Title: The C-Team, Chapter Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Author: walkingdean
Word Count: 2,854
Trigger Warnings: Blood, Cursing, Death
Summary: TFW & the reader investigate the house where the case happened when they realize what did it, and that it’s striking again.
Fic:
The air inside of the rustic car consisted of different
emotions from every contemplating body in the vehicle. The rugged driver tugged
at the gearshift with his leather jacket hanging just over his wrist
comfortably, parking the beloved contraption. His brain was pumping with
different reflections that he attempted to understand. A feeling of reluctance
overcame him for he did not await the future- he never has due to the life that
he has lived so far. The longer he lived, the more suffering he endured such as
going to hell, his brother losing his soul, and the worst fate of all- the
death of his parents that he had never recovered from. He hadn’t known the
prophet in the backseat for long. Hell, he had only known her for about four
hours at this point, but he didn’t want her to die. He never wanted anyone to
die while the Winchesters were reigning over a case, yet it was different with
her. She was so innocent to what she could do with her abilities and Dean felt
as if he had to guide her because he had nursed Sam during his tribulations
years ago with his abilities from the Yellow-Eyed Demon, Azazel. Call it
poetic, but Dean felt that he was meant to be her shepherd- if shepherds had
the overwhelming feeling that they were going to fall in love with the sheep.
On the other hand, Sam had formed the idea that she could almost act like a
sister in his life. He felt no romantic attraction for he felt Dean could
barely keep his pants on around her, so whatever sort of relationship he felt
with her was completely platonic. However, Castiel felt slight resentment
towards her due to the past of her type of prophet and the literal hell that
they had risen up in the past. The angel
was wary of her and his prediction that he hoped would not come to fruition.
And finally, the prophet sat in the back seat just attempting to process what
had happened in the past week; she had witnessed a murder, sent to a mental
institution, and was now in a car with two supernatural hunters and an angel of
the Lord. And you thought your week has been crazy?
Dean
stumbled out of the Impala as his eyes adjusted to the harsh sunlight that
struck down on the ground like rain during a hurricane. The rest of the crew
quickly followed behind, yet she had hesitation about getting out. The yellow
hazard tape that dressed the front yard of the Peterson house was almost as
vibrant as the blood that had spilt out of the youngest member of the clan just
days ago. The grass was annoyingly green and happy unlike the rest of the
houses that rested on the block. No more cop cars harassed the street for they
took all of the evidence that they could and called it quits on the
investigation; she had it in the back of her mind that the cops probably
assumed her as the prime suspect as of now, but she could barely care. She just
wanted the hideous being that took an innocent life off the streets.
“So,
why exactly do we have to come back here?” She questioned as she struggled to
catch up with the crew. “I’m pretty sure the cops would have found anything
worthwhile,”
Dean
shook his head in disagreement has he charged on towards the house of horrors,
or rather his ‘job’ in his point of view. Sam was matching him in his stride
while Castiel was behind them and the prophet followed. “The cops would look for
anything physical: weapons, blood, signs of a struggle. We get that information
from them, which we don’t need because we have you, and then we look at the
unnatural side of the case: smells, plasmas or ectoplasm, and the behavior of
the flesh-easting bastard. We’re like the CSI cast revamped, I guess,”
Sam
casted a side glance to his brother, his eyebrow cocked and a smirk spread on
his lips. “I thought you said you hated procedural cop shows? Are you watching them
like you watch Doctor Sexy?”
Castiel
had a grin grow like a wildflower on his face at the banter that was
nonetheless true. Dean rolled his eyes dramatically as his cheeks blushed in
embarrassment. “Anyhow, if you could just go inside the house and get any vibes
from the place that have importance, let us know. We’ll be doing the
investigating,”
Dean
saw no harm in his directions, yet irritation bubbled up inside the angelic
being for he saw it as Dean encouraging the ticking time bomb to take advantage
of her powers and increase their effectiveness. She still had no clue as to
what she possessed, and Castiel wanted to keep it that way, but Dean wasn’t
helping. Cas felt as if Dean was doing it on purpose as he could tell that Dean
had already formed a connection with the prophet; he probably thought that if
she found out what she really was, she could learn to control it sooner but the
angel had his doubts with that scenario. Hopefully, she would become scared
enough of what she can do that she’ll stop using her abilities for good.
