Wasted Years, for monicawoe
Title: Wasted Years
Recipient: monicawoe
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4,500
Warnings: Mild violence and language
Author's Notes: Thanks to tumblr user angstyteenagesam for the beta
Sam pulled into the parking lot of the motel. Tracy had told him - grudgingly and after much prodding - that she was staying at the Saguaro Flower Motel in Tacna, and he’d managed to get here in less than two days, his vision always at the back of his mind, a dark promise of what would happen if he was too late. Tracy hated him and that was fine, she had cause, just like the rest of the world, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to see her gutted in the corner of some abandoned pueblo in the middle of the desert.
She opened the door when he knocked. “You look like crap,” she greeted, arms crossed across her chest.
“Nice shiner,” he replied, shouldering his way past and into the darkened room. She closed and locked the door behind him.
“You should see the other guy,” she retorted. “And imagine what’ll happen to you if you try anything.”
He gaped at her for a moment. “Try anything . . . sexually? My brother died a week ago, Tracy. Sex is pretty much the farthest thing from my mind. And even if I was in the mood, trust me when I say I would never, ever ‘try anything’ with you..”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that people who hate and want me dead aren’t on my list of turn ons. I guess I’m just weird that way.” He dug his laptop out of its bag. He wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from, but he was far too exhausted to filter what he was saying for the girl’s comfort. “You want to tell me what happened?”
She sighed. “My partner and I came to town because of a rash of deaths - seemed random, you know? People just snapping out of the blue and killing family members.”
He pursed his lips. “Okay. I’ve seen that a few times. There was a specter tied to a coin this time in Missouri that took victims’ grudges and made them homicidal. That was fun. Or it could be a demon.” It didn’t escape Sam’s attention that both of those scenarios now directly tied to his brother. The thought made his throat dry up.
She made a face at him. “I have been doing this for five years now, you know. No sulphur, no EMF and the guys remember everything down to the last detail.”
He bit his lip. “Guys? As in, all the assailant are men?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Is that significant?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever run across a siren?” Monster number three that had come close to tearing Sam and his brother apart. Fun times. His stomach threatened mutiny.
“What, like Ulysses?”
“Exactly. Dean and I ran into one - well, a few weeks before the whole thing with Lucifer getting out of his cage.” He winced. Dean’s name still hurt. “They pretty much suck.”
She glared. “So you just… know what it is? Don’t you want to do some more research?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and quietly. “I said it sounded like a siren. We can do some more research and we probably should. I hope it’s something else; a siren is really dangerous to fight. Anyway, you rolled into town. What happened next?”
“We did some poking around. The only thing that all of the couples had in common was a visit to this state park and historic site before the women were killed, usually a few days before. So we went to the park and asked some questions. Isaiah started acting a little funny after that, and then a couple of days later we were at a McDonalds and he sucker punched me, pulled out a knife,and tried to kill me.” She sat down at the table across from him, angling her body away.
“Not Isaiah’s best moment.” Sam shook his head. “You said it was completely out of the blue?”
“He said something about me not laying down the salt lines right.”
Sam nodded. They were definitely dealing with a siren. He couldn’t forget
the terrible feeling of Dean’s hand pressing Ruby’s knife to his throat, and then the horror of that thing approaching to spit in his mouth, seizing control over his emotions with none of the finesse with which it had approached its other victims - “Go on.”
“Well, he’s in jail now. I mean, he tried to stab me in the middle of a fast food joint. There weren’t a lot of other ways that could have gone.” She shook her head.
“Okay.” He massaged at his face with his hands. “The pattern definitely fits best with a siren. Their venom only affects men, never women. Their victims will kill whoever’s closest to them though regardless of gender,” he added with a twist to his lips that he couldn’t really stop.
“Someone sounds bitter,” she smirked.
“I told you. Dean and I had a run-in with one a long time ago. It was ugly. It wanted Dean to -“ He stopped and shook his head, then covered a yawn. “Anyway, the only way to kill one is with a bronze dagger dipped in the blood of one of its victims. Unfortunately its victims cease to be affected - the venom leaves the system - once the target is killed.”
She tilted her head to the side. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Doesn’t matter.” It had been three or four days since he managed to grab a couple of hours, but between guilt and nightmares sleep didn’t hold all that much appeal.. “Isaiah never killed you, so he’s still affected by the venom, which works out well for us.”
“So what, you want to just waltz into a jail and steal some of his blood?” She raised an eyebrow. “You look like the dead, Sam. The actual dead. I took out a nest of ghouls a couple of months ago, and they were in better shape than you are right now. They weren’t that fresh, either. I was picking ghoul bits out of my hair all the way down the mountain.”
He shuddered. “Ick.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No one’s gonna buy you as anything but a crazy transient until you get at least a nap in. And I’m not letting you anywhere near a gun or a blood-dipped dagger or a freaking rubber band until you get a couple of hours’ sleep.” She crossed her arms over her chest again. “I’ll do some more research, see if I can’t find an alternate explanation.”
“You want me to sleep. In here.” He glanced at the unused bed. “Around you.”
“Oh, I promise you’ll be awake when I kill you, Winchester.”
“Great.” He wasn’t going to get much farther with her. He was too tired to argue, too tired to seriously worry about Tracy, too tired for all of it.. He stuck Ruby’s knife under the pillow and curled up on the too-short bed, eyes closed. He comforted himself with the thought that if she killed him in his sleep at least he’d never have to find the energy to get up again..
