Lies Become Truth - Chapter 7
Title: Lies Become Truth
Summary: An attack by a gang of demons freshly freed from hell, leaves Dean unable to lie, at the top of FBI’s most wanted list and soon forced into an experimental psyche program. Meanwhile Sam and Bobby are left to unravel the full extent of the demons’ plans.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, violence, suggestive scenarios and implied M/M non-con.
Spoilers: Up to Season 3, 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'
Word Count: 6,544 for this part
Author's Note: This story is set early Season 3 post ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and assumes that Sam and Dean had their anti-demon possession tattoos by that point. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 6
Philadelphia, PA - Wharton Motel
For the last few hours staying busy had kept Sam distracted. It had taken a while to patch Bobby up. He would have said it was impossible, but Bobby was even less cooperative about being looked after than Dean. Luckily for Bobby, Sam had ignored the man’s grumbling and shooing away and had finally gotten him cleaned up.
They had gone back for the Impala, taken it to a storage facility and emptied everything from the trunk. He didn’t think that they had been followed there, but they weren’t in a position to be taking any risks. If the FBI had followed them and found the trunk loaded with weaponry it would only make things worse for Dean.
Now they were sitting in a trashy don’t ask, don’t tell pay by the hour motel that was so classless Dean would have loved it. If Dean were here his brother would be pitching quarters into the magic fingers while making crude jokes about the constant sound of too-tall high heels clicking down the hallway. Then Dean would have invited a couple of the girls in.
Instead the room was quiet except for the turning of pages while both he and Bobby silently combed through Bobby’s books for some kind of answer. What little of his calm Sam had been able to retain was quickly slipping away as he tried to guess where Dean was now.
The news had been covering the local police and FBI agents gloating about capturing his supposedly deranged brother. Bobby had made him turn the television off, but it didn’t help. Sam wasn’t only scared for his brother, he was angry.
He was angry with himself for having left Dean and at the demons for having gone after his brother in the first place. Now he was even angry with the law enforcement officials. They couldn’t know any better. They couldn’t know that this was his brother’s last year or that his brother had sacrificed his entire life to save others, but it felt like they should. Dean was a hero and someone should know. At the very least, he wished Dean realized it.
Soon the ringing of Bobby’s phone had cut through the silence of their researching. Calls started coming in from other hunters who wanted to know why they had the FBI poking around asking about Bobby and him.
When Bobby again put the phone down with a disgruntled sigh, Sam saw that the blood was soaking through one of the bandages on Bobby’s arm. Sam set the book he was reading aside. He slipped off the bed and walked over to the table Bobby was sitting at.
“That was Mike Durkee, hunter out in Minnesota," Bobby told him. "Same as the rest.”
“Should we be warning any other hunters?”
“And tell them what exactly? That the idjit they all think opened the devil’s gate is selling them out to the FBI? Your brother already ain’t winning any popularity contests with anyone but demons. They’ll be fine so long as they keep their noses clean for a few weeks.”
“Man, Dean is going to hate himself for this,” Sam said mostly to himself.
“Your brother really can’t not talk?”
Sam shook his head and pulled up a chair next to Bobby. “No. When I was uh...testing him, he’d try to just not answer, but it was twitching like he was trying to keep his mouth closed but just couldn’t. Other times it was like he just didn’t even know what he was saying.”
“Maybe it ain’t just a truth thing and we’re looking to narrow...what are you doing?” Bobby asked suspiciously as Sam reached towards him.
“This bandage needs to be changed.”
“Don’t you even think about it,” Bobby growled. “I can damn well take care of myself.”
“Yeah, but you’re obviously not going to.”
Sam glanced at the scarce remains of Dean’s whiskey bottle that Bobby had been going at since they checked in. Bobby was pretending that this wasn’t getting to him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Did you hear me call for a nurse? I mean it. If you think you’re giving me a sponge bath I’m getting my shotgun.”
“Just let me look at it.” Sam once again ignored Bobby’s huffing and carefully removed the bandage. “Oh god, Bobby....”
“You do this much fussing over your brother?” Bobby grumbled. “How the hell does Dean put up with ya?”
“This one needs to be stitched.”
“We already talked about this. It would heal up fine if you’d just quit poking at it. Boy, I got scars older than you. I know what I’m doing. Just slap a bandage on it and let it alone. Cuts are the least of our problems.”
“I know, but someone has to stop you from bleeding to death. Besides, I have to do something, Bobby.”
He wasn’t talking about the cuts and Bobby seemed to get that because he stopped squirming. The only thing Sam wanted to do right now was to run to Dean’s rescue and he couldn’t. At least taking care of Bobby made him feel a little less useless.
“I hear ya, kid. You do whatever you gotta.”
~~~
Camden, NJ - Camden County Jail
For a brief moment, Dean nearly found peace. He drifted far enough into the fog of sleep that he was left with only the vague notion that the whole of the world sucked. He couldn’t remember the specifics of why and instead of trying he was grateful to be pulled deeper towards the numbing bliss.
There was something there in the dark, something that shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t grasp onto what it was. Really he didn’t care. It had been a long time since anything had really been right.
His head had finally fallen forward to rest on his arms when an angry fist hammered down on the table he was leaning on. Dean jerked up in his chair. The sharp clink of metal snapped at his wrists and prevented him from lashing out against the unseen attack. His exhausted eyes focused and reality came crashing back down. He glared up at the piercing eyes that loomed over him.
“I’m not keeping you up am I?” Henricksen asked smugly.
“Obviously not,” Dean replied dryly as he rubbed his eyes.
“You’re playing with the big boys now. No more naptime.”
Dean leaned back in his chair and lowered his eyes down to the table. He was trying to think, but Henricksen’s hovering wasn’t exactly helping. The agent seemed disappointed when Dean didn’t take the bait and tried again in the same mocking tone.
“Ah, come on, Dean. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t seem to stay awake lately.”
“You’ve had my men chasing their tails from Boise to Kalamazoo. You got to be tired from all that running.”
“Yeah, I guess...I guess I am.”
“You know what I really want to know?”
Slowly Dean raised his eyes and looked up towards the taunting clock on the wall. He was willing to bet his pool game earnings that the clock hands were actually moving backwards or at least holding still. Casually he counted on his fingers before again meeting Henricksen’s suffocating stare.
“I’ve been chained to a table staring at your smug ass face for five and a half hours. I’m going to hell, but not soon enough. I’m pretty damn sure I’m never gonna see my brother again and if someone doesn’t at least get me a cup to pee in I’m gonna piss all over your shoes.” He flashed Henricksen a carefully controlled, irritated smirk. “I can’t even tell you how much I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you wanna know.”
Henricksen leaned over the table towards him with a self-satisfied sneer. “Oh you’re going to hell alright, but don’t give up now. We were just starting to have fun. I mean really, I’ve taken down some serious nut cases. Real cuckoo bastards, but you...”
“Dude, aren’t you tired of listening to yourself yet? Your partner ditched you hours ago. Hell, even my new lawyer got bored.”
“Your lawyer quit again.”
“Huh?”
It was no difference to him. No lawyer was getting him out of this. No one was. There was only one way out. All he had to do was wait and when the close came, it wouldn’t be some pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But it was what it was.
The only thing he was worried about was Sam. He knew final wishes be damned, his little brother wouldn’t leave this alone. All he could hope was that Henricksen would manage to bury him so deep that Sam wouldn’t be able to find a smart way in. Then he just had to cross his fingers that his brother wouldn’t take a lesson from him. Of course he’d be lying to himself if he pretended that wasn’t going to happen.
