Cursed (SPN, possible series)

[SexualOddity]

So for the minute this is a (very long) standalone story, but I'd kind of like to make it into a series. Not sure what the normal process is for posting something like that, but I thought I'd probably put new installments here as well, so they're all togther (unless anyone knows of a better way..?)

It grew out of Cowboyguy's fabulous prompt on tarotgal's meme, which was:

"More cursefic! Sam (or Dean, up to you) doesn't sneeze. He just doesn't. Even when he gets a really bad cold, he sneezes maybe twice but is otherwise just really congested.

So when he starts sneezing uncontrollably/getting randomly sneezy for no reason/sneezing exactly once per minute/he's-sneezy-okay-you-can-figure-out-the-details, they figure out pretty quickly that something's up. Also, it's totally weird and catches them both off guard because what the hell, Sam, did you just sneeze? How did that happen?"

1. Origin

Sam slumps low in the passenger seat of the Impala, tossing an empty box of Kleenex half-heartedly over his shoulder. It’s not a big deal. They’ve got a whole stash of fresh boxes in the trunk. Only, Dean has just gone six rounds with a juiced up poltergeist and the trunk is feeling pretty fucking far away. Compromising, he digs in his pocket for the one remaining bandana that isn’t covered in blood or engine oil.

“How you feeling kiddo?” He asks, handing it over.

Sam presses his whole face into the fabric, and gives this mumbling answer, which is about half stuffy-Sammy-voice and half cotton-poly blend.

“Ugh. Sniff! Bed sounds good.”

Dean has to concur. He stiffens as he tries to roll his shoulder. He’s not going to be able to move tomorrow. Still, he shouldn’t complain. If not for Sam, the whole thing could have gone a lot worse.

“You know it’s not a bad origin story…”

“What?” Sam looks up, confused, brushing away tears with the back of his hand.

Dean clears his throat. He doesn’t like to brag, but he does a pretty epic movie-trailer-voiceover impression. “Sam Winchester. Cursed by a wicked witch. Literally smelling out evil wherever it… What?” He asks, catching the expression on Sam’s face.

“I wish I still had the Kleenex box to throw at you…”

“I just made you a frickin’ superhero!”

Sam looks at first like he’s about to reply, but he twists into his elbow with a couple of sneezes that apparently didn’t make it out with the barrage before.

“Bless you.”

“Thanks.” He blows his nose. “You know she wasn’t exactly a wicked witch.”

Dean shrugs and shifts the car into gear. “Yeah well, out-of-work-theatre-graduate doesn’t have the same ring to it…”

--

Dean

It happened about six months ago, and it was easier to spot in Sam than in just about anybody. It’s already tough to believe, but, back then, Sam never sneezed. Not during allergy season, not digging through dust for rotten remains, not out of nowhere for no reason. It might happen if he was sick, but it was rare, and it would be once, usually when he was a couple of days into a cold, usually right around the point of maximum-grossness, when he was surrounded by Kleenex and endlessly leaking snot.

So when he sneezed in the car on the way back from an interview we both thought he was coming down with something.

When he sneezed twice more halfway through his takeout dinner, I slapped a palm across his forehead and checked for fever.

There wasn’t one.

“What’s up with you?”

“What? No ‘Gesundheit’?” Sam sniffed, setting his plastic fork aside and reaching over to pull a box of Kleenex out of the pharmacy bag.

“Gesundheit. Now what’s going on?”

“I’m getting sick; I sneezed,” Sam shrugged. “Does it have to a big deal?”

“When it’s you it does. I’ve seen you sick a hundred times. I’ve never seen you sneeze three times in one day.”

“Five.”

“What?”

“Five times.” Sam blew his nose. “I sneezed twice while you were out getting food.”

“Jesus, Sam…” I sat back then, took a look at him properly.

“I know, I know, it’s weird. But it’s just sneezing. Other people do it all the time. In that Vicar’s house last week, you sneezed five times in a row.”

“Only ‘cause their cat jumped on me!”

“Yeah well, it happens, that’s all.” Sam paused to take a sip of something that called itself PowerSquash. “If you think about it, it’s weird that I wasn’t like this before. Maybe this is me becoming more normal.”

Pretty sure I raised an eyebrow.

”That really sound right to you?”

--

Let’s put this in context for a minute. This whole thing happened, maybe… two weeks after the start of Sammy’s psychic headache saga. Believe me when I say my tolerance for weird-ass Sam-related-crap was well and truly maxed out. And, yeah, okay, it wasn’t on a par with psychic death visions, but if we were headed for the second instalment of ‘Unsolved Mysteries: the Sam edition’ then I was making damn sure I was within grabbing distance to deal with the fallout.

We were in town following what looked like a Psychic-Kid lead, which wasn’t great for my blood pressure to begin with. But Sam had just interviewed the sister and nothing added up. No nursery-fire, no early bereavement. They did lose their father, but it was five years previous in a motorcycle accident. By all accounts their mom was still alive and retired in Florida with husband number four.

Not that I was sorry to see the back of the Psychic-Kid idea, but it did leave us with a professional clairvoyant (unimaginatively named Mademoiselle Crystal) who had shot to fame out of nowhere, and a bunch of very satisfied local customers who had seen their dreams come true soon after their spiritual readings.

