Fic: Ghosts of the Past Are Complications for the Future
Banner by apieceofcake
Title: Ghosts of the Past Are Complications for the Future
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, Andy, mentions of Gordon, Grady, Kubrick, 4 unnamed canon characters
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, mention of slight torture
Spoilers: 2.03 Bloodlust, 2.05 Simon Said, 2.10 Hunted, 3.03 BDABR, 4.04 Metamorphosis (extremely vague)
Word Count: 6,597
Prompt: #19 Knife
Disclaimer: Don't own - just playing in somebody else's sandbox.
Summary: Samuel's searching for Andy. Dean's searching for any hint as to where Samuel's assassin has gone and if there is any chance that he can find him. What they find isn't everything they expected.
A/N: Tenth installment of the Darkness Undefined 'verse. The rest can be found here in order of oldest to newest. Prompt table from evilsam_spn.
Dean slid from tree to tree, keeping one eye ahead of him and the other on the form of his brother, half a dozen feet to his left.
It was hard going, moving through the dense forest that surrounded the little hamlet, searching for signs of Andy and the demons he had taken with him and trying to watch every shadow just in case the hunters were still around.
Personally, he was hoping to come across the hunters, he needed to know who had shot Samuel and see if the coward had the nerve to actually face him or if he or she was only brave when he couldn’t be seen but he wasn’t holding his breath. As much as it ate at him, too much time had passed since his brother had been shot to expect his would be assassin to still be nearby. Especially since, after shooting him, whoever it was hadn’t bothered to move into the open to ensure that he had accomplished what he set out to do or help the survivors fight off the demons. Choosing, instead, to take his shot and then fade away.
And because he had faded away, the chances that he was still lingering in the woods didn’t seem likely. But Andy was out there somewhere and, if Samuel was right and he wasn’t involved in the assassination attempt, maybe, at least, he could tell them, tell Dean, how many had been in the woods and what they looked like.
If he was still alive.
He clenched his jaw against the frustrated growl trying to tear from his throat. He couldn’t picture Andy still breathing, not when there had, apparently, been ample time between him leaving to sweep the woods and Samuel getting shot. But he would humor his brother, if for no other reason then because it gave him the faint hope that he would pick up the trail of those who had tried to kill Samuel. And really, at that point, that was all he wanted.
A soft whistle pulled him from his thoughts and stilled him instantly, his eyes snapping to Samuel.
His brother had his cell to his ear and his free hand clenched in a fist.
Cell coverage had been sketchy at best, in some of the more remote areas of the States before Armageddon but now that it was controlled by a conquered people, sometimes, most times, it didn’t work at all. When Dean had been the hesitant leader of the other side, it had been the rule of thumb to only use cell phones in emergencies, too much of a risk that maybe Samuel had figured out how to trace calls and the lack of reliability. He had thought that it was only those that weren’t in his brother’s circle that had to deal with crap coverage, apparently not.
In the secrecy of his own head, he wasn’t really surprised. Damn near anyone could be terrorized into doing what was wanted of them, didn’t mean they would do it well. He supposed that even something as small as screwing with cell phone coverage would seem like a big deal to someone too scared to publicly rebel.
“Yeah.”
The word was soft, barely discernable above the soft breeze but he didn’t actually need to hear his brother’s tone to feel how his own frustration, his anger was growing. He wasn’t sure if it was ramping up his own or vice versa and didn’t really care.
Samuel was sneering as he pulled the phone from his ear and snapped it closed.
Dean knew that the four demons that his brother had sent to search the forest on the other side of town had come up empty but he still raised a questioning eyebrow all the same.
He shook his head once, sharply, before motioning for them to continue on.
He wasn’t surprised, the trail they were following was well used, tracks, both fresh and older, crisscrossing each other, back and forth blurring until it was difficult to discern a boot print that had been there for a week verses one that had been made only hours before. And he was pretty sure that whatever track the others were following would be just as confusing.
He bit back a frustrated sigh, he wanted, needed, to find something, anything that would point him in a direction. It didn’t matter to him if it was bodies and a fresh set of prints to follow or just a fresh set of prints not marred by older or something.
What would really help was if they could find Andy, still alive somehow, and he could give Dean a clear answer as to where the freedom fighters went. He wasn’t going to hold his breath though, it had been too long and it would pretty much be tantamount to suicide to be found alive after everything that had happened. And as for the demons, there was no way that anyone not a demon could do to them what Samuel had done to Markus but they could be exorcised back to hell.
