praying for their meeting to be over soon. This time is no different.
The guards call for him to get ready and when his door opens he squints his eyes at the sudden gush of wind that hits his face. The long months of another winter have passed and the pleasant scent of spring has him taking a deep breath. It’s not raining anymore but the smell of wet earth is still strong and he briefly wonders if moonlight can produce a rainbow as well - not that he has ever seen one, but he has read about the ones that originate from sunlight and rain - and if so, what kind of colors a moon-bow would show. Maybe greens and blues and silver, he thinks, and adds that to his mental list of things to learn about.
Stalling the bald man will get this meeting off to a bad start, so he hurries to follow the guard’s brisk pace and tries not to feel sorry for himself because there won’t be any dinner tonight. The sun has set already, but the sky is of a rich and strangely illuminated blue, so when he risks a short glance he can easily make out the familiar silhouette of the bald man, dressed in his usual suit and facing his way. The guard in front of him steps away and from the corner of his eye he sees the guard behind him follow suit. Apart from some animal sounds in the distance, maybe a bird or a nocturnal rodent, the world is quiet.
“How are you?” He knows that he is supposed to give precise answers without embellishment, so he always tries to keep them short but effective.
“I’m good. Healthy.” His eyes lock on the bald man’s tie, because being disrespectful by staring at his feet wouldn’t help matters. The man nods.
“That is good to hear. Are your lessons progressing?” Complaints will be met with indifference if he is lucky, Pain if he is not. He shrugs minimally and keeps his face as calm as possible, his breathing even.
“We just covered the seven deathly sins. In detail.” The man waves at him as a sign to keep going. “I know how to spot them and that I myself have to try hard to avoid them at all costs.”
The posture of the man stiffens. His own breaths come out shorter in response and he feels his pulse quicken.
“You have to ‘try hard’?” The man asks.
“I, uh. I have to give it my best effort at all times not to fall prey to them. People can ask the Lord for forgiveness should they stray from the right path, but I can’t be forgiven that easily.” His left hand fiddles with the hem of his sweater and his right arm hangs limply at his side, still covered in gauze and too painful to use. Remnants of the lessons he is reporting on. “I have to be very careful to not add any mortal sins to the defilement of my soul.”
Despite his best efforts his voice starts to tremble a little. The bald man doesn’t seem inclined to act on the mistake in his first answer, or so he starts to hope when the lack of instant Pain registers with his panicking mind.
“Name them. And tell me everything else that you think you should know about them.” This continues for a while, the bald man asking or stating things and him reciting what he has learned. Then the bald man asks, “What are their Latin names?”
He freezes. Latin names. Four or five of them he definitely recalls. The guards just mentioned them once, near the end of one lesson, but at that point he was already trembling on the bench, dizzy from blood loss and nauseous from the throbbing heat on his right side, so he didn’t pay as much attention as he should have. But he knows that there are no excuses for his attitude; he is lucky enough that instead of just killing him to protect humanity he has been given this chance to redeem himself. It’s not often that hellspawn is given this kind of care, and if it weren’t for the guards’ and the bald man’s endless efforts to redirect his destructive energies, he’d be suffering in hell already, that’s a fact. But being grateful is not the only thing he is expected to do. If he doesn’t prove morally corrigible and pliable enough, he will be discarded. That is why excuses won’t do, what counts are results. So. The Latin names of the seven sins. He starts to sweat in earnest now. The bald man straightens up in front of him, moonlight mirrored on the side of his head and reflecting of the buttons of his suit.
“The names!” No time, no time.
“Names, right. I’m sorry. There’s gula, avaritia, superbia, luxuria, uh. Acedia.” The bald man flexes his fingers and smiles down at him, sickly sweet and daunting.
“Uhm. There’s also…” He checks the list in his head and keeps coming up empty. The air starts to prickle around him, preceding the use of the bald man’s power. This is going to hurt, it always does, it hurts so ba- Ira. Ira and something. Ira ira ira and…
“Ira and invidia!” The man nods, once.
