Honey and Flies - Section Three

[glasslogic]

Section Three

Dean groaned, sunlight a persistent misery seeping through his eyelids until he had no choice but to surface to consciousness. He had the same sort of dreamy-drugged feeling familiar from far too many hospital visits, and wondered distantly what kind of story he was going to have to make-up for the doctors this time. He tried to remember what had happened, but there was just a big blank in his foggy thoughts. Nothing really hurt, he was just exhausted. It slowly seeped into his awareness that hospitals usually involved more lights, and monitors, and fewer water-stained ceilings.

Dean frowned and made the effort to turn his head. Cheap floral curtains over the window, not doing a fantastic job of blocking out the light. Vinyl chairs. A low dresser with an ancient TV and peeling laminate. A few short stacks of folded laundry next to what looked like a lamp shade and... he squinted, light bulbs? He slowly turned the other way and saw an open door, part of a toilet, and a cheap sink under a mirror with a spider webbing crack running off of one corner. The usual digs then. On a nightstand next to the bed a spoon was sticking out of a bowl beside a half empty bottle of what looked like water.

He lay back, wiped out already from even the little movement he had managed, and it occurred to him that his initial estimation of no pain wasn’t entirely true -- his bladder was killing him. Dean considered the plastic bottle, but it wasn’t in reach and if he was going to have to move that much... He heaved a heavy sigh and managed to shove the blankets down enough to slide his legs over the side and force himself into a sitting position. A rush of dizziness overwhelmed him and dark spots spun in his vision. When it had passed, he grimly forced himself to stand -- and promptly fell against the wall. But at least he was on his feet. And naked, which was unusual if he had put himself to bed, but not the immediate concern.

Another couple of minutes of calculated and teetering steps and he was at the sink, which was as far as he planned to try for. It looked to be his room anyway, if he was okay with peeing in the sink, anyone else could bite him. He held onto the bathroom door frame with his free hand for balance while he dealt with matters, and then made the mistake of looking up. He had seen himself in the mirror while crossing the room of course, but had been much too distracted by the adventure he was having to really take it in.

“Jesus,” Dean muttered, stunned. He ran his hand over what was more than a day’s stubble growth and across the hollows of his cheeks. Staring at his own reflection brought to mind someone else he knew who looked like they could use a few meals and possibly life support.

Sam. The not-so-accident accident. His offer. The rest was a blur, but he didn’t need more of a roadmap. Dean rinsed the sink out, then drank a few handfuls of water and made his way back to the bed. No sign of his ‘guest’ anywhere. No sign of his gun under the pillow either. He closed his eyes and tried to force more coherency out of his memory. No gun under the pillow because... he hadn’t been going to sleep. So then where...? It wasn’t in sight, and his car keys, which he distinctly remembered tossing on the table, were definitely gone.

His jeans were no longer on the floor, the memory of pulling someone out of a different pair of jeans spiked through him and he swayed, dizzy and cursing. Dean was just trying to muster the strength to try and find them and dig out his cell phone when a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Sam stood there, framed in sunlight so bright it brought tears to Dean’s eyes. He couldn’t see any difference between the man in front of him and the picture they had run in the Stanford paper announcing his death. None of the ghastly pallor or drawn gauntness to his features at all anymore.

This guy Dean would have definitely tried to pick up. In any other life but this.

“You,” Dean’s scratchy voice was tight was anger and frustration. He was furious with Sam, but he had known how close Sam was to the edge when he had dreamed up his retarded plan, so he had to shoulder at least half the blame.

Sam froze in place, blinking in what had to be a cavernously dark room for eyes still adjusted to the light. “Dean?”

“Who the hell else were you expecting?” Dean demanded, annoyed.

“You’re awake!” Sam’s voice was heavy with relief and the smile that spread across his face seemed genuine. “I went back and got your clothes, and picked up some food.” He set the bag hastily on the table and laid the Impala’s keys down beside it. “I tried to get some water and soup into you, but I didn’t want to risk choking you while you were... sleeping.”

“I think we both know that whatever the hell I was doing was ‘sleeping’ about as much as being thrown out a window is ‘flying.’ How long was I out?!”

Sam winced. “Well, it wasn’t really that long... I mean, I thought you were dead at first--"

“Not helping your case, Sam,” Dean growled. “How long?”

“Almost three days.”

Dean stared at him. “Three... days?”

“I feel a lot better,” Sam offered.

Dean flopped back on the mattress. “Can you hand me my clothes?” he finally asked. Sam dropped some of the folded stack onto the bed beside him and Dean started struggling into them. Sam made a movement like he wanted to help but caught the glare Dean directed at him and wisely stepped back instead.

“Where’s my gun?” Dean asked when he had the sweatpants and t-shirt finally on.

Sam pointed to the nightstand and Dean retrieved the pistol. He checked it over and frowned. “Where’s the bullets?”

“I wasn’t sure what kind of mood you were going to wake up in,” Sam explained. “I wanted to make sure I got a chance to talk before you started shooting or anything.”

