09x08 - Salty Dog - Part Four: Slipstream
Episode Number: 09x08 of Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Salty Dog
Subtitle: Slipstream
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,005
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence
Status: Complete.
Dean and Sam switched watch around two in the morning. Dean made a mental note that sleeping in a rental truck was never a good idea, though he did manage to fall asleep.
Right before dawn, Sam woke him.
"Dean, come on, you have to see this."
"Of course I do," Dean muttered, "two hours of sleep is too much."
"Put your glasses on," Sam said.
"Huh?"
"Your glasses!" Sam shoved them on his brother's face.
Dean let himself be pulled into the mausoleum. "What could you possibly - "
"Look, Dean," Sam cut him off.
He did. Parts of the interior were red and dark, almost splotchy. Dean took his glasses off and wiped them, then put them back on.
"Uh, okay, this - "
"You see them too?" Sam asked.
"You mean the weird red and dark splotches, yeah," Dean replied. "Why?"
Sam didn't bother responding. He raced to one of the splotches and groped around. "Aha!" he vocalized, yanking his hand out. Tightly clutched in his palm was a hex bag, emitting a red and black haze.
"No way, these things can spot witchcraft?"
"Demon-related witchcraft, apparently," Sam said. "There's gotta be a dozen or so of these."
"You wanna collect them all?" Dean said. "What are they, Pokémon?"
"Your references are terrible at dawn, you know that? We need to see what kind of mojo this witch has, com'on."
Dean muttered to himself about hauling hellhound carcasses and now hex bags as he collected the five nearest to him.
"I guess I'm driving," Sam said to the still-sleepy Dean as they dropped the hex bags into the curse box.
Dean climbed into the passenger seat and promptly fell back asleep.
Sam pulled the truck into the abandoned warehouse they'd scouted. They hadn't had enough time to prepare it, so after parking in one of the empty loading rooms, Sam let Dean sleep while he prepped with sigils, warding, and traps.
Dean woke up a few hours later, just as Sam finished dissecting the hex bags.
"What do we got?" Dean asked unapologetically.
"Twelve hex bags, each with the same mix with a novelty talisman."
"Talisman? Doesn't that protect you from bad stuff?"
Sam laughed. "Yeah, I don't know what's going on with this, but these talismans are all the same shape, just made from different metals."
Sam held up one of them.
"Whirlpool," Dean suggested.
"Actually, this is an ancient manifestation of the symbol for mana," Sam replied.
"Oh, now I see it," Dean said sarcastically.
"Why don't you look at the bodies?"
"What am I looking for?" Dean asked.
He grabbed his glasses and wandered over to the three rows Sam set out. Each dog had its own trap. "How long was I out?" Dean asked.
"Hours."
Dean started with the hybrid that was torn to shreds by the hellhounds, since there wasn't much left. He poked at it with a knife for a few minutes before Sam cleared his throat.
"What?" Dean snapped.
"There's a tray of utensils for you, Dean," Sam pointed.
"I knew that."
Sam identified the metallic composition of the talismans, and he labeled each corresponding hex bag with its contents as he went. Dean admired his brother's methodical nature, even though it also made him a pain in the ass.
Something caught Dean's eye.
"Huh, I think I've got something."
He used the tongs to grab at a small, shiny object from the soupy remains of the hybrid.
"What?" Sam said, coming to his side.
"Uh, looks like a metallic whirlpool," Dean said.
"This is just like the talisman in one of the bags - "
Sam suddenly was everywhere. He wrote labels, dropped tags on carcasses, and barked random orders at Dean.
After half an hour, Sam took in his work. Each hellhound had one talisman that matched set with one in a hex bag. Each hybrid had a pair.
"Mix and match," Dean observed. "So, were the hybrids successes or failures?"
"Best guess? Failures," Sam replied, "Demons want back in as demons, not as monster mash."
"We're screwed."
Sam cast a sideways glance at Dean.
"If you're right, doesn't that mean that each of the hellhounds has a monster buddy that we missed last night?"
"No way, we kept watch, nothing else came through."
"Not here, the monsters from purgatory probably have remains somewhere on earth, so - "
"They can be anywhere," Sam finished miserably.
"But that's only true if the rumors Benny heard are true," Dean dismissed. "We could be wrong. Maybe they did want hybrids. Something new to throw us off."
