SPN fic: The Long Slow Scythe
Title: The Long Slow Scythe
Category: Gen, cops, outsiderpov
Warnings: Allusions to gore. A bit of cussing. Unbeta'd, too.
Prompt: A young, green officer in a small town spots Sam (or Dean) Winchester walking around unfussed and very much alive. Repeatedly spots him. But he can't get anyone at the station, or at home, to believe him. It's an overactive imagination, it's a misguided hunger for glory, or obsession, or whatever. No one will listen. Meanwhile, people are dying... (Post 7.06)
A/N: Written for the LEO prompt meme at liliaeth's journal.
A/N #2: Uhh, I don't write fic. So this is new. Really, really, super, shiny new.
A/N #3: Title from Louise Bogan's poem Song
The first time it happened, Jerry blamed it on the nightmares. He had grown up in St. Louis, after all. Had still been living there back in ’06 when Dean Winchester had breezed along and skinned those girls and vanished away in the aftermath as the damage he’d left behind never would. The killing spree had been over so quickly, but it had taken weeks for the media to stop its obsessing, and Jerry had been there, new to his career, soaking everything in. It had changed something in Jerry; Dean Winchester changed something. It wasn’t like Winchester had anything to do with Jerry’s career choice-he’d been walking his first beat during those St. Louis killings, after all-but he’d sure as fuck tempered Jerry to the job. Jerry wasn’t to be involved in the investigation in any capacity, as he was made perfectly aware, but he had wanted to be. He had envied the detectives who hemmed and hawed about psyochosis and crippling co-dependency behind their gold and silver shields.
Back then, Jerry had no idea how little any sane person would want to do with those particular brothers. He learned that lesson a few weeks ago, when Winchester One and Two rolled their way back into St. Louis. When they had... Well, suicide by cop was far too good for them, though he would never complain about the results.
So it made no sense, no sense, Jerry, to see Sam Winchester looming his way through the streets of Crystal Lake, hands buried deep in his pockets and long hair slicked back with sweat, unless maybe Jerry was remembering both a nightmare and career fantasy both.
“Em?” Jerry said, though he didn’t turn his head, didn’t look at his fiancé at all, kept watching as Winchester pushed the sleeves of his hideously blue sweat suit over his elbows kept on walking, farther and farther away. “Emily, I think I see-“
“Oh, Jared, look,” Emily interjected, “Samantha’s finally out and about with her new baby!” Emily grabbed his arm, and Jerry let her rip him away (because Sam Winchester isn’t here, isn’t here at all-he’s roasting in hell) to a stroller more stuffed with blankets than a child’s pup-tent. Emily cooed and congratulated and Jerry tried to, but he had to make sure.
Jerry pulled the autumn air deep into his lungs and sighed it all back out again; closed his eyes, opened them, and looked back at that stretch of sidewalk he could have sworn Sam Winchester had been walking down; felt some strange combination of both relief and disappointment when all he saw were harried shoppers, tripping their way between thrift stores and grocery marts. Disappointment, because the presence of the Brothers Grimm would explain so much. A town this size, it was unusual and downright fucked up to see ritual Satanic killings at all, let alone enough to qualify as serials. So yeah, Sam Winchester was never here. His mind was playing tricks on him in a bid to help him, showing him a monster capable of the evil Jerry was trying so hard-and failing-to fathom.
Sam Winchester was dead, after all. He couldn’t be here. Couldn’t, couldn’t.
--
The second time, Jared Ostime considered seeking therapy. It would have been okay, to go to a therapist, maybe one of those advertised in the pamphlets shoved into their hands every few weeks by the concerned department head. St. Louis had been his home; still was, really, seeing as how he went back every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and long weekend he could wrangle. Watching the shaky video (taken by a boy who was dead the minute he decided on that diner for lunch) had driven him to the men’s room twice to retch and retch until nothing was left in him but bile and the sharp taste of despair; until he could feel the lining of his insides trying to leap out of him, and if they had really wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to stop them.
He felt that again, when the call came in on a Friday morning-a stay-at-home mom had noticed blood stains on her neighbour’s living room curtains. A feeling of raw dread sprawled throughout his stomach; this would be the fourth in eleven days.
