Fic: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote, SPN S3, part 1/6

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Title: The Apotheosis of Wile E. Coyote
Author: nwhepcat
Fandom: Supernatural, gen
Rating R
Spoilers: Set shortly after S3 "Mystery Spot," but spoilery for S4 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: Even with the clock ticking toward death and hell, Dean insists on taking on a routine job. It's anything but routine when he finds something he's not meant to discover, and things get a great deal more complicated, while Sam tries very hard not to shatter.
Disclaimer: So not mine, and it is a sadness.
Warnings: Language, h/c, psychosis

I have posted this over at hoodie_time, but a large part of this fic is about the brokenness of post "Mystery Spot" Sam, and a fair chunk is in his point of view.

[Mods: None of the descriptive tags quite apply; can we get one for post-Mystery Spot!Sam? Thank you!]



Part 1: Dean

"You gonna eat that?"

Sam looks up from the laptop screen, uncomprehending.

Dean points to Sam’s plate, almost untouched. "Your breakfast. You done?"

Sam stares for another moment, his head still somewhere else. "Sure, go ahead," he finally says.

Dean slides the plate across the table and digs in. "Dude, you’ve been squirrely this last week. You okay?"

"Yeah, Dean. I’m just trying to concentrate here."

Which is bullshit, Dean knows. Sammy’s been distant and distractible and twitchy since Broward and the mystery spot. He knows this has everything to do with that prick of a trickster and the fact that Dean died as often and as temporarily -- not to mention as ridiculously -- as Wile E. Coyote.

"Concentrate on this." Dean holds out the newspaper he's folded into quarters, with a story circled in ink on top.

"Dean, I'm not interested in random jobs right now. I'm looking for an answer for you."

"Yeah, well, I'm sick of the death watch. I need to do something." He pushes the paper closer to Sam. "Can you humor me for two minutes and look at it?"

Scowling, Sam takes the paper and takes in the story Dean marked. The headline sucks him in, just as Dean expected. Tragic Town: 80 Years of Unexplained Madness.

"Seventy-eight incidents of violent psychotic breaks in eighty years," Sam mutters.

"Bet it's a lot more than that," Dean says. "Lot of families keep that kind of thing quiet, especially the farther back you go."

"Bet you're right," Sam says. "No family history or apparent clinical reason in any of the documented cases."

"Yep. Fine one day, completely crazycakes by the next morning." Dean spins the laptop toward him, typing the name of the town into Wikipedia. "Population of under three thousand," he says. "Just a stone's throw from Big Bone Lick State Park."

"Gimme that," Sam says, turning the screen back toward himself. He peers at it, then frowns. "Oh."

"Oh," Dean parrots. "What can you expect from a state named after a brand of lube?" He turns the laptop back toward him, clicks through to the town's official website. "Union, KY Living. Heh. The cemetery's listed under the 'living' tab. Check this." He puts on his folksy and sincere voice. "Neighborhoods: Harmony is a place to live and a place to gather.  A place where the streets are lined with trees, the porches are made for interaction, and the neighborhoods are unique and have a rhythm all their own.  A place that celebrates wide-open spaces and the beauty of the land.  A place where living life in perfect harmony truly does come easy. If that doesn't sound like A place just riddled with pure evil, I don't know what does."

That earns him a grin from Sam, all too rare these days. Dean pushes the laptop back toward him. "Whadya think?"

"It's interesting, but it'll keep."

Meaning Dean won't. "Yeah, but we can actually do something about this one."

Sam glares, but the waitress comes around to top up their coffee before he can get a chance to say anything. When she's moved on, Dean speaks before Sam can get wound up. "Look, I'd like the last thing I do to be saving someone, not tearing my fingernails off clawing to hang onto a life I willingly bargained away."

Sam looks away from him, out the diner window to the street, a muscle jumping in his jaw. Flicking a glance back to Dean and then away again, he finally says, "Yeah, okay."

***

Dean pulls the Impala onto two-lane blacktop, his mood lifting despite the overcast February sky and Sam's matching gloom.

He flips on the radio in time to catch an announcer's voice saying, "The Big Easy, 93.7. Music everyone can agree on."

