Asleep, Inside the Cabinet of Mr Adler, for Zirastiel
Title: Asleep, Inside the Cabinet of Mr Adler
Author: astarloa
Recipient: Zirastiel
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for 4.17, brief reference to animal death
Author's Notes: Title taken from 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' and lyrics are from 'Tiny Apocalypse' by David Byrne. Many thanks to A.
Summary: Dean Smith tells Sam to leave and then changes his mind.
“Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you don't know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.” - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
He was standing in the office at night. Lights from nearby buildings shone like mechanical stars in the window. If Dean had turned around he would have seen them, but he didn't turn around. He just looked at Sam and said, “Know me? You don't know me, pal. I think you should go.”
The words were a lie. He said them anyway.
His voice was cold and certain. Last week he'd told Adler that the company could expect upward growth during the next quarter, despite the depressed mining sector, in exactly the same way.
It was the tone he used to reassure nervous, junior executives.
He'd practiced in front of a mirror at home, alone in the small bathroom. His voice had echoed against the tiles. There'd been a disconnection between image and sound, as if his mouth were moving a fraction too slowly. He'd tracked the unsettling movement of his face in the glass, breathing through creeping nausea, unable to stop.
For a brief moment the memory covered Sam's face, like inexpertly applied wallpaper. Reality intermingled. Dean stood motionless, before dropping his eyes to a point somewhere over Sam's shoulder.
Suddenly, he was tired.
Adrenaline had faded and his left ankle ached.
His tie was missing. When did he take it off? Was it on the desk behind him? He couldn't remember. He wanted to ask Sam to help him find it, but was scared that Sam would only frown and say, “Your tie isn't real, Dean. Don't you get that? None of this is real. Neither are you.”
So, he didn't ask.
His hands started to shake. Fine, fluttering tremors, as if half-formed moths were trapped beneath the skin, desperate to escape. His fingers tightened around a bloodstained cloth, relaxed, and then tightened again. It didn't work. His hands kept on shaking.
There was silence. Neither of them spoke, and then Sam walked away.
Dean watched him leave.
The words come back were trapped in his throat. He couldn't say them. He concentrated instead on the tightness of his chest and thought about diets and cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart attacks. It was easier that way. He heard the faint echo of the elevator's arrival and then nothing. No footsteps walked towards him; no one called his name. Sam didn't come back.
He turned and looked out of the window. He didn't see the stars.
When the cleaning staff arrived, before dawn the next morning, Dean was sitting in the dark, behind his desk. The computer screen was blank. One of the cleaners screamed when she saw him. She apologised and said that she was superstitious, that the place gave her the creeps. She'd mistaken Dean for a ghost.
::::
It was 5 o'clock.
The sun was an undercooked egg on the horizon, pale and slightly runny. Dean drove towards it, against an unsteady flow of traffic. In a few hours he'd switch lanes and return to the office. A voice on the radio thanked the station's sponsors - extolling the virtues of a new laundry detergent - and then cut to the weather. Rain was forecast.
He turned it off.
The engine amplified an aching buzz inside his head. He pressed down on the accelerator and started to tap out a pattern against the steering wheel. Something sharp and restless, like a zipper tugging against bent, metal teeth. There was dried blood beneath his fingernails. He lost himself in the movement, the gritty slide of skin against fake leather. The sides of the car pressed claustrophobically around him.
A fire engine screamed past.
He grabbed at the wheel, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of vertigo. The car's rear wheels slipped to one side, tyres screeching, before correcting course. Dean wheezed, “Fuck,” and forced himself to breathe slowly, trying to still the pounding of his heart. He coughed, tasting something acrid, like burnt plastic and fireworks. Steel-capped boots kicked sullenly at the walls of his chest.
He couldn't remember how long he'd been driving.
His watch said it was five o'clock.
Music was playing on the radio. Raise up - shake them lazy bones. Read the t-shirt but still don't understand. Comin' home with a little apocalypse. It comes, now do you have time for this? Dean let the words wash over him. When the song ended an announcer thanked the station's sponsors, waxing lyrical over a new brand of ammunition - sacramental shotgun cartridges - and then cut to the weather. Storms were forecast.
He winced at the sudden, crackling burst of static and turned it off.
Fifteen minutes later he parked on the curb, outside his apartment building, beneath a blue and yellow sign that read, 'Give Way'.
It was quiet.
People were still asleep.
He sat and stared blankly through the windscreen. It needed washing. His thoughts drifted to a magazine article he'd once read, about a Soviet dog named Laika who'd been launched into space. She'd died while orbiting the earth, travelling alone through the night, inside a metal spacecraft. Sputnik II. Dean tried to imagine how she'd felt. Then he got out, mouth twisting into a grim smile, and mocked himself for being morbid. The cool morning air made him shiver. He decided that he'd have the car cleaned on Saturday.
He crossed the street and went inside.