Gravel crunched under his car’s tires as he pulled into the drive of 217 Joplin Court. It was a new and developing zone-none of the houses were quite complete, most still lacking a lawn and pavement. It was out of the way. Remote. Waiting for future developments to bring it fully into the fold of suburbia. A couple of squad cars were already there, one of the officers both consoling and soliciting a statement from the woman who called them in. She was shaking, though part of that might have been from standing against the bracing chill in nothing more than jeans and a loose t-shirt.
Soon, Jerry was shaking too. He wasn’t used to this, wasn’t yet desensitized to the animalistic violence that was attacking his new home. The violence that had attacked Sheryl Langly’s home.
The living room they found her in had once been white. The soft light of fifty or more candles threw dozens of shadows up the dripping walls. The furniture had been rearranged, couches pushed along the edges of the room, framing the single leather armchair in the middle of the room to which Sheryl was lashed. Jerry was pretty sure she had started the day off with her head firmly attached to her neck, though that was no longer nearly true. A drop of blood fell on his brow-the ceiling was painted with arterial spray, fresh and slowly congealing. Jerry swallowed back an empty retch and swiped over his face with the back of his arm.
He backed out the front door to make way for the CSIU.
“Let me know if you find… her head,” Jerry said over his shoulder. He knew, though, that they wouldn’t. Just as he knew that Sheryl’s mutilated corpse would be covered in strange chemical burns.
Four victims in eleven days. This was never going to end, was it? Because Jerry… Because Detective Jared Ostime was never going to cotton on; had no idea what the fuck was happening.
The morning stank of death, and the afternoon didn’t look much better. Jerry waited outside and tried to breathe.
It was Friday, and the only acceptable reason for his gut trying to throw itself out his mouth on a Friday was if he was piss drunk. So as soon as he could get away, could escape despite his guilt, could leave with as few loose ends dangling as possible, Jerry called Emily and said nothing more than, “Going out with some of the guys, don’t think I’ll make it home till late.” He waved off the invitations of his fellow officers with the standard, “Em’s cooking tonight. Don’t want to disappoint her. Next time.” After that, he was clear to find the nearest bar.
Amigo’s was close to the precinct, but not too close; more importantly, it was (barely) within stumbling distance of his own house. The windows were shuttered, though light still slanted between the wooden slats into the dimly-lit bar. The heavy press of smoke swirled around him, and even this early into the evening, the smell of rotten drunk-the same smell that pooled at the bottom of a box of empties-oozed from every booth. The tang was cloying at the back of his throat. And Jerry, oh how he welcomed it. (Anything but the imagined feel, smell, taste of congealing blood.)
This was never going to be him, he thought as he knocked back a tumbler of whiskey, welcoming the fire in his throat, and asked politely for another. He was never going to be the one who let work drive him out of the arms of his fiancé and into the neck of a bottle. That was before St. Louis, though. And that was before he knew what real depravity looked like, up close in a terrifying new way. Hell, that was before Monday of last week. On Monday, everything changed. That was the day Angela Dirksen was found, in the sticky pool of her own blood and very much dead.
The TV was on, turned down quiet, and the news was playing, quiet, and there was a quiet murmuring filling the space behind his head. Hush, hush, hush. The perfect atmosphere to go about wooing the pressure inside Jerry’s skull; the same pressure that had been building and building all week, as he stamped around inside his office, in front of a pinboard tacked with photos of a decidedly macabre bent, and as he crept around inside crime scenes, filling himself with ideas and ideas about everything he never wanted to have to think about.
“But that’s all you get to think about, isn’t it. Fucking childhood dream, wasn’t it.” He knocked back another shot and asked for more. The bartender didn’t even look at him as she neatly filled his tumbler. Probably wasn’t used to getting tips from any of the poor buggers who stumbled in before seven with the sole purpose of getting absolutely shit-faced as fast as possible. Well, fuck her. And fuck her judgements, too. Jerry had his reasons. Good ones, too. Why oh why had he ever dreamed of being a cop?
“Here’s to childhood fucking dreams.” Jerry raised his glass melodramatically.