Although that brought up another disturbing thought that he had been ignoring, Andy had taken four demons with him when he had gone into the woods. How had enough hunters managed to sneak into the area, especially after what had happened to the hamlet to begin with, without getting noticed? Once he could accept, it had happened, the demons placed there over confident and stupid but not twice. Not without help.
Demons were not known for their inherent loyalty, not to each other and most certainly not to Samuel but would they side with freedom fighters? He supposed there were demons that would but would there be hunters, which were supposed to be fighting to free mankind from his brother, that would make that kind of deal with the enemy?
A nauseating image of the pits on the other side of town flashed before his mind’s eye and he sneered. These particular hunters, he would believe them capable of anything.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Son of a bitch.
Andy had better be dead or Dean was going to kill him, no longer willing to even toy with the idea that if he wasn’t dead he had an exceptional explanation as to why he hadn’t returned to the hamlet.
It was too bad. After he had gotten over the insult of Andy mind whammying him and taking the Impala all those years before, he had kind of started to like the guy.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at his brother and watched him carefully peer around a bend in the trail.
Dean gnawed on his lower lip; he’d let him keep believing that Andy hadn’t double-crossed them, him, until they had made their half circle of the hamlet. If by then they hadn’t found anything or more specifically hadn’t found the wayward special kid, then he would bring up his suspicions. Until then he wasn’t stupid enough to voice his thoughts, not when he could feel the growing frustration riding their link. He might be livid, he might be planning on taking the head of his brother’s would be assassin but he wasn’t stupid enough to cross that bridge, at least not until he had too.
He had turned away from Samuel to search the surrounding area for any sign of recent activity that was distorted by earlier use when he felt the tingle of something unfamiliar slam into him from their link. He stiffened and spun, gun raised towards the direction of his brother and bit back the urge to call out to him.
Samuel was still standing exactly where he had been when he had turned away only now he was completely tense and he could only describe the emotion coursing between them as shock.
Shit!
Silently he quickly made his way over to his brother’s side just as Samuel stepped fully out onto the path.
“What?” He hissed just as he moved past him to cover him with his own body. He had already been shot once that day, Dean would be damned if he was going to let him become an easy target again.
The clearing wasn’t much; barely wider than the interior of the Impala but it was more open than the path had been leading up to that point. It kind of surprised Dean that that was the place that the freedom fighters had chosen as the best place to ambush Andy and the others but, on the other hand, when fighting demons you did need some room to swing flasks of holy water he supposed. Personally he would have used blessed bullets to at least stun them first but that would have been noisy so all things being equal he got it.
There were four bodies laying on the ground, three men and one woman, and even from the ten or so feet away he could see patches of red skin where they had been hit with holy water and that they were most definitely dead. He ignored the silent question regarding if they had been dead before they had been possessed because the single knife wound that each body bore, kind of made it a moot point. Though he did wonder why they woman and one of the men had had their throats slashed and the other two men, stabbed in their chests. What would be the point? You couldn’t kill demons with a knife, every hunter, and now, every civilian knew that.
“There.” Samuel hissed as he pushed past and strode into the clearing, utterly unconcerned that anyone could still be lurking around.
“For fucks sake Samuel!” He snarled and reached out to grab onto the back of his coat when he spotted the dirty yellow cord tied to one of the thick trucks at the edge of the clearing. It hadn’t been what he had been looking for, though he knew that wasn’t an excuse for not seeing it right away but he had been searching the shadows for signs of movement, not for a chunk of twine wrapped around a tree.
“Damn it Andy!” Samuel hissed as both of them moved around to the far side of the tree and spotted the psychic tied to it.
His dark head was hanging forward, chin almost resting on his chest, and still gagged.
Someone had taken their time torturing him, shallow cuts, blood still drying, easily seen on his bare arms, blood staining his light blue t-shirt around, what Dean guessed, were six separate stab wounds. There was blood on his jeans, a little too close to his genitals for comfort, and a couple tears, most likely also made by a knife.
Man’s inhumanity to man at it’s finest.
The sight chilled him through, not so much because it was Andy but because of what had been done to him and by whom. It was like a dark stain in his mind, making him question just how far he would have gone, being in the place of the person who had wielded the knife. Would he have done the same, all in the name of his cause? Or would he have done it trying to force his brother’s location from the kid?
