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Title: real isn't how you are made
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Recipient:annj_g80
Rating: Adult (Language)
Warnings: None
Wordcount: 5k
Prompt: Sam and Dean are saving someone, who didn't actually want to be saved. And, of course, things get ugly because he/she/it had every reason for wanting to die.
Notes: Inspired by the BTVS episode 'The Puppet Show'.
Summary: You want something cute and fluffy you're in the wrong trade, Sammy.
"Why is it always hearts?" Sam asked, shoving the paper across the diner table. Dean was in the middle of cutting his pancakes up into OCD-neat triangles and looked up with a glob of syrup hanging shiny off his chin.
"Mwhn?" Dean asked, the question made unintelligible by the fact that he had been piling more and more pancakes into his mouth without swallowing. Sam rolled his eyes and slid the paper further so it was under Dean's gaze.
"Just once couldn't we find a monster that steals, I don't know, kittens or something?"
Dean had one corner of the paper tipped up so he could read the article Sam had circled but he dropped it and gaped. "You'd rather fight a monster that eats kittens?"
"Not eats," Sam snapped, exasperated. "Just steals... like maybe puts them all in a box with rolls of yarn and... y'know what I meant."
"You want something cute and fluffy you're in the wrong trade, Sammy," Dean said sagely and resumed his perusal of the paper. His eyebrows went up as he scanned the article and the way the reporter practically salivated at the prospect of a serial killer.
Four deaths, all young men, all hearts removed with surgical precision.
"Think it's a Were?" he asked, wincing a little when Sam's eyes skipped sideways. They hadn't crossed paths with a werewolf since Madison and Dean didn't really want to. It was hard enough dealing with your run of the mill evil without throwing the unintentional bad into the mix.
Killing werewolves was too close to killing people because you couldn't destroy the monster without the person it once was.
"I think the term surgical precision kind of rules that out," Sam said, reaching a hand over to tap the paper. "Weres are more your shred than slice kind of creature."
"Maybe it's actually person."
"Could be," Sam mused. He went back to his own breakfast which was also pancakes but he got the blueberry in a nod to nutrition instead of Dean's Canadian special, syrup and bacon. Dean figured if you were going to be a pansy and eat fruit, then there were worse ways. "We should check it out though. It's the most solid lead we've had in weeks."
"True," Dean agreed, nodding. All seemed a little too quiet on the supernatural front of late and he and Sam had taken to checking out longshots, stuff that they could pretty much tell from a distance would turn out to be hoaxes or the people kind of cruel. Nothing had really pinged Dean's radar for a little while.
He hated lulls because it always meant that something especially bad was brewing.
"How far's Knox from here?" Sam asked.
"About four hours," Dean said, looking at his watch. "Guess we're burning daylight."
"Guess so," Sam agreed.
* *
Dean always hated the beginning of a hunt. He liked getting his hands dirty, being hip-deep in a grave digging for all you were worth while the bastard you were planning on salting and burning got pissed about it and tried to take you out. He liked the thrill, the chase, the last minute spectacular move that saw the monster smoking at your feet instead of the other way around.
The beginning though? The beginning sucked ass.
Sam, the giant dork that he was, loved the beginning because that's when he could get his brainiac on in the library.
"Go get a coffee or something," Sam said, trying to dismiss him. It probably had something to do with Dean knocking Sam in the back of the head every time he walked past him.
Dean dropped into the chair opposite Sam and pushed the stack of books Sam had already gone through aside so he could put his chin on the table. "Why do we have to have a rough idea what we're hunting before we start?" he complained. "It never turns out to be what you first think it is and we waste valuable time researching monsters we're never going to see."
Sam blew out a breath which fanned his hair out of his face briefly. Dean had started thinking serious thoughts about catching Sam asleep when he had a pair of scissors at hand and wondering if the mother of all bitch-fits would be worth being able to see Sam's eyes.
Probably not.
"It's always what I think it's going to be, you just never listen when I tell you what it's going to be," Sam said, injecting patience into his tone that he obviously didn't feel by his expression. His mouth pulled down at the corners at Dean's incredulous expression and he said, "Well, okay, so it's always at least one of the three things I narrow it down to," he amended.
"We should find out if it's our brand of bad first," Dean argued. "Talk to some people, get the lay of the land." Dean gestured in the general vicinity of Sam. "Make with the puppy eyes."
"You say that like some Star Wars geek would say, use the force," Sam observed with a wry grin. "My eyes don't have special powers."
"Don't give me that," Dean snorted. "You could charm little old ladies out of their ginormous panties if you were into that."
"Dude," Sam groaned, making a face.
"So, maybe I could go and-"
"Piss everyone off?" Sam asked brightly. Dean flipped Sam off just when the octogenarian librarian was looking their way and she scowled at him. "Look, you know the way it goes when we split up too early. One of us accidentally runs into the thing we're hunting before we're prepared and the other one has to save the day. It's almost formulaic."
"It doesn't always happen," Dean grumped but he also dropped the subject because okay, maybe they did tend to have bad luck when they weren't sure what they were doing yet.
"Screw this. I'm getting a cheeseburger," Dean decided.
"We ate two hours ago."
"Yeah, two hours ago. I'm starving."
"Just don't go down under spooky alleys because you get a feeling or whatever," Sam said, not looking up from his book.
Dean snorted and bumped Sam so hard he nearly went off his chair on the way out.
He should've known that karmically, that was a silly ass thing to do.
* *
Dean swam back into consciousness an indeterminate amount of time later and cursed Sam for always having to be right. Once outside the library, he'd headed for the diner that they'd had lunch at because there was a cheeseburger and hopefully a perky waittress named Sally-Anne with his name on them.
There'd been an alley, there was always a freakin' alley, in between he and his goal and he'd followed some scuffling sounds that didn't sound quite right for a sunny day in downtown Knox.
Dean was pretty sure the way the pain in his head radiated outward from the back of his skull that he'd been cracked from behind.
"Hello?" Dean called out, his voice echoing. He figured he was probably in a warehouse of some kind, and wasn't it always the way that there was an abandoned warehouse close enough for the bad guys to commute.
It would have been downright funny if he weren't tied to a chair with a thumper of a headache.
"You thought you could outsmart me this time," a voice said from the darkness. The voice was gruff and thickly accented although Dean had no clue with what. He peered into the shadows, trying to discern a shape but the way sound was pulled and bounced in the open space meant that his kidnapper could've been anywhere.
"Look buddy, I have a partner and he's going to kick the everliving shit out of you when he gets here," Dean said. Threats never really worked out when you were held prisoner and yet Dean could never resist the compulsion to do it.
