People You Meet
TITLE: People You Meet
AUTHOR: e313
SPOILER: the end of s2 for SN and the end of s5 for AtS.
RATING: PG
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, Angel.
SUMMARY: someone has to fight the good fight.
FEEDBACK: as you wish.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own them. I make no profit of this. And before you sue me just remember that lawyers are evil and nothing good would come out of it. Really. Look at Wolfram and Hart!
NOTE-WARNING: xover, character death
It’s a little motel in Iowa and the sun comes up to start a bright, clear morning right on schedule. It’s February. A storm was raging for the best part of a week, but today the few scattered clouds in the sky seem meek and peaceful, fluffy white, like sheep grazing in contentment.
Dean wakes up with a few rays playing on his eyelids and grants in annoyance. His best glare does nothing to close the gap in the curtains so he sighs, stretches and blinks.
His left shoulder is sore from their last hunt. He stumbled on a tree root -how cliché- and the tumble must have pulled a muscle. He rubs the spot, and stretches again, back muscles mildly protesting. It’s all this vigorous exercise of his chosen lifestyle in cold weather on rain soaked ground in muddy forests. Non accident prone at all. Sweating in fresh freezing wind, equally healthy.
Well, at least he’s still got his morning sarcasm.
His right hand reaches again and his fingers dig hard, a clumsy, crude sort of massage, rather ineffectual, if he’s honest with himself.
He chooses not to be.
Instead he gets up. Drags his feet to the bathroom. The plumbing growls before it gives in, sputtering water like a hiccup at first. When the flow is as steady as it’s likely to get, he scrubs at his face in vigour hopping to drive the last drags of sleep away, the pipes still whining and groaning.
Part of him must have thought that noise would be enough to wake Sam up, cuz he’s surprised to find him still sleeping when he gets back in the room. He debates the issue with himself only for a second or two before he moves on to get dressed as quietly as possible.
Sam is staying up late these days. He’s researching every crumbling, mouldy book he can get his hands on, his eyes straining on yellowing pages filled with crawly script of one false hope after another. Then he’s up too early in the morning to pour over more books before Dean wakes up and gets them on the road again.
Today, Dean will let him sleep in. His brother hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep for months now. Not enough hours in a row.
Dean tugs at the curtains on his way out. The door closes with a soft click behind him.
The nearest coffee shop is only two blocks away. He purchases one local, one state, and two nation wide newspapers on the way there. By the time he’s finished his first cup of coffee, he’s skimmed through all four. When he exits the shop, holding two cups, a small box of donuts, and one paper, the sun is already half way up and the day has warmed a bit more. The pavements are still wet on shadowy corners the light can’t quiet reach. He thinks it’s time they headed South. At least for a while. Maybe Florida.
He unlocks balancing breakfast and paper in one hand and kicks the door open paying no heed to noise this time.
It’s enough to wake Sam up.
He pulls the curtains open flooding the room in pale light for good measure.
Sam’s raise to awareness is reluctant like letting himself surface in water too thick and too soft. He realises he’s scratching his arm. Been doing so for some time from the looks of it cuz there’s a red welt there, clear nail marks on top crisscrossing it with no particular pattern. Sam smoothes some aloe vera on it after he comes out of the bathroom. He’s a bit groggy but he has breakfast with his brother and the caffeine kicks in soon after. The sugar helps, too.
Afterwards they hit the road due South.
The newspaper Dean brought back has two articles circled with black pen. Sam cross-references their info on line when they stop for lunch. One proves to be a hoax; some kids claiming to have seen a black dog just to play it up to their friends. The other is a bit more serious.
They drive through part of the night and by the time they get to the small town of six dead within ten months and found floating in the river, they’re so tired Sam can’t see straight. There’s nowhere to stay in the town. Dean backtracks on the main road and ten miles back where they’d passed a motel with ‘vac c’ on, one of the ‘c’s flickering too close to death as they drive by. Whether that’s a bad sign remains to be seen. All they care by that point is the room: cheap, reasonably clean with a big plus of a sturdy lock.
The next day it’s another late morning. Sam’s arm looks the same, neither worse, nor better. It’s like a burn, only he can’t remember where or when he might have burnt it. He uses an antibacterial crème on it just in case.
They go out and start work.
A sort few days later they’re leaving back the town and motel alike in relief. There was a curse at play. They’re reasonably sure of it. They’re not sure how one goes about reversing one. Luckily there was no need. It’s harsh to think so, but since there was nothing they could have done anyway at least they’re not feeling like they’re abandoning anyone behind. It had already played out by the time they started their investigation.
