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Title: Wolves At The Door - Part One
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN - Gen (AU)
Word Count: 1,731
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A coda of sorts to A World Of His Own Making. Can be read as a standalone.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two
Dean’s pretty sick and tired of people saying, when you’re well enough.
He knows there’re egg shells all around his feet and people are being mindful of them. They’re not saying too much, worried that they’ll trigger some kind of break down. Dean is actually quietly working up to one hell of a melt down but that’s purely because no one will tell him just exactly what’s going on. Dean had always appreciated Ellen’s bald-faced truth telling and she’s a goddamn awful liar.
Makes his head hurt just to see her try.
Five days and just when Dean’s about to completely lose it and break out of the place with the nice, calm beige walls and everyone in slippers, Bobby arrives. He appears haggard and older than he ever has. He looks oddly scrubbed clean but there’s black under his fingernails that he picks at as soon as he’s in Dean’s room.
“Hey kiddo,” he greets and Dean wants nothing more than to shake him, maybe throttle loose the truth but the careful way Bobby’s holding himself makes him pause. He’s seen men upright on shattered ankles that looked more comfortable.
“I would say I could kill someone for a coffee but I’m sure that’ll get me slapped into restraints,” Dean jokes but it falls flat between them. Ellen is out in the hall talking low on her cell phone, probably to Jo, Dean thinks.
Bobby grunts and digs into his jacket, coming up with a thermos that he hands over. Dean takes it but just holds it in his hands. Dean feels the need to keep his gaze firmly locked on Bobby, like he’ll disappear as soon as Dean’s attention slips for even a second. Bobby holds all the answers like the great and mythical Oz and Dean feels like he’s so close yet so far.
“You and your brother,” Bobby begins and then coughs harshly. His whole body shakes with it but he rights himself and waves off the chair Dean goes for. “You two been through some awful stuff. I’m not going to get into that now, mostly because we’re still mired in it up to our necks.”
“Now,” Bobby continues. “I’m going to take you back to my place but you gotta be prepared. Sam’s a lot better than he was but he’s still not all the way… Sam yet.”
“I swear to God if you don’t stop being cryptic-” Dean starts to say but Bobby holds up a hand, asking for patience.
“It’s one of those things you gotta see to believe, to let it really sink in,” Bobby says with a wry grimace. “You’re not gonna take my word for it that Sam’s… hell, just get your kit on and let’s get out of here. I’ll answer every question you have once you see for yerself,” Bobby promises, slinging the backpack off his shoulder he’d been wearing and holding it out. Inside Dean finds a pair of jeans and one of Bobby’s flannels. There’s a pair of mandles in the bottom and Dean raises an eyebrow when he pulls them out.
Bobby just shrugs with an apologetic smirk.
000
Dean feels it before they even cross the boundary to Bobby’s place.
The hackles on his neck rise and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. There’s a queasy feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach. When he steps out of Bobby’s car, he looks up and sees dozens of crows circling above. They’re eerily silent and Dean drags his eyes away.
Bobby had never had anything outside his place to betray what he was, what he knew, but now there’s a large symbol painted white over his door, a series of interconnecting lines and squiggles that don’t make much sense to Dean. He sees two men he vaguely recognises sitting on either side of the porch, both with shot guns resting across their laps. They raise arms in greeting and Dean realises they’re the Petrik boys, brothers who lost their parents to a particularly nasty poltergeist when they were teens. There’s a third Petrik and somehow Dean knows he’ll be sitting on the back stoop, completing a rough triangle, the points related by blood.
It’s powerful magic.
Old too.
Dean makes for the house but Bobby grabs him by the collar and steers him around to a caravan parked off to the side that’s set up on bricks. It looks like it’s seen better days and there’s a huge dent on one side like the thing’s rolled at some point. There are symbols ringing its surface and a deep trough dug in the dirt in a rough circle around. Dean expects to see salt when he steps over but there’s a blue powder instead.
As soon as Dean steps over, the queasiness eases and he’s able to unclench his fists that he didn’t even realise he was holding. The strange silence that was pressing down on him, making any words he might have uttered stick in his throat seems to release and Dean says, “What the fuck?”