::::
Shadows painted the ground floor with darkness. The door to an empty office was open in the corner. He saw a lamp flickering on the desk, casting unsteady light over a pile of neatly stacked paper, ordinary and impermanent. Wisps of steam spiralled lazily from a mug. Dean paused and called out, “Hello? Anyone there?” His voice was swallowed by the silence. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his mouth, and walked towards the elevator, steps tense and deliberate. He pressed the button and waited, shifting his duffel from one arm to the other. There was a soft, clanking sound from inside.
The doors to the elevator slid open. A man stepped out and said, “Hello, Dean.”
Dean flinched.
His pulse stuttered once, twice, and then picked up speed. The man looked like someone from the accounting department; someone he might have stood next to in a coffee store, or made awkward conversation with over the drone of a photocopier. The man looked like none of those things.
“Oh, c'mon! You've got to be kidding me,” Dean exclaimed, anger flaring to life. He jerked away as the man moved closer. “It's an elevator thing, right? Let me guess - you've been having weird dreams about us hunting zombie chickens in the sewer together.”
The man opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Zombies are a myth created as an expression of human fear and anxiety. They don't exist,” he said finally, head tilted to one side. “And I don't sleep. You already know that.”
“Sure. Of course you don't.” Dean shook his head, as if to clear it, and took another step back. They were circling each other in a brittle, two-dimensional dance. “Listen carefully, 'cause I'm only going to say this once: I don't know you. I don't want to know you. We're not friends, or long lost, co-joined cousins separated at birth, or - ”
“You need to stop talking. I don't have much time. Once Zachariah discovers my presence an order will be given requiring me to leave. And I will leave, Dean. My purpose is served by following Heaven's command.” Something frightening and bitter flashed across the man's face, like cancerous wings wrapped in barbed wire. It left an afterimage floating on the back of Dean's eyes. “Your hair is certainly more well organised here, but I know you, Dean Winchester. I'm the one who raised your soul from hell and stitched it back together.”
Dean stared.
His thoughts were spinning, crashing to the ground, confused and gasping, only to get up and start running again with bruised, bloodied knees.
He exhaled a harsh laugh.
“Okay, newsflash, pal. Whatever brand of crazy you're selling? I'm not buying. You picked the wrong guy for your little Kool-Aid drive. I'm in sales and marketing, I con people for a living.” Dean fumbled through his duffel for the wrench, only to find he was holding a half-empty bag of salt. He held it out in front of his body, both as a shield and a threat. “So, here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna get in the elevator. You won't speak to me. You won't follow me. If you see me in the street you're gonna turn around and start walking in the opposite direction. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”
He reached out blindly and pressed the elevator button, holding it down until the doors opened. He backed inside. The man stood and watched, curious and impassive.
“You think you can't do what God asks. That you will fail and cause hurt to those you care about,” the man said. “You need to understand that fate and faith are two different things, Dean. Your struggles are caused not by fear of what may come to pass, but because you believe and don't want to.”
The man disappeared as the doors slid closed. The salt slipped from Dean's hand and scattered across the floor.
::::
Steam filled the bathroom.
Water on the wrong side of too hot burnt stinging patterns onto Dean's shoulders, as though a thousand needles were dragging invisible thread through his skin, embroidering the names of people he'd forgotten. The air contracted and then expanded again, heavy and bloated. His eyes were closed. One hand was braced against the tiled wall for balance, and the expression on his face was something close to despair.
When the water started to cool he twisted the taps and climbed out.
The shower door let loose a high-pitched squeal as it opened. He'd tried to fix it soon after signing the lease - using a toolkit he'd found hidden in the back of a cupboard - but given up after half an hour, unsure what to do. Tightening the hinges had only made things worse.
Dean towelled himself dry, gestures deliberately rough, in a pantomime of constrained violence.
Turning, his eyes settled on the blurred figure in the mirror.
He stood very still, before reaching out to scrawl Winchester in the condensation, across the slick, greasy glass. Fragments of his face were reflected in the letters. As children, he and his sister, Jo, had scared themselves silly with stories of Bloody Mary, each daring the other to call her name. They never had. The game had usually ended in a flurry of shoving and insults. If he said Dean Winchester three times in a row, what would happen? Would a spirit be conjured out of the mirror, or would he fall in and become trapped?
Dean leaned forward. His hair formed a corona of dark, dripping spikes around his head, like dandelion fluff stained with mud. Your hair is certainly more well organised here. He gave a damp, involuntary shudder and looked away, palming it flat.
The towel was left in a sodden heap on the floor, used and abandoned.
He got dressed, pulling on a pair of black trousers and a blue business shirt, fastening its buttons all the way up to the top. The starched collar pressed tightly around his throat, making it difficult to swallow. Then he lay down on the bed, arms limp by his side, and stared at the white stretch of ceiling, hair cold and wet against the pillow. He felt feverish and wondered absently if he was coming down with the flu. His feet were bare.
Minutes crept past in a disorderly queue, one after the other.
He had the sensation of dreaming while awake, as if reaching out to grab hold of someone who'd already let go. He raised one hand off the bed and studied it carefully. It didn't look any different: blunt and inelegant, with square, bitten nails. His middle finger was disfigured by a callus he'd had since college.
