BlueIris's Supernatural Fanfiction

"Those Who Favor Fire" (Sam/Dean slash)

2009-11-01T22:15:14Z

Title: "Those Who Favor Fire"
Rating: NC-17
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 1300
Summary/Author's Notes: Remember when the fandom was shiny and new, and every other story was a "The First 'X' Number of Times Sam and Dean Had Sex' fic?" Well, I'm feeling retro.

Additional Author's Notes: The fic works as a standalone, but it has a Robert Frost title because it's technically part of my "The Woods Are Lonely" series. Timewise, it falls in the middle of Season Two (December, 2006).

~ ~ ~

They didn't fuck the first time. Dean didn't ask anything stupid like 'Are you a virgin here?' or state the obvious, like 'You've never been with a guy before,' thank God. He just focused his gaze on Sam's face as he slid a finger behind Sam's balls and then further back. Sam flinched involuntarily when Dean reached his target, and Dean gave a little nod that meant, 'not this time,' before he laid a line of scorching kisses down Sam's sternum, over his belly, and took him into his mouth. Dean had been with a guy before, Sam had guessed that from the first time Dean laid a hand on him, and may God and all the girls he'd slept with forgive him, but it was the best damn blowjob he'd ever gotten.

~ ~ ~

They didn't fuck the second time either, but Dean asked every stupid question in the book and threw in some ribbing on the side.

"You're a virgin here?" he asked, lubed finger lightly circling Sam's opening.

"Shut up, Dean."

"Like, no penetration? Ever?" he demanded, distracting Sam from the weirdness of that fingertip slipping in.

"Shut up, Dean."

The finger slid deeper. "You never even tried it on yourself?"

"Shut up, Dean."

"Or, you know, a girl could have..."

Sam lifted his head from the pillow. "Look, I'm vanilla, okay? No one's ever compl--oh, God."

Dean's teeth flashed in the dim light. "Do you hear me complaining?"

~ ~ ~

The third time, they fucked.

Dean set a bottle of lube and condoms--a whole box of condoms--on the nightstand before he stripped down and nodded at Sam to do the same thing. Sam would rather die than admit he was jumpy, but seriously, who was he kidding?

Dean kissed and teased him just enough to get both their motors going, then guided Sam to lie on his back, legs sprawled awkwardly.

"Condom," he ordered, snapping his fingers.

"Uh…foreplay?" Sam suggested.

Dean was already mouthing his way down Sam's chest. "Rim job."

Sam handed over the condom, shivering as he felt the warm probe of Dean's tongue through the barrier. He wasn't jumpy ten minutes later, but it took Dean an hour to get to the fucking anyway.

They used up half the box.

~ ~ ~

The fourth time was the start of the Neck Thing. Not the start, really, because Dean figured out early on that Sam had a thing for having his neck stroked or licked, but it was the first blatant manipulation of the Neck Thing. Sam woke up one morning half-erect, moving languidly and arching into Dean's lips on his throat, dimly hearing Dean whisper, "Let me in, Sammy," and feeling a gentle penetration when he did. Rationally Sam knew the almost imperceptible movement of the fingertip within him was what was making his cock harden and swell, but he could almost believe it was just the lips and fingers stroking over his neck and the voice in his ear coaxing him to open wider.

~ ~ ~

The fifth time was…different. The hunt had been too easy and Dean was still jazzed up, adrenaline pumping with nowhere to go. Dean reached for him, and Sam belatedly, unexpectedly freaked about the whole fucking-his-brother thing. Dean just pinned him against the wall, setting his teeth at Sam's throat and shoving a hand down his jeans, and Sam's memories of the next few hours got a little blurry. He remembered wet heat and pressure, Dean's voice saying hot, filthy things like 'Spread for me, Sammy, show me what I'm gonna get,' and 'Yeah, can't get enough of it, can you?', fingers stroking over his pulse point and his own rough voice pleading, 'Fuck me, Dean, just fuck me,' clawing at Dean's back and bucking his hips to signal, Harder, harder, harder.

"What the hell was that?" Sam demanded afterwards, limp in the afterglow.

"You got off on it," Dean pointed out before he threw a leg over Sam's and fell asleep.

The fifth time was the time Sam learned there was a difference between getting fucked and getting topped, and he kinda liked both of them.

~ ~ ~

The sixth time was the morning after the fifth time. Sam was reading at the motel room's little table, pointedly not remembering how Dean had bent him over it, when Dean sidled up behind him.

"You freaking about last night?" he asked.

Sam closed his book as Dean's thumb circled the spot just below his ear. "Should I be?"

"I hope not," Dean murmured. "Because you were fucking hot last night, Sammy."

Lassitude spread through Sam as Dean repeated the caress, starting in on a low, dirty recitation of exactly how hot Sam had been. It wasn't until Dean breathed, "C'mon, Sammy, do it, take it out," that Sam noticed he was rubbing himself through his jeans, legs spread wide on the chair, already heading for a repeat of last night.

"Uh," he started.

"You really liked it, huh?" Dean said smugly.

"It'll wear off or something," Sam assured him, staring accusingly at his dick with its Pavlovian tendencies.

"Not if we keep practicing." Dean was sucking a hickey at the base of Sam's throat. "C'mon, Sam, do it."

Sam unzipped his jeans and gripped himself. Dean was still behind him, broad strong hand spanning Sam's throat to rub the tendons on each side with fingers and thumb, and Sam started wondering if his brother was even kinkier than he'd guessed.

"Dean," he said, crooking a finger over Dean's hand to pull it a fraction of an inch away from his windpipe. It came out like question, not a warning.

"What?...Oh, Christ, Sammy. I wouldn't do that to you if you asked." Dean laughed shakily. "The last thing we need is for you to start liking it."

Sam's hand found its way to his cock again. "I would if you wanted to."

"Christ, Sam," Dean groaned again. "How about you get down there and blow me instead."

Sam went to his knees right there on the dingy carpet. It was the first time Dean had asked for anything for himself, and the excitement as Dean's low groans washed over him had nothing to do with the thumb still stroking rhythmically at his throat.

~ ~ ~

The seventh time Sam was on top, intransitive verb and prepositional phrase indicating that he'd done the fucking, not transitive verb indicating that he'd topped. The getting fucked and the Neck Thing were fun and all, but there were balance-of-power issues that had to be headed off before Dean started feeling entitled to Sam's ass whenever he wanted. It went better than he'd expected, and it wasn't until later that he figured out that Dean's groans and thrusts had pretty much walked him through it without making him feel like an idiot. Normally Sam was quicker on the uptake, but who would have expected Dean to show some tact?

"So, you've gotten fucked before," Sam said when it was over. "Ever bottomed?"

Dean yawned and shoved a hand through sweat-spiky hair. "Bottoming is for pussies, Sam."

"So what you're saying is, I'm going to be your first," Sam translated. "You're almost like a virgin."

Dean snorted. "Dude. You want my cherry, you're gonna have to quit quoting Madonna and learn some technique."

"Like we don't both know you'll give it up after a six pack and 'Night of the Living Dead' marathon," Sam pointed out.

"Bite me," Dean groaned, rolling onto his stomach as Sam started fingering him open again.

"All part of the technique," Sam promised.

~ ~ ~

Sam didn't top in the transitive verb sense until around the tenth or eleventh time, but it was totally worth the wait.

~ ~ ~

Thanks for reading, and all my fic may be found here.

What Profits the Angels

2009-04-27T11:21:20Z

Title: “What Profits the Angels”
Rating: G
Characters: Sam, Castiel
Word Count: 1600
Episode/Spoilers: “On the Head of a Pin”
Summary: A confrontation between Sam and Castiel. Precedes the final scene of the episode.
Author’s notes: Please see the additional note below the cut.

Generic warning on all my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death, which I prefer not to disclose in advance. If you like to know whether a story contains CD before you read, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~

He couldn’t return to the garrison, Castiel realized as Anna vanished as peremptorily as she had appeared. Not yet, not until he’d had time to pray and to meditate upon whom he could trust. Instead of going back to the barracks, then, he ended up in a hospital restroom, trying to ascertain that no blood or other trace of the latest struggle remained visible on his form.

Castiel approached the mirror somewhat distrustfully; he was accustomed to catching sight of a vessel’s reflection in a still pool of water or the polished metal of a shield, but he’d never needed to look at one before. He paused as he leaned toward the glass, intrigued by the vivid color of the host’s irises as the pupils contracted under the harsh florescent light. Guileless, wide eyes peered quizzically back at him, as if a human expression could reveal the thoughts of an angel. Displeased, he schooled the face to blankness and finished his task. A man entering the room as he walked out gave him an appreciative look; Castiel sighed inwardly and ignored him.

Uriel had laughed out loud when Castiel returned to their most recent home in his most recent vessel. ‘We left Hellas millennia ago, brother. It’s safe to—’

‘This man was most convenient,’ Castiel informed him.

‘Of course,’ Uriel replied, his brown eyes glinting with mirth. Uriel professed indifference to the appearance of their hosts, but he preferred to take a vessel with the dark eyes and skin that God had given to the first humans. He also secretly loved the range of non-verbal expressions that a corporeal form offered, and he slouched about as the rest of their brothers and sisters appeared, his smirk growing broader with each new arrival.

‘For creatures without vanity, angels always seem to pick the prettiest packages,’ he observed when their number was complete.

‘We know what an aesthete you are, Uriel. We chose them for you,’ one of the others called back, laughing. She wasn’t among the slain. Castiel didn’t know if she was one of the lost.

He strode through the corridors, ignoring how the low ceilings and featureless hallways compounded the claustrophobia of being confined in a physical body. A faded poster of a seascape hanging in a waiting area showed that someone else found the blank walls equally oppressive, but the picture did little to ameliorate their effects.

A few weeks after they’d taken on their current human forms, Castiel had found his brother on a rocky beach, staring out at the ocean. This was the first time they’d been stationed so far from the familiar body of water that their last vessels had called ‘mare nostrum’—

‘Their sea?’ Is anything more arrogant than a Roman, Castiel?’

‘A Persian, an Assyrian, a Babylonian…,’

‘Oh, very well.’

—and both of them missed the salt air. Possessing a body had many inconveniences, but the glorious creation of the sea could only be appreciated fully through the human senses.

‘Do you remember that trireme at Salamis?’ Uriel reminisced.

‘Do I look as though I’ve forgotten Salamis?’ Castiel responded, though in point of fact walking amongst the Lacedemonians at Thermopylae, not sailing with the Athenians at Salamis, was what made him vow to never again take a beardless young man as a vessel.

Uriel’s lips quirked. ‘For heaven’s sake, all they did was proposition you.’

‘Repeatedly,’ Castiel reminded him, ‘and explicitly.’

Uriel smiled again before his good humor faded. ‘I went to see the Nile,’ he said.

‘And?’

Uriel glowered at the rough gray surf. ‘It seems our Father’s design for it was not good enough for them.’

Sam leapt to his feet to block Castiel’s entrance the instant he saw him. Castiel stood his ground, and as Sam reached him he clearly sensed what he had suspected earlier: there was something unidentifiably dark, even vile, in the young man. Something that hadn’t been there before angels spirited away his brother to do their dirty work.

“Dean’s going to be okay,” Sam hissed, “so unless you’ve learned how to heal in the past couple hours, you don’t belong here.”

Castiel lifted his chin higher. “You may be able to kill demons, Sam,” he said as Sam loomed in, “but you cannot intimidate me.”

At the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway, Sam let him just far enough into the room to avoid attracting attention. “We both know Uriel could never have forced Dean to go in there with Alistair,” Sam said tightly, arms crossed over his chest. “Did you even think about what could happen when you asked him to do it?”

If Uriel were beside him, he would have silently said something witty about the futility of entering a staring contest with an entity that doesn’t need to blink. Uriel was dead, though, and all Castiel could think of was Sam’s conciliatory tone when he interposed himself between the angels and his brother back at their motel. An unfamiliar sensation flickered within him, and he suspected it was not a response to that new darkness lingering about Sam.

“In the past few days, Sam, I have mourned the deaths of seven of my sisters and brothers,” he said patiently. Impatience was what had brought them to this point. “There was very little I would not have gladly done to forestall another loss.”

Sam’s arrogance lessened. “I didn’t know angels were…,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder at the bed and then back again. “Did you get demoted because you didn’t do this gladly?” he asked in a milder voice.

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed. His rank was none of Sam’s business, but Dean would no doubt tell him anyway. “Your brother may want to speak with me when he awakens, Sam. Please let me in.”

Disarmed by the civility, Sam stepped aside. “It could be a while,” he warned.

“I have nowhere else to be,” Castiel said truthfully. He suppressed a flinch as he passed close by Sam and approached Dean’s bed, wrinkling his nose at the smell of antiseptic that had supplanted incense in modern places of healing.

He and Uriel had found their previous vessels at an asclepium, he remembered: Castiel’s, an injured soldier who had asked only for a better end than the one his festering wound would give him; Uriel’s, a proud, iron-haired man in purple-trimmed garments who’d wept as he pleaded with the god to take his life instead of that of the dying infant he’d laid before the altar.

‘The child is past help, brother,’ Castiel reproved as he gingerly lifted the little creature and held it at arm’s length for scrutiny.

‘The old man was too grief-stricken to realize he had the same fever. It was a kindness to take him first,’ Uriel explained. He rose from the floor where his host had knelt, rifling through the man’s memories. ‘Five sons and daughters, all dead before him…they are mere mayflies, Castiel! Why would He become one of them?’

‘He need not explain himself to us,' Castiel admonished as the squirming baby began to cry feebly. He cocked his head at it and rummaged through his own vessel’s memories for guidance, to no avail.

‘His fondness for them is beyond explanation,’ Uriel grumbled, but his hands were gentle when he took the child and tucked her against the crook of his neck, murmuring to her in her grandfather’s voice as he gave her rest to ease her final hours.

Castiel’s borrowed skin crawled as he felt Sam behind him. “He no longer needs the respirator?” he asked, his wings itching to unfurl. It would not do to reveal that he sensed something different about the young man.

“They took him off the respirator this morning,” Sam said after a slight pause; Castiel realized that in his fatigue and distraction, he’d articulated the word according to its etymological roots rather than with its actual pronunciation. Sam came closer. All of Castiel’s instincts urged him to spin about and strike…

“There’s blood on your coat, Cas,” Sam said, the concern in his voice as real as the pollution in his aura. “Are you okay?”

Castiel hung his head. If Sam Winchester turned from the side of the angels, they would have none but themselves to blame.

“It’s from the fight with Alistair. I am fine,” he said, sitting down next to Dean. Sam shuffled over to stand on the other side of the bed and hovered uncertainly, presumably waiting to be asked about Alistair’s death. Castiel found that he had neither the desire to hear lies nor the perceptiveness to discern the truth. Dean could question Sam later; Castiel’s inquiry would accomplish nothing but straining their fragile truce.

“I can’t heal Dean, but I can pray for him,” he told Sam. Steeling himself for contact, he stretched out his hand across the bed. “Will you join me?” he invited.

Sam’s eyes widened, and he stepped back. “I’m, uh…I’m going to find Dean some ice,” he mumbled, turning away.

That strange feeling flooded through Castiel again as he recalled how Sam had once stuttered at the honor of shaking an angel’s hand. He had a vague idea that it might be remorse.

“Samuel,” he called as Sam reached the door. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

Sam’s lips twisted as he glanced down at his brother’s battered face. “I guess that depends on what it profits the angels, doesn’t it?” he countered, and took his leave.

‘Good riddance,’ Uriel would have said.

Castiel tilted his face toward the heavens and wept.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Further author's notes:
An asclepium is a temple to the god Asclepius; people in the Greco-Roman world would go to such a temple to pray for recovery from an illness or injury. Thermopylae and Salamis were the sites of a land and naval battle (respectively) between an allied group of Greek city states and the Persian Empire at the beginning of the fifth century BCE. There were probably no angels actually present at the time. Uriel's complaint about the Nile refers to the Aswan Dam, which prevents the annual flooding that is a natural part of the ecosystem.

Thanks for reading, and all of my fic may be found here.

"Knights, Kings and Sparrows"

2009-01-08T17:47:38Z

Title: “Knights, Kings and Sparrows”
Rating: R for language
Pairings/characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel. Genfic.
Word Count: 5300
Episode/Spoilers: “Heaven and Hell,” with general references to other Season 4 episodes.
Summary: “‘Let him speak,’ Castiel commanded, like they didn’t all know he couldn’t shut Sam up with anything less than a tranquilizer gun and a roll of duct tape. Maybe the only surprise about Sam’s meltdown was that it hadn’t happened sooner.” Alternate ending to the demon/angel showdown scene in ‘Heaven and Hell;’ Dean POV.
Author's note: Please see the additional warning under the cut.

Generic content warning on all my fics: I occasionally write character death, which I prefer not to disclose in the headers. If you need to know if the story contains CD before going on, click here for the spoiler.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Don’t call Dean that,” his brother interjected as Uriel opened his mouth to spit the familiar insult in his face. “He’s not, and you know it.”

Uriel wheeled on Sam while Castiel looked over to him with mild curiosity. “He’s not what, boy?” Uriel demanded.

“A monkey. He’s created in God’s image, just like me,” Sam pronounced. “Just like that vessel you’re wearing now. You hate it, don’t you?”

‘Only Sam,’ he thought. Only Sam would argue theology with an angel. Only Sam would argue theology to piss off an angel. Correction—only the Sam of the past few months would do it.

Uriel stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I suffer it with patience.”

“You suffer it because you have no choice,” Sam responded. “No free will, like we have. For all you know, it’s an honor to take on our form.”

Only Sam could succeed in pissing off an angel with theology. He watched his brother with a trace of pride while Castiel’s brow furrowed slightly.

