Fake Identity - Part 1
Fanfic: Fake Identity
Author: borgmama1of5
Summary: When the show started, Sam hadn't hunted since he was 18, but he and Dean slipped into their routine use of aliases like it was old hat. But when did Sam learn how to do that?
Spoilers: None. Set preseries , Sam is 16
Wordcount: 9540 - One shot
Genre: Gen, preseries
Characters: Sam, Dean, John
Rating: PG-13 for language
A/N: Much love to sandymg as my beta but more importantly, as my nag. She knew there was more than a drabble here and insisted I flesh it out.
Fake Identity
Sam absolutely hated when they talked about him like he wasn’t here. Sam “The Invisible” Winchester. Or maybe Sam “The Deaf” Winchester. Didn’t matter that Dad was growling at Dean in his quietest growl, there was no place in the stupid ‘suite’ he couldn’t hear them.
“No, Dean, he’s not ready.”
"C’mon, Dad, I went with you when I was a lot younger.”
“Yeah, well you knew how to follow orders …”
“Give Sammy a chance, he won’t mess up.”
His success wouldn’t even be measured by ‘he’d do a good job’ - it was that he wouldn’t screw up. Nice vote of confidence, Dean. Although Sam really couldn’t be angry with Dean right now. His brother was on some pretty strong pain pills and Sam had to give him credit for presenting any kind of a coherent argument to Dad. And it was Sam’s fault Dean was hurt.
“Sam.”
“Fuck off” probably wasn’t the brightest response and he sure wasn’t saying “Yes, sir” His mouth settled on “Yeah?”
John’s glare told Sam that his dad had two thoughts wanting to be verbalized as well. But John chose the less inflammatory words undoubtedly because the job had precedence over reaming Sam out for his bad attitude.
“I’ve got to talk to the survivor at the hospital to see if I can get more information on what this thing is, and Dean’s out of commission. For these kinds of interviews it works better if there are two people. Do you think you can act like a grown-up long enough to help?”
Act like a grown-up … Son-of-a-bitch, Dad made him so mad! Sam realized he had involuntarily clenched his fists, knew that John had seen it. Deep breath, he repeated to himself. He’s baiting you on purpose.
“I can do the job.” It came out surly but not quite insolent.
“Mmm.” John stared back at him, then turned and went to his duffle bag. “Give me one of your school IDs, one where you look the oldest. Not with the hair in your eyes.”
Sam rifled through the dozen or so picture IDs, settling on the one from Markham High School, two towns ago. He looked pretty serious in that picture - grim, actually - the picture had been taken after Sam was pulled out of Bloomfield High where he’d been on the honors track and actually made friends. But hey, Dad had a job three states over and he couldn’t leave his boys to finish anything important like a semester.
John finessed the photo from the high school ID with a razor blade and then worked his magic with the laminating supplies.
“Here.”
“So who are you, Sammy?” Dean had been quiet till now.
Sam took a look. “Louis McMaster. State Police.”
“You’ll make a great ‘good cop’ Sammy. Just bat your eyes at the girl and she’ll tell you everything. Use the ‘state cop’ shit from my bag.” Dean’s smirk was off just enough to tell Sam he was still in a lot of pain from the broken ribs. Sam half-heartedly gave him the finger before rummaging through Dean’s stuff for the appropriate clothes. Dean would never think that Sam let him down. Dean would say that it was a good thing Sam hadn’t been there or Sam might’ve gotten hurt.
“Hey, Sam.” Dean’s hiss was meant for Sam only. Sam stepped over to his brother’s bed. Dean looked like shit, purple-red bruises from his left temple to his jaw. Sam knew Dean’s whole left side was similarly decorated from going over the second floor banister to a concrete floor.
“All you gotta do is ask a question and wait ’em out …Give ’em your puppy dog look and they’ll spill everything. You don’t have to talk much at all, got it?”
“Yeah, Dean. Don’t worry, it’s no big deal.” Okay, maybe it was, and Dean knew it, too … No, it’d be just like playing the school principals and the motel clerks and every other authority figure the Winchester family mind-gamed. Just this time Sam would get to play-act the authority figure.
On the way to the hospital John reviewed for Sam what he had on the case so far. Teenage babysitter, creepy phone calls, dead two-year-old. That explained why Dad was taking the job so seriously - not that he didn’t take every job like it was end-of-the-world serious, but dead kids, that disturbed all the Winchesters the most. Sam would do this right for the sake of the kid. Although Sam didn’t see exactly why Dad thought this was in their line of business. “…got that Sammy?”