Darkness enveloped him as soon as his head touched the pillow. He wasn’t sure how long it took the dreams to start - it could have been seconds or hours - but when he did start dreaming he recognized the image at once. It was the same dream as before, but for whatever reason - familiarity, closer proximity to Tracy, Mercury in retrograde, or some really bad coffee - this dream offered a lot more detail. He saw Tracy hunting with someone else, a handsome young man with the most intricate set of dreads Sam had ever seen. He saw their entrance in the town, their brief exploration of state park, and then the sudden attack at the McDonalds He saw Tracy’s companion behind bars, and saw her switch hotels before trying to call Dean for help. He saw the shock, anger, and resentment on her face when she got Sam instead.
And then the loop of Tracy dying in the old abandoned pueblo started up again. This time the vision was so vivid that Sam could even smell the air inside the pueblo. There wasn’t even a hint of sulfur or smoke, just hyacinth and copper. He woke with a strangled cry, Tracy standing over him looking troubled. “Wow. No wonder you don’t sleep much,” she commented darkly. “The hell language were you yelling in anyway?”
“I don’t know.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and massaged his face. “You tell me. You’re the one who was awake to hear it. Describe your partner for me, Tracy.”
She took three steps back. “Why?”
“Is he about six foot one, dreads, dark skin, wiry? Very striking with, uh ‘delicate features for a hunter’?” He huffed out half a laugh at the joke she wouldn’t get.“
She turned pale. Well, there was his confirmation. The visions were real. “You didn’t see him. I didn’t even tell you his name… you can’t know that. How would you possibly…?”
He buried his face in his hands. “Can you wait to shoot me until after we’ve finished up this case, all right? For now, just go with it. I’m, uh, psychic.”
“Right.”
“Seriously. I’d love to have just stayed where I was and helped you out over the phone-especially considering how you feel about me-but, um, then I started having visions of you getting killed in an abandoned pueblo. I had hoped it was just a stupid nightmare, but apparently no such luck And it’s not exactly the first time. See, I used to get visions back in the day. And apparently now they’re back. So… “
“Used to? They’re back?” She screwed up her face. “How does something like that just stop? What, you found some kind of psychic cork and just plopped it in there? And that still doesn’t explain the furniture?”
He looked around. Some of the furniture did look disturbed now that he thought about it - not like the place had been tossed, but like it had been picked up and set down just a little bit differently. One of the lamps had been broken. “What the hell happened?”
“Crap started floating around when you really got into your dream.” She shrugged. “It’s why I woke you up.”
He leaned back and knocked his head against the wall. “Well that’s just great. Sorry. Listen, let’s focus on the siren. The rest of this crap is my problem, not yours.”
“Unless you break the world again,” she pointed out. “Is that what you want?”
“So, what? You’re gonna come along for the ride? Try to stop me if things go too far? Trust me; you want to stay as far away from all of this as you can? Anyways, I’ve got a… a place. If these abilities get out of hand or make me dangerous I can lock myself away and no one will ever hear from me again.” The thought of immuring himself in the bunker didn’t seem half bad now that he thought about it. It didn’t seem half good either, but whatever. “Look. Let’s just go to the prison. I’ll collect some of your partner blood and we’ll get going.”
They drove over to the county lockup, where Sam’s fraudulent paperwork barely got a second glance. His cover story about wanting to test for the presence of some kind of virus that might have caused the violent behavior in the affected men didn’t even raise eyebrows, and Sam took a moment to sigh at the state of inmate rights, even though in this case it was helping him free said inmates from supernatural influence and prevent further killings. Tracy’s partner, Isaiah, seemed like a perfectly nice guy when Sam met with him. He kept dropping hints, trying to find out if Sam and Tracy had figured out what they were hunting yet. Sam just shook his head and side-stepped the issue. They’d probably have to come back and get Isaiah out later; they couldn’t afford to raise any suspicions now.. He got blood from the other men, too - no need to make it obvious that they were focusing on Isaiah.
The next step was to find the siren. “Tracy, I’m pretty reluctant to take you into that park,” he told her. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, because all of my other hunts were so safe,” she spat back at him. “If it’s really that dangerous there’s no way in hell I’m sending you in alone. If you get hit by one of the siren you’re going to need backup -“
“Tracy, these things work by turning people against the people they love. Everyone I’ve ever had any kind of relationship with is dead. I’m pretty sure I’m safe.” He quirked half a grin at her. “There are advantages to having no ties, you know.”
She rolled her eyes. “There really aren’t. What’s your real problem with this, Winchester?”
“I saw you die. In the pueblo. Over and over again. I’d rather avoid a repeat performance in real life, and the best way to avoid that is for you to just not be there.” He sighed.
“Has anyone ever like, not done something because you saw it in a vision?” she wanted to know.
He thought back to Ava’s warning to him, back when they’d first met. “Nope. And when it was me, I didn’t change my plans either.”
“Did you wind up dying?”
“No . . . well, not that time.”
She opened her mouth, shut it again. “Right. Winchesters. Anyway, since I’ve already been warned I can just… be more careful. We can stay out of pueblos. And were you actually there in any of the visions you had?” He shook his head. “All right then. I’m going with you, and you being there will probably be enough to keep the siren off of me anyway.”
He sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to dissuade her. There might have been a time when he would have considered knocking her out or locking her up for her own protection but now, after what Dean had done to him - well, he couldn’t justify it. Not when it was only herself that she was risking. “All right,” he shrugged. “Let’s go.”
They geared up and drove out to the park. There were a crowd of tourists around, despite the heat of the desert in May, leading Tracy to bite her lip. “What do we do?” she wanted to know. “I mean, it could be any of them.”
“Could be, but it isn’t.” He shrugged. “It finds its victims somehow. It has to infect its victims by sharing saliva with them, and it’s infecting them someplace separate from the women.”
He cleared his throat. “So it would probably be hanging around somewhere that the women don’t go.”
“Like the men’s room,” she suggested, raising an eyebrow.
“Did Isaiah use the bathroom while you two were up here room?” he asked her, cocking his head to one side and then straightening immediately. It was a stupid angelic tic. He wasn’t sure when it had started, but he hated it, hated it with a passion.
“Uh, yeah. Men always complain about women and small bladders but that guy has the smallest bladder ever, and he wasn’t a big fan of just going behind a cactus.” She shrugged. “You think the siren is in there? ‘Cause if you go running into the little boys’ room and start stabbing people I don’t think it’s going to go over well.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “It’s worth going and having a look, though.” Sure, he’d escaped prison before, but he didn’t exactly enjoy the experience. “I’ll keep the stabbing to a professional minimum, I promise.” She rolled her eyes at him but stayed outside while he made his way into the men’s room.
His stomach recoiled. The facility reeked of waste products and inadequate plumbing, the stench common to all public restrooms magnified by infrequent cleaning and the desert heat. He glanced around. He counted five or six people, all men and boys, of course. The father struggling with a cloth diaper on the indifferently-clean changing station was probably not the siren. The old man, red-faced with sweat stains so big that they colored almost his entire golf shirt - he was probably not the siren either. The guy in the maintenance uniform, though - he had a perfectly good reason to be in the restroom all of the time and it was clear that he wasn’t exactly cleaning the place.
The maintenance man approached. “Hey buddy,” he greeted, holding out an open bottle of water. “You’re looking a little dehydrated. I’ve got just what you need right here.”
Sam looked into his eyes and was shaken by what he saw. The mild-mannered maintenance man façade disappeared, and in its place was something with pale, almost Saran-wrap-like skin, hollow eyes, and a massive mouth. He kept his face carefully calm. “No thanks, man,” he said, stepping back and keeping his mind carefully blank. “I’ve got a bad cold, wouldn’t want you to catch it.” He stepped back outside the men’s room and grabbed Tracy.
He dragged her far enough away from the crowd to keep things private and explained who their target was. Of course she called him on how he’d ID’d the monster, and he had to admit that he had seen the creature’s true form. He expected a bit of a freakout, but all she said was “Oh,” and nodded. His internal assessment of her professionalism jumped a notch as he reminded himself that she was, after all, an excellent hunter in her own right.
They decided to stake out the men’s room. It was a long wait, killing time until the tourists left, and the sun started to set, but the pair didn’t mind. Sam was glad to find that Tracy was totally fine with sitting in silence, leaving him to his own thoughts. They had to get this siren. It was killing people, and Sam knew he wasn’t going to get any peace from his visions until Tracy was safe. Once that was over he could focus on curing Dean.
The siren emerged from the men’s room about an hour after the park closed. Sam emerged from the shadow of the visitor’s center, eyes on the monster. Now that he knew, of course, he couldn’t help seeing the monster’s true form. “You aren’t exactly Miss America, are you? I can see why you’d choose a different form,” he told it, staying carefully out of spitting distance.
“You can see me,” it observed. “Interesting. It’s not important. You’ll still kill for me at the end of the day.”
They circled around each other. “Maybe. If you manage to infect me with your venom, I guess there’s a first time for everything. I came pretty damn close last time ”
“So you’ve encountered a siren before? But you’re still here. That’s… that’s exciting; it really is. But the girl - Isaiah was supposed to kill her. How did she wind up with you?”
“I have a name, you know,” Tracy objected.
“She kicked his ass,” Sam smirked.
“It doesn’t matter. She might have been able to take Isaiah, but she won’t be able to take you.” It sneered and lunged for Sam.
“Maybe,” he retorted, shrugging as he sidestepped and drew the bronze dagger. Tracy grabbed hers. “Personally I think she could do plenty of damage.” He stabbed at the siren, who danced out of the way and lashed out at Tracy. “You won’t get a chance to find out.” Tracy stabbed at the thing’s chest while Sam brought his blade down on the back of its neck, and it was over.
Once they salted and burned the remains they took care the issue of the security cameras and returned to the motel. Sam asked to grab a quick shower before hitting the road, but Tracy had other ideas. “You need a decent night’s sleep, Sam,” she pointed out. “Maybe even an actual meal. And I want to talk to you about this whole… psychic thing.”
He sighed. “If you’re going to shoot me, at least wait until I’ve figured out what to do about Dean? He’s a lot more dangerous than I am. Once he’s been dealt with you can do whatever, I won’t even fight you.” He put his bag down.
She stared. “I just talked about getting you an actual meal and a decent night’s sleep and you’re worried about me shooting you. Wait-what’s wrong with Dean?”
