Day 43: Chapel

[constellates.livejournal.com]

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

Comments

[kindalikedit]

Dean managed a shameless grin, even as he found himself getting ganged up on by the orderlies, a big dude on each side and towering over him, like he had two hulked out Sams on either shoulder. Dean wasn't sorry he'd had to start crap with "Indy" - it'd been necessary to get lighters - but he could've gone without it spiraling like it did. At least he wasn't getting herded to the cafeteria. He was pretty sure he couldn't hold down breakfast, not yet, at least. If there was anything Dean was proud of - aside from being a crack shot with a crossbow - it was having an iron stomach. He was sure give or take an hour, he'd be able to keep something down.

Even if just walking felt pretty funky. The chapel was upstairs, a part of the Institute that Dean hadn't really explored very much. The chapel itself wasn't weird...until you really took a look at it and realized it wasn't normal at all. Sure, he wasn't religious, and maybe he didn't memorize every weird supernatural fact like his brother, but Dean did know a thing or two about churches and the like. It was just part of the job, knowing what was holy ground, what inside a church might help you and what was just decorative. Dean scanned the room without seeming to: lots of pews, marble, but nothing that'd peg it as a normal, run of the mill chapel. Just from a first look, he couldn't see a single cross here. Not even a rosary. So much for that. Dean would've liked to get hold of one. He didn't have to be a Bible-thumper to know that, for some reason or another, rosaries did work to ward off evil and that was good enough for him. The stained glass was colorful but, again, there were no angels, no specific scenes displayed. Just a lot of abstract colors.

Dean was pretty sure Sam had noticed this too as he headed casually for his brother, forcing himself not to limp even a little with the injured leg. Maybe he'd been pegged as a hunter, maybe not. The last thing he wanted to do was paint himself as an easy target, 'cause there was nothing that said that like a limp. Dean slid into the back pew next to Sam, easing himself down. Sam had picked the best vantage point he could, reasonably close to the exit but not too close in case something came at them that way.

"Got any mouthwash on you?" Dean asked, cracking a small crooked grin at Sam as if he hadn't spent half the night useless 'cause Kisugi pumped him full of drugs. "Ice cream, beer and burgers don't make a great mix. Just thought you should know."

[Sam]

[boyking]

Waking up feeling like crap was really becoming the norm, insofar as the norm applied to him in the first place. The first thing Sam registered was that there was something digging into his back. He reached behind him, fingers closing around the familiar grip of a pistol, somehow weirdly comforting after not having a firearm on him for a few days now. He hadn't gone that long without his gun since Stanford. He sat up and heard something clatter to the floor. The lighter.

Sam leaned down to pick it up at the same time quiet footsteps approached the door. He had about two seconds to shove the gun and lighter inside the drawer, and slam it shut.

The nurse poked her head in cheerfully, lectured him on the perils of teasing the dogs (I know it was just a puppy, but nevertheless), and shuffled him off down the hall. What was up with the announcements, too? He wasn't exactly mourning the loss of the grating cheer of the so-called Head Doctor, but under the circumstances, an abrupt break in routine was never a good sign. Point in case: last night.

Sam made his way upstairs toward the chapel, feeling stiff all over. His side had been stitched up again, and there was a bandage around the bite and cuts on his arm and hand. It hurt a little to flex his fingers, but the limb was otherwise fine. As long as he could still hold onto stuff, he wouldn't complain.

Though it'd be useful to check out the chapel, he would've preferred if they'd all been herded to the cafeteria as usual. He wanted—needed—to see that Peter was okay. Split up in separate locations like this, finding his roommate was a lot harder.

The chapel was quiet, not too many people. More than that, it was bare. Devoid of any religious symbolism, no roods, not even a single painting or rosary. It made a Protestant church look elaborate. In fact, if it weren't for the rows of pews, it would've just been another room. Still, the quiet was a welcome change from the usual buzz of the cafeteria.

He found a seat near the back and off to the side and just sat, arms resting on his legs and hands dangling between his knees as he picked at a hangnail. He ignored the way the cuts were starting to itch as they healed. They'd both gotten off lucky, Sam knew. With last night—yeah, they'd been damn lucky. He couldn't help feeling...One death report had already filtered in. While he knew he couldn't assume he would've been able to stop it even if he'd been there, the fact that he hadn't—

But he felt guiltier about knowing that he wouldn't have done anything different, wouldn't have left Dean under any circumstances to go after Peter or any of the other patients, despite being fully aware of what it would mean for those people.