He knew he wouldn’t have done the same to the hamlet, of that he was certain; no human life was worth the price, at least not to him. But would he go as far as Andy’s torturer had to get the information he wanted, especially if it pertained to Samuel?
Would he?
Samuel shifting and raising steady fingers to the side of Andy’s neck pulled him from the disturbing thoughts and not a moment too soon. He didn’t want to think too deeply on it, didn’t want to consider that maybe, just maybe, hunters and the survivors they had trained were starting to blur the lines between what was right and what was deemed a necessary evil.
Shock suddenly rode the link between them again.
“What…?”
His fingers slid across Andy’s throat until they curled around the gag and pulled it loose. “Andy.”
It wasn’t a question but a command.
“Jesus Christ, he’s alive?” Dean took a step closer, eyeing the bound psychic, looking past the buckled knees and blood stained shirt and caught the slight rise and fall of his chest.
“Andrew.” Samuel growled low, wrapped his fingers around his chin and pulled his head up.
Dark eyelashes fluttered before he groaned softly and appeared to focus on Samuel.
“With us now?”
He nodded jerkily, shaking his head free from Samuel’s grip, before wincing in pain.
Dean took another step closer, gun secured in the back of his jeans and already pulling his hunting knife from where he had it hidden in his boot, intent only on freeing the other man. At that point it didn’t matter to him what exactly Andy was or wasn’t or who’s side he was on, though to Dean it seemed a pretty extreme thing to put himself through only to try to convince his brother that he still answered to him, it only mattered that he was hurt and lashed to a tree like some kind of sacrifice.
“Wait.” Samuel caught his wrist and pulled him to a stop.
He glanced at him, eyebrow raised in silent question.
He titled his head to the side and back before his eyes went back to Andy.
Four demons sent back to hell, those they had possessed the only bodies in the area and yet Andy was still alive, barely, but alive. Maybe getting cut up wasn’t such an extreme way to convince Samuel that he was still on his side after all.
“What happened?”
Dean watched Andy’s throat work as he swallowed thickly.
“There were six of them.” His voice was raw, like he had been trying to scream for hours and by the looks of things, he probably had been. “A couple girls, the others guys and they were crazy as all fuck. Came out from around the tress splashing water everywhere. The demons started hissing and wreathing and that’s when I knew it was holy water.”
That’s when? Dean thought darkly, Should have occurred to you when they first started throwing it around.
“Tried to gain control of one of the chicks, a tiny, little blond thing but this big, black guy punched me in the jaw.” He tilted his head to the side and Dean spotted the purpling bruise just starting to form under the brighter marks where the gag had been.
“I came to tied to this tree, gagged and the same guy, who had socked me, waving a hunting knife in my face.”
Dean glanced over at his brother, Samuel was silent and stock still, his face an unreadable mask, even though his eyes were still hazel instead of the yellow he had thought they would be. Even their link held very little in the way of informing him what his brother was feeling. The best he could come up with was a tingling of intense interest in what he was hearing.
“Then what?” He finally prompted when Andy seemed to zone out.
“He asked me if you were coming. Wanted to know if their cleansing of the town had caught your attention.”
Cleansing of the town?
Dean had been wrong, the hunters that had attacked the hamlet, and in truth that’s really what it was, weren’t just crazy, they were fucking fanatics. Cleansing the town, Jesus Christ, who said that but fucking religious fanatics.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.” Andy was quick to assure. “I wouldn’t, you know that. Besides,” he continued after a brief pause. Dean assumed was because he was waiting, or maybe hoping, that Samuel would tell him that he believed him. He could have told him that since his brother had opted to leave him tied to the tree that that wasn’t going to happen but he figured the psychic wouldn’t get it. Not if he hadn’t when he had stopped Dean from cutting him loose in the first place.
“He never took the gag out of my mouth. It’s not like he gave me the opportunity to.” Andy swallowed hard again, “Then he just started cutting me up. Said he wanted to know if a blade that could kill demons could purify my blood too.”
The stab wounds to the chests, the slit throats, it hadn’t been some fucked up idea to send the unfortunate souls of the possessed to Heaven, or wherever the hell spirits went. It was to kill the demons and, apparently, it had. But could it destroy the demon blood in Azazel’s special kids? And if it could, what did that mean for Samuel?
