"A Beast in Repose" (2/?), Supernatural, PG-13, gen.
Title: A Beast in Repose
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 for language and mild gore/violence.
Length: Part two is about 2000 words; the entire story is currently about 4100.
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Bobby, 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: In the first part, I estimated that there would be three parts to this story, but as I wrote this part, my ideas for the ending changed drastically. That means there's going to be at least two or three more parts before this finishes. And as I stated in the first part, I'll include extended notes at the end of the last part.
Part One
A Beast in Repose (part two)
Dean knows he's in Bobby's place before he opens his eyes. The smell alone is a dead giveaway: cigar smoke, beer, and the barest hint of sulfur underneath. But he hears the soles of Bobby's ass-kicking boots putting his floorboards in their place after he takes a whiff, and he smiles.
With a groan, Dean sits upright. It feels like hammers went to town on his head and knives sliced up his wrists, but he's alive.
He's alive?
How?
San Francisco...he passed out in California and woke up in South Dakota. Driving that distance would take days...nearly a week with the snow that still choked the mountain passes, longer if there were new storms.
How in the hell did I sleep for a week?
It's only when Dean reaches a hand to his head and his wrists rattle that he realizes he's asking the wrong questions. But then, it isn't every day that Bobby keeps Dean chained in his basement.
~
Bobby takes a sip of his beer and puts it on the table. He heard Dean clanking downstairs a while ago, probably when the boy first woke up, but he doesn't regret letting him stew in his juices. He was and likely still is confused all to hell, but Bobby was in no hurry to get back to him. He still isn't, but he's going to have to get this over with at some point.
He rises, stretches his arms forward, and makes his way toward the basement. His footsteps click in time with his heartbeat, so his pace is the perfect speed: fast enough so he'll get somewhere eventually, but slow enough so that Dean will know he's coming. The last thing he wants to do is surprise him.
Bobby stops at the top of the stairs. He left the door open the last time he left just for this reason.
“Dean?”
A pause, then, “What the hell is going on?”
Yep. Dean's definitely awake.
Bobby doesn't answer him at first. He walks down the steps a little slower than he'd been walking before and takes in the sight of Dean.
The black eye healed almost completely, and the only way he can see it is because he knows to look for the yellow-tinged skin. Almost all of the lacerations are closed up as well, some with raised pink reminders left over, some completely gone. Mostly, Dean's looking the way he normally does...but Bobby frequently sees Dean when he's beat to hell, so maybe he isn't the best judge.
The main differences are where the repeated, heavy injuries are. Dean hit his head about a million times, so his hair's stained a dark red from the blood, and his wrists are torn so badly that Bobby's surprised he can't see bone.
What he didn't notice before is just how skinny the boy looks. Dean's never been huge, but his cheekbones hadn't ever poked out as much as they are now. Bobby noticed a couple of days ago that the clothes he'd had to keep replacing were hanging off of Dean, but Bobby had thought before that it was only because he'd had to use his own clothes after they were away from the stores.
Dean glares up at Bobby, but his gaze seems pointed to the wall next to Bobby's head, so it's likely the gloom's too much for him. That answers one question.
“Answer me!”
The voice Dean uses is the gruff one that Bobby thinks of as his “command” voice because John sounded the exact same way when he was doing his military crap. He bites his tongue in order to keep from shooting some smart-ass remark back; Dean isn't John, and Bobby isn't going to screw up this situation more than he already had.
“How you feeling?”
“Like warmed-over shit. Thanks.” It's good to hear the sarcasm's still intact.
Bobby walks the rest of the way down the stairs, takes three paces, then stops. He's past the limit of Dean's chains by a few feet, and he has no interest in closing the distance at this point.
Dean's eyes focus on Bobby's face, and the grimace on his face fades, along with the color he had in his cheeks. If he's any color now, it's green.
Bobby can't help smiling. Even with everything screwed, he still has the element of surprise. And that means he has the upper hand.
~
Bobby's missing a fucking eye.
