Not the Demons You're Looking For (15/24)
Part 14
Part 15
The doorbell rang, and Lesley sprang to her feet. “That'll be the carpool bringing Steven home.” She hurried to the front door, and the boys sat in silence as voices wafted through the house, accompanied by excited childish babble about what sounded like a very exciting arts and crafts project.
“Steven, wait!”
The sound of small feet approached rapidly, and a little boy with a mop of brown curls and a smile missing a front tooth came barrelling into the kitchen, clad in paint-spattered overalls and a Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt. Dean was definitely beginning to see a pattern emerge. The boy stopped short, stared, then glanced back to where his mother was hurrying after him, the smile still present but a little more hesitant than before. “Mommy?”
“I told you to wait, Steven. These are friends of mine,” Lesley crouched next to him and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Why don't you go introduce yourself?”
“Okay,” he made a beeline for Dean, small hand extended. “My-name-is-Steven-it's-nice-to-meet-you-what's-yours?”
Dean bit back a smile. “Dean. Id's dice to beet you too, Steved.”
Steven wrinkled his nose. “You talk funny.”
Sam snorted, and Lesley sounded mortified. “Steven! That's not polite.”
“I've god a cold, is all. Dod't you talk fuddy whed you habe a cold?” Dean grinned. He liked this kid. He was like his mother: smart as a whip, and mouthy.
“Yeah,” Steven grinned back. “Why are you here?”
“Steven!”
“It's fide,” Dean reached for his now-cold cup of coffee as his voice threatened to give out completely again. He was having a hard enough time talking as it was. “This is Sab, ad that there is Addy. We're here to help your bob out with a probleb she's beed havig.”
Steven gave him a considering look, surprising on a kid his age. “Are you going to fix it?”
“That's the plad, yeah.” Dean shifted a bit uncomfortably, acutely aware that he was being scrutinized to within an inch of his life. A glance at Lesley confirmed that this wasn't exactly normal behaviour. “Sobethig wrogg?”
The boy hesitated, then very obviously worked up his courage. “I was checking what colour your eyes were. They're green, so it's okay.”
Dean felt rather than heard Sam's quick intake of breath, and Andy's jaw just about came unhinged. “Wha'?” Andy stammered.
“Steven, what are you talking about?”
The kid glanced back at his mother, then looked at him again. “I wanted to make sure his eyes weren't yellow. Like the other man.”
“What other man?”
“The one from the playground. He pretended to be Mr. King, but it wasn't really him. He had yellow eyes, and he said people would be coming. I didn't like him, and I told the teacher on him, but he went away.”
“Sab... you wadt to, I duddo, get this?” Sam was good with kids. Always had been. Much better at talking to witnesses and victims than Dean ever was. Steven turned a dubious look at him, then turned right back to Dean.
“I don't wanna talk to him.”
“Steven!”
Dean turned aside to cough into his hand, feeling his whole chest clench with the effort. This day was turning out to be one of the worst in recent history, and that was saying something. “You wadda talgk to be idstead, buddy?”
Another dubious look, but this time Steven nodded. “You should come look at my trains.”
“You bind?” Dean pushed himself out of his chair, wishing he didn't feel as though he'd been beaten with baseball bats by a bunch of burly men. Really burly. He glanced at Lesley for confirmation.
“Uh, no, I guess I don't mind. I'm sorry, he's not usually like this.” She was looking bemused and more than a little horrified that her five-year-old son knew more about the yellow-eyed demon that was threatening her family than she did.
“Come on!” Steven tugged insistently on Dean's hand.
With a last helpless look at Sam and Andy, who were both visibly struggling not to laugh, Dean let himself be dragged into the living room and subjected to a very long and involved lecture about the various characters from Thomas the Tank Engine. It was definitely an obsession, he decided, as he tried to make sense of the prattle. One thing he did know about kids, and mainly small boys, was that you had to get the formalities out of the way first, and formalities in this case meant listening to intricate stories about conductors, trains, and men with top hats. Somewhere in the middle of a lengthy explanation about a rivalry between two engines he had to wrench aside to sneeze into his cupped hands.
“Hih... HISHOO! HEISHH! Huh... HPKFFH! HAPKSHH!”
“Bless you,” Steven said, with the mechanical precision of a preschooler who had no real idea what he was saying.
“Thagks.” Dean scrubbed at his face with his hands, his head throbbing, then pulled a tissue from the rapidly-dwindling supply in his pocket to blow his nose, which turned out to be horrifically painful. Almost definitely a sinus infection. Awesome. All right, he told himself, focus, Winchester. “You wadt to tell be about this dude with yellow eyes?”
Steven sat cross-legged on the carpet, turning one of his toy engines over in his hands. “I didn't like him.”