"When has our luck ever been that good?"
"They need a name," Dean said thoughtfully.
"What?"
"The hybrids."
"Oh," Sam paused a moment. "Salty Dogs. Salties for short."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, Mr. Jefferson Starships."
"Fine," Dean said. "But Sam, we've got a huge problem, if they had six successes this time, not only are there six monsters out there, but they might've figured out the right mojo."
"We need to find the witch."
"I know that."
"I think I can work a ritual to do that."
"How?"
"Henry said that the blood sigil - the one that time traveled him to us - worked because blood leads to blood.
"Except in this case, skeevy witch bag leads to well, the skeevey witch bag," Dean commented. "Any chance in hell we can pull the same thing off with the born-again monsters? Using the talisman thingies?"
Sam looked surprised. "That's a great idea."
"I do have those sometimes," Dean shot back.
"Not lately."
"Ha, ha," Dean said dryly. "I get it, I fucked up. Can we focus please?"
"We need to burn the bodies and prep that the witch-killing spell," Sam replied.
"You're bossy today."
"Only when I'm right."
"Shut up."
Dean finished the witch-killing spell and built a pyre. He hated waiting to light it, and Sam could feel his impatience oozing out of every pore.
Sam started the tracking spell, which used a patch from one of the hex bags and a map that he set on fire.
"Where did you pick this up?" Dean asked.
"Actually, I saw Ruby do this once, trying to find angels. I found this spell in the Men of Letters archives. You can find specific witches, angels, whatever with the right ingredients."
To avoid commenting on Ruby, Dean busied himself with the cards that labeled the hex bags.
"Huh, so I guess titanium is the thing, right?"
Sam looked up from his work. "What?"
"According to these cards, if we're right about the hellhounds being successes... common denominator is titanium for the charm things."
Suddenly Sam was over his shoulder. "That's what they were looking for? The right metal composition?"
"I dunno."
"You're right. All the hellhounds had titanium in their talismans. Lead, nickel, tin, copper, gold, even cobalt combinations..."
"Cobalt? I thought that was a shade of blue?"
"Dean - "
"And how did you figure out what metals these are made of anyway?"
"Junior year chemistry class," Sam replied.
"You remember shit from chemistry class?"
"Dean, you're missing the point, they've found something that works."
"Uh, no, they didn't, because we have their hex bags and all their experiments."
"Burn them, now," Sam insisted.
"What about your bitching before, about smoke inhalation and - "
"I found the witch. The Old Steel Factory."
"Please tell me it's an abandoned building with only skeevey witches."
Sam sounded surprised when he said, "Actually, it is."
Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder aggressively, dramatically. "Listen, we gutted six devil dogs and three wanna be hellmooks turned monsters, we're due for a bit of good luck."
Sam pushed him away and swept the notes and hex bags into the curse box. Dean dribbled more kerosene and set the pyre ablaze.
They both popped into the pickup, this time with Dean driving, and pulled out once the fire was roaring.
Of course, the Winchesters didn't have a lot of luck, at least not good luck. Had they had even a spec, they would have noticed the woman perched in the beams above.
Olivia had observed them the entire time. At first she thought they were thugs and idiots, but clearly they had some insight, since they could see hellhounds and managed to pilfer all the hex bags.
'Whoever their source was will die horribly,' she thought to herself as she snuck out the opposite side of the building. 'But at least now I know, titanium is the right texture for preserving two souls.'
"I don't blame you," Sam said abruptly.
"You shouldn't, that wasn't me." Dean meant the horrific gas, "Seriously, Sam, no more eggs."
"I'm talking about the nightmares. I don't blame you."
"Could of fooled me."
"I'm not saying I'm not still pissed. I just don't blame you for this," Sam indicated the curse box. "Clearly somone has been planning all this, and truth is, without that insight back there, we'd be shit outa luck in trying to figure out what's happening."
"Not doing us much good from where I'm sitting," Dean replied. "But we do make a damn good team."
"Stating the obvious, if we're stuck in a sitcom again."
"Shut up, Sam."
"Turn left up here," Sam instructed.
John Bannister had a feeling that his life was about to change. When he woke up in the morning, he just knew it. Something was going to happen. His sister wasn't home, which wasn't like her, but maybe she finally got up the nerve to ask the chef at the diner out.