“I made the stupid offer, Sam. I’m not going to shoot you over my screw-up.” He set the gun back on the table in disgust. The urge to just curl back up and pass out was almost overwhelming in intensity. “Weren’t you afraid that this kind of drainage would hurt people?” he demanded. “Should I like... expect to see my fingers start falling off or something?”

Sam started taking items out of the paper grocery sack, keeping most of his attention warily on Dean. “I told you I don’t know much about it. But you seem okay, just... really tired. You feel -- dimmer? But not weird. And not as dim as you felt yesterday.”

“I’m glad I don’t feel dim to you anymore, Sam, because I’ve got to say I feel pretty damn dim over here right now. What the hell was I thinking?”

Sam ignored the comment.

Dean leaned back against the headboard. “So. Bullets? In case your fan club decides to crash our little slumber party?”

“In here.” Sam tossed the duffle bag into the bed. “I thought you weren’t sure bullets would do the trick?”

“I’m not. Which is something else we need to figure out.” Dean rummaged around. “I bet people were impressed when you strolled in to pick up my clothes.”

“I got a couple of raised eyebrows, but I just told the only person that asked that I had some bad bruises but it looked worse than it was.”

Dean grunted. “Fine. Anything else while I was enjoying my coma?”

“...No.”

“You can’t lie for crap, Sam. What happened?”

“Bobby called.”

“And you answered the phone?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Not the first time,” Sam said defensively. “But the fifth? I had to! I was afraid he was going to rush out here and think I tried to kill you!”

“You did try to kill me!”

“I could have, I wanted to -- but I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Dean snorted. “Thanks.” They exchanged glares for a minute, and then Dean closed his eyes and let gravity work its magic on him a little more. “What did you guys talk about?”

Sam looked somewhat mollified by the change in conversational direction. “I told him you got hit by a car and were heavily medicated. Said I’d have you call when you woke up and were coherent.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday.”

Dean sighed. “He’s probably packing salt rounds right now. You guys discuss... anything else?”

“You mean my grades last semester and how instead of me bringing Jess home for Christmas he can just get me a pine box?”

“Basically.”

“No. It... I didn’t want to talk about it with him. And I don’t think he wanted to talk to me at all.” Sam’s voice sounded a little hurt, but they had already discussed it and there wasn’t anything else for Dean to say on that topic. He wished Sam hadn’t had to experience the cold shoulder from a guy who was pretty much his dad though. He was having enough trouble.

“Give me my phone.” He dialed the number from memory and waited until someone picked up.

“Bobby?”

“Dean? What the hell happened to you?!”

“There was an incident with a car.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. “I’m better now.”

“So he wasn’t lying.”

“Not entirely,” Dean hedged. “It’s fine though. I’m just still... really tired.”

“Next question then. What the hell is he doing in your motel room?!”

“It’s complicated, Bobby.” Said complication was eating what looked to be a can of sliced peaches and paying close attention to the conversation. “He wants these things dead as much as I do.”

“And after you deal with them? Then what?” Bobby demanded.

“He knows the score,” Dean replied simply. Sam didn’t look up.

“Fine,” Bobby grunted. “I’ve got some news for you and... Sam. We were right, he’s not an incubus.”

“No shit.”

“He’s a naiad.”

“A what?”

Dean could hear the sounds of pages turning through the phone. “They’re a kind of Greek spirit. Real classic old world type monster.”

“Aren’t they associated with trees or something?”

Over at the table Sam looked confused by what he could hear of Dean’s side of the conversation.

“Those are dryads,” Bobby snapped. “Naiads are traditionally spirits of water and seduction.”

“Water and...” Dean repeated slowly.

“Exactly. And they aren’t born that way; they make new members of the club. It was the drowning that really clued me in. I don’t think anyone in this country has ever had a run in with one. Hell, it’s been decades since I know of anyone in Europe having to deal with a nest of them. I had to track down an old friend of mine, Stevros, to get any kind of good information on them. All I had are musty old books repeating a lot of crap rumors.”

Dean motioned impatiently for the laptop and looked up naiads when Sam handed it to him.

“It says here they’re female spirits.” He glanced over at Sam who raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about--"

“That’s because most of them are female," Bobby said impatiently. “They’re patriarchal and territorial, one male and a bunch of females to a family. Stevros says only the male can create new ones. The females are essentially drones, and they would only pick another male to transform when the old king was getting ready to die and needed an heir to pass the group onto. I guess maybe if they wanted to start a new branch too.”

“Wait a minute, die? I thought these things were already dead!”

“It’s part of their process. First they infect their victim, and then drown them. Without the second part the victim is just a thrall and according to Stevros it wears off eventually. Which he would know because apparently he spent a week rolling around with a group of them back in his twenties. Damn idiot. But they aren’t undead like we usually think of undead -- not like vampires and the like. They don’t age, but eventually they kind of... burn out. Like husks. It takes centuries though. In the meantime they do a pretty damn good job of passing. They move around a lot too, and they aren’t stupid. They don’t like to stay in one place long enough for anyone to really notice the pattern of their kills. I bet the only reason they’re still there now is..." Bobby’s voice trailed off.

