Chapter Text
The icy rain was a low, constant hiss on the window of the laundromat, a soft static sound behind the thumping and whirring of the machines and the low murmur of the television bolted to the ceiling. It was a raw, windy February morning in Twin Falls, Idaho, but the inside of the laundromat was warm, full of the smell of detergent and warm lint. Dean turned a page in his magazine and glanced up at the faintly buzzing television.
“...and finally, police are still asking for anyone with information on the whereabouts of Tucker Merritt to call the local station. Next up, a storm front moving in…”
“Waste of time,” Dean muttered under his breath. He ducked his head down, staring hard at the clothes and soapy water churning in the machine. He had a magazine open in front of him, but he’d read it cover to cover already.
He heard a thumping sound, and looked up to where Sammy was sitting up on one of the machines, one leg dangling over the edge. He thumped his heel back against the machine again, and Dean caught his eye, frowning. Sammy rolled his eyes and tucked his feet up under him, hunching over his spiral bound notebook. God the kid was such a pain.
On the television a man with a spray tan was droning on about the slush and sleet that Dean could see out the window. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Everyone knew the weather was crappy. What they didn’t know, what they wouldn’t even believe if he told them, was that out in the cold wet world John Winchester was hunting the monster that had been making people in this town disappear. While the local police huddled around their coffees and asked all the wrong questions, his Dad was doing the real work. Hunting the real threat. Sometimes Dean wanted to scream it at them, at the grocery store clerk or the gas station attendant who looked at them with hard, suspicious eyes, whispering about drifter kids. They had no idea they were looking at heroes.
Dean worried at the edge of one sleeve, unable to concentrate. He couldn’t shake the thought of his Dad out in the snow, the cold seeping in through his boots along with warm blood as some jacked up creature chomped down on his leg or tore out his throat or…
Dean started tearing thin strips off the page of the magazine, crumpling the strips into tiny paper pellets. His dad was out there with no backup, hunting something that they barely knew what it was except that it was dangerous, and the worst part was that it shouldn’t have been that way. Wouldn’t have been that way, if it hadn’t been for Dean.
When he’d found the body of Tucker Merritt, when he’d seen the ribboned mess of his body slumped against a tree out in the forest, lit flashlight still clenched in his hand, Dean hadn’t been able to help it. He’d been afraid. It was hardly Dean’s first dead body, but something about it shook him. Maybe it was the fact that the boy had been only sixteen, a year older than Dean, but when he saw him, his slack, empty face…afterwards in the car Dad hadn’t said a word, and Dean had sat burning with shame in the shotgun seat, struggling to swallow back tears.
Back at the motel room Dad had announced that he’d be finishing the hunt alone, and Dean had felt his whole body go hot and cold with shame and relief. He didn’t have to go. He didn’t have to face up to the fact that he didn’t want to go. The order was given, it was decided. His job now was to look after Sammy, who had watched the whole exchange with a studied nonchalance, staring a little too intently at the page of his book when Dean glared at him.
When Dad had driven away he’d given Dean a look, a clipped “you take care of your brother.” and Dean had understood. He couldn’t afford to have him as backup when he was like this, when he’d puke and weep at the sight of a dead body that wasn’t even a threat. Going into this battle alone was better than having Dean with him. Crystal clear.
So. Now he was stuck in a laundromat with Sammy, who had started flicking the edge of his notebook’s plastic cover, an absent-minded fidget that made Dean want to scream.
He closed his eyes and pressed his hands onto the tops of his thighs. The machines hummed and thumped, the television murmured, the sleet hissed against the window. They were inside, safe from the storm, safe from things that could slit your belly open and leave you out in the woods like a half eaten sandwich, but he couldn’t enjoy it. He hadn’t been going to school enough here to have homework, but he almost wished he did just to have something to do other than stew in his own thoughts.
He opened his eyes, then glanced at the clock. Even if he was worse than useless in the field, he could still get one thing right.
“Hey Sammy, you hungry?”
Sam looked up, chewing on the ragged end of a ballpoint pen. He nodded, face lighting up with suppressed delight, and his hair flopped down over his eyes. Dean thought that maybe he’d make him sit still tonight for a haircut. They had the sharp scissors that originally came with a fancy first aid kit they’d stolen, and he thought of his father’s stony approval as he came back after the hunt to see his mop headed son finally looking presentable. Sam always resisted, but after a full day of quiet reading, a few good meals, and Dad’s absence, Dean thought he might be able to wrangle him into it.