"Don't make me laugh. I know you too well to fall for something like that," the speaker said, chuckling. The voice seemed to be closer and it was also a little off, like maybe the guy was speaking through something to disguise his voice. It had a mushy quality to it that made the words run together a little.
"Hey, I don't know who you think you've got here but I just rolled into town a few hours ago," Dean said, trying to wrack his brains for someone he'd pissed off lately, enough to grab him in broad daylight in a town he'd never visited.
"Again with the useless lies," the voice from the darkness scoffed and now it was closer still, sounding so close that Dean could swear the guy must be standing right on top of him. Dean squinted, his eyes finally adjusting to the weak light that barely made it through some high windows and -
"Holy fuck!" Dean exclaimed, skidding backwards almost to the point of tipping over in his chair. The reason he hadn't been able to see who was talking was because he'd been looking up. He'd glanced down and saw what looked like a small toy giraffe walking towards him, up on its hind legs. Dean regained his composure and cleared his throat. "Cute puppet. Remote control?"
"Don't call me cute," the giraffe growled.
* *
"Resist the temptation."
Sam folded his hands back into his lap. Dean could see he'd been just about to poke the giraffe's fuzzy middle when the giraffe's g;ass eyes had swung his way.
"Sorry," Sam apologised, biting his lip. His eyes were sparking though and Dean wasn't sure what Sam found funnier, the talking plush giraffe or the fact that a talking plush giraffe had been holding Dean prisoner.
He was never going to live it down.
"As I was saying," the giraffe continued when he was sure neither Winchester was going to try touching him again. "My name is Barnaby Bourke and I have been in this unfortunate form for about forty years." Barnaby indicated his current body with a wave of two soft hooved feet.
"Curse?" Sam asked and Dean saw him pull his face into his serious hunt-on expression with an effort of will.
"Ah, if only," Barnaby said, sounding glum. "A curse I could break. No, I had a partner who dabbled in sorcery who met his demise at the same time this was done. He did it to save my life."
"Really?" Dean asked, fascinated.
"Yes, William was a brave man and with the last of his strength he pushed me into the closest inanimate object as I lay bleeding out."
"At least it wasn't a brick or anything," Dean said and Sam cut an annoyed glance at him. Dean shrugged and then raised his eyebrows in a silent what? "It's just lucky you went into something, y'know, ambulatory."
"True," Barnaby said, nodding his head. He looked a little worse for wear as far as soft toys went and one of his glass eyes looked like it was hanging on by only a thread. There were a few rips that had been badly repaired and a red stain in his side that could've been blood or rasberry jelly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful I was left in any form capable of continuing my pursuit."
"You're still hunting?" Sam asked, sounding impressed and Dean had to admit that he was pretty impressed himself. He figured if he was ever turned into something small and fuzzy then he'd probably retire.
"Sorcery is a funny thing," the giraffe said sagely. "There is always a cost. William might have continued my existence but it is not a natural progression. As close as I can surmise, until my quarry is dispatched, I will continue on."
"You're stuck like this until you get the thing that killed your partner and made you like this?" Sam asked, sounding awed and appalled in equal measure.
"About ninety-nine percent sure, yes," Barnaby agreed, bobbing his head again. "And as you can imagine, it has not been easy."
"Your hunting the thing that takes hearts?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Barnaby confirmed. "I was a little older than its usual quarry but William and I had pursued it relentlessly until it was near mad with starvation. It was in the process of removing my heart when William removed me from my body."
"Your body... died?" Dean asked, trying not to be creeped out but it was a hard ask.
"As soon as I left it. The only good thing was that my early demise, before the creature was done with its ritual meant that it could not injest my heart." Barnaby's head dropped and he looked as sad as a little toy giraffe could. "I would not have liked that."
"But you know what we're dealing with then?" Sam pressed. His expression had gone from forced-serious to actual serious and almost keen. He'd unearthed their father's journal from a pocket somewhere and lay it on the table, ready to flip through it. Instead of continuing, Barnaby's gaze fixed on the book and he shuffled forward on the table he'd perched on, putting on tentative hoof on the leather cover.
"A hunter's journal," he huffed. "If only I had mine."
"What happened to it?" Dean asked, interested to learn that keeping a journal wasn't an quirk of just his father's. There was a lot he didn't know about John Winchester's early years as a hunter and learning little things, like maybe he'd gotten the idea to keep a journal from someone else already in the trade, always made Dean feel just the tiniest bit closer to his dad.
Barnaby gazed steadily at Dean for a moment, then gestured at himself once more. "It is hard to carry something bigger than yourself," he said.
"Ah, right, of course," Dean said.
"I still have it," Barnaby added. "It just passes through a series of post boxes."
"You have a post box?"
"And an email address," Barnaby said with a small grin of his black stitched mouth. "It's amazing what you can do these days purely via correspondence."
"What are we dealing with?" Sam asked again, bringing them back on topic.
"Right, sorry," Barnaby said, backing up from the journal so Sam could open it. "The creature is a rarity even in our world, an Oruxes. It injests hearts to prolong it's own existence. Some say, like the Wendigo, it may have once been human but trod a darker path in the pursuit of immortality. No one knows its true form but it assumes the guise of its preferred prey, generally a young man."
"You thought I was this Oruxes?" Dean asked.
"There was a chance, yes," Barnaby confirmed, looking contrite. "I thought you were pursuing me so I could not take the chance."
"It knows you're after it?" Sam asked.
"Oh yes," Barnaby said. "Although, it does not take my threat as seriously as it once would have." Barnaby looked down at himself, at the stitched together body and spotted limbs that would not be able to wield so much as a knife. "With good reason."
"Well, with your history with the thing and our..." Dean didn't know how to finish the sentence delicately so just indicated himself and Sam with a flick of his hand, "I'm sure we'll have this sucker done and dusted in no time."
* *
The motel clerk, a young guy with dirty blonde hair and the air of the eternally bored and a nametag that read Jasper, merely raised an eyebrow at Dean when he asked for a second room.
"You and your boyfriend have a fight?" the kid asked and Dean smiled tight-lipped at him and snatched the key he was offered.
Dean felt a little odd getting a motel room for a toy giraffe but Barnaby insisted on his privacy, glaring when Dean had suggested that he could just sleep in a drawer in their room. Dean found Sam pottering around their room after he'd bid Barnaby goodnight and made sure he could get up on the bed by himself and work the remote on the TV.
Sam had that restless energy going that meant something was bothering him so Dean finally threw a rolled up pair of socks at Sam's head to get his attention. "What's with you?" he asked when Sam turned a scowl on him.
