Black Dog on My Shoulder Again 1/2 [SPN]
Title: Black Dog on My Shoulder Again
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Bobby, Brady
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language, mentions of animal cruelty
Word Count: c. 18,000 words
Author's Notes: Originally written for spn_summergen Dialogue at the beginning and at the very end is taken directly from Episode 5.03 - "Free to Be, You and Me." Although the story is gen, there is reference to canon Sam/Jess. Many, many thanks to la_perkins, aishuu, and incandescens for all of their help, encouragement, and nit-picking.
Summary: When Sam left for Stanford, he planned to leave the hunting life behind him forever. But when he stumbles into a case halfway through his sophomore year, he learns that the most frightening monster of all refuses to be left behind.
"Okay..."
Sam knew from the way Bobby drawled the word out that he was in for it and then some. He should have just left things right there, maybe manufactured some emergency that required him to get off the phone or maybe even just hung up without explanation, but in the end he was just a big old glutton for punishment. God knew he deserved it.
"What?"
"There a reason you're calling?"
You mean other than the apocalyptic omens I just finished telling you about? Isn't that reason enough to call? But that wasn't what Bobby meant, and Sam was too tired to play dumb.
Up until then, the conversation had been easy enough. Even reporting the mix of fire and hail, which was pretty atypical for Oklahoma--pretty atypical for anywhere--hadn't been an issue. More than once he'd called a job in to Bobby when there wasn't any way he and Dean could get to it in time.
"Dean didn't tell you?"
Sam couldn't say any more than that. Maybe he could have if Bobby was there instead of on the other end of a phone line. It was all too easy to imagine disgust and disappointment, with recent memory staining things. Yes, Bobby had taken back everything the demon had said through him, everything and then some, but that had been after. In the moment, though...
Well, it wasn't anything he didn't deserve.
"He told me."
It was brusque, but there wasn't any judgment there. Sam wasn't sure what was there, but it was something that reminded Sam that when Dean let him go, he also offered to let Sam take the Impala--and that the offer had been sincere.
The sincerity didn't matter. Dean had no way of knowing what being in the Impala was like without Dean at the wheel or snoring away in the passenger seat.
And right now, Sam needed to get as much space between himself and those days as he could.
If anything surprised him about turning down Dean's offer, it was the fact that he'd been able to do so as casually as he had.
He had been calm, for all that he was rattled. He supposed that meant something.
He'd even kept it together the other day, when a brawl broke out in the bar. A few calm words and no physical threat other than size alone, and the situation was defused. Just like that.
Lindsey had been impressed. And Sam had been more than a little pleased with himself. But...
But even now there was an echo of rage, a rush of dark and heady satisfaction as he imagined his fist connecting with the asshole's face (no, striking the throat, making him pay, making him bleed...), and he shoved it back down. Hard.
It had to mean something, that he still could. Right?
But this...
"Yeah. So--I just thought you might want to find out who's in the area and put a man on this."
That should be enough. Dean had to have told Bobby why Sam had stepped down. The stakes were too high for Dean to have dismissed it all by joking about how Sam had just pussied out on them the way Dean had always known he would. Dean could be incredibly juvenile when he was worked up or upset about something, but this was different. He had let Sam go. No fight. No argument. No attempt to contradict or even downplay what Sam had said. Just resigned agreement that Sam couldn't be trusted. That Sam was dangerous.
Even at Stanford, you knew.
Jess's voice in his memory was as clear as it was in last night's dream. He didn't look back, didn't dare look back.
You knew.
He didn't know what would be worse: looking back and seeing nothing, or looking back and finding her there again.
Bobby had to understand. He had to know why Sam couldn't do this. Not any more.
"Okay. Let me see if I can think of the best hunter who might be in the immediate vicinity--"
Of course not. Sam couldn't even pretend to be surprised. It was just like before.
Deep down, maybe, but you knew.
Just like before.
"--and I hate to say it, but it looks to me like you're it, Sam. For now, at least."
"Bobby..." Sam cleared his throat. God, he sounded like a whiny teenager. Technically he was a teenager, but not for that much longer. He pitched his voice lower, not only so he wouldn't whine, but so he wouldn't be overheard. Last he checked, Luis was sound asleep in the other room, but there was no such thing as too careful. "I've been a civilian for over a year, now. I'm not a hunter anymore. I don't know if I can do this."
There was a low chuckle at the other end of the line. "Son, didn't your daddy ever tell you that there's no such thing as an ex-Marine? Hate to say it, but you could say the same thing about hunters."
Shit. Of course Bobby had to go and bring up Dad. Sam pressed hard at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the incoming headache. It was either that or bang his head on his desk.
God damn it, how could the man still make him so angry when he wasn't even here?
Bobby sighed when Sam didn't answer. Sam could practically hear him reminding himself to be patient. "Look, in our line of work, there's always the chance something'll come up out of nowhere to bite you in the ass five, ten years down the line. That happens, you need to be ready to take care of it and keep other people out of the crossfire. You think you're the only hunter who's ever wanted normal, Sam? Who ever got sick of the life and tried to leave it behind?"
No. He didn't think that at all. In fact, if other hunters had left, then why couldn't he? He refused to believe that all of them had failed. He was going make this work. He was going to be normal. He had to try.
In the back of his mind, Sam heard Dean's awful Yoda imitation--Do or do not. There is no try.
"Bobby--"
Bobby sighed. "Y'know, one of these days, your face is going to freeze like that."
That startled a laugh out of Sam. "Freeze like what?"
"I don't have to see you to know what kind of look you were giving me. Sam, I know how bad you wanted out."
"I know." He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Bobby's help in smoothing out the irregularities and patching the gaps in his paper trail. He had said 'thank you' so many times and in so many ways that to say it again now would be meaningless. "But you're not sending help? You're telling me I have to take care of this myself?"
"I didn't say that, Sam. You might want to try listening for a change. I said you're it for now. I got to find someone else who can get there who's not already tied up in another hunt or five states away, and you know that could take a while, even if I get word out to Ellen," he said, not bothering to explain who that was, as if it was something Sam should just know. "Meanwhile, you got to dig in and do what you can to keep anyone else from getting hurt."
The unspoken assumption that he might not stung more than he thought it would.
But that didn't mean he was still a hunter.
"Yeah. Anyhow, I'm still not sure what this thing is, but I've got some notes--"
"Notes?" Bobby sounded far too amused.
Sam winced. "Uh, yeah. Force of habit, you know?"
He pulled out the (very small, utterly disposable) memo book he'd bought for the purpose when he realized there was something going on, but before he could start reciting the facts, he heard another phone ring in the background.
"Sorry, Sam. I gotta go impersonate the DEA for a bit. Call me back this afternoon."
"Ah... four-thirty my time? Poli-sci," he said. He bit back the urge to apologize.
That got a snort of laughter. "Sure thing, Sam."
"Bye. Have fun committing a federal offense."
"Smartass." Bobby hung up.
Sam followed suit, bemused by his own reluctance to do so.
He remembered Bobby's bank of labeled phones, and wondered who might be calling them now, and why.
Before he could censor the thought, he pictured Dean, cleaned up and in a suit, smiling and charming the everloving shit out of someone now that his bona fides had been verified.
"Typical," he muttered before getting up and stalking out of his dorm.
Sam didn't need to be up at the main quad until after two, but he wolfed down an early lunch before retrieving his bike from under the arbor. It was chilly and spitting rain when he set out at an unhurried pace up Los Arboles. Once he got up to main campus, he would remember the poli-sci notes he had 'forgotten' on his desk and swing back down Campus Drive to get them.
The subterfuge probably wasn't necessary, but he still wanted a reason for his roundabout trip. A reason other than the real one, anyway.
He might not be a hunter any more, but he was a good student and a damned good researcher. Before he called Bobby back, he wanted to take another look at the area where the attacks had taken place and see if anything else jumped out at him--figuratively, he hoped. The more solid information he could pass on to whoever picked up this hunt, the faster it would all be over. That was all.
The basic facts as reported by the campus police were these: six students--all freshmen and sophomores who lived at FroSoCo--had been attacked when traveling between their dorms and main campus. Five had been heading back from the main quad after an evening class or some other event, but one was a member of the swim team who had been heading out to morning practice. In any event, all the incidents took place shortly after dusk or just before dawn.
The first three reports had been fairly cut and dried. The incidents took place in late October and early November. The victims each said they had been knocked from their bikes while riding down Los Arboles. They were then bitten by a large black dog--larger than a Rottweiler, according to a witness who had interrupted one attack mid-maul. Animal Control had looked high and low for the dog, but the only strays they turned up were small and scrawny, and any local pets who might match the description had reasonably airtight alibis.
Sam tried not to be too curious, especially when a few strange details made it through the dorm rumor mill. Dad would have been chasing after those rumors after the second attack, but Sam only started thinking about it after the third. He made a trip past the attack sites then just as he was doing now, but he didn't find anything. Of course, the heavy rains they had might have had something to do with that.
Then Thanksgiving break came and went. It came with no new attacks, and it went leaving Sam with other things to worry about.
Things like one of his best friends going completely off the rails. What with Brady deciding to chuck the whole 'clean living' thing with reckless abandon just a week before end-quarter exams, Sam soon dismissed the string of animal attacks as being just that. No one had died, and everyone should recover with no lasting physical damage beyond a few scars.
Just as Sam was starting to think how it could have been worse, it got worse.
On December first, a fourth student was mauled. Sam knew the first three only in passing, but this one he knew well. Debbie Nguyen lived across the hall from him and Luis freshman year, and they were on the same hallway again this year. She wasn't a particularly close friend, but she was the sort of casual friend Sam never had the time to have before coming to Stanford.
She baked cookies for everyone on the hall every couple of weeks, just because. Every morning, she wrote a line of poetry or a song lyric on the message board by her door, and invited people to guess the source (Google not allowed--you're on your honor! :D ).