He wasn't a psychic; his powers came witchcraft. It was nothing fancy, but his instincts had their own magic. They never led him astray.
He couldn't get Olivia on the phone, so he decided to go to their circle, where they practiced witchcraft together, out at the Old Steel Factory.
John sat before the ashwood altar. He knew his sister would return here, so he waited. What could be the harm?
Sam led the way into the factory, which was remarkably creepy in appearance, even for the Winchesters. With stealth unnatural to such a large person, he weaved through the halls with Dean right behind.
They checked room after room for what felt like hours till they finally came to one with electricity.
A man sat at some kind of altar. Dean recognized him. "That's the waiter from the diner," he whispered. "He's been watching us!"
John stood up when he heard footsteps. "Olivia, you're here!" he said as he turned.
But it wasn't Olivia.
"Ego voco impetu delere vos caelum et infernum!" Dean yelled.
Sam struck a match and lit the bottle, and Dean pitched it towards the witch, whose face was littered with surprise.
Green and then red swirled around, capturing him and enveloping him, with only the words of "Olivia?" passing from his lips.
John Bannister was right; today did change his life.
Dean sat shotgun on the ride home, oddly quiet.
"You make up with Cas yet?" Sam asked.
"What? No, I'm thinking about that witch. It takes major mojo to pull off, whatever it is they're doing."
"That spell only works on witches, Dean, and he was the one who put those hex bags together, that's how I found him."
"Just seems too easy."
"Or maybe we're just good at what we do," Sam said.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Look, we'll track those other monsters and send them back to purgatory. We'll get Garth in on it."
"But there must be others," Dean said. "In other states. Maybe we did derail this experiment, but how can we stop the next one?"
"We track them down and take them out."
"Seven monsters that could be anything, literally, since it's purgatory, and at least three other witches. Awesome."
"Seriously, you need to talk to Cas."
"This isn't about him - "
"We diverted the apocalypse," Sam interrupted. "We were driven off the grid by Leviathans for almost a year. We've been worse off than this. You're moping because your angel isn't around."
Dean bit his lip, "Shut up."
<<< Previous Part:
Part Three: Transmigration of Souls
Next Part: >>>
Part Five: Undertow
Primary Post: 09x08 Salty Dog
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Salty Dog
Subtitle: Slipstream
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,005
Rating: R
Warnings: language, violence
Status: Complete.
Dean and Sam switched watch around two in the morning. Dean made a mental note that sleeping in a rental truck was never a good idea, though he did manage to fall asleep.
Right before dawn, Sam woke him.
"Dean, come on, you have to see this."
"Of course I do," Dean muttered, "two hours of sleep is too much."
"Put your glasses on," Sam said.
"Huh?"
"Your glasses!" Sam shoved them on his brother's face.
Dean let himself be pulled into the mausoleum. "What could you possibly - "
"Look, Dean," Sam cut him off.
He did. Parts of the interior were red and dark, almost splotchy. Dean took his glasses off and wiped them, then put them back on.
"Uh, okay, this - "
"You see them too?" Sam asked.
"You mean the weird red and dark splotches, yeah," Dean replied. "Why?"
Sam didn't bother responding. He raced to one of the splotches and groped around. "Aha!" he vocalized, yanking his hand out. Tightly clutched in his palm was a hex bag, emitting a red and black haze.
"No way, these things can spot witchcraft?"
"Demon-related witchcraft, apparently," Sam said. "There's gotta be a dozen or so of these."
"You wanna collect them all?" Dean said. "What are they, Pokémon?"
"Your references are terrible at dawn, you know that? We need to see what kind of mojo this witch has, com'on."
Dean muttered to himself about hauling hellhound carcasses and now hex bags as he collected the five nearest to him.
"I guess I'm driving," Sam said to the still-sleepy Dean as they dropped the hex bags into the curse box.
Dean climbed into the passenger seat and promptly fell back asleep.
Sam pulled the truck into the abandoned warehouse they'd scouted. They hadn't had enough time to prepare it, so after parking in one of the empty loading rooms, Sam let Dean sleep while he prepped with sigils, warding, and traps.
Dean woke up a few hours later, just as Sam finished dissecting the hex bags.
"What do we got?" Dean asked unapologetically.
"Twelve hex bags, each with the same mix with a novelty talisman."
"Talisman? Doesn't that protect you from bad stuff?"
