Chapter Text
Only a few hours ago, Nick and Ash had walked out the precinct together, leaving behind a promise to bring back shitty burnt diner coffee for the rest of the crew stuck on night shift.
Now, standing at the edge of an abandoned subway platform, Dean watches as fresh blood drips out of a bullet hole between Ash’s unseeing eyes. Nick’s body lays nearby, face down, a dark circle of red pooling in the center of his back.
The tunnel is filthy and dark. A thick layer of stagnant humidity hangs in the air, clinging to the exposed skin above his tie and making his palms clammy. It’s loud, too. A dozen or so other federal agents scramble about, every word of their rushed conversation echoed off the arched stone walls above.
A hand clamps down on Dean's shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts and forcing his head to snap toward the source. Tired brown eyes and a thick unruly beard fill Dean's vision. His bureau partner is a small comfort in the pool of gore before them.
“It just ain’t right,” Benny says with a fraction of a head shake, a southern New Orleans accent warping his speech thicker than normal and making his exhaustion clear.
Dean silently agrees, but it's not the time to get sentimental. They have a job to do, and one they're expected to do well. There's no place for grief in this line of work. So Dean does what he does best and compartmentalizes. The sooner they get to work, the faster they can catch the sick son of a bitch who did this.
“Let’s just get this done,” Dean replies gruffly. His boots crunch against the gravel between the tracks when he jumps down. He doesn’t look back to ensure Benny follows as he closes in on the victims.
Victims. The cold, faceless word tastes bitter on his tongue as he thinks it.
“They’ve only been here an hour,” Charlie says as Dean stands next to where she’s crouched by Nick’s arm. Her natural red hair falls around her shoulders, the sleeves of her white button-up shirt rolled up to the elbows. She peels back the sticky wet layers of Nick’s suit, exposing two entry holes near the middle of his spine.
“Gimme some light,” she says, motioning toward Dean. He unhooks the small flashlight from his belt, shining it toward the wound.
With a gloved hand- and a concerning lack of hesitation- Charlie fishes into the wound closest to her, prodding as deeply as her narrow fingers will allow. Dean looks away, pushing down the bile that threatens to rise in his throat. Charlie makes a proud ‘ah-ha’ noise and pulls a metal round out of Nick’s back.
“Are you serious?” Dean says, glaring at her even if she can’t see his expression well in the low light.
“What? I’m not gonna wait a week just for the medical examiner to give it back to me,” She says as she comes to stand, raising the bullet in her palm for Dean to see.
“That is against so many protocols,” Dean grumbles but squints at the bullet anyway. The front end is bunched up from the impact, and it’s relatively small, no larger than his pinky nail.
“Looks like a .32,” Benny says, coming up behind them.
Dean narrows his eyes suspiciously. “What? Like a colt? That’s hardly standard-issue for the mob.”
“Are we assuming it’s the mob?” Benny challenges, leaning closer to the scrunched-up ball of metal.
“Who else? Two FBI agents are capped in cold blood in an abandoned subway tunnel. Seems like a valid assumption to me,” Dean says, looking down at Ash again.
He was a few years younger than Dean, barely 25. He wonders if he had someone waiting for him at home, wonders how many family members someone will have to break the news to.
Dean never thought to ask before.
He looks away.
“Maybe you’ve been working the Capone case for too long,” Benny says, raising an eyebrow at him.
“They were part of our unit, Benny. You tryna tell me a robbery gone wrong is more likely?” Dean asks. Benny shrugs, leaning back and shifting his weight where he stands.
A wind picks up through the tunnel, lifting the edges of Dean’s suit jacket. They’re nearly fifty feet underground, where the hell would a draft be coming from? There’s no running lines in this part of the city. Not anymore, at least. Not that they know of. Dean frowns and makes a mental note for later.
He glances over at the hole in Ash’s head; it’s clean, singular. A precise shot that doesn’t line up with the messy picture the gangs tend to leave in their wake. Dean shines his flashlight around the surrounding area. Other than the blood directly beneath the bodies, the crime scene looks untouched.
“They were killed here on scene. So how'd they get down here to begin with?” Dean asks, stepping around one of Nick’s legs.
“Brought at gunpoint?” Charlie suggests.
