"A Beast in Repose" (1/3), Supernatural, PG-13, gen.
Title: A Beast in Repose
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: This part is a hard PG-13, and the rating may climb throughout the story.
Length: Multi-chaptered; part one is 2,110 words.
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Gordon, other canon characters.
Spoilers: All of season two, especially "Bloodlust" (2x03) and "Heart" (2x17).
Summary: What if Lenore didn't think that letting Sam go was the best course of action? And what if Dean ended up in San Francisco with a different hunter at his back?
Notes: Ever since I first saw "Heart", I've been working on various drafts of this story, so this has been in the making for about a year and a half. I only have the first chapter right now, but I'm going to try to write the next two parts a lot faster than I wrote this one. (There will be more extended notes at the end of the third part.)
A Beast in Repose (part one)
Sam told Dean once, while they traveled on yet another lonely stretch of road, that San Francisco was famous for its fog. He'd taken Jess there for their first anniversary, Sam had said, and when he'd woken up the first morning, the world outside his window was covered with clouds. It was as if the city he'd seen the day before was gone, and there was nothing but their hotel room left.
Dean, of course, had told Sam that he'd been at that fruity school of his too long and paid attention to driving again.
But that's why Dean isn't surprised when Gordon parts ways with him at the Embarcadero and fades out of sight before he walks five feet. Gordon is no part of this, and neither are the buildings or the bay around him. The fog was Sam's San Francisco, and so it must be Dean's, too.
A hint of motion to the right, then nothing.
Dean takes a breath, draws the moisture into his mouth and lungs, and moves. He pads forward on the balls of his feet, the only noises from his rolling steps swallowed by the water-soaked air. His pulse pushes against the handle of his gun, and the exposed metal grows cold and warm when it shifts in his hand.
He senses the rumble before it happens, and he turns before he realizes it's gone.
A breeze stirs the dead air, tickles the slight points on the top of his head.
Sam.
Dean's ears ring, and when he opens his eyes, his arm points away from his old position. The smoke rising from the barrel of the gun joins the swirling gray around it.
The blood spilling from the fallen corpse stains the sidewalk underneath.
~
“I've been itching for a good hunt,” Gordon said. “Sure, I took a couple fangs here, but you know how it goes.”
“Which part?”
Gordon patted the dashboard with his free hand. “Getting from place to place. Wears on a man after a while.”
“What happened to enjoying the job?” Dean asked. He was tipsy enough to over-pronounce the words, but since he noticed the exaggerations, he knew that he wasn't anywhere near drunk. “That just a bunch of talk?”
“Hardly.” Gordon chuckled, his teeth reflecting the glow from the headlights. “But the miles feel longer when I know I haven't taken anything out for days.”
“Sure. ”
Dean could see Gordon shrug his shoulders out of the corner of his eyes. Gordon's clothing fit into the darkness well enough to make it difficult to look at him, and Dean wasn't in the mood to try, so he kept his eyes on the dividing lines in the road.
“Things have been a bit hit or miss on the vampire front. If I want anything else, no problem, but...well, it's not where my interest lies, if you get me.”
He did get him. Gordon had just talked about his sister in the bar, after all. If something like that had happened to Sam...
Before he could finish the thought, the car turned and hit a bump, and Dean straightened in his seat. When he spotted the Impala parked in the distance, he let out a breath, and he felt his shoulders loosen.
Dean bounced his hand on his leg a couple times, then spoke. “I'm gonna go get Sam.”
“Looked to me like he was done for the night.”
“No way I'm going nest-hunting without him.”
Gordon pulled up to the side of the motel a few paces from the Impala. “I'll get the maps.”
“Why? Let's just go.”
There was a pause, and for a moment, Dean tensed up.
“Might work better if we know where we've been before we go looking again,” Gordon said. He turned the ignition, and the engine went dead.
Dean pushed the door open. “I'll meet you inside.”
~
An echo of Sam is in Dean's head. She's just a girl, he says, the note of pain unmistakable. There has to be another way.
Maybe there is another way, but Dean neither knows of it nor cares to find out. The only reason he listens to the voice at all is because he doesn't ignore his brother. Not anymore.
He sinks down, staying on the balls of his feet. With the barrel of his gun, he nudges the girl's body a couple of times. She doesn't move. Dean notices the hole in the back of her head and the smears of pink on the pavement behind her. He nods to himself, his mouth set tight, and lets his eyes wander over the body.
