Fic: Go Down Swinging (3/3)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money.
Spoilers: 3x12 Jus in Belo
Word Count: 3572
Summery: Victor Henriksen plans to go down swinging.
AN: It's done! ...except not really, because I have at least two planned sequels, a short, really silly, one that takes place during this story and deals with zombies, and longer one that deals with vampires (it involves Bobby, explosives, sniper rifles, and will be called "Piranhas in a Barrel"). I'm not certain what, exactly, I'm going to write next. At some point I'm going to make an LJ entry where people can vote on what I'll write next, so keep an eye out for it.
This was admittedly, somewhat late in coming. I dropped a 35 pound weight on one of my fingers at the gym, and typing wasn't much fun for a while there.
In other news, I suck at responding to comments. I really do appreciate them, and I keep meaning to respond, I just keep getting distracted. I resolve to do better from here on end (and to try and respond to some of the old ones).
It turns out that Sam's right. The thing really is a wendigo, and seeing it cements for the Victor the reality of the situation in a way that the demons couldn't. The demons looked human, were possessing humans, but this thing really is a monster, and actual honest to god, monster. With fangs. And claws. And big pointy gray ears.
They trap the thing inside its own lair by drawing Anasazi symbols on the ground near the cave entrance. Then, because there's a chance some of its victims might still be alive, they enter the cave complex together, back to back, flashlights and flare guns raised. Victor's heart is set to burst out of his chest it's beating so hard, and when the damn thing comes barreling out of the tunnels, moving so fast it's not much more than a blur he freezes for a second.
It's almost enough to get him killed.
Sam bodychecks Victor and Christ, Victor knew Sam was big guy in sort of an off hand way, but it isn't really driven home until all six-plus feet of Sam are slamming him out of the way of the wendigo's claws. Victor lands hard on the floor, but Sam somehow manages to keep his feet and fires off a flare at the thing. He misses, his balance off from saving Victor's ass.
Dean, in the meantime, has spun around and trained his own flaregun on the monster. He snaps out a “Down!” and Sam reflexively hits the ground before Dean fires. It doesn't do them much good, because apparently, the wendigo is smart enough to understand English and it also ducks.
Dean lets loose a string of swearwords, and reaches for one of the extra flareguns on his belt, but the wendigo is too close to Sam, curling one of its long clawed arms around Sam's leg even as Dean raises the weapon. Sam yells in pain as the thing's claws bite through his jeans and kicks out with his free leg. The blow connects, and Victor is certain he hears some of the monsters long fingers snap, but it doesn't let go. Sam fumbles for one of his extra flares, but the thing yanks him savagely and he drops it.
Victor reaches out and grabs his own, nearly forgotten flare gun, lifts it, and fires. He misses. He's at a bad angle and firing a flaregun isn't quite like firing a regular gun. The shot does come pretty close, though, arching past the creature's shoulder, distracting it, and causing it to drop Sam long enough for Dean to get a shot in.
This time the older Winchester's aim is perfect and the thing doesn't get a chance to get out of the way. Victor watches in fascination as the wendigo combusts like day old kindling. Huh. He hadn't figured on them being quite that flammable.
While Victor is staring at the remains of the wendigo, Dean has already run to his brother's side. He checks Sam's leg where the creature's claws bit through the denim.
“How's it look?” Victor asks, more than a little guilty. He was the one who froze up. Sam being injured is his fault.
“It's nothing,” Sam says, trying to pull away, but Dean clearly isn't having any of that.
“It's not nothing Sammy,” Dean says, inspecting the long claw marks. “A couple of these are gonna need stitches.” Dean binds the injury with some butterfly bandages and a roll of gauze from his pack. Victor opens his mouth to say something, apologize maybe, but Dean shoots him a look that says “later,” so Victor shuts up.
Only two of the wendigo's victims are still alive, just a pair of teenagers who were hiding in the woods at the edge of town, drinking when the thing took them and their friends. What's left of their friends is scattered around the chamber. The smell is almost unbearable. Victor can't imagine what it's like to survive something like that. It's horrifying, but he's now certain that he's chosen to do the right thing, becoming a hunter. They've probably just saved more lives today, by stopping this thing, than Victor had in his entire career with the FBI.
Victor and Dean cut the two kids down and have to carry them out of the cave. Sam leads the way out, limping. It's not far to the car, which is both good and bad. It makes it easier to get the teens to safety and medical care, but it's also frightening just how close to civilization the creature had settled.