“That would suggest multiple suspects. Two against one?” Benny shakes his head, "They could've easily overpowered the culprit." Dean sees Benny crouch next to Ash in his peripheral as he strays further from the group.
Since the tunnel is so far from any light source other than the team’s flashlights, it’s hard to make out the finer details of the scene. Rows of metal tracks disappear into nothingness in either direction.
A couple hundred feet away, an abandoned subway train sits forgotten and decaying. Most of its windows are smashed, and large sections of the steel body are rusted away. The printed letters on the train's side are no longer legible. The rotting metal skeleton looms over them, keeping watch like a vulture waiting for its next meal.
Something near the edge of the tracks glints against the beam of Dean’s flashlight. Under closer inspection, a small, white, and vaguely reflective object comes into view. Maybe a marble or coin? He bends down to pick it up.
A tooth.
He swears under his breath, resisting every urge to throw the damn thing.
“You gotta bag, Bradbury?” Dean asks, already holding the bone out for Charlie. He drops it unceremoniously in the clear evidence bag she pulls out of the pocket of her slacks.
“Have the medical examiner you’re so fond of see if either of them is missing any teeth,” He says, brushing his hand off on his pants with a grimace.
Charlie rolls her eyes, “You got it, boss.”
A glimpse of movement a few yards away has Dean’s head snapping in that direction.
He only sees the reflection of blue eyes as his flashlight scans the area before the person disappears. Dean's feet are moving before his brain catches up.
“Freeze!” He shouts, pulling himself onto the ledge and taking off for the corner the man vanished behind. He follows the sound of racing footsteps, catching a glimpse of a tan coat as he clears the wall.
“FBI! Stop!” Dean yells between breaths.
He stumbles to a stop at a four-way intersection of the tunnels. The footsteps are fading fast and sound like they’re coming from every direction. No amount of frantic swinging of his flashlight reveals anything other than bottomless pools of black. Darkness swallows anything his beam doesn’t directly touch.
Several footsteps stop behind him as Dean swears in frustration.
“Who was that?” An unfamiliar agent asks, looking nervous and disheveled.
“Didn’t get a good look. But anyone sneaking around a crime scene is guilty of something,” Dean mutters, letting the arm holding his flashlight go lax.
The surrounding darkness of the subway envelops him without hesitation.
The air in the precinct is charged in a way that it hasn’t been in a very long time. Every pair of shoulders tensed and heavy with the fresh memory of their fallen fellow agents. The two empty desks near the left side of the room are given a wide berth as people pass.
Late morning sunlight bleeds orange through the half-open blinds along the back wall.
Dean rubs his eyes as he steps through the threshold of the large shared office space. He’s already on his fifth cup of coffee for the day, but even that can’t chase away the exhaustion that clouds his mind from a third day in a row with next to no sleep.
He had passed out somewhere around 3 am- only thanks to a half bottle of hooch- and woke up to the unwelcome sight of the clock hands in his bedroom sitting at 4.
Dean sighs heavily as he trudges toward his desk that sits facing Benny’s in the far corner of the room.
Out of the window next to it, Dean can see the Chicago landscape beneath them. Ten stories down, crowds of people and automobiles weave through the busy morning traffic.
Slumping into his office chair, Dean half registers that the one across from him is empty. It’s unusual for Benny to be late, but he knows last night’s call is wearing on the whole team. He sets his coffee cup on the wooden surface with a dull thud, swapping it for the case file sitting on top of the stack between their two desks.
“Winchester.”
Dean’s head pops up, scanning the room and landing on the Director’s unhappy expression staring at him from his office doorway.
“My office,” Bobby says, not waiting to spin around and fall back into the room. Dean sighs and drags a tired, heavy hand down his face. Crossing the room, Dean shuts the door behind him, stopping a few feet from the head director’s desk.
Bobby Singer is a veteran in the field with over twenty years under his belt and the bravado to back it up. He’s a calloused and no-nonsense kind of man.
And he’s the closest thing Dean has to a father.
“Yes sir?” Dean asks, trying to seem more awake than he is. The yawn that cuts through the last half of his sentence doesn’t help his case.
“Where’s Lafitte?” Bobby asks, leaning back in his chair.
“No idea, haven’t seen him since last night,” Dean shakes his head, taking it upon himself to slump into one of the two leather chairs facing Bobby’s desk.
