Fic: Good Day Sunshine (2/5)
Title: Good Day Sunshine
Author: judith_88_g
Rating: R (language, whump)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, a tiny bit of Bobby, OCs
Spoilers: Up to 2x01, set in early season 2
Word Count: 4,000 (21,00 total)
Disclaimer: Still not mine, don't lose my hope though.
Summary: Sam and Dean receive an unexpected phone call and learn that one of John's old friends has been murdered. They set off to investigate his death, the case, however, turning out to be much more than just a simple salt'n burn, stirring the memories that, in Dean's book, are better left forgotten.
A/N: I took some liberties with location as well as the lore. The title comes from The Beatles' song.
A/N 2: Beta'd by a lovely astute spangielka, whose support, Sober Eye of Reason, and uncanny insight into a boy called Sam Winchester have been of inestimable value, and also by a very helpful rubystandish who put the story into the right shape, treading bravely over the steaming cinders of my grammar. All remaining mistakes are of course all mine.
Previous: I
II.
The house was quiet. Sam was sitting next to Dean on the couch, Shannon in an armchair situated opposite. Fidgeting. The rifle left in the hall, propped against a flowery wallpaper. It wasn’t as hot inside with all the blinds shut. However, the persistent rays of sun would still sneak through the horizontally aligned wooden slats creating all kinds of disturbing bright patterns. Picturing Dave here, with his face decorated by the splashes of sun, was so grotesque that it seemed to Dean an upmost achievement to hold back a chuckle building up in his throat. The grief, the silence, all this commiserating bullshit, he had never coped well when it came to things like this.
“He’d been acting strange for some time, you know,” Shannon broke the silence, her voice trembling.
“Strange?” His little brother was a fucking master when it came to things like this.
“Before…” She swallowed audibly. “I could see something was bugging him. He wouldn’t admit it but I knew. He was different.”
“Different how?” Sam had his it’s ok, we’re here to hug look on, the one that always made old women fall for his undisputable charm. Apparently, it worked on Shannon too; she seemed to have calmed down a little.
“Dave was always good at keeping things to himself but I could feel something was wrong. He was preoccupied and exhausted. Didn’t sleep well. Went out a lot.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yes, but he would just say there’s no need to worry. He was that type of a guy, you know? Taking care of things.”
“Course,” This time, Dean couldn’t contain a huff of laugh.
Sam cleared his throat. “So how did it happen?”
Shannon spared Dean a confused glance. “Dave said he was going to town, that he had some business to do, didn’t say what. He never came back,” she stopped to take a breath, the air entering her mouth with a quiet rustle. “His body was found in the desert, a few miles away. He was,” Shannon’s voice trembled. She paused for a moment fighting the emotions threatening to overpower her. “They said it was a wild animal.”
“But you don’t believe it,” Sam said quietly, it wasn’t a question. “Why?”
“A coyote couldn’t…”
“What did you do with Dave’s stuff?” Dean chimed in. He was starting to get restless.
“Nothing yet,” Shannon seemed distracted. Good. “I’m half through sorting them. Why?”
“I gotta have a look,” Dean didn’t wait for a response. He just stood up and moved towards where he assumed the bedroom was.
“Can you tell me anything about his friends? His work?” Sam’s reflexes kicked in faultlessly. Sneaky son of a bitch hidden behind the snow-melting Bambi gaze. “Is there anyone who might know something?”
Dean didn’t look back but he could hear Shannon answering his brother. She didn’t follow then.
Entering the bedroom, he took out the EMF meter and turned it on. However, it stayed quiet. He looked around the room, same warm colors, a king size bed, some clothes and books placed in neat piles on the wooden floor. Quite an upgrade comparing to Dave’s last house Dean had had the pleasure to visit. He heard footsteps outside.
“I’m gonna give this stuff away.”
He eyed Shannon’s slender silhouette leaning against the doorframe.
“What about the house? Are you gonna stay here?”
“Haven’t decided yet. I guess, yes. Dave loved this place, its seclusion and wildness.”
“And you?”
“I loved its peacefulness,” she sighed, “but it’s different now. Everything’s different now.”
“Yeah,” Dean examined her tired resigned face, “no arguing about that.” He wanted to sit on the bed but it somehow felt like a desecration much more severe than digging up corpses. “May I ask you about something?”
“Interesting beginning,” her lips twitched in an uncertain smile, “but go on, shoot.”
“What do you know about Dave’s past?”
“I know it haunted him,” she must’ve seen something in Dean’s face because she added quickly, “not literally, no. There was this heaviness, something dark right behind the corner. I don’t know how to explain it. It was as if all his movements, decisions, words were marked by extra cautiousness.”
“You never asked?”
“I did, he didn’t answer. I still let him in.” She smiled wryly, “We usually don’t want to admit it but sometimes it’s easier not to know.”
Dean snorted involuntarily. The whole conversation was starting to weigh heavily on him. He retreated to the living room to find Sam waiting next to the entrance door.
“We’ll let you know if we find out anything,” he said on his way out.
Shannon nodded, the sorrow cutting deeply into her features.
***
“I’m not buying it, man.” Dean revealed with a sigh veering the car onto the right on the road he’d almost missed.