Obviously the hunters who had been there, who had done this to Andy, didn’t think it could or maybe they either just weren’t willing to risk getting close enough to try it or didn’t believe his brother was worthy of being saved.
Dean, on the other hand, knew that if there was one person in the world that was worth it, it was Sammy. It was his fault that demons ran the world bit it was Dean that had pushed him away, pushed him to embrace his demon side, so ultimately it was his fault, not his little brother’s.
But even as Dean wonder if a knife, that had been designed to destroy demons, could save the lives of those only tainted with demon blood, he knew, that really, it didn’t matter. When everything was all said and done, Samuel wasn’t tainted by demon blood, it hadn’t been fed to him as a baby, he was half demon. The knife may not kill him but there was a huge fucking chance it might. And Dean wasn’t going to risk killing Sammy just on the off chance that maybe he would only be getting rid of Samuel.
The knife was, however, something he was going to have to track down. No way in hell was he going to allow some fanatic to continue to possess it, not when it had killed four demons and would probably kill Sammy. But he also couldn’t let it fall into the hands of anyone on their, Samuel’s, side either for exactly the same reason.
“And I’m guessing they didn’t test their theory on themselves.” Samuel muttered darkly but his voice held wry humor, “Didn’t take your gag out and let you try to control them.”
Andy shook his head slowly and his eyes flashed with trepidation.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Samuel turn to him and Andy’s eyes soon followed.
Dean felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen, Andy had tried to control Sammy once and failed. Dean didn’t know if that was because his brother was half demon or if the special kids just couldn’t control each other but he did know that he was the only one in the area who didn’t have demon blood coursing through his veins.
Tattooing needles drenched in ink and his brother’s blood flashed in his head.
Or, at least, not enough demon blood to really make a difference. That he knew from first hand experience.
“No.” He growled as he turned a challenging glare on his brother, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Not a fucking chance.”
“Dean we need to know.” He pressed quietly.
There wasn’t a hint of a command in his brother’s voice and Dean appreciated it, he really did, knowing that if Samuel wanted to, he could make Dean do it. But it wasn’t enough, nothing would be, to convince him to let Andy control him, even if Samuel would be right there to make sure nothing would happen to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his brother enough but not having control of his own body, thoughts, suggestions, not his own forcing him to do things he didn’t want to do, was something he didn’t want to experience ever again.
“So? I’m sure that not all of the civilians have been taken out of the hamlet yet.” As much as the thought soured his stomach, he wasn’t going to become Andy’s test subject. “Use one of them.”
Something flashed in Samuel’s eyes and through the link between them but it was gone too fast before he could even consider putting a name to it.
“Why do you think that Andy and Ava and the others can control the demons Dean?”
He didn’t sound angry, exactly, more curious.
The fucking blood. He snarled it silently, like he and every other hunter, which pretty much included all of them now since Armageddon, hadn’t already figured that out.
Samuel smirked at him, message received.
“Without the power it gives them, they are just more meat suits.”
Andy hissed in a breath, “You wouldn’t let them use me would you Samuel? If the knife did fuck me up…. The demons don’t like us having power over them. They’d, they’d…”
He trailed off at Samuel’s upraised hand in his direction but it was clear, in the way that his face lost what little color, it had that he noticed that he never received an answer or any kind of reassurance.
He couldn’t blame Andy, he had seen, first hand, what happened to those luckless enough to cross paths with a demon, especially a demon with a larger than normal chip on it’s shoulder. Not much imagination was needed to understand just how pissed off any of the legion were, having to take orders from humans, meat suits, only because, somehow, Azazel’s blood demanded subservience. Hell, he didn’t hate all of mankind for simply being mankind, and he still carried a grudge against the kid for taking control of him, the once, no matter how briefly it had been.
But feeling bad for the kid still wasn’t enough motivation to help him out. Not by a long shot.
“Dean I need to know.” Samuel loosened his grip from around his wrist but didn’t let go, simply shifted until their fingers were entwined and he could rub his thumb, gently, against his knuckles. “I need to know how big of a threat this is to me.”
Damn it!
That wasn’t fair, not fucking fair at all. Fucking Samuel using Sammy’s puppy eyes and staring at him like it wasn’t possible that Dean couldn’t fix it.
Bastard.
Add to that that Samuel wanted to know how big of a threat it was to him and Dean was pretty much screwed. Because as long as he had breath he’d do whatever he could to protect Sammy.
Shit.