Sam had a theory about the local history museum that the sister (…Kimberley? …Krystyna? Something) worked at. Apparently, she let Crystal take her pick of their unwanted donations to use as bells and whistles for her act. Sam had told me (at great length) about the kind of crap you could find in local museums, and we both knew that Dad had had run-ins with cursed objects and magical items. It was worth an after-hours visit, on the condition that Sam took some cold medicine and agreed that it was gonna be a two-man job.

--

The museum was a two-bit tourist trap in a hick town (and just as boring as Sam made it sound) but the upshot of that was that it was a piece-of-piss break-in. Five seconds and a lockpick and we were inside. After that little stroll through the park, we weren’t exactly expecting to see a Security sign hanging over one of the doors in the corridor. Still, we were able to sneak past without a murmur from inside.

“Maybe they’re out buying a padlock?” I whispered.

Sam just swatted me on the arm and ushered us into the Site Office next door.

Inside, there was a computer with shitty password protection, a log of incoming purchases and donations, and a separate log for disposals. Within thirty seconds Sam was saving the past three months’ worth of records to his memory stick. It was almost too easy.

“Okay, so Crystal’s place,” I began, heading toward the door. “Break-in or cover story, whaddyathink?”

I turned when Sam didn’t answer, and it took me about half a second to realise just exactly what was going to happen.

“Sam!” I hissed, but I knew already that it was too late.

“HehNN’tchuh!” Sam jerked forward, nose clamped between his finger and thumb. “Huh’INTtch!”

Apparently someone was on duty, because there were footsteps immediately. Sam sneezed again, and jumped up from the computer as though his seat were on fire.

I knew that making a break for it was off the table: the room had a single exit and it opened right onto the security room corridor. Wit and charm it was then. Lucky for us I was generally pretty quick with an explanation for security and an innocent grin.

I was a little thrown when it was a woman in a suit and heels who burst through the door.

“Crystal?” she cried, stopping short just before she barrelled into me. She scanned the room, her eyes settling on Sam. “The reporter?” She asked, confused.

“Ye-hh’HeyAHtTCHYAH! HuhhISHH’EYW! Uh… that’s ri-Huh…HuuHhhHISHhhEww!”

Despairing of Sam, I stepped between them and shook the girl’s hand. “Dean. His partner. Who’re you looking for?”

She looked at me uncertainly. For all her briefcase-and-business-wear look, she was seriously rattled, trembling as she spoke and shifting from foot to kitten-heeled foot.

“My sister. I think... “ She lifted her hand to her temple and shook her head. “I’m not sure what to think. She left me this panicked voicemail, begging me for help, and when I went over there… Oh God, her place is trashed and there’s blood, I just…”

I looked across at Sam. Chick looked like she was gonna cry, and dealing with tearful witnesses is a job that sits well and truly in the Sam-camp. Except he was gonna start sneezing again. Which was fucking wonderful…

Just call me Weeping Witnesses Winchester.

“You must be…uh…”

“Kuh-Huh! Kimber…Heh! HuHhhHSHH’SHYEW!”

“Kimberley. Right. Listen, we can help, okay?” In my best shot at thoughtful and considerate, I patted her on the shoulder and gave what I hoped was an encouraging smile. “How ‘bout we take a look at her house?”

I figured thoughtful and considerate must have been the right way to go, because Kimberley was remarkably compliant for someone who had just found a handsome stranger and an eight-foot sneezing guy trespassing in her office. It was good enough for me. I thrust a bandana at Sam and ushered Kimberley out into the corridor, giving my best impression of Sam’s soothing noises and sympathetic winces.

--

In the car on the way to Crystal’s Sam would not stop sneezing. I didn’t have the first idea what to make of it. I glanced over at him a couple of times as we drove. He didn’t even seem to get time to settle into his seat after each sneeze before he was rearing back, all fast-breaths and squinty expression in preparation for the next one. He probably sneezed as many times in that five minute car ride as he had in his entire twenty-two years. I could only hope it was a drastically uncharacteristically sneezy cold, and not another sign that he was gonna tell us what would happen next Tuesday.

To begin with, Sam tried to be quiet and sheepish about the whole thing, hunkering down in the passenger seat and clamping a fist around his nose, but he was obviously getting tired, and the sneezes continued to be, well, Sam-sized. He was still fighting to hold them back, but it sounded like he wasn’t achieving much besides ripping at his throat.

I let him have about five or six of those frantically– and poorly–contained explosions, before I drove right back around to the motel and left Sam and his box of tissues on the driveway. Pretty soon, we’d have to figure out what set all of this off, but we could do it after Sam had had another dose of medicine and an early night.

--

In the meantime, I took Kimberley across to Crystal’s house.

It wasn’t what I expected.

Now, I’m not exactly into home décor, and I’ve never in my life cleaned or maintained anything that you can’t drive or kill someone with, but this place was something else. On a street that was residential and boring but otherwise decent-enough, it looked like the one building that was about to fall over. Kimberley did say it had been trashed, so I’d expected the broken windows. But it didn’t explain the overgrown garden, the missing roof-tiles, the paint flaking off the exterior walls...

“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked her. The door was almost off its hinges, and it took some careful manoeuvring on my part before we could step inside. “Isn’t it a little..?”

“I suppose you sleep in a Palace every night if you’re the son of John Winchester.”

“I…” The barb in her tone came as such a surprise that it took a couple of seconds for her words to actually register.

“What did you..?”

