Lunatic Chapter 1
AUTHOR:Scullspeare
SUMMARY: In the midst of snowstorm, a stranger runs into an injured and hypothermic Sam. His memory is spotty; he knows that a hunt went sideways and that Dean's in trouble-he just doesn't know where he is. Outsider POV.
SPOILERS: Set mid-to-late Season 6 (after Sam gets his soul back) and in-between canon hunts.
DISCLAIMER: The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys with much gratitude.
RATING: PG-13 for swearing.
GENRE: Gen/Hurt-Comfort
A/N: This is a very, VERY late response to an Oh!Sam fic challenge. RL has not been kind to my writing time of late so mea culpa for the tardiness. But I've never yet not finished a fic so here it is, hopefully better late than never. The prompt asked for an outsider POV and given that the brothers were at odds for a big chunk of this past season, it seemed like a good opportunity to show the magic of the brothers' bond (in better days!) as seen through the eyes of a stranger. Beta-ed by the always awesome Harrigan (many thanks, my friend!), I kept tinkering with it post-beta so any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone. I hope this little bro-mo fic helps ease the pain of hellatus a little. Enjoy.
PROMPT: Outsider POV. Anytime during the series except season 8/9. No wincest please, anything else is fine. He has no idea who this guy is or how he got this way. All he knows is it's freezing outside, the man is already on the verge of hypothermia, and he is clearly not in touch with reality. He also has no idea who this "Dean" is he keeps mistaking him for, but if it'll help get him off the bridge/street, he will play along. ETA: He can also be she, whatever works.
LUNATIC
“Sorry, Danny. This is as far as I go. Side streets still aren’t cleared.”
I was a regular on Harry’s bus route, so he knew that my stop was still a good three blocks away.
He flashed an apologetic smile as he pulled the bus to the curb, or at least as close as the massive snow bank allowed. “Looks like you’ll have to hoof it from here.”
“No worries.” I pulled on my hat and began riffling through my backpack for my scarf. “It’s New England, it’s February-that means a little snow now and then.”
“A little snow?” Harry surveyed the street outside and shook his head; the high winds were creating whiteouts, reducing visibility to almost zero. “You and me have different definitions of little, Danny boy.”
The nor-easter had slammed into the Boston area mid-afternoon, burying the city under almost three feet of snow. Schools and businesses had shut down early, giving everyone a chance to get home ahead of the storm, but I’d lost track of time and stayed at work later than I meant to, especially since I lived in Danvers-two train rides and a bus transfer from my office downtown. By the time I flopped into my seat on Harry’s bus, I was the last passenger in one of only a handful of vehicles still on the road.
Zipping up my jacket and slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I slid out of my seat and grinned at Harry. “I put myself through school working search and rescue, remember? In all kinds of weather. This? It’s just a cold walk home.”
“Famous last words.” Harry reached for the lever to open the door, and then hesitated. “Look, they’re pulling us off the road until the worst is over. You could always ride back to the depot with me-play some cards ’til I head out again. Anything happens to you out there, that’s on me.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen.” I gestured to the fleece-lined, windproof pants I wore over my work clothes, and to my sub-zero jacket. “Forecast said it might get nasty so I dressed for the occasion.” I offered my best reassuring smile while jamming my hands into my gloves. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
“Uh-huh.” Harry obviously wasn’t convinced. “Do me a favor-once you’re home, call the depot and leave a message so I know you’re good.” His brows knitted together in that universal look of fatherly concern. “No message, I’m calling in the National Guard.”
“Yes, sir.” I clapped him on the shoulder, my grin widening. “You worry more than my mom, and that’s saying something.”
“Smartass.” Harry opened the door, shuddering at the blast of frigid air and snow that quickly forced its way in. “Last chance to change your mind.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow-if they ever clear these roads.” With a final nod to Harry, I jogged down the steps, scrambled over the snow bank and away from the protection of the bus.
Despite my bravado, it was damn cold. Coughing as icy air filled my lungs, I pulled up my scarf to cover my mouth and nose, ducked my head, and set off. Behind me, I heard the muffled squeal of brakes releasing as the bus pulled away from the curb but the rumble of the engine was quickly lost in the howl of the wind.
Like the roads, the sidewalks had yet to be cleared. The snow was up to my knees in most places, thigh-high where it had drifted; thank god for long legs and long johns. Still, between the snow and wind, which seemed determined to shove me backwards, the trek home was going to be a real bitch. But halfway down the block was an alley that ran behind the Main Street storefronts; cutting through there would at least shave ten minutes off the walk and, more importantly, offer some protection from the damn wind.
My head was down as I turned into the alley so I didn’t see what barrelled into me-although it felt like a fucking freight train. One second I was exhaling in relief as I escaped the wind; the next, I was knocked off my feet and slammed into the snow bank, a crushing weight landing on top of me.
For a moment, I didn’t-couldn’t-move, but as my head cleared I saw what had turned me into a human bowling pin: the guy-the big guy-now lying on top of me. “Dude, that tackle….” I clapped him on the shoulder, signaling there were no hard feelings. “That…was NFL caliber.”
He rolled to the side, coughing.
“Y’okay?” When he didn’t answer, I sat up with a groan, pulling down the scarf that covered my face so my words weren’t so muffled. “Hey-you still in one piece?”
The man, now lying in the snow beside me, seemed far more dazed by the collision than I was. He was about my age, and of similar height and weight, although his dark, snow-crusted hair was much longer than mine, almost shoulder-length. He was shivering noticeably, but no surprise there-he had no coat, no hat, no gloves. His jeans were soaked and crusted in snow, as was the gray T-shirt beneath an open blue-checked button-down. The skin on his face and hands was bright red from the cold.
I thought at first that maybe he was drunk, that he’d wandered out of some bar, but I smelled no alcohol. He didn’t look homeless, either. “Dude, seriously-where the hell is your coat?”
The man’s wild eyes widened as he turned to face me. “Dean?”
“It’s Dan, not Dean. Have we met?” I studied his face, trying to place it, as I offered a hand to help him sit up. “More importantly, what the fuck are you doing out in a blizzard dressed like that?”
“Getting help….” The stranger grabbed my hand and sat up, a look of confusion crossing his face. “G-getting you help.”
“Me? Why would-” Oh fuck. It was then I noticed the blood staining his forehead and matting his hair above his left temple. Mix a head injury with the onset of hypothermia and no wonder the poor bastard was confused. “You’re hurt. You-”
“No.” The man shook his head and almost toppled over. “I’m f-fine, Dean.” He grabbed my arm to steady himself and, this time, held on. “You’re the one who n-needs help.”
There it was again: Dean. At first I thought maybe we’d met somewhere and he’d simply misremembered my name, but it was quickly becoming clear that when he looked at me, he was seeing someone else. “I’m good…really. Let’s just get you-”
“No!” Now he was getting angry. “You’ve b-been looking out for me m-my whole life. Ju-just let me take c-care of you for once.”
My stomach lurched; this guy was obviously in rough shape and yet his focus was totally on this Dean, on getting him help. Damn; what if Dean had also been hurt in whatever accident had caused this guy’s head injury? If that was the case, I suddenly had two men in trouble to deal with-one in front of me and another one God knows where.
I tried a smile to prove I was no threat. “Did your car go off the road?”
“Dude, your c-car’s fine.” Now he just looked annoyed. “Worry about yourself for a ch-change.”
“I’m worried about you.” I gestured to his forehead, then reached into my coat pocket for my phone. “You’re bleeding-you know that?”
“What?” The look of confusion was back. He raised his fingers to his forehead, wincing when he found the injury. “It’s…it’s n-nothing.”
“Head injuries are never nothing, tough guy.” Damn it; there was no signal on my phone-although no real surprise given the storm. Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I reached for my backpack. “What’s your name?”
