Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Paint Around the Empty Space ❯ The Missing Link ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3

 

All the man had been looking for was a shortcut to his meeting. He was running a little late, and in his business, being late could have…unfortunate consequences. In his business, there were sometimes clients who didn't like to wait to see a return for their cash.

 

So he took a shortcut, through the alley. He hadn't really thought about it—hadn't really put his mind to all those horror/thriller movies he'd seen where people went into dark alleys and died horrible painful deaths. It was just a cut—a creepy couple of minutes spent to save time in the long run. Nothing to worry about.

 

He regretted that lighthearted view in a serious way when a tall figure stepped out from behind a trash can and calmly jammed a knife into his ribs. He longed to be able to beat himself over the head as he fell to the ground, his heart already slowing, his breaths already ragged and shallow…

 

By the time his killer stepped away, he was already dead.

 

Sam Winchester gazed down at the man—a dealer, corrupt, but still human—he'd just killed. His eyes were blank and unfeeling, as if he didn't even recognize what it was that he'd just killed. As if it didn't matter.

 

Then he stepped over the body and walked away.

 

XXX

 

Dean booked a double room at the first motel he came to, and it was out of more than just habit, although that did play a certain part of his decision. Really, though, he got two beds because he refused to believe that he was going to be without Sam for more than a day.

 

Once he'd moved his stuff—and Sam's—into the room, he was able to get down to the business of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

 

Of course, in order to fix Humpty Dumpty, he had to find Humpty Dumpty.

 

Which, considering that the last time he'd seen Sam was when the world around them was going up in flames, was shaping up to be pretty freaking irritating. Not to mention the fact that he'd been out of the game for who knew how long and he didn't have a clear idea of what the score was.

 

He needed help, and he wasn't happy about it. But it was for Sam, and didn't that pretty much trump natural manly pride?

 

Of course it did.

 

Feeling even grouchier than he usually did when family members went missing, Dean dug his cell phone out of his pocket—he'd returned with everything he'd carried magically intact, even his gun—and dialed.

 

He hadn't even noticed the time, but when Bobby answered with a brusque, “The world better be ending in a damn rain of fire,” Dean glanced at the clock and was considerably taken aback to discover that it was after three in the morning.

 

“Bobby?”

 

“…Dean?” The annoyance disappeared, and Bobby immediately asked, “What's wrong? You guys all right?”

 

Dean fell back on the bed, head landing about a foot short of the pillows, and ran a hand over his face. “You have no idea, Bobby,” he said, his voice muffled by his hand. Then he dropped his arm back to the mattress and asked, “What day is it?”

 

A pause. “Dean, what…?”

 

“What day, Bobby?”

 

Bobby told him, still sounding confused and concerned, and Dean closed his eyes slowly. Five days…it could have been better, but it could also have been worse, he guessed.

 

“Dean, talk to me,” Bobby growled in his ear. “What the hell is going on with you?”

 

Dean sighed. “Sam's missing again, Bobby.”

 

“…Damn it.”

 

“I know.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“It's a long story. No, it's short. I went to Hell.”

 

“…Yeah. Okay. That's great. Did you meet Henry VIII?”

 

Dean shook his head. “Look, man, we can talk about this later. Can you come?”

 

“Dean, if you think I'm not already in the car, you're even more of an idgit than I thought. Where am I going?”

 

“New York City. Super 8 Motel, room 10.”

 

“Not so bad. I can be there tomorrow.” Bobby was silent for a second. Then he said, “We're gonna find him, Dean. We always do. This isn't any different.”

 

God, I wish that were true.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

 

XXX

 

After the dealer, a murderer died. It happened in an alley again—different in location, but not so much in looks.

 

Once again, the person died of a mortal stab wound to the side, and once again he was died before he knew what hit him.

 

The job was done cleanly this time, same as the last—an absolute lack of evidence to tie anyone to the crime.

 

And just like the last time, the body was left to cool where it had fallen.

 

XXX

 

Dean managed to rouse himself to feel a slight glimmer of amusement at Bobby's perplexed and baffled expression—he'd never before seen Bobby so completely nonplussed. But the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come, and he'd fallen back into that dreadful emptiness he'd been feeling since he'd returned to the world.

 

“And now I have no idea how to find him, and…what if he hurts himself? What if he…what if he can't handle the visions anymore and he…and he kills…?”

 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bobby cut him off sternly. “Don't you even think that. Sam would never…”

 

“That's the problem, Bobby,” Dean said quietly, flatly. “I don't think he's Sam right now. Ruby said…”

 

“Demons lie, Dean. You know that better than anyone.”