Whenever Dean rested his hand on
the doorknob to the front door after he had finished picking it, she could feel
her chest swell tremendously with anticipation and reluctance. Of course, she
wanted to help in any fashion she could for Jacob deserved that at the least,
but she was circumspect to even setting the sole of her foot within the haunted
house. The brothers and the angel had already made their way inside and were
poking around the kitchen and living room that looked the exact same way it did
the last time she was there. She could picture Jacob running around in his
Hawkeye pajamas that he always got picked on for by other kids when he
mentioned it. He wasn’t a huge fan of the Hulk, Iron Man, or Captain America.
He always sided with the lesser known, the underdog without even realizing it.
He had a good heart that was horrifically ripped from him.
Castiel stood inside of the home,
waiting for the prophet to breach into the stained area. “Are you coming?” He
asked. There was a hint of annoyance that wasn’t hidden very well in his voice.
Sam and Dean glanced behind them to see the prophet still standing on the
porch, then when back to plundering through cabinets and pulling out their EMF
reader to scan around. They didn’t worry too much because they assumed it
wouldn’t be the easiest thing for her to come back to the unholy ground, but
Castiel lacked the human knowledge to understand that. She glared at him with
her eyes beginning to water. She placed a foot on the hardwood flooring which
sent shocks of electricity through her legs and up to her brain. Soon enough,
her entire body was inside as she decided to stride up the stairs to the
bedroom that Jacob took his last breath in. As she walked down the lengthy
hall, the aura of the house was becoming a force to reckon with. Along with the
ability to see spirits, the power to get energy from people, places, and things
also came along with the package for her. Whenever she was first hired, she
could tell the Peterson’s were good-natured, do-well people that would kill a
fly. Whenever she had shaken Mr. Peterson’s hand, she received the knowledge
that he had been in New York whenever 9/11 had taken place; he was one of the
citizens that helped rescue stranded victims on the first couple of bottom
floors. He was meant to die that day, but he didn’t. And she knew this.
Whenever she had hugged Mrs. Peterson, she learned that she had recently had a
miscarriage and it was to be a girl, but she lost it after she was in a car
accident two months before. All of this was learned the first time she met the
family when she responded to their ad in the paper. She has yet to touch either
of the Winchester’s or Castiel with her hands, so she wasn’t too familiar with
their back story, but the vibe they gave off was coated in pain and misfortune.
Most people had this, but it was only for a moment because something put them
in a bad mood. However, these two had a stigma about them that made them seem like
swirling vortexes of suffering.
She came to the end of the hall
that led into Jacob’s messy room. Legos and toy arrows from his Hawkeye playset
were always scattered around like lethal, fun booby traps that could make a
person want to amputate their foot if they were to put their weight on it. Yellow
tape outlined where his body was devoured on the carpet; blood still stained
the white flooring like fine wine that was spilt too soon. She rested her head
on the archway and crossed her arms in thought. She was fighting hard not to
cry, especially since she didn’t want any of them to see it. Footsteps were
ringing behind her as they marched their way up the stairs and made their way
to her back, peering over her at the scene.
“Are you okay, Y/N? It’s okay if
you want to go back to the car for a bit,” Sam expressed as his brooding figure
glared down at her. His eyes glanced over to the red splatters as his mind
tried to fathom what had caused them.
“Yeah, I’m okay, Sam. It’s just
weird being back here. It doesn’t seem real. I’m still expecting Jacob to put
his gum in my hair whenever I tell him he can’t go outside,” She chuckled faintly
to herself as she lifted her head off of the arch and strode into the bedroom
that once housed a kindred soul. Her feet were wary to not intrude on any of
the blood or the way that Jacob had “organized” his room with toys scattered
everywhere. She placed her hand on the bed which gave her images in her head of
him bouncing with jubilee upon the mattress to his parents’ dismay. Sam was
poking around the room curiously, opening every drawer and door with
expectance. He eventually made his way to the window where he crouched down.
“Was this open the night that the
attack happened?” He questioned her. She stared at him for a moment, trying to
remember, but she couldn’t.
“I’m not sure. Jacob would open it
sometimes so he could launch arrows outside on the neighbor’s cat. I can
probably get a read off of it and it’ll tell me if it was, if that’s alright,”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Whatever will
work,” Sam agreed as he scooted over to make room for her. She gazed at the
glass for what seemed like a millennium trying to prepare herself for what she
would see, and Sam could tell there was some hesitation. “Whatever you see, it’ll
help us get rid of whatever took him, alright? This is for him. Not for you,
Dean, or me. This is for him,”
His eyes poured into hers deeply
which sent a wave of reassurance through her as she placed her hand upon the
glass. Image upon imagine soared through her mind as she shut her eyes to see
them better play out. First, she saw an older man handling the window as he
installed it into the hole in the wall while he was on a ladder outside. That
flew from her eyesight as it was replaced with children leaping in front of the
window, jumping from couch to couch. They were dressed as if it was the
seventies with their short hair and bellbottomed jeans. After that slung itself
away, Jacob appeared getting dressed in his favorite pajamas, turned away from
the window. It was closed. It slowly started to rise as Jacob turned around to
find the source of the noise was something creeping in through the hole. The
lock turned violently, but before he could call for help, the being tore into
him, rendering him speechless. He could hear her threatening to call his
parents which he didn’t want, but he couldn’t open the door. Tears began to run
down his face-.