“R-right.” The stranger snorted. “You’re f-fine, but you d-don’t know your own b-brother’s name. G-good one, Dean.”
OK, Dean was his brother. I had three brothers of my own so that nugget gave me a better idea of how to play this. “Standard concussion drill, genius. Play along. Name?”
“S-Sam. Sam Winchester. Hap-py?”
“For now.” His speech was becoming increasingly slurred, his shivers more violent, but in the grand scheme of things, that was not all bad; it meant the hypothermia was still in the early stages. He’d be in bigger trouble when the shivers stopped. “How ’bout an address?”
“S-seriously?” Sam looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Whatever. How ’b-bout Singer Salvage, S-Sioux Falls, South D-Dakota.”
“South Dakota? You’re a long way from home, pal.”
“Home is parked over….” Sam squinted into the alley, the look of confusion back again. “Damn…. I c-can’t…I c-can’t remember where we p-parked the c-car.”
“OK-how ’bout where you’re staying here in Danvers? You remember that?”
“Danvers…. We’re at th-the….” Sam’s frown deepened. “We’re at the…. Fuck.”
Memory loss, confusion…. At this point it was hard to know whether the head injury or the hypothermia was to blame. Didn’t really matter; it was the same bottom line-I needed to get this guy warmed up, and fast. Clear his head, and maybe we could figure out where the brother was. In the meantime, I’d just play along and pretend I was Dean; Sam would be a lot more co-operative if he thought it was his brother hovering over him, rather than some stranger he’d literally run into on the street.
I pulled a hoodie from my backpack. “Here, put this on.”
Sam stared suspiciously at the sweatshirt, making no move to take it from me.
“Look, you’re gonna freeze to death dressed like that. This’ll help a little until we can get you out of the storm. Take it-it’s even clean. I didn’t make it to the gym today.”
“The gym?” Sam slowly reached for the hoodie but his hand was shaking so badly he would have dropped it had I just handed it over. “Why w-would you-”
“Never mind the gym.” OK, maybe the brother wasn’t the workout type. I yanked my glove off with my teeth, unzipped the hoodie and held it open for Sam. “Come on. Put it on.”
Sam clumsily threaded his arms into the sleeves. As he turned around to face me, I zipped it up. There was a definite eyeroll when I next jammed his hands into my gloves. “S-seriously? Dude, I’m not f-five.”
“Yeah, your size kinda gave that away.” I took a chance. “But you’ll always be my kid brother, right?”
I bit back a smile at the huff that elicited; Dean was apparently protective of his brother-maybe even overprotective. Sam was a big guy and in good shape; injuries notwithstanding, he definitely seemed the type who could take care of himself-but once a little brother, always a little brother. I was beginning to like this Dean guy.
“How…how d-did….” Sam studied me, his expression a mix of guilt, worry, and confusion, but it was clear it wasn’t me he was seeing. “You…you were…t-trapped.”
“Trapped?” I pulled off my scarf, wrapped it around Sam’s neck, then tucked it inside the hoodie before brushing the snow off his hair and pulling up the hood. “In the car, you mean?”
“No, n-not the car. We were in the…the…. I left to g-get help s-so….” Sam winced again as his gloved fingers ran over his head wound, the blood now a strange pinkish shade as it frosted on his skin. “Damn it…I c-can’t remember….” He looked up at me. “What the h-hell happened?”
Sam was desperate for answers I didn’t have. It looked like the head injury had screwed with his short-term memory; he knew his name, family history, basic stuff that allowed him to function, but events surrounding the blow to the head were either missing or scrambled. That sure as hell complicated things when it came to finding his brother. The sooner I could call 911, get Sam to the ER and the cops looking for Dean, the better for both these guys.
“Look, you hit your head, you’re hypothermic-that’s why your memory’s messed up.” I riffled through the outer pockets of my backpack; I’d used it on a ski trip on my last visit home and was sure I’d dropped some chemical heat packs into…bingo. “We get you out of this storm and warmed up, everything should fall back into place. In the meantime, we take it slow…back things up a bit, find out what you do remember. What were you-we-doing before the storm hit?”
Sam frowned, eyes darting back and forth as he searched his confused mind. “Playing p-pool.” A small smile creased his face. “You w-won us five hundred b-bucks-then spent t-two hundred of it on a b-bottle of Johnny W-Walker Blue…. Said you wanted the g-good stuff for a ch-change.”
“Blue, huh?” Dean had good taste in Scotch; another reason to like the man. I gave two of the heat packs a twist to activate them, then shoved one inside each of the hoodie’s pockets to help warm Sam’s core. “And after he-I-finished fleecing the locals? Then what?”
“We went b-back to the r-room….”
“Room? At a hotel? What hotel?”
Sam ignored the question, focused on another memory. “We needed t-to do m-more research-on the as-sylum.”
“Asylum?” The Danvers Lunatic Asylum had been built in the 1870s and remained a town landmark for well over a century, although it later changed its name to the more politically correct Danvers Psychiatric Hospital. As an architecture student at Boston University, I’d moved to Danvers to join the fight to save it when it was scheduled for demolition, a fight we’d ultimately lost in 2005. The asylum buildings were razed and the property sold to a developer.
“Yeah-and I t-told you this c-case was a b-bad idea.” Sam winced as he shook his head. “Doc Ellicott…. Nurse C-Crazy Brains when we were t-trying to help M-Martin. Winchesters and asylums d-don’t play well t-together.”
This case was a bad idea. Case. Were Sam and Dean cops? Lawyers, maybe? A few months back, the four condo buildings under construction on the Asylum property had been targeted by vandals, one completely destroyed by fire. Maybe that’s what they were investigating.
Sam coughed, then retched, spitting into the snow before dragging the back of his sleeve across his mouth.
Whatever the hell they were, figuring it out would have to wait; without help, Sam would only get worse and sitting in the snow was doing neither of us any good. “Come on. We need to move.” I lurched to my feet, then again offered Sam my hand.
Sam grabbed my arm, hauled himself up and what little color he had left drained quickly from his face. For a god-awful moment I thought he was going to pass out on me. I was no weakling, but given the size of this guy, we were going nowhere fast if he went down for the count.
“OK, new plan.” I slipped my arms through the straps of my pack, moving it onto my back, then wrapped an arm around Sam’s waist and slung his arm over my shoulders. “Come on. We’ll keep banging on doors in this alley till we find someone to let us in. We get to a landline, we’ll be able to call 911.”
“No. No hospital.” Again, Sam shook his head. “We MASH this. Just get us b-back to the c-car.”
“Half the streets aren’t cleared, so cars are going nowhere. We’re getting you help.” Whether Sam saw the logic in that or was just too tired to argue, I wasn’t sure, but he stopped fighting me.
I urged him forward, toward the first door in the alley-which quickly revealed the big flaw in my plan: this door, and each one I knocked on after it, was a service entrance to a business-businesses that had closed early because of the storm. There was no one home.
As I hammered on the fourth door, Sam scowled down at the handle “P-pick it.”
“’Scuze me?”
“P-pick the lock.” Sam’s free hand slid to his back pocket. “D-damn. I d-don’t have the k-kit. You?”
“Uh…no.” I tried to ignore the warning bells going off in my head; Sam seemed to be talking about lock picks, and I highly doubted that cops or lawyers carried those. Who the hell were these guys? “Besides, um, you’ve got my gloves. My hands are a little numb for lock picking.” I squinted against the blowing snow to survey the upstairs windows, but there were no lights visible. If there were apartments on the second floor, they were apparently unoccupied. “But I promise you this-I find a brick and a window without bars, I’m up for a little break and enter. We set off alarms-even better. That should bring the cops running and that’s just what we need.”
Sam snorted weakly. “Never a c-cop around when you n-need one. Always one there when you don’t.”
