Mistaken Identities 6/? DA/SPN
god I hate typing identities all the time
beta'd by
Pixel_0
Back to Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Sam shot awake, head pounding, heartbeat racing to catch up with the throbbing in his skull. He should never have fallen asleep, no matter how late the hour; he should have waited up for when Max and Alec returned. Judging by the rising voices he assumed they had.
“And that’s it?” Sam heard Logan ask and turned the corner to see him sitting at his desk. As soon as he stepped in the room, he saw Alec’s head tilt in his direction, obviously hearing his light footsteps, but otherwise saying nothing.
“Yes, Logan, that’s it,” Max replied curtly. “All those factories, we can’t search every one. We need to narrow it down.”
“I checked the footage again and again, White is in that sector, and Dean must be too.”
“So that still leaves a whole bunch of warehouses to get through then,” Alec noted.
“We can’t search them all; we need to get someone in there.”
“It’s too dangerous, if you or Alec go and get caught, White could kill you on the spot, or kill Dean. Same goes for anyone else.”
“I’ll go,” Sam jumped in, just as Alec had thought he would.
“No, you won’t,” the transgenic explained simply, not sparing another moment to convince the man.
“Why does everyone treat me like a naïve little kid? I can take care of myself, and I can sure as hell take care of my brother.” Alec walked past him, but Sam just directed his rebuttal to Max and Logan. “I’m not a teenager, stop treating me like one. I can fight-maybe not as expertly as you-but I can help.”
“Hey, Logan,” Alec called over, ignoring the fact that Sam was waiting for an answer and gesturing to something in his hand, “What’s this?”
He lifted the A4-sized package that had been slipped under the door some time ago, and Logan shook his head.
“I don’t know; delivery man must have dropped it off.”
Alec frowned, now was no time for deliveries, and surely if it was someone from Jam Pony, they would have waited around. He opened the seal, took out the contents, and paled considerably.
“Alec?”
But he didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at the photograph, swallowing the bile that quickly rose in his throat at the sight. He took a breath, calming himself, and turned it around for the others to see. Max turned away, her exceptional eyesight picking up on the details before Sam had even begun to run forward. The Winchester didn’t dare touch it, for fear of making it seem more real.
It was Dean-exactly like he had seen him in his dream. On that chair, head bowed, face hidden, but the threat all too obvious.
The elevator pinged, and Alec shot out of the room, thundering down the many stairs in hopes of catching the delivery man in time. It hadn’t occurred to him he might still be there outside in the corridor. He knew Sam was following him, and probably Max too, but he was more focused on making as many jumps as he could within his own body’s limits. He reached the door to the outside world and shot out into dreary dawn with the early morning rain falling down upon him.
He looked left to right, stepping in circles in the hope that his sight might catch the man he was pursuing, but-
Nothing.
“Alec?” Sam asked as he reached the transgenic, panting for breath after the great run down to ground level. Alec shook his head. He didn’t understand, he had never run so fast, and yet still, whoever it was had beaten him. Had gotten away, could it be that White was using transgenics against other transgenics? It didn’t seem right, and yet-he wouldn’t put it past the determined agent.
Sam curled his fist at the news, the image floating in his head, the smells from his vision, the coppery taste on the air, and the darkness encroaching, only amplified by the single light he remembered on the picture enough for them to see exactly who sat there.
They had hurt his brother; they had hurt him for nothing. They had taken him by force; they had tortured him, and now what? He was some kind of bargaining chip in this ridiculous game of transgenic cat and mouse? Sam punched the wall suddenly.
“No!” he cried in anguish, hitting the wall again and again.
“Sam, Sam! Stop it.” Alec ordered, somewhat surprised at the young man-who until now had been considerably more in check with his own temper-taking his frustration out on the bricked wall. Alec took the taller man’s fist in his hands and stopped any further knuckle bleeding. Sam pulled away, stepping back, hair plastered to his forehead as the droplets from above continued with their steady pace to the floor.
“That was our only lead so far! We have nothing!”
“Sam, you have to calm down. We will find him, okay? But you have to be ready for this stuff. White isn’t some normal criminal; he’s more than a sociopath. Sam, look at me.”
Sam did as he was told, lifting his worried gaze to meet Alec’s determined eyes.
“We’ll find him. I promise, just, just give us time, okay?”
