Not the Demons You're Looking For (6/24)
Part 5
Part 6
Sam insisted on stopping to buy tissues before they even started investigating, and Dean didn't fight him too hard on it, given that his nose was doing its very best imitation of a runaway faucet. He managed to sneak a few more of the cold meds when he was pretty sure Sam wasn't looking, knowing just how much it would make his brother freak out and insist he go back home and go to bed or something equally as stupid when there was work to be done. Sam bought him a bunch of the travel-sized packets of tissues (the ones with lotion, God bless him) and several packs of throat lozenges. Dean couldn't even bring himself to crack a joke at his expense, just took them and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket.
“We should split up, cover more ground that way,” Sam said as they paused in the doorway of the drugstore, sheltering from the rain that was still pouring down.
“I vote you go chegk out the archives,” Dean said immediately. “Addy here ad I'll go talgk to the Sheriff, ged our hads od the case files.” Poring through articles and using the microfiche machines was definitely more Sam's thing than it was Dean's. He couldn't think of a more boring way to spend the day if he tried, but Sam got all cranked up about that kind of research. Go figure.
Sam's lips quirked as though he was trying not to smile. Hilarious. “Okay, sure. I'll see if I can recognize the woman I saw. Meet back for lunch?”
“HAAISH!” Dean buried his nose in the crook of his elbow, too late to fish out one of his new tissues.
“Gesundheit.”
“Bless.”
Dean would have rolled his eyes if he wasn't worried that they'd fall out of his head. “I hade to breagk id to you guys, but you bay as well gibe up dow. Ad the rate I'b goig, you're both goig to be hoarse by the edd ob the day.” He almost laughed at the identical looks of sympathy he got. “Do goig soft od be dow. Freagging girls, all of you. Sabby, first ode to fidish calls the others, okay?”
Sam nodded. “Okay, fine. Take more of the cold meds.”
“Way ahead of you.” This time he managed to get hold of a tissue as his nose staged another revolt, almost doubling him over. “Huh... HAISHOO! ISHOO! Uh... HEISHH!” He straightened, gave Sam what he hoped was a really stern look, although the massive amounts of snot might have ruined the effect. “Dod't stardt, Sab. It's jusd a cold,” he said through the tissue.
“Fine. I'll call if I find something.” Sam huffed the way Sam always did when he wasn't going to get his way, then commandeered one of the umbrellas and hurried away down the street without so much as a backward glance. For a moment Dean was almost sorry he hadn't argued or been difficult or... well, done anything Sam-like. Then again, this was a gift horse, better not look it in the mouth.
Andy fell into step beside him, holding the handle of the umbrella a bit as though it was the bridle of a skittish horse. He led the way to the sheriff's office, which doubled as the town's jail. “Uh, seriously... you okay?”
He wiped his nose, nodded. “Yeah. Feel ligke crap, but I've had worse. Id's a cold, dothig bore. You kdow the sheriff at all?”
Andy made a noncommittal gesture, the umbrella bobbing dangerously and sending a spray of water down Dean's neck, making him yelp and curse. “Sorry! Uh, yeah, I know him. I mean, it's a small town, right? Everyone knows everyone around here, even if it's not well.”
“Thigk he'd give up the files if we asgk dicely?”
After a moment's pause, Andy shook his head. “Nah. Probably not. He takes his job seriously.”
“Ogkay. L-loogks ligke w-we're... hih... doig id the h-hard... HPKSCHH-uh! the hard way,” he managed.
“Or the easy way, depending on how you look at it. Bless, by the way.” Andy closed the umbrella in another shower of water, eliciting another annoyed yelp from Dean, who was getting really freaking tired of having water spilled down his collar. By way of apology he held the door open, and Dean was a little amused to hear the chiming of bells as he walked in. He halfway expected to see shelves with knick-knacks for sale instead of a lawman's office.
An older man with a greying moustache wearing the brown shirt and beige cargo pants that seemed to be standard issue for every single small-town law office in the entire United States of America was sitting behind a large desk that looked like it had been rejected by Ikea for looking too cheap. He stood up immediately, came to the counter that separated the entrance from the rest of the office.