It isn't until he sees it that he recognizes it.
With his free hand, he brushes her dark brown hair away from the back of her neck where a circular scar runs along the surface of her skin. The ridge is the pink of healing, still recent enough to look raw, but something that would have taken several months for a normal person to heal.
Too recent for her to be the cause of the murders.
Dean holds his breath and wills his heart to stop beating as loudly. And he wonders why the whistle of the breeze has a rattle underneath.
~
“So the west is covered?”
Dean nodded and squeezed his eyes shut. His lids were stinging, and if he could have ripped them off, he would have. “Up to the river.”
“That's where we should start,” Gordon said. “If you're up for it.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gordon leaned back in his chair and parted the curtains with his thumb. “Night's not getting any longer.”
“I know.” Dean rubbed a finger over one of his eyebrows. “Sam should have been back by now.”
“Maybe he went for a walk. He seems like the walking type.”
“I guess.”
Gordon straightened. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“At the door.”
Dean pushed out of his chair. As he approached the door, he pulled his pearl-handled gun out of the back of his pants and cocked it. Gordon was already flattened against the wall. His own piece was nestled in one hand, and with the other, he curled his fingers around the door handle. He looked at Dean, then back at the door.
Dean raised his head slowly, listening. When he didn’t hear anything, he let it drop.
Gordon pulled the handle.
~
“Come out, you son of a bitch,” Dean mutters.
He wraps his hands around the butt of his gun and slides around in a circle. He keeps the body in the corner of his eye, partially to keep from tripping, and partially because corpses make great bait.
It isn't until the hair rises on the back of his neck that he catches a smell on the breeze. Something like the combination of wet dog and rotting flesh.
Dean throws himself to his left just as a blur passes to the right. It clips his shoulder, and he spins as he falls, landing hard on his stomach before he can try to catch himself. He starts to lose his grip on the gun, but his fingers stay latched around.
He throws his gun hand behind him and rolls with the motion just as a paw the size of his head hits the ground beside him. His leg contacts with what feels like a column of brick, but the way it shakes tells him that it's not.
Blood runs down Dean's arm. He howls as his vision blurs and whatever digs into his shoulder buries in further, scraping against bone.
The fog presses on his eyes. It’s all he can see now.
~
No one stood on the front step. That didn't stop Dean from sliding out of the room to the left, and the brush to his back told him that Gordon did the same to the right.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No...wait.”
Dean spun around, but Gordon was kneeling, his free hand pulling at string. A trickle of blood oozed past the edge of Gordon's boot, and Dean tilted his head enough to see that the string was holding a garbage bag closed.
“Looks like they left us a present,” Dean said. He craned his head upward and looked around. “They must know we're closing in.”
Gordon's hand dropped. “Dean.”
“What?” Maybe there was a tire tread or a print somewhere, maybe...
“Dean.”
His head snapped down just as Gordon rose and moved away from the bag.
~
“Motherfucker!”
Dean takes his gun out of his weakening hand and shoves it against the monster's belly. His pointer finger squeezes so hard that, for a minute, he thinks the trigger's going to slice through the joint.
A couple rounds go off, and the claws in Dean's shoulder relax.
They both drop to the ground, the beast on its side, and Dean on his knees. The shock of impact is so hard that his knees buckle, and he falls forward.
The creature whines, a high-pitched noise that scratches against eardrums. Dean grinds his teeth together and pulls himself slowly onto his elbow, clenching the gun as he jars his hurt shoulder.
That's when Dean gets a good view of the werewolf for the first time.
It isn't dead - it would revert to human form if that happened - but it can't move. It's shaped somewhat like a dog: long torso, four legs underneath. The back legs could belong to any canine, but the front legs are more human. The paws have five fingers with dagger-shaped tips, there's a bend where a wrist should be, and there's even an elbow.
Dean's blood puddles next to one hand, dripping off the clumps of tissue that clings to the claws.
“You...” Dean says past his swelling throat, “you know...who did it.”
The werewolf's eyes move to Dean’s face, but they don’t seem able to focus on anything.
“Tell me.”
The werewolf twitches, but says nothing.
“Tell me!”
“Dean!”
Gordon.
~
“No.” Dean shook his head. “No...no.”
Gordon stepped up beside him, his leg resting against Dean’s shoulder. Dean can feel him pause, and then his touch is gone. Probably checking to make sure there was no one waiting to jump them, like Dad would have done.
