Never Come Back
3. Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid
Dean wakes up with his face mashed into the pillow, and his nose aches from the pressure. He groans, surfaces blearily. "Dammit, Cas," he grouses. "Gave me the finger. Fuckin' dick."
He stretches, bites off a yelp, feels the bare skin of his legs and back against the sheets. He can feel someone watching him, raises his groggy head to see his brother's dark eyes regarding him from the other bed. Sam's brow is creased in concern and he's doing the puppy dog eyes, and it makes Dean chafe because his brother's a damned convincing actor, give him a fuckin' Oscar, right the fuck now.
"Did you strip me?" he grumbles, because he sleeps fully clothed since Hell, doesn't want his skin on display, wants it safely covered, protected from sharp claws, and jagged teeth; and he wants to be ready, ready to run when he hears the hounds coming to reclaim him. He damn well isn't going to get caught and ripped asunder again because he wasted two minutes of his head start getting dressed.
"Nope," Sam replies.
"Fucktard, Cas." Dean sniffs, looks at the nightstand. "Coffee. Thank God." He eases himself over onto his back, and pushes up to his elbows, groans again. "Dean Winchester. Hunter. A man barely alive. We can't rebuild him." He reaches for the cup, gulps a mouthful of the brown liquid and scowls. "Dude. It's not even warm."
Sam grimaces. "Yeah, sorry. The doc said nothing hot."
Dean snorts. "Yeah, whatthefuckever." He scratches his head. "Where the hell were you, anyway?" he croaks then. "I left ten messages. I needed a ride."
One of Sam's eyebrows arches higher. "You left seven messages actually."
It's snippish, sets low-level annoyance seething inside Dean. "Meaning what?" he snipes back. "That ignoring my seven messages is okay?"
Sam has the balls to stare it out with him. "I was doing some research," he says, more reasonably. "At the library. The wireless connection wasn't working here. I had to switch off my phone there." He sighs. "What are you even doing here, Dean? You're not up to it, and you look as sick as a sick thing. They said they wanted you to stay in until the weekend at least."
"It was boring there. And I was lonely." Dean looks pointedly at Sam, but his brother's eyes are fixed to his laptop screen now, and he's typing industriously. "I see the wireless connection is working again," Dean mutters. "That's real convenient."
And maybe Sam does get the point because his answer is terse. "How could you have been lonely? Cas was there pretty much all the damn time."
"Well who knows, perhaps he thought I needed protecting," Dean retorts defensively. "The nurses took the hexbag off me. You kept disappearing, and you didn't ward the room."
Sam stiffens, looks up again, and now his eyes have clouded over. "He makes me tense."
It's all Dean can do to stop himself from huffing out in derision. Fuckin' liar, he thinks, and amazes himself with the speed at which his seething low-level annoyance suddenly shoots right up the Richter scale to hit ferocious anger. I know what you were doing and who you were doing it with. Fuckin' liar, sneaking around behind my back. "You could try being grateful," he snaps, and his voice is splintered and sharp against the damage inside his throat. "Grateful for what he's done for you."
Sam glances over again, a searching look, and he frowns. "What has he ever done for me?"
Cas gave me back to you, you ungrateful fuckin' prick, Dean rages inwardly. And you left me there in that motel room on the very first night, and I know damn well you went to get it on with your demon fuck-buddy when you knew something was chasing me. It rants through his mind but he doesn't react, doesn't flinch, even though pain blooms sudden and raw in his chest. He doesn't scream it out even though he really wants to, even though his brother's denseness feels like Alastair's fingers digging into his neck. "What he's done for us then," he mutters instead, and he reaches up and rubs at his brow.
"What has he done for us except cause a whole lot of trouble, Dean?" Sam says, and he seems genuinely puzzled. "He comes at us with all this seal crap, expects us to fight Lilith without telling us how, beams you away when you aren't up to it, and-"
"Thanks for the coffee," Dean husks out.
The conversation is over, drowned at birth in fact, and the abrupt silence that follows is so thick Dean fancies he could cut it into chunks and eat it. He can't talk to his brother any more, even though he wants to, wants to pour it all out, what he saw, what they did, how it felt. What he did. You're holding me back, Sam had said. You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself… whining about all the souls you tortured in Hell. He set the Apocalypse in motion, and even if Castiel's faith in him glows softly out of the dude's eyes every time Dean meets his gaze, he doesn't think he can fix it. And it's suddenly overwhelming, but Dean can't stomach how Sam will look at him when he finds out, so he presses the heel of his hand up to his eyes, lets out an awful, strangled sound he knows is despair.
"Dean."
It's gentle, and Dean grips the arm that wraps around him, leans into the warmth for a moment. "Hurts," he chokes out, and his voice is thick, sounds, feels as if blood is being stirred into it. He pulls back, squeezes a hand in between and pushes his brother away. "My throat hurts," he wheezes, even though it's not his throat that hurts at all.
Sam sits back, nods slowly, and maybe there's something in his eyes, something like disappointment. "I'll get you some aspirin," he says. "Soft foods. Soup. Ice cream." He sighs heavily, and his voice goes quiet, gentle. "Dean. I really wish you'd talk to me. I won't… it won't be like before. I won't let you down."
Dean rearranges himself on the pillows, stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about it, thinks about taking the risk, thinks about letting it pour out, his sick fear, his despair, his doubt, his guilt. He thinks about how it might feel to have his brother grind it into the cheap nylon carpet with his boot and spit on it just to be sure. He thinks about how easy it would be to pour it all out to Castiel, who stares at him like he matters, who understands without judging, without criticizing, because Castiel saw him at his worst and thought he deserved to be saved.