“Yeah.” Again, I glanced around the alley. “Hey! Can anybody hear me! We need help!” I held my breath, waiting to see if any lights came on in response to my shouted plea, but nada. Son of bitch. We were in the middle of the city but might as well have been in the backwoods of Vermont.
I started moving again, pulling Sam with me. “You see any lights, start yelling. In the mean time, let’s keep trying to jog your memory.”
Sam scowled at me. “Dude, y-you were there. Just t-tell me what happ-pened.”
“I’m not the one who needs to reboot his brain.” I had to keep pushing, find out as much as I could about where Dean might be. “Sorry, pal-you need to do the work on this one. You started to research the asylum, then….”
Sam huffed in annoyance. “We w-were right about the v-vandalism.”
OK. Maybe my cop hunch was right after all.
“But we had th-thousands of s-suspects.”
“Thousands?”
Sam nodded. “G-going back over a c-century.”
How the hell was that possible? “Sam, what-”
“We had to n-narrow it d-down.” Sam was leaning heavily against me as we moved through the alley. “So we w-went up there.” He turned suddenly toward me, stumbling in the process. “We w-were in the asylum. Th-that’s where th-things went s-sideways.”
I studied Sam worriedly, his head injury apparently more serious than I’d initially suspected. “Sam, the asylum doesn’t exist. It was demolished six years ago.”
“No…no.” Sam shook his head adamantly. “W-we went to the asylum….”
The non-existence of the asylum wasn’t the only thing off with Sam’s memories; if the brothers had gone to the asylum site, how the hell had Sam ended up downtown in this alley? On a good day, it was at least an hour’s walk; injured and dressed as he was, no way had he made that trek in the middle of a storm like this. “You sure you-”
"How did I g-get here?" Sam stared at me, confusion giving way to guilt as he wrestled with the same questions. "How did you get here?"
"Look, you bashed your head. Maybe you-"
“I shouldn’t have left.” Sam looked like he was about to heave.. “They…they c-could’ve killed you.”
I shuddered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. “What could’ve killed me, Sam?”
“I…I….” Sam’s free hand slid behind his back and under his hoodie, a look of panic suddenly crossing his face. “My gun’s g-gone.”
Gun? I was moving cop back to the top of my guess list. Something slightly less aboveboard was always a possibility, but my gut told me Sam was one of the good guys. There was an edge to him, sure; definitely something dangerous-but I didn’t fear him and I didn’t feel threatened. Right now, I was more scared for him, than of him.
Sam lifted his head. “You’ve g-got yours, right?”
OK-Dean had a gun, too. Yeah, I’d just hang on to the belief that they were cops. My mom always said that I was a good judge of character-well, except when it came to women. “People wear all kinds of masks,” she’d told me once. “You can see behind them. That’s a gift. Always trust that instinct.” Well, that’s what I was doing here. What I saw in Sam was a man more worried about his brother than himself, a man willing to put his own life at risk to save a loved one who, in turn, was incredibly protective of him. That didn’t sound like any of America’s Most Wanted, so how could I turn my back on them?
I forced a smile, still playing my role as this man I’d never met. “We don’t need a gun right now, Sam. We need to get out of this storm. Just keep moving.”
Sam took a step forward, stumbled, and fell to his knees, almost taking me down with him. The snow was deep enough that it was an easy fall, but it was amazing how much energy we both expended just getting him back on his feet. And it was energy we could ill afford to waste; it would soon be dark and the temperature was dropping even further.
“Hang in there, big guy.” I nodded encouragingly at Sam, again urging him forward. “We turn this corner and cross the street, there’ll be more doors to knock on. Somebody’s gotta be home at one of them. We…whoa.” I yanked Sam to a halt as we rounded the corner. There was an open manhole just ahead of us, the bright orange City of Danvers Roads Dept. barricades surrounding it toppled and shoved aside, leaving a gaping black hole in the midst of the snow-covered alley.
“D-damn….” Sam’s gaze was locked on the open manhole, on the warm air escaping from the tunnels below it and quickly frosting over into a plume of smoke before dissipating in the wind. “We’re going in c-circles.”
“What?”
Sam’s focus stayed on the open grate. “I…I c-came out of th-there….”
“Out of where? The sewer tunnels?” I stared at him for a moment, trying to process this latest curveball, then glanced behind us to study Sam’s footprints, trying to compare them to the much fainter wind-scoured ones all around the open manhole. The deep snow didn’t make it easy but the evidence seemed to support Sam’s memory; the spacing and size of the two sets of prints sure as hell looked the same. And given the large indentation in the snow at the side of the manhole, it appeared that Sam had collapsed there after hauling himself out of the tunnels.
But what the hell had he-they-been doing down there?
Son of a bitch. A labyrinth of sewer tunnels ran under the entire city, from the downtown all the way to the outskirts-all the way to the asylum property. I turned to Sam. “The tunnels-were you in the tunnels under the asylum? Is that where Dean’s trapped?”
My slip out of character went unnoticed because at that moment Sam’s knees buckled, his head lolling forward. “I…I need to s-sleep.”
“Oh, no way, dude-not here, not now.” I tightened my arm around his back, grunting as I hauled him up. “On your feet, soldier.”
“Yes s-sir.” His words were mumbled, but his immediate response a conditioned one. Maybe it was police academy training, or maybe, growing up, dad or grandpa had been in the military. My own granddad was a career army man and my brothers and I had learned to ‘Yes, sir’ around the time we’d learned to walk.
Sam was on his feet again, but just barely.
“Hey!” Again I waited until his focus was on me. “The asylum is gone, but the tunnel system underneath it is still there. That’s where you were, right?”
Sam nodded, even managing a small smile. “They used the t-tunnels to move out the d-dead without anyone s-seeing.”
“OK. For a guy with a Swiss cheese memory, that’s a strange thing to glom onto but, yeah, they did.” A few pieces of the Sam and Dean puzzle were starting to fall into place. The asylum was actually a complex of buildings; given the difficulties of moving often uncooperative patients from one building to another, especially in weather like today, a series of tunnels had been constructed, linking each of the structures. In places, the tunnel system made use of the city’s existing sewer tunnel network, permanently linking the two.
Above ground, the asylum had been razed but, as far as I knew, the tunnel system was mostly intact. From the sounds of it, the brothers had been down in the tunnels, investigating the vandalism. Something had happened and Dean ended up trapped. Sam left to get help but got lost and ended up heading deeper into the tunnel network, which ultimately led him all the way to the alley where he ran into me.
I stared again at the open manhole; I’d heard stories about local merchants at the turn of the century delivering their goods to the asylum and other places on the outskirts of town via this underground network in bad weather. Some tunnels were as wide as a road and in winter especially, it was a warmer, faster and safer way to travel around town.
Warmer and faster. The sewer tunnels offered protection from the storm, and walking down there would be a helluva lot easier than through the knee-deep snow that covered most of the roads and sidewalks, especially for Sam. I had no idea how much longer he could stay on his feet; if he passed out up here, leaving him to get help would be a death sentence. Down there, he’d be protected which at least gave him a chance if I had to take off to call 9-1-1. And the sooner I got help, the better-for both brothers.
Decision made, I guided Sam toward the sewer entrance. “OK, change of plan. We’re going into the tunnels.”
“No….” Sam lifted his head, snow-crusted hair falling over his eyes, as he stared again at the open manhole. “I mean....”
He seemed conflicted, but I had no idea whether memories or my prompts were the cause.
“Move, Sam.” I gently pushed him toward the open manhole. “You’re not gonna last much longer out here. This’ll be better, trust me. I’ve got a compass on my watch, it’ll lead us in-”
"There was an explosion.... They t-tried to stop us...knew what we were t-trying to do…." Sam turned to face me, guilt again clear in his expression. "You.... You c-couldn't get clear…."
I felt sick. Explosion? “What the fuck went on down there, Sam? Who tried to stop you?”
“You d-didn’t get up….” Sam’s eyes were sliding closed. “I thought y-you were d-dead.”