He glanced over as Dean sat down beside him, huffing out a short laugh in return. "Yeah, I'll keep it in mind."

Dean looked okay, better now that the sedatives had worn off and the older injuries were starting to heal a bit. Last night had gotten him only the cut on his leg, maybe a couple of bruises. Sam knew it'd bother him, but it wouldn't be a big deal.

"What do you remember?" He kept his voice down, but didn't bother whispering or anything. There was enough low chatter in here that no one would overhear unless anyone was deliberately eavesdropping and he didn't think that was happening.

[kindalikedit]

Dean stared forward, eyes sweeping the chapel without actually turning his head around like a tourist.

"Puking, for starters," Dean said. He also kept his voice down, remembering to bow his head a little as if maybe, just maybe, he was praying. Dean wasn't the praying-sort, but if it helped him blend in a little, it wouldn't kill him to pretend like he was clasping his hands together and deep in revelation or whatever. "I think you were tryin' to drown me, but I don't remember all of that part."

The hunter went silent for a bit. How much did he want to tell his brother about Doctor Kisugi? She knew about his deal. She knew about that less-than-a-year expiration date. All things Dean really didn't want to get close to Sam, not until he was good and ready to spill it himself, but on the other hand, she was a definite threat. Dean didn't know what her game was, only that she had one and he still wasn't much closer to knowing what kind of monster was hiding underneath those great tits and cold smile. Dean chewed on that one, face expressionless for a minute. No, he'd have to tell Sam something. It'd be stupid not to, even with what was at stake. This skank with a PH.d could - and probably would, eventually - go right for the jugular, maybe even literally.

Dean didn't look up. "I do remember gettin' sedated, though," he said, and to a casual listener, it would've sounded almost surprisingly off-hand. "This woman called Kisugi; she's one of the doctors. She came on the bus and claimed I was a threat to the other patients, like a friggen 'disturbance' or something."

There was a slight pause before he went on. He couldn't just leave it like that.

"I think she's something else, though. I ran into her before, and she didn't give off this human vibe. Plus she knew all about crap she shouldn't have," Dean said, and added, before Sam could get any ideas, "Kisugi knew about that run-in I had with the djinn," some of the frustration bled through, "I can't pin down what she is, 'cept I know she's not a demon or possessed by one."

She hadn't reacted to seeing or saying Christo out-loud. Not even a little flinch, just a cool, detached questioning look, as if he was as crazy as he was supposed to be. That left a lot of other things she could be, but at least he didn't have to worry about some ugly black smoke coming outta her and gunning for him. Not with Sam's new tattoo cock-blocking any future possession. Dean supposed he should feel a little safer, at least, but this wasn't like how it used to be, where they could hole up in a dump of a motel and at least have the Impala's arsenal within twenty feet of the door. He was really starting to miss the feel of a sawed-off in his hands. That and knowing just what they were up against.

[boyking]

Dean didn't remember very much at all. Which made sense. His brother didn't even fully register Sam's presence until Sam had managed to get them both inside the basement.

He frowned, slight defensiveness more a result of his default reaction to his brother accusing him of anything rather than the accusation itself. "I wasn't—"

Oh, never mind. He waved a hand, letting it go.

Dean went quiet, but Sam didn't fill the silence, sensing that Dean was considering what to say next. True enough, Dean spoke up after a moment. From what he was saying, it sounded like he'd gotten sedated for no real reason after the scuffle at the grocery store. And Sam suspected it must've been no real reason. Dean was impulsive, but he wasn't stupid and Sam knew Dean wouldn't have jumped a supernatural creature with no weapon while surrounded by orderlies and other patients in broad daylight.

Who the hell was this doctor, anyway? 'Cause really, she'd nearly gotten Dean killed and while Sam didn't know if she would've been aware of what was gonna happen once night fell, he thought she must've if she knew about the Djinn like Dean said. Was it just the Djinn? What else did she know, if she knew about that? The deal? Sam's demon blood? Had she told Dean any of that?

Sam flicked a gaze at his brother, casual enough. Dean didn't sound or look like he knew. He was sure Dean would've said something right off the bat if he had or at least acted different. But then, he wasn't as confident in that conclusion anymore. He didn't know if he was capable of reading his brother as well as he might've once. If maybe he'd forgotten more of Dean than he'd have liked to admit.