Dean flicks the dial. "I think we can both agree on that." Twice around the dial, and he pops a Led Zep cassette into the slot. "So, working theories? Wild guesses? What sort of supernatural shit makes people crazy?"

"Might be something environmental. Maybe something genetic."

Right. Because no one's thought of either thing in the last eighty years. "We'll know when we've looked into it."

Sam's too busy chewing at a hangnail on his thumb to respond.

Dean decides to goose him a little. "Did you have a favorite?"

The furrows on Sam's brow deepen. "Favorite? Piece of lore?"

"Death."

Sam has only talked about a handful, changing the subject every time it comes up.

"Personally," Dean says, "I'm partial to the desk, though it would have been a helluva lot funnier if it had been a piano. Or a safe. I wish I'd seen that one."

"Jesus, Dean! Jesus!" Sammy shifts as if the legroom on his side has suddenly been cut down by half. "Fairies, for one."

"I was killed by fairies? I should have known -- those pricks will fuck you up. How did they--"

"No, Dean. The lore. They can drive people insane."

"They get way more good press than they deserve. As if they weren't already overly impressed with themselves, Lord of the Rings really --"

"That was elves, Dean."

"Oh yeah, right."

Sam shakes his head. "There's a handful of things that have been said to drive people insane, which varies among different peoples. Fairies, dybbuks, trolls, Wild Women."

"Wild women sure drive me crazy," Dean notes.

Sam shoots him a glare. "Strigas," he says pointedly, and that shuts Dean right the fuck up. "They're sometimes known to attack adults. They don't kill them, just drive them insane. There's other kinds of lore about insanity: holding a meadow buttercup -- also called crazyweed -- to the back of your neck by the full moon; the full moon itself, of course; smelling basil, being awakened when sleepwalking..."

"If that one caused insanity, I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat," Dean says. He went through a phase there for a few months, when Dad couldn't leave them overnight in a motel by themselves. He'd finally shipped them off to Bobby's for a long while, until Dean's midnight wanderings ended as abruptly as they began.

"No comment," Sam says, and Dean gives him a sidelong glare.

"Well, unless they have an annual Crazyweed Festival, I think we can ignore all the moon and plant lore. I'm thinking we're looking for some kind of evil sonofabitch."

"Maybe," Sam says, and goes back to communing with his hangnail.

Dean hopes so. He's itching to kill something evil before he goes down.

***


The day turns from gray to wet as they drive east, a miserable mix of snow and drizzle. Dean abandons the two-lane for the interstate, which has at least seen some salt trucks. It should be an eight-hour drive, but it's ten and a half by the time they reach Union. As they pass the slide-offs in the median, Dean's glad for the bulk of the Impala and the extra weight of the arsenal in the trunk.

There are long stretches of silence from the passenger seat, punctuated with statements like, "Yeah, sure, I could use a pit stop," or "Just coffee," or "Want anything from the mini-mart?"

Dean makes a few attempts, but Sam doesn't give him enough of a response to work with. He should have kept his mouth shut about the trickster thing. It feels so distant to him, because all he knows of the hundred Tuesdays is what Sam told him. Fucker does have a sense of humor, you have to admit that. Death by Warner Brothers' cartoon. But if their places were reversed, if it were Dean watching Sam die over and over, he'd be shell shocked too, he guesses. Dean couldn't stand it the one time, which is how they got into the current mess to begin with.

About three hours from Union, Dean says, "I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't joke about the Macy's Parade of Death." Apparently, judging by Sam's glare, he shouldn't refer to it that way, either. "It's just -- it's like some crazy story to me. You'd think I'd be the one with PTSD, but I'm not."

"Yeah, I get that," Sam says reluctantly. "But try to knock it off, will you?"

"Sure, I'll try." Sam gets a little more responsive after that, but he doesn't exactly turn into Chatty Cathy.

The snow and rain has turned to drizzle by the time they roll into Union. The library's in the middle of the wide commercial strip, and there are still lights blazing and cars in the parking lot.

"It's open," Sam says. "Let's go."

"Dammit, I'm hungry."