Son of a bitch. What if Dean was dead? If there was an explosion of some kind…what if he didn’t make it?
Sam’s knees again began to buckle.
“Hey! Hey! Stay with me.” I gave Sam a gentle shake to rouse him. Whatever had gone on down there, the tunnels were still our best shot. We had to take the risk. “Look, you’re too damn heavy to carry down that ladder. You’re gonna have to climb down yourself. Got it?”
Sam gave a brief nod, his eyes fighting to stay open. “Climb now…n-nap later.”
“Good man. I’ll go first.” I exhaled slowly as I moved us both toward the manhole; whatever had happened to Dean, I needed to first focus on Sam, on getting him to safety. Then we’d find out what had happened to his brother. “You ready?”
Again, a brief nod.
“Good.” I kicked aside the Road Dept. barricades, and quickly maneuvered myself onto the ladder which led to the tunnels below, ignoring the bite of cold metal on bare hands. “Sit down first, swing your legs into the hole, then grab the ladder.”
“You’re…b-bossy.” Sam sat down-although technically, it was more like fell down. With mumbled protests, he allowed me to guide his feet onto the ladder. Then we moved downwards, me using my body to shield him, prevent him from falling backwards. It was slow going but we safely made it to the tunnel floor.
Once in the tunnels, it was noticeably warmer. Much like caves, the tunnels maintained a pretty constant year-round temperature-around sixty degrees Fahrenheit, I’d guess-positively toasty compared to the subzero weather above ground. I turned to Sam and ventured a smile. “Piece of cake, right?”
“Pie.” Sam’s eyes were glazed over now but he still attempted to return the smile “Piece of pie-cause pie’s not the same as cake, right?”
“Sure.” Obviously that was some inside joke I wasn’t privy to. I moved Sam down the tunnel a bit, away from the draft of the open manhole and the pile of blowing snow turning into slush below it. Blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I surveyed our surroundings. Caged lights every twenty feet or so along one brick wall offered basic illumination and a double-stack of sewer pipes, each about eight inches in diameter, ran on the wall beneath them. During the spring runoff, when all the snow above melted, these tunnels might be flooded but we were in luck; the stone floor was relatively dry, with only the occasional puddle visible. I turned back to Sam. “OK, first things first-a little triage. We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”
“What?”
I slid my pack off my back and reached in to find my gym T-shirt and sweat pants. “Your shirts and jeans are soaked. Trust me, they’re doing you body temperature no favors. Now we’re out of that mess up there, we can get you into some dry clothes.”
Sam tried to help but by this point, his coordination was shot. Still, in just a few minutes, we’d stripped off his wet clothes and redressed him. In the process, I checked his pulse, which was slow but not dangerously so, and his breathing, which was shallow, but that would hopefully improve as he warmed up. I was about to ask him to sit so I could change out his soaked, snow-filled boots for my gym socks and runners, when he slid down the wall, landing heavily on his ass, long legs splaying out in front of him.
“I, um….” Sam looked up at me, seemingly puzzled by what had just happened. “I need to s-sit…just f-for a minute.”
He needed to recharge his batteries, no question there, but left sitting too long, I doubted I’d get him going again. “OK, but I’m holding you to that ‘just for a minute.’” I crouched in front of him to pull off his boots and socks; his feet were like ice to the touch but at least there was no sign of frostbite. I dried them off as best I could, then pulled on the dry socks and sneakers. His feet were about a half size bigger than mine but a little temporary discomfort was a hell of a lot better than trench foot.
Sam smiled tiredly, lids sliding down over glassy eyes. “Last t-time I was this c-cold was on a ski tr-trip with J-Jessica.”
“A ski trip?” Jessica was likely a wife or girlfriend. “Where?”
“T-Tahoe. Sh-she tried to t-teach me.”
“Tried, huh? So you were no good?”
“Dunno.” Sam snorted. “N-never got on th-the hill. Ch-chair lift broke d-down. W-we were stuck halfway up the m-mountain for t-two hours. It was f-fucking f-freezing.”
“Ouch.” I pulled off my coat. “At least you had someone to share body heat with, huh?. Up side to a bad situation.”
“Mmmmmm…. Even more f-fun sharing a hot tub b-back at the lodge.” Sam’s smile at the memory faded when he realized I was trying to put my coat on him. “Dean, n-no. You n-need it.”
“I’m good, dude.” I gestured to my sweater and snow pants. “As long as we’re down here, I’m fine like this. You, however, are far from it, so get this on.”
Sam gave an audible huff, but stopped fighting me. I guided his arms into the sleeves and zipped up the jacket, moving the heat packs from the discarded wet hoodie into the coat’s inside pockets, then pulled off my hat and gave him that, too. He now had dry clothes, dry shoes, a heavy coat, gloves and a scarf and was out of the storm, all of which would help boost his body temperature. The head injury, however, was still a problem.
“How’s your vision, Sam?”
“What?”
“Your vision-you seeing double? Halos around anything?”
Sam snorted. “Last thing I n-need is t-two of you-although an angel right n-now might be h-handy.” He ran his hand over his ribs. “T-too bad C-Cas can’t find us.”
I had no clue who Cas was but I’d be thrilled if anyone found us; for Sam, the immediate crisis was over but we still needed help, and we still needed to find Dean.
Sam’s eyes were again sliding shut; it would be good to get some fluids into him, but I had no water with me, so that would have to wait until we got to my loft. I checked my watch compass, then began stuffing Sam’s wet clothes into my pack. “We turn left up there to get to my…to a friend’s place. It’s not far. We can rest there and-”
A sudden noise from deeper in the tunnels snapped my head to the left. It was brief and muted, but easily cut through the underground silence. “You hear that?”
Sam clearly hadn’t; his eyes were closed, his chin lolling on his chest.
My chest tightened; Sam could only recall bits and pieces about what had happened to him and his brother, but those bits included guns, an explosion and something that had almost killed Dean. He wasn’t completely in touch with reality, but if any of that was true, then there was a good chance that something was still in these tunnels.
I pushed myself to my feet and hesitantly walked a few feet toward the origin of the noise, but all I could hear was the steady dripping of water and the occasional clang from the pipes along the wall. Then there it was again, this time a little louder. Damn, it sounded like a voice, but masked by some kind of static.
The tunnel made a sharp right about fifteen feet ahead; the noise seemed to originate around that corner.
“I’ll be right back.” My glib crack to Harry the bus driver-“Nothing’s gonna happen”-and Sam’s scrambled memories-“They tried to stop us...knew what we were trying to do”-spinning through my head, I walked quickly down the tunnel then, exhaling loudly, stepped around the corner, peering ahead.
The only thing visible was the continuous string of dull yellow lights along the wall, the only sound the echo of dripping water.
I studied the tunnel for a few moments more but I could see nothing-certainly nothing that might have generated the noise I’d heard. Puzzled-and, yeah, a little relieved-I turned to go back to Sam but stopped when I caught sight of something half hidden in the shadows on the tunnel floor. It was an abandoned backpack, a bottle of water visible in an outside pocket. It was dusty but relatively clean and dry, suggesting it hadn’t been there long.
As I crouched to pick it up, I glanced down the tunnel to where Sam sat, slumped against the wall. From this vantage point, you could clearly see the pool of light spilling in through the open manhole. If Sam had wandered through the tunnels for a while, lost and confused, that light must’ve seemed like a beacon. Maybe this pack was his; maybe he just dropped it and ran when he saw that light, realizing it was a chance to get back above ground.
I turned over the pack, looking for some kind of identification, and discovered a flashlight in another outside pocket. Clicking the switch, the light came on immediately. The light was strong, the batteries fresh; yeah, the pack had to be Sam's. I flipped up the top of the pack, then jumped at a burst of static behind me, followed by a single word.
“Sammy?”