Sighing, he rolled over and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand, squinting at the brightness of the screen. There weren't any messages. Dean told himself it was hunger, and not disappointment, curling through his belly. Eyebrows scrunched together, he scrolled through the list of contacts and pressed call.
There was a sound of distant ringing. A machine picked it up.
“You've reached Bob and Ellen. We're not here right not now, but if you leave - “
The woman's voice broke off. He could hear muffled bickering in the background: Why can't folk just wait 'til we're home or feel like talkin' to 'em? Because we're pretending to be fine, upstanding members of society, Robert. Now hush up, before I kick your ass.
“ - What I was about to say, before my damn fool of a husband interrupted, is that we're not here, but leave your number and we'll call you back.”
Dean cleared his throat. His eyes were dry and tight.
“Hey, it's me. Um, guess you guys are still sleeping. Sorry if I've woken you up or something. Listen, I was thinking of driving down one weekend. It'd be good to get out of the city. See everyone. Things have been kinda crazy here, so…yeah. Anyway. Call me back.” He shifted the phone from one ear to the other, pressing it tightly against the side of his head, as if to prevent any sound from escaping. “Mom, listen. I know it's early, but I really need you to pick up. Just for a minute, okay?”
He waited, searching the silence for a familiar voice, thick with annoyance and sleep. It never came. The call ended with a loud beep. Dean hung up and immediately hit redial.
He didn't leave another message.
At seven o'clock, when the alarm started to shrill, Dean got up and finished dressing. He chose a conservative, pale blue tie and a suit jacket with three buttons, selecting them carefully, like a Halloween costume intended both to disguise and intimidate. Today was a continuation of yesterday. His keys jangled as he walked out the front door, letting it slam closed behind him.
He bought a stale donut and a cup of cheap, black coffee on the way to work, even though it made him late. Powdered sugar stained his tie.
::::
Dean spent the morning trying to lose himself in the labyrinth of the corporate machine. He sent emails and made telephone calls; finalised a report on the pricing of civil infrastructure projects during the last quarter. The market for iron ore was expected to remain volatile. And yet doubt continued to scratch at his mind, jagged and incomplete, always leading him back to the exit.
There's a golf bag in the corner of my office. I don't know how to play. I live alone. I remember two beds. I have a sister. When I think of her I hear screaming. I'm the Director of Sales and Marketing. This isn't how it's supposed to be. My name's Dean Smith. It says so on the door.
His fingers stilled on the keyboard.
Watching the steady flash of the cursor - stark and flat, a moment in time looped around and repeated - he had an urge to smash the computer open, suddenly convinced that he'd find nothing but shadows inside. Ghosts in the machine. He swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut, and then muttered, “Fuck it. Just…fuck it.” He was sick of feeling frightened.
The phone rang, loud and insistent.
Dean pressed the button on his headset, answered the call without thinking, like a child reciting the multiplication table.
A voice said, “Um, hey. It's Sam…Sam Wesson.”
“Oh. Right.” Dean stood up, one hand gripping the back of his chair. His fingers turned white. “Listen, about that stuff you said last night. I - ”
“No, I get it, man. The whole 'ghosts scrambling our brains' thing was pretty far out there,” Sam said, words tumbling over each other, nervous and frayed around the edges. “I, uh, spoke to someone from the phone company. Turns out they've been getting complaints about faulty lines or something, so I guess that's how I ended up calling the animal hospital. Maybe…I think maybe I just wanted it to be true, you know?”
Dean didn't respond. He could hear faint puffs of air against the receiver. “Uh, to tell you the truth, not really,” he said, finally. “You're saying, what? You wanted your ex-girlfriend - fiancé, whatever - to be imaginary? 'Cause I gotta say, man, that's a serious case of denial.”
“God, you're such a dick sometimes.” Dean smirked, surprised to find himself amused by the insult. “All I know,” Sam continued, “is us hunting that ghost together? Helping people? It felt like, I dunno, some kind of wake up call, I guess.”
“I told you, man, it's the cubicle thing. You just need to -“
“Yeah, about that. I've resigned. Okay, technically I was fired. But I would've quit anyway, so it's more of a timing issue, really. The HR rep says Ian mistaking his neck for a pencil sharpener and Paul's head exploding might count as extenuating circumstances. Workplace stress.”
“Fired!” Dean moved towards the open door of his office, panic rising. He looked out, anxiously, at the people milling through reception and then eased the door closed with a soft click. He was sweating. “I told you we should've checked the security cameras again! How much do they know? What did they say?”
“Dude, calm down. It's got nothing to do with that. Well, not directly. There was an, um. An incident.”
“An incident? What the hell does that mean? I swear to God, Sam, if you don't -”
“I attacked my desk phone with a fire poker,” Sam said, voice resigned.
“Sorry, you what? With a…”
“Poker.”
Dean's face distorted and broke into a smile. “Dude, seriously? Are we talking, like, Russell Crowe, or Full Metal Jacket for the geek squad?”