“What? Never mind. It’s nothing you need to worry about, it’s just . . . I’m tired and I just want to be on my way, far from people who want to kill me.”
“Dude. I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you. Maybe I even think you should die for what you did, but I’m not going to kill you. Go. Shower. Any food allergies?”
“No?” He blinked. He was pretty sure he’d just stepped into Bizarro-world somehow, and part of him half expected Dean to pop up with a Superman reference. “Look, I’m not a big eater, Tracy -“
“Go. Shower. I’m getting sick of repeating myself” She had already picked up her phone and started going through the binder of takeout menus provided by the motel.
He did. It was probably the world’s fastest shower or at least the fastest shower someone with his amount of hair could take, but he got clean and no longer reeked of burning flesh. “There’s plenty of hot water,” he told her.
“Awesome. I ordered Indian. I should be out before they get here, but just in case: pay them, don’t shoot them.”
He rolled his eyes. “Got it. You know, I have had a life outside of hunting. Had a job. Had a house. Went to college, even.”
“Huh. Well, you learn something new every day I guess.” She grabbed a change of clothes and went to go clean up. Sam pulled out a stone tablet, set his gun on the table and got to work.
She got out just before dinner arrived and, Sam’s earlier protestation, insisted on dealing with the deliveryman herself. “What’s that?” she wanted to know as he carefully transferred the tablet to the bed.
“Found it in an old secret society library,” he explained. “Unfortunately, I kind of bled on it while translating it- out loud-and now some old… uh, issues… are coming to light.”
“Issues,” she repeated around a mouthful of samosa.
“Yeah. The, uh, psychic crap.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You know, the food works better when you put it in your mouth.”
He obligingly ate a forkful of chickpea curry. “Um, well, I used to be psychic. Um, because of being… because I have demon blood in me.” He explained about Azazel and his little experiment in as few words as possible. “I tried not to use any of those abilities for a long time. Then Dean went to Hell, and Ruby came along and convinced me that using my powers was my only hope to either spring him or get revenge. But she wanted me to focus on some other abilities, more… demonic abilities.” He shifted. “I’m a freak, but I’ve managed to keep it… buried, I guess, for years. Ever since I got back from Hell I haven’t used them. I swear.”
“Why?” Her eyebrows knit together now.
“Excuse me?”
“Why would you not use abilities that could give you an advantage? I mean, the demonic stuff sure, but the visions? If they’re giving you advance knowledge about cases, that’s life-saving, man! And you saw the siren’s true form - that saved so much time and probably a lot of people’s lives.”
“Tracy, all of my power is demonic to some extent. It comes from the demon whose DNA runs in my veins. It’s unclean,” he insisted, pushing his food away.
“Sam, no.” She pushed the food back. “You don’t know that you didn’t have those abilities before Aziraphale - “
“Azazel,” he corrected automatically. “Aziraphale is from Good Omens.”
“Whatever,” she waved. “You don’t know that that’s not why you were picked for his little game. Having those abilities - I mean, you don’t think all psychics are impure, do you? Because my grandmother was psychic, and let me tell you she had nothing whatsoever to do with demons.”
He blinked. “You’re the first hunter I’ve met who hasn’t wanted to kill me just for being a freak.”
“I only care about what you’ve done, Sam. I don’t like what you’ve done. I hate what you’ve done. But I don’t give a crap about psychic powers, and I’ve got to admit that you’re a damn effective hunter” She grimaced. “I’d rather it was anyone else, but hey - beggars can’t be choosers.”
“You seriously…”
“Sam. Get with it. Why did you not use the weapons you had?”
“Well, I mean, Dean hated them. He thought they were evil. Same with my dad, and Bobby Singer.” He shrugged. “I got hunted, declared fair game by more than a few hunters. And that was long before the whole Apocalypse thing.” He grinned sheepishly. “They’ve got other reasons to hunt me now.”
“True.” She took another bite of her food. “So you just… basically ignored an entire part of your brain because your family didn’t like it.”
“Well when you put it like that…” He sighed and rubbed his face. “I mean, I never wanted to stand out or anything, you know? I just wanted to be normal. So I wasn’t a fan of seeing spirits, or having visions, or anything else that made me different from anyone else. Also they hurt like hell. But this tablet…” He read over it again, and looked at his notes. “My translation is still incomplete. It’s something like ‘uncage the innocent, Gatekeeper open for me your gate and release the hidden -‘ I guess that it just… tore down whatever defenses I had built up against this kind of thing.”
She looked at him. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Every time this part of me has come up it’s led nowhere good. Even with the best of intentions I end up getting used for someone else’s evil plans.”
“So who’s trying to use you now, Sam?”
He forced a little smile. “I don’t know yet.”
“We need beers,” she grinned. “You should float them on over.”
He huffed out a little laugh. “Tracy, I -“ He’d been about to say that he’d never done that when it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, but maybe that was just an excuse. It certainly hadn’t limited Max.. “I’ll try.” Much to his surprise the mini-fridge opened and two bottles floated smoothly over to the table.
She managed to look impressed before laughing. “Okay. See? That right there? Totally not problematic. No moral hand-wringing necessary.”
Sam laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but it was more of a real laugh than he’d managed in years. And maybe it wasn’t much, maybe it wasn’t helping Dean yet, but it was a start.
