Red In Tooth and Claw - Part One

[glasslogic]

 

Prologue

“We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams...” 

                                                 ~Arthur O’Shaughnes

Dean sprawled on the meadow grass, lazy, content and at peace with the world. A deep pond rippled in the warm breeze just a few yards away and the sky stretched endlessly up like a dream of summer blue. He was comfortable in his favorite jeans, the t-shirt Sam kept stealing from him and boots he had finally broken in just right.

That the boots had been worn out and junked more than five years ago didn’t matter.

Movement caught his attention and he turned his head to look at the wolf he was sharing his meadow with. Sam was stretched out on his side, back to Dean and neck craned to sniff at a dragonfly that was trying to settle onto the grass near his head. It would alight, then take off again -- disturbed by the change in air current. Sam wasn’t serious about it, though; interested enough to sniff, not interested enough to move. Eventually, the dragonfly grew tired of the game and left to find a less inhabited patch of grass. Dean smiled and scooted closer so he could bury his face in the sun-warmed fur and inhaled deeply. The wolf smelled like it always did, a familiar mix of musty animal warmth and a clean wildness, with a unique twist that was simply Sam. Even in his human form, Sam kept that singular note.

Dean settled onto his back again. A hand slid over his stomach and he opened his eyes to the darkness of the motel room, suddenly awake in the cold night. Sam was human. Always human now; he’d given up his other form permanently almost a year ago when he had chosen to leave his people and follow Dean on the road. But even after all of these months of sharing a life, in the canvas of his dreams, Sam’s form was as liquid as his smile or his laugh.

Enough light from the parking lot street lamps was seeping through the curtains that Dean could make out Sam sprawled beside him on the bed. He was on his stomach and had one arm thrown across Dean’s waist. Sam’s skin was cool to touch, so Dean fumbled for the comforter that had been kicked aside in their sleep. When he dragged it up and glanced over, he could see the glitter of Sam’s eyes.

“Come back t’sleep,” the wolf mumbled. “S’warmer there. There’s buzzy things...” He sighed heavily and his eyes slid shut, breathing evening almost immediately back into the rhythm of deep sleep.

Dean blinked at him, feeling suddenly a lot more awake. “Sam?”

But Sam’s breathing remained steady and he showed no signs of waking again. With his own dream still heavy in his mind, Dean thought about shaking Sam a little and asking what he had been talking about. But after a few moments, Dean himself was on the verge of sleep again, and it seemed silly. It wasn’t worth waking Sam up and interrupting his much-needed rest to ask him about something he had mumbled while probably not even awake.

It was just a coincidence.

Chapter One

“The only real people are the people who never existed”
                                                         ~Oscar Wilde
 

“I want to stop by Lawrence,” Sam announced.

Dean scowled and dragged another French fry through the ketchup. “No.”

Sam tapped one finger on the road map he had been examining since he finished inhaling his own food. “It’s on the way; why not?’

“You’ve wanted to stop by every national park, state park and dog park for the last thousand miles and I haven’t said a damn thing about it. I don’t want to go to Lawrence.” Feeling the weight of Sam’s gaze on him Dean added in a mutter, “It’s not even on the way.”

Sam kicked him none-too-gently under the table until Dean looked up in annoyance, then he slid the road map across the table. “We’re already traveling from Salina to St. Charles. Lawrence isn’t even a mile out of our way. We’ve gone further than that looking for coffee.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “And other than that stakeout we did three months ago in San Juan for two nights, we haven’t so much as slowed down by a tree. Don’t bitch at me for suggesting we could crash at a campsite as easily as in the roach motels you find whenever you can’t prop your eyelids open anymore.”

Dean stifled a twinge of guilt. Sam had adjusted to life on the road better than Dean could have expected. But it was still a big change after spending more than twenty years running free in the deep forests of Montana. Dean had been promising for the last three months that they could take at least a week for themselves and go camping, but the cases kept coming in and there was always just one more thing to look into before they took a break.

But all he said was, “They’re not roach motels.” Usually.

Sam snorted his opinion of that.

