Season Two

Episode Five: Remote Control

by Irismay42

Part Three

Sam stepped out of the bathroom amidst a cloud of steam and some girly soapy scent that Dean would no doubt give him hell for later.

Snagging a clean t-shirt from his bed, he glanced over at his brother before tugging it over his head and grinning mischievously at the glazed expression on Dean’s face as he stared unblinkingly at the laptop.

“You remember that big word I used earlier?” he needled with a smirk. “‘Projection?’ Well I think you got that going on right now, big brother. You better not be sullying my IP address with that stripper from Vegas again…”

When Dean made no sarcastic response – in fact, no response at all – Sam ambled up behind him as he shrugged into an almost-clean shirt, figuring his brother must really be getting his twenty dollars’ worth this time.

Peering inquisitively over Dean’s shoulder, he frowned at the sight of a decidedly average-looking webpage which seemed to consist of a directory of links to subpages interspersed with seemingly random photographs of Pennsylvania’s best-known landmarks.

As Dean’s finger hovered motionless over the mouse pad, Sam just stared at the page for a second, not quite registering what he was looking at and trying desperately to remember what he’d come over here to do in the first place.

Blinking rapidly, it took Sam another couple of seconds to process the name of the website smeared across the top of the page in a rather unprepossessing banner that looked like it had been created by someone completely unable to get to grips with the finer points of Photoshop. “PAEye – Your one-stop guide to Pennsylvania living,” the banner proclaimed.

PAEye. Now why did that sound familiar again…?

PAEye.

Wait.

Think.

Crap.

“Dean!”

Sam slammed the laptop shut so hard it actually bounced a couple of inches along the length of the mattress, balancing precariously on the edge as Sam swatted Dean’s hand away like a naughty schoolboy caught raiding the cookie jar.

“Dean!”

Sam caught hold of Dean’s collar, pulling him roughly around to face him as his older brother continued to stare fixedly at a point just beyond Sam’s left earlobe.

“Dean?”

Sam shook him a little, concerned by the glazed look in his wide eyes and the disoriented expression beginning to spread across his pale face.

Voice softening slightly, Sam put a hand on the back of his brother’s neck, forcing him to look up at him. “Hey,” he urged. “Dean, you with me?”

Sam felt himself breathe again as Dean finally blinked at him, pupils contracting as his eyes began to focus on Sam’s face.

“You’re all wet,” Dean muttered thickly, eyes still slightly crossed.

Sam grinned. “Shower, remember?”

Dean’s brow furrowed at that. “But you just went in there –”

Sam’s voice hardened again. “Dude, how long were you looking at that thing?”

Dean scratched his head slowly. “What thing?”

“That damn website!” Sam straightened to his full, decidedly imposing height, positively glaring down at his brother from on high. “What the hell were you thinking, Dean?”

Dean’s confused frown deepened a little further before his expression gradually began to clear, eyes finally losing their foggy dullness as they came to rest on the laptop. He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face as if that would clear the residual effects of whatever the hell he’d just been exposed to, before looking up at Sam. “We – we needed to know –” he began to explain weakly, such a well-worn expression of contrition on his face that he almost had Sam looking over his shoulder for their father.

Despite that, Sam didn’t falter. “Needed to know what?” he demanded, hands on hips. “That you’re an idiot?”

What worried Sam the most was Dean’s lack of reaction to the insult. “I just thought –” his eyes dipped unconsciously to the amulet. “You know. That if it protected me before, it could protect me again. You know? Stop me getting all mind controlled…?”

Sam sighed loudly. “Dean, we’ve been over this,” he said, trying to keep his patience but sounding exactly like every teacher Dean had ever had write “Could do better” on his report card. “That was possession, not mind control –”

“But something got that demon outta me, Sammy.”

Sam froze, finally realizing that the confusion in his brother’s eyes wasn’t just a residual effect of exposure to the website. In fact, this wasn’t about the website at all.

“Sam,” Dean plowed on, seeming suddenly younger and a hell of a lot less certain of himself than he usually appeared. “What if it was the amulet? What if that’s what expelled the demon from me somehow? What if it really is protecting me and –”

Sam sat down heavily on the opposite bed, a steadying hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Dean, whatever –” whoever “– got that demon out of you, the most the amulet did was stop the thing from getting control of you. It’s not like it’s an Invulnerability Shield or something. It doesn’t make you invincible.” He smiled awkwardly. “Whatever you like to think, you’re not Superman.”