He swallowed down a groan and rolled his eyes, feeling his resolve crumbling.
“What happens if his mojo’s gone?”
Samuel shrugged, “Well then I guess we better hope that we can find the nut who wields the knife.”
“Samuel?” Andy’s voice was broken, pleading.
He turned his head and smiled at him, it wasn’t reassuring. “Not to worry Andy, I’m sure I can think of somewhere to fit you in.”
And Dean suddenly got it. If the knife had destroyed Andy’s powers then Andy was a liability and not just because the legion would be lining up to get a piece of the psychic. But because of the fact that the legion would know, know there was a way to destroy those that controlled them. Then there were the kids themselves, Dean would bet his right hand that maybe there would be one or two that would break and run but the rest would actively search for the knife, try to gain the upper hand against each other, Samuel.
Andy would have to disappear, permanently.
“Dean?”
He was going to let it happen, just like he had let the binding ritual happen, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“No stupid fucking shit.” He narrowed his eyes at his brother, not speaking to the boy king Samuel but to his brother Sammy. He might be the overlord or high demon or the Anti-Christ but he was still a little brother and this kind of situation was definitely worthy of getting one over the big brother. “Nothing embarrassing,” he stepped up to him until they were chest to chest and scowled with as much dark promise as he could muster. “Nothing or I’m gonna kick your ass. Understood?”
Samuel’s lips twitched upwards but he managed to stop it from becoming a full-blown grin. “Understood.”
“Don’t fuck with me Sammy,” he pressed, the almost grin not reassuring him. “His mind mojo isn’t like being hypnotized, I will remember everything.”
He leaned forward until his lips were brushing against Dean’s ear. “If it’s something that you deem embarrassing then, to make up for it, I’ll bottom for you tonight.’
He pulled back and searched his brother’s eyes, looking for deception, hunting for truth. Samuel didn’t bottom, logically he got that, his brother wouldn’t give up control in any aspect of his life, not even to him, not now. He knew it had to do with trust and he knew why he didn’t have that trust, yet, and not just because of who he had once been. But if Samuel was desperate enough to offer it all the same, then Dean guessed he could trust that it was the demon controlling this little display, not his little brother, more concerned with needing answers than getting any kind of payback for legitimate or simply perceived wrongs from when they had been kids.
He took a step back, gaining space between them once again, and turned to face Andy. “Fine.”
Andy’s shoulders fell slightly, apparently he hadn’t thought Dean would go through with it, but then again he had no idea what Samuel had promised. “Thanks De…”
He raised a hand, “Just keep in mind, whatever you do, if I deem it uncomfortable or embarrassing, when I regain control you’re dead.”
The bound psychic bit his lip before he flicked his eyes from him to his brother. Probably weighing his options, the risk before nodding once.
He shut his eyes and seemed to be pulling himself together, maybe he realized what was going to happen to him if he couldn’t control Dean, maybe it was simply a case of hurting so bad that he was having problems centring. Whatever it was, after a moment of tense silence, his eyes opened and he stared hard at Dean. “Release me.”
There was a sudden fuzziness at the back of his mind and an urge to cut Andy’s bonds but it was easy to push it away. He shift stance and raised an eyebrow.
The look of assurance flickered and died in Andy’s eyes.
“Again.” Samuel urged darkly.
His nostrils flared as he dragged in a sharp breath, “Dean. Release me.”
He had stumbled forward a few steps and his grip on the knife had tightened before he realised he had moved. The fogginess was heavier now and the urge to obey almost overwhelming but not quite.
“Nah. Don’t think so.”
Dean hadn’t been planning on saying anything but it seemed ingrained to talk back when he was irritated. After having spent so many years swallowing everything down when he had blindly followed his father’s orders when it was someone else trying to control him it was automatic to voice his annoyance.
This time Andy didn’t wait for Samuel to prompt him but then again, unless he hadn’t been watching, he couldn’t have missed Dean’s hesitant steps. “Dean. Release. Me.”
In the back of his head, he could hear his own command to stop moving, to stop cutting the ropes but the words were soft and kind of indistinct. It was more important to do as Andy said, feeling that it was, critical, too important not to.
“Dean…”
He didn’t think it was Andy calling his name that caused him to reach out and grab him as his knees buckled, too weak to hold himself upright. Pretty sure it was just gut instinct to stop him from hitting the ground, habit ingrained to try to ease the suffering of those wounded, stop them from hurting themselves any further. At least, he hoped that was all it was.