Dean isn't a genius, and maybe he can't come to the ends easy, but he reads clues as good as anyone. He sees the claw marks down Bobby's face, that the cuts around Bobby's eye in particular don't look even close to healed. The limited medical know-how Dean has tells him that Bobby shouldn't be exposing it to air because it looks about two seconds away from bleeding.
“Damn it, Bobby,” he says. “What the hell were you doing in San Francisco?”
Bobby snorts. “Following your dumb ass. What else?”
“Why?”
“Not important.” Bobby lowers into a crouch, wincing as he does so. “There's other things need to be said.”
Dean rolls his tongue around in his mouth and gives a wince of his own. The roof of his mouth feels like fucking Death Valley, but he isn't about to ask Bobby for water. He hopes that he can get some spit, or talking's going to suck.
He bounces his hand up and down a couple of times and lets chain rattle. “You could say that again.”
“What do you remember, exactly?”
“Um...” Dean does his best to shut out the gaping socket in Bobby's face long enough to conjure up some thoughts. But it's easier said than done. “Gordon and I noticed that a lot of murders were popping up in San Fran, and they all fit into the full moon cycle. We got there, found a wolf, found its wolf buddy...anyway, I killed them.”
“And?”
And Gordon was a few seconds away from putting his lights out for good.
“I guess I got hurt, or something.” Dean frowns. “Where's Gordon?”
The grin that Bobby gives Dean sends shivers across his skin. “Shark bait, I'd expect. They're supposed to be nasty in that bay.”
“You killed him?”
“It was you or him. I probably shoulda let him plug you, but a man's entitled to his lapses.”
“You're a real pal.”
“Sure.” Bobby rises to his feet. “Bet you're wondering about these here chains.”
“It's crossed my mind.”
“And I saw you staring at my face.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Thought it was polite to look someone in the face when talking to them.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Bobby scratches at the stubble on his cheek with his hand. “You ain't stupid, no matter how good you play stupid.”
“Look,” Dean says. “Let's just get to it, okay?”
“Get to it?”
“You're going to shoot me.”
“Am I?”
“Now who's playing stupid?”
Bobby steps forward, and Dean turns his head away from Bobby. “Just make it quick.”
The chains around Dean's wrists yank forward, and Dean looks back. Bobby's holding what looks like a key, and he's bringing it toward the metal.
“What the hell?” Dean asks, his eyes widening to a near painful size.
Bobby doesn't answer. He narrows his eyes, then sets the key inside the lock. He turns it a couple of times, and the metal separates, leaving one of Dean's wrists bare.
It isn't until the second cuff's off and Bobby's working on the ones around Dean's ankles that he speaks again. “Told you that we needed to talk.”
“We were doing just fine.”
Bobby shakes his head and pushes chain out of his way. “I need to show you something.”
“Haven't you shown me enough?”
“I went to San Fran...” Bobby trails off for a moment as he unlocks the last cuff. “The reason I followed you was because I found something.”
As soon as Bobby backs away - which is faster than an old injured man should have the right to move, come to it - Dean starts to rise to his feet. It's hard, and he wasn't expecting anything less, but that doesn't mean he likes it.
He sees Bobby watching him out of the corner of his eye, and he sighs. “I can barely walk. I think you're safe.”
“Just the same, you're going first.”
Dean shrugs. “Fine.”
He takes a couple steps, pauses as his legs wobble, and keeps going. If he could manage to walk when he was a breath away from heart failure, then he can walk when he's lost a week of his life. No big deal.
It takes him about five minutes to get to the stairs and walk to the top. He has to stop a couple of times because his legs cramp and won't let him move further. Bobby hovers a good twenty feet back the entire time; he doesn't even approach the bottom until Dean's at the top.
“Geez, Bobby, give a man room to breathe,” Dean says, trying not to wince.
“Go to the kitchen.”
Dean exhales and opens the door. His heart's pounding in his ears, but he isn't sure why. Walking's hard, sure, but his breathing's normal, and he hasn't broken a sweat. He won't even let himself think that it's because he's scared.