“It’s Sam, not Sammy.” Christ, I’m fucking 16 … He stopped himself from going there. Focus on the job. This was the first time Dad was letting him do the information-gathering in person, under an alias, and Sam needed to not be a teenager right now. Suddenly he was nervous. Anyone would take one look at him and know that he wasn’t even legal age, much less a cop … How did Dean do it? Always talking, spinning stories, if one line didn’t work he’d just move to the next one, didn’t seem to care if it made sense as long as Dean could keep the target under the spell of his voice. And Dean’s advice to him was to keep quiet?
***
The nurse at the floor desk didn’t even look at the IDs they held out. “Room 414.” First hurdle. Almost disappointingly easy … don’t jinx it, Sam.
Okay, here was the second hurdle. The babysitter wasn’t alone. From the way the woman was hovering, it was the girl’s mother.
“Frank Harper, with the state police, ma’am.” Dad held his ID out for the woman to see, and Sam did likewise.
“Louis McMaster,” he nodded seriously.
“The police were here again yesterday and my daughter told them everything.”
“Just a few more questions, Mrs. Caldwell.”
“I don’t see why Evie has to talk about this again,” she said in a quiet but tight voice.
“We’ll keep it brief.” Sam attempted calm reassurance with his words. Drawing attention to himself was a mistake, as Mrs. Caldwell looked at him for the first time.
“You look awfully young for an officer,” she challenged.
Sam responded even as he felt his dad tense. “My dad says I’ll appreciate those comments in another ten years.” He offered a restrained grin. “Just good genes. I’m gonna get carded till I’m fifty.”
The woman smiled slightly, Sam felt his dad relax a tiny bit, and Sam, with another polite nod to the mother, stepped over to the side of the hospital bed.
“Hello, Evie.” Crap, she was just a few years younger than he was, a petite girl swimming in the blue floral hospital gown, lost in the covers. The white bandage on her forehead contrasted vividly with her dark skin and corn-rowed hair. Her right arm was wrapped in gauze from wrist to shoulder and there was another bandage on her forehead. But it was the look in her eyes that made Sam’s stomach tense - they were eyes that had seen something horrible, something a kid her age shouldn’t have had to see.
“I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this again, Evie, but can you tell me exactly what happened?” Sam made his voice gentle, and focused on the girl’s face, wishing he could take away the fear and pain.
As Evie told her confused story, Sam realized why his dad thought it was one of their cases. Evie had put the little boy she was babysitting to bed upstairs and was watching T.V. when the phone rang. Only instead of a voice, there was, “… crazy laughing. Scary sick laughing. And I hung up and the phone rang again and it was the same thing.” Sam was vaguely aware of his dad talking with the mother, as the girl trembled. Sam instinctively reached over and took hold of the hand Evie was twisting in the blanket.
“And he called again and I said I was going to call 911, and then the phone wouldn’t work, and then there was a dog barking upstairs, but the Gardners don’t have a dog, and then I went upstairs and Dylan was…was…” Evie’s face crumpled into silent sobs.
“I’m so sorry.” What else could he say? “Go on, Evie …”
“There was a man with a…” She stopped, swallowed, tried to finish. “He had a knife and he was … standing by Dylan’s crib and … he turned and looked at me and then he … he cut me and I screamed …”
Her voice rose shrilly with the last words. But Sam needed her to continue. “Then what happened, Evie?”
Tears were running down the girl’s dark cheeks. “I heard the dog barking again and the man, he … disappeared. And I looked in Dylan’s crib and … and he was … he was …”
“He was what, Evie?” Sam asked softly.
“He was … it was like he was all bit up, like a dog had bit his face and his neck and his arms …” She was sobbing too hard to continue. Sam pulled a tissue from the bedside table with his free hand.
But there were still questions. “Dylan was bitten, not cut with the knife?”
The teen could barely get the anguished words out. “He was chewed up!”
Sam waited for Evie to come back from the edge of hysteria. When he thought she could talk again, he asked, “Before all this happened. Did you sense anything wrong? Did you feel any unusual cold spots in the house, other odd noises or vibrations?” Evie started to shake her head no, then stopped.
“In Dylan’s room, it was cold … er.”
“The dog barking … what kind of dog did it sound like? A little dog, or a big one?”
“It … it sounded like a … big dog, like a … guard dog, maybe …” Without conscious thought Sam sat on the edge of the hospital bed and wrapped his arms around the shaking girl.