He slammed that glass right back down and nearly fell off his stool when someone (right beside him, how did he get right beside him, how did he never notice?!) said, “I’ll drink to that.”
And then all Jerry could do was gape, whiskey forgotten in the loose curl of his now sticky-with-booze hand. Because this was not Dean Winchester, this could not be Dean Winchester, but by heaven and hell Jerry would swear that Dean Winchester had pulled up a stool right sidled up next to him to down shot after shot of his own.
“Whoa there, sorry buddy.” Dean Winchester was a thoughtful man who helped strangers keep their precarious balance on bar stools. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle. Look like you’re having a rough day already.”
He was talking to Jerry. Dean Winchester was talking to Jerry; had his hand on Jerry’s arm. Was snapping his fingers in front of Jerry’s face as he gaped like a fish pulled fresh out of water.
“Hey, buddy. You good?”
Say something. Say it. Say it now! “Yes! I mean, yeah. Good. Fine, I’m great, everything’s cool.” It was hot, he was sweating, and oh, god, he was going to die. Any minute, Dean Winchester was going to pull Sam out of his pocket, and then an Uzi or five, and then the Brothers Grimm were going to mow down every person in the bar and Jerry couldn’t find his limbs. Bad, bad, very very bad.
The sudden blare of Metallica coming from Dean’s pocket startled Jerry, and he knocked his tumbler fully over. The bartender swore and jumped to mop it up with a dingy rag. But don’t worry about that, we’re all going to die anyway, and it’ll be in a mess your rag can’t ever ever clean. And shut up Jerry, shut it. Dean Winchester was speaking.
“Hey, Sammy. No, I’m on my way. Dude, I’m like two shakes out, so you can go ahead and untwist those panties of yours.” And he was getting mad, fuck, he was getting angry. “Yeah, I know, I get it. Don’t worry, I can handle it. Have so far, haven’t I?” Winchester shoved his phone back into his pocket, drained his shot, and smiled at the bartender as he reached into his jacket-and this is it, it’s really it, never thought you’d die a coward, did you, Jerry; can’t even raise an arm in protest, you dumb, drunk fuck-and pulled out a wallet. Threw two bills on the bar and walked out.
Jerry stared after him, throwing up an arm as Dean pulled the door open and the razor light of a setting sun flooded his eyes. The light curled around Dean like a halo, briefly, and then the door swung shut, and he was gone.
His heart was beating wildly in his chest, and in his throat, head, roiling stomach.
“Did you, did you see that? Him?” Jerry swivelled clumsily on his stool, slurring out inadequate panic with each bitten off word. “Was that really him?”
The bartender didn’t even look up, just said, “Sure, dude. Whatever you say. Want another round?”
Jerry nodded, nodded, and knew something was wrong with his brain. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. Beer goggles, except instead of hot women, Dean Winchester. That was all.
That was all.
Maybe therapy would be a good idea. Jerry resolved to consider this when he was once again fully sober. He watched the bartender pull the whisky out, drummed his knuckles against the solid wood of the bar, and waited.
--
The third time, Detective Ostime decided that maybe he wasn’t crazy, after all. The count was up to five-Cameron’s cooling body was found by her husband late the evening before-and wasn’t this almost the MO from St. Louis, back in ‘06? Mutilated victims, all pretty women? And Jared knew the Winchesters had both evolved and devolved since then, sporadically weaving elements of superstition and perverse fairy tale into their crimes, leaving a signature unique and wholly their own.
Detective Ostime pulled up in front of the precinct early Monday morning and paused, hand just about to pull the keys from the ignition. Sam Winchester, because it had to be Sam Winchester, was walking, cool as can be, across the street. Twice might have been a coincidence created by his breaking mind, but three times? And it made so much sense, fit every pattern they’d seen in the crime scenes.
Sam stumbled and fell against a wall. And was he… Fucking psychotic, is what he is. Sam was muttering to himself, shaking his head over and over, clawing at one hand with the other until he found a tight grip, pressing with a force that corded the considerable muscles in his forearm. Jared watched with a bizarre fascination as Sam pulled himself together enough to wobble on forward, but when he got out of his car to at least confirm Sam’s identity, and maybe even pull him in for questioning, Sam had disappeared.