Dean looked up at him through lowered eyelashes. “If I was gonna be a superhero,” he managed, voice scratchy, almost as if he was trying too hard. “No way I’d be a geek superhero. Guy doesn’t even know his underwear’s supposed to go on the inside.”

Sam smiled lopsidedly at him. “So you’re not gonna try that again?”

Dean shrugged. “Quit worrying about me, Lois,” he said. “Website bad. I get it.”

“And you don’t feel…?”

“Like coming after you with a meat cleaver?”

Sam snorted. “Something like that.”

“Only if you keep trying to force-feed me broccoli, man.” He reached up and caught hold of the amulet, turning it over in his fingers thoughtfully. “Ugly-ass thing,” he muttered. “You could at least have given me superpowers. Even lame superpowers like Sammy’s. Now I’m just back to being some guy with a freaky geeky little brother who smells like a roomful of teenage girls at a slumber party.” He finally looked up at Sam then. “Dude, what the hell did you shower in?”

****

Sam glanced up briefly as Dean entered the room with coffee and two greasy brown paper bags stuffed full of food that definitely didn’t smell green.

He indicated the phone cradled against his ear as he continued his conversation, and Dean dumped the food down on the table under the window, noting the Bethlehem PD logo emblazoned across the screen of the laptop.

“…That’s right, officer,” Sam was saying, not for the first time surprising Dean with his effectiveness when it came to being somewhat less than truthful. “As I said, my company can’t authorize Mr. Mannheim’s insurance claim without a few additional details.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling for a second, listening intently. “Oh sure, I could wait for your report to reach our office, but Mr. Mannheim is one of our most valued clients, and I had hoped to expedite his claim…” Sam looked over at Dean as his brother mouthed the word “expedite” back at him with a sneer.

Forgetting, for a second, that he was supposed to be the more sensible, mature brother, Sam stuck his tongue out like he used to all the time when he was – like – six, causing Dean to convulse into a snigger which he had to smother in the crook of one elbow.

Sam fought down his own urge to laugh, the sight of his brother even smiling having become such a rarity of late that his laughter was nigh on infectious, briefly silencing that little voice in the back of Sam’s head that kept telling him that deals with demons always always ended badly, and that when Haris came back to collect on the one Sam had made to save his brother, Dean would never forgive him.

And might never recover.

Sam pushed that thought away with an almost physical effort, trying desperately to convince himself that this had all been worthwhile. Had to be. He’d done the right thing. Hadn’t he?

His smile faltered, and he gradually began to tune back in to what the police officer on the phone was telling him. “Fletcher?” he echoed. “May Fletcher. Uh-huh. And she’s confirmed as having Alzheimer’s? So no criminal charges, okay. And she doesn’t remember any of it? And the crystal – the stolen property – was never found?” Sam’s brows drew together in an intrigued frown as he nodded his head and offered up the occasional “uh-huh” here and there, the officer obviously imparting some tidbit Sam found fascinating. “I see,” he continued. “Well, okay Officer Regan, that should be all I need.” He paused, before suddenly adding, “Oh, there’s just one other thing… ” He licked his lips, so close to the real information he needed, he could almost taste it. “What residential home did you say that was again?” Suddenly his eyebrows shot up. “Really?” he burst out, a look of genuine surprise on his face. “And this happened…?” He glanced up at Dean, before smiling knowingly into the receiver. “Yeah, that is weird,” he agreed. “Well, thanks for your help, Officer. I’m sure our client will be very grateful… You should stop in. Maybe he could offer you a deal on an iPod…”

Sam hung up then, still looking at Dean, a big goofy grin on his face.

Dean huffed out impatiently. “And…?” he urged. “Not everyone in this room’s psychic you know…”

“You’ll never guess where May Fletcher – our crystal-stealing granny – lives.”

“The suspense is killing me, Sam. Seriously.”

“Locksley Residential Care Home.”

Dean’s expression remained utterly blank.