I barely saw her move before she lunged at me.

--

Sam

It all took a while to get used to.

After Dean dropped me back at our room, I stood for a good ten minutes in the bathroom, splashing water on my face and peering at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t keep up with how quickly the symptoms had come on and then disappeared.

In the museum, and then after in the car, I’d sneezed more than I’d ever thought myself capable of. I don’t think I’d ever felt so out of control, with my nose and throat and lips and lungs all working in unison against me. It made me wonder whether victims of possession felt something similar, physically manipulated, and with no option but to comply.

But, after everything, the attack had ended as quickly as it started, and that was almost as difficult to wrap my head around. I hadn’t sneezed at all since coming back into the motel, and while there was still a vague tickly sensation that made me feel like I might sneeze again, it wasn’t any more than I’d been feeling since before dinner.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Dean had ordered medicine and sleep, but that was when I was sneezing five times a minute and feeling exhausted. If I’d have gotten into bed I’d only have ended up staring at the ceiling. And, although there was a bottle of Nyquil still in the drugstore bag on the floor, I was starting to wonder whether an antihistamine might work better. Dean would probably have some in the Impala.

I pulled my phone from my pocket. Dean would have to take my word about the rapid improvement in my condition. The call just clicked over to voicemail, but I brought up Crystal’s address in two minutes on a Google search. Satisfied, I grabbed some toilet paper to add to my rapidly dwindling supply of Kleenex, and headed out after my brother.

--

The trip round to Crystal’s apartment wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped. There was no sign of the Impala outside, and another phone call to Dean only reached his recorded message. I smothered a sneeze in the palm of my hand, and tried Dean’s other line.

My nose was irritating me. I pinched at my nostrils while another of Dean’s voicemail messages played in my ear, but the tickling was infuriating. I hadn’t had any more crazy fits, but I was back to the same scattering of sneezes, sprinkled through the evening in ones and twos. Apparently this was one of those times when it was going to take a second sneeze to work out the feeling. For some reason, though, while there was definitely one waiting to hit, it was just eluding me, hovering tantalisingly around the back of… my...

“H’HKKhTCHtchuh!”

My lungs filled immediately as a new tickle flared.

I reached for more tissue, surprised to feel myself starting up again.

“Ahh…ISHHSHyew! HaHt’ISHHUHh! Ahh…”

It kind of hung there out of my reach, just long enough for me to realise what was happening.

“AhhHhrrISHshYew!”

I rubbed at my nose optimistically with the back of my hand but the tingling continued to burn across my nostrils. I held my breath, pressing my lips together. I thought that maybe the feeling would pass if I could just…

“NnNTCHuhh! HUH’UMfff! HuUHK’TCHhIhhshhhew!”

Apparently not. Apparently everything was gonna have to wait while I sat and had a sneezing fit. Perfect.

Huffing to myself, I pulled the Kleenex box on to my lap and prepared to ride it out.

--

After the best part of ten minutes I was bored, frustrated, and not showing any signs of stopping. More to the point, after another couple of unanswered calls to Dean, I was starting to get worried.

After eleven minutes, I was crossing the road to Crystal’s place. I’d work around the sneezing.

Things already seemed a bit odd, even from across the road. Kimberley had said there had been a break in, but there was no damage to the external door or any of the windows. It was an apartment complex – it was possible that someone let in an attacker who went on to target Crystal’s flat– but if that was the case, I couldn’t understand why there was no sign of security, or the Police.

There was no answer when I rapped on Crystal’s door.

“Crhh… Crystal? HPPTt’TSHHHShyew! ‘SHYEW! Ugh!”

Nothing.

“Dean?” I tried.

The corridor was empty, so I pulled a lockpick from my sleeve, and, squashing my nose against the wrist of my free arm, I crouched down next to the door.

--

By some miracle, I made it inside without anyone alerting security, and I found Crystal’s place was more or less what I would have expected. Hanging from every wall were coloured beads, tasselled drapes and dream-catchers. Either she used the place for consultations, or she really believed in the spiritual value of all of the peripherals.

I immediately got the feeling that someone was there, but, to my inexpressible annoyance, I couldn’t keep from sneezing long enough to listen for breathing. I could do without this.

“Crystal? I kn-know you’re thuhh-there’HKKKHTCHuh! Sniff! Kimberley just wanted me to check you’re al’huh’… alright. HUH’IhhTchyew! IHT’TCHYEW! HIHT’TCHYEW! HuH’SCHhUhh! Excuse me,” I said to the apparently empty room. “Uh… allergies. I think.”

I gave her a minute or so, but when there was no movement I started checking behind furniture at random. Finally, a girl screamed when I opened up the closet. I could only snatch a look before bursting into another run of sneezes, but I recognised her immediately as Crystal, even out of the tie-dye tunic she’d been pictured in for the local newspaper.

“Are… ESHHH! Are… HKK’SHEWw! ESSHHHuh! Shit.”

I’d expected her to back away from a stranger sneezing all over her apartment, but the rapid string of Latin that followed was a more of a surprise.

I’m hardly a linguist, but I’m pretty competent at what I like to think of as Hunters-Latin. Turns out, that was all I needed on that particular occasion. She was trying to summon a demon.

“Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae.” She repeated.

“HahtttESHHSHYEW!”

I braced myself, expecting a flash of light and a fight that would be better fought by someone who could last ten consecutive seconds without sneezing.