They take the kids to the hospital, dropping them off at the emergency room. Dean gives the doctors a line about finding them while hiking, and then they all slip out during the commotion.
“Shouldn't you get your leg stitched up while we're here?” Victor asks as he slips into the back seat of the huge black boat of a car that Dean drives.
Sam, who opted to stay in the car while Dean and Victor deal with the kids and doctors, shakes his head. “We can't risk it.”
“Why's that? FBI isn't looking for the pair of you anymore.”
“But a group of demons are. In a public building like that, we'd be sitting ducks, and I don't even wanna think about the kind of damage a bunch of the fuckers could cause in a hospital,” Dean supplies, slipping into the front and starting the car. “We'll deal with it ourselves.”
So that's how Victor ends up watching Dean Winchester sew up his little brother's leg in a crummy motel room in Montana. Sam refuses heavy painkillers, takes only a few Tylenol, and doesn't even flinch as he watches the needle go in and out of his flesh. Victor feels both impressed and faintly nauseated.
Victor steps outside while Sam settles back into his bed with his laptop. He can't even imagine what research could possibly be so important, but Sam's pretty adamant about having work to do. Dean clenches his jaw at that, but doesn't say anything. Victor's still certain he's missing something between the brothers, some source of tension, but he doesn't ask.
He's leaning against the side of them room when Dean steps out and joins him. Victor doesn't look at the other man, just stares at the night sky. “I know. I screwed up back there, and Sam got hurt.”
“Actually, I was just going to offer you a beer,” Dean says holding a bottle out to Victor. Victor gives him an even look and Dean grins. “Come on, Vic. All the cool kids are doing it.”
“I'm a little old for peer pressure, Dean, and you're a little young to be my peer, anyway.”
Dean shrugs. “Can't say I didn't try.”
“You're not upset with me?”
“Sam's not.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Dean's grin vanishes. “A bit, yeah.” He shrugs. “But we know what we're getting into when we go out there. Seriously though man, you really wanna do this, you're gonna end up seeing some freaky shit. You freeze like that again and you're not going to last a week.”
“Don't worry, it's not going to happen again,” Victor says and he means it. Maybe he needed that, needed a chance to see just how monstrous these things could get, but he's not going to let anything else he runs across freak him out again.
Dean's watching him intently. “You're really serious about this.”
“Yeah.”
“Don't,” Dean says. “Don't be a hunter. Go back to the FBI and take that desk job. You told me your job was boring, Vic. You know what our job is? It's motels and rundown squats, and moving from place to place. It's never having a home because if you stop for too long then something you've hunted or pissed off might find and kill you in your sleep. It's being paranoid all the time. It's getting the shit beaten out of you by the freak of the week. It's stitching up your wounds in a motel bathroom because you can't risk a hospital. It's saving people who rarely even bother to freakin' say 'thank you.'
“Don't be a hunter. This job, this life, it'll wear you down body and soul.”
Christ, but Dean means it. Victor can see it in the younger man's eyes. This is Dean without the bullshit and charm, and he's serious, but Victor's serious too.
“I can't. Not knowing what I know now. I can't just close my eyes. You once told me you thought the world was gonna end bloody. Maybe you're right, hell, from what I've seen, you probably are, but I'm not going to go sit back and wait for it to happen. I'm with you. I'm gonna go down swinging.”
Dean's answering smile is faint, and more than a little sad. He holds out the beer to Victor again and Victor takes it. It tastes just a bad as he remembers.
Victor gets a room of his own for the night. The next morning Dean watches him has he puts his overnight bag away.
“Please tell me that isn't your car.”
“What's wrong with it?” Victor asks, opening his trunk.
“A beige Civic? You gotta ask?”
Victor is just plain confused. “It's fuel efficient and reliable.”
Dean gives him a look of blatant disbelief. “Man, it's like I don't even know you.”
Sam finds them a new hunt and they hit the road that day. Victor follows behind Sam and Dean in his own car. The drive is hours long, and Victor can see the appeal in sharing a vehicle with someone else. At least Sam and Dean can switch off, even if Dean seems to do most of the driving.
“This whole migration thing really freaked you two out,” Victor asks Sam later, while they're stopped at a rest station. Dean is inside, grabbing snacks and Sam is staying in the Impala, resting his leg. “Why's it such a big problem if the damn things head west?”
“It's just... when we hunt, most of the time, we're at a disadvantage. The things we kill aren't human; they're stronger, or faster, or more resilient than we are. Our only real advantage is knowing them: what they are, how they behave, how to kill them.”
