Longhorn

Chapter 06 | Dust and Mildew

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Dean

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The room is dark and it reeks of dust and mildew. Dean is tied to a post, a sheet laid over him like a corpse. He shakes it off and blinks to adjust to the lack of light.

"Dean?"

"Y/N, please, God, tell me that's you."

"Dean..."

Dean immediately gets a strong sense of dread. "Y/N? Y/N, what the hell happened."

"He caught me," you whisper. A sob cracks through the air. "In the alley. Stabbed me in the side, then knocked me out with a - a brick, I think."

"Stabbed?" he grunts, yanking at the knots. The shapeshifter was not in Boy Scouts, that's for sure. The rope falls to the base of the beam easily. "Fuck, okay, I'm coming."

He scrambles in the dark to make his way to you. He finds your hands tied above your head, trapping you against a beam and the pipe you're tied to. Blood stains your white shirt and jeans, and your hair is a knotted mess on your head. A trickle of blood travels from your temple. It's dry, dark red and crusted onto your skin.

"Jesus Christ." He presses his hand against your side and you twist away, yelping. "Sorry, I'm sorry."

"Oddly enough," you choke out. "Being shot feels a lot better than being stabbed."

He chuckles before running back to grab the sheet that previously covered him, ripping at the threads to create a makeshift gauze.

"Damn it."

The voice comes from farther back in the room. "Sam?" you call out. "Don't tell me you're that abomination."

Dean's busy with your bindings when Sam answers. "Yeah, it's me."

"Well," Dean grunts, ripping the last piece of the sheet before knotting it at your side. You wince again as he starts unbinding you. "He's not entirely stupid. He picked the hot ones."

He throws you a wink when you're finally released, his hands rubbing at your shoulders to relieve the ache in your joints.

The two of you make your way to Sam just as he releases his own rope. "He looked like you, man," he tells Dean. "And he didn't just look like you. He was you. Or, at least, becoming you."

"What?"

"He's right," you say, hand pressed against your side. "He looked like you when he got me. The only reason I knew it wasn't was because, well, you stabbed me. Or - he stabbed me. It?"

"It's like he was downloading your thoughts and memories," Sam says.

"Like a weird fugly goop-leaving brain hacker," you quip.

"He's going to Rebecca's. We've got to hurry, he's probably already there."

You find a window and Dean helps you climb out of it, grabbing you under the arm and lifting you out.

"Come on," Sam says once you're all out onto the street. "We gotta find a phone, call the police."

"Woah, woah, woah." Dean stops walking, staring at his brother. "You're gonna put an APB on me."

Sam merely shrugs. "Sorry."

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. This way."

He grabs your arm, tucking it underneath his to help you walk. You're pale, skin glistening in sweat. They've got to hurry this case up - the scene of you limping, wincing every step and your blood-stained hand pushing against your wound makes his neck tight.

Walking past a TV store, you stop at the window. Dean has to stop with you, but Sam barely notices and keeps walking. "Sam," you whisper. A reporter is on screen, speaking animatedly into a microphone.

"An anonymous tip led police to a home in Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home."

A rough, grainy sketch of Dean appears on-screen. "Man!" he whines, stomping his foot childishly. "That's not even a good picture."

"Good enough." Sam looks around the street, paranoid, and keeps walking. He gives you and Dean no choice but to follow. "They said attempted murder. At least we know that -"

"I - he didn't kill her."

Sam nods. "I'll check in with Rebecca in the morning, see if she's all right."

"Fine by me," Dean says. "But first, I wanna find that handsome devil and beat his ass."

"We have no weapons, Dean," you say. "No silver bullets. Nothing. The freak even took my belt."

Dean loved that belt. The big ass longhorn buckle's horns double as a silver knife. Plus, he liked watching the buckle sway as you walked.

But that's neither here nor there.

"Listen, Y/N. The guy's walking around with my face, okay? It's a little personal. I'm attached to my face. I want to find this guy."

"Where the hell do we look?" Sam asks.

"The sewers?" you suggest. Even the idea of it makes your nose curl in disgust. Dean doesn't know how to feel about you joining along, especially with the way you're looking. But he knows better than to say anything - injured or not, you'd whoop his ass for trying to tell you what to do.

"We still need weapons," Sam says.

"I'm betting money he took the car," Dean answers. "Drove it to Rebecca's."

"News says he fled on foot. It's probably still parked there."

Dean frowns. "The thought of him drivin' my car," he grumbles.

You sigh heavily and Sam rolls his eyes, mumbling, "All right, come on."

"It's killin' me."

"Let it go, Dean."