*-*-*
They only untied him when they thought he was too weak to do anything about it. His body slumped forward as it was, fell once his legs and arms were left free, and his face smacked the floor harshly. Limbs weak, he still tried feebly to scuttle away, but White was already turning him over and letting Dean see the cruel face above him. Keeping his distance from the captive.
“We managed to get a hold of Dean Winchester’s DNA-you know why it took so long? Because it wasn’t human. Or transgenic, or animal. And you know the funny thing, if you put any kind of organism near it, it changes, morphs into that DNA, making it pretty much impossible to examine.
“Now, I’d like to think I know a fair bit about trangenics, and the closest description to something like that we have was a soldier and his ability to camouflage himself. The DNA would look like something-anything, else-but the core remained the same.
“So let’s see, there’s three of you. One is a creature Manticore had nothing to do with, one is a definite transgenic. So if you’re human, like your DNA says you are, why do you keep looking like things that aren’t?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe they just like me.”
“I find it hard to believe that anyone likes you.”
“Right back at you.”
“Are you married? Do you have a son?”
Dean didn’t reply, honestly unsure where this was going, though he guessed White was making a point.
“Didn’t think so,” the sneering agent continued. “If you are Dean Winchester, and somehow, that thing back in St Louis isn’t, you’ve been missing for over twenty years. You and your brother and your father.”
Dean took his chance, lifted his leg fully intending to bend it and twist enough to kick White back, to escape, but White saw it coming a mile away and kicked Dean’s shin back to the floor. He used all of the strength in his arm to backhand Dean hard enough to bruise the skin around his jaw almost instantly. Blood rushed to the surface to leave its mark on stark pale skin, already ghostly.
Dean kicked out, hitting White’s ankle hard enough to topple him off balance for a moment. He jumped up best he could and started to stumble to the door, unsure of what he’d do once he got there. He made no move to wipe away the line of blood trailing down his chin, his stance ready to fight. White, however, seemed to have some kind of something on his side because his agility surpassed Dean’s own greatly. In fact, Dean thought, it surpassed most creatures’ he’d ever seen.
The speedy agent pulled back his fist and dealt a strong blow to Dean’s midsection, and the wounded captive fell to his knees before he could react, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to breathe. His eyes were wide as he fought to exhale. An agonizing wheeze was the only thing passing between his blue-tinged lips. His face was turning grey, and his bruised diaphragm was paralyzed with the agony stemming from the hard hit.
“Call the doctor,” White grimaced as Dean groped along the floor in search of air, pulling at his chest and throat, while White used his handkerchief to clean his hands.
*-*-*
Alec sauntered back in, having left Sam alone in the rain by his own request, and returned to be with Logan and Max. The latter two had put the photograph away to keep from looking at it. The early morning sun was getting higher up in the air, and the clouds were dissipating slightly, making the rain slow down.
“You know,” Max began, changing the subject and honestly missing her trangenic’s friend usual attitude. “Normal’s gonna throw a fit. I mean, how many days have we taken off now? I wouldn’t be surprised if he fir-”
“I’ll handle it,” Alec said, cutting her off, glad for an excuse to leave the room, and he did so before Max had a chance to react; her attempt at light conversation was clearly being conceived as a complaint.
*-*-*
Standing in the rain was therapeutic, every drop washing something away...
But it wasn’t enough for Sam. He watched numbly as Alec rounded the corner to make a call to his cell, and he gave him the privacy he deserved, watching from a distance as the transgenic then hung up, leaned against the wall for a moment before standing to attention.
He knew he was being watched, and he came to Sam’s side, realizing that the young man had had enough alone time by now, or rather, aware that it would slow them down.
Sam, however, had just begun to walk away. His thoughts were on speed, a quick getaway with his brother in tow, none of which could be done without wheels.
“Hey, where are you going?” Alec asked, catching up once more and stopping Sam in his tracks.
“I have to get my brother’s car,” Sam replied, moving again.
“Where is it?” Alec queried, unperturbed.
“Just outside the first blockade into the city.”
“And it’s there, because...?”
“I don’t have a sector pass. I snuck in,” Sam explained, almost shamefully. Almost.
“So how were you planning on getting the car back through?”
“I-I don’t know. I was gonna work it out when I got there,” he replied in a defeated tone as he realized his own reckless stupidity.
“Right. Well I have a sector pass, so give me the keys.”
“What? No.”