Man, but they really didn't need another hunt on their hands. They definitely didn't need a hunt that was coming at them instead of the other way around.

"All right, well." He rubbed the corner of his eye. "We'll figure it out. But dude, we've got bigger problems than her. I think we're looking at a curse or else someone's working some pretty dark magic. There was a mass necromantic event last night, right in the middle of the damn town. The whole place was crawling with revenants and I'm guessing they didn't all climb out of their graves by themselves."

He wished he'd had more information on it, but he'd been too busy trying to, well, not die to do much observing. He could ask some people, but he suspected the chaos would give way to even more unreliable testimony than usual and frankly, civilians usually didn't know what to look for. He'd have to do some pretty extensive interviewing to hit any significant facts beyond what was already generally known and Sam just didn't feel like he had the energy for that. Not when he had more important things to investigate. Except it had to be done because for all he knew, this was tied into Dean's return. A way to keep Dean with him.

This Dean, Sam realized. He still didn't know if the fact that Dean was obviously pulled from a different point in time meant that somewhere, in his own universe, his Dean was still in hell. The idea seemed all too possible, far more than he would've liked to believe. Because if Dean was—if he was. What was he even supposed to do with that? There was no way he could live with it, knowing that, even if he did have a Dean, but he was pretty sure the space-time continuum would explode if two Deans ended up in the same plane of existence if it hadn't happened already, and shit, this was so screwed up.

[kindalikedit]

"You shitting me?" Dean blurted. He couldn't help swiveling around to stare at his brother, eyebrows raised. He got he'd been out of it, but hell, he must've been practically drooling on Sam's shoulder if he missed out on a town-wide curse, Thriller-style.

Revenants. Man. Seriously, man. Talk about a pain in the ass. Revenants made amaroks look like cake walks. One was bad enough, especially when you had to pin one of those suckers in their own casket with silver and they were just as fast as they'd been when they were alive. A town full of the things? Dean had no idea how any of the people in the Institute made it back alive, especially with no silver on hand and while some of the legends went that you had to rip out the heart and burn it, others went with decapitation. Which wasn't as easy as it sounded when the corpse was balls to the wall charging you, screaming for blood, and not just lying there, like it was supposed to. But the thing was, differences in types of undead aside, the usual revenants weren't just randomly revived. Dean didn't need a degree to know some of the lore, even if he couldn't recite dates or names. Usually they were specific people, revived for a reason. Sam was right: these things didn't revive on their own just 'cause it'd make a great horror movie.

But for all these individuals to pop up, in a group? It couldn't have been the work of one person. It didn't fit what he knew about raising revenants, which was personal. These things took time and research to do, just for one person to pop back to undead life.

Actually, it sounded a lot like a Romero movie, except that was just fiction. The real thing wasn't like that.

At least, he was pretty sure it wasn't.

Dean glanced over as Sam dropped his hand from his eyes and it was then he caught a glimpse of the bandage over his forearm. That one was new, just like the one on his own leg. As injuries went, it wasn't like the cut on his brother's neck or chest, whether it'd been pretty close to fatal. But it'd obviously happened last night and Dean thought it was his business to know what happened. Anything having to do with Sam was just automatically his business.

"What's with the arm?"

Dean still couldn't recall much of last night, aside from just vague impressions, a lot of feeling like he was gonna throw up, then actually throwing up, but it was obvious they'd seen some kinda action. Dean had no idea if he'd just holed up on the bus with him or actually dragged his sorry ass all over town, but with revenants on the loose, it just didn't seem likely for Sam to have gotten far alive, nevermind with "just" a scrape. Dean was annoyed at himself all over again. What was it with him and spending night after night possessed, unconscious or half-conscious from magic hypothermia? He got this gig was dangerous and could do a number on you, but even in his experience, he was really pulling the short straw here, over and over.

[boyking]

"Wish I was."

If Sam had to pick between a century-old curse of some sort or a single instance of black magic, he'd go for the former. The way those nurses transformed, that wasn't the work of necromancy. That was something else entirely, something he had no idea how to explain. Curses were pretty varied, but mutating a human being like that? He knew his definition of possible wasn't the same as everyone else, but that didn't mean there were no limits whatsoever.

The only thing was, if this wasn't a one-off, if it was a curse...was it a nightly one? Was that were all these reports of giant domestic animals were coming from? Damn it, he didn't want to be dealing with a curse. There was no "dealing" with a curse. You just booked it out of the way before it mowed you down. There were ways to break a curse, but that kind of power wasn't something just anyone could come by and it meant digging into the history of it. Who cast it, using what, things that were next to impossible to find out usually. Curses were old and the people involved, they tended to be long dead. You were lucky if you came across someone who knew anything about it beyond rumours and legends.