“Sam,” Dean filled in shortly. “I got it. How do I kill them?” he demanded.

“Cut off their head or burn them to ashes. They’re supposed to be highly flammable. Anything else and they’ll just eat a few people and recover. You can take a whole nest out at once if you can get to the leader though, apparently without an heir all the drones will just... die. The problem is not getting ensnared by them in the process. Stevros says they can feel attention, feel when someone is focused on them in the area --it has to do with how they feed.”

Dean eyed Sam. “Yeah, I know about it. But I don’t have to use anything special? Just a hatchet or some kerosene?”

Sam’s eyes widened.

“That should do it.”

“Sam said that they told him he also had to kill someone to finish the transformation. You know anything about that?”

“Stevros was in a hurry, he’s going to call me back when he gets a chance and fill me in on the rest. Like I said -- until he does that any other information I have is about as good as what you’ll find online. Utter crap.”

“So... you haven’t seen anywhere that killing the leader before a new recruit makes their first kill might somehow make them human again? I know it’s crazy, but they said some things to Sam and I told him I would ask--”

“I was just about to get to that,” Bobby cut in. “That’s a popular rumor with a lot of monsters, but weirdly, when you really start digging, the earlier references do seem to be with naiads.”

It wasn’t what Dean had expected to hear. “Maybe a chance then?”

Dean could hear the hesitation, and then the sigh. “There’s always a chance,” Bobby said heavily. “But not one I’d want to stake anything on. My records are crap, but there’s no hint of anyone who was actually cured. Just smoke and mirrors. I’ll ask Stevros when he calls back though.”

“Thanks. I need Sam’s help with the case, and if we can cut the head off the snake and it cures him -- fantastic. I’ll drag him back to your house and we can all get really drunk together.”

There was a long silence. “And when you can’t, or when it doesn’t?”

“Like I told you, he knows the score.” Bobby made a noncommittal sound and Dean flipped the phone shut with an eye roll.

“You and Bobby have a nice chat about killing me?” Sam asked levelly.

Dean gave him an unimpressed look. “You mean again?”

Sam finished the can, it rattled as he set it back on the table. “Your half of the conversation sounded interesting. You know, with the female spirits and the kerosene.”

“Hand me a bottle of water and I’ll fill you in.”

~~~~~
After catching Sam up, Dean slipped back into an exhausted sleep. He woke up on and off from strange, wandering dreams -- of waterfalls and deep pools of foaming green water, Sam naked and wrapped around him on sheets of fine-spun cotton in the late afternoon light -- just long enough for a depressingly dressed and not-entirely-human Sam to fill him in on whatever random debris he had gleaned off the internet regarding his newfound species. Most of which sounded really awful, but Sam seemed pleased to have some kind of name for what had happened to him.

Thirty more hours of sleep and Dean still felt like he’d been hit by a truck, and still looked like he’d been buried a week, but shuffled trips between the bathroom and the bed didn’t take all of his strength anymore and he figured it was time to get back to work.

“So... now what are we going to do?” Sam asked, watching him pull a shirt on after a hasty shower.

“Same plan,” Dean grumbled. “This time try not to let your crazy relatives shove you into traffic, because if you think this whole thing where I generously offer to help you out is happening again -- you’d better keep thinking.”

“I promise to look both ways before I cross the street,” Sam said dryly.

Dean looked around. “We need to get a different room too. Who knows how long we’re going to be in this crappy town running things down? You seem to need sleep, I definitely do, and those chairs aren’t doing it. And no offense, but I’m not up to sharing a bed with you anymore.”

“What are you going to tell them about the lamp?” They both looked over at the scattered pieces on the dresser and the base, cord, and pole laying haphazardly against the wall.

“Nothing, we’ll toss it in the dumpster and play dumb.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Sam snorted.

“You’ve got something you want to say?” Dean demanded.

“No, just -- we’re still in the exact same place we started! We don’t know anything new, and they can apparently find me whenever they freaking feel like it!”

“It might have escaped your attention, but I’ve been a little comatose for the last four or five days, Sam. Which is entirely your fault. I don’t do my best work that way, and we do know something -- we know what the hell you are!”

“Which does us no good,” Sam snapped back. “So I’m mostly some kind of water-sex-undead thing -- great! But unless someone is opening up a zoo for rare and unusual monsters I don’t see that getting us anywhere, Dean.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, that creep in the morgue when you woke up got in somehow. Maybe she’s an employee there? We can find her, and trail her.”

“I tried that, she doesn’t work there.”

“What do you mean you ‘tried that.’” Dean asked suspiciously. “That was the plan, remember? And then you had a close encounter with a Toyota and I took a long nap. When exactly did you ‘try that’?”

Sam shrugged. “You didn’t think I sat on my ass for three days, did you?”

Dean was turning interesting shades of red. “We’re trying to keep you under the radar. Do you remember the part where you’re dead?! That morgue got some pretty damn good looks at you lying on a slab, Sam! What the hell were you doing anywhere near there checking out the roster!”

“Chill out. I’m not some kind of master monster stalker, but I’m not a complete idiot, you know?” Sam said with exaggerated patience.

“The jury’s still out on that,” Dean growled. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘cute, but dumb’?”

“You think I’m cute?” Sam raised an eyebrow. Dean mumbled something, Sam rolled his eyes and continued. “You seemed to be okay; you were breathing fine and getting stronger. I parked across the street where I could see the employee lot and watched. On the second day when most of the staff had gone to lunch and I still hadn’t seen her I went in and talked to the receptionist--“

“Who promptly turned white and passed out?” Dean guessed.

“Who was some kind of bubbly undergrad intern I doubted spent a lot of time with the bodies, you know? I made up some story about hitting a woman’s car and feeling bad and asked if she worked there so I could leave her my insurance number. No one even close to the description is an employee.”

“Then how did she get in to be skulking along in the back?”

“Beats me.” Sam shrugged. “But the place isn’t exactly high security, and who knows what kind of crap she can do. Maybe she just ordered the guys up front to let her in and forget about her.”

“You can do that?” Dean asked narrowly.

“I can’t! But the guy who did this to me?” Sam swallowed. “Yeah... Yeah, I’m sure he could. And maybe the rest of them too. I know you think what I can do is scary, Dean, but I’m nothing compared to him.”