“The only fatality was a phone,” Sam said, dryly. “So, on a scale of socially inappropriate outbursts, I'm thinking Russell. And watch who you're calling a geek, Mr I Love Research.”
“Stand down, Gomer Pyle, that's an order. We've all got our special talents.”
“Well, apparently mine involve scaring the crap out of everyone. Enough for security to show up, anyway.” There was a pause. When Sam spoke again he sounded smaller somehow, hesitant and embarrassed. “I totally lost it, man. Kinda scared myself a bit too, to be honest.”
The words floated between them like a grey-scale confession. Dean sat on the edge of his desk, elbow resting against an upraised knee, and stared out the window. It had started raining.
“Yeah, I hear you. There's been some of that going 'round lately,” he said. His eyes darted to the bronzed golfer standing on the cabinet, its arms frozen in an eternal swing. “So, what's your next step? I might know someone who's hiring, if you're interested.”
“Actually, I'm gonna take some time off…hit the road for a while, see what happens.”
“Uh, sure. Got anywhere in mind?”
“Yeah. I couldn't sleep last night, after…after, so I did some digging around on-line. About the, um, supernatural stuff? I took another look at that Ghosterfacers site and followed a few links. I mean, at first a lot of it seemed like complete crap, right? There were people asking for advice about werewolves and, I dunno, these things called ghouls? It was like a horror movie from the 1950's.”
“Okay, well that doesn't sound disturbing at all,” Dean said.
Sam huffed in annoyance. “Anyway, I exchanged a few messages with this one guy who seemed legit. Sort of. He mentioned a bar in Nebraska…uh, Harville's Roadhouse? I think it's part of an underground network for ghost hunters or something. Thought I'd check it out.”
“Sam, c'mon. You're just gonna drive to Nebraska, after hooking up with some weirdo on the Internet, and ask a group of strangers if they've spoken to Casper lately?”
“Why not?” Sam asked, stubborn and defensive. “Remember what the Ghostfacers said: Homework, Infiltration, and Face Time. It worked okay when we took out Sandover. Look, maybe you're happy to pretend nothing's changed, but I can't live like that. Not now. I have to - ”
Dean stood up and pulled out the chair, slumping into it with a silent groan. He let Sam's voice drift over him and clicked absently on the mouse, killing the company's screensaver. His inbox held seven new emails, three of which were marked urgent. He left them unread. Fear came rushing back, subtly different, threading its way through a series of warped, irregular cracks and Sam-shaped spaces. The room seemed very quiet.
He took a deep breath and said, “You'll need a car.”
“ - What?”
“A car. You'll need one to get to Nebraska.”
“Well, yeah. I'm not catching the bus, dude.”
“We could take mine. My car, I mean.”
“We? Oh. Okay. Yeah, that'd be - it's just…you made yourself pretty clear last night. I'd rather not be left on the side of the road if you freak out and change your mind again. Uh, no offence.”
“Trust me, pal, I've used up nine lifetimes of freak since this whole thing started. I'm running on an empty tank here.” Dean sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, I'm not saying this monster gig is a forever kind of deal, okay? We'll probably be sick to death of each other by the end of the first week. Hell, chances are you'll ditch me in the middle of the night and take off back to school, or hook up with some chick. But I'm…something about this isn't right, man. So, screw it. We drive to Nebraska, ask some questions, and go from there.”
Sam said, “Okay.” Dean could hear him grinning.
::::
There was a sharp knock on the door.
Dean stopped typing and looked up, startled. There was a half-finished letter on the screen. It said he was resigning.
Adler smiled and asked, “Got a minute?” Fluorescent light cast shadows across his face, twisting it into something unexpectedly strange; menace tempted out of hiding by the promise of prey. The bulk of his body merged with the grey walls of the office, smooth and blank.
“Sure, of course,” Dean replied, raising both eyebrows.
He bit down on the inside of his mouth and told himself that everything would be fine, that it was only his mind playing tricks. In another few hours he'd be somewhere else, drinking beer with Sam and planning a trip to Nebraska.
Dean told Adler that he'd decided to leave.
His explanation imploded under its own weight, sentences reduced to uneasy, stuttered words. He flushed, embarrassed, and felt an absurd surge of relief when Adler's smile only widened.
That is, until he heard Adler say, “Dean, Dean, Dean.”
He thought, in horror, Bloody Mary. A distant part of him wanted to scream. Instead, he could only watch, silent and trapped, as Adler reached out and pressed two fingers against his forehead. He flinched. There was a bright, flaring pulse of pain, and then…
They arranged to meet at Dean's apartment that night.
“You tried calling them, didn't you? Your family,” Sam said, suddenly.
He didn't reply.
Sam tried to apologise. Variations of sorry tripped over each other until Dean cut them off. “Hey, I think they need you back on set, Oprah. Let's just concentrate on how we're going to fund this little adventure.”
“So, I guess we're really doing this, huh?” Sam asked. “I swear, man, you and me on the road together? It's gonna be great.”