“If you come with, they’re gonna wanna see your pass. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
Sam hesitated, aware that his brother would kill him if he let anyone else drive his car, but then again, Alec wasn’t just anyone else.
*-*-*
Straying outside of the barriers, Alec blanched. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see-maybe a better kept car than Logan’s-but this? He whistled as he trailed his hand gently across the sleek black body. He hadn’t seen one of these in person before. An American classic: a Chevy Impala.
“Sweet,” he remarked as he slipped inside and drove toward the first blockade, brandishing his pass from inside of the car. The guard took it, examined it, and returned it, all the while keeping one eye trained on the great beauty.
“She yours?” the gruff voice asked, and Alec stopped himself just as he was about to reply with a “hell yeah.”
“No.” He cleared his throat, quickly sobering. “No, she isn’t.”
*-*-*
Sam waited on the curb, sitting with his long legs bent; his elbows were resting on top of his knees and his head was hanging between them. He heard the familiar purr of the Chevy’s engine and looked up in time to see Alec parking the car in front of him.
The very sight made his heart stop for a moment, skip a beat, because Alec was driving, Alec who looked just like his brother, give or take a few years. That alone brought memories of Dean ecstatic in their youth to be allowed to drive on the odd occasion.
Some fathers would let their son drive on birthdays or just around the block. A rare occasion, earned and something the son would then be grateful for, yearning for more and thus working harder to deserve another go.
With John Winchester, he had handed his son the keys right before passing out in the backseat, sometimes front. Be it from blood loss, or drinking, or simply exhaustion, it seemed to be the only time Sam could remember Dean driving before clearly John had allowed Dean to take full ownership in the four years where Sam was away at college.
“You okay?” Alec asked, concerned by the staring into space. “I think you’re drooling or something.”
Sam snapped out of it instantly, and of course recognized the tactic Alec had used, smiling away the worried transgenic and thanking him for bringing the car.
“No problem, she’s a sweet ride.”
“Yeah, she is,” Sam replied, as he strode to the trunk and then stopped.
Alec, who had followed him to the back of the car, stopped too. He looked relatively amused, and it was clear he was well aware of Sam’s hesitance for some reason.
“Don’t mind me.”
Sam rolled his eyes, popped open the trunk, unlocked the secret compartment-the extra space, hidden beneath-and used the sawed off shotgun to prop it open while he bent inside and took stock.
“Nice arsenal,” Alec whistled, tactile fingers straying to play with the falling cords of a strung up dream catcher, while Sam checked the barrels of the guns, testing everything from the triggers, to the bullets themselves, pausing only once to slap away Alec’s hand when he reached for tazer-guns in the corner.
“Not cool,” the transgenic grumbled, stepping back to get a better view, simultaneously making sure no citizens of the peace were straying near. After all, there were guns, and then there were guns.
He gave Sam a level stare when the younger man took hold of a handgun and hooked it in the back of his waistband, letting his jacket cover it from view.
“You never know,” Sam explained, and Alec simply looked back at the trunk.
“So this is what you fight demons with. Lock, stock, and smoking barrels?”
“You could say that.”
“And they work? Bullets, I mean.”
“No, but a special kind do. Silver, iron rounds, rock salt…” He trailed off, and Alec nodded as he dodged Sam’s second slap and grabbed one of the shotguns, checking it himself and frowning at the cartridge inside.
“Rock salt?”
“Yeah, salt repels spirits, so shooting them with it pisses them off. Gets rid of them for awhile.”
“Who came up with that?”
“Either my dad or Dean.”
“Not you?”
“Nope. First time I saw it was a few months ago, told Dean buck-shot wouldn’t be enough and he showed me these.” Sam began, holding up the white canisters.
“I told you: you don’t have to be a college graduate to be a genius.” His brotherhad told him, as they waited for the Hook-man.
“Personally, I think it was Dean,” he smiled, and Alec returned the gesture, snapping the barrel into place and putting it back in the trunk.
“I, uh, don’t suppose you have a theory on all of this?” Alec asked, as soon as Sam put the last weapon into its own place in the trunk.
“This?” Sam queried as to what he was referring to.
“Me and your brother.”
“Oh.”
“Reassuring sound,” Alec muttered, as Sam began his own explanations.
“You can’t be related. It’s impossible, there’s no way they could have got a hold of Dean’s DNA. For you to have been created from him, they would have had to take it when he was a kid, and believe me, my dad would have noticed.”