“Well when he gets back, tell him I’m assigning you two as lead detectives to our most recent case,” Bobby says. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth make his displeased expression more pronounced.
“But Capone-”
“The rest of the team is still working on it. Two of our agents were murdered and I need my best men to oversee it. The subway murders are now your top priority,” Bobby says.
“But-”
“I have a feeling it'll come full circle anyway. We both know how close Nick and Ash were to the Capone case,” Bobby intersects before Dean can get a word in edgewise.
Dean opens his mouth to object again, but Bobby only raises an eyebrow paired with an otherwise unimpressed face.
Dean clenches his fist but nods anyway, “Yes sir.”
Bobby mirrors the nod, “Good, here’s the info for the witness that called it in. I’m sure you and Lafitte can figure out the rest from there.”
Dean takes the file out of Bobby’s outstretched hand, shuffling through it unseeingly. With a weary sigh, he pushes himself up from the chair, heading for the door with even less energy than he had ten minutes ago.
“And Dean,”
He stills, looking over his shoulder.
“Be careful out there, son. Someone’s coming after our guys and I don’t want you in a Chicago overcoat next.” Only the slight furrow in Bobby’s brow gives away his concern, but it’s enough for Dean to understand the weight of his words.
“Yes sir,” Dean says, nodding one last time before exiting into the festering nervous tension of the main office.
The lead witness turns out to be a homeless man who lives in the alleyway between 36th and 9th in the industrial district. ‘Alfred Bendoy’ reads the scribbled name at the top of the witness report.
On the walk to the recorded location, a seemingly perpetual layer of fog hangs in the air, obscuring the buildings on either side from view. In addition, the midday sun is shaded by dark clouds that cast a slate blue light over every surface. A light drizzle falls through the air, droplets dampening the brim of Dean's fedora and the shoulders of his jacket. His boots splash against the wet cobblestone-paved path beneath him.
Benny follows on his heels, hand cautiously lingering by his holster. When he showed up around midday, eyes red-rimmed and gait a little uneven, a look of understanding passed between them, and Dean left it at that. He gets enough worry from the wife at home, Benny doesn’t need Dean doing her job for her as well.
Around them, the rush of cars and passing conversations fills in the familiar drone of the city. The distinct scent of something rotten floats through the air, something that seems to linger in every alleyway in this part of town.
Ahead, the alley looks deserted. Dean pulls out the paper in his pocket, a barely legible address written in Bobby’s chicken scratch handwriting.
They’re in the right place. Maybe the guy wanders during the day?
Dean has only just pulled his eyes away from the notes when a crashing weight to his left side knocks him off balance.
“Shit-”
A gangly man has him backed into the brick wall, his eyes unfocused, afraid. Dean can feel where the cold blade of a knife is pressed to his neck, threatening to break the skin. The rain-soaked wall clings to his back, water seeping through his uniform and chilling his skin. Benny has his gun drawn and pointed at the man, face contorted in anger.
“Drop the weapon!” Benny orders.
“Who are you? I know you were looking for me!” The man barks, eyes never leaving Dean’s.
He hesitates, swallowing thickly.
“Are you Alfred? I’m Agent Winchester. This is Agent Lafitte. We just want to ask you a few questions,” Dean says, fingers twitching at his sides, aching to do anything other than stay calm.
The man scoffs, looking between the two men unbelievingly.
Dean waits until the man’s gaze is on Benny and, in a blur of movement, kicks up at the man’s stomach. Alfred grunts, curling in on himself. Dean wrenches the knife out of his hands, tossing it further into the alley and switching their positions.
They come to a standstill again, with Alfred pressed to the wall this time, Dean’s forearm bearing down on his throat threateningly.
“Now are you gonna calm down? Or are we gonna do this the hard way?” Dean grunts.
Alfred slowly raises his hands in surrender. Dean waits for a beat before gradually backing away, anticipating resistance at any time. Benny waits for Dean’s confirmation before he begrudgingly holsters his gun again. When he rubs his neck, a dark smear of blood stains his fingerprints.
“Were you the one who called in the murders last night?” Benny asks gruffly, his eyes distrustfully darting along Alfred's frame.
“That was me,” Alfred says, his tone more hushed than it was. He looks over his shoulder as though he’s worried about someone overhearing them.
