fic: supernatural // these crimes of illusion, chapter 2.1 [R]
Here it is -- the anticipated Part 2. I really do love this sequence, and it's continuation in the next chapter. It was one of the most enjoyable and challenging parts to write. Many thanks to koyote19 for beta'ing this chapter even though she's on vacation in Las Vegas. She deserves a cookie, guys, cause without her, you'd be waiting until Monday to get this --
-- and probably ready to come after me, I'm sure. But I have a Capital One Card! Doesn't that mean I'm safe?
Thoughts, observations, and formatting errors I missed would be much appreciated, as I'm a bit blocked near the end of this tale (though don't worry -- you will get an update every week....I'm 70 pages from here!). The muse needs lovin', and does more than ever.
Title: These Crimes of Illusion
Rating: R
Genre: Pre-Series, Gen
Summary: Dean finds himself in the clutches of a fae, only to find the aftermath's more difficult that he expected when a price has been put on his head. There's only so much help a father can give...
Previous Chapters: 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6
These Crimes of Illusion
Part 2
Chapter 2.1
Did you realize, no one can see inside your view,
Did you realize, for why this sight belongs to you...
"Strangers," Portishead
"You'd do it, wouldn't you?"
"With infinite regret but negligible hesitation, yes."
Paint Your Dragon, Tom Holt
They meet in Rocky's Mountain Diner, a smallish place in a former train car off one of the major highways connecting Pennsylvania and Virginia. The proprietor, a sickly, slight man (seen pictured above the cash register with a larger, more imposing friend), obviously enjoyed puns, having named his diner such when so close to the Appalachian Mountain Range.
If his name was truly Rocky remained a mystery.
The old train car provided excellent coverage; the original doors had been soldered shut and covered with plywood to blend in, a new one cut into the long side of the car. John chooses a seat farthest from the door, his back to the wall, and waits. Scans his surroundings and eyes the pretty waitress that reminds him of his sister-in-law.
Pretty in a plain, middle-American way. Unremarkable brown hair with matching eyes, a small, nicely shaped nose. Dean would have liked her if he could see her, though the meal and meeting would then be constantly interrupted by his attempts to flirt with her.
Casey -- that's his sister-in-law's name. The last time he'd seen her, or his brother, for that matter, had been three weeks after Mary's death, when obsession clouded John's mind and made the decision to hunt for him. They left apprehensively, wondering if John could take care of his infant son; their eyes betrayed them, and John told them exactly where they could shove their concerns.
For a man who valued family so highly, he sure did ignore his own.
"They got eggs, right?" asks Dean from across the table. His menu lays on the table where the waitress set it, Dean's fingers playing with the edge, sliding it back and forth in a small arch.
Scrip. Scrape. John reads over his own menu, a cursorylook exchanged between the laminated sheet and the diner.
"What kind of diner wouldn't have eggs, Dean?" John replies calmly. Still timid around Dean after all he's thought, even if his thinking hasn't changed.
Across from him, Dean shrugs. "Weird ones? Sounds crowded to me, though." Pauses, thoughtful. John smiles at his son's assessment. "Gotta have good food."
"Or it could be this is the only place for a few miles."
"Even better. People don't travel for bad eggs."
John nods and checks the clock above the kitchen.
"How late is this guy?" Dean says. Scrip. Scrape. Scrip. He's still pushing the menu back and forth, finger on the corner. The laminate's peeling under his finger, and he picks at it after a moment.
"Ten minutes, thirty seconds."
"Could be his watch is slow. Where the hell's the waitress, anyway? I'm starving."
A woman in the booth next to them turns at the swear, a frown plastered across her features. Outside the larger cities, people aren't accustomed to swears in public places, disapproving of those who use such vulgarity when children are around. John counted three kids under the age of ten when walking in, all of them out of earshot.
He warns Dean about his language just the same.
"God da - rn people," Dean mutters. Starts playing with the menu again. "Why're they so darn sensitive? Look at me," -- Dean points both thumbs inward at himself -- "I grew up around swears and turned out just fine."
They share a laugh at John's obvious -- and handed down -- military vocabulary when the bells above the door jingle with the arrival of a new customer. Both snap to attention, John scanning the man with an appraising eye, Dean waiting for something to indicate his dad's assessment.
Thick steps march up to their table. "You must be John."
"Depends."
"Martin said you were ex-military on the phone. You guys stick out in a crowd. Makes me wonder how good all that training is if you can't even blend in around civilians."
Dean can't see the speaker, but knows he doesn't like him. If there's one way you don't start a conversation with a Marine, it's to insult his abilities in the field -- whether it's in the middle of a hot zone or the eastern United States; doesn't matter.
But John takes it in stride, glances at his son, and remembers why they're having this meeting in the first place. The depths he's gone to in order to even find this man aren't exactly legal, nor comfortable; can't put all that work to waste just because this man doesn't know good conversation.
"This is my son, Dean. Hungry?"
There's a Chinese fire drill; John stands and offers his seat to the visitor and scoots into the booth next to Dean. He doesn't like giving up his position -- next to Dean, he can't see anything but a 50's style painting advertising motor oil -- but figures it's easier than telling Dean, out loud, to move so neither had to sit next to the stranger.
"Sure am." Raises a hand and waves over the pretty Casey-looking waitress.
She's peppy and bouncy, just like so many other waitresses in so many nameless towns. "What'll you have?"
There's got to be something in her voice that gives her away, because as soon as she speaks, Dean turns up to where he thinks she's standing and gives a wide smile.