Sam arched an eyebrow. “That’s the same place where that nice suburban couple went on the rampage and wrecked the security system.

“Huh,” Dean said. “That is weird.”

“And guess what else?”

“You know, sometimes I forget you’re not still ten years old…”

“Apparently they just got hooked up with internet access for the residents,” Sam ignored his brother pointedly. “And the last thing May Fletcher did before her little trip into town was to sit in on a demonstration by the home’s ‘Quality of Living’ Coordinator –”

Dean snorted. “The what now?”

“The lady who decided it would be a good idea to install this new-fangled internet,” Sam translated.

Dean grimaced. “You think it’s her?” he hazarded. “You think she has something to do with the psycho-killer-crazy-felon-mind-puppet website?”

“Maybe,” Sam muttered thoughtfully, brow furrowing. “You know, I swear I’ve heard of that place before.”

“The rest home?” Dean queried. “I don’t think Dad would appreciate your checking out places for him to spend his twilight years, man.”

“Yeah, like Dad’ll ever end up in one of those places,” Sam said, standing and tugging on his jacket.

Dean pulled himself to his feet, a surprised look on his face. “We goin’ somewhere?” he asked, eyeing the as yet untouched burgers still oozing grease onto the table.

“We’ll eat on the way,” Sam said, grabbing Dean’s shoulders and spinning him toward the door.

“Jeez,” Dean groused, snagging the food he’d just brought in on the way out. “And I thought I was the bossy one…”

****

“This place doesn’t exactly say ‘evil genius at work’ to me, Sam,” Dean muttered, following Sam up the front steps and into the reception area of Locksley Residential Care Home.

“Yeah, well,” Sam replied, “not all evil geniuses live under a Mediterranean island with a white cat and a swimming pool full of piranhas for company, man.”

A dreamy expression drifted across Dean’s face. “I would so make a great James Bond –”

“You’re thinking of Halle Berry in a bikini again, aren’t you?” Sam guessed, making his way toward the formidable-looking middle-aged lady at the reception desk.

Dean appeared somewhat taken aback, face screwing up in surprise. “I so was not –!” he began to protest.

“Oh please,” Sam waved him into silence. “You always get that expression on your face when you’re thinking about Halle Berry in a bikini.”

Dean looked mortally wounded. “It’s a classic cinematic moment, Sammy. You really think I’m that shallow?” Sam opened his mouth, but Dean quickly silenced him. “Don’t answer that.”

“Can I help you gentlemen?” The receptionist squinted at them over red-rimmed spectacles, scowling none-too-invitingly.

Sam smiled his biggest smile – that one that usually had middle-aged ladies offering to make him soup and darn his socks for him.

This chick? Didn’t even bat an obviously-false eyelash.

Sam’s smile never even faltered. “I sure hope so –” he glanced at the name tag on the woman’s more-than-ample bosom. “– Loretta. We’re – uh – investigating an insurance claim by a Mr. Karl Mannheim – the proprietor of a pawnshop that was robbed by one of your residents…”

Loretta looked him over with a practiced eye, raked her gaze over Dean, before returning her attention to Sam. “Oh you are, huh?” she barked. “Let me see some I.D.”

Sam continued to smile brightly as he deftly pulled out the I.D. card Dean had made the last time they pulled off the “insurance investigator” routine.

Loretta squinted at the little card. “Alright, Mr. Hagar,” she said, somewhat less icily. “What can we do for you? You’re not getting in to see poor Mrs. Fletcher though, if that’s what you had in mind.”

Sam’s sympathetic frown was almost sincere. “No, no, we wouldn’t dream of that,” he said, and Dean was pretty sure he meant it. “It’s just there are a few inconsistencies in the information given to us by the police.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” Sam began, leaning conspiratorially over the reception desk, eyes so puppy-dog Dean had the sudden urge to vomit. “We hear the poor old lady’s last lucid memory was of attending an internet demonstration by your Quality of Living Coordinator?”

The receptionist had stopped peering and now seemed to be gazing, Dean noted, not for the first time in awe of his brother’s boy-next-door “why thank you, ma’am” appeal. “Ms. Richards,” Loretta supplied, actually sounding almost helpful as her frosty exterior began to melt away under the force of Sam’s too-encouraging smile. “Thought it might help our residents interact better with the outside world.”