“Look,” Dean tried to reason, “I’m tired, you’re tired, and if we push straight through we can reach St. Charles by midnight. We salt some bones, catch some sleep, then move on to see what Pastor Jim has for us. If we’re extremely lucky, all he really wants is some company for dinner and we might pull some real downtime after that.”

“For camping.” Sam didn’t even try to hide the skepticism in his voice, which was probably a little deserved.

“For whatever wolfy things you want to do.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “We can spend the night in Lawrence, get some actual sleep there, do the salt and burn the next night, then go see what Pastor Jim wants. It won’t make a big difference either way.”

“Not unless the ghost in St. Charles tries to kill someone else in the next twenty-four hours!” Dean snapped.

“In the forty years people have been seeing him, this is the first time anyone has reported any violence! Don’t you think it’s more likely the woman just tripped?”

“Hey,” Dean tossed his napkin over his plate and leaned back, “she saw the ghost, then got shoved into traffic. You want to wait until there’s an actual death?”

“It was probably trying to warn her to watch her step.” Sam retorted. “Either way, Lawrence is on the way and I want to stop. An hour won’t kill us. Or anyone else,” he added pointedly, before Dean could object again.

“Why are you so obsessed with going there?!”

Sam grinned, detecting victory. “I want to see where you grew up. You saw where I grew up; it’s only fair.”

“You grew up in the woods, Sam, and I only saw it because we were running for our lives, remember?” Dean certainly didn’t have any trouble remembering. Being nearly killed by summoned African spirits alone was memorable, but following up the Tikoloshe attack by having sex with a werewolf, a siege by the cops, then almost freezing to death in the mountains while fleeing for his life had really made that period of time special. “Besides, I didn’t grow up in Lawrence, I barely remember the place. It’s just another spot on the map.”

“Then stopping isn’t a problem,” Sam announced with satisfaction.

Dean groaned and signaled for the check.

~~~~~

For a kid who was raised on the road, Dean had spent a surprising amount of time in the town where he was born and his mother had died. His father still had friends and contacts there, and it was a convenient enough place to crash for free when they were in that end of Kansas. John used to take Dean for walks in neighborhoods that Dean barely remembered while telling stories of Mary and their lives before. But as years passed and John was drawn deeper and deeper into the shadows of a hunter’s life, the aimless reminiscing slowed until Dean looked around one day and realized that he couldn’t remember the last time his father had mentioned his mother at all. But John still visited Lawrence, at least once a year.

Dean was fourteen before he realized it was the anniversary of her death.

Mary’s murder was the whip that drove John, but it was hero worship for his dad that had carried Dean down the same road. It was a hard job, and there wasn’t anyone thanking them for it, but Dean believed in what they did. Every life he saved was all the validation he needed and Dean couldn’t think of a single thing he really felt he was missing out on with his unconventional lifestyle, until his father died on a case and Dean’s life collapsed around him. Then came the long haze of drinking and self-destruction until he finally washed up in Montana and met Sam. That relationship had suffered its own complications and issues, not least of which was Sam being furry twenty-seven days of the month, but things had eventually worked out.

Life since then had been better, complete in a way it had never felt before. The job was still rough, the thanks were still few, and the money was almost nonexistent, but he was still saving lives and he wasn’t doing it alone. Sam had his back, promised he would always have his back, and Dean believed him. Believed him because he couldn’t look into Sam’s eyes when he said so and do anything else, not when he knew how much Sam had given up, and how long he had waited for Dean in the first place.

But sometimes Dean wasn’t so sure of himself, and those vague, unsettled thoughts had kept him away from Lawrence since his father’s death, almost four years ago.

Chapter Two

To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship.
                                                                                 ~Doménico Cieri Estrada

“So, this is it then?”

Dean gave Sam a sour look and stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. Lawrence was as Lawrence had always been. There was nothing to distinguish the house they stood in front of from its neighbors. Neatly trimmed bushes, car in the driveway, paint, shutters; just like all of the others down the long, shady lane. Nothing in its appearance that spoke of the flames that had consumed his parents lives and burned away any chance he had of a normal life before he was even old enough to understand what was being destroyed.

“This is it.”

Sam was quiet then. Dean watched the expression of intense concentration on Sam’s face while he gazed at the property. There was nothing in the house in front of them that spoke to Dean, and he wondered what it was that Sam found so fascinating.

“I’m going for a walk,” Dean announced after a few minutes.

Sam broke away from the object of his interest and looked at Dean with the same sort of intensity he’d used to examine the house.

Dean met his gaze squarely. “Not far. I’ll meet you back at that restaurant across the street from where we left the car.”

Sam had wanted to stretch his legs and see some of the town, and it was only a few blocks over, so Dean had agreed and they had left the car in the town center. Dean had another motive for wanting to be on foot, but it depended on how much space Sam would give him.

The wolf was still studying his face.

“I can walk with you,” he finally offered. Dean shook his head.

“I just need a few minutes. And I wouldn’t want to cut into your quality time here,” Dean added wryly, with another quick glance at the house.

Sam nodded slowly. “Okay. Half an hour?”

“See you there.”