Sam laughed. "Yeah, I don't know what's going on with this, but these talismans are all the same shape, just made from different metals."
Sam held up one of them.
"Whirlpool," Dean suggested.
"Actually, this is an ancient manifestation of the symbol for mana," Sam replied.
"Oh, now I see it," Dean said sarcastically.
"Why don't you look at the bodies?"
"What am I looking for?" Dean asked.
He grabbed his glasses and wandered over to the three rows Sam set out. Each dog had its own trap. "How long was I out?" Dean asked.
"Hours."
Dean started with the hybrid that was torn to shreds by the hellhounds, since there wasn't much left. He poked at it with a knife for a few minutes before Sam cleared his throat.
"What?" Dean snapped.
"There's a tray of utensils for you, Dean," Sam pointed.
"I knew that."
Sam identified the metallic composition of the talismans, and he labeled each corresponding hex bag with its contents as he went. Dean admired his brother's methodical nature, even though it also made him a pain in the ass.
Something caught Dean's eye.
"Huh, I think I've got something."
He used the tongs to grab at a small, shiny object from the soupy remains of the hybrid.
"What?" Sam said, coming to his side.
"Uh, looks like a metallic whirlpool," Dean said.
"This is just like the talisman in one of the bags - "
Sam suddenly was everywhere. He wrote labels, dropped tags on carcasses, and barked random orders at Dean.
After half an hour, Sam took in his work. Each hellhound had one talisman that matched set with one in a hex bag. Each hybrid had a pair.
"Mix and match," Dean observed. "So, were the hybrids successes or failures?"
"Best guess? Failures," Sam replied, "Demons want back in as demons, not as monster mash."
"We're screwed."
Sam cast a sideways glance at Dean.
"If you're right, doesn't that mean that each of the hellhounds has a monster buddy that we missed last night?"
"No way, we kept watch, nothing else came through."
"Not here, the monsters from purgatory probably have remains somewhere on earth, so - "
"They can be anywhere," Sam finished miserably.
"But that's only true if the rumors Benny heard are true," Dean dismissed. "We could be wrong. Maybe they did want hybrids. Something new to throw us off."
"When has our luck ever been that good?"
"They need a name," Dean said thoughtfully.
"What?"
"The hybrids."
"Oh," Sam paused a moment. "Salty Dogs. Salties for short."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, Mr. Jefferson Starships."
"Fine," Dean said. "But Sam, we've got a huge problem, if they had six successes this time, not only are there six monsters out there, but they might've figured out the right mojo."
"We need to find the witch."
"I know that."
"I think I can work a ritual to do that."
"How?"
"Henry said that the blood sigil - the one that time traveled him to us - worked because blood leads to blood.
"Except in this case, skeevy witch bag leads to well, the skeevey witch bag," Dean commented. "Any chance in hell we can pull the same thing off with the born-again monsters? Using the talisman thingies?"
Sam looked surprised. "That's a great idea."
"I do have those sometimes," Dean shot back.
"Not lately."
"Ha, ha," Dean said dryly. "I get it, I fucked up. Can we focus please?"
"We need to burn the bodies and prep that the witch-killing spell," Sam replied.
"You're bossy today."
"Only when I'm right."
"Shut up."
Dean finished the witch-killing spell and built a pyre. He hated waiting to light it, and Sam could feel his impatience oozing out of every pore.
Sam started the tracking spell, which used a patch from one of the hex bags and a map that he set on fire.
"Where did you pick this up?" Dean asked.
"Actually, I saw Ruby do this once, trying to find angels. I found this spell in the Men of Letters archives. You can find specific witches, angels, whatever with the right ingredients."
To avoid commenting on Ruby, Dean busied himself with the cards that labeled the hex bags.
"Huh, so I guess titanium is the thing, right?"
Sam looked up from his work. "What?"
"According to these cards, if we're right about the hellhounds being successes... common denominator is titanium for the charm things."
Suddenly Sam was over his shoulder. "That's what they were looking for? The right metal composition?"
"I dunno."
"You're right. All the hellhounds had titanium in their talismans. Lead, nickel, tin, copper, gold, even cobalt combinations..."
"Cobalt? I thought that was a shade of blue?"
"Dean - "
"And how did you figure out what metals these are made of anyway?"
"Junior year chemistry class," Sam replied.
"You remember shit from chemistry class?"