 

“But what if she wasn't?” Dean asked. “What if she was telling the truth and Sam is…” He paused, then said with greater strength, “We need to find him, Bobby. Now.”

 

Bobby checked his watch, saw that it was along about midnight, and gave up on sleeping tonight. “Let's get started, then.”

 

XXX

 

The next victim was a seventeen-year-old girl, and she wasn't a drug dealer or a murderer. She was just a girl—a girl who had been known to cut school once in a while, whose grades left something to be desired, who spent far more time partying than she did studying, but nothing out of the ordinary for a teenager.

 

Just a girl.

 

This murder was identical to all the rest, and the body was left again, by a man who no longer knew or cared who he hurt.

 

XXX

 

“You don't know?” Dean asked incredulously, pounding his fist against the pristine white desk in frustration. “How do you just…not know? He was your patient! What kind of freakin' hospital is this?”

 

“Dean,” Bobby's growling voice warned from behind him.

 

“Bobby, how can you be so damn calm? We spent all night tracking Sam to this hospital, and now they're telling us they lost him. What part of that doesn't completely suck?”

 

The doctor Dean had been interrogating sighed. “I understand your worry, sir. I do, but…”

 

“No, you really don't,” Dean snapped. “This goes way beyond worry. My brother is missing, and I don't know if he can—”

 

“Dean.”

 

“What?” Dean asked, turning abruptly to Bobby, who seized the opportunity to smack him upside the head.

 

“Boy, can't you just slow your roll for one second and get it through your caveman-thick skull that the nice doctor-man is trying to help you?” Bobby glanced at Dr. Thornton, and then drew Dean off to the side a little and lowered his voice. “Dean, you practically raised that kid. You know him better than anyone, so you should know that if Sam decided that he didn't want to be here anymore—well, there was nothing anyone could have done to stop him. `Cept maybe you, and you couldn't be here. So could you stop channeling your father and just listen?”

 

By the time the older hunter finished tearing Dean a new one his voice was perfectly audible, and Dr. Thornton was staring at them, puzzled. Dean gave him an entirely false smile and then turned the same smile on Bobby, and nodded a little too forcefully.

 

“Good,” Bobby said calmly. “Now go talk to the doc like a rational human being. You can be an okay actor when you want to be—I'm sure you can fake it.”

 

“You. Are. Hilarious,” Dean grumbled, then turned back to the doctor and said unconvincingly, “Okay. Sorry. Let's just…take a breath here, okay?” He paused, then asked, “All right, so why don't you just tell me from the beginning? When did Sam first come here?”

 

Dr. Thornton looked around at the busy hallway, then made a gesture with one hand. “Come with me. We should talk…privately.”

 

XXX

 

The police were baffled, to say the least.

 

The three victims, all killed in exactly the same manner, had absolutely nothing in common, as far as they could discover. Two of them could have any number of enemies, and it was even possible that they had some in common. But the girl…she was squeaky-clean, not a slip on her record. There was no reason for her to have been killed by the same person who had killed the two dirtbags.

 

But she had. All three had been killed by the same guy—and there was no evidence.

 

That last seemed…impossible. No one could pull off one murder, let alone three, without a single thing to link them to the crime. It was just…wrong, but it had happened.

 

Now they just had to find someone to deal with it.

 

XXX

 

“And when I got to his room after the page, it was just in time to get tossed against a wall and knocked out. I woke up for a few seconds in time to watch him leave, but then I passed out again and I was out for a day or so. The other two…the intern and the nurse—they weren't so lucky. Dr. Tripp is still in the ICU, but he should be all right. But the nurse…she died.”

 

Dean felt his brain trying to shut down again at that, babbling useless words at him like killed a human and murder charges. Murder charges against himself, he could deal with, but Sam…

 

“The thing is, I don't think he even knew what he was doing,” Dr. Thornton continued, his voice slightly unsteady. “I don't think he knew where he was. He might have just thought we were a danger to him.”

 

“So…you don't think it's his fault,” Dean said slowly, somehow making his voice not shake.

 

“I couldn't tell you,” Dr. Thornton said. “I honestly don't know. But I do think that he wasn't entirely responsible for his actions. I just want to know what happened.”

 

Dean leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a second. “Yeah. Me, too.” He opened his eyes and leaned forward again. “So…you can't tell us anything else?”

 

Dr. Thornton looked sorrowfully at him. “I wish I did, but…no. No one saw him leave. We already notified the police, but I don't know what good it'll do.”

 

“It'll do less good than you think,” Dean muttered, and Bobby elbowed him sharply in the side. Dean grunted and cleared his throat. “What about this Dr. Tripp? He got there before you—he see anything?”

 

Dr. Thornton looked down at his desk. “He's...he hasn't woken up yet.”

