Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Asylum ❯ Return of the Shadows ( Chapter 22 )

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Asylum
Supernatural, AU
Dean/Sam

Summary: For the past few years, Dean Winchester has been a resident of various mental health facilities and has gained quite a reputation since being forcibly admitted. Abandoned by his father who had previously been a patient himself, the only thing keeping him going is the thought of his brother.

A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating. I was moving.

*Disclaimer* I do not own anything. Except maybe the occasional OC. Supernatural is property of Eric Kripke and others.

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Ch. 22: Return of the Shadows

Dean made a beeline for the basement. He must’ve had fantastic timing, because no one got in his way.

It was dark and uninviting in there, as usual. “Sam?” he whispered loudly. “Sam?!” There was no response. He couldn’t really see very well to scan the room. But if Sam was here, he’d answer.

Dean reached into his pocket for his lighter. Once he got closer to where the metal doors that barred the corridor ought to be, he flicked a flame into existence. About four paces to his left was the door. So, he was a little bit off. Upon inspection, the chain was in place. So was the padlock.

He let the light go out, as it was burning his thumb, and chewed the inside of his lip in thought. Sam couldn’t have locked himself in. So either someone else locked him in, or he just wasn’t here.

Dean headed back to his room for his tools. It wasn’t likely that anyone would have been down there to lock an open door, but he couldn’t be too careful. On the off chance that Sam hadn’t thought to take the lock with him, if he’d been stupid enough to go through those doors in the first place, and someone had locked things back up... Well, he had to be certain. In any case, he hadn’t found Sam to be anywhere else.

Once he got to the room he shared with Ed, he immediately went to his jacket which had been left out upon his bed. Now that he thought about it, the position of it seemed different than the one it had been in when he left Sam here a few hours ago.Did he...? He scowled and checked his lock picks. Several were missing. “Sonnuva--”

“Dean?” The door to the closet moved back, startling the crap out of him.

He whipped around and caught a glimpse Sam’s face from around the edge. He was sitting in the closet, Indian-style, and his skin looked ashen.

“Sam??” Dean went to the closet and crouched down. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know I was here,” he said vaguely.

“Well, you can come out now.” Dean was perplexed.

“Dean,” Sam said, his voice sounding a little strange. “What exactly did you see in the corridor? When I followed you down to the basement?”

Dean gave him a suspicious look. “Why?” He wasn’t really up for more ridicule, if that’s where this was headed. Plus, he was pissed that Sam had taken his things, planning to do something potentially stupid on his own. And WHY was he in the closet for goddsakes? Unless-- “Did you go down to the basement?” he asked sharply, taking Sam by the shoulders. “Did you go beyond the doors?”

Sam nodded, incensing him.

“Why would you do that?” he hissed. It’s dangerous. Especially since you don’t believe there’s anything there that could hurt you. Your ignorance could get you killed! “We were trying to avoid suspicion. What if someone saw you?”

“I was trying to get the flashlight,” he said in a dull voice. “You left it there and someone could’ve found it.”

Well, there was some merit in that. He’d regretted leaving it there, knowing it could be tied to him if someone happened to find it. But he’d been a little too distracted by his close encounter with a pissed off spirit who’d had blood foaming from her tongueless mouth to try harder to find it. Besides, it would have been better to retrieve it himself, or at least they might have gone together. What would Sam have done if he suddenly found himself in a situation like that? It could have gutted him.

Suddenly, an explanation for Sam’s pallor really struck him. Wait a second...

“Did you see something, Sammy?” he accused his brother, in the same tone as if he were saying ‘Are you a fucking moron?’.

Sam nodded. “Maybe,” he said vaguely. “Tell me what you saw. You have to say it first or I won’t know for sure.”

Dean thought back. “Straightjacket. Pretty thing, except for the foaming at the mouth. Oh, and I wasn’t really digging the lack of tongue... Heh, now that’s one muscle I’d say is sorely underappreciated for what it can do.” He winked, the gesture being almost as natural on him as breathing.

Sam, if possible, went even whiter. “I can’t believe you’re making jokes about this,” he said weakly, shaking his head.

“Wait, you saw it??” Dean snapped to attention then, all joking aside. He wasn’t sure if he was pissed off at Sam for putting himself in danger or excited that he now had proof to rub in his brother’s skeptical little face. “What happened? What did you do when it appeared?”

