An Unexpected Visit

[bloodnbadthings]

They'd been at it over a month now with still no sign of Dad. There had been hope once when an old acquaintance of John and Dean's called for help on another case and informed them that he found Sam's phone number by calling John's. Suddenly the phone that had given them nothing but disconnect redirects was now clicking over to voicemail in their father's voice informing people to call Sam if they needed help.

Sam had... not liked that development. Dean could understand why. Sam didn't have anything against helping people, but to have proof that their father was still out there and knew Sam was hunting... presumably knew Sam was looking for him... but, he was still staying out of communication? Dean could understand why that was upsetting. All he could do was keep trying to track the man down and hope when they did, Sam could get his answers.

They were in the middle of nowhere Illinois, Dean still recovering from his first and last airplane flight, when their hunt met with an unexpected snag. Dean walked into their motel room after sitting with Sam through his dinner to find their room occupied. A blond vampire was stretched out on Dean's bed, lounging. Inwardly, Dean started cussing colorfully while he pushed Sam as casually behind him as he could.

"Hello, Eric."

Comments

[bloodnbadthings]

Dean emerged at the regular time and stood up to stretch. He yawned and looked around for Sam. Uh oh. Little brother didn't look like he had a very good day.

"Hey. How'd the library go?" He asked as he headed for the fridge. Eat first, then shower. Although, it was less urgent these days to eat first thing after waking. Control came more easily now that he was used to having a living person around all the time. It also helped that Sam willingly let him feed on him occasionally.

[thinkshesosmart]

"Nothing. I got nothing." He let out a sigh, leaning back and rubbing a hand over his face. "Laura, Catherine, and a Dave, but no Mary, so... I don't know, Dean. Something's going on, but I don't think it's Mary."

[bloodnbadthings]

"Hm." Dean hummed thoughtfully as he pulled the blood out of the microwave and shook it. He'd have bet anything Sam would have turned up something at the library. One lead. Anything.

"Well, back to basics then, I guess? We need to get to the crime scene. See what we can see." He sat down and grabbed for the original files they gathered, glancing at them again. "Gonna be difficult, since it's the family bathroom, though. Even if we sneak in."

[thinkshesosmart]

"I looked at the bathroom when I was there... but maybe I missed something. I gave them my number, told them to call if they remembered anything unusual, but..." Nothing so far.

"I guess we'll have to figure out when they're not around, see if we can get in that way."

[bloodnbadthings]

"We can try sneaking in tonight after they're asleep. It'll be dicey, but possible. You'd have to get in first and invite me." He looked up from the file and sat back, drinking the blood slowly. "You eat yet? We can go grab you something. Kill some time."

[thinkshesosmart]

"Invite you..." Hopefully breaking and entering wouldn't have to happen too often while they looked for Dad. He paused at the question, rubbing idly at the back of his neck. He was sore as hell after sitting in the library and hunched over his laptop.

"Yeah, I guess we could." He hadn't grabbed much food today between working.

[bloodnbadthings]

"I can't enter a home owned by a human without a human's invitation." He shrugged, hating to have to make the distinction between himself and humans, but the truth was... he was a monster now and had to follow monster rules. He was fond enough of rule breaking to have tried to enter a house uninvited, but found it impossible. Couldn't even touch the door.

[thinkshesosmart]

He nodded slowly at that, absently. Still weird to hear that, to realize Dean wasn't- human anymore, no matter how much he still acted the same. "Do you want to grab a shower or anything before we head out?"

[bloodnbadthings]

"Yeah, just a quick one." He put the bottle down and got up to head into the bathroom. Generally, he didn't need to shower every single day. Wasn't like he sweated or anything, but he slept under a nasty motel bed, so he felt like he should.

[thinkshesosmart]

"Alright." He nodded, not minding the wait. It wasn't like he was all that hungry. While Dean washed up, he decided to get back on a little more research, if he could.