“Yeah I guess”
Dean smiled and stood, smacking the folded magazine gently against Sam’s shoulder, which brought the scowl back.
“Okay then, come on and we can go next door, I think we deserve-”
He blinked, and suddenly he was staring at a stack of leather bound books, just inches away from his face. He took a step back, whirling, but Sammy, the laundromat, and the whole of Twin Falls had vanished, replaced by…a storage room?
He felt in his jacket for the gun that thank fuck he still had on him, and backed up into another shelf, sending jars and boxes and sheafs of paper cascading to the ground. Dean leapt out of the way of the falling objects, his gun secure in his sweating hands, and backed away from the whole mess, freezing as he heard a human voice, no more than ten feet away.
“He was the godfather of it all, I mean without Bruce’s success nobody would have paid attention to the Shore. But then, because I’m the next generation, I mean the E street band were my Beatles…”
Dean forced himself to stand still, to listen hard over the thundering of his heart. His breathing was harsh, and he forced himself to slow it down, to exhale more slowly than he thought he could stand. He had no idea where he was, what had happened, or how he got here, or what had happened to Sam, but he’d just made a hell of a lot of noise and whoever was there in the room with him had somehow not noticed, or not thought it worth looking into.
Gripping the gun in his hands tightly, breathing as slowly as he could, he stepped forward away from the shelves and turned, examining his surroundings. He was somewhere new, some kind of storage room, shelves and shelves of boxes, files, jars and bits of machinery and yep, that was a human head sitting quietly on it’s shelf at precisely Dean’s eye level. A little plaque on it’s bell jar declared, in fine gold filigree writing, that this was the head of one Harry Kellar, 1849-1922. Gross.
Dean backed away, then turned towards the end of the shelves and the mysterious voice. Sam was nowhere to be seen, but he could be nearby, and if he wasn’t then Dean needed to get to him and fast, and that would likely mean subduing whoever was in the room. He held his gun up and moved forward, rolling his feet on the concrete floor, and leaned his head to see just the barest sliver of what lay beyond. Then he took another step, and another, then into the middle of the room and he turned round the corner to aim his gun at…
…A plate covered in crumbs and bits of ketchup, flanked by a half full coffee cup sitting on a table that was otherwise covered in notebooks, old papers, and a few smaller boxes. He spun quickly, clearing all the other shelves - there was nowhere in the room for a person to hide, but there on the table was the source of the voice.
“...and even as a little boy, as much as I loved them all, the one thing I knew was if you didn’t become your own man, it would be short lived…”
Dean took a step forward, pulse still pounding, the voice seemed to be coming out of a sleek piece of - glass? Plastic? As he approached, the screen lit up and he jumped back, but nothing happened. He peered closer, and mouthed the words that it suddenly displayed.
“Message from Cas?”
So. A storage room, no windows, one door, alone. Tons of boxes, one severed head, one mysterious talking device, no sign of Sammy, and no fucking idea what was happening. Fantastic.
He went back to where he had...shown up? He picked up the magazine from where it lay on the floor and put it in his back pocket, not wanting to leave any traces. He braced his back against the stone wall and tried to think. Had anything weird happened in the laundromat? There had been one or two other people there, but Dean was now kicking himself for not paying attention to them. Could one of them have, what? Teleported him to a storage room somewhere? Had he come here on purpose and just...lost time? If it was a kidnapping then why did he still have his gun? And where the hell was Sammy?
Leaving the voice chattering on about Bon Jovi (and seriously what was the deal with that), Dean tried the door - unlocked. He opened it slowly, straining his ears, alert for any sense of movement, footsteps, voices, anything. No such luck. He felt fear well in his chest, and the desire for his dad, big and solid and armed to the teeth, to round the corner and tell him it was okay, that Sammy was safe and they were going to handle this together. Then he shook his head, rolled his shoulders, and ventured out into wherever he was.