"Just... this Oruxes is a sort of shape shifter, right?" Sam asked and Dean rolled his hands in a go on gesture. "So, we're taking Barnaby's word for it that it looks like a normal human male?"
"Your point?"
"We're taking Barnaby's word for it that it takes the form or a human male as opposed to say, a small talking toy giraffe?" Sam raised his eyebrows and spread his hands.
"Yeah, I thought of that."
"You thought of that?" Sam repeated, looking incredulous.
"Yes Sam, I thought of that. Of course I thought of that. Isn't it better though to keep him close just in case he is our monster rather than tipping him off that we're onto him and have him disappear?"
"Well, yeah," Sam allowed, dropping his butt onto his bed and his head into his hands. "There's really no way to know for sure is the problem."
"Nothing like an eye flash in a camera like a shifter then?" Dean asked, not holding out much hope.
"Dad did have a small reference to them but it was more in passing, something he'd heard about but never actually hunted. I think he just wrote it down in case he ever did come across one," Sam explained, tapping the journal that was lying facedown on the bed spread. "But no, nothing as helpful or obvious as that."
"So what did he have on them?"
"Pretty much what Barnaby told us, about how they would injest hearts to keep living, how they might have been regular guys once upon a time."
"Like Gollum?"
"I don't think it's anything like a gollum," Sam said, scrunching his face. "I don't think anyone made these things out of mud and sticks-"
"Lord of The Rings, dumbass. That gollum. All twisted and shit through greed."
"And you call me a geek," Sam snorted, shaking his head. When he got a hard stare for his trouble, Sam shrugged and flipped open their dad's journal. "Oruxes, also known as Dark Men. Eat major organs of young, healthy people, generally hearts and generally men in their late teens to twenties."
"That all he got?" Dean asked.
"Pretty much," Sam said, flipping through the journal a couple of pages forward and back to make sure before tossing it aside.
"So for now we go on what Barnaby is telling us to try and track this thing. We just have to hope to hell we don't find out Barnaby is actually the Oruxes before we find out how to kill one."
* *
"The Oruxes has three possible hunting grounds nearby," Barnaby said, sitting between Sam's hands in front of his open laptop the next morning. Sam had a city finder website up with a map of Knox and the local businesses. Barnaby used a pen to jab at the screen. "There's a pool hall here, a movie theatre here and a video arcade here," he said, indicating each place.
"Think the pool hall is the best bet?" Dean hazarded and Barnaby turned his head, almost all the way around which was more than a little disconcerting to nod in Dean's direction.
"Yes, very astute. The movie theatre would afford darkness but not the interaction the Oruxes would need to lure his victims away and the arcade would be too noisy. The pool hall would be the perfect place, strangers make conversation over a game, the Oruxes perhaps looses games large stakes have been bet on and invites his intended out to a car or truck to collect the winnings."
Dean quirked an eyebrow. "Why doesn't he just jump some guy in an alley?"
"This creature likes deception almost as much as the hunt. It would prefer to become friendly with its prey initially if you can believe it, purely for the satisfaction of watching the victim realise he has made a grave error in judgement."
"So, it's a sick puppy that gets its jollies from duping poor guys with an underdeveloped survival instinct is what you're saying?" Dean prompted and Barnaby laughed.
"Put in a nutshell, yes. Also, unlike most predators, the Oruxes will choose the strongest prey it possibly can to ensure the reward is greater. It's not the type to pick on the weak."
"I'm thinking a trap's in order then," Dean said. "Sounds like to this thing would think either Sam or I would look like the ultimate blue plate special."
"Unfortunately I had the same thought, but are you sure you wish to take such a risk?" Barnaby asked, turning around all the way so Dean could see that he was concerned. Sam had also turned around in his chair and didn't look very impressed either, most likely because when it came to being bait, Dean usually insisted on the duty.
"Are you sure you want to help us?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You mean because with this creature's death, mine would most likely be quick to follow?" Barnaby hazarded, small soft head turning back and forth to be able to watch both Winchesters. With Sam's question an idea had occurred to Dean.
That even if Barnaby wasn't the Oruxes himself, he had a vested interest in keeping it alive.
"Sam, Dean, I understand your suspicions," Barnaby said and then let out a long sigh. Again, Dean was reminded of the sound of air moving through cloth. "You have to understand though that so far as I'm concerned, I died already."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"That day, that warehouse, William. What he did prolonged my existence but it's not right. If you've ever had a cut in your mouth that you couldn't stop pushing your tongue against even though you knew it would hurt, you'd understand how I feel every day I continue."
"Dude, that's... that kinda sucks," Dean said and Sam grimaced at him.
"It does at that."
* *
"I don't like this," Dean grumbled.
Barnaby turned what Dean could only guess was a sympathetic glance his way. He and Sam had rock, paper, scissored for who would play bait and Sam had won. Dean hadn't really been able to argue because while Sam was probably better in a close up scrap, Dean had always been a better shot from a distance.
He hefted the weight of the rifle in his hands and scowled at the alley he was looking down at from a fire escape. The plan was to lure the Oruxes out to the alley no matter where it wanted to go and Barnaby had agreed that it would go along with whatever it's intended prey proposed, all the better to maintain the illusion of trust.
The moment it did anything hinky like try to relieve Sam of his heart, Dean would take the top of its head off. According to Barnaby, the headshot was the key.
"You're the elder, yes?" Barnaby asked. He was propped on Dean's shoulder, purely for convenience and Dean tried to ignore the strangely warm weight.
"Yeah, Sam's my kid brother."
"I heard of your father a time or two from my contacts when I still had some," Barnaby said and Dean turned his head enough to see Barnaby's fuzzy profile in the darkness.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes, when he was much younger, starting out. I wish I'd met him."
"He's pretty cool," Dean agreed but he felt more than saw Barnaby shake his head.
"I'm sure he was, but that isn't why I would've wanted to meet him. I would have wished to tell him that what he was doing was madness."
"My dad has saved a lot of people," Dean objected, starting to feel more than a little pissed about the direction of the conversation.
"Dean, I don't mean to disrespect your father, that's the last thing I would do. I merely would have told him that bringing his children into such a life was not worth the revenge he sought."
"What the hell would you know about it?" Dean snapped, resisting the urge to bat Barnaby off his shoulder.
"A great deal actually," Barnaby said, tone quiet. "William was not only my partner, he was also my son."
Dean felt everything in him go cold and his grip tightened on his rifle almost painfully. He wasn't completely sure but he thought it must have made some kind of noise because he felt a soft hoof pat his cheek.