People like Debbie were not supposed to have their face ripped down to the bone by monsters. People who always waved 'hello' with both hands when they saw you should not have to know that monsters existed.
Sam went to visit her in the hospital, gritting his teeth and allowing himself to dip into the Winchester bag of tricks so he could get in after visiting hours and talk to her in private.
She was glad to see him, even with half her face masked with bandages. More than that, she was glad to have someone listen to her.
"Now you probably think I'm crazy, too, don't you?" she said when she had told him as much as she could bear.
He rested a hand over hers, completely covering it. "No. I don't."
She tried to smile but it ended up a pained grimace. "You know, I actually kinda believe you when you say that."
On his way back to his dorm, Sam bought a pocket-sized memo book and wrote down everything Debbie had told him. No way was he getting this stuff mixed in with his class notes.
He kept the notebook in his back pocket. Just in case.
Victims five and six followed just two days later, one in the morning, one in the evening. Campus Police had posted a bulletin telling people to avoid Los Arboles after dark after Debbie was mauled, but these two had been riding along Campus Drive.
The location had changed, and the viciousness of the attacks had escalated drastically. The fifth victim's left hand was so mangled it had to be amputated. The sixth victim died. Rumor had it that parts of him were missing. Eaten, people said.
By the time he got the news, Sam had filled up nearly half of the little notebook with rumor, bits pulled from internet sources of dubious virtue, and what little he could find in the university libraries. Other than Debbie's eyewitness account, the actual police reports were for once the best source he could find.
Sam had checked out Los Arboles just before Thanksgiving, but he wanted to get the scene fresh in his mind again. As the name might suggest, there were plenty of trees along the route, but Sam would hardly describe it or the stretch of Campus near FroSoCo as 'wooded.' The police reports might have described it as such, but Sam had rolled his eyes at that. To him, 'wooded' called up images of thicker, unbroken cover where no light got through and anything and everything could be hiding.
Still, if something wanted to lie in wait, there were plenty of places to choose from, even in December. The few remaining leaves shuddered and dipped in the scattered rain, but the only other sign of life was when a pair of serious cyclists in skin-tight fluorescents swooshed past him.
He had just reached the bike-only portion of Searsville Road when he was ambushed by the biggest dog he had ever seen in his life.
Seriously, the thing was so fat it was almost spherical.
Sam braked and turned the handlebars hard left, skidding to an awkward stop that was almost a fall. The dog bounded around him with asthmatic glee.
"Hey there!" Sam lowered the bike onto its side and crouched down so the poor dog didn't have to jump quite so high. The dog shoved its head under his hand, demanding to be petted.
He had no idea what kind of dog it was, other than well-fed, but the tan mask made him think shepherd mix. He rubbed one floppy, silky ear (maybe some hound in there?) between his fingers, and the dog's eyes went to half-mast in bliss. The dog had a bright purple collar and a bone-shaped name tag along all the other vaccination and license tags. A leash was still clipped to the collar's D-ring. Sam checked the name tag.
"Sadie, huh? Nice to meet you, Sadie." He should call the number on the tag, but it could wait a minute. His fingers went to the puppy-soft fur at the base of the ear. "Yeah, you like that, don't you, girl?"
She tilted her head up and swiped her tongue across his jaw. That would be a 'yes,' then. He laughed and got another lick.
He'd forgotten how much he missed this. Then, just as with almost every other good thing in his life, it was over much too soon.
A woman came running down the bike path, calling out Sadie's name desperately. She slowed to a walk when she saw Sam. "Oh, thank goodness! I'm glad you caught her before she got to the road--she's kind of stupid about cars, and everyone's in such a panic about dogs running loose right now." Her eyes went to Sam's bike lying on the side of the path. "Oh, no! She didn't knock you off your bike, did she?"
"No, no. We're fine." Sam got one last skritch in before Sadie's ears perked up and she bounded over to her owner with such joy you would have thought they'd been separated for months.
Bonesy used to be like that when Sam got back from a pizza run. Then one day, Sam went on a pizza run and never came back.
She must have misinterpreted his expression, because she started apologizing even more anxiously. "I am so, so sorry about that. I didn't mean to let her run loose. She saw a squirrel, and she yanked so hard I dropped the leash. You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's pretty fast."
Sam stood up. This caught Sadie's attention, and she ran back to him as if he were the most wonderful thing in the world.
My friend! My long-lost friend!
"It's okay." This time, he got a grip on Sadie's collar in case she got distracted again. She leaned against him and he grinned. "I like dogs."
The woman finally smiled at him. She looked like she was someone's mother, old enough to maybe have a kid in Sam's class. "I never would have guessed," she said wryly. "Thank you for being so nice to her. I know she can be obnoxious, but she's really just a cream puff."
It certainly looks like she's eaten her share of them, Sam thought.
His hand slid down from the collar and he leaned over a little bit to thump Sadie gently on the shoulder. "Yeah. I know how that goes. It's the kind of obnoxious you miss, though."
He handed the leash back to her, and she accepted it with a gentle smile. "You have a dog back home?"
"Yeah," he said, because it was easier to lie than explain. "Bones. Golden Retriever."
She laughed and said that was a great name for a dog, and then Sam decided that he had to be in a hurry before he started spinning out stories that he might not be able to remember later.
He headed back down Campus after saying that oops, he'd forgotten his notes for class. On the way down, he did a general check of the land--where were the blind spots from this direction? Dan had been traveling south, but the other victim had been going towards the main quad.
That told him the creature probably had at least two different hiding places.
The police tape and the blood had been cleaned up, and all that was left was a small, makeshift memorial by the side of the road to mark the spot where Dan Iverson had had his guts ripped out. There was a teddy bear and a plastic cup full of flowers, and someone had made a small wooden cross. A picture of Dan--one of those generic yearbook photos that said nothing about the person--was propped against the cross, but it had already started to warp and wrinkle in the rain. By the end of the day, there would probably be more tributes. Sam had nothing to leave but a promise that he would try to find whatever had done this, and a silent apology for not doing more sooner.
That done, it was time to get to work. There weren't many places something could hide nearby with a good view of the bike lane, but there were some trees with tall grass or scrub growing beneath that would have given something good cover along with a clear path to the trail when Dan rode past.
Dan had been coming back from the main quad, so whatever it was would have been ten or so yards south of where Dan was found. Debbie's story and all the rumors he'd heard indicated that the dog had jumped from out of 'nowhere,' forcing them to swerve and getting them off-balance enough that it could knock them down easily.
The question is, was this a random attack, or did this thing single Dan and the others out for a reason? Let's assume there was a reason. Which means I'm going to have to do some digging into these guys' backgrounds, aren't I?
While he trekked up to a likely hiding spot, Sam started working out how he might start doing those background checks. A breeze had cropped up, which was good. If someone came by and wondered what Sam was doing, he could be chasing down a bit of paper that had blown off. He was a little disgusted at how easy it was to come up with an excuse for snooping around.
It didn't take him long to find where the thing had been waiting. It was clear at once that this wasn't just a feral dog, and Sam had to stop and close his eyes for a minute.
He hadn't realized just how much he was hoping it had been and that he'd be able to call Bobby back with a 'never mind.' And he hated himself for thinking this isn't fair, I've got exams coming up, but the thought was there, and it burned.
Well, it wasn't fair that Debbie would need multiple surgeries to fix her face and arm, or that Dan Iverson would never have to worry about exams again.
Sam had a job to do, no matter how much he didn't want to do it. He tried not to feel guilty about hoping Bobby found someone soon, and made a quick sketch of the monster's hiding place. He gathered what evidence he could, and then, just before leaving, put his hand down on top of the one clear paw print that that stood out in the mess of animal and human tracks.
The print was nearly as big as his hand.
At two twenty-five, Sam ran up the steps of Encina Hall. He told himself several times that Bobby was expecting a call at four-thirty, not earlier, and besides, this was the last session for this class before exams.
At two forty-five, he feigned a stomachache without too much difficulty and rushed back to his room. Luis shouldn't be back until sometime after six, so he had some guarantee of privacy.
Sam flopped down on the futon-slash-couch and took a few deep breaths. He could do this. What left him agitated and sour-stomached was the realization that on some level, he wanted to do this. He pulled his notebook and his cell phone out of his pocket. Then he got the baggies of evidence out of his backpack and arranged them next to him on the futon. In one of them, the dark of the contents nearly disappeared against the navy blue.
Bobby answered just as Sam thought he was going to get the answering machine.
"Wasn't expecting you to call so early, Sam."
"Yeah." Sam grinned nervously and ducked his head even though there was no one there to see. "I kinda skipped class."
"You?" Bobby laughed, but at least he didn't bring up what Sam thought would be an inevitable comparison to Dean.
"Hey, I was having trouble concentrating on judicial politics and constitutional law."
There was a snort on the other end of the line. "Why the hell would you want to?" There was an awkward pause that Sam wasn't sure he should try to fill. "Sorry. I know it's important to you, Sam. Anyways, I'm guessing you found something?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of it." Sam rearranged the baggies. "I'm not sure if this thing looks human some of the time, or if there's someone who's managed to get control of a ... something. There's definitely a person or something intelligent involved. I do know it's not a werewolf, though."
Sam heard the sound of a mug clunking down at a table, and that was enough for him to imagine himself in Bobby's kitchen, sitting at a book-strewn table and talking companionably. "Fair enough. How so?"
"No full moon on any of the attacks. In fact, there's no clear pattern other than the fact that all the victims are from FroSoCo, um, that's Freshman-Sophomore College. The dorms where I live." There was a moment where he imagined talking to Bobby about his everyday life here, and all the stupid, wonderful, normal things that were a part of it, but this was not the time. "The important thing here is that we're a little bit off the beaten path, and there's lots of back and forth between here and main campus. That's when people are being ambushed. What's weird is that there's some graduate housing right nearby, and I haven't heard of any grad students being attacked."
"So, you're thinking it's singling people out."