On his own, Sam would come for him. Worse still, without Dean there to stop him, Sam would try to get him out of the deal. All Dean could do was trust that Bobby had his head on straight enough to stop Sam from trying to save him. Bobby had to know that he was already screwed beyond redemption. The only thing to do was to let him go.
Maybe Henricksen was right about him anyway. He didn’t give a crap about the million and one fraud, desecration and other misdemeanor charges. Nearly all of them were legit and technically he probably should get busted for them, but he didn’t regret any of that. The newest murder charges were a whole different story, but part of him still wanted to put a bullet between Henricksen’s eyes.
It was a damn tempting thought considering the guy wouldn’t stop insulting and threatening his family. It didn’t help that Dean’s rumbling stomach was declaring that it would be worth going homicidal freak for some room service.
“Your second lawyer quit hours ago. They both said you were beyond defense and you know what? I couldn’t agree with them more. No one’s buying this big bad demon story you’re selling. You get that, right?”
“Yeah. Got that memo five hours ago.”
“Maybe it’s time to change tactics?”
“Wish I could, but I can’t. How about you? You’ve gotta be tired of hearing me answer the same lame ass questions. You all out of original material?”
“You’ve already told me almost everything I needed to hear. I couldn’t care less what comes out of your sorry mouth. I’m still just celebrating seeing you chained to that table. It’s those guys behind the curtain that can’t get enough of your bull,” Henricksen replied with a motion towards the one-way-mirror.
Dean didn’t know who was on the other side of the glass watching him. It didn’t matter. Whoever was there, he was still stuck in here listening to Henricksen drone on.
“They’re looking for a new public defender, one specializing in nut cases. If you ask me, it’s a waste of time and taxpayer dollars because there’s only one way this ends. You’re going to spend the rest of your very long, miserable life alone in a shoebox-sized cell. And that’s only if the court doesn’t do us all a favor and throw you the death sentence you deserve.”
Dean laughed. Not just a little half hidden chuckle, but an honest to god, full out laugh that could have easily turned into a sob if he wasn’t careful. Henricksen was throwing around threats that were supposed to be terrifying and they didn’t even matter. None of this mattered. The guy just had no clue.
“Is that funny to you?”
“Believe me, it’s freakin’ hilarious.”
“In one crazy way or another you already confessed to most of the charges. Why you’re holding out on some of them I got no damn clue, but the thing is, it doesn’t matter. You’ve confessed to plenty else that we didn’t even have you for. This is the end of the line, Dean.”
“You’re telling me.”
“There’s just your brother.”
Dean leaned forward in his chair as far as the restraints would allow, the fight returning to his eyes. “We’ve talked enough about him.”
“When you tell me where Sam Winchester is then that’ll be enough.”
“I gave you the location of the hotel and all our aliases. Hell, I gave you the damn room number. If you can’t find him with that your detective work really is crap.”
“Still funny. Good for you. Keep that up and you won’t have to worry about the trial. Smart ass cop killers are always a big hit in prison. Your brother wasn’t at the hotel.”
“So he skipped town. Good for him.”
“He’s not in South Dakota yet either, but don’t worry. There’s a team waiting there in case he does show.”
“You sent a team of federal agents to Bobby’s place?”
If Dean had just turned himself in for Bobby the man, who was his second father, would be a hundred grand richer. Instead, because of him, Bobby was half dead and didn’t even have a home to go back to. He should have at least let the cops kill him.
“Don’t look so sad, Dean. I’ll send a team anywhere I can dig up anything on you. Right now you’re my favorite customer. While they didn’t find your brother, the team did find plenty of satanic mumbojumbo, forged IDs up the ying yang, enough weaponry for an entire army and those were just the things they could identify. A whole world of screwed up in that salvage yard and if there are any bodies buried there they’ll find those too.”
“You morons have no idea who you’re screwing with.”
“This Robert Singer guy. Friend of your dad’s, right?”
Dean shrugged. “Sometimes.”
This sucked so many ways. From Bobby’s the feds would be able to track their way back to a whole pile of other hunters. If he kept running his mouth there wasn’t going to be anyone left to hunt the demons.
“Son of a bitch!”
His foot lashed out at the table leg. The attempted kick nearly threw out his ankle with the shackles and just got a conceited chuckle out of Henricksen.
“What’s the matter, Dean? Reality starting to hit home? With all those weapons I’m just wondering how many of you satanic paramilitary freaks there are.”
“Not nearly enough, that’s for damn sure. Lock me up, shoot me yourself - same difference, but you got no business going after Bobby.”
“I love how you nut cases stick together. Makes my job so much easier, but you see, the thing is, I’m willing to bet my promotion that sick bastard murdered his own wife.”
“Since Bobby ain’t married it’d be kinda hard for him to gank his imaginary wife.”
“You’re right. Robert Singer isn’t married. Not anymore, but unfortunately for his wife, he was. You look surprised, Dean. None of the rest of this strikes you as strange? It’s not like it’s any different than what your daddy did to your mom or your brother to his girlfriend. So why don’t you just tell me how many girlfriends you really killed just for the hell of it.”
“No matter how many times you ask the answer is still zilch. I couldn’t hold a stable relationship with a girl to save my life. Not with this lifestyle. Killing them wouldn’t exactly help.”
“Okay, sure. How many boyfriends then?”
Dean let out a sardonic chuckle as he shook his head. “Man you are on some serious crack. I don’t care how nice you ask, I’m not going home with you and all this stuff about my family is crap.”
“Maybe you need me to spell it out for you. Karen Singer, Mary Winchester and Jessica Moore. All murdered because they got mixed up in your little cult. And you...I guess you just can’t keep your pants on. No long-term commitments, just jumping from one to the next. Girl, guy. Doesn’t much seem to matter to you. I guess you’re just the black sheep of the family.”
“You don’t know the half of it and your memory sucks ass. Why don’t you get a secretary in here so I don’t have to keep repeating myself?”
“Come on, Dean. It’s so much funnier to hear you say it. Tell me again, who was it that really killed your dear, loving parents and Miss Moore?”
“For the last freakin’ time, it was that yellow eyed son of a bitch.”
“Oh that’s right,” Henricksen replied in a tone so placating that Dean would have punched him if he hadn’t been chained to the table. “The demon that pins women to the ceiling and then uses some hoodoo to light them on fire. That’s a really neat trick.”
At that Dean stopped fidgeting agitatedly in his chair. Every muscle in his body tensed as his darkened eyes narrowed on the agent. When he spoke the words came slowly, his tone pure venom.
“I swear to god, you say that again, and I will kill you.”
“You keep up that fighting spirit. I’m just trying to get the facts straight here. I mean, this is the demon that had the thing for your little brother, the great demon army leader, and who let your dad trade his soul for yours. He sure got ripped off with that deal.... Feel free to jump in if I’m missing anything here.”
He couldn’t listen to anymore of this. For over five hours this guy had been tearing his life apart. Henricksen thought this was funny. Some big joke, but it wasn’t. It was his mom that had been killed, Sam’s girlfriend that his brother had to watch die and his father that had sacrificed himself for nothing. It had all been for nothing.
“Yeah, I thought so. That demon had a little thing for you too, didn’t it?” Henricksen asked as he leaned further over the table. “Maybe a little under the table action while your daddy wasn’t looking. Is that why you shot 'the yellow eyed demon'?”
“Screw you. You come in here telling me I’m the filthy bastard...”
“Go screw yourself. We both know you were the one that really killed your dad.”
When the words left Henricksen’s lips, the man was inches from his face. Dean couldn’t raise his tightly clenched fists high enough to make contact, but he settled for ramming the table as hard as he could into the agent’s gut.