They drive by the river, the waters dim and muddy. It’s raining again. Fat droplets hit the windscreen and trickle down.
Sam is falling asleep.
In his mind’s eye he can see the old lady drowning in the river. He wonders if she yelled the curse loud against the wind or if it was only a whisper. The gang of punks didn’t deserve the honorific of ‘gang’ really. One of them grabbed her purse probably and her slipping in the river could have been an accident. But those guys were drank. Nobody helped her. They stood there laughing as she drowned or they didn’t notice at all.
It doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead.
Sam falls asleep the scene playing behind his eyelids in fading colours like a movie of old times. Mute, too. He can’t imagine what must have been said. He wonders if the woman knew what she was doing. If it was deliberate.
Sam’s burn hasn’t changed at all. Red and a tiny bit swollen. He wakes up most mornings scratching at it. The skin doesn’t break and it’s not bleeding. It doesn’t hurt either. There’s a faint itch at dawn. That’s pretty much it.
Besides the tiredness.
Sam wakes up late. It takes a strong cup of coffee to drive the cobwebs away. He eats more fruit for a few days. He resorts to energy drinks. He still gets tired easily and falls asleep as soon as he opens a book at night.
At first Dean thinks it’s the previous lack of sleep catching up with his brother. He’s almost happy to see him rest peacefully all through the night.
A week later he drags him to a doctor. The new antibiotic prescribed doesn’t do anything at all. Sam keeps the ointment in their first aid kit for future use. He takes the pills for a few more days before giving up on them as well and they end up in the kit.
They work another case. Ghost haunted old house. Pretty standard salt and burn. The grave was obligingly labelled, too.
Dean chooses cases in warmer climates. It’s selfish but he’s had enough of wet and cold and grey and dribbling.
The burn-not-burn is still on Sam’s arm, thankfully not getting worse.
Sam goes on with his research on crossroad demons only he doesn’t manage to stay up too late anymore.
Dean isn’t sure if it’s a bad thing after all.
It’s the last week of February. They’re having lunch in a little diner by the road. Dean is enjoying his greasy, cholesterol packed meal in happy contentment when an epiphany hits him out of the blue.
“Dude, that werewolf was too slow.”
Sam blinks slowly trying to make the mental jump to wherever Dean has landed to, cuz he’s pretty sure they were just arguing on the value of salad. The last werewolf was a few weeks back, beginning of the month, in a dank forest of slippery leaves, mud, and not enough light. Dean tripped on a root, rolled down and ended up on his back. The werewolf came at him and never got to touch him cuz two bullets hit it almost at the same time, one from Dean, back still on the ground but gun held firmly in hand, and the other from Sam who was at the time standing about 40 feet away. He didn’t have to worry about his aim with Dean on the ground, so the root had done a good job in his opinion. Not that he’d ever say that to Dean of course.
“Dean, you’re the only person who might ever complain a werewolf was too slow.”
“Ain’t complaining. Just saying. That mark was there the next morning. The wolf you was slow. Maybe you touched something in the forest. Maybe you both did. That place seemed wrong, you know what I mean?”
“What? Rare reaction to fungus?” Sam hisses through clenched teeth. The doctor would have gotten that, right?
“Could be a bit rarer than that if it affected a werewolf. Could be some kind of…I don’t know, demon-y fungus.”
“You’re not serious.”
“We’re researching it.”
“I have more important things to read on, Dean. It doesn’t even hurt.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”
“Means it can wait.”
They argue some on it till Sam gives up and takes a half hearted shot in an obscure little bookshop of occult paraphernalia and reference books in L.A. that Helen suggested. Dean did want to go south.
A middle aged man behind the counter directs them a colleague that supposedly specializes on remedies.
A different old man in the second shop takes a look at Sam’s arm and spurts an odd sounding word like a cough.
“So you know what it is?” Dean’s fairly on edge not liking the shop or the greasy little man very much.
“Oh, yesyesyes. Quiet so. Easy thing that one,” the words tumble together with a faint lisp. “Don’t stock on the medicine. Too easy to make you see.”
“If it’s that easy how do we get it then?”
“It’s in the ‘Plants and Herbs Standard Issue Mystic Remedies’ that one,” is delivered with a scoff like it’s beneath him to even mention it. “Everybody knows.”
“Well, we don’t,” Sam still thinks this is stupid and pointless, “so how about we buy the book instead?”
“Pre-order only.”
“Oh, come on!” Dean has lost his patience for some time now but this makes the glass spill. “Where do we find the damn book?” He leans into the counter and grounds “Now,” for good measure.