Sam went on as if he and Uriel were the only ones in the room. “You’ve never really thought about it, have you? It’s not in your nature,” he declared. “Angels were created to understand, not to reason. That’s why a couple monkeys and a fallen angel outsmarted you—.”

An anxious hitch too faint for anyone else to hear tugged at Sam’s voice as he caught sight of something past Uriel’s shoulder, then snapped his focus back to the angel’s face. He followed Sam’s eyes to see a movement in the corner—Ruby staggering, dazed, to her feet. ‘Get out,’ he mouthed at her. She nodded shakily, clutching her arm over the gash across her abdomen, and he flinched in empathy as he remembered the same burning cuts in his own flesh.

Noticing the wince, Uriel looked to see her limping for the door. “Sympathy for demons now, Dean?” he sneered. “Maybe I’ll go put it out of its misery.”

Sam’s jaw clenched. Motioning at his brother to stay put and keep his trap shut, he moved between the angel and Ruby. “Why? You think killing her will help you grow a pair?”

Uriel’s face turned ugly—uglier—and he took a step forward. He might have seen Castiel gesture minutely at his partner right before he stopped, but it could have been that the angel was just distracted by Sam plastering on a smile bratty enough to make a nun cross the street to slap it off his face.

“We know what human reasoning leads you to protect her, Sam, but why does he?” Uriel demanded. “Do you suppose he covets his brother’s whore?”

The creak of rusty hinges signaled that Ruby had made it to the relative safety of outside. Sam covered his relief by lobbing another volley at Uriel. “Dean doesn’t covet anything I have,” he said. “Do you?”

“Even that”—Uriel jerked his head in his direction—“knows better than to want the filth in your veins. Why would I?”

“You know why. Both of us can do what only angels should be able to—cast out demons without rituals or exorcisms,” Sam said, soft and arrogant. “But I could have taken her out from here.”

‘You couldn’t have’ went loud and unsaid. Castiel’s face darkened, and he was the one to worry about, not Uriel.

“Sam, don’t taunt the psycho angel,” he told his brother.

Uriel shot him a look blacker than any he’d given Sam. “You defy God while I obey him,” the angel growled. “And far more than that separates you from me.”

“That’s right. Free will and reason.” Sam ratcheted up the smugness. “Anything else? Because we’re fighting on the same side, you know. And yet, you destroy lives while I save them.”

“Sam!”

The cracking boards above their heads shook. “Listen to your brother, boy,” Uriel blustered, “or I will—”

“Strike me down?” Sam mocked. “No, you won’t, because you don’t have that authority. Someone’s afraid that you’ll lose Dean if you kill me, aren’t they?”

The planks shook harder.

“And he’s the one you really hate,” Sam pushed. “You have to suffer me to live, me, whose pollution gives me a power of the angels, so that he can lead you.”

Castiel whipped his head around to catch his eyes. His icy stare said plain as day, ‘Stop your brother, or I will.’

“Sammy, shut up!” he hissed.

Sam threw him the ‘talk to the hand’ gesture. “He can’t control me,” he told the angel. “But you’ll have to obey him, won’t you?”

Uriel drew his clenched fists from his pockets, and yeah, Sam had hit whatever angels had instead of nerves. “Of course he can’t control you,” he sneered. “The swaggering ape cannot even control his own lusts and vices.”

“And he can choose to indulge them. You can’t.” The smirk on Sam’s face as he glanced up at the rattling timbers was eerily familiar…Meg, he remembered. It was the same smirk Sam had worn when the demon possessing his body had broken the holy sigils trapping her.

“Five centuries ago, a monkey wrote that God favored humans above the angels because he gave us the power to choose what we become,” Sam went on, oblivious to the cold rushing around them as if Castiel was drawing in all the energy from the room. “Do you hate us for that, Uriel? Or do you imagine being led by that ‘swaggering ape’ and think that maybe, just maybe, the Morningstar was ri—”

“Samuel, be silent!” rang through the room. Sam jumped at the sheer force of the words, and for once in his life, shut up. “Go, Uriel,” Castiel ordered. “Leave him to me.”

Snarling, the other angel vanished. Castiel rounded on Sam, who paled and stepped backwards.

“Castiel,” he began, starting toward his brother’s side. It—and that was the first time in months that he’d thought of the angel as ‘it’ instead of ‘he’—held up his hand. He stopped dead in his tracks, understanding for the first time what it meant to be ‘awestruck,’ as Castiel backed Sam against the wall. Sam had several inches on the vessel, but the angel was somehow far taller.

“I will strike you dead where you stand, Samuel, before I let you goad one of my brothers into destruction.” The hoarse voice was no louder than ever, but the air trembled with it. “And make no mistake, I do have that authority.”

“You had to know about him.” Sam flattened his palms and shoulders against the wood as if he was leaving himself no room to cringe. “He hates me, fine, you can all hate me, but you had to know how much he hates Dean.”

Invisible wings beat the air. “Fate may have given you power over demons, Sam Winchester,” Castiel blazed, “but never presume to think that you can tutor an angel of the Lord. I knew about Uriel.”

Sam swallowed. “You did?”

“Just as I knew that your insolence stemmed from your fear for your brother. And that, Samuel,” it rasped, “is the only reason I have not returned you to the dust whence you came.”

Sam’s pallid face went dead white. “I’m sorry,” he said, fighting to keep his chin up under Castiel’s bug-on-a-pin scrutiny. “I didn’t mean—I was just making it up as I went along. I’m sorry.”

“It does not bode well that the words came to your mind at all. But…” Castiel tilted his head and nodded, as if finding whatever he was looking for in Sam’s face. “Your apology is accepted. Much can be forgiven if it is done for love, though not everything. You would both do well to remember that.”

Sam slumped with relief as the angel stepped back. “I and I alone will deal with Uriel,” Castiel said, seemingly returning to his host's size with another flutter of unseen wings.

He found his voice again. “How?” he asked.

“By reasoning with him, of course. Angels are endowed with as much reason as humans are, and more wisdom.” Something that might have been grief flickered across Castiel’s usually impassive face. “And we are not without will. If we were, none of us could fall.”

Sam peeled himself off the wall. “I knew that. Like you said, I was just goading him.”

“You knew?” the angel repeated. He readied himself to run interference if Sam had stepped in it again, but Castiel actually chuckled. “Minds even better than yours have sought to understand the angels for millennia, Sam Winchester. You can’t. It’s not in your...nature.”

Sam winced. “Sorry.”

“There’s no sin in seeking knowledge about God’s heavenly creations. Only in believing you have attained it,” Castiel answered. “And…”

The angel sat down on a bale of hay and rested his elbows on his knees, lines that would have meant fatigue in a human crossing his face. Maybe angels couldn’t eat or drink or screw but could still feel exhaustion. That would suck, but it fit with what they knew about God.

“And the truth is, I didn’t realize the depth of Uriel’s…resentment of Dean.” Castiel admitted. “I will keep my brother on a shorter leash, Samuel, but you must stay on yours.”

“Please tell me that’s some kind of metaphor,” he interjected as Sam’s face clouded over.

Unblinking, puzzled eyes turned to him. “Of course.”

“He means,” Sam translated, “that they think the Boy King will obey his big brother even if he doesn’t take orders from angels.” Sam clenched and relaxed his fists, shoving his automatic rebellion back down. “Meaning no disrespect, heaven should know that I respect my brother, I trust his judgment, I follow his lead. But I haven’t taken orders from anyone since the day I became a man.”

“I believe that, Sam,” Castiel answered. The tiredness on his face deepened a little before his eyes wandered off to stare at nothing.

After a moment his brother gave him a baffled look; he shrugged back. The silence might be awkward, but Anna was getting a pretty good head start while her pursuer hung out with them and communed with dust motes.

“Castiel, would you answer a question for me?” Sam ventured eventually.

The angel returned from his woolgathering. “If I can, yes.”

“Do other angels have it in for Dean too?”

Castiel pondered the question at length. He’d once heard that Eskimos—‘Inuit,’ Sam said—had nine different words for snow. The angel, on the contrary, had only one blank face, one head-tilt, and one blink to show pondering, contemplation, curiosity, and six other kinds of thought processes. Nothing approaching Uriel’s fluid use of the full range of his host’s face and body language. The thought had crossed his mind that Castiel might not be the shiniest halo in the heavens, but he figured it was more likely that the angel didn’t care enough about the expressions to learn them. He’d probably picked up how to show nine kinds of menace instinctively.

“They do not,” Castiel told Sam finally. “The others respect Dean for his sacrifice and for…what he might become. But they neither like nor dislike him because they don’t know him.” His lips twitched a little. “Which is just as well. Many of them would not find him amusing.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m an acquired taste.”

Castiel blinked. “You should both know, though,” he continued after a beat, “that Uriel walks at one line of angelic nature, but I walk on the other. Most of us are more…dispassionate. And not all of them are sure about you.”

“Not sure that I’m the right guy for the battlefield promotion?” he asked.

“More than that. Leader or not, Dean, you are a hunter of rare skill, and we’ll need every hunter in this battle. But your faith is questionable at best.” Castiel was speaking to him, but looking at Sam. “I have no doubt that you’ll remain on our side, but if there were ever fear that your loyalties might be divided, one of the others might...remove you from the equation. The stakes are too high to risk losing someone so talented to the other side.”

“Why would they be divid—?” he started before he caught side of Sam’s stormcloud face. Oh.

“So the thinking goes, if you threaten me he’ll behave, and if you threaten him, I’ll behave.” Sam’s voice rose. “Is that all we are to—?” He gestured upwards. “Bargaining chips and hostages?”

“No.” The angel seemed puzzled by Sam’s denseness. “Don’t ask me anything else, Sam. I’ve said all I can.”

Sam snorted. “Then let’s just go our separate ways and hope we don’t run into each other again,” he said, a hard edge on his tone.

Castiel studied him. “What are you afraid of losing, Sam Winchester,” he asked calmly, “if you continue to walk with angels?”

Sam was silent for a long moment. “My faith,” he said eventually in a thick voice. “You said that God wants me to just let people die, and I’m trying like hell to deal with it. Hunters are your knights, you want Dean to be a rook or maybe a queen—”

“Dude!” he yelped.

Sam rolled his eyes but shrugged an apology. “And the chess pieces don’t need to know why they have to stand and watch pawns get sacrificed. But...you know that Uriel likes it, don’t you? He cares more about who we screw than who we save. And you don’t care about anything.”

Electricity crackled through the air. “Or you’re heartless, whatever. I know, you don’t argue semantics with the monkeys,” Sam amended. “I just wish...God. I just wanted this all to be more than a numbers game.”

Something that might have been discomfort crossed Castiel’s face. “God hasn’t asked you not to save people,” he said. “Far from it.”

“Right. He just wants me to stand there holding our best weapon and not use it,” Sam answered, waving an empty hand. “And that’s not all of it. You keep torturing my brother.”

“I’m fine, Sam,” he interjected, because Sam didn’t know jack about torture.

“You are the furthest thing in the world from fine, Dean. They threaten you with hell, they blackmail you with me, and it’s—Christ, it’s not mercilessness, it’s cruelty.” Sam nailed Castiel with a glare. “Are you holding Uriel’s leash, or is it someone higher up? Because you can tell whoever’s in charge that I will take myself out of the equation before I let you use me to hurt him.”

Castiel’s expression turned inscrutable. “Suicide is the gravest of sins,” he admonished. “It leads to damnation.”

His pulse skyrocketed as he heard the screams of the damned again, smelled the ever-present sulfur. He’d never worked on a suicide; there was a separate place reserved for them. But Hell was still hell.

“And that’s a problem why?” Sam sneered. “Did you promise Uriel he could do the honors?”

“Sam!” he barked with twenty years of ‘don’t run into traffic,’ ‘don’t drop your guard,’ ‘don’t jump out too soon’ in his voice. Even Castiel blinked at him. “Don’t taunt the sane angel, and don’t ever think that again,” he ordered.

“Don’t you get it, Dean? They all think I’m going there anyway.” The high pitch in his brother’s voice revealed what he hadn’t caught before—Sam was getting mad to keep from being afraid. “The only question in their minds is whether they catch me before I kill the magic number of people that makes them care.”

“Big deal,” he scoffed. “What do they know?”

“They’re angels, Dean. Maybe they know a lot. Last night while you were, uh…,” Sam cut himself off, arm jittering nervously at his side. “I was thinking last night. I haven’t used my powers since Halloween, or, uh…been with Ruby since you came back. But Anna said the angels don’t like me. Present tense. Uriel said he’ll kill me when I get to be too much trouble, not if. Could be that they know I’ll—I’ll turn, even if I don’t want to.”

“Drop the monkey semantics, Sam,” he responded. “You should be glad that they’re not keeping track of who you know in the Biblical sense.” Next to him, Castiel glanced downward with his ‘discomfort’ face. He must’ve just committed blasphemy. Or sacrilege. Whatever.

Sam bit his lip. “Remember what I said, when Anna said the angels were threatening to send you back?”

‘Do you know a weapon that works on an angel?’ he heard in Sam’s voice. ‘Doesn’t mean anything,’ he wanted to say. Except, he still couldn’t believe the thought had crossed Sam’s mind.

“Yeah,” Sam said, knowing his silence for what it was. “And I’d still do it, if that’s what it took to stop them. So maybe it’s already started. And that changes things, see?”

“Uh…no.”

Sam looked away from him into the angel’s opaque eyes. “The gospel of John, 15:13. ‘There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for another,’” he quoted. “Is that true, or did I believe the wrong Testament?”

“The word of the Lord is the greatest of truths,” Castiel said with confusion, like Sam had switched to Farsi mid-sentence. “It cannot be doubted.”

“And the sin of suicide is despair. If it’s inevitable I’ll become something I’m not, then laying down my life isn’t despair, is it?” Sam shifted his eyes back and forth between the two of them, and the words rolled far too easily from his lips. “Maybe it’ll matter to God that I’d rather die than—than hurt people, maybe it won’t, but it would still be the right thing to do.”

His skin crawled as he heard how neatly Sam made the argument, how effortlessly he cited chapter and verse. He remembered, not long after he’d gotten back, tossing Sam’s Bible onto the bed to make room for a spellbook. It had fallen open to the gospel Sam had mentioned; he hadn’t paid any attention at the time, but he’d bet it contained the passage his brother had just recited. The page had been well-worn, like it had been read again and again the past few months. Like Sam had been brooding over this for a long time.

“Sammy,” he said through dry lips, “what were you thinking when I was gone?”

“That I was going to be a hunter, a Winchester, do you and Dad proud.” Sam’s eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I was sure using my powers was safe, but if I was wrong, well…Christ.” He laughed bitterly. “You and me, Dean, we were never meant to die old. Guess that’s why we didn’t, huh?”

Castiel observed the exchange with vague interest. He liked the angel, even after tonight, but he wanted to sock him for watching Sam’s breakdown like it was a National Geographic special on chimpanzees running wild in the Serengeti. Of course, there were worse ways for him to react if Sam’s rant took off in the wrong direction.

He gripped his brother’s shoulders and rotated him until his back was to the angel. “Sammy,” he said calmingly, “you’re freaking out, you’re freaking me out, and we’re just going walk away now, okay?”

Castiel raised a staying hand. “Let him speak,” he commanded, like they didn’t all know that he couldn’t shut Sam up with anything less than a tranquilizer gun and a roll of duct tape. Maybe the only surprise about Sam’s meltdown was that it hadn’t happened sooner.

“That’s generous,” Sam muttered; Castiel nodded benignly at his back in response because, thank God, he hadn’t fully gotten sarcasm yet. “You really want to hear it?” Sam asked, spinning around.

The angel tilted his head. “Yes.”

“Fine.” Sam seemed to marshal his words, then fired both barrels. “You’re a footsoldier, aren’t you, Castiel?” he asked. “But you would be a general now, if you had chosen differently.”

The vessel’s body went straight and tense, every trace of fatigue vanishing from his face. Diamond hardness replaced the vague benevolence in his eyes as the angel gritted out, “If.”

“If,” Sam repeated. “But when the angels picked sides in that first battle, you stayed loyal to God.”

Castiel’s expression didn’t change, but he relaxed the body a little and waited for Sam to go on.

“Tell me, how long had you lived the day you walked away from Lucifer’s offer?” Sam asked, keeping their gazes locked. “How old were your brothers who died the same day they chose faith over power?”

Castiel lowered his eyes. “Eons,” he murmured. “Only eons.”

Sam lifted his chin. “Do you know how old I was?”

He recoiled as his brother’s question hung, cold and brutal, in the air. Saying nothing, Castiel returned his eyes to Sam’s.

“Twenty-three,” Sam told him. “Years, not eons. You’d think that would earn me the benefit of the angels’ doubt. And Dean was twenty-nine when he—he did what he did to buy me back a few decades.” Sam’s voice broke. “John 15:13, but Dean’s love was even greater, right? It never made sense that a contract with some demon bitch could outweigh that.”

He fidgeted under Sam’s words. The angel just listened, impassive and silent.

“When Dean was gone—maybe I should have thought about saving people more and revenge less, and yeah, I could have been a better man,” Sam said, low and quick. “But I never cursed God, never stopped believing in him, and even after everything was taken away from me, I never lost trust in him. I never stopped praying that I wasn’t practicing lawlessness and he would know me on the last day. And now…”

Sam pressed his lips together in a tight half-smile, like he always did when he was holding back tears. “Now God’s messengers know me as a pariah, and all I see in an angel is the lesser of two evils.”

Castiel appeared perturbed. “The proof that angels are the antithesis of evil is branded on your brother’s body, Sam,” he said. “The denizens of hell can no more bear my touch than a demon can endure holy water.”