Sam could almost sense the instant Dean's gaze latched onto the visible bandage around his arm.

"One of them bit me," he admitted. He hesitated. "They weren't—look, I know this is gonna sound insane, but from what I can tell, they were full-on Hollywood zombies. I killed one just by piercing its skull."

He made no mention of the implications of that. The revenants they dealt with, they didn't have a taste for human flesh. They were like spirits, restless souls who killed based on a pattern. They often went after those they knew in their former life. If they killed strangers, it was for a personal reason or it was because someone got in the way.

But this one had chewed on his arm and with what the he'd heard about apparent infections...this wasn't supposed to be how it worked, but hell, they'd both watched enough zombie movies. Dean would put two and two together.

Of course, hadn't felt anything last night, not even the wound rotting, but...Well, it wasn't out of the question for him to dodge the bullet. He was already carrying a supernatural infection of sorts. It seemed to cancel out that virus, at least.

Still.

[kindalikedit]

He hadn't expected that. Sam had seemed pretty sure that zombies were all voodoo, and that the movies were just movies when they had to hunt down that Angela chick.

Dean was torn between thinking that was awesome, why the hell had he missed that and suddenly wondering if he'd have to watch out for Sam to start shambling on him.

Jesus. He hadn't even really actually considered that, except there was no sign of Sam trying (badly) to hide a laugh and the kid really meant every word of it. He was taking this seriously. The smartass remark he had died before it even got out, Dean's eyes back on the bandage. They'd fought all kinds of weird shit, some of it venomous, but a Romero-ed out zombie was a first.

"Maybe that's as close to the movies as it's gonna get," Dean said, trying to sound reassuring. There was gonna be a lot of testing the waters but if he stopped to think that his brother might actually die on him because of a stupid bite, he wasn't gonna be able to hold it together. He'd gone through too much to make sure he lived. "We just gotta keep an eye on it."

He didn't know what to say about Hollywood zombies, though. The whole slow, shambling thing made it easy, and it would've been great if that was it. But there was also the sheer, overwhelming numbers. Why weren't they clawing at the Institute doors? And what about Sam's bite? He'd told himself he wasn't gonna beat himself up over it, but Dean kept coming back to that, knowing it was weird to worry if maybe Hollywood got something right that generations of hunters had missed and not giving a damn. He didn't want them to be right about what a zombie bite could do. Dean's eyes had drifted back over to the bite injury, covered up by a bandage that was in the way and kept him from checking it out himself. Dean chewed on the inside of his cheek, not liking this at all.

At least with revenants, you knew what you were getting into if you got tagged. Maybe some broken bones, but if you got bit, you didn't have to wonder if you had undead rabies or something. The Romero stuff was easier to kill, but...

Dean couldn't believe he was seriously thinking this over. If Sam hadn't been tagged, he probably would've been going with the revenant theory still. But it was Sam's word and despite how much of a pain in the ass the kid could be sometimes, he always trusted his word. Dean nodded at the bandaged bite, jerking his chin at it:

"It feel funny or anything?" he asked, his voice a little too steady.

[boyking]

Sam shook his head. "Feels fine. I didn't feel anything last night, either. From what the patients are saying, the infection starts almost right away, though it sounds like it went away this morning."

Which didn't make sense either. Ignoring the fact that the living couldn't become a zombie in the first place—the whole definition of a revenant was the risen dead—Sam really doubted it was reversible. Except it apparently was. Unless it came back again during the nights only? It was possible. That would explain how they all returned here, morning clicking on without warning as usual.

There was no way to tell for sure, though, unless he sought these people out directly and asked. Sam knew better than to try. None of the patients were going to willingly announce that they had a deadly infection that made them prone to feasting on their peers.

"Maybe I can't get infected," he said with a shrug. "Wouldn't be a first."

He knew that last wouldn't be too reassuring for Dean. Sometimes, he wondered if that was true for all cases, if the demonic virus in Rivergrove wasn't the only thing he was immune to. What if he took in vampire blood? Would nothing happen or would he end up some kind of even more freakish hybrid?

Admittedly, Sam wasn't curious enough to be willing to test it out.