“Just shut the hell up, you son of a bitch!”
Given that he was attached to the table and couldn’t really move his feet, the force he had wanted just wasn’t there, but he did get a startled jump out of Henricksen. Dean was standing as straight as the restraints would allow, his chest heaving in frustration when the door to the interview room flew open.
“It’s under control,” Henricksen told the guards dismissively without taking his eyes off Dean. “Our fugitive was just about to sit his smart ass back down.”
The agent raised his eyes in a challenge to Dean. He didn’t want to sit down because Henricksen had told him to, but he was too tired to stand hunched over like this for long and the idea of the guard making him sit again wasn’t all that attractive either. Reluctantly he settled back down on his own.
“You’re right,” Dean finally spoke after the guards had shut the door. “My dad is dead because of me. But the rest of it...do they give you a script with this crap?”
“I could ask you the same damn thing.”
“This isn’t all some company line. It’s my life. I already sold my soul so there ain't a thing you can do to me that I don’t already got coming worse, but you are gonna leave my family alone.”
“It's not looking good for your 'family', but hey, maybe the devil made Bobby do it too.”
“Not the devil. This isn’t bible school, dumb ass. Demon. Demons now. Lots of them, which is why I gotta get out there to fight what I can with the time I got left.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. I should really be reaming you about opening that devil’s gate and screwing us all over. Sorry, I forgot. Somehow I keep getting stuck up on reality.”
The door opened again, cutting off Henricksen, but this time it wasn’t the guards. When Dean looked towards the doorway the eyes of an older woman caught his. His brow furrowed as she frowned at him. She almost looked half concerned for him, but there was no way that was possible.
“Agent Henricksen? I’m Dr. Lori Fassler, the psyche evaluator assigned to the Winchester case. We need to talk.”
~~~
Leaving Dean Winchester to squirm, Henricksen followed Fassler out of the interrogation room. He had known when he had taken up lead on this case that he was dealing with a primo psycho, but this freak kept shocking even him.
This Winchester guy was a complete nut bag. He wasn’t even sure how Dean managed to tie his own shoes in the morning, let alone execute the hundred and one offenses he had so far managed to carry out without consequence. Despite their earlier theories, at this point he had to assume that Dean was just the muscle for Sam Winchester because there was obviously no way the guy sitting in that interrogation room could think his way out of a paper bag.
“What did I tell you?” he addressed the small group that had stuck around for the whole show. “These Winchesters are that many worlds of crazy.”
Whichever one of them was calling the shots, there wasn’t anything about the Winchesters and whoever else was involved in their little satanic crime ring that didn’t make him sick. With their smug, self-righteous attitude and blatant lack of respect for human life, they were the worst of the worst. Putting something like them away was what made it all worth it.
“That’s what we need to discuss, Agent Henricksen,” Fassler replied. “At length and in the morning. Questioning that man further is not going to gain anything. He needs to be moved into holding for tonight.”
“He’s not leaving that room until he tells me where that fugitive brother of his is.”
“I don’t think he knows and even if he does, we don’t have a choice. Given the severity of the crimes involved, I have been exceedingly patient, but you have been interrogating a mentally incompetent individual for two hours now without any form of legal representation. Proceeding further will only invalidate your own case.”
“Last time this guy was locked up, him and his brother got the drop on the guards and split. I’m not letting that happen again.”
“Just what is it that you think my men and I do for a living, Agent Henricksen?” the warden cut in. “We’re the ones here doing the dirty work of watching the guys you get the glory for catching.”
“I’m telling you, this guy is out of your league.”
“And you’re pushing your jurisdiction. That thing might have left a string of crimes across the country, but those latest victims were local murders and Strieter was one of us. It was Jersey police that brought that man down, not you. Winchester is my prisoner until someone of authority tells me otherwise.”
“Fine, but the shackles stay on,” Henricksen replied.
“No,” Fassler interrupted. “I’m going to have to recommend against solitary.”
“You afraid it might bruise his already damaged ego?”
“Like the warden said, David Strieter was an honored officer recently retired from this force. All the men here rightfully admired him and the work he did for this community.”
“Are you implying that my men can’t be professionals?” the warden countered.
“I admire the difficult work your officers do here, but your men are only human and to be quite frank, your inmate safety record here is not exactly stellar. More body bags come out of this facility than any other detention center in Jersey.”
“And more creeps walk into the door. My men do good work, but this place is overcrowded and you stuff enough of these things in a building together and there’s going to be violence. That’s not on my men.”
“All the more reason you can’t put a shackled man in a cell with other inmates.”
“Look, lady, all our solitary cells were converted. All I got is general housing.”
“You can chain him in a closet for all I care as long as you got is secured tighter than Fort Knox,” Henricksen said. “This guy is a damn Houdini. Give him half an inch and he’ll be out of here.”
“Then he should have been taken to the Trenton prison where they have a maximum security facility. This is a county jail. Why was he even brought here?”
Henricksen had asked the same question himself. There were several facilities closer to the scene of the last murder and far better equipped to handle something like Dean Winchester, but the deputy director had been clear that the guy had to be hauled back to this dump.
“We can handle him,” the irritated warden said. “That thing killed one of us. Believe me, Agent, I’m not gonna be the one that lets him get the slip again. If he didn’t want to end up a target in a prison cell, pretty boy should’ve thought about that before he started his lawbreaking binge.”
This kid was young and healthy. There was nothing right about the nation having to pay to house something like Dean for the next fifty years. Henricksen couldn’t argue that the world wouldn’t be a better place tomorrow if Dean Winchester died tonight. The world would be short one nasty monster and it would probably be enough to draw out the second of the Winchester brothers.
But he hadn’t become an agent of the FBI to become one of the things he hunted. If the guards beat the prisoner to death tonight he couldn’t feel compelled to stop it, but he wasn’t advocating it either. He was just going doing everything in his power to make sure that Dean Winchester never again saw the light of day.
“Keep guards posted and tell them to do their damn jobs. Breathing or not, just make sure there’s still a body here in the morning or they won’t even be considering you for a job in mall security.”
Fassler looked at him with a sharp glare before turning her eyes on the warden. “For the sake of your career and the future of this facility, he better still be breathing.”
~~~
By the time Sam got back to the room Bobby had finished the last of the whiskey. These boys were in so far over their heads that Bobby didn’t even know where to start in digging them out. They had the Winchester curse for finding trouble that was for damn sure.
The boy that trudged across the room looked as exhausted as Bobby felt. He remembered that Dean had been on Sam’s case this morning for not having slept the previous night. That made two of them that had been up for more than twenty-four hours. They weren’t going to be any good to Dean like this.
“The lab won’t be able to run the tests on the syringe until the morning,” Sam told him. “What about the box they had the vial in? Did you find anything on the symbols carved in it?”
“Oh, I identified them all right.”
“And it’s bad?”
“Only in that identifying them was nothing but a damn waste of time.” When Sam just gave him a confused look, Bobby held the box up for Sam to see again. “What’s this size and ain’t nothing but symbols?”
Sam’s sagged down onto the bed as the recognition hit him. “It’s just an old tarot card box.”
“Bingo. And a demon with an interest in the tarot doesn’t help much to narrow our search.”
“No, but the box looks like an antique right? Maybe we could trace it back to...something.”
“Face it, kid. We both need to call it a night.”
“You go ahead. I’m going to try to find some more information on the guy they had Dean shoot.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’m not tired.”
“And my arm doesn’t hurt. Look, Sam, there’s not much point sitting around and guessing what these demons want with your brother.”
“We have to get a hold of one of the demons behind his,” Sam filled in.