“Shh, shh, it’s all right …” The words Dean always used to soothe his upset little brother. Only it really wasn’t all right … “We’re gonna take care of it, Evie, make sure it doesn’t hurt anybody else. I promise.”
“I think you should leave now!” Mrs. Caldwell’s voice was close behind him, ignoring his dad’s question to her.
“I’ll take care of it, Evie,” Sam said softly as he relinquished his hold on her. She might not have heard over her tears.
“I think we’re done here.” Sam looked directly at his dad who gave a slight nod. “I’m sorry we had to ask Evie about this again, Mrs. Caldwell, but it really was necessary.” Now Sam could see the mother’s fear for her daughter, her helplessness at not being able to make the bad go away. Sam wanted to reassure her as he had Evie that he and his dad would fix it, but knew that he couldn’t tell her, there was nothing about this Mrs. Caldwell would understand.
Back in the car he summarized Evie’s story for his dad.
“We’re going to have to see the boy’s family.” John’s voice was flat. Sam winced, he did so not want to have to be there for that. Interrogating the babysitter had been painful enough.
“If you drop me at the library I could see if there’s anything in the area history…”
“Not dressed like a state trooper, Sam.” His father conveyed annoyance without changing his tone of voice. But Sam was still struggling with the residue of his conversation with Evie and for once didn’t respond to the prod. He stared out the side window of the Impala instead, seeing the girl’s haunted eyes.
***
John stopped in front of a neat two story brick house. Obviously newly built, the front yard just waiting for landscapers to solidify its upper-middle-class aspirations. The houses to the west were still under construction, the entire area radiated that new-development aura.
“Come on. You have the EMF reader?”
Sam nodded.
“If the parents will talk with me you can check the upstairs.
“Okay, Dad.” Sam knew he shouldn’t be relieved to be assigned the recon but he really didn’t want to face the parents of a dead baby.
“Mr. Gardner? I’m Officer Harper, this is Officer McMaster. I’m very sorry to disturb you, but we have a few additional questions concerning your son.”
Sam held out his ID with his dad. Sam couldn’t imagine surviving grief like that crossing Mr. Gardner’s face at the mention of his child.
“Please, can we talk out here? My wife can’t take any more.”
“I’m sorry but we might have to talk to your wife, and we’ll have to see the nursery again, but we can certainly start here first."
Shit, Sam was going to have to watch his dad question the father. And then Sam realized his dad was looking at him to start. What? Sam pulled out his notebook and pencil to cover the moment’s delay while grasping for how to begin.
“Can you give me the timeline for what happened that night, sir?”
“Is this really necessary? I’ve gone over this so many times already.” The man’s voice was thick from the attempt at control.
Sam gave him his most understanding look. “I can’t begin to understand how hard this is for you, Mr. Gardner. But please. It’s important.”
That terrible loss flashed across the man’s face again. “Angela and I went out to dinner around six o’clock. Evie came about a half hour before that. She’s babysat for us before, in the old place. We got a call from the police, on my wife’s cell, about 8:30 …” The man’s voice trailed off, tears began to pool in his eyes. Instinct made Sam gently put his hand on the man’s arm.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Gardner. We need to know as much as we can so we can stop this from happening to any other family.” Sam truly meant it. He didn’t want this much hurt to destroy anyone else’s life. Then something the man had said registered.
“You said Evie babysat at your old place? How long have you lived here?”
“We moved in five weeks ago. It was the first night we went out since we moved … it was our anniversary.” The grieving man made no effort to stop the tears running down his cheeks now.
“Since you moved in, did you notice anything … strange … about the house?”
“Strange?”
“Flickering lights, cold spots, odd smells or noises?”
“No, nothing like that.”
His dad finally spoke up. “Could we see the nursery, Mr. Gardner?” The man nodded. “While Officer McMaster checks that, I’ll need to speak to your wife. I’ll try to keep it short.”
Mr. Gardner clearly did not want to inflict another interrogation on his wife, but ‘Officer Harper’ was patently not going to back down. Sam watched his father project an implacable matter-of-fact presence and the husband lowered his head and motioned them in.
“The nursery’s at the top of the stairs. Angela’s in the kitchen.”
There was nothing suspicious in the nursery - in fact there was nothing in the nursery at all, no crib, no toys, no remnants that this had been a little boy’s room other than the wallpaper with cartoon trains and cars on the wall. Four days and all traces of little Dylan were erased. What would he do, Sam wondered, if something happened to Dad, or … to Dean - would it be easier to erase all trace of them, make it like they’d never existed -- or better to keep everything the same, like they were still around and could come back at any moment?