When he's cleared the door by several feet, he hears Bobby's boots clanking up the stairs. He's tempted to stop in place and watch Bobby, give him a taste of his own medicine, but Dean also wants to sit down. He decides to give the victory to Bobby and shuffles to the kitchen. At least Dean isn't dead.
Keep telling yourself that, and you might start believing it.
And just like that, the ache returns. It's nothing physical, at least in origin, but man, Dean feels it in his chest and his gut. He wishes that the vampires that ripped Sam's head off had taken out his heart instead; it probably would hurt less, in the long run.
Once he gets inside, he leans against the kitchen counter for a minute - of course, his arms hurt nearly as much as his legs, but at least it's a switch -- then sits in a chair. As he suspects, his legs stop giving him trouble, but he doesn't seem to ache any less.
Goddamn it, Sam.
Why had it been so easy for Sam? All that he'd had to do was leave that bar, get taken by some vampires, and boom, done. Dean had been roughed up plenty by a werewolf and nearly gunned down, but he's still up and walking around. Sort of, anyway.
Dean realizes, as he sits waiting for whatever in Bobby's kitchen, that he hates Sam just as much as he misses him. And that's why he still hurts; he can't forgive himself for hating his own brother.
It isn't until he hears a thump just outside of the sliding doors that Dean looks up.
“Open it,” Bobby says, so quietly that Dean almost can't hear him.
“What?” Dean asks.
Bobby grunts. “You stay seated, boy.”
Fingers slip between the doors, then push them apart. Dean watches as the doors slide and reveal the people behind.
People.
Bobby's behind the first man, and since that's who Dean is looking for, his eyes flash there first. Bobby's mouth is set tight, and he isn't watching Dean.
He's watching Sam.
Before Dean can take the time to consider why Sam is standing in front of him...how Sam is standing in front of him, Bobby steps forward. The florescent light above Dean's head reflects in Bobby's hand, and Dean stands as fast as he can.
A knife is buried in Sam's chest before Dean can take one step forward.
( Part three.)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 for language and mild gore/violence.
Length: Part two is about 2000 words; the entire story is currently about 4100.
Characters/Pairings: Dean, Bobby, 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: In the first part, I estimated that there would be three parts to this story, but as I wrote this part, my ideas for the ending changed drastically. That means there's going to be at least two or three more parts before this finishes. And as I stated in the first part, I'll include extended notes at the end of the last part.
Part One
A Beast in Repose (part two)
Dean knows he's in Bobby's place before he opens his eyes. The smell alone is a dead giveaway: cigar smoke, beer, and the barest hint of sulfur underneath. But he hears the soles of Bobby's ass-kicking boots putting his floorboards in their place after he takes a whiff, and he smiles.
With a groan, Dean sits upright. It feels like hammers went to town on his head and knives sliced up his wrists, but he's alive.
He's alive?
How?
San Francisco...he passed out in California and woke up in South Dakota. Driving that distance would take days...nearly a week with the snow that still choked the mountain passes, longer if there were new storms.
How in the hell did I sleep for a week?
It's only when Dean reaches a hand to his head and his wrists rattle that he realizes he's asking the wrong questions. But then, it isn't every day that Bobby keeps Dean chained in his basement.
~
Bobby takes a sip of his beer and puts it on the table. He heard Dean clanking downstairs a while ago, probably when the boy first woke up, but he doesn't regret letting him stew in his juices. He was and likely still is confused all to hell, but Bobby was in no hurry to get back to him. He still isn't, but he's going to have to get this over with at some point.
He rises, stretches his arms forward, and makes his way toward the basement. His footsteps click in time with his heartbeat, so his pace is the perfect speed: fast enough so he'll get somewhere eventually, but slow enough so that Dean will know he's coming. The last thing he wants to do is surprise him.
Bobby stops at the top of the stairs. He left the door open the last time he left just for this reason.
“Dean?”
A pause, then, “What the hell is going on?”
Yep. Dean's definitely awake.