Continued in Chapter 2
SUMMARY: In the midst of snowstorm, a stranger runs into an injured and hypothermic Sam. His memory is spotty; he knows that a hunt went sideways and that Dean's in trouble-he just doesn't know where he is. Outsider POV.
SPOILERS: Set mid-to-late Season 6 (after Sam gets his soul back) and in-between canon hunts.
DISCLAIMER: The characters of Supernatural belong to Eric Kripke & Co. I am playing in their sandbox, with their toys with much gratitude.
RATING: PG-13 for swearing.
GENRE: Gen/Hurt-Comfort
A/N: This is a very, VERY late response to an Oh!Sam fic challenge. RL has not been kind to my writing time of late so mea culpa for the tardiness. But I've never yet not finished a fic so here it is, hopefully better late than never. The prompt asked for an outsider POV and given that the brothers were at odds for a big chunk of this past season, it seemed like a good opportunity to show the magic of the brothers' bond (in better days!) as seen through the eyes of a stranger. Beta-ed by the always awesome Harrigan (many thanks, my friend!), I kept tinkering with it post-beta so any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone. I hope this little bro-mo fic helps ease the pain of hellatus a little. Enjoy.
PROMPT: Outsider POV. Anytime during the series except season 8/9. No wincest please, anything else is fine. He has no idea who this guy is or how he got this way. All he knows is it's freezing outside, the man is already on the verge of hypothermia, and he is clearly not in touch with reality. He also has no idea who this "Dean" is he keeps mistaking him for, but if it'll help get him off the bridge/street, he will play along. ETA: He can also be she, whatever works.
LUNATIC
“Sorry, Danny. This is as far as I go. Side streets still aren’t cleared.”
I was a regular on Harry’s bus route, so he knew that my stop was still a good three blocks away.
He flashed an apologetic smile as he pulled the bus to the curb, or at least as close as the massive snow bank allowed. “Looks like you’ll have to hoof it from here.”
“No worries.” I pulled on my hat and began riffling through my backpack for my scarf. “It’s New England, it’s February-that means a little snow now and then.”
“A little snow?” Harry surveyed the street outside and shook his head; the high winds were creating whiteouts, reducing visibility to almost zero. “You and me have different definitions of little, Danny boy.”
The nor-easter had slammed into the Boston area mid-afternoon, burying the city under almost three feet of snow. Schools and businesses had shut down early, giving everyone a chance to get home ahead of the storm, but I’d lost track of time and stayed at work later than I meant to, especially since I lived in Danvers-two train rides and a bus transfer from my office downtown. By the time I flopped into my seat on Harry’s bus, I was the last passenger in one of only a handful of vehicles still on the road.
Zipping up my jacket and slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I slid out of my seat and grinned at Harry. “I put myself through school working search and rescue, remember? In all kinds of weather. This? It’s just a cold walk home.”
“Famous last words.” Harry reached for the lever to open the door, and then hesitated. “Look, they’re pulling us off the road until the worst is over. You could always ride back to the depot with me-play some cards ’til I head out again. Anything happens to you out there, that’s on me.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen.” I gestured to the fleece-lined, windproof pants I wore over my work clothes, and to my sub-zero jacket. “Forecast said it might get nasty so I dressed for the occasion.” I offered my best reassuring smile while jamming my hands into my gloves. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
“Uh-huh.” Harry obviously wasn’t convinced. “Do me a favor-once you’re home, call the depot and leave a message so I know you’re good.” His brows knitted together in that universal look of fatherly concern. “No message, I’m calling in the National Guard.”
“Yes, sir.” I clapped him on the shoulder, my grin widening. “You worry more than my mom, and that’s saying something.”
“Smartass.” Harry opened the door, shuddering at the blast of frigid air and snow that quickly forced its way in. “Last chance to change your mind.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow-if they ever clear these roads.” With a final nod to Harry, I jogged down the steps, scrambled over the snow bank and away from the protection of the bus.
Despite my bravado, it was damn cold. Coughing as icy air filled my lungs, I pulled up my scarf to cover my mouth and nose, ducked my head, and set off. Behind me, I heard the muffled squeal of brakes releasing as the bus pulled away from the curb but the rumble of the engine was quickly lost in the howl of the wind.
Like the roads, the sidewalks had yet to be cleared. The snow was up to my knees in most places, thigh-high where it had drifted; thank god for long legs and long johns. Still, between the snow and wind, which seemed determined to shove me backwards, the trek home was going to be a real bitch. But halfway down the block was an alley that ran behind the Main Street storefronts; cutting through there would at least shave ten minutes off the walk and, more importantly, offer some protection from the damn wind.
My head was down as I turned into the alley so I didn’t see what barrelled into me-although it felt like a fucking freight train. One second I was exhaling in relief as I escaped the wind; the next, I was knocked off my feet and slammed into the snow bank, a crushing weight landing on top of me.
For a moment, I didn’t-couldn’t-move, but as my head cleared I saw what had turned me into a human bowling pin: the guy-the big guy-now lying on top of me. “Dude, that tackle….” I clapped him on the shoulder, signaling there were no hard feelings. “That…was NFL caliber.”
He rolled to the side, coughing.
“Y’okay?” When he didn’t answer, I sat up with a groan, pulling down the scarf that covered my face so my words weren’t so muffled. “Hey-you still in one piece?”
The man, now lying in the snow beside me, seemed far more dazed by the collision than I was. He was about my age, and of similar height and weight, although his dark, snow-crusted hair was much longer than mine, almost shoulder-length. He was shivering noticeably, but no surprise there-he had no coat, no hat, no gloves. His jeans were soaked and crusted in snow, as was the gray T-shirt beneath an open blue-checked button-down. The skin on his face and hands was bright red from the cold.
I thought at first that maybe he was drunk, that he’d wandered out of some bar, but I smelled no alcohol. He didn’t look homeless, either. “Dude, seriously-where the hell is your coat?”
The man’s wild eyes widened as he turned to face me. “Dean?”
“It’s Dan, not Dean. Have we met?” I studied his face, trying to place it, as I offered a hand to help him sit up. “More importantly, what the fuck are you doing out in a blizzard dressed like that?”
“Getting help….” The stranger grabbed my hand and sat up, a look of confusion crossing his face. “G-getting you help.”
“Me? Why would-” Oh fuck. It was then I noticed the blood staining his forehead and matting his hair above his left temple. Mix a head injury with the onset of hypothermia and no wonder the poor bastard was confused. “You’re hurt. You-”
“No.” The man shook his head and almost toppled over. “I’m f-fine, Dean.” He grabbed my arm to steady himself and, this time, held on. “You’re the one who n-needs help.”
There it was again: Dean. At first I thought maybe we’d met somewhere and he’d simply misremembered my name, but it was quickly becoming clear that when he looked at me, he was seeing someone else. “I’m good…really. Let’s just get you-”
“No!” Now he was getting angry. “You’ve b-been looking out for me m-my whole life. Ju-just let me take c-care of you for once.”
My stomach lurched; this guy was obviously in rough shape and yet his focus was totally on this Dean, on getting him help. Damn; what if Dean had also been hurt in whatever accident had caused this guy’s head injury? If that was the case, I suddenly had two men in trouble to deal with-one in front of me and another one God knows where.
I tried a smile to prove I was no threat. “Did your car go off the road?”
“Dude, your c-car’s fine.” Now he just looked annoyed. “Worry about yourself for a ch-change.”
“I’m worried about you.” I gestured to his forehead, then reached into my coat pocket for my phone. “You’re bleeding-you know that?”
“What?” The look of confusion was back. He raised his fingers to his forehead, wincing when he found the injury. “It’s…it’s n-nothing.”
“Head injuries are never nothing, tough guy.” Damn it; there was no signal on my phone-although no real surprise given the storm. Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I reached for my backpack. “What’s your name?”