“We gotta do some prep before you go waltzing into the house,” Bobby says like it’s obvious. “You could’a maybe gotten as far as the porch steps before you’d start sweating blood but believe me, I seen it happen already a couple of times. I can live without repeating the experience.”
“Sam can’t be… he’s not a demon,” Dean says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. It comes away coated in cold sweat.
“Not exactly, no. But we have bound something powerful in that house and it’s just bouncing off the walls, building up. The wards I’ve set up aren’t going to hold much longer.”
000
Dean puts up with the herbs and the symbols painted on his skin as long as he’s able to before he finally shoves Bobby away and makes for the caravan’s single door. “Just remember-” Bobby starts to say but Dean’s waving him off.
Apparently he hasn’t set eyes on Sam for five years and that’s five years too goddamn long.
The Petriks come to their feet as he approaches, Andrew and Billy if Dean’s memory serves. Billy’s the youngest, maybe three years Dean’s junior and he makes to step in the way but moves back when Andrew waves him off. Andrew’s tall like Sam but whip-cord thin and with a sharp face. He doesn’t smile or incline his head in greeting, merely goes back to his sentry duty, Billy following suit.
Dean’s not sure what he’s expecting, but the front door is unlocked when he reaches it. He pushes through it carefully, grateful that the sickness in his gut hasn’t made a reappearance. The air inside is dry and Dean finds himself blinking more and resisting the urge to rub at his eyes.
“I knew you’d come find me.”
There’s a shaggy-haired urchin in the front hallway and Dean automatically bends down and puts his arms out. Right before the kid reaches him though he stands and steps back. “You’re not Sam,” he says, swallowing hard because his voice comes out in an abused rasp.
“Am too,” the kid says with Sam’s patented pout-face on, scuffing a shoe over the floorboards.
“Where are you really?” Dean asks and there’s a low chuckle as the kid fades into nothing but shadow, maybe a trick of the light all along.
There’s the sound of dragging chain coming from the living room and Dean follows it, pausing just before he turns into the doorway, bracing himself. When he rounds it though, all he sees is Sam as he remembers him, maybe a little grubby but no more worse for wear. He’s sitting inside a chalked yellow circle with his legs crossed and his fingers steepled under his chin. There’s a thick metal collar around his neck which is attached to the floor by an iron plate. There’s a little give but not enough that Sam could reach the edge of the circle.
Just maybe stand and sit down.
“Hey little brother,” Dean greets and Sam’s face comes up. There’s a streak of what looks like ash across his forehead and his eyes look a little fever-bright but aware.
“Dean!” he says brightly and Dean has to bite down on the inside of his lip. “How about helping a fella out, huh?” Sam wraps a hand around the chain and holds it up and out in Dean’s direction.
“What have you been doing?”
Dean cannot stand that he was so well and truly benched. The fact that Sam had seemed perfectly normal one minute and he was waking up in a loony bin the next was not something he could reconcile lightly. It meant Sam had been playacting, pretending to still be the good little soldier while he’d been plotting for a way to take Dean out. Dean supposes he should be grateful that Sam didn’t wander down the dark path far enough to just think it was easier to put a gun to Dean’s temple while he slept.
Because he so very easily could have.
“This and that,” Sam says with a half shrug. “I thought Bobby wouldn’t want you to talk to me.”
“Why not?” Dean asks but he knows very well why. Sam seems… normal. Dean wasn’t exactly expecting to find a throne made out of skulls and Sam doing a naked rhumba but he’d been expecting something. He’d seen demons play innocent, of course he had, but this seemed different somehow.
Sam’s eyes narrow for a moment and his head turns like a dog scenting the air. Dean stills and finally he hears it too. There’s the tiniest sound, a furtive scraping and suddenly Sam’s head whips back around, a snarl pulling his features sharp. “You fucker,” he growls, getting up onto his toes and hands. “I never pegged you for the sacrificial goat type.”
Dean’s about to ask just what the hell he’s talking about when there’s a horrible wailing noise that increases in pitch in seconds, driving him to his knees with his arms clamped over his head. Rough hands grab him under the arms and haul him backwards and Dean doesn’t fight it, can’t fight it because everything is reduced to the screaming pain in his head.
Dean is dumped unceremoniously on the gravel outside and he catches an upside-down glimpse of the third Petrik brother before everything washes black.