“I... uh...” Sam looked sort of uncomfortable. “I shook a salt shaker in its face.”

Dean grabbed him by the arm, hauling him out of the closet, then smacked him on the back of the head, kind of hard. He felt elated and pissed at the same time. “I fucking told you I wasn’t crazy!” he hissed with a glare. “But nooo, you just had to go put yourself in jeopardy trying to prove a point. You know that the jack-in-the-box thing that Medusa down there does would be the least of your worries? She could easily have--”

“Alright, alright! I’m sorry, okay?” Sam protested, rubbing a protective hand over his abused cranium, half guarding in case Dean decided to whap him upside the head again. “How was I supposed to know?

“Because I told you?”

“Well it sounds mental,” Sam said defensively, if not a little sulkily. “It does.”

Dean looked at him critically. “She scared the shit out of you... yet you’re actually disappointed that you were wrong.”

“Am not,” Sam said sullenly, pulling away from him. Dean was starting to irritate him. He might have had a point, maybe, but he didn’t need to be so fucking obnoxious about it.

“You’re actually sulking over being wrong,” Dean said incredulously. He laughed. “Surely ‘Being Wrong’ has happened to you before?” he said somewhat mockingly, words heavy with sarcasm. “This couldn’t possibly be the first time--?”

“Shut up, Dean.” Sam’s voice sounded testy and short as he cut him off.

“Or did mom have you believing you were as perfect as she thought herself to be?”

“Dammit, Dean!” Sam said, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “Stop it. I’m just having a hard time adjusting to all this being real all of a sudden.”

“You’ve known it was real!” Dean pried the hand from his shirt. “You just turned your back on it because you didn’t want to deal with it. Sound familiar?”

Sam glared daggers at him. “Stop being an asshole. I didn’t turn my back on you, I looked for you. And where were you, with all of that freedom you had? I certainly didn’t see you come knocking at my door.”

“I was busily getting myself committed, apparently,” Dean said sweetly, razors underlying the obnoxious tone. “Besides,” he continued, something of a shadow touching his words as he dropped the sarcasm, “it would have complicated things for you.”

Dean couldn’t help his voice turning a bit self-deprecating. It was obvious that Sam had been living a streamlined life. He had no room for things that were inconvenient or might slow him down. It was his mother’s training, preparing him for success. What use would Sam have had for his no-good brother who couldn’t forget about him no matter what he did? She must’ve known somehow that they were too close even as children and that something like this might happen. She must be rolling in her grave right now.

“Maybe I needed some complications in my life,” Sam said stubbornly, turning that soulful, penetrating gaze on him.

Dean stared back, transfixed. Damn, but that look always shot him through the heart and made him ache. It intensified sharply as Sam leaned in close, then tentatively brushed lips against his. Jesus god, I still think this is wrong and yet I want it so much. How could he describe the electricity that ran through him as that soft, firm mouth joined his, or the feelings that were inspired by the parting of their lips and by the hot thrust of Sam’s increasingly erotic tongue?

It was heaven and hell in the same moment.

Bliss and burning. Every sweet little touch was entrenching desire within his being, making him ravenous.

He ran his hands down Sam’s back as he gave in to the kiss, and over the curve of his ass, wanting to feel more of him as he tasted him. He wanted to lose himself in this, in the hard press of hips and the fierce sense of belonging that flared to life when they were close. Sam sighed into his mouth, kissing him more passionately and wrapping strong arms around him.

Dean hadn’t consciously registered moving towards the bed until they fell upon it, limbs twining as their hips ground against each others. Really, he was okay with that. He was sort of past the whole ‘thinking things through rationally’ mentality at the moment anyway. If he hadn’t been, he might have worried more about who could walk in on them instead of wondering how Sam managed to have such an array of intensely sexy looks, like the one he was wearing now, when life with mom had to have been like a lifetime initiation into the boy scouts. Not to mention, Sam managed to look so damn innocent most of the time. You’d never even entertain the thought that he would......

He got distracted as Sam hooked a leg through his and rolled them over, his grey eyes dark with arousal.

Would be like... he was now...

Sam was totally wrecking and destroying his train of thought into mangled rubble as he began dragging his pants slowly down off his hips, kissing skin along the way and, finally, going down on him.