We waited, I sneezed, and nothing happened.

“Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae!” She tried again, frantic now. “Where are you?”

“No… HP’PSHEW! No w-uhh…one’s coming.”

I was trying my best to sound authoritative, but I was getting worse. Goddamn it, at that stage even my own voice vibrating in my head was tickling my nose. I took a hold of her shoulders, angling my head away in the knowledge that I was bound to sneeze again.

“N’now how about you… hah!... you… HAhhhSHEH! You t’tell me what’s… Sniff! What’s huh-uh! Sniff! What’s going-hah!-going-on-HaRrISHhhShyew! HUhhhTCHUH!”

Christ, I was pathetic.

She shook her head frantically. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I promise.”

“ArrUSHHHUH! Sniff!” None of this was making any sense, and my newfound inability to hold any air in my lungs wasn’t helping matters. “Let’s start with why you’re summoning a heh… a demon. Hah… AhhTchhCHYEW!”

“A demon?” She answered, looking genuinely alarmed.

“Powerful. Responds to L-Latin KhhHSHEHSHH! I think it probably showed up ahh-after your sister… HiiyYATCHCHyew! HIIP’PTCHYEW! Ughh… Sniff! After she gave you something from her museum.”

“You mean Zangan? He said he’s linked to the spell book.”

Spellbook. I could have kicked myself for not spotting that on the museum’s list.

“Where’s the book?”

She nodded at a volume on her nightstand that was suitably old and ominous looking – I could see why she thought it would help to sell the whole psychic image. I thought it must also be covered in antique-levels of dust because I’d barely picked the thing up before I erupted into a dizzying, can’t-catch-a-breath kind of sneezing fit.

I sank onto Crystal’s bed, and wondered again where Dean had got to, torn between desperately needing the back up and wanting him far, far away from the apartment and the opportunity to see me blundering through a hunt like this.

I heard Crystal muttering where I’d left her in the corner by the closet.

“Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae.”

God, I could have killed her.

I was across the room and pinning her to the wall before she’d even finished the phrase. “Oh n’uhh… no you don’t… HAH’ISHHHSHYEW! HAH’HISHYEW! HIHT’TSHYEW! ISHHHSCHYEW! HIHT’SCHYEW!” As annoyed by my own body as I was with her, I clamped a fist around my nose, while the other hand held her in place.

“You’re gonna t’uhh’tell me everything you’ve done with that… HUHt!…spellbook,” I gasped.

She burst into tears.

Brilliant, just brilliant…

“Crystal… That really your name?”

She nodded.

“I really don’t have the patience for this. You need to tell me what you’ve cast.”

Penning back sneezes had started my eyes watering, to the point that tears were running down my cheeks just as fast as they were running down hers.

“It was just one spell,” she sobbed. “Zangan said I ought to practice on you, after the questions you were asking my sister…”

“On me?”

She nodded and I let her go when she gestured towards the spellbook.

“It was the mildest spell I could find, I promise...” She opened it up and held it to me.

“You read it,” I told her. I hoped it sounded authoritative, but the truth was I wouldn’t have had a chance in Hell of reading it myself. Another fit was threatening, and I couldn’t brush the tears away as fast as they were springing to my eyes.

“Magical Protection Spell. In the presence of any dark power, the person or persons under the influence of this enchantment will experience a potent bodily resistance, usually made manifest in attacks of compulsive and repetitive sneezing.”

There was silence.

“You’re kidding me…” I said at last. “You cursed me to have a sn-uhh-sneezing fit?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

“It seemed like the most harmless…”

“I mean to what end?”

“Oh.” She pulled the book closer and started to read again. “It says - The power of the enchantment is two-fold: most meddlesome observers will be deterred; and spies and more persistent intruders will alert you to their presence by means of their sneezing.”

I think I actually laughed at the absurdity of it all. At least it explained my reaction. “I guess I always was per-persistent-HhhUHT’CHUH!”

I stumbled to the bathroom, relaxing a little now that I knew what was going on. It didn’t exactly seem the spellwork of a hardened occultist.

I unravelled some toilet paper from her roll (my own stash was almost out) and let a couple dozen pent up sneezes work their way through me.

I was just starting to slow down when a horrible thought struck.

In the presence of any dark power…

“Crystal… Has… HUH’HHPpTCHYEW! Has your sister been involved in any muhh… magic? -HAH’TISCHH!”

Crystal scoffed. “Kimberley? No. She’s into local artefacts and the accounts book for her stupid museum.”

I wasn’t listening. I almost dropped my phone in my haste to get it out of my back pocket.

I held my breath when there was a click at the end of the line.

“Hey. This is Dean Winchester, leave me a…”

“Fuck!”

--

Dean

Bitchface brushed the bangs out of her face and leant with her elbow against the peeling plaster of the basement wall.

“Well, someone is determined to get a hold of you.”

“What can I say, I’m a popular guy,” I answered, teeth gritted. “You know, the kind that would be missed…”

I rattled at my handcuffs, which was stupid really because she could see exactly what I was doing. It was mostly to vent my frustration anyway. The pipes weren’t gonna budge. Figured that she’d chain me to the one place in that broken-down shithole that was actually solid.

“In that case, for the benefit of your little fanclub maybe you ought to give me the answers that I’m looking for.”