~~~~~

The unseasonable chill was sinking into Dean’s bones and he was starting to think about heading over to meet Sam, when warm fingers slid into his own and squeezed. Dean started at the touch, but then squeezed back and let go. Sam made little noise when he moved, and Dean was starting to get used to the constant ambushes. That wasn’t really a healthy thing to be comfortable with in his line of work, but other than tying a bell around Sam’s neck, Dean was at a loss for a solution to the problem.

“I thought you were waiting at the restaurant?”

“I did. Then I gave you another half hour just to be nice.” But Sam didn’t sound upset.

Dean flexed muscles grown stiff from the length of time he had been standing still. “Sorry. How’d you find me?”

“I followed my nose. Do you want me to go back and wait for you?”

“No,” Dean shook his head. “I’m done here.”

The headstones were simple and side by side. Just the names and the dates of birth and death. Dean’s uncle had put up the one for Mary in the chaos following her death, and Bobby had arranged for John’s marker and burial. Dean’s sole contribution had been his insistence that his father be buried in Kansas beside his wife; he hadn’t been interested in the details.

It had been weird, the gradual distance John had put between them. They had worked jobs together from Dean’s early teenage years when his dad finally trusted his skills enough to bring him into the field, all the way into his twenties. There had been the odd clean-up or minor incident they had investigated separately, and Dean had always known there were some things his dad kept close to the vest. Sometimes, John had just dropped off the map for a few weeks before banging on the door and picking up as if he had never left. But that last year had been different.

It had started with an accident. Dean, blinded by exhaustion, never saw the second wraith, an oversight that planted John in the hospital for five days before he was well enough to be smuggled out. A long convalescence and then... distance. There had been other mistakes in the years they worked together; you couldn’t do the job they did and never make a mistake. John had more than one scar on him from miscalculations in the field, and Dean certainly had his own share too. But it seemed different that time. In the aftermath, there were more jobs John wanted to do alone, more errands he sent Dean off on. And then the last one, when he took on a haunting no sane person should have tried to handle by themselves. Dean was left with the conclusion that either his dad had been suicidal, or thought it was an even greater risk to take Dean with him. Like that one mistake had highlighted something in Dean that John couldn’t stomach. Something that Dean had dwelled on through restless nights while John took solo jobs that they would have worked together even two months before.

“Dean?”

Dean nodded and bumped his shoulder against Sam’s as he turned towards the cemetery gate. “I’m hungry. Did the place look like it had good food?”

“There’s no rush; if you want to stay here longer--”

Dean cut him off with a headshake. “There’s nothing here; it just seemed like something I should do.”

They left the graveyard and headed back towards the center of town. A few blocks passed in companionable silence before Dean spoke up abruptly. “I can’t believe we’ve been together this long and I’ve never even asked about your folks. You know all about mine.”

Sam shrugged. “Not that much to ask about. They were fine when I left.”

“Do you call them and check in sometimes? I haven’t notic--”

“Dean, we don’t have families like you humans do.”

“I think that’s us humans now,” Dean said pointedly.