Carefully he lowered him to sit with his back against the tree for support and crouched down in front of him.
Andy hadn’t made him do anything stupid and maybe there was still a question as to where his loyalties lied but that could wait. For now, Dean needed to know how badly he was hurt, if his torture had cut him deep enough that eventually he would bleed out or if he had intended to leave him to fend for himself against the demons that maybe the guy had been hoping would find him. He couldn’t afford to let him bleed to death, not now that he could once again concentrate on the fact that the psychic was the only person around that could give him a description and a direction taken by the hunters.
“Let’s see.” He murmured, his hands already reaching for the hem of Andy’s t-shirt.
“Leave it.” Samuel barked sharply.
Dean stilled and twisted his head to look back at his brother.
Samuel had his cell phone back out and was punching in numbers.
As much as he didn’t like the way he had been used to prove that Andy still had his powers, he had allowed it to happen and Samuel had asked him to let it happen so what the hell could be the problem now? Sure there was still the chance that this was still some kind of set up but they would never know if the kid bled out. Nor would they find anything else out about the hunters.
“Sammy?”
He tried appealing to the human side of his brother, not the demon side. The demon wouldn’t care if the psychic was suffering, maybe dieing but the human would, maybe, hopefully.
“Found them.” He hissed into the phone while he stared down at them. “You, a first aid kit and someone to help you, here now. I’ll send the coordinates from the GPS in my phone to yours.”
He pulled it away from his ear, pushed a couple more buttons then snapped it shut. “Blood’s dried the shirt to the wounds, best to leave it like that until there’s something better to dress them with then your over shirt.”
It made sense, even though fresh blood was seeping through, it wasn’t much and he really didn’t want to have to deal with gapping wounds, not if he didn’t have to. Let the peons do it, even if the peons were demons, they’d do a good job if for no other reason then because Samuel would be standing over their shoulders.
“Just sit still.” He warned Andy as he settled back on his heels. “Don’t want to make things worse.”
He snorted weakly, “Not going to be a problem.”
Samuel’s knees bumped against his shoulders before his brother was dropping down to settle against his back. He didn’t know if it was because he was hoping that Dean would keep him from the psychic’s throat if he didn’t get the answers he wanted or if it was to reassert his claim and ensure that Andy knew that controlling Dean was a one-time thing but he really didn’t care. The heart stopping memory of Sammy sprawled out on the wood floor of the gazebo, appearing dead, still too fresh to not be willing accept the contact.
“What else can you tell me about the freedom fighters?”
Andy’s eyes flickered from Samuel to Dean and then back and a light flush appeared on his cheeks. Dean found it kind of funny that Andy appeared uncomfortable with the whole incest thing when he was commanding demons to control humans. As far as he was concerned, the kid had a fuck up sense of morals.
“The black guy with the knife was definitely the leader. He was a little taller than Dean, I think, had a goatee and really was crazy. Umm…the blond I tried to control was tiny with long hair, brown eyes and listened to what he told her but didn’t seem to like it, had an opinion on everything.”
Andy let his eyes slid shut and Dean could watch them move beneath the lids, like he was reliving the moment. He didn’t really care if the memory brought up any kind of terror for the psychic because he was part of the reason that people like that could work out in the open without fear of reprisal, with the exception of Samuel and his legion but they were looking for it, expecting it. And humans, regular, conquered humans, wouldn’t care if they were nuts and were the type of people that others used to hope the cops would catch and jail, not anymore.
“There was another black guy, heavier, and the other woman was black too with short hair and I think they must be a couple or have been partners for years because they seemed to communicate without talking, knew where the other would be, what the other might need. There was an older guy who I can remember telling the leader that he thought leaving me alive was a mistake. That he had left a hunt with a Roogaroo not completed once and twenty years later had to finish the job and it was messier because of it. The other guy had dark, kind of curly hair and a goatee, he never said anything but seemed to try to stay as far away from the leader as possible and kept shooting nervous looks at him.”
He had felt Samuel getting progressively tenser the longer Andy had spoken but it wasn’t something he thought he had missed, pretty sure he could pinpoint the exact moment the body behind him had gone stiff, during the description of the leader, the precise moment his own had.
“Walker.” Samuel growled low.