You have to save him. If you can’t--
Dad. It was his fault. They wouldn’t even be here if Dad was still…
His fingers brushed Sam’s bangs. The hair felt like his, soft but coarse. He’d cut Sammy’s hair enough times to know how it felt.
Sam.
“Dean.”
He looked up at Gordon. The other hunter was still holding his gun, but his arms were relaxed and by his side.
“We have to get them,” Dean said.
Gordon nodded. “I know. But this is a threat, and if we don’t leave, regroup…”
“I don’t care.” Dean looked up at Gordon, and he could feel his jaw set in place. “I’m going to find them.”
“It’s too late for him.”
Him. Sam. But this wasn’t Sam. This...was just a head.
Dean let his eyes narrow. “It’s never too late.”
~
“Gordon,” Dean says, glancing to his left. “Help me out here.”
The mist swirls, and Gordon steps out, wisps of cloud floating around his head and disappearing. Dean finds it weird that he’s not looking him in the eyes, but he can’t figure why.
It’s only when Gordon looks at the wolf on the ground that he speaks. “Help you with what?”
“The wolf. He knows something.”
“Something?”
Dean puts his free hand to his shoulder. It was really starting to sting. “About Sam! He won’t talk.”
“He’s not going to.”
“What…”
But Dean knows before he looks over that the man’s reverted to human form.
No were can handle silver. You get at least two shots in, even in non-vital spots, and that’s usually enough.
He wants to protest, dig the bullets out...anything. But his limbs are going numb, and Gordon’s pointing a gun in his face.
“Show me your shoulder,” he says, and Dean understands why they aren’t meeting each other’s gazes.
Dean sways on his feet and drops to his knees, and his eyelids flutter. But he pulls away the tatters of jacket and shirt to fully reveal the wound that Gordon could probably see just fine already.
“I’m sorry,” Gordon says, cocking his gun.
Briefly, Dean considers begging for his life. Still, as he looks at the barrel of the gun, all he can see is darkness, the peace that Sam craved and Dad never gave them.
He closes his eyes and feels every muscle in his body relax. It isn’t until this moment that he knows how much he’s wanted the hunt to end this way.
Sam.
( Part two.)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: This part is a hard PG-13, and the rating may climb throughout the story.
Length: Multi-chaptered; part one is 2,110 words.
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Gordon, other canon characters.
Spoilers: All of season two, especially "Bloodlust" (2x03) and "Heart" (2x17).
Summary: What if Lenore didn't think that letting Sam go was the best course of action? And what if Dean ended up in San Francisco with a different hunter at his back?
Notes: Ever since I first saw "Heart", I've been working on various drafts of this story, so this has been in the making for about a year and a half. I only have the first chapter right now, but I'm going to try to write the next two parts a lot faster than I wrote this one. (There will be more extended notes at the end of the third part.)
A Beast in Repose (part one)
Sam told Dean once, while they traveled on yet another lonely stretch of road, that San Francisco was famous for its fog. He'd taken Jess there for their first anniversary, Sam had said, and when he'd woken up the first morning, the world outside his window was covered with clouds. It was as if the city he'd seen the day before was gone, and there was nothing but their hotel room left.
Dean, of course, had told Sam that he'd been at that fruity school of his too long and paid attention to driving again.
But that's why Dean isn't surprised when Gordon parts ways with him at the Embarcadero and fades out of sight before he walks five feet. Gordon is no part of this, and neither are the buildings or the bay around him. The fog was Sam's San Francisco, and so it must be Dean's, too.
A hint of motion to the right, then nothing.
Dean takes a breath, draws the moisture into his mouth and lungs, and moves. He pads forward on the balls of his feet, the only noises from his rolling steps swallowed by the water-soaked air. His pulse pushes against the handle of his gun, and the exposed metal grows cold and warm when it shifts in his hand.
He senses the rumble before it happens, and he turns before he realizes it's gone.
A breeze stirs the dead air, tickles the slight points on the top of his head.
Sam.
Dean's ears ring, and when he opens his eyes, his arm points away from his old position. The smoke rising from the barrel of the gun joins the swirling gray around it.
The blood spilling from the fallen corpse stains the sidewalk underneath.
~
“I've been itching for a good hunt,” Gordon said. “Sure, I took a couple fangs here, but you know how it goes.”