"Yeah, though that's more of a hunch than a solid theory right now." Sam related what he had figured out about the thing choosing a hiding spot--more like a hunting blind--and how it would probably have to wait for a while for someone to come by. It also seemed like it didn't use the same blind twice, but he couldn't be sure. "Other than the dorm thing, I don't know about any other connection between the victims yet, but I'm digging."
"Wait. You found where it was lying in wait? As in solid evidence? Has anyone other than the victims seen this thing?"
Sam flipped through his notebook. "Yeah. Twice." Chris Wolfe--victim number five--probably would have died if someone hadn't driven by, sending the dog racing off into the bushes. "Both reported a huge black dog that ran off as soon as it knew it had been seen. One said it had glowing red eyes, but most people are dismissing that as reflection. Beyond that, there was about as much detail as you'd expect about a black dog at night."
He heard a swallow, then the mug hitting the table again. "Well, that's something at least."
"How so?"
There was a long pause. "Something in that at least we're not dealing with some dumbass who conjured up a vicious invisible dog. Hellhounds would be a whole 'nother mess of problems and I'd be telling you to transfer your ass to Harvard as soon as you could."
"Uh, okay." There were a lot of blanks there that Bobby was assuming he could fill in. Sam almost asked Bobby to back up and explain, but he was getting out of this life, not digging deeper in. Hellhounds and their ilk were a non-issue. He could forget about them. "Anyhow, we're dealing with what seems to be a normal looking black dog. Except for the glowing eyes, and the, uh, hugeness. Debbie--she's a friend of mine, she got torn up pretty bad, and..." He stopped for a moment. When he started again, his voice felt steadier. He had no idea how it sounded. "She said the dog's eyes really glowed, as in they cast light. And that there was something kind of human about them. There was one other thing, but she's already got herself convinced it was her mind playing tricks on her. She said the dog was laughing at her."
He heard muffled cursing and the sound of books and papers being moved around roughly. "Okay. That tells me a lot, right there. Tell me about what you found at the site."
"Well," he said, picking up the first baggie. "I found a wadded up bag and some Funyun bits. It was shoved deep down into the weeds, and I think it was our guy who did it."
"Funyuns? And why'd you decide this was a clue and not litter?"
He picked up the second and third baggies. "Well, I also found some plant material. Most of it was burned, and there were soot smears and some char on the bag, like he'd handled it after burning the plants. "
"Good eye, son. What kind of plants? Could you tell?"
Sam picked up baggie number two. "Well, there's the usual suspects. Sage, cedar, you know. Most of that's ash, but I recognized the smell. And the, let's see... there were some seed pods in there. I haven't had a chance to look any of this up yet, but they're pretty distinctive--about the size of a walnut, a little bit spiny, they've got four sections when you break them open, and there's lots of little black seeds."
More paper movement. More cursing. "Any flowers in the mix?" It sounded like Bobby already knew the answer to that question.
"Yeah. I was just getting to that. I found some white flowers mixed in there as well." The majority of the flowers were dried into papery lengths that were well-charred, but there were a couple that had been too fresh to burn. They had wilted, but it was easy to see that they were long, thin trumpets. "They look kind of like petunias."
Bobby cursed. "Jimson weed. Jesus, you telling me you don't know the difference between that and a goddamn petunia? Jimson's used to boost a bunch of different shape-shifting spells, and whoever this is knows enough to know you need both the flowers and the seeds. Both ends of the cycle. Great. Let me guess. You also found a mix of human and animal prints, all on top of each other."
"Yeah." Sam's voice sounded very small, even to him. Even after seeing the evidence, it was hard for him to get his head around the idea that this a person, not a thing, who was doing this. Doing this to himself. Making himself--or herself--into something other than human.
He wanted to ask why someone would do this, but didn't want to hear Bobby to say 'I don't know,' or something even worse. "There were. That and a couple of other things. There were markings--deliberate markings--on the ground. It was all trampled over, but some bits were clear. Can I fax you a copy of what I sketched?"
"Yeah. Do that. What else? You said you found a couple of things."
Sam picked up the last baggie, the one that was almost invisible against the futon. "The spot where the dog jumped out of the thicket was pretty obvious. It crashed through a bramble, and I found something--"
There was a scraping at the doorknob, and faint metallic clicks that Sam recognized instantly. Of course, he would normally be the one responsible for making those sounds.
"Uh, I'm going to have to call you back in a bit, okay? Someone's trying to break into my room."
"Have fun. Go easy on 'em."
What was that supposed to mean? Even though Bobby wasn't there to see, Sam gave him a look as he hung up the phone. He put the baggies in his desk drawer and piled junk on top of them. There was no need to rush--whoever was picking the locks on the door sucked at it.
He walked over and opened the door so quickly the would-be intruder stumbled into the room, nearly doing a face-plant.
"Oh. Hi, Brady," Sam said, all innocence. "I didn't hear you knock."
Brady had grabbed Sam's arm to keep himself steady on his feet. Judging from the smell, the near fall wasn't the only reason Brady was having trouble getting his footing.
"Whoa, Sam. Didn't think you'd be here, what with class and all."
Sam helped Brady over to the futon. "Right. So you thought you'd let yourself in. Um, don't you have your own room?"
Brady gave him a shrug and a sour look. "Matt told me to fuck off and leave him alone until I'd 'sobered up,'" he said, giving the air quotes. "And don't you start in on me. It was only three beers, and it's after five on the east coast."
"I'll make you some coffee." Sam doubted the three beers story. For one thing, it smelled more like three bourbons.
"Aw, that's nice. How come you're always such a nice guy, Sam?" Brady flopped down on the futon, and Sam winced when the frame creaked. "And why aren't you in class, anyway?"
Sam shrugged, feeling that was the only answer Brady deserved. "If I were nice, I'd go pick you up some real coffee. All we've got in the room right now is instant."
Brady groaned in a way that made Sam fear for the futon cover. But Sam was indeed nice, and added enough milk and sugar to the instant to cover the vileness.
At first, Sam thought Brady was asleep, with the way he had an arm flung over his eyes, but the arm shifted up just a little when Sam came by.
"Can you not make this a habit, man?" Sam held out the coffee. Brady sat up excruciatingly slowly and took it. He sniffed it suspiciously before saying 'thanks.' "I've had enough looking after people who are sleeping off a drunk to last me a lifetime."
That got a sharp grin and a knowing look that didn't look at all right on Brady's face. "Wow. Sordid Winchester family details. You don't let those slip very often."
"Forget I said anything."
"Huh? Oh, hey, hey... I'm sorry about that. That came out wrong," Brady said, and he sounded very much sober and very much like the Brady Sam remembered from before that breakdown or crisis or whatever the hell it was that happened over Thanksgiving break.
"Yeah, it did."
Brady didn't take umbrage at that. He just sat there, head bowed, letting it sink in. "Sorry. I mean that. I know I haven't been myself lately..." he laughed, even though it wasn't funny at all. "Thanks for putting up with me. I mean it."
"Anytime, pal. And I mean it, too." Sam settled in at his desk and opened up his laptop. He had two papers to finish in the next week on top of all the studying he had to do. He really hoped Brady snapped out of this social and academic death spiral of his soon, or at least opened up about what had set him off.
He stared at his psych paper for a good long time, not really reading anything that was on the screen. Every time he tried to think of how to flesh out the next part of his outline, he started thinking about how he had almost roomed with Brady this year, and how he was starting to be glad he hadn't.
Sam really hated when a sense of relief came with a side-order of guilt. Brady had been fine about it when Sam said he didn't want to ditch Luis, and how maybe junior year, him and Luis and Matt and Brady could all go in together on an apartment.
It still seemed so strange, so new, having the same living arrangements for two years running, when he could remember years where two months in the same place seemed like a forever-long time. It seemed even stranger, making plans for where he would be living a year from now.
"Doing okay over there?" Sam asked. When he didn't get an answer, he looked over his shoulder. Brady was sound asleep, arm back over his eyes, and mouth open. Sam shook his head and turned back to staring at his computer screen.
One thing he'd never thought about was how you could stay in one place for as long as you liked, but that didn't mean that the people there wouldn't up and change on you without warning.
Sam closed Word, giving up on the psych paper for now. Of course, if he'd roomed with Brady, then maybe he'd have gotten wind of whatever had made Brady go nuts and been able to do something. As it was, the change was so abrupt as to be mind-boggling. Hell, last night Brady was going off about how he was done--D-O-N-E--with pre-med. No more of that shit, he'd said. He was giving up on what others wanted, and doing what he wanted for a goddamn change.
Sam might have believed him, but he'd listened to Brady talk for hours about what he planned to do with his medical degree, and why, and the light in his eyes wasn't the sort of thing you could fake.
He told Brady this, and it seemed to get through. Just a little. Brady admitted that just because his parents wanted something for him, that didn't mean he couldn't want it for himself. But that was as far as it went.
Maybe this was just stress. Maybe a week or two of party-hearty would knock whatever it was out of Brady's system. He'd barely had time to knock his grades into the gutter, so unless he blew off exams, it wasn't too late for him to pull them back out. If worse came to worst, it was only one quarter.
Since he couldn't make himself think about Ab Psych, Sam pulled out the memo book. He might as well make some use of his time. He looked through his notes and started pulling out coherent themes.
Attacks--increasing intensity and frequency. WhatWhoever's doing this becoming careless. Sloppy. Evidence left behind. Going after people where more likely to be seen.
He felt the familiar rush as things began to fall into place, and he started to assemble a picture of something that had started relatively innocently (he made a note to find out if anyone reported being harassed by a dog before Peter Rakitzis was bitten) but was getting worse and getting worse faster.
He'd missed this.
Peter Rakitzis. Meagan Shaffer. Jay Whitehead. Debbie Nguyen. Chris Wolfe. Dan Iverson. He re-read the list of names, the few facts he knew about each person slotting into place automatically. No pattern jumped out immediately other than them being from the same dorm and being alone when they--no, wait. There was something else.