“Not buying what?” Sam said attempting to remain in an upright position against the rapid movement. Dean considered telling his brother to close the window as the billows of dirt stirred up by the Impala’s wheels were clambering into the interior of the car covering it with a yellowish layer of dust. It’s gonna be a bitch to clear it off.
“A freaking flowery wallpaper!” He exclaimed instead.
“It’s not like you have a place to decorate with it,” Sam snorted wiping his already damp forehead with his right arm. Then, he added more seriously, “I don’t know, dude. People can get tired of slicing guts. Having a home and a woman he loved doesn’t strike me as all that absurd.”
There was something about Sam’s voice that made Dean doubt they were still talking about Dave.
“So any hypothesis?” He said quickly in an attempt to diverge his little brother’s route of thoughts.
“At this point? It could’ve been practically anything.”
“Yeah, Shannon didn’t turn out to be of much help,” Dean admitted with a wince.
There was a moment of silence, filled by the steady ramble of the Impala’s engine.
“So what was he like? I mean, Dave?”
“What?” Dean should’ve got over his brother’s strange questions by now but they somehow never failed to startle him.
“You said, you met him. I guess, I’m curious about who the person was that Dad would look up to.”
“He was a terrific hunter,” Dean said hastily, afraid of where this conversation might be going.
“Ok,” Sam said carefully. “What about those two weeks you spent with him?”
“Hunter stuff.”
“Hunter stuff?”
‘Yeah, hunter stuff,” Dean scoffed, his voice probably a tad too harsh than necessary. Then, almost instinctively, he pressed play to bring to the conversation whatever tape was in. The sounds of Wurzel’s guitar hit them with power that, hopefully, would drown out any coherent thought that might appear in Sam’s head. The cheapest trick but worked invariably.
***
It was already dark outside when they reached the motel, the only thing they had been able to achieve with a moderate success today was grabbing some takeout on the way back. After the whole day spent in the heat on the research that turned out to be completely fruitless, the tiredness was taking the better of both of them. Fortunately, the motel room welcomed them with a steady hum of AC.
“Oh man, I swear I’m gonna drown in my own fucking sweat,” Dean snapped dropping the bag with the food on his bed and walking straightly to the bathroom.
Sam could hear the water running almost immediately. He leafed through their dad’s journal to once again check whether there was anything about Dave Rionston in there. However, he already knew the answer. There was something off about this case, something they’d missed or hadn’t quite considered. They had gone through the police reports, talked to his colleagues in the hardware store, checked the local deaths and the place where the body was found, and even made a highly educational trip to the town morgue. Mutilated though the corpse had been, it hadn’t told them much apart from the fact that something had taken its time to work on Dave. Still, the sight of the crippled body had been intense. Sam had seen more than his fair share of corpses in his life but the memory of Rionston’s body made his stomach twist.
Dean entered the room shirtless but with his jeans on, a motel towel hanging on his neck.
“Any inspiration?” He asked lying down on his bed and nodding towards the open journal. Not waiting for an answer he dived in the takeout bag.
“I was thinking, maybe it wasn’t anything supernatural after all,” the fatigue in Sam’s voice too clear even for his own ears.
“Nothing supernatural, huh?” Dean was devouring his extra double something burger with an almost passion-like attentiveness. His brother’s complete lack of table manners never ceased to amaze Sam.
“I mean, look man, I’m not saying it was a coyote but no one noticed anything strange, at least stranger than usual, about Dave.”
“Shannon did,” Dean wasn’t even looking at him but his tone didn’t leave any room for doubts.
Sam sighed, “If it was our kind of gig, don’t you think there would be more bodies?”
“What? One is suddenly not enough for you to waste our time?”
“Dean, think about it.” It was like talking to a brick wall, these days even more than usually when Dean seemed to crave any kind of job in a junkie-like manner. “Dave was a hunter and you know as well as I do that those are not exactly love provoking figures. He might’ve had some enemies and I mean, flesh-and-blood enemies.”
“So you suggesting that we should just pack our bags and move on?” Dean’s tone was irate.
Sam was too tired to argue with his mule of a brother. It wasn’t only this case, though it surely added its contribution. It seemed that Dean was constantly on the verge of an outburst, trying to keep it on the lockdown but failing to notice it would slip every now and then. Sam knew the reason, hell, he could easily understand it but it still didn’t change the fact that he was tired of conversations similar to tiptoeing on a mine field.
“I’m saying that maybe we should take such an option into consideration. Look man,” he continued before his brother could say anything, “I get it. Dave was Dad’s friend and he wanted his help, you knew the guy. I want to solve this case too but maybe…”
He was interrupted by Dean’s laugh. However, there was no amusement in his brother’s voice. “Dave was a scary obsessed son of a bitch and I’m not really mourning his death as much as you’d think, Sammy.”
“But you said…”
“And I meant it. It just has nothing to do with the case. You’ve seen the body, there’s something evil out there and it can hurt somebody else. Hunting evil, it’s what we do, remember?”
Dean’s words, though unexpected, only supported Sam’s theory but he decided to leave it for the time being. He sighed heavily. “So what now? Any ideas?”
“We need to check out the house.”
“We already did. There was nothing there.”