“Can you tell us about what you saw? Anything about the events that lead to you discovering the bodies?” Dean asks, shrugging his right shoulder out where it throbs from being slammed into a wall. Alfred inhales sharply, and Dean’s muscles tense on instinct.
“I was visiting some buddies, walking back home and I took a shortcut. It was stupid. Stupid, stupid. There’s places you’re not ‘posed ta be. They like it in the dark where they have the advantage-” Alfred whispers. The longer the man talks, the faster he speaks. His discomfort is evident in the way he clenches and unclenches his fists.
“Who’s they? Do you know the names of anyone down there?” Benny asks.
“No names, but you’ll know. Oh-” Alfred barks a humorless laugh, “You’ll know alright. It’s in the eyes! The eyes! Don’t look at 'em, they’re watching us. Watching us-”
“Alright, easy there fella. Calm down-”
Dean reaches for Alfred’s shoulder, but he scrambles back several feet, “No! No touch! Don’t let ’em touch ya! That’s how they win.”
Dean thinks to mention that the man touched him first when he decided to hold a knife to his throat, but he decides now's not the time to be petty. Alfred looks around shakily, eyes never staying on one thing for too long. Dean and Benny share matching concerned expressions.
Benny leans over in a hushed voice, “Should we take him back to the station? I don’t know if he should be left alone.”
“You wanna see if he’ll stab us for that too?” Dean whispers back, raising an eyebrow. Benny purses his lips together.
“Can you tell us anything more specific about what you saw last night? Did you see the attacker?” Benny pushes forward with the interview. The man pauses for a second, shuffling back and forth erratically.
“There was four people down there. They were yellin’. That’s how I found ’em, no one’s supposed to be down there. Not safe, no no no. Not safe, not safe.”
“Four? Four attackers or four people altogether?” Dean asks, his interests piqued.
“All of them, four of all of ’em. N’ they were arguing. Don’t know what about but the two with the guns were the loudest. Had to cover my ears ’cause of the echo. Gave me a headache. Not safe, no-”
“Why isn’t it safe, Alfred?” Benny interrupts before the man can get distracted.
“The monsters! There’s monsters in the shadows down there. Up here too sometimes but always… always down there. I can feel their eyes on the back of my neck,” Alfred pats down his neck subconsciously, “Watching. Hunting.”
The man closes his eyes, curling in on himself like he wants to escape his own train of thought. Dean suppresses a sigh. Who knows how reliable any of this information is. Of course, their one witness to the crime is hopped up on drugs.
Not long after, Alfred fades from complete sentences into incoherent mumbling, a faraway look in his eyes, and Dean resigns himself to not getting anything else out of the man.
“Let’s go,” Dean says to Benny, nodding his head back toward the alley's entrance.
Alfred is no longer paying them any mind. Instead, he’s pacing the alleyway and muttering words to himself. Benny nods stiffly, following Dean back to the main road.
In unspoken agreement, they head to a nearby coffee shop. The silence between them is weighted with unspoken theories and concerns.
Dean shakes his hands out as they walk. The extreme sense of paranoia from the homeless man is almost contagious. More than once, Dean finds himself casting a glance over his shoulder.
“So what are we thinkin’?” Benny asks as they cross a busy street. Dean swerves out of the way last minute to avoid running into a mother and her two children.
“Well the guy obviously had a few screws loose,” Dean says, grimacing as he recalls the slightly unhinged look in his eyes. A strong breeze sends misty cold air under his coat, and he shivers as he buttons it shut to insulate himself better.
“Aside from that though, we now have an eye witness placing two perpetrators at the scene of the crime. Multiple suspects suggests it was premeditated,” Benny says, pausing in front of the coffee shop’s front door.
He holds the door open for Dean, who steps by with a tilt of his head as thanks.
“I feel like that’s the only useful information we got out of the whole thing. Like what’s up with the eyes thing? And monsters? The guy sounded straight out of the looney bin,” Dean says, keeping his voice down as they step past other customers and stand at the back of the line for the ordering counter.
“Maybe it’s a metaphor for Capone’s goons? They might have a system down there that we’re unaware of. This could be our big break: ‘FBI Cracks Down on Underground Subway Syndicate Crime Ring’,” Benny says, holding out his hands as though he can already envision the news headline.