Recipient: monicawoe
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4,500
Warnings: Mild violence and language
Author's Notes: Thanks to tumblr user angstyteenagesam for the beta
Sam pulled into the parking lot of the motel. Tracy had told him - grudgingly and after much prodding - that she was staying at the Saguaro Flower Motel in Tacna, and he’d managed to get here in less than two days, his vision always at the back of his mind, a dark promise of what would happen if he was too late. Tracy hated him and that was fine, she had cause, just like the rest of the world, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to see her gutted in the corner of some abandoned pueblo in the middle of the desert.
She opened the door when he knocked. “You look like crap,” she greeted, arms crossed across her chest.
“Nice shiner,” he replied, shouldering his way past and into the darkened room. She closed and locked the door behind him.
“You should see the other guy,” she retorted. “And imagine what’ll happen to you if you try anything.”
He gaped at her for a moment. “Try anything . . . sexually? My brother died a week ago, Tracy. Sex is pretty much the farthest thing from my mind. And even if I was in the mood, trust me when I say I would never, ever ‘try anything’ with you..”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that people who hate and want me dead aren’t on my list of turn ons. I guess I’m just weird that way.” He dug his laptop out of its bag. He wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from, but he was far too exhausted to filter what he was saying for the girl’s comfort. “You want to tell me what happened?”
She sighed. “My partner and I came to town because of a rash of deaths - seemed random, you know? People just snapping out of the blue and killing family members.”
He pursed his lips. “Okay. I’ve seen that a few times. There was a specter tied to a coin this time in Missouri that took victims’ grudges and made them homicidal. That was fun. Or it could be a demon.” It didn’t escape Sam’s attention that both of those scenarios now directly tied to his brother. The thought made his throat dry up.
She made a face at him. “I have been doing this for five years now, you know. No sulphur, no EMF and the guys remember everything down to the last detail.”
He bit his lip. “Guys? As in, all the assailant are men?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Is that significant?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever run across a siren?” Monster number three that had come close to tearing Sam and his brother apart. Fun times. His stomach threatened mutiny.
“What, like Ulysses?”
“Exactly. Dean and I ran into one - well, a few weeks before the whole thing with Lucifer getting out of his cage.” He winced. Dean’s name still hurt. “They pretty much suck.”
She glared. “So you just… know what it is? Don’t you want to do some more research?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and quietly. “I said it sounded like a siren. We can do some more research and we probably should. I hope it’s something else; a siren is really dangerous to fight. Anyway, you rolled into town. What happened next?”
“We did some poking around. The only thing that all of the couples had in common was a visit to this state park and historic site before the women were killed, usually a few days before. So we went to the park and asked some questions. Isaiah started acting a little funny after that, and then a couple of days later we were at a McDonalds and he sucker punched me, pulled out a knife,and tried to kill me.” She sat down at the table across from him, angling her body away.
“Not Isaiah’s best moment.” Sam shook his head. “You said it was completely out of the blue?”
“He said something about me not laying down the salt lines right.”
Sam nodded. They were definitely dealing with a siren. He couldn’t forget
the terrible feeling of Dean’s hand pressing Ruby’s knife to his throat, and then the horror of that thing approaching to spit in his mouth, seizing control over his emotions with none of the finesse with which it had approached its other victims - “Go on.”
“Well, he’s in jail now. I mean, he tried to stab me in the middle of a fast food joint. There weren’t a lot of other ways that could have gone.” She shook her head.
“Okay.” He massaged at his face with his hands. “The pattern definitely fits best with a siren. Their venom only affects men, never women. Their victims will kill whoever’s closest to them though regardless of gender,” he added with a twist to his lips that he couldn’t really stop.
“Someone sounds bitter,” she smirked.
“I told you. Dean and I had a run-in with one a long time ago. It was ugly. It wanted Dean to -“ He stopped and shook his head, then covered a yawn. “Anyway, the only way to kill one is with a bronze dagger dipped in the blood of one of its victims. Unfortunately its victims cease to be affected - the venom leaves the system - once the target is killed.”
She tilted her head to the side. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Doesn’t matter.” It had been three or four days since he managed to grab a couple of hours, but between guilt and nightmares sleep didn’t hold all that much appeal.. “Isaiah never killed you, so he’s still affected by the venom, which works out well for us.”
“So what, you want to just waltz into a jail and steal some of his blood?” She raised an eyebrow. “You look like the dead, Sam. The actual dead. I took out a nest of ghouls a couple of months ago, and they were in better shape than you are right now. They weren’t that fresh, either. I was picking ghoul bits out of my hair all the way down the mountain.”
He shuddered. “Ick.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No one’s gonna buy you as anything but a crazy transient until you get at least a nap in. And I’m not letting you anywhere near a gun or a blood-dipped dagger or a freaking rubber band until you get a couple of hours’ sleep.” She crossed her arms over her chest again. “I’ll do some more research, see if I can’t find an alternate explanation.”
“You want me to sleep. In here.” He glanced at the unused bed. “Around you.”
“Oh, I promise you’ll be awake when I kill you, Winchester.”
“Great.” He wasn’t going to get much farther with her. He was too tired to argue, too tired to seriously worry about Tracy, too tired for all of it.. He stuck Ruby’s knife under the pillow and curled up on the too-short bed, eyes closed. He comforted himself with the thought that if she killed him in his sleep at least he’d never have to find the energy to get up again..