“Exactly!” There was no trace of the recent gush of anger in his brother’s face only a child-like excitation after discovering something adults had failed to notice. “It was too clear, too hunter-free. I told you, I’m not buying it.”
“Dean,” he started guardedly, “if he was set on breaking up with hunting we simply might not find anything.”
“Oh, we will. Either that or Dave completely lost his mind.”
“Well, that’s a possibility,” Sam offered with a weak smile, his thoughts, however, already far away from the conversation.
***
“Hey, Sammy, wake up!”
Dean. The motel. The case. Sam shook off the bits and pieces of the images trespassing into reality with a cruel force. It’d been long since he had last dreamt about Palo Alto, at least if he didn’t take into consideration those demonically infused dreams in which Jess would burn on the ceiling. And he didn’t. It was a regular normal dream; he was in his old apartment, some kind of a party going on in full swing, the place buzzing with strangers he used to know but no trace of Jess. There never was. Not in such dreams.
Sam sat up and rubbed his eyes, glad to hear his brother’s steady voice. Little drops of sweat were covering his skin. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat alone.
“Back to consciousness, sleeping beauty?” Sam darted a distracted glance towards the dingy kitchenette. Fully dressed, Dean was perching on a wobbly chair which looked way too precarious to hold his weight. Although the sun was up, the area remained dark as the only window was situated on the opposite wall, just above Sam’s bed, and looked west over the almost empty parking lot. On the table in front of his brother sat a police scanner, Dean’s copyrights. Only now did Sam notice the ear buds hanging from his brother’s neck. He checked the time, 6.32.
“You order some bodies?”
“What?” Sam croaked, his throat feeling as if covered with dust.
“They just found another in the desert. Grab your shit, we gotta go.”
Sam was alert in a second. He looked at his brother. Dean was sitting stiffly, his fingers tapping impatiently on a blue-white checkered oilcloth. Waiting.
“Ok, give me a sec,” Sam said already rummaging around in his duffel in search of some clear underwear. “Wait, we’re going to the crime scene, right?”
“Little slow over there, Sammy?”
“You should wear the suit!”
“Oh, give me a break! It’s too fucking hot for a suit! Nobody in their right mind would wear a suit in such weather,” Dean’s voice was almost pleading.
“Dean,” Sam said with emphasis, “you’re wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt. Go. Change. Now!”
“Geez, to think you should be a little less bitchy after getting your beauty rest,” Dean mumbled but took the crumpled suit out of his bag and started changing. Sam was almost sure that, deep down, his brother welcomed the suggestion with relief as it gave him something to do instead of just sitting motionlessly. Funny how Dean always appeared to be in movement, no matter if it was on a hunt, in a bar or wherever else; even lying on the couch and watching another kung-fu movie his brother always created this strange chaotic aura around himself that would disappear only when he would get really sick, which invariably left the surroundings unsettlingly still.
Five minutes later they were sitting in the Impala. The interior of the car felt stuffy with yesterday’s heat trapped inside. The morning, if not really refreshing, was still pleasant but the cloudless sky didn’t tell a story Sam was particularly fond of hearing.
The drive was silent. They had officially run out of ideas the previous day, this case being nothing but a maze of dead end roads. However cruel and plainly wrong it was, another body could actually cast some light over the darkness they were currently in. The very idea, and even more the truth behind it, made Sam’s guts twist a little.
Comparing with finding Shannon’s house, reaching the right place turned out to be relatively easy. It wasn’t crowded with people yet, there was only one police car, an ambulance and some old pick-up truck so dusted that it was almost impossible to say what color all of the dirt concealed. The body was lying on the ground already covered, two cops talking to a bearded guy, probably the one who’d found the corpse. From the look of it, they couldn’t have been here long.
All eyes were now directed at the black car halting to a stop right next to the police vehicle. Dean got out before Sam could say anything about the flagrant lack of any strategy. Instead, he just followed, which made him, not for the first time, irritated with his brother.
“Hello, gentlemen!” Dean waved to the perplexed people standing around. “Who’s our today’s hero?” He added nodding towards the cadaver pouch.
“Who’s asking?” The older of the officers, the sheriff, Sam observed, frowned at them distrustfully. He spoke in an authoritative tone with a broad southern accent, the initial astonishment completely gone from his face.
“Agents Fogerty and Cook,” they both flashed their badges almost simultaneously.
The old guy sent them a dubious look. “Well, ain’t you surprisingly fast flying nestlings. What business does the FBI got here, huh?”
“We’re here to investigate the death of Dave Bronston,” Dean answered smoothly not at all taken aback by the man’s outright hostility. “Who’s the victim?” He asked walking up to the corpse and unzipping the body bag unceremoniously.
“Son,” The old man walked up to him and grabbed his shoulder. Even from his place Sam could see that the grip was tight. Dean tensed visibly. “I strongly suggest you not touch the body. You may mess up the evidence but you’re an agent, you obviously know that.”
“Sir,” Sam cleared his throat sensing the impending disaster. “Do you think that the two deaths might have something in common?”
“Maybe the same coyote, watya think, sir?” Dean sneered standing up and wrenching away from the uninvited touch. “You find the body, didn’t you?” he asked the bearded guy, now standing a safe distance next to, probably his, truck, a cigarette shaking in his hand.