“Andy Gallagher. Haven't seen much of you around, son. You been keeping out of trouble?”
“Uh, yes, sir, Sheriff Andrews. You know me. Keeping out of trouble, it's what I do best,” Andy smiled nervously.
“Good, good. You know you can call me Bud, Andy, so long as you're not in any trouble. Who's your friend?” Andrews gave Dean a dubious look, and Dean wished he didn't look and feel like a bedraggled rat. Maybe being sick and caught out in the rain wasn't the best way to start an interview. Good thing he had Andy as the ace up his sleeve. He produced one of his fake I.D.'s and for once let someone else do the talking.
“Uh, this is Cliff Williams, Bud. He's a private investigator who's looking into those weird deaths we've had recently.” Andy leaned forward across the counter, lending emphasis to his words. “We need to look at all the reports you have on those cases. Please show them to us now.”
For a moment Bud's eyes lost their focus; Dean saw his pupils dilate and constrict, and then the look was gone, replaced with affable good humour. “Of course, of course. It's no problem at all. Why don't you boys follow me. You want coffee? We just made a fresh pot.” He lifted the mobile part of the counter up on its hinges to let them pass.
This wasn't the first time Dean had seen Andy work his mojo. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end, and he knew what it felt like (which was nothing at all) but it was pretty chilling to watch anyway. He was very glad he'd established ground rules about this right off the bat. Andy was a good kid, as far as he could tell, but mind-control was not something Dean wanted to mess with. He followed the Sheriff into a back room, sneezing wetly into yet another tissue. At this rate he'd be buying out the drugstore in no time. Lousy freaking timing. Well, there was no good timing for getting sick, but this was really lousy timing.
“Hih... HAAISH!” he sniffled, made a valiant if futile attempt to muffle his sneezes, which seemed to bounce of every single wall in the place. “HPFFGH! HPKTSCHH! Uh... HPKRSHH!”
“God bless, son,” Bud was pulling files from a grey metallic filing cabinet in the corner of his office. “Got a cold?”
He tossed his used tissue into a convenient trash can. “Yeah. Does it ever stop raidig aroud here?”
“Oh, eventually it always does. Been getting a lot more rain than usual for this time of year, I don't mind telling you. A man could drown standing up out there if he's not careful.”
“You're tellig be,” Dean muttered.
Andy appeared with two styrofoam cups of coffee, and handed one to Dean. “Uh, is there a place we can sit and look over these without getting in your way, uh, Bud?”
“Sure, you boys can take the spare office. Mabel's out on maternity leave, and I haven't found a proper replacement for her. Last girl was useless -kept burning the coffee. Figured out how to do it myself, saved the county the cost of an extra salary until Mabel gets back.”
He dumped a stack of manila folders into Andy's arms, and waved expansively in the direction of a plain wooden door with a name tag that read “Mabel Spooner.” The office turned out to look a lot like how Dean imagined Mabel: middle-American and cutesy. Motivational posters adorned the walls (“Perseverance: What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”), as well as an outdated calendar portraying kittens frolicking in what looked like a basket of Easter eggs. There was a wilted pot of african violets on the desk: obviously Bud's loyalty to Mabel didn't go as far as watering her plants.
“All right. Led's get this show od the road before I stab byself id the eye with ode of Baybel's fluffy peds.”
Andy picked up one of the offending articles, a fluorescent green thing that wobbled when he tried to take notes with it. “This is stupid.”
“You're tellig be.” Dean sat in Mabel's rolling office chair and pulled open the top drawer, where he found a bunch of Bic pens held together with a rubber band. “Yahtzee.” He tossed a pen to Andy, stuck another one in his teeth, shoved the drawer closed.
“So what are we looking for?”
Dean spat out the pen, snatched a tissue from the box on Mabel's desk (pink, with bunny rabbits), burying his nose and mouth in it. “HAPTSCHUH! Uh... God. We're lookig for cobbod elebedts. Adythig thad coddegts the vigtibs.”
“Gotcha.”