God, his throat hurt. “Yeah, deither do I. You saw hib id the pargk?”
“Uh-huh,” a small nod. “He said he wanted to come see my Mommy, but I don't want him to. He's scary.”
That was putting it mildly. “Dabbed straight. Uh... I bead, yeah. Scary.” Damn. Kid filter, Winchester. Lesley would kill him if he taught her kid to swear. He coughed into his sleeve. “Whed did you see hib?”
“At the park.”
“T-today? HHGFFH-uh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ad he said we'd be cobig?”
“He said that if someone named Sam came that I should tell him everything's going...” he paused, frowning as he tried to remember unfamiliar words, “according to plan. Is Sam your friend?” Obviously worried.
Dean shook his head. “He's by little brother. Like Dylad for you.”
“Is he bad?”
“Whad? Doh!” His chest seized up again, and this time he coughed so hard spots swam across his field of vision and for the second time that day he thought he might actually puke. “Sab isd't bad,” he wheezed, wishing he felt more convinced of it than he was. Sure, freaky demonic psychic powers weren't likely to be a good thing, but Sam wasn't evil. Absolutely not.
“Okay.”
“HPTSCHUH-uh!” He sneezed into the crook of his elbow, wondered just what the hell he was supposed to do now. Everywhere he turned the yellow-eyed demon seemed to have its sulphuric fingers in every pie in sight. Great. He'd never think of pie the same way again. Now for some reason the demon had been talking to this boy, which was a damned unreliable way of relaying messages, and as far as Dean was concerned he could take his messages and-
“He's here.”
“Whad?”
Steven had moved to the living room window, and pointed to the creek, where a man's silhouette was barely visible through the pouring rain. In a split second Dean was on his feet, peering through the window over the kid's head.
“Sud of a bitch! Sab!”
Dean was pretty sure he'd meant to yell, but it came out as a strangled croak, and he bent double, coughing. He forced himself back upright, pressing a hand to his sternum, wondering somewhere at the back of his mind just how long he could go without oxygen. Never mind getting Sam, that thing was out there, and he would be damned if he let that son of a bitch get away again. He bolted out the front door, splashing through the puddles. Behind him he could hear Sam calling after him, and it occurred to him far too late that running out unarmed into the pouring rain after the thing that had ruined his life was probably the most spectacularly ill-thought-out decision of his very short existence. He came skidding to a halt on the grass, water squelching up under his feet through the sod, his heart beating so hard he thought it might burst through his ribcage. The demon hadn't moved, was standing stock still by the surging water, its back turned to him, seemingly oblivious the rain soaking through its grey suit.
“So you decided to join me after all. How do you like the weather, Dean-o?” Bile rose in Dean's throat until he thought he might choke. His chest was aching, lungs screaming for air, and wouldn't it just take the cake, to pass out right now?
“What do you wadt?”
“Dean, Dean, Dean,” the mocking voice sent chills down his spine. “This really isn't your most shining moment, is it?”
“You stay away frob theb, you hear be?”
The demon turned, smirking, its eyes flashing mockingly at him, bright flames in the midst of the grey. “Oh, Dean-o. Those words might have held some real threat coming from your father. Or even from someone with working vocal cords.”
“Voice or doh voice, I'b sdill betweed you ad theb, you sud of a bitch.”
“You think to threaten me?” The demon's voice was quiet -he could barely make it out over the hiss of raindrops. “Arrogant pup. I will crush you like I crushed your father. There is nothing you can do to prevent me from accomplishing my goals: everything is already in motion. Stand aside and let your brother fulfil his destiny, or I will put you down like a mongrel dog.”
“Dean!”
It was Sam, running full-tilt through the rain toward him, but time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, and he seemed impossibly far away. Without turning around Dean motioned for him to stay back, not trusting his voice to carry that far. In fact, his voice appeared to have given out entirely. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out except a wheezing cough, and the demon laughed.
“I could kill you where you stand, but it's so much more fun to watch you suffer. You and your family. I have taken especial pleasure in watching your father suffer the torments of hell, and all for you, Dean-o. How does it feel, knowing you're the only reason your father is dead?”
He wasn't sure what he did after that. It might have involved trying to yell, or maybe just hurl himself at the evil son of a bitch that had killed his parents and rip off its head, but whatever it was, he failed spectacularly. The next thing he knew his feet had lost their connection with the ground and he was flying backward, limbs flailing like a rag doll. For a split-second he had the random thought that he probably looked really stupid -and how the hell was he ever going to explain this to Sam?- when he felt his shoulders hit the wet ground with a bone-jarring smack, knocking the wind out of him. His head whipped back, collided with the ground, and then all he saw was black.