“She was just lyin’ there. I didn’t touch a thing,” he said guardedly, his gaze jumping from the sheriff to Dean. “And I called the cops, the police, that is.”
“Did you notice anything strange?” Sam asked.
“Strange? She was in shreds, how’s that for strange?” The guy’s voice was trembling. “I was just goin’ home and I saw her. I thought it was a carcass or something and I thought that it was a damn big carcass. But then I saw a shoe and I looked closer and…”
“Is there anything else I may help you with, agents? Any doubts I could resolve?” The sheriff’s voice was stern.
“I sincerely don’t think so,” Dean answered in stilted politeness huffing out a laugh and walking away towards the Impala, which Sam welcomed with relief.
“Fucking morons,” Dean mumbled getting in the car and slamming the door with much bigger force than necessary. He revved the engine and drove off sending clouds of dust billowing behind.
It was getting hot, the sun hanging high in the bleached sky. Sam shrugged off his jacket, the combination of annoyance and worry pumping in his veins.
“Are you looking to get us arrested?” He said mustering as much calm into the words as was physically possible.
“What are you talking about?” Dean spared him a distracted glance, he seemed genuinely surprised by the question.
Sam sighed, the worry finally winning over the annoyance. His brother looked miserable, dark circles around his eyes remaining in striking contrast to his nose and cheeks already pinkish due to the sun and splashed with freckles pronounced much more than usually. And there was the tension, the tension that rarely left Dean’s features these days, Arizona sun making it even more distinct. Sam might’ve been wrong about his brother’s grief over Dave’s death, but the trip down the memory lane definitely didn’t do Dean any good and that one he was sure.
“So did you notice anything about the body?” He asked finally leaving his brother’s question unanswered.
Dean apparently wasn’t too upset about it. “Massacred. Messy, just like Dave’s.”
“There was no blood anywhere near, whatever did this to her must’ve done it elsewhere and just dropped the body later on.”
“Same as Dave’s,” Dean sighed and shook his head with resignation as if trying to snap out of some uninvited thoughts. He took a breath to add something but was interrupted by the ringtone. He reached for his phone and looked at the screen. “Shannon,” he informed before picking up. “Yeah.”
Sam could hear the woman’s voice shouting something however, too inarticulate to make out any words.
“Ok, listen to me,” Dean said in an austere tone, it was John Winchester’s tone, Sam suddenly realized. “You got some salt? ... Good. Go and put it on the windows and doors, each entrance to the house. Then go to the bedroom make a salt circle on the floor and stay inside. Under no circumstances are you to get out of that circle, understand? … Now! ... We’re on our way.” Dean hung up and accelerated the car.
“Oh man, you gotta be fucking kidding me!” He said in a baffled tone swerving the Impala sharply to the left. He flashed his eyes on Sam. “There’s a coyote outside Shannon’s house and apparently is about to drop by.”
“Shit,” incapable of saying anything else, Sam wiped a hand over his face. An evil coyote, the fucking story of their lives.
The car jumped on the uneven surface. Dean drove fast, hopefully fast enough. Sam remembered all too well the condition Dave’s body was in, he really wanted to get in time. The monotonous desert landscape seemed to laugh at their struggle, deluding him into thinking that they hadn’t really covered any distance at all; the movement being impossible like in one of those nightmares in which no matter how hard you try, running is beyond the bounds of feasibility.
Finally the house appeared, however, the coyote was nowhere to be seen. Dean skidded to a halt abruptly and they both leaped to the trunk grabbing the shotguns and some holy water without even processing the movement.
“Sam, go check on Shannon, I’ll have a look at the other side of the house,” Dean was already running away, a shotgun pointed into the empty space in front of him. Sam once again examined the area but didn’t notice anything. He rushed to the front door and yanked it forcefully. It was unlocked. The salt laid next to the threshold, but not in a thick regular line; it was broken in a few places and Sam instinctively braced himself for whatever he might find inside.
“Shannon!” He yelled, walking into the living room, shotgun first. “It’s Sam, where are you?”
Then he heard a shot. “Dean!”
He dashed to the kitchen, where he remembered the back door was. Another shot and then a scream. Fuck, Dean! Fuck! “Dean!”
He didn’t even care to look before he battered down the back door. No further than thirty feet away on his back laid his brother and lashing out at him was the coyote, its teeth bared in a rabid bark. Sam shot the animal with rock salt, it dazed it only for a second but it was enough for Dean to jump to his feet. Sam sprang to his brother emptying the other barrel at the already charging again creature. It fell gnarling ferociously, saliva dripping from its muzzle, giving them the time to hastily retreat to the house.
“Sam, salt!” Dean gasped, he kept his left arm close to his body.
He didn’t have time, the animal already on its feet and darting towards them. Sam started reloading the sawed-off realizing there was no chance he was going to make it. The animal, however, suddenly stopped and ambled to the right snarling ominously for a while and then, to their mutual astonishment, it just turned around and ran away into the desert.
Sam and Dean exchanged confused looks.
“You ok?” Sam asked approaching his brother, not really losing the empty space left by the door from his sight.
“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Dean grunted. “That son of a bitch destroyed my only suit!”