Dean rolls his eyes as he steps up to the counter, ignoring Benny’s antics in favor of ordering his coffee.
“That’ll be 0.30$,” The girl behind the register says, looking up at him through her lashes.
She has shoulder-length curly brown hair and red lipstick that pops against her pale skin. She looks straight out of one of the magazines in the waiting room of the precinct. Dean would consider getting her number if he wasn’t currently knee-deep in a shit-show murder case. Instead, he shoots her a small flirty smile, more on instinct than anything else.
He drops a quarter and a dime into her palm, “The rest is yours, doll.” Then, with a wink, Dean goes to stand by the big glass windows at the front of the store to wait for his drink.
Benny joins his side once again, only a moment later, “I’m thinking we should revisit the crime scene sometime tomorrow. Check to see if there’s anything we missed the first time around.”
Dean nods, looking out the window, the light rain still not letting up.
“I wanna see if Charlie can pull any old maps of the subway,” Dean says. They can always rely on her for the research side of things.
Two younger women enter the store, a gust of cold air following them in. Both are in business attire. They probably work at one of the several office buildings on this block. Looking down at his watch, Dean realizes it’s well into the afternoon. Their endeavors with the slightly crazed homeless man ate up more time from their day than he'd thought.
One of the workers places Dean’s coffee on the counter and calls out the order. When he picks it up, the warmth from the beverage seeps into his numbing fingertips. As he turns to go back to standing next to Benny, a man walks through the front door, instantly catching Dean’s attention amidst the small crowd.
He’s dressed to the nines: a tailored black suit jacket and tan trench coat barely reveal a fitted brown waistcoat that tucks into slightly tight black slacks. The only thing out of place in his well-put-together appearance is a backward tie.
Dean has a hard time seeing anything else in the room other than the man’s steely gray-blue eyes and a 5 o’clock shadow that contours his cheekbones and jawline. His dark black hair slicked back just enough to look professional while still looking soft enough to run his fingers through.
When Dean swallows, his throat feeling uncomfortably dry.
The man’s gaze meets his blatant staring, and only then does Dean realize he’s doing it. In one panicked movement, Dean rips his eyes away and rushes back to where Benny is waiting with an overly satisfied smirk.
“Someone catch your eye?” Benny asks, keeping his voice low enough the other patrons don’t overhear.
“Can it, Benny,” Dean warns with a clenched jaw. Just because his field partner is okay with Dean being into dudes sometimes doesn’t mean most other people are. And Dean is not in the mood to start a fistfight in his favorite coffee shop on this side of town.
A moment later, Benny’s name gets called, and he goes to pick up his own cup of coffee. Dean immediately uses the excuse to race toward the exit, but not before casting one last glance at the blue-eyed man still waiting in line.
The man is already looking at him, an unreadable expression coloring his face.
Dean embarrassedly swears under his breath as his cheeks heat up and keeps his head down as he shoves open the glass door and breathes in the smell of city fumes and fresh air. He tries his damnedest to shake the sight of bright blue eyes that appear every time he closes his.
The door of Dean’s apartment shuts behind him so hard that the surrounding walls shake a little. The hours at the office got away from him, and it’s regrettably well into the night.
With a heavy sigh, Dean hangs his keys on the hook bolted to the wall next to the wooden doorframe. He takes to loosening his tie as he kicks his work boots off next to the small brown rug in the entryway, relieved to be rid of the constricting footwear.
He passes the living room archway and heads to the end of the short hallway where the kitchen lives. His jacket gets thrown across the back of one of the two dining chairs at the rickety dining table that’s been shoved into the corner of the cramped space. He sets his gun and badge on the wooden tabletop next to it.
The whole room is outfitted in various shades of beige. The tiles of the backsplash and floor are all a similar tan color. Dean’s white appliances are the only thing of contrast in the room, and even some of those have begun to yellow with age. A skinny window sits above his makeshift breakfast nook, and beyond it he can see the glimmering lights of Windy City.
He bends to open the fridge, popping the cap off a beer with the silver ring on his right hand. As the bitter carbonated alcohol hits the back of his throat, he feels the day’s tension loosen fractionally from his shoulders.
He turns on the small radio next to the stove, letting soft jazz flow through the room and fill the silence of his empty apartment.