Part 16
Part 15
The doorbell rang, and Lesley sprang to her feet. “That'll be the carpool bringing Steven home.” She hurried to the front door, and the boys sat in silence as voices wafted through the house, accompanied by excited childish babble about what sounded like a very exciting arts and crafts project.
“Steven, wait!”
The sound of small feet approached rapidly, and a little boy with a mop of brown curls and a smile missing a front tooth came barrelling into the kitchen, clad in paint-spattered overalls and a Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt. Dean was definitely beginning to see a pattern emerge. The boy stopped short, stared, then glanced back to where his mother was hurrying after him, the smile still present but a little more hesitant than before. “Mommy?”
“I told you to wait, Steven. These are friends of mine,” Lesley crouched next to him and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Why don't you go introduce yourself?”
“Okay,” he made a beeline for Dean, small hand extended. “My-name-is-Steven-it's-nice-to-meet-you-what's-yours?”
Dean bit back a smile. “Dean. Id's dice to beet you too, Steved.”
Steven wrinkled his nose. “You talk funny.”
Sam snorted, and Lesley sounded mortified. “Steven! That's not polite.”
“I've god a cold, is all. Dod't you talk fuddy whed you habe a cold?” Dean grinned. He liked this kid. He was like his mother: smart as a whip, and mouthy.
“Yeah,” Steven grinned back. “Why are you here?”
“Steven!”
“It's fide,” Dean reached for his now-cold cup of coffee as his voice threatened to give out completely again. He was having a hard enough time talking as it was. “This is Sab, ad that there is Addy. We're here to help your bob out with a probleb she's beed havig.”
Steven gave him a considering look, surprising on a kid his age. “Are you going to fix it?”
“That's the plad, yeah.” Dean shifted a bit uncomfortably, acutely aware that he was being scrutinized to within an inch of his life. A glance at Lesley confirmed that this wasn't exactly normal behaviour. “Sobethig wrogg?”
The boy hesitated, then very obviously worked up his courage. “I was checking what colour your eyes were. They're green, so it's okay.”
Dean felt rather than heard Sam's quick intake of breath, and Andy's jaw just about came unhinged. “Wha'?” Andy stammered.
“Steven, what are you talking about?”
The kid glanced back at his mother, then looked at him again. “I wanted to make sure his eyes weren't yellow. Like the other man.”
“What other man?”
“The one from the playground. He pretended to be Mr. King, but it wasn't really him. He had yellow eyes, and he said people would be coming. I didn't like him, and I told the teacher on him, but he went away.”
“Sab... you wadt to, I duddo, get this?” Sam was good with kids. Always had been. Much better at talking to witnesses and victims than Dean ever was. Steven turned a dubious look at him, then turned right back to Dean.
“I don't wanna talk to him.”
“Steven!”
Dean turned aside to cough into his hand, feeling his whole chest clench with the effort. This day was turning out to be one of the worst in recent history, and that was saying something. “You wadda talgk to be idstead, buddy?”
Another dubious look, but this time Steven nodded. “You should come look at my trains.”
“You bind?” Dean pushed himself out of his chair, wishing he didn't feel as though he'd been beaten with baseball bats by a bunch of burly men. Really burly. He glanced at Lesley for confirmation.
“Uh, no, I guess I don't mind. I'm sorry, he's not usually like this.” She was looking bemused and more than a little horrified that her five-year-old son knew more about the yellow-eyed demon that was threatening her family than she did.
“Come on!” Steven tugged insistently on Dean's hand.
With a last helpless look at Sam and Andy, who were both visibly struggling not to laugh, Dean let himself be dragged into the living room and subjected to a very long and involved lecture about the various characters from Thomas the Tank Engine. It was definitely an obsession, he decided, as he tried to make sense of the prattle. One thing he did know about kids, and mainly small boys, was that you had to get the formalities out of the way first, and formalities in this case meant listening to intricate stories about conductors, trains, and men with top hats. Somewhere in the middle of a lengthy explanation about a rivalry between two engines he had to wrench aside to sneeze into his cupped hands.
“Hih... HISHOO! HEISHH! Huh... HPKFFH! HAPKSHH!”
“Bless you,” Steven said, with the mechanical precision of a preschooler who had no real idea what he was saying.
“Thagks.” Dean scrubbed at his face with his hands, his head throbbing, then pulled a tissue from the rapidly-dwindling supply in his pocket to blow his nose, which turned out to be horrifically painful. Almost definitely a sinus infection. Awesome. All right, he told himself, focus, Winchester. “You wadt to tell be about this dude with yellow eyes?”
Steven sat cross-legged on the carpet, turning one of his toy engines over in his hands. “I didn't like him.”