It was really, really hard to concentrate with a headcold. His head felt like it was filled with wet cement, his eyes itched and watered, his whole body hurt, and his nose would not stop goddamned running. Just freaking perfect. He settled himself as comfortably as he could, propped up on the table on his elbow, scrawling notes on a legal pad as he went. At least there was coffee, but it didn't go very far toward making his throat less sore, or help with the constant coughing and sneezing. After an hour, he was tired of listening to himself, and felt kind of bad for Andy, stuck in here with him. Sure, in the grand scheme of things catching a cold wasn't the worst thing that could happen, but that didn't prevent it from sucking like a hoover.
“Hiih... ISHOO! HAAISH! Sniff... huh-EKSCHUH-uh!” Okay, at this rate his head was definitely going to explode. Or he might spontaneously combust, like that woman, or something. Maybe all the victims had had colds and just didn't want to keep living. It seemed like a viable theory at this point.
Andy kept a steady supply of coffee coming, as it took seemingly forever to work through the files, but even with the hot liquid to keep him going, by the end of it he was hunched over the desk as though he was eighty years old, trying not to shiver.
“Uh... maybe we should call Sam,” Andy ventured finally. “I mean, we've gone through all the files, and I don't think we missed anything...”
Dean nodded, felt his breath hitch for the millionth time, and took another tissue from Mabel's rapidly-dwindling stash. “HEPKTCH-uh!” He wiped disconsolately at his nose, pretty sure that any attempt to blow it would just end up rupturing his sinuses. “Bay as well,” he agreed, wishing he didn't sound as out of breath as he felt. “We bight have to cobe bagk, to double-chegk thigs lader. Is thad goig to be a probleb?”
Andy shook his head. “Nah. Shouldn't be.”
“Ogkay.” He pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialled Sam. “It's be. Shud up, I dod't wadt to hear it. Did you get adythig? … Ogkay. W-we're jusd ab-aboud... hih... dode here. You g-goi... HEPTSCHUH!” he held the phone away from his ear, catching the sneeze in his sleeve. “You goig to beet us? ... Right. See you sood.” He turned back to Andy. “You good to go?”
“Please.”
“Ogkay. Thagk your buddy for his help, ad let's go.”
Part 7
Part 6
Sam insisted on stopping to buy tissues before they even started investigating, and Dean didn't fight him too hard on it, given that his nose was doing its very best imitation of a runaway faucet. He managed to sneak a few more of the cold meds when he was pretty sure Sam wasn't looking, knowing just how much it would make his brother freak out and insist he go back home and go to bed or something equally as stupid when there was work to be done. Sam bought him a bunch of the travel-sized packets of tissues (the ones with lotion, God bless him) and several packs of throat lozenges. Dean couldn't even bring himself to crack a joke at his expense, just took them and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket.
“We should split up, cover more ground that way,” Sam said as they paused in the doorway of the drugstore, sheltering from the rain that was still pouring down.
“I vote you go chegk out the archives,” Dean said immediately. “Addy here ad I'll go talgk to the Sheriff, ged our hads od the case files.” Poring through articles and using the microfiche machines was definitely more Sam's thing than it was Dean's. He couldn't think of a more boring way to spend the day if he tried, but Sam got all cranked up about that kind of research. Go figure.
Sam's lips quirked as though he was trying not to smile. Hilarious. “Okay, sure. I'll see if I can recognize the woman I saw. Meet back for lunch?”
“HAAISH!” Dean buried his nose in the crook of his elbow, too late to fish out one of his new tissues.
“Gesundheit.”
“Bless.”
Dean would have rolled his eyes if he wasn't worried that they'd fall out of his head. “I hade to breagk id to you guys, but you bay as well gibe up dow. Ad the rate I'b goig, you're both goig to be hoarse by the edd ob the day.” He almost laughed at the identical looks of sympathy he got. “Do goig soft od be dow. Freagging girls, all of you. Sabby, first ode to fidish calls the others, okay?”
Sam nodded. “Okay, fine. Take more of the cold meds.”
“Way ahead of you.” This time he managed to get hold of a tissue as his nose staged another revolt, almost doubling him over. “Huh... HAISHOO! ISHOO! Uh... HEISHH!” He straightened, gave Sam what he hoped was a really stern look, although the massive amounts of snot might have ruined the effect. “Dod't stardt, Sab. It's jusd a cold,” he said through the tissue.