“Which part?”
Gordon patted the dashboard with his free hand. “Getting from place to place. Wears on a man after a while.”
“What happened to enjoying the job?” Dean asked. He was tipsy enough to over-pronounce the words, but since he noticed the exaggerations, he knew that he wasn't anywhere near drunk. “That just a bunch of talk?”
“Hardly.” Gordon chuckled, his teeth reflecting the glow from the headlights. “But the miles feel longer when I know I haven't taken anything out for days.”
“Sure. ”
Dean could see Gordon shrug his shoulders out of the corner of his eyes. Gordon's clothing fit into the darkness well enough to make it difficult to look at him, and Dean wasn't in the mood to try, so he kept his eyes on the dividing lines in the road.
“Things have been a bit hit or miss on the vampire front. If I want anything else, no problem, but...well, it's not where my interest lies, if you get me.”
He did get him. Gordon had just talked about his sister in the bar, after all. If something like that had happened to Sam...
Before he could finish the thought, the car turned and hit a bump, and Dean straightened in his seat. When he spotted the Impala parked in the distance, he let out a breath, and he felt his shoulders loosen.
Dean bounced his hand on his leg a couple times, then spoke. “I'm gonna go get Sam.”
“Looked to me like he was done for the night.”
“No way I'm going nest-hunting without him.”
Gordon pulled up to the side of the motel a few paces from the Impala. “I'll get the maps.”
“Why? Let's just go.”
There was a pause, and for a moment, Dean tensed up.
“Might work better if we know where we've been before we go looking again,” Gordon said. He turned the ignition, and the engine went dead.
Dean pushed the door open. “I'll meet you inside.”
~
An echo of Sam is in Dean's head. She's just a girl, he says, the note of pain unmistakable. There has to be another way.
Maybe there is another way, but Dean neither knows of it nor cares to find out. The only reason he listens to the voice at all is because he doesn't ignore his brother. Not anymore.
He sinks down, staying on the balls of his feet. With the barrel of his gun, he nudges the girl's body a couple of times. She doesn't move. Dean notices the hole in the back of her head and the smears of pink on the pavement behind her. He nods to himself, his mouth set tight, and lets his eyes wander over the body.
It isn't until he sees it that he recognizes it.
With his free hand, he brushes her dark brown hair away from the back of her neck where a circular scar runs along the surface of her skin. The ridge is the pink of healing, still recent enough to look raw, but something that would have taken several months for a normal person to heal.
Too recent for her to be the cause of the murders.
Dean holds his breath and wills his heart to stop beating as loudly. And he wonders why the whistle of the breeze has a rattle underneath.
~
“So the west is covered?”
Dean nodded and squeezed his eyes shut. His lids were stinging, and if he could have ripped them off, he would have. “Up to the river.”
“That's where we should start,” Gordon said. “If you're up for it.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gordon leaned back in his chair and parted the curtains with his thumb. “Night's not getting any longer.”
“I know.” Dean rubbed a finger over one of his eyebrows. “Sam should have been back by now.”
“Maybe he went for a walk. He seems like the walking type.”
“I guess.”
Gordon straightened. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“At the door.”
Dean pushed out of his chair. As he approached the door, he pulled his pearl-handled gun out of the back of his pants and cocked it. Gordon was already flattened against the wall. His own piece was nestled in one hand, and with the other, he curled his fingers around the door handle. He looked at Dean, then back at the door.
Dean raised his head slowly, listening. When he didn’t hear anything, he let it drop.
Gordon pulled the handle.
~
“Come out, you son of a bitch,” Dean mutters.
He wraps his hands around the butt of his gun and slides around in a circle. He keeps the body in the corner of his eye, partially to keep from tripping, and partially because corpses make great bait.
It isn't until the hair rises on the back of his neck that he catches a smell on the breeze. Something like the combination of wet dog and rotting flesh.
Dean throws himself to his left just as a blur passes to the right. It clips his shoulder, and he spins as he falls, landing hard on his stomach before he can try to catch himself. He starts to lose his grip on the gun, but his fingers stay latched around.
He throws his gun hand behind him and rolls with the motion just as a paw the size of his head hits the ground beside him. His leg contacts with what feels like a column of brick, but the way it shakes tells him that it's not.
Blood runs down Dean's arm. He howls as his vision blurs and whatever digs into his shoulder buries in further, scraping against bone.