Jig’s up, he thought. Sam was smart enough to put together the pieces from Castiel and Alistair and come up with the real picture: rather than enduring eternal torment, his big brother had jumped onto the fast track in demon vocational school.

Except Sam didn’t figure it out because he still had faith in the wrong thing—him.

“Dean, remember saying you didn’t know why you deserved to be freed from hell when others weren’t?” Sam asked. “I knew. The minute we found out God commanded it, I knew. But you would’ve gotten all squirrelly if I told you.”

“John 15:13,” he preempted to keep from hearing that word again.

“Exactly. When an angel brought you back it was like...like God and faith, everything, it all made sense.”

Sam’s face was lit up like when he’d first thought he’d seen an angel in the confused soul of a priest a couple years earlier, and he understood it little more now than he had then. If he was honest with himself, he’d admit that Sam’s faith always unsettled him because it made his brother a stranger.

“But all they cared about was using you,” Sam went on, the light vanishing. “If angels are good, Dean, then I can’t recognize good anymore. And when I thought more about what I was going to do, I realized I might have passed the point of no return and never known it.”

Sam looked Castiel straight in his unfathomable eyes. “I was going to kill an angel tonight,” he said. “I bet that couldn’t be forgiven for love.”

“Sammy,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Sam opened his arms like he had when he was defying Uriel to strike him down, except Sam wasn’t calling a bluff. “If that’s the sign to lay me to waste,” he told the angel, “and if anything I’ve done has earned me the slightest favor from heaven, you’ll do it now and deny that smug bastard the pleasure.”

He grabbed Sam’s jacket, desperate to haul this whipsawing conversation back to something rational. “Sam, are you crazy?” he hissed. “You don’t know if you’re right about any of this.”

“But I know I can’t go on with things the way they are now. I wish I could help you understand better.” Sam fumbled for words to clarify the alien nuances of belief. “You know how you didn’t think God existed until you saw an angel?” he tried.

“Yeah.”

Sam smiled sadly and disengaged from his grasp. “The problem is, I already knew He did.”

Sam stepped around him and straightened his back. “Either take me off the chessboard now, Castiel, or get the hell away from us and don’t come back,” he said. “Because I want to at least pretend to myself that I still believe God cares about the pawns, and I can’t do it if I have to walk one more fucking step with angels.”

Castiel rose. His eyes held the same expression they had when he looked at Anna—cool regret. “Come here, Samuel,” he said, holding out his hand.

His brother gave him an anguished look. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he whispered again, and stepped forward.

“Castiel, please,” he begged. It wasn’t too late for Sam; he didn’t deserve to be struck down or teleported straight to hell. The angel responded with his ‘baffled’ face before he turned to his brother.

“You understand one thing about angels, Sam—we are limited beings,” Castiel said, taking Sam’s hand. “Uriel and I were created to be warriors; it is neither our task to minister nor in our nature to comfort. Those gifts are given to your own kind.”

The gravelly voice was low and calm, and the angel looked wide-eyed and…earnest. Really, really earnest. “It would be a tragedy if you lost the faith that Azazel and Lilith could not destroy,” he went on, “because you sought guidance from those with little ability to give it.”

Sam looked down, blinking, as Castiel laid his other hand over their joined ones. He figured it out the same moment comprehension flashed over Sam’s face: Castiel was trying to replicate his actions from the time when he and Sam first met, when a handshake had relieved Sam's anxiety at the angel's aloof reception.

“Most angels know little more of the mind of God than you do,” Castiel continued. “And we have no foreknowledge of the fate of souls. Do you understand?”

Painfully fragile hope crossed Sam’s face. “You’re saying that I can still be saved?”

Castiel tightened his clasp. “No angel knows otherwise, and I pray that you will be.”

Sam pulled his hand free and sank down on the bale of hay behind him. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Thank God.”

“It is beyond my station to say more, but accept this angelic wisdom,” Castiel said in a tone that sounded as close to kindness as he could achieve. “You must remember Solomon’s teaching on pride.”

“Pride goeth before destruction,” Sam recited.

“And a haughty spirit before a fall. Remember it, not memorize it, or you will fall.” Castiel sat down as well. “And you have my word, Sam, the word of God’s own messenger, that your loss would be seen and mourned throughout the heavens.”

Sam’s expression crumbled like the angel was gutting him in slow motion. “Because you’ll lose a knight while the other side gains a king,” he said dully, looking away.

“No, Sam. A sparrow,” Castiel corrected gently. “Do you know the words of our Lord?”

Sam met the angel's eyes again and nodded, hope slowly flowing back to his face. The moment was so intimate that he wanted to be anywhere but there, but when he moved to leave, Sam shot him a glance begging him not to leave him alone with this sincere, compassionless creature.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?” Castiel asked, and screw it—they had all the privacy in the world if they kept speaking Bible instead of English.

“Yet not one of them is forgotten by God,” Sam responded.

“Yes. The very hairs of your head are all numbered, so fear not.” The rough voice was as cool as a judge’s, as strong as a father’s, as tender as a lover’s. “There is neither knight nor king before the Father, but you, Samuel—you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Sam buried his face in his hands, shuddering, and Castiel looked up. “As are you, Dean Winchester,” he added implacably.

Swallowing, he turned away from the faint light outlining the angel’s wings and the terrible strength in his eyes. He’d been wrong, so wrong to think that his brother’s faith made his life easier.

Sam wiped at his nose with his sleeve. “Me, Dean, the sparrows are everyone,” he said. “Does that mean I’m the same as anyone else?”

“You know the answer to that too.” Castiel’s tone was as inexorable as it was gentle. “Your spirit is human, Sam, but your blood is poison. If you open a chink to let that poison into your soul, it will not be purged easily, if at all.”

Sam’s hands shook. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said, the whites showing all around his eyes. Panicking. This was Sam panicking. “Dean—I can’t do this.”

Castiel watched with benign puzzlement, his comforting skills spent, as Sam covered his face once more. Guilt flowed like poison in his own veins as he watched his brother trembling under the fear of a never-ending struggle against damnation. Needing to at least protect Sam from the intrusion of that cool, assessing gaze, he caught Castiel’s eyes and motioned toward the door with his chin. The angel looked at the door, and then blankly back to him.

He gritted his teeth. “Could I talk to you outside, please?”

Castiel nodded like he was filing the cue away for future reference. “Yes,” he said, standing.

“Thanks, Castiel,” Sam mumbled, startling them both.

The angel looked down as if he hadn’t learned the response to those words yet. “I’ll pray for you, Sam Winchester,” he promised again. “And if I must strike you down, I’ll pray for you even as I deliver the blow.”

“That’s, uh...,” Sam cleared his throat. “That’d be great.”

Castiel took a few steps toward the door, then stopped. “The question you didn’t ask, Sam,” he said without turning.

Sam looked up. “Yeah?”

“The answer is ‘no.’ Not even for an instant.” The angel looked over his shoulder, but not enough for them to see his face. “Power holds no temptation for me.”

He sat down in the spot Castiel had vacated as soon as the angel was gone. “Sammy?”

“I’m okay,” Sam told him. “Just a little…overwhelmed.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his brother’s back. “I didn’t know if you needed a Kleenex or a cigarette after the swallow thing.”

“Sparrow.” Sam smiled weakly and snuffled. “Remember me saying I could have been Max, if our dad had been like his?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. Sometimes, at least, he and Sam still understood each other without words.

“But Dad was Dad, so I wasn’t Max. I didn’t go into this without thinking, you know,” Sam said, resting his elbows on his knees. “I found six others with demon blood, most with stronger abilities than mine, and not one of them went bad before Azazel screwed with their heads. Even Jake was a good guy until Azazel convinced him his only choice was power or death.”

His brother looked steadily at him, letting him search his face for the truth. “The suicide thing was a worst-case scenario, I swear. I couldn’t handle killing demons’ hosts when there was an alternative, and with Azazel gone, I thought using my powers was safe.”

Not so much as a ping on his Sam-lie-detector test, but the ‘Sam has no sense’ klaxon was sounding loud and clear. “You had to know it might be a risk,” he pointed out.

“Not really. I still had you.” Sam smiled at him, innocent and serene. “You’d’ve kicked my ass if I’d ended up downstairs anyway. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

He jerked away, his entire being cringing from the image. They would have sent his brother to his workspace first, no doubt about it. And God help him…he would have done it.

“Dean?” Sam asked.

He cleared his throat. “It’s cool.”

“Castiel isn’t going to hang around forever. You should go,” Sam told him after a few seconds. “I’m fine.”

This time he couldn’t tell if his brother was lying, but he was right. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said.

Sam half-sniffed, half-chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll put it on the list.”

“Right.” He clapped Sam’s shoulder and headed out, pushing away the knowledge that it was time to tell Sam about the things he’d sworn his brother would never know.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Additional author's notes:
Sam’s line about God favoring humans above angels comes from Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man” (written in AD 1496). The verses on the sparrows are in Luke 12:6-8, and Sam also references Matthew 7:22-23: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

Comments are welcome, and all my fic may be found here.

Pretentious author's notes:
(I'm adding this to the A/N to avoid repeating myself ad nauseam in the comments.)

When I started this fic shortly after 'Heaven and Hell' aired, I thought it was going to be an easy little vignette. Writing it turned out to be an unexpectedly intense and draining experience, and I'm very, very grateful to readers who let me know that it resonated and/or provoked thought.

End of pretentious author's notes.

"Better Than at the Other" (Sam/Dean slash)

2008-12-19T16:12:36Z

Title: “Better Than at the Other”
Rating: NC-17 for consensual but intense sex.
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: 1800
Episode/Spoilers: “Heaven and Hell”
Summary: “Then do me instead,” Sam panted. His mind screamed at him not to hurt his brother even like this, but his body was screaming louder, so he shoved Sam onto his back and gave him what he wanted.
Author’s notes: Please see the additional note below the cut.

Generic warning on all my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death, which I prefer not to disclose in advance. If you like to know whether a story contains CD before you read, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Anna didn’t deserve her grace back.” His brother’s voice was thick with tears and lust as Sam backed him toward the bed. “She should’ve turned herself in the minute they said they’d throw you back to hell.”

“She wouldn’t have let it go that far,” he answered, yielding to the gentle, inexorable pressure of Sam’s hands pushing him down.

“I think she would have.” Sam started at a spot just below his ear and traced hot, sucking kisses down his neck. “Castiel thought so too. I could see it in his eyes.”

“What?” He grasped Sam’s shoulder and pulled him away from licking at the hollow of his throat. “When?”

“It must have been the same time you saw Uriel. All he said was, ‘You know what you have to do, Sam,’ but he was disappointed when I said ‘no.’ I could see that too.” Sam unknotted the damp towel around his hips—all he was wearing when Sam waylaid him coming out of the shower—and slid his hand beneath it. He wasn’t hard, shouldn’t be hard, but he was getting there fast.

“He left so quick that I almost thought he wasn’t supposed to be there. Crazy, huh?” Sam scrutinized his face for the minutest response as his hand played over his inner thighs. “But if he’d waited three more seconds I would have given her up. Three more seconds, Dean.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he replied, letting Sam nudge his thighs open in spite of himself.

“I would have,” Sam insisted. “I should have. She was going to let you go to hell for her.”

He laughed bitterly. “Fuck, Sam. I didn’t deserve to go there, but I sure as hell deserve to go back.”

“No.” Desperation colored Sam’s tone. “He wouldn’t have left you there if you deserved it. If you hadn’t been forgiven.”

“Do you think he cares about all those souls that I….” He cut off the words and the memories. “Do you think he cares about any of us?”

“He has to. Christ, Dean, I’ll drown if I can’t believe he does.”

Sam went back to tracing his clavicles with his tongue. He should be stopping his brother instead of encouraging him, he thought hazily, but he wasn’t made of stone. Sam was flushed and hard too, God alone knew why. Maybe one tainted soul calling out to another; Sam knew enough about that.

Maybe they all did. None of them were behaving like they should: a hunter turned torturer, a demon who let herself be tortured to protect a fallen angel, an angel who wanted to damn him and another who might have disobeyed orders to save him. Sam was the only one acting according to type because he was the only one of his kind in the world, and they didn’t know what he was.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam whispered after he licked his way over each rib. His fingers reached the crease where thigh meets body, just inches from where he needed them most.

‘Your mouth,’ he should have said, or ‘your hands,’ hell, even ‘Miss October,’ but he was done lying to his brother. “I was thinking of Ruby—oh, fuck,” he choked as Sam’s fingertips brushed over his balls.

“Yeah, you like that?” Sam murmured. “You want more?”

A decade of ‘no more, no more,’ ringing in his head, he nodded.

“Don’t think about Ruby.” Sam’s lips traveled down his stomach as his fingers stroked his balls again. “Me and you, it’s nothing like me and her.”

He tugged a fistful of Sam’s sweat-dampened hair to make him look up, even as his hips rocked upward. “Then what are we like?”

“We’re like us,” Sam said simply.

Fingers and mouth closed over his cock, and he was lost. The hands were unskilled but careful, the mouth fumbling but so sweet, and Sam drank in his every moan, learned from the slightest shiver, and played it all back to him until he was thrashing on the bed and tearing at the sheets.

‘Don’t touch me, please don’t touch me,’ the inner voices howled, but outside it was Sam, shucking off his clothes and begging, “Touch me, Dean, please touch me.”

He was good at this—better than at the other—and Sam was as into it as he was. Dirty moans vibrated around his cock—moans, nothing like groans muffled by a gag—and drove him crazy for more—not like in the Pit, he swore to himself, he’d hated them in the Pit. He let Sam do whatever he wanted, floating in the scorching pleasure, until the lubed fingertip stroking circles around his asshole tried to press inside.

“Stop,” he gasped. Sam didn’t know what he was doing, this healed, branded body hadn’t done it that way yet, and he couldn’t stand another painful, violating intrusion into his self. Not now, maybe not ever.

“Then do me instead,” Sam panted between more hot licks and teasing strokes. “C’mon, do me.”

His mind screamed at him not to hurt his brother even like this, but his burning body was screaming louder, so he shoved Sam onto his back and gave him what he wanted. Sam covered his face to hide the pain—his hands weren’t tied down—stifling his soft gasps—they always did at first—but demanded “Go on, go on,” when he hesitated, and they never did that. And they never looked at him with the awed surprise in Sam’s expression when he lowered his hands.

“What?” he asked, driving in at just the right angle.

“It’s good.” Sam’s breath hitched in his throat. “First time, I didn’t think it’d be this good.”

“It’s going to get better,” he promised, thrusting harder. He was good at this—better than at the other—and Sam shuddered and moved with him.

“Stop, stop,” Sam gasped when they were both on the brink. He froze with every cell in his body screaming to keep going—you had to keep going when they cried for you to stop, because it was either them or you.

“I want you to make it last,” Sam said, his eyes bright and dilated. “Want you to make me....”

“Make you what, Sam?” He searched his brother’s face for whatever he couldn’t ask for out loud. “Make you beg?” he asked, knowing that wasn’t everything Sam was thinking, but it was the only part he could read.

“Can you?” The red spots high on Sam’s cheekbones flushed scarlet. “For real, I mean?”

“Hell, yes, I can make you beg. ” He ignored Sam’s little whimper of disappointment as he pulled out. “Want me to make you scream, Sammy? Because I will. There’s no one here to hear.”

‘Don’t scream,’ he’d first begged, then ordered them. ‘There’s no one here to care.’

Sam stretched his arms wide—because it felt good, not because of the rack—and arched his neck in invitation. “Do it.”

He was good at this—better than at the other—and Sam made it so easy—he didn’t fight, they always fought at first—giving in to his hands—he never touched them with his hands, only the knife—and the quick, teasing brushes of lips on skin. A flood of words poured from Sam’s mouth, all the words he’d heard before—‘Oh God,’ and ‘please’—but other ones mixed in too— ‘Yeah, don’t stop, so good,’ and Sam was almost hyperventilating by the time he started licking at the soft skin over hard muscle of his brother's abdomen.

“You asked for this, Sam,” he said as Sam writhed on his fingers. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

‘You deserve this,’ he would tell them early on, back when his hands shook too much to twist the knife. Like that would make it okay, like that would make them forgive him. ‘That’s why I can’t stop.’

“Don’t stop. I want—,” Sam whined, losing the words as he hit just the right spot. There was always a right spot, you just had to find it. “Please, I want...,”

“Anything, Sammy. Just tell me,” he taunted as he drove Sam’s breath away again. They never knew that taunting was a kindness because it broke them with less of the knife. “I can’t unless you tell me.”

“Your—ah, your….”

“My what, Sam?” Another crook of his finger and Sam cursed, thrashing and kicking because there was no rope here, no rack.

“Your mouth. Give me your mouth,” Sam finally got out. “And you gotta let me talk.”

“Sure,” he agreed, letting Sam feel his breath with each word. “But once I get my mouth on you, you won't know what you’re saying anyway.”

Sam cried out, his back bowing so tight that he had to clamp his hand around the base of Sam's cock to keep him from coming too soon. Then he set to work, focusing on driving Sam out of his mind tonight because he was afraid to ask if this was the only time.

You always try to break a soul in one session so you won’t have to see someone who knows you’re a monster in the morning.

Mouth and fingers moved together in the right rhythm, the rhythm he could draw out for hours.

But you’ve got to make one last all day, because if you finish too quick they bring you another.

“Talk, Sammy. You wanted to talk, so talk,” he urged without breaking the pace.

Dean Winchester, working a nine-to-five in Hell.

“Fuck, yeah…,” Sam moaned.

Dependable, reliable, practically employee of the month.

“Don’t stop….”

Because sometimes the employee of the month gets a day off.

“Do that again….”

If you don’t cut corners...