The man scrambles an address on a crème coloured piece of recycled paper torn from a notebook with the shop’s logo on top. He writes down Angel Investigations. Hyperion Hotel, the address legible in a neat scroll underneath.
Dean is a bit nervous about going at a private detective’s office.
Then he remembers it’s an office that bought a book called ‘Plants and Herbs Standard Issue Mystic Remedies’ and hasn’t returned it for refund claiming mistake, so they’re either very eccentric or know something about the other world out there.
They have to ask around a few times and by the time they reach the right street it’s almost sunset. Hard to tell with all the glitter and neon light in the city, though this neighbourhood is a bit darker. There’s plenty of park space. The area has this look of vague post war destruction. Probably an earthquake and nobody ever cared to repair the cracks on those buildings. The hotel is too silent and imposing, looming over their heads in gloom. There’s a single light lit on the ground floor, therefore somebody must still be there.
Dean knocks on the door hard standing shoulder to shoulder with Sam. It takes a few minutes after an echoing replying of ‘coming’ till the door opens and a young man stands there blocking the opening.
“What can I do for you?”
He’s wearing black on black, tracksuit pants and a t-shirt stained with sweat. He’s holding a towel with his right hand sweeping at his forehead, while the hair at the back of his neck seem darker, wet and plastered to his nape. The rest are standing in all directions in a just scrubbed sort of look. He was probably training or something. He’s also patiently standing there waiting for an answer that neither Winchester has given yet, cuz they haven’t exactly talked about the proper way of phrasing what they want.
Dean gets too bored with finding a subtle way first.
“We need a book and a Mr. Verez told us you have one so…”
“Come in.”
The man steps back and has the door open before Dean has a chance to find out how he would complete that sentence. He turns his back and walks briskly down some steps and across a lobby to what looks like an office door at the other side.
Sam closes the door behind them as they hurry after the man.
The room he leads them to proves to be an office after all.
“What book? And for what purpose?”
Sam tells him the title and while the man turns his back to look at the bookshelves lining the walls, he uncuffs his sleeve and rolls it up. The detective returns with a book at hand but lets it thud uselessly on the desk and grabs Sam’s arm instead pulling him faintly forward with an unconscious strength and a bit too fast. His fingers are cold around Sam’s wrist. Before Sam has time to react or Dean pulls a gun to threaten the guy with, he lets go with a snort.
“Demonic Ivy. Where’d you get that?”
He bizarrely seems more… relaxed. Sam only notices there was a tension on the man’s stance when it has slowly left his frame the way his sweat drains on the towel.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing serious. Annoying as hell, occasionally yes, if you’re allergic to it, but nothing else. And forget the book. I’ll give you the potion free of charge. Sit down.”
He turns to go and stops too abrupt
“oh, and I’m Angel.”
Angel gestures at a piece of furniture of some sort in the lobby outside and walks to another side of it towards a large, wooden cabinet. His social manners seem somewhat rusty. That doesn’t make him dangerous or anything, or so Dean hopes. He indicates for Sam to sit and hovers a couple of feet from his brother standing just in case. Angel comes back with a medium sized glass jar of some dull coloured crème in green undertones. He opens the lid and thrusts the jar into Sam’s hand obviously expecting him to spread some on the mark. Sam looks at Dean, Dean looks at Sam. Sam shrugs and dips his index finger in. He rubs some of it hesitantly on the welt. There’s a faint tingle, then it disappears completely. Not even a faint pink to show it was ever there.
Its’ a bizarre evening. Angel half expects them to go, Sam asks him about what else is in that book, what are the rest of the books about, Angel hesitantly invites them to stay the night mentioning how all the rooms of the hotel are empty. Somewhere in between he relaxes enough to leave them browsing in the office while he takes a shower. He comes back too fast, and anyway, Sam doesn’t recognize the script in more than a handful of them. They order Chinese take out, Angel and Sam stumble through a discussion on books, it moves on how to kill off various demons, proceeds with Dean giving their real names, first ones that is, and the exchange of hunting anecdotes, Angel mentions how he had the ointment cuz an ex-colleague of his, Gunn, was allergic to the same plant so Wes, another ex-colleague, made some to have on reserve, but, well, there hasn’t been any reason for it to be used at all for a long time now.
Neither Winchester enquires further about the people whose names Angel has mentioned.
The man behaves kindly enough but there’s something reserved about him. He doesn’t make eye contact when he talks of his associates and he narrates a funny story about a slime demon with a wistful pained look that seems odd on his mostly unexpressive face.