"What's good here?" he asks.
She gives a sour face -- realizes he can't see her -- and shifts, uneasy, like most, with blind people. Her compensation, a fake, but sparkling smile, is a little much -- he can't see her, and thus, doesn't know she's giving pity.
"Anything, darlin'," she sings. "But we do have good bacon and eggs."
"Sounds good to me."
If there's any indication John's doing the right thing, it's this. The awkward tension in the air, the pity in the waitresses' eyes, Dean's poor attempt at flirting. Things such as this should go smoothly; Dean has good skills at sweet-talking girls and usually never fails, even on his worst days.
But the way she looks at him. God. If ever there was a reason...
Orders are given; the waitress gives one last fleeting look in Dean's direction, and runs off to put their orders in. If John had been sitting on the other side of the table, he would have seen her sigh and speak with the other waitresses, motioning towards Dean with that frown.
"Something like this isn't cheap, and isn't easy -- "
"You haven't given your name," interjects Dean. Just because he can't see doesn't mean he can't read the man. "Puts us at a slight disadvantage."
"Martin didn't say anything about sharing names," the man intones. Defiant and dodgy -- two traits that mark the less favorable in their shadow profession. Considering what he's been contacted to do explains his reluctance, but he wears the word 'rebel' across his forehead in a light even Dean can make out.
He's toying with the Winchester men for a bit of sport.
"Consider it a show of good faith," John tries.
The man laughs and sips his coffee casually. "Good faith? My friend, there is nothing good or faithful about what you want to do. Contacting the Queen isn't something you just do casually. There's gamblin' involved. Shady stuff. You sure you want to dirty your hands with this stuff?"
"Dirty our hands? What do we look like, girl scouts?" shoots Dean. "How do you think I got into this situation? By handing out cookies to the wrong house?"
The man holds up his hands, though Dean can't see the peace offer. "Hey, hey. Calm down there, boy. Name's Eric Stallis, okay? That change anything?"
"Nothing unless you do something," John warns. Already, he's feeling a bit uneasy about the transaction, and if it weren't for the waitress plopping their plates of eggs and bacon down on the table, he would have said something to that effect.
Instead, he watches Dean attempt to dig in; he feels about the plate with his fork, mapping out the contents in his mind as if they were exploring the terrain of a mountain pass or creature's habitat. John finds it endearing, almost, but sad at the same time. He takes a few bites of his own breakfast out of courtesy more than hunger, and leaves Dean to eat.
"You said this isn't going to be cheap or easy. Martin didn't say anything about payment."
Stallis speaks around a mouthful of toast. "Oh, it ain't that kind of payment, not the human kind. You lose, and you're paying with something more."
Something John knows well. His research showed the most common punishment for a human possessing the Sight, either through eye anointment or, in Dean's case, birth, was blindness. Only on a few occasions did people get away, and only through the kindness of the fae they encountered.
"We understand that," John admits. "But we don't intend to lose."
"Man, Martin was right about you boys. Sure play tough, don't you? All or nothing. This isn't a game, Mr. Marine. Not something you can go into with guns blazing. You've got to think in order to get what you want from fae." Stallis pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and slides it across the table. It scratches against the Formica tabletop, pulling Dean's attention from his breakfast. Blind eyes follow it eerily across the table.
"Here's what I've got. You find this guy, you play a game of chess. If you win, you'll be able to speak to the Queen."
"And if we don't?" Dean asks.
"Well, you don't want to lose, let's just say that. Losing's, well, that's when you want to pull out your guns and find some iron."
--
"A chess game?" Dean slides into the passenger seat of the Impala and begins digging through his box of cassette tapes. Digs through and finds a random tape. It's nothing too loud, and John simply turns down the volume instead of ejecting it. "When was the last time you played chess?"
"It's been awhile."
"Yeah. Oh, we're going to win this one." Dean rolls his eyes. "Why couldn't they just challenge us to a duel or something?"
"Despite their reputation," John says, pulling out of the diner's parking lot, "they enjoy tricking humans. We need to be prepared for the chance this isn't a normal chess game."
"Isn't normal? Dad, we're not chess people." Dean sighs and leans back in his seat. "Damnit, Sam."
They'd grown too interdependent. Too reliant on each others' strengths to get them through tough situations. John and Dean, they were no match for a fae challenging them to a chess game, but Sam; his departure left more holes than emotional ones, and filling those in was hard to do.
Dean grumbles a bit more. John lets him, more tolerant of Dean's random sequeways and bouts of anger now that he can see them in himself.
Can't blame a child for taking after the parent; the catch phrase 'do what I say, not what I do' never took on with either of his boys.
"What did the paper say?" asks Dean ten miles out on the way to Virginia. John almost pulls it from his pocket to toss at Dean before remembering the waitress' face.
"Tomorrow at dusk. Chilton Woods."
"Long drive?" He'd take out the map if he could. Dean reaches for it, then flops back in his seat and swears. Useless. No matter how much his dad tests his reflexes or tells him to watch his back, Dean is never going to be at the top of his game until this is finished.
He wonders if it can be finished.
"I don't need you feeling sorry for yourself, Ace," chides John from the wheel. "This isn't the time to be thinking about what you can't do. We're going to fix this, then you can get all mad. But not now. You got it?"
"Yes, sir."
It's half-hearted and muttered to the windshield, but both get the message.