 

“Oh,” Dean said awkwardly. “Um…I'm sorry.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Dean and Bobby waited until the silence became awkward, then cleared his throat again and helped himself to a piece of paper and a pen from the doctor's desk. “Well, look. Here's my number—if you remember anything else, or Dr. Tripp wakes up and is able to tell us anything, give me a call. No matter what time it is.”

 

Dr. Thornton took the paper and pocketed it, nodding, as Dean and Bobby got up to leave.

 

Bobby was at the door and Dean almost there when the doctor spoke up again.

 

“I hope you find your brother.”

 

Dean stopped and replied without turning around. “I will. Believe me, I will.”

 

XXX

 

Dr. Thornton sat at his desk for a long time after Dean Winchester and his…grandfather? Uncle? Mentor?...left. He knew he should be checking up on patients and getting lab reports and doing all sorts of medical things, but…well, he felt like this was more important, somehow.

 

When John Doe's—Sam Winchester's—brother had shown up at the hospital, Dr. Thornton's initial reaction had been anger. How dare this guy show up now, after leaving his younger brother alone for five days without even bothering to call? How dare he swoop in acting all concerned and scared and then get mad at the doctors for doing the same thing he did—losing Sam?

 

But then he realized that Dean had been completely sincere in his worry. He was obviously terrified, and even though he hadn't been able to give any satisfactory answers as to where he'd been all this time, somehow the doctor had found his suspicions disappearing the longer he talked with the young man.

 

Somehow, he found himself wanting, very badly, to help.

 

He only wished he'd been able to do better…

 

XXX

 

“I hate this.”

 

Bobby sighed and looked up from Sam's computer to Dean, who was reclining in his bed, aimlessly scraping a knife over a whetstone. “I know. But you've gotta keep it together, Dean.”

 

“I'm trying, Bobby. But in case you didn't notice, my little brother is missing and insane, and maybe hurt. You're lucky I'm even bothering with the practical route.”

 

“You're not following the practical route,” Bobby pointed out. “I'm following the practical route. You're threatening invisible people with a sharp implement.”

 

Dean looked sheepishly down at the knife, but didn't put it or the whetstone away. “It's something for my hands to do.”

 

Bobby was about to answer, but he cut himself off with a choked little grunt and fixed his attention on the computer. Dean watched impatiently while Bobby's eyes scanned whatever was on the screen. Finally, though, he couldn't take it anymore.

 

“Bobby, what?”

 

Bobby sat back in his chair and gave a long, low whistle. “Well,” he said finally. “I think our problems just got bigger.”

 

XXX

 

Sam huddled behind a garbage bin, his head buried in his hands, rocking back and forth. He'd been all alone for a long time now—no one had come to visit him after he'd killed that lady. The only company he had was the pictures.

 

He only wished the pictures were prettier.

 

But they still showed him the same thing—dead people. Dead or dying people that he couldn't save because he couldn't find them. He'd hoped that by hiding in the dark places and killing when his mind said kill, he could make them go away. So he stopped trying to sort out the good people from the bad people and just got rid of them all.

 

But it didn't work.

 

The pictures didn't go away.

 

And Dean didn't come back.

 

XXX

 

“He's been killing.”

 

Dean said it hollowly, calmly, emptily, because that was pretty much how he felt. Detached, like he was watching his life self-destruct from the sidelines. He had gone to hell, been rescued by a demon, and returned to the world, and meanwhile his brother had lost control of his powers, gone insane, and started killing people.

 

How am I supposed to bring him back from that?

 

“Dean,” Bobby said, his voice laced with sympathy and pain. “I know. I know you're tired—I am, too. And I know this is bad. But it could be a lot worse. We can still make this okay again, all right?”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Any other time, Dean would have been ashamed and embarrassed by the vulnerable, childish ring in his voice. But right now, he was feeling like he'd lost everything, and he was pretty much counting on the only rock he had left to make this okay again.

 

He just wanted to make this okay again.

 

Bobby put a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “`Course I'm sure. We've solved worse than this before. You've just gotta stop beating yourself up, okay? This isn't your fault.”

 

You're wrong, Bobby. You're so wrong about that…

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

“Good,” Bobby said, straightening again and putting his stern face back on. “Now let's save your brother.”

 

XXX

Cal Leandros fought the urge to grumble to himself as he crept down the dark streets of downtown New York. He fought it because even though he was pretty sure this was a ridiculous mission, his brother didn't. And if Niko found out that he'd alerted some weird creature and let it get away because he'd been talking to himself—well, he would have quite a few problems on his hands.

 

So, he didn't say out loud how lame he thought this was. But that didn't stop him from thinking it.