"I'm on voice rest," he whispers.
Coop's desk is strewn with folders and files and it takes Hudak a few minutes to ferret through the mess, locate the batch she needs and spread them all out in front of her. And it's looking her right in the face, and how the fuck could they have missed it?
She closes her eyes, breathes in, blows out, counts to ten, stands and looks down at them all. Five faces plus the doppelganger in her hand, some smiling, some serious, all thirtyish, brown hair of varying lengths, full lips, girlishly pretty. And now she's searching for the likeness it stands out like a wicked fairy at a christening, and how is it that she overlooked the five slightly different versions of Dean Winchester staring back at her? She shakes her head. "I don't believe it," she murmurs. "I don't fucking believe it. What the hell is this…?"
She's oblivious to the sound behind her until a voice sounds right in her ear, and she jumps.
"What the hell is what, Katie?"
"They all look alike."
She blurts it out even though she knows damn well Coop will follow the lead all the way - not that it matters any more, because even if the trail leads to Dean Winchester, the long arm of the law can't reach that far. She puts the picture of Kevin Garner, poor bastard, down beside the others. "The wife brought his picture with her. Look."
Coop stands beside her, cocks his head as he considers. "Yeah," he says, and his voice rises slightly. "You're right. Hell's bells, Katie, you're right, they could be… whatever it is when there's six… sixtables?" He starts gathering up the files, an untidy pile. "How the hell did we miss this?" he mutters. "I'm going to run these pictures through the FBI database for anyone similar… Katie, put a request out for any John Does who fit this profile. If we can match the victims to someone it could give us a lead as to who this nutjob thinks he's killing, and maybe we can backtrack straight to him."
"It's a longshot," Hudak says weakly as he strides out of the office.
"It's good old-fashioned detective work," he calls back.
"It's pointless," she murmurs. "If I'm right, the guy he thinks he's killing is already dead."
She pulls out her chair, sits, taps her fingers on the desk for a minute or two as she thinks. She hasn't spoken to either of them in six months, couldn't bring herself to return Bobby's message. It went down Kathleen. I thought you should know, words spoken in a voice dazed and wretched with grief, with horror, and then cut off because there was nothing left to say. She erased the voicemail then and there, blocked out what it meant, went on with her life, maybe drank a little too much a few times somewhere in the mix.
Hudak reaches behind her to her coat, dips a hand in the pocket, retrieves her cell, scrolls through the list, sends, and braces herself.
This number is no longer in service or has been disconnected.
"Dammit, Sam," she breathes out.
Next one down then, and she frowns. "Oh come on, Bobby. Not you too."
Singer Salvage it is then, and she roots the grubby business card out of her wallet, bides her time as it rings, rings, rings some more, finally picks up. Answerphone, dammit. "Bobby, hey. It's Kathleen, Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing. It's been a while, I guess." She takes a deep breath. "Listen… I have this case, it's - odd. Murders, young men. Mutilated, pretty nasty, the heart is missing. Could be a werewolf, I think. And there's something else. Look. There's no easy way to say this. But they all really strongly resemble-crap."
Cut off, and she rolls her eyes as she redials. And, what are the fucking odds? she thinks, as it rings, rings, rings and no pickup. "Christ almighty," she snaps. "That's fucking typical."
It's a couple of hours before Dean starts to shift restlessly in the bed, and Sam chugs water into one of the glasses in the bathroom, tears open a sachet of salt pilfered from the local burger joint, and tips the white crystals in before setting it down on the nightstand.
He points to it when Dean finally chokes out and surges up onto his elbows. "Salt water to gargle. It should help with the swelling and inflammation in your throat."
Dean grunts, rubs his eyes, picks crust off his eyelashes, flicks it away and then scratches his armpit before standing up and lurching to the bathroom, where he pisses like a racehorse for several minutes. Once done, he makes a point of dressing, maneuvering his bruised torso into his tee and pulling Sam's own fleece hoodie over it with some difficulty and many harsh exhales, his only response to Sam's offer of help a look that drips scorn as he tugs the hood up over his head before crawling back under the covers. From there, he throws Sam morose, accusing glances that set his nerves on edge because he knows Dean trusts him about as far as he could spit a horse these days, work with Ruby or don't, I don't really give a rat's ass.
The silence is damned awkward, so Sam breaks it with the only question he can think up. "You never told me what happened with Alastair. Apart from the obvious, I mean." It's clumsy, and that isn't lost on his brother, whose jaw clenches.
"The obvious being that I fucked it up and the sonofabitch was better, faster, stronger than before," Dean croaks. "The six million dollar demon."
Sam chews his lip for a minute. "You didn't fuck it up," he says softly. "Cas said it was a double-cross. Uriel set you up. It wasn't anything you did, Dean."
Dean snorts. "More like what I didn't do."
He's feeling his way in this conversation, Sam knows, and he wishes he knew if Castiel raised the alarm with Dean, wonders how much he can fish without incriminating himself. "Which is what exactly?"
His brother clears his throat, faintly, modestly, oh so carefully, and he winces almost imperceptibly. Sam leans across the table for the meds, shakes out a couple of pills, crosses and sits on the other bed, opposite Dean.
"If that's Vicodin I don't-"
"It's just aspirin, Dean," Sam reassures. "Maybe you should try gargling with it too. It's an anti-inflammatory."
"House fuckin' MD," Dean grouses, but he gulps down the pills, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I didn't get what they needed. Alastair must've had a ton of intel on Lilith. Fuck-all use it is to us now Cas had to gank him."