He walked into the bull pen in what he would have called a daze, had he not felt more clear headed than he had for weeks.
“I just saw our man, outside.” Instantly, every ear perked up, some half-rising from where they sat. “Sam Winchester. Dean, too. Gotta be.”
Erik Lewinski half chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, this is just about their level of fucked-up. Too bad.”
“Too bad what? We’ve got our man,” Jared said, excitement faltering as he saw the interest in the room dwindling. “I saw him, just now, and before, too.”
“Come on, Ostime. We don’t have the time to chase ghosts, and you shouldn’t be distracting us, or yourself,” Lewinski said. “We’ve got to head down to the newest crime scene, see what it tells us now that it’s properly light out.”
“But I saw him. He was just… Just out there.”
“Believe me, Ostime, I wish it were just that easy.”
But it was-it was.
--
The fourth time, Sam was driving a shitty old car past the newest victim’s house, squinting against the sun. The fifth, Sam was jogging through a park Jared was driving past.
And no one would believe him.
“Look, man, I know you want to catch this guy, just like I do, but we’re not going to catch him by chasing ghosts, or delusions, or glory.”
“Pull it together, Ostime.”
“Get back on track. Forget about the Brothers Grimm. We got our own alive-and-breathing fuckhead to deal with.”
“Jared, I’m worried about you.” Emily always did have the softest eyes. “Please, just forget about the Winchesters. They're dead. They're dead and they're not coming back, ever again. Please.”
But they were right there. Under their noses. Killing and killing and killing.
--
The sixth time, Jared saw Sam paying for take-out in a small diner just off Main, but Emily pulled him away and into the grocery store before he could get a closer look.
“Em, I gotta go back.”
“Hey, you’re the one who suggested we get the grocery shopping in hand this weekend,” she said, smiling up at him. “You don’t get to bow out so easily.”
“Sorry, but I just saw him. I’ll be right back,” he said, turning away.
Emily sighed. “Sam Winchester? Or is it Dean this time?”
Jared turned right back around. Yeah, him seeing someone that no one else did, someone who was confirmed dead so far as the world was concerned, had done nothing good for his still-young reputation in this city he was so new to, but he thought that Emily, surely Emily, would come around to the idea, would…
Would what, Jerry? Believe your killer is a dead man? Literally?
“He was right there, in that diner,” he said, trailing off. “I might still catch him.”
But the diner was empty of Winchesters when he got there, towing Emily along behind him. There was only one waitress on the floor; when asked, she said, “Well, there was a young man in here not long ago. Bit touched in the head, I think. Couldn’t seem to quite grasp what I was say, poor dear. Kept looking over his shoulder at something that wasn’t there. Nice enough, though. Smiled with dimples and everything.”
Jared knew it was him, just knew it was crazy-ass Sam Winchester, but still Emily’s concern burned him; more than the derision of his fellow officers.
--
There was no seventh time. Jerry thought it odd when a whole week passed without another murder, but it was only after a whole month had passed, ground freezing over with winter and malls everywhere rolling out the decorations for Christmas, that he dared hope that it was over. It both was and wasn’t, though: They never did catch their killer. In fact, they never even pinned a suspect in their sights they liked.
Well, except for Jerry, but it was decided that Jerry didn’t know what he was talking about, anyway. The pressure to find someone, anyone, must have gotten to him, they whispered. At this point, some would reply with sympathy that who could blame him, poor dear, fresh transfer, first major promotion, no wonder his mind went and took a break when all those horrid bodies piled up. Others, of course, would say, in a much more snide tone, that maybe if he hadn’t been distracted by his own mad ramblings, he would have caught a break.
But Jerry knew, even if no one else did. He knew that the reason they never caught a break was because the Winchesters were both just that good and, to the eyes of the world, just that dead.
No, he never would see either Winchester again, though he camped out long inside Amigo’s, waiting on the off-chance they came back. Drumming his knuckles against the bar top, ignoring call after call, and waiting. If he had gone home, he might have been able to stop Emily as she packed all of her things into boxes; if he had gone into work, he might have been able to do something about the pink slip left innocuously on his desk. But he didn’t do either, because he was waiting to catch his killer.
