Devastation and Reform 4/15

[faye_dartmouth]

 

A/N: Not much new to say. Just a reminder of the late S2 context. Thanks :)  Previous chapters here.

-o-

Chapter Four

Unlike Ryan, Michael appeared to be somewhat of a packrat, a messy one at that.

Michael's apartment was crammed, with piles of papers and open books stacked and piled throughout the place. On top of the books, in every nook and cranny, knickknacks lined the shelves and tables. Dirty dishes and crumpled trash seemed to complete the picture, strewn haphazardly over the dusty books and carved figurines. It was an odd assortment of things, some distinctively Native American, others somewhat young male.

But the thing that gave both brothers pause, before they could even step in the door, was the large, life-sized charcoal drawing of a puma on the wall right opposite the door.

It stopped them both dead in their tracks as they gawked.

"Well," Sam said finally as the brothers stared at it. "I think he had a thing for cats."

"You think?" Dean asked, finally moving. He picked up a cat figurine off the bookshelves, inspecting it, replacing it when he realized that nearly all the decorations were of the feline variety. Wild cats, house cats, big ones, small ones, porcelain, wood--anything and everything, all shapes and sizes and colors. "This is freakin' creepy."

Following his brother's lead, Sam crept farther into the stuffed apartment, trying to circumnavigate the cats to find something of substance. "He has an interesting taste in reading material," Sam noted, picking up a book splayed on the coffee table, tossing a stuff kitten to the side. "Native American history...spirituality...rituals. He was definitely interested in his heritage."

Dean disappeared into the kitchen, poking hesitantly through the piles of refuse. "Not much in the way of food in here," Dean said. "Judging from the amount of mold on the dishes, I'd say he hasn't been here in awhile."

Sam stood, reluctantly returning the open, dust-covered book to the table. Dean was right about the time—Michael clearly hadn't been there for a while. However, that didn't explain the strangeness of what he'd left behind. Papers covered the small dining table, scribbled and rumpled, notes circled and underlined. "He didn't seem to plan on leaving," Sam observed. "He left everything here."

Dean opened the fridge and made a face. "That's just wrong."

Sam glanced over his shoulder as he passed by. "Looks like something you'd keep around," he said.

He heard his brother close the door and could only imagine the glare his comment had elicited. He smiled despite himself.

Before Dean could mount any kind of feedback, a notebook caught Sam's eye. It was half buried under several small pouches, filled with herbs. Pulling it out, he looked at it. "Look at this," he said, holding out the notebook. "Notes on the benefits of a vision quest."

"And a list of ingredients," Dean noted, stepping closer and examining the notes.

Sam reached for one of the herb bundles, opening it and sniffing. "What if the kid's telling the truth? What if Michael did try to go on a vision quest? I mean, those things are designed to let you commune with animal spirits, and we do have a mysterious, untraceable puma on the loose."

"So what? He brought back a little cat friend to do some dirty work? I thought these things were about bettering oneself or something equally cheesy."

"Yeah, they're supposed to be," Sam agreed. His brain was working quickly as the facts slide into place. "But what if something didn't go right? Maybe we're looking at a quest gone wrong."

"Gone wrong how?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted hurriedly, but the animation in his disposition did not abate. "But it's a ritual, right? So if one of the steps is omitted or done wrong...maybe that could screw up the outcome, change it somehow."

Dean considered, with skepticism. "How can we know for sure?"

The question was enough to subdue Sam's growing anticipation at solving the hunt. He cocked his head, thinking. "We need to find out about the ritual, how it's done. Maybe then we can figure out where it can go wrong."

“But how are we going to find out how to do an ancient Indian ritual?”

The second after Dean asked the question, Sam could see the answer come to him. Sam just waited for it to settle across his face. “You still got your keys handy?”

Dean groaned. “Seriously?”

“Where else are we going to find someone who can tell us how to do one? And where else would Michael probably go but his own backyard?”

“But we just came from the reservation,” Dean protested. It was a useless gesture, and they both knew it, but that didn’t dissuade either of them from indulging the habitual debate.