--
The drive through southern Pennsylvania blends into northern Virginia with nothing more than a 'Thank You For Visiting...' sign followed by a green highway marker on the state line. Dean sees neither, just hears the wind rushing through the open windows, and wind sounds the same no matter where you are. State lines are arbitrary, anyway; trees and forests and monsters don't look at maps when settling in a new country.
These followed the settlers to the new world and stayed. The Midwest is crawling with creatures brave enough to wander from the east coast; many decided the land there was good, the fields a change of pace. Not many on the west coast or Florida -- something Dean believes is a real bummer; he could use the vacation time.
Halfway through, the wind stops. Dean frowns, knowing something should be brushing across his face from the cracked window, but doesn't feel a thing. He reaches up to make sure he's not imagining things, traces the beveled edge of the window's open edge.
"Do you feel that?" he asks. His father's been quiet the last twenty miles or so, hand tapping softly on the steering wheel along to whatever music comes through on the radio.
"What's that?" says his dad.
Dean taps on the window. "That. There's nothing. I didn't pay that much attention in high school, but doesn't physics say something about bodies in motion?"
"Yes."
"Then why isn't there a breeze through the window?"
A pause. Rarely is his father at a loss for words.
"Dad?"
His reply is his dad gunning the engine. "It's a vacuum."
"Wait, what?"
"There's still a breeze, Dean. You just can't feel it."
Oh.
"There are a lot of creatures in these forests," his dad explains. "They give off their own kind of signature to let others know they're here. I've consulted with a few psychics in this area; EMF meters are useless."
"Thanks for the history lesson, dad," Dean scoffs. "But that doesn't explain the vacuum."
"Maybe that's your way of receiving their signal," John tries. His voice is tight; Dean knows something's lurking under the surface, influencing his dad's sudden change. He has a pretty good idea what it is, and if Dean weren't thinking the same thing, he'd be worried -- or wouldn't be. It's a philosophical argument, and despite reading the books and being quizzed, Dean's isn't too keen on thinking them through.
He knows he's become something unnatural. Estrella -- he shudders to think her name -- told him as much. Taunted him with the knowledge that he had become a freak among humans. Something outside the boundaries of normal -- of faerie law -- no one knew how to deal with.
And if he broke such boundaries already, who was to say he wouldn't cross more?
Honestly, that frightened him more than anything; than permanent blindness or unseen injuries left by Estrella he had yet to find. Of all happening around him, Dean fears becoming the very thing he's hunted, or helped hunt, since he was too young to remember. Who knew what would happen in the future? Were the lines blurred or drawn with reality so as he could not see them?
"As soon as we finish this," Dean states, voice cutting through the car with a hard edge, "I won't be receiving anything but a good drink and maybe some favorable attention."
"Don't be so quick to dismiss this, Dean."
The radio fizzes in and out; they're passing out of range of the station John's been listening to for the last hour. Static fills the car, dancing specs of confusion spreading white noise between father and son.
"Are you crazy? There's nothing good that can come out of this. No. I'll dismiss it as fast as quickly as I want." Crosses his arms, huffs, and Dean's not moving from his decision. Why would he want a constant and unseen reminder of all this? Scars, fine. Scars can be covered by clothes or ignored. But this -- Dean's had plenty of experience ignoring feelings and emotions, but this is different. Deeper.
"We could use it to our advantage."
"Yeah. Go ahead. Use me to your advantage. We've been hunting this long without freak Dean, we can keep doing it."
Dean reaches over and closes his window, the whistling he knows should be accompanied by wind extinguished. He hears it from his dad's side of the car, but not feeling it from over there doesn't freak him out as much. This, hell, this is freaking the shit out of him.
His dad turns off the hissing radio. "Never dismiss an asset that can be used in the field. If you can sense fields, you may be able to sense if something's getting too close."
"Sure, okay."
They stay silent. Sunset casts the mountains in an amber glow that sparkles like stars at midnight, bright gold spots dancing in darkness. Dean's used to silver specks when looking up at night, breath coming out in puffs in the cold air while out on in a hunt; the gold is so beautiful, it captivates his full attention until the sun's finally set. For a few minutes, the two overlap, and Dean feels a bit sentimental when gold and silver blend into a blanket of midnight black.
Out here, away from even the smallest town, the stars seem brighter. A few lights dot the parking lot of a trucker's stop, but they're old, yellowed lights that don't offer up much competition against the moon.
Semis sit in the lot, a few with sleepers, a few empty. There's a diner with a second floor boasting empty rooms with low nightly rates. Inside is packed full of people sipping coffee and chewing on slices of pie, a few have their heads down on the table and are sleeping for a lot cheaper than the room rates upstairs.
John believes that's the way to go; medicine and supplies for Dean has drained their cash flow, and a truck stop in northern Virginia isn't one to present many opportunities for their methods of making extra cash. Grab a warm meal and slouch down in the red plastic booth for a few hours before hitting the road.
Chilton Woods isn't much farther, maybe five hours or so, but John isn't a man to walk into a situation without as much information as possible -- he plans on walking the woods for at least three hours before dusk. Map out the terrain, find possible hiding places, areas for ambushes. See what Dean can sense, if anything.
At the thought of Dean, John turns to the passenger seat. His son's watching the mountains out the window, eyes catching the yellow lights of the parking lot as John slides the Impala into a space.
"See anything out there?" he asks.
Dean almost jumps -- almost; he gives surprise a purpose. "The mountains. They have stars. Or something. It's nice to see something." He shrugs. "You find a motel out here?"