“R-right.” The stranger snorted. “You’re f-fine, but you d-don’t know your own b-brother’s name. G-good one, Dean.”
OK, Dean was his brother. I had three brothers of my own so that nugget gave me a better idea of how to play this. “Standard concussion drill, genius. Play along. Name?”
“S-Sam. Sam Winchester. Hap-py?”
“For now.” His speech was becoming increasingly slurred, his shivers more violent, but in the grand scheme of things, that was not all bad; it meant the hypothermia was still in the early stages. He’d be in bigger trouble when the shivers stopped. “How ’bout an address?”
“S-seriously?” Sam looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Whatever. How ’b-bout Singer Salvage, S-Sioux Falls, South D-Dakota.”
“South Dakota? You’re a long way from home, pal.”
“Home is parked over….” Sam squinted into the alley, the look of confusion back again. “Damn…. I c-can’t…I c-can’t remember where we p-parked the c-car.”
“OK-how ’bout where you’re staying here in Danvers? You remember that?”
“Danvers…. We’re at th-the….” Sam’s frown deepened. “We’re at the…. Fuck.”
Memory loss, confusion…. At this point it was hard to know whether the head injury or the hypothermia was to blame. Didn’t really matter; it was the same bottom line-I needed to get this guy warmed up, and fast. Clear his head, and maybe we could figure out where the brother was. In the meantime, I’d just play along and pretend I was Dean; Sam would be a lot more co-operative if he thought it was his brother hovering over him, rather than some stranger he’d literally run into on the street.
I pulled a hoodie from my backpack. “Here, put this on.”
Sam stared suspiciously at the sweatshirt, making no move to take it from me.
“Look, you’re gonna freeze to death dressed like that. This’ll help a little until we can get you out of the storm. Take it-it’s even clean. I didn’t make it to the gym today.”
“The gym?” Sam slowly reached for the hoodie but his hand was shaking so badly he would have dropped it had I just handed it over. “Why w-would you-”
“Never mind the gym.” OK, maybe the brother wasn’t the workout type. I yanked my glove off with my teeth, unzipped the hoodie and held it open for Sam. “Come on. Put it on.”
Sam clumsily threaded his arms into the sleeves. As he turned around to face me, I zipped it up. There was a definite eyeroll when I next jammed his hands into my gloves. “S-seriously? Dude, I’m not f-five.”
“Yeah, your size kinda gave that away.” I took a chance. “But you’ll always be my kid brother, right?”
I bit back a smile at the huff that elicited; Dean was apparently protective of his brother-maybe even overprotective. Sam was a big guy and in good shape; injuries notwithstanding, he definitely seemed the type who could take care of himself-but once a little brother, always a little brother. I was beginning to like this Dean guy.
“How…how d-did….” Sam studied me, his expression a mix of guilt, worry, and confusion, but it was clear it wasn’t me he was seeing. “You…you were…t-trapped.”
“Trapped?” I pulled off my scarf, wrapped it around Sam’s neck, then tucked it inside the hoodie before brushing the snow off his hair and pulling up the hood. “In the car, you mean?”
“No, n-not the car. We were in the…the…. I left to g-get help s-so….” Sam winced again as his gloved fingers ran over his head wound, the blood now a strange pinkish shade as it frosted on his skin. “Damn it…I c-can’t remember….” He looked up at me. “What the h-hell happened?”
Sam was desperate for answers I didn’t have. It looked like the head injury had screwed with his short-term memory; he knew his name, family history, basic stuff that allowed him to function, but events surrounding the blow to the head were either missing or scrambled. That sure as hell complicated things when it came to finding his brother. The sooner I could call 911, get Sam to the ER and the cops looking for Dean, the better for both these guys.
“Look, you hit your head, you’re hypothermic-that’s why your memory’s messed up.” I riffled through the outer pockets of my backpack; I’d used it on a ski trip on my last visit home and was sure I’d dropped some chemical heat packs into…bingo. “We get you out of this storm and warmed up, everything should fall back into place. In the meantime, we take it slow…back things up a bit, find out what you do remember. What were you-we-doing before the storm hit?”
Sam frowned, eyes darting back and forth as he searched his confused mind. “Playing p-pool.” A small smile creased his face. “You w-won us five hundred b-bucks-then spent t-two hundred of it on a b-bottle of Johnny W-Walker Blue…. Said you wanted the g-good stuff for a ch-change.”
“Blue, huh?” Dean had good taste in Scotch; another reason to like the man. I gave two of the heat packs a twist to activate them, then shoved one inside each of the hoodie’s pockets to help warm Sam’s core. “And after he-I-finished fleecing the locals? Then what?”
“We went b-back to the r-room….”
“Room? At a hotel? What hotel?”
Sam ignored the question, focused on another memory. “We needed t-to do m-more research-on the as-sylum.”
“Asylum?” The Danvers Lunatic Asylum had been built in the 1870s and remained a town landmark for well over a century, although it later changed its name to the more politically correct Danvers Psychiatric Hospital. As an architecture student at Boston University, I’d moved to Danvers to join the fight to save it when it was scheduled for demolition, a fight we’d ultimately lost in 2005. The asylum buildings were razed and the property sold to a developer.
“Yeah-and I t-told you this c-case was a b-bad idea.” Sam winced as he shook his head. “Doc Ellicott…. Nurse C-Crazy Brains when we were t-trying to help M-Martin. Winchesters and asylums d-don’t play well t-together.”
This case was a bad idea. Case. Were Sam and Dean cops? Lawyers, maybe? A few months back, the four condo buildings under construction on the Asylum property had been targeted by vandals, one completely destroyed by fire. Maybe that’s what they were investigating.
Sam coughed, then retched, spitting into the snow before dragging the back of his sleeve across his mouth.
Whatever the hell they were, figuring it out would have to wait; without help, Sam would only get worse and sitting in the snow was doing neither of us any good. “Come on. We need to move.” I lurched to my feet, then again offered Sam my hand.
Sam grabbed my arm, hauled himself up and what little color he had left drained quickly from his face. For a god-awful moment I thought he was going to pass out on me. I was no weakling, but given the size of this guy, we were going nowhere fast if he went down for the count.
“OK, new plan.” I slipped my arms through the straps of my pack, moving it onto my back, then wrapped an arm around Sam’s waist and slung his arm over my shoulders. “Come on. We’ll keep banging on doors in this alley till we find someone to let us in. We get to a landline, we’ll be able to call 911.”
“No. No hospital.” Again, Sam shook his head. “We MASH this. Just get us b-back to the c-car.”
“Half the streets aren’t cleared, so cars are going nowhere. We’re getting you help.” Whether Sam saw the logic in that or was just too tired to argue, I wasn’t sure, but he stopped fighting me.
I urged him forward, toward the first door in the alley-which quickly revealed the big flaw in my plan: this door, and each one I knocked on after it, was a service entrance to a business-businesses that had closed early because of the storm. There was no one home.
As I hammered on the fourth door, Sam scowled down at the handle “P-pick it.”
“’Scuze me?”
“P-pick the lock.” Sam’s free hand slid to his back pocket. “D-damn. I d-don’t have the k-kit. You?”
“Uh…no.” I tried to ignore the warning bells going off in my head; Sam seemed to be talking about lock picks, and I highly doubted that cops or lawyers carried those. Who the hell were these guys? “Besides, um, you’ve got my gloves. My hands are a little numb for lock picking.” I squinted against the blowing snow to survey the upstairs windows, but there were no lights visible. If there were apartments on the second floor, they were apparently unoccupied. “But I promise you this-I find a brick and a window without bars, I’m up for a little break and enter. We set off alarms-even better. That should bring the cops running and that’s just what we need.”
Sam snorted weakly. “Never a c-cop around when you n-need one. Always one there when you don’t.”
