Witching Hour (The Cinderella Remix) 1/2
Run. Faster.
Not fast enough. Dean’s here somewhere.
Follow the screams, it said, but there’s only an oppressive, terrifying silence.
Find Dean. Somehow. Failure isn’t an option.
It’s not taking the last person he has left.
Five days earlier
In Sam’s dream, Jess is smiling and that’s enough to wake him from a dead sleep. His heart’s thudding against his ribs, breath coming in quiet gasps, as he stares blindly into the dark. Dean’s breathing is deep and even from across the way, so Sam’s pretty sure he didn’t call out her name. His little brother screaming in the night isn’t something Dean ever sleeps through. Sam hasn’t dreamed of Jess in any way other than dripping blood and wreathed in flame for well over a year, and the novelty has him squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the tears that threaten to fall.
He tries to recapture the moment; to continue the dream in his mind, but she’s hazy, unfocused and the tears spill out at the loss of the hard edged clarity of dream-Jess. It’s been months since he’s taken her picture out and stared at it the way he did right after the fire, and the knowledge that he’s losing bits of her is killing him. He lies awake for hours, trying to get a clear vision of Jessica on their first date, during their first Christmas together, tries to remember the blue of her eyes the first time they met his. His attempts are futile and eventually he falls into a restless doze, his dreams this time darker, more ominous. When Dean shakes him awake late the following morning, he’s still exhausted and for hours, he feels like he’s missing something.
--
Killing evil things is never boring, but pretty much everything that leads up to the actual demolishing of a supernatural bad guy is worse than watching paint dry. Sam spends the day in the musty basement of the local library, alternately sneezing and asking the wizened elf manning the reference desk for the next batch of old newspapers. When he finally comes up with a burial place that matches the name they’ve been hearing all around town, he resolves that Dean is doing the next round of library basement sitting.
Today Dean’s out interviewing relatives, both of the victims and the suspected homicidal spirit, and Sam gets his brother’s voicemail when he calls to be picked up. Sam’s kind of okay with that though. He’s perfectly willing to stretch out in one of the chairs in the upstairs of the library and doze in the sun until Dean gets around to coming back for him. For some reason, he didn’t sleep very well last night.
Sam’s smiling when Dean wakes him with a smack on the head and Jess dissolves into the bright light of the setting sun, shining directly into his eyes.
“Rise and shine, Sammy! I don’t know about you but I’m starving. Come on, you can tell me about all the hard work you did today over dinner, and you better have found out enough that you can be here freakin’ napping while I’m running my ass all over town. “
Sam gives an exaggerated yawn and stretches until his joints pop. He is kind of hungry- food hadn’t been on his mind in the moldy basement. “I could eat.”
“Good. Let’s hit the bar down the road. Have some chow, down a couple of brews and maybe earn a buck or two.”
“Earn?”
“Pool tables and poker, Sammy. You’ve got your idea of work, I’ve got mine.”
By the time they’ve finished eating, their combined research has led them to an abandoned mine shaft outside of town. They agree that waiting until morning to check it out would be the smart move, and Dean spends the rest of the evening cleaning out the locals at the pool table. Sam alternates between watching his brother’s back and surfing the ‘net for their next case. It looks like evil is taking some time off, because other than a heart attack victim in a small cemetery in Massachusetts there’s not much going on. Sam breathes a little sigh of relief; some down time will be good for them both.
Sam’s nodding over the laptop by the time Dean finishes up and buys a round for his latest victims. When they get back to their room, Sam’s out on his feet and has only a vague awareness of Dean putting him to bed. He falls asleep like someone flipped a switch, and the dream comes almost immediately.
--
Jess is at the table in the sun drenched kitchen of their apartment. She’s wearing a Strawberry Shortcake sleep-shirt and Sam knows if he peeks under the table he’ll see the fluffy pink socks she always wears on Sunday mornings. There are textbooks spread out in front of her, she’s making notes and drinking tea. He presses a kiss to the top of her head and goes to get his coffee as she grins up at him.
“ ‘morning, sleepyhead,” she teases. “Hey, what do you think about witches?”