She yanked her hand away from the
paneling before she went even deeper. Tears began to swell in her eyes as her
throat closed tighter than a virgin’s legs on Easter. She rubbed her hand on
her jeans to rid herself of the oil that she collected from it as she sniffled
quietly. Sam stared at her with his eyes growing in concern. “It was closed. I
saw the thing open the window from outside,”
“Are you okay?” He asked. Of course
he was concerned that the window had been closed, but he was more preoccupied
with the emotional heap in front of him. She nodded her head.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just saw more
than what was necessary,” The prophet explained as she sat on the floor next to
Sam who was still crouching. “So what does the closed window mean?”
He sighed and decided to give up on
talking about her emotions. “Well, while you were doing that, whatever it’s called-,”
“Reading,”
“Okay, well. While you were
reading, I noticed something on the outside of the window,” He revealed as he
slid his finger against the outside ledge to reveal a yellow powder coating his
finger.
She furrowed her brows as she leaned
in closer to it. “What? That’s just pollen,” She shrugged her shoulders in
confusion.
“Smell it,” He ordered and she did
to which he received a face of disgust in return. He smiled softly at the childish
reaction. “That’s sulfur. Whenever ghosts are somewhere, they sometimes leave
this behind. A ghost wouldn’t need to open the window. It could just walk
through walls if it wanted to,”
She bit her lip in puzzlement. “So,
you’re saying we’re hunting something that’s a ghost, but not a ghost?”
Footsteps were beginning to sound
on the stairs. Sam nodded his head. “Yeah, good job. The only thing we have to
do is figure out what it is and how to kill it,”
Dean and Castiel waltzed into the
room suavely. Castiel began to fiddle with the Legos on the ground as Dean made
his way over to the sitting prophet and younger brother. Dean decided to plop
himself down as well. “Thought I’d join the campfire crew. What’s next? Are we
going to sing Kumbaya My Lord?”
Sam and the prophet rolled their
eyes as Sam began to relay the information to his brother who had found nothing
downstairs. “So, you’re saying we have a monster that’s not a monster, and a
ghost that’s not a ghost? What the hell?” Dean reached into his pocket and
pulled out the drawing from a few hours ago as he gazed at it. His eyes
flickered to her. “If this thing had to resemble any animal, what would it be?”
Everyone in the room, including the
distant Castiel, furrowed their brows in confusion. “I…I guess a human? Arms,
legs, a face, a torso,”
“Sammy, I know what this is. You
remember a few years ago whenever we were in Douglas, Georgia and bodies kept
going missing from the morgue?”
Sam nodded his head, but still
seemed to not make the connection. “Yeah…but how does this relate?”
“Well, it turns out it was monster
that liked to dine on dead bodies. I think this is the same thing, it’s just
gone rogue. It’s killing people to eat their bodies,” Dean’s head bobbed
enthusiastically as a lightbulb seemed to illuminate brightly over Sam’s head.
“Oh, yeah! It was that Jikininki.
That would explain why Y/N thought it was a ghost, left sulfur behind, and
needed an entryway,”
The prophet glared at the brothers
with her eyes growing bigger by the second. “Okay. I’m sorry, but what the hell
is a Jikininki?”
Dean inhaled as he revealed the
information. “It comes from Japanese Buddhism. It’s basically a ghost that’s
reincarnated as a monster that feasts on dead bodies as punishment for being
greedy in their physical life. In this case, the asswipe has started killing
people in order to feed. All we need to know is how to gank the fu-,”
Dean stopped his sputtering lips in
their tracks as he observed the prophet, Sam doing the same. A glazed over look
rocked around in her eyes, her mouth faintly hanging open. Dean placed his hand
on her shoulder and shook her slightly. “Hey, Y/N. What’s the matter?”
Her eyes focused back to him
quickly as all the blood drained from her face. “It’s back,” She confessed as
she returned to stare at a seemingly blank wall that was behind the figure of
her mother-who was missing her skin, just like Jacob.