“What the hell was that thing?”
Chapter III
Author: judith_88_g
Rating: R (language, whump)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, a tiny bit of Bobby, OCs
Spoilers: Up to 2x01, set in early season 2
Word Count: 4,000 (21,00 total)
Disclaimer: Still not mine, don't lose my hope though.
Summary: Sam and Dean receive an unexpected phone call and learn that one of John's old friends has been murdered. They set off to investigate his death, the case, however, turning out to be much more than just a simple salt'n burn, stirring the memories that, in Dean's book, are better left forgotten.
A/N: I took some liberties with location as well as the lore. The title comes from The Beatles' song.
A/N 2: Beta'd by a lovely astute spangielka, whose support, Sober Eye of Reason, and uncanny insight into a boy called Sam Winchester have been of inestimable value, and also by a very helpful rubystandish who put the story into the right shape, treading bravely over the steaming cinders of my grammar. All remaining mistakes are of course all mine.
Previous: I
II.
The house was quiet. Sam was sitting next to Dean on the couch, Shannon in an armchair situated opposite. Fidgeting. The rifle left in the hall, propped against a flowery wallpaper. It wasn’t as hot inside with all the blinds shut. However, the persistent rays of sun would still sneak through the horizontally aligned wooden slats creating all kinds of disturbing bright patterns. Picturing Dave here, with his face decorated by the splashes of sun, was so grotesque that it seemed to Dean an upmost achievement to hold back a chuckle building up in his throat. The grief, the silence, all this commiserating bullshit, he had never coped well when it came to things like this.
“He’d been acting strange for some time, you know,” Shannon broke the silence, her voice trembling.
“Strange?” His little brother was a fucking master when it came to things like this.
“Before…” She swallowed audibly. “I could see something was bugging him. He wouldn’t admit it but I knew. He was different.”
“Different how?” Sam had his it’s ok, we’re here to hug look on, the one that always made old women fall for his undisputable charm. Apparently, it worked on Shannon too; she seemed to have calmed down a little.
“Dave was always good at keeping things to himself but I could feel something was wrong. He was preoccupied and exhausted. Didn’t sleep well. Went out a lot.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yes, but he would just say there’s no need to worry. He was that type of a guy, you know? Taking care of things.”
“Course,” This time, Dean couldn’t contain a huff of laugh.
Sam cleared his throat. “So how did it happen?”
Shannon spared Dean a confused glance. “Dave said he was going to town, that he had some business to do, didn’t say what. He never came back,” she stopped to take a breath, the air entering her mouth with a quiet rustle. “His body was found in the desert, a few miles away. He was,” Shannon’s voice trembled. She paused for a moment fighting the emotions threatening to overpower her. “They said it was a wild animal.”
“But you don’t believe it,” Sam said quietly, it wasn’t a question. “Why?”
“A coyote couldn’t…”
“What did you do with Dave’s stuff?” Dean chimed in. He was starting to get restless.
“Nothing yet,” Shannon seemed distracted. Good. “I’m half through sorting them. Why?”
“I gotta have a look,” Dean didn’t wait for a response. He just stood up and moved towards where he assumed the bedroom was.
“Can you tell me anything about his friends? His work?” Sam’s reflexes kicked in faultlessly. Sneaky son of a bitch hidden behind the snow-melting Bambi gaze. “Is there anyone who might know something?”
Dean didn’t look back but he could hear Shannon answering his brother. She didn’t follow then.
Entering the bedroom, he took out the EMF meter and turned it on. However, it stayed quiet. He looked around the room, same warm colors, a king size bed, some clothes and books placed in neat piles on the wooden floor. Quite an upgrade comparing to Dave’s last house Dean had had the pleasure to visit. He heard footsteps outside.
“I’m gonna give this stuff away.”
He eyed Shannon’s slender silhouette leaning against the doorframe.
“What about the house? Are you gonna stay here?”
“Haven’t decided yet. I guess, yes. Dave loved this place, its seclusion and wildness.”
“And you?”
“I loved its peacefulness,” she sighed, “but it’s different now. Everything’s different now.”
“Yeah,” Dean examined her tired resigned face, “no arguing about that.” He wanted to sit on the bed but it somehow felt like a desecration much more severe than digging up corpses. “May I ask you about something?”
“Interesting beginning,” her lips twitched in an uncertain smile, “but go on, shoot.”
“What do you know about Dave’s past?”
“I know it haunted him,” she must’ve seen something in Dean’s face because she added quickly, “not literally, no. There was this heaviness, something dark right behind the corner. I don’t know how to explain it. It was as if all his movements, decisions, words were marked by extra cautiousness.”
“You never asked?”
“I did, he didn’t answer. I still let him in.” She smiled wryly, “We usually don’t want to admit it but sometimes it’s easier not to know.”
Dean snorted involuntarily. The whole conversation was starting to weigh heavily on him. He retreated to the living room to find Sam waiting next to the entrance door.
“We’ll let you know if we find out anything,” he said on his way out.
Shannon nodded, the sorrow cutting deeply into her features.
***
“I’m not buying it, man.” Dean revealed with a sigh veering the car onto the right on the road he’d almost missed.
