Archive of Our Own ^beta

Henricksen’s footsteps echoed from the institutional green walls of the deserted hallway. “It’s our second full day in lockdown,” a guard muttered to Henricksen when he handed over his weapon at the first check-point. Correctional Officer Levi escorted him to the interview room. The officer was twitchy, eyes constantly scanning for danger, hand never leaving the butt of his baton. The entire prison stank of industrial cleansers and fear.

The warden’s call had been frantic. “Twelve inmate homicides in the last three months,” he’d explained. “Twelve. That’s more than this prison has had since it opened in ’89. And it’s all because of Winchester’s gang.”

“Wait,” Henricksen had interrupted, scrawling down some barely-legible notes. “Sam Winchester’s joined a prison gang?”

“Joined it? He’s running it! Him and that cell-mate of his, Volpe. It crosses racial lines. Recruits from other gangs, inmates who’ve never been in a gang, men who hated each other’s guts until a few months ago. Yesterday Jose Sanchez, one of their newest members, shivved his own cousin in the yard. Thirty years working in the prison system and I have never seen anything like this. We’re losing control. I’ve put in an emergency request that Winchester be transferred to another facility, but that’ll take weeks. The Winchesters were your collar, agent. Get down here and figure out what the hell that man is up to before he tears my prison apart.”

Henricksen’s supervisor had booked him on the first flight to Nevada.

Ely State Prison had seemed an ideal choice when he’d delivered Dean Winchester here six months ago. It was one of the most secure facilities in the nation, geographically isolated so that any outsiders would stand out, and the staff was known for its ability to handle even the most violent prisoners. Originally Henricksen had placed Sam in Pelican Bay Prison to keep the two of them separated. But Dean had traded the locations of three victims from a multi-state killing spree the previous year for a guarantee that he and Sam would be housed together until their trial dates.

Officer Levi unlocked a final door, and Henricksen stepped inside the interview room. He spread his files out on the table, controlling the available space, took the chair facing away from the one-way mirror, and cracked his neck. This was a real opportunity. Henricksen had assumed that Dean was the dominant member of their twisted little partnership, but the warden’s report made him reconsider. He could push Sam off-balance; get him to admit to being an accessory to those murders. Maybe Henricksen could get a little justice for the victims’ families who had been cheated of it by Dean Winchester’s sudden death three months earlier.

Henricksen had last visited Ely State Prison on May 2nd to supervise Dean Winchester’s autopsy. After all, the man had somehow faked his own death well enough to fool the St. Louis medical examiner. Henricksen had wondered if he was trying to pull the same con again.

Dean Winchester’s face had been clearly identifiable, untouched except for a few blood-spatters. But his chest and abdomen were a mess of ragged, gaping wounds. The cause of death was listed as ‘wild dog attack’, although no one could explain how a pack of wild dogs had gotten into a cell in a maximum security prison, or where they’d disappeared to before the guards could respond to Winchester’s screams. It figured that Dean would manage to die in a way that cost Henricksen sleep and extra paperwork.

There was a brief investigation. Staff noted that Dean had been increasingly anxious in the days before his death. An inmate known for his ability to procure little luxuries for other prisoners had testified that Dean had been desperate for some ‘goofer dust’, but no one knew anything about that particular drug. Dean had finally snapped right after dinner, sucker-punching his own brother and managing to dislocate one of Sam’s shoulders before the guards pulled him off. So Dean spent his final night in solitary, and Sam spent it unconscious in the infirmary.

Sam was pale, bruised, and withdrawn when Henricksen interviewed him after the autopsy. He was hunched in on himself, pushing at non-existent bangs on his close-cropped head, and he barely spoke. Henricksen would have felt bad for the kid, if he hadn’t been looking right at the crime scene photos of Madison Wright, and speaking to the ‘nice young police officer’ who seduced the woman before shooting her in the head with a silver bullet. Sam had been pulled into his family’s delusions, and he’d spend the rest of his life paying the price for it.

In the following weeks, Sam had put that expensive pre-law education to good use, filing a series of injunctions to prevent his brother’s remains from being cremated or handed over to the gruff, older second cousin who appeared out of the woodwork. Dean Winchester was actually buried inside the prison complex, which Henricksen was pretty sure had gone out of style in the 1800’s. Apparently Nevada still had a law on the books allowing it, and Sam had insisted. That was the last Henricksen had heard of the Winchesters until the warden’s phone call.

There was a knock at the door.

Henricksen looked up as Officer Levi and three other guards escorted Sam Winchester into the room. And then looked up some more. Sam had always been tall, but instead of his usual apologetic slouch, he was towering over the beefy prison guards. They looked intimidated, even with their prisoner restrained, hands chained to his waist and ankles shackled together. Sam moved with a slow, graceful amble that spoke of plenty of practice with the gait. He’d also apparently been hitting the weights inside, because he’d bulked up considerably in the past few months.

Sam took a seat in the chair opposite Henricksen. The guards scurried to attach his shackles to the bolt in the floor. Sam nodded to him, gracious as a king surrounded by his attendants.

He waited for the guards to leave. The lock slid home with a click.

“Sammy,” Henricksen greeted the prisoner.

“It’s Sam,” he corrected. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Agent Henricksen?” As Sam leaned forwards, Henricksen caught sight of a black tattoo on his wrist. Sam noticed his interest. He pushed his sleeve up accommodatingly, and held his arm up for inspection.

The Winchesters had entered prison with one tattoo each, a star surrounded by flames over their hearts. It was a nice design, if you were into that kind of thing. This tattoo was different: an elaborate set of symbols and lines curling serpentine along the musculature of Sam’s forearm. Something about it made Henricksen’s skin crawl.