~~~~~
The next couple of days were filled with more hours of library research and canvassing in the area where the party that had started the nightmare for Sam had been held, and near the lake his body had been fished out of. They didn’t really expect anything out of it, and they weren’t disappointed. Dean made an end run at the rental company responsible for the house, but other than some angry muttering about college kids and cleaning bills, they claimed to know nothing about who had been behind the break in and festivities, and certainly nothing about any of the attendees.

Dean dressed in his college-journalist finest and re-interviewed all of Jessica’s friends that Sam remembered from the party. The last two that remembered seeing her both told the same story -- when they had left about an hour before dawn Jessica had been fine and Sam had been there on the couch with her, so they weren’t worried about her safety. No, they didn’t know anyone else who had been left at the house when they had departed, and no, they didn’t know how or why Sam and Jessica had ended up in a lake in the middle of the early morning downpour that had blown in. One of them had some vague idea that Sam “liked outdoorsy things,” and thought maybe a boat ride had seemed romantic.

“In the middle of a storm?” Dean asked incredulously.

She shrugged. “You know... guys.” In the same tone she might have said kids. Dean rolled his eyes and thanked her.

“So, now what?” Sam asked when Dean returned to the new room they had checked into. Dean gave Sam an assessing look while he shrugged out of his leather jacket. The healthy look was starting to fade around the edges. Sam’s color was definitely paler than it had been and the shadows under his eyes never really went away. But he was focused, and determined, and Dean hadn’t felt so much as a hint of his charm slipping out of control, so if Sam wasn’t going to say anything then Dean sure as hell wasn’t.

“That question is getting a little old.”

“Hey, you’re the expert! I’m just a motivated novice at this whole cloak-and-dagger monster hunting stuff.”

Dean sat on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know. What about lunch?”

“Diner or take out?”

“There’s that place down the road, feel like a walk?”

“Yeah, anything to stretch my legs for awhile.”

They were halfway there when Dean’s gaze was drawn to the curve of Sam’s arm and just like that he was back in that motel room, remembering what that strip of skin has felt like under his tongue, what kind of noises Sam had made when Dean licked his way over to a nipple instead and bitten ever so gently -- and then not so gently at all. He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Sam touched his shoulder and Dean didn’t shrug him off.

“Dean?”

“It’s... nothing, Sam.”

“It’s not nothing. Whatever it is, it seems to happen a few times a day and if you’re sick, I’d kind of like to know!

“Wouldn’t my energy tell you that?” Dean snapped.

Sam stepped back and frowned.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered. “I’m not sick, I’m... flashing back.”

“Back to what?” Sam asked, baffled.

“That night! Day -- whatever. When you broke your leg and we, uh...”

“I thought you didn’t remember?”

“I don’t,” Dean growled. “Not really. It’s all trapped somewhere and sometimes when I look at you, or something that reminds me, I get to relive a little piece of it.”

“I’m... sorry?” Sam tried a little awkwardly.

“You don’t have to be sorry; you didn’t do it on purpose. It’s just a little distracting.”

Sam’s gaze fell to Dean’s groin and Dean glared, resisting the urge to hold his hands over himself or something. It was basically all Sam’s fault anyway.

“Can you walk okay or should we just lean against this building here for a few minutes?” Sam looked like he was suppressing a smile.

“Oh, shut up,” Dean grumbled, surreptitiously adjusting himself in his jeans. They walked along for a few more minutes in silence.

“You really don’t have to be sorry,” Dean finally said. Sam gave him an inquisitive look.

“Well it’s not like the memories are of horrific torture or anything! I mean, you know, it was good. What I remember of it was, uh, actually pretty fantastic. Not three days and change of sleeping-it-off fantastic, but still -- pretty hot stuff.”

“Really,” Sam said, a hint of amusement in his voice.”