Sam nodded again. “That’s a very noble sentiment,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have thought many of the – uh – more senior residents, especially those in Mrs. Fletcher’s condition, would have shown much interest?”

Loretta actually smiled then, and Dean made a mental note to leave the questioning of any more mature ladies they might encounter to Sam in the future. “Oh, they didn’t have much choice,” she told him, voice slightly lowered. “Captive audience.” She winked at him, and Sam glanced briefly backwards at Dean, an “ah-ha!” look in his eyes.

“I see,” Sam said, returning his attention to the receptionist. “And Ms. Richards oversaw the demonstration?”

“Oh yes,” Loretta confirmed. “It’s her pet project. Thinks she’s going to have some kind of Awakenings breakthrough, I’m sure.” She laughed hollowly. “You ask me, she’s getting some kind of kickback from whoever runs that website she keeps shoving down everyone’s throat.”

“Website?” Dean temporarily forgot to leave the questioning to Sam. “What website?”

Loretta glanced once at him dismissively, before returning her lingering gaze to Sam. “Some local directory thing.”

“PAEye?” Sam offered.

Loretta rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “You read minds too?”

Dean grimaced. “There’s no beginning to his talents,” he muttered.

Sam studiously ignored him. “You think we could speak to Ms. Richards?” he asked hopefully.

Loretta pursed her lips thoughtfully, and Dean heard a distinct whine from over his shoulder, but glancing behind him, all he saw was the empty reception area.

And a single blinking security camera.

“She seems to spend most of her time down in the basement these days,” Loretta was saying. “God only knows what she’s doing down there –”

“I thought your security system got trashed,” Dean put in suddenly, that niggling little memory suddenly exploding behind his eyes in a flash of rainbow-colored light and waking up somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be with a name that wasn’t his.

Loretta tore her attention from Sam to look at his brother. “It did,” she said bluntly. “That was the darnedest thing. Lovely couple. Visit their dad every Sunday, regular as clockwork. Then last week, one minute they’re helping their dad take his first spin on Ms. Richards’ favorite website, the next they’re wrecking all the cameras…”

“Except that one?” Dean pointed at the camera above the doorway.

The receptionist blinked up at it, eyes glazing over ever-so-slightly. “Oh they’re all fixed now,” she said, voice suddenly the consistence of honey. “Good as new. You’d never have known there was anything wrong with them.”

Dean frowned slightly. That made no sense… The crystal had obviously been taken for a reason. And the bank heist, the store robberies – hell, even the freaks trying to have him and Sam pushing up daisies – they all seemed to have some kind of purpose, a goal, an end result, even if it hadn’t seemed that way to them at first. And even if Dean didn’t have a clue what it was yet.

But this? Some random, pointless act of violence? What the hell…?

He glanced over at Sam, expecting to see his own non-comprehension mirrored in his brother’s eyes.

But all he saw was blankness.

Emptiness.

Nothing.

He swallowed. Hard.

Sammy…?

“Thanks very much for your help,” Sam was saying all of a sudden, the familiar amiable twinkle back in his eyes as quickly as it had disappeared.

Dean blinked, wondering whether he’d imagined the whole thing.

“Is it okay if we take a look around?”

“Knock yourselves out.” Loretta threw a shy smile in Sam’s direction. “Anything you need, sweetie.”

She buzzed the boys in through the door into the main body of the building, Dean’s brow creasing slightly at the ease of their entrance.

Sure, Sam may be like bait on a hook to women like Loretta, but still…

“What exactly are we looking for, Sam?” Dean asked, following his brother into a large lounge area variously populated by elderly or infirm residents, some with visiting relatives. “That receptionist –”

“Loretta,” Sam broke in.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Loretta told us everything she knew. The only real question is, what was the point in that couple trashing the cameras? They must have known they’d be repaired right away.”

“Unless they only needed to be out of action for a little while,” Sam suggested, scanning the large room distractedly. “Maybe just long enough for this Ms. Richards to do whatever she needed to do in the basement.” His eyes lit on a hallway off to the right, and a doorway marked “Staff Only” offering the promise of a stairwell.