Author:
kellifer_fic Rating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN - Gen (AU)
Word Count: 1,731
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A coda of sorts to A World Of His Own Making. Can be read as a standalone.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two
Dean’s pretty sick and tired of people saying, when you’re well enough.
He knows there’re egg shells all around his feet and people are being mindful of them. They’re not saying too much, worried that they’ll trigger some kind of break down. Dean is actually quietly working up to one hell of a melt down but that’s purely because no one will tell him just exactly what’s going on. Dean had always appreciated Ellen’s bald-faced truth telling and she’s a goddamn awful liar.
Makes his head hurt just to see her try.
Five days and just when Dean’s about to completely lose it and break out of the place with the nice, calm beige walls and everyone in slippers, Bobby arrives. He appears haggard and older than he ever has. He looks oddly scrubbed clean but there’s black under his fingernails that he picks at as soon as he’s in Dean’s room.
“Hey kiddo,” he greets and Dean wants nothing more than to shake him, maybe throttle loose the truth but the careful way Bobby’s holding himself makes him pause. He’s seen men upright on shattered ankles that looked more comfortable.
“I would say I could kill someone for a coffee but I’m sure that’ll get me slapped into restraints,” Dean jokes but it falls flat between them. Ellen is out in the hall talking low on her cell phone, probably to Jo, Dean thinks.
Bobby grunts and digs into his jacket, coming up with a thermos that he hands over. Dean takes it but just holds it in his hands. Dean feels the need to keep his gaze firmly locked on Bobby, like he’ll disappear as soon as Dean’s attention slips for even a second. Bobby holds all the answers like the great and mythical Oz and Dean feels like he’s so close yet so far.
“You and your brother,” Bobby begins and then coughs harshly. His whole body shakes with it but he rights himself and waves off the chair Dean goes for. “You two been through some awful stuff. I’m not going to get into that now, mostly because we’re still mired in it up to our necks.”
“Now,” Bobby continues. “I’m going to take you back to my place but you gotta be prepared. Sam’s a lot better than he was but he’s still not all the way… Sam yet.”
“I swear to God if you don’t stop being cryptic-” Dean starts to say but Bobby holds up a hand, asking for patience.
“It’s one of those things you gotta see to believe, to let it really sink in,” Bobby says with a wry grimace. “You’re not gonna take my word for it that Sam’s… hell, just get your kit on and let’s get out of here. I’ll answer every question you have once you see for yerself,” Bobby promises, slinging the backpack off his shoulder he’d been wearing and holding it out. Inside Dean finds a pair of jeans and one of Bobby’s flannels. There’s a pair of mandles in the bottom and Dean raises an eyebrow when he pulls them out.
Bobby just shrugs with an apologetic smirk.
Dean feels it before they even cross the boundary to Bobby’s place.
The hackles on his neck rise and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. There’s a queasy feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach. When he steps out of Bobby’s car, he looks up and sees dozens of crows circling above. They’re eerily silent and Dean drags his eyes away.
Bobby had never had anything outside his place to betray what he was, what he knew, but now there’s a large symbol painted white over his door, a series of interconnecting lines and squiggles that don’t make much sense to Dean. He sees two men he vaguely recognises sitting on either side of the porch, both with shot guns resting across their laps. They raise arms in greeting and Dean realises they’re the Petrik boys, brothers who lost their parents to a particularly nasty poltergeist when they were teens. There’s a third Petrik and somehow Dean knows he’ll be sitting on the back stoop, completing a rough triangle, the points related by blood.
It’s powerful magic.
Old too.
Dean makes for the house but Bobby grabs him by the collar and steers him around to a caravan parked off to the side that’s set up on bricks. It looks like it’s seen better days and there’s a huge dent on one side like the thing’s rolled at some point. There are symbols ringing its surface and a deep trough dug in the dirt in a rough circle around. Dean expects to see salt when he steps over but there’s a blue powder instead.
As soon as Dean steps over, the queasiness eases and he’s able to unclench his fists that he didn’t even realise he was holding. The strange silence that was pressing down on him, making any words he might have uttered stick in his throat seems to release and Dean says, “What the fuck?”
“We gotta do some prep before you go waltzing into the house,” Bobby says like it’s obvious. “You could’a maybe gotten as far as the porch steps before you’d start sweating blood but believe me, I seen it happen already a couple of times. I can live without repeating the experience.”