“Yes, really. If you weren’t ... what you are, I’d probably suggest we try again. Slower, with more attention to the details. Fast and frantic is good too, but you get more out of it if you take your time.”

“Uh huh.”

“Though I guess you got out of it everything you needed anyway.” Dean patted his pockets and frowned. Sam opened his mouth to object, then caught the look.

“What?” he asked.

“My phone! I left it in my jacket.”

“Do you really need it for lunch?”

“I really need it in case Bobby managed to get his hands on his buddy again and has some actual information for us!”

“We’re just getting lunch, Dean,” Sam frowned. “Not moving in. Half an hour won’t make a difference.”

“Just go on,” Dean waved towards the restaurant. “I’ll run back and get it.”

“You sure?”

“It’s half a mile, Sam. I think I can manage. Get us a booth in the back.”

Sam waved and Dean jogged back to the room. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and headed back to the diner. It had only been about five minutes and he was a little surprised not to run into Sam again on the sidewalk, but the guy had freakishly long legs and it was certainly possible that he had picked up the pace a little after Dean left and was already waiting for him. Dean jogged the rest of the way and, horrified to find himself a little breathless after only a bit more than a mile, made a fervent resolution to add a morning run to his currently somewhat sedentary lifestyle. He pushed through the diner doors and scanned the interior. The restaurant was L-shaped and he frowned when he couldn’t immediately pick Sam out in the thin crowd.

“Just you for lunch?” one of the waitresses asked as she walked back the door.

“I’m meeting someone, thanks.” Dean flashed her one of his best smiles. “Tall guy, jeans, kind of shaggy hair?”

She returned his smile by reflex but shook her head. “Sorry, haven’t seen anyone like that around here. Feel free to walk around though, see if you can find him.”

It only took a minute to check all of the booths, and less time than that to make sure Sam wasn’t in the bathroom. He scribbled his cell number down for the friendly waitress to call if Sam showed up, and then headed back outside to see if there was anywhere else he might have gone. But on Sunday afternoon most of the small shops were closed up tight. Dean stopped into the one or two that were open, but Sam hadn’t been into any of them either. At a loss, Dean finally headed back to the motel, tracing the route Sam should have taken once Dean went back for the phone.

A few hundred feet from where they had parted, right where the sidewalk intersected an alley, Dean found his only clue -- Sam’s wallet, lying in the mud on the side of the road. Even if Dean hadn’t known what it looked like there wouldn’t have been any mistaking it. Sam hadn’t had any of his old ID, but there was a discount card for the pizza joint they had been frequenting, a couple of dollar bills -- and a picture of Jessica, clipped out of a newspaper and tucked carefully into the back.

Dean held the wallet in one hand and looked helplessly around at the blank cement and empty storefronts. He didn’t think it had fallen accidentally; Sam had wanted him to find it. But there was only one group of people Dean knew of who would have had any interest in snatching Sam, and now that he was gone, so was Dean’s best chance to find them.

~~~~~
“So, good news and bad news,” Dean greeted Bobby when Bobby finally picked up.

“What’s the good news?” Bobby asked warily.

“I’m not shacking up with Sam anymore. That’s also the bad news. Someone snatched him.”

“Snatched him?” Bobby repeated incredulously. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know, Bobby! I guess his newfound family got tired of waiting around to see if he was going to toe the party line. One minute he was there, the next minute he’s gone.”

“Are you sure he didn’t decide to run off?”

“He left his wallet for me to find, and it’s not like I was keeping him chained to a radiator. Someone grabbed him off the street on the way to lunch,” Dean said tiredly.

“Well, if he’s held out this long do you think they can make him kill someone?”

Dean leaned against the Impala, feeling the late afternoon heat bake through his jeans. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they can.” He had to pause to wrestle a sense memory of Sam’s hand sliding over the curve of his ass before... Dean swallowed.

“Dean?”

“I’m here. I was just saying that even if they can’t just use their magic on him anymore -- and if they could I think they damn well would have done it by now -- they can just start carving into him. Being wounded makes his hunger worse, and if he’s hurt badly enough he’s going to be completely out of his mind. He’ll latch onto whatever comes in range and the results probably won’t be survivable.”

“I’ve never read anything about that with naiads and I’ve been hitting books on the subject pretty hard lately,” Bobby asked in a voice dripping with suspicion. “How did you get that information?”

“You know how.”

“I thought you said you were hit by a truck,” Bobby growled, not having any trouble putting two and two together.

“He was hit by a truck; I was hit by a truck -- either way I got to spend most of a week in bed recovering.”

“It’s not the same thing, Dean! We have lines, and that crosses more than a couple.”

“I’m not having this fight with you,” Dean said shortly. “It’s done, it’s in the past, and it was my decision. I’m a big boy now, Bobby. I’ve been keeping myself alive a long time on my own.”

“Not by sleeping with the monsters you haven’t,” Bobby snapped.

“Things might have gotten a ...little out of control,” Dean admitted. “But I survived. It won’t happen again. Stevros call you back yet?”

Bobby sighed. “Left me a message, said he was dealing with something big and nasty and he’d get back with me as soon as he could. That was sometime last night.”

“It was too much trouble to answer the phone?” Dean asked incredulously.

“My date might have taken it badly at just that moment,” Bobby said dryly.

“Oh.”

“Maybe we should just agree to leave this topic alone.”

Dean fished the motel room key out of his pocket and headed inside. “Well, the first thing I’m doing is moving. Obviously they knew where we were and I’m against uninvited guests. And the second thing I’ll be doing is sitting on my ass waiting for your Greek buddy to find the time to pick up the goddamned phone again!”

“I’m wide open for suggestions if you’ve got any, Dean,” Bobby snapped into the phone.

“Just... when he calls, when you ask him if there’s anything he knows that will help us find out where these things are holed up, also ask him if he knows any charms or spells against them. It’s not going to do anyone any good if I track them down and end up the blue plate special.”