Bobby doesn't answer him at first. He walks down the steps a little slower than he'd been walking before and takes in the sight of Dean.
The black eye healed almost completely, and the only way he can see it is because he knows to look for the yellow-tinged skin. Almost all of the lacerations are closed up as well, some with raised pink reminders left over, some completely gone. Mostly, Dean's looking the way he normally does...but Bobby frequently sees Dean when he's beat to hell, so maybe he isn't the best judge.
The main differences are where the repeated, heavy injuries are. Dean hit his head about a million times, so his hair's stained a dark red from the blood, and his wrists are torn so badly that Bobby's surprised he can't see bone.
What he didn't notice before is just how skinny the boy looks. Dean's never been huge, but his cheekbones hadn't ever poked out as much as they are now. Bobby noticed a couple of days ago that the clothes he'd had to keep replacing were hanging off of Dean, but Bobby had thought before that it was only because he'd had to use his own clothes after they were away from the stores.
Dean glares up at Bobby, but his gaze seems pointed to the wall next to Bobby's head, so it's likely the gloom's too much for him. That answers one question.
“Answer me!”
The voice Dean uses is the gruff one that Bobby thinks of as his “command” voice because John sounded the exact same way when he was doing his military crap. He bites his tongue in order to keep from shooting some smart-ass remark back; Dean isn't John, and Bobby isn't going to screw up this situation more than he already had.
“How you feeling?”
“Like warmed-over shit. Thanks.” It's good to hear the sarcasm's still intact.
Bobby walks the rest of the way down the stairs, takes three paces, then stops. He's past the limit of Dean's chains by a few feet, and he has no interest in closing the distance at this point.
Dean's eyes focus on Bobby's face, and the grimace on his face fades, along with the color he had in his cheeks. If he's any color now, it's green.
Bobby can't help smiling. Even with everything screwed, he still has the element of surprise. And that means he has the upper hand.
~
Bobby's missing a fucking eye.
Dean isn't a genius, and maybe he can't come to the ends easy, but he reads clues as good as anyone. He sees the claw marks down Bobby's face, that the cuts around Bobby's eye in particular don't look even close to healed. The limited medical know-how Dean has tells him that Bobby shouldn't be exposing it to air because it looks about two seconds away from bleeding.
“Damn it, Bobby,” he says. “What the hell were you doing in San Francisco?”
Bobby snorts. “Following your dumb ass. What else?”
“Why?”
“Not important.” Bobby lowers into a crouch, wincing as he does so. “There's other things need to be said.”
Dean rolls his tongue around in his mouth and gives a wince of his own. The roof of his mouth feels like fucking Death Valley, but he isn't about to ask Bobby for water. He hopes that he can get some spit, or talking's going to suck.
He bounces his hand up and down a couple of times and lets chain rattle. “You could say that again.”
“What do you remember, exactly?”
“Um...” Dean does his best to shut out the gaping socket in Bobby's face long enough to conjure up some thoughts. But it's easier said than done. “Gordon and I noticed that a lot of murders were popping up in San Fran, and they all fit into the full moon cycle. We got there, found a wolf, found its wolf buddy...anyway, I killed them.”
“And?”
And Gordon was a few seconds away from putting his lights out for good.
“I guess I got hurt, or something.” Dean frowns. “Where's Gordon?”
The grin that Bobby gives Dean sends shivers across his skin. “Shark bait, I'd expect. They're supposed to be nasty in that bay.”
“You killed him?”
“It was you or him. I probably shoulda let him plug you, but a man's entitled to his lapses.”
“You're a real pal.”
“Sure.” Bobby rises to his feet. “Bet you're wondering about these here chains.”
“It's crossed my mind.”
“And I saw you staring at my face.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Thought it was polite to look someone in the face when talking to them.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Bobby scratches at the stubble on his cheek with his hand. “You ain't stupid, no matter how good you play stupid.”
“Look,” Dean says. “Let's just get to it, okay?”
“Get to it?”
“You're going to shoot me.”