"We'll get something after we get some research out of the way. I want to get this thing cleared up, get on with doing something about your situation."

Dean heaves a sigh and follows Sam into the library.

***

Sam buries himself in recent newspaper accounts while Dean settles in at the microfilm desk to look back at the Depression-era stuff. By the time the library closes at 9 p.m., Dean has a massive headache, either from hunger or the goddamn microfilm reader.

They stop at a nearby chili joint, but Dean frowns into his plate after three bites, vaguely outraged. "What the hell is in here? Cinnamon?"

"Yeah. It's a Cincinnati thing," Sam says. He seems to like it fine.

"Well, we're not in Cincinnati." He picks the packets of oyster crackers off his tray and tips the rest into a trash bin. "Worst three-way I've ever had."

Sam smirks in disbelief that Dean's ever had a three-way. Dean returns to the counter and orders the black bean burrito deluxe with diced onions. See how funny Sam finds that at around two in the morning.

"So did you come up with anything interesting?" Sam asks as Dean settles in with his new plate.

"Far as I can tell, the victims had spent time in the great outdoors before they crazied up. Hunters, kids out drinking or screwing around after dark. Either something got to them then, or they attracted its attention and it came after them. Whatever, they were completely insane by the next morning."

"That's what I got, too," Sam says. "From the recent occasions, there didn't seem to be one particular location. Various local spots."

Dean nods. "Yeah. Same with the older cases too."

"I think our first stop tomorrow should be the mental health facility. See what we can find out there from the staff, and talk to one or two of the patients, if they'll let us."

"That sounds like a job tailor made for you," Dean says.

"Why just me?"

"Because you say 'mental health facility' instead of 'nuthouse,' without even thinking about it. And you look awesome in white."

Sam scowls, but it's the special scowl that tells Dean that he's won. "So what are you gonna do while I'm there?"

Dean bestows a smirk on him. "I thought I'd have myself a nice, long bubble-bath."

***

Dean lingers over the remains of breakfast, his hand resting on Dad's journal, watching Sam head for the Impala in his suit and tie. Though Dean hadn't let on, it still bothers him that Sammy folded on that without argument. He's being coddled, which bugs the shit out of him.

Dean almost misses it, though he's looking straight at Sam. Almost doesn't notice the absence of the little hitch Sam usually has in his gait when he's heading for the driver's side, that first instinct to head for the shotgun seat and the quickstep as he corrects his course. It's there even when Dean tosses the keys to him. But today he heads straight for the driver's door. It's not until he opens the door that Sam pauses, seeming to realize what he's done. He flicks a look toward the diner window, sees Dean watching him, and his expression shuts down.

There's something vaguely unsettling about this, though Dean can't put his finger on it.

"More coffee?"

Dean turns his gaze to the waitress, pasting on a smile. "Sure thing, darlin'." As she pours, Dean says, "My brother and me, we decided to stop on our way up to Cincy and look around town a little. Our mom was born here."

"No kidding," she says. "What was her name? Maybe we went to school together."

"Uh -- no, she uh, wasn't here that long. I think her family left when she was a couple of years old at the most. But we thought we'd look around town a little. Is there anything we should check out? Union's claim to fame?"

"You should definitely check out the state park."

"The state park."

"Big Bone Lick, yeah."

Dean struggles to maintain a straight face.

"There's a museum, great trails, a nature center, and an observation area to see the bison. It's a great park, and it's free."

"We'll definitely check that out. Anyplace else you recommend? Unusual stuff, world's second-largest ball of twine, anything like that?"

"Well, there's the meteor tree. That would be since your mother left."

"Meteor tree?"

The waitress -- her name tag says Evelyn -- nods. "In the mid eighties there was a meteor came streaking through the sky right near here. It shook everyone's windows when it hit, dug a furrow in a field. Six months later, there was a full-grown oak in that same spot. As if it had been there for decades."

That's a new one on Dean. "Where'd this happen -- Ma and Pa Kent's place?"

Evelyn laughs. "Nothing that exciting. Some people call it the miracle tree, though."

Dean sips his coffee. "How's that work? People tear off pieces of bark to heal cancer or something?"