The first slide of Sam’s hot mouth upon his hardened flesh pulled a moan from his mouth that was loud enough to surprise him. Jesus god that feels incredible. The flicking of a naughty tongue soon had his body thrumming and his back starting to arch.

He groaned, sliding a hand into Sam’s soft wavy hair. Sam smoothed a hand up his inner thigh, stroking it and making him shudder.

This was not going to be his best showing, the way things were going. “Sam, that’s enough,” he said in a lust-choked voice. “Any more and I’m going to...”

“What’s that?” Sam said innocently, stopping for the moment. He hiked Dean’s thigh up, spreading it wide and began laying kisses along it. Hot, unbelievably sexy kisses. He was fighting dirty. “What happened to Mr. Is-that-all-the-stamina-you’ve-got?”

Dean exhaled, “He’s currently getting the best fellatio of his life by some smartass kid.”

“That good, huh?” Sam taunted lightly, his voice sounding a little breathless and very turned on. He nuzzled the skin at the apex of Dean’s leg as he took Dean’s arousal in hand, then began laying kisses up the length of it, making Dean shudder hard with the light touches.

“What possessed you to-- Uhnn!” Dean was cut off by his own moan of pleasure as Sam’s mouth enveloped him once more in warm, debilitating heat. Funny, he never really thought of himself as being very vocal before. In fact, he hardly recognized the sounds as being his own, being way too distracted by everything Sam was doing to him.

Suddenly, the pressure upon his hardened flesh increased dramatically, just as one of Sam’s hands had taken to roving his body, making his eyes roll back in his head. Fingertips trailed over his stomach and across his chest, plucking a nipple so firmly that it almost hurt. The jolt of it shot straight to his groin. God.. damn...

The reaction seemed to encourage his brother, who took that moment to forcibly cant his hips up, and then that roving hand was sliding under his ass; long fingers gripping the flesh of it, squeezing almost harshly, then releasing in time to the sucking pressure upon his member, like some kind of carnal massage. He shuddered, thrusting forward with the undulating pull of those hands. He could feel nails, sometimes, digging in, sharpening his pleasure.

He fisted the sheets in one hand while the other tightened in his brother’s hair. God, yes. Finally, with a panted gasp and muttered curse, he came.

When had innocent little Sammy learned to be a master of the unspoken arts? How much experience did he have behind that quiet, empathetic smile??

Sam slid up his body, looking pleased with himself and a little devilish as his mussed hair fell into his eyes. He languidly wiped a hand across his full lips, though there was nothing visible to be wiped away.

“Did you- ?” Dean asked in surprise. Had he swallowed? For some reason, the thought of that made his face flush, totally taking him off guard.

Sam’s eyes were laughing at him. “Wasn’t as bad as I thought. Wanna taste?”

“Not particularly,” Dean protested, but even so, he couldn’t resist as Sam surged up to meet his lips with heated, sexily roughened ones. He felt every line of Sam’s body against his own and the coiled power in his muscles as he moved to capture his kiss. He could taste himself in the meshing of their mouths and, despite his reservations, it only served to turn him on.

He rolled Sam over, pressing him into the bed. “I’m going to have to watch out for you,” he said against his lips, feeling the press of Sam’s arousal against his hip. He knew by the way Sam’s mouth was hunting his, that he must be starting to feel desperate for release. He basked in the intensity of it, feeling it echoed in the body beneath his. It was a powerful thing to be in control of, amplified by every additional moment he held off from continuing. “You’ve become quite dangerous,” he murmured in his brother’s ear, stalling just a minute more and thrilling to the tension of frustration that ran through him.

He rolled his hips then, grinding against hard flesh, making his brother moan and toss his head back. Such a reaction didn’t leave him unaffected either. He began nuzzling Sam’s throat as he repeated the motion, loving the choked noise Sam made.

“Ugnnn, Dean,” he pleaded, “just... please....”

“Always all of these demands,” Dean said ruefully, though it was difficult to keep his voice steady and slightly mocking. He was already being swept away again. So when he rocked his hips against his brother’s more quickly, it was partly because he couldn’t help but do it.

Damn them for not having their own room. This would be... so.... much easier... Ahhh...