“Shit!” Sam swears as hot coffee splashes over his hand. Jess is a master of the unexpected question, but this is the first one that’s ever brought his old life into play. He rinses his hand under the faucet and cleans up the spill to buy some time because while he’s pretty good at hiding what’s going on his mind, Jess is pretty good at seeing right through him.
“Sam,” she repeats. “Witches?”
Well, he thinks, back still turned, a bunch of them turned my brother into a pumpkin once. That’s the kind of story he could tell Jess if he wanted to talk about Dean. If he wanted to talk about Dean and he changed all the details to make the story funny instead of horrifying. If he could forget the sight of the bodies of the other victims, and the smile on the coven leader’s face when she’d told his father what she’d done.
“I’m thinking about doing my thesis on the concept of mass hysteria during the witch trials in Salem….,” her voice is fading along with the sun and the kitchen and Sam’s in the Impala, his father at the wheel. The night’s flying by, wind-blown leaves scattering across the windshield, and they’re going to be in time, Sam knows they are because they were. They’ll get to the pumpkin-fest before the jack-o-lantern carving contest starts, they’ll stare at the dozens of pumpkins in disbelief wondering how they’re going to know which one is Dean, and then they’ll just go. They’ll search through the sea of orange until Sam spots the blemish near the top of one of the pumpkins; the blemish shaped exactly like the amulet his brother never takes off. They’ll grab that pumpkin and take it back to the hotel and give Dean a metric ton of shit about getting turned into a giant fruit after midnight comes and goes and he’s himself again.
Now, the dream changes everything. The field is full of possible Deans, and the pumpkin patch stretches into infinity. A frantic search yields nothing, and finally, at midnight, John’s phone rings. A set of co-ordinates appear on the screen, setting Sam and John in a desperate race against time that’s already run out. Dean’s sprawled on the ground in a field across town. The top of his head has been neatly sliced off and his brains spill wetly across the grass. Triangles mark either side of his torso, carved through flesh and bone into his empty chest cavity, a jagged mouth dividing his eviscerated abdomen. Dean’s eyes are open; dull and glassy and dead. Sam falls to his knees, John at his back, and screams denial into the frigid air and then he’s awake, sitting upright in his bed, gasping for air and this time Dean’s not sleeping through it.
“Sam? Sammy? Sam!” Strong hands grip Sam’s biceps, giving him a teeth rattling shake. Dean’s a blur in front of Sam’s eyes, gradually coalescing into a pale, concerned big brother. One of Dean’s hands moves to cup Sam’s jaw and he peers into his brother’s sweaty face. “You with me, Sammy?”
“Yeah. Yeah, Dean, I’m okay.”
“Vision?”
“No. No.”
Dean’s hand moves through Sam’s hair to rest on the back of his neck. “Just a nightmare?”
Dean’s tone is skeptical, but Sam lets out a shaky breath and nods. “Yeah. Just.”
“Okay.” Dean smirks, but Sam can tell he’s still worried. “Clowns or midgets?”
You, Sam thinks.
Dean gives Sam’s hair a last ruffle and goes back to his own bed, dropping down and giving Sam a faux teasing look. “Okay if I turn the light off, Sam? “
Sam knows his brother will leave it on if he asks, but he nods and Dean hits the switch, plunging the room into darkness. Dean noisily settles into his blankets, but Sam knows he won’t go back to sleep. He’ll stay awake, the jerk, like he can actually protect Sam from bad dreams. Sam won’t sleep either. It wasn’t a vision. It wasn’t. Sam’s not able to close his eyes, but even with them wide open, in the pitch black, all he can see is Dean’s desecrated corpse and his blank, dead stare.
Jess is on his mind more than she has been in months; now his subconscious is pushing Dean into the mix too, like he needs another reason to have nightmares about his brother. He’s lost Jess, he’s lost his father, and Dean’s throwing himself into every hunt like he’s trying to die. Sam needs to do something to set everything he and Jess were to rest. He also needs to slow Dean’s downward spiral until he can figure out a way to stop it. Jess had planned to go to Salem, and Sam had promised to go with her. Dean’s not going willingly on a road trip to any town that celebrates witches, though. And Sam’s not quite ready to make him.