"William did not die straight away," Barnaby continued. "We chased the Oruxes into an abandoned building and the roof collapsed. He was pinned and when I went to help him the creature came at me. It was especially strong in its desperation and had me on the floor and was cutting into my chest before I even realised what was happening. William cast his spell and I was yanked into the form you see now. Still, William lived another hour or so and probably the most horrible thing was that had I still been a man, I would have been able to pull him free and possibly get him to a hospital in time."
"Barnaby, I-" Dean began but Barnaby patted him again, this time urgently.
"Look sharp," Barnaby hissed as the door from the pool hall into the alleyway opened and a man spilled out with a sudden burst of noise and smoke. Dean brought the rifle up and snugged into his shoulder and could see it was Sam, listing sideways into a wall.
"You might've had a little too much to drink," a voice followed Sam out into the alley and then a dark figure, another man in a coat with the collar turned up appeared in the doorway, limned in dirty green light.
"I only had two shots," Sam protested muzzily but Dean could see from his position that Sam was having a lot of trouble keeping his legs under him. Or at least, he appeared to be.
"C'mon asshole," Dean breathed.
Sam made an impressive show of losing his balance completely and landing on his ass next to the wall he'd been trying to hold himself up with. The man that had followed him out went for him and Dean squeezed the trigger.
The shot hit where the man's head had been right before Sam yanked him down. Dean jumped up, feeling Barnaby scramble for purchase before sliding off and hitting the grill of the fire escape with a soft thump. "What the fuck?" Dean called, seeing Sam had the guy pinned.
Sam's head came up and another second later so did his hand, holding something square and black. "Guy was only going for my wallet," Sam called back, voice thick with disgust. He hauled the guy to his feet and let him go. The guy ran for it without looking back, making an undignified squawk of fear as he went.
"Son of a bitch," Dean grumbled, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and making his way down the fire escape, after checking that Barnaby could navigate his own way down. They met Sam at the bottom, Barnaby only allowing to be picked up and sat back on Dean's shoulder when they reached the bottom.
"Only a mugger?" Barnaby asked, sounding as disappointed as Dean felt.
"Yeah," Sam said, exhaling a bark of shaky laughter.
"Bet he's not going to do that again any time soon," Dean said, fighting the knot of nauseau he felt at having coming dangerously close to beheading some poor schmuck who was only out to roll someone.
"I'm sorry, this is my fault," Barnaby said, putting his plush hooves on either side of his head. "I felt as if we were so close, this was almost over that... we rushed this."
"It's okay," Dean reassured. "We jumped the gun a little, luckily not literally."
"He could have been in there," Sam said, putting fists into the small of his back and stretching. "If he was either he didn't approach me and he's currently luring some other poor sucker to his death or he got spooked somehow."
"Look, this was a long shot," Dean said and then smirked. "And obviously we were overestimating Sammy's appeal."
"Jerk," Sam huffed, bumping Dean's shoulder with his own.
* *
"Know what sucks?" Dean asked and waited for Sam to look at him before saying, "Research in the middle of a hunt."
"I know you're frustrated but I think Barnaby's right. We're trying to rush this," Sam said. He pushed his laptop aside and rubbed hands over his face. "I think we're missing something."
"I know we usually concentrate on the monsters but I've been looking at the victims," Dean said, waving a hand at the wall where he'd pinned the various news articles they'd found about each death. His father had always been visually oriented, seeing patterns when he laid everything out. Dean was a chip off the old block in that respect. "Other than the fact they were all passing through, they didn't really have anything in common."
"Barnaby said the Oruxes liked to garner trust," Sam said. "But it would never have much time to do it in. Who would you generally trust without any real reason?" Sam asked.
Dean stood in front of the wall plastered with pictures, tapping his chin. "The bodies were dumped in alleyways and parking lots but that's not necessarily where they were killed."
"From what Barnaby was saying, the Oruxes needed a little time to complete a ritual which each killing."
"So maybe a home base of some kind, since these guys didn't have places of their own."
"Dean," Sam said, rising slowly. "Talking about a false sense of trust, you do realise that there's a guy with complete access to our room that we don't even know."
Dean blinked and then looked out the dingy motel room window. He could see the motel office from where he stood, flickering light through the window hinting that there was a television on behind the curtains. Dean reached for his duffel, yanking a gun free for himself and one for Sam just as there was a muffled thump from the next room.
The room he'd gotten for a small toy giraffe.
* *
"Hello Jasper," Dean said, sliding into the second room on his pilfered credit card with his gun trained on the back of the blonde motel clerk. He felt the familiar presence of his brother at his shoulder, mirroring his movement.
Jasper turned slowly, holding Barnaby aloft and with a smirk on his face. "I can't believe how much trouble this ratty little thing has been," Jasper said, shaking Barnaby back and forth.
"Drop the giraffe," Sam growled from behind Dean and Jasper chuckled.
"Boys," Barnaby said from Jasper's hand. "Remember what I said. I make a useless hostage considering, don't you think?"
Dean winced and risked a glance at Sam, who looked equally torn. Barnaby had told them that he would most probably die when the Oruxes did which meant it was useless for Jasper to try and use Barnaby as his bargaining chip.
"Can you really be the death of a fellow hunter?" Jasper sneered, putting one hand around Barnaby's middle and the other holding his head in a threat to tear Barnaby in half. "Even in such a pathetic container?"
"Let me rest," Barnaby said.
Sam and Dean pulled their triggers as one.
* *
"You're still alive," Dean observed. He was wondering about the best way to dispose of the Oruxes since it hadn't conveniently disappeared or melted but instead had dried up into a mummy-like corpse.
"You need to pierce the heart or it can rise again, given enough time," Barnaby said, front hooves resting on what was left of Jasper's chest. Sam pulled a knife from his boot and moved towards Jasper but Barnaby shook his little fuzzy head and held out his hooves. "I should do it," he said, obviously noticing how pensive Sam looked about it.
"No disrespect man, but can you really?" Dean asked.
"I would rather you not have to," Barnaby said. "Leave the knife. I'll manage." Barnaby's little black stitched mouth turned up at the corners.
"I always have."
* *
Sam was watching the scenery go by the passenger side window, something far off and amused on his face.
"It's kind of funny, what you said before," Sam said when they'd put hours and miles between themselves and Knox.
"What?"
Dean watched as Sam dug a dog eared book out of his bag and hunkered further down in the passenger seat. "How I was in the wrong line of business for something cute and fluffy."