“Yep. And it ain’t gonna be easy if they don’t wanna be found.”
“All this time they’ve been going straight for Dean. Maybe if we can find where the FBI took him...”
“Sam, you can’t go running in after your brother.”
“You didn’t hear him, Bobby...we can’t just leave him in there. Not now.”
There was a quiet desperation in the words. He knew Sam was afraid that Dean would be looking for anyway out, even if it meant checking out of this life all together. Bobby was terrified that the boy had already done just that, mentally at least, which didn’t bode well for him surviving this. Still, he wasn’t losing Sam again too. Once was enough.
“I’m not saying we should, but what’s the good in having you both locked up?”
“At least he wouldn’t be alone.”
Sam was holding so much grief and frustration just under the surface. The boy’s eyes begged for Bobby to make it better and he would have given anything if he thought he could. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to get Sam his brother back and then he was going to knock some sense into Dean. There was just no way that they could get to him this soon after the boy had been brought in.
"With what they think he's done, it's not like they'd take him to county. You know well as I that they have him held up in maximum security. Dean might be hating himself, but your disgruntled brother is sitting bored out of his mind in a spotless, private cell, eating bad cafeteria food, which is more than you can say for us. There ain't no one that's gonna be able to hurt him there no matter how much he runs his mouth."
~~~
Dean glanced up when the interview room door opened again. At first he was relieved to see that it wasn’t Henricksen returning. That was until he saw the hardened faces of the three uniformed men that looked at him with a hate that he rarely saw in human eyes.
One he recognized as the jerk of a warden that he’d had it out with when he had initially been dragged in here. That man stood by watching while the other two wordlessly unfastened his handcuffs from the table.
“Let’s go, Winchester,” the warden ordered.
“Already?”
Before Dean was completely on his feet, the warden moved forward and shoved him back down into the chair. Dean glared up at the man who fisted the front of his shirt as he leaned over him, blocking the view of any observers still watching the room.
“You’re going to be respectful, boy,” the man growled in a low tone that was only loud enough for Dean to hear.
“I doubt it,” Dean replied automatically.
He cringed even as the words left his own mouth. It would be far safer for him to bite off his own tongue. The dangerous look in the warden’s eyes confirmed just that. Dean waited for some form of retribution, but instead the man just backed off and motioned for him to stand.
Warily, Dean moved to his feet again and forced himself not to struggle when the guards’ steel grip latched onto his arms. He shuffled with them out the door and finally got a look at the sorry crowd that had assembled to get a good laugh out of his confession.
When he was led past Henricksen, Fassler and whoever the other jokers were, he expected some kind of explanation, but no one said a word about where he was being taken. Most of them wouldn’t even look at him.
All he got was a hard glare from Henricksen and another confusing look out of Fassler. She obviously knew plenty that she wasn’t saying and the guilt about something was plainly written across her face. He had a few guesses about what she knew. Suddenly seeing tomorrow wasn’t looking so likely.
Given how much more the alternatives sucked, he was okay with dying here tonight and if he did, it wouldn’t be her fault. He didn’t know a damn thing about her, but her gentle eyes were totally out of place here. She looked like a good person that didn’t need to be wasting her time mourning him.
“Thanks, Doc,” he told her. “But you couldn’t have saved me anyway.”
He looked away from Fassler’s concerned eyes when one of the guards sharply jerked his arm. “Shut it,” the man warned.
The men guiding him became eerily silent as they slowly led him down the hallway. It was empty except for the resounding echo of their footsteps and clanking from his chains. Dean couldn’t risk opening his mouth again to ask where they were going.
This was far from his first time in police custody or even in prison for that matter, but it felt like it. It was the first time he was in it alone and this time there was no escape plan. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to be locked up in here with him, but without his brother having his back here he felt vulnerable in a way he never had around guys that were just human.
There were only three of them. He could have easily taken them on a good day. But today was far from a good day and even he couldn’t take three armed officers without using his hands or feet. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to run to even if he could. Knowing that didn’t stop him from wanting to fight when he realized were they were taking him.
“Thanks guys, but uh...I can hold it.”
None of them acknowledged his words or his twisting in their grip as they shoved him against the swinging door and into the inmate bathroom. Silent panic swelled up in his chest. His eyes suspiciously scanned the large, empty area and, his personal favorite, the showers.
His attention was abruptly brought back to the men right in front of him when the warden suddenly turned on him. The man didn’t hesitate in lashing out to strike him hard in the side. Dean clamped down his jaw and grunted.
“You vicious little prick,” the warden hissed.
The guards let him go and each took a step back. Dean looked between the two, but his eyes were again on the warden as the man grabbed his shoulders and slammed him back into the wall.
“Strieter gave everything he had for this force, for this country. The man had spent his entire life trying to make this city better. He’d already lost his wife and you torture him in his own bedroom. What the hell kind of sick freak are you?”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t deserve what he got, but I didn’t torture anyone. The demon in him tortured my friend to….”
His sentence dissolved into a sharp gasp when the warden’s knee drove up for a low blow that was far more than Dean’s full bladder could cope with. He squeezed his eyes shut while his body tried to curl into itself, but the warden held him pinned to the wall. The pain and humiliation mingled in his adverted eyes until the warden's hand clamped onto his scuffed up jaw and raised his head so he had to look at him. Dean did his best to force his eyes to neutral.
“That’s right, tough guy. You oughta be pissing your pants. You might be able to pull one over on that psych evaluator, but I’ve seen the reports. Psychologically damaged my ass. You knew full well what you were doing when you carved Strieter up just the same as you did that poor bitch in St. Louis.”
“That wasn’t me. It was a shapeshifter.”
Dean couldn’t bite back his cry when warden’s elbow came down hard on his already screwed up shoulder. This time the man let him fall in a tangle of chains. He just managed to catch himself on his elbows and knees at the warden's feet.
“This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it? You worthless piece of crap.”
His eyes remained fixed on the tiled floor beneath him, not all that interested in seeing the next strike he couldn’t block if he tried. A boot came up and caught him in the ribs with a crack. He numbly expected another to follow, but instead heard the unmistakable click of a gun’s hammer being cocked back.
There was no shortage of ways Dean had imagined dying. Having his brains blown out while being straddle by some guy on a bathroom floor hadn’t even made that extensive list, but it looked like it had just shot to the top. The warden bent over him and jammed the barrel against the base of Dean’s skull.
“I should shoot you right here and now.”
“Yeah, you do that,” he rasped in reply.
He closed his eyes while he waited for the warden to end this. If hell was coming anyway it might as well hurry up and get here. He’d far prefer to be tortured by demons than humans. And Sam and Bobby, they'd be okay. He just hoped Sam didn't blame himself, because it wasn't his brother's fault. It was just how the cards fell.
“You’re not worth it,” the man spat down at him, pulling the gun away and holstering it.
Dean’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded to himself. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “I know,” he replied to the warden’s words.
“Shut your cocky little mouth.”
The man’s booted foot stomped down on his back, forcing him the rest of the way to the floor. Dean’s face contorted in a pained grimace as the heel of the boot ground into his back.
“You’re not worth my career, but no one’s going to stop the boys on the cellblock from wearing your blood. You scream all you want. No one’s coming.”
He groaned when the warden suddenly hauled him to his feet and shoved him towards one of the guards. The man just caught him as Dean tripped over his own shackled feet.
“Get him cleaned up and in a suit. Search him while you’re at it,” the warden told the guards.
“Thanks,” Dean huffed breathlessly, “but I’ve already been searched.”
“I’m sure the agents weren’t as thorough as they should have been. You’re in for one mighty long night, boy.