~~~~~
Dean didn’t have much stuff to move, and Sam had almost nothing, so it took less than half an hour to clear out of one motel and settle into a different one. He parked the Impala where she couldn’t be seen from the street. He loved his baby, but freely admitted that she wasn’t the most circumspect car around and he didn’t need the monsters to be able to find him just by casually driving down the street. If they were even looking for him, which Dean supposed depended on how much information they had gotten out of Sam.

The rain pounded against the glass and thunder made the building vibrate as Dean flipped slowly back through all of his notes and case information. Lightning flashed outside the window as another volley of thunder echoed in the distance. Dean stared at the morgue photos laid out in front of him and wondered if the storm that night had been anything like the one that was raging outside his room. Wondered if Jessica had had any idea of what was happening, or why. If she’d been unconscious before she went in the water or if someone, or something had held her down. He knew Sam didn’t remember drowning at all. Dean recalled what Jessica’s friend had said about the party, how Sam had been there right with Jessica when they left. He remembered what Sam had said about being helpless, and controlled, and empty, and the basic sadistic nature of the naiads so far. A horrible possibility occurred to Dean and he closed the morgue file and shoved it to the bottom of his stack. Even if his suspicion was right, it would change nothing, and he would never, ever mention it to Sam.

Presuming he ever saw Sam again.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been planning to kill Sam himself; but Sam had agreed that he would rather be all the way dead than a toy for the monsters that had hurt him in the first place. And he kind of liked Sam -- when he kept his distance and Dean could forget that what lived under the skin was only sort of human. Dean definitely didn’t like the idea of what might be happening to Sam in the naiad’s hands. Even if he did find him now, odds were good that what was left wouldn’t be Sam at all anymore. The naiads had had more than enough time to rip him open and make him kill some poor victim. But there was the niggling hope that maybe they were sadistic enough to want to drag it out -- for punishment if nothing else. It felt weird to hope that someone he wanted to rescue, in whatever way he could, was being slowly tortured -- but not any more weird than caring what the hell happened to one of the monsters in the first place.

Eyes burning with lack of sleep, Dean tossed the notes and files onto the floor beside the bed and lay back, letting his thoughts settle as they would until eventually he drifted off. Inside his dreams the world was blue-green and glassy, he drifted in a serene underworld of tall grass and fish that flitted by like silver streaks of light. Above him bright moonlight rippled on the surface, but he was drifting deeper, down into the shadows and the grasping undergrowth. He kicked, trying to reach the surface, but couldn’t make any headway against the inexorable drag. Light faded around him until he could barely make out one dark strand of plant from the next. The fish were bigger too, half-seen shapes weaving in and out of the darkness below him. Something brushed his shoulder and he spun.

Dean.

Long blonde hair floated upwards towards the sky, as if struggling for air that it’s owner no longer needed. She was dressed in a pale blue dress, something summery, with thin straps and buttons on the front. It billowed up around her now, giving Dean a clear view of matching lacy panties and the lower edge of her bra. Her skin was ghostly pale and the locket around her neck gleamed like lost gold. He recognized it, of course. There was an evidence shot of it lying on a stainless steel tray in her file.

Jessica Moore opened milky blue eyes and met Dean’s, he couldn’t read anything in their cloudy depths. Lips almost as grey as her skin opened and Dean waited for the revelation, waited to hear why she had brought him to this place -- was unprepared for the strange buzzing that emerged in place of words. A rush of bubbles began to stream up from below them. Dean batted them aside in irritation, trying to make sense of what she was telling him, but when he touched them they burst and blood began to seep into the clear water, obscuring his vision. His lungs burned like they had suddenly noticed the lack of air and he kicked desperately for the surface again. He felt the water break over his hands just as icy fingers wrapped around his ankle and pulled him back to the deep.

Dean.

Dean’s eyes flew open and he gasped for air, lungs burning as if he had really been underwater. The cell phone behind him on the mattress buzzed again, letting him know he had a message. Dean squinted and looked at the clock. Two hours. Great. He stretched and picked up the phone, then frowned. He didn’t recognize the number, and that was seldom a good thing. The dream was still heavy in his mind as he flipped the phone open and froze. It was a picture, blurry and from a bad angle but it looked to be the side of a house. Fairly generic, he could only see some brown siding and a window with the shades pulled. Some low bushes... nothing remarkable. He stood up and looked out the window where the storm seemed to have blown itself out. Same time of day. If it was local, then it had been taken probably right before it was sent. Dean dialed the number, but there was no answer. He dialed again and this time after a few rings a woman answered.