Author:
kellifer_ficRecipient:
annj_g80Rating: Adult (Language)
Warnings: None
Wordcount: 5k
Prompt: Sam and Dean are saving someone, who didn't actually want to be saved. And, of course, things get ugly because he/she/it had every reason for wanting to die.
Notes: Inspired by the BTVS episode 'The Puppet Show'.
Summary: You want something cute and fluffy you're in the wrong trade, Sammy.
"Why is it always hearts?" Sam asked, shoving the paper across the diner table. Dean was in the middle of cutting his pancakes up into OCD-neat triangles and looked up with a glob of syrup hanging shiny off his chin.
"Mwhn?" Dean asked, the question made unintelligible by the fact that he had been piling more and more pancakes into his mouth without swallowing. Sam rolled his eyes and slid the paper further so it was under Dean's gaze.
"Just once couldn't we find a monster that steals, I don't know, kittens or something?"
Dean had one corner of the paper tipped up so he could read the article Sam had circled but he dropped it and gaped. "You'd rather fight a monster that eats kittens?"
"Not eats," Sam snapped, exasperated. "Just steals... like maybe puts them all in a box with rolls of yarn and... y'know what I meant."
"You want something cute and fluffy you're in the wrong trade, Sammy," Dean said sagely and resumed his perusal of the paper. His eyebrows went up as he scanned the article and the way the reporter practically salivated at the prospect of a serial killer.
Four deaths, all young men, all hearts removed with surgical precision.
"Think it's a Were?" he asked, wincing a little when Sam's eyes skipped sideways. They hadn't crossed paths with a werewolf since Madison and Dean didn't really want to. It was hard enough dealing with your run of the mill evil without throwing the unintentional bad into the mix.
Killing werewolves was too close to killing people because you couldn't destroy the monster without the person it once was.
"I think the term surgical precision kind of rules that out," Sam said, reaching a hand over to tap the paper. "Weres are more your shred than slice kind of creature."
"Maybe it's actually person."
"Could be," Sam mused. He went back to his own breakfast which was also pancakes but he got the blueberry in a nod to nutrition instead of Dean's Canadian special, syrup and bacon. Dean figured if you were going to be a pansy and eat fruit, then there were worse ways. "We should check it out though. It's the most solid lead we've had in weeks."
"True," Dean agreed, nodding. All seemed a little too quiet on the supernatural front of late and he and Sam had taken to checking out longshots, stuff that they could pretty much tell from a distance would turn out to be hoaxes or the people kind of cruel. Nothing had really pinged Dean's radar for a little while.
He hated lulls because it always meant that something especially bad was brewing.
"How far's Knox from here?" Sam asked.
"About four hours," Dean said, looking at his watch. "Guess we're burning daylight."
"Guess so," Sam agreed.
Dean always hated the beginning of a hunt. He liked getting his hands dirty, being hip-deep in a grave digging for all you were worth while the bastard you were planning on salting and burning got pissed about it and tried to take you out. He liked the thrill, the chase, the last minute spectacular move that saw the monster smoking at your feet instead of the other way around.
The beginning though? The beginning sucked ass.
Sam, the giant dork that he was, loved the beginning because that's when he could get his brainiac on in the library.
"Go get a coffee or something," Sam said, trying to dismiss him. It probably had something to do with Dean knocking Sam in the back of the head every time he walked past him.
Dean dropped into the chair opposite Sam and pushed the stack of books Sam had already gone through aside so he could put his chin on the table. "Why do we have to have a rough idea what we're hunting before we start?" he complained. "It never turns out to be what you first think it is and we waste valuable time researching monsters we're never going to see."
Sam blew out a breath which fanned his hair out of his face briefly. Dean had started thinking serious thoughts about catching Sam asleep when he had a pair of scissors at hand and wondering if the mother of all bitch-fits would be worth being able to see Sam's eyes.
Probably not.
"It's always what I think it's going to be, you just never listen when I tell you what it's going to be," Sam said, injecting patience into his tone that he obviously didn't feel by his expression. His mouth pulled down at the corners at Dean's incredulous expression and he said, "Well, okay, so it's always at least one of the three things I narrow it down to," he amended.
"We should find out if it's our brand of bad first," Dean argued. "Talk to some people, get the lay of the land." Dean gestured in the general vicinity of Sam. "Make with the puppy eyes."
"You say that like some Star Wars geek would say, use the force," Sam observed with a wry grin. "My eyes don't have special powers."
"Don't give me that," Dean snorted. "You could charm little old ladies out of their ginormous panties if you were into that."
"Dude," Sam groaned, making a face.
"So, maybe I could go and-"
"Piss everyone off?" Sam asked brightly. Dean flipped Sam off just when the octogenarian librarian was looking their way and she scowled at him. "Look, you know the way it goes when we split up too early. One of us accidentally runs into the thing we're hunting before we're prepared and the other one has to save the day. It's almost formulaic."
"It doesn't always happen," Dean grumped but he also dropped the subject because okay, maybe they did tend to have bad luck when they weren't sure what they were doing yet.
"Screw this. I'm getting a cheeseburger," Dean decided.
"We ate two hours ago."
"Yeah, two hours ago. I'm starving."
"Just don't go down under spooky alleys because you get a feeling or whatever," Sam said, not looking up from his book.
Dean snorted and bumped Sam so hard he nearly went off his chair on the way out.
He should've known that karmically, that was a silly ass thing to do.
Dean swam back into consciousness an indeterminate amount of time later and cursed Sam for always having to be right. Once outside the library, he'd headed for the diner that they'd had lunch at because there was a cheeseburger and hopefully a perky waittress named Sally-Anne with his name on them.
There'd been an alley, there was always a freakin' alley, in between he and his goal and he'd followed some scuffling sounds that didn't sound quite right for a sunny day in downtown Knox.
Dean was pretty sure the way the pain in his head radiated outward from the back of his skull that he'd been cracked from behind.
"Hello?" Dean called out, his voice echoing. He figured he was probably in a warehouse of some kind, and wasn't it always the way that there was an abandoned warehouse close enough for the bad guys to commute.
It would have been downright funny if he weren't tied to a chair with a thumper of a headache.
"You thought you could outsmart me this time," a voice said from the darkness. The voice was gruff and thickly accented although Dean had no clue with what. He peered into the shadows, trying to discern a shape but the way sound was pulled and bounced in the open space meant that his kidnapper could've been anywhere.
"Look buddy, I have a partner and he's going to kick the everliving shit out of you when he gets here," Dean said. Threats never really worked out when you were held prisoner and yet Dean could never resist the compulsion to do it.