No roommates to fool around with. No worries about who saw who in the buff. And then there wouldn’t be such a stigma on going all the way, either. Everything would be so much simpler. They could even sleep in the same bed if they wanted, though the beds weren’t all that big.

“Dean,” Sam moaned, hands raking his back as Dean palmed him in his hand and stroked him hard. “Yes...”

God, his voice sounds so amazing like that. It was about enough to tip him over the edge. Again. “Where did my innocent little brother go?” he wondered aloud, though the words were barely discernible within his panted breaths. He certainly wasn’t present here, in Sam’s lust-clouded eyes, his enticing mouth, or flushing skin. This was someone different, someone who positively exuded sex, someone that he couldn’t help but give into.

Maybe it was time to let go of that antiquated vision of his brother.

---

‘Brother’? the person at Dean’s door repeated mentally in shock. Had he heard that right?

“Oh, but who should I tell?” the person wrung their hands briefly. Because it went without saying, that someone should hear news such as this. “Who to tell, who to tell?”

He heard a muffled cry of completion that would have made most people blush full-body, and promptly scuttled from the scene. The room’s occupants would be none the wiser to his presence.

---

“I want you to go back...” Dr. Walter’s modulated voice drifted across the space of the tiny room. “Months ago.... In California...”

“No,” the older, dark-haired man uttered, his voice sounding strange and devoid of emotion as if he were talking in his sleep.

“Tell me about the last time you saw her, your wife,” the doctor persisted gently.

“...don’t want to.” The patient’s teeth clenched and he began exhibiting small signs of distress.

“It was not a request,” the bearded man reprimanded in light, soothing tones. “But we can come back to that. You live in Kansas, correct?”

“Yes.” This response came easier.

“Have you lived there a long time?”

“Yes,” the reclining man’s disassociated voice said without inflection. “More than 20 years.” The distraction Dr. Walter employed was working and distress had nearly faded from him once more.

“Were you happy there?”

“Yes,” came the prompt answer. Then, a confused, “...no.”

“You aren’t sure?” Dr. Walter queried, biding his time for the return to his real questioning. He was in no rush. Time was something he had in ample amounts just now.

He lifted his gold, metallic pen to capture a bit of light, tilting it so that the brightness moved across its shining surface. He felt very pleased as he relaxed in his chair, pulling at the strings in this man’s drug-addled psyche. It was a delightful hobby. This, he would always make time for, and now the rules had even changed to suit him better. “Were there problems at home?”

His patient was silent.

Confusion was staying his tongue; it was due to denial.

Dr. Walter nodded to himself tried a different angle. “How did you feel about your boys? Did you have a good relationship with them?”

“We got along well enough,” came the monochromatic reply.

“Which one was your favorite?”

There was a long pause.

“John?” the doctor prompted, injecting some sternness into his voice. “Answer the question. Which one was your favorite?” Medication could be a tricky thing. At once, it could loosen the tongue, or induce states of altered consciousness, perfect for such conversations as these which were riddled with secrets. A drawback, however was how the mind could sometimes lose itself and speech could cease or instead become nearly indecipherable ramblings. It was a science, really, and every person required a different ‘cocktail’, as the elder Winchester boy had snidely put it many times before. It was a perfect accessory to his... natural talents.

“Sammy and I didn’t see eye to eye, even when he was young,” John’s voice said vacantly, his mind following a slightly different path than had been lain out for him. Dr. Walter patiently waited for him to finish speaking before attempting to redirect him once more. He could work with anything short of catatonia. “Dean was a good son. Did what he was told. I could count on him. Sammy listened to him. Kept him safe.”

“You felt your younger son needed more protecting? Why?”

“He was young.” There was a thread of confused resistance in the response. A delicate dissonance that let him know that even his patient didn’t believe what he was saying on all levels of consciousness.

“That isn’t the reason, though, is it, John?” He was asking the question, but he knew the answer. “Why didn’t you train them both the same?

“I can’t say.”

“Was it because you favored your youngest and wanted to protect him?” He waited a moment after the suggestion, noting no response. “Or was it because you feared his inevitable questions, the same prying questions that your wife had set before you?”

John’s mouth had compressed into a thin line.

“Dean never questioned you,” he stated, a slight derisiveness to his tone, mocking the allegiance. “He took in everything you taught him, didn’t he? He believed in you and believed in what you did. Whereas Sam...” he trailed, “he was too much like your wife. He wouldn’t have understood. He wouldn’t have believed. He would rather think, like she did, that you were out of your mind.”