"No, the miracle's just how it got there," Evelyn says. "Nobody really expects it to do anything."

Low standards for miracles around here. Or maybe they're just not that greedy. "Can you draw me a map?"

"Sure." She tears a page off her order pad and draws two intersecting lines and a dot. One end of the horizontal line she labels "Town"; the other is "West." She writes the name of a road on the line that bisects it. "It's just a couple of miles out."

"Thanks."

She tips the coffee pot to top up his cup, then moves off to tend to another customer.

Miracle tree. He's seen damn few miracles in his life, and not a one without a high price. He wonders how the tree ties in with what's going on -- seems like too much of a coincidence for it not to be connected, but then, people have been going insane for fifty years before the meteor.

Dean blows out a breath as he flips open the journal. He's practically got the whole thing memorized, but he hopes anyway for an overlooked entry about Kentucky or supernaturally-induced madness.

He doesn't want what he does find: a strong sense of the last twenty-two years of his father's life, how little there was beside darkness. Dad hadn't even been capable of finding light within his children; he'd just ushered them into the same dark world. Same deep loneliness, same stupid deals --

Dean gives his head a hard shake, snaps the journal closed. No point pissing and moaning about the life he's led. He's got some time left, and he's gonna go down swinging.

***


The combination of inaction and too much thinking is making him restless, so Dean abandons his table, offloads some of the coffee in the men's room, then steps outside. The day is cold but clear, the kind that pulls you two ways -- toward hustling inside, back to warmth, or lingering a moment to turn your face toward the sun.

Dean tilts his face upward, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. A lifetime supply of days like this is rapidly dwindling down to a handful. Same with everything. A handful of days in the Impala, familiar songs pumping out of the stereo, Sammy grousing about something in the passenger seat. A handful of chatty waitresses refilling his coffee cup with almost every sip. A handful of chances to yank someone else out of their own hell, or stop them from falling there in the first place.

One last issue of Busty Asian Beauties.

There's a place down the street that proclaims itself a variety store, so Dean sets off in that direction. A town this size, you never know, but it's worth a try.

A bell jangles overhead as Dean sets foot inside, and the place has such a strong feel of the past that it's almost disconcerting. Worn wooden planks creak underfoot, and there's a faint, indescribable scent in the air. Dean remembers being inside a lot more stores like this when he was a kid, places he could explore until an impatient dad dragged him back outside. They've been replaced, for the most part, by the bright aisles of Walgreens and Wal-Marts, which don't even carry unedited versions of CDs, much less porn.

This place is the real deal: shelves of stationery supplies, revolving racks of paperbacks and comic books, glass jars full of Atomic Fireballs and other candy on the counter and behind it, boxes of cheap cigars and a rack of magazines with black placards covering all but the titles. Yeah, that's the stuff.

The old guy behind the counter is on the phone, so Dean wanders the aisles, looking at the merchandise. "Yeah, there's a spaghetti dinner at the bowling alley to raise money for the family. Helluva thing. You didn't hear? He lit his business on fire, stood inside while it burned down around him. Joe Collins was out having a few beers with him the night before, and said he seemed fine."

Dean drifts closer to the counter, pretending to browse the general interest magazines against the wall, but the man wraps up his conversation and starts fussing with perfectly straight stacks of merch behind the counter.

Dean drops a copy of Hot Rod magazine on the counter, and asks if he's got Busty Asian Beauties As the man turns to find it in the adults only rack, Dean says, "Mind if I have a quick look at the phone book?"

"Go ahead," the man says.

Dean finds an address and phone number for Joe Collins, scrawling it on the table of contents of the car mag. As he pays for the magazines, he says, "I heard there's some kind of benefit down at the alley. Would you have a flyer for that? Helluva thing, isn't it?"

"Damn sure is." The old guy hands over a flyer and Dean's change, and Dean pushes four quarters back over the counter for a local newspaper and an Atomic Fireball.

He steps back out into the bright February cold, slips the fireball, cellophane and all, into his mouth, shucking it with his teeth. There are occasional duds among the fireballs, but this one is particularly hot. He lets out a breath around it, amused by the steam billowing into the air.