“Door number two?”
“He isn’t transgenic, again, would have noticed, and he doesn’t have the barcode.”
“Number three?”
“Doppelganger,” Sam said simply, the letters rolling off of his tongue, letting Alec know that clearly Sam had wanted to say this theory out loud for some time. It being the only really plausible one. Not that trangenics were plausible. Strictly speaking.
“Fun word. What is it?” Alec asked, not having heard it before.
“Doppelgangers are two people who are identical-look wise, DNA wise-but they came from different countries, different families, and have no relation. But they’re complete opposites of each other-one good, one bad.”
“Hence the theory of the evil twin?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I already had one of those.”
“Right,” Sam coughed, deciding he’d rather not know.
“Well, Dean isn’t evil,” he continued, “but neither are you, and I’ve gotta say, so far, I’m only seeing similarities. Except for the whole made-in-a-lab-thing you’ve got going on.”
“There is that.”
“But if doppelgangers meet, they tend to perish,” Sam said, as he cringed somewhat.
“They? The both of them? The both of us?”
“I’m not sure, it varies. Some people say there’s a fight to the death, other cultures have the good twin prevailing, and yeah, some have both dying.”
“Oh, that’s just great.”
“But it’s a myth,” Sam supplied quickly, “even for me. There are bound to be different outcomes.”
“So if-when-we find your brother, I could die?”
“Or Dean could die, or you could both die, or the world could implode, or cave in on itself. I don’t know.”
“I thought you were an expert in this stuff.”
“I told you, I’ve never dealt with this kind of stuff before.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you’re not helping.”
“We need to work this out, there’s stuff we need to find out, need to know,” Alec said, now more annoyed than ever at not being remotely in control, not to mention how confused he was. So far in less than two days he had been told that yet another twin was walking around with his face, another had been killed because he was evil, ghosts were real, so were demons, and oh yeah, White’s sticking his foot in again. Fun times.
Sam looked up at the darkening sky, afternoon turning to night and rain clouds ever present. Another day had passed, and he was still looking for Dean.
“All I need to know is I’m bringing my brother back. Nothing else matters.”
TBC
no evil fake link this time (but seriously, was there for me not to be mean!)
beta'd by
Pixel_0
Back to Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Sam shot awake, head pounding, heartbeat racing to catch up with the throbbing in his skull. He should never have fallen asleep, no matter how late the hour; he should have waited up for when Max and Alec returned. Judging by the rising voices he assumed they had.
“And that’s it?” Sam heard Logan ask and turned the corner to see him sitting at his desk. As soon as he stepped in the room, he saw Alec’s head tilt in his direction, obviously hearing his light footsteps, but otherwise saying nothing.
“Yes, Logan, that’s it,” Max replied curtly. “All those factories, we can’t search every one. We need to narrow it down.”
“I checked the footage again and again, White is in that sector, and Dean must be too.”
“So that still leaves a whole bunch of warehouses to get through then,” Alec noted.
“We can’t search them all; we need to get someone in there.”
“It’s too dangerous, if you or Alec go and get caught, White could kill you on the spot, or kill Dean. Same goes for anyone else.”
“I’ll go,” Sam jumped in, just as Alec had thought he would.
“No, you won’t,” the transgenic explained simply, not sparing another moment to convince the man.
“Why does everyone treat me like a naïve little kid? I can take care of myself, and I can sure as hell take care of my brother.” Alec walked past him, but Sam just directed his rebuttal to Max and Logan. “I’m not a teenager, stop treating me like one. I can fight-maybe not as expertly as you-but I can help.”
“Hey, Logan,” Alec called over, ignoring the fact that Sam was waiting for an answer and gesturing to something in his hand, “What’s this?”
He lifted the A4-sized package that had been slipped under the door some time ago, and Logan shook his head.
“I don’t know; delivery man must have dropped it off.”
Alec frowned, now was no time for deliveries, and surely if it was someone from Jam Pony, they would have waited around. He opened the seal, took out the contents, and paled considerably.
“Alec?”
But he didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at the photograph, swallowing the bile that quickly rose in his throat at the sight. He took a breath, calming himself, and turned it around for the others to see. Max turned away, her exceptional eyesight picking up on the details before Sam had even begun to run forward. The Winchester didn’t dare touch it, for fear of making it seem more real.