The fog presses on his eyes. It’s all he can see now.
~
No one stood on the front step. That didn't stop Dean from sliding out of the room to the left, and the brush to his back told him that Gordon did the same to the right.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No...wait.”
Dean spun around, but Gordon was kneeling, his free hand pulling at string. A trickle of blood oozed past the edge of Gordon's boot, and Dean tilted his head enough to see that the string was holding a garbage bag closed.
“Looks like they left us a present,” Dean said. He craned his head upward and looked around. “They must know we're closing in.”
Gordon's hand dropped. “Dean.”
“What?” Maybe there was a tire tread or a print somewhere, maybe...
“Dean.”
His head snapped down just as Gordon rose and moved away from the bag.
~
“Motherfucker!”
Dean takes his gun out of his weakening hand and shoves it against the monster's belly. His pointer finger squeezes so hard that, for a minute, he thinks the trigger's going to slice through the joint.
A couple rounds go off, and the claws in Dean's shoulder relax.
They both drop to the ground, the beast on its side, and Dean on his knees. The shock of impact is so hard that his knees buckle, and he falls forward.
The creature whines, a high-pitched noise that scratches against eardrums. Dean grinds his teeth together and pulls himself slowly onto his elbow, clenching the gun as he jars his hurt shoulder.
That's when Dean gets a good view of the werewolf for the first time.
It isn't dead - it would revert to human form if that happened - but it can't move. It's shaped somewhat like a dog: long torso, four legs underneath. The back legs could belong to any canine, but the front legs are more human. The paws have five fingers with dagger-shaped tips, there's a bend where a wrist should be, and there's even an elbow.
Dean's blood puddles next to one hand, dripping off the clumps of tissue that clings to the claws.
“You...” Dean says past his swelling throat, “you know...who did it.”
The werewolf's eyes move to Dean’s face, but they don’t seem able to focus on anything.
“Tell me.”
The werewolf twitches, but says nothing.
“Tell me!”
“Dean!”
Gordon.
~
“No.” Dean shook his head. “No...no.”
Gordon stepped up beside him, his leg resting against Dean’s shoulder. Dean can feel him pause, and then his touch is gone. Probably checking to make sure there was no one waiting to jump them, like Dad would have done.
You have to save him. If you can’t--
Dad. It was his fault. They wouldn’t even be here if Dad was still…
His fingers brushed Sam’s bangs. The hair felt like his, soft but coarse. He’d cut Sammy’s hair enough times to know how it felt.
Sam.
“Dean.”
He looked up at Gordon. The other hunter was still holding his gun, but his arms were relaxed and by his side.
“We have to get them,” Dean said.
Gordon nodded. “I know. But this is a threat, and if we don’t leave, regroup…”
“I don’t care.” Dean looked up at Gordon, and he could feel his jaw set in place. “I’m going to find them.”
“It’s too late for him.”
Him. Sam. But this wasn’t Sam. This...was just a head.
Dean let his eyes narrow. “It’s never too late.”
~
“Gordon,” Dean says, glancing to his left. “Help me out here.”
The mist swirls, and Gordon steps out, wisps of cloud floating around his head and disappearing. Dean finds it weird that he’s not looking him in the eyes, but he can’t figure why.
It’s only when Gordon looks at the wolf on the ground that he speaks. “Help you with what?”
“The wolf. He knows something.”
“Something?”
Dean puts his free hand to his shoulder. It was really starting to sting. “About Sam! He won’t talk.”
“He’s not going to.”
“What…”
But Dean knows before he looks over that the man’s reverted to human form.
No were can handle silver. You get at least two shots in, even in non-vital spots, and that’s usually enough.
He wants to protest, dig the bullets out...anything. But his limbs are going numb, and Gordon’s pointing a gun in his face.
“Show me your shoulder,” he says, and Dean understands why they aren’t meeting each other’s gazes.
Dean sways on his feet and drops to his knees, and his eyelids flutter. But he pulls away the tatters of jacket and shirt to fully reveal the wound that Gordon could probably see just fine already.
“I’m sorry,” Gordon says, cocking his gun.
Briefly, Dean considers begging for his life. Still, as he looks at the barrel of the gun, all he can see is darkness, the peace that Sam craved and Dad never gave them.
He closes his eyes and feels every muscle in his body relax. It isn’t until this moment that he knows how much he’s wanted the hunt to end this way.
Sam.
( Part two.)