God, he couldn’t handle this, thinking of Dean or Dad not coming back … His secret terror ever since he really understood what it was his father did. The panic that Dean’s “Don’t worry, Sammy, nothing’s gonna happen” hadn’t been able to banish ever since Dean started going on hunts with Dad. And this week’s fiasco hadn’t helped…
He had to get out of here.
There was a dog barking furiously nearby. Back on the first floor Sam realized it had been barking for several minutes. He found John and the Gardners in the kitchen, Mrs. Gardner sobbing brokenly, Mr. Gardner asking John to leave while trying to console his wife.
“I’m sorry.” His dad’s voice was gruff, Sam realized he was having a hard time watching this, too.
“Just two things,” Sam said quickly. “Do you know what phone Evie answered, and whose dog is barking?”
“The phone is in the living room next to the sofa. And the dog, I don’t know who it belongs to. Only a couple other families have moved in yet and none of them have a dog.”
“We’ll just look at the phone and then we’ll leave. Again, we’re very sorry.”
The EMF meter gave a tiny crackle when held to the phone, but there was nothing in the rest of the room. By the time they were back outside, the barking had stopped.
Sam wanted know how his dad could do this, talk to devastated people over and over, but he didn’t know how to ask the question.
“What did you find upstairs?” John was all business, of course.
“Nothing more on the EMF than how it reacted to the telephone. But everything connected to the little boy is gone, the room’s been emptied out.”
That’s what was bothering him, Sam realized.
“Easier to get rid of everything, sometimes.” There was something in his dad’s voice that Sam couldn’t identify. But John kept going. “Why did you ask about the dog?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but Evie said a dog was barking … and that it looked like Dylan had been attacked by one. I don’t see how that ties in with the phone call she got, though.”
“I’m going to take you back to the motel, you check on Dean. Then I’ll drive around the area for a bit and see if there are any dogs.”
“If Dean’s okay, I’ll hop a bus to the library and look for background.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
The T.V. was on but from his glassy eyes Sam doubted Dean had any clue what he’d been watching. Sam hated seeing Dean vulnerable, slumped in on himself, abnormally still. As Sam took off the uniform shirt, Dean hit the mute button and spoke.
“How’d it go?”
“How do you do it?” Shit, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say.
“Do what?”
“Talk to all the victims, make ’em go through it again.”
Expecting a smartass answer, Sam was surprised at the seriousness with which Dean replied.
“It sucks. Especially when it involves a kid. I’m sorry that you had to go, Sammy. But Dad can’t do these kinds of interviews alone. And I couldn’t pass myself off as a cop right now looking like this.”
“Why not?” Sam finished buttoning his flannel shirt and studied his brother’s discolored face. He knew Dean would understand his question was about Dad.
“He … can’t handle them.”
“What do you mean?” Sam grabbed the empty glass on Dean’s nightstand and went to fill it with cold water.
“He … he doesn’t do well around their parents. It makes him think of things … Aw, dammit, Sam, you should be able to figure out why he can’t deal with it.”
Sam held the glass of water as he stared at Dean, trying to puzzle out what his brother meant from the look in his eyes.
“Oh.” He sat the glass down abruptly. Him. Mom. The nursery fire he didn’t remember but could never forget all the same. “Oh,” he said again. What more was there he could say?
Change the subject. “Dude, you want something to eat? Or need any more pills?”
“Yeah, pass me the bottle.” Given Dean’s usual reluctance to admit to needing medication, he must really be hurting. They had some Vicodin for a change, and Dean was past the 24-hour no-meds rule for the concussion.
“You should probably have some food with them.” He handed Dean a granola bar from his backpack. To Dean’s grimace he responded, “It’s got chocolate chips. I’m going to the library, what do you want me to bring back?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Bacon cheeseburger with fries.” Piss-poor attempt to make up for letting Dean down, but Dean grinned lopsidedly at him and shouted “Don’t forget the pie,” as he walked out.
Sam indulged himself in guilt for the entire bus ride. Dad had wanted Sam to go on the poltergeist hunt but when Sam had protested about missing his extra-credit computer lab class Dean had smoothly intervened before the verbal melee between Sam and John climbed to shouting level, telling their dad that they’d be fine without Sam on such a routine hunt.
“And besides, geekboy might learn something useful about hacking passwords or something, right, Sammy?”