Dean nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “Like in the mall that time. When I got zapped and the security camera got locked into a loop so you couldn’t see it had been tampered with –” He stopped abruptly, mouth dropping open and staying that way until he finally managed to burst out, “Holy crap!”

Sam, hand already reaching for the door he’d spotted seconds earlier, turned at his brother’s outburst, only to see Dean still standing in the middle of the lounge, staring in stunned silence at a figure in a wheelchair who appeared to be gazing fixedly out of a large bay window. “Dean, what?”

He took a step back into the room, eyes following the direction of Dean’s astonished gaze.

“Talk about speak of the freakin’ Devil, dude!” Dean breathed, shaking his head as that elusive memory he’d been trying to pin down all day suddenly burst into his head in glorious Technicolor.

Cameras. Rainbows. Soul stealer.

“Howie freakin’ Grumnik.”

Sam’s focus skidded to the guy in the wheelchair, the face of Major Oak Mall’s mousy former security guard immediately recognizable as he continued to stare blankly out of the window, completely oblivious to the boys’ presence.

Or anything else, for that matter.

Sam was at Dean’s shoulder now, shaking his head disbelievingly. “Dammit, I knew I’d heard of this place before,” he muttered. “Why does this suddenly all seem to be making sense…?”

“Soul-stealing crystal,” Dean said. “Like the one he had in the machine at the mall.”

“Stolen computer parts and a temporarily malfunctioning security system,” Sam added.

Dean’s eyes widened. “He’s building another machine.”

“And using the people he controls through the website to get the parts he needs.”

“But –” Dean faltered. “Look at him, dude. He’s just a – a shell. You zapped his soul right out into cyberspace before you nuked his soul-stealing machine, right? He could be anywhere –”

“No.” Sam turned to look at him. “Dean, he could be everywhere.”

“I’m everywhere…” Dean muttered. “I can see everything…”

“We gotta find whatever it is he’s building,” Sam asserted. “And I’ll bet it’s down in the basement, just like last time.”

He turned and headed back toward the door, but Dean caught his arm and held him back.

“Wait,” he said. “Just wait.” His brow scrunched. “What if that’s what he wants?” he asked. “What if that’s why he had the receptionist chick tell us about the basement in the first place? Somehow? To lure us down there? What if –”

“Dean,” Sam turned to him, put both hands on his shoulders. “You said it yourself – the only way to check this out is to check it out, right?”

“Don’t do that,” Dean said.

“Do what?”

“Quote me at me.”

“Come on, man! We gotta put an end to this before someone else gets hurt!”

Dean hesitated, again catching that oddly empty expression in Sam’s eyes as he turned back toward the door and tugged it open, revealing a dimly-lit stairwell beyond.

He glanced back at what had once been Howard Grumnik, still safely ensconced in his wheelchair. “Sammy, I don’t think –”

“Dean, come on!”

Sam had already disappeared down the stairs, and despite every hunter’s instinct he possessed screaming “set-up!” right in his ear, Dean’s own personal Prime Directive compelled him to follow his kid brother. Look out for Sammy… “Sam, wait up!”

He found Sam in a dingy corridor at the bottom of two flights of stairs, cupping his hands around his eyes to better see through the reinforced glass panel set into a door off to his left.

Dean noted the flashing security camera that was pointed in his brother’s direction with some trepidation, reluctantly moving alongside to get a look into the room himself.

“It only looks half-finished,” Sam was saying, moving aside so that Dean could take a look.

He shuddered at the sight of a half-dozen TV screens jury rigged together amidst a tangle of wires, and the rudimentary control panel nestled at their base. “Makes the one at the mall look like the Starship Enterprise,” he murmured, trying the door handle only to find it locked.

He pulled out his lock pick, unconsciously frowning as he concentrated on the task at hand while Sam kept a lookout behind them. “What I don’t get,” he muttered thoughtfully, smiling as the lock clicked and the door swung up, “is why Howie would want to build himself another fantasy sandbox. I mean, if he can really see everything, then surely that would be his idea of sicko voyeur heaven?”