Then he sets off for their motel to change into his dark suit.

***

Dean can't go on foot. He goes on foot by himself in this getup, he looks like a Mormon missionary who lost his partner.

Settling himself in a chair so he doesn't crease the suit, Dean idly opens Busty Asian Beauties. It doesn't take him long to realize it's a tragic waste of perfectly good busts and beauty -- suits and straight-backed wooden chairs don't exactly make ideal conditions for consumption of porn. He tosses the magazine onto his bed for later and opens Hot Rod instead.

Ten minutes later, Sam lets himself into the room. His expression is grim, and the set of his shoulders seems to diminish his height. Sam seems almost startled when he finds Dean in the room.

"Struck out?"

"Uh, no. On the contrary. I'm getting somewhere; we're getting somewhere. Just not there yet."

"Huh," Dean says. "You walked in here looking like you lost your --" Not the time for a cliche, he realizes abruptly. "Shoe." He raises a smirk. "Though that was funny. Tell me what you found in the car. I found a lead, got some other interesting information."

"I wasn't able to talk to any of the patients," Sam tells him once they're in the Impala. "But according to the doctor I spoke to, most of the ones we're looking into rave about something they saw. Something hideous and unspeakable, but the staff hasn't pinned down what it's supposed to be."

"Maybe it's the colour out of space," Dean cracks. "It's the extra U that drives them 'round the bend."

Sam looks up from his task, which is fitting their freshly minted Kentucky Board of Pharmacy IDs into their leather holders. "You've read Lovecraft?"

"I've skimmed. I figured there might be some day it would ping something we run across. Those are hours I won't get back." Ouch. Another thoughtless cliche.

Sam glides right over that. "What did you find out?"

"Couple of things. There's a guy who torched his own pharmacy and let it go up around him. I got the name of the guy he was with the night before, thought we should see if he could shed any light. And the other -- I'm not sure what to make of it." He tells Sam about the meteor tree.

"Huh," Sam says. "I don't know of any meteor lore, but we can check that out."

"This is the place," Dean says. He pulls the car over to the curb and takes the ID Sam hands him.

The door opens a crack, revealing a sliver of a man in a gray t-shirt and jeans. His dark hair is flecked with gray. "No missionaries," he says flatly.

Dean and Sam flash their IDs in unison. "We're not missionaries, sir," Dean says. "Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. We're looking into the Calvin Hough matter. We understand you were with Mr. Hough the night before his death."

The look on Joe Collins' face makes it plain he'd rather be inviting a pair of missionaries into his house, but he opens the door and steps aside for them to enter.

Sam says, "We realize this is a difficult time, Mr. Collins, but we have to clear up a few details."

"Sure, of course. Have a seat."

As Sam and Dean settle onto the sofa, Dean asks, "Did you notice any unusual behavior leading up to the fire? Or any extreme changes in Mr. Hough's mood lately?"

"No, nothing like that. We were out for a few beers that night before it happened, watching the game at the bar. We talked about basketball and our kids, the usual stuff."

"Did he seem to be having any sort of financial or tax problems? Was he spending more than usual?"

"Nothing like that."

"Nothing noticeable, you mean," Dean points out.

"Nothing." The vibe's getting a little hostile now.

"We noticed there's a benefit for his family coming up," Sam says. "Seems a little odd that a pharmacist's family would be facing financial hardship immediately following his death, don't you think?"

"Yeah, well, everything's been frozen, hasn't it? Life insurance, business insurance -- you people, the DEA, the insurance company, they're not letting anything loose until they go over everything. How are they supposed to bury the poor guy?"

Sam holds up a hand. "Look, no one wants to smear Mr. Hough or deny his family anything that belongs to them. We're just trying to find out what happened, so things can be resolved quickly."

"Exactly," Dean adds. "Do you happen to know if he spent any time outside before or after you were together?"

Collins frowns. "Outside?"

"It might seem like a tangent, but we're running down all kinds of possibilities here."

"He stepped outside of the bar a few times to smoke."

"Did anything seem unusual after any of those occasions?" Sam asks.

There's a telling pause.