Somehow Dean doesn’t think those people are happily alive and taking a vacation in Costa Rica these days.
Sam and Dean share the same room. A fellow hunter’s an ally -sometimes. Other times it’s better to stick together and not trust what you see. The hotel is too quiet. Except for the odd cricking of old buildings everywhere.
In the morning there’s coffee. It’s too early. Their host is in the same clothes as the night before with a book on his lap when they come downstairs. Maybe he hasn’t slept all night.
Dean doesn’t remember how it happens but somehow there is a mention of that Gunn fellow having been a lawyer of demon law. That is weird on itself. Sam doesn’t let the opportunity, if it is one, slide of course. He phrases some careful questions. They leave an hour later, the sun barely up on the horizon, with two more books in their trunk. Angel said he had second copies so it’s a present and a good luck.
There hasn’t been an exchange of surnames at all and that’s the way Dean likes it.
Dean dies in May 2008. Right on schedule.
Sam changes gears blinking his eyes, focusing on the road with an intensity that just might burn it. The car hiccups in protest.
Sam turns on the first dirt road he sees, goes for a few more miles, then abruptly pulls the car at the end of the road and turns the engine off.
He sits there staring straight ahead. The sun comes down painting the sky a dirty orange. It’s cold for May.
Sam gets out of the car and slams the door shut too hard. He kicks at the front left tire a few times. He can’t bear to aim at the metal and not cuz he’d hurt his foot. He walks a few steps away, stands in front of the shrubbery he’s been staring at but failed to see, strides back to the car and gets in. There are five half moons into each of his palms. He forces his hands to unclench and puts them on the wheel.
An other hour passes till he drives off.
The next couple of weeks are a haze.
He tries to do the right thing, fight the good fight, hunt, save people.
In Chicago he looses himself in rage and almost gets killed on the job. He spends most of that night awake and motionless in a double bed in a motel room after cuz that was the only available room. He’s lying right in the middle staring straight at the ceiling till his injured back protests and he has to move or cry in pain.
The next morning he leaves for L.A.
The Hyperion is exactly where it should be, empty, silent, dusty.
Angel is still there.
For a few days he keeps the windowpanes and curtains in his room open 24/7. It has to do with that little discussion he had with Angel the day he got there and that little titbit of info that came up. Funny how things come up. At night there is no sunlight, which means there is no protection.
Angel apparently understands the gesture for what it is and doesn’t come in at all. There is food left for him outside his door, though. Sam eats it, usually leaving the tray mostly empty. There would be no point in starving himself. He tries not to feel guilty for shamelessly using his host’s care like that. He thinks it can work out. Maybe. It’s not that he hasn’t cooperated with vampires before. Though the whole incident with Lenore and her clan cannot be strictly characterized in such terms.
The first day into his second week there he closes the windows and draws the curtains sealed.
Angel comes in a few hours later. He sits on the bed next to him, an arm’s distance between them, both staring at the floor, the wall, the scant furniture. There is no offer of ‘I’m sorry’ cuz Angel said that already and he meant it so there is no point. ‘I’m sorry for your brother’. Sam could tell he meant it. There was an echo of old pain there made fresh.
Sam comes down for dinner.
Angel orders Mexican while his blood is in the microwave. There is a beep, Angel throws him the phone and Sam gives the Hyperion address in a steady clear voice, while the vampire retrieves his now warm blood and takes a sip.
In the back office, where the books are, there are four photos on the right hand corner of the desk. Their silver frames reflect the light and whatever clatter is going on in the rest of the room, and how many manuscripts or weapons end up thrown on the desk, that corner is always clean and nothing jostles them.
Sam recognizes the people in them. Is even familiar with their general story more or less.
The one with Allen Francis Doyle, Angel, and Cordelia Chase is the oldest one.
The one next to it is of Cordy -that’s how Angel calls her usually-, Angel, and Wesley Wyndham Pryce -Wes-.
The third one was taken in a big office -not this one evidently; a long story involving lawyers and mortal enemies-. Spike, Angel, Wes, Charles Gunn and Winifred Burkle -Fred-.
The last one is of Connor, Angel’s son. Sam doesn’t think he looks much like Angel. They were drunk that night when Angel told him the story, or more accurately a summary of it. Sam told him so and the vampire smiled and said he takes mostly after his mother. “My family. That’s my family. They’re dead too you know,” the words were half whispered and half a sob “except Connor. But I lost Connor…Miss them”. Sam is not entirely certain of what he heard and what he remembers, seeing as he was drank as well, but he’s never asked since.
It’s almost a year later that Sam puts there a fifth photo: Dad, himself, and Dean.