Continue to Chapter 8
Summary: An attack by a gang of demons freshly freed from hell, leaves Dean unable to lie, at the top of FBI’s most wanted list and soon forced into an experimental psyche program. Meanwhile Sam and Bobby are left to unravel the full extent of the demons’ plans.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, violence, suggestive scenarios and implied M/M non-con.
Spoilers: Up to Season 3, 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'
Word Count: 6,544 for this part
Author's Note: This story is set early Season 3 post ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and assumes that Sam and Dean had their anti-demon possession tattoos by that point. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 6
Philadelphia, PA - Wharton Motel
For the last few hours staying busy had kept Sam distracted. It had taken a while to patch Bobby up. He would have said it was impossible, but Bobby was even less cooperative about being looked after than Dean. Luckily for Bobby, Sam had ignored the man’s grumbling and shooing away and had finally gotten him cleaned up.
They had gone back for the Impala, taken it to a storage facility and emptied everything from the trunk. He didn’t think that they had been followed there, but they weren’t in a position to be taking any risks. If the FBI had followed them and found the trunk loaded with weaponry it would only make things worse for Dean.
Now they were sitting in a trashy don’t ask, don’t tell pay by the hour motel that was so classless Dean would have loved it. If Dean were here his brother would be pitching quarters into the magic fingers while making crude jokes about the constant sound of too-tall high heels clicking down the hallway. Then Dean would have invited a couple of the girls in.
Instead the room was quiet except for the turning of pages while both he and Bobby silently combed through Bobby’s books for some kind of answer. What little of his calm Sam had been able to retain was quickly slipping away as he tried to guess where Dean was now.
The news had been covering the local police and FBI agents gloating about capturing his supposedly deranged brother. Bobby had made him turn the television off, but it didn’t help. Sam wasn’t only scared for his brother, he was angry.
He was angry with himself for having left Dean and at the demons for having gone after his brother in the first place. Now he was even angry with the law enforcement officials. They couldn’t know any better. They couldn’t know that this was his brother’s last year or that his brother had sacrificed his entire life to save others, but it felt like they should. Dean was a hero and someone should know. At the very least, he wished Dean realized it.
Soon the ringing of Bobby’s phone had cut through the silence of their researching. Calls started coming in from other hunters who wanted to know why they had the FBI poking around asking about Bobby and him.
When Bobby again put the phone down with a disgruntled sigh, Sam saw that the blood was soaking through one of the bandages on Bobby’s arm. Sam set the book he was reading aside. He slipped off the bed and walked over to the table Bobby was sitting at.
“That was Mike Durkee, hunter out in Minnesota," Bobby told him. "Same as the rest.”
“Should we be warning any other hunters?”
“And tell them what exactly? That the idjit they all think opened the devil’s gate is selling them out to the FBI? Your brother already ain’t winning any popularity contests with anyone but demons. They’ll be fine so long as they keep their noses clean for a few weeks.”
“Man, Dean is going to hate himself for this,” Sam said mostly to himself.
“Your brother really can’t not talk?”
Sam shook his head and pulled up a chair next to Bobby. “No. When I was uh...testing him, he’d try to just not answer, but it was twitching like he was trying to keep his mouth closed but just couldn’t. Other times it was like he just didn’t even know what he was saying.”
“Maybe it ain’t just a truth thing and we’re looking to narrow...what are you doing?” Bobby asked suspiciously as Sam reached towards him.
“This bandage needs to be changed.”
“Don’t you even think about it,” Bobby growled. “I can damn well take care of myself.”
“Yeah, but you’re obviously not going to.”
Sam glanced at the scarce remains of Dean’s whiskey bottle that Bobby had been going at since they checked in. Bobby was pretending that this wasn’t getting to him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Did you hear me call for a nurse? I mean it. If you think you’re giving me a sponge bath I’m getting my shotgun.”
“Just let me look at it.” Sam once again ignored Bobby’s huffing and carefully removed the bandage. “Oh god, Bobby....”
“You do this much fussing over your brother?” Bobby grumbled. “How the hell does Dean put up with ya?”
“This one needs to be stitched.”
“We already talked about this. It would heal up fine if you’d just quit poking at it. Boy, I got scars older than you. I know what I’m doing. Just slap a bandage on it and let it alone. Cuts are the least of our problems.”
“I know, but someone has to stop you from bleeding to death. Besides, I have to do something, Bobby.”
He wasn’t talking about the cuts and Bobby seemed to get that because he stopped squirming. The only thing Sam wanted to do right now was to run to Dean’s rescue and he couldn’t. At least taking care of Bobby made him feel a little less useless.
“I hear ya, kid. You do whatever you gotta.”
~~~
Camden, NJ - Camden County Jail
For a brief moment, Dean nearly found peace. He drifted far enough into the fog of sleep that he was left with only the vague notion that the whole of the world sucked. He couldn’t remember the specifics of why and instead of trying he was grateful to be pulled deeper towards the numbing bliss.
There was something there in the dark, something that shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t grasp onto what it was. Really he didn’t care. It had been a long time since anything had really been right.
His head had finally fallen forward to rest on his arms when an angry fist hammered down on the table he was leaning on. Dean jerked up in his chair. The sharp clink of metal snapped at his wrists and prevented him from lashing out against the unseen attack. His exhausted eyes focused and reality came crashing back down. He glared up at the piercing eyes that loomed over him.
“I’m not keeping you up am I?” Henricksen asked smugly.
“Obviously not,” Dean replied dryly as he rubbed his eyes.
“You’re playing with the big boys now. No more naptime.”
Dean leaned back in his chair and lowered his eyes down to the table. He was trying to think, but Henricksen’s hovering wasn’t exactly helping. The agent seemed disappointed when Dean didn’t take the bait and tried again in the same mocking tone.
“Ah, come on, Dean. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t seem to stay awake lately.”
“You’ve had my men chasing their tails from Boise to Kalamazoo. You got to be tired from all that running.”
“Yeah, I guess...I guess I am.”
“You know what I really want to know?”
Slowly Dean raised his eyes and looked up towards the taunting clock on the wall. He was willing to bet his pool game earnings that the clock hands were actually moving backwards or at least holding still. Casually he counted on his fingers before again meeting Henricksen’s suffocating stare.
“I’ve been chained to a table staring at your smug ass face for five and a half hours. I’m going to hell, but not soon enough. I’m pretty damn sure I’m never gonna see my brother again and if someone doesn’t at least get me a cup to pee in I’m gonna piss all over your shoes.” He flashed Henricksen a carefully controlled, irritated smirk. “I can’t even tell you how much I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you wanna know.”
Henricksen leaned over the table towards him with a self-satisfied sneer. “Oh you’re going to hell alright, but don’t give up now. We were just starting to have fun. I mean really, I’ve taken down some serious nut cases. Real cuckoo bastards, but you...”
“Dude, aren’t you tired of listening to yourself yet? Your partner ditched you hours ago. Hell, even my new lawyer got bored.”
“Your lawyer quit again.”
“Huh?”
It was no difference to him. No lawyer was getting him out of this. No one was. There was only one way out. All he had to do was wait and when the close came, it wouldn’t be some pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But it was what it was.
The only thing he was worried about was Sam. He knew final wishes be damned, his little brother wouldn’t leave this alone. All he could hope was that Henricksen would manage to bury him so deep that Sam wouldn’t be able to find a smart way in. Then he just had to cross his fingers that his brother wouldn’t take a lesson from him. Of course he’d be lying to himself if he pretended that wasn’t going to happen.