“Think of it this way,” Sam said, clapping Dean on the shoulder. “At least this time we know where it is.”

-o-

Frequenting reservations wasn’t a common past time for them, but it certainly wasn’t a foreign one either. Native Americans had their share of mythology, and the power of their curses occasionally still wreaked havoc on people today.

The reservation was situated at the end of a long, dusty road. There was no traffic to draw people to it, no casinos to make it more appealing. It was small and sparsely populated, seeming desolate and cramped all at once. Though they'd already been there once, it seemed lonelier this time, especially as they veered toward the middle of town and away from the residential area.

It wasn't so much the location that bothered Dean. He was used to a variety of places and a multitude of environments. And it wasn't the people in general at reservations. Dean had his share of prejudices, but none of them related to race. He couldn't stomach stupid people, just like he could stomach the self-righteous. It was just the strong undercurrent of spirituality, of some greater belief system that made him nervous, that gave him the same twinge of trepidation he felt whenever they had to enter a church.

They never failed to meet someone spiritual at a reservation, and that was usually the person they needed to talk to. While Dean would use anyone as a source of information if he needed to, it was people of strong faith and conviction that always made him uncomfortable. They were all so certain, so secure—so trusting in something ambiguous and completely not able to be proven by common sense.

The fact that many of the ones they met were also certifiably insane didn't help matters any.

Much to Dean's chagrin, they also tended to be useful. Dean had to rely on freaks of all kinds in his line of work.

He would have really enjoyed snarking about this, letting some quip defuse some of the tension places and people like this tended to build in him, but Sam didn't really seem in the mood.

The kid was clearly taking this hunt far too seriously. For whatever reason, this one mattered to Sam, more than most of them did. He was invested, not just physically and mentally, but emotionally, which was always a dangerous thing when it came to his empathetic younger brother.

Because the closer Sam got to something, the harder he took the fallout. And it seemed like in their line of work, fallout was inevitable, and Dean did not relish picking bits of his baby brother off the floor any time soon. He'd been there, done that, more times than he wanted to remember. These days it seemed that Sam was desperate to save people, and it didn't help that this had been Sam's from the beginning.

Finding the old man had been easy. Everyone in town pointed nonchalantly to the barbershop, merely nodding at Dean's prodding for more information.

Sam merely shrugged, and the pair trudged their way to the barbershop.

He nudged Sam. "You know," he said. "While we're in there, maybe you could get a haircut."

Sam gave him a look of exasperation and annoyance. "Dean, we're on a job here."

"I know," Dean protested. "Might as well kill two birds with one stone."

The younger brother ignored him, shaking his head in disgust before shoving past his brother to open the door.

Any of Dean's quips were quelled when he stepped inside the barbershop. Giving Sam a hard time was enjoyable, no doubt, but the energy of the shop sucked all the air from his lungs. The place wasn't anything special—quite the contrary, it had clearly seen better days. The walls were covered with clapboard paneling, so dated that Dean couldn't imagine it had ever been in style. The dark wood mimicked the floor, which was made of long planks of warped wood. It was clean swept, but nothing could hide the scuffs and wear of age.

Light filtered in through the dusty windows, overpowering the overhead lights that glowed yellow with age. The walls were decorated with crooked frames, glazed with dust, housing pictures of landscapes and animals. There was a counter with an archaic cash register near the entry, flanked by old folding chairs. On the far wall was a row of mirrors and barber chairs, each small table adorned with the expected tools for a trim or shave.

It was midday, and Dean might have expected someone to be there. For socializing, at least. Small town folks liked to talk, he found, even if they didn't need a haircut. That was the kind of thing that usually happened in close knit communities.

In this one, however, there was just one man, most certainly their prospective source.

The man was old, his face wrinkled and wizened. His white hair fell to his shoulders, where it brushed the top of his plaid flannel shirt, which looked oddly like something Sam would wear. His jeans hid the tops of his boots, and he sat with his feet crossed in front of him.

Seated in the middle barber chair, he was simply staring, fixing both brothers with a gaze so intense that Dean felt out of place. The look was penetrating, deep; it was as if he'd been expecting them.