…Dean Winchester blinked and woke up.
Author: astarloa
Recipient: Zirastiel
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for 4.17, brief reference to animal death
Author's Notes: Title taken from 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' and lyrics are from 'Tiny Apocalypse' by David Byrne. Many thanks to A.
Summary: Dean Smith tells Sam to leave and then changes his mind.
“Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you don't know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.” - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
He was standing in the office at night. Lights from nearby buildings shone like mechanical stars in the window. If Dean had turned around he would have seen them, but he didn't turn around. He just looked at Sam and said, “Know me? You don't know me, pal. I think you should go.”
The words were a lie. He said them anyway.
His voice was cold and certain. Last week he'd told Adler that the company could expect upward growth during the next quarter, despite the depressed mining sector, in exactly the same way.
It was the tone he used to reassure nervous, junior executives.
He'd practiced in front of a mirror at home, alone in the small bathroom. His voice had echoed against the tiles. There'd been a disconnection between image and sound, as if his mouth were moving a fraction too slowly. He'd tracked the unsettling movement of his face in the glass, breathing through creeping nausea, unable to stop.
For a brief moment the memory covered Sam's face, like inexpertly applied wallpaper. Reality intermingled. Dean stood motionless, before dropping his eyes to a point somewhere over Sam's shoulder.
Suddenly, he was tired.
Adrenaline had faded and his left ankle ached.
His tie was missing. When did he take it off? Was it on the desk behind him? He couldn't remember. He wanted to ask Sam to help him find it, but was scared that Sam would only frown and say, “Your tie isn't real, Dean. Don't you get that? None of this is real. Neither are you.”
So, he didn't ask.
His hands started to shake. Fine, fluttering tremors, as if half-formed moths were trapped beneath the skin, desperate to escape. His fingers tightened around a bloodstained cloth, relaxed, and then tightened again. It didn't work. His hands kept on shaking.
There was silence. Neither of them spoke, and then Sam walked away.
Dean watched him leave.
The words come back were trapped in his throat. He couldn't say them. He concentrated instead on the tightness of his chest and thought about diets and cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart attacks. It was easier that way. He heard the faint echo of the elevator's arrival and then nothing. No footsteps walked towards him; no one called his name. Sam didn't come back.
He turned and looked out of the window. He didn't see the stars.
When the cleaning staff arrived, before dawn the next morning, Dean was sitting in the dark, behind his desk. The computer screen was blank. One of the cleaners screamed when she saw him. She apologised and said that she was superstitious, that the place gave her the creeps. She'd mistaken Dean for a ghost.
::::
It was 5 o'clock.
The sun was an undercooked egg on the horizon, pale and slightly runny. Dean drove towards it, against an unsteady flow of traffic. In a few hours he'd switch lanes and return to the office. A voice on the radio thanked the station's sponsors - extolling the virtues of a new laundry detergent - and then cut to the weather. Rain was forecast.
He turned it off.
The engine amplified an aching buzz inside his head. He pressed down on the accelerator and started to tap out a pattern against the steering wheel. Something sharp and restless, like a zipper tugging against bent, metal teeth. There was dried blood beneath his fingernails. He lost himself in the movement, the gritty slide of skin against fake leather. The sides of the car pressed claustrophobically around him.
A fire engine screamed past.
He grabbed at the wheel, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of vertigo. The car's rear wheels slipped to one side, tyres screeching, before correcting course. Dean wheezed, “Fuck,” and forced himself to breathe slowly, trying to still the pounding of his heart. He coughed, tasting something acrid, like burnt plastic and fireworks. Steel-capped boots kicked sullenly at the walls of his chest.
He couldn't remember how long he'd been driving.
His watch said it was five o'clock.
Music was playing on the radio. Raise up - shake them lazy bones. Read the t-shirt but still don't understand. Comin' home with a little apocalypse. It comes, now do you have time for this? Dean let the words wash over him. When the song ended an announcer thanked the station's sponsors, waxing lyrical over a new brand of ammunition - sacramental shotgun cartridges - and then cut to the weather. Storms were forecast.
He winced at the sudden, crackling burst of static and turned it off.
Fifteen minutes later he parked on the curb, outside his apartment building, beneath a blue and yellow sign that read, 'Give Way'.
It was quiet.
People were still asleep.
He sat and stared blankly through the windscreen. It needed washing. His thoughts drifted to a magazine article he'd once read, about a Soviet dog named Laika who'd been launched into space. She'd died while orbiting the earth, travelling alone through the night, inside a metal spacecraft. Sputnik II. Dean tried to imagine how she'd felt. Then he got out, mouth twisting into a grim smile, and mocked himself for being morbid. The cool morning air made him shiver. He decided that he'd have the car cleaned on Saturday.
He crossed the street and went inside.