“I need….”

or cheat the boss...

“Oh, God...”

or clock out before the end of your shift.

“Please—ah, please, Dean.”

Yeah, he’d been damned good at the other.

“Let me come, I gotta come, c'mon, Dean, fuck me, make me come....”

But he was fucking gifted at this.

He finally let himself feel the pleasure as he drove into Sam and started moving. There was still something besides heat in his brother’s eyes, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the clench of Sam’s body, the noises and words tumbling from his lips...

"Yeah, now, do it, so close, Dean, fuck me harder, I need it," Sam babbled, and as he hit the edge, “Dean, I lo—.”

He clapped a hand over Sam’s mouth to stop the words he didn’t deserve or want to hear. Victory flashed across Sam’s face as he came, triumph and trust and forgiveness that he’d never seen, would never see in anyone else’s eyes. He shuddered through his own orgasm, groans tearing unrestrained from his throat, and the screaming pit inside him got just a little smaller.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Comments are welcome, and all my fic may be found here.

"God Has No Sympathy for the Devil"

2008-11-16T14:27:03Z

Title: "God Has No Sympathy for the Devil (When It Comes to John Winchester)"
Rating: PG
Characters: God, Satan
Category: Crackfic. Bigtime.
Word Count: ~150
Episodes/Spoilers: "In My Time of Dying" and "All Hell Breaks Loose."
Disclaimer: God, Satan, and John Winchester do not belong to me. No copyright infringement or blasphemy is intended.
Summary: Theologically speaking, does a good soul ever really belong in hell?
A/N: I posted this humorously on a forum a long time back, but technically, it is fic.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Unidentified Location
John Winchester's Hospital Room

God, watching the deal between John and the Yellow-Eyed Demon, thinks, 'Whew! Heaven dodged a bullet there.'

Four months later:
Satan: "This Winchester guy…he's not really evil, you know."
God: "What can I say? He made a deal to go to hell."

Three months later:
Satan: "Not even borderline, is what I'm saying. Spent his life fighting for good."
God: "A contract's a contract."

Two months later:
Satan: "You know he was a demon hunter, right? That's good."
God: "You know the difference between good and evil? Good honors its word."

One month later:
Satan: "And he's still good! Hunting demons! It's all he ever talks about!"
God: "Look, my hands are tied."

Three weeks later:
Satan: "Day and night! Night and day! The other damned don't deserve this!"
God: "And the saved do?"

Two weeks later:
Satan: "So, about Winchester..."
God: "No."

One week later:
Satan: "Deal didn't say anything about what happened if he got out. You're stuck with him."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Further author's notes:
Comments are welcome. All my fic may be found here, but most of it is nothing like this.

Child Care for the Single Hunter/Parent

2008-11-16T03:12:45Z

Title: "Child Care for the Single Hunter/Parent," or, "Four phone calls that didn't pan out for John Winchester (and one that did)."
Rating: G
Characters: John Winchester
Word Count: ~200
Episode/Spoilers: 'A Very Supernatural Christmas'
Summary: It's not like leaving the boys in that motel room for Christmas was John's first choice. Crack of the telephone variety.
Author's Notes: General knowledge of the minor characters in late Season One/early Season Two is necessary to get this story.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dialing Manning, Colorado
:ring:

"Daniel, it's John Winchester. I was thinking, life is too short to hold grudges, y'know? Just out of curiosity, do you have a spare room in your Unabomber cabin? No? Well, a large closet would do."
:click:

Dialing Blue Earth, Minnesota
:ring:

"Pastor Jim? John. I know you get stuck with the kids a lot, but hey, you only work one day a week, right?"
:click:

Dialing Lincoln, Nebraska
:ring:

"Caleb! Good to talk to you. Look, you might think that a thriving gun-running business is all you need to be happy, but let me tell you, buddy, Christmas isn't Christmas without kids around...You have kids, you say? What do you mean, they'll ask questions?...Mm-hmm...Uh, thanks for the offer, but never mind. I don't want my boys exposed to that environment."
:click:

Dialing Harvelle's Roadhouse, Nebraska
:ring:

"Ellen, it's John. So, how's widowhood treating you? Yeah…uh-huh…Listen, Ellen, Bill said that you always wanted Jo to have brothers, so I had this idea…"
:click:

Dialing Broken Bow, Nebraska
:ring:

"Hello, No-Tell Motel? I'm calling to inquire about your policy on unaccompanied minors."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Additional Author's Notes:
Comments are welcome. I'll get back to the porny slash soon, honest. If you enjoyed this story, all my fic can be found here. To be honest, though, none of that fic is anything like this one.

Fic: The Drift of Things

2008-11-09T19:04:08Z

Title: The Drift of Things
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam, Dean. Genfic.
Word count: ~ 6000
Summary: Is the current mytharc leaving you cold? Are you missing the simpler days of Season Two? If so, this is the series for you. Story summary: Brotherly banter, a hunt gone slightly bad, and Sam’s psychic abilities going in a more than slightly unwelcome direction.
Author’s notes: This is chronologically the first story in my ‘The Woods are Lonely’ ’verse. You need no familiarity with the other stories to understand this one. Further author’s notes under the cut.

Additional Notes: The ‘Woods are Lonely’ ’verse is set in what I’m calling an off-canon Season Two; off-canon rather than AU because it deviates from the real SPN world only in its different spin on Sam’s psychic abilities. While I’ve tried not to depart from what we’ve learned about the characters over time, the brotherly dynamics here are set firmly in what they were a few years ago, not in the past two seasons. Feedback is welcome.

The title is from the last stanza of Robert Frost’s “Reluctance:”

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Whew! That’s enough notes. Let’s move on to the story, shall we?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fairborn, Ohio
August 5, 2006

“Ghoul!” Dean announced.

“You’re the morbid one, man. I’m just doing research.” Sam reached up to block Dean’s swat before he heard the swish of the newspaper, because originality? Not Dean’s strong suit.

Dean craned his neck to look at the page of death’s-head symbols Sam had been studying. “Little late for that now, isn’t it?”

“Let it go, Dean.” Sam snapped the book closed and hopped off the car’s hood. “What’ve you got?”

Dean pointedly rubbed away Sam’s handprints with his sleeve before spreading a map over the warm metal. “A pattern of graverobbing,” he said, tracing his finger over a yellow line marked with X’s that angled halfway down the state of Ohio. “It goes on in one place for a few weeks, then stops and picks up somewhere else. No big deal, until...”

He handed Sam the newspaper. Sam skimmed over the story about vandalism and a missing maintenance worker in a Springfield graveyard. No direct leads; police were blaming Satanists. Thank God for Satanists, because their jobs would be a hell of a lot harder if the police ever dug deeper for answers.

“I found a report of another missing cemetery worker north of Columbus, about six weeks ago,” Dean added. “Two different cities—the police didn’t put it together.”

Sam frowned at the paper, sifting through the clues. Ghouls had been known to hunt their prey, but they were mostly carrion-eaters and not too picky about the condition of the corpses. “I dunno, man. What made them branch out to fresh kills?”

Dean tapped the map. “The place before the last one, Wilmot? It’s a green cemetery.”

Green cemetery. Meaning natural burial, meaning…“No embalming,” Sam concluded.

“Circle of life, Sammy. You die, you get planted in a cardboard box, and you turn some ghoul on to organic food.” Dean folded up the map and stacked the papers on top of it. “So unless you saw another death’s head last night...”

“Let it go, Dean.” Sam opened the passenger door and clambered into the car. “Springfield it is.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Springfield, Ohio
August 5, 2006

“This place doesn’t even have wireless,” Sam said incredulously as he tried to get to his e-mail. It was a few blocks from a tavern, which was the draw for Dean. The last job had been in a place too podunk for an easy pickup, and they’d been run out of the town before that too soon for Dean to follow up on the bartender’s flirting. Come hell or high water, Dean was determined to break his dry spell tonight.

Dean leaned closer to the mirror above the dresser and rubbed his chin. “Maybe I should shave.”

“For a ghoul? You frighten me.” Refreshing the browser for the third time didn’t work any better than it had the first two.

“Nah, chicks dig stubble,” Dean decided.

“I don’t even want to know how you can tell if a ghoul is a chick.” Sam gave up on the laptop, leaving himself nothing to stare at but the almost nauseatingly bright floral pattern on the wallpaper. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“No wireless,” Dean repeated as he checked the pay-per-view flyer. “No porn either. I can pick up a skin mag on the way back if you want to have some Sam time when I’m at the bar,” he offered.

Sam wrinkled his nose at the cloying smell as Dean shoved a basket of potpourri drenched in rose oil in his direction to clear room on the table for the weapons bag. Who’d’ve guessed that Springfield had once been the ‘Rose Capital of the World?’

“What did you do with the diagram illustrating ‘personal boundaries’ that I drew for you last week, and on the way back from where?” he asked, watching Dean transfer supplies from the large duffel into his backpack.

Dean shook a can of lighter fluid to check how much was left and tossed it into his pack. “Threw it away when you were in the john, and on the way back from the job. I’m taking this one solo,” he answered.

“What? No.” Tempting, because there’s only so much of your life you can spend within a ten-foot radius of someone else, but still a bad idea. “You shouldn’t go without backup.”

Dean snorted. “Dude, it’s a ghoul. A twelve-year-old could take one. You know that.”

“Yeah, and I know that other twelve-year-olds went to the amusement park for their birthdays,” Sam parried. “What I don’t know is that it isn’t a pack.”

“Two missing people in six weeks? The only kind of pack that could be is a Weight Watchers’ group.” Dean pulled out a shotgun and a semiautomatic, tilted his head in thought, and went with the pistol. “Unless you had a shining?”

Sam sighed and fished a few clips out of the larger duffel. “Remember the conversation we had last time you asked me that question?” he prompted as he handed over the ammo.

“The”—Dean raised his voice to an unnecessarily high falsetto—“‘I’ve been hunting since I was ten years old, Dean, Dad taught me everything he knew, same as you, Dean, and I’m not a goddamn EMF meter, Dean,’ conversation?”

“That’s the one.”

Dean finished loading the backpack and zipped it up. “What about it?”

Okay, Sam could live with Dean being somewhere else for a couple hours. Some days a little Dean went a long way, and this was one of those days. “Go,” he said. “Get out of my hair.”

Dean gave his hair a pained look. “Hustler, Playboy, or Playgirl?”

“I don’t need porn to have Sam time!”

“Chill, dude. I just thought you’d want to read the articles.” Dean shouldered his bag and reached for the doorknob. “Maybe you could catch some shuteye while I’m gone. Try to fine-tune your antenna,” he suggested, and made his escape before Sam could reply.

Since their encounter with the demon right before Dad’s death, Sam’s dreams had grown sharper, more vivid, and more frequent. Some had been nothing, one had been about another psychic, and three had led them to regular jobs. Four if you included the incident in California, but his nighttime vision of a grinning, ghostly white skull hovering over the place of a haunting was so misleading that he was writing it off as sheer coincidence.

“Why would a poltergeist move into a Jack-in-the-Box anyway?” Sam bitched. He slammed down the gas pedal, flying down the 101, eager to put Goleta behind them. “It’s just tacky.”

Dean shrugged philosophically and snagged another of Sam’s curly fries. “Maybe that freaky clown CEO attracts hostility.”

Sam tapped his fingers on the table and considered his options. He could head out in search of a Starbucks with neutral wallpaper and a wireless network. He could look for a grocery store selling food that hadn’t been processed three times over. ‘Sam time’ would be better with a skin mag because not wanting cheap sex wasn’t the same thing as losing appreciation for the beauty of the female form. Or he could just stop hiding and face the inevitable. With a groan, Sam stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes.

A lot of people can’t remember if their dreams are in color or black and white. Sam knew that his were tinged with red, and nightmare or not, they always tasted of ash. It was nightmares tonight. They began with the familiar: the sickening splatter of blood dripping on his face; the heat of flames taunting him as they devoured a blonde woman’s body; the flash of yellow eyes in the shadowed face of a figure standing over a crib. Then new images that were unfamiliar but no less disturbing. A perfect circle of dead trees in a pine forest, blasted and charred but still standing as sentries around a moss-covered cairn. An old-fashioned ceramic doll tossed carelessly in a dusty attic. A group of stone huts, houses of death, the iron door of one already open like a gaping maw. A rusty creak as the door of another swung wide and something moved within it.

Sam jerked himself out of sleep, grabbed a pen and paper, and scribbled notes on the fragmentary images and words that vanished as quickly as he jotted them down. He stared at the last phrase—‘death house’—as the stone huts flashed through his mind again. They weren’t huts, he realized: they were mausoleums.

Ghouls were subhuman but cunning, and a pack that mostly fed on bodies in mausoleums could hide its numbers for a long time. He lunged for his phone and hit the speed-dial for Dean’s cell. No answer. Silent running—the hunt was on.

Sam grabbed the shotgun and a handful of shells, and bolted for the door.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A distant gunshot told him which way to run as he jumped from his stolen Toyota. He charged over little knolls and past small memorial ponds towards the back of the graveyard, until the first of several gray structures loomed into view. Sam skidded up to it. Plastering himself against the wall, he crept forward and spun around the corner to the front, shotgun trained into the open door. The splintered wood of decayed and broken coffins lay in the dust along with piles of bones—ones too desiccated to be worth gnawing on thrown in corners, and fresh ones scattered throughout the small room.

Too many fresh ones. God knew where the bodies came from, but the taxpayers of Springfield weren’t getting a good return on their investment in law enforcement, because more than one person had gone missing in the couple weeks. A lot more. And somewhere in the cemetery was a pack of ghouls who liked their meat the natural way.

He barreled toward the sound of another shot and picked up the trail immediately. Dead ghoul sprawled out across two graves, dead ghoul crumpled against a weeping willow, dead ghoul at the base of a stone angel. Sam rounded another mausoleum, hugging the wall for cover. Opposite it was a living ghoul—well, animate ghoul—on the ground, claws lashing up toward his brother. Dean pinned the flailing arm under his foot, his bloodied face set in stone, and shot it point-blank.

Whatever his flaws may have been, Dean was one hell of a monster hunter.

Dean didn’t see him at the other side of the stone structure. Something else had caught his eye—yet another ghoul coming out of a cluster of trees about fifteen yards down. The reaction was as automatic as breathing now: Sam ducked back, sighted his target, and fired at the same instant Dean did. The report ringing off the wall nearly deafened him, but the thing dropped.

His brother ejected the ammo clip from his weapon and reached into his jacket for another, scanning around the direction the ghoul had come from. His movements were efficient but unhurried; it looked like he’d gotten the last of them. An auditory burst of memory came back from Sam’s dream, though: the screech of a rusty hinge and the scrape of iron on stone. He looked around frantically, eyes lighting on a mausoleum to his other side. The door was already open.

“Dean!” he hollered, rounding the corner of his shelter. Just as his brother’s head jerked around, something strong and unspeakably foul-smelling struck Sam from behind. The force of the blow added to his own momentum hurled him off his feet. He crashed hard on his right side, gun flying out of his hand, the wind knocked out of him, and half his body screaming in pain.

A concussion of terror followed on the heels of the crash: blind, stark, paralyzing fear. The weight of it crushing his chest stifled all efforts to breathe. Dean’s shock-widened eyes were on him, not his pistol, and his hands faltered. As Sam finally gasped in a heaving breath Dean shook himself and swung back into action, slamming the clip home as the ghoul tensed to pounce. Sam tamped down that overwhelming fear enough to lunge for his own weapon, but his leg gave way beneath him. Gritting his teeth, he tried to stretch out his hand for it. His arm didn’t move.

The seconds Dean had lost reloading were seconds too many. As he lifted the pistol there was the slash of another claw, a violent blow, and Dean was crashing against a headstone with a ‘crack.’

“Dean!” Sam bellowed.

That pulled the creature’s attention back to him, at least, and a layer of Sam’s fear peeled away when Dean looked toward him—but no, his face was slack, and his head had only rolled as he lost consciousness.

Instinct and adrenaline kicked in. Sam threw himself into a roll, grabbing the gun as he went, letting the momentum carry him as he pointed the weapon at the creature and fired. Thank God for the wide scatter pattern on a shotgun—his left-handed aim was lousy, but the shot was enough to finish the ghoul off. He dropped the gun, retched at the redoubled agony in his shoulder, and collapsed on his back, panting, until it subsided enough to move.

Then he crawled to his brother’s side. “Dean!”

Dean groaned. “Indoor voices, Sammy.”

“Hey, hey,” Sam urged, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Can you move?”

Dean blinked at him. “No.” And he was out again.

“Fuck.” Sam felt at the misshapen lump of his shoulder, tried to move the arm again, and got a fresh burst of pain for his trouble. Hissing, he rotated the joint until it popped back into its socket and tested his leg. He was mobile, but no way could he get Dean out of here except under his own steam.

He slumped forward with his chin on his knees, eyes scanning the cemetery, and rummaged around in his mind for anything to distract him from his shoulder while he waited. ‘The difference between a “Woman in White” apparition and a “hitchhiker ghost” is that the latter is usually benign and the former malevolent,’ he recited inwardly. ‘The 1943 Supreme Court ruling in “West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette” outlawed mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.’ ‘“Excruciating”’ is an adjectival participle deriving from the Latin verb excrucio, meaning “to torture” or “to break on the rack.”’ Sam tried to conjugate the verb, got stuck on the imperfect subjunctive, and gave up.

A faint prickle came across the back of his neck, like when you sense someone behind you, and he heard a whispered “Sammy?”

His head jerked up. “Yeah. You okay?”

Dean shifted. “Are you crying, Sammy?”

“What? No.” He sniffed experimentally, swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, and found them damp. “Oh. Maybe a little.”