Four of them been on the way to or from class, but Meagan and Chris had been on the way to a regular, scheduled event--theater rehearsal for Meagan, and swim practice for Chris. That meant each of the six would have been heading to or from main quad close enough to a specific time that someone could set an effective ambush.
Now, to find a common thread. He'd have to start talking to people. Okay, got to find a good excuse for asking around...
Sam jotted down the first few excuses that came to mind before he asked himself what the hell he thought he was supposed to be doing. This wasn't supposed to be fun.
He leaned back in his chair, raking his fingers deep through his hair. "Goddamnit it..."
"Sam? Y'okay?" Brady mumbled.
"Yeah. Fine. Go back to sleep." He'd gone so deep that he'd forgotten that Brady was there. Jesus, what would he say if Brady had come over here and gotten a good look at what he was doing? Or if he lost track of time and Luis came back?
No way in hell was he going to go back to being a freak, a loner, someone who had to pack up and move every few months, weeks, days. No more motel bathroom surgeries. No more sleeping in the back of a car or out in the woods. No more explaining away cuts and bruises. No more petty theft, no more fraud, no more rooking money out of people who were one wrong word from trying to knife him.
No more having to pretend.
He was done. D-O-N-E, as Brady might say.
Maybe I could just do this sort of thing, though. There's no harm in helping out a little, doing some research on the side for people who need help...
No. This was a one-time deal, no matter what Bobby had said. After this, it was back to a normal life.
But he still had a vivid image of Dean, grinning at him and holding a knife, handle out, pushing it towards him and daring him to take it. C'mon, Sammy. It'll be fun. Just like old times, huh?
Sam tossed the memo book into the junk drawer. He didn't mean to slam the drawer shut, but he did so hard enough that he had to scramble to keep the desk lamp from toppling over.
"Jeez, Sam. What'd that desk do to you, anyway?"
Sam swiveled his chair to face Brady. He looked very awake now. "I'm blaming it for writer's block. How you doing on your paper for Ab Psych, by the way?"
"I'll have something to turn in," Brady said, not looking at Sam. "Anyhow, that was one hell of a slam. You're scary, man."
"No, I'm not." Sam stood up and stretched, hands almost grazing the ceiling. He clenched and unclenched his right hand, trying to dispel the sensation of the weight and heft of a knife's hilt.
"You seen you? I mean seriously. All I'm saying is, no way do I ever want you mad at me." He sounded deadly serious, but then he cracked up at the look Sam gave him.
"Can it, Brady. I'm hungry. C'mon."
He held the door open, waiting for Brady to get his ass off the futon and making it clear that leaving Brady alone in the room was not an option. Someone who thought picking locks was a good idea (well, there were times when it was) probably wouldn't think twice about digging through someone's desk in search of aspirin or whatever.
Sam made a mental note to find a way to discreetly dispose of his hunting knife over winter break. He'd made the same note a few times, but this time he meant it.
Brady got up without any fuss, but stopped short when he turned to go down the hall. "What the hell?"
Sam closed the door behind him. "What do you mean, what the hell?"
Brady ignored him. Someone was in the hallway, slumped against Debbie's door. "Rod? What the fuck are you doing?"
"Hey, Rod." Sam tried to counter Brady's aggression with something more friendly, but Rod still looked up at them, wide-eyed and fearful.
"Ah... Hi." Rod was a tall guy, nearly as tall as Sam, but he had a way of making himself look pathetically small. "I just... Debbie, you know?"
Rod's crush on Debbie had been painfully obvious to everyone. Sam had heard that he'd asked her out, but what happened after that he didn't know.
"Yeah, when we talked last week, you were telling me all about how she shot you down, and now she's dog chow," Brady said cheerfully. "Sorry about that, man."
Rod blinked a few times, as if finally registering who was standing there talking to him. "Brady?" Rod's eyes went hard, and he suddenly looked his full height as he closed the ground between himself and Brady in two strides. "Listen, you fucking son of a bitch, this is all--"
"Hey. Steady." Sam got himself between Rod and Brady. A hand on Rod's chest stopped him cold. Rod pushed back, but it was no contest at all. "I know you liked her, and I know Brady's being an asshole--"
"Hey!"
"You are. So shut it." He turned back to Rod. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Debbie. Maybe you should go visit her or something, yeah? I went to see her the other day, and one thing she said was that she felt like people weren't coming by, like maybe they were scared to look at her."
Rod looked away. He said nothing, but his jaw was working convulsively and he was making himself small again. Sam had a feeling he wouldn't be visiting Debbie any time soon.
"Yeah. Maybe," he said.
"Well, let's just hope the police or whoever find what tore her up," Brady said. He pointed at Rod, making a gun of his hand. "Maybe the next we hear of our mysterious and spooooky black dog, it'll be because someone finally put a bullet in its head."
Rod looked very much like he wanted to say something to Brady, but he cut a quick, scared glance up at Sam and said nothing.
"It's kind of freaky, isn't it?" Brady said, ignoring Sam's glare. "Big monster black dog. Sounds like something kind of up your alley."
Sam stared at him. He'd been so careful. How had Brady...
"You shut the hell up about that," Rod hissed. "You of all--uh, Winchester, can you uh, let me go?"
"Sorry." Without knowing, Sam had twisted up a big handful of Rod's shirt. "Brady, you go on ahead. I'll catch up, okay?"
Brady breezed past them. "Sure thing. See ya, Rod." He walked off down the hallway, making only one parting shot before he hit the stairwell.
"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
Rod had gone blotchy, angry red and sickly pale all at once. "Why the hell are you friends with that asshole anyway?"
Sam shrugged. These days, he wasn't too sure about that himself. "He's normally not like this. This is new. Something's going on, and I sure as hell hope he snaps out of it."
Rod still looked hatefully in the direction of the stairwell. "He's trouble. Do you have any idea what he--" He shook his head and slumped against the wall. "Never mind. Just... never mind."
"It's okay. I'll keep an eye on him," Sam said, although he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise. "You going to be okay?"
He got another look, one that was just this side of screaming panic. "Yeah," Rod said in a very small voice. "Look, can I, um, go? I just want... yeah."
"Sure. Take care of yourself, Rod. And go visit Debbie, will ya?" Sam continued on his way, deliberately not looking back when he heard a stuttering sob from behind him.
Poor Rod. Sam didn't really like the guy all that much--he was so anxious to be liked that it made you feel obligated to try to be his friend, and that was never fun. Plus, a few things he'd overheard made Sam suspect that Rod would think his former life as a hunter was cool, like it was something to fucking aspire to. He also had a nasty feeling that if Rod ever got wind that things like ghosts and werewolves and rawheads were real he'd go after them and try to make friends. Like that could ever end well.
So Sam was as nice to him as he was to anyone else (there wasn't any reason not to be) and kept him at arm's length.
Sam walked across the courtyard to the dining hall and made a mental note to look into Rod's connections to the victims. There were dozens of students Sam had met who seemed eager to wallow in the occult, but most of them were harmless enough.
Still, he was sometimes tempted to hint that they would be much safer finding another thing to obsess about. Collecting stamps, maybe. Or raising racing pigeons.
But Rod had a reputation for being interested in the occult, and he had a connection to Debbie. He also worked as a stage tech for a couple of the campus theater groups, so that meant he might know Meagan Shaffer.
"Way to be paranoid, Winchester," he muttered. "Try to be sane about this, okay?" Dad probably would have had him tossing Rod's room by now.
No, Rod was genuinely broken up over what happened to Debbie. No way he would have done that to her himself. Still, he had better look into things. Rod could be the connection without being the cause.
When he got to the dining hall, Sam saw Brady sitting with a group of their friends, laughing and--from the way he was gesturing extravagantly--telling some outrageous story. Therefore, Sam didn't feel any guilt about ditching and taking a meal back to his room, even though Brady looked half-buzzed. Before he left, he caught Brady's eye, pointed at his meal, then pointed back in the direction of his room. Brady smiled and waved, then went back to his conversation as if Sam didn't matter at all.
That felt better than Sam thought it would.
On his way out, he saw one of the official notices warning people to be careful traveling to main quad. It reminded people of the shuttle schedule. It also summarized the state laws regarding pepper spray, just in case.
Another notice gave a number to call if anyone saw a dog loose in the area. Sam remembered Sadie, and her owner chasing after her after she'd bolted, and wondered if anyone would be stupid enough to call her in for being a menace.
He laughed to himself, thinking of the sweet, dimwitted dog. Maybe when he moved into an apartment next year, he'd find one that would allow dogs.
Yeah, that would be nice, having a dog again...
The last time he ever saw Bones, he had probably said something like wait here, boy, I'll be right back and we'll have some pizza! And Bones would have sat at full attention, feet planted square in front of him and putting all his might into being A Good Dog. He would have been sitting just like that when Sam returned, because he was A Very Good Dog, but Sam never made it back. When he came out of the pizza place, the Impala had pulled almost all the way up on the sidewalk, and Dean was out of the car and on top of him before Sam had a chance to run.
Sam had said nothing about Bones, figuring that Dean didn't deserve to know about the best dog in the whole world. It wasn't until days later that he thought that maybe Dean would have gone back for Bones and maybe even stood up to Dad. But they were in Maine by then, and it was too late.
Sometimes, he wondered what had happened to Bones, and how long he had waited for Sam before giving up. He wondered if there was any way he could find out, but he never did more than wonder. If he could find out, he wasn't sure he'd like the answer. As much as not knowing sucked, there were things that sucked more.
It was easier to believe that a dog as good as Bones had had a family that missed him, and that was out of their minds with joy when he showed up after being missing for two weeks.
When he got back to his room, Sam plunked his dinner on the coffee table, and almost knocked over Brady's coffee cup. It was still half-full of curdled coffee, so he took it to the bathroom to dump and wash out. For some reason, he thought that maybe he should call Dean. Just to make sure he was okay. Or something.
But in the end, he decided he wasn't sure he'd like what he heard if he did call.