Gordon Walker, a hunter they encountered years before during a hunt for a nest of vampires. Turned out the vampires weren’t the animals during that hunt. They had chosen to try to blend in, surviving on cow’s blood and holding down graveyard shift jobs. In the end it had taken Gordon shoving a knife against Sammy’s throat and the head vampire’s refusal to give into her instincts to prove that to Dean but eventually he got.
It wasn’t the last they saw of the other hunter unfortunately. Months later, Gordon had been exorcizing a demon and found out some of Azazel’s plan. Learnt about the special kids, started hunting them instead of the vampires he had such a black hate for, started hunting Sammy. In the end, after Dean becoming bait and his little brother having to rescue him and setting up Gordon to be caught by law enforcement, they thought they had seen the last of him and they had, kind of. But even in prison he still had connections and had used them to continue his hunt for Sammy, enlisting the help of a couple of hunters named Grady and Kubrick.
They had managed to shake them too but now he wondered if it hadn’t been only short term.
“Anything else?”
Andy shook his head, “Other than once we heard what sounded like an explosion and the guy with the beard said something about “Kubrick’s done it”, there’s nothing more. They just left me here and headed in the direction of the town.”
Yup, hadn’t seen the last of Gordon or his cronies.
He really wished he didn’t know why they hadn’t swarmed the town when everything had dissolved into chaos but he knew Gordon. Knew that he preferred to strike from the shadows, only risking himself when there was no other option. It wouldn’t matter to him that civilians were being slaughtered, not to a man that had hunted and killed his own sister. To him the end always justified the means.
Fuck.
The sounds of movement coming closer had them pulling to their feet and tensing. It was probably only the demons Samuel had called, in fact if it was Gordon leading those that had attacked then it would be but, well there was always a but.
They were standing close enough together that Dean could hear the soft sound of Samuel’s cell vibrating against something metallic in his jacket pocket. He watched out of the corner of his eye as he pulled it out and flipped it open.
“It’s them.”
He had drawn his gun from the back of his jeans as he had stood and no matter that it probably was the demons, he wasn’t going to put it away until he could see them, maybe not even then.
He didn’t recognize the woman but the male demon was one of the ones that had dragged him into Samuel’s office back in Conroe, TX. His finger tightened automatically on the trigger at the slight smirk the demon threw in his direction.
Samuel coughed and the look faded quickly. “No shooting the help.” He murmured low and pulled Dean to stand, still within sight but out of hearing.
“I would have just nicked him.” He muttered back as they watched the demons strip Andy to the waist.
“Sure.” Samuel didn’t sound convinced. “So Gordon huh?”
“Sounds like.”
They silently watched as Andy’s wounds were checked and cleaned.
“Well at least they’re thorough.”
He snorted, “They’re demons Dean, not idiots.”
“Never said they were idiots.” He finally slipped his gun back into the back of his jeans and crossed his arms over his chest. “But demons aren’t known for healing.”
“They do as they’re told or they die.”
It was said neutrally and for that Dean was obscenely relieved. As long as they stayed nothing more than a tool then there was a chance that he could still convince Sammy to stop playing boy king.
“Did you know Gordon had survived this long?”
Dean shook his head, “No. If he had anything to do with anyone I had contact with, they didn’t tell me about.”
He saw Samuel nod from the corner of his eye. After a moment of silence he slashed a hand through his hair, “We’ve not going to find the trail.” He said low, anger and frustration not hidden, not in his voice nor through their link.
Dean tasted acid in the back of his throat and his hands clenched into fists, as he own anger slammed back into the forefront. They had gone over the area around were they figured the assassin had been and had lost the trail before they were twenty feet away from the spot. “No shit.”
“But I know a way to find out more about that knife.”
He turned to face him, “Think it’ll help us find Kubrick?”
The knife was a problem, a really, big fucking problem but now that he knew who had taken a shot at Sammy that was his priority. If they came across the knife at the same time, all the better but if they didn’t, they could always hunt for it later.
Kubrick first.
Gordon and his new toy, second.
“Up for another road trip?”
It wasn’t an answer, not really, but it was and he’d take it as such. For now.
“Just remember, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his pie hole.”
Samuel rolled his eyes and the indulgent grin was pure Sammy.
“Jerk.”
“Bitch.”
Fin.
A/N #2: I'm going to try to slip another installment in before I leave for vacation in two weeks but I have a Sweet Charity fic and a Sweet Charity podfic that have to be done first.