SPN - Untitled Asylum Fic

[thecatevari]

Rough CHRONOLOGICAL Outline for Asylum fic:

• Sam has a dream about a particular mining town. The mines went dry, but somehow some remnant of the town has hung on, even though the majority of the population has moved on to greener pastures. Sam does some research on the town and finds that there have been several unsolved disappearances over the last (?) years, both of townsfolk and rare passers-through. He suggests he & Dean check it out.
  
  
• Sam and Dean hit town and set up shop. They go and check out the mine, which gives Sam some major creepies, but it's an uneventful trip. The next day, they talk to some people without avail and Sam goes to do some more research and Dean goes off on some errand.
  
  
• The local sheriff comes up to Sam in the diner while Sam's waiting for Dean to show up. He tells Sam there's been a terrible accident and Dean is dead. At the police station, Sam finds out that Dean ran into a woman whose child had gone missing and "he must have somehow ended up at the mines, though I don't really know why he'd be loking up there..." and there was a cave fire. The sheriff takes Sam to the morgue and shows him a corpse blackened beyond recognition and offers his condolences. He gives Sam Dean's amulet. "Not to many fellas walking around with that dangling 'round their neck, know what I mean?"
  
  
• Sam's alternately enraged with Dean for being such an IDIOT as to go off without him or even any back up and crushing grief because it's DEAN. Time goes by and other than getting the body cremated, Sam can't pull himself together or get anything done.
  
  
• Eventually sense starts kicking in and he starts investigating. Dean doesn't take his amulet off. He never takes his amulet off. And even though the thong is missing, the metal is unburnt, not even sooty. Something is rotten in Denmark. He goes up and looks at the mine again and again, gets the creepy-crawlies REALLY bad. There's signs of a fire, but it looks more like it was set than gases in the shaft exploding; there's no scoring or soot further down the tunnels. But Sam doesn't find anything else and after a while, the creepy feeling drives him out. But there's something in there. He goes to the local diner and the sheriff's there having pie and suggest to Sam that maybe he's grieved for Dean long enough and it's time to move the fuck on. Sam concludes the sheriff is in on it.
  
  
• The sheriff leaves and a girl comes in and bumps into Sam. She puts a note into his hand. It says to meet her somewhere. Sam does. The girl's name is Cara. She's an aide or phlegbotomist or something at the local mental hospital, which is the main source of capital for the town now that the mines are closed. She's nineteen and nervous (timid) and she needs Sam's help.
  
  
• Some time ago, her brother was arrested and forcibly admitted to the hospital, where he was later determined to be insane. But he's not insane and now he doesn't even recognize her and she just knows they've done something terrible to him and blah blah roofies. And Sam's like, okay, but what does this have to do with me and Dean and she drops the bomb that Dean's not dead, he's in the hospital and she can get him in if he helps her and big bro get out; out of the hospital, out of town. Sam agrees.
  
  
• They break into the hospital and the sister is supposed to go get her brother while Dean--more heavily guarded--is Sam's responsibility. Sam breaks out Dean, but when they get back to the car, the girl and her brother aren't there. Dean's in crap shape and although he's got some guilt about it, Sam waits around for a couple of minutes and then hauls ass, because Dean's the priority here for him.
  
  
• Sam finds out/realizes that Dean has amnesia. He no longer believes in ghosts or monsters. He doesn't remember Sam. He doesn't remember John. His basic skills--language, cognition, recognition of basic objects like car, knife, gun--are intact but all person specific knowledge is pretty much non-present. And Sam doesn't know what to do. Dean is grateful to have been broken out of the hospital, because he was terrified of his 'theraputic treatments', but he also thinks that he IS probably insane and that Sam, who seems to believe in ghosts and carries around WAY too many weapons, is too.
  
  
• They hole up somewhere (some unusued hunting lodge up the woods?) and Sam tries to get Dean to remember and to tell him exactly what happened. Dean is obviously reticent to talk about it, and doesn't remember a lot of it anyway. He tries a couple times to leave, torn by obscure guilt about his insanity and not really sure he's who Sam thinks he is. Sam ends up tying him up to keep him from escaping, refusing to contemplate that Dean just may never remember.
  
  
• The first step, Sam decides is that he has to prove to Dean that there really ARE ghosts and monsters so that Dean will realize that the hospital was lying to him and thus he may not be actually insane. (not sure how to do this; what's the likelihood of another ghost nearby??) In any case, ghosts. Or monsters. Whatever.
  
  
• Once Dean realizes that the hospital really did a number on him, he wants to go back and burn down the hospital and put an end to whatever the hell it is they're doing. Sam wants them to just move on; he's scared because Dean is not himself and not a good back up and the truth is he almost lost Dean in there, so he doesn't want to risk it again. But in the end, the hero gene prevails, because it's just going to KEEP happening and the next person won't have a Sam to break them out.
  
  
• Back to town. Hmmm. I now realize I did NOT figure out how to make the connection between the hospital (and Dr. Valeri) and the mine. I'm assuming there are tunnels that go to the hospital, I can work that out later. In any case, they go back, kick major ass and Sam collapses/blows up the mine tunnels.
  
  
• What's going on with the mind is a creature sort of like a succubus/incubus, except it feeds on emotional energy--pain and fear especially, which is why it hooked up with Dr. Valeri and turned the hospital into it's playground. Hmm. Maybe after sabotaging the hospital, they'r forced to escape through the mine tunnels?? Maybe some kind of recording a'la Eating Pattern? Hmmm. In any case, there are two kinds of victims, the ones like Dr. Valeri that were 'possessed'; taken over and sort of husked out by the creature, and victims like Dean that were exploited and broken for the creature's pleasure/food. Minions will recover, depending on the severity of their thrall. For example, by this point there's very little of the actual Dr. Valeri left; she will die. OTOH, victims like Dean were not broken by supernatural means, and their damage remains.
  
  
• Jury still out on whether Dean recovers his memory. On the sun hand, Sam wants "his" Dean back. On the moon hand, he recognizes this could be a kind of 'reset button' for Dean; for Dean to be free of all the angst and pain and kind of recover his innocence, the way Dean wished for Sam in Something Wicked. Which is what would make it more painfully ironic if Dean DOES regain his memory. Must ponder.
  
  Still need title.

Comments

[sixersfan.livejournal.com]

Where's the town? Next door to Silent Hill?

[sixersfan.livejournal.com]

By the way, that's not meant to me a joke.

[jebbypal]

Heh, the set up does have a bit of silent hill-ish quality w/ the little girl. Sounds very interesting..but of course, you've got to give us dean back!!! LOL.

The first step, Sam decides is that he has to prove to Dean that there really ARE ghosts and monsters so that Dean will realize that the hospital was lying to him and thus he may not be actually insane.

Okay, so Missouri is psychic/medium or something-ish, right? So you could go w/ idea that w/ proper precautions, Sam could summon a ghost/demon to him..he might even consult missouri on how to do it, but try to lie so she doesn't know why. or being in the woods, he could take dean looking for relatively benign wood spirit of some sort. Or force dean to watch the exorcist and see if it brings back any memories;) LOL

[thecatevari.livejournal.com]

That's a REALLY GOOD suggestion. I hope you don't mind if I snurch it. :)

[jebbypal]

go right ahead:)