“Yeah.” Again, I glanced around the alley. “Hey! Can anybody hear me! We need help!” I held my breath, waiting to see if any lights came on in response to my shouted plea, but nada. Son of bitch. We were in the middle of the city but might as well have been in the backwoods of Vermont.
I started moving again, pulling Sam with me. “You see any lights, start yelling. In the mean time, let’s keep trying to jog your memory.”
Sam scowled at me. “Dude, y-you were there. Just t-tell me what happ-pened.”
“I’m not the one who needs to reboot his brain.” I had to keep pushing, find out as much as I could about where Dean might be. “Sorry, pal-you need to do the work on this one. You started to research the asylum, then….”
Sam huffed in annoyance. “We w-were right about the v-vandalism.”
OK. Maybe my cop hunch was right after all.
“But we had th-thousands of s-suspects.”
“Thousands?”
Sam nodded. “G-going back over a c-century.”
How the hell was that possible? “Sam, what-”
“We had to n-narrow it d-down.” Sam was leaning heavily against me as we moved through the alley. “So we w-went up there.” He turned suddenly toward me, stumbling in the process. “We w-were in the asylum. Th-that’s where th-things went s-sideways.”
I studied Sam worriedly, his head injury apparently more serious than I’d initially suspected. “Sam, the asylum doesn’t exist. It was demolished six years ago.”
“No…no.” Sam shook his head adamantly. “W-we went to the asylum….”
The non-existence of the asylum wasn’t the only thing off with Sam’s memories; if the brothers had gone to the asylum site, how the hell had Sam ended up downtown in this alley? On a good day, it was at least an hour’s walk; injured and dressed as he was, no way had he made that trek in the middle of a storm like this. “You sure you-”
"How did I g-get here?" Sam stared at me, confusion giving way to guilt as he wrestled with the same questions. "How did you get here?"
"Look, you bashed your head. Maybe you-"
“I shouldn’t have left.” Sam looked like he was about to heave.. “They…they c-could’ve killed you.”
I shuddered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. “What could’ve killed me, Sam?”
“I…I….” Sam’s free hand slid behind his back and under his hoodie, a look of panic suddenly crossing his face. “My gun’s g-gone.”
Gun? I was moving cop back to the top of my guess list. Something slightly less aboveboard was always a possibility, but my gut told me Sam was one of the good guys. There was an edge to him, sure; definitely something dangerous-but I didn’t fear him and I didn’t feel threatened. Right now, I was more scared for him, than of him.
Sam lifted his head. “You’ve g-got yours, right?”
OK-Dean had a gun, too. Yeah, I’d just hang on to the belief that they were cops. My mom always said that I was a good judge of character-well, except when it came to women. “People wear all kinds of masks,” she’d told me once. “You can see behind them. That’s a gift. Always trust that instinct.” Well, that’s what I was doing here. What I saw in Sam was a man more worried about his brother than himself, a man willing to put his own life at risk to save a loved one who, in turn, was incredibly protective of him. That didn’t sound like any of America’s Most Wanted, so how could I turn my back on them?
I forced a smile, still playing my role as this man I’d never met. “We don’t need a gun right now, Sam. We need to get out of this storm. Just keep moving.”
Sam took a step forward, stumbled, and fell to his knees, almost taking me down with him. The snow was deep enough that it was an easy fall, but it was amazing how much energy we both expended just getting him back on his feet. And it was energy we could ill afford to waste; it would soon be dark and the temperature was dropping even further.
“Hang in there, big guy.” I nodded encouragingly at Sam, again urging him forward. “We turn this corner and cross the street, there’ll be more doors to knock on. Somebody’s gotta be home at one of them. We…whoa.” I yanked Sam to a halt as we rounded the corner. There was an open manhole just ahead of us, the bright orange City of Danvers Roads Dept. barricades surrounding it toppled and shoved aside, leaving a gaping black hole in the midst of the snow-covered alley.
“D-damn….” Sam’s gaze was locked on the open manhole, on the warm air escaping from the tunnels below it and quickly frosting over into a plume of smoke before dissipating in the wind. “We’re going in c-circles.”
“What?”
Sam’s focus stayed on the open grate. “I…I c-came out of th-there….”
“Out of where? The sewer tunnels?” I stared at him for a moment, trying to process this latest curveball, then glanced behind us to study Sam’s footprints, trying to compare them to the much fainter wind-scoured ones all around the open manhole. The deep snow didn’t make it easy but the evidence seemed to support Sam’s memory; the spacing and size of the two sets of prints sure as hell looked the same. And given the large indentation in the snow at the side of the manhole, it appeared that Sam had collapsed there after hauling himself out of the tunnels.
But what the hell had he-they-been doing down there?
Son of a bitch. A labyrinth of sewer tunnels ran under the entire city, from the downtown all the way to the outskirts-all the way to the asylum property. I turned to Sam. “The tunnels-were you in the tunnels under the asylum? Is that where Dean’s trapped?”
My slip out of character went unnoticed because at that moment Sam’s knees buckled, his head lolling forward. “I…I need to s-sleep.”
“Oh, no way, dude-not here, not now.” I tightened my arm around his back, grunting as I hauled him up. “On your feet, soldier.”
“Yes s-sir.” His words were mumbled, but his immediate response a conditioned one. Maybe it was police academy training, or maybe, growing up, dad or grandpa had been in the military. My own granddad was a career army man and my brothers and I had learned to ‘Yes, sir’ around the time we’d learned to walk.
Sam was on his feet again, but just barely.
“Hey!” Again I waited until his focus was on me. “The asylum is gone, but the tunnel system underneath it is still there. That’s where you were, right?”
Sam nodded, even managing a small smile. “They used the t-tunnels to move out the d-dead without anyone s-seeing.”
“OK. For a guy with a Swiss cheese memory, that’s a strange thing to glom onto but, yeah, they did.” A few pieces of the Sam and Dean puzzle were starting to fall into place. The asylum was actually a complex of buildings; given the difficulties of moving often uncooperative patients from one building to another, especially in weather like today, a series of tunnels had been constructed, linking each of the structures. In places, the tunnel system made use of the city’s existing sewer tunnel network, permanently linking the two.
Above ground, the asylum had been razed but, as far as I knew, the tunnel system was mostly intact. From the sounds of it, the brothers had been down in the tunnels, investigating the vandalism. Something had happened and Dean ended up trapped. Sam left to get help but got lost and ended up heading deeper into the tunnel network, which ultimately led him all the way to the alley where he ran into me.
I stared again at the open manhole; I’d heard stories about local merchants at the turn of the century delivering their goods to the asylum and other places on the outskirts of town via this underground network in bad weather. Some tunnels were as wide as a road and in winter especially, it was a warmer, faster and safer way to travel around town.
Warmer and faster. The sewer tunnels offered protection from the storm, and walking down there would be a helluva lot easier than through the knee-deep snow that covered most of the roads and sidewalks, especially for Sam. I had no idea how much longer he could stay on his feet; if he passed out up here, leaving him to get help would be a death sentence. Down there, he’d be protected which at least gave him a chance if I had to take off to call 9-1-1. And the sooner I got help, the better-for both brothers.
Decision made, I guided Sam toward the sewer entrance. “OK, change of plan. We’re going into the tunnels.”
“No….” Sam lifted his head, snow-crusted hair falling over his eyes, as he stared again at the open manhole. “I mean....”
He seemed conflicted, but I had no idea whether memories or my prompts were the cause.
“Move, Sam.” I gently pushed him toward the open manhole. “You’re not gonna last much longer out here. This’ll be better, trust me. I’ve got a compass on my watch, it’ll lead us in-”
"There was an explosion.... They t-tried to stop us...knew what we were t-trying to do…." Sam turned to face me, guilt again clear in his expression. "You.... You c-couldn't get clear…."
I felt sick. Explosion? “What the fuck went on down there, Sam? Who tried to stop you?”
“You d-didn’t get up….” Sam’s eyes were sliding closed. “I thought y-you were d-dead.”