“Only on the outside,” Sam replied in a tone of such great satisfaction that it actually caused the edge of Dean’s lip to quirk in amusement, though he didn’t rise to the bait. “We have the pack instead of your tight family groups. Once a puppy no longer needs constant care, they become the responsibility of all of the adults. By the time you're grown, your birth parents aren’t any more significant in your life than the other adults who helped raise you. I love my people, but I’m closer to some of my cousins and other wolves than I am to either of what you would call my parents.”

Dean thought that over. “That’s just... weird.”

“Right,” Sam snorted. “At least I grew up embraced by my society. Your people would have taken you away from your dad for child abuse if they had known how you were living.”

Dean shrugged, not denying it. “So what about siblings?”

“Probably.”

“Sam!”

“What?” The wolf gave Dean a look of total innocence. Dean grumbled something and pulled open the door of the restaurant. They were seated and the waitress had brought them water and menus before Dean spoke up again.

“How would you like to walk to St. Charles?”

“You’d come back and get me and you know it.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Sam waited until Dean took a sip of water, then leaned in and lowered his voice. “For all of those hard to reach places you can’t lick yourself.”

He slid out of the booth and escaped to the restroom as Dean choked on his water and fended off the attentions of the concerned waitress.

~~~~~

Dean had the first nightmare that night.

The stench of dry rot and heavy, warm air pressed against his skin while the echoing boom of close lightning competed with the creak and groan of ancient stairs. He was standing in the ruin of what had once been a grand foyer. Elaborate tile work could still be seen in the cracked remains underneath decades of accumulated filth. A battery-powered lantern sat on the dusty edge of an old sideboard, and another one was raised in the hand of the man climbing the steps.

“Dad?”

But John didn’t hear him. Part of Dean drank in the sight of his father on the staircase, even if it wasn’t real, but the rest of him was screaming in panic. He didn’t want to be here, and he didn’t want his father to be here. There. Wherever. The screaming swirl of emotions was threatening to drown Dean in a wash of guilt and grief. He clenched his eyes shut, willing himself awake as John took another step, but his eyes flew open again at the thunderous crash of the chandelier hitting the tile only feet away.

The shards from the shattering glass passed straight through Dean, and he looked up wildly to find his dad staring grimly down at the wreckage on the foyer floor. A faint mist was gathering in front of him and Dean opened his mouth to scream a warning, knowing what was about to happen, powerless to stop it. But even if his dad could have heard him, it would’ve been too late. Supernatural force slammed into John, throwing him through the decaying wood of the railing and far out onto the broken floor to land in the glittering glass.

Dean ran to him and fell heavily onto his knees in the spreading pool of blood. He grabbed hold of the limp figure and rolled him onto his back, but it wasn’t John any longer; it was Sam, and the flat stare in the empty hazel eyes made Dean suck in his breath in horror.

Stinging pain on his face made him raise his arm defensively and he opened his eyes to dim light and the ceiling of the motel room he remembered falling asleep in. Sam was sitting beside him on the bed, eyes that were very much alive filled with concern.

“Did you hit me?” Dean asked muzzily.

“You were having a nightmare; you wouldn’t wake up.”

Red numbers on the clock told Dean he had been asleep for hours and dawn was fast approaching. It was time for them to get on the road, but he felt even more exhausted than he had when he laid down.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked Sam, still trying to gather his scattered thoughts.

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “Do you want me to drive?”

Dean managed a sleepy glare and reached down to fumble on the floor for his pants and car keys, wanting them secure in his grip before Sam decided to act on any bright ideas.

“No thanks. When I want to end up in traction, I can crash the car myself.”

~~~~~

The St. Charles salt-and-burn was routine enough, but Pastor Jim had a nest of hobgoblins the next town over that needed to be cleaned out. Fixing that mess was an insane two week period during which Dean was reminded that being trapped on two feet hadn’t done anything to dim Sam’s enjoyment of a good chase, that and he absolutely hated goblins.

Then there was a string of suspicious deaths out in California, a cursed ring in Milwaukee, witches in the Bayou, and the jobs just kept rolling in. Usually, there was some downtime between jobs while he scouted out the next one, but not this time. Dean couldn’t remember ever getting so many calls for help on top of each other. He couldn’t turn his back when lives were at stake, his dad had raised him better than that. Maybe... maybe if Sam had asked, but the werewolf was always right there with him, not even a half-step behind.