In any case, Dean was right. They just had to keep an eye on it and see what came about. He didn't mention he'd tell Dean if anything felt off; the agreement was pretty much unspoken between them. If he was wrong, if the infection started setting in tonight—

They'd deal with it then. Sam sure as hell wasn't gonna let himself become some mindless bloodthirsty freak trying to eat his brother and Dean knew it, but he knew, too, that Dean was going to futilely try to stop it and Jesus, he'd done all this before. They both had, on multiple occasions, and he was tired of it. He really didn't want to be discussing it or thinking about it unless he had to.

At least his apparent haunting by the ghost seemed to have gone away. For what reason, he had no idea. Maybe it'd be a good idea to follow up on the people he'd spoken to at the time, see if they were doing okay as well.

He let out a breath, cast a glance up to make sure no nurses were lingering close by. They seemed pretty content to leave the patients alone in here. Maybe they figured no one who went to a chapel was gonna pick a fight.

"Anyway, upshot of all this is, we've got a lighter and a ten millimeter."

Did Dean still have the knife? Sam had handed it to him, after all, but he had no idea if Dean was actually holding onto it when they'd been...what? Magically transported back to the institute? Man, he was tired of nothing making sense, too.

[kindalikedit]

Yeah, well, it'd be nice if Sam was immune...but it being because of whatever made him immune to that demon virus they'd run into months ago? Didn't exactly make Dean feel better. He guessed he should just cross his fingers and take it one step at a time, and be glad if Sam didn't start lusting for brains on him or something.

At least Sam didn't press the issue about being immune. Dean hadn't said anything, but it was probably obvious that he wasn't exactly cool with Sam's..."quirks" and even if it was good for them that Sam wasn't gonna go insane from demon viruses or (hopefully) go zombie, that didn't change the fact they still didn't know why he was immune. For all they knew, the perks of it were going to be outweighed by the rest of the picture once they knew what it was. Dean couldn't help shake the feeling that all these abilities Sammy had? They came with a price. They just didn't know what it was. Not yet, anyway.

There was an upside to this whole mess. They had a lighter, bringing them one step closer to being able to take care of those corpses up in the morgue and put them to rest, and, to top it off, Sam had somehow come by a gun. Dean raised an eyebrow at that. Kid had been busy when he'd been out, even though he knew perfectly well Sam was the last guy out there to just sit there quaking when all hell broke loose. He just got...well, he just got more productive.

"Nice," Dean said, impressed. It was great his brother was armed now, although they probably weren't gonna be able to get some salt rounds ready for awhile. Still, a gun was better than no gun. It might not kill most of what they tussled with on a daily basis, but it would at least slow 'em down. That explained where he somehow ended up with the knife sheath; Sam must've found it and tried to give it to him when he'd been high on whatever Kisugi ordered pumped into him. "Speakin' of weapons, I woke up with a knife in my bed," thank God that'd all it'd been, "but the blade itself turned into a pile of dust. The sheath's intact though."

It didn't make any sense to him either. He did actually need a sheath for his bowie, so it still worked out. The whole thing he'd had with "Indy" had been worth it, then, 'cause they'd technically come out the winners there. If you ignored Sam's bite, getting sedated and throwing up a perfectly good lunch, then yeah, winners' circle all around. Dean swore he still had that damn aftertaste, the gross feeling you always got when you got awesomely sick: obviously it was just him, 'cause Sam wasn't actually leaning away from him.

At least he didn't see any sign of the nurse who'd picked him up at the grocery store before he could into into a brawl with Indy. Dean still had no idea how the nurse had got there so damn fast. It was like she'd friggen teleported there.

Which, sadly, given their experience, wasn't entirely out of the question. Dean had seen a lot weirder things than that.

"So what's up for tonight?" Dean asked. He would've liked to deal with those bodies in the morgue, but while they had a lighter, they still didn't have accelerant. Considering the bodies were frozen, it'd take a lot of accelerant to deal with them. That or pull them out and wait a few hours, see if they could thaw a bit. Dean dealt with a lot of stiffs in his time; didn't mean he was looking forward to some bodies getting ripe on them. "Figured we need a battle plan. Promise I'll be conscious for it this time around."

[boyking]

Sam glanced over, surprised.

Huh. Well, that was unexpected. The blade had been perfectly fine last night and that aside, metal didn't disintegrate just like that. It certainly didn't crumble apart before leather did.