Darkness enveloped him as soon as his head touched the pillow. He wasn’t sure how long it took the dreams to start - it could have been seconds or hours - but when he did start dreaming he recognized the image at once. It was the same dream as before, but for whatever reason - familiarity, closer proximity to Tracy, Mercury in retrograde, or some really bad coffee - this dream offered a lot more detail. He saw Tracy hunting with someone else, a handsome young man with the most intricate set of dreads Sam had ever seen. He saw their entrance in the town, their brief exploration of state park, and then the sudden attack at the McDonalds He saw Tracy’s companion behind bars, and saw her switch hotels before trying to call Dean for help. He saw the shock, anger, and resentment on her face when she got Sam instead.
And then the loop of Tracy dying in the old abandoned pueblo started up again. This time the vision was so vivid that Sam could even smell the air inside the pueblo. There wasn’t even a hint of sulfur or smoke, just hyacinth and copper. He woke with a strangled cry, Tracy standing over him looking troubled. “Wow. No wonder you don’t sleep much,” she commented darkly. “The hell language were you yelling in anyway?”
“I don’t know.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and massaged his face. “You tell me. You’re the one who was awake to hear it. Describe your partner for me, Tracy.”
She took three steps back. “Why?”
“Is he about six foot one, dreads, dark skin, wiry? Very striking with, uh ‘delicate features for a hunter’?” He huffed out half a laugh at the joke she wouldn’t get.“
She turned pale. Well, there was his confirmation. The visions were real. “You didn’t see him. I didn’t even tell you his name… you can’t know that. How would you possibly…?”
He buried his face in his hands. “Can you wait to shoot me until after we’ve finished up this case, all right? For now, just go with it. I’m, uh, psychic.”
“Right.”
“Seriously. I’d love to have just stayed where I was and helped you out over the phone-especially considering how you feel about me-but, um, then I started having visions of you getting killed in an abandoned pueblo. I had hoped it was just a stupid nightmare, but apparently no such luck And it’s not exactly the first time. See, I used to get visions back in the day. And apparently now they’re back. So… “
“Used to? They’re back?” She screwed up her face. “How does something like that just stop? What, you found some kind of psychic cork and just plopped it in there? And that still doesn’t explain the furniture?”
He looked around. Some of the furniture did look disturbed now that he thought about it - not like the place had been tossed, but like it had been picked up and set down just a little bit differently. One of the lamps had been broken. “What the hell happened?”
“Crap started floating around when you really got into your dream.” She shrugged. “It’s why I woke you up.”
He leaned back and knocked his head against the wall. “Well that’s just great. Sorry. Listen, let’s focus on the siren. The rest of this crap is my problem, not yours.”
“Unless you break the world again,” she pointed out. “Is that what you want?”
“So, what? You’re gonna come along for the ride? Try to stop me if things go too far? Trust me; you want to stay as far away from all of this as you can? Anyways, I’ve got a… a place. If these abilities get out of hand or make me dangerous I can lock myself away and no one will ever hear from me again.” The thought of immuring himself in the bunker didn’t seem half bad now that he thought about it. It didn’t seem half good either, but whatever. “Look. Let’s just go to the prison. I’ll collect some of your partner blood and we’ll get going.”
They drove over to the county lockup, where Sam’s fraudulent paperwork barely got a second glance. His cover story about wanting to test for the presence of some kind of virus that might have caused the violent behavior in the affected men didn’t even raise eyebrows, and Sam took a moment to sigh at the state of inmate rights, even though in this case it was helping him free said inmates from supernatural influence and prevent further killings. Tracy’s partner, Isaiah, seemed like a perfectly nice guy when Sam met with him. He kept dropping hints, trying to find out if Sam and Tracy had figured out what they were hunting yet. Sam just shook his head and side-stepped the issue. They’d probably have to come back and get Isaiah out later; they couldn’t afford to raise any suspicions now.. He got blood from the other men, too - no need to make it obvious that they were focusing on Isaiah.
The next step was to find the siren. “Tracy, I’m pretty reluctant to take you into that park,” he told her. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, because all of my other hunts were so safe,” she spat back at him. “If it’s really that dangerous there’s no way in hell I’m sending you in alone. If you get hit by one of the siren you’re going to need backup -“
“Tracy, these things work by turning people against the people they love. Everyone I’ve ever had any kind of relationship with is dead. I’m pretty sure I’m safe.” He quirked half a grin at her. “There are advantages to having no ties, you know.”
She rolled her eyes. “There really aren’t. What’s your real problem with this, Winchester?”
“I saw you die. In the pueblo. Over and over again. I’d rather avoid a repeat performance in real life, and the best way to avoid that is for you to just not be there.” He sighed.
“Has anyone ever like, not done something because you saw it in a vision?” she wanted to know.
He thought back to Ava’s warning to him, back when they’d first met. “Nope. And when it was me, I didn’t change my plans either.”
“Did you wind up dying?”
“No . . . well, not that time.”
She opened her mouth, shut it again. “Right. Winchesters. Anyway, since I’ve already been warned I can just… be more careful. We can stay out of pueblos. And were you actually there in any of the visions you had?” He shook his head. “All right then. I’m going with you, and you being there will probably be enough to keep the siren off of me anyway.”
He sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to dissuade her. There might have been a time when he would have considered knocking her out or locking her up for her own protection but now, after what Dean had done to him - well, he couldn’t justify it. Not when it was only herself that she was risking. “All right,” he shrugged. “Let’s go.”
They geared up and drove out to the park. There were a crowd of tourists around, despite the heat of the desert in May, leading Tracy to bite her lip. “What do we do?” she wanted to know. “I mean, it could be any of them.”
“Could be, but it isn’t.” He shrugged. “It finds its victims somehow. It has to infect its victims by sharing saliva with them, and it’s infecting them someplace separate from the women.”
He cleared his throat. “So it would probably be hanging around somewhere that the women don’t go.”
“Like the men’s room,” she suggested, raising an eyebrow.
“Did Isaiah use the bathroom while you two were up here room?” he asked her, cocking his head to one side and then straightening immediately. It was a stupid angelic tic. He wasn’t sure when it had started, but he hated it, hated it with a passion.
“Uh, yeah. Men always complain about women and small bladders but that guy has the smallest bladder ever, and he wasn’t a big fan of just going behind a cactus.” She shrugged. “You think the siren is in there? ‘Cause if you go running into the little boys’ room and start stabbing people I don’t think it’s going to go over well.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “It’s worth going and having a look, though.” Sure, he’d escaped prison before, but he didn’t exactly enjoy the experience. “I’ll keep the stabbing to a professional minimum, I promise.” She rolled her eyes at him but stayed outside while he made his way into the men’s room.
His stomach recoiled. The facility reeked of waste products and inadequate plumbing, the stench common to all public restrooms magnified by infrequent cleaning and the desert heat. He glanced around. He counted five or six people, all men and boys, of course. The father struggling with a cloth diaper on the indifferently-clean changing station was probably not the siren. The old man, red-faced with sweat stains so big that they colored almost his entire golf shirt - he was probably not the siren either. The guy in the maintenance uniform, though - he had a perfectly good reason to be in the restroom all of the time and it was clear that he wasn’t exactly cleaning the place.
The maintenance man approached. “Hey buddy,” he greeted, holding out an open bottle of water. “You’re looking a little dehydrated. I’ve got just what you need right here.”
Sam looked into his eyes and was shaken by what he saw. The mild-mannered maintenance man façade disappeared, and in its place was something with pale, almost Saran-wrap-like skin, hollow eyes, and a massive mouth. He kept his face carefully calm. “No thanks, man,” he said, stepping back and keeping his mind carefully blank. “I’ve got a bad cold, wouldn’t want you to catch it.” He stepped back outside the men’s room and grabbed Tracy.
He dragged her far enough away from the crowd to keep things private and explained who their target was. Of course she called him on how he’d ID’d the monster, and he had to admit that he had seen the creature’s true form. He expected a bit of a freakout, but all she said was “Oh,” and nodded. His internal assessment of her professionalism jumped a notch as he reminded himself that she was, after all, an excellent hunter in her own right.
They decided to stake out the men’s room. It was a long wait, killing time until the tourists left, and the sun started to set, but the pair didn’t mind. Sam was glad to find that Tracy was totally fine with sitting in silence, leaving him to his own thoughts. They had to get this siren. It was killing people, and Sam knew he wasn’t going to get any peace from his visions until Tracy was safe. Once that was over he could focus on curing Dean.
The siren emerged from the men’s room about an hour after the park closed. Sam emerged from the shadow of the visitor’s center, eyes on the monster. Now that he knew, of course, he couldn’t help seeing the monster’s true form. “You aren’t exactly Miss America, are you? I can see why you’d choose a different form,” he told it, staying carefully out of spitting distance.
“You can see me,” it observed. “Interesting. It’s not important. You’ll still kill for me at the end of the day.”
They circled around each other. “Maybe. If you manage to infect me with your venom, I guess there’s a first time for everything. I came pretty damn close last time ”
“So you’ve encountered a siren before? But you’re still here. That’s… that’s exciting; it really is. But the girl - Isaiah was supposed to kill her. How did she wind up with you?”
“I have a name, you know,” Tracy objected.
“She kicked his ass,” Sam smirked.
“It doesn’t matter. She might have been able to take Isaiah, but she won’t be able to take you.” It sneered and lunged for Sam.
“Maybe,” he retorted, shrugging as he sidestepped and drew the bronze dagger. Tracy grabbed hers. “Personally I think she could do plenty of damage.” He stabbed at the siren, who danced out of the way and lashed out at Tracy. “You won’t get a chance to find out.” Tracy stabbed at the thing’s chest while Sam brought his blade down on the back of its neck, and it was over.
Once they salted and burned the remains they took care the issue of the security cameras and returned to the motel. Sam asked to grab a quick shower before hitting the road, but Tracy had other ideas. “You need a decent night’s sleep, Sam,” she pointed out. “Maybe even an actual meal. And I want to talk to you about this whole… psychic thing.”
He sighed. “If you’re going to shoot me, at least wait until I’ve figured out what to do about Dean? He’s a lot more dangerous than I am. Once he’s been dealt with you can do whatever, I won’t even fight you.” He put his bag down.
She stared. “I just talked about getting you an actual meal and a decent night’s sleep and you’re worried about me shooting you. Wait-what’s wrong with Dean?”