"Truck stop."
"Good. I'm hungry."
The door creaks as Dean gets out. He stretches tall outside and takes in some of the cool mountain air. For a moment, he looks normal, like nothing's wrong -- this is just another hunt. But then Dean winces and folds up again, grimacing against a smile.
--
"Was there a specific place mentioned on that note? Cause this place is over 300 acres, right?" Dean swats at a tree branch in front of him with the stick he's picked up to 'feel things out;' the last thing he wants is a branch whacking him in the face while running from unseen creatures after losing a chess game.
"Roughly. The family donated their estate to the forest service after the last descendant the family died," John explains. He pushes a branch from in front of Dean, waits for him to step through, and follows. "I don't have any hard evidence, but I believe the family allowed fae to inhabit the grounds before this became a public park."
"So, what? Family dies, no one knows, and the will leaves it to Virginia? Did they miss the footnote about magical creatures living here?"
John nods, then remembers Dean only sees gold star-lights in the distance, not him. "Perhaps it was a family secret."
"Oh, those always go over really well at funerals." Dean rolls his eyes, twin orbs of white-blue. "Unless you're immortal, it's not a good idea to leave things to people who are idiots."
"Ignorant to family history, Dean. There's a difference."
They're not direct people, him and Dean, and when something truthful comes out, it can slip under the radar unnoticed. John leans on that, hopes Dean doesn't wonder if perhaps he doesn't know everything about their family history, doesn't start asking more questions.
"Yeah, whatever," Dean says. He swats at the air with the stick. "Should have at least kept it private."
"It was donated to the state. By law, it has to be open to the public."
Dean throws his arms up in defeat, the stick flying into the upper branch of a nearby tree. "Then I guess hikers are just fucked if they wander off the trail."
"There are signs warning them not to," John informs him. They've moved off into a clearing, a simple gap between older trees, but Dean's still waving his stick around. "Very sternly."
"From my experience, people always listen to those signs. For a real fear of death." Dean whirls to face John, stopping just short of some vegetation. "If people listened when told something, we'd be out of a job."
But John's not listening. His eyes wander to the small object near Dean's left heel, small, grey --
"Don't move."
"Huh?"
John walks around Dean and to the left. Mushrooms grow in an oblong circle in the middle of the clearing. A faerie circle.
"Do you sense anything? See anything?"
"No."
"Step forward, walk to your left. Thirty degrees."
Dean moves with the precision John calls for, his measurement almost perfect as he blindly rounds the ring. "This isn't fair. I can't see whatever you're freaking about."
"It's a faerie ring."
"Yeah, well, it's dormant or else I'd be seeing a fireworks display."
They leave the ring behind, though John makes a note to destroy it later if they have the time, even if it would anger whatever creatures are watching them. But time would mean winning the chess game, and for however long it took to find the Queen, they'd be under her protection.
Dusk comes too quickly. When it does, golds and reds climbing over the tops of evergreens and oaks, John hastens his pace. There's still so much to map out, even if he doesn't know where the meeting's to take place; he feels ill-prepared. The last time he even attempted chess seriously was high school.
Dean walks beside him, now, the stick abandoned a few clearings ago. Whatever inhabits this forest comes out in spades at night, creating their own twilight Dean clues in on and uses to navigate.
A hush fills the woods, the wind singing while it whistles through the forest, catching leaves here and there that flutter to the ground like falling ballerinas. A chill descends with the absence of the sun, the branches boney hands reaching towards the Earth. John's momentary reminded of the Spirit of the Birch, that screaming face seen in the twisted white bark, ready to touch the head of a moral and send them into insanity.
Or death, if the hand reached the heart.
Just another one of the myths John committed to memory should they leap from the pages and prove themselves real.
The story warns him away from the reaching branches, huddling him and Dean close to the center of the forest, squeezed together shoulder to shoulder. John takes out a flashlight a few minutes past dark, the light sweeping the path in front of them. Dean follows the path with conviction -- without the aide of the flashlight, head high.
"So, no meeting place, huh?" he asks after a few more minutes. "Great. This place is teeming with things."
"Things?"
Dean shrugs. "You know," -- he waves his hands about him -- "things. Creatures. Lights. They're everywhere." He shudders when he says this. Uncomfortable.
An emotion they both share. Whatever is out there is watching them, wondering why they wandered from the path when so many others have listened to the signs and stayed where it's safe.
The wind gusts behind them. Both turn, concerned; the importance of wind in mythology has never been understated, and they know it. John turns in time with Dean, eyes lingering on his son for just a moment longer than normal, trying to read if anything was amiss, then turned completely --
-- to find the forest had disappeared.
Beside him, Dean swears. Where trees once stood heavy with summer leaves and fruit, they now stand barren, arms reaching for a stormy sky. The ground has lost its lush green grass in turn for brown dirt.
But that's not why Dean swore.
Standing not two feet from them is a man. At least it's shaped like a man, though the face is smooth white porcelain, animated where a sculptor could only capture one expression. The face blends into a white cape; it swishes over his head and down his back, wraps his arms and legs to give the impression of a child playing a ghost with a white sheet thrown over their head.
The man's hands are bones, like the branches of a Birch, and John thinks remembering that particular story earlier couldn't have been a coincidence.
There's no wind here. No breath from the man-creature before them. Stillness and silence, a complete absence of sound.
"Shit," Dean swears again. "Fucking faerie realm."