[bloodnbadthings]

Dean didn't take long in the shower. He was out and dressed in no time, snatching his keys off the TV. "Ready to roll, dude?"

[thinkshesosmart]

"Yeah, let's go." He got to his feet and slipped on his jacket, following Dean out to get in the car, muffling a yawn as he got settled in.

[bloodnbadthings]

"Y'okay, Sammy?" Dean slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Once Sam was settled, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the main drag with the heaviest concentration of restaurants.

[thinkshesosmart]

"Sure, I'm fine, Dean." Frustrated and tired, maybe. Still a little freaked about his blood being different from... everybody else's apparently, on top of everything else, but there wasn't anything that he wanted to bring up right now. He'd prefer focusing on the case, getting it done and- well, finding Dad still.

"Hungry, kinda. I skipped lunch today."

[bloodnbadthings]

Unfortunately, vampires didn't forget things, so although it was a little fuzzy, Dean remembered that conversation from last night. He wished it had never come up. His brother had always been so hell bent on being normal, that telling him anything about him was different was just not a good idea. He wished he could take it back.

"Anything in particular you feel like eating?"

[thinkshesosmart]

It was definitely going to be eating at him awhile. But then, so was everything else, so it wasn't anything new. Maybe he'd feel better after all of this was settled, could go back to college... something. Try to start over normal again.

"Not really. Just the first place you see's fine."

He frowned a little when his phone went off and he brought it up to answer it. "Hello-?"

And the voice on the other end tells Sam immediately this isn't going to be a good call. His expression pinches in concern. "What's going on?"

[bloodnbadthings]

"Mmm-kay." He turned into the parking lot of the first diner he found just as Sam's phone rang. He parked and turned to watch Sam. With his advanced senses, he could hear both sides of the conversation. Definitely didn't sound good. Dean would bet anything he wasn't going to be able to convince Sam to eat now.

[thinkshesosmart]

Food was the last thing on his mind, yeah. He wrapped up the call and looked over at Dean. "It was one of the girls involved I gave my number to. Someone else died, same exact way."

He leaned back. "We have to go, Dean. See what's up."

[bloodnbadthings]

"Yeah, alright." He kind of wanted to sigh as he backed out of the parking lot and headed in the direction he'd heard over the phone. Another death. And they were still no closer to figuring out what was going on.

"This sucks."

[thinkshesosmart]

"It does..." He slouched a bit, frowning. "We have to figure this out... no telling how many more people are in danger."

Or would die. He didn't want any more calls like the one he just got. "There's got to be something we're missing..."

[bloodnbadthings]

"Alright, run through it. What do we know?" Dean remembered everything he'd seen or been told, but maybe there was a connection he hadn't made? Had to be something.

"Anything about the new vic?"

[thinkshesosmart]

"The dad I checked out in the morgue... he was missing his eyes, they blamed a stroke. Apparently, the girl who just died did the Bloody Mary thing on the phone, I guess. The friend heard her. But it doesn't make sense... no one named Mary's died around here. We need to check out the girl's place."

[bloodnbadthings]

"Do you know if there are any connections between the original victim and tonight's?" Maybe the dad was getting a little too friendly with the high school girls and somebody didn't like it? He'd heard of people killed over much less. Not usually in such showy ways, though. Gouging out someone's eyes? Sounded like rage to him.

[thinkshesosmart]

"Not that I know of, no. Like I said, I might have missed something though." He shrugged, frowning thoughtfully as he tried to go over everything he'd learned... which wasn't much.

"Maybe we'll learn more when we talk to the victim's friend or something... see where she was killed. We'll have to look over everything."

[bloodnbadthings]

"We'll go to the house after we talk to the friend. Hopefully, we'll find something." Dean pulled into the parking lot of the park where the girl asked to meet. He parked and climbed out of the car. One girl sitting on a bench. Had to be her. He'd let Sam go first, though. Hang back a little and be sure she didn't catch on that he wasn't exactly human.