It was Dean-exactly like he had seen him in his dream. On that chair, head bowed, face hidden, but the threat all too obvious.
The elevator pinged, and Alec shot out of the room, thundering down the many stairs in hopes of catching the delivery man in time. It hadn’t occurred to him he might still be there outside in the corridor. He knew Sam was following him, and probably Max too, but he was more focused on making as many jumps as he could within his own body’s limits. He reached the door to the outside world and shot out into dreary dawn with the early morning rain falling down upon him.
He looked left to right, stepping in circles in the hope that his sight might catch the man he was pursuing, but-
Nothing.
“Alec?” Sam asked as he reached the transgenic, panting for breath after the great run down to ground level. Alec shook his head. He didn’t understand, he had never run so fast, and yet still, whoever it was had beaten him. Had gotten away, could it be that White was using transgenics against other transgenics? It didn’t seem right, and yet-he wouldn’t put it past the determined agent.
Sam curled his fist at the news, the image floating in his head, the smells from his vision, the coppery taste on the air, and the darkness encroaching, only amplified by the single light he remembered on the picture enough for them to see exactly who sat there.
They had hurt his brother; they had hurt him for nothing. They had taken him by force; they had tortured him, and now what? He was some kind of bargaining chip in this ridiculous game of transgenic cat and mouse? Sam punched the wall suddenly.
“No!” he cried in anguish, hitting the wall again and again.
“Sam, Sam! Stop it.” Alec ordered, somewhat surprised at the young man-who until now had been considerably more in check with his own temper-taking his frustration out on the bricked wall. Alec took the taller man’s fist in his hands and stopped any further knuckle bleeding. Sam pulled away, stepping back, hair plastered to his forehead as the droplets from above continued with their steady pace to the floor.
“That was our only lead so far! We have nothing!”
“Sam, you have to calm down. We will find him, okay? But you have to be ready for this stuff. White isn’t some normal criminal; he’s more than a sociopath. Sam, look at me.”
Sam did as he was told, lifting his worried gaze to meet Alec’s determined eyes.
“We’ll find him. I promise, just, just give us time, okay?”
*-*-*
They only untied him when they thought he was too weak to do anything about it. His body slumped forward as it was, fell once his legs and arms were left free, and his face smacked the floor harshly. Limbs weak, he still tried feebly to scuttle away, but White was already turning him over and letting Dean see the cruel face above him. Keeping his distance from the captive.
“We managed to get a hold of Dean Winchester’s DNA-you know why it took so long? Because it wasn’t human. Or transgenic, or animal. And you know the funny thing, if you put any kind of organism near it, it changes, morphs into that DNA, making it pretty much impossible to examine.
“Now, I’d like to think I know a fair bit about trangenics, and the closest description to something like that we have was a soldier and his ability to camouflage himself. The DNA would look like something-anything, else-but the core remained the same.
“So let’s see, there’s three of you. One is a creature Manticore had nothing to do with, one is a definite transgenic. So if you’re human, like your DNA says you are, why do you keep looking like things that aren’t?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe they just like me.”
“I find it hard to believe that anyone likes you.”
“Right back at you.”
“Are you married? Do you have a son?”
Dean didn’t reply, honestly unsure where this was going, though he guessed White was making a point.
“Didn’t think so,” the sneering agent continued. “If you are Dean Winchester, and somehow, that thing back in St Louis isn’t, you’ve been missing for over twenty years. You and your brother and your father.”
Dean took his chance, lifted his leg fully intending to bend it and twist enough to kick White back, to escape, but White saw it coming a mile away and kicked Dean’s shin back to the floor. He used all of the strength in his arm to backhand Dean hard enough to bruise the skin around his jaw almost instantly. Blood rushed to the surface to leave its mark on stark pale skin, already ghostly.
Dean kicked out, hitting White’s ankle hard enough to topple him off balance for a moment. He jumped up best he could and started to stumble to the door, unsure of what he’d do once he got there. He made no move to wipe away the line of blood trailing down his chin, his stance ready to fight. White, however, seemed to have some kind of something on his side because his agility surpassed Dean’s own greatly. In fact, Dean thought, it surpassed most creatures’ he’d ever seen.
The speedy agent pulled back his fist and dealt a strong blow to Dean’s midsection, and the wounded captive fell to his knees before he could react, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to breathe. His eyes were wide as he fought to exhale. An agonizing wheeze was the only thing passing between his blue-tinged lips. His face was turning grey, and his bruised diaphragm was paralyzed with the agony stemming from the hard hit.