::::
Shadows painted the ground floor with darkness. The door to an empty office was open in the corner. He saw a lamp flickering on the desk, casting unsteady light over a pile of neatly stacked paper, ordinary and impermanent. Wisps of steam spiralled lazily from a mug. Dean paused and called out, “Hello? Anyone there?” His voice was swallowed by the silence. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his mouth, and walked towards the elevator, steps tense and deliberate. He pressed the button and waited, shifting his duffel from one arm to the other. There was a soft, clanking sound from inside.
The doors to the elevator slid open. A man stepped out and said, “Hello, Dean.”
Dean flinched.
His pulse stuttered once, twice, and then picked up speed. The man looked like someone from the accounting department; someone he might have stood next to in a coffee store, or made awkward conversation with over the drone of a photocopier. The man looked like none of those things.
“Oh, c'mon! You've got to be kidding me,” Dean exclaimed, anger flaring to life. He jerked away as the man moved closer. “It's an elevator thing, right? Let me guess - you've been having weird dreams about us hunting zombie chickens in the sewer together.”
The man opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Zombies are a myth created as an expression of human fear and anxiety. They don't exist,” he said finally, head tilted to one side. “And I don't sleep. You already know that.”
“Sure. Of course you don't.” Dean shook his head, as if to clear it, and took another step back. They were circling each other in a brittle, two-dimensional dance. “Listen carefully, 'cause I'm only going to say this once: I don't know you. I don't want to know you. We're not friends, or long lost, co-joined cousins separated at birth, or - ”
“You need to stop talking. I don't have much time. Once Zachariah discovers my presence an order will be given requiring me to leave. And I will leave, Dean. My purpose is served by following Heaven's command.” Something frightening and bitter flashed across the man's face, like cancerous wings wrapped in barbed wire. It left an afterimage floating on the back of Dean's eyes. “Your hair is certainly more well organised here, but I know you, Dean Winchester. I'm the one who raised your soul from hell and stitched it back together.”
Dean stared.
His thoughts were spinning, crashing to the ground, confused and gasping, only to get up and start running again with bruised, bloodied knees.
He exhaled a harsh laugh.
“Okay, newsflash, pal. Whatever brand of crazy you're selling? I'm not buying. You picked the wrong guy for your little Kool-Aid drive. I'm in sales and marketing, I con people for a living.” Dean fumbled through his duffel for the wrench, only to find he was holding a half-empty bag of salt. He held it out in front of his body, both as a shield and a threat. “So, here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna get in the elevator. You won't speak to me. You won't follow me. If you see me in the street you're gonna turn around and start walking in the opposite direction. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”
He reached out blindly and pressed the elevator button, holding it down until the doors opened. He backed inside. The man stood and watched, curious and impassive.
“You think you can't do what God asks. That you will fail and cause hurt to those you care about,” the man said. “You need to understand that fate and faith are two different things, Dean. Your struggles are caused not by fear of what may come to pass, but because you believe and don't want to.”
The man disappeared as the doors slid closed. The salt slipped from Dean's hand and scattered across the floor.
::::
Steam filled the bathroom.
Water on the wrong side of too hot burnt stinging patterns onto Dean's shoulders, as though a thousand needles were dragging invisible thread through his skin, embroidering the names of people he'd forgotten. The air contracted and then expanded again, heavy and bloated. His eyes were closed. One hand was braced against the tiled wall for balance, and the expression on his face was something close to despair.
When the water started to cool he twisted the taps and climbed out.
The shower door let loose a high-pitched squeal as it opened. He'd tried to fix it soon after signing the lease - using a toolkit he'd found hidden in the back of a cupboard - but given up after half an hour, unsure what to do. Tightening the hinges had only made things worse.
Dean towelled himself dry, gestures deliberately rough, in a pantomime of constrained violence.
Turning, his eyes settled on the blurred figure in the mirror.
He stood very still, before reaching out to scrawl Winchester in the condensation, across the slick, greasy glass. Fragments of his face were reflected in the letters. As children, he and his sister, Jo, had scared themselves silly with stories of Bloody Mary, each daring the other to call her name. They never had. The game had usually ended in a flurry of shoving and insults. If he said Dean Winchester three times in a row, what would happen? Would a spirit be conjured out of the mirror, or would he fall in and become trapped?
Dean leaned forward. His hair formed a corona of dark, dripping spikes around his head, like dandelion fluff stained with mud. Your hair is certainly more well organised here. He gave a damp, involuntary shudder and looked away, palming it flat.
The towel was left in a sodden heap on the floor, used and abandoned.
He got dressed, pulling on a pair of black trousers and a blue business shirt, fastening its buttons all the way up to the top. The starched collar pressed tightly around his throat, making it difficult to swallow. Then he lay down on the bed, arms limp by his side, and stared at the white stretch of ceiling, hair cold and wet against the pillow. He felt feverish and wondered absently if he was coming down with the flu. His feet were bare.
Minutes crept past in a disorderly queue, one after the other.
He had the sensation of dreaming while awake, as if reaching out to grab hold of someone who'd already let go. He raised one hand off the bed and studied it carefully. It didn't look any different: blunt and inelegant, with square, bitten nails. His middle finger was disfigured by a callus he'd had since college.