A sparring buddy of Sam’s in college once remarked that one benefit of being a black belt was that you could say you liked the color pink without anyone thinking you were a sissy. The Winchester equivalent was that after you’d walked a mile on a hand-splinted compound fracture, it was okay to admit that crushing pain made your eyes sting.

Not that he’d walked it alone.

That had been a good day for their father—they found him sober and absorbed in his journal when they made it back. He knelt before Sam to look at the injury while Dean recounted how the branch Sam had shimmied onto while reaching for a strix nest had broken under his weight. Sam scrubbed furiously at his eyes: he was thirteen, way too old for crying, but even when Dean was all but carrying him the agony had grown with every step.

“It’s all right, Sammy,” his father had said gently, pulling his hands away from his face. “All that matters is that you didn’t quit.” Though still quiet, his voice grew sterner as he directed his next comment to his elder son. “You shouldn’t have let him go up there.”

Dean stood there in his black leather jacket, his long hair half-pulled out of the tieback he wore while hunting, hands shoved so deep into his pockets that the spiked bracelet on his wrist was barely visible, and looked down. “Yes, sir,” he replied stoically, taking the blame that wasn’t his. Dean could face down anything in this world or the next, except for their father.

Before Sam could demand his share of responsibility, though, Dad grinned. “Couldn’t stop him, could you?” Without waiting for an answer, he squeezed Sam’s hands. “Sam, when I’m not there you have to listen to your brother.”

He stood and lifted Sam as easily as he had when he’d been six years old. “You’re going to be fine. That was a good work on the splint, Dean.”

Pain exploded in Sam’s shoulder. He choked back bile, his head swimming too much to stay steady, before he realized that dizziness hadn’t thrown him off-balance. Dean had wrapped an arm around him and was drawing him into a hug.

“Dean!” he yelped.

The grip didn’t let up. “It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean shushed him. His voice was lighter than it had been in years, and Jesus, he was trying to tuck Sam against his side. It would have been comical if it weren’t so excruciating. Sam leaned in out of sheer self-defense, and the pressure stopped.

“We should go,” he said without any expectation of a satisfactory response. He got none except for a reassuring murmur and the press of Dean’s cheek, tacky with drying blood, against his own. Confusion was normal with a head blow: Sam checked his watch to time it and settled in to wait some more. His brother was addled, but his body was as solid and his presence as reassuring as ever.

“How did we get here, Dean?” Sam asked, less because he cared about the existential dilemma and more because it seemed that a jaded and world-weary comment was at least a token effort to counterbalance the fact that a grown man wanted to snuggle against his older brother like a five-year-old. All evidence to the contrary, some little part of Sam’s subconscious still clung to the belief that nothing could harm him within the circle of his brother’s arm, and it was surprisingly hard not to relax into his embrace. Instead, though, he maneuvered the shotgun into a better position. If a ghoul wandered by, he would sneer something Clint Eastwood-like before dispatching it to where it would tell no tales.

Since infancy, if family photos and Dad’s reminiscences were true, it was all but hard-wired into him to feel safe with Dean. The tactile memory he felt now didn’t evoke what passed for safety these days: the confidence that a salt circle and the vigilance of his battle-hardened partner meant that he could rest a few hours in peace. Rather, it was the nearly forgotten safety of the time before he knew about monsters, of the time when he had a child’s absolute faith that his brother could protect him from any danger.

Dean murmured something to soft to hear, and Sam swallowed hard. Nostalgia is worthless, but Sam would have given everything he owned to feel that way again, just for a few minutes. And he’d give everything he had and more for Dean to. Both had lost something when they outgrew that innocent belief that Dean could keep Sam safe, but Dean’s loss was the greater: Sam had shed his desire to be taken care of along with his milk teeth and baby fat, but Dean had never escaped the need to be somebody’s protector. Even now, it was almost tangible.

Not almost—it was. Sam couldn’t explain or define it, but the emotion was palpable...just as palpable as that shock of fear that had hit him when Dean saw him thrown to the ground. Fear that had been snuffed out when Dean lost consciousness.

Oh, God.

He did not need this. He did not want this. He had no clue what this was, but he was totally against it. Sam groaned and got another yelp-inducing squeeze for his trouble.

First things first—they were getting out of here.

The obvious solution—“Dean, we need to go”—got no reaction. Neither did “Dean, we really need to go,” so he tried a different tack.

“Dean?” he asked, pitching his voice to a higher, child-like level.

Dean hugged him again and he choked. “Yeah, Sammy?”

“Can we go back to Dad now?” he asked, slipping out of his brother’s embrace. His voice didn’t go that high anymore. “I don’t like it here. I want to go back to Dad.”

“Sure, Sammy,” Dean told him. He moved as if to stand, wobbled, and sat back down hard. He didn’t try to get up again.

“Please?” Sam slid his hand into Dean’s and pulled out the big guns: “I’m scared, Dean.”

Dean’s hand tightened around his hard enough for his ring to bite. “It’s okay, Sammy. I’ll take care of you.” This time he managed to stand, and reached back down to grasp Sam’s arm and pull him up. Sam bit back another cry of pain.

“I can walk,” he whined, though he used Dean’s arm for leverage as he rose. If he had to keep up that voice thing much longer, he’d be looking for chamomile tea instead of coffee in the morning. Or straining a vocal cord and ending up with a high pitch that might be soothing coming from a middle-aged female psychic, but was likely to make people give him odd looks before sidling a step backward. “Let’s just go back to Dad.”

Dean heaved the put-upon sigh of big brothers everywhere. “Okay.”

He cajoled, nagged, and manipulated Dean back toward the car. By the time they reached the cemetery gates Sam had walked off the worst of the pain in his leg, and Dean was having flashes of lucidity.

“What happened?” he asked during one of them.

“There was a pack,” Sam informed him.

“Oh.” They reached the Impala. “Did I finish it off?”

“No, dumbass, I finished it off.” Sam figured they could quibble about minutiae like body counts and credit due when Dean had recovered enough to count without needing his fingers.

“Good job, Sammy,” Dean said vaguely as he staggered toward the driver’s side, fumbling in his pocket.

“Uh-uh. I’m driving.”

Bundling Dean into the passenger seat was relatively easy; starting the car and shifting hurt like a sonovabitch. Worse, Dean lost the momentum they’d gained once he slumped into the seat and closed his eyes. When they pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later, something in his concussed brain had decided that they’d made it to safety, and no amount of wheedling produced anything more than a drowsy, grunted, “Go ’way, Sam.”

Well, wheedling wasn’t the only way to get Dean mobile. Dean had two bone-deep instincts: to protect Sam, and...

“Move it, Dean!” he barked in a credible imitation of their father’s voice.

Dean jumped awake. “Yes, Dad.”

They staggered up the stairs like a couple of drunks—at least, Sam hoped that’s how they looked—and he jimmied the lock to their room because he’d left the key behind. That was a bitch left-handed too—Dean had trained himself to be passably ambidextrous, but Sam was not. What the motel lost in crappy security, though, it made up for in a decent-sized bathroom, and Sam maneuvered Dean in. He could sit up on his own, but his eyes were closed again and his head nodded down onto Sam’s shoulder. Sam let it rest there, and if he was holding him tighter than was needed to steady him, well, Dean was too out of it to notice.

“Dad?” his brother mumbled. “Where’s Sammy?”

Sam released his clasp on Dean’s shoulder. “Sammy’s right here,” he said. Dean pulled back a little, blinking, and Sam could see the pieces falling back into place. “Sammy’s all grown up,” he continued. “He’s six inches taller than you, a better bow hunter, and he goes by ‘Sam’ now.”

“Six inches?” Dean’s voice was weak, but back to normal. “In your dreams, man.”

Sam grinned. “Better than asking who the president is.” Dean wasn’t above entertaining himself by giving bizarre answers to diagnostic questions, and besides, Sam wasn’t sure his brother knew who the president was when ‘Saturday Night Live’ was in reruns. You can’t withstand the mind-numbing tedium of life on the road without learning to screen out things that bore you to tears. For Sam, that was Sally Jessy Raphael and the state of Idaho; for Dean, it was politics.

“And even if you were a better bow hunter,” Dean grumbled, “it’d be because I taught you everything you know.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Dean.” He backed away and held up the index finger of his left hand. “Track my finger,” he ordered.

“Which one?”

Sam glared. “Track my finger or I’ll start a round of painful prodding and asking, ‘Does this hurt?’”

Dean rolled his eyes, probably just to show that he could. “I’m fine, dude,” he said.

“No, you’re concussed,” Sam corrected, “and I need to figure out how bad it is.” He moved his hand in a steady motion when Dean focused. “Are you dizzy? Nauseous? How old am I?”

“A little, no, twenty-three, and screw you.”

“Painful prodding, Dean,” Sam warned. Dean’s pupils were fine, his tracking was fine...“You’re fine,” Sam pronounced.

“Told you.” Dean felt the back of his head and narrowed his eyes. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“Dislocated my shoulder. I popped it back in,” Sam answered, rubbing gingerly at the sorest spot. The people of Clark County must be pretty damned high in protein if a ghoul could throw him. “You’ll have to do your own bandages.”

“Bandages?” Dean asked. When Sam gestured at his face he touched his cheek and looked at the blood that came away on his fingertips. “Tell me the truth, Sam. What about my rakish good looks?”

“You can always grow a beard,” Sam told him.

Dean reared back in horror. Sam kept his poker face for as long as he could, but Dean had always been the better player. “Cute, Sammy,” he said, and his balance was good enough to push himself up and shove Sam away from the mirror so he could get a good look at the bloody but shallow claw marks.

“I didn’t say you needed to,” Sam pointed out.

Dean extended his index finger and jabbed Sam in his injured shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Does that hurt?” Dean asked innocently. “Just trying to figure out how bad it is.”

Sam tossed a wet washcloth squarely at his brother’s chest and started cleaning the scrapes and smudges of Dean’s blood that had gotten on his own cheek. Next to him, Dean did the same. They had the routine down pat: iodine and the box of bandages where they could both reach thm, taking turns at the mirror, talking over any loose ends in the job. Like, what to do with the bodies and whether or not they’d gotten all the ghouls.

“If we’re lucky, we missed one,” Sam said. Ghouls didn’t get on the move unless they had the cover of a full night ahead of them; if they were lucky, a lone survivor would have dragged the corpses back into a mausoleum to cannibalize as it waited for the next sunset. It’s rare to find a prey that cleans up after itself.

“We’ll sweep the whole place for more dens in the morning,” Dean decided. “How’d you know it was a pack anyway?”

Sam avoided meeting his brother’s eyes in the mirror. “I dreamed it.”

“Huh,” Dean answered, which was pretty much all there was to say. Except, it wasn’t.

Sam eased into it. “You panicked when you saw me go down,” he said.

Dean snorted and tilted his head to study a cut on his cheek. “You dreamed that one wrong. I don’t panic.”

“I didn’t dream it.” Sam watched Dean wash the grave dirt from the cut. “I felt it,” he said, mumbling the words like they wouldn’t be as real if said aloud. “I, uh, sensed what you were feeling.”

Dean froze in place for a second. Then he threw the washcloth into the sink with a splat. “Goddammit, Sam,” he barked, “I can take a lot from you, but you’d better not be reading my mind.”

“Dean!” Sam protested, stung and okay, a little scared. “It was just a couple flashes, and it’s gone, okay? I don’t want to be in your grubby little brain any more than you do.”

Dean clenched his fingers around the porcelain basin, head turned away from Sam, and yeah, Sam would be freaked too, but…

“C’mon, man,” Sam said, hearing a trace of that little boy’s plea in his tone. It’s not my fault, I’m not a freak, don’t look at me like that, I can’t handle this without you….“I can’t help it.”

Dean rolled the tension out of his shoulders and reached for the antibiotic ointment—the producers of Neosporin, Sam thought randomly, would never go out of business with the Winchesters around. “You should ice your shoulder,” Dean told him, dabbing the cream on his claw marks.

Sam waited for his brother to speak, to look at him, hell, for any token sign of reassurance that Dean wasn’t going to deal by shoving him away. After a moment of silence, he turned to leave the bathroom in defeat.

“Sam?” Dean said from behind him.

Sam looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

Dean turned his head from side to side to study his handiwork. “My brain is not little.”

Twenty minutes later Sam had his arm in a sling and was pacing restlessly, holding a cold pack to his shoulder. Dean was sprawled out on what had been Sam’s bed, boots still on, and squinting at the dream diary.

“Doll, attic, forest, yeah, that’s useful,” he said, flipping through the pages. “Couldn’t you at least get a state?”

Sam stopped pacing and started glaring. “If you don’t like the way I have visions, you can have the next one,” he said.

Dean ignored him. “Cairn, and death house,” he finished.

“You can cross the last one off.”

Dean made a show of studying the words. “I dunno, man. It might be ‘Demon Mouse,’” he said with that glint in his eyes. “Are we going back to Cali?”

“Let it go, Dean,” Sam said. “And demons know better than to fuck with Disney.”

Dean tossed the notebook back down next to a vase of artificial sweetheart roses. Never one to put things off, he shoved himself up from the bed and started mixing a couple Molotov cocktails in case they found another den. The smell of ethanol overpowered the sickly sweet scent of the potpourri; Sam almost wished it didn’t.

“I’m not going to be able to stop, you know,” he said. “Not as long as the visions keep coming.”

Dean’s hands paused. “I thought you said you didn’t want to stop.”

“Yeah, but you’re right, I’ll never be able to square things with Dad, and I didn’t stop wanting…other things.” Sam trailed off. As near as he could tell Dean hadn’t figured out that things weren’t what he cared about, and he didn’t want to open the door to that conversation.

Dean corked the bottles; they’d stuff the rags in tomorrow. “You don’t need visions to know what’s out there, Sammy.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sam put down the icepack and pressed his cold fingers against his aching temple. For two years he’d told himself that there were plenty of ways to do good in the world that don’t involve isolation, danger, and ending the day with three different blood types on your face. It was past time to accept for once and for all that the world didn’t need him to do that good.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” he suggested, cracking open the window. Muggy heat flooded in but the smell drifted out; it was too late at night for them to worry about a passerby noticing. “I’ll keep watch.”

“For ghouls? They’re not coming after us,” Dean scoffed. When Sam didn’t move, he shrugged and started undressing. “Suit yourself, but we’re going to be up at first light torching those things.”

“I’ll be awake enough to tell you where to drag the bodies,” Sam promised.

Dean considered the two beds and took the one his boots hadn’t been on. “You’ve got one good arm.”

“Which I will use to point to where you should drag the bodies.” Sam ran his hand through his hair. “Go to sleep, Dean. I’m okay.”

He waited for Dean’s breathing to even into the rhythm of sleep before he picked up the shotgun and drifted over to a spot facing the door. They had to find a new job, and soon. Sam couldn’t live off the rush of the kill alone; it was different when there was a face to the task, a real person being saved when he and Dean were doing what only they could do.

So they’d look for a new job, and just on principle, he’d pick it. He’d learn to take pleasure in the hunt itself, he’d savor the fleeting human connections made on jobs, and if the need for a more physical connection grew too strong, he’d learn to chase the ghost of love in bars and run-down clubs among the equally lonely...No, someone equally discontented. Whatever else a future of hunting with Dean would be—annoying, sometimes exhilarating, quite possibly maddening—it wouldn’t be lonely.

Dean groaned in his sleep and rolled over. Sam winced but figured it was better to let him sleep. Nightmares never killed anyone.

He bonked his head against the wall because Dean wasn’t awake to do it. God, what a stupid thought.

Fingering his weapon’s stock, he sidled a few feet over to another random spot. He was making his peace with this life right here, right now. Tomorrow, it’d be out of his system for good. Tomorrow they’d finish the job and move on to the next one. No problem, no mistakes.

Not tomorrow, at least. Someday, there would be. It could be next week, next month, or years down the road, but someday he wouldn’t be quick enough or Dean wouldn’t be strong enough; his shot would miss its mark or Dean’s cunning would fail, and that would be the end of them. Or, worse, the end of one of them. Sam slid down to sit with his back propped against the wall, the shotgun resting across his knees, and settled in for a long, dark night of the soul. What had become of his life, that his greatest hope was that he and his brother would go out together?

Yeah, Dean, I’m crying.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Additional author’s notes:
Readers might notice that the structure of this story nearly duplicates that of The Bridge from Lawrence to Rockford. That is because it was initially one story that got broken into two. Also, I’ve never put an inaccurate detail in a fic in my life, but I couldn’t find out whether a concussion can really knock fifteen years out of someone’s head. Apologies for any inaccuracies; it was necessary for plot reasons.

Comments are welcome; hell, I'd be happy just to know that someone read it. All my fic can be found here.

I'll be damned if I can figure out why the font changes mid-paragraph above, so apologies for that too. All I know is that I can't fix it.

Fic: Palindromic

2008-09-28T12:47:04Z

Title: Palindromic
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Episode spoilers: Implicit spoilers for “Lazarus Rising” and “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester.”
Word Count: ~600
Summary: Reflections of evil and good.
Author’s notes: Further author’s notes under the cut and at the end. Crossposted widely.

Generic warning on all of my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to give it away in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Hey, Sam,” Dean called from the bathroom. “Wasn’t there something lame written on that hooker’s mirror?”

“‘Live not on evil,’” Sam answered. He finished rifling through Hannah Cramer’s bookcase and opened her closet. “Same thing in there?”

“Same place, different phrase. It says ‘Do go to God,’” Dean responded.

“Even lamer.” Karen Scott dresses where Elle Barre had Donna Karan, Payless shoes instead of Prada… “All I’m getting here is that running a women’s shelter pays a lot worse than being a prostitute,” Sam announced. “Dean?” he called when there was no reply.