“Correct.” He tries not to sag with relief because he knows that this lesson is far from over and he needs to stay alert.
“Is there anything else that you think you should know?” This is always the tricky part. He can’t lose himself in details because the bald man doesn’t appreciate that. He can’t omit vital pieces of knowledge, either. Being quiet would be worst of all, and all of the above will lead to Pain.
“Each of the seven sins is connected to its own demon. They influence people according to the sin they represent. Most of the time people sin on their own, and that means they chose to do so. If one is confronted with a demon of sin, that choice is taken away from them. It is not possible for humans to avoid acting on a demon's behalf.” He hesitates a moment too long when he thinks about what to say next and immediately the air around him feels charged again. He has learned to recognize the subtle changes of the man’s power and he knows that when it feels like this, like hundreds of icy needles pricking his skin, it is time for Pain.
He shuts his eyes and tries to brace himself. He knows he deserves Pain when he disappoints the guards or the bald man, but for a split second he wishes he could hide himself from it. Be invisible to the man’s power. A few breaths later he is neither cringing on the floor nor spitting blood, and that is new. He carefully opens his eyes again and the man in front of him shifts his weight from left to right.
“What did you just do?” The man’s voice is low and there’s a weird tone to it. He almost sounds surprised. When he doesn’t answer immediately, because he honestly has no idea what to say, his skin prickles once more, and he screws his eyes shut. Nothing happens. The needles on his skin fade away.
“Do you- can you feel that?” The man asks. The needles on his skin are back, a little stronger this time, and he tries not to squirm.
“Yes, it’s- uhm. It feels like needles all over.” The feeling intensifies and he adds, “It’s very cold.”
He hears the guards step closer and he knows that this can’t be good and stiffens. But the man motions them away and after a moment of silence starts asking him about that power of his, what exactly it feels like, when he first noticed it, that sort of thing. He can’t answer much and he certainly isn’t as precise as he normally has to be, either, but he is still surprisingly Pain-free. That has never happened before and it confuses him.
The questions soon turn into a lecture, and he learns that the bald man’s power is called grace. It is the purest kind of force in the whole of existence, except for the Lord himself, because it is fuelled by the Lord’s own power. The bald man tells him that the grace is a positive thing, but the doomed are too far gone to be gently touched or healed by the Lord’s light; instead, they burn and suffer from it.
“Do you understand,” the bald man says and he is quick to nod in affirmation. He still isn’t sure what to make of this night’s events, but he has paid attention to the lecture, he always does. The lack of Pain has him hoping, though, and that’s something he hasn't dared to do in a long while. This is the first time his failures have not been met with Pain and he hopes that maybe tonight he finally did something right; maybe the long hours of education have paid off and he has indeed proven worthy. He might be allowed to try for redemption when the end of days is near.
The air around him shifts in an unfamiliar way and there are no frosty needles; no warning at all. In the next instance his insides are on fire and he tries to scream, to beg them not to burn him alive, but he can’t suck in enough air for more than a whimper when he crashes to the ground, twitching.
“Do not assume that you understand the Lord’s intentions, ever. You are nothing to him but a thorn in his side, a black stain on this perfect creation of his. The world would be a better place without you in it. Do not forget that. Do you hear me?”
He isn’t burning anymore, but he is quite sure that one by one, the fingers in his left hand are snapping and he throws up a mix of half-digested bread and bile and blood. He nods once more to let the bald man know that he is still listening, and in return the breaking of bones stops. Instead the sensation of needles is back on his skin and he can’t help it; he starts crying in relief. The Pain that follows is still bad, of course, but it is nothing more than usual and he probably won’t die from it, so this he knows how to deal with. He also knows that the bald man’s grace is a wonderful, terrible thing and - through his mental mantra of please, please stop it, please - he is glad not to be burnt to charcoal by it.
go back (part two) || Masterpost || continue (part four)