Sighing, he rolled over and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand, squinting at the brightness of the screen. There weren't any messages. Dean told himself it was hunger, and not disappointment, curling through his belly. Eyebrows scrunched together, he scrolled through the list of contacts and pressed call.
There was a sound of distant ringing. A machine picked it up.
“You've reached Bob and Ellen. We're not here right not now, but if you leave - “
The woman's voice broke off. He could hear muffled bickering in the background: Why can't folk just wait 'til we're home or feel like talkin' to 'em? Because we're pretending to be fine, upstanding members of society, Robert. Now hush up, before I kick your ass.
“ - What I was about to say, before my damn fool of a husband interrupted, is that we're not here, but leave your number and we'll call you back.”
Dean cleared his throat. His eyes were dry and tight.
“Hey, it's me. Um, guess you guys are still sleeping. Sorry if I've woken you up or something. Listen, I was thinking of driving down one weekend. It'd be good to get out of the city. See everyone. Things have been kinda crazy here, so…yeah. Anyway. Call me back.” He shifted the phone from one ear to the other, pressing it tightly against the side of his head, as if to prevent any sound from escaping. “Mom, listen. I know it's early, but I really need you to pick up. Just for a minute, okay?”
He waited, searching the silence for a familiar voice, thick with annoyance and sleep. It never came. The call ended with a loud beep. Dean hung up and immediately hit redial.
He didn't leave another message.
At seven o'clock, when the alarm started to shrill, Dean got up and finished dressing. He chose a conservative, pale blue tie and a suit jacket with three buttons, selecting them carefully, like a Halloween costume intended both to disguise and intimidate. Today was a continuation of yesterday. His keys jangled as he walked out the front door, letting it slam closed behind him.
He bought a stale donut and a cup of cheap, black coffee on the way to work, even though it made him late. Powdered sugar stained his tie.
::::
Dean spent the morning trying to lose himself in the labyrinth of the corporate machine. He sent emails and made telephone calls; finalised a report on the pricing of civil infrastructure projects during the last quarter. The market for iron ore was expected to remain volatile. And yet doubt continued to scratch at his mind, jagged and incomplete, always leading him back to the exit.
There's a golf bag in the corner of my office. I don't know how to play. I live alone. I remember two beds. I have a sister. When I think of her I hear screaming. I'm the Director of Sales and Marketing. This isn't how it's supposed to be. My name's Dean Smith. It says so on the door.
His fingers stilled on the keyboard.
Watching the steady flash of the cursor - stark and flat, a moment in time looped around and repeated - he had an urge to smash the computer open, suddenly convinced that he'd find nothing but shadows inside. Ghosts in the machine. He swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut, and then muttered, “Fuck it. Just…fuck it.” He was sick of feeling frightened.
The phone rang, loud and insistent.
Dean pressed the button on his headset, answered the call without thinking, like a child reciting the multiplication table.
A voice said, “Um, hey. It's Sam…Sam Wesson.”
“Oh. Right.” Dean stood up, one hand gripping the back of his chair. His fingers turned white. “Listen, about that stuff you said last night. I - ”
“No, I get it, man. The whole 'ghosts scrambling our brains' thing was pretty far out there,” Sam said, words tumbling over each other, nervous and frayed around the edges. “I, uh, spoke to someone from the phone company. Turns out they've been getting complaints about faulty lines or something, so I guess that's how I ended up calling the animal hospital. Maybe…I think maybe I just wanted it to be true, you know?”
Dean didn't respond. He could hear faint puffs of air against the receiver. “Uh, to tell you the truth, not really,” he said, finally. “You're saying, what? You wanted your ex-girlfriend - fiancé, whatever - to be imaginary? 'Cause I gotta say, man, that's a serious case of denial.”
“God, you're such a dick sometimes.” Dean smirked, surprised to find himself amused by the insult. “All I know,” Sam continued, “is us hunting that ghost together? Helping people? It felt like, I dunno, some kind of wake up call, I guess.”
“I told you, man, it's the cubicle thing. You just need to -“
“Yeah, about that. I've resigned. Okay, technically I was fired. But I would've quit anyway, so it's more of a timing issue, really. The HR rep says Ian mistaking his neck for a pencil sharpener and Paul's head exploding might count as extenuating circumstances. Workplace stress.”
“Fired!” Dean moved towards the open door of his office, panic rising. He looked out, anxiously, at the people milling through reception and then eased the door closed with a soft click. He was sweating. “I told you we should've checked the security cameras again! How much do they know? What did they say?”
“Dude, calm down. It's got nothing to do with that. Well, not directly. There was an, um. An incident.”
“An incident? What the hell does that mean? I swear to God, Sam, if you don't -”
“I attacked my desk phone with a fire poker,” Sam said, voice resigned.
“Sorry, you what? With a…”
“Poker.”
Dean's face distorted and broke into a smile. “Dude, seriously? Are we talking, like, Russell Crowe, or Full Metal Jacket for the geek squad?”