And if he had a drink or two while he waited, who could blame him?
-⋅
Category: Gen, cops, outsiderpov
Warnings: Allusions to gore. A bit of cussing. Unbeta'd, too.
Prompt: A young, green officer in a small town spots Sam (or Dean) Winchester walking around unfussed and very much alive. Repeatedly spots him. But he can't get anyone at the station, or at home, to believe him. It's an overactive imagination, it's a misguided hunger for glory, or obsession, or whatever. No one will listen. Meanwhile, people are dying... (Post 7.06)
A/N: Written for the LEO prompt meme at liliaeth's journal.
A/N #2: Uhh, I don't write fic. So this is new. Really, really, super, shiny new.
A/N #3: Title from Louise Bogan's poem Song
The first time it happened, Jerry blamed it on the nightmares. He had grown up in St. Louis, after all. Had still been living there back in ’06 when Dean Winchester had breezed along and skinned those girls and vanished away in the aftermath as the damage he’d left behind never would. The killing spree had been over so quickly, but it had taken weeks for the media to stop its obsessing, and Jerry had been there, new to his career, soaking everything in. It had changed something in Jerry; Dean Winchester changed something. It wasn’t like Winchester had anything to do with Jerry’s career choice-he’d been walking his first beat during those St. Louis killings, after all-but he’d sure as fuck tempered Jerry to the job. Jerry wasn’t to be involved in the investigation in any capacity, as he was made perfectly aware, but he had wanted to be. He had envied the detectives who hemmed and hawed about psyochosis and crippling co-dependency behind their gold and silver shields.
Back then, Jerry had no idea how little any sane person would want to do with those particular brothers. He learned that lesson a few weeks ago, when Winchester One and Two rolled their way back into St. Louis. When they had... Well, suicide by cop was far too good for them, though he would never complain about the results.
So it made no sense, no sense, Jerry, to see Sam Winchester looming his way through the streets of Crystal Lake, hands buried deep in his pockets and long hair slicked back with sweat, unless maybe Jerry was remembering both a nightmare and career fantasy both.
“Em?” Jerry said, though he didn’t turn his head, didn’t look at his fiancé at all, kept watching as Winchester pushed the sleeves of his hideously blue sweat suit over his elbows kept on walking, farther and farther away. “Emily, I think I see-“
“Oh, Jared, look,” Emily interjected, “Samantha’s finally out and about with her new baby!” Emily grabbed his arm, and Jerry let her rip him away (because Sam Winchester isn’t here, isn’t here at all-he’s roasting in hell) to a stroller more stuffed with blankets than a child’s pup-tent. Emily cooed and congratulated and Jerry tried to, but he had to make sure.
Jerry pulled the autumn air deep into his lungs and sighed it all back out again; closed his eyes, opened them, and looked back at that stretch of sidewalk he could have sworn Sam Winchester had been walking down; felt some strange combination of both relief and disappointment when all he saw were harried shoppers, tripping their way between thrift stores and grocery marts. Disappointment, because the presence of the Brothers Grimm would explain so much. A town this size, it was unusual and downright fucked up to see ritual Satanic killings at all, let alone enough to qualify as serials. So yeah, Sam Winchester was never here. His mind was playing tricks on him in a bid to help him, showing him a monster capable of the evil Jerry was trying so hard-and failing-to fathom.
Sam Winchester was dead, after all. He couldn’t be here. Couldn’t, couldn’t.
--
The second time, Jared Ostime considered seeking therapy. It would have been okay, to go to a therapist, maybe one of those advertised in the pamphlets shoved into their hands every few weeks by the concerned department head. St. Louis had been his home; still was, really, seeing as how he went back every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and long weekend he could wrangle. Watching the shaky video (taken by a boy who was dead the minute he decided on that diner for lunch) had driven him to the men’s room twice to retch and retch until nothing was left in him but bile and the sharp taste of despair; until he could feel the lining of his insides trying to leap out of him, and if they had really wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to stop them.
He felt that again, when the call came in on a Friday morning-a stay-at-home mom had noticed blood stains on her neighbour’s living room curtains. A feeling of raw dread sprawled throughout his stomach; this would be the fourth in eleven days.