So he didn't.
Part Two
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Bobby, Brady
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language, mentions of animal cruelty
Word Count: c. 18,000 words
Author's Notes: Originally written for spn_summergen Dialogue at the beginning and at the very end is taken directly from Episode 5.03 - "Free to Be, You and Me." Although the story is gen, there is reference to canon Sam/Jess. Many, many thanks to la_perkins, aishuu, and incandescens for all of their help, encouragement, and nit-picking.
Summary: When Sam left for Stanford, he planned to leave the hunting life behind him forever. But when he stumbles into a case halfway through his sophomore year, he learns that the most frightening monster of all refuses to be left behind.
"Okay..."
Sam knew from the way Bobby drawled the word out that he was in for it and then some. He should have just left things right there, maybe manufactured some emergency that required him to get off the phone or maybe even just hung up without explanation, but in the end he was just a big old glutton for punishment. God knew he deserved it.
"What?"
"There a reason you're calling?"
You mean other than the apocalyptic omens I just finished telling you about? Isn't that reason enough to call? But that wasn't what Bobby meant, and Sam was too tired to play dumb.
Up until then, the conversation had been easy enough. Even reporting the mix of fire and hail, which was pretty atypical for Oklahoma--pretty atypical for anywhere--hadn't been an issue. More than once he'd called a job in to Bobby when there wasn't any way he and Dean could get to it in time.
"Dean didn't tell you?"
Sam couldn't say any more than that. Maybe he could have if Bobby was there instead of on the other end of a phone line. It was all too easy to imagine disgust and disappointment, with recent memory staining things. Yes, Bobby had taken back everything the demon had said through him, everything and then some, but that had been after. In the moment, though...
Well, it wasn't anything he didn't deserve.
"He told me."
It was brusque, but there wasn't any judgment there. Sam wasn't sure what was there, but it was something that reminded Sam that when Dean let him go, he also offered to let Sam take the Impala--and that the offer had been sincere.
The sincerity didn't matter. Dean had no way of knowing what being in the Impala was like without Dean at the wheel or snoring away in the passenger seat.
And right now, Sam needed to get as much space between himself and those days as he could.
If anything surprised him about turning down Dean's offer, it was the fact that he'd been able to do so as casually as he had.
He had been calm, for all that he was rattled. He supposed that meant something.
He'd even kept it together the other day, when a brawl broke out in the bar. A few calm words and no physical threat other than size alone, and the situation was defused. Just like that.
Lindsey had been impressed. And Sam had been more than a little pleased with himself. But...
But even now there was an echo of rage, a rush of dark and heady satisfaction as he imagined his fist connecting with the asshole's face (no, striking the throat, making him pay, making him bleed...), and he shoved it back down. Hard.
It had to mean something, that he still could. Right?
But this...
"Yeah. So--I just thought you might want to find out who's in the area and put a man on this."
That should be enough. Dean had to have told Bobby why Sam had stepped down. The stakes were too high for Dean to have dismissed it all by joking about how Sam had just pussied out on them the way Dean had always known he would. Dean could be incredibly juvenile when he was worked up or upset about something, but this was different. He had let Sam go. No fight. No argument. No attempt to contradict or even downplay what Sam had said. Just resigned agreement that Sam couldn't be trusted. That Sam was dangerous.
Even at Stanford, you knew.
Jess's voice in his memory was as clear as it was in last night's dream. He didn't look back, didn't dare look back.
You knew.
He didn't know what would be worse: looking back and seeing nothing, or looking back and finding her there again.
Bobby had to understand. He had to know why Sam couldn't do this. Not any more.
"Okay. Let me see if I can think of the best hunter who might be in the immediate vicinity--"
Of course not. Sam couldn't even pretend to be surprised. It was just like before.
Deep down, maybe, but you knew.
Just like before.
"--and I hate to say it, but it looks to me like you're it, Sam. For now, at least."
"Bobby..." Sam cleared his throat. God, he sounded like a whiny teenager. Technically he was a teenager, but not for that much longer. He pitched his voice lower, not only so he wouldn't whine, but so he wouldn't be overheard. Last he checked, Luis was sound asleep in the other room, but there was no such thing as too careful. "I've been a civilian for over a year, now. I'm not a hunter anymore. I don't know if I can do this."
There was a low chuckle at the other end of the line. "Son, didn't your daddy ever tell you that there's no such thing as an ex-Marine? Hate to say it, but you could say the same thing about hunters."
Shit. Of course Bobby had to go and bring up Dad. Sam pressed hard at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the incoming headache. It was either that or bang his head on his desk.
God damn it, how could the man still make him so angry when he wasn't even here?
Bobby sighed when Sam didn't answer. Sam could practically hear him reminding himself to be patient. "Look, in our line of work, there's always the chance something'll come up out of nowhere to bite you in the ass five, ten years down the line. That happens, you need to be ready to take care of it and keep other people out of the crossfire. You think you're the only hunter who's ever wanted normal, Sam? Who ever got sick of the life and tried to leave it behind?"
No. He didn't think that at all. In fact, if other hunters had left, then why couldn't he? He refused to believe that all of them had failed. He was going make this work. He was going to be normal. He had to try.
In the back of his mind, Sam heard Dean's awful Yoda imitation--Do or do not. There is no try.
"Bobby--"
Bobby sighed. "Y'know, one of these days, your face is going to freeze like that."
That startled a laugh out of Sam. "Freeze like what?"
"I don't have to see you to know what kind of look you were giving me. Sam, I know how bad you wanted out."
"I know." He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Bobby's help in smoothing out the irregularities and patching the gaps in his paper trail. He had said 'thank you' so many times and in so many ways that to say it again now would be meaningless. "But you're not sending help? You're telling me I have to take care of this myself?"
"I didn't say that, Sam. You might want to try listening for a change. I said you're it for now. I got to find someone else who can get there who's not already tied up in another hunt or five states away, and you know that could take a while, even if I get word out to Ellen," he said, not bothering to explain who that was, as if it was something Sam should just know. "Meanwhile, you got to dig in and do what you can to keep anyone else from getting hurt."
The unspoken assumption that he might not stung more than he thought it would.
But that didn't mean he was still a hunter.
"Yeah. Anyhow, I'm still not sure what this thing is, but I've got some notes--"
"Notes?" Bobby sounded far too amused.
Sam winced. "Uh, yeah. Force of habit, you know?"
He pulled out the (very small, utterly disposable) memo book he'd bought for the purpose when he realized there was something going on, but before he could start reciting the facts, he heard another phone ring in the background.
"Sorry, Sam. I gotta go impersonate the DEA for a bit. Call me back this afternoon."
"Ah... four-thirty my time? Poli-sci," he said. He bit back the urge to apologize.
That got a snort of laughter. "Sure thing, Sam."
"Bye. Have fun committing a federal offense."
"Smartass." Bobby hung up.
Sam followed suit, bemused by his own reluctance to do so.
He remembered Bobby's bank of labeled phones, and wondered who might be calling them now, and why.
Before he could censor the thought, he pictured Dean, cleaned up and in a suit, smiling and charming the everloving shit out of someone now that his bona fides had been verified.
"Typical," he muttered before getting up and stalking out of his dorm.
Sam didn't need to be up at the main quad until after two, but he wolfed down an early lunch before retrieving his bike from under the arbor. It was chilly and spitting rain when he set out at an unhurried pace up Los Arboles. Once he got up to main campus, he would remember the poli-sci notes he had 'forgotten' on his desk and swing back down Campus Drive to get them.
The subterfuge probably wasn't necessary, but he still wanted a reason for his roundabout trip. A reason other than the real one, anyway.
He might not be a hunter any more, but he was a good student and a damned good researcher. Before he called Bobby back, he wanted to take another look at the area where the attacks had taken place and see if anything else jumped out at him--figuratively, he hoped. The more solid information he could pass on to whoever picked up this hunt, the faster it would all be over. That was all.
The basic facts as reported by the campus police were these: six students--all freshmen and sophomores who lived at FroSoCo--had been attacked when traveling between their dorms and main campus. Five had been heading back from the main quad after an evening class or some other event, but one was a member of the swim team who had been heading out to morning practice. In any event, all the incidents took place shortly after dusk or just before dawn.
The first three reports had been fairly cut and dried. The incidents took place in late October and early November. The victims each said they had been knocked from their bikes while riding down Los Arboles. They were then bitten by a large black dog--larger than a Rottweiler, according to a witness who had interrupted one attack mid-maul. Animal Control had looked high and low for the dog, but the only strays they turned up were small and scrawny, and any local pets who might match the description had reasonably airtight alibis.
Sam tried not to be too curious, especially when a few strange details made it through the dorm rumor mill. Dad would have been chasing after those rumors after the second attack, but Sam only started thinking about it after the third. He made a trip past the attack sites then just as he was doing now, but he didn't find anything. Of course, the heavy rains they had might have had something to do with that.
Then Thanksgiving break came and went. It came with no new attacks, and it went leaving Sam with other things to worry about.
Things like one of his best friends going completely off the rails. What with Brady deciding to chuck the whole 'clean living' thing with reckless abandon just a week before end-quarter exams, Sam soon dismissed the string of animal attacks as being just that. No one had died, and everyone should recover with no lasting physical damage beyond a few scars.
Just as Sam was starting to think how it could have been worse, it got worse.
On December first, a fourth student was mauled. Sam knew the first three only in passing, but this one he knew well. Debbie Nguyen lived across the hall from him and Luis freshman year, and they were on the same hallway again this year. She wasn't a particularly close friend, but she was the sort of casual friend Sam never had the time to have before coming to Stanford.
She baked cookies for everyone on the hall every couple of weeks, just because. Every morning, she wrote a line of poetry or a song lyric on the message board by her door, and invited people to guess the source (Google not allowed--you're on your honor! :D ).
People like Debbie were not supposed to have their face ripped down to the bone by monsters. People who always waved 'hello' with both hands when they saw you should not have to know that monsters existed.