“The only fatality was a phone,” Sam said, dryly. “So, on a scale of socially inappropriate outbursts, I'm thinking Russell. And watch who you're calling a geek, Mr I Love Research.”
“Stand down, Gomer Pyle, that's an order. We've all got our special talents.”
“Well, apparently mine involve scaring the crap out of everyone. Enough for security to show up, anyway.” There was a pause. When Sam spoke again he sounded smaller somehow, hesitant and embarrassed. “I totally lost it, man. Kinda scared myself a bit too, to be honest.”
The words floated between them like a grey-scale confession. Dean sat on the edge of his desk, elbow resting against an upraised knee, and stared out the window. It had started raining.
“Yeah, I hear you. There's been some of that going 'round lately,” he said. His eyes darted to the bronzed golfer standing on the cabinet, its arms frozen in an eternal swing. “So, what's your next step? I might know someone who's hiring, if you're interested.”
“Actually, I'm gonna take some time off…hit the road for a while, see what happens.”
“Uh, sure. Got anywhere in mind?”
“Yeah. I couldn't sleep last night, after…after, so I did some digging around on-line. About the, um, supernatural stuff? I took another look at that Ghosterfacers site and followed a few links. I mean, at first a lot of it seemed like complete crap, right? There were people asking for advice about werewolves and, I dunno, these things called ghouls? It was like a horror movie from the 1950's.”
“Okay, well that doesn't sound disturbing at all,” Dean said.
Sam huffed in annoyance. “Anyway, I exchanged a few messages with this one guy who seemed legit. Sort of. He mentioned a bar in Nebraska…uh, Harville's Roadhouse? I think it's part of an underground network for ghost hunters or something. Thought I'd check it out.”
“Sam, c'mon. You're just gonna drive to Nebraska, after hooking up with some weirdo on the Internet, and ask a group of strangers if they've spoken to Casper lately?”
“Why not?” Sam asked, stubborn and defensive. “Remember what the Ghostfacers said: Homework, Infiltration, and Face Time. It worked okay when we took out Sandover. Look, maybe you're happy to pretend nothing's changed, but I can't live like that. Not now. I have to - ”
Dean stood up and pulled out the chair, slumping into it with a silent groan. He let Sam's voice drift over him and clicked absently on the mouse, killing the company's screensaver. His inbox held seven new emails, three of which were marked urgent. He left them unread. Fear came rushing back, subtly different, threading its way through a series of warped, irregular cracks and Sam-shaped spaces. The room seemed very quiet.
He took a deep breath and said, “You'll need a car.”
“ - What?”
“A car. You'll need one to get to Nebraska.”
“Well, yeah. I'm not catching the bus, dude.”
“We could take mine. My car, I mean.”
“We? Oh. Okay. Yeah, that'd be - it's just…you made yourself pretty clear last night. I'd rather not be left on the side of the road if you freak out and change your mind again. Uh, no offence.”
“Trust me, pal, I've used up nine lifetimes of freak since this whole thing started. I'm running on an empty tank here.” Dean sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, I'm not saying this monster gig is a forever kind of deal, okay? We'll probably be sick to death of each other by the end of the first week. Hell, chances are you'll ditch me in the middle of the night and take off back to school, or hook up with some chick. But I'm…something about this isn't right, man. So, screw it. We drive to Nebraska, ask some questions, and go from there.”
Sam said, “Okay.” Dean could hear him grinning.
::::
There was a sharp knock on the door.
Dean stopped typing and looked up, startled. There was a half-finished letter on the screen. It said he was resigning.
Adler smiled and asked, “Got a minute?” Fluorescent light cast shadows across his face, twisting it into something unexpectedly strange; menace tempted out of hiding by the promise of prey. The bulk of his body merged with the grey walls of the office, smooth and blank.
“Sure, of course,” Dean replied, raising both eyebrows.
He bit down on the inside of his mouth and told himself that everything would be fine, that it was only his mind playing tricks. In another few hours he'd be somewhere else, drinking beer with Sam and planning a trip to Nebraska.
Dean told Adler that he'd decided to leave.
His explanation imploded under its own weight, sentences reduced to uneasy, stuttered words. He flushed, embarrassed, and felt an absurd surge of relief when Adler's smile only widened.
That is, until he heard Adler say, “Dean, Dean, Dean.”
He thought, in horror, Bloody Mary. A distant part of him wanted to scream. Instead, he could only watch, silent and trapped, as Adler reached out and pressed two fingers against his forehead. He flinched. There was a bright, flaring pulse of pain, and then…
They arranged to meet at Dean's apartment that night.
“You tried calling them, didn't you? Your family,” Sam said, suddenly.
He didn't reply.
Sam tried to apologise. Variations of sorry tripped over each other until Dean cut them off. “Hey, I think they need you back on set, Oprah. Let's just concentrate on how we're going to fund this little adventure.”
“So, I guess we're really doing this, huh?” Sam asked. “I swear, man, you and me on the road together? It's gonna be great.”
…Dean Winchester blinked and woke up.