Never mind. That was probably the least of their concerns. Well, so long as the Glock he'd taken was functional, knowing what he did now about the knife. He hadn't checked. The mechanisms could've very well fallen to dust, too.

"Guess that means we'll have to see about the gun, then," he said. "I haven't actually fired it. The basement made a better hideout than I thought."

He hoped the weapon was in working condition. God knew they could use something more than a single knife and a few blunt objects. The bullets weren't silver and they'd need a shotgun before they could ever load rock salt, but at this point, Sam would take regular rounds over nothing at all. It'd still slow things down.

Sometimes. Sometimes it just made them mad.

It was a little weird to have Dean asking him what to do. That last year, it'd pretty much been an exercise in the two of them dragging each other one way or the other, running around trying to hunt down Lilith and Bela and Sam spending the rest of the time looking for ways to break that damn deal. There hadn't been a lot of discussion happening between them.

A part of him felt like this was wrong because it wasn't like things were any different right now. There was still the deal, Dean could still die in less than a year if Sam couldn't figure out what to do. But Dean was treating it as different—how could he not, when he didn't realize that Sam knew?—and maybe that changed things a bit all on its own.

"I don't know how much of a battle plan we can make until we know what's going on in the first place." He frowned at the floor. They needed information. The haunting, the monsters, hell even the zombies, he had a feeling that was all minor compared to what was really going on here. This was bigger. Big, the way Cold Oak had felt big even before Yellow-Eyes had shown up. And with the way what had once been routine suddenly changing out of the blue—

Peter had had a file, hadn't he, on his brother? Sam knew there were file rooms around here. He hadn't looked too closely at what it meant, having the nurses calling all of them by these alternate names, but he realized now that he should. It was a place to start, at least. If they could figure out what they were supposed to be to these people, they could start piecing it together.

"We should find out what they have on us. Why we're here according to them. I mean, we've all got the false identities, right? Maybe it could tell us something."

[kindalikedit]

Dean rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "I dunno, man. From what I got from that doctor, I'm relivin' a replay of that djinn's acid trip, with some details changed, like my name. I'm Rick Derringer," he added, a grin on his face as if he'd always wanted to use that name but hadn't ever gotten around to it. "How awesome's that?"

The thing was, he wasn't sure he wanted Sam to pick up their files. Yeah, it could be important - probably was - even if it was chock full of lies, but it also might have some information there he really didn't want his little brother to run across. It'd be nice to know what their cover was supposed to be so they could run into it and make sure they could match the details while they were stuck here; on the other hand, it could have too much in there, such as how long he had left, even if they chalked it up as cancer or something more normal than a demon waiting to collect on your eternally damned soul. Once Sam got it into his head he was gonna do something, it was as good as done, 'cause he was just as much of a stubborn bastard than Dad and the most Dean could do was slow him down, at best.

"Ice Queen also said I tried to kill myself," Dean mimed stabbing himself in the chest, which wasn't far from the truth...although he hadn't been exactly suicidal. It'd been the only way to jolt himself conscious, "Oh, and yeah, I supposedly ditched you - the wussy you, not the real you - on my way to hunt the djinn. But other than that, and the name thing, it's a dead-ringer for what I hallucinated that time."

It was also something she should've had no way of knowing. The only person he'd told about that was Sam, and he hadn't even told him the full details. Some of it was just too painful, sometimes he still regretted kicking himself out of that dream, even if he would've died in a matter of days, if not a week as that monster drained him dry: he believed his wish when it said it would've felt like a lifetime. It would've been a lot better than getting stuck in Landels with his time remaining ticking by and wondering how Sam was gonna get along without him. But then Dean remembered Sam trying to rescue him from that abandoned warehouse, how he would've got tagged by the djinn too if he hadn't jumped in to help, and he was able to shove aside the regret. He wasn't sure if he'd ever tell Sam the whole story, even months after.

How had Kisugi known though? He guessed she could be telepathic. It wasn't impossible. Wasn't like he had any mental defenses against that - Dean just knew how to kill these things, not Jedi it up.

The problem was he was pretty sure Sam was set on this idea about finding out more about their false identities. It wasn't a bad idea, though it did make him nervous. Dean guessed he'd just have to get to his own file first before Sam saw it, and remove anything that might have to do with his lifespan. He couldn't hide it forever, but he'd tell Sammy on his own terms.

It wouldn't be 'cause of a stupid piece of paper filled with just enough truth in those lies to get Sam asking questions.