“Hello?” In the background he could hear other people talking and a faint muffled, naggingly familiar, sound. “Hello?” she repeated after a couple of seconds.

“Who is this?” Dean demanded.

“Well, that depends on who this is now doesn’t it?” Her tones were flirtatious but the effect was lost on Dean. He was starting to have a suspicion about what was going on.

“No one, I think I just dialed a wrong number. Sorry to bother you.”

“Hang on,” she said. Dean heard a faint rustling.

“Oh my,” she said aloud after a moment, not talking into the phone. “Someone’s been a very bad boy. That was very clever of you, though. Too bad you didn’t have more time, you might have been able to send him something useful.” The muffled sound was louder and Dean had enough experience with being gagged, and gagging others, to understand what it was now.

“Who are you?” she asked Dean, speaking into the phone again. She sounded more curious than upset.

“You don’t need to worry about who I am. Let me talk to Sam.”

She laughed and the next thing Dean heard was a dial tone. He tried calling back repeatedly, but after twenty minutes was interrupted by an incoming call.

“WHAT?” he yelled.

“Dean? What pissed in your Wheaties?” Bobby asked.

“Sorry, Bobby. Bad timing.”

“You want me to call back?”

Dean groaned and threw himself in one of the chairs. It creaked alarmingly under his weight and he figured having the furniture collapse under him would be the perfect punch line to a shitty hour. “No. I just... I think Sam got his hands on a cell phone long enough to send me a picture. But it’s a crappy picture, it doesn’t tell me anything. Just the side of a house. I mean, I think it’s a house. It could be a business or something too. But probably residential. That’s it. And they grabbed him almost--" he checked his watch, “three hours ago. You have any idea how wide the search area is with that much travel time?”

“You call the number back?”

Dean snorted. “What the hell do you think I was doing when you called? Some bitch answered the phone. I could hear Sam in the background, well I assume it was Sam. There was someone gagged making an awful lot of unhappy noises. She found the picture, wanted to know who I was.”

“This woman sound pissed about Sam sending the photo?”

“No, she seemed to think it was funny more than anything. Like I said, the picture is practically worthless.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, exactly. I wish he could have gotten a picture of a street sign or a license plate!”

“Give me the number, I’ll see what I can find out about it.”

Dean rattled it off. “So, what did you call for anyway?”

“Stevros turned back up. We had a nice talk about Greek water monsters, thought you might want an update.”

“Anything that might help me find them?”

“Maybe.” Dean could hear the rustle of papers over the phone lines. “Stevros says naiads cluster around bodies of water. Full ones, the ones not in transition, need a natural stream or pond or something, maybe a--"

“Lake?” Dean cut in. “Like where Sam drowned?”

“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too. But didn’t you guys check that out?”

“Sam checked before we met, and then I went through all the property records within a few blocks. Half of it is on state park lands, but the rest backs up to miles of residential streets. We drove around too, but it’s not like anyone had a sign out reading ‘ancient Greek monsters, inquire within,’ you know?”

“Nothing in the property records?”

“Nothing suspicious. A few rental properties. We dressed up and banged on a few doors -- got squat for leads. Sam doesn’t remember anything. If they’re there, I couldn’t find them.”

Bobby kept talking, but Dean tuned him out. Something, something... Jessica’s dead eyes.

Dean.

“The picture,” he said aloud, interrupting whatever Bobby was saying about climate and life span.”

“What?”

“The--" Dean pulled the phone away from his head and frantically checked to make sure the poorly focused, badly angled picture was still on his phone. “The picture Sam sent!”

“I thought you said it was worthless.”

“If I have to canvass the entire freaking state -- but if they’re in that neighborhood I’ve got them! You said they need a natural water source, right? They drowned Sam as part of their ritual-of-whatever. Wouldn’t they want to do that where they had their base? I didn’t think about it when I got the pic because Sam didn’t seem to feel any special attachment to water, and we’d already worn out our shoe leather canvassing the area. But he wouldn’t feel it; he hasn’t earned all his badges yet. They’re there, Bobby. We were freaking right the first time. We just didn’t know how to find them.”

“You can’t be sure,” Bobby voice was cautious.

The glint of moonlight through water and skin bleached grey by death. “I’m sure,” Dean heard himself say. “They’re there. And I’ve got everything I need to torch their undead asses now.”

“I can be there by noon tomorrow.”

“For what?”

“Don’t you even start that with me, Dean. You need back-up, and there’s no one around to help you. They’ve been killing people for months, you can wait nine freaking hours.”

“I can, Sam can’t.”

“Sam’s probably already lost! I don’t want to lose both of you.”

“'Probably’?” Dean asked sharply. “What did Stevros say about that? About Sam and the undead-half-state-thing he’s got going on?”

“He said it’s highly unlikely that it can be reversed,” Bobby snapped in agitation.