“Fine. I'll call if I find something.” Sam huffed the way Sam always did when he wasn't going to get his way, then commandeered one of the umbrellas and hurried away down the street without so much as a backward glance. For a moment Dean was almost sorry he hadn't argued or been difficult or... well, done anything Sam-like. Then again, this was a gift horse, better not look it in the mouth.
Andy fell into step beside him, holding the handle of the umbrella a bit as though it was the bridle of a skittish horse. He led the way to the sheriff's office, which doubled as the town's jail. “Uh, seriously... you okay?”
He wiped his nose, nodded. “Yeah. Feel ligke crap, but I've had worse. Id's a cold, dothig bore. You kdow the sheriff at all?”
Andy made a noncommittal gesture, the umbrella bobbing dangerously and sending a spray of water down Dean's neck, making him yelp and curse. “Sorry! Uh, yeah, I know him. I mean, it's a small town, right? Everyone knows everyone around here, even if it's not well.”
“Thigk he'd give up the files if we asgk dicely?”
After a moment's pause, Andy shook his head. “Nah. Probably not. He takes his job seriously.”
“Ogkay. L-loogks ligke w-we're... hih... doig id the h-hard... HPKSCHH-uh! the hard way,” he managed.
“Or the easy way, depending on how you look at it. Bless, by the way.” Andy closed the umbrella in another shower of water, eliciting another annoyed yelp from Dean, who was getting really freaking tired of having water spilled down his collar. By way of apology he held the door open, and Dean was a little amused to hear the chiming of bells as he walked in. He halfway expected to see shelves with knick-knacks for sale instead of a lawman's office.
An older man with a greying moustache wearing the brown shirt and beige cargo pants that seemed to be standard issue for every single small-town law office in the entire United States of America was sitting behind a large desk that looked like it had been rejected by Ikea for looking too cheap. He stood up immediately, came to the counter that separated the entrance from the rest of the office.
“Andy Gallagher. Haven't seen much of you around, son. You been keeping out of trouble?”
“Uh, yes, sir, Sheriff Andrews. You know me. Keeping out of trouble, it's what I do best,” Andy smiled nervously.
“Good, good. You know you can call me Bud, Andy, so long as you're not in any trouble. Who's your friend?” Andrews gave Dean a dubious look, and Dean wished he didn't look and feel like a bedraggled rat. Maybe being sick and caught out in the rain wasn't the best way to start an interview. Good thing he had Andy as the ace up his sleeve. He produced one of his fake I.D.'s and for once let someone else do the talking.
“Uh, this is Cliff Williams, Bud. He's a private investigator who's looking into those weird deaths we've had recently.” Andy leaned forward across the counter, lending emphasis to his words. “We need to look at all the reports you have on those cases. Please show them to us now.”
For a moment Bud's eyes lost their focus; Dean saw his pupils dilate and constrict, and then the look was gone, replaced with affable good humour. “Of course, of course. It's no problem at all. Why don't you boys follow me. You want coffee? We just made a fresh pot.” He lifted the mobile part of the counter up on its hinges to let them pass.
This wasn't the first time Dean had seen Andy work his mojo. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end, and he knew what it felt like (which was nothing at all) but it was pretty chilling to watch anyway. He was very glad he'd established ground rules about this right off the bat. Andy was a good kid, as far as he could tell, but mind-control was not something Dean wanted to mess with. He followed the Sheriff into a back room, sneezing wetly into yet another tissue. At this rate he'd be buying out the drugstore in no time. Lousy freaking timing. Well, there was no good timing for getting sick, but this was really lousy timing.
“Hih... HAAISH!” he sniffled, made a valiant if futile attempt to muffle his sneezes, which seemed to bounce of every single wall in the place. “HPFFGH! HPKTSCHH! Uh... HPKRSHH!”
“God bless, son,” Bud was pulling files from a grey metallic filing cabinet in the corner of his office. “Got a cold?”
He tossed his used tissue into a convenient trash can. “Yeah. Does it ever stop raidig aroud here?”