“Not buying what?” Sam said attempting to remain in an upright position against the rapid movement. Dean considered telling his brother to close the window as the billows of dirt stirred up by the Impala’s wheels were clambering into the interior of the car covering it with a yellowish layer of dust. It’s gonna be a bitch to clear it off.
“A freaking flowery wallpaper!” He exclaimed instead.
“It’s not like you have a place to decorate with it,” Sam snorted wiping his already damp forehead with his right arm. Then, he added more seriously, “I don’t know, dude. People can get tired of slicing guts. Having a home and a woman he loved doesn’t strike me as all that absurd.”
There was something about Sam’s voice that made Dean doubt they were still talking about Dave.
“So any hypothesis?” He said quickly in an attempt to diverge his little brother’s route of thoughts.
“At this point? It could’ve been practically anything.”
“Yeah, Shannon didn’t turn out to be of much help,” Dean admitted with a wince.
There was a moment of silence, filled by the steady ramble of the Impala’s engine.
“So what was he like? I mean, Dave?”
“What?” Dean should’ve got over his brother’s strange questions by now but they somehow never failed to startle him.
“You said, you met him. I guess, I’m curious about who the person was that Dad would look up to.”
“He was a terrific hunter,” Dean said hastily, afraid of where this conversation might be going.
“Ok,” Sam said carefully. “What about those two weeks you spent with him?”
“Hunter stuff.”
“Hunter stuff?”
‘Yeah, hunter stuff,” Dean scoffed, his voice probably a tad too harsh than necessary. Then, almost instinctively, he pressed play to bring to the conversation whatever tape was in. The sounds of Wurzel’s guitar hit them with power that, hopefully, would drown out any coherent thought that might appear in Sam’s head. The cheapest trick but worked invariably.
***
It was already dark outside when they reached the motel, the only thing they had been able to achieve with a moderate success today was grabbing some takeout on the way back. After the whole day spent in the heat on the research that turned out to be completely fruitless, the tiredness was taking the better of both of them. Fortunately, the motel room welcomed them with a steady hum of AC.
“Oh man, I swear I’m gonna drown in my own fucking sweat,” Dean snapped dropping the bag with the food on his bed and walking straightly to the bathroom.
Sam could hear the water running almost immediately. He leafed through their dad’s journal to once again check whether there was anything about Dave Rionston in there. However, he already knew the answer. There was something off about this case, something they’d missed or hadn’t quite considered. They had gone through the police reports, talked to his colleagues in the hardware store, checked the local deaths and the place where the body was found, and even made a highly educational trip to the town morgue. Mutilated though the corpse had been, it hadn’t told them much apart from the fact that something had taken its time to work on Dave. Still, the sight of the crippled body had been intense. Sam had seen more than his fair share of corpses in his life but the memory of Rionston’s body made his stomach twist.
Dean entered the room shirtless but with his jeans on, a motel towel hanging on his neck.
“Any inspiration?” He asked lying down on his bed and nodding towards the open journal. Not waiting for an answer he dived in the takeout bag.
“I was thinking, maybe it wasn’t anything supernatural after all,” the fatigue in Sam’s voice too clear even for his own ears.
“Nothing supernatural, huh?” Dean was devouring his extra double something burger with an almost passion-like attentiveness. His brother’s complete lack of table manners never ceased to amaze Sam.
“I mean, look man, I’m not saying it was a coyote but no one noticed anything strange, at least stranger than usual, about Dave.”
“Shannon did,” Dean wasn’t even looking at him but his tone didn’t leave any room for doubts.
Sam sighed, “If it was our kind of gig, don’t you think there would be more bodies?”
“What? One is suddenly not enough for you to waste our time?”
“Dean, think about it.” It was like talking to a brick wall, these days even more than usually when Dean seemed to crave any kind of job in a junkie-like manner. “Dave was a hunter and you know as well as I do that those are not exactly love provoking figures. He might’ve had some enemies and I mean, flesh-and-blood enemies.”
“So you suggesting that we should just pack our bags and move on?” Dean’s tone was irate.
Sam was too tired to argue with his mule of a brother. It wasn’t only this case, though it surely added its contribution. It seemed that Dean was constantly on the verge of an outburst, trying to keep it on the lockdown but failing to notice it would slip every now and then. Sam knew the reason, hell, he could easily understand it but it still didn’t change the fact that he was tired of conversations similar to tiptoeing on a mine field.
“I’m saying that maybe we should take such an option into consideration. Look man,” he continued before his brother could say anything, “I get it. Dave was Dad’s friend and he wanted his help, you knew the guy. I want to solve this case too but maybe…”
He was interrupted by Dean’s laugh. However, there was no amusement in his brother’s voice. “Dave was a scary obsessed son of a bitch and I’m not really mourning his death as much as you’d think, Sammy.”
“But you said…”
“And I meant it. It just has nothing to do with the case. You’ve seen the body, there’s something evil out there and it can hurt somebody else. Hunting evil, it’s what we do, remember?”
Dean’s words, though unexpected, only supported Sam’s theory but he decided to leave it for the time being. He sighed heavily. “So what now? Any ideas?”
“We need to check out the house.”
“We already did. There was nothing there.”