Sam thinks, hopes he disguises his start of surprise. "Cas. Yeah. Lucky he was there, I guess." He gets up abruptly, turns and walks back to his laptop, doesn't want to look at his brother while he lies, doesn't like the feeling that he's this accustomed to doing it, this poised in the act, that he's even remotely articulate as the deceit slinks and slithers and snakes past his lips. He steers away from it as best he can. "But Cas said Uriel 'fessed up to the angel killing. That's what they really needed to know, isn't it?"
He glances back over his shoulder and Dean is staring into space, his eyes vacant now, lost in some memory or dream. Or waking nightmare, maybe, and the thought makes Sam shiver. "Seems there's some sort of angel fifth column then," he offers.
His brother looks slowly over, drifts back. "Angel fifth… huh?"
"Angel fifth column," Sam repeats. "Rebellion. Angels for Lucifer. Uriel and his buddies."
Dean glowers. "Yeah. It's like the fuckin' X Files."
Sam cocks his head at the detour. "Like the X Files?"
"You know. Started out real simple, us versus little green men. And then, Jesus - colonists, alien bounty hunters, black fuckin' oil, rebels, super soldiers. No clue who was doing what or running the show." Dean's voice starts out as gravel, passes through glass, then shell, until it finally achieves a papery rustle. "It makes it harder… harder to know what to do, how to fight this battle."
He's watching Sam as he speaks, and for a split second Sam could swear the look is as suspicious as Castiel's was. It unsettles him, and he damn well changes the subject. "You're supposed to be on voice rest," he says. "And we need to eat. What'll it be? There's an Olive Garden a couple of miles back up the highway."
"Burger," Dean mutters.
All at once he's back to morose, sullen, and it's frustrating, infuriating even, because Sam is getting this sense that his brother is hiding something. He briefly comforts himself with the possibility that it might be Dean coming round to the fact that he isn't as special as Castiel told him, that maybe he's realizing that Sam is the big gun in this war, and that he was wrong about the powers. It gives him a feeling of guilty satisfaction he doesn't want to admit to, and he diverts back on topic. "The doc said it had to be soft foods."
"Pizza," Dean grunts.
"Soft foods, Dean."
"Burrito."
"That's not even Italian," Sam says, exasperated now. "And it's too hot, it'll hurt you inside when you swallow it. Have soup. Or lasagne. Something like that."
Dean sits up again, sweaty, cheeks flushed. "If you bring me slop, asshat, you'll be wearing it," he husks out. "I swear to God."
Sam sighs. "Dean, for crying out loud. You're sweltering under there. At least leave the hood down."
His brother gives him a fixed, insolent stare, goading, deliberately reaches for the bottle of Jack on his nightstand, unscrews it and chugs a good mouthful, wipes his mouth. "I'm full," he sneers. "In fact, I couldn't drink another bite."
And it just isn't in Sam to protest as Dean smirks just barely, his eyes pink and watering from the burn of the whiskey, daring a response. "Pissy bastard," he finally dredges up, as he reaches for his jacket, slamming the motel room door as he leaves.
When he gets back Dean is gone and there's a note on the table.
Bar. Across the road. Pool.
And Sam sits down and eats his chicken parmagiana, feeling something that might be weary anger or might be relief, he doesn't know any more.
They hit the alley from different ends, go through the motions, and the women glare hostility through panda-rimmed eyes. Their faces are grim, pasty, chapped and pinched with cold, and Hudak hugs her sheepskin around her and wonders how they hell they do it, stand out here in six-inch heels and mini skirts so short she can see five o'clock shadow at the tops of their thighs, variously smoking and chewing gum while yards of exposed flesh turns blue and pimply and shivers in the freezing air.
"Yeah, I saw that guy. Couple nights ago."
She's already turning to leave, already slipping the photograph back in her coat pocket, mechanical because she's on autopilot, but she swivels back to stare at the woman.
"What's he done then, that guy? Is he the one who got himself killed across there?"
Her eyes are the hooker-patented twin miracles of mascara, lashes spiky and rigid, as if a couple of miniature crows crashed into her face and stuck there. She's staring out from under suspiciously red hair, her gaze as empty as a shark's. She's skinny. And she's young. Too young.
"How old are you?" Hudak asks, and she wonders if she sounds like a mother, maybe like her own mother, God forbid.
"Twenty-one," the girl snaps back warily. "I got ID."
Right, and that's legal, Hudak thinks as she cocks her head. "What's your name?"
The girl blinks. "Heavenly Desire."
Hudak manages to turn her snort into a polite cough. "Heavenly Desire. Okay. Well, Ms… uh, Desire, you say you saw this-"
"That's my professional name," the kid says suddenly, and she leans in confidentially. "My real name is Mel." And then she draws herself up as much as any teenage whore can. "But you can call me Ms Desire."
Nodding slowly, Hudak smiles. "Ms Desire. Okay. Got it. So you saw this man - when was that?"
"Couple of nights ago," the kid says. "He was hovering up around the top of the alleyway, for a few nights actually. Seemed real shy… not the usual type we get coming to visit us down here." She grimaces. "And Monday night I thought he might be biting, and I walked up there and stuck my ass out at him, but turns out the guy's in a dude mood."
Hudak raises an eyebrow. "Dude mood?"
"Yeah," the girl replies, regretful. "Some guy hustled him instead. Who'd have thunk, huh? Makin' eyes at us when he swung the other way. Loser." Her voice takes on a note of spiteful malice. "Bet he wished he picked me now, huh?"
Hudak thinks of the man's wife, his child, fatherless now. Stupid, stupid man, taking a stupid, stupid risk when the newspapers have been full of lurid accounts of the grisly remains of the other five stupid, stupid men. "He had a child," she snaps out tartly. "A newborn."