AUTHOR: e313
SPOILER: the end of s2 for SN and the end of s5 for AtS.
RATING: PG
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, Angel.
SUMMARY: someone has to fight the good fight.
FEEDBACK: as you wish.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own them. I make no profit of this. And before you sue me just remember that lawyers are evil and nothing good would come out of it. Really. Look at Wolfram and Hart!
NOTE-WARNING: xover, character death
It’s a little motel in Iowa and the sun comes up to start a bright, clear morning right on schedule. It’s February. A storm was raging for the best part of a week, but today the few scattered clouds in the sky seem meek and peaceful, fluffy white, like sheep grazing in contentment.
Dean wakes up with a few rays playing on his eyelids and grants in annoyance. His best glare does nothing to close the gap in the curtains so he sighs, stretches and blinks.
His left shoulder is sore from their last hunt. He stumbled on a tree root -how cliché- and the tumble must have pulled a muscle. He rubs the spot, and stretches again, back muscles mildly protesting. It’s all this vigorous exercise of his chosen lifestyle in cold weather on rain soaked ground in muddy forests. Non accident prone at all. Sweating in fresh freezing wind, equally healthy.
Well, at least he’s still got his morning sarcasm.
His right hand reaches again and his fingers dig hard, a clumsy, crude sort of massage, rather ineffectual, if he’s honest with himself.
He chooses not to be.
Instead he gets up. Drags his feet to the bathroom. The plumbing growls before it gives in, sputtering water like a hiccup at first. When the flow is as steady as it’s likely to get, he scrubs at his face in vigour hopping to drive the last drags of sleep away, the pipes still whining and groaning.
Part of him must have thought that noise would be enough to wake Sam up, cuz he’s surprised to find him still sleeping when he gets back in the room. He debates the issue with himself only for a second or two before he moves on to get dressed as quietly as possible.
Sam is staying up late these days. He’s researching every crumbling, mouldy book he can get his hands on, his eyes straining on yellowing pages filled with crawly script of one false hope after another. Then he’s up too early in the morning to pour over more books before Dean wakes up and gets them on the road again.
Today, Dean will let him sleep in. His brother hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep for months now. Not enough hours in a row.
Dean tugs at the curtains on his way out. The door closes with a soft click behind him.
The nearest coffee shop is only two blocks away. He purchases one local, one state, and two nation wide newspapers on the way there. By the time he’s finished his first cup of coffee, he’s skimmed through all four. When he exits the shop, holding two cups, a small box of donuts, and one paper, the sun is already half way up and the day has warmed a bit more. The pavements are still wet on shadowy corners the light can’t quiet reach. He thinks it’s time they headed South. At least for a while. Maybe Florida.
He unlocks balancing breakfast and paper in one hand and kicks the door open paying no heed to noise this time.
It’s enough to wake Sam up.
He pulls the curtains open flooding the room in pale light for good measure.
Sam’s raise to awareness is reluctant like letting himself surface in water too thick and too soft. He realises he’s scratching his arm. Been doing so for some time from the looks of it cuz there’s a red welt there, clear nail marks on top crisscrossing it with no particular pattern. Sam smoothes some aloe vera on it after he comes out of the bathroom. He’s a bit groggy but he has breakfast with his brother and the caffeine kicks in soon after. The sugar helps, too.
Afterwards they hit the road due South.
The newspaper Dean brought back has two articles circled with black pen. Sam cross-references their info on line when they stop for lunch. One proves to be a hoax; some kids claiming to have seen a black dog just to play it up to their friends. The other is a bit more serious.
They drive through part of the night and by the time they get to the small town of six dead within ten months and found floating in the river, they’re so tired Sam can’t see straight. There’s nowhere to stay in the town. Dean backtracks on the main road and ten miles back where they’d passed a motel with ‘vac c’ on, one of the ‘c’s flickering too close to death as they drive by. Whether that’s a bad sign remains to be seen. All they care by that point is the room: cheap, reasonably clean with a big plus of a sturdy lock.
The next day it’s another late morning. Sam’s arm looks the same, neither worse, nor better. It’s like a burn, only he can’t remember where or when he might have burnt it. He uses an antibacterial crème on it just in case.
They go out and start work.
A sort few days later they’re leaving back the town and motel alike in relief. There was a curse at play. They’re reasonably sure of it. They’re not sure how one goes about reversing one. Luckily there was no need. It’s harsh to think so, but since there was nothing they could have done anyway at least they’re not feeling like they’re abandoning anyone behind. It had already played out by the time they started their investigation.