“Sammy was a good kid,” his patient said almost defensively, though he had no fire to his voice; he was latching on to things that were simpler for him to process in this state. He was well and truly subdued, the product of copious amounts of sedatives and other things. It was genius at work. John would not even recall the better part of this later on, though the thoughts and feelings inspired here would remain.

He never left anything to incriminate himself. He was always meticulous. Careful.

“You couldn’t bear to have one of your sons question and undermine you. You feared it, and that fear made you angry.” The key was to reach a stage where words poured out in response to his questions and statements, almost without thought. To do this, a false state of disassociation was required, a severing of thought and emotion. Achieving it and reaping the rewards was sometimes like pulling the wings off of a fly. Some of them struggled against it so piteously. Their minds whirred frantically, but the cogs were all out of place.

“He looked up to Dean,” John struggled to get out. “I knew Dean could protect him. He listened to him. Didn’t question him.” The sentences were staccato, having none of the eloquence of higher speech or a sense of pause. Patients with dementia sometimes exhibited this as their minds caved under the pressure of degenerating tissue.

“Who was your wife’s favorite, John?”

“...it used to be Dean.” A flicker of distress manifested around his mouth. He was teetering on the edge of emotion, but hadn’t fallen back into it. His subconscious didn’t know where to find him, it was reacting subtly but was still quite lost.

“And what happened?”

“I don’t know.” There was a faint shiftiness to his words.

“You do know,” Dr. Walter insisted quietly, tapping the pen to his lips. “Your boys both told me about the day she left. It was years in the making.”

“She was afraid.”

“And?” Seeking the truth was like drilling for oil. Layers upon layers of sediment had to give way and, of course, you had to know a likely place to begin.

“I’d been lying to her. Hunting. She felt betrayed. Dean had been covering for me.” The words were falling free like a landslide. “She felt she’d lost him already. Sammy was all she had left -she wanted to protect him at least. She did what she felt she had to.” The words stopped suddenly like the snapping shut of a trap and there was silence.

Dr. Walter waited a few moments, biding his time before continuing. “You were angry, weren’t you?” he suggested invasively. “For years.”

“...Yes.”

“Driven mad by grief and guilt...”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing that day, so far from home?” He made sure to keep his voice pleasant and steady, though he felt an urgency now that he’d finally arrived at the path he sought. This is where his interests could be sated in earnest. “Had you gone to see Mary one last time? Had you wanted to even the score?”

John’s brow furrowed at the suggestion. His eyes remained closed. “There was a phone call,” he said by way of disagreement. “Unprecedented...... She called me. I was in town following a lead on a hunt.”

“Why did she call you?”

“There was so much blood.”

“Why did she call you?” Dr. Walter repeated gently.

“Sam’s girl, the only one he’d ever wanted to introduce,” John said, his words rushing again in fits. His speech was expanding again as well, becoming more structured and complex as the line between logical thought and emotion was toed in the retelling. “She thought they might get married. She told me where they were all meeting, so I could come if I wanted.” A deep frown marred his face. “It took me off guard. I didn’t know why she would invite me like that. I refused.”

“But you showed up at the park anyway.”

“Yes.” His patient was coming back to himself more and more, his personality and thought processes beginning to show upon the blank canvas of his face, but his mind was still rolled under at the moment. It was a near perfect state.

“And they were attacked.”

“Yes.”

“By you.” He said this suggestion with a ring of finality, of inescapable truth.

John’s face contorted. “No.”

Dr. Walter leaned forward in his chair. This is what he had been waiting for. This was the conflict and inner turmoil that made exhilaration seep into his veins. “The victims sustained multiple knife wounds and had also been battered.” He spoke slowly so as not to overwhelm his patient’s capacity to take his words in. “The intimacy of the violence suggests a crime of passion,” he said with Academian distance as he implied once more that John Winchester was suspect. “The reports say that the surviving victim had been hit first, to enable the women to be attacked and killed without contest.” He paused as if in contemplation of what he said next. “Was the killer really sloppy enough to leave the boy alive by accident? Or, perhaps, he was left alive on purpose?”

“It wasn’t me.” The agitation was back, running tension down his patient’s body and setting his jaw.