Gravel crunched under his car’s tires as he pulled into the drive of 217 Joplin Court. It was a new and developing zone-none of the houses were quite complete, most still lacking a lawn and pavement. It was out of the way. Remote. Waiting for future developments to bring it fully into the fold of suburbia. A couple of squad cars were already there, one of the officers both consoling and soliciting a statement from the woman who called them in. She was shaking, though part of that might have been from standing against the bracing chill in nothing more than jeans and a loose t-shirt.
Soon, Jerry was shaking too. He wasn’t used to this, wasn’t yet desensitized to the animalistic violence that was attacking his new home. The violence that had attacked Sheryl Langly’s home.
The living room they found her in had once been white. The soft light of fifty or more candles threw dozens of shadows up the dripping walls. The furniture had been rearranged, couches pushed along the edges of the room, framing the single leather armchair in the middle of the room to which Sheryl was lashed. Jerry was pretty sure she had started the day off with her head firmly attached to her neck, though that was no longer nearly true. A drop of blood fell on his brow-the ceiling was painted with arterial spray, fresh and slowly congealing. Jerry swallowed back an empty retch and swiped over his face with the back of his arm.
He backed out the front door to make way for the CSIU.
“Let me know if you find… her head,” Jerry said over his shoulder. He knew, though, that they wouldn’t. Just as he knew that Sheryl’s mutilated corpse would be covered in strange chemical burns.
Four victims in eleven days. This was never going to end, was it? Because Jerry… Because Detective Jared Ostime was never going to cotton on; had no idea what the fuck was happening.
The morning stank of death, and the afternoon didn’t look much better. Jerry waited outside and tried to breathe.
It was Friday, and the only acceptable reason for his gut trying to throw itself out his mouth on a Friday was if he was piss drunk. So as soon as he could get away, could escape despite his guilt, could leave with as few loose ends dangling as possible, Jerry called Emily and said nothing more than, “Going out with some of the guys, don’t think I’ll make it home till late.” He waved off the invitations of his fellow officers with the standard, “Em’s cooking tonight. Don’t want to disappoint her. Next time.” After that, he was clear to find the nearest bar.
Amigo’s was close to the precinct, but not too close; more importantly, it was (barely) within stumbling distance of his own house. The windows were shuttered, though light still slanted between the wooden slats into the dimly-lit bar. The heavy press of smoke swirled around him, and even this early into the evening, the smell of rotten drunk-the same smell that pooled at the bottom of a box of empties-oozed from every booth. The tang was cloying at the back of his throat. And Jerry, oh how he welcomed it. (Anything but the imagined feel, smell, taste of congealing blood.)
This was never going to be him, he thought as he knocked back a tumbler of whiskey, welcoming the fire in his throat, and asked politely for another. He was never going to be the one who let work drive him out of the arms of his fiancé and into the neck of a bottle. That was before St. Louis, though. And that was before he knew what real depravity looked like, up close in a terrifying new way. Hell, that was before Monday of last week. On Monday, everything changed. That was the day Angela Dirksen was found, in the sticky pool of her own blood and very much dead.
The TV was on, turned down quiet, and the news was playing, quiet, and there was a quiet murmuring filling the space behind his head. Hush, hush, hush. The perfect atmosphere to go about wooing the pressure inside Jerry’s skull; the same pressure that had been building and building all week, as he stamped around inside his office, in front of a pinboard tacked with photos of a decidedly macabre bent, and as he crept around inside crime scenes, filling himself with ideas and ideas about everything he never wanted to have to think about.
“But that’s all you get to think about, isn’t it. Fucking childhood dream, wasn’t it.” He knocked back another shot and asked for more. The bartender didn’t even look at him as she neatly filled his tumbler. Probably wasn’t used to getting tips from any of the poor buggers who stumbled in before seven with the sole purpose of getting absolutely shit-faced as fast as possible. Well, fuck her. And fuck her judgements, too. Jerry had his reasons. Good ones, too. Why oh why had he ever dreamed of being a cop?
“Here’s to childhood fucking dreams.” Jerry raised his glass melodramatically.
He slammed that glass right back down and nearly fell off his stool when someone (right beside him, how did he get right beside him, how did he never notice?!) said, “I’ll drink to that.”
