Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Synchronicity ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from Supernatural.

Thanks so much to Starliteyes for her wonderful beta skills!

 

Synchronicity

Chapter Four

Dean lay as motionless as possible on his stomach, his hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of his bowie knife. His eyes were cracked as he tried to track the sound that had awoken him.

He and Sam had finally stopped at a motel outside Bozeman, Montana nearly a day and a half since high tailing it out of the town where Lizzy had laid her whammy on them. They were on their way to see Bobby, but were too exhausted to continue driving and had to stop at a dive beside the Interstate. They were both dead tired, and had fallen into their beds without a word.

A quick glance at the red glare of the digital clock told Dean that they had been asleep for barely an hour when a soft rustling sound had jerked him out of unconsciousness. He could see the vague outline of his brother in the next bed, and the doorframe of the bathroom just beyond that, but everything else in the room was immersed in shadows.

Dean subtly lifted his head off the pillow, being sure that the movement was too imperceptible to be noticed by a possible assailant. As soon as he moved the rustling stilled, and Dean lifted his head further from the pillow to sweep his cold, assessing gaze around the room. He could see nothing out of the ordinary, and honestly the noise had been muffled. It could have come from the adjoining room.

He rested his head back on his pancake-thin pillow, shoving his arm beneath him to try to give himself a little more lift. He kept his hand clenched around the hilt of his knife as a precaution, and drifted back to sleep.

Dreams came quickly on the heels of unconsciousness. Dean knew that he was dreaming, even as he surrendered to it. He was in a cavernous room, smothered in darkness. It streamed down his throat and into his nose. It seeped into his pores, strangling him with its oily weight. Surrounding him was the insidious slithering of snakes writhing around each other in a ball, just waiting for the right moment to strike. Behind him, deep in the darkness he could sense a presence of something elementally evil. A thing far more wicked than anything he had ever come across before.

Dean snapped awake, his brow bathed in sweat. He slanted a glance at the clock, hissing when he realized that barely twenty minutes had passed since the last time he had awoken. He heard a soft shuffling, similar to the slithering in his dreams, from somewhere in the room and he tensed. He concentrated on the sound, trying to pinpoint it. The noise didn't seem to come from any one corner of the room, but from all around him. The longer he listened, the more convinced he was that the noise wasn't in the room, but in the walls themselves.

He swept the covers back, both bare feet hitting the ground simultaneously. He clicked on the lamp perched on the nightstand that was nestled between the two beds, unconcerned that he woke Sam doing so.

“What the hell, Dean?” Sam snapped groggily from beneath he covers where he retreated from the bright glare of light.

“Can't you hear that?” Dean demanded as he paced the length of the room, pausing to press his ear to the wall.

“Hear what?” All traces of sleepiness were gone. Dean was on high alert and Sam's own well-honed instincts sharpened in response.

“That noise.”

Sam hauled himself out of bed, cocking his head to the side. He listened hard, but all he heard was the sound of late night traffic on the freeway. Dean was pressed against the far wall, his knife tightly clenched in his hand. Sam felt his own fingers twitch with the need to arm himself.

“I don't hear anything, Dean.”

Dean drew back from the wall, his brows creased in consternation. Now that he had gotten up from bed he couldn't hear anything either. Whatever it was, his movements had quieted it.

“It was like, in the walls or something.”

Sam turned to face the wall he was nearest to. It wasn't anything special. It was covered with crappy green wallpaper decorated with small white flowers that looked like it had been there since the eighties. He moved closer, tapping on the wall with his fingertips.

“What did it sound like?” Sam asked seriously. Dean could be a total ass when it came to things like women and hustling, but he knew how to do his job, and Sam trusted him.

“I don't know. Kinda like scurrying I guess.”

Sam drew back from the wall in disgust.

“Gross. You mean like mice?” Both Sam and Dean were in the center of the room now, grimacing at the walls.

“Dude, it would have to be a damn huge nest to make that much noise. Besides it sounded more like bugs or something.”

“Like cockroaches?”

Dean's disgusted look was dropkicked into revolted at the thought of thousands of shiny, reddish-black bugs writhing around in the walls just waiting for the light to switch off so they could flood out and stream into their open mouths and noses.

“That's it. We're out of here.”

Sam didn't have to be told twice. Mice he could deal with, but cockroaches were on the no fucking way in hell list.

They gathered up their duffels, having nothing to pack since they had fallen into bed without unloading anything. Dean sheathed his knife and shoved it into his bag, while Sam tugged on his shoes.

“I'll meet you outside.” Dean said as he opened the front door. He was looking at Sam for confirmation when two sharp prongs jabbed him squarely in the chest and released fifty thousand volts of electricity into his body.