“With Mary gone, and the threat of a fiancée out of the way, you would be able to bring Sam back home, wouldn’t you? He could rejoin your family instead of being part of the family your ex-wife wanted to build. You could bring him back in line.”

“...no,” John whispered with tears in his eyes, which had struggled open at last. He looked ill. “I couldn’t have.”

“People are capable of doing horrific things,” he said gravely. He had his patient where he wanted him. Now all he needed was the admission, to hear John speak of the grievous error he’d committed, to be privy to the source of that enormous, soul-eating guilt. Persistence would be the crowbar to force this stubborn mind wide open. “What was your mistake, John?”

It was exciting, playing the odds, seeing how far he could get before this increasing clarity in his patient went too far and had to be seen to. It was small signs at first. More motor control over the eyes, greater range of expression and emotion, and an increased range of undirected thought.

“I should have gone with them. Stopped it. Maybe if I had been there, right there...”

“Did you see the attacker?”

“No.” John’s hands were closed into fists, clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Fear and anguish could extend the game as his cocktail began to wane. They could be as debilitating as the medication, if not more so. The prison of the mind was a formidable one indeed.

“Tell me what you saw. Tell me what happened next.”

“T-They went out of sight... behind a stand of bushes and trees. I heard screams.” He dragged in a breath. “I ran, but I knew it was too late. They were death screams.”

“Sam was still conscious, wasn’t he? Did you check him first?”

John’s eyes were glazed, seeing nothing of the room. He was there, seeing the day of the ‘accident’ as everyone was so gently referring to it. He was reliving the scene. “There was less blood. I knew that my wif--” his voice caught in his throat and it took him a moment to continue, “that the other two were dead.”

“But Sam wasn’t cut at all, was he?” Dr. Walter pried. “He had a concussion and a dislocated shoulder. Nothing permanently damaging. It seems to me that a killer would not have left one of them generally unharmed.”

“They didn’t have time to finish the job. I scared them off.” Regret poured through his voice as he said, “If only I’d gotten there sooner, or been there in the first place...”

Dr. Walter smiled. “That sounds awfully convenient,” he trailed, tsk tsking softly under his breath. “Are you sure it wasn’t you?” he said almost caressingly. “With your history of mental instability? Might it be possible that you didn’t see the attacker because the attacker was you, and you don’t remember because you were suffering a psychotic break? A fully disassociated state where you lost all awareness of your self and surroundings?”

John was shaking, his teeth clenched and bared. “It wasn’t me,” he hissed, agitation practically sparking off of him in waves. “The thing I was hunting--”

“There were other times that you made mistakes, weren’t there, John?” he spoke the name almost like a reassurance, a placating caress. It was camouflage for him as the instigator of misery and also served to keep his patient grounded through the wash of memories. Names could be powerful things. “Different kinds of mistakes. There were times where doubt plagued your decisiveness and you wondered if the beasts you’d taken down had ever been beasts at all.”

“No,” his patient protested more loudly and lucidly as an emotional response churned within him. “I always made sure.”

“Dean has that same doubt. Sometimes he wonders if you didn’t turn him into just a killer, but a murderer as well.”

“No!” John thrashed, attempting to sit up, but the restraints wouldn’t let him. “There are always signs. We never strike unless we’re sure.”

Time was running thin, but the good doctor just couldn’t tear himself away. There were so many hatchets to bury, so many things to discover. These hunters had a habit of breaking in the most interesting ways. “You know why Dean is here, don’t you, John? You know the truth behind his little mistake.”

John lay still once more, his face becoming ashen.

“He read the signs, your signs,” the doctor continued, somewhat smugly. “He took your gospel, acted upon it, and realized, only at the last moment, the even graver mistake he was about to make.” The man he spoke of had sustained a major injury to his arm, had been bleeding profusely from the knife wound when he had staggered into the nearest bar to call for help. He leaned in next to his patient’s ear. “Wounding is one thing... but he almost killed someone, John. Almost killed a perfectly normal human being.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he said simply. ”Why else would the little soldier you trained so well fail to go in for the kill? He saw it, before it was too late, and let the man go. It was a shame that the man had a full description to give to the police and the police had enough time on their hands to actually go out and find him.” He patted the side of John’s face patronizingly. “Perhaps it was lucky for Dean that he’d said enough to make the man think he was crazy. Otherwise, it would be a different sort of prison he’d be in right now, wouldn’t it?”