The girl stares at her, shrugs. "Tough breaks," she says. "It ain't my fault."
Hudak raises a hand, waves Coop over. "Can you describe the man you saw him with? Is he a regular?"
"Big guy, real big. Tall and wide."
Coop looms up, blowing on his fingers, and Hudak gestures at the girl. "Ms Desire here says another man picked up the victim just over there on the night he disappeared."
"Up there at the top of the alley?" Coop says.
"Yeah," the girl says. "Right there. Up at the top. I never saw him before though."
"I told you it was a guy doing this," Coop smirks.
Hudak rolls her eyes at him, turns her attention back to the girl. "Ms Desire, would you mind coming to the station house to look at some mugshots?" she says smoothly, and all at once the kid's eyes are shuttered and she's backing away.
"I didn't see him up close."
"But you said you walked right up there," Hudak reminds her. "To shake your ass, I believe."
The girl's lips purse thin and annoyed. "It was dark, I-"
"You said he was at the top of the alley," Coop cuts in. "There's a streetlamp right there."
Hudak waves the picture again. "If you recognize this guy, then you might recognize the other one. You're coming in."
She shepherds the girl ahead of them towards her car, fishing in her pocket as they walk. Nothing, where there should be something, and, "Dammit," she cracks out sharply, and she glances over her shoulder, sees that the alleyway is empty now. "I think one of those damn hookers lifted my cell."
Heavenly Desire raises her hands, wiggles her fingers, chewed fingernails painted purple. "Not guilty," she bleats. "You can even search me, lady."
The bar is a dive bar, cigarette smoke like dry ice, sawdust on the floor soaking up vomit or blood or worse. Dean holds court at the pool table, preening, strutting as best he can, swinging his hips in a charged come-get-me at anyone who looks in his direction, male or female. He smacks the balls home with controlled aggression, pocketing twenty after twenty, the warm buzz of alcohol deadening his senses and the dull ache in his muscles and bones. He's restless, every fiber of his being sparking with the kind of adrenaline rush that means either a fight or a fuck, and when he catches some forgettable blonde's eye, she gives him a look he could pour on a waffle and motions to the exit sign.
He feels an answering twitch in his pants and he smiles, feral, predatory, downs what's left of his shot, and follows her. He's already half-hard.
It's dark in the service alley, raining, and she curses at the weather as Dean maneuvers her up against the wall. He swallows down her expletives and she tastes of stale beer, and cigarettes, and bar snacks. She sucks on his tongue as she wraps her legs around his hips, asks him his name, and he tells her it's Gabe, because, hell, might as well be that fuckin' loser for the night.
It's rough, perfunctory, less than two minutes of slamming her up against the concrete even though it sends pain rippling through Dean's ribs, his jeans and shorts puddled around his ankles and his bare ass getting soaked by the rain, her tongue and her breathy cries in his ear, one more meaningless screw to get it out of his system even though he knows it won't work. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wonders if Castiel is watching from on high, judging him for this, but he doesn't care because he feels raw, cut open, feels like the man he was is bleeding out of him.
She flops on his shoulder as he jerks inside and finishes and he has to shake her off, prop her against the wall. As he does, he feels eyes on him, and he spins as he pulls his jeans up and buttons them. His brother is hovering at the top of the alley, watching, and Dean can feel the bitchface even at fifteen yards.
The blonde lurches in to plant one on him, lips open, tongue thrashing like an electric eel, and Dean sidesteps her adroitly, tugs the roll of bills out of his pocket, peels off a couple or three. "Buy yourself an ice cream," he rasps, closing her fingers around it, and she grins and slurs something incoherent as he walks away.
He strolls up to his brother, all smug innocence, and Sam's eyes are stone cold.
"I came looking for you. Bobby called. You're drunk."
"So I see," Dean drawls. "Did he? And yep, that I am. But not that drunk."
"This isn't you, Dean," Sam mutters.
"Actually, Sammy, it's the new, improved me," Dean declares as he ranges ahead. "You get a kick out of it, little bro? Watching? Was it a turn-on?"
Sam grabs his arm, swings him round. "Picking up women and screwing them in alleyways behind bars?" he snaps. "Drinking like you did after Bender? It nearly killed you that time."
Dean shrugs Sam off, keeps walking.
"Did you use anything?"
It's so utterly mundane, banal, normal, that Dean has to stop and turn around. "Did I use anything?" he echoes his brother, and he can't help the derision, thinks it's damn well necessary, in fact. "I think in the circumstances the clap is the least of my worries. And even if I do start scratching, my guardian angel can just kiss it better for me."
"There are worse things than the clap," Sam tells him.
It's so fuckin' prim that Dean feels like handing out a dry slap. "Say ahhh," he replies, leaning forward. "I'd just like to check if I can see that stick up your ass."
"All I'm saying is that she could have anything, you're taking chances and-"
"Yeah, Sammy, there are worse things than the clap," Dean says, and he plasters a wide, solid smile on his face. "Like fuckin' Armageddon, for example." He snorts. "Got your priorities ass over tip as usual."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demands.
There's mixed annoyance, suspicion and worry in there, and Dean smirks back in return. "At least she was human."
Sam throws up his hands in frustration. "Dean, for God's sake. That was - what's happened to you?"
His voice is incredulous, he's shaking his head, and the question hangs in the air between them for a minute of quiet. And it's a silence formed by things unsaid that Dean wants, needs to say, and he suddenly finds himself right up in Sam's face.
"You happened to me," he hisses. "You turned your back on that asshat in Cold Oak. What the fuck was that? You turned your back. It was a stupid thing to do, Sam. And I went to Hell for it."