[boyking]

Despite the quiet snort of amusement Sam gave, he personally found the alias a little more troubling than Dean seemed to. It fit a bit too well, as if they'd tailored it just for Dean. The possibility that that was exactly what had happened was far too real. He just couldn't think of why, what the point was.

"They've been calling me Matthew. Same surname." Of course.

Sam wanted to point out that Dean had effectively killed himself when he'd sold his soul at the crossroads and therefore Dean shouldn't be sounding so dismissive of the notion, but he couldn't, so he didn't.

In a lot of ways, it was fitting that the wish world the djinn had created was what Dean's fabricated life was based on. It was, after all, how things would've been had they grown up civilians. He'd been able to imagine what they would've been like once, but he couldn't anymore. Not without feeling as if he were just entertaining a useless fantasy. It'd always been too late for them.

He could still remember that whole incident, though, that twist he felt when Dean wouldn't pick up his phone. All of his concerns with having feds on their tails flew out the window and he'd stolen a car without a second thought, speeding through the streets to find Dean. Sometimes he wondered if Dean ever would've preferred to have been left there in his dream world, where their mother was alive and nothing was coming to kill them every waking second, where Sam just wasn't close enough to Dean to screw anything up.

Sam had never asked. The truth was he was afraid to, even though he knew there was only one answer Dean would ever speak out loud. For reasons beyond Dean simply being alive, reasons entirely selfish, he was glad Dean had pulled himself out of it.

"I'm not so sure she's told you everything, Dean," he said. "We should check it out to be certain."

He'd rather not be surprised by what they'd tell him, too. If he could find out beforehand, it'd be better. No one had said anything about it so far, the reason why he was here. Did it have anything to do with the night Dean was talking about? The same night Dean had gone to hunt the djinn and supposedly left Sam behind. He thought it must, though if Dean had been admitted here several days before Sam had...what was there to fill that gap?

He needed that file. Besides, the way all of this information was tied in pretty close to that dream world, something that actually had occurred...what else would be there? Would it mention anything about Dean's deal, or the fabricated equivalent of it? He had to know. He had to know if Dean's fate was true for where they were in all respects. He didn't know why because it wouldn't help, it wouldn't make things better—would make them worse in fact—but the question had been raised and there was no way Sam could just let it go. He had to answer it, even if it meant risking Dean seeing something about him he wouldn't want Dean to know.

[kindalikedit]

Dean wanted to sigh. Of course they had to check it out. It'd always privately annoyed him when Sam was so damn right all the time about stuff like this and if Dean dug in his heels just 'cause, he ended up looking like a douchebag.

That and he couldn't actually stop his brother without getting physical. Doing something like locking Sam into his room or duct-taping him to a chair was just gonna end up in a lot of awkward questions. The only thing he really could do was run damage control and make sure he didn't see anything Dean didn't know about ahead of time. Without thinking about it, Dean absently reached up and rubbed at his shirt, scratching over where the new tattoo was. Still felt irritated, but it had nothing on his other injuries, with his hands right up there. Despite not remembering much of last night - try most of it - it did look like he'd had his bandages changed, the ones wrapped around his busted fingers fresh all over again. Glancing sidelong at his brother, he almost did sigh this time, recognizing that expression as the one he'd seen time and time again before Sam took off doing his own thing. Looked like whether Dean wanted to or not, they were gonna be trying to suss out their "patient" files tonight.

Right now he couldn't do a thing to change tonight. What he could do, though, was find out what happened last night. Sam had told him bits and pieces, but he still didn't get how the hell they were both alive and in one piece. Dean frowned:

"So what else happened last night? I mean, I know Romero zombies are slow, but weren't you stuck draggin' my sorry ass all over town?"

And on that bad knee too. The one he'd somehow got that night Dean got possessed, which, studying his brother, the way he walked, Dean knew it was still bothering him. Now that he had a tattoo and was demon-proofed, Dean intended to find out who was responsible and kick their ass. No one went gunnin' for his brother. The problem was going up to the bulletin and asking if anyone fit in the black-eyed bastard category wasn't gonna do much, except waste his time. There was always trying to just Christo every single person he ran into...although honestly, that was just way too time consuming too, even if it might actually work compared to asking nicely for any demons to step to the front of the line.

Dean missed the days where it was just the usual hunts. Y'know, a good, nice and simple salt 'n burn or a monster that didn't have an agenda aside from snacking on just enough people to fit a pattern that got their attention.