The man-creature motions with an arm draped in white behind him. A table topped with a chess board and pieces is revealed as he turns to the side, white bark exposed along the bench seats and tabletop. Not a word is exchanged, but the intent is clear:
Shall we play?
Chapter 2.2 >>
-- and probably ready to come after me, I'm sure. But I have a Capital One Card! Doesn't that mean I'm safe?
Thoughts, observations, and formatting errors I missed would be much appreciated, as I'm a bit blocked near the end of this tale (though don't worry -- you will get an update every week....I'm 70 pages from here!). The muse needs lovin', and does more than ever.
Title: These Crimes of Illusion
Rating: R
Genre: Pre-Series, Gen
Summary: Dean finds himself in the clutches of a fae, only to find the aftermath's more difficult that he expected when a price has been put on his head. There's only so much help a father can give...
Previous Chapters: 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6
These Crimes of Illusion
Part 2
Chapter 2.1
Did you realize, no one can see inside your view,
Did you realize, for why this sight belongs to you...
"Strangers," Portishead
"You'd do it, wouldn't you?"
"With infinite regret but negligible hesitation, yes."
Paint Your Dragon, Tom Holt
They meet in Rocky's Mountain Diner, a smallish place in a former train car off one of the major highways connecting Pennsylvania and Virginia. The proprietor, a sickly, slight man (seen pictured above the cash register with a larger, more imposing friend), obviously enjoyed puns, having named his diner such when so close to the Appalachian Mountain Range.
If his name was truly Rocky remained a mystery.
The old train car provided excellent coverage; the original doors had been soldered shut and covered with plywood to blend in, a new one cut into the long side of the car. John chooses a seat farthest from the door, his back to the wall, and waits. Scans his surroundings and eyes the pretty waitress that reminds him of his sister-in-law.
Pretty in a plain, middle-American way. Unremarkable brown hair with matching eyes, a small, nicely shaped nose. Dean would have liked her if he could see her, though the meal and meeting would then be constantly interrupted by his attempts to flirt with her.
Casey -- that's his sister-in-law's name. The last time he'd seen her, or his brother, for that matter, had been three weeks after Mary's death, when obsession clouded John's mind and made the decision to hunt for him. They left apprehensively, wondering if John could take care of his infant son; their eyes betrayed them, and John told them exactly where they could shove their concerns.
For a man who valued family so highly, he sure did ignore his own.
"They got eggs, right?" asks Dean from across the table. His menu lays on the table where the waitress set it, Dean's fingers playing with the edge, sliding it back and forth in a small arch.
Scrip. Scrape. John reads over his own menu, a cursorylook exchanged between the laminated sheet and the diner.
"What kind of diner wouldn't have eggs, Dean?" John replies calmly. Still timid around Dean after all he's thought, even if his thinking hasn't changed.
Across from him, Dean shrugs. "Weird ones? Sounds crowded to me, though." Pauses, thoughtful. John smiles at his son's assessment. "Gotta have good food."
"Or it could be this is the only place for a few miles."
"Even better. People don't travel for bad eggs."
John nods and checks the clock above the kitchen.
"How late is this guy?" Dean says. Scrip. Scrape. Scrip. He's still pushing the menu back and forth, finger on the corner. The laminate's peeling under his finger, and he picks at it after a moment.
"Ten minutes, thirty seconds."
"Could be his watch is slow. Where the hell's the waitress, anyway? I'm starving."
A woman in the booth next to them turns at the swear, a frown plastered across her features. Outside the larger cities, people aren't accustomed to swears in public places, disapproving of those who use such vulgarity when children are around. John counted three kids under the age of ten when walking in, all of them out of earshot.
He warns Dean about his language just the same.
"God da - rn people," Dean mutters. Starts playing with the menu again. "Why're they so darn sensitive? Look at me," -- Dean points both thumbs inward at himself -- "I grew up around swears and turned out just fine."
They share a laugh at John's obvious -- and handed down -- military vocabulary when the bells above the door jingle with the arrival of a new customer. Both snap to attention, John scanning the man with an appraising eye, Dean waiting for something to indicate his dad's assessment.
Thick steps march up to their table. "You must be John."
"Depends."
"Martin said you were ex-military on the phone. You guys stick out in a crowd. Makes me wonder how good all that training is if you can't even blend in around civilians."
Dean can't see the speaker, but knows he doesn't like him. If there's one way you don't start a conversation with a Marine, it's to insult his abilities in the field -- whether it's in the middle of a hot zone or the eastern United States; doesn't matter.
But John takes it in stride, glances at his son, and remembers why they're having this meeting in the first place. The depths he's gone to in order to even find this man aren't exactly legal, nor comfortable; can't put all that work to waste just because this man doesn't know good conversation.
"This is my son, Dean. Hungry?"
There's a Chinese fire drill; John stands and offers his seat to the visitor and scoots into the booth next to Dean. He doesn't like giving up his position -- next to Dean, he can't see anything but a 50's style painting advertising motor oil -- but figures it's easier than telling Dean, out loud, to move so neither had to sit next to the stranger.
"Sure am." Raises a hand and waves over the pretty Casey-looking waitress.
She's peppy and bouncy, just like so many other waitresses in so many nameless towns. "What'll you have?"
There's got to be something in her voice that gives her away, because as soon as she speaks, Dean turns up to where he thinks she's standing and gives a wide smile.
"What's good here?" he asks.
She gives a sour face -- realizes he can't see her -- and shifts, uneasy, like most, with blind people. Her compensation, a fake, but sparkling smile, is a little much -- he can't see her, and thus, doesn't know she's giving pity.