“Madam, I’m Adam,” came from the bathroom.

Sam stuck his head through the bathroom door. “It’s Sam, and since when?”

Dean flipped him off in the mirror and beckoned him closer. “You know. ‘Madam, I’m Adam.’ ‘A man, a plan, blah, blah.’ Reads the same way forwards and backwards.” He traced his finger under the words from left to right, then back again. “‘Do go to God.’”

“A palindrome?” Sam scanned over the words—Dean was right. “So is ‘Live not on evil,’” he noted, picturing the phrase written above the call girl’s makeup table.

“And so are ‘Hannah’ and ‘Elle.’” Dean met his eyes in the glass. “What have we got on the other missing people?”

“Um...” Sam dug into his jacket pocket for his notebook. “A pediatric oncologist named Robert Cannon. Bob Cannon. Otto Snyder, a pharmacist busted for selling opiates under the counter.”

“Do-gooder, evil-doer,” Dean interjected. “Seeing a pattern?”

“Yeah.” Sam turned back a couple pages. “Before them was Ada Blake, a public defender, and Nanette—Nan—Roth, who embezzled a hundred grand from...” He glanced up. “From her church treasury. That’s cold, dude.”

“Yeah, but her pastor was pretty sure she’ll end up someplace hot.” Dean chewed his lip, then snapped his fingers. “What was the pastor’s name again?”

“Reder—Asa Reder. You got it.” Sam closed the notebook as Dean grinned triumphantly and turned around. “Why is he going after the good guys too?”

“My guess? He’s a nut job.” Dean clapped him on the shoulder. “Comb your hair, Sam. We’re going to church.”

Asa wasn’t in his church, or in his office, or his house. They found no clothes in his closet, no wallet on his dresser, no sign of him anywhere. Nothing but a hidden chamber in his basement: a six-sided room with six bodies propped in front of six mirrors.

“Pattern’s finished. He’s done here.” Grimly, Dean stooped down to check Hannah’s body. “Goddammit. She’s still warm.”

“We got here—” Sam began.

“Not soon enough!” Dean’s voice rang in the small room. Sam jumped.

“Not soon enough,” Dean repeated in a lower voice. “He’s probably skipped town already. We’ll try to pick up his trail tomorrow.” He stroked Hannah’s hand before lowering it gently to the floor. “Goddammit.”

Sam tried again. “Dean...”

His brother cut him off with a bitter smile and turned his bleak eyes away from the reflections bouncing between the mirrors and into infinity. “Can’t save everyone, Sammy.”

Dean fucked him senseless when they got back to the motel, some screwed-up way of convincing himself that God wanted nothing to do with him and vice versa. Hunter’s instinct prodded Sam to slip out after his brother fell asleep; hunter’s instinct, nothing else, he insisted to himself, guided him back to the sextagonal room to wait for the demon possessing Asa’s body. Hunter’s instinct told him the demon would lie when it spat out which mirror Sam belonged in front of.

He couldn’t tell what instinct drove him to lift his hand and choke off its words before it could try.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Further author’s notes:
Palindromes, as the boys note, are phrases that say the same thing when read backwards or forwards. Dean’s “A man, a plan, blah blah,” refers to another well-known one: A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL PANAMA.

A longer, funnier version of the palindrome conversation has been on my hard drive for nigh unto two years, but I haven’t had a larger story to work it into. This fic will be cannibalized for it once I do—whenever that is.

Fic: Falling into Black

2008-09-01T20:50:48Z

Title: Falling into Black
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Word Count: ~600
Summary: “Dean had technique like a thousand-bucks-an-hour call girl—probably learned it from one who gave it to him for free—and it was all technique and no heart, except for the hot, filthy words Sam was almost too far gone to hear.” Angsty, porny coda for “Red Sky at Morning.”
Author’s notes: Written over the holiday weekend; apparently idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Further author’s notes under the cut. Crossposted widely: sorry for the flist spamming.
Generic warning on all my stories: A minority of my fics contain character death. For artistic reasons, I do not disclaim it in the headers. If you need to know if one of the Winchester brothers dies before going on, click here for the spoiler.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

More A/N: The story is set immediately following the second car fight in “Red Sky at Morning.” If you need to rewatch the ep to refresh your memory: my apologies. The beginning and ending scenes are the only two that matter here.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dean had technique like a thousand-bucks-an-hour call girl—probably learned it from one who gave it to him for free—and it was all technique and no heart, except for the hot, filthy words Sam was almost too far gone to hear.

“You’re going to give it all up for me, Sammy, understand? Everything, Sam. It’ll be okay, let it go, I’m gonna make it so good...”

Two bricks of money were tossed on the dresser, Sam’s shirts were on the floor to the right of the bed, his jeans to the left, and his boxers were God knew where. Maybe the same place his sanity went when Dean slammed him against the wall, nipping at his neck, shoving a hand between his legs, and getting him rock-hard before his brain processed the word ‘brother.’ And talking, God, talking when he wasn’t using his mouth to drive Sam someplace he’d never been.

“With me—fuck, oh God, fuck,” he choked as Dean went at it again with his tongue. “C’mon, up here, need you with me.”

Dean hummed around his cock long enough for Sam to forget he wanted that mouth anywhere but where it was. Then he unzipped his jeans, slid up to stretch the length of his body against Sam’s, and started rocking against Sam’s hip.

“Gotta do yourself now, okay?” he instructed as he fumbled to put Sam’s hand on his own dick. He licked and bit at Sam’s neck and jaw, worked his way up to his lips, and slid his tongue into Sam’s mouth as he pushed two fingers into his ass. “You know what feels good, Sammy,” he murmured after he kissed Sam breathless. “Make it good.”

A twitch of Dean’s fingers sent fire lancing up Sam’s spinal cord to the primal part of his brain that just wanted to get off, didn’t care how or with who. Groaning, Sam started jerking himself. Dean stared hungrily into his face, urging him on, and this was just one more thing Sam was going to give up.

“Together,” Sam insisted, needing to see that one unguarded moment in Dean’s eyes, needing to not be the only one who fell apart. He squeezed the base of his cock, restraining himself until Dean caught up.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean promised, speeding up his thrusts. He worked his fingers again, and Sam was suddenly crazy to stop holding the orgasm off and rush toward it instead.

Dean started up that scorching litany again, promising Sam ecstasy, telling him to jack himself faster. It was control without dominance, Dean’s response to Sam’s acts of independence: reestablishing himself as the rock when Sam’s world was shaken. Even if that meant turning the world upside down himself. It was what Dean needed most, and what Sam wanted least.

“Feel that, Sam? Let go, it’s gonna be so fucking hot when you let go...”

It was already hotter than anything Sam had imagined. His panting breaths were too shallow to fill his lungs, his hands were numbing and his head was spinning—Christ, going over the edge together wasn’t going to matter for shit because Sam was going to come so hard he passed out. He knew it, Dean knew it, and no way in hell could he stop it.

Another flick of Dean’s fingers, and he was there. His back arched so far he nearly bucked Dean off, moans that would shame a hooker tearing from his throat. As the hot splashes hit his belly Dean jerked against him, telltale grunts escaping his mouth, but Sam’s vision was already graying out. He was going to give up everything and Dean was giving up nothing, and Sam threw back his head and fell into black.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Feedback is welcome. All my fic (both gen and slash) may be found here. Most of it has more plot.

The Bridge from Lawrence to Rockford

2008-08-28T22:20:12Z

Title: The Bridge from Lawrence to Rockford
Category: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, and Sam’s angst.
Word Count: 5300
Summary: Let us return, gentle reader, to simpler days. Let us return to the days when Sam, though adorable, was a touch bitchy and Dean, though endearing, was a bit overbearing; to the days when the other Special Children were as yet unknown and no one was trafficking in souls; to the days when the boys’ greatest challenge was not driving each other out of their pretty heads. Let us return to the days between ‘Home’ and ‘Asylum.’
Author’s Notes: I started this fic a couple weeks after ‘Asylum’ aired. Ran into a little trouble with the paragraph transitions.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

Additional Note: This story isn't listed in the "Woods are Lonely" series because it stands on its own. In my mind, though, it's in the same 'verse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

April 9, 2006

“A commune near Atlanta reports a ‘rash of bizarre accidents’ in their greenhouse,” Dean read aloud from the news story Sam had found. “Huh. Might be a wood sprite.”

“Did you even look at the obituary?” Sam griped, stabbing at the last carrot on his plate. “It’s a ghost.”

“Sixty-year-old hippie dies of a heart attack? The alfalfa sprouts probably got her. Could be a hamadryad.” Dean toggled between the two browser windows. “Hell, it could be nothing.”

“It could be.” Sam clenched a hand around his mug. “And yet, it’s a ghost. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety ghost. Give it up, Dean, I’m sure.”

Dean jerked his head up. “Is that because you had another shining?”

Inhale. Exhale. Count to ten. “It’s because I learned to read on stories of ghosties, ghoulies, and things that go bump in the night, and I knew everything there is to know about them by the time I was seven, except that they’re real.”

“An important detail,” Dean interjected.

Sam ignored him. “I’m a trained hunter, Dean. Not a goddamned EMF reader.”

Dean blinked. “Dude. Chill.”

Sam bit down on his temper and stared at the wall map that the truck stop had provided as décor for long-haulers too worn out or hopped up to remember which side of the Mississippi River Arkansas is on. A thousand miles lay between them and Lawrence. A thousand miles, two jobs, seven nights, twenty hours’ sleep, and an immeasurable amount of denial.

“You sure there’s nothing in Key West?” Dean asked. Again.

“Just the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. Which we are not wasting,” Sam added when Dean pursed his lips thoughtfully. He changed tacks. “They have good peach pie in Georgia, you know.”

Dean swiveled the laptop back around toward him. “You think I’m gonna drive two hundred miles for peach pie?”

“And pecan pie,” Sam cajoled. “C’mon, it’s as good a place to spend the night as any.”

“Hm.” Dean pondered for a minute, then slugged down the rest of his coffee. “If we push it, we can get there before the greenhouse closes,” he announced. “Let’s go.”

Because that’s how these things always ended: Sam wheedled and negotiated; Dean decided.

Sam held out his hand for the keys. “I’m driving.”

Dean jammed his keyring deeper into his pocket with one hand, scooped up the check with the other, and shoved back his chair. “You’re taking a nap.” He strode toward the cash register, tossing over his shoulder, “No pit stops. Hit the little boys’ room now if you need to.”

Inhale. Exhale. Dean was rattled by what happened in Kansas, and when Dean was rattled he turned to the familiar: hunting and big-brothering Sam. The hunting, Sam was coming to understand. The big-brothering thing—it was time to turn the volume down. Preferably to “off.”

“You used to sleep in the car all the time,” Dean reminisced as the truck stop behind them shrank into the distance. “Until you were about three, Dad had me pinch you awake when we were driving during the day, or you’d be up fussing all night.”

Sam contorted himself over the seat to rummage in the back for a blanket when Dean cranked up the A/C. “You had a free pass to pinch me whenever I was in a car seat? No wonder I turned into a biter.”

“Yeah, it explains a lot,” Dean agreed.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll do it again tonight?” Sam asked as he settled back down, trying to think of a story to tell the drycleaner when he went to get the blood out of his jacket.

“You stopped biting when you learned to wrestle. Mostly.” Dean reached over to adjust the blanket in a gesture that Sam managed to accept as endearing rather than annoying through sheer force of will. “C’mon. The nap’ll be good for you.”

Sam counted up the things he could say that wouldn’t make Dean shut up, starting with, ‘Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary,’ which would be ignored, and building to, ‘Dean, I’m twenty-two. Time to start being my brother and stop being my father,’ which would be resented. Because God forbid that anyone breathe a hint of the truth: the Winchester household needed more of a father than the one it had.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Come to think of it, the thrumming of the wheels was kind of soothing. And, come to think of it, he felt groggy.

He snapped alert. “Dean, if you put something in my coffee, I will hurt you.”

A good portion of Sam wasn’t kidding about the threat. Aside from the appalling overstepping of boundaries that drugging him would represent, the thought of getting trapped in a nightmare made his stomach churn. He was mostly sure that Dean wouldn’t have pulled something like that, though. Ninety percent sure, maybe as high as ninety-five.

“Sammy, I’m shocked you would accuse me of spiking your drink before I thought of it myself.” Dean checked the side mirror and changed lanes without signaling. “I told the waitress to give you decaf.”

Sam slapped his hand down on the dashboard. “Goddammit, Dean,” he barked. Dean lifted an eyebrow; Sam took a deep breath and modulated his voice. “Dude. You’re my big brother, you’re worried about me, you want to look out for me. Got it. Cut it the fuck out, okay?”

Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel, but he kept his tone light. “Have I ever told you you’re a cranky bitch when you don’t sleep, Sam?”

Inhale. Exhale. Count to ten. Wonder how long it would take to become a textbook example of how the mind deteriorates under sleep deprivation. Give in, because Dean wasn’t going to.

“It’s your funeral if your partner conks out from caffeine deprivation in the middle of a hunt,” Sam warned, curling toward the window and trying to get comfortable. It must have been easier in a kiddy jumpseat.

“At least I’d get to be there.” Dean kept his head steadfastly forward while shooting Sam one of those solicitous sidelong glances that he inexplicably thought were too subtle to be noticed. “Go to sleep, Sam. I’ll wake you if it gets bad.”

There was no fire and blood when he dozed off, just vague images and the smell of phantom smoke, and that was the best Sam could hope for these days. He nodded in and out, letting the smooth motion lull him. When Dean pulled into a rest stop he stayed in the car, dozing fitfully, feeling like they were still moving. Like the road had become so much of his life that it had entered his dreams.

His eyes flickered open—he thought—as they drove back out of the turnout. There was a flash of white in front of him, a slender blonde figure in a long gown...he twisted in his seat to watch it, but it had vanished.

“Dean! Dean, am I awake?”

“Yeah.” The hand that touched his shoulder was too solid to be a dream. “What did you see?”

Sam shook his head and said nothing. Maybe the nightmares were bleeding into his waking hours. Maybe he was fading into them. Maybe each one was chipping away another piece of his sanity.

He turned up the cassette player and stared straight forward for the rest of the ride.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“‘For Sale’ sign,” Dean noted as they passed through one of those well-kept but shabby inner suburbs where families live until they can afford to move to well-kept and upscale outer suburbs. He turned down the street from habit more than anything else—even if the house was unoccupied, they’d be noticed in a neighborhood like this. On cue, the woman next door looked up from her landscaping when they stopped. Dean gave her a wave and his brightest smile; she waved back.

Squatting in model homes must have ruined Dean for tract houses, because he muttered between his teeth, “Dude, that’s a shoebox.”

“Not everyone can afford to live in planned communities built over cursed Indian graveyards, Dean.” Sam leaned forward and added his own smile and wave; the woman started and turned back to watering her crocuses. “Huh. Maybe they don’t welcome buyers of any sexual orientation—oh, come on, man, it’s not like she was writing down her number in lipstick for you.”

Dean glowered at him. “They shouldn’t be so picky,” he proclaimed. “How many people are they going to find who want to spend their whole lives in a shoebox?”

“You don’t. It’s a starter home—you live in it for a while, build equity, and trade up,” Sam explained. He refrained from saying aloud that it was a palace compared to everywhere they’d grown up.

“Equity,” Dean over-enunciated, putting the car into gear and pulling out. Sam suspected that ‘equity,’ like ‘mortgage,’ wasn’t in Dean’s lexicon. His brother didn’t like to clutter his brain with things he’d never need. “Can’t believe you wanted to be a homeowner, Sammy.”

Right. Because Dean would rather believe Sam wanted to be a passenger.

Dean gave either the house or the woman who had doubted his heterosexuality a last look in the rearview mirror. “Picket fence, nine-to-five, wife and two kids,” he said, fumbling in the cassette box. “I can’t picture it.”

“You had it, Dean. How can you not picture it every day?”

That wasn’t a ploy to shut Dean up, really, but it did anyway.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sam had theorized that the members of the ‘Spring Eternal Blooms’ collective had murdered and buried Sister Hibiscus Birch (née Gloria Farkas) somewhere in their nursery in a fertility ritual gone horribly wrong. According to Brother Valerian Poplar (Marvin Eggers on the commune’s business permit), however, Hibiscus had died a natural death and her body had been cremated in full compliance with state health codes before her ashes were scattered near the conservatory she’d once tended. Valerian was smart enough to feign forgetfulness when Sam pushed for the name of the crematorium, but dumb enough to let Dean take a tour of the grounds with Sister Jasmine Eucalyptus (née Sister Jasmine Eucalyptus, a second-generation member of the collective). Dean came back with a pamphlet in his hand, a flower—really—behind his ear, a muttered report of a telltale mound in a pachysandra bed, and EMF evidence that regardless of how the old gal had gotten in there, she hadn’t left. Sam dropped the phrase ‘audit of tax-exempt status’ just to see Eggers squirm, and he and Dean headed out to find a motel and wait for dark.

“C’mon, Sam, it’s just a ghost,” Dean coaxed as he tried to talk Sam into a bar run after the job. “It’ll take us an hour, tops. Plenty of time to meet new people, make some new friends.”

“Pass,” Sam grunted, breaking open the shotgun and checking the shells. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Yeah, and when was the last time you were in the mood?” Dean asked. “Any kind of mood?”

He wasn’t wrong, really. Grief and exhaustion had done a number on Sam’s libido, and once he’d gotten over his surprise that a twenty-two year-old’s sex drive could plummet to almost nil, he’d been relieved. He’d never been one for casual affairs, and that was all this life could offer. Which didn’t mean he was letting Dean get away with a total lack of respect for personal boundaries.