Glancing at his brother, Dean could tell the effect the old man was having on his brother. Sam looked skittish, too much like an animal caught in the headlights. That was enough to prompt Dean to act. No matter how he felt, he had to look out for Sam. He wasn't about to let some weird old guy get the better of them.

A grin plastered on his face, Dean stepped forward. "Someone told us you might be able to help us," he said, his tone easy and friendly—over the top, maybe, but that was as much for Sam as it was for anyone else.

The man hardly looked surprised. "What makes you think I can help you?" he asked neutrally.

Dean swaggered forward, and he felt his brother on his heels. "Well, we asked for someone who could help us for a paper that we're trying to write," Dean explained. It was an blatant lie, one that he hadn't even had to think twice about. "We have to write about Native American rituals, and no matter where we looked we couldn't find anything about vision quests."

Leaning back, the man frowned a little. "Vision quests? They're archaic. Not done anymore."

Dean reined in his urge to roll his eyes. Oblivious was one thing; cryptic was another. His patience was already thin in this hunt, and this old dude was definitely pushing it. Sam, however, was Sam, so it only went to figure that that ambiguity would be the thing to break Sam out of his apparent stupor.

His younger brother stepped up, even with Dean, and met the man's eyes and even Dean could sense the connection between them. Sam swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, before he finally spoke. "If someone wanted to do one, though, how would it be done?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "Why did you say you wanted to know again?"

"Paper," Dean replied quickly, making sure to put on his most sincere face. "On Native American rituals."

Pursing his lips, the man leaned back considering. "Why didn't you just pick a rain dance or something? Much more dramatic, don't you think?"

Dean suppressed another sigh, but, again, Sam didn't rise to the bait. It seemed as though Sam's initial discomfort was gone. It was replaced with an unsettling intensity that Dean regarded cautiously. If Sam noticed, he didn't say anything. The younger Winchester instead leaned in, making sure he maintained eye contact, and said, "The vision quests have deep spiritual significance, don't they? They're part of finding oneself. I think that's a lot more dramatic than any rain dance."

Sam's gaze was working its magic. The old man studied Sam appraisingly, leaning back in his seat with a small sound of disapproval. "You're stubborn."

Sam didn't waver, and Dean felt the need to interject—no one could call his brother stubborn but him. "He's a bit of an overachiever."

The man's attention shifted to Dean, and the annoyance and skepticism that came with it was surprising. It was almost like the old guy was seeing Dean for the first time—as though Dean had not been there at all and definitely not a part of whatever exchange was going on between the man and his brother. The man sighed. "People think they're just drug-induced highs," he said.

"But they're not," Sam prompted, oblivious in his own right to Dean and his interjection.

Dean shot him a glare, but Sam didn't even look at him. The man's attention had turned back to his brother, and Dean suddenly felt very out of place.

The man quirked his lips in a smile. "They may be what we think they are," he replied cryptically. "Most things in life are nothing more and nothing less than that."

"So if someone wanted to learn more about their destiny, they could go on one, and find answers," Sam continued, completely undeterred.

The man's face smoothed somewhat as he seemed to relax. "Rarely does one find answers to anything in life. Just more questions."

"Then what's the point? Can a vision quest help someone change their destiny, discover something to help fight it, make it better?"

Dean glanced again at Sam, this time nervously, noticing the serious and pressing timbre of his voice. Sam's eyes were wide and focused, and Dean's nerves heightened. His instincts to protect Sam were flaring; though there was no physical danger, the emotional kind was closing in, and Dean didn't want Sam to go there. After all, he could patch Sam up with the best of them, but helping Sam cope with the burdens on his mind was harder than Dean cared to admit.

The man merely stared back at Sam's undeterred gaze. "Destiny is not man's to change. It is merely his to meet."

Sam looked confused.

With a small smile, the man nodded gently. "One should never go through life thinking they can change what's meant for them. They must only learn to change themselves in response to it. That is all a vision quest is, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. A chance to understand one's place in nature, to find one's peace with that. Because there is always an option for peace."