Stepping into the room, he surveyed the machine in front of him pensively, stomach flipping right over as he remembered the last time he’d stood in front of one of these godforsaken things. “But it sure as hell looks like that contraption he used on me back at the mall –”

The unmistakable sound of a gun cocking behind him caused Dean to stop short, and for a second he froze, scarcely breathing. “Sam?” He pivoted on one foot, and for the third time that day found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

Only this time, it was Sam’s gun.

Clutched in Sam’s hand.

And it was pointed right between Dean’s eyes.

Acting more on instinct and training than any belief that Sam would actually hurt him, Dean raised a hand and pushed the .45 out of his face, flinching as the loud report in his ear and the little plume of plaster blown out of the wall behind him signified what to Dean was simply inconceivable.

Sam just tried to shoot me.

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean barked out, anger quickly overcoming his initial shock. “Were you aiming that at me?”

Sam was instantly on the defensive. “Of course I wasn’t,” he protested unconvincingly, lowering his arm and averting his gaze almost guiltily. “The machine, Dean! I was aiming at the crystal! Why the hell would I be aiming at you?”

Without really thinking about it, Dean squared up to him, getting as much in Sam’s face as their height difference would allow. “I don’t know, Sam!” he spat. “You tell me!”

The .45 still gripped menacingly in one hand, Sam slammed the other against Dean’s shoulder, shoving him away angrily. “Get the hell out of my face, Dean!” he growled, expression turning into a dismissive scowl. “You know, sometimes you can be almost as dumb as you look –”

“Well excuse me for not wanting to get my head blown off, college boy!”

“You’re being ridiculous, Dean. I did not try to shoot you! I was aiming for the crystal, you idiot! We need to destroy that thing right now!”

“Since when were you all ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ Mr. Let’s-consider-the-evil-baby-eating-monster’s-feelings-before-we-blow-it-to-hell?” Dean squinted up at him. “You looked at that website too, didn’t you? Even after you flipped out because I looked at it! Has Howie screwed with your head like he did Sandie? Sam? Huh?”

He was in Sam’s face again, and the younger boy gave him another angry shove backwards. “Dean, if anyone’s been screwed with, it’s you, man! Listen to yourself!”

“Then why haven’t you put the safety back on, huh Sammy?” Dean indicated the .45 still clutched in Sam’s hand. “Huh? Answer me that, smartass!”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re paranoid,” he pronounced. “And delusional. Jesus, it’s like having you possessed all over again!”

Dean flinched at that. “You saying you don’t trust me?” he said, voice lowering considerably as his fingers began to reach very slowly toward the small of his back.

“Why the hell should I, Dean?” Sam demanded. “You were looking at that website a hell of a lot longer than I was!” His hand tightened around the cool grip of the handgun, finger twitching against the trigger.

“And you’re the one who gets the hinky death visions from a yellow-eyed freak who put some Spawn of Satan mojo on you when you were a baby, Sammy!”

It was Sam’s turn to flinch. “That’s what you think?” he burst out, again going for the height advantage and looming menacingly over his brother. “Huh? Is that what you think of me? You think I’ve just been waiting all these years to go Dark Side? You think that’s what’s happening now?”

“How the hell would I know?” Dean shot back, fingers brushing steel behind him. “I’m always the last to know anything! Don’t pretend you’ve not been keeping something from me, Sam, ’cause I know you have. You and your little secrets. You’re as bad as Dad with the ‘need to know’ crap! Hell, for all I know you could have done some kinda deal with Haris! You could be working for him right now!”

Sam took another step toward his brother, every muscle in his body suddenly vibrating. “And you could be working for those damn hunters – the ones who came after us at Bobby’s. The ones who saw me get that vision when I was trying to save your sorry, possessed, brother-sacrificing ass –!”

“That’s it.” Dean whipped his Glock out from where it had been tucked into his waistband at the small of his back, taking a smooth step backwards as he brought the gun up and pointed it at Sam’s head. “Get away from me, Sam!”

Sam brought his own gun back up until it was once again aimed right between Dean’s eyes. “No, you get away from me, Dean!” he snarled, taking up an overtly offensive position.

Dean clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the Glock, flicking off the safety and straightening his arms. “I’m going to kill you,” he promised, voice so soft Sam barely heard him.

Sam nodded, the barrel of his .45 mere inches from the barrel of Dean’s Glock. “Not if I kill you first.”

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