“Call the doctor,” White grimaced as Dean groped along the floor in search of air, pulling at his chest and throat, while White used his handkerchief to clean his hands.
*-*-*
Alec sauntered back in, having left Sam alone in the rain by his own request, and returned to be with Logan and Max. The latter two had put the photograph away to keep from looking at it. The early morning sun was getting higher up in the air, and the clouds were dissipating slightly, making the rain slow down.
“You know,” Max began, changing the subject and honestly missing her trangenic’s friend usual attitude. “Normal’s gonna throw a fit. I mean, how many days have we taken off now? I wouldn’t be surprised if he fir-”
“I’ll handle it,” Alec said, cutting her off, glad for an excuse to leave the room, and he did so before Max had a chance to react; her attempt at light conversation was clearly being conceived as a complaint.
*-*-*
Standing in the rain was therapeutic, every drop washing something away...
But it wasn’t enough for Sam. He watched numbly as Alec rounded the corner to make a call to his cell, and he gave him the privacy he deserved, watching from a distance as the transgenic then hung up, leaned against the wall for a moment before standing to attention.
He knew he was being watched, and he came to Sam’s side, realizing that the young man had had enough alone time by now, or rather, aware that it would slow them down.
Sam, however, had just begun to walk away. His thoughts were on speed, a quick getaway with his brother in tow, none of which could be done without wheels.
“Hey, where are you going?” Alec asked, catching up once more and stopping Sam in his tracks.
“I have to get my brother’s car,” Sam replied, moving again.
“Where is it?” Alec queried, unperturbed.
“Just outside the first blockade into the city.”
“And it’s there, because...?”
“I don’t have a sector pass. I snuck in,” Sam explained, almost shamefully. Almost.
“So how were you planning on getting the car back through?”
“I-I don’t know. I was gonna work it out when I got there,” he replied in a defeated tone as he realized his own reckless stupidity.
“Right. Well I have a sector pass, so give me the keys.”
“What? No.”
“If you come with, they’re gonna wanna see your pass. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
Sam hesitated, aware that his brother would kill him if he let anyone else drive his car, but then again, Alec wasn’t just anyone else.
*-*-*
Straying outside of the barriers, Alec blanched. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see-maybe a better kept car than Logan’s-but this? He whistled as he trailed his hand gently across the sleek black body. He hadn’t seen one of these in person before. An American classic: a Chevy Impala.
“Sweet,” he remarked as he slipped inside and drove toward the first blockade, brandishing his pass from inside of the car. The guard took it, examined it, and returned it, all the while keeping one eye trained on the great beauty.
“She yours?” the gruff voice asked, and Alec stopped himself just as he was about to reply with a “hell yeah.”
“No.” He cleared his throat, quickly sobering. “No, she isn’t.”
*-*-*
Sam waited on the curb, sitting with his long legs bent; his elbows were resting on top of his knees and his head was hanging between them. He heard the familiar purr of the Chevy’s engine and looked up in time to see Alec parking the car in front of him.
The very sight made his heart stop for a moment, skip a beat, because Alec was driving, Alec who looked just like his brother, give or take a few years. That alone brought memories of Dean ecstatic in their youth to be allowed to drive on the odd occasion.
Some fathers would let their son drive on birthdays or just around the block. A rare occasion, earned and something the son would then be grateful for, yearning for more and thus working harder to deserve another go.
With John Winchester, he had handed his son the keys right before passing out in the backseat, sometimes front. Be it from blood loss, or drinking, or simply exhaustion, it seemed to be the only time Sam could remember Dean driving before clearly John had allowed Dean to take full ownership in the four years where Sam was away at college.
“You okay?” Alec asked, concerned by the staring into space. “I think you’re drooling or something.”
Sam snapped out of it instantly, and of course recognized the tactic Alec had used, smiling away the worried transgenic and thanking him for bringing the car.
“No problem, she’s a sweet ride.”
“Yeah, she is,” Sam replied, as he strode to the trunk and then stopped.
Alec, who had followed him to the back of the car, stopped too. He looked relatively amused, and it was clear he was well aware of Sam’s hesitance for some reason.
“Don’t mind me.”