Son of a bitch. What if Dean was dead? If there was an explosion of some kind…what if he didn’t make it?
Sam’s knees again began to buckle.
“Hey! Hey! Stay with me.” I gave Sam a gentle shake to rouse him. Whatever had gone on down there, the tunnels were still our best shot. We had to take the risk. “Look, you’re too damn heavy to carry down that ladder. You’re gonna have to climb down yourself. Got it?”
Sam gave a brief nod, his eyes fighting to stay open. “Climb now…n-nap later.”
“Good man. I’ll go first.” I exhaled slowly as I moved us both toward the manhole; whatever had happened to Dean, I needed to first focus on Sam, on getting him to safety. Then we’d find out what had happened to his brother. “You ready?”
Again, a brief nod.
“Good.” I kicked aside the Road Dept. barricades, and quickly maneuvered myself onto the ladder which led to the tunnels below, ignoring the bite of cold metal on bare hands. “Sit down first, swing your legs into the hole, then grab the ladder.”
“You’re…b-bossy.” Sam sat down-although technically, it was more like fell down. With mumbled protests, he allowed me to guide his feet onto the ladder. Then we moved downwards, me using my body to shield him, prevent him from falling backwards. It was slow going but we safely made it to the tunnel floor.
Once in the tunnels, it was noticeably warmer. Much like caves, the tunnels maintained a pretty constant year-round temperature-around sixty degrees Fahrenheit, I’d guess-positively toasty compared to the subzero weather above ground. I turned to Sam and ventured a smile. “Piece of cake, right?”
“Pie.” Sam’s eyes were glazed over now but he still attempted to return the smile “Piece of pie-cause pie’s not the same as cake, right?”
“Sure.” Obviously that was some inside joke I wasn’t privy to. I moved Sam down the tunnel a bit, away from the draft of the open manhole and the pile of blowing snow turning into slush below it. Blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I surveyed our surroundings. Caged lights every twenty feet or so along one brick wall offered basic illumination and a double-stack of sewer pipes, each about eight inches in diameter, ran on the wall beneath them. During the spring runoff, when all the snow above melted, these tunnels might be flooded but we were in luck; the stone floor was relatively dry, with only the occasional puddle visible. I turned back to Sam. “OK, first things first-a little triage. We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”
“What?”
I slid my pack off my back and reached in to find my gym T-shirt and sweat pants. “Your shirts and jeans are soaked. Trust me, they’re doing you body temperature no favors. Now we’re out of that mess up there, we can get you into some dry clothes.”
Sam tried to help but by this point, his coordination was shot. Still, in just a few minutes, we’d stripped off his wet clothes and redressed him. In the process, I checked his pulse, which was slow but not dangerously so, and his breathing, which was shallow, but that would hopefully improve as he warmed up. I was about to ask him to sit so I could change out his soaked, snow-filled boots for my gym socks and runners, when he slid down the wall, landing heavily on his ass, long legs splaying out in front of him.
“I, um….” Sam looked up at me, seemingly puzzled by what had just happened. “I need to s-sit…just f-for a minute.”
He needed to recharge his batteries, no question there, but left sitting too long, I doubted I’d get him going again. “OK, but I’m holding you to that ‘just for a minute.’” I crouched in front of him to pull off his boots and socks; his feet were like ice to the touch but at least there was no sign of frostbite. I dried them off as best I could, then pulled on the dry socks and sneakers. His feet were about a half size bigger than mine but a little temporary discomfort was a hell of a lot better than trench foot.
Sam smiled tiredly, lids sliding down over glassy eyes. “Last t-time I was this c-cold was on a ski tr-trip with J-Jessica.”
“A ski trip?” Jessica was likely a wife or girlfriend. “Where?”
“T-Tahoe. Sh-she tried to t-teach me.”
“Tried, huh? So you were no good?”
“Dunno.” Sam snorted. “N-never got on th-the hill. Ch-chair lift broke d-down. W-we were stuck halfway up the m-mountain for t-two hours. It was f-fucking f-freezing.”
“Ouch.” I pulled off my coat. “At least you had someone to share body heat with, huh?. Up side to a bad situation.”
“Mmmmmm…. Even more f-fun sharing a hot tub b-back at the lodge.” Sam’s smile at the memory faded when he realized I was trying to put my coat on him. “Dean, n-no. You n-need it.”
“I’m good, dude.” I gestured to my sweater and snow pants. “As long as we’re down here, I’m fine like this. You, however, are far from it, so get this on.”
Sam gave an audible huff, but stopped fighting me. I guided his arms into the sleeves and zipped up the jacket, moving the heat packs from the discarded wet hoodie into the coat’s inside pockets, then pulled off my hat and gave him that, too. He now had dry clothes, dry shoes, a heavy coat, gloves and a scarf and was out of the storm, all of which would help boost his body temperature. The head injury, however, was still a problem.
“How’s your vision, Sam?”
“What?”
“Your vision-you seeing double? Halos around anything?”
Sam snorted. “Last thing I n-need is t-two of you-although an angel right n-now might be h-handy.” He ran his hand over his ribs. “T-too bad C-Cas can’t find us.”
I had no clue who Cas was but I’d be thrilled if anyone found us; for Sam, the immediate crisis was over but we still needed help, and we still needed to find Dean.
Sam’s eyes were again sliding shut; it would be good to get some fluids into him, but I had no water with me, so that would have to wait until we got to my loft. I checked my watch compass, then began stuffing Sam’s wet clothes into my pack. “We turn left up there to get to my…to a friend’s place. It’s not far. We can rest there and-”
A sudden noise from deeper in the tunnels snapped my head to the left. It was brief and muted, but easily cut through the underground silence. “You hear that?”
Sam clearly hadn’t; his eyes were closed, his chin lolling on his chest.
My chest tightened; Sam could only recall bits and pieces about what had happened to him and his brother, but those bits included guns, an explosion and something that had almost killed Dean. He wasn’t completely in touch with reality, but if any of that was true, then there was a good chance that something was still in these tunnels.
I pushed myself to my feet and hesitantly walked a few feet toward the origin of the noise, but all I could hear was the steady dripping of water and the occasional clang from the pipes along the wall. Then there it was again, this time a little louder. Damn, it sounded like a voice, but masked by some kind of static.
The tunnel made a sharp right about fifteen feet ahead; the noise seemed to originate around that corner.
“I’ll be right back.” My glib crack to Harry the bus driver-“Nothing’s gonna happen”-and Sam’s scrambled memories-“They tried to stop us...knew what we were trying to do”-spinning through my head, I walked quickly down the tunnel then, exhaling loudly, stepped around the corner, peering ahead.
The only thing visible was the continuous string of dull yellow lights along the wall, the only sound the echo of dripping water.
I studied the tunnel for a few moments more but I could see nothing-certainly nothing that might have generated the noise I’d heard. Puzzled-and, yeah, a little relieved-I turned to go back to Sam but stopped when I caught sight of something half hidden in the shadows on the tunnel floor. It was an abandoned backpack, a bottle of water visible in an outside pocket. It was dusty but relatively clean and dry, suggesting it hadn’t been there long.
As I crouched to pick it up, I glanced down the tunnel to where Sam sat, slumped against the wall. From this vantage point, you could clearly see the pool of light spilling in through the open manhole. If Sam had wandered through the tunnels for a while, lost and confused, that light must’ve seemed like a beacon. Maybe this pack was his; maybe he just dropped it and ran when he saw that light, realizing it was a chance to get back above ground.
I turned over the pack, looking for some kind of identification, and discovered a flashlight in another outside pocket. Clicking the switch, the light came on immediately. The light was strong, the batteries fresh; yeah, the pack had to be Sam's. I flipped up the top of the pack, then jumped at a burst of static behind me, followed by a single word.
“Sammy?”
Continued in Chapter 2