Sam went to visit her in the hospital, gritting his teeth and allowing himself to dip into the Winchester bag of tricks so he could get in after visiting hours and talk to her in private.
She was glad to see him, even with half her face masked with bandages. More than that, she was glad to have someone listen to her.
"Now you probably think I'm crazy, too, don't you?" she said when she had told him as much as she could bear.
He rested a hand over hers, completely covering it. "No. I don't."
She tried to smile but it ended up a pained grimace. "You know, I actually kinda believe you when you say that."
On his way back to his dorm, Sam bought a pocket-sized memo book and wrote down everything Debbie had told him. No way was he getting this stuff mixed in with his class notes.
He kept the notebook in his back pocket. Just in case.
Victims five and six followed just two days later, one in the morning, one in the evening. Campus Police had posted a bulletin telling people to avoid Los Arboles after dark after Debbie was mauled, but these two had been riding along Campus Drive.
The location had changed, and the viciousness of the attacks had escalated drastically. The fifth victim's left hand was so mangled it had to be amputated. The sixth victim died. Rumor had it that parts of him were missing. Eaten, people said.
By the time he got the news, Sam had filled up nearly half of the little notebook with rumor, bits pulled from internet sources of dubious virtue, and what little he could find in the university libraries. Other than Debbie's eyewitness account, the actual police reports were for once the best source he could find.
Sam had checked out Los Arboles just before Thanksgiving, but he wanted to get the scene fresh in his mind again. As the name might suggest, there were plenty of trees along the route, but Sam would hardly describe it or the stretch of Campus near FroSoCo as 'wooded.' The police reports might have described it as such, but Sam had rolled his eyes at that. To him, 'wooded' called up images of thicker, unbroken cover where no light got through and anything and everything could be hiding.
Still, if something wanted to lie in wait, there were plenty of places to choose from, even in December. The few remaining leaves shuddered and dipped in the scattered rain, but the only other sign of life was when a pair of serious cyclists in skin-tight fluorescents swooshed past him.
He had just reached the bike-only portion of Searsville Road when he was ambushed by the biggest dog he had ever seen in his life.
Seriously, the thing was so fat it was almost spherical.
Sam braked and turned the handlebars hard left, skidding to an awkward stop that was almost a fall. The dog bounded around him with asthmatic glee.
"Hey there!" Sam lowered the bike onto its side and crouched down so the poor dog didn't have to jump quite so high. The dog shoved its head under his hand, demanding to be petted.
He had no idea what kind of dog it was, other than well-fed, but the tan mask made him think shepherd mix. He rubbed one floppy, silky ear (maybe some hound in there?) between his fingers, and the dog's eyes went to half-mast in bliss. The dog had a bright purple collar and a bone-shaped name tag along all the other vaccination and license tags. A leash was still clipped to the collar's D-ring. Sam checked the name tag.
"Sadie, huh? Nice to meet you, Sadie." He should call the number on the tag, but it could wait a minute. His fingers went to the puppy-soft fur at the base of the ear. "Yeah, you like that, don't you, girl?"
She tilted her head up and swiped her tongue across his jaw. That would be a 'yes,' then. He laughed and got another lick.
He'd forgotten how much he missed this. Then, just as with almost every other good thing in his life, it was over much too soon.
A woman came running down the bike path, calling out Sadie's name desperately. She slowed to a walk when she saw Sam. "Oh, thank goodness! I'm glad you caught her before she got to the road--she's kind of stupid about cars, and everyone's in such a panic about dogs running loose right now." Her eyes went to Sam's bike lying on the side of the path. "Oh, no! She didn't knock you off your bike, did she?"
"No, no. We're fine." Sam got one last skritch in before Sadie's ears perked up and she bounded over to her owner with such joy you would have thought they'd been separated for months.
Bonesy used to be like that when Sam got back from a pizza run. Then one day, Sam went on a pizza run and never came back.
She must have misinterpreted his expression, because she started apologizing even more anxiously. "I am so, so sorry about that. I didn't mean to let her run loose. She saw a squirrel, and she yanked so hard I dropped the leash. You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's pretty fast."
Sam stood up. This caught Sadie's attention, and she ran back to him as if he were the most wonderful thing in the world.
My friend! My long-lost friend!
"It's okay." This time, he got a grip on Sadie's collar in case she got distracted again. She leaned against him and he grinned. "I like dogs."
The woman finally smiled at him. She looked like she was someone's mother, old enough to maybe have a kid in Sam's class. "I never would have guessed," she said wryly. "Thank you for being so nice to her. I know she can be obnoxious, but she's really just a cream puff."
It certainly looks like she's eaten her share of them, Sam thought.
His hand slid down from the collar and he leaned over a little bit to thump Sadie gently on the shoulder. "Yeah. I know how that goes. It's the kind of obnoxious you miss, though."
He handed the leash back to her, and she accepted it with a gentle smile. "You have a dog back home?"
"Yeah," he said, because it was easier to lie than explain. "Bones. Golden Retriever."
She laughed and said that was a great name for a dog, and then Sam decided that he had to be in a hurry before he started spinning out stories that he might not be able to remember later.
He headed back down Campus after saying that oops, he'd forgotten his notes for class. On the way down, he did a general check of the land--where were the blind spots from this direction? Dan had been traveling south, but the other victim had been going towards the main quad.
That told him the creature probably had at least two different hiding places.
The police tape and the blood had been cleaned up, and all that was left was a small, makeshift memorial by the side of the road to mark the spot where Dan Iverson had had his guts ripped out. There was a teddy bear and a plastic cup full of flowers, and someone had made a small wooden cross. A picture of Dan--one of those generic yearbook photos that said nothing about the person--was propped against the cross, but it had already started to warp and wrinkle in the rain. By the end of the day, there would probably be more tributes. Sam had nothing to leave but a promise that he would try to find whatever had done this, and a silent apology for not doing more sooner.
That done, it was time to get to work. There weren't many places something could hide nearby with a good view of the bike lane, but there were some trees with tall grass or scrub growing beneath that would have given something good cover along with a clear path to the trail when Dan rode past.
Dan had been coming back from the main quad, so whatever it was would have been ten or so yards south of where Dan was found. Debbie's story and all the rumors he'd heard indicated that the dog had jumped from out of 'nowhere,' forcing them to swerve and getting them off-balance enough that it could knock them down easily.
The question is, was this a random attack, or did this thing single Dan and the others out for a reason? Let's assume there was a reason. Which means I'm going to have to do some digging into these guys' backgrounds, aren't I?
While he trekked up to a likely hiding spot, Sam started working out how he might start doing those background checks. A breeze had cropped up, which was good. If someone came by and wondered what Sam was doing, he could be chasing down a bit of paper that had blown off. He was a little disgusted at how easy it was to come up with an excuse for snooping around.
It didn't take him long to find where the thing had been waiting. It was clear at once that this wasn't just a feral dog, and Sam had to stop and close his eyes for a minute.
He hadn't realized just how much he was hoping it had been and that he'd be able to call Bobby back with a 'never mind.' And he hated himself for thinking this isn't fair, I've got exams coming up, but the thought was there, and it burned.
Well, it wasn't fair that Debbie would need multiple surgeries to fix her face and arm, or that Dan Iverson would never have to worry about exams again.
Sam had a job to do, no matter how much he didn't want to do it. He tried not to feel guilty about hoping Bobby found someone soon, and made a quick sketch of the monster's hiding place. He gathered what evidence he could, and then, just before leaving, put his hand down on top of the one clear paw print that that stood out in the mess of animal and human tracks.
The print was nearly as big as his hand.
At two twenty-five, Sam ran up the steps of Encina Hall. He told himself several times that Bobby was expecting a call at four-thirty, not earlier, and besides, this was the last session for this class before exams.
At two forty-five, he feigned a stomachache without too much difficulty and rushed back to his room. Luis shouldn't be back until sometime after six, so he had some guarantee of privacy.
Sam flopped down on the futon-slash-couch and took a few deep breaths. He could do this. What left him agitated and sour-stomached was the realization that on some level, he wanted to do this. He pulled his notebook and his cell phone out of his pocket. Then he got the baggies of evidence out of his backpack and arranged them next to him on the futon. In one of them, the dark of the contents nearly disappeared against the navy blue.
Bobby answered just as Sam thought he was going to get the answering machine.
"Wasn't expecting you to call so early, Sam."
"Yeah." Sam grinned nervously and ducked his head even though there was no one there to see. "I kinda skipped class."
"You?" Bobby laughed, but at least he didn't bring up what Sam thought would be an inevitable comparison to Dean.
"Hey, I was having trouble concentrating on judicial politics and constitutional law."
There was a snort on the other end of the line. "Why the hell would you want to?" There was an awkward pause that Sam wasn't sure he should try to fill. "Sorry. I know it's important to you, Sam. Anyways, I'm guessing you found something?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of it." Sam rearranged the baggies. "I'm not sure if this thing looks human some of the time, or if there's someone who's managed to get control of a ... something. There's definitely a person or something intelligent involved. I do know it's not a werewolf, though."
Sam heard the sound of a mug clunking down at a table, and that was enough for him to imagine himself in Bobby's kitchen, sitting at a book-strewn table and talking companionably. "Fair enough. How so?"
"No full moon on any of the attacks. In fact, there's no clear pattern other than the fact that all the victims are from FroSoCo, um, that's Freshman-Sophomore College. The dorms where I live." There was a moment where he imagined talking to Bobby about his everyday life here, and all the stupid, wonderful, normal things that were a part of it, but this was not the time. "The important thing here is that we're a little bit off the beaten path, and there's lots of back and forth between here and main campus. That's when people are being ambushed. What's weird is that there's some graduate housing right nearby, and I haven't heard of any grad students being attacked."
"So, you're thinking it's singling people out."