Dr. Walter savored the wash of denial present in his patient as the truth battered at the walls of his carefully constructed world. He watched it all and recognized that guilt had been part and parcel to keeping Winchester from visiting his eldest son even once in all the years since he’d been committed. He felt responsible for that near disaster. After all, he had trained Dean himself.

“Now you tell me, John... how certain are you that the monsters you fight aren’t simply people, cloaked in your own psychotic delusions?” He smiled, a sharp expression full of perfectly even white teeth. “Can you still in good conscience cling to the ideal of saving the world from what lurks in the shadows? Or perhaps you are starting to wonder if the true monster.... is you?”


---
TBC

A/N: Chapter title is from the song “Return of the Shadows” by Infected Mushroom. Mood-wise I think it especially fits the beginning of the chapter. Kind of ominous and driving. In addition, I feel like sharing a few other songs that apply to this chapter which I was listening to a lot while writing it or thinking on plot stuff.


--“The Other Side” by Pendulum. This was sort of mixing with the later scenes of this chapter, in my mind and seemed appropriate. ^^ It made me think of other bits of this story-verse as well. I’ve been listening to this constantly lately, and having it playing in my head as well.

Come on down to the other side,
Come with us through the gates of hell,
Where we'll drag you from where you are to where you belong.
[x2]

There's nothing, to fear,
Your saviors, are here,
The shift is coming down,
The shift is coming down,
The shift is coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,

You, You look so precious,
A diamond in rough,
And you tried to escape,
But were holding on,

But we can't sleep until this is done,
They're in my head,
They're in my soul,

Come on down to the other side,
Come with us through the gates of hell,
Where we'll drag you from where you are to where you belong.
[x2]

We are in your spirit,
We're everywhere you turn,
From the cover undercover,
The cover undercover,
In your lover,
In your brother,
In your brother,
The other's,

You, You look so precious,
But now we're on are way,
And I am falling apart,
I'll get the waves,

But I can't sleep until this is done,
They're in my head,
They're in my soul,

Through the gates of hell,
We know you,

The shift is coming down,
The shift is coming down,
The shift is coming down,
The shift is coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,
Coming down,

Down to the other side,
Come with us through the gates of hell,
Where we'll drag you from where you are to where you belong.
[x2]


--“Low Five”by Sneaker Pimps. (Love love the deep, moody and slightly acoustic sound to this. It’s also fully lyric filled, for those of you who may not be into instrumentals/electronic as much.) The lead singer has this great sort of British accented voice that I can’t describe properly. He’s also the lead singer of IAMX in which he does not sing in the same style voice. It was pretty funny when I realized it was him. I was listening to IAMX for a while before the song “Half Life” made me a fan of Sneaker Pimps. “S.H.E.” was the song that got me onto IAMX. Not sure why they called it that. Fantastic song, though. :)

It takes too much to please me
Attached but no real feeling
High fives and corporate anthems
Nothing comes to mind

Kitemarked for true low standards
Where more wants all and no less
Just change with no real progress
Nothing comes to mind
I want higher
Still nothing comes to mind
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sneaker+pimps/low+five_20127075.html ]
Give me a low five
Cuz I can't help myself
I'm a low five downsize no one else
Do you love yourself?

Altered states and egos
Potential less than zero
Found God in san diego
Nothing comes to mind

I half expect to find myself
In full control of nothing else
Lost hope but learnt to hopeless
Nothing comes to mind
I want higher
Still nothing comes to mind


--“The Vulture”by Pendulum. Very highly energized, reminiscent of Prodigy (like the song “Firestarter”). Love it. I was heavy listening to this while writing this chapter.

It's the rise of the Vulture
I feel the panic
All those who are nervous
With loss of dynamic
Your blood's been poisoned
If your heart is sour
Hear the sound of the war drums
We're taking the power
(We're taking...the power)
We're taking the power
(We're taking...the power)

It's the rise of the Vulture
Gotta keep on climbing
No chance of escape
No use in hiding
Through the eye of the storm
With a silver lining
To the point where it breaks
Gonna keep on grinding
(We're taking...the power)
We're taking the power
(We're taking...the power)