“What? Never mind. It’s nothing you need to worry about, it’s just . . . I’m tired and I just want to be on my way, far from people who want to kill me.”
“Dude. I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you. Maybe I even think you should die for what you did, but I’m not going to kill you. Go. Shower. Any food allergies?”
“No?” He blinked. He was pretty sure he’d just stepped into Bizarro-world somehow, and part of him half expected Dean to pop up with a Superman reference. “Look, I’m not a big eater, Tracy -“
“Go. Shower. I’m getting sick of repeating myself” She had already picked up her phone and started going through the binder of takeout menus provided by the motel.
He did. It was probably the world’s fastest shower or at least the fastest shower someone with his amount of hair could take, but he got clean and no longer reeked of burning flesh. “There’s plenty of hot water,” he told her.
“Awesome. I ordered Indian. I should be out before they get here, but just in case: pay them, don’t shoot them.”
He rolled his eyes. “Got it. You know, I have had a life outside of hunting. Had a job. Had a house. Went to college, even.”
“Huh. Well, you learn something new every day I guess.” She grabbed a change of clothes and went to go clean up. Sam pulled out a stone tablet, set his gun on the table and got to work.
She got out just before dinner arrived and, Sam’s earlier protestation, insisted on dealing with the deliveryman herself. “What’s that?” she wanted to know as he carefully transferred the tablet to the bed.
“Found it in an old secret society library,” he explained. “Unfortunately, I kind of bled on it while translating it- out loud-and now some old… uh, issues… are coming to light.”
“Issues,” she repeated around a mouthful of samosa.
“Yeah. The, uh, psychic crap.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You know, the food works better when you put it in your mouth.”
He obligingly ate a forkful of chickpea curry. “Um, well, I used to be psychic. Um, because of being… because I have demon blood in me.” He explained about Azazel and his little experiment in as few words as possible. “I tried not to use any of those abilities for a long time. Then Dean went to Hell, and Ruby came along and convinced me that using my powers was my only hope to either spring him or get revenge. But she wanted me to focus on some other abilities, more… demonic abilities.” He shifted. “I’m a freak, but I’ve managed to keep it… buried, I guess, for years. Ever since I got back from Hell I haven’t used them. I swear.”
“Why?” Her eyebrows knit together now.
“Excuse me?”
“Why would you not use abilities that could give you an advantage? I mean, the demonic stuff sure, but the visions? If they’re giving you advance knowledge about cases, that’s life-saving, man! And you saw the siren’s true form - that saved so much time and probably a lot of people’s lives.”
“Tracy, all of my power is demonic to some extent. It comes from the demon whose DNA runs in my veins. It’s unclean,” he insisted, pushing his food away.
“Sam, no.” She pushed the food back. “You don’t know that you didn’t have those abilities before Aziraphale - “
“Azazel,” he corrected automatically. “Aziraphale is from Good Omens.”
“Whatever,” she waved. “You don’t know that that’s not why you were picked for his little game. Having those abilities - I mean, you don’t think all psychics are impure, do you? Because my grandmother was psychic, and let me tell you she had nothing whatsoever to do with demons.”
He blinked. “You’re the first hunter I’ve met who hasn’t wanted to kill me just for being a freak.”
“I only care about what you’ve done, Sam. I don’t like what you’ve done. I hate what you’ve done. But I don’t give a crap about psychic powers, and I’ve got to admit that you’re a damn effective hunter” She grimaced. “I’d rather it was anyone else, but hey - beggars can’t be choosers.”
“You seriously…”
“Sam. Get with it. Why did you not use the weapons you had?”
“Well, I mean, Dean hated them. He thought they were evil. Same with my dad, and Bobby Singer.” He shrugged. “I got hunted, declared fair game by more than a few hunters. And that was long before the whole Apocalypse thing.” He grinned sheepishly. “They’ve got other reasons to hunt me now.”
“True.” She took another bite of her food. “So you just… basically ignored an entire part of your brain because your family didn’t like it.”
“Well when you put it like that…” He sighed and rubbed his face. “I mean, I never wanted to stand out or anything, you know? I just wanted to be normal. So I wasn’t a fan of seeing spirits, or having visions, or anything else that made me different from anyone else. Also they hurt like hell. But this tablet…” He read over it again, and looked at his notes. “My translation is still incomplete. It’s something like ‘uncage the innocent, Gatekeeper open for me your gate and release the hidden -‘ I guess that it just… tore down whatever defenses I had built up against this kind of thing.”
She looked at him. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Every time this part of me has come up it’s led nowhere good. Even with the best of intentions I end up getting used for someone else’s evil plans.”
“So who’s trying to use you now, Sam?”
He forced a little smile. “I don’t know yet.”
“We need beers,” she grinned. “You should float them on over.”
He huffed out a little laugh. “Tracy, I -“ He’d been about to say that he’d never done that when it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, but maybe that was just an excuse. It certainly hadn’t limited Max.. “I’ll try.” Much to his surprise the mini-fridge opened and two bottles floated smoothly over to the table.
She managed to look impressed before laughing. “Okay. See? That right there? Totally not problematic. No moral hand-wringing necessary.”
Sam laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but it was more of a real laugh than he’d managed in years. And maybe it wasn’t much, maybe it wasn’t helping Dean yet, but it was a start.