On his own, Sam would come for him. Worse still, without Dean there to stop him, Sam would try to get him out of the deal. All Dean could do was trust that Bobby had his head on straight enough to stop Sam from trying to save him. Bobby had to know that he was already screwed beyond redemption. The only thing to do was to let him go.
Maybe Henricksen was right about him anyway. He didn’t give a crap about the million and one fraud, desecration and other misdemeanor charges. Nearly all of them were legit and technically he probably should get busted for them, but he didn’t regret any of that. The newest murder charges were a whole different story, but part of him still wanted to put a bullet between Henricksen’s eyes.
It was a damn tempting thought considering the guy wouldn’t stop insulting and threatening his family. It didn’t help that Dean’s rumbling stomach was declaring that it would be worth going homicidal freak for some room service.
“Your second lawyer quit hours ago. They both said you were beyond defense and you know what? I couldn’t agree with them more. No one’s buying this big bad demon story you’re selling. You get that, right?”
“Yeah. Got that memo five hours ago.”
“Maybe it’s time to change tactics?”
“Wish I could, but I can’t. How about you? You’ve gotta be tired of hearing me answer the same lame ass questions. You all out of original material?”
“You’ve already told me almost everything I needed to hear. I couldn’t care less what comes out of your sorry mouth. I’m still just celebrating seeing you chained to that table. It’s those guys behind the curtain that can’t get enough of your bull,” Henricksen replied with a motion towards the one-way-mirror.
Dean didn’t know who was on the other side of the glass watching him. It didn’t matter. Whoever was there, he was still stuck in here listening to Henricksen drone on.
“They’re looking for a new public defender, one specializing in nut cases. If you ask me, it’s a waste of time and taxpayer dollars because there’s only one way this ends. You’re going to spend the rest of your very long, miserable life alone in a shoebox-sized cell. And that’s only if the court doesn’t do us all a favor and throw you the death sentence you deserve.”
Dean laughed. Not just a little half hidden chuckle, but an honest to god, full out laugh that could have easily turned into a sob if he wasn’t careful. Henricksen was throwing around threats that were supposed to be terrifying and they didn’t even matter. None of this mattered. The guy just had no clue.
“Is that funny to you?”
“Believe me, it’s freakin’ hilarious.”
“In one crazy way or another you already confessed to most of the charges. Why you’re holding out on some of them I got no damn clue, but the thing is, it doesn’t matter. You’ve confessed to plenty else that we didn’t even have you for. This is the end of the line, Dean.”
“You’re telling me.”
“There’s just your brother.”
Dean leaned forward in his chair as far as the restraints would allow, the fight returning to his eyes. “We’ve talked enough about him.”
“When you tell me where Sam Winchester is then that’ll be enough.”
“I gave you the location of the hotel and all our aliases. Hell, I gave you the damn room number. If you can’t find him with that your detective work really is crap.”
“Still funny. Good for you. Keep that up and you won’t have to worry about the trial. Smart ass cop killers are always a big hit in prison. Your brother wasn’t at the hotel.”
“So he skipped town. Good for him.”
“He’s not in South Dakota yet either, but don’t worry. There’s a team waiting there in case he does show.”
“You sent a team of federal agents to Bobby’s place?”
If Dean had just turned himself in for Bobby the man, who was his second father, would be a hundred grand richer. Instead, because of him, Bobby was half dead and didn’t even have a home to go back to. He should have at least let the cops kill him.
“Don’t look so sad, Dean. I’ll send a team anywhere I can dig up anything on you. Right now you’re my favorite customer. While they didn’t find your brother, the team did find plenty of satanic mumbojumbo, forged IDs up the ying yang, enough weaponry for an entire army and those were just the things they could identify. A whole world of screwed up in that salvage yard and if there are any bodies buried there they’ll find those too.”
“You morons have no idea who you’re screwing with.”
“This Robert Singer guy. Friend of your dad’s, right?”
Dean shrugged. “Sometimes.”
This sucked so many ways. From Bobby’s the feds would be able to track their way back to a whole pile of other hunters. If he kept running his mouth there wasn’t going to be anyone left to hunt the demons.
“Son of a bitch!”
His foot lashed out at the table leg. The attempted kick nearly threw out his ankle with the shackles and just got a conceited chuckle out of Henricksen.
“What’s the matter, Dean? Reality starting to hit home? With all those weapons I’m just wondering how many of you satanic paramilitary freaks there are.”
“Not nearly enough, that’s for damn sure. Lock me up, shoot me yourself - same difference, but you got no business going after Bobby.”
“I love how you nut cases stick together. Makes my job so much easier, but you see, the thing is, I’m willing to bet my promotion that sick bastard murdered his own wife.”
“Since Bobby ain’t married it’d be kinda hard for him to gank his imaginary wife.”
“You’re right. Robert Singer isn’t married. Not anymore, but unfortunately for his wife, he was. You look surprised, Dean. None of the rest of this strikes you as strange? It’s not like it’s any different than what your daddy did to your mom or your brother to his girlfriend. So why don’t you just tell me how many girlfriends you really killed just for the hell of it.”
“No matter how many times you ask the answer is still zilch. I couldn’t hold a stable relationship with a girl to save my life. Not with this lifestyle. Killing them wouldn’t exactly help.”
“Okay, sure. How many boyfriends then?”
Dean let out a sardonic chuckle as he shook his head. “Man you are on some serious crack. I don’t care how nice you ask, I’m not going home with you and all this stuff about my family is crap.”
“Maybe you need me to spell it out for you. Karen Singer, Mary Winchester and Jessica Moore. All murdered because they got mixed up in your little cult. And you...I guess you just can’t keep your pants on. No long-term commitments, just jumping from one to the next. Girl, guy. Doesn’t much seem to matter to you. I guess you’re just the black sheep of the family.”
“You don’t know the half of it and your memory sucks ass. Why don’t you get a secretary in here so I don’t have to keep repeating myself?”
“Come on, Dean. It’s so much funnier to hear you say it. Tell me again, who was it that really killed your dear, loving parents and Miss Moore?”
“For the last freakin’ time, it was that yellow eyed son of a bitch.”
“Oh that’s right,” Henricksen replied in a tone so placating that Dean would have punched him if he hadn’t been chained to the table. “The demon that pins women to the ceiling and then uses some hoodoo to light them on fire. That’s a really neat trick.”
At that Dean stopped fidgeting agitatedly in his chair. Every muscle in his body tensed as his darkened eyes narrowed on the agent. When he spoke the words came slowly, his tone pure venom.
“I swear to god, you say that again, and I will kill you.”
“You keep up that fighting spirit. I’m just trying to get the facts straight here. I mean, this is the demon that had the thing for your little brother, the great demon army leader, and who let your dad trade his soul for yours. He sure got ripped off with that deal.... Feel free to jump in if I’m missing anything here.”
He couldn’t listen to anymore of this. For over five hours this guy had been tearing his life apart. Henricksen thought this was funny. Some big joke, but it wasn’t. It was his mom that had been killed, Sam’s girlfriend that his brother had to watch die and his father that had sacrificed himself for nothing. It had all been for nothing.
“Yeah, I thought so. That demon had a little thing for you too, didn’t it?” Henricksen asked as he leaned further over the table. “Maybe a little under the table action while your daddy wasn’t looking. Is that why you shot 'the yellow eyed demon'?”
“Screw you. You come in here telling me I’m the filthy bastard...”
“Go screw yourself. We both know you were the one that really killed your dad.”
When the words left Henricksen’s lips, the man was inches from his face. Dean couldn’t raise his tightly clenched fists high enough to make contact, but he settled for ramming the table as hard as he could into the agent’s gut.