I rolled my eyes, gave a long sigh. “Lady, how many times do you have to hear that I don’t know where he is.”

She stepped towards me, the clop of her shoes against the wooden floor not a welcome reminder that I’d been taken down by a chick in heels and a fucking pencil skirt.

“Now you see, I don’t think so… You’re a Winchester. You’re my ticket right into the heart of the operation. Not every day you’re cooling your heels with a pissy-little grade school hex and you come across a name like that. Right into my very lap…” She grinned for a moment, and then stared right into his eyes.

I swallowed, not quite able to shake the thought that if she didn’t have me chained up in a basement she might be kinda sexy. I like a hot librarian type. Hell, under different circumstances, maybe the chains wouldn’t hurt…

“So you see,” she continued, “What kind of doting Daddy runs off on a demon-slaying mission without telling his precious little boys what he’s up to.”

“Maybe when you catch up to him, you can ask him that. Save me a job.”

Kimberley sighed. “Really? That’s your final answer? How disappointing. I did so want to keep this civilised.”

There was a rush of noise and, before I could work out what was going on, black smoke was pouring out of Kimberley’s mouth. Make of that what you want. It’s true, but probably you have to see crap like that to believe it.

Maybe I opened my own mouth in surprise, I dunno, because the stuff blew like a storm cloud in a hurricane right down my throat. It makes me fucking sick to think of it. I wanted to gag, to resist it, but before I could put up a fight, something sliced through my brain like a guillotine, shoving my thoughts right up into a corner.

I tried to blink, tried to shuffle my shoulders, but none of that translated to my body. What actually happened was… something else. My head moved, the line of my vision changed, but I hadn’t planned it, it wasn’t from me. It was a cornered-by-a-werewolf-and-out-of-silver-bullets kind of feeling. I wasn’t in control of my own body…

Thank God - it didn’t last for long. Without my permission, my head tipped back, my chest heaved, and the torrent of smoke burst back out of my mouth and poured itself back into Kimberley where she still stood opposite.

Her eyes burned black when she looked at me again.

“How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” I answered her breathlessly. I’ve seen my share of weird ass shit, but I think both my mind and my body were taking a couple minutes to catch up with that last one.

“You’re blocking me.”

“I’m not-“

“Fine,” she snapped, interrupting. “I’ll get my tools. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

I didn’t think I liked the sound of that.

--

Sam

I pretty much dragged Crystal out onto the sidewalk.

She probably thought I’d lost my mind, but she seemed to listen well enough when I told her what I thought her sister had gotten into. Plus, I threatened to use the sneezing thing to track her down if she moved an inch from where I left her. That apparently did the trick, because, as expected, in the absence of the near-constant sneezing, I was able to find and jack a car without too much trouble, and when I drove it round to her block, she was still stood there waiting for me.

She’d only ever seen Zangan at her house, and had no idea where he would take her sister and my brother. It wasn’t a surprise, really – when was anything ever that easy? Besides, I’d already had ideas about a back-up plan.

“Okay, I’m gonna need your help,” I told Crystal, copying some text from my phone. “Do you think you could read this?”

She tried.

By the second line, I couldn’t take anymore.

“Stop, stop, stop. What the Hell, Crystal? When you tried to summon that demon you had perfect Latin.”

She shrugged. “I only know what he taught me.”

“Okay, fine. Just listen. Repeat after me, ‘Regnae terrae, cantate deo…”

To give her her dues, when she recited it back to me the pronunciation and inflection was identical. It was something to work with at least.

“Hey – you’re not making me sneeze anymore,” I noticed.

Crystal looked up from the notebook. “Oh yeah…”

“I think that’s actually gonna be pretty helpful.”

I told her my (possibly slightly dubious) plan to use the Hex to my advantage and track Zangan the same way I’d threatened to track Crystal if she bolted. I’d thought it’d be a nightmare trying to pick out changes in my symptoms with Crystal at my side making me sneeze my brains out. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, though. If my last encounter with Kimberley was anything to go by, I wasn’t going to be in a fit state for an exorcism when we did finally find them.

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether it was the spellbook that had been affecting me in the first place. It wasn’t as though Crystal had any dark power of her own. Anything she had was borrowed from the book and from Zangan.

Either way – if Crystal wasn’t gonna set me off, the whole tracking plan seemed a lot easier.

1. Drive
2. Sneeze
3. Find our siblings.

“Okay, keep going… Psallite Domino.”

“Psallite Domino.”

I thought I’d wait a bit before I told her she’d be conducting an exorcism.

**

"Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae." Crystal repeated as I took a left into a quiet little residential area.

Our little mobile Latin lesson was taking longer than I'd have liked, but then the hex-powered demon tracking wasn't exactly yielding speedy results either. I'd been driving for nearly twenty minutes and I was starting to think that the town was bigger than I'd realised.

“Fortitudinem. With a long ‘ee’ sound.” I handed her a pen from my jacket pocket. “Write it on phonetically if you haah… if you have… to…EhhHSHUH!”

Crystal looked up. “Does that mean we..?”

I blinked for a moment, concentrating, but I wasn’t going to sneeze again.

“No,” I told her, pressing Kleenex to my face with one hand as I drove. “Not yet.”

“I thought you said…”

“Not if it’s just one or two. I guess just being in the area is enough for a mild reaction. Trust me, though, if we get near Kimberley, you’ll know about it.”