The tension in Sam's body was so strong that Dean felt it, and that wasn't okay. The old guy didn't seem to be trying to upset or rile his brother, but he seemed intent on something. Whatever it was, Sam seemed to have no defense against it. It was time for Dean to exercise his big brother prerogative and take back control of the conversation. "So would it be possible to screw one up, to do it wrong?" Dean asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to comfortable territory.

The man didn't seem to hear him at first, his eyes still locked on Sam. The intensity in his gaze wavered after a moment and he looked back at Dean and shrugged noncommittally. "They're complicated and serious. If done by an untrained person, even with the best of intentions, it's possible. Probably part of the reason why they're not done anymore. Too risky."

Dean nodded. "And how would you fix it?"

"Well if they're not done anymore, there's really no need to fix them, is there?"

Dean pursed his lips and nodded. Some people could never make things easy. Instead it was like pulling teeth, making sure to ask the right questions at the right time so as to elicit the exact information, or enough of it to go off of. It was necessary work, sometimes easier than others, and this was definitely not ranking high on his list of fun interviews.

His younger brother was still standing stiffly, eyes still stuck on the man, his feet planted in the floor. His focus was singular. "Do you think we could have a copy of one?"

It would certainly make their lives easier if the old man coughed a copy up. If the ritual was the source of all this mess, then they'd need a more accurate version to go off of than Michael's scrawled out version.

"There are no modern translations," the man said, his eyes narrowing toward Dean.

Sam quickly interjected. "Just for authenticity's sake."

At that, the man laughed, the lines around his eyes dancing with an unexpected humor. "Authenticity's sake," he murmured. Then he nodded, pushing himself up out of his chair. "Of course for authenticity," he mused, rummaging through a stack of books on the shelf behind the counter.

Sam and Dean both watched, hesitantly, as the man leafed through several of the volumes, murmuring to himself. With a sideways glance, Dean appraised his brother. The kid seemed more relax now, but hardly at ease. Whatever weird connection Sam seemed to have had with the man was at least abating somewhat.

Finally, after several moments, he turned around, holding out a well-worn looking piece of paper. "There," he said.

Somewhat reluctantly, Sam reached out, to grasp the paper.

The man pulled it away, cocking his head slightly. "These are not to be treated lightly," he warned.

Grinning widely, Dean replied, "You can trust us. We just want our A."

The man ignored him, instead letting his eyes meet Sam's with an intensity that made Sam freeze all over again. Dean shifted uncomfortably. The man simply said, "It's just a question of destiny. Don't forget that."

With that, he proffered the paper again, directly at Sam, who was too stunned to accept it.

Reaching over, Dean plucked the paper, effectively breaking whatever silent communication was passing between his brother and the man. "Destiny. Serious. Got it."

Sam blinked, seeming to shake himself out of his reverie. "Yeah," he said quickly. "Yeah." He flashed an embarrassed smile.

Dean took Sam's behavior to mean an exit was necessary, whether the kid realized it or not. "Well, I think we have what we need," he said, patting Sam purposefully on the arm. "We'll get out of your hair now."

Though Sam was physically following his brother, it was as if the action was unconscious, mere instinct. His little brother’s focus was still clearly torn. "Thank you, Mr...?"

The man looked perturbed, almost disappointed. "Just Elliott."

Sam smiled and nodded. "We really appreciate your help."

Dean was already at the door, hand on the knob—he had had his fill of metaphysical theory for the day. He just wanted to get the facts and get out. Now that they had the ritual in hand and the basics of the ritual confirmed, they were ready for the next step of the investigation.

He sighed, waiting for Sam, who was following him somewhat reluctantly. Given his little brother's line of questioning, he was beginning to doubt Sam was fully focused on the case at all. The sooner he could get Sam out of here, the sooner he could redirect Sam's focus on the hunt, and the sooner he could avoid all the philosophical babble that he knew could erupt from Sam's mouth.

He'd managed to herd Sam half way out the door, when the man's voice stopped them. "They're serious, you know. You can't enter one lightly. You may be entering a spiritual realm, but it still has the ability to wreak havoc on this world."

The words made Sam stop, made him look curious enough to go back, so Dean smiled and blurted out a thank-you, pulling himself and his brother into the sunlit day.