"Anything, darlin'," she sings. "But we do have good bacon and eggs."
"Sounds good to me."
If there's any indication John's doing the right thing, it's this. The awkward tension in the air, the pity in the waitresses' eyes, Dean's poor attempt at flirting. Things such as this should go smoothly; Dean has good skills at sweet-talking girls and usually never fails, even on his worst days.
But the way she looks at him. God. If ever there was a reason...
Orders are given; the waitress gives one last fleeting look in Dean's direction, and runs off to put their orders in. If John had been sitting on the other side of the table, he would have seen her sigh and speak with the other waitresses, motioning towards Dean with that frown.
"Something like this isn't cheap, and isn't easy -- "
"You haven't given your name," interjects Dean. Just because he can't see doesn't mean he can't read the man. "Puts us at a slight disadvantage."
"Martin didn't say anything about sharing names," the man intones. Defiant and dodgy -- two traits that mark the less favorable in their shadow profession. Considering what he's been contacted to do explains his reluctance, but he wears the word 'rebel' across his forehead in a light even Dean can make out.
He's toying with the Winchester men for a bit of sport.
"Consider it a show of good faith," John tries.
The man laughs and sips his coffee casually. "Good faith? My friend, there is nothing good or faithful about what you want to do. Contacting the Queen isn't something you just do casually. There's gamblin' involved. Shady stuff. You sure you want to dirty your hands with this stuff?"
"Dirty our hands? What do we look like, girl scouts?" shoots Dean. "How do you think I got into this situation? By handing out cookies to the wrong house?"
The man holds up his hands, though Dean can't see the peace offer. "Hey, hey. Calm down there, boy. Name's Eric Stallis, okay? That change anything?"
"Nothing unless you do something," John warns. Already, he's feeling a bit uneasy about the transaction, and if it weren't for the waitress plopping their plates of eggs and bacon down on the table, he would have said something to that effect.
Instead, he watches Dean attempt to dig in; he feels about the plate with his fork, mapping out the contents in his mind as if they were exploring the terrain of a mountain pass or creature's habitat. John finds it endearing, almost, but sad at the same time. He takes a few bites of his own breakfast out of courtesy more than hunger, and leaves Dean to eat.
"You said this isn't going to be cheap or easy. Martin didn't say anything about payment."
Stallis speaks around a mouthful of toast. "Oh, it ain't that kind of payment, not the human kind. You lose, and you're paying with something more."
Something John knows well. His research showed the most common punishment for a human possessing the Sight, either through eye anointment or, in Dean's case, birth, was blindness. Only on a few occasions did people get away, and only through the kindness of the fae they encountered.
"We understand that," John admits. "But we don't intend to lose."
"Man, Martin was right about you boys. Sure play tough, don't you? All or nothing. This isn't a game, Mr. Marine. Not something you can go into with guns blazing. You've got to think in order to get what you want from fae." Stallis pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and slides it across the table. It scratches against the Formica tabletop, pulling Dean's attention from his breakfast. Blind eyes follow it eerily across the table.
"Here's what I've got. You find this guy, you play a game of chess. If you win, you'll be able to speak to the Queen."
"And if we don't?" Dean asks.
"Well, you don't want to lose, let's just say that. Losing's, well, that's when you want to pull out your guns and find some iron."
--
"A chess game?" Dean slides into the passenger seat of the Impala and begins digging through his box of cassette tapes. Digs through and finds a random tape. It's nothing too loud, and John simply turns down the volume instead of ejecting it. "When was the last time you played chess?"
"It's been awhile."
"Yeah. Oh, we're going to win this one." Dean rolls his eyes. "Why couldn't they just challenge us to a duel or something?"
"Despite their reputation," John says, pulling out of the diner's parking lot, "they enjoy tricking humans. We need to be prepared for the chance this isn't a normal chess game."
"Isn't normal? Dad, we're not chess people." Dean sighs and leans back in his seat. "Damnit, Sam."
They'd grown too interdependent. Too reliant on each others' strengths to get them through tough situations. John and Dean, they were no match for a fae challenging them to a chess game, but Sam; his departure left more holes than emotional ones, and filling those in was hard to do.
Dean grumbles a bit more. John lets him, more tolerant of Dean's random sequeways and bouts of anger now that he can see them in himself.
Can't blame a child for taking after the parent; the catch phrase 'do what I say, not what I do' never took on with either of his boys.
"What did the paper say?" asks Dean ten miles out on the way to Virginia. John almost pulls it from his pocket to toss at Dean before remembering the waitress' face.
"Tomorrow at dusk. Chilton Woods."
"Long drive?" He'd take out the map if he could. Dean reaches for it, then flops back in his seat and swears. Useless. No matter how much his dad tests his reflexes or tells him to watch his back, Dean is never going to be at the top of his game until this is finished.
He wonders if it can be finished.
"I don't need you feeling sorry for yourself, Ace," chides John from the wheel. "This isn't the time to be thinking about what you can't do. We're going to fix this, then you can get all mad. But not now. You got it?"
"Yes, sir."
It's half-hearted and muttered to the windshield, but both get the message.
--
The drive through southern Pennsylvania blends into northern Virginia with nothing more than a 'Thank You For Visiting...' sign followed by a green highway marker on the state line. Dean sees neither, just hears the wind rushing through the open windows, and wind sounds the same no matter where you are. State lines are arbitrary, anyway; trees and forests and monsters don't look at maps when settling in a new country.