--
Sam gets up as soon as dawn brushes the windows, Dean following shortly after. No need to spend time pretending to sleep when there’s a brush covered mine shaft to find and some homicidal bones to burn.
Twelve hours later they stagger back into the hotel room, exhausted, dirt encrusted and in Dean’s case, trying to hide a torso full of bruises. The mine shaft was, predictably, not where it was supposed to be and they spent hours fruitlessly searching in the wrong place. It wasn’t until they expanded their search that they found it. Well, Dean found it by having the earth fall from beneath his feet. Also predictable should have been the fact that he wasn’t with Sam when it happened, that he was knocked unconscious by the fall and that Sam spent several more hours frantically and unsuccessfully searching for him.
By the time Sam heard Dean’s muffled shouts and backtracked to an area he’d already searched twice, the sun was just fading over the horizon. Dean’s duffle was lying beside a hole in the earth from which the familiar sounds of Dean’s curses were emerging, along with the even more familiar sounds of him putting up a really good fight. Sam grabbed the duffle, pulled out the flashlight and dropped into the hole.
Dean was backed against the wall, an iron pickaxe blade keeping the hulking shadow in front of him at bay. Sam quickly shone the flashlight around the cavernous hole until he found the bundle of rags that had clothed Dean’s attacker in life. Dean had gotten the bones salted and doused with accelerant, but his lighter lay unused on the ground beside them. Sam picked it up and lit the bones with a satisfying whoosh.
Dean struggled to his feet and threw his brother what he probably thought was a satisfied grin. “Who has a better job than us, Sammy?”
“Oh, just about everyone. Here, let me get out of here, and then I’ll pull you up.”
By the time Sam managed to drag Dean out of the tunnel, and half carry him back to the car, it was dark and Sam drove them directly back to the hotel.
Now, Dean needs a shower badly, but is in no shape to take one, so Sam just bundles him into bed and uses all the hot water himself. His muscles relax under the pounding spray and when he finally slips between his sheets, he’s out in seconds.
--
“You wanna come?” Jess is draped over him, body flushed with the aftermath of their lovemaking. She nibbles at his neck and looks at him questioningly.
“Think I already did, babe.” Sam grins, grunting as the love of his life digs an elbow into his ribs.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Sam does, but not only does he not want to go, he doesn’t want her to go. He slides one hand onto her ass, while the other gently teases a nipple. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”
“We have to. I have to let my parents know if I need the money for the tickets. I feel like going to Salem is the only way to really get a handle on what went on there. “
“Salem’s a huge tourist trap now. All you’ll be feeling is your wallet getting lighter.”
“Sam. Come on. It’ll be awesome, we just have to go at the right time. I bet you can feel it in the air then; the magic, the power.” Jess is teasing him again. To her, witchcraft is something in movies, on television. Something that hysterical people cooked up to screw with their neighbors. “Come on, Sam. Come with me.”
Sam’s throat is dry. “You’re not….I mean, you don’t want to….you’re not thinking of going at Halloween are you?”
Jess snorts indelicately. “Halloween? Nope. Who’d want to be in a town like Salem on Halloween? All the crazy people would be out.”
Sam lets out the breath he was holding. Thank God Jess doesn’t want to go to Salem on Halloween. She’s right about the crazy people, but they’re not the worst. Witches flock to Salem for All Hallow’s Eve. The only worse time to go would be….
“Um, Jess? So when were you thinking of going?”
Jess snuggles against him, warm and soft. “Mmmmm,” she sighs. “If we decide to go, my parents are giving me the tickets as my Christmas gift.”
Christmas. Sam lets out an answering sigh. After Christmas will be safe.
“I’ll want to be home for the holiday, though,” Jess adds. “We’ll go the week before. The timing will be perfect. Think maybe we’ll get to see a sabbat?”
God, I hope not, is all Sam can think. She wants to go for the solstice. When the true power is out and about. Because it’s not real, right? What could possibly happen? Maybe they’ll get lucky and Sam will run into more witches like the ones that cursed him into having to fuck for twenty-four straight hours and they’ll never even get out of the room.