 

When the news of the three identical—but supposedly unrelated—murders had reached Niko's ears, the older Leandros had almost immediately decided they should check it out. The people had been killed with knives—in other words, by a human—but Nik just didn't see it that way. He figured that an innocent girl had been killed, there had been no way to track the killer, the police had come up with nil—someone had to do something about it.

 

And guess who had been volunteered to do the something?

 

Cal adjusted his grip on his gun almost absently as he entered yet another alleyway—he'd been checking every one he came across, since alleys in this area were where everyone had been dying. Niko was a little ahead of him, checking other alleys—getting more done in less time, but near enough to be available in case of emergency.

 

Cal was just wondering how his brother's investigation was going when he was hit from the side by some sort of freakish giant and knocked to the ground.

 

His reaction felt rather mundane, even to him. More a feeling of “oh, come on, this was supposed to be an easy night” than anything else.

 

But then a fist flashed out of nowhere and socked him in the eye, and his indignation gave way to anger.

 

Their fight lasted longer than it should have, which sort of changed Cal's mind about the assailant—assailant…Niko really was having a bad affect on him—being human. That opinion was reinforced when he amassed an entirely ridiculous number of bruises and possibly a sprained arm—injuries that no normal human should have been able to inflict, unless Niko was right and he really had been packing too many hot dogs away.

 

And that was impossible, so the guy had to be a monster.

 

Right?

 

Right.

 

Cal flipped his opponent to gain the upper hand and returned to the fight with new energy. He just really wanted to get this over with, so he could go home and sleep and let Niko rub it in how right he'd been about this…

 

He was still contemplating that happy thought when a fist flashed again—only this time it hit harder, and in a different spot that sent Cal tumbling off into darkness.

 

XXX

 

“We need help, Bobby.”

 

Dean spoke from behind his hands, where he'd been hiding his face for the last ten minutes in the faint hopes that if he didn't look at the absolutely nothing they'd found, it would magically turn into something.

 

Bobby sighed heavily. “I know. But from who? The cops?” He said the last with a derisive snort, a note of sarcasm he and other hunters tended to reserve for what they viewed as a group with good intentions, but that usually hindered more than they helped.

 

“Well, no, of course not. But…well, what about Missouri?”

 

Bobby looked thoughtful. “Well, we could give her a call. But she doesn't travel much—I don't even know if she has a car. She might take a plane, but I doubt she could get here until tomorrow night at least.”

 

“That's too long.”

 

“Might be faster than doing it without her, though.”

 

Bobby shrugged. “Can't hurt to try. I'll give her a call later…when it's not the dead of night there. She probably won't even wake up if we call her now.”

 

Dean sighed. “Guess it'll have to do. Let's get back to work.”

 

XXX

 

Cal woke up when he was shaken roughly, and he opened his eyes slowly to see Niko looming over him, looking decidedly irritated.

 

“Okay, I know you're the cavalry and all, but could you have been any slower?”

 

Niko's hand, when it came to help him sit up, had the strength of a vice, and his voice had a steely note to it when he said, “If I'd known what an ungrateful brat you were going to be, yes, I might have. Are you all right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Concussed, but fine.”

 

“Wonderful. Just…wonderful,” Niko said, and helped him to his feet. “What happened?”

 

“Um…I got attacked. And…lost,” Cal replied. Niko quirked an eyebrow. “Well, he was strong!” Cal said defensively.

 

“Yes,” Niko agreed. “I know. He put up a good fight against me, too. Took me quite a few bruises to knock him out. That's why I'm not going to make you spend tonight sparring, rather than sleeping.”

 

“Gee, thanks,” Cal muttered. “Let's just…have a look at this guy who nearly killed me, okay?”

 

“I think you're being a tad overdramatic. You said yourself you only have a concussion. Maybe.” Still, despite the sarcasm, Niko approached the prone figure of their attacker with caution. He crouched down and examined the guy, and after a minute spoke in a…different tone of voice.

 

“Cal, come here, please.”

 

Cal raised his eyebrows, walked over, and crouched down next to his brother to look at his attacker.

 

“Um…Nik, is that…?”

 

“Yes, it is,” Niko replied, sounding calmly interested.

 

“Well,” Cal said, in as light a tone as he could manage. “This changes things.”

 

“Yes, it does,” Niko agreed.

 

“We should probably give Dean a call.”

 

“Yes, we should.”

 

“Can you say a sentence that isn't three words?”

 

“Yes, I can.”

 

“Can you do it now?”

 

“No, I can't.”

 

Cal groaned. “Let's just…get him back to the apartment.”

 

“If you insist.”

 

Cal decided it was best not to respond this time.

 

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Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Hope you all liked it—and please review!