They drive by the river, the waters dim and muddy. It’s raining again. Fat droplets hit the windscreen and trickle down.
Sam is falling asleep.
In his mind’s eye he can see the old lady drowning in the river. He wonders if she yelled the curse loud against the wind or if it was only a whisper. The gang of punks didn’t deserve the honorific of ‘gang’ really. One of them grabbed her purse probably and her slipping in the river could have been an accident. But those guys were drank. Nobody helped her. They stood there laughing as she drowned or they didn’t notice at all.
It doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead.
Sam falls asleep the scene playing behind his eyelids in fading colours like a movie of old times. Mute, too. He can’t imagine what must have been said. He wonders if the woman knew what she was doing. If it was deliberate.
Sam’s burn hasn’t changed at all. Red and a tiny bit swollen. He wakes up most mornings scratching at it. The skin doesn’t break and it’s not bleeding. It doesn’t hurt either. There’s a faint itch at dawn. That’s pretty much it.
Besides the tiredness.
Sam wakes up late. It takes a strong cup of coffee to drive the cobwebs away. He eats more fruit for a few days. He resorts to energy drinks. He still gets tired easily and falls asleep as soon as he opens a book at night.
At first Dean thinks it’s the previous lack of sleep catching up with his brother. He’s almost happy to see him rest peacefully all through the night.
A week later he drags him to a doctor. The new antibiotic prescribed doesn’t do anything at all. Sam keeps the ointment in their first aid kit for future use. He takes the pills for a few more days before giving up on them as well and they end up in the kit.
They work another case. Ghost haunted old house. Pretty standard salt and burn. The grave was obligingly labelled, too.
Dean chooses cases in warmer climates. It’s selfish but he’s had enough of wet and cold and grey and dribbling.
The burn-not-burn is still on Sam’s arm, thankfully not getting worse.
Sam goes on with his research on crossroad demons only he doesn’t manage to stay up too late anymore.
Dean isn’t sure if it’s a bad thing after all.
It’s the last week of February. They’re having lunch in a little diner by the road. Dean is enjoying his greasy, cholesterol packed meal in happy contentment when an epiphany hits him out of the blue.
“Dude, that werewolf was too slow.”
Sam blinks slowly trying to make the mental jump to wherever Dean has landed to, cuz he’s pretty sure they were just arguing on the value of salad. The last werewolf was a few weeks back, beginning of the month, in a dank forest of slippery leaves, mud, and not enough light. Dean tripped on a root, rolled down and ended up on his back. The werewolf came at him and never got to touch him cuz two bullets hit it almost at the same time, one from Dean, back still on the ground but gun held firmly in hand, and the other from Sam who was at the time standing about 40 feet away. He didn’t have to worry about his aim with Dean on the ground, so the root had done a good job in his opinion. Not that he’d ever say that to Dean of course.
“Dean, you’re the only person who might ever complain a werewolf was too slow.”
“Ain’t complaining. Just saying. That mark was there the next morning. The wolf you was slow. Maybe you touched something in the forest. Maybe you both did. That place seemed wrong, you know what I mean?”
“What? Rare reaction to fungus?” Sam hisses through clenched teeth. The doctor would have gotten that, right?
“Could be a bit rarer than that if it affected a werewolf. Could be some kind of…I don’t know, demon-y fungus.”
“You’re not serious.”
“We’re researching it.”
“I have more important things to read on, Dean. It doesn’t even hurt.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”
“Means it can wait.”
They argue some on it till Sam gives up and takes a half hearted shot in an obscure little bookshop of occult paraphernalia and reference books in L.A. that Helen suggested. Dean did want to go south.
A middle aged man behind the counter directs them a colleague that supposedly specializes on remedies.
A different old man in the second shop takes a look at Sam’s arm and spurts an odd sounding word like a cough.
“So you know what it is?” Dean’s fairly on edge not liking the shop or the greasy little man very much.
“Oh, yesyesyes. Quiet so. Easy thing that one,” the words tumble together with a faint lisp. “Don’t stock on the medicine. Too easy to make you see.”
“If it’s that easy how do we get it then?”
“It’s in the ‘Plants and Herbs Standard Issue Mystic Remedies’ that one,” is delivered with a scoff like it’s beneath him to even mention it. “Everybody knows.”
“Well, we don’t,” Sam still thinks this is stupid and pointless, “so how about we buy the book instead?”
“Pre-order only.”
“Oh, come on!” Dean has lost his patience for some time now but this makes the glass spill. “Where do we find the damn book?” He leans into the counter and grounds “Now,” for good measure.