Crystal didn’t answer, but she looked away with an expression that I took for guilt. Not that I cared about the spell in that moment. I’d sneeze for a week straight if it got us to Kimberley and Dean.

“Sam,” she said suddenly.

“Mm?”

“Do you think there could be some demons that are different?”

Well, that was an easy one to answer.

“No, I don’t.”

“But, Zangan… he never did anything bad. At least not until now. He helped my business. And my customers – he didn’t just tell me their futures, he made them happen. The whole town’s been happier since I started working with him. And he’s never asked for anything in return.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes!” Crystal insisted. “Look, most of these guys don’t have much more than the twenty dollars I charge for a consultation. What could he possibly take from them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But demons aren’t altruistic. If he’s hanging around here, he’s getting something out of it.”

She just chewed on her thumbnail and stared out of the car window.

“Besides,” I continued, “You know he’s protecting something. Look at the way he reacted when he heard I’d been asking questions.”

“He wanted you out of the picture.”

“Exactly. He forced you to put a hehh… a hex on me. Sniff! That doesn’t s-sound like… HNgGHT’TCHEW!”

I shook my head to clear it.

“HhHh…HUH’NGHHh!”

I could feel her watching me like a hawk to see if I would sneeze again, but the sensation was already backing away. I looked back over my shoulder at the side street we’d just passed.

“Hold on a second.”

I put the car in reverse, backed up the street, and this time took the right turn. Sure enough, the itching returned to the tip of my nose, strong enough to make me blink.

“Bene… Heh!…dictus…Deus’HEhhhEHSH’SHYEW! Gloria Patri.”

“What?”

“Benedictus Deus. Gloria Patri. That’s the last bit of your exorcism.” I told her. “We’re doing this now.”

--

Now, I know that Dean can handle himself, but it’d been over an hour since I’d known where he was, and by that point I was pretty sure he’d spent the time without back up and in the company of a demon. Suffice to say, the sight of the Impala parked at the end of the street was really fucking welcome. When we tore into the house that Dean had parked outside, (no break-in necessary – the door nearly came away in my hands), and the first thing I heard was him shouting my name from downstairs… well, I’d have liked to have dropped everything else just to get him the hell out of there.

Unfortunately, we had a little demon problem to deal with first.

I threw myself at Kimberley when she appeared on her way up the stairs, trusting Crystal to set herself up in a salt circle like I’d told her. This was before the appearance of Yellow Eyes’ entourage and demons were still something of a rarity for us, so it was actually a surprise when a flick of her wrist slammed me back against the wall, forcing the air from out of my lungs.

Lucky for all of us, I hadn’t even smacked into the peeling plaster before I heard Crystal’s voice, thin and wavering with fear, but reciting with syllable-perfect, unmistakable Latin, my new favourite words.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…”

Oh God, that little pseudo-psychic. The hex, the demon summoning, in that moment I could forgive it all.

Kimberley’s black eyes flickered. I slid to the floor, and this time when I launched at her she went down with me.

“…Ergo draco maledicte…”

I had a flask of Holy water in my back pocket, but she was strong, and I was afraid that if I moved from my position she’d get the better of me, so I clung on as Crystal spoke, hands against Kimberley’s forearms, and knees pressed against her legs. I tried not to think about the girl inside and what she must make of me on all fours, sneezing all over her. I figured she could blame her sister once this whole thing was over.

“Why are you doing this?” Kimberley hissed when Crystal paused for breath at the end of a sentence.

“Because… you’re… you’re in my sister.”

“Cr-­Uhh-ISHHSHYEW! HUSHH’SHYEW! USHHSHYEW! ISHHHSHYEW!”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t tell her not to engage. But there was no way this was going to end well, and I could already feel Zangan growing stronger, just from the break in the ritual.

I tried to shift my weight, to catch her arm under my knee in the hope that I could free up a hand to clamp over her mouth.

Just my luck that the minute I picked to lurch forward was the same minute I was hit with a particularly violent burst of sneezing. I groped at her as I sneezed, trying to get a hold, but I’m ashamed to say she probably pushed me off of her with embarrassingly little effort. The best I could manage was to draw in my arms and legs hastily so that I didn’t upset Crystal’s salt circle as Kimberley sent me skidding back across the floor.

“You know what, I had my doubts about this hex, little Sis,” Kimberley chuckled, “but I think I could grow to like it.”

“Cessa decipere…”

I heard the fucking flinch, the hiss of air through Kimberley’s teeth, but, of course, I was too busy sneezing to take advantage. By the time I recovered, I was pinned just as tightly as ever to the base of the wall.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kimberley advanced on Crystal, “I’m sorry about the little hijack, I am. And your sister’s fine by the way. But these guys… Trust me when I say this is an opportunity I could not pass up.”

Kimberley was on the edge of the salt circle now, and Crystal was leaning so far away from her I was afraid she was gonna fall right out of it.

“You see this guy,” Kimberley continued, gesturing at me, “he’d see me dead in a second. Me and all of my kind. All the good we’ve been doing in your little town, all the dreams we’ve made come true, you think he cares about that? He’d rip it all apart. His Daddy has done already – to hundreds of other people in a dozen other towns.”

She turned, then, to look at me.

“How’d you like the shoe on the other foot there, big guy. Looks like maybe you’re not all that tough after all.”