"Yeah, though that's more of a hunch than a solid theory right now." Sam related what he had figured out about the thing choosing a hiding spot--more like a hunting blind--and how it would probably have to wait for a while for someone to come by. It also seemed like it didn't use the same blind twice, but he couldn't be sure. "Other than the dorm thing, I don't know about any other connection between the victims yet, but I'm digging."
"Wait. You found where it was lying in wait? As in solid evidence? Has anyone other than the victims seen this thing?"
Sam flipped through his notebook. "Yeah. Twice." Chris Wolfe--victim number five--probably would have died if someone hadn't driven by, sending the dog racing off into the bushes. "Both reported a huge black dog that ran off as soon as it knew it had been seen. One said it had glowing red eyes, but most people are dismissing that as reflection. Beyond that, there was about as much detail as you'd expect about a black dog at night."
He heard a swallow, then the mug hitting the table again. "Well, that's something at least."
"How so?"
There was a long pause. "Something in that at least we're not dealing with some dumbass who conjured up a vicious invisible dog. Hellhounds would be a whole 'nother mess of problems and I'd be telling you to transfer your ass to Harvard as soon as you could."
"Uh, okay." There were a lot of blanks there that Bobby was assuming he could fill in. Sam almost asked Bobby to back up and explain, but he was getting out of this life, not digging deeper in. Hellhounds and their ilk were a non-issue. He could forget about them. "Anyhow, we're dealing with what seems to be a normal looking black dog. Except for the glowing eyes, and the, uh, hugeness. Debbie--she's a friend of mine, she got torn up pretty bad, and..." He stopped for a moment. When he started again, his voice felt steadier. He had no idea how it sounded. "She said the dog's eyes really glowed, as in they cast light. And that there was something kind of human about them. There was one other thing, but she's already got herself convinced it was her mind playing tricks on her. She said the dog was laughing at her."
He heard muffled cursing and the sound of books and papers being moved around roughly. "Okay. That tells me a lot, right there. Tell me about what you found at the site."
"Well," he said, picking up the first baggie. "I found a wadded up bag and some Funyun bits. It was shoved deep down into the weeds, and I think it was our guy who did it."
"Funyuns? And why'd you decide this was a clue and not litter?"
He picked up the second and third baggies. "Well, I also found some plant material. Most of it was burned, and there were soot smears and some char on the bag, like he'd handled it after burning the plants. "
"Good eye, son. What kind of plants? Could you tell?"
Sam picked up baggie number two. "Well, there's the usual suspects. Sage, cedar, you know. Most of that's ash, but I recognized the smell. And the, let's see... there were some seed pods in there. I haven't had a chance to look any of this up yet, but they're pretty distinctive--about the size of a walnut, a little bit spiny, they've got four sections when you break them open, and there's lots of little black seeds."
More paper movement. More cursing. "Any flowers in the mix?" It sounded like Bobby already knew the answer to that question.
"Yeah. I was just getting to that. I found some white flowers mixed in there as well." The majority of the flowers were dried into papery lengths that were well-charred, but there were a couple that had been too fresh to burn. They had wilted, but it was easy to see that they were long, thin trumpets. "They look kind of like petunias."
Bobby cursed. "Jimson weed. Jesus, you telling me you don't know the difference between that and a goddamn petunia? Jimson's used to boost a bunch of different shape-shifting spells, and whoever this is knows enough to know you need both the flowers and the seeds. Both ends of the cycle. Great. Let me guess. You also found a mix of human and animal prints, all on top of each other."
"Yeah." Sam's voice sounded very small, even to him. Even after seeing the evidence, it was hard for him to get his head around the idea that this a person, not a thing, who was doing this. Doing this to himself. Making himself--or herself--into something other than human.
He wanted to ask why someone would do this, but didn't want to hear Bobby to say 'I don't know,' or something even worse. "There were. That and a couple of other things. There were markings--deliberate markings--on the ground. It was all trampled over, but some bits were clear. Can I fax you a copy of what I sketched?"
"Yeah. Do that. What else? You said you found a couple of things."
Sam picked up the last baggie, the one that was almost invisible against the futon. "The spot where the dog jumped out of the thicket was pretty obvious. It crashed through a bramble, and I found something--"
There was a scraping at the doorknob, and faint metallic clicks that Sam recognized instantly. Of course, he would normally be the one responsible for making those sounds.
"Uh, I'm going to have to call you back in a bit, okay? Someone's trying to break into my room."
"Have fun. Go easy on 'em."
What was that supposed to mean? Even though Bobby wasn't there to see, Sam gave him a look as he hung up the phone. He put the baggies in his desk drawer and piled junk on top of them. There was no need to rush--whoever was picking the locks on the door sucked at it.
He walked over and opened the door so quickly the would-be intruder stumbled into the room, nearly doing a face-plant.
"Oh. Hi, Brady," Sam said, all innocence. "I didn't hear you knock."
Brady had grabbed Sam's arm to keep himself steady on his feet. Judging from the smell, the near fall wasn't the only reason Brady was having trouble getting his footing.
"Whoa, Sam. Didn't think you'd be here, what with class and all."
Sam helped Brady over to the futon. "Right. So you thought you'd let yourself in. Um, don't you have your own room?"
Brady gave him a shrug and a sour look. "Matt told me to fuck off and leave him alone until I'd 'sobered up,'" he said, giving the air quotes. "And don't you start in on me. It was only three beers, and it's after five on the east coast."
"I'll make you some coffee." Sam doubted the three beers story. For one thing, it smelled more like three bourbons.
"Aw, that's nice. How come you're always such a nice guy, Sam?" Brady flopped down on the futon, and Sam winced when the frame creaked. "And why aren't you in class, anyway?"
Sam shrugged, feeling that was the only answer Brady deserved. "If I were nice, I'd go pick you up some real coffee. All we've got in the room right now is instant."
Brady groaned in a way that made Sam fear for the futon cover. But Sam was indeed nice, and added enough milk and sugar to the instant to cover the vileness.
At first, Sam thought Brady was asleep, with the way he had an arm flung over his eyes, but the arm shifted up just a little when Sam came by.
"Can you not make this a habit, man?" Sam held out the coffee. Brady sat up excruciatingly slowly and took it. He sniffed it suspiciously before saying 'thanks.' "I've had enough looking after people who are sleeping off a drunk to last me a lifetime."
That got a sharp grin and a knowing look that didn't look at all right on Brady's face. "Wow. Sordid Winchester family details. You don't let those slip very often."
"Forget I said anything."
"Huh? Oh, hey, hey... I'm sorry about that. That came out wrong," Brady said, and he sounded very much sober and very much like the Brady Sam remembered from before that breakdown or crisis or whatever the hell it was that happened over Thanksgiving break.
"Yeah, it did."
Brady didn't take umbrage at that. He just sat there, head bowed, letting it sink in. "Sorry. I mean that. I know I haven't been myself lately..." he laughed, even though it wasn't funny at all. "Thanks for putting up with me. I mean it."
"Anytime, pal. And I mean it, too." Sam settled in at his desk and opened up his laptop. He had two papers to finish in the next week on top of all the studying he had to do. He really hoped Brady snapped out of this social and academic death spiral of his soon, or at least opened up about what had set him off.
He stared at his psych paper for a good long time, not really reading anything that was on the screen. Every time he tried to think of how to flesh out the next part of his outline, he started thinking about how he had almost roomed with Brady this year, and how he was starting to be glad he hadn't.
Sam really hated when a sense of relief came with a side-order of guilt. Brady had been fine about it when Sam said he didn't want to ditch Luis, and how maybe junior year, him and Luis and Matt and Brady could all go in together on an apartment.
It still seemed so strange, so new, having the same living arrangements for two years running, when he could remember years where two months in the same place seemed like a forever-long time. It seemed even stranger, making plans for where he would be living a year from now.
"Doing okay over there?" Sam asked. When he didn't get an answer, he looked over his shoulder. Brady was sound asleep, arm back over his eyes, and mouth open. Sam shook his head and turned back to staring at his computer screen.
One thing he'd never thought about was how you could stay in one place for as long as you liked, but that didn't mean that the people there wouldn't up and change on you without warning.
Sam closed Word, giving up on the psych paper for now. Of course, if he'd roomed with Brady, then maybe he'd have gotten wind of whatever had made Brady go nuts and been able to do something. As it was, the change was so abrupt as to be mind-boggling. Hell, last night Brady was going off about how he was done--D-O-N-E--with pre-med. No more of that shit, he'd said. He was giving up on what others wanted, and doing what he wanted for a goddamn change.
Sam might have believed him, but he'd listened to Brady talk for hours about what he planned to do with his medical degree, and why, and the light in his eyes wasn't the sort of thing you could fake.
He told Brady this, and it seemed to get through. Just a little. Brady admitted that just because his parents wanted something for him, that didn't mean he couldn't want it for himself. But that was as far as it went.
Maybe this was just stress. Maybe a week or two of party-hearty would knock whatever it was out of Brady's system. He'd barely had time to knock his grades into the gutter, so unless he blew off exams, it wasn't too late for him to pull them back out. If worse came to worst, it was only one quarter.
Since he couldn't make himself think about Ab Psych, Sam pulled out the memo book. He might as well make some use of his time. He looked through his notes and started pulling out coherent themes.
Attacks--increasing intensity and frequency. WhatWhoever's doing this becoming careless. Sloppy. Evidence left behind. Going after people where more likely to be seen.
He felt the familiar rush as things began to fall into place, and he started to assemble a picture of something that had started relatively innocently (he made a note to find out if anyone reported being harassed by a dog before Peter Rakitzis was bitten) but was getting worse and getting worse faster.
He'd missed this.
Peter Rakitzis. Meagan Shaffer. Jay Whitehead. Debbie Nguyen. Chris Wolfe. Dan Iverson. He re-read the list of names, the few facts he knew about each person slotting into place automatically. No pattern jumped out immediately other than them being from the same dorm and being alone when they--no, wait. There was something else.