God, his throat hurt. “Yeah, deither do I. You saw hib id the pargk?”
“Uh-huh,” a small nod. “He said he wanted to come see my Mommy, but I don't want him to. He's scary.”
That was putting it mildly. “Dabbed straight. Uh... I bead, yeah. Scary.” Damn. Kid filter, Winchester. Lesley would kill him if he taught her kid to swear. He coughed into his sleeve. “Whed did you see hib?”
“At the park.”
“T-today? HHGFFH-uh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ad he said we'd be cobig?”
“He said that if someone named Sam came that I should tell him everything's going...” he paused, frowning as he tried to remember unfamiliar words, “according to plan. Is Sam your friend?” Obviously worried.
Dean shook his head. “He's by little brother. Like Dylad for you.”
“Is he bad?”
“Whad? Doh!” His chest seized up again, and this time he coughed so hard spots swam across his field of vision and for the second time that day he thought he might actually puke. “Sab isd't bad,” he wheezed, wishing he felt more convinced of it than he was. Sure, freaky demonic psychic powers weren't likely to be a good thing, but Sam wasn't evil. Absolutely not.
“Okay.”
“HPTSCHUH-uh!” He sneezed into the crook of his elbow, wondered just what the hell he was supposed to do now. Everywhere he turned the yellow-eyed demon seemed to have its sulphuric fingers in every pie in sight. Great. He'd never think of pie the same way again. Now for some reason the demon had been talking to this boy, which was a damned unreliable way of relaying messages, and as far as Dean was concerned he could take his messages and-
“He's here.”
“Whad?”
Steven had moved to the living room window, and pointed to the creek, where a man's silhouette was barely visible through the pouring rain. In a split second Dean was on his feet, peering through the window over the kid's head.
“Sud of a bitch! Sab!”
Dean was pretty sure he'd meant to yell, but it came out as a strangled croak, and he bent double, coughing. He forced himself back upright, pressing a hand to his sternum, wondering somewhere at the back of his mind just how long he could go without oxygen. Never mind getting Sam, that thing was out there, and he would be damned if he let that son of a bitch get away again. He bolted out the front door, splashing through the puddles. Behind him he could hear Sam calling after him, and it occurred to him far too late that running out unarmed into the pouring rain after the thing that had ruined his life was probably the most spectacularly ill-thought-out decision of his very short existence. He came skidding to a halt on the grass, water squelching up under his feet through the sod, his heart beating so hard he thought it might burst through his ribcage. The demon hadn't moved, was standing stock still by the surging water, its back turned to him, seemingly oblivious the rain soaking through its grey suit.
“So you decided to join me after all. How do you like the weather, Dean-o?” Bile rose in Dean's throat until he thought he might choke. His chest was aching, lungs screaming for air, and wouldn't it just take the cake, to pass out right now?
“What do you wadt?”
“Dean, Dean, Dean,” the mocking voice sent chills down his spine. “This really isn't your most shining moment, is it?”
“You stay away frob theb, you hear be?”
The demon turned, smirking, its eyes flashing mockingly at him, bright flames in the midst of the grey. “Oh, Dean-o. Those words might have held some real threat coming from your father. Or even from someone with working vocal cords.”
“Voice or doh voice, I'b sdill betweed you ad theb, you sud of a bitch.”
“You think to threaten me?” The demon's voice was quiet -he could barely make it out over the hiss of raindrops. “Arrogant pup. I will crush you like I crushed your father. There is nothing you can do to prevent me from accomplishing my goals: everything is already in motion. Stand aside and let your brother fulfil his destiny, or I will put you down like a mongrel dog.”
“Dean!”
It was Sam, running full-tilt through the rain toward him, but time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, and he seemed impossibly far away. Without turning around Dean motioned for him to stay back, not trusting his voice to carry that far. In fact, his voice appeared to have given out entirely. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out except a wheezing cough, and the demon laughed.
“I could kill you where you stand, but it's so much more fun to watch you suffer. You and your family. I have taken especial pleasure in watching your father suffer the torments of hell, and all for you, Dean-o. How does it feel, knowing you're the only reason your father is dead?”
He wasn't sure what he did after that. It might have involved trying to yell, or maybe just hurl himself at the evil son of a bitch that had killed his parents and rip off its head, but whatever it was, he failed spectacularly. The next thing he knew his feet had lost their connection with the ground and he was flying backward, limbs flailing like a rag doll. For a split-second he had the random thought that he probably looked really stupid -and how the hell was he ever going to explain this to Sam?- when he felt his shoulders hit the wet ground with a bone-jarring smack, knocking the wind out of him. His head whipped back, collided with the ground, and then all he saw was black.
Part 16