“My cell-mate’s work,” Sam commented.

Henricksen opened with, “Looks like you’re settling in nicely. Tattoos, that prison-yard build, and judging by the withdrawal symptoms you went through in solitary last month, you’ve gotten yourself hooked on something in here. What would big brother think?”

“Oh, he’ll get over it,” Sam replied, eyes glittering as he stared at Henricksen.

“Hate to break it to you, but your brother’s dead. He’s not getting over anything,” Henricksen said sharply. He’d seen the corpse, touched the cold, dry skin of its cheek, just to be sure. Dean Winchester was dead.

Sam shrugged. “I’m working on it,” he said, as if being dead were an inconvenient parking ticket.

Oooookay. So Sam was taking a little break from reality inside. Or - the sneaky fucker better not be angling for an insanity plea.

There was a sudden blaring siren of an alarm. Henricksen bolted to his feet and reached for his missing sidearm.

The door opened. It was Officer Levi, wild-eyed. “Riot in sector two,” he yelled over the alarm, even louder in the hall. “I need to respond, but you just … you stay in the interview room, agent, you’ll be fine. Right?”

Henricksen nodded. Levi slammed the door and locked it. The alarm shut off mid-wail, leaving Henricksen’s ears ringing. Sam lounged in his seat, studying him.

“The warden tells me you’ve been a bad boy in here,” Henricksen accused him. “Hurt a lot of people.”

“It was self-defense.” Sam had a little smile on his face, cool and unruffled.

“Uh-huh,” Henricksen said, picking up one of his files and shuffling the pictures inside. He laid the first one down on the table. “How about her? Was she self-defense?”

Sam glanced down at the photo before looking back at Henricksen. “We’ve gone through this before. Not that I expect you to believe me, but Madison was a werewolf,” he answered. Last time he’d been in tears as he said it. Today, Henricksen couldn’t find a flicker of real emotion in his eyes.

“And these?” Henricksen put the photos of the twelve murdered inmates down on the table. If he could get Sam to admit on camera that he was responsible for at least one of those deaths, that’d be either a murder charge, or conspiracy to commit murder. In Nevada. And Nevada was a death penalty state.

“He was possessed by a demon,” Sam said as Henricksen touched the first. “Demon,” for the second. “Demon, demon …” He paused on the next one.

“Let me guess,” Henricksen said. “Demon?”

Sam met Henricksen’s eyes, and his smile sharpened. “No, actually. He just pissed me off.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I was starting to think this entire prison was nothing but demons.”

Sam seemed to think that was funny. Time for another approach.

“Oh, I wanted to let you know, we found the fourth victim from your brother’s little killing spree last March.”

Sam’s forehead creased. He looked puzzled.

“You know, two days, three states, four murders? Dean gave up the locations on the other three bodies, just shallow graves off the interstate, but this one was treated special. The lab techs say the guy was doused in salt and gasoline, and then burned before he was buried six feet under. Sounds like your M.O., and I’m thinking it was a two-man job.”

Sam shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe this’ll bring it back.” Henricksen put down each photo with a snap as he named the victims. “Carrie Mills, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Jenny Thompson, St. Paul, Minnesota. Renée LeBeau, Duluth, Minnesota.”

Sam was inspecting the photos of the dead women and their grave sites with cool professional interest.

Henricksen continued. “And here’s the fourth body. Different victimology and a more elaborate, ritualistic body disposal, but also killed by a single deep slash across the throat during the same two day period – Steve Wandell, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin.”

Sam sat bolt upright. “Meg,” he muttered. “Fuck!” He seemed to have completely forgotten Henricksen was in the room. “Dean, you should have told me,” he growled.

The door burst open. A stocky Caucasian inmate, about 5’10, with brown hair stood framed in it. It was Sam’s cell-mate, Raul Volpe - Henricksen recognized him from the files, although the black eyes were new. Henricksen was suddenly flung backwards, out of his seat. He found himself immobilized against the wall, unable to move or speak.

“Look, I don’t mean to rush you,” Volpe told Sam, “but Lilith’s forces are on the move. We need to get out of here ASAP, before any more guards get caught in the crossfire.”

Sam held out his hands in front of him. He stared at them for a moment. The cuffs unlocked themselves and fell to the floor.

“Nice control,” Volpe complimented him. “I knew you could do it. Want a little taste before you deal with the Fed?”

Sam stood up, moved to the door, and pulled Volpe into a hard, possessive kiss. “No, I’m good, Ruby,” he answered before stalking across the room to where Henricksen was restrained against the wall.

The file didn’t mention Volpe had a nickname, Henricksen’s brain babbled to itself. He was pinned under Sam’s slow, assessing gaze, helpless, scared out of his damn mind, and furious. This was not how he wanted to go out.

Sam shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other, licking his lips. He turned away abruptly. “I changed my mind,” he announced. “It wasn’t his fault. Lilith’s to blame. Let’s focus on taking her out.”

Volpe shrugged. “You’re the boss. Could you go and fill up the truck’s gas tank while I set up some protections in here for him? We should be able to make it to Vegas tonight, lose Lilith there.”

Sam nodded. He jogged out the door and away down the hall.

Volpe turned to Henricksen and sighed. “Sam’s still a little soft, but he’s getting there,” he confided. “Don’t worry. This’ll be quick.” He raised his hand, grasping at the air, and then suddenly twisted it to the side.

Henricksen’s neck snapped. Ruby quickly chalked a protective circle around the corpse and turned the lights off on his way out the door.