[boyking]

Apparently, Dean wasn't too sold on the idea of grabbing those files. He hadn't said anything, but Sam knew his brother too well not to have caught what he was thinking, and if he had to guess further, he suspected Dean's reluctance had to do with what only ever had Dean reluctant recently—the deal. Since when did it not come down to that single thing? He felt a little guilty that Dean kept worrying over that when Sam already knew, had the whole story and then some.

Dean wasn't protesting, though, at least. Sam would've just taken the files on his own if Dean hadn't agreed, but he didn't really want to go behind his brother's back. He'd done enough last year. He was doing it enough right now.

Glad for the change of topic, Sam scratched the back of his head as he tried to decide where to start. It probably said something about him that he was relieved to be talking about how they almost got eaten or set on fire by a bunch of living corpses.

"We almost didn't make it," he said finally. "We owe a couple of people."

One of whom he could see sitting in the chapel, actually. He looked fine, all things considered; Sam didn't know if that meant Peter was fine, as well, but it was a good sign, at least, small though it was. He really needed to find his roommate. Peter hadn't been there when he'd woken up this morning. Even if Peter was okay, he had to talk to him. There hadn't been much time last night for Sam to thank either of them, though he knew he owed them both a lot more than just that, too.

"Once I got you into one of the houses, it was just a case of waiting it out." And taking down a couple of zombie kids and making sure Dean was stable despite the drugs, but Sam didn't add that part. He didn't want to see that guilty look on Dean's face, that I should've been there to take care of it expression that Sam had learned to spot a long time ago no matter how well Dean hid it. As if it somehow upset the natural order whenever Sam ended up shouldering whatever crap went down.

Lately, though, he was wondering if Dean might be right. If maybe he wasn't cut out to keep his brother safe because it'd been twice now in about as many days that Dean had almost slipped through his fingers again.

"He says he ran into you once." Sam glanced over, curious. "His name's Peter."

[kindalikedit]

Dean hadn't expected to hear about people actually helping them. Usually it was the other way around. Civvies were supposed to run around, crapping their pants cause a Jersey devil was on their ass and that was when they'd step in. Being the rescuee was a new one. Technically he'd been unconscious for all of that, so he'd missed out. But Peter? Wishy-washy, good kid Peter? He hadn't exactly struck him as the kinda guy to dive into the fray like that. Dean's eyebrows rose. "Yeah, I ran into a kid like that first day here."

He'd arrived during the night and had spent an unknown chunk of it unconscious on the floor after getting friggen flashlight-whipped with his own flashlight - something, he realized, was starting to turn into a running gag in this joint. Getting your knocks on in the job was just part of the risks, but he could safely say he hadn't spent as much time unconscious (or near it) as he had just within this week here. Hopefully he wasn't gonna get brain damage or something permanent, even if he had a pretty hard skull. Dean decided he was gonna keep the whole getting brained by your own flashlight to himself for now. Sam had enough things to be worried about. Something that happened once and looked to be just a random thing wasn't really that high on their To-Do list.

Dean was still trying to wrap his around him that nerdy, probably-shy Peter had been the one to put on the superhero cape and save their asses when the dead were walking. "You serious though? Him? I mean, I talked to him a little, but he came off as just some college kid that time."

And not the badass kind, like Sam. Sam had come prepackaged with all the know-how on surviving and handling a gun; somehow he doubted they taught how to hotwire a car and bypass security at Stanford. Still, Peter had toughed it out to last here during the nights, which meant either he knew the meaning of "stay put" in the rooms or he could handle himself more than Dean had guessed at first. Peter told him about being "brainwashed", which had been his first warning there was a real danger of getting possessed and attacking people with no say in the matter - he just wished he'd paid more attention to that, 'cause he still had no memory of the actual moment when he must've gotten tagged. No stray memories leaking into him from the demon, either. Come to think of it, how had it gotten into his room? He'd laid salt lines down...

Unless there was more he forgot and he didn't even know it. That night had just been obvious. Dean wasn't sure if he wanted to bring that up to Sam just yet, not when the kid knew more than he did and could just get away with hedging around it. Sam probably had good reasons but Dean could handle himself. Especially now that he had the tattoo and he couldn't get turned against his brother like that.

Dean caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, shifting slightly to watch as the first nurse came in to escort the patients at the same time as the intercom sounded. Looked like their time was up for now. Dean gave his brother a back-handed tap on the arm before Hello Nurse showed up:

"Take it easy, Sammy,"