Near the back of the fridge, Dean finds leftover chicken from the other night that he can’t be bothered to reheat on the stove, so he settles for just grabbing a fork and dropping into a dining chair to eat the food cold. It’s not the best thing he’s ever had, but he learned not to be picky after a childhood of not knowing when his next meal would be.
Images of cheap peeling motel wallpaper and seemingly endless highways come to mind. An old memory of sitting cramped on the bench of his dad’s truck, his kid brother Sam sitting between him and their father with an oblivious grin on his face.
Dean's fingers tighten around the glass bottle in his palm, and he takes another swig. Sammy works for a law firm now that’s just across town, but Dean hasn’t heard from him in almost a month.
Their last conversation had ended in a blowout over something Dad said the last time he was in town. Bitching about Sam getting a real job defending the streets instead of hiding away in an office all day.
Sam had gotten rightfully pissed.
Dean instinctually defended Dad.
And by the time the whole thing was over, both of them said some things they didn’t mean, and Dean hadn’t picked up the phone since. Guilt claws at his chest every time he thinks about it.
So he doesn’t, taking another drink to dull his thoughts instead.
The streets outside his window are emptier but not completely abandoned. At least most of the noise doesn’t make it this far up.
That’s what he loves about this small piece of his in the surrounding nocturnal city; the pipes might be leaky, the wooden floors in the living room worn from use, and the radiator in his bedroom tends to break halfway through winter, but at least it’s quiet. The one and only place Dean can find peace after a grueling workday of bottomless violence and paperwork.
When Dean finishes dinner, he stops by the fridge to grab another beer before walking down the hall. He passes the open living room once more on the way to the bathroom across the way from the only bedroom in the apartment.
He sets the beer on the counter as he turns on the overhead shower faucet. Soon enough, the tiny room is filled with steam as Dean sheds his dirty work clothes.
He steps under the spray of water that’s so hot it’s almost uncomfortable, but it helps relax the muscles in his back, so he doesn’t bother turning it down. Instead, he takes his time going through his routine, pointedly not thinking about his future water bill.
Fifteen minutes and the rest of his beer later, Dean walks into his bedroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist.
The room is sparsely furnished; a wooden dresser and bookshelf are leaned against the right wall, cluttered and undusted. He's never been one for interior decorating. Dean changes into only a pair of boxers because it gets too hot in the middle of the night for much else.
His bed is centered on the left, and two windows fill out the wall farthest from him. The sheets are a little scratchy, but the mattress dips comfortably to accommodate his weight when he sits on the side closest to the door. Muted yellow light fades into the room through the slits in the blinds.
Dean rubs his face as he leans back, not thinking about how large the bed is. Not thinking about how much warmer it would be if it was shared.
Like always, sleep comes and goes unpredictably.
He dreams of when he and Nick went out to celebrate his first big promotion in the bureau.
Him and Ash getting drinks with the whole team when they finally closed the case on a trafficking ring downtown. Every slimy bastard involved got 20 years behind bars, making the alcohol taste that much sweeter.
But each dream abruptly ends the same. Darkness taints the happiness as Dean clinks his glass against Ash’s. When he clasps Nick’s shoulder with a smile that finally reaches his eyes, his hand comes away bloody.
The blood is under his feet and dripping from the walls. The smell of death is so thick he chokes on it. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t-
Dean jerks upright in bed, flailing to get the sheets off where they entangle his arms and legs. Stumbling to his feet, he tries to catch his breath as his heart pounds, thudding hard against his ribs.
It’s then -hands braced on his knees, standing in the middle of his bedroom, vulnerable, exposed- that Dean feels the first tears fall.
The dark shapes of the furniture in his room blur together and then disappear as he presses his face into his hands.
They’re gone.
His friends are gone.
A new layer of burden is added to the weight his shoulders carry. Another brick in the wall. Another chip in the wood. He lifts his head and finds his gaze attracted to the dim light that shines through the windows.
His friends are gone, and somewhere out there, the people who took them from him are walking free.
Blind fury curls inside his chest, making itself at home behind his ribs. His fists tighten, and his shoulders draw themselves back on their own accord. The anger calms his racing heartbeat, dries his eyes, and with deadly certainty, whispers in his ear:
His friends are gone, and someone out there is going to pay.