Weeks later, sudden, blinding pain in his chest ripped Dean out of what had become the familiar nightmare of being trapped in the ancient house watching death steal the light from Sam’s eyes.

The bedside lamp was on and Sam was stretched out on the rumpled sheets beside him. He was watching Dean solemnly, chin resting on crossed arms, one leg kicking idly against the mattress. His posture was so reminiscent of his fur form that for an instant, Dean felt a profound sense of loss. He loved Sam, and would take him in his human form any day over the cycles he had shifted in before, but there was a quiet sort of companionship Dean had shared with the wolf during endless weeks spent together in Montana that eluded their relationship now. Dean knew it was probably just an issue of perception, and his problem at that, but the loss was still there.

Fortunately, the agony in his chest was very distracting.

“Did you just... pinch my nipple?” Dean demanded furiously, rubbing at it.

“You were having another nightmare,” Sam said reasonably, eyes much more serious than tone.

“Where I come from, we usually just give people a gentle shake, you know? Not a good nipple pinch.”

“Where I come from, we shake with our teeth. Do you really want to go there?”

Dean turned his back to the wolf, swinging legs to the floor and sitting hunched on the edge of the bed, rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t want Sam to see the echoes of futile anger and debilitating grief in his expression. This time, the dream had been unusually bad, and he was grateful to be awake. Not so grateful for the pain in his nipple, but not sure it wasn’t a good trade.

The dreams were screwing him up. It had occurred to him some time ago that maybe the dream was a warning, some kind of sign that Sam would die like his dad. And for the same reason, that there was something in Dean that had caused his father to push his son away rather than let Dean watch his back. Something that would get Sam killed too.

“We need to talk about this, Dean,” Sam spoke from behind him.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Dean mumbled.

“You want me to pinch the other one too?” Sam demanded. “I’m not stupid. It’s almost every single night now. If you talk to me about it, maybe I can help!”

“I said I was fine, Sam! It’s just stress and exhaustion.”

Sam growled, a low, unhappy rumble that wasn’t usually directed at Dean.

Dean half turned so he could glare at him. “I’m fine!”

A trick of light made the bright hazel of Sam’s answering glare seem unusually... flat, an echo of his dream.

Dean swallowed hard and shoved the thought away. He told himself that it was stupid, that he was tired and moody and he needed to just forget about it before he drove himself mad. But lack of sleep, stress and the relentless pressure of the dreams worked together, and the idea in the back of Dean’s mind, that he had some kind of internal flaw that killed people he loved, slowly took hold.

Chapter Three

"When my time comes, just skin me and put me up there
on Trigger, just as though nothing had ever changed."
                                                                ~Roy Rogers

Bobby walked back into the kitchen and hung the phone up. “Well,” he said heavily, turning to face Sam and Dean who were sitting at his table, “Roy Rogers is dead.”

Dean groaned, recognizing the lead-in for a job and not having any interest in it.

“Bobby, we haven’t even been here for an hour yet and I am too damn tired for cryptic announcements. I thought Roy Rogers was dead, like, a zillion years ago. So if he managed to crawl out of his grave and died again -- great! More time to sleep for me. And Sam,” he added, eyeing the dark circles under Sam’s eyes.

“Who’s Roy Rogers?” Sam asked absently, barely looking up from the newspaper section he was reading.

Bobby rolled his eyes and walked over to start dishing out the food he had abandoned on the stove when the phone rang. “Roy Rogers the actor has been dead about a decade. Roy Rogers, Mick Rogers’ thirty-something son, has been dead about eight hours. Car accident.”

Sam folded the paper and gave Dean an interested look. “Did you like the actor?”

Dean shrugged. “He was okay. Can’t be too picky about what’s on when the cheap-ass motel T.V. only gets two channels.”

“You two ladies want to do your film critique later?” Bobby snapped. “I’ve got real problems to deal with.” He plunked a plate of breakfast onto the table in front of Dean to emphasize his point.

“I don’t even know who Mick Rogers was, Bobby! And if I don’t, Sam sure as hell doesn’t. Why do we give a damn about his kid?”