Next
Dean wakes up with his face mashed into the pillow, and his nose aches from the pressure. He groans, surfaces blearily. "Dammit, Cas," he grouses. "Gave me the finger. Fuckin' dick."
He stretches, bites off a yelp, feels the bare skin of his legs and back against the sheets. He can feel someone watching him, raises his groggy head to see his brother's dark eyes regarding him from the other bed. Sam's brow is creased in concern and he's doing the puppy dog eyes, and it makes Dean chafe because his brother's a damned convincing actor, give him a fuckin' Oscar, right the fuck now.
"Did you strip me?" he grumbles, because he sleeps fully clothed since Hell, doesn't want his skin on display, wants it safely covered, protected from sharp claws, and jagged teeth; and he wants to be ready, ready to run when he hears the hounds coming to reclaim him. He damn well isn't going to get caught and ripped asunder again because he wasted two minutes of his head start getting dressed.
"Nope," Sam replies.
"Fucktard, Cas." Dean sniffs, looks at the nightstand. "Coffee. Thank God." He eases himself over onto his back, and pushes up to his elbows, groans again. "Dean Winchester. Hunter. A man barely alive. We can't rebuild him." He reaches for the cup, gulps a mouthful of the brown liquid and scowls. "Dude. It's not even warm."
Sam grimaces. "Yeah, sorry. The doc said nothing hot."
Dean snorts. "Yeah, whatthefuckever." He scratches his head. "Where the hell were you, anyway?" he croaks then. "I left ten messages. I needed a ride."
One of Sam's eyebrows arches higher. "You left seven messages actually."
It's snippish, sets low-level annoyance seething inside Dean. "Meaning what?" he snipes back. "That ignoring my seven messages is okay?"
Sam has the balls to stare it out with him. "I was doing some research," he says, more reasonably. "At the library. The wireless connection wasn't working here. I had to switch off my phone there." He sighs. "What are you even doing here, Dean? You're not up to it, and you look as sick as a sick thing. They said they wanted you to stay in until the weekend at least."
"It was boring there. And I was lonely." Dean looks pointedly at Sam, but his brother's eyes are fixed to his laptop screen now, and he's typing industriously. "I see the wireless connection is working again," Dean mutters. "That's real convenient."
And maybe Sam does get the point because his answer is terse. "How could you have been lonely? Cas was there pretty much all the damn time."
"Well who knows, perhaps he thought I needed protecting," Dean retorts defensively. "The nurses took the hexbag off me. You kept disappearing, and you didn't ward the room."
Sam stiffens, looks up again, and now his eyes have clouded over. "He makes me tense."
It's all Dean can do to stop himself from huffing out in derision. Fuckin' liar, he thinks, and amazes himself with the speed at which his seething low-level annoyance suddenly shoots right up the Richter scale to hit ferocious anger. I know what you were doing and who you were doing it with. Fuckin' liar, sneaking around behind my back. "You could try being grateful," he snaps, and his voice is splintered and sharp against the damage inside his throat. "Grateful for what he's done for you."
Sam glances over again, a searching look, and he frowns. "What has he ever done for me?"
Cas gave me back to you, you ungrateful fuckin' prick, Dean rages inwardly. And you left me there in that motel room on the very first night, and I know damn well you went to get it on with your demon fuck-buddy when you knew something was chasing me. It rants through his mind but he doesn't react, doesn't flinch, even though pain blooms sudden and raw in his chest. He doesn't scream it out even though he really wants to, even though his brother's denseness feels like Alastair's fingers digging into his neck. "What he's done for us then," he mutters instead, and he reaches up and rubs at his brow.
"What has he done for us except cause a whole lot of trouble, Dean?" Sam says, and he seems genuinely puzzled. "He comes at us with all this seal crap, expects us to fight Lilith without telling us how, beams you away when you aren't up to it, and-"
"Thanks for the coffee," Dean husks out.
The conversation is over, drowned at birth in fact, and the abrupt silence that follows is so thick Dean fancies he could cut it into chunks and eat it. He can't talk to his brother any more, even though he wants to, wants to pour it all out, what he saw, what they did, how it felt. What he did. You're holding me back, Sam had said. You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself… whining about all the souls you tortured in Hell. He set the Apocalypse in motion, and even if Castiel's faith in him glows softly out of the dude's eyes every time Dean meets his gaze, he doesn't think he can fix it. And it's suddenly overwhelming, but Dean can't stomach how Sam will look at him when he finds out, so he presses the heel of his hand up to his eyes, lets out an awful, strangled sound he knows is despair.
"Dean."
It's gentle, and Dean grips the arm that wraps around him, leans into the warmth for a moment. "Hurts," he chokes out, and his voice is thick, sounds, feels as if blood is being stirred into it. He pulls back, squeezes a hand in between and pushes his brother away. "My throat hurts," he wheezes, even though it's not his throat that hurts at all.
Sam sits back, nods slowly, and maybe there's something in his eyes, something like disappointment. "I'll get you some aspirin," he says. "Soft foods. Soup. Ice cream." He sighs heavily, and his voice goes quiet, gentle. "Dean. I really wish you'd talk to me. I won't… it won't be like before. I won't let you down."
Dean rearranges himself on the pillows, stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about it, thinks about taking the risk, thinks about letting it pour out, his sick fear, his despair, his doubt, his guilt. He thinks about how it might feel to have his brother grind it into the cheap nylon carpet with his boot and spit on it just to be sure. He thinks about how easy it would be to pour it all out to Castiel, who stares at him like he matters, who understands without judging, without criticizing, because Castiel saw him at his worst and thought he deserved to be saved.