These followed the settlers to the new world and stayed. The Midwest is crawling with creatures brave enough to wander from the east coast; many decided the land there was good, the fields a change of pace. Not many on the west coast or Florida -- something Dean believes is a real bummer; he could use the vacation time.
Halfway through, the wind stops. Dean frowns, knowing something should be brushing across his face from the cracked window, but doesn't feel a thing. He reaches up to make sure he's not imagining things, traces the beveled edge of the window's open edge.
"Do you feel that?" he asks. His father's been quiet the last twenty miles or so, hand tapping softly on the steering wheel along to whatever music comes through on the radio.
"What's that?" says his dad.
Dean taps on the window. "That. There's nothing. I didn't pay that much attention in high school, but doesn't physics say something about bodies in motion?"
"Yes."
"Then why isn't there a breeze through the window?"
A pause. Rarely is his father at a loss for words.
"Dad?"
His reply is his dad gunning the engine. "It's a vacuum."
"Wait, what?"
"There's still a breeze, Dean. You just can't feel it."
Oh.
"There are a lot of creatures in these forests," his dad explains. "They give off their own kind of signature to let others know they're here. I've consulted with a few psychics in this area; EMF meters are useless."
"Thanks for the history lesson, dad," Dean scoffs. "But that doesn't explain the vacuum."
"Maybe that's your way of receiving their signal," John tries. His voice is tight; Dean knows something's lurking under the surface, influencing his dad's sudden change. He has a pretty good idea what it is, and if Dean weren't thinking the same thing, he'd be worried -- or wouldn't be. It's a philosophical argument, and despite reading the books and being quizzed, Dean's isn't too keen on thinking them through.
He knows he's become something unnatural. Estrella -- he shudders to think her name -- told him as much. Taunted him with the knowledge that he had become a freak among humans. Something outside the boundaries of normal -- of faerie law -- no one knew how to deal with.
And if he broke such boundaries already, who was to say he wouldn't cross more?
Honestly, that frightened him more than anything; than permanent blindness or unseen injuries left by Estrella he had yet to find. Of all happening around him, Dean fears becoming the very thing he's hunted, or helped hunt, since he was too young to remember. Who knew what would happen in the future? Were the lines blurred or drawn with reality so as he could not see them?
"As soon as we finish this," Dean states, voice cutting through the car with a hard edge, "I won't be receiving anything but a good drink and maybe some favorable attention."
"Don't be so quick to dismiss this, Dean."
The radio fizzes in and out; they're passing out of range of the station John's been listening to for the last hour. Static fills the car, dancing specs of confusion spreading white noise between father and son.
"Are you crazy? There's nothing good that can come out of this. No. I'll dismiss it as fast as quickly as I want." Crosses his arms, huffs, and Dean's not moving from his decision. Why would he want a constant and unseen reminder of all this? Scars, fine. Scars can be covered by clothes or ignored. But this -- Dean's had plenty of experience ignoring feelings and emotions, but this is different. Deeper.
"We could use it to our advantage."
"Yeah. Go ahead. Use me to your advantage. We've been hunting this long without freak Dean, we can keep doing it."
Dean reaches over and closes his window, the whistling he knows should be accompanied by wind extinguished. He hears it from his dad's side of the car, but not feeling it from over there doesn't freak him out as much. This, hell, this is freaking the shit out of him.
His dad turns off the hissing radio. "Never dismiss an asset that can be used in the field. If you can sense fields, you may be able to sense if something's getting too close."
"Sure, okay."
They stay silent. Sunset casts the mountains in an amber glow that sparkles like stars at midnight, bright gold spots dancing in darkness. Dean's used to silver specks when looking up at night, breath coming out in puffs in the cold air while out on in a hunt; the gold is so beautiful, it captivates his full attention until the sun's finally set. For a few minutes, the two overlap, and Dean feels a bit sentimental when gold and silver blend into a blanket of midnight black.
Out here, away from even the smallest town, the stars seem brighter. A few lights dot the parking lot of a trucker's stop, but they're old, yellowed lights that don't offer up much competition against the moon.
Semis sit in the lot, a few with sleepers, a few empty. There's a diner with a second floor boasting empty rooms with low nightly rates. Inside is packed full of people sipping coffee and chewing on slices of pie, a few have their heads down on the table and are sleeping for a lot cheaper than the room rates upstairs.
John believes that's the way to go; medicine and supplies for Dean has drained their cash flow, and a truck stop in northern Virginia isn't one to present many opportunities for their methods of making extra cash. Grab a warm meal and slouch down in the red plastic booth for a few hours before hitting the road.
Chilton Woods isn't much farther, maybe five hours or so, but John isn't a man to walk into a situation without as much information as possible -- he plans on walking the woods for at least three hours before dusk. Map out the terrain, find possible hiding places, areas for ambushes. See what Dean can sense, if anything.
At the thought of Dean, John turns to the passenger seat. His son's watching the mountains out the window, eyes catching the yellow lights of the parking lot as John slides the Impala into a space.
"See anything out there?" he asks.
Dean almost jumps -- almost; he gives surprise a purpose. "The mountains. They have stars. Or something. It's nice to see something." He shrugs. "You find a motel out here?"
"Truck stop."
"Good. I'm hungry."
The door creaks as Dean gets out. He stretches tall outside and takes in some of the cool mountain air. For a moment, he looks normal, like nothing's wrong -- this is just another hunt. But then Dean winces and folds up again, grimacing against a smile.