“Dude. Do I keep track of how often you…” Sam waved his hand, hoping to head off an indelicate euphemism.

“Wouldn’t recommend it, Sam. Don’t want to make you feel inadequate.” Dean put on a Serious Face. “Look, I’m not saying you should hook up with someone. It’s just...it’s not good for you to spend so much time alone in Sammyland.”

‘Sammyland’ was what Dean had years ago dubbed the place in a little boy’s imagination that featured regular school days, organized sports, a house instead of a residence hotel, and minimal weapons training. It was a place where no one, not even adored older brothers, came. As Sam grew older Sammyland changed with him, becoming the source of an adolescent’s anger as well as a young man’s dreams, but it always remained a place of secrecy, and often the only privacy Sam had. Dean was right; he’d been there a lot lately, and it had become a grim and unsettling place.

Dean sensed a weakness. “I’m just saying talk to someone else, okay? Company won’t be as charming as mine, but at least it will be different.”

Sam sighed. “Okay, yeah.”

Dean flashed his teeth. “Attaboy,” he said, in a tone smarmy enough to make Sam respond, “You know what I could go for? A coffee.”

Hibiscus, though, didn’t go without a fight. Dean got beaned—‘They were sweet peas, Sam, and it’s not funny’—by a vase in the florist’s workspace, and they both got slashes that stung like a motherfucker with all the salt flying around. After debating the pros and cons of leaving untorched a hothouse full of potentially evil orchids that might wreak havoc come corsage season (‘Dude, that would be the most awesome prom ever!’ ‘Dean!’), they consecrated the irrigation tank and left the decision to Nature. Or whatever.

“Hope you weren’t attached to this shirt,” Dean commented back in the motel room as he took a knife to Sam’s bloody tee.

Sam was, actually. It was a Stanford shirt that he had defiantly bought to replace the ones lost in the fire. Now it was rags for the gun-cleaning kit. He ignored the symbolism as Dean carefully sliced through the soft fabric. He could appreciate irony, but it rarely amused him. Not that anything much amused him these days.

The blade snagged a couple times—it needed...

“Knife needs sharpened,” Dean remarked as he laid it aside and peeled away the T-shirt. He scrutinized the gash beneath it. “This is going to need stitches.”

“Figures.” Sam grabbed the first aid kit. “Shit,” he said when he opened the box.

“What?” Dean asked, turning back from removing his own shirt. “Shit,” he echoed when Sam showed him the nearly empty vial of Lidocaine.

Sam put the little bottle back, weighed the uncertainty of nightmares against the certain pain of getting stitched up without anesthesia, and reached for the bourbon.

Dean’s mouth tightened as he watched Sam measure out a couple shots. “That’s not going to be enough.”

“It’ll take the edge off.” Sam knocked back the booze, wiped his mouth, and picked up the kit. “We can do you while it kicks in,” he said, heading for the bathroom.

A thought struck him as he laid out the bandages. “You know, Dad’ll need to restock too if he’s still hunting,” he called back through the open door. “We should check with some of his contacts. See if they’ve seen him.”

Silence from the other room. Sam wasn’t the only one dealing with things by denial.

“Dean?” he called again.

Dean appeared in the doorway. “Maybe we shouldn’t.” He tossed his T-shirt into the trash; it was a loss too. “Maybe he doesn’t want us to find him.”

“You think he’s just ignoring our messages?” Sam asked, because neither of them was ready to face the other explanation for Dean’s call going unanswered. “Why?”

“He’ll have his reasons.” Dean winced as Sam started cleaning his cuts. “Not like we don’t have enough to do in the meantime.” You didn’t have to be psychic to know how it would play out if his brother was right: the reason would be plenty good enough for Dean, and nowhere near good enough for Sam.

“I signed on to find Dad,” Sam reminded his brother. “Not restart the family business.”

Dean set his face stolidly and didn’t speak again until Sam finished patching him up. “Not bad,” he allowed as he looked at the bandages in the mirror. “You spend your whole time at school watching ‘General Hospital?’”

It shouldn’t have hit any harder than Dean’s other jabs, but it did. “I got some emergency medical training my freshman year,” Sam responded brusquely.

“Yeah?” Dean peered closer at the dressings. “Learn anything Dad didn’t already teach you?”

Right. Because Dean would never admit that there was something to be learned outside the old man’s tutelage.

Sam focused on putting a roll of gauze away. “Among other things, ambulances have no legroom, and once you’ve witnessed the miracle of birth, you’ll never look at a vagina the same way again.”

Dean reared back in horror. “I thought you were going to chase ambulances, Sammy, not ride in them.”

“Jesus Christ, Dean!”

It was either punch his brother, or get the hell away from him. Sam made it to the motel room door before he remembered he was still shirtless and bloodied. He went for option number three: slapping his open palms against the door and bowing his head against it.

“Sam,” came from behind him.

Sam dug his fingernails into the cheap particleboard. “What?”

“Sam,” Dean repeated, with something close enough to apology to make Sam turn toward him. Dean smiled ingratiatingly. “What’ll it take for you to swear to never tell me about the miracle of birth?”

In other words, it was Sam's own fault for saying 'vagina.' An instant answer to Dean's offer leapt to mind. It was a childish symbol now, but after a few more months on the road—and when the hell did he start thinking in terms of months?—it would become a rankling sore.

“I drive whenever I want, for the next month.” With my own set of keys, Sam didn’t add. You shouldn’t ask for something if you can’t handle being turned down.

“Deal,” Dean agreed.

Anyone else would have seen a concession. Sam knew it for what it was: closing the books on the conversation, going back to pretending that the past three years of Sam’s life hadn’t happened. Defeated, he waved Dean into the bathroom.

“Dude, watch the ’do!” Dean griped when Sam ran his fingers through his hair to check for shards of loose glass.

“You can gel it up yourself in the morning. Fraternal duty only gets you so far,” Sam told him, finding a slight bump where the vase had struck. Nothing to worry about.

“I’d do it for you. If you got a freakin’ haircut.”

“Bite me, Dean.” He nudged Dean’s head forward and leaned in to take a final look.

“Dude, watch the head!” Dean complained when Sam’s fingers tightened involuntarily.

“Sorry.” Sam fought to keep his voice steady long enough to grit out, “You can take it from here.”

Moving jerkily, he stepped out of the small room, shut the door behind him, and slumped back against the wall. He was shaking with anger.

Dean had gray hair.

Dean had gray hair.

It was a stupid thing to worry about. Dean had scars and broken bones, he could have a bleeding ulcer for all Sam knew, but...Dean had gray hair.

Dean had learned to fire a weapon at the age of six, had been dangerously wounded on a hunt when he was thirteen, had driven their father to an emergency room minutes before he bled out when he was fifteen, had spent his eighteenth birthday in a courthouse, scrawling his signature on document after document that gave him power of attorney over Sam when Dad was gone, named him Sam’s guardian if their father died. Now Dean was twenty-seven, and he had gray hair.

Sam hated the old man. Hated him.

“Dude. You okay?” came from behind him.

Sam stalked over to his bed and poured another shot to avoid looking at his brother. “Let’s get it over with,” he said when he had himself back under control.

“Still hurts, huh?” Dean asked, pulling on a fresh T-shirt and joining him on the bed with the kit.

“Something like that,” Sam mumbled, downing the bourbon. “No, save it,” he insisted when Dean pulled out an alcohol swab and the Lidocaine.

“We can get more from Joshua.” Dean measured out a half-dose of the drug, enough to dull the pain the liquor wouldn’t cover. Sam barely felt the needle slide in. Dean was right; their father had taught them more than he’d learn in a course.

“What was it like?” Dean asked abruptly.

It took Sam a second to figure out the question. “The ambulance?” Dean nodded, and Sam could swear he saw a glimpse of real curiosity in his brother’s eyes. “Blood, adrenaline, and you get to run red lights,” he answered. “You’d be good at it, you know.”

Dean shrugged. “Already got a job,” he said.

“Dad’s job.” Dreams of my own, the creature with his brother’s face had said, and this was the first time Sam had seen Dean show interest in something besides the hunt. “Come on, didn’t you ever want to do anything else?”

Dean suddenly decided that cleaning Sam’s cuts required his full attention. “Like what, go to college?”

“Why not?” Sam demanded.

“Dude, I didn’t finish high school.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sam parried. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to.”

“It’s not Dad’s fault what’s out there.” Dean finished disinfecting Sam’s wounds and concentrated on threading the suture needle. “I didn’t care about some piece of paper.”

Sam might have believed him if he didn’t remember the screaming match he and Dad had at the beginning of his senior year, when Dad announced they were picking up stakes and probably wouldn’t settle back down long enough for Sam to finish school. Dean sat through the fight, one booted heel resting on the edge of the coffee table, cleaning his favorite handgun. He wasn’t ignoring them so much as letting it all flow around and over him like background noise, until their father invoked how easily Dean had passed the battery of GED tests, arguing that Sam could do the same thing.

“Look, it’s no big deal,” he interjected. Sam rounded on him, stung by the betrayal, but Dean was talking to their father. “It’s just a few more months, right?”

Dad set his jaw and met Dean’s eyes. That silent way of communicating passed between them, the way that Dean always knew without asking when to toss Dad rock salt instead of silver, who was flanking left and who was going right, who was going to drop Sam off at school or go to his parent-teacher conference. Dean raised his eyebrow; their father nodded a concession and walked out without a word.

“Thanks,” Sam said into the silence.

Dean returned to his task. “One of us might as well get a real diploma,” he muttered, peering down the bore of his weapon for some last speck. “It’s just a few more months.”

‘A few more months to what?’ Sam didn’t ask. Years later, he realized that moment of support was the moment he and Dean began to grow apart. The difference between eighteen and twenty-two was somehow starker than the one between twelve and sixteen; Dean was a man now and Sam was still a boy, and though under the sibling teasing and banter Sam respected Dean as he didn’t their father, his brother was becoming a symbol of the man Sam didn’t want to be.

Dean’s voice drew him back to the present. “Besides, I didn’t want to go to college.”

That, Sam believed. When Sam said he was applying to universities Dean just looked at him blankly; girls, guns, and catalytic converters Dean knew, but with college Sam wanted something his brother didn’t understand. And when the three of them ended up in the same room, in the same places, arguing about Stanford, it was different. Dean raised his eyebrow occasionally when Sam shouted as loudly as his father, but said nothing. The topography of Sammyland was baffling to him, and in an unknown land, their father led. Sam hated himself for it, but he’d never been able to squelch that last lingering prick of resentment that Dean had sat by and silently watched the exile of the youngest Winchester.

“All I’m saying is you should have had a choice,” Sam pushed.

“I made my choices, Sam.” Dean’s face shut down, all curiosity hidden, and Sam had blown his chance. Dad and Dean were circling the wagons again, and Sam was left on the outside. Same as always.

Dean tapped Sam’s numb skin to check the anesthesia and pulled the bedside lamp closer. The harsh light revealed premature lines around the corners of his eyes and lips. “So, what was lawyer boy doing in the ambulance anyway?”

“Getting advanced first aid certification,” Sam replied, not sure if his brother really cared, or was just trying to distract his attention from the needle. “I was working as a park guide that summer. Guess I never told you about that—what?” he asked as Dean’s face darkened.

“No, and did you ever think that maybe you should have told us before you went off to play Ranger Rick?” The hard edge on Dean’s voice showed that Sam had somehow stepped into a minefield. “Dad was pissed as hell that he had to track you down. Why didn’t you stay at Stanford?”

Unbelievable, but so typical. “The park had free housing, and I couldn’t afford a real shoebox in Palo Alto on Starbuck’s wages,” Sam defended himself. “What was I supposed to do, scam a place for three months?”

“Why not?” Dean turned his gaze back to the wound. “Or you could have, you know, come home.”

“Come home,” Sam repeated in disbelief. They shouldn’t have this conversation now, not with both of them edgy from sour adrenaline and Sam half-drunk, but damned if he could just let cracks like that slide. “I didn’t have a home, remember? I had orders.” He enunciated the next words cuttingly. “‘Don’t ever come back.’”

“You always could hold a grudge,” Dean said, and the only thing that kept Sam from a full meltdown was the undertone of admiration in his brother’s voice. Maybe being a stubborn bastard had suddenly become a virtue in Dean’s book.

“You think that’s what this is? A grudge?” he snarled. Long-suppressed rage and hurt boiled to the surface, filling Dean’s silence. “He threw me out. I was his son, Dean, and I wasn’t what he wanted, so he threw me out.” Sam forced himself to stop before he said something he couldn’t take back. Dad didn’t want me anymore. He threw me away, and you watched.

“Don’t you ever say that.” Dean’s voice plummeted to the lowest pitch in his register, and he bit out each word as if he were chipping ice. “You are his son, Sammy. Don’t you ever say ‘were,’ because you know damn well that’s not what he meant. And it’d damn well better not be what you want.”

“We’re not talking about this.” Sam threw an arm over his eyes. “And my name is—say it with me—‘Sam.’”

Inhale. Exhale. Don’t think about those last, ugly words he and his father exchanged. Listen to the rattling of the air vent. Ignore the faint tug as Dean, whose hands hadn’t faltered or shaken an iota, finished the last stitch and knotted the thread off.

“Look, Sam.” Dean’s voice was worse than frustrated, it was helpless, and a world where Dean was helpless was a world tilting on its axis. “I don’t know why he didn’t call you or knock on your door. He must have had his reasons. But you have to trust me—he never wanted that.”

Inhale. Exhale. Force himself to believe it, because Dean lied to anyone and everyone, except him and their father.

“Okay,” Sam conceded, lowering his arm.

“Okay.” Dean made quick work of the dressing and sat back. “Done,” he announced. “Need another drink?”

“Nah.” Sam pushed himself into a half-sitting position and watched his brother pack away the medical supplies with the same deft precision he used with his weapons. “Why don’t you hit the bar?” he suggested when Dean sat down and started drumming his fingers on the table, eyes darting around the room like he suspected fanged emotions were lurking in the corners, waiting to strike. “I’m fine.”

Dean’s face brightened. “You sure?” he asked, jumping up and reaching into his duffel bag for another shirt. “What about you?”

“I’ll order in,” Sam told him. Pizza: the dinner and breakfast of champions.

Dean pursed his lips, digging into the bag again. “You’re not going to sleep tonight, are you?”

“Nope.” Sam sat all the way up, wincing as the stitches pulled. He always had metabolized that stuff fast. “Shouldn’t have taken that nap, huh?”

Dean rolled his eyes and tossed Dad’s journal onto the table. “Dad’s contacts are all in there. You want to waste time calling people, I can’t stop you.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck. “Uh, don’t bother Bobby. Dad wouldn’t call him.”

Sam didn’t threaten their fragile truce by asking what happened between their father and one of the few stable, safe presences he remembered from his childhood. “Take the car, okay?” he said instead. “In case the lucky girl doesn’t have a place of her own.”

Dean froze in the act of buttoning his shirt. “The car is for luring chicks, man. It’s not where you reel them in.”

“Oh. Um...oops,” Sam said, groping in his own bag for a pad of paper. He pulled it out and flinched when he saw his sketch of the tree in front of their old house.

Dean was too shocked by the desecration of his car to notice. “Tell me you didn’t...”

“Lose my virginity in that car?” Sam replied mechanically, tearing his eyes from the picture. “Sure. I’ll never breathe a word.”

“Sixteen before you got laid? Some days I can’t believe we’re related.” Dean pulled on his jacket. “It was sixteen, right? Not seventeen? ’Cause you weren’t adopted. I remember Mom being pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Sam murmured, not really hearing the question.

He’d never seen photos of their mother pregnant. He didn’t know if she’d sent Dad on midnight runs for pickles and ice cream, or if Dean had been jealous of the new baby. All he knew was that Mom was beautiful, Dad and Dean loved her, and she died.

And she was sorry.

Sam flipped the pad over so Dean wouldn’t see it and sat down at the table. “The front seat has more room,” he said, forcing the words to sound normal, “but you’ve gotta watch out for the gearshift.”

Shuddering, Dean fled.

Sam ground the heels of his palms against his eyes. Dean had mentioned it only once, when they were driving down a pitch-black stretch of highway two states away from Kansas. ‘She was sorry you never knew her, Sammy,’ he said, and popped a tape into the player before Sam could reply. Right. She’d apologized for dying to the son who didn’t remember her, instead of the one who’d been damaged, maybe irreparably, by her death. Dean wasn’t any more convinced of his explanation than Sam was.

Sam opened Dad’s journal and flipped through the final entries. The last one was dated around the same time his dreams began, just days before the second woman Sam loved died the same way the first had. Real coincidences in their line of work were rare: maybe their father was looking for answers, maybe he had answers he didn’t want them to know.

He reached for his notebook. If Dean was right and Dad didn’t want to be found—well, this wasn’t the first time Sam didn’t care what the old man wanted. He took one last look at his picture, seeing in his mind the soundless, flashing images, the face he’d learned from photographs, and maybe other things too. Things he didn’t want to explore. Sammyland had become uncharted territory; here be dragons.

Sam tore the sketch from the pad and ripped it up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Various additional author’s notes:
Whew. The boys sure have grown since Season One, haven’t they?

Any and all feedback is welcome. All my fic may be found here.