"I'm on voice rest," he whispers.
Coop's desk is strewn with folders and files and it takes Hudak a few minutes to ferret through the mess, locate the batch she needs and spread them all out in front of her. And it's looking her right in the face, and how the fuck could they have missed it?
She closes her eyes, breathes in, blows out, counts to ten, stands and looks down at them all. Five faces plus the doppelganger in her hand, some smiling, some serious, all thirtyish, brown hair of varying lengths, full lips, girlishly pretty. And now she's searching for the likeness it stands out like a wicked fairy at a christening, and how is it that she overlooked the five slightly different versions of Dean Winchester staring back at her? She shakes her head. "I don't believe it," she murmurs. "I don't fucking believe it. What the hell is this…?"
She's oblivious to the sound behind her until a voice sounds right in her ear, and she jumps.
"What the hell is what, Katie?"
"They all look alike."
She blurts it out even though she knows damn well Coop will follow the lead all the way - not that it matters any more, because even if the trail leads to Dean Winchester, the long arm of the law can't reach that far. She puts the picture of Kevin Garner, poor bastard, down beside the others. "The wife brought his picture with her. Look."
Coop stands beside her, cocks his head as he considers. "Yeah," he says, and his voice rises slightly. "You're right. Hell's bells, Katie, you're right, they could be… whatever it is when there's six… sixtables?" He starts gathering up the files, an untidy pile. "How the hell did we miss this?" he mutters. "I'm going to run these pictures through the FBI database for anyone similar… Katie, put a request out for any John Does who fit this profile. If we can match the victims to someone it could give us a lead as to who this nutjob thinks he's killing, and maybe we can backtrack straight to him."
"It's a longshot," Hudak says weakly as he strides out of the office.
"It's good old-fashioned detective work," he calls back.
"It's pointless," she murmurs. "If I'm right, the guy he thinks he's killing is already dead."
She pulls out her chair, sits, taps her fingers on the desk for a minute or two as she thinks. She hasn't spoken to either of them in six months, couldn't bring herself to return Bobby's message. It went down Kathleen. I thought you should know, words spoken in a voice dazed and wretched with grief, with horror, and then cut off because there was nothing left to say. She erased the voicemail then and there, blocked out what it meant, went on with her life, maybe drank a little too much a few times somewhere in the mix.
Hudak reaches behind her to her coat, dips a hand in the pocket, retrieves her cell, scrolls through the list, sends, and braces herself.
This number is no longer in service or has been disconnected.
"Dammit, Sam," she breathes out.
Next one down then, and she frowns. "Oh come on, Bobby. Not you too."
Singer Salvage it is then, and she roots the grubby business card out of her wallet, bides her time as it rings, rings, rings some more, finally picks up. Answerphone, dammit. "Bobby, hey. It's Kathleen, Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing. It's been a while, I guess." She takes a deep breath. "Listen… I have this case, it's - odd. Murders, young men. Mutilated, pretty nasty, the heart is missing. Could be a werewolf, I think. And there's something else. Look. There's no easy way to say this. But they all really strongly resemble-crap."
Cut off, and she rolls her eyes as she redials. And, what are the fucking odds? she thinks, as it rings, rings, rings and no pickup. "Christ almighty," she snaps. "That's fucking typical."
It's a couple of hours before Dean starts to shift restlessly in the bed, and Sam chugs water into one of the glasses in the bathroom, tears open a sachet of salt pilfered from the local burger joint, and tips the white crystals in before setting it down on the nightstand.
He points to it when Dean finally chokes out and surges up onto his elbows. "Salt water to gargle. It should help with the swelling and inflammation in your throat."
Dean grunts, rubs his eyes, picks crust off his eyelashes, flicks it away and then scratches his armpit before standing up and lurching to the bathroom, where he pisses like a racehorse for several minutes. Once done, he makes a point of dressing, maneuvering his bruised torso into his tee and pulling Sam's own fleece hoodie over it with some difficulty and many harsh exhales, his only response to Sam's offer of help a look that drips scorn as he tugs the hood up over his head before crawling back under the covers. From there, he throws Sam morose, accusing glances that set his nerves on edge because he knows Dean trusts him about as far as he could spit a horse these days, work with Ruby or don't, I don't really give a rat's ass.
The silence is damned awkward, so Sam breaks it with the only question he can think up. "You never told me what happened with Alastair. Apart from the obvious, I mean." It's clumsy, and that isn't lost on his brother, whose jaw clenches.
"The obvious being that I fucked it up and the sonofabitch was better, faster, stronger than before," Dean croaks. "The six million dollar demon."
Sam chews his lip for a minute. "You didn't fuck it up," he says softly. "Cas said it was a double-cross. Uriel set you up. It wasn't anything you did, Dean."
Dean snorts. "More like what I didn't do."
He's feeling his way in this conversation, Sam knows, and he wishes he knew if Castiel raised the alarm with Dean, wonders how much he can fish without incriminating himself. "Which is what exactly?"
His brother clears his throat, faintly, modestly, oh so carefully, and he winces almost imperceptibly. Sam leans across the table for the meds, shakes out a couple of pills, crosses and sits on the other bed, opposite Dean.
"If that's Vicodin I don't-"
"It's just aspirin, Dean," Sam reassures. "Maybe you should try gargling with it too. It's an anti-inflammatory."
"House fuckin' MD," Dean grouses, but he gulps down the pills, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I didn't get what they needed. Alastair must've had a ton of intel on Lilith. Fuck-all use it is to us now Cas had to gank him."