Sam rolled his eyes, popped open the trunk, unlocked the secret compartment-the extra space, hidden beneath-and used the sawed off shotgun to prop it open while he bent inside and took stock.
“Nice arsenal,” Alec whistled, tactile fingers straying to play with the falling cords of a strung up dream catcher, while Sam checked the barrels of the guns, testing everything from the triggers, to the bullets themselves, pausing only once to slap away Alec’s hand when he reached for tazer-guns in the corner.
“Not cool,” the transgenic grumbled, stepping back to get a better view, simultaneously making sure no citizens of the peace were straying near. After all, there were guns, and then there were guns.
He gave Sam a level stare when the younger man took hold of a handgun and hooked it in the back of his waistband, letting his jacket cover it from view.
“You never know,” Sam explained, and Alec simply looked back at the trunk.
“So this is what you fight demons with. Lock, stock, and smoking barrels?”
“You could say that.”
“And they work? Bullets, I mean.”
“No, but a special kind do. Silver, iron rounds, rock salt…” He trailed off, and Alec nodded as he dodged Sam’s second slap and grabbed one of the shotguns, checking it himself and frowning at the cartridge inside.
“Rock salt?”
“Yeah, salt repels spirits, so shooting them with it pisses them off. Gets rid of them for awhile.”
“Who came up with that?”
“Either my dad or Dean.”
“Not you?”
“Nope. First time I saw it was a few months ago, told Dean buck-shot wouldn’t be enough and he showed me these.” Sam began, holding up the white canisters.
“I told you: you don’t have to be a college graduate to be a genius.” His brotherhad told him, as they waited for the Hook-man.
“Personally, I think it was Dean,” he smiled, and Alec returned the gesture, snapping the barrel into place and putting it back in the trunk.
“I, uh, don’t suppose you have a theory on all of this?” Alec asked, as soon as Sam put the last weapon into its own place in the trunk.
“This?” Sam queried as to what he was referring to.
“Me and your brother.”
“Oh.”
“Reassuring sound,” Alec muttered, as Sam began his own explanations.
“You can’t be related. It’s impossible, there’s no way they could have got a hold of Dean’s DNA. For you to have been created from him, they would have had to take it when he was a kid, and believe me, my dad would have noticed.”
“Door number two?”
“He isn’t transgenic, again, would have noticed, and he doesn’t have the barcode.”
“Number three?”
“Doppelganger,” Sam said simply, the letters rolling off of his tongue, letting Alec know that clearly Sam had wanted to say this theory out loud for some time. It being the only really plausible one. Not that trangenics were plausible. Strictly speaking.
“Fun word. What is it?” Alec asked, not having heard it before.
“Doppelgangers are two people who are identical-look wise, DNA wise-but they came from different countries, different families, and have no relation. But they’re complete opposites of each other-one good, one bad.”
“Hence the theory of the evil twin?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I already had one of those.”
“Right,” Sam coughed, deciding he’d rather not know.
“Well, Dean isn’t evil,” he continued, “but neither are you, and I’ve gotta say, so far, I’m only seeing similarities. Except for the whole made-in-a-lab-thing you’ve got going on.”
“There is that.”
“But if doppelgangers meet, they tend to perish,” Sam said, as he cringed somewhat.
“They? The both of them? The both of us?”
“I’m not sure, it varies. Some people say there’s a fight to the death, other cultures have the good twin prevailing, and yeah, some have both dying.”
“Oh, that’s just great.”
“But it’s a myth,” Sam supplied quickly, “even for me. There are bound to be different outcomes.”
“So if-when-we find your brother, I could die?”
“Or Dean could die, or you could both die, or the world could implode, or cave in on itself. I don’t know.”
“I thought you were an expert in this stuff.”
“I told you, I’ve never dealt with this kind of stuff before.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you’re not helping.”
“We need to work this out, there’s stuff we need to find out, need to know,” Alec said, now more annoyed than ever at not being remotely in control, not to mention how confused he was. So far in less than two days he had been told that yet another twin was walking around with his face, another had been killed because he was evil, ghosts were real, so were demons, and oh yeah, White’s sticking his foot in again. Fun times.
Sam looked up at the darkening sky, afternoon turning to night and rain clouds ever present. Another day had passed, and he was still looking for Dean.
“All I need to know is I’m bringing my brother back. Nothing else matters.”
TBC
no evil fake link this time (but seriously, was there for me not to be mean!)