“Sam can’t be… he’s not a demon,” Dean says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. It comes away coated in cold sweat.
“Not exactly, no. But we have bound something powerful in that house and it’s just bouncing off the walls, building up. The wards I’ve set up aren’t going to hold much longer.”
Dean puts up with the herbs and the symbols painted on his skin as long as he’s able to before he finally shoves Bobby away and makes for the caravan’s single door. “Just remember-” Bobby starts to say but Dean’s waving him off.
Apparently he hasn’t set eyes on Sam for five years and that’s five years too goddamn long.
The Petriks come to their feet as he approaches, Andrew and Billy if Dean’s memory serves. Billy’s the youngest, maybe three years Dean’s junior and he makes to step in the way but moves back when Andrew waves him off. Andrew’s tall like Sam but whip-cord thin and with a sharp face. He doesn’t smile or incline his head in greeting, merely goes back to his sentry duty, Billy following suit.
Dean’s not sure what he’s expecting, but the front door is unlocked when he reaches it. He pushes through it carefully, grateful that the sickness in his gut hasn’t made a reappearance. The air inside is dry and Dean finds himself blinking more and resisting the urge to rub at his eyes.
“I knew you’d come find me.”
There’s a shaggy-haired urchin in the front hallway and Dean automatically bends down and puts his arms out. Right before the kid reaches him though he stands and steps back. “You’re not Sam,” he says, swallowing hard because his voice comes out in an abused rasp.
“Am too,” the kid says with Sam’s patented pout-face on, scuffing a shoe over the floorboards.
“Where are you really?” Dean asks and there’s a low chuckle as the kid fades into nothing but shadow, maybe a trick of the light all along.
There’s the sound of dragging chain coming from the living room and Dean follows it, pausing just before he turns into the doorway, bracing himself. When he rounds it though, all he sees is Sam as he remembers him, maybe a little grubby but no more worse for wear. He’s sitting inside a chalked yellow circle with his legs crossed and his fingers steepled under his chin. There’s a thick metal collar around his neck which is attached to the floor by an iron plate. There’s a little give but not enough that Sam could reach the edge of the circle.
Just maybe stand and sit down.
“Hey little brother,” Dean greets and Sam’s face comes up. There’s a streak of what looks like ash across his forehead and his eyes look a little fever-bright but aware.
“Dean!” he says brightly and Dean has to bite down on the inside of his lip. “How about helping a fella out, huh?” Sam wraps a hand around the chain and holds it up and out in Dean’s direction.
“What have you been doing?”
Dean cannot stand that he was so well and truly benched. The fact that Sam had seemed perfectly normal one minute and he was waking up in a loony bin the next was not something he could reconcile lightly. It meant Sam had been playacting, pretending to still be the good little soldier while he’d been plotting for a way to take Dean out. Dean supposes he should be grateful that Sam didn’t wander down the dark path far enough to just think it was easier to put a gun to Dean’s temple while he slept.
Because he so very easily could have.
“This and that,” Sam says with a half shrug. “I thought Bobby wouldn’t want you to talk to me.”
“Why not?” Dean asks but he knows very well why. Sam seems… normal. Dean wasn’t exactly expecting to find a throne made out of skulls and Sam doing a naked rhumba but he’d been expecting something. He’d seen demons play innocent, of course he had, but this seemed different somehow.
Sam’s eyes narrow for a moment and his head turns like a dog scenting the air. Dean stills and finally he hears it too. There’s the tiniest sound, a furtive scraping and suddenly Sam’s head whips back around, a snarl pulling his features sharp. “You fucker,” he growls, getting up onto his toes and hands. “I never pegged you for the sacrificial goat type.”
Dean’s about to ask just what the hell he’s talking about when there’s a horrible wailing noise that increases in pitch in seconds, driving him to his knees with his arms clamped over his head. Rough hands grab him under the arms and haul him backwards and Dean doesn’t fight it, can’t fight it because everything is reduced to the screaming pain in his head.
Dean is dumped unceremoniously on the gravel outside and he catches an upside-down glimpse of the third Petrik brother before everything washes black.
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WHERE'S THE NEXT PART!!!!!!!!!!
*hyperventilates*
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