Sam thinks, hopes he disguises his start of surprise. "Cas. Yeah. Lucky he was there, I guess." He gets up abruptly, turns and walks back to his laptop, doesn't want to look at his brother while he lies, doesn't like the feeling that he's this accustomed to doing it, this poised in the act, that he's even remotely articulate as the deceit slinks and slithers and snakes past his lips. He steers away from it as best he can. "But Cas said Uriel 'fessed up to the angel killing. That's what they really needed to know, isn't it?"
He glances back over his shoulder and Dean is staring into space, his eyes vacant now, lost in some memory or dream. Or waking nightmare, maybe, and the thought makes Sam shiver. "Seems there's some sort of angel fifth column then," he offers.
His brother looks slowly over, drifts back. "Angel fifth… huh?"
"Angel fifth column," Sam repeats. "Rebellion. Angels for Lucifer. Uriel and his buddies."
Dean glowers. "Yeah. It's like the fuckin' X Files."
Sam cocks his head at the detour. "Like the X Files?"
"You know. Started out real simple, us versus little green men. And then, Jesus - colonists, alien bounty hunters, black fuckin' oil, rebels, super soldiers. No clue who was doing what or running the show." Dean's voice starts out as gravel, passes through glass, then shell, until it finally achieves a papery rustle. "It makes it harder… harder to know what to do, how to fight this battle."
He's watching Sam as he speaks, and for a split second Sam could swear the look is as suspicious as Castiel's was. It unsettles him, and he damn well changes the subject. "You're supposed to be on voice rest," he says. "And we need to eat. What'll it be? There's an Olive Garden a couple of miles back up the highway."
"Burger," Dean mutters.
All at once he's back to morose, sullen, and it's frustrating, infuriating even, because Sam is getting this sense that his brother is hiding something. He briefly comforts himself with the possibility that it might be Dean coming round to the fact that he isn't as special as Castiel told him, that maybe he's realizing that Sam is the big gun in this war, and that he was wrong about the powers. It gives him a feeling of guilty satisfaction he doesn't want to admit to, and he diverts back on topic. "The doc said it had to be soft foods."
"Pizza," Dean grunts.
"Soft foods, Dean."
"Burrito."
"That's not even Italian," Sam says, exasperated now. "And it's too hot, it'll hurt you inside when you swallow it. Have soup. Or lasagne. Something like that."
Dean sits up again, sweaty, cheeks flushed. "If you bring me slop, asshat, you'll be wearing it," he husks out. "I swear to God."
Sam sighs. "Dean, for crying out loud. You're sweltering under there. At least leave the hood down."
His brother gives him a fixed, insolent stare, goading, deliberately reaches for the bottle of Jack on his nightstand, unscrews it and chugs a good mouthful, wipes his mouth. "I'm full," he sneers. "In fact, I couldn't drink another bite."
And it just isn't in Sam to protest as Dean smirks just barely, his eyes pink and watering from the burn of the whiskey, daring a response. "Pissy bastard," he finally dredges up, as he reaches for his jacket, slamming the motel room door as he leaves.
When he gets back Dean is gone and there's a note on the table.
Bar. Across the road. Pool.
And Sam sits down and eats his chicken parmagiana, feeling something that might be weary anger or might be relief, he doesn't know any more.
They hit the alley from different ends, go through the motions, and the women glare hostility through panda-rimmed eyes. Their faces are grim, pasty, chapped and pinched with cold, and Hudak hugs her sheepskin around her and wonders how they hell they do it, stand out here in six-inch heels and mini skirts so short she can see five o'clock shadow at the tops of their thighs, variously smoking and chewing gum while yards of exposed flesh turns blue and pimply and shivers in the freezing air.
"Yeah, I saw that guy. Couple nights ago."
She's already turning to leave, already slipping the photograph back in her coat pocket, mechanical because she's on autopilot, but she swivels back to stare at the woman.
"What's he done then, that guy? Is he the one who got himself killed across there?"
Her eyes are the hooker-patented twin miracles of mascara, lashes spiky and rigid, as if a couple of miniature crows crashed into her face and stuck there. She's staring out from under suspiciously red hair, her gaze as empty as a shark's. She's skinny. And she's young. Too young.
"How old are you?" Hudak asks, and she wonders if she sounds like a mother, maybe like her own mother, God forbid.
"Twenty-one," the girl snaps back warily. "I got ID."
Right, and that's legal, Hudak thinks as she cocks her head. "What's your name?"
The girl blinks. "Heavenly Desire."
Hudak manages to turn her snort into a polite cough. "Heavenly Desire. Okay. Well, Ms… uh, Desire, you say you saw this-"
"That's my professional name," the kid says suddenly, and she leans in confidentially. "My real name is Mel." And then she draws herself up as much as any teenage whore can. "But you can call me Ms Desire."
Nodding slowly, Hudak smiles. "Ms Desire. Okay. Got it. So you saw this man - when was that?"
"Couple of nights ago," the kid says. "He was hovering up around the top of the alleyway, for a few nights actually. Seemed real shy… not the usual type we get coming to visit us down here." She grimaces. "And Monday night I thought he might be biting, and I walked up there and stuck my ass out at him, but turns out the guy's in a dude mood."
Hudak raises an eyebrow. "Dude mood?"
"Yeah," the girl replies, regretful. "Some guy hustled him instead. Who'd have thunk, huh? Makin' eyes at us when he swung the other way. Loser." Her voice takes on a note of spiteful malice. "Bet he wished he picked me now, huh?"
Hudak thinks of the man's wife, his child, fatherless now. Stupid, stupid man, taking a stupid, stupid risk when the newspapers have been full of lurid accounts of the grisly remains of the other five stupid, stupid men. "He had a child," she snaps out tartly. "A newborn."