Sam thinks about what Dean would say, about what Dad would say. There are places you don’t go unless you’ve got a damned good reason and Salem is right behind New Orleans and Cold Oak on Dad’s list of places to stay the fuck away from. Research for a thesis doesn’t qualify as a good enough reason for Jess to be in Salem for the solstice and Sam’s going to do his damndest to keep her in California for the whole month of December.
Jess is kissing him with pauses to whisper lasciviously in his ear. “What do you say, Sam? Want to help me research?”
Sam begins to answer, but Jess is moving out of his grip, and he grasps for her desperately as she floats to the ceiling. Her face is placid and she breathes steadily as a bloody slice appears across her belly and the area around her is engulfed in flame.
“You could have just said you didn’t want to go,” she says sadly, before the fire consumes her.
--
Sam’s at his computer first thing in the morning. He’s got to go to Salem. He can’t think of any other reason the dreams would be coming like this. There’s a hunt in Dad’s journal that ties in with the cemetery heart attack victim he’d discovered the other night. He can probably convince Dean that it’s a plausible reason to go to Salem, but it’ll be a stretch. Dad didn’t think there was really anything there and if Dad didn’t think it, Dean’s not going to think it either. Sam doesn’t ignore dreams any more. He’d wanted to keep Jess from going to Salem and she’d died six weeks before their trip. It’s pretty stupid to feel guilty about something like that now, but if going to Salem is going to give him closure with Jess, and possible downtime with Dean, then he’s going to Salem.
Dean comes in half an hour later with coffees and omelets and he gives Sam a concerned look as he shrugs out of his jacket. He hands Sam his drink and settles into the chair on the other side of the table.
“You look like crap, man. You feeling okay?”
Sam looks at his brother through shadowed eyes. The dreams he’s been having are worse than the ones he’d suffered through right after Jess’ death, with the addition of witches and Salem and eviscerated Dean, but he’s not telling his brother that. “Yeah, Dean. I’m fine.”
Dean snorts softly in disbelief, but doesn’t push it. “Okay, Sammy. So, you find us a new gig, while I was out?”
“Well..,” Sam hesitates, and Dean snorts again.
“Come on, Sam, spit it out. What is it? Unicorns? Oh, wait. No. Given the time of year, I’d guess…..Casper the Friendly Ghost?”
“Shut up,” Sam mutters. “I just figured since there’s no sign of the demon, and we haven’t got any leads on any other psychic kids out there, that maybe we could just take an easy hunt next.”
“You have any particular easy hunt in mind?”
“Well, I was going through Dad’s journal, and I think I found something.” Dean’s face closes off at the mention of their father, and Sam hurries on. “There’s a cemetery in Massachusetts where people have been having heart attacks after they visit. Maybe four or five over the last couple of years, always on Halloween.”
“Come on, Sam. Old people visiting a cemetery having heart attacks? Kind of a stretch to link it to a spirit.”
“You come on, Dean. They weren’t all old people. There’s a man buried there that was killed by having rocks piled on his chest until he suffocated. The people who had the heart attacks said that they had a feeling of a crushing weight on their chest.”
“Well, that’s what having a heart attack feels like, Francis. Even with no ghosts involved.”
Sam can see the memory of his encounter with the rawhead flash across Dean’s face and his lips tighten as he looks away, irrationally angry at yet another reminder of his brother’s mortality. “It could be something, Dean. We’ve looked into less.”
“We have indeed looked into less, Sammy. So where is this probably not haunted cemetery?”
“Salem.” Sam stares defiantly at Dean and Dean returns the look with interest.
“Salem….Oregon? Virginia? New Hampshire? Because I know you don’t mean Salem, Massachusetts. I know you don’t think I’m going to witch central U.S.A. on a non-hunt, Sam. A Halloween non-hunt. You know that’s not fucking happening, right?”
“You know what, Dean? It’s not my fault you annoy witches just by breathing in their vicinity!” Sam’s anger resurfaces and he’s not sorry for the look that slides across Dean’s face before it becomes the blank mask that Sam usually hates. “You don’t have to come. Probably nothing, right?”
“You’re going to go by yourself.” Dean’s tone is flat, but Sam’s not backing down
“If I have to.” And I do have to, Dean. I really think I do.
Part 2 here: