Chapter Text
"Here's a job that will take your mind off things," Sam said, surreptitiously pushing his laptop into Dean's field of vision. He was having his mid-afternoon beer in the solitude of the kitchen, only to have Sam interrupt him with another one of his jobs to 'distract' him.
"Maybe I don't want my mind taken off things," Dean groused as he leaned forward to retrieve the beer that was now on the other side of the intruding laptop. Frankly, his mind was supposed to be focused on the matter at hand: what to do with Lucifer's kid, how to save Mom, and when he could go to the grocery for whiskey, because 12 oz beer was no longer doing it for him.
Sam heaved a long-suffering sigh and let Dean have a sip of his beer. "Okay, but this is interesting. Three buildings in a 50-mile radius have been destroyed. Inexplicably. Some people say they're gas explosions, the internet thinks it's terrorist activity or government experimentation. Every article on the explosions is confused and scattered. It- it's bizarre!"
Dean took a swig of his beer, peered at the website touting mysterious explosions, and then slapped the laptop shut. "Property damage ain't our thing."
"Except it is," Sam huffed as he opened the laptop again and logged in, "when two people have died. In that first explosion. And in the next explosion, three more people died."
Dean shrugged. "As far as exploding buildings go, casualties like that sound pretty good." He downed the last of his beer. "And I don't like New York anyway. Weird stuff is always happening there."
"Exactly!" Sam insisted.
"NYC doesn't have its own hunters? They don't need us mucking around. You're not fond of mucking it in the city either, why're you so eager to go?"
Sam drew back and tried to look innocent. It was fooling no one. "Oh no, I wouldn't be going. I gotta stay here with Jack."
"So you're trying to get rid of me," Dean accused him, finally understanding Sam's angle.
Sam muttered to himself, "maybe it's because you're not doing Jack any favors…"
"Screw Jack! And screw you! I don't need a job to take my mind off of the antichrist, I need to take care of the fucking antichrist!"
Sam rubbed his temples. "You know he can hear you. You're just being cruel now."
Dean couldn't care less how cruel he seemed to the kid. That inexplicably adult-looking thing was not a child. At least, not a human child. Dean knew his brother was always the one with empathy toward the monsters- unless said monster was Benny, he admitted to himself without chagrin -but surely Sam was taking this too far? Surely he realized that harboring fucking Damien would bite them in the ass? Dean belatedly realized he was breathing heavily, his hackles raised like a hound of hell.
Dean took a long, deep breath. Screw it. He couldn't sit around with the two men acting as if everything was hunky dory, not when Mom was gone and Cas dead. "Fine. Maybe I do need some space," he admitted without sounding like he was conceding. He swiped his jacket from the chair and strode from the room. "I'll be in the Big Apple, don't wait up for me."
┌( ͝° ͜ʖ͡°)=ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿
Dean didn't have many leads.
Everyone he interviewed had only fuzzy memories of what happened, and they were all so damn confident when they said there was nothing weird at all going on. That in itself set off red flags in his mind, because usually there were at least a few kooks who had a theory. The EMF was silent, so no ghosts. The only things that could cause destruction of this magnitude were angels and demons. But usually there were more bodies and if there were eyewitnesses (he had plenty), they usually had something to say other than, 'well I heard it was a gas explosion. Didn't see anything before or after.'
Okay, so Dean had no leads.
He couldn't even make a connection between the three buildings, just that they were all in Manhattan. The third and last explosion was at an abandoned tenement house not too far from where the World Trade Center once stood. The second place that exploded was a small shopping center with massage parlors, small department stores, and other little salons.
The first explosion was the building Dean saved for last. It was an abandoned building near the Manhattan bridge and had nothing interesting about it at all other than the fact that it exploded last week. After asking a few people, he was directed toward a 'Darryl' whom, people said, was going on and on about some 'crazy shit' he saw that no one else believed.
It was early, but he caught the young man early in the morning right across the street from the collapsed building.
"It don't have a long history. Pops said it was built in the 70s or so, and folks here and there was talking about converting it into some kind of housing for old people. No one lived there when it exploded. Naw, lately it's only been used for shady stuff. Like real shady stuff."
"And I take it you weren't around when it happened?"
"Naw man, I was here! I was picking up my lil brother from after-school stuff. Man, shit was crazy."
This was the first break Dean had since he started. He leaned forward and gripped his pen tighter. "Yeah? What did you see? Anything suspicious?"
"I think? It was real dark. Some guy in all black was loitering at the front there. I was concerned, y'know? I chatted with the Asian lady at the corner store while I was paying for some snacks, and she say she about ready to call the police. I said 'yeah, you best.' I mean, my lil bro goes to school cross the street, you don't want no creeps hanging out 'cross the street." Dean nodded in agreement, encouraging the kid to keep talking. "Yeah, and then before you know it, bam! A giant, and I mean gigantic hole in the building and a giant smoky black fog thing hanging round, and I swear to God it had white eyes that were looking straight at me."