“So when these things start acting weird, it worries you.”
Sam nods. “Yeah, it's also why we do so much research before heading into a hunt. I don't know if you've noticed, Agent Henriksen...”
“Victor, please. I'm not Agent anything anymore.”
Sam smiles slightly and continues. “I don't now if you've noticed, Victor, but my brother can be pretty gung ho,” Sam says and Victor snorts in agreement. “But even he wouldn't go into a hunt without some idea of what he's going after.”
Sam stops to think for a moment. “Well most of the time, anyway.”
All told, Victor stays with the Winchesters for almost two months. After the first week, he has his car stored and rides in the backseat of the Impala. It's the smart thing to do, really. It saves on gas and allows him to talk to the brothers, read their journal, or compile his own notes. Victor has to admit, the car is nice and roomy, but he really can't understand Dean's unnatural attachment to the thing.
Victor takes Dean's advice about the journal... sort of. He fills it full of exorcisms and rituals, Anasazi symbols and runes, herbal mixture recipes for purification and seals copied from the Key of Solomon. He copies into it anything he might need to know in an instant and doesn't want to risk forgetting. In a rare moment of humor Sam smiles at him and calls it “Victor Henriksen's Pocket Guide to Hunting.”
He does keep more extensive records, but those are carefully organized into manila folders, labeled and filed into a storage box that rides along with him in the backseat of the car. The same sorts of folders that once held serial killer's photographs and psychological profiles now hold carefully complied reports on ghosts and demons.
When Dean sees what Victor is doing, he laughs. “You can take the fed out of the bureau, but you can't take the bureau out of the fed, huh Vic?” Victor looks at his files and folders and has to agree.
And he's thorough. Very thorough. He goes over the Winchester's accounts of their old hunts. He types up careful reports and he prints out the associated newspaper articles and files those too. He's spent so long looking for patterns that it's instinct to look for them here as well. He remembers what Sam said about the behavior of the things they hunt and he needs to know if it's more than just wendigo that are behaving strangely, but he doesn't have enough information to draw any conclusions, not yet.
What he really needs are more hunters to talk to, but the Winchesters seem pretty disconnected from the other hunters. They say they have their reasons, but they won't elaborate. Victor's learned pretty quickly not to pry.
For the most part, both Sam and Dean are good company. Dean won't stop trying to push alcohol on Victor, and he can he really damned irritating when he's bored, but his endless enthusiasm and sharp wits make him an interesting, if exhausting travel companion.
Sam's remarkably intelligent, mostly friendly and sympathetic, and tends to be a bit... calmer than his older brother. Usually, he seems like a good guy, but there are times that Sam scares Victor. He's colder than his brother, more ruthless, and Victor's seen him leave to talk to the blonde demon woman. He's not sure what the whole deal is with this demon woman, Sam, and Lilith. That's another piece of information the Winchester's aren't sharing. Sometimes, Victor feels like he's being left so far out of the loop he can't even see the damn loop.
While he was tracking the pair of them, he'd thought that Dean was the brains of the operation, and that Sam was just along for the ride. He changes his mind about that quickly. Sam Winchester is one of the most intelligent people he's ever met, with both a remarkable memory and the ability to assimilate and process lots of disparate pieces of information. Dean may play front man for the pair most of the time, but it's Sam who's really the brains of the operation.
Two weeks worth of hunting with the two of them, and Victor changes his mind again. For all that Dean tends to put on an air of simplicity, he's anything but dumb. He may not have his brother's education, but he's just as capable of recalling the details of their hunts as Sam, can think on his feet with the best of them, and seems to be able to assemble electronic devices out of spare parts (though the last is a skill that Victor only sees Dean use once). Victor wonders what Dean would have made of himself if his father hadn't dragged both his sons into this demon hunting business.
So Victor learns from the Winchester brothers, and he, in turn, teaches them a thing or two, like how to be more convincing when posing as governments agents. He also manages to convince them both to start wearing gloves at crime scenes (and really, why in the hell weren't they doing that to begin with?), because, while they may be officially dead, if the police turn up a couple of supposedly deceased serial killer's fingerprints at a crime scene, then the shit is going to hit the fan. Hard.
The brothers are looking for someone named Bela Talbot. She's some kind of thief and dealer in paranormal objects, and apparently, she's stolen something from them. Turns out she was also the one that turned Sam and Dean in, all those weeks ago, which in a twisted sort of way, make her responsible for Nancy, Reidy, and all the people at the station getting killed. Victor knows it isn't rational, but he really wants to see her go down, and he's never even met the woman. Dean seems to want her dead.