The man scrambles an address on a crème coloured piece of recycled paper torn from a notebook with the shop’s logo on top. He writes down Angel Investigations. Hyperion Hotel, the address legible in a neat scroll underneath.
Dean is a bit nervous about going at a private detective’s office.
Then he remembers it’s an office that bought a book called ‘Plants and Herbs Standard Issue Mystic Remedies’ and hasn’t returned it for refund claiming mistake, so they’re either very eccentric or know something about the other world out there.
They have to ask around a few times and by the time they reach the right street it’s almost sunset. Hard to tell with all the glitter and neon light in the city, though this neighbourhood is a bit darker. There’s plenty of park space. The area has this look of vague post war destruction. Probably an earthquake and nobody ever cared to repair the cracks on those buildings. The hotel is too silent and imposing, looming over their heads in gloom. There’s a single light lit on the ground floor, therefore somebody must still be there.
Dean knocks on the door hard standing shoulder to shoulder with Sam. It takes a few minutes after an echoing replying of ‘coming’ till the door opens and a young man stands there blocking the opening.
“What can I do for you?”
He’s wearing black on black, tracksuit pants and a t-shirt stained with sweat. He’s holding a towel with his right hand sweeping at his forehead, while the hair at the back of his neck seem darker, wet and plastered to his nape. The rest are standing in all directions in a just scrubbed sort of look. He was probably training or something. He’s also patiently standing there waiting for an answer that neither Winchester has given yet, cuz they haven’t exactly talked about the proper way of phrasing what they want.
Dean gets too bored with finding a subtle way first.
“We need a book and a Mr. Verez told us you have one so…”
“Come in.”
The man steps back and has the door open before Dean has a chance to find out how he would complete that sentence. He turns his back and walks briskly down some steps and across a lobby to what looks like an office door at the other side.
Sam closes the door behind them as they hurry after the man.
The room he leads them to proves to be an office after all.
“What book? And for what purpose?”
Sam tells him the title and while the man turns his back to look at the bookshelves lining the walls, he uncuffs his sleeve and rolls it up. The detective returns with a book at hand but lets it thud uselessly on the desk and grabs Sam’s arm instead pulling him faintly forward with an unconscious strength and a bit too fast. His fingers are cold around Sam’s wrist. Before Sam has time to react or Dean pulls a gun to threaten the guy with, he lets go with a snort.
“Demonic Ivy. Where’d you get that?”
He bizarrely seems more… relaxed. Sam only notices there was a tension on the man’s stance when it has slowly left his frame the way his sweat drains on the towel.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing serious. Annoying as hell, occasionally yes, if you’re allergic to it, but nothing else. And forget the book. I’ll give you the potion free of charge. Sit down.”
He turns to go and stops too abrupt
“oh, and I’m Angel.”
Angel gestures at a piece of furniture of some sort in the lobby outside and walks to another side of it towards a large, wooden cabinet. His social manners seem somewhat rusty. That doesn’t make him dangerous or anything, or so Dean hopes. He indicates for Sam to sit and hovers a couple of feet from his brother standing just in case. Angel comes back with a medium sized glass jar of some dull coloured crème in green undertones. He opens the lid and thrusts the jar into Sam’s hand obviously expecting him to spread some on the mark. Sam looks at Dean, Dean looks at Sam. Sam shrugs and dips his index finger in. He rubs some of it hesitantly on the welt. There’s a faint tingle, then it disappears completely. Not even a faint pink to show it was ever there.
Its’ a bizarre evening. Angel half expects them to go, Sam asks him about what else is in that book, what are the rest of the books about, Angel hesitantly invites them to stay the night mentioning how all the rooms of the hotel are empty. Somewhere in between he relaxes enough to leave them browsing in the office while he takes a shower. He comes back too fast, and anyway, Sam doesn’t recognize the script in more than a handful of them. They order Chinese take out, Angel and Sam stumble through a discussion on books, it moves on how to kill off various demons, proceeds with Dean giving their real names, first ones that is, and the exchange of hunting anecdotes, Angel mentions how he had the ointment cuz an ex-colleague of his, Gunn, was allergic to the same plant so Wes, another ex-colleague, made some to have on reserve, but, well, there hasn’t been any reason for it to be used at all for a long time now.
Neither Winchester enquires further about the people whose names Angel has mentioned.
The man behaves kindly enough but there’s something reserved about him. He doesn’t make eye contact when he talks of his associates and he narrates a funny story about a slime demon with a wistful pained look that seems odd on his mostly unexpressive face.
Somehow Dean doesn’t think those people are happily alive and taking a vacation in Costa Rica these days.