-o-

Dean’s pace was quick and purposeful, quickly leading Sam away from the building. Sam, for his part, used his long legs to keep pace, but kept sparing backwards glances.

"That old dude spends way too much time just sitting around and thinking," Dean said with a shake of his head, not even pausing to look back.

"What does that mean?"

Dean made a sound of mocking. "Seriously, man. Vision quests? Finding one's destiny?" Dean paused, letting his cynicism hang in the air. He crinkled his nose. "It's all crap."

At this, Sam scoffed, brushing past Dean to keep moving ahead. "Yeah, you would think so."

"No, I'm serious," Dean said, following his brother and falling in stride with him. "I mean, all this crap just to change something that probably can't be changed anyway? Come on, man, that's weak."

Sam shook his head, laughing a little. "That's easy for you to say," he said.

"What?"

Sam didn't slow. "You heard me."

Dean grabbed Sam's arm, pulling his brother to face him. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked, incredulously.

Glancing away, Sam took a steadying breath. "Just forget it."

"No, you started this," Dean said. "You think I don't get what this is about?"

"No, Dean, I just don't think you know what it's like to have something terrible in your future and to have no way to avoid it. All Michael wanted to do was to make things better, and you can't blame him for that."

"And you think you need to go on vision quests and have personal vendettas to change the future? That it'll help?"

"It can't hurt," Sam snapped.

"No, but it misses the point, don't you think?" Dean paused as Sam stared at him, and Dean measured his words carefully. Sam needed to get this through his thick skull. "Destiny's crap, man. We all get to have our say."

"Just like Michael got to have his say in all this? He was just a kid who wanted something better, and he may be the cause of this entire hunt."

"Michael started the vision quest. For all we know, he wanted this to happen."

Sam refused to be convinced. "Yeah, well, what about everyone else who has been driven to do evil by some supernatural force? What about them, huh? What about their destiny?"

"The crap life throws at you and destiny are different things," Dean said pointedly. "You need to accept that."

Sam just shook his head. "Does it matter what you call it? In the end, it's just stuff you can't fight."

"Well, with an attitude like that, you’d be screwing yourself over," Dean said, his voice steady and his gaze penetrating.

For that, Sam didn't have a comeback, and Dean watched as his brother seemed to shrink into himself. A pang of guilt shot through him—it never felt good to make his brother feel like that—but he could not deny a certain amount of relief that Sam had given up his argument.

He could deal with a lot, but he needed Sam with him—completely. If Sam was distracted by empathizing with the victims, it meant his focus wasn't fully on the case where it needed to be. That was always a risky thing, and Dean did not relish emotional conversations with his brother. Besides, Sam’s attitude was borderline defeatist as it was. Sam’s drunken elicitation still weighed heavily on Dean, and recent events certainly weren’t convincing Sam of his own innocence. He was not going to kill Sam, and he needed Sam to believe in himself or Dean didn’t know what he’d do.

Shoulders slouched, Sam's eyes were still dark, but he swallowed, and Dean could see his brother willing himself to let it go, to refocus his thoughts. "The stuff on Michael's table—there were herbs, things like that," he said. "Could be the stuff for the ritual. We can check out Michael's place again and see what he was using and compare it to what Elliot showed us and maybe figure out what went wrong."

The hunt was nothing more than a temporary distraction. Dean knew his brother well enough to know that the thoughts and fears concerning destiny were not gone. Knowing Sam, they were merely simmering beneath the surface, hiding under the guise of productivity in order to avoid being dealt with at all. For as much as Sam liked to seem like an open book, when it came to his fears and sorrows, Sam could be quite tight lipped at times. Sometimes that was okay with Dean--he really didn't know how to talk to Sam about personal stuff most of the time anyway--but things like this? Evil destinies? Uncontrollabe fates? That was the kind of stuff that could make Sammy implode from the inside out. The kid was flailing as it was. Dean would have to do something about it sooner or later--for both their sakes.

Right now, it had to be later. He gave a terse nod. "Okay, then," he said. "Let's go."

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