"Anything will help," Dean says. "Even if it seems far-fetched. If this is a case of acquired sensitivity, it could be poisoning from a combination of medications he was handling. Since the investigation of his work space is compromised, any detail at all can help."

"Well, he said he saw something. After the last time he stepped outside."

"Did he describe it?"

"He was shaken up, scared. It didn't make a lot of sense."

"Tell us anyway, it might help," Dean urges.

"Something about a cat-woman," Collins says. "I made some joke like 'Hallie Berry or Michelle Pfeiffer?,' but he said it was the most hideous thing he'd ever seen."

"Did he seem mentally unbalanced then?" Sam asks.

"No. Really rattled, but himself. I figured he'd seen some shapes or shadows out in the dark and had a little too much to drink. We'd driven out there together in his car, but I talked him into letting me drive back. I dropped him off at his house, and drove home in my own car, and that's the last I saw of him."

"You've been extremely helpful," Dean says. "Just one more thing -- can you tell me where this bar is? Is it one of the places on the main drag?"

"No, it's just this little joint out in the middle of farmland. It gets dark out there, and those pole lights out there throws some weird shadows. He probably saw a dog or something."

Dean nods. "I'm sure you're right. If you can tell us how to get to this bar, we'll get out of your hair."

As they walk to the Impala, Sam says, "'Medication poisoning from an acquired sensitivity'?"

Dean grins. "Did you like that? I pulled that out of my ass. Sounded good, didn't it?"

"Sounds better than a lot of things that come out of your ass." Spoken like vintage Sammy, and that alone makes Dean laugh.

***


"I'd say you boys have got yourselves a wampus cat," says Bobby when Dean reaches him by phone. They're driving out to the bar Joe Collins mentioned to have a look around.

"A what?"

"Wampus cat," Bobby repeats, then spells it for him, and Dean relays this piece of information to Sam. "There's regional lore, but I've never heard of an actual case."

"So what's the lore?"

"It's a supernatural cat-creature that goes around on its hind legs, and has a howl somewhere between a woman's scream and a cougar. The lore's pretty tangled, with bits of Native American stories blended in with white settlers' folklore. One of the versions says it kills livestock and the occasional human, and drives anyone who sees it insane."

"Anything on how to kill it?"

"Since I've never heard of a confirmed sighting, I don't have a hunter's word on what kills 'em. My first guess? It's a supernatural human/animal hybrid -- I'd try what works on werewolves. That's if you don't find anything specific to wampus cats, now that you know what you're looking for."

"We'll do that." The sunlight almost hurts bouncing off the patches of snow in stubbled fields. Who the hell puts a bar out in the middle of cornfields? "Tell me what you think of this: We also heard of a tree nearby that grew from a meteor strike. According to the locals, the tree was fully grown in six months after the meteor."

"Well, there's a fair amount of Indian lore on meteors and comets. You might want to see what the Cherokee lore has to say specifically, since that's where the wampus cat stories originated."

"The only hitch is, the insanity epidemic started decades before the meteor and the tree."

"Huh. Well, keep an open mind. It might be connected, might not."

"Thanks, Bobby. Appreciate it." And check it out, there's an old frame house with beer signs in the window, right where Joe Collins said it would be. He pulls the Impala into the dirt parking lot.

"Yeah. Just watch yer ass out there, will ya? Don't do anything stupid."

"Aw, Bobby. I love you too." Dean snaps the phone shut on Bobby's wordless rumble of annoyance. "Ever notice he makes this noise when he's irritated that sounds just like Marge Simpson, only lower?"

"What'd he say?" Sam asks.

"Mostly 'Do your own goddamn research.' But he gave us a start with the wampus cat. Apparently there's lore, but no substantiated reports."

"So we get to be the hunters who find out what works."

"Trial and error," Dean says. "My favorite flavor combo."

"Yeah me too," Sam says, the words all run together. Dean's half tempted to give Sam the speech again about how this is the use he wants to make of the time he has left, but he lets it go.

***

They tramp around the area surrounding the bar, looking for tracks, but everything's been covered by snow or wiped out by tire tracks.

When they step inside the bar, every patron in the place looks them over, then turns back to the ballgame, their conversations, their solitary drunks.