"Don't make me laugh. I know you too well to fall for something like that," the speaker said, chuckling. The voice seemed to be closer and it was also a little off, like maybe the guy was speaking through something to disguise his voice. It had a mushy quality to it that made the words run together a little.
"Hey, I don't know who you think you've got here but I just rolled into town a few hours ago," Dean said, trying to wrack his brains for someone he'd pissed off lately, enough to grab him in broad daylight in a town he'd never visited.
"Again with the useless lies," the voice from the darkness scoffed and now it was closer still, sounding so close that Dean could swear the guy must be standing right on top of him. Dean squinted, his eyes finally adjusting to the weak light that barely made it through some high windows and -
"Holy fuck!" Dean exclaimed, skidding backwards almost to the point of tipping over in his chair. The reason he hadn't been able to see who was talking was because he'd been looking up. He'd glanced down and saw what looked like a small toy giraffe walking towards him, up on its hind legs. Dean regained his composure and cleared his throat. "Cute puppet. Remote control?"
"Don't call me cute," the giraffe growled.
"Resist the temptation."
Sam folded his hands back into his lap. Dean could see he'd been just about to poke the giraffe's fuzzy middle when the giraffe's g;ass eyes had swung his way.
"Sorry," Sam apologised, biting his lip. His eyes were sparking though and Dean wasn't sure what Sam found funnier, the talking plush giraffe or the fact that a talking plush giraffe had been holding Dean prisoner.
He was never going to live it down.
"As I was saying," the giraffe continued when he was sure neither Winchester was going to try touching him again. "My name is Barnaby Bourke and I have been in this unfortunate form for about forty years." Barnaby indicated his current body with a wave of two soft hooved feet.
"Curse?" Sam asked and Dean saw him pull his face into his serious hunt-on expression with an effort of will.
"Ah, if only," Barnaby said, sounding glum. "A curse I could break. No, I had a partner who dabbled in sorcery who met his demise at the same time this was done. He did it to save my life."
"Really?" Dean asked, fascinated.
"Yes, William was a brave man and with the last of his strength he pushed me into the closest inanimate object as I lay bleeding out."
"At least it wasn't a brick or anything," Dean said and Sam cut an annoyed glance at him. Dean shrugged and then raised his eyebrows in a silent what? "It's just lucky you went into something, y'know, ambulatory."
"True," Barnaby said, nodding his head. He looked a little worse for wear as far as soft toys went and one of his glass eyes looked like it was hanging on by only a thread. There were a few rips that had been badly repaired and a red stain in his side that could've been blood or rasberry jelly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful I was left in any form capable of continuing my pursuit."
"You're still hunting?" Sam asked, sounding impressed and Dean had to admit that he was pretty impressed himself. He figured if he was ever turned into something small and fuzzy then he'd probably retire.
"Sorcery is a funny thing," the giraffe said sagely. "There is always a cost. William might have continued my existence but it is not a natural progression. As close as I can surmise, until my quarry is dispatched, I will continue on."
"You're stuck like this until you get the thing that killed your partner and made you like this?" Sam asked, sounding awed and appalled in equal measure.
"About ninety-nine percent sure, yes," Barnaby agreed, bobbing his head again. "And as you can imagine, it has not been easy."
"Your hunting the thing that takes hearts?" Dean asked.
"Yes," Barnaby confirmed. "I was a little older than its usual quarry but William and I had pursued it relentlessly until it was near mad with starvation. It was in the process of removing my heart when William removed me from my body."
"Your body... died?" Dean asked, trying not to be creeped out but it was a hard ask.
"As soon as I left it. The only good thing was that my early demise, before the creature was done with its ritual meant that it could not injest my heart." Barnaby's head dropped and he looked as sad as a little toy giraffe could. "I would not have liked that."
"But you know what we're dealing with then?" Sam pressed. His expression had gone from forced-serious to actual serious and almost keen. He'd unearthed their father's journal from a pocket somewhere and lay it on the table, ready to flip through it. Instead of continuing, Barnaby's gaze fixed on the book and he shuffled forward on the table he'd perched on, putting on tentative hoof on the leather cover.
"A hunter's journal," he huffed. "If only I had mine."
"What happened to it?" Dean asked, interested to learn that keeping a journal wasn't an quirk of just his father's. There was a lot he didn't know about John Winchester's early years as a hunter and learning little things, like maybe he'd gotten the idea to keep a journal from someone else already in the trade, always made Dean feel just the tiniest bit closer to his dad.
Barnaby gazed steadily at Dean for a moment, then gestured at himself once more. "It is hard to carry something bigger than yourself," he said.
"Ah, right, of course," Dean said.
"I still have it," Barnaby added. "It just passes through a series of post boxes."
"You have a post box?"
"And an email address," Barnaby said with a small grin of his black stitched mouth. "It's amazing what you can do these days purely via correspondence."
"What are we dealing with?" Sam asked again, bringing them back on topic.
"Right, sorry," Barnaby said, backing up from the journal so Sam could open it. "The creature is a rarity even in our world, an Oruxes. It injests hearts to prolong it's own existence. Some say, like the Wendigo, it may have once been human but trod a darker path in the pursuit of immortality. No one knows its true form but it assumes the guise of its preferred prey, generally a young man."
"You thought I was this Oruxes?" Dean asked.
"There was a chance, yes," Barnaby confirmed, looking contrite. "I thought you were pursuing me so I could not take the chance."
"It knows you're after it?" Sam asked.
"Oh yes," Barnaby said. "Although, it does not take my threat as seriously as it once would have." Barnaby looked down at himself, at the stitched together body and spotted limbs that would not be able to wield so much as a knife. "With good reason."
"Well, with your history with the thing and our..." Dean didn't know how to finish the sentence delicately so just indicated himself and Sam with a flick of his hand, "I'm sure we'll have this sucker done and dusted in no time."
The motel clerk, a young guy with dirty blonde hair and the air of the eternally bored and a nametag that read Jasper, merely raised an eyebrow at Dean when he asked for a second room.
"You and your boyfriend have a fight?" the kid asked and Dean smiled tight-lipped at him and snatched the key he was offered.
Dean felt a little odd getting a motel room for a toy giraffe but Barnaby insisted on his privacy, glaring when Dean had suggested that he could just sleep in a drawer in their room. Dean found Sam pottering around their room after he'd bid Barnaby goodnight and made sure he could get up on the bed by himself and work the remote on the TV.
Sam had that restless energy going that meant something was bothering him so Dean finally threw a rolled up pair of socks at Sam's head to get his attention. "What's with you?" he asked when Sam turned a scowl on him.