"Dean, you're missing the point, they've found something that works."
"Uh, no, they didn't, because we have their hex bags and all their experiments."
"Burn them, now," Sam insisted.
"What about your bitching before, about smoke inhalation and - "
"I found the witch. The Old Steel Factory."
"Please tell me it's an abandoned building with only skeevey witches."
Sam sounded surprised when he said, "Actually, it is."
Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder aggressively, dramatically. "Listen, we gutted six devil dogs and three wanna be hellmooks turned monsters, we're due for a bit of good luck."
Sam pushed him away and swept the notes and hex bags into the curse box. Dean dribbled more kerosene and set the pyre ablaze.
They both popped into the pickup, this time with Dean driving, and pulled out once the fire was roaring.
Of course, the Winchesters didn't have a lot of luck, at least not good luck. Had they had even a spec, they would have noticed the woman perched in the beams above.
Olivia had observed them the entire time. At first she thought they were thugs and idiots, but clearly they had some insight, since they could see hellhounds and managed to pilfer all the hex bags.
'Whoever their source was will die horribly,' she thought to herself as she snuck out the opposite side of the building. 'But at least now I know, titanium is the right texture for preserving two souls.'
"I don't blame you," Sam said abruptly.
"You shouldn't, that wasn't me." Dean meant the horrific gas, "Seriously, Sam, no more eggs."
"I'm talking about the nightmares. I don't blame you."
"Could of fooled me."
"I'm not saying I'm not still pissed. I just don't blame you for this," Sam indicated the curse box. "Clearly somone has been planning all this, and truth is, without that insight back there, we'd be shit outa luck in trying to figure out what's happening."
"Not doing us much good from where I'm sitting," Dean replied. "But we do make a damn good team."
"Stating the obvious, if we're stuck in a sitcom again."
"Shut up, Sam."
"Turn left up here," Sam instructed.
John Bannister had a feeling that his life was about to change. When he woke up in the morning, he just knew it. Something was going to happen. His sister wasn't home, which wasn't like her, but maybe she finally got up the nerve to ask the chef at the diner out.
He wasn't a psychic; his powers came witchcraft. It was nothing fancy, but his instincts had their own magic. They never led him astray.
He couldn't get Olivia on the phone, so he decided to go to their circle, where they practiced witchcraft together, out at the Old Steel Factory.
John sat before the ashwood altar. He knew his sister would return here, so he waited. What could be the harm?
Sam led the way into the factory, which was remarkably creepy in appearance, even for the Winchesters. With stealth unnatural to such a large person, he weaved through the halls with Dean right behind.
They checked room after room for what felt like hours till they finally came to one with electricity.
A man sat at some kind of altar. Dean recognized him. "That's the waiter from the diner," he whispered. "He's been watching us!"
John stood up when he heard footsteps. "Olivia, you're here!" he said as he turned.
But it wasn't Olivia.
"Ego voco impetu delere vos caelum et infernum!" Dean yelled.
Sam struck a match and lit the bottle, and Dean pitched it towards the witch, whose face was littered with surprise.
Green and then red swirled around, capturing him and enveloping him, with only the words of "Olivia?" passing from his lips.
John Bannister was right; today did change his life.
Dean sat shotgun on the ride home, oddly quiet.
"You make up with Cas yet?" Sam asked.
"What? No, I'm thinking about that witch. It takes major mojo to pull off, whatever it is they're doing."
"That spell only works on witches, Dean, and he was the one who put those hex bags together, that's how I found him."
"Just seems too easy."
"Or maybe we're just good at what we do," Sam said.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Look, we'll track those other monsters and send them back to purgatory. We'll get Garth in on it."
"But there must be others," Dean said. "In other states. Maybe we did derail this experiment, but how can we stop the next one?"
"We track them down and take them out."
"Seven monsters that could be anything, literally, since it's purgatory, and at least three other witches. Awesome."
"Seriously, you need to talk to Cas."
"This isn't about him - "
"We diverted the apocalypse," Sam interrupted. "We were driven off the grid by Leviathans for almost a year. We've been worse off than this. You're moping because your angel isn't around."
Dean bit his lip, "Shut up."
<<< Previous Part:
Part Three: Transmigration of Souls
Next Part: >>>
Part Five: Undertow
Primary Post: 09x08 Salty Dog
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)