Four of them been on the way to or from class, but Meagan and Chris had been on the way to a regular, scheduled event--theater rehearsal for Meagan, and swim practice for Chris. That meant each of the six would have been heading to or from main quad close enough to a specific time that someone could set an effective ambush.
Now, to find a common thread. He'd have to start talking to people. Okay, got to find a good excuse for asking around...
Sam jotted down the first few excuses that came to mind before he asked himself what the hell he thought he was supposed to be doing. This wasn't supposed to be fun.
He leaned back in his chair, raking his fingers deep through his hair. "Goddamnit it..."
"Sam? Y'okay?" Brady mumbled.
"Yeah. Fine. Go back to sleep." He'd gone so deep that he'd forgotten that Brady was there. Jesus, what would he say if Brady had come over here and gotten a good look at what he was doing? Or if he lost track of time and Luis came back?
No way in hell was he going to go back to being a freak, a loner, someone who had to pack up and move every few months, weeks, days. No more motel bathroom surgeries. No more sleeping in the back of a car or out in the woods. No more explaining away cuts and bruises. No more petty theft, no more fraud, no more rooking money out of people who were one wrong word from trying to knife him.
No more having to pretend.
He was done. D-O-N-E, as Brady might say.
Maybe I could just do this sort of thing, though. There's no harm in helping out a little, doing some research on the side for people who need help...
No. This was a one-time deal, no matter what Bobby had said. After this, it was back to a normal life.
But he still had a vivid image of Dean, grinning at him and holding a knife, handle out, pushing it towards him and daring him to take it. C'mon, Sammy. It'll be fun. Just like old times, huh?
Sam tossed the memo book into the junk drawer. He didn't mean to slam the drawer shut, but he did so hard enough that he had to scramble to keep the desk lamp from toppling over.
"Jeez, Sam. What'd that desk do to you, anyway?"
Sam swiveled his chair to face Brady. He looked very awake now. "I'm blaming it for writer's block. How you doing on your paper for Ab Psych, by the way?"
"I'll have something to turn in," Brady said, not looking at Sam. "Anyhow, that was one hell of a slam. You're scary, man."
"No, I'm not." Sam stood up and stretched, hands almost grazing the ceiling. He clenched and unclenched his right hand, trying to dispel the sensation of the weight and heft of a knife's hilt.
"You seen you? I mean seriously. All I'm saying is, no way do I ever want you mad at me." He sounded deadly serious, but then he cracked up at the look Sam gave him.
"Can it, Brady. I'm hungry. C'mon."
He held the door open, waiting for Brady to get his ass off the futon and making it clear that leaving Brady alone in the room was not an option. Someone who thought picking locks was a good idea (well, there were times when it was) probably wouldn't think twice about digging through someone's desk in search of aspirin or whatever.
Sam made a mental note to find a way to discreetly dispose of his hunting knife over winter break. He'd made the same note a few times, but this time he meant it.
Brady got up without any fuss, but stopped short when he turned to go down the hall. "What the hell?"
Sam closed the door behind him. "What do you mean, what the hell?"
Brady ignored him. Someone was in the hallway, slumped against Debbie's door. "Rod? What the fuck are you doing?"
"Hey, Rod." Sam tried to counter Brady's aggression with something more friendly, but Rod still looked up at them, wide-eyed and fearful.
"Ah... Hi." Rod was a tall guy, nearly as tall as Sam, but he had a way of making himself look pathetically small. "I just... Debbie, you know?"
Rod's crush on Debbie had been painfully obvious to everyone. Sam had heard that he'd asked her out, but what happened after that he didn't know.
"Yeah, when we talked last week, you were telling me all about how she shot you down, and now she's dog chow," Brady said cheerfully. "Sorry about that, man."
Rod blinked a few times, as if finally registering who was standing there talking to him. "Brady?" Rod's eyes went hard, and he suddenly looked his full height as he closed the ground between himself and Brady in two strides. "Listen, you fucking son of a bitch, this is all--"
"Hey. Steady." Sam got himself between Rod and Brady. A hand on Rod's chest stopped him cold. Rod pushed back, but it was no contest at all. "I know you liked her, and I know Brady's being an asshole--"
"Hey!"
"You are. So shut it." He turned back to Rod. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Debbie. Maybe you should go visit her or something, yeah? I went to see her the other day, and one thing she said was that she felt like people weren't coming by, like maybe they were scared to look at her."
Rod looked away. He said nothing, but his jaw was working convulsively and he was making himself small again. Sam had a feeling he wouldn't be visiting Debbie any time soon.
"Yeah. Maybe," he said.
"Well, let's just hope the police or whoever find what tore her up," Brady said. He pointed at Rod, making a gun of his hand. "Maybe the next we hear of our mysterious and spooooky black dog, it'll be because someone finally put a bullet in its head."
Rod looked very much like he wanted to say something to Brady, but he cut a quick, scared glance up at Sam and said nothing.
"It's kind of freaky, isn't it?" Brady said, ignoring Sam's glare. "Big monster black dog. Sounds like something kind of up your alley."
Sam stared at him. He'd been so careful. How had Brady...
"You shut the hell up about that," Rod hissed. "You of all--uh, Winchester, can you uh, let me go?"
"Sorry." Without knowing, Sam had twisted up a big handful of Rod's shirt. "Brady, you go on ahead. I'll catch up, okay?"
Brady breezed past them. "Sure thing. See ya, Rod." He walked off down the hallway, making only one parting shot before he hit the stairwell.
"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
Rod had gone blotchy, angry red and sickly pale all at once. "Why the hell are you friends with that asshole anyway?"
Sam shrugged. These days, he wasn't too sure about that himself. "He's normally not like this. This is new. Something's going on, and I sure as hell hope he snaps out of it."
Rod still looked hatefully in the direction of the stairwell. "He's trouble. Do you have any idea what he--" He shook his head and slumped against the wall. "Never mind. Just... never mind."
"It's okay. I'll keep an eye on him," Sam said, although he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise. "You going to be okay?"
He got another look, one that was just this side of screaming panic. "Yeah," Rod said in a very small voice. "Look, can I, um, go? I just want... yeah."
"Sure. Take care of yourself, Rod. And go visit Debbie, will ya?" Sam continued on his way, deliberately not looking back when he heard a stuttering sob from behind him.
Poor Rod. Sam didn't really like the guy all that much--he was so anxious to be liked that it made you feel obligated to try to be his friend, and that was never fun. Plus, a few things he'd overheard made Sam suspect that Rod would think his former life as a hunter was cool, like it was something to fucking aspire to. He also had a nasty feeling that if Rod ever got wind that things like ghosts and werewolves and rawheads were real he'd go after them and try to make friends. Like that could ever end well.
So Sam was as nice to him as he was to anyone else (there wasn't any reason not to be) and kept him at arm's length.
Sam walked across the courtyard to the dining hall and made a mental note to look into Rod's connections to the victims. There were dozens of students Sam had met who seemed eager to wallow in the occult, but most of them were harmless enough.
Still, he was sometimes tempted to hint that they would be much safer finding another thing to obsess about. Collecting stamps, maybe. Or raising racing pigeons.
But Rod had a reputation for being interested in the occult, and he had a connection to Debbie. He also worked as a stage tech for a couple of the campus theater groups, so that meant he might know Meagan Shaffer.
"Way to be paranoid, Winchester," he muttered. "Try to be sane about this, okay?" Dad probably would have had him tossing Rod's room by now.
No, Rod was genuinely broken up over what happened to Debbie. No way he would have done that to her himself. Still, he had better look into things. Rod could be the connection without being the cause.
When he got to the dining hall, Sam saw Brady sitting with a group of their friends, laughing and--from the way he was gesturing extravagantly--telling some outrageous story. Therefore, Sam didn't feel any guilt about ditching and taking a meal back to his room, even though Brady looked half-buzzed. Before he left, he caught Brady's eye, pointed at his meal, then pointed back in the direction of his room. Brady smiled and waved, then went back to his conversation as if Sam didn't matter at all.
That felt better than Sam thought it would.
On his way out, he saw one of the official notices warning people to be careful traveling to main quad. It reminded people of the shuttle schedule. It also summarized the state laws regarding pepper spray, just in case.
Another notice gave a number to call if anyone saw a dog loose in the area. Sam remembered Sadie, and her owner chasing after her after she'd bolted, and wondered if anyone would be stupid enough to call her in for being a menace.
He laughed to himself, thinking of the sweet, dimwitted dog. Maybe when he moved into an apartment next year, he'd find one that would allow dogs.
Yeah, that would be nice, having a dog again...
The last time he ever saw Bones, he had probably said something like wait here, boy, I'll be right back and we'll have some pizza! And Bones would have sat at full attention, feet planted square in front of him and putting all his might into being A Good Dog. He would have been sitting just like that when Sam returned, because he was A Very Good Dog, but Sam never made it back. When he came out of the pizza place, the Impala had pulled almost all the way up on the sidewalk, and Dean was out of the car and on top of him before Sam had a chance to run.
Sam had said nothing about Bones, figuring that Dean didn't deserve to know about the best dog in the whole world. It wasn't until days later that he thought that maybe Dean would have gone back for Bones and maybe even stood up to Dad. But they were in Maine by then, and it was too late.
Sometimes, he wondered what had happened to Bones, and how long he had waited for Sam before giving up. He wondered if there was any way he could find out, but he never did more than wonder. If he could find out, he wasn't sure he'd like the answer. As much as not knowing sucked, there were things that sucked more.
It was easier to believe that a dog as good as Bones had had a family that missed him, and that was out of their minds with joy when he showed up after being missing for two weeks.
When he got back to his room, Sam plunked his dinner on the coffee table, and almost knocked over Brady's coffee cup. It was still half-full of curdled coffee, so he took it to the bathroom to dump and wash out. For some reason, he thought that maybe he should call Dean. Just to make sure he was okay. Or something.
But in the end, he decided he wasn't sure he'd like what he heard if he did call.
So he didn't.
Part Two