“Exactly!” There was no trace of the recent gush of anger in his brother’s face only a child-like excitation after discovering something adults had failed to notice. “It was too clear, too hunter-free. I told you, I’m not buying it.”
“Dean,” he started guardedly, “if he was set on breaking up with hunting we simply might not find anything.”
“Oh, we will. Either that or Dave completely lost his mind.”
“Well, that’s a possibility,” Sam offered with a weak smile, his thoughts, however, already far away from the conversation.
***
“Hey, Sammy, wake up!”
Dean. The motel. The case. Sam shook off the bits and pieces of the images trespassing into reality with a cruel force. It’d been long since he had last dreamt about Palo Alto, at least if he didn’t take into consideration those demonically infused dreams in which Jess would burn on the ceiling. And he didn’t. It was a regular normal dream; he was in his old apartment, some kind of a party going on in full swing, the place buzzing with strangers he used to know but no trace of Jess. There never was. Not in such dreams.
Sam sat up and rubbed his eyes, glad to hear his brother’s steady voice. Little drops of sweat were covering his skin. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat alone.
“Back to consciousness, sleeping beauty?” Sam darted a distracted glance towards the dingy kitchenette. Fully dressed, Dean was perching on a wobbly chair which looked way too precarious to hold his weight. Although the sun was up, the area remained dark as the only window was situated on the opposite wall, just above Sam’s bed, and looked west over the almost empty parking lot. On the table in front of his brother sat a police scanner, Dean’s copyrights. Only now did Sam notice the ear buds hanging from his brother’s neck. He checked the time, 6.32.
“You order some bodies?”
“What?” Sam croaked, his throat feeling as if covered with dust.
“They just found another in the desert. Grab your shit, we gotta go.”
Sam was alert in a second. He looked at his brother. Dean was sitting stiffly, his fingers tapping impatiently on a blue-white checkered oilcloth. Waiting.
“Ok, give me a sec,” Sam said already rummaging around in his duffel in search of some clear underwear. “Wait, we’re going to the crime scene, right?”
“Little slow over there, Sammy?”
“You should wear the suit!”
“Oh, give me a break! It’s too fucking hot for a suit! Nobody in their right mind would wear a suit in such weather,” Dean’s voice was almost pleading.
“Dean,” Sam said with emphasis, “you’re wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt. Go. Change. Now!”
“Geez, to think you should be a little less bitchy after getting your beauty rest,” Dean mumbled but took the crumpled suit out of his bag and started changing. Sam was almost sure that, deep down, his brother welcomed the suggestion with relief as it gave him something to do instead of just sitting motionlessly. Funny how Dean always appeared to be in movement, no matter if it was on a hunt, in a bar or wherever else; even lying on the couch and watching another kung-fu movie his brother always created this strange chaotic aura around himself that would disappear only when he would get really sick, which invariably left the surroundings unsettlingly still.
Five minutes later they were sitting in the Impala. The interior of the car felt stuffy with yesterday’s heat trapped inside. The morning, if not really refreshing, was still pleasant but the cloudless sky didn’t tell a story Sam was particularly fond of hearing.
The drive was silent. They had officially run out of ideas the previous day, this case being nothing but a maze of dead end roads. However cruel and plainly wrong it was, another body could actually cast some light over the darkness they were currently in. The very idea, and even more the truth behind it, made Sam’s guts twist a little.
Comparing with finding Shannon’s house, reaching the right place turned out to be relatively easy. It wasn’t crowded with people yet, there was only one police car, an ambulance and some old pick-up truck so dusted that it was almost impossible to say what color all of the dirt concealed. The body was lying on the ground already covered, two cops talking to a bearded guy, probably the one who’d found the corpse. From the look of it, they couldn’t have been here long.
All eyes were now directed at the black car halting to a stop right next to the police vehicle. Dean got out before Sam could say anything about the flagrant lack of any strategy. Instead, he just followed, which made him, not for the first time, irritated with his brother.
“Hello, gentlemen!” Dean waved to the perplexed people standing around. “Who’s our today’s hero?” He added nodding towards the cadaver pouch.
“Who’s asking?” The older of the officers, the sheriff, Sam observed, frowned at them distrustfully. He spoke in an authoritative tone with a broad southern accent, the initial astonishment completely gone from his face.
“Agents Fogerty and Cook,” they both flashed their badges almost simultaneously.
The old guy sent them a dubious look. “Well, ain’t you surprisingly fast flying nestlings. What business does the FBI got here, huh?”
“We’re here to investigate the death of Dave Bronston,” Dean answered smoothly not at all taken aback by the man’s outright hostility. “Who’s the victim?” He asked walking up to the corpse and unzipping the body bag unceremoniously.
“Son,” The old man walked up to him and grabbed his shoulder. Even from his place Sam could see that the grip was tight. Dean tensed visibly. “I strongly suggest you not touch the body. You may mess up the evidence but you’re an agent, you obviously know that.”
“Sir,” Sam cleared his throat sensing the impending disaster. “Do you think that the two deaths might have something in common?”
“Maybe the same coyote, watya think, sir?” Dean sneered standing up and wrenching away from the uninvited touch. “You find the body, didn’t you?” he asked the bearded guy, now standing a safe distance next to, probably his, truck, a cigarette shaking in his hand.