Dean sat up straight. “’Highly unlikely,’ sounds like ‘maybe’ to me, Bobby. I thought he was some kind of naiad expert, how does he not know?!”

“He never rescued anyone. He doesn’t know anyone who has,” Bobby said simply. “He said it’s always someone’s mother’s-uncle’s-cousin’s-best-friend’s-little-sister or something like that.”

“So... maybe?”

Bobby exhaled heavily. “Maybe. But they’ve already had him for hours, Dean. It took one of them less than five minutes to get him hurt badly enough that it sounds like he half-killed you! You think there’s any chance you can reach him in time? You don’t even know where he is!”

“I know where to look. What the hell is wrong with you?” Dean asked suspiciously. “This is your son, we’re talking about -- you want me to wait nine hours before I go and try and rescue him? I might be able to really save him, Bobby. Not just take him away from them and give him a merciful end. That isn’t worth a little risk?”

The hesitation on the other end of the line was almost palpable.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Dean demanded.

“There’s a charm, Dean. Something pretty basic you can whip up in about five minutes that should keep you safe from most naiads as long as you don’t smear it or anything. But... it might not save you from Sam.”

Dean frowned. “Because he’s not really transformed yet?”

“You know that saying, ‘you always hurt the ones you love’?”

“Yeah,” Dean said cautiously.

“Well, naiads take that kind of literally. The most vulnerable people in the world to a naiad's charms are close blood-relatives. They can roll them like cheap drunks. Stevros thinks maybe it’s kind of a defensive thing, they can use their human families like shields and for ready food supplies in an emergency, and no one is suspicious because outside everything looks fine. His logic is a little fuzzy, but he swears to God it’s true.”

“Why are you telling me this, Bobby?” There was a sick, sinking feeling deep in his gut.

“So...,” Bobby began after a moment of hesitation. “You remember that shiftless hunter who dropped his kid off with me?”

Dean sat down heavily. “You had better be kidding me, Bobby. This had better be your idea of a goddamned joke! I don’t have a brother -- are you saying my dad knocked up one of his lady friends back when we were roaming around the country?”

“I’m saying that when that fire burned down every vestige of his old life, the very first thing your father did was hand your infant brother over to Pastor Jim. And when he got to trusting me and Jim wasn’t really up to the whole child-minding thing, gave him over to me. I gave him to my sister -- her kids were all grown and she was a sucker for strays... and that’s kinda that.”

“Why?” Dean exploded, mind still refusing to accept what Bobby was telling him, and yet... He remembered the nagging feeling of loss he had carried when he was younger, like something was missing. He’d outgrown it with adolescence, but remembered what it had been like. That empty place, being certain someone should have been filling it. John had always told Dean it was his mother’s place. That Mary’s death had left that hole. The explanation had made sense, but never felt quite right. He remembered so very little from the fire, but in his nightmares... sometimes a baby cried. “Why the hell would he do that to me? To us? I grew up on the road! Sam could have come along too. How much harder would it have been! He could have at least told me. Even if he lived with your sister, we could have known about each other.” Another thought occurred and brought with it the memory flash of how Sam’s hand had felt wrapped around his dick. He sucked in a harsh breath. “Jesus. Did Sam know?”

“No,” Bobby said sharply. “He doesn’t know either, Dean."

That made Dean feel marginally better. He wasn’t sure how he felt about incest yet, however unintentional, but at least Sam hadn’t been sitting on this kind of secret the whole time they’d been sharing a room.

“Why?” Dean repeated harshly.

“He wouldn’t tell me, Dean,” Bobby said heavily. “Just that he needed a safe place for Sam. That he didn’t want him to be a hunter, or involved in this life at all. He wanted him to be normal, to be safe. Those were his exact words.”

“He wanted him to be safe,” Dean said bitterly. “Guess that didn’t work out so hot for dad now did it?”

“Dean, I have no idea why your dad did what he did. But he loved you, you lived with the man. You can’t seriously doubt that!”

“I... don’t know what to think, Bobby. How he could he lie about this? I have a brother!” Dean glanced at his watch and swore. “Who right now is probably being tortured into a monster. Do you have any good news before I take off?”

“You’re going to be more vulnerable to Sam--"

“No news flash there,” Dean muttered.

Bobby ignored the comment. “But you’re going to be practically immune to the others.”

“Immune?” Dean repeated with interest.

“Right. Now, you’ve got your herb kit in the trunk? I want you to write down this charm.”

“Why? I’m immune to the nasty little water creeps, and you said the charm won’t work against Sam.”

“I said it probably won’t work,” Bobby correctly gruffly. “ Not all the way at least. But if you’re determined to do this the stupid way, alone, you can at least try to stack the deck in your favor.”

“Fine. But it better be a short spell, because I’m already out of time.” The first hints of a shaky plan were already starting to pull together in the back of his mind. “And I still have shopping to do.”


Section Four

Comments

[angeblond.livejournal.com]

Hum, Johnny did good: he averted an Apocalypse. Now if Sammy is not human nor demonic, no way Old Azzy could bring that again with the Winchester.