Bobby placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of Sam before grabbing his own off the counter and taking a seat. The bright morning sunlight streaming through his kitchen window was a cheerful counterpoint to the unshaven and rough-looking appearance of his guests. Sam and Dean had rolled into the junkyard about twenty minutes after sunrise. Bobby had insisted they eat before they passed out for a few hours, but the shrill ring of one of the wall phones had delayed breakfast a bit.

“We care,” Bobby stressed, “because Mick Rogers was a damn fine hunter, and he amassed quite the collection of unusual items during his career. Unusual in a way that would be unhealthy to have out in the general population.”

“Why didn’t he destroy them?” Sam moved his toast to Dean’s plate and reached for the salt.

“Some things don’t destroy so easy,” Bobby replied ominously. “Most of what he had is fairly benign: herbs, homemade charms, crap like that. It might raise a few eyebrows, but it won’t cause much trouble. Mick kept a lot of his serious stuff in a storage locker that Roy inherited when his old man passed. Local hunters cleared that out as soon as they heard about the accident. But Mick kept one item in his house that has to be moved, in a ‘sooner is better’ sort of sense. Roy didn’t have a wife or any kids, and the jackass also didn’t have a will. So we have until the courts track down someone to hand his things to, but no telling how long that will take or where everything when go when it happens. This needs to be dealt with now.”

Dean looked suspicious. “What piece is this exactly, Bobby?”

“The Mirror of Leanne.”

“That thing is real?”

“Real enough to have a body count in the triple digits attached to it.”

Sam cut an apple into neat quarters. “Someone want to fill me in?”

Dean picked up his own fork and glanced at Bobby expectantly.

“Supposedly, Leanne was a witch back in the seventeen hundreds who had a score to settle with a man who jilted her.”

“Guy sounds like a real bright light,” Dean mumbled around a mouthful of eggs.

Bobby narrowed his eyes at him. “Didn’t your daddy teach you not to talk with your mouth full?”

Dean shrugged but stayed quiet, concentrating on his food.

Sam frowned. “I don’t know that word, ‘jilted.’”

“It means he left her at the altar,” Bobby explained. “Agreed to marry her then backed out at the last minute.” He continued when Sam nodded with understanding. “So Leanne is mad and vindictive, and lays one hell of a curse on his prized heirloom mirror. Only instead of just targeting him like with a hex bag, she sets it to hit anyone who touches the thing.”

Bobby raised an eyebrow at Dean, who was using toast to shove the last few bites of egg into his mouth, but refrained from commenting on his table manners this time.

“Your dad said that he’d heard once that the man’s family was the reason he’d left Leanne. Which would explain why she cast her net so wide. Did a damn fine job of it, too; three centuries later and it’s still killing people.”

“How?” Sam asked. “You said they have to touch it; does it poison them?” He was finishing his own breakfast with neat, methodical bites. Watching the two of them, it was hard to remember that it was Sam who had spent more than twenty years running around the forest as a wolf, and just the last few leaning to be human.

Dean casually wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his filthy shirt and reached for the pitcher to refill his glass.

“Not poison.” Bobby leaned out to snag the roll of paper towels off the counter and tossed it to Dean. “It’s supposed to show the person who touches the glass their true nature, whatever the heck that means.”

“And that makes them off themselves?” Dean raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Bobby shrugged. “We like to believe our little fantasies about ourselves. The mirror takes away all that, shows you what you really are and makes you feel it. Some people walk away from it unscathed, others get all twisted up and destroy themselves slowly. But a fair portion of those who come in contact with it grab the nearest knife and start opening veins. It’s bad news and belongs under lock and key.”

“As amusing as this little round of name-that-creepy-cursed-object has been, I gotta ask again -- why do we care?”

Bobby smiled, and it was the kind of smile that always made Dean wish he’d gone to Florida for a break instead of South Dakota.

“Roy is dead and none of the other locals are interested in keeping the thing. Can’t be destroyed; it’s been smashed at least half-a-dozen times. Salted, blessed, burned, buried. It always turns back up, so it needs safekeeping, but it looks like I’m the only one in the know who’s willing to warehouse the thing. And you boys are going to swing by Michigan and get it for me."

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Masterpost