--
"Was there a specific place mentioned on that note? Cause this place is over 300 acres, right?" Dean swats at a tree branch in front of him with the stick he's picked up to 'feel things out;' the last thing he wants is a branch whacking him in the face while running from unseen creatures after losing a chess game.
"Roughly. The family donated their estate to the forest service after the last descendant the family died," John explains. He pushes a branch from in front of Dean, waits for him to step through, and follows. "I don't have any hard evidence, but I believe the family allowed fae to inhabit the grounds before this became a public park."
"So, what? Family dies, no one knows, and the will leaves it to Virginia? Did they miss the footnote about magical creatures living here?"
John nods, then remembers Dean only sees gold star-lights in the distance, not him. "Perhaps it was a family secret."
"Oh, those always go over really well at funerals." Dean rolls his eyes, twin orbs of white-blue. "Unless you're immortal, it's not a good idea to leave things to people who are idiots."
"Ignorant to family history, Dean. There's a difference."
They're not direct people, him and Dean, and when something truthful comes out, it can slip under the radar unnoticed. John leans on that, hopes Dean doesn't wonder if perhaps he doesn't know everything about their family history, doesn't start asking more questions.
"Yeah, whatever," Dean says. He swats at the air with the stick. "Should have at least kept it private."
"It was donated to the state. By law, it has to be open to the public."
Dean throws his arms up in defeat, the stick flying into the upper branch of a nearby tree. "Then I guess hikers are just fucked if they wander off the trail."
"There are signs warning them not to," John informs him. They've moved off into a clearing, a simple gap between older trees, but Dean's still waving his stick around. "Very sternly."
"From my experience, people always listen to those signs. For a real fear of death." Dean whirls to face John, stopping just short of some vegetation. "If people listened when told something, we'd be out of a job."
But John's not listening. His eyes wander to the small object near Dean's left heel, small, grey --
"Don't move."
"Huh?"
John walks around Dean and to the left. Mushrooms grow in an oblong circle in the middle of the clearing. A faerie circle.
"Do you sense anything? See anything?"
"No."
"Step forward, walk to your left. Thirty degrees."
Dean moves with the precision John calls for, his measurement almost perfect as he blindly rounds the ring. "This isn't fair. I can't see whatever you're freaking about."
"It's a faerie ring."
"Yeah, well, it's dormant or else I'd be seeing a fireworks display."
They leave the ring behind, though John makes a note to destroy it later if they have the time, even if it would anger whatever creatures are watching them. But time would mean winning the chess game, and for however long it took to find the Queen, they'd be under her protection.
Dusk comes too quickly. When it does, golds and reds climbing over the tops of evergreens and oaks, John hastens his pace. There's still so much to map out, even if he doesn't know where the meeting's to take place; he feels ill-prepared. The last time he even attempted chess seriously was high school.
Dean walks beside him, now, the stick abandoned a few clearings ago. Whatever inhabits this forest comes out in spades at night, creating their own twilight Dean clues in on and uses to navigate.
A hush fills the woods, the wind singing while it whistles through the forest, catching leaves here and there that flutter to the ground like falling ballerinas. A chill descends with the absence of the sun, the branches boney hands reaching towards the Earth. John's momentary reminded of the Spirit of the Birch, that screaming face seen in the twisted white bark, ready to touch the head of a moral and send them into insanity.
Or death, if the hand reached the heart.
Just another one of the myths John committed to memory should they leap from the pages and prove themselves real.
The story warns him away from the reaching branches, huddling him and Dean close to the center of the forest, squeezed together shoulder to shoulder. John takes out a flashlight a few minutes past dark, the light sweeping the path in front of them. Dean follows the path with conviction -- without the aide of the flashlight, head high.
"So, no meeting place, huh?" he asks after a few more minutes. "Great. This place is teeming with things."
"Things?"
Dean shrugs. "You know," -- he waves his hands about him -- "things. Creatures. Lights. They're everywhere." He shudders when he says this. Uncomfortable.
An emotion they both share. Whatever is out there is watching them, wondering why they wandered from the path when so many others have listened to the signs and stayed where it's safe.
The wind gusts behind them. Both turn, concerned; the importance of wind in mythology has never been understated, and they know it. John turns in time with Dean, eyes lingering on his son for just a moment longer than normal, trying to read if anything was amiss, then turned completely --
-- to find the forest had disappeared.
Beside him, Dean swears. Where trees once stood heavy with summer leaves and fruit, they now stand barren, arms reaching for a stormy sky. The ground has lost its lush green grass in turn for brown dirt.
But that's not why Dean swore.
Standing not two feet from them is a man. At least it's shaped like a man, though the face is smooth white porcelain, animated where a sculptor could only capture one expression. The face blends into a white cape; it swishes over his head and down his back, wraps his arms and legs to give the impression of a child playing a ghost with a white sheet thrown over their head.
The man's hands are bones, like the branches of a Birch, and John thinks remembering that particular story earlier couldn't have been a coincidence.
There's no wind here. No breath from the man-creature before them. Stillness and silence, a complete absence of sound.
"Shit," Dean swears again. "Fucking faerie realm."
The man-creature motions with an arm draped in white behind him. A table topped with a chess board and pieces is revealed as he turns to the side, white bark exposed along the bench seats and tabletop. Not a word is exchanged, but the intent is clear:
Shall we play?
Chapter 2.2 >>