And then all Jerry could do was gape, whiskey forgotten in the loose curl of his now sticky-with-booze hand. Because this was not Dean Winchester, this could not be Dean Winchester, but by heaven and hell Jerry would swear that Dean Winchester had pulled up a stool right sidled up next to him to down shot after shot of his own.
“Whoa there, sorry buddy.” Dean Winchester was a thoughtful man who helped strangers keep their precarious balance on bar stools. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle. Look like you’re having a rough day already.”
He was talking to Jerry. Dean Winchester was talking to Jerry; had his hand on Jerry’s arm. Was snapping his fingers in front of Jerry’s face as he gaped like a fish pulled fresh out of water.
“Hey, buddy. You good?”
Say something. Say it. Say it now! “Yes! I mean, yeah. Good. Fine, I’m great, everything’s cool.” It was hot, he was sweating, and oh, god, he was going to die. Any minute, Dean Winchester was going to pull Sam out of his pocket, and then an Uzi or five, and then the Brothers Grimm were going to mow down every person in the bar and Jerry couldn’t find his limbs. Bad, bad, very very bad.
The sudden blare of Metallica coming from Dean’s pocket startled Jerry, and he knocked his tumbler fully over. The bartender swore and jumped to mop it up with a dingy rag. But don’t worry about that, we’re all going to die anyway, and it’ll be in a mess your rag can’t ever ever clean. And shut up Jerry, shut it. Dean Winchester was speaking.
“Hey, Sammy. No, I’m on my way. Dude, I’m like two shakes out, so you can go ahead and untwist those panties of yours.” And he was getting mad, fuck, he was getting angry. “Yeah, I know, I get it. Don’t worry, I can handle it. Have so far, haven’t I?” Winchester shoved his phone back into his pocket, drained his shot, and smiled at the bartender as he reached into his jacket-and this is it, it’s really it, never thought you’d die a coward, did you, Jerry; can’t even raise an arm in protest, you dumb, drunk fuck-and pulled out a wallet. Threw two bills on the bar and walked out.
Jerry stared after him, throwing up an arm as Dean pulled the door open and the razor light of a setting sun flooded his eyes. The light curled around Dean like a halo, briefly, and then the door swung shut, and he was gone.
His heart was beating wildly in his chest, and in his throat, head, roiling stomach.
“Did you, did you see that? Him?” Jerry swivelled clumsily on his stool, slurring out inadequate panic with each bitten off word. “Was that really him?”
The bartender didn’t even look up, just said, “Sure, dude. Whatever you say. Want another round?”
Jerry nodded, nodded, and knew something was wrong with his brain. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. Beer goggles, except instead of hot women, Dean Winchester. That was all.
That was all.
Maybe therapy would be a good idea. Jerry resolved to consider this when he was once again fully sober. He watched the bartender pull the whisky out, drummed his knuckles against the solid wood of the bar, and waited.
--
The third time, Detective Ostime decided that maybe he wasn’t crazy, after all. The count was up to five-Cameron’s cooling body was found by her husband late the evening before-and wasn’t this almost the MO from St. Louis, back in ‘06? Mutilated victims, all pretty women? And Jared knew the Winchesters had both evolved and devolved since then, sporadically weaving elements of superstition and perverse fairy tale into their crimes, leaving a signature unique and wholly their own.
Detective Ostime pulled up in front of the precinct early Monday morning and paused, hand just about to pull the keys from the ignition. Sam Winchester, because it had to be Sam Winchester, was walking, cool as can be, across the street. Twice might have been a coincidence created by his breaking mind, but three times? And it made so much sense, fit every pattern they’d seen in the crime scenes.
Sam stumbled and fell against a wall. And was he… Fucking psychotic, is what he is. Sam was muttering to himself, shaking his head over and over, clawing at one hand with the other until he found a tight grip, pressing with a force that corded the considerable muscles in his forearm. Jared watched with a bizarre fascination as Sam pulled himself together enough to wobble on forward, but when he got out of his car to at least confirm Sam’s identity, and maybe even pull him in for questioning, Sam had disappeared.