With a wave of her hand I went sliding up the wall, right into a kitchen cabinet that was so old and rotten at the joints that it broke apart around me. The clatter of breaking china was tremendous as the contents fell to the floor, and blood, warm and wet, dribbled down the side of my face.

That was apparently all it took to remind Crystal of our little talk about demons, and she began to read again apace.

Weakened by the exorcism, Kimberley’s hold on me dropped and she reeled back. I closed in, dizzy now and disorientated, but functioning well enough to pull the stopper from my flask and empty its contents into her face.

Hearing her screams and the sizzling of her skin, I would have liked to have reassured Crystal that her sister wouldn’t suffer any ill-effects, but she didn’t miss a beat with the exorcism, even as I thought about sneezing and spluttering my way through an explanation. Hearing that, I figured she must at least trust my intentions.

“…invocato a nobis sancto,” Crystal read, “et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt.”

Kimberley’s body shook, black smoke poured out of her mouth, and I realised, to my horror, that I hadn’t told Crystal about this part of the ritual.

Kimberley – the real Kimberley – gave a little whimper then and crumpled in on herself.

“Kimber?” Crystal cried, eyes wide at the sight of her sister - now freed from the demon’s hold. “Kimber?”

And she ran forward, across the room, and out of the salt circle.

“Keep –EHhhTCHYAH! Keep-HUSHHH’SHYEW!” I tried.

There was a multilateral ‘pop’, as the elements of half a dozen lightbulbs gave out as one and the house was plunged into darkness.

I scrolled frantically through my phone for the typed-out exorcism, as blunt objects – very possibly the wood from the broken cabinet, hammered into me in a tornado of energy. Fishing on the floor I found the salt canister that Crystal had kicked over in her rush towards her sister, and, finding the girls more from their screams than anything else, I held out the canister and my phone in the dark.

“Read… EssHYEW! HESH’SHYEW! HESH’YEW!”

Something (Curtain cord?) wrapped around my leg and pulled my feet out from under me, and I abandoned attempts at a better explanation in favour of kicking myself free, hoping that Crystal would know what to do.

Sure enough, her shaky little voice started up again.

“Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.”

She had nerve; I had to give her that.

I extracted myself from the cord with the heel of my free boot, only have it snake up over my shoulder and around my neck. I clutched and tugged at it but it wasn’t about to give way.

“Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris…”

Keep going Crystal, I pled internally.

“Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo.”

The other sounds in the room faded as my own heartbeat clattered through my ears.

“Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem…”

I closed my eyes but purple spots puckered across my vision.

“…et fortitudinem plebi Suae.”

My fingers, still trying to claw the rope away, went limp around my neck.

“Benedictus deus. Gloria patri.”

The room went still.

Too out of it to realise it was over, I thought at first that I’d passed out until I heard Dean’s voice, gruff and irritated from the floor below.

“What the Hell is going on up there?”

--

It came over me as soon as I pulled onto Crystal’s street.

Parking up, I shut my eyes and pinched at the bridge of my nose while I waited for it to hit.

“Huhh… HtTtChyew! HHhhUhh…HkKK’TCHtchyew!”

I hadn’t missed that.

I must have groaned or slumped in my seat or something because Dean gave me a sympathetic pat on the leg and blessed me.

“Are you sure we need this book?” I asked.

“The only instructions to the magical curse that you’re under? Yes, Sammy, I think it’d be a handy thing to have around.” He passed me a bandana from his seemingly endless supply. “Besides, we’ve only got to get it as far as Caleb’s. Once we’ve dumped it there we get work on breaking the spell.”

Crystal leaned forward from the back seat. “I’m sorry I don’t have a reversal for you.”

“It’s okay, I’m on it,” Dean answered before I could – I was sneezing again, as usual.

“We’ll get you some Kleenex, okay? I’m sorry again.” Crystal offered, rubbing me on the shoulder before she disappeared inside with Kimberley.

“Okay.” Dean nudged me when they went inside. “You’ve had your fun. Move over.”

I frowned at him.

“I’m fine,” he grunted. “Besides, you’re sneezing already and the book’s up two flights of stairs. You think you’re driving my baby when it’s sitting in the trunk?”

I didn’t have much of an argument for that.

Dean sighed and stretched in the driver’s seat. “Oh yeah. That feels better.”

I rolled my eyes, sneezing as I got back into the car.

“You know the weirdest thing about this whole hunt?” Dean asked me.

“Fake Psychic’s name actually turned out to be Crihh… Crystal-HEH’KiSHHH!”

“Hah! Second weirdest, then.”

I shook my head.

“They basically gave you demon-tracking powers and called it a curse.”

“Fuck you,” I swore, pressing at the sore spots on the underside of my nose, “it feels like a curse.”

“I know it does, buddy, I’m just sayin’…”

He trailed off then though, because Kimberley reappeared with the Book in hand and the box of Kleenex that Crystal had promised.

She hesitated a moment after handing them over.

“Dean, I…”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, let’s take five over there,” he said, nodding to a little patch of green over the road. “Let my brother catch his breath for a second before we put this puppy in the trunk.”

I watched him limping as he walked across the parking lot. He’d been covered in burns and gashes when we unchained him from the cellar. I’d patched up the worst of what was visible right there in the broken down house, but before too long we were gonna have to stop so that I could check him over properly.