“Am I?”
“Now who's playing stupid?”
Bobby steps forward, and Dean turns his head away from Bobby. “Just make it quick.”
The chains around Dean's wrists yank forward, and Dean looks back. Bobby's holding what looks like a key, and he's bringing it toward the metal.
“What the hell?” Dean asks, his eyes widening to a near painful size.
Bobby doesn't answer. He narrows his eyes, then sets the key inside the lock. He turns it a couple of times, and the metal separates, leaving one of Dean's wrists bare.
It isn't until the second cuff's off and Bobby's working on the ones around Dean's ankles that he speaks again. “Told you that we needed to talk.”
“We were doing just fine.”
Bobby shakes his head and pushes chain out of his way. “I need to show you something.”
“Haven't you shown me enough?”
“I went to San Fran...” Bobby trails off for a moment as he unlocks the last cuff. “The reason I followed you was because I found something.”
As soon as Bobby backs away - which is faster than an old injured man should have the right to move, come to it - Dean starts to rise to his feet. It's hard, and he wasn't expecting anything less, but that doesn't mean he likes it.
He sees Bobby watching him out of the corner of his eye, and he sighs. “I can barely walk. I think you're safe.”
“Just the same, you're going first.”
Dean shrugs. “Fine.”
He takes a couple steps, pauses as his legs wobble, and keeps going. If he could manage to walk when he was a breath away from heart failure, then he can walk when he's lost a week of his life. No big deal.
It takes him about five minutes to get to the stairs and walk to the top. He has to stop a couple of times because his legs cramp and won't let him move further. Bobby hovers a good twenty feet back the entire time; he doesn't even approach the bottom until Dean's at the top.
“Geez, Bobby, give a man room to breathe,” Dean says, trying not to wince.
“Go to the kitchen.”
Dean exhales and opens the door. His heart's pounding in his ears, but he isn't sure why. Walking's hard, sure, but his breathing's normal, and he hasn't broken a sweat. He won't even let himself think that it's because he's scared.
When he's cleared the door by several feet, he hears Bobby's boots clanking up the stairs. He's tempted to stop in place and watch Bobby, give him a taste of his own medicine, but Dean also wants to sit down. He decides to give the victory to Bobby and shuffles to the kitchen. At least Dean isn't dead.
Keep telling yourself that, and you might start believing it.
And just like that, the ache returns. It's nothing physical, at least in origin, but man, Dean feels it in his chest and his gut. He wishes that the vampires that ripped Sam's head off had taken out his heart instead; it probably would hurt less, in the long run.
Once he gets inside, he leans against the kitchen counter for a minute - of course, his arms hurt nearly as much as his legs, but at least it's a switch -- then sits in a chair. As he suspects, his legs stop giving him trouble, but he doesn't seem to ache any less.
Goddamn it, Sam.
Why had it been so easy for Sam? All that he'd had to do was leave that bar, get taken by some vampires, and boom, done. Dean had been roughed up plenty by a werewolf and nearly gunned down, but he's still up and walking around. Sort of, anyway.
Dean realizes, as he sits waiting for whatever in Bobby's kitchen, that he hates Sam just as much as he misses him. And that's why he still hurts; he can't forgive himself for hating his own brother.
It isn't until he hears a thump just outside of the sliding doors that Dean looks up.
“Open it,” Bobby says, so quietly that Dean almost can't hear him.
“What?” Dean asks.
Bobby grunts. “You stay seated, boy.”
Fingers slip between the doors, then push them apart. Dean watches as the doors slide and reveal the people behind.
People.
Bobby's behind the first man, and since that's who Dean is looking for, his eyes flash there first. Bobby's mouth is set tight, and he isn't watching Dean.
He's watching Sam.
Before Dean can take the time to consider why Sam is standing in front of him...how Sam is standing in front of him, Bobby steps forward. The florescent light above Dean's head reflects in Bobby's hand, and Dean stands as fast as he can.
A knife is buried in Sam's chest before Dean can take one step forward.
( Part three.)