"Just... this Oruxes is a sort of shape shifter, right?" Sam asked and Dean rolled his hands in a go on gesture. "So, we're taking Barnaby's word for it that it looks like a normal human male?"
"Your point?"
"We're taking Barnaby's word for it that it takes the form or a human male as opposed to say, a small talking toy giraffe?" Sam raised his eyebrows and spread his hands.
"Yeah, I thought of that."
"You thought of that?" Sam repeated, looking incredulous.
"Yes Sam, I thought of that. Of course I thought of that. Isn't it better though to keep him close just in case he is our monster rather than tipping him off that we're onto him and have him disappear?"
"Well, yeah," Sam allowed, dropping his butt onto his bed and his head into his hands. "There's really no way to know for sure is the problem."
"Nothing like an eye flash in a camera like a shifter then?" Dean asked, not holding out much hope.
"Dad did have a small reference to them but it was more in passing, something he'd heard about but never actually hunted. I think he just wrote it down in case he ever did come across one," Sam explained, tapping the journal that was lying facedown on the bed spread. "But no, nothing as helpful or obvious as that."
"So what did he have on them?"
"Pretty much what Barnaby told us, about how they would injest hearts to keep living, how they might have been regular guys once upon a time."
"Like Gollum?"
"I don't think it's anything like a gollum," Sam said, scrunching his face. "I don't think anyone made these things out of mud and sticks-"
"Lord of The Rings, dumbass. That gollum. All twisted and shit through greed."
"And you call me a geek," Sam snorted, shaking his head. When he got a hard stare for his trouble, Sam shrugged and flipped open their dad's journal. "Oruxes, also known as Dark Men. Eat major organs of young, healthy people, generally hearts and generally men in their late teens to twenties."
"That all he got?" Dean asked.
"Pretty much," Sam said, flipping through the journal a couple of pages forward and back to make sure before tossing it aside.
"So for now we go on what Barnaby is telling us to try and track this thing. We just have to hope to hell we don't find out Barnaby is actually the Oruxes before we find out how to kill one."
"The Oruxes has three possible hunting grounds nearby," Barnaby said, sitting between Sam's hands in front of his open laptop the next morning. Sam had a city finder website up with a map of Knox and the local businesses. Barnaby used a pen to jab at the screen. "There's a pool hall here, a movie theatre here and a video arcade here," he said, indicating each place.
"Think the pool hall is the best bet?" Dean hazarded and Barnaby turned his head, almost all the way around which was more than a little disconcerting to nod in Dean's direction.
"Yes, very astute. The movie theatre would afford darkness but not the interaction the Oruxes would need to lure his victims away and the arcade would be too noisy. The pool hall would be the perfect place, strangers make conversation over a game, the Oruxes perhaps looses games large stakes have been bet on and invites his intended out to a car or truck to collect the winnings."
Dean quirked an eyebrow. "Why doesn't he just jump some guy in an alley?"
"This creature likes deception almost as much as the hunt. It would prefer to become friendly with its prey initially if you can believe it, purely for the satisfaction of watching the victim realise he has made a grave error in judgement."
"So, it's a sick puppy that gets its jollies from duping poor guys with an underdeveloped survival instinct is what you're saying?" Dean prompted and Barnaby laughed.
"Put in a nutshell, yes. Also, unlike most predators, the Oruxes will choose the strongest prey it possibly can to ensure the reward is greater. It's not the type to pick on the weak."
"I'm thinking a trap's in order then," Dean said. "Sounds like to this thing would think either Sam or I would look like the ultimate blue plate special."
"Unfortunately I had the same thought, but are you sure you wish to take such a risk?" Barnaby asked, turning around all the way so Dean could see that he was concerned. Sam had also turned around in his chair and didn't look very impressed either, most likely because when it came to being bait, Dean usually insisted on the duty.
"Are you sure you want to help us?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You mean because with this creature's death, mine would most likely be quick to follow?" Barnaby hazarded, small soft head turning back and forth to be able to watch both Winchesters. With Sam's question an idea had occurred to Dean.
That even if Barnaby wasn't the Oruxes himself, he had a vested interest in keeping it alive.
"Sam, Dean, I understand your suspicions," Barnaby said and then let out a long sigh. Again, Dean was reminded of the sound of air moving through cloth. "You have to understand though that so far as I'm concerned, I died already."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked.
"That day, that warehouse, William. What he did prolonged my existence but it's not right. If you've ever had a cut in your mouth that you couldn't stop pushing your tongue against even though you knew it would hurt, you'd understand how I feel every day I continue."
"Dude, that's... that kinda sucks," Dean said and Sam grimaced at him.
"It does at that."
"I don't like this," Dean grumbled.
Barnaby turned what Dean could only guess was a sympathetic glance his way. He and Sam had rock, paper, scissored for who would play bait and Sam had won. Dean hadn't really been able to argue because while Sam was probably better in a close up scrap, Dean had always been a better shot from a distance.
He hefted the weight of the rifle in his hands and scowled at the alley he was looking down at from a fire escape. The plan was to lure the Oruxes out to the alley no matter where it wanted to go and Barnaby had agreed that it would go along with whatever it's intended prey proposed, all the better to maintain the illusion of trust.
The moment it did anything hinky like try to relieve Sam of his heart, Dean would take the top of its head off. According to Barnaby, the headshot was the key.
"You're the elder, yes?" Barnaby asked. He was propped on Dean's shoulder, purely for convenience and Dean tried to ignore the strangely warm weight.
"Yeah, Sam's my kid brother."
"I heard of your father a time or two from my contacts when I still had some," Barnaby said and Dean turned his head enough to see Barnaby's fuzzy profile in the darkness.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes, when he was much younger, starting out. I wish I'd met him."
"He's pretty cool," Dean agreed but he felt more than saw Barnaby shake his head.
"I'm sure he was, but that isn't why I would've wanted to meet him. I would have wished to tell him that what he was doing was madness."
"My dad has saved a lot of people," Dean objected, starting to feel more than a little pissed about the direction of the conversation.
"Dean, I don't mean to disrespect your father, that's the last thing I would do. I merely would have told him that bringing his children into such a life was not worth the revenge he sought."
"What the hell would you know about it?" Dean snapped, resisting the urge to bat Barnaby off his shoulder.
"A great deal actually," Barnaby said, tone quiet. "William was not only my partner, he was also my son."
Dean felt everything in him go cold and his grip tightened on his rifle almost painfully. He wasn't completely sure but he thought it must have made some kind of noise because he felt a soft hoof pat his cheek.