Sam and Dean share the same room. A fellow hunter’s an ally -sometimes. Other times it’s better to stick together and not trust what you see. The hotel is too quiet. Except for the odd cricking of old buildings everywhere.
In the morning there’s coffee. It’s too early. Their host is in the same clothes as the night before with a book on his lap when they come downstairs. Maybe he hasn’t slept all night.
Dean doesn’t remember how it happens but somehow there is a mention of that Gunn fellow having been a lawyer of demon law. That is weird on itself. Sam doesn’t let the opportunity, if it is one, slide of course. He phrases some careful questions. They leave an hour later, the sun barely up on the horizon, with two more books in their trunk. Angel said he had second copies so it’s a present and a good luck.
There hasn’t been an exchange of surnames at all and that’s the way Dean likes it.
Dean dies in May 2008. Right on schedule.
Sam changes gears blinking his eyes, focusing on the road with an intensity that just might burn it. The car hiccups in protest.
Sam turns on the first dirt road he sees, goes for a few more miles, then abruptly pulls the car at the end of the road and turns the engine off.
He sits there staring straight ahead. The sun comes down painting the sky a dirty orange. It’s cold for May.
Sam gets out of the car and slams the door shut too hard. He kicks at the front left tire a few times. He can’t bear to aim at the metal and not cuz he’d hurt his foot. He walks a few steps away, stands in front of the shrubbery he’s been staring at but failed to see, strides back to the car and gets in. There are five half moons into each of his palms. He forces his hands to unclench and puts them on the wheel.
An other hour passes till he drives off.
The next couple of weeks are a haze.
He tries to do the right thing, fight the good fight, hunt, save people.
In Chicago he looses himself in rage and almost gets killed on the job. He spends most of that night awake and motionless in a double bed in a motel room after cuz that was the only available room. He’s lying right in the middle staring straight at the ceiling till his injured back protests and he has to move or cry in pain.
The next morning he leaves for L.A.
The Hyperion is exactly where it should be, empty, silent, dusty.
Angel is still there.
For a few days he keeps the windowpanes and curtains in his room open 24/7. It has to do with that little discussion he had with Angel the day he got there and that little titbit of info that came up. Funny how things come up. At night there is no sunlight, which means there is no protection.
Angel apparently understands the gesture for what it is and doesn’t come in at all. There is food left for him outside his door, though. Sam eats it, usually leaving the tray mostly empty. There would be no point in starving himself. He tries not to feel guilty for shamelessly using his host’s care like that. He thinks it can work out. Maybe. It’s not that he hasn’t cooperated with vampires before. Though the whole incident with Lenore and her clan cannot be strictly characterized in such terms.
The first day into his second week there he closes the windows and draws the curtains sealed.
Angel comes in a few hours later. He sits on the bed next to him, an arm’s distance between them, both staring at the floor, the wall, the scant furniture. There is no offer of ‘I’m sorry’ cuz Angel said that already and he meant it so there is no point. ‘I’m sorry for your brother’. Sam could tell he meant it. There was an echo of old pain there made fresh.
Sam comes down for dinner.
Angel orders Mexican while his blood is in the microwave. There is a beep, Angel throws him the phone and Sam gives the Hyperion address in a steady clear voice, while the vampire retrieves his now warm blood and takes a sip.
In the back office, where the books are, there are four photos on the right hand corner of the desk. Their silver frames reflect the light and whatever clatter is going on in the rest of the room, and how many manuscripts or weapons end up thrown on the desk, that corner is always clean and nothing jostles them.
Sam recognizes the people in them. Is even familiar with their general story more or less.
The one with Allen Francis Doyle, Angel, and Cordelia Chase is the oldest one.
The one next to it is of Cordy -that’s how Angel calls her usually-, Angel, and Wesley Wyndham Pryce -Wes-.
The third one was taken in a big office -not this one evidently; a long story involving lawyers and mortal enemies-. Spike, Angel, Wes, Charles Gunn and Winifred Burkle -Fred-.
The last one is of Connor, Angel’s son. Sam doesn’t think he looks much like Angel. They were drunk that night when Angel told him the story, or more accurately a summary of it. Sam told him so and the vampire smiled and said he takes mostly after his mother. “My family. That’s my family. They’re dead too you know,” the words were half whispered and half a sob “except Connor. But I lost Connor…Miss them”. Sam is not entirely certain of what he heard and what he remembers, seeing as he was drank as well, but he’s never asked since.
It’s almost a year later that Sam puts there a fifth photo: Dad, himself, and Dean.