“She was just lyin’ there. I didn’t touch a thing,” he said guardedly, his gaze jumping from the sheriff to Dean. “And I called the cops, the police, that is.”
“Did you notice anything strange?” Sam asked.
“Strange? She was in shreds, how’s that for strange?” The guy’s voice was trembling. “I was just goin’ home and I saw her. I thought it was a carcass or something and I thought that it was a damn big carcass. But then I saw a shoe and I looked closer and…”
“Is there anything else I may help you with, agents? Any doubts I could resolve?” The sheriff’s voice was stern.
“I sincerely don’t think so,” Dean answered in stilted politeness huffing out a laugh and walking away towards the Impala, which Sam welcomed with relief.
“Fucking morons,” Dean mumbled getting in the car and slamming the door with much bigger force than necessary. He revved the engine and drove off sending clouds of dust billowing behind.
It was getting hot, the sun hanging high in the bleached sky. Sam shrugged off his jacket, the combination of annoyance and worry pumping in his veins.
“Are you looking to get us arrested?” He said mustering as much calm into the words as was physically possible.
“What are you talking about?” Dean spared him a distracted glance, he seemed genuinely surprised by the question.
Sam sighed, the worry finally winning over the annoyance. His brother looked miserable, dark circles around his eyes remaining in striking contrast to his nose and cheeks already pinkish due to the sun and splashed with freckles pronounced much more than usually. And there was the tension, the tension that rarely left Dean’s features these days, Arizona sun making it even more distinct. Sam might’ve been wrong about his brother’s grief over Dave’s death, but the trip down the memory lane definitely didn’t do Dean any good and that one he was sure.
“So did you notice anything about the body?” He asked finally leaving his brother’s question unanswered.
Dean apparently wasn’t too upset about it. “Massacred. Messy, just like Dave’s.”
“There was no blood anywhere near, whatever did this to her must’ve done it elsewhere and just dropped the body later on.”
“Same as Dave’s,” Dean sighed and shook his head with resignation as if trying to snap out of some uninvited thoughts. He took a breath to add something but was interrupted by the ringtone. He reached for his phone and looked at the screen. “Shannon,” he informed before picking up. “Yeah.”
Sam could hear the woman’s voice shouting something however, too inarticulate to make out any words.
“Ok, listen to me,” Dean said in an austere tone, it was John Winchester’s tone, Sam suddenly realized. “You got some salt? ... Good. Go and put it on the windows and doors, each entrance to the house. Then go to the bedroom make a salt circle on the floor and stay inside. Under no circumstances are you to get out of that circle, understand? … Now! ... We’re on our way.” Dean hung up and accelerated the car.
“Oh man, you gotta be fucking kidding me!” He said in a baffled tone swerving the Impala sharply to the left. He flashed his eyes on Sam. “There’s a coyote outside Shannon’s house and apparently is about to drop by.”
“Shit,” incapable of saying anything else, Sam wiped a hand over his face. An evil coyote, the fucking story of their lives.
The car jumped on the uneven surface. Dean drove fast, hopefully fast enough. Sam remembered all too well the condition Dave’s body was in, he really wanted to get in time. The monotonous desert landscape seemed to laugh at their struggle, deluding him into thinking that they hadn’t really covered any distance at all; the movement being impossible like in one of those nightmares in which no matter how hard you try, running is beyond the bounds of feasibility.
Finally the house appeared, however, the coyote was nowhere to be seen. Dean skidded to a halt abruptly and they both leaped to the trunk grabbing the shotguns and some holy water without even processing the movement.
“Sam, go check on Shannon, I’ll have a look at the other side of the house,” Dean was already running away, a shotgun pointed into the empty space in front of him. Sam once again examined the area but didn’t notice anything. He rushed to the front door and yanked it forcefully. It was unlocked. The salt laid next to the threshold, but not in a thick regular line; it was broken in a few places and Sam instinctively braced himself for whatever he might find inside.
“Shannon!” He yelled, walking into the living room, shotgun first. “It’s Sam, where are you?”
Then he heard a shot. “Dean!”
He dashed to the kitchen, where he remembered the back door was. Another shot and then a scream. Fuck, Dean! Fuck! “Dean!”
He didn’t even care to look before he battered down the back door. No further than thirty feet away on his back laid his brother and lashing out at him was the coyote, its teeth bared in a rabid bark. Sam shot the animal with rock salt, it dazed it only for a second but it was enough for Dean to jump to his feet. Sam sprang to his brother emptying the other barrel at the already charging again creature. It fell gnarling ferociously, saliva dripping from its muzzle, giving them the time to hastily retreat to the house.
“Sam, salt!” Dean gasped, he kept his left arm close to his body.
He didn’t have time, the animal already on its feet and darting towards them. Sam started reloading the sawed-off realizing there was no chance he was going to make it. The animal, however, suddenly stopped and ambled to the right snarling ominously for a while and then, to their mutual astonishment, it just turned around and ran away into the desert.
Sam and Dean exchanged confused looks.
“You ok?” Sam asked approaching his brother, not really losing the empty space left by the door from his sight.
“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Dean grunted. “That son of a bitch destroyed my only suit!”
“What the hell was that thing?”
Chapter III