No one leapt out at him the moment he walked out the door, or by the time he made it down the first corridor, or the second or the third. He wandered a few hallways, muddling his way through what seemed to be some huge windowless compound, well-lit, well maintained, not obviously evil in any way he could detect. After a while he actually began to get a bit bored and was starting to relax his grip on his gun. Not good. Needed to stay alert.
He pushed a few doors open - a few were locked, a few were storage rooms of boxes, books, one room of records and wax cylinders, a room full of hazmat suits, an unused bedroom. He was starting to worry he might be in some kind of labyrinth, when he heard a voice - indistinct, male, calm. He hesitated. He had barely any info to go on, this voice could be his captor, another prisoner, some random person, hell it could be another recording. But he didn’t have a whole lot of options.
As he got closer to the voice, he started hearing snatches of the conversation. He could hear the man laugh, caught a few words, then more and more of the conversation, frowning as he neared a lit, open doorway.
“Yeah, I mean there are worse things than community college, I’m sure she’ll figure it out…”
Dean plastered himself against the wall, listening. The speaker didn’t sound evil, in fact he sounded kind of like a dork, but he’d overheard monsters talking about normal stuff before. He didn’t like to think about it, but he knew better than most that plenty of the worst monsters could pass for normal, boring people - they talked about TV and sports and the weather, right up until they spouted claws and went to rip your pancreas out. He’d learned not to be disarmed by a little smalltalk.
The man laughed, then went quiet. Then, Dean heard him shift a bit.
“No, Jody, it’s fine. It’s nice to...to have someone we know who would think to ask.”
Dean adjusted his grip on his gun, settled his shoulders. It would be best to go in guns blazing, to get the jump on whoever the hell this was, to get some answers. He got ready. He hoped wherever Sam was, he was okay. Maybe he was in this room. He wished Dad were here.
Dean turned, peeling off from the wall and found himself aiming his gun point blank into the chest of a gigantic man who was staring at him with a shell shocked expression, holding his own handgun aimed at Dean. Dean felt his heart leap, adrenaline thrilling through him, and he fought the sudden, insane impulse to drop his gun.
In the deafening silence, the man made no move to run, to disarm or attack him. He didn’t say a word, tilting his head down to stare at Dean. Dean knew he should pull the trigger, or at least feel like he could, he should be ready to, but this stranger seemed genuinely surprised to see him, and he didn’t...he didn’t look like a monster. Dean should know better. Mostly they didn’t.
The man slowly lowered his gun, searching Dean’s eyes. For a moment, Dean relaxed his grip on the gun. He so wanted for this to be safe, for this stranger to be someone who could help him. A grownup. He hated that he wanted that.
“Alright, enough staring. Back up, sasquatch”
He jammed his gun a bit into the man’s sternum, forcing him back a step, and a strange array of expressions flickered over the man’s face before settling into something like a sad understanding. He raised his hands and backed away, and Dean moved to track him, watching as the hulking stranger retreated into what turned out to be some kind of kitchen. The man went to lean back and sit against the edge of the kitchen table, strewn with the remains of a meal and some gadgets, a few pens. He looked relaxed, more relaxed than a normal person should be who just got accosted at gunpoint in their own kitchen.
Slowly, keeping his hands visible, the stranger put his gun on the ground and kicked it to the side, out of reach of either of them. An unprompted act of peace, but he hadn’t given his gun to Dean either. He seemed to struggle internally for a moment, then opened his mouth, eyes puppy-dog huge.
“Do you - “
“Uh-uh,” Dean snapped, gesturing with the gun. “You’re alone?”
The man’s mouth twisted a bit, but he nodded.
“We’re the only two people here.”
“And here is…?”
“Lebanon, Kansas. Underground bunker.”
Kansas? How the hell did he get all the way to Kansas? Dean was burning with questions, but one won out. It always did.
“What did you do with my brother? Where is he?”
The man blinked, then smiled ruefully. Dean might have almost said he looked embarrassed.
“Um, yeah, so that’s going to be a little complicated. I’m not sure you’ll believe me.”
Dean rolled his eyes. If he had a nickel for every time someone told him that.
“Haha, try me, I’ve seen my share of weird.”
Then, to Dean’s horror, the man laughed. Dean stared at him, trying to figure out what he’d said that was so damn funny. He felt that he was rapidly losing control of this situation.
“Believe me Dean, this is not even the weirdest thing that’s happened this last year.”