"Ever feel like the anti-Norm?" Dean mutters. He has no illusions about how this is gonna go, but he goes through the motions anyway, because he just loves the crispy sound of monosyllables. He runs through the whole gamut, starting with folksy charm, then lapsing into "Okay, you made us. We're investigating a matter..." and finally tossing off a "Would you like your very own copy of the Book of Mormon?" as they're on the way out the door.

"Pricks," Dean mutters as he settles behind the wheel.

"Well, I guess you don't put a bar out at the intersection of Cornfield and Cow Pasture if you're wanting a lot of custom from tourists," Sam says.

"Testify."

Back at the motel, they shed the suits and settle in for additional research. Sam sits crosslegged on his bed, hunched over his laptop while Dean sits at the desk with a map and a scattering of notes, scrawling Xs and dates.

"I've got a dozen tabs open," Sam says, "and it seems like there's a different version of the story in each one."

"Yeah?"

"There's one version, which may be the original, in which the wampus cat is actually a protective spirit. In life she was a woman whose husband was made insane by a demon that was terrorizing the area. She decided to hunt it down, and went to the medicine man for help. She stalked the demon wearing a spirit mask with the face of a cat, and she drove off the demon. Now she's a half-cat, half-woman spirit, wandering the area to protect the people. Somewhere along the line, the versions conflated the demon and the cat-woman."

"I prefer my women non-conflated," Dean says. "Oh wait, I meant inflated."

"Funny."

"So the stories have been passed down, but it's like a game of telephone."

"Exactly."

"But this thing follows the stories that say it's evil."

"We've seen beings who gradually become what they're believed to be."

"What about meteor lore?" Dean prompts. "Bobby said there's plenty."

"I'm about to start looking. How's yours coming?"

"I'm not working with complete information, but what I've got is interesting." Dean brings the map to Sam, spreading it out in front of him. "So check this out. From the reports I have that say where the victim was before he went crazy, the ones that predate the meteor were scattered all through the area. But since the mid-eighties there hasn't been a single report from this zone here." He traces a circle with his finger. "Now look at this." He fishes out the map the waitress sketched out for him. "How's this for stunning coincidence? This is where the miracle tree sprang up."

"Miracle tree?"

"That's what some locals call it."

Sam chews that over, taking a pull from his beer bottle. "Radiation? Maybe the wampus cat is avoiding the area, or the locals are."

Dean shakes his head. "She would've said something. The waitress, I mean. I was asking her what's around here that a couple of tourists might be interested in, and she mentioned the park -- you know, Big Bone Lick," he adds, just to see Sam roll his eyes. "And she mentioned the meteor tree. She said it's sometimes called the miracle tree, not the cancer tree."

"Maybe the cat adopted the tree as its home, decided not to draw fire by hunting too close to its lair."

"You got me," Dean says. "All I know is we have half a county to look for this thing, and one small area where we know it's not." He huffs a sigh and folds the map. "And it's not on any fixed schedule."

"And if we do find it, we may well end up in a psych ward ourselves." Sam closes his laptop. "Dean, I think it's time we called it quits on this one. Let's tell Bobby to put the word out that this thing is out here, and let some other hunter go after it. We need to get back to finding a way out of your deal."

"Let's find the Holy Grail and the Fountain of Youth and Amelia Earhart while we're at it. Face it, Sammy. There is no way out. That demon bitch told me if I do anything to break the deal, she takes you back. That is not happening. I have never backed out on a job and I'm not starting now."

Sam's not letting this one go. "It's not backing out when you're cutting your losses, Dean. This is like throwing good money after bad. Someone else will come along and hunt this thing, but nobody else is going to keep you out of the Pit."

Dean snatches up the map the waitress drew. "I'm gonna go have a look at this tree before it gets dark. You coming?"

Comments

[dime-for-12.livejournal.com]

I've been waiting for the last chapter before I started reading, and I love it. The voices are so spot on I can hear Sam and Dean talking as I read.

Also, Big Bone Lick. ahahaha.

great fic so far *scurries off to read the rest*

Can't wait to make a contribution

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