“Just shut the hell up, you son of a bitch!”
Given that he was attached to the table and couldn’t really move his feet, the force he had wanted just wasn’t there, but he did get a startled jump out of Henricksen. Dean was standing as straight as the restraints would allow, his chest heaving in frustration when the door to the interview room flew open.
“It’s under control,” Henricksen told the guards dismissively without taking his eyes off Dean. “Our fugitive was just about to sit his smart ass back down.”
The agent raised his eyes in a challenge to Dean. He didn’t want to sit down because Henricksen had told him to, but he was too tired to stand hunched over like this for long and the idea of the guard making him sit again wasn’t all that attractive either. Reluctantly he settled back down on his own.
“You’re right,” Dean finally spoke after the guards had shut the door. “My dad is dead because of me. But the rest of it...do they give you a script with this crap?”
“I could ask you the same damn thing.”
“This isn’t all some company line. It’s my life. I already sold my soul so there ain't a thing you can do to me that I don’t already got coming worse, but you are gonna leave my family alone.”
“It's not looking good for your 'family', but hey, maybe the devil made Bobby do it too.”
“Not the devil. This isn’t bible school, dumb ass. Demon. Demons now. Lots of them, which is why I gotta get out there to fight what I can with the time I got left.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. I should really be reaming you about opening that devil’s gate and screwing us all over. Sorry, I forgot. Somehow I keep getting stuck up on reality.”
The door opened again, cutting off Henricksen, but this time it wasn’t the guards. When Dean looked towards the doorway the eyes of an older woman caught his. His brow furrowed as she frowned at him. She almost looked half concerned for him, but there was no way that was possible.
“Agent Henricksen? I’m Dr. Lori Fassler, the psyche evaluator assigned to the Winchester case. We need to talk.”
~~~
Leaving Dean Winchester to squirm, Henricksen followed Fassler out of the interrogation room. He had known when he had taken up lead on this case that he was dealing with a primo psycho, but this freak kept shocking even him.
This Winchester guy was a complete nut bag. He wasn’t even sure how Dean managed to tie his own shoes in the morning, let alone execute the hundred and one offenses he had so far managed to carry out without consequence. Despite their earlier theories, at this point he had to assume that Dean was just the muscle for Sam Winchester because there was obviously no way the guy sitting in that interrogation room could think his way out of a paper bag.
“What did I tell you?” he addressed the small group that had stuck around for the whole show. “These Winchesters are that many worlds of crazy.”
Whichever one of them was calling the shots, there wasn’t anything about the Winchesters and whoever else was involved in their little satanic crime ring that didn’t make him sick. With their smug, self-righteous attitude and blatant lack of respect for human life, they were the worst of the worst. Putting something like them away was what made it all worth it.
“That’s what we need to discuss, Agent Henricksen,” Fassler replied. “At length and in the morning. Questioning that man further is not going to gain anything. He needs to be moved into holding for tonight.”
“He’s not leaving that room until he tells me where that fugitive brother of his is.”
“I don’t think he knows and even if he does, we don’t have a choice. Given the severity of the crimes involved, I have been exceedingly patient, but you have been interrogating a mentally incompetent individual for two hours now without any form of legal representation. Proceeding further will only invalidate your own case.”
“Last time this guy was locked up, him and his brother got the drop on the guards and split. I’m not letting that happen again.”
“Just what is it that you think my men and I do for a living, Agent Henricksen?” the warden cut in. “We’re the ones here doing the dirty work of watching the guys you get the glory for catching.”
“I’m telling you, this guy is out of your league.”
“And you’re pushing your jurisdiction. That thing might have left a string of crimes across the country, but those latest victims were local murders and Strieter was one of us. It was Jersey police that brought that man down, not you. Winchester is my prisoner until someone of authority tells me otherwise.”
“Fine, but the shackles stay on,” Henricksen replied.
“No,” Fassler interrupted. “I’m going to have to recommend against solitary.”
“You afraid it might bruise his already damaged ego?”
“Like the warden said, David Strieter was an honored officer recently retired from this force. All the men here rightfully admired him and the work he did for this community.”
“Are you implying that my men can’t be professionals?” the warden countered.
“I admire the difficult work your officers do here, but your men are only human and to be quite frank, your inmate safety record here is not exactly stellar. More body bags come out of this facility than any other detention center in Jersey.”
“And more creeps walk into the door. My men do good work, but this place is overcrowded and you stuff enough of these things in a building together and there’s going to be violence. That’s not on my men.”
“All the more reason you can’t put a shackled man in a cell with other inmates.”
“Look, lady, all our solitary cells were converted. All I got is general housing.”
“You can chain him in a closet for all I care as long as you got is secured tighter than Fort Knox,” Henricksen said. “This guy is a damn Houdini. Give him half an inch and he’ll be out of here.”
“Then he should have been taken to the Trenton prison where they have a maximum security facility. This is a county jail. Why was he even brought here?”
Henricksen had asked the same question himself. There were several facilities closer to the scene of the last murder and far better equipped to handle something like Dean Winchester, but the deputy director had been clear that the guy had to be hauled back to this dump.
“We can handle him,” the irritated warden said. “That thing killed one of us. Believe me, Agent, I’m not gonna be the one that lets him get the slip again. If he didn’t want to end up a target in a prison cell, pretty boy should’ve thought about that before he started his lawbreaking binge.”
This kid was young and healthy. There was nothing right about the nation having to pay to house something like Dean for the next fifty years. Henricksen couldn’t argue that the world wouldn’t be a better place tomorrow if Dean Winchester died tonight. The world would be short one nasty monster and it would probably be enough to draw out the second of the Winchester brothers.
But he hadn’t become an agent of the FBI to become one of the things he hunted. If the guards beat the prisoner to death tonight he couldn’t feel compelled to stop it, but he wasn’t advocating it either. He was just going doing everything in his power to make sure that Dean Winchester never again saw the light of day.
“Keep guards posted and tell them to do their damn jobs. Breathing or not, just make sure there’s still a body here in the morning or they won’t even be considering you for a job in mall security.”
Fassler looked at him with a sharp glare before turning her eyes on the warden. “For the sake of your career and the future of this facility, he better still be breathing.”
~~~
By the time Sam got back to the room Bobby had finished the last of the whiskey. These boys were in so far over their heads that Bobby didn’t even know where to start in digging them out. They had the Winchester curse for finding trouble that was for damn sure.
The boy that trudged across the room looked as exhausted as Bobby felt. He remembered that Dean had been on Sam’s case this morning for not having slept the previous night. That made two of them that had been up for more than twenty-four hours. They weren’t going to be any good to Dean like this.
“The lab won’t be able to run the tests on the syringe until the morning,” Sam told him. “What about the box they had the vial in? Did you find anything on the symbols carved in it?”
“Oh, I identified them all right.”
“And it’s bad?”
“Only in that identifying them was nothing but a damn waste of time.” When Sam just gave him a confused look, Bobby held the box up for Sam to see again. “What’s this size and ain’t nothing but symbols?”
Sam’s sagged down onto the bed as the recognition hit him. “It’s just an old tarot card box.”
“Bingo. And a demon with an interest in the tarot doesn’t help much to narrow our search.”
“No, but the box looks like an antique right? Maybe we could trace it back to...something.”
“Face it, kid. We both need to call it a night.”
“You go ahead. I’m going to try to find some more information on the guy they had Dean shoot.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’m not tired.”
“And my arm doesn’t hurt. Look, Sam, there’s not much point sitting around and guessing what these demons want with your brother.”
“We have to get a hold of one of the demons behind his,” Sam filled in.