They talked for a good ten minutes while I sat sneezing in the car, but I didn’t mind. I was enjoying having fresh Kleenex, and, at any rate, I thought they might need this as much as one another. After the little that Dean had told me about what had happened in that basement, I got the feeling that he could empathise with Kimberley a little more than he would have liked.

“You still breathing in there Sammy?” Dean called through from the trunk, stashing the book once Kimberley had finally gone inside.

“I… HehhKhHiktchyew! HuHhhHIT’TCHYEW! HehhhHUSHHhhah!”

“Yeah that sounds about right.” Dean tried to hide a wince as he climbed back into the car. “We’ll be at Caleb’s in a couple of hours and then reversing this thing is priority one, okay?”

But I’d been thinking about that. For all that I’d grumbled about the Hex, I didn’t know how I’d have found Dean without it. Dean had allergies that made him sneeze a lot. They never really got in the way of hunting. And there were other people – people who had them a lot worse than Dean did. They lived perfectly normal lives. It was only sneezing, after all.

“What’s up?” Dean asked when I didn’t answer immediately.

“Maybe you’re right about the… uh… UhhrrIHTCHYEW! Sniff! The demon-tracking thing. HhhuhSHAH!”

“What do you mean?”

“You said the demon wanted information on… on Dad-HUhhKHSHHH!”

“Yeah.”

“It sounds like he’s getting close.”

“And?”

I pulled a stack of Kleenex from the box and bundled them to my nose. “HuhhISHHSHYEW! HUHhhISHH’SHYEW! HUhhhHISHHshyew! HuhhH’ISHHH! Sniff! And another weapon in the ahh- the arsenal… HUHhhISHHHSHYEW! Sniff! It might not be such a bad thing.”

Dean studied me. “What are you saying?”

“HuHhhESHhhShyew! ESHhhSHyew! ESHHH!” I grinned. “I’m saying that I wanna track a demon.”

[Anilkex]

omfg...

I need to re-read, and take care of my dogs...and then...LIST!

[HPG]

... Words aren't really coming right now, but please please continue this.

[Anilkex]

Ok.

OKOKOKOK.

First off, you know how I feel about your stories. It's like massive love at the first sign. You always make me read through them more than once to make sure I got it, because it's not a normal sickfic or allergy fic. There's always more there. I read it super fast last night, and more properly today. So I was like...I GET IT NOW...Dean wasn't really in Crystal's apartment! HA!

“What’s up with you?”

“What? No ‘Gesundheit’?” Sam sniffed, setting his plastic fork aside and reaching over to pull a box of Kleenex out of the pharmacy bag.

“Gesundheit. Now what’s going on?”

“I’m getting sick; I sneezed,” Sam shrugged. “Does it have to a big deal?”

The casualness of this exchange is wonderful.

I also love your Dean voice. You once told me you weren't a fan of first person, but you did a fantastic job, here. The very small Deanisms were perfect and well-timed, scattered around so you really felt like this was in his head.

I figured thoughtful and considerate must have been the right way to go, because Kimberley was remarkably compliant for someone who had just found a handsome stranger and an eight-foot sneezing guy trespassing in her office.

Like that.

Then there's Sam...and all his misery...and all his sneezing...and all your spellings...and the bit in the car where everything had to wait while he had that fit...I was all...yes, Sam. Have that fit. You just do that.

So it was first person Sam talking describing a massive fit.

Yes, please.

I love how your mind works. I love the small jumps your stories make, forcing me to really think as you go, to keep up. Then you do your stuttering talk-sneeze thing that I died over in the giftfic you wrote me last year and Guh...

So...series?

Yes, please.

Best way?

Maybe title each as an installment in your Cursed series so we know, but then you're not bogged down with a long thread?

Unless you really want to keep them all together so they're easier to binge read late at night.

Just sayin'...

And P.S...I'm thinking Kimberley should look back on her time trapped under SneezySam in a positive light, demon possession or no. Imagine looking up, and there he is, and you're pinned down, and...

Yes.

[sierraplaid]

“I’ve seen you sick a hundred times. I’ve never seen you sneeze three times in one day.”

“Five.”

Lawdamercy. Why is this so hot?

Also, I think I just decided that sneezy Sam teaching me an exorcism is pretty much what I want out of life.

Intriguing plot, sneezy Sam.... I am ready for this series!

[Pyrus_Fangmon]

OMG!!! Those fits! The intenseness of each sneeze! Oh god........and there were so many of them.....

Please, oh holy Angels, please for the love of God make this an actual series! I have never needed to pause my reading just to take in air and calm myself. Talk about a puller. This had my full attention, I had to look away in order to stay conscious. Your writing and detail are just too perfect. I can't wait to read more!

[AngelEyes]

Epicness! Series? Yes please!

Dean clears his throat. He doesn’t like to brag, but he does a pretty epic movie-trailer-voiceover impression. “Sam Winchester. Cursed by a wicked witch. Literally smelling out evil wherever it… What?” He asks, catching the expression on Sam’s face.

“I wish I still had the Kleenex box to throw at you…”

“I just made you a frickin’ superhero!”

You write Dean so perfectly I can totally hear this!!!

Also, This!

Also, I think I just decided that sneezy Sam teaching me an exorcism is pretty much what I want out of life.

[Medowsweet]

Great job with the voices (especially Dean). I'd love to see you do Cas. Ha-ha.

I love "allergies to weird things" and this certainly qualifies!

Excellent job!