That was the first Dean had heard about white eyes or a smoke creature. Maybe it was a demon with white eyes? Maybe it was in the middle of smoking out of its host?
"How big was it?"
"Aw man, huge! Like an elephant, I swear. But once it really got going, it was even bigger. And it was kinda oily or sandy looking too. Man, I never wanna see something like that ever again in my life. Shit."
This was the most helpful person all day, and Dean had to wonder why this person seemed to be the only one to remember any details about the explosion. "Did anyone else see it? And remember it the way you do?"
The young man pouted. "I ran inside after it saw me. I hid away in the bathroom for a while until after extended day ended and my lil brother was waiting for me. Felt so bad, man. And then when I talked to some people afterward, shit. They don't remember nothing. The Chinese lady who own that store on the corner? She say it look just like a gas explosion and don't even remember chatting with me about the creep 'cross the street. Now, tell me that's not weird."
So some kind of creature with memory-wiping capabilities. Again, it seemed demon or angel, still more like demon because of the black smoke. Though, Dean supposed, it could also mean a witch. And a witch could hypothetically blow up a large building with a giant black cloud.
"You know, they say it was a gas explosion. My buddies think it's a terrorist attack. But that ain't no terrorist. That was some crazy supernatural shit. I hope you government types can figure it out, cause I don't feel safe on these streets anymore."
"Well, thanks for your time, Darryl. You've really been a great help. Don't hesitate to call if you see anything else," Dean said, shaking the kid's hand and leaving him with a business card. The young man nodded fiercely and went on his way, probably to school.
Notebook in hand, Dean had a lot to think about and a lot to tell Sammy. He pulled out his cell phone and tucked the little book in the pocket where he usually kept his phone. As he started scrolling through his contacts for Sam, he suddenly noticed a cloaked figure lurking in an alleyway. It took only a moment to undo the safety on his firearm as he pulled it from its holster, but that moment cost him. He pointed his gun up at a pair of green eyes, but it was too late.
"Obliviate!"
╰( ⁰ ਊ ⁰ )━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ
Jack cautiously took a seat at the overlarge table. "Dean has been gone for a few days. He must be very angry."
Sam shook his head. "No, he's just on a job. It's a two-day drive at least, and he's probably on his way to solving it." That's if Dean bothered to sleep. Sam took a sip of his morning coffee and continued to take notes.
"Oh, is that what you've been reading about? For the mission Dean is on?" Jack asked, peering across the table at Sam's book which was laid open on an entry about witches.
"I've been reading up on people who are born with- with powers. Like you. How people learned to control them."
Jack nodded and continued looking at the book upside down as if he could read the words just fine. He furrowed his brow and hunched his shoulders as he started to comprehend what he was reading.
"You want me to control my powers? Or to repress them?" he challenged Sam.
Sam looked up at him in confusion, having no clue what set off the young man. "What do you mean?"
Jack rounded the table and pointed to the heading of the next page which Sam hadn't yet read.
'Obscuri and Obscurials'
'Obscuri are parasitic forces that develop in children who unwittingly repress their magic or abilities, normally due to psychology, threat of persecution, or abuse.'
Sam was quick to reassure the boy. "No, of course I wouldn’t want that to happen to you! I was reading the page before that, on methods to harness magic. Your powers may not be the same as magic, but they might be similar since you were born with them."
"Oh. Could I become an Obscurial?" asked Jack curiously. He didn't seem apprehensive, but Sam was again quick to quell any fears: "I'd say that's very unlikely."
At that moment, Sam's phone rang. Thankfully, their conversation would be put off for another time. He was also relieved to see that it was Dean since his brother, inconsiderate as always, hadn't called since he left four days ago except to say that he'd made it to NYC.
"Dude!" greeted Dean, far too cheerfully. Had he already solved the case?
It wasn't what Sam expected, but he answered back, "Dude?"
"Where are you?" he asked.
"Uh…I'm at the bunker. Why?"
Jack was giving Sam a concerned look that felt all too familiar. It was both funny and sad to see it now.
"The bunker? What're you doing there when I'm in New York City? Like, the New York. Bridges and street food and everything-"
What was Dean even talking about?
"-pretty cool, and I'm even thinking of seeing a Broadway show, but don't tell anyone-"
"Whoa, whoa," Sam interrupted. This did not sound good. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I dunno, I guess driving here. Though now that you say it, you weren't with me for the drive. Why am I here again?"
There was something terribly wrong with his brother, and he was more than a thousand miles away. He felt a chill race down his spine. Don't panic, don't panic… "Okay, uh, do you know where your motel is?"
"Uh…" there was some scuffling sounds, and then Dean spoke, "Yeah. According to this key card, I'm staying at an inn on Nassau Street. Why?"
"Jack and I are gonna join you. Someone's knocked you out or wiped your memories."
"…You're right. Shit."