Sam dropped his shoes and was moving towards Dean before his body even hit the floor. The doorway was suddenly flooded with light, and someone was yelling at him to get down. Sam saw the barrel of a riot gun undoubtedly loaded with impact rounds pointed at his chest and he skidded to a stop. Dean was still convulsing on the ground when Sam dropped to his knees, his hands behind his head.

Someone entered the room and pointed a pistol at Sam's head, while another man knelt down to check Dean's pulse. The light from the parking lot backlit the men, making it impossible for Sam to see their features. All he could see was their shadowy forms as they moved around the room.

“He's fine. He should wake up in a minute,” the man announced and flipped Dean over onto his stomach so he could zip tie his hands behind him.

Sam felt instantaneous relief flood through him at the man's words, but it did nothing to alleviate his fury. When he looked up at the man holding the gun, there was nothing but murder in his eyes.

“You shouldn't have done that.” Sam's voice was deep with deadly promise, and the man felt something sinister slide down his spine.

“Why's that, son?”

The second man finished securing Dean and circled around to get behind Sam. There was something about the kneeling man that made him uneasy, and he was very cautious when taking Sam's wrists to tie them.

“Because my brother really hates to be electrocuted.”

The man with the gun chuckled a bit, and it was then that Sam was able to catch a glint of metal on his belt. A gold star was clipped to man's gun belt, proclaiming him to be a Gallatin County Sheriff.

“Somehow, boy, I think that's the least of you and your brother's problems. You're under arrest for felony flight from custody, three counts of first degree murder, and kidnapping. Do I need to go on, Winchester?”

“I didn't do those things,” Sam spat out defensively. He was getting really tired of getting accused of crimes that he didn't commit. He and his brother were not criminals. They were heroes. The just occasionally had to break some laws to do that. But they never, ever murdered anyone.

“No? Well then I guess that means that you're Sam and not Dean. You're under arrest for felony flight from custody, suspicion of murder and armed robbery.”

Sam's lips tightened into a thin line as the Sheriff read him his rights. Dean moaned, but quickly stilled. Sam knew that his brother had regained full consciousness and was playing possum until he understood the gravity of their current situation.

A strong hand beneath his arm hauled him to his feet, and he watched as someone did the same for Dean. His brother was quick to decide that it was better to walk under his own steam rather than to be dragged out into the parking lot and he stood as well. In the darkness of the room their eyes met, both of them wearing identical looks of terror.

Even though they were being led by two deputies each, they tried their best to stay as close as possible to each other. Fifty meters, roughly half the length of a football field, was looking like pretty damn short of a distance right about now, especially if they were shoved into different vehicles. And if they ended up in prison, again? They wouldn't even make it through processing without one of them having a heart attack.

The parking lot of the motel was overflowing with patrol cars and officers. Red and blue lights flashed, and Dean had to wonder how they had all parked out front of their window without waking them up. It looked like every damn lawman in the county had shown up.

He was fairly sure the rustling sound he had heard couldn't have been the cops, but who knew? Maybe they were evacuating nearby rooms in case of a shootout. It seemed logical. Dean bet he must have surprised the hell out of the guy who jabbed him with the taser when he suddenly opened the door like he did. The explanation that the cops caused the noise he heard seemed reasonable, but it still didn't sit well with him. The sound had seemed evil somehow-- supernatural and in no way mundane.

Sam and Dean were shoulder- to- shoulder now as they were hustled across the pavement towards several parked cruisers.

“How did they know we were here?” Sam whispered, but Dean had no problem hearing him. Sometimes he thought Sam could be in the other room whispering to a church mouse and he would still be able to hear him. He was that attuned to his little brother.

Dean scanned the lot, catching sight of the motel receptionist that had checked them in. She was talking animatedly to a tall man who was obviously in charge of the whole operation. It was clear by the familiar way that she touched his arm that they were well acquainted.

Dean nudged Sam's shoulder and nodded over to the scene. Sam watched them for a moment, eyes narrowed.

“Ten bucks says that Hendrickson has sent out wanted posters to every police department in the U.S. She probably recognized us and called the Sheriff,” Sam spat. The seriousness of the situation had completely eroded his good nature. At the moment he would like nothing better to throttle the woman who had turned them in, girl or not.

“Sorry, Sammy. I don't take bets that I have no chance of winning.” Dean tried to lighten the mood, but he knew that it was useless. He was used to his brother's pissy-ness, but it was the underlying edge of violence lately that was starting to unnerve him.

The deputies that were manhandling them pushed them up against a cruiser face first. They heard the rear door open and then Dean was yanked away.

“No!” Sam shouted and bucked away from the vehicle. The two deputies that were holding him shoved him back and he felt the cool press of a nightstick against the back of his neck. Dean disappeared into the backseat and soon after Sam was shoved in beside him.

Their panic stilled, but it was still waiting just beneath their skin. They were safe for the moment, but what would happen once they got the police station?

“We are so screwed,” Dean muttered under his breath, and Sam could only nod in agreement.