He walked into the bull pen in what he would have called a daze, had he not felt more clear headed than he had for weeks.
“I just saw our man, outside.” Instantly, every ear perked up, some half-rising from where they sat. “Sam Winchester. Dean, too. Gotta be.”
Erik Lewinski half chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, this is just about their level of fucked-up. Too bad.”
“Too bad what? We’ve got our man,” Jared said, excitement faltering as he saw the interest in the room dwindling. “I saw him, just now, and before, too.”
“Come on, Ostime. We don’t have the time to chase ghosts, and you shouldn’t be distracting us, or yourself,” Lewinski said. “We’ve got to head down to the newest crime scene, see what it tells us now that it’s properly light out.”
“But I saw him. He was just… Just out there.”
“Believe me, Ostime, I wish it were just that easy.”
But it was-it was.
--
The fourth time, Sam was driving a shitty old car past the newest victim’s house, squinting against the sun. The fifth, Sam was jogging through a park Jared was driving past.
And no one would believe him.
“Look, man, I know you want to catch this guy, just like I do, but we’re not going to catch him by chasing ghosts, or delusions, or glory.”
“Pull it together, Ostime.”
“Get back on track. Forget about the Brothers Grimm. We got our own alive-and-breathing fuckhead to deal with.”
“Jared, I’m worried about you.” Emily always did have the softest eyes. “Please, just forget about the Winchesters. They're dead. They're dead and they're not coming back, ever again. Please.”
But they were right there. Under their noses. Killing and killing and killing.
--
The sixth time, Jared saw Sam paying for take-out in a small diner just off Main, but Emily pulled him away and into the grocery store before he could get a closer look.
“Em, I gotta go back.”
“Hey, you’re the one who suggested we get the grocery shopping in hand this weekend,” she said, smiling up at him. “You don’t get to bow out so easily.”
“Sorry, but I just saw him. I’ll be right back,” he said, turning away.
Emily sighed. “Sam Winchester? Or is it Dean this time?”
Jared turned right back around. Yeah, him seeing someone that no one else did, someone who was confirmed dead so far as the world was concerned, had done nothing good for his still-young reputation in this city he was so new to, but he thought that Emily, surely Emily, would come around to the idea, would…
Would what, Jerry? Believe your killer is a dead man? Literally?
“He was right there, in that diner,” he said, trailing off. “I might still catch him.”
But the diner was empty of Winchesters when he got there, towing Emily along behind him. There was only one waitress on the floor; when asked, she said, “Well, there was a young man in here not long ago. Bit touched in the head, I think. Couldn’t seem to quite grasp what I was say, poor dear. Kept looking over his shoulder at something that wasn’t there. Nice enough, though. Smiled with dimples and everything.”
Jared knew it was him, just knew it was crazy-ass Sam Winchester, but still Emily’s concern burned him; more than the derision of his fellow officers.
--
There was no seventh time. Jerry thought it odd when a whole week passed without another murder, but it was only after a whole month had passed, ground freezing over with winter and malls everywhere rolling out the decorations for Christmas, that he dared hope that it was over. It both was and wasn’t, though: They never did catch their killer. In fact, they never even pinned a suspect in their sights they liked.
Well, except for Jerry, but it was decided that Jerry didn’t know what he was talking about, anyway. The pressure to find someone, anyone, must have gotten to him, they whispered. At this point, some would reply with sympathy that who could blame him, poor dear, fresh transfer, first major promotion, no wonder his mind went and took a break when all those horrid bodies piled up. Others, of course, would say, in a much more snide tone, that maybe if he hadn’t been distracted by his own mad ramblings, he would have caught a break.
But Jerry knew, even if no one else did. He knew that the reason they never caught a break was because the Winchesters were both just that good and, to the eyes of the world, just that dead.
No, he never would see either Winchester again, though he camped out long inside Amigo’s, waiting on the off-chance they came back. Drumming his knuckles against the bar top, ignoring call after call, and waiting. If he had gone home, he might have been able to stop Emily as she packed all of her things into boxes; if he had gone into work, he might have been able to do something about the pink slip left innocuously on his desk. But he didn’t do either, because he was waiting to catch his killer.
And if he had a drink or two while he waited, who could blame him?
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