“Oh, eventually it always does. Been getting a lot more rain than usual for this time of year, I don't mind telling you. A man could drown standing up out there if he's not careful.”
“You're tellig be,” Dean muttered.
Andy appeared with two styrofoam cups of coffee, and handed one to Dean. “Uh, is there a place we can sit and look over these without getting in your way, uh, Bud?”
“Sure, you boys can take the spare office. Mabel's out on maternity leave, and I haven't found a proper replacement for her. Last girl was useless -kept burning the coffee. Figured out how to do it myself, saved the county the cost of an extra salary until Mabel gets back.”
He dumped a stack of manila folders into Andy's arms, and waved expansively in the direction of a plain wooden door with a name tag that read “Mabel Spooner.” The office turned out to look a lot like how Dean imagined Mabel: middle-American and cutesy. Motivational posters adorned the walls (“Perseverance: What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”), as well as an outdated calendar portraying kittens frolicking in what looked like a basket of Easter eggs. There was a wilted pot of african violets on the desk: obviously Bud's loyalty to Mabel didn't go as far as watering her plants.
“All right. Led's get this show od the road before I stab byself id the eye with ode of Baybel's fluffy peds.”
Andy picked up one of the offending articles, a fluorescent green thing that wobbled when he tried to take notes with it. “This is stupid.”
“You're tellig be.” Dean sat in Mabel's rolling office chair and pulled open the top drawer, where he found a bunch of Bic pens held together with a rubber band. “Yahtzee.” He tossed a pen to Andy, stuck another one in his teeth, shoved the drawer closed.
“So what are we looking for?”
Dean spat out the pen, snatched a tissue from the box on Mabel's desk (pink, with bunny rabbits), burying his nose and mouth in it. “HAPTSCHUH! Uh... God. We're lookig for cobbod elebedts. Adythig thad coddegts the vigtibs.”
“Gotcha.”
It was really, really hard to concentrate with a headcold. His head felt like it was filled with wet cement, his eyes itched and watered, his whole body hurt, and his nose would not stop goddamned running. Just freaking perfect. He settled himself as comfortably as he could, propped up on the table on his elbow, scrawling notes on a legal pad as he went. At least there was coffee, but it didn't go very far toward making his throat less sore, or help with the constant coughing and sneezing. After an hour, he was tired of listening to himself, and felt kind of bad for Andy, stuck in here with him. Sure, in the grand scheme of things catching a cold wasn't the worst thing that could happen, but that didn't prevent it from sucking like a hoover.
“Hiih... ISHOO! HAAISH! Sniff... huh-EKSCHUH-uh!” Okay, at this rate his head was definitely going to explode. Or he might spontaneously combust, like that woman, or something. Maybe all the victims had had colds and just didn't want to keep living. It seemed like a viable theory at this point.
Andy kept a steady supply of coffee coming, as it took seemingly forever to work through the files, but even with the hot liquid to keep him going, by the end of it he was hunched over the desk as though he was eighty years old, trying not to shiver.
“Uh... maybe we should call Sam,” Andy ventured finally. “I mean, we've gone through all the files, and I don't think we missed anything...”
Dean nodded, felt his breath hitch for the millionth time, and took another tissue from Mabel's rapidly-dwindling stash. “HEPKTCH-uh!” He wiped disconsolately at his nose, pretty sure that any attempt to blow it would just end up rupturing his sinuses. “Bay as well,” he agreed, wishing he didn't sound as out of breath as he felt. “We bight have to cobe bagk, to double-chegk thigs lader. Is thad goig to be a probleb?”
Andy shook his head. “Nah. Shouldn't be.”
“Ogkay.” He pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialled Sam. “It's be. Shud up, I dod't wadt to hear it. Did you get adythig? … Ogkay. W-we're jusd ab-aboud... hih... dode here. You g-goi... HEPTSCHUH!” he held the phone away from his ear, catching the sneeze in his sleeve. “You goig to beet us? ... Right. See you sood.” He turned back to Andy. “You good to go?”
“Please.”
“Ogkay. Thagk your buddy for his help, ad let's go.”
Part 7