They don't manage to find Bela but they do take out a myling in Oragon, and another wendigo in California (“damned migrating freakin' wendigo,” Dean complains).
They handle a bukavac in Colorado, and that thing is blasted weird looking it makes the wendigo look cuddly by comparison.
In Alabama they hunt down a swamp monster and Dean starts a bar fight. A really damn big bar fight. A sloppy, drunken, redneck mistakes Sam and Dean for a gay couple and starts harassing them. They ignore him, until he turns on Victor and calls him a nasty racial slur. At which point Dean turns around and sucker punches the guy. It's all down hill from there. Victor has a moment of mourning for his lost dignity after he clubs one of the drunk's friends over the head with a beer bottle. At least it's not his beer, Dean's efforts aside, he still doesn't like to drink.
In Indiana, they take out three werewolves. Victor gets clawed in an uncomfortable place, and Dean spends the next two weeks chortling about it. Sam doesn't think it's very funny.
In Maryland, they run into some zombies. Lots, and lots of zombies. Of course Sam insists that most of them aren't actually zombies per se, but there comes a point after which Victor stops caring about the distinction. Overall, the less said about that mess, the better.
But mostly, what they handle is ghosts and demons. There's definitely no shortage of either. Victor's getting to a point where he could recite an exorcism in his sleep. He has to admit, that of all the things he's hunted, he gets the most satisfaction from sending demons back to hell.
Traveling with the Winchesters does answer a lot of Victor's questions. He now knows a lot more about what's out there. He now understands the bizarre behavior he was puzzling over while trying to track the brothers down while he was still with the FBI. But for all the answers, this road trip has raised some questions as well...
“I can't believe you.”
“Well, I am pretty unbelievable.”
“You changed the wallpaper on my laptop.”
“Come on Sammy, you know you loved it.”
“Dean, I am never going to be able to unsee that image.”
“I know, it was pretty awesome, right?”
“You're such a jerk.”
“Bitch.”
...like, how can two incredibly well-trained dangerous men be so unbelievably immature?
When they eventually decide to split up, Victor is almost relived. It's not that he doesn't like the brothers, it's just that he feels like an interloper most of the time. The pair of them move in sync on hunts instinctively. They share inside jokes that Victor doesn't get, and hold conversations with glances. Sometimes, when the three of them are discussing a hunt, and Victor offers his input, the both of them will startle, just for a second, as if they've forgotten he's there.
It's not just that, though. The tension between the brothers has been mounting, and Victor is, as ever, left out of the loop. It's gotten to the point where it's nearly suffocating Sam's perpetually tense, always researching something he won't discuss, and Dean has the wilted, hunted look of a condemned man. Victor likes them both. He really does. But he thinks it's time for him to go.
Victor stands next to his familiar beige Civic. He thinks it'll be nice to drive again, and to ride in a car that doesn't make as much noise as a Harley.
“Seriously, dude, a beige Civic? Doesn't exactly scream 'badass hunter,'” Dean says, watching Victor stow the last of his possessions back in his own car.
Victor snorts. “At least my car doesn't stand out. You're going to get yourself in trouble someday, Dean, driving that thing. It's too distinctive.”
“Hey now, don't you disparage my baby.”
“You have an unhealthy attachment to that car, Dean.”
“That's what I keep telling him,” Sam says, coming up behind his brother. Victor can tell he hasn't been sleeping, probably doing more of his research.
Dean clasps Victors hand. “Goodbye, Vic. Be careful out there, and hey, try not to expose your back to any seriously pissed off werewolves.”
“Yeah, real funny Dean.”
“Goodbye, Victor,” Sam says more solemnly.
“Goodbye, and look after yourselves, both of you... and I may not know what kind of trouble you two are in, but if you need my help with something, anything, let me know. Seriously, I owe you both.”
Dean smiles, a it's a little bit sad. “If we think there's anything you can do, we'll give you a call.” His tone of voice makes it clear that he doesn't think there's anything Victor could possibly do. Victor wishes he knew what the damn problem was.
Victor watches them climb into the Impala before settling into his own car. His knee hurts a little, but it's not too bad. He has a purpose in life, some hope for the future, and a prospective hunt only four hours drive away. He pulls out his journal to check on some details and stops. He stares at it for a moment. Someone's plastered the plain black cover with glittery unicorn stickers.
And... done! I'll be posting an entry in the next couple of days where people can vote on what I should write next (or prompt me, even), so keep an eye out.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money.