"William did not die straight away," Barnaby continued. "We chased the Oruxes into an abandoned building and the roof collapsed. He was pinned and when I went to help him the creature came at me. It was especially strong in its desperation and had me on the floor and was cutting into my chest before I even realised what was happening. William cast his spell and I was yanked into the form you see now. Still, William lived another hour or so and probably the most horrible thing was that had I still been a man, I would have been able to pull him free and possibly get him to a hospital in time."
"Barnaby, I-" Dean began but Barnaby patted him again, this time urgently.
"Look sharp," Barnaby hissed as the door from the pool hall into the alleyway opened and a man spilled out with a sudden burst of noise and smoke. Dean brought the rifle up and snugged into his shoulder and could see it was Sam, listing sideways into a wall.
"You might've had a little too much to drink," a voice followed Sam out into the alley and then a dark figure, another man in a coat with the collar turned up appeared in the doorway, limned in dirty green light.
"I only had two shots," Sam protested muzzily but Dean could see from his position that Sam was having a lot of trouble keeping his legs under him. Or at least, he appeared to be.
"C'mon asshole," Dean breathed.
Sam made an impressive show of losing his balance completely and landing on his ass next to the wall he'd been trying to hold himself up with. The man that had followed him out went for him and Dean squeezed the trigger.
The shot hit where the man's head had been right before Sam yanked him down. Dean jumped up, feeling Barnaby scramble for purchase before sliding off and hitting the grill of the fire escape with a soft thump. "What the fuck?" Dean called, seeing Sam had the guy pinned.
Sam's head came up and another second later so did his hand, holding something square and black. "Guy was only going for my wallet," Sam called back, voice thick with disgust. He hauled the guy to his feet and let him go. The guy ran for it without looking back, making an undignified squawk of fear as he went.
"Son of a bitch," Dean grumbled, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and making his way down the fire escape, after checking that Barnaby could navigate his own way down. They met Sam at the bottom, Barnaby only allowing to be picked up and sat back on Dean's shoulder when they reached the bottom.
"Only a mugger?" Barnaby asked, sounding as disappointed as Dean felt.
"Yeah," Sam said, exhaling a bark of shaky laughter.
"Bet he's not going to do that again any time soon," Dean said, fighting the knot of nauseau he felt at having coming dangerously close to beheading some poor schmuck who was only out to roll someone.
"I'm sorry, this is my fault," Barnaby said, putting his plush hooves on either side of his head. "I felt as if we were so close, this was almost over that... we rushed this."
"It's okay," Dean reassured. "We jumped the gun a little, luckily not literally."
"He could have been in there," Sam said, putting fists into the small of his back and stretching. "If he was either he didn't approach me and he's currently luring some other poor sucker to his death or he got spooked somehow."
"Look, this was a long shot," Dean said and then smirked. "And obviously we were overestimating Sammy's appeal."
"Jerk," Sam huffed, bumping Dean's shoulder with his own.
"Know what sucks?" Dean asked and waited for Sam to look at him before saying, "Research in the middle of a hunt."
"I know you're frustrated but I think Barnaby's right. We're trying to rush this," Sam said. He pushed his laptop aside and rubbed hands over his face. "I think we're missing something."
"I know we usually concentrate on the monsters but I've been looking at the victims," Dean said, waving a hand at the wall where he'd pinned the various news articles they'd found about each death. His father had always been visually oriented, seeing patterns when he laid everything out. Dean was a chip off the old block in that respect. "Other than the fact they were all passing through, they didn't really have anything in common."
"Barnaby said the Oruxes liked to garner trust," Sam said. "But it would never have much time to do it in. Who would you generally trust without any real reason?" Sam asked.
Dean stood in front of the wall plastered with pictures, tapping his chin. "The bodies were dumped in alleyways and parking lots but that's not necessarily where they were killed."
"From what Barnaby was saying, the Oruxes needed a little time to complete a ritual which each killing."
"So maybe a home base of some kind, since these guys didn't have places of their own."
"Dean," Sam said, rising slowly. "Talking about a false sense of trust, you do realise that there's a guy with complete access to our room that we don't even know."
Dean blinked and then looked out the dingy motel room window. He could see the motel office from where he stood, flickering light through the window hinting that there was a television on behind the curtains. Dean reached for his duffel, yanking a gun free for himself and one for Sam just as there was a muffled thump from the next room.
The room he'd gotten for a small toy giraffe.
"Hello Jasper," Dean said, sliding into the second room on his pilfered credit card with his gun trained on the back of the blonde motel clerk. He felt the familiar presence of his brother at his shoulder, mirroring his movement.
Jasper turned slowly, holding Barnaby aloft and with a smirk on his face. "I can't believe how much trouble this ratty little thing has been," Jasper said, shaking Barnaby back and forth.
"Drop the giraffe," Sam growled from behind Dean and Jasper chuckled.
"Boys," Barnaby said from Jasper's hand. "Remember what I said. I make a useless hostage considering, don't you think?"
Dean winced and risked a glance at Sam, who looked equally torn. Barnaby had told them that he would most probably die when the Oruxes did which meant it was useless for Jasper to try and use Barnaby as his bargaining chip.
"Can you really be the death of a fellow hunter?" Jasper sneered, putting one hand around Barnaby's middle and the other holding his head in a threat to tear Barnaby in half. "Even in such a pathetic container?"
"Let me rest," Barnaby said.
Sam and Dean pulled their triggers as one.
"You're still alive," Dean observed. He was wondering about the best way to dispose of the Oruxes since it hadn't conveniently disappeared or melted but instead had dried up into a mummy-like corpse.
"You need to pierce the heart or it can rise again, given enough time," Barnaby said, front hooves resting on what was left of Jasper's chest. Sam pulled a knife from his boot and moved towards Jasper but Barnaby shook his little fuzzy head and held out his hooves. "I should do it," he said, obviously noticing how pensive Sam looked about it.
"No disrespect man, but can you really?" Dean asked.
"I would rather you not have to," Barnaby said. "Leave the knife. I'll manage." Barnaby's little black stitched mouth turned up at the corners.
"I always have."
Sam was watching the scenery go by the passenger side window, something far off and amused on his face.
"It's kind of funny, what you said before," Sam said when they'd put hours and miles between themselves and Knox.
"What?"
Dean watched as Sam dug a dog eared book out of his bag and hunkered further down in the passenger seat. "How I was in the wrong line of business for something cute and fluffy."
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Excellent x/over with BtVS!! Loved it!
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I swear i read this *and* commented. Did i? Tell me i did!
*i luffed*
:)
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(Are you missing something here:
Some say, like the *****, it may have once been human but trod a darker path in the pursuit of immortality.)
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