The girl stares at her, shrugs. "Tough breaks," she says. "It ain't my fault."
Hudak raises a hand, waves Coop over. "Can you describe the man you saw him with? Is he a regular?"
"Big guy, real big. Tall and wide."
Coop looms up, blowing on his fingers, and Hudak gestures at the girl. "Ms Desire here says another man picked up the victim just over there on the night he disappeared."
"Up there at the top of the alley?" Coop says.
"Yeah," the girl says. "Right there. Up at the top. I never saw him before though."
"I told you it was a guy doing this," Coop smirks.
Hudak rolls her eyes at him, turns her attention back to the girl. "Ms Desire, would you mind coming to the station house to look at some mugshots?" she says smoothly, and all at once the kid's eyes are shuttered and she's backing away.
"I didn't see him up close."
"But you said you walked right up there," Hudak reminds her. "To shake your ass, I believe."
The girl's lips purse thin and annoyed. "It was dark, I-"
"You said he was at the top of the alley," Coop cuts in. "There's a streetlamp right there."
Hudak waves the picture again. "If you recognize this guy, then you might recognize the other one. You're coming in."
She shepherds the girl ahead of them towards her car, fishing in her pocket as they walk. Nothing, where there should be something, and, "Dammit," she cracks out sharply, and she glances over her shoulder, sees that the alleyway is empty now. "I think one of those damn hookers lifted my cell."
Heavenly Desire raises her hands, wiggles her fingers, chewed fingernails painted purple. "Not guilty," she bleats. "You can even search me, lady."
The bar is a dive bar, cigarette smoke like dry ice, sawdust on the floor soaking up vomit or blood or worse. Dean holds court at the pool table, preening, strutting as best he can, swinging his hips in a charged come-get-me at anyone who looks in his direction, male or female. He smacks the balls home with controlled aggression, pocketing twenty after twenty, the warm buzz of alcohol deadening his senses and the dull ache in his muscles and bones. He's restless, every fiber of his being sparking with the kind of adrenaline rush that means either a fight or a fuck, and when he catches some forgettable blonde's eye, she gives him a look he could pour on a waffle and motions to the exit sign.
He feels an answering twitch in his pants and he smiles, feral, predatory, downs what's left of his shot, and follows her. He's already half-hard.
It's dark in the service alley, raining, and she curses at the weather as Dean maneuvers her up against the wall. He swallows down her expletives and she tastes of stale beer, and cigarettes, and bar snacks. She sucks on his tongue as she wraps her legs around his hips, asks him his name, and he tells her it's Gabe, because, hell, might as well be that fuckin' loser for the night.
It's rough, perfunctory, less than two minutes of slamming her up against the concrete even though it sends pain rippling through Dean's ribs, his jeans and shorts puddled around his ankles and his bare ass getting soaked by the rain, her tongue and her breathy cries in his ear, one more meaningless screw to get it out of his system even though he knows it won't work. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wonders if Castiel is watching from on high, judging him for this, but he doesn't care because he feels raw, cut open, feels like the man he was is bleeding out of him.
She flops on his shoulder as he jerks inside and finishes and he has to shake her off, prop her against the wall. As he does, he feels eyes on him, and he spins as he pulls his jeans up and buttons them. His brother is hovering at the top of the alley, watching, and Dean can feel the bitchface even at fifteen yards.
The blonde lurches in to plant one on him, lips open, tongue thrashing like an electric eel, and Dean sidesteps her adroitly, tugs the roll of bills out of his pocket, peels off a couple or three. "Buy yourself an ice cream," he rasps, closing her fingers around it, and she grins and slurs something incoherent as he walks away.
He strolls up to his brother, all smug innocence, and Sam's eyes are stone cold.
"I came looking for you. Bobby called. You're drunk."
"So I see," Dean drawls. "Did he? And yep, that I am. But not that drunk."
"This isn't you, Dean," Sam mutters.
"Actually, Sammy, it's the new, improved me," Dean declares as he ranges ahead. "You get a kick out of it, little bro? Watching? Was it a turn-on?"
Sam grabs his arm, swings him round. "Picking up women and screwing them in alleyways behind bars?" he snaps. "Drinking like you did after Bender? It nearly killed you that time."
Dean shrugs Sam off, keeps walking.
"Did you use anything?"
It's so utterly mundane, banal, normal, that Dean has to stop and turn around. "Did I use anything?" he echoes his brother, and he can't help the derision, thinks it's damn well necessary, in fact. "I think in the circumstances the clap is the least of my worries. And even if I do start scratching, my guardian angel can just kiss it better for me."
"There are worse things than the clap," Sam tells him.
It's so fuckin' prim that Dean feels like handing out a dry slap. "Say ahhh," he replies, leaning forward. "I'd just like to check if I can see that stick up your ass."
"All I'm saying is that she could have anything, you're taking chances and-"
"Yeah, Sammy, there are worse things than the clap," Dean says, and he plasters a wide, solid smile on his face. "Like fuckin' Armageddon, for example." He snorts. "Got your priorities ass over tip as usual."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demands.
There's mixed annoyance, suspicion and worry in there, and Dean smirks back in return. "At least she was human."
Sam throws up his hands in frustration. "Dean, for God's sake. That was - what's happened to you?"
His voice is incredulous, he's shaking his head, and the question hangs in the air between them for a minute of quiet. And it's a silence formed by things unsaid that Dean wants, needs to say, and he suddenly finds himself right up in Sam's face.
"You happened to me," he hisses. "You turned your back on that asshat in Cold Oak. What the fuck was that? You turned your back. It was a stupid thing to do, Sam. And I went to Hell for it."
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