Spoilers: 3x12 Jus in Belo
Word Count: 3572
Summery: Victor Henriksen plans to go down swinging.
AN: It's done! ...except not really, because I have at least two planned sequels, a short, really silly, one that takes place during this story and deals with zombies, and longer one that deals with vampires (it involves Bobby, explosives, sniper rifles, and will be called "Piranhas in a Barrel"). I'm not certain what, exactly, I'm going to write next. At some point I'm going to make an LJ entry where people can vote on what I'll write next, so keep an eye out for it.
This was admittedly, somewhat late in coming. I dropped a 35 pound weight on one of my fingers at the gym, and typing wasn't much fun for a while there.
In other news, I suck at responding to comments. I really do appreciate them, and I keep meaning to respond, I just keep getting distracted. I resolve to do better from here on end (and to try and respond to some of the old ones).
It turns out that Sam's right. The thing really is a wendigo, and seeing it cements for the Victor the reality of the situation in a way that the demons couldn't. The demons looked human, were possessing humans, but this thing really is a monster, and actual honest to god, monster. With fangs. And claws. And big pointy gray ears.
They trap the thing inside its own lair by drawing Anasazi symbols on the ground near the cave entrance. Then, because there's a chance some of its victims might still be alive, they enter the cave complex together, back to back, flashlights and flare guns raised. Victor's heart is set to burst out of his chest it's beating so hard, and when the damn thing comes barreling out of the tunnels, moving so fast it's not much more than a blur he freezes for a second.
It's almost enough to get him killed.
Sam bodychecks Victor and Christ, Victor knew Sam was big guy in sort of an off hand way, but it isn't really driven home until all six-plus feet of Sam are slamming him out of the way of the wendigo's claws. Victor lands hard on the floor, but Sam somehow manages to keep his feet and fires off a flare at the thing. He misses, his balance off from saving Victor's ass.
Dean, in the meantime, has spun around and trained his own flaregun on the monster. He snaps out a “Down!” and Sam reflexively hits the ground before Dean fires. It doesn't do them much good, because apparently, the wendigo is smart enough to understand English and it also ducks.
Dean lets loose a string of swearwords, and reaches for one of the extra flareguns on his belt, but the wendigo is too close to Sam, curling one of its long clawed arms around Sam's leg even as Dean raises the weapon. Sam yells in pain as the thing's claws bite through his jeans and kicks out with his free leg. The blow connects, and Victor is certain he hears some of the monsters long fingers snap, but it doesn't let go. Sam fumbles for one of his extra flares, but the thing yanks him savagely and he drops it.
Victor reaches out and grabs his own, nearly forgotten flare gun, lifts it, and fires. He misses. He's at a bad angle and firing a flaregun isn't quite like firing a regular gun. The shot does come pretty close, though, arching past the creature's shoulder, distracting it, and causing it to drop Sam long enough for Dean to get a shot in.
This time the older Winchester's aim is perfect and the thing doesn't get a chance to get out of the way. Victor watches in fascination as the wendigo combusts like day old kindling. Huh. He hadn't figured on them being quite that flammable.
While Victor is staring at the remains of the wendigo, Dean has already run to his brother's side. He checks Sam's leg where the creature's claws bit through the denim.
“How's it look?” Victor asks, more than a little guilty. He was the one who froze up. Sam being injured is his fault.
“It's nothing,” Sam says, trying to pull away, but Dean clearly isn't having any of that.
“It's not nothing Sammy,” Dean says, inspecting the long claw marks. “A couple of these are gonna need stitches.” Dean binds the injury with some butterfly bandages and a roll of gauze from his pack. Victor opens his mouth to say something, apologize maybe, but Dean shoots him a look that says “later,” so Victor shuts up.
Only two of the wendigo's victims are still alive, just a pair of teenagers who were hiding in the woods at the edge of town, drinking when the thing took them and their friends. What's left of their friends is scattered around the chamber. The smell is almost unbearable. Victor can't imagine what it's like to survive something like that. It's horrifying, but he's now certain that he's chosen to do the right thing, becoming a hunter. They've probably just saved more lives today, by stopping this thing, than Victor had in his entire career with the FBI.
Victor and Dean cut the two kids down and have to carry them out of the cave. Sam leads the way out, limping. It's not far to the car, which is both good and bad. It makes it easier to get the teens to safety and medical care, but it's also frightening just how close to civilization the creature had settled.
They take the kids to the hospital, dropping them off at the emergency room. Dean gives the doctors a line about finding them while hiking, and then they all slip out during the commotion.
“Shouldn't you get your leg stitched up while we're here?” Victor asks as he slips into the back seat of the huge black boat of a car that Dean drives.
Sam, who opted to stay in the car while Dean and Victor deal with the kids and doctors, shakes his head. “We can't risk it.”
“Why's that? FBI isn't looking for the pair of you anymore.”
“But a group of demons are. In a public building like that, we'd be sitting ducks, and I don't even wanna think about the kind of damage a bunch of the fuckers could cause in a hospital,” Dean supplies, slipping into the front and starting the car. “We'll deal with it ourselves.”
So that's how Victor ends up watching Dean Winchester sew up his little brother's leg in a crummy motel room in Montana. Sam refuses heavy painkillers, takes only a few Tylenol, and doesn't even flinch as he watches the needle go in and out of his flesh. Victor feels both impressed and faintly nauseated.
Victor steps outside while Sam settles back into his bed with his laptop. He can't even imagine what research could possibly be so important, but Sam's pretty adamant about having work to do. Dean clenches his jaw at that, but doesn't say anything. Victor's still certain he's missing something between the brothers, some source of tension, but he doesn't ask.
He's leaning against the side of them room when Dean steps out and joins him. Victor doesn't look at the other man, just stares at the night sky. “I know. I screwed up back there, and Sam got hurt.”
“Actually, I was just going to offer you a beer,” Dean says holding a bottle out to Victor. Victor gives him an even look and Dean grins. “Come on, Vic. All the cool kids are doing it.”
“I'm a little old for peer pressure, Dean, and you're a little young to be my peer, anyway.”
Dean shrugs. “Can't say I didn't try.”
“You're not upset with me?”
“Sam's not.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Dean's grin vanishes. “A bit, yeah.” He shrugs. “But we know what we're getting into when we go out there. Seriously though man, you really wanna do this, you're gonna end up seeing some freaky shit. You freeze like that again and you're not going to last a week.”
“Don't worry, it's not going to happen again,” Victor says and he means it. Maybe he needed that, needed a chance to see just how monstrous these things could get, but he's not going to let anything else he runs across freak him out again.
Dean's watching him intently. “You're really serious about this.”
“Yeah.”
“Don't,” Dean says. “Don't be a hunter. Go back to the FBI and take that desk job. You told me your job was boring, Vic. You know what our job is? It's motels and rundown squats, and moving from place to place. It's never having a home because if you stop for too long then something you've hunted or pissed off might find and kill you in your sleep. It's being paranoid all the time. It's getting the shit beaten out of you by the freak of the week. It's stitching up your wounds in a motel bathroom because you can't risk a hospital. It's saving people who rarely even bother to freakin' say 'thank you.'
“Don't be a hunter. This job, this life, it'll wear you down body and soul.”
Christ, but Dean means it. Victor can see it in the younger man's eyes. This is Dean without the bullshit and charm, and he's serious, but Victor's serious too.
“I can't. Not knowing what I know now. I can't just close my eyes. You once told me you thought the world was gonna end bloody. Maybe you're right, hell, from what I've seen, you probably are, but I'm not going to go sit back and wait for it to happen. I'm with you. I'm gonna go down swinging.”
Dean's answering smile is faint, and more than a little sad. He holds out the beer to Victor again and Victor takes it. It tastes just a bad as he remembers.
Victor gets a room of his own for the night. The next morning Dean watches him has he puts his overnight bag away.
“Please tell me that isn't your car.”
“What's wrong with it?” Victor asks, opening his trunk.
“A beige Civic? You gotta ask?”
Victor is just plain confused. “It's fuel efficient and reliable.”
Dean gives him a look of blatant disbelief. “Man, it's like I don't even know you.”
Sam finds them a new hunt and they hit the road that day. Victor follows behind Sam and Dean in his own car. The drive is hours long, and Victor can see the appeal in sharing a vehicle with someone else. At least Sam and Dean can switch off, even if Dean seems to do most of the driving.
“This whole migration thing really freaked you two out,” Victor asks Sam later, while they're stopped at a rest station. Dean is inside, grabbing snacks and Sam is staying in the Impala, resting his leg. “Why's it such a big problem if the damn things head west?”
“It's just... when we hunt, most of the time, we're at a disadvantage. The things we kill aren't human; they're stronger, or faster, or more resilient than we are. Our only real advantage is knowing them: what they are, how they behave, how to kill them.”
“So when these things start acting weird, it worries you.”
Sam nods. “Yeah, it's also why we do so much research before heading into a hunt. I don't know if you've noticed, Agent Henriksen...”
“Victor, please. I'm not Agent anything anymore.”
Sam smiles slightly and continues. “I don't now if you've noticed, Victor, but my brother can be pretty gung ho,” Sam says and Victor snorts in agreement. “But even he wouldn't go into a hunt without some idea of what he's going after.”
Sam stops to think for a moment. “Well most of the time, anyway.”
All told, Victor stays with the Winchesters for almost two months. After the first week, he has his car stored and rides in the backseat of the Impala. It's the smart thing to do, really. It saves on gas and allows him to talk to the brothers, read their journal, or compile his own notes. Victor has to admit, the car is nice and roomy, but he really can't understand Dean's unnatural attachment to the thing.
Victor takes Dean's advice about the journal... sort of. He fills it full of exorcisms and rituals, Anasazi symbols and runes, herbal mixture recipes for purification and seals copied from the Key of Solomon. He copies into it anything he might need to know in an instant and doesn't want to risk forgetting. In a rare moment of humor Sam smiles at him and calls it “Victor Henriksen's Pocket Guide to Hunting.”
He does keep more extensive records, but those are carefully organized into manila folders, labeled and filed into a storage box that rides along with him in the backseat of the car. The same sorts of folders that once held serial killer's photographs and psychological profiles now hold carefully complied reports on ghosts and demons.
When Dean sees what Victor is doing, he laughs. “You can take the fed out of the bureau, but you can't take the bureau out of the fed, huh Vic?” Victor looks at his files and folders and has to agree.
And he's thorough. Very thorough. He goes over the Winchester's accounts of their old hunts. He types up careful reports and he prints out the associated newspaper articles and files those too. He's spent so long looking for patterns that it's instinct to look for them here as well. He remembers what Sam said about the behavior of the things they hunt and he needs to know if it's more than just wendigo that are behaving strangely, but he doesn't have enough information to draw any conclusions, not yet.
What he really needs are more hunters to talk to, but the Winchesters seem pretty disconnected from the other hunters. They say they have their reasons, but they won't elaborate. Victor's learned pretty quickly not to pry.
For the most part, both Sam and Dean are good company. Dean won't stop trying to push alcohol on Victor, and he can he really damned irritating when he's bored, but his endless enthusiasm and sharp wits make him an interesting, if exhausting travel companion.
Sam's remarkably intelligent, mostly friendly and sympathetic, and tends to be a bit... calmer than his older brother. Usually, he seems like a good guy, but there are times that Sam scares Victor. He's colder than his brother, more ruthless, and Victor's seen him leave to talk to the blonde demon woman. He's not sure what the whole deal is with this demon woman, Sam, and Lilith. That's another piece of information the Winchester's aren't sharing. Sometimes, Victor feels like he's being left so far out of the loop he can't even see the damn loop.
While he was tracking the pair of them, he'd thought that Dean was the brains of the operation, and that Sam was just along for the ride. He changes his mind about that quickly. Sam Winchester is one of the most intelligent people he's ever met, with both a remarkable memory and the ability to assimilate and process lots of disparate pieces of information. Dean may play front man for the pair most of the time, but it's Sam who's really the brains of the operation.
Two weeks worth of hunting with the two of them, and Victor changes his mind again. For all that Dean tends to put on an air of simplicity, he's anything but dumb. He may not have his brother's education, but he's just as capable of recalling the details of their hunts as Sam, can think on his feet with the best of them, and seems to be able to assemble electronic devices out of spare parts (though the last is a skill that Victor only sees Dean use once). Victor wonders what Dean would have made of himself if his father hadn't dragged both his sons into this demon hunting business.
So Victor learns from the Winchester brothers, and he, in turn, teaches them a thing or two, like how to be more convincing when posing as governments agents. He also manages to convince them both to start wearing gloves at crime scenes (and really, why in the hell weren't they doing that to begin with?), because, while they may be officially dead, if the police turn up a couple of supposedly deceased serial killer's fingerprints at a crime scene, then the shit is going to hit the fan. Hard.
The brothers are looking for someone named Bela Talbot. She's some kind of thief and dealer in paranormal objects, and apparently, she's stolen something from them. Turns out she was also the one that turned Sam and Dean in, all those weeks ago, which in a twisted sort of way, make her responsible for Nancy, Reidy, and all the people at the station getting killed. Victor knows it isn't rational, but he really wants to see her go down, and he's never even met the woman. Dean seems to want her dead.