“This is a legitimate class, Dean,” he’d huffed. Only to come back to the motel and find it hadn’t been an innocuous case after all, and Dean had been lucky to end up with only a concussion, broken ribs, and bruises. A lot of bruises. And of course, Dad saying it was Sam’s fault Dean got hurt.
And of course Dean defended him. “ ‘S not Sam’s fault, Dad, I shoulda ducked.” Sam cringed. He’d have felt better if Dean had been mad at him, too.
Sam returned from the library in the late afternoon. John was there.
“Where’ve you been?”
Sam handed his brother the bag with a greasy burger - Dean had to have a cast-iron stomach to eat that crap - and fired a different question back at his dad.
“Did you find a dog? Or hear it again?”
“Didn’t see one, heard it again but couldn’t find where it was. How do you think it’s connected?”
That Dad wasn’t questioning why he thought it was important startled Sam. He was momentarily disoriented, he’d been prepared to fight for the point.
“Okay. You know the urban legend about the killer in the house with a girl, and the cops find the family dog choking with fingers in his mouth?”
Not bothering to swallow his mouthful of food, Dean interjected, “That one’s a myth, like the Hookman.”
“No, Dean, not completely. At least not here. In 1962, there were a series of murders of teenage girls. Some of them were babysitting, some of them were just home by themselves. The cops caught the guy finally. They caught him because that night the babysitter had brought her family’s dog with her. And the dog bit off two of the guy’s fingers and cornered him in a closet.”
There was silence in the room for a moment, broken when Dean muttered, “Well I’ll be damned.”
“So how do you put that with this case?” Why couldn’t Dad acknowledge he’d done a good job researching this? It had been like a jigsaw puzzle to put the clues in the old records together, this part of the town’s history had been hidden under a lot of obtuse references. Nothing that the Chamber of Commerce wanted in the tourist brochures.
“The murderer, Edwin Jenkins, died in prison in 1994. He was cremated.”
His dad frowned. “Dead end, then.”
“Maybe not.” Sam hadn’t given up when he’d hit that spot. He just needed to convince his dad to follow his leap.
“Okay, the house where the little boy died, it’s new construction, right?” John nodded. “The babysitter who survived in 1962 - she lived on that block at the time.”
Dean was trying to follow Sam’s thought process. “So the girl almost got murdered there?”
“No, she was babysitting across town. But she’d brought the family dog with her that night. And the dog bit the murderer’s fingers off.”
Sam could tell from the twist of his dad’s lips that he wasn’t buying it. “What the hell are you trying to get at, Sam?”
“I think the dog’s ghost is the connection.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Are you seriously suggesting we need to salt-and-burn a dog’s remains, boy?”
Evie’s scared face … Mr. Gardner’s grief … Sam knew getting angry wouldn’t convince his dad, but he needed to get retribution for them. “Dammit, Dad, if Dean said to go after a dog’s ghost you’d listen!”
“Just leave me out of this,” Dean muttered to Sam.
“Your brother’d have more sense than to suggest it. I guess I’ll have to follow up on the police records on my own.”
“Dammit, Dad …”
“I am tired of listening to your attitude, Sam! If you had put the job and your family first, Dean would’ve had back-up and not gotten hurt!” John slammed his fist on the table. “I’m going to the police station. You stay here with your brother. You,” now John barked at Dean, “Explain to your brother about the importance of following orders, and respect!” With that John stormed out of the room, the force of the door behind him rattling the windows.
“Nice one, Sammy. Why do you always have to fight with Dad?” Dean rubbed his forehead like it ached, though whether from the concussion or the yelling was up for debate.
“I’m right about this, Dean.” Sam was right about a lot of things his dad refused to hear.
“Sam …”
He wasn’t going to argue with his brother. He knew what he needed to keep investigating on his own and threw everything in his backpack in a few minutes. Dean watched him, a frown on his face.
“What are you doing, Sammy?”
“It’s Sam and I’m taking care of the problem!” Sam knew his brother didn’t deserve the vitriol Sam was directing at him but he couldn’t stand to think of another family being hurt because Dad wouldn’t listen to him.
Dean tried one more time, “Sam …” and he started to get up from the bed, wincing.
“Dean. Look, dude, you’re still messed up. I’m just gonna go talk to the woman who survived back then, okay? I’ll be back before Dad. And you can tell him you gave me the ‘just say yessir!’ lecture, okay? Just let me handle this.”
It was a dead giveaway that Dean was not himself that he didn’t offer any argument. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Yeah, Dean. You get some rest.”
Part Two here: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/36337.html