“Yep. And it ain’t gonna be easy if they don’t wanna be found.”
“All this time they’ve been going straight for Dean. Maybe if we can find where the FBI took him...”
“Sam, you can’t go running in after your brother.”
“You didn’t hear him, Bobby...we can’t just leave him in there. Not now.”
There was a quiet desperation in the words. He knew Sam was afraid that Dean would be looking for anyway out, even if it meant checking out of this life all together. Bobby was terrified that the boy had already done just that, mentally at least, which didn’t bode well for him surviving this. Still, he wasn’t losing Sam again too. Once was enough.
“I’m not saying we should, but what’s the good in having you both locked up?”
“At least he wouldn’t be alone.”
Sam was holding so much grief and frustration just under the surface. The boy’s eyes begged for Bobby to make it better and he would have given anything if he thought he could. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to get Sam his brother back and then he was going to knock some sense into Dean. There was just no way that they could get to him this soon after the boy had been brought in.
"With what they think he's done, it's not like they'd take him to county. You know well as I that they have him held up in maximum security. Dean might be hating himself, but your disgruntled brother is sitting bored out of his mind in a spotless, private cell, eating bad cafeteria food, which is more than you can say for us. There ain't no one that's gonna be able to hurt him there no matter how much he runs his mouth."
~~~
Dean glanced up when the interview room door opened again. At first he was relieved to see that it wasn’t Henricksen returning. That was until he saw the hardened faces of the three uniformed men that looked at him with a hate that he rarely saw in human eyes.
One he recognized as the jerk of a warden that he’d had it out with when he had initially been dragged in here. That man stood by watching while the other two wordlessly unfastened his handcuffs from the table.
“Let’s go, Winchester,” the warden ordered.
“Already?”
Before Dean was completely on his feet, the warden moved forward and shoved him back down into the chair. Dean glared up at the man who fisted the front of his shirt as he leaned over him, blocking the view of any observers still watching the room.
“You’re going to be respectful, boy,” the man growled in a low tone that was only loud enough for Dean to hear.
“I doubt it,” Dean replied automatically.
He cringed even as the words left his own mouth. It would be far safer for him to bite off his own tongue. The dangerous look in the warden’s eyes confirmed just that. Dean waited for some form of retribution, but instead the man just backed off and motioned for him to stand.
Warily, Dean moved to his feet again and forced himself not to struggle when the guards’ steel grip latched onto his arms. He shuffled with them out the door and finally got a look at the sorry crowd that had assembled to get a good laugh out of his confession.
When he was led past Henricksen, Fassler and whoever the other jokers were, he expected some kind of explanation, but no one said a word about where he was being taken. Most of them wouldn’t even look at him.
All he got was a hard glare from Henricksen and another confusing look out of Fassler. She obviously knew plenty that she wasn’t saying and the guilt about something was plainly written across her face. He had a few guesses about what she knew. Suddenly seeing tomorrow wasn’t looking so likely.
Given how much more the alternatives sucked, he was okay with dying here tonight and if he did, it wouldn’t be her fault. He didn’t know a damn thing about her, but her gentle eyes were totally out of place here. She looked like a good person that didn’t need to be wasting her time mourning him.
“Thanks, Doc,” he told her. “But you couldn’t have saved me anyway.”
He looked away from Fassler’s concerned eyes when one of the guards sharply jerked his arm. “Shut it,” the man warned.
The men guiding him became eerily silent as they slowly led him down the hallway. It was empty except for the resounding echo of their footsteps and clanking from his chains. Dean couldn’t risk opening his mouth again to ask where they were going.
This was far from his first time in police custody or even in prison for that matter, but it felt like it. It was the first time he was in it alone and this time there was no escape plan. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to be locked up in here with him, but without his brother having his back here he felt vulnerable in a way he never had around guys that were just human.
There were only three of them. He could have easily taken them on a good day. But today was far from a good day and even he couldn’t take three armed officers without using his hands or feet. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to run to even if he could. Knowing that didn’t stop him from wanting to fight when he realized were they were taking him.
“Thanks guys, but uh...I can hold it.”
None of them acknowledged his words or his twisting in their grip as they shoved him against the swinging door and into the inmate bathroom. Silent panic swelled up in his chest. His eyes suspiciously scanned the large, empty area and, his personal favorite, the showers.
His attention was abruptly brought back to the men right in front of him when the warden suddenly turned on him. The man didn’t hesitate in lashing out to strike him hard in the side. Dean clamped down his jaw and grunted.
“You vicious little prick,” the warden hissed.
The guards let him go and each took a step back. Dean looked between the two, but his eyes were again on the warden as the man grabbed his shoulders and slammed him back into the wall.
“Strieter gave everything he had for this force, for this country. The man had spent his entire life trying to make this city better. He’d already lost his wife and you torture him in his own bedroom. What the hell kind of sick freak are you?”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t deserve what he got, but I didn’t torture anyone. The demon in him tortured my friend to….”
His sentence dissolved into a sharp gasp when the warden’s knee drove up for a low blow that was far more than Dean’s full bladder could cope with. He squeezed his eyes shut while his body tried to curl into itself, but the warden held him pinned to the wall. The pain and humiliation mingled in his adverted eyes until the warden's hand clamped onto his scuffed up jaw and raised his head so he had to look at him. Dean did his best to force his eyes to neutral.
“That’s right, tough guy. You oughta be pissing your pants. You might be able to pull one over on that psych evaluator, but I’ve seen the reports. Psychologically damaged my ass. You knew full well what you were doing when you carved Strieter up just the same as you did that poor bitch in St. Louis.”
“That wasn’t me. It was a shapeshifter.”
Dean couldn’t bite back his cry when warden’s elbow came down hard on his already screwed up shoulder. This time the man let him fall in a tangle of chains. He just managed to catch himself on his elbows and knees at the warden's feet.
“This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it? You worthless piece of crap.”
His eyes remained fixed on the tiled floor beneath him, not all that interested in seeing the next strike he couldn’t block if he tried. A boot came up and caught him in the ribs with a crack. He numbly expected another to follow, but instead heard the unmistakable click of a gun’s hammer being cocked back.
There was no shortage of ways Dean had imagined dying. Having his brains blown out while being straddle by some guy on a bathroom floor hadn’t even made that extensive list, but it looked like it had just shot to the top. The warden bent over him and jammed the barrel against the base of Dean’s skull.
“I should shoot you right here and now.”
“Yeah, you do that,” he rasped in reply.
He closed his eyes while he waited for the warden to end this. If hell was coming anyway it might as well hurry up and get here. He’d far prefer to be tortured by demons than humans. And Sam and Bobby, they'd be okay. He just hoped Sam didn't blame himself, because it wasn't his brother's fault. It was just how the cards fell.
“You’re not worth it,” the man spat down at him, pulling the gun away and holstering it.
Dean’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded to himself. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “I know,” he replied to the warden’s words.
“Shut your cocky little mouth.”
The man’s booted foot stomped down on his back, forcing him the rest of the way to the floor. Dean’s face contorted in a pained grimace as the heel of the boot ground into his back.
“You’re not worth my career, but no one’s going to stop the boys on the cellblock from wearing your blood. You scream all you want. No one’s coming.”
He groaned when the warden suddenly hauled him to his feet and shoved him towards one of the guards. The man just caught him as Dean tripped over his own shackled feet.
“Get him cleaned up and in a suit. Search him while you’re at it,” the warden told the guards.
“Thanks,” Dean huffed breathlessly, “but I’ve already been searched.”
“I’m sure the agents weren’t as thorough as they should have been. You’re in for one mighty long night, boy.
Continue to Chapter 8