They don't manage to find Bela but they do take out a myling in Oragon, and another wendigo in California (“damned migrating freakin' wendigo,” Dean complains).
They handle a bukavac in Colorado, and that thing is blasted weird looking it makes the wendigo look cuddly by comparison.
In Alabama they hunt down a swamp monster and Dean starts a bar fight. A really damn big bar fight. A sloppy, drunken, redneck mistakes Sam and Dean for a gay couple and starts harassing them. They ignore him, until he turns on Victor and calls him a nasty racial slur. At which point Dean turns around and sucker punches the guy. It's all down hill from there. Victor has a moment of mourning for his lost dignity after he clubs one of the drunk's friends over the head with a beer bottle. At least it's not his beer, Dean's efforts aside, he still doesn't like to drink.
In Indiana, they take out three werewolves. Victor gets clawed in an uncomfortable place, and Dean spends the next two weeks chortling about it. Sam doesn't think it's very funny.
In Maryland, they run into some zombies. Lots, and lots of zombies. Of course Sam insists that most of them aren't actually zombies per se, but there comes a point after which Victor stops caring about the distinction. Overall, the less said about that mess, the better.
But mostly, what they handle is ghosts and demons. There's definitely no shortage of either. Victor's getting to a point where he could recite an exorcism in his sleep. He has to admit, that of all the things he's hunted, he gets the most satisfaction from sending demons back to hell.
Traveling with the Winchesters does answer a lot of Victor's questions. He now knows a lot more about what's out there. He now understands the bizarre behavior he was puzzling over while trying to track the brothers down while he was still with the FBI. But for all the answers, this road trip has raised some questions as well...
“I can't believe you.”
“Well, I am pretty unbelievable.”
“You changed the wallpaper on my laptop.”
“Come on Sammy, you know you loved it.”
“Dean, I am never going to be able to unsee that image.”
“I know, it was pretty awesome, right?”
“You're such a jerk.”
“Bitch.”
...like, how can two incredibly well-trained dangerous men be so unbelievably immature?
When they eventually decide to split up, Victor is almost relived. It's not that he doesn't like the brothers, it's just that he feels like an interloper most of the time. The pair of them move in sync on hunts instinctively. They share inside jokes that Victor doesn't get, and hold conversations with glances. Sometimes, when the three of them are discussing a hunt, and Victor offers his input, the both of them will startle, just for a second, as if they've forgotten he's there.
It's not just that, though. The tension between the brothers has been mounting, and Victor is, as ever, left out of the loop. It's gotten to the point where it's nearly suffocating Sam's perpetually tense, always researching something he won't discuss, and Dean has the wilted, hunted look of a condemned man. Victor likes them both. He really does. But he thinks it's time for him to go.
Victor stands next to his familiar beige Civic. He thinks it'll be nice to drive again, and to ride in a car that doesn't make as much noise as a Harley.
“Seriously, dude, a beige Civic? Doesn't exactly scream 'badass hunter,'” Dean says, watching Victor stow the last of his possessions back in his own car.
Victor snorts. “At least my car doesn't stand out. You're going to get yourself in trouble someday, Dean, driving that thing. It's too distinctive.”
“Hey now, don't you disparage my baby.”
“You have an unhealthy attachment to that car, Dean.”
“That's what I keep telling him,” Sam says, coming up behind his brother. Victor can tell he hasn't been sleeping, probably doing more of his research.
Dean clasps Victors hand. “Goodbye, Vic. Be careful out there, and hey, try not to expose your back to any seriously pissed off werewolves.”
“Yeah, real funny Dean.”
“Goodbye, Victor,” Sam says more solemnly.
“Goodbye, and look after yourselves, both of you... and I may not know what kind of trouble you two are in, but if you need my help with something, anything, let me know. Seriously, I owe you both.”
Dean smiles, a it's a little bit sad. “If we think there's anything you can do, we'll give you a call.” His tone of voice makes it clear that he doesn't think there's anything Victor could possibly do. Victor wishes he knew what the damn problem was.
Victor watches them climb into the Impala before settling into his own car. His knee hurts a little, but it's not too bad. He has a purpose in life, some hope for the future, and a prospective hunt only four hours drive away. He pulls out his journal to check on some details and stops. He stares at it for a moment. Someone's plastered the plain black cover with glittery unicorn stickers.
And... done! I'll be posting an entry in the next couple of days where people can vote on what I should write next (or prompt me, even), so keep an eye out.