"Miles to Go" (Woods are Lonely 'verse)

2008-07-25T20:01:21Z

Title: “Miles to Go”
Category: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3400
Summary: Dean finds closure on an old job, and new worries about Sam’s psychic abilities. Melancholy and angsty, except for a brief misunderstanding about Sam’s candy cane. Dean POV.
Author’s notes: This is the third fic in my “The Woods are Lonely” ’verse. You’ll need to know the events of the first story, “The Woods Are Lonely, Dark and Deep,” to understand this one; a brief précis is here if you don’t have time to read the story itself. The next installment, “Promises to Keep,” is recommended reading, but not necessary to understand this fic. Thanks to hyperactivegirl for beta’ing.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Wisconsin State Highway 70
October 10, 2006

They dug her grave together, in silence, their work lit by the dim light of a camp lantern and the occasional shaft of moonlight breaking through the clouds. ‘Not near any trees,’ he had said, so Sam nodded and picked out a spot in a back corner of the graveyard. They didn’t need to worry about anyone seeing the newly-disturbed earth: the lumber town that the cemetery had served was another ghost of the forest, abandoned decades ago when it signed its own death warrant by felling the last of the great timbers surrounding it. No ladies’ club came here to uproot the weeds growing between the cracked headstones; no amateur genealogist ever walked through them in search of his own name among those of the dead. It was a grim place to bury a little girl, but in the end, one grave is as good as the next.

“I’m not sure about this, Sam,” he said when they’d finished.

“I am.” Sam looked down at the blanket-wrapped bundle at the side of the grave and worked his jaw. “C’mere. I want to try something.”

He watched Sam settle down cross-legged against the nearest upright tombstone, his back to the grave, and close his eyes. Sam shifted, hesitated, then stretched out his hands. “You, uh....” He cleared his throat, shifted again, and mumbled almost inaudibly, “You love me, right, big brother?”

“Sam!” he protested. There’s etiquette, dammit, guy etiquette, even at a time like this. Especially at a time like this.

Sam cracked one eye open and glared at him. “Work with me here, man,” he said, nodding toward the blanket.

He’d fought side-by-side with Sam, grown up with him, taken care of him since he was six months old...okay, got it. He’d raised his baby brother from the cradle, acknowledge it or not, and he loved him more than life.

“Ready,” he said, taking Sam’s hands and concentrating. He didn’t miss the way Sam’s face lightened at the touch.

“Now, hold it.”

Sam closed his eyes again and his grip went slack. He knew the instant she was there by the way the warmth bled from Sam’s skin like water spilling from cup.

Pressing one of those cold hands to his cheek, he smiled. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Minocqua, Wisconsin
November 13, 2006

He didn’t recognize her, though he’d fooled himself into believing he would. He’d even drawn up a mental image to search for as he scanned through roll after roll of microfilm in the local library. Still, the unfamiliarity of her features wasn’t the reason he’d doubted it was her; rather, it was because the odds of finding her were astronomical, and she’d probably never had a drop of good luck in her life. But she matched Sam’s description—cute, heart-shaped face, freckles across her nose –and he knew the signs of hidden suffering too well to miss, so he let himself hope.

“Did a tall guy come in here?” he asked the matronly waitress when he got the diner near their motel. “Plaid shirt, brown jacket?”

“Just walked in. Corner booth,” she said cheerfully, too cheerfully for someone spending her declining years in crepe-soled shoes and pink polyester. Then again, they usually were. He had a theory that someone had cryogenically frozen a cheerful, matronly diner waitress back in the fifties, and had been cranking out clones ever since.

“A word to the wise, though, hon,” she added as he craned his neck in the direction she’d indicated, “it looks like someone licked the red right off his candy cane.”

He whipped his head back around. “Excuse me?”

She smiled and nodded sympathetically. “Just thought you should know.”

“Never heard it put like that before,” he answered gamely. “Thanks.”

Spotting Sam’s bowed head, he stomped to the back of the diner. “Dude! What the hell did you say to the waitress?” he hissed.

“Not a word,” Sam mumbled, tapping the laptop keyboard with his left hand and scribbling in a notebook with his right. “Why?”

“She tried to tip me off that you’re cheating on me,” he whispered, tossing his bag onto the seat opposite Sam.

“Dean, could you just once try telling people, ‘I’m looking for my brother?’” Sam sniped. “It’d save us all a lot of angst over your sexual identity.”

He slid onto the bench and waited.

Sam’s head jerked up. “She did what?”

“Warned me you’re cheating on me,” he repeated. “She said you looked like you’d just gotten a blowjob.”

Sam glowered at him, all pinched lips and hollowed cheeks. “And do I?” he demanded, way too bitchy to have gotten anything licked right.

He made a show of studying his brother’s face. “Actually, you look more like someone peed in your cornfl—” Oh. So that’s how they said ‘pissy’ in the fifties. “Sam, you look like someone licked the red right off your candy cane,” he amended.

“Dean!” Sam squawked. “That’s disgus—” He wrinkled his forehead. “Oh.”

Mollified, he slouched back. “Yep, no one steps out on this,” he said, gesturing toward his own face.

Sam looked back at the screen, lips still tight. “You sneak out for eight hours without leaving a note again, and I might start seeing another brother on the side,” he said.

“The muskies were biting, and trust me, you needed your beauty sleep,” he answered lightly, turning his coffee cup upright to signal the waitress. He hadn’t left a note when he left Sam sleeping off a nightmare, hadn’t even said why they’d stopped here last night, but they both knew it wasn’t for the fly fishing or the quirky tourist attractions. Some days Sam just got bitchy on principle; his brother would’ve guessed exactly where he had been.

Sure enough, Sam was already gazing at him mistily. “You didn’t have to go alone,” he started.

“Coffee, hon?” the waitress asked at his elbow. Gratefully, he pushed his mug in her direction. “Anything for you, young man?” she asked Sam.

Sam flashed her a fake, impatient smile, not the one he usually used with a waitress. Or the waitress, depending on the clone theory. “Ginger ale,” he grunted, flinching when she leaned in to catch the words.

She lifted her eyebrows before turning back to fill his coffee cup from the carafe and give him a commiserating glance. “I’ll be back for your orders in a few minutes.”

He looked Sam over for real as soon as she left. Ginger ale, pissyness, and twitchiness when someone got too close added up to one thing. “When did it hit?”

“A couple hours ago.” Sam evaded his gaze. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t call Sam on the lie—that never got him anywhere. “Anything useful?” he asked instead. The visions left Sam’s head splitting and his psyche banged up, but they weren’t always coherent enough to follow these days. They didn’t know what to make of that.

“Only if you own stock in Tylenol.” Sam rubbed at his eyes and pinched his lips: subject closed. “But I was working on the internet, and I’m pretty sure there’s a nekomata in Fresno.” Sam paused significantly. “Can you believe it?”

He searched through his mental database and stalled for time. “Why wouldn’t I believe it?”

Sam gaped at the mysteries of genetics that made them related. “Because it’s on the wrong continent?”

Bingo—his mind supplied the reference. “So Japanese demon schools don’t teach geography. Shocking.” He reached for the menu. “Write to the school board.”

Sam huffed. “It didn’t just swim here, you know,” he pronounced. “Customs is doing a shit job.”

He gaped right back. “Sammy, nothing will top the time in eighth grade when you wondered if werewolves were ‘homo lupus’ instead of ‘homo sapiens’”—exaggerated air quotes here—“but that’s one of the top ten dumbest things you’ve ever said.” He shook his head, relaxing a little. Needling Sam was good. Comforting. “Come to think of it, that might have been the first sign that something was really wrong with you.”

“I was just curious. It’s not like I was going to pencil them into the textbook.” Sam tapped his pencil eraser against his notebook and pursed his lips again. “All I’m saying is, if Customs isn’t catching forked-tailed demon cats, they’re not catching chickens with bird flu either.”

He slapped down his menu and stared. “Please tell me that’s codeine talking.”

Sam smirked and kicked him under the table. “And if that was the first sign, you weren’t paying attention,” he added.

“Bitch,” he grumbled, picking the menu up again.

“Are you boys ready to order?” came from beside him. Sam’s smirk broadened.

He shot his brother the stink-eye and scanned over his menu as the waitress set down Sam’s soda. After eight hours in the archives he’d kill for a cheeseburger, except after a psychic attack, Sam’s stomach and nose were as sensitive as a pregnant chick’s. “Uh...,”

“He’ll have a cheeseburger, medium rare, side of fries.” Sam informed her. “Nothing for me.”

“Is that right, hon?” she asked him, clearly doubting that Sam wore the pants in this relationship. Smart gal.

“Sammy, did you eat today?” he asked, like he couldn’t guess. “Sweetheart, maybe you could bring him some applesauce?” He leaned toward her and confided, “Morning sickness. It makes him cranky, you know.”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed. Sam had picked the wrong broad to be rude to today. “Anything else? Some nice dry toast, maybe?”

Sam kicked him again. “No, ma’am,” he said, earning himself a forgiving smile. He wrinkled his nose and swallowed as another waitress passed them with a platter of double-decker burgers. “Uh, could you bring mine first?”

“Sure thing, hon,” she said, and headed off.

“Cute, Dean,” Sam muttered as he jabbed his straw through the ice chips in his glass.

“What can I say?” he chortled. “Never be rude to the diner lady.”

His brother rolled his eyes. “I keep telling you, man, if they were cloning waitresses, it wouldn’t be the middle-aged diner kind,” he said, taking a cautious sip of his drink.

“A lot of Hooters girls look alike too,” he pointed out.

Sam grimaced at either his taste or the soda’s. “Not if you look them in the face.”

The waitress was as good as her word—Sam’s food arrived almost immediately. He dumped a packet of protein powder into it and started spooning it up mechanically, keeping his mind off his stomach.

“So, did you find anything?” he asked.

He took the photocopy from his bag and slid it across the table. Sam looked at it without expression for a few seconds, and shook his head slowly. Damn. There were other places to look for her, but here was the best shot.

“Children are a gift, you know?” Sam murmured. Sam had been saying a lot of weird things like that lately, and he didn’t know what to make of them either. He steeled himself for disappointment and waited.

“And he just threw her away.” Sam shook his head again. “That’s her.”

His jaw dropped. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Sam’s eyes softened as he looked down at the photo. “You found her, Dean.”

“Jesus.” He lowered his head to his hands and covered his face against the shock of relief. He’d done it. A hundred years too late, but he’d found her.

When he raised his head, Sam was tracing his finger over the paper without quite touching it. She’d been a pretty child, but her features were too soft and young to show how she would have looked as an adult. Maybe she’d have grown into a beauty, maybe she’d always have been cute and freckled. Maybe she would have learned how to smile.

Maybe someone would have given her a reason to.

“She would’ve been a real looker in a few years, yeah?” he said as Sam studied her face. “I think she would’ve been a real looker.”

“She would’ve been gorgeous.” Sam slid the paper back across the table. “What was her name?”

He tucked the paper back into his bag without answering. He had no right to be possessive of her, not after Sam had given up his body and taken her place in the world of the lost dead so that he could hold her hand again, brush his lips over her forehead and promise that the grave they’d dug for her was nothing to fear. But it wasn’t his secret to tell.

Sam nodded with way too much understanding and fired up the Empathy Eyes again. “I know you think it’s stupid, man,” he said, “but I’d like to go back there.”

He lifted an indifferent shoulder, masking his gratitude that Sam had brought it up. “Your hormones won’t give me any peace until we do, right?”

Sam played along. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Okay,” he conceded. “If you finish your dinner.”

Sam rolled his eyes again and polished off his applesauce just before the cheeseburger arrived. Eyeing it queasily, he got up and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you back at the room,” he said. Nodding cheerfully at the waitress, he added, “We can do your scenic drive tonight, baby, but we’re not leaving town tomorrow until you take me to see the World’s Largest Penny.”

He curled his lip at Sam, smiled thinly at the diner lady, and started plotting out how to put dish soap into Sam’s toothpaste.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Wisconsin State Highway 70
November 13, 2006

Sam hesitated when they got out of the car at the cemetery gates. “Point the EMF over there, would you?” he asked, leaning on his door and staring across the road.

“Why?” he responded, reaching into the back seat for his jacket and the paper-wrapped cylinder he’d hidden beneath it.

Sam shut the door, eyes still fixed on the meadow opposite them. “There might be something over there. I —.” He made an incomprehensible gesture. Sam was still searching for a non-New Agey psychic vocabulary, and he hadn’t grasped that flapping his hands around wasn’t the solution. “I noticed it when me and her switched.”

They walked up to the end of the driveway together. He pulled the EMF reader from his pocket; Sam scrunched up his face like a Muppet sensing a disturbance in the Force.

“Dude, does the Yoda face really do anything?” he demanded.

“Uh....” Sam experimentally relaxed his face until he looked more like that Scottish guy playing Sir Alec Guinness. “No.”

“Then don’t do it anymore.” He switched on the sensor, muttering under his breath, “At least, not when you’re standing next to me.”

A couple lights flickered when he pointed the device across the road, low enough that he’d have written it off as background noise if Sam hadn’t—whatever—earlier. “If there’s something there, it’s weak,” he said.

“It’s there.” Sam chewed his lip. “I checked afterwards and didn’t find any history on this stretch of road, but there’s something.”

“We’ll take another look before we leave.” He tucked the sensor back into his jacket and steered Sam towards the gate. “So you ended up here when you switched?” he asked. “I figured you’d be back in her woods.”

“It was here, sort of. The graveyard was there, but beyond that, it was all blurry. Unfinished, like her world was just what she’d seen.” Sam shrugged. Neither of them tried to figure out the cosmology; that way lies madness. “Whatever’s there was outside the borders.”

“Christ, Sam.” Stuck in an abandoned cemetery with an unknown something lurking always out of his sight. That explained why Sam had woken up in a cold sweat every night for the next week.

“I don’t think it was on the same plane as me.” Sam handed him the flashlight and gestured for him to lead them in. “But I didn’t go exploring.”

He caught Sam when he stumbled over a thick, exposed root on their way through the plots. “You tripped over that last time,” he commented. “Coming and going.”

“I did?” Sam blinked down at the root. “Must be getting clumsy.”

“Getting clumsy?” he asked, because Sam would never learn to watch where he put his humungous feet, or stop leaving himself open for shots like that. Sam snorted and bumped their shoulders together. It felt almost like normal, except that they were going to visit a grave instead of digging one up.

Sam bowed his head when they reached the spot. Praying, maybe, because apparently he did that these days. The act was still pointless as far as he was concerned, but at least someone was doing it for her. He shuffled his feet, unsure of what to do with himself. Sam was the one who got sloppy in cemeteries, not him.

“She wasn’t scared anymore, you know,” Sam said, on cue. “Did I tell you what she said to me?”

“You didn’t say anything,” he responded. Technically Sam had said, ‘I’m fine, Dean,’ before he staggered to his feet and picked up a shovel, but that didn’t count because it was a total lie.

Sam knelt next to the grave. “She said she was going to heaven to be with her mommy,” he relayed. “And yours.”

“I didn’t say anything about heaven,” he answered. He wasn’t about to lie to the girl.

“Yeah, but she knew that’s where her mother is.” Sam skimmed his fingertips just above the grave’s surface, same as he’d done with her picture. Like he was afraid to touch it. “She’s okay, Dean.”

He tightened his lips, thankful that Sam wasn’t looking at him. “You really believe that, Sammy?”

No response—his brother wasn’t as sure as he wanted to be. Instead Sam bowed his head again and pressed his hand to the dirt at the head of the grave. “Good night, sweetheart,” he murmured, and rose. “I’ll try to get a read on whatever’s across the road,” he said. “Take your time.”

Belatedly, he realized that Sam hadn’t remembered that root, hadn’t even remembered where she was buried, but he knew the exact location of an entity that had been in a formless void when he first sensed it. “Sam, when you said you”—he fluttered his hand in imitation of Sam’s earlier gesture—“you mean you”—flutter—“now too?”

“Well, yeah,” Sam replied, blinking at him like he’d just failed the midterm for Psychic Sign Language 101.

“There’s no tense on that”—sarcastic flutter—“verb,” he pointed out. “Why can you feel it now?”

“Sorry.” Sam grinned sheepishly. “The cracks haven’t all closed up from this afternoon, is all. It’s okay.” He turned to go again.

“Sam, was it malevolent?” he called automatically. They spoke in code these days: ‘Watch out, be careful, if you can sense it, it can sense you.’ Sam hated it, hell, he hated it, but things were different now.

Sam’s tight grin of acknowledgement was as fleeting as it was bitter. “I’ll stay on holy ground.”

His brother’s footsteps faded away, and it was just him standing awkwardly at the graveside with a flower already wilting in his jacket. Unwrapping it, he crouched down where Sam had knelt a moment earlier. He laid the white calla bloom, the only marker he could give her, across the grave as he leaned forward and whispered the dead girl’s name into her earthen bed. Then he stood up and turned to follow Sam, boots crunching in the snow as he walked away from the child they’d been too late to save, back towards dangers that he couldn’t see.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Additional Notes:
The phrase ‘ghost of the forest’ comes from a book entitled Ghosts of the Forest: Vanished Lumber Towns of Wisconsin, by Randall Rohe. (No, I didn’t read it. I’m obsessive about details, but not that obsessive.) The world’s largest penny is in Woodruff, next to Minocqua, and the muskie, or muskellunge, is a sport fish and the official state fish of Wisconsin. This is the flower Dean left for the girl.

Comments are welcomed; I have a bad track record on responding to feedback, but answer all of it now. If you enjoyed this one, all my stories may be found here.

A little more about me...

2008-06-24T02:52:51Z

These personality quizzes are disconcertingly accurate.

Which TV Villain Are You?

More on Supernatural. Created by BuddyTV

If I'm on your friends list, don't worry--I practically never post stuff like this. Just ignore it.

"Rites of Passage"

2008-05-26T02:12:16Z

Title: “Rites of Passage”
Rating: PG
Category: Gen, Teen!chesters
Characters: Sam, John, a guest appearance by Dean.
Word Count: 2100
Summary: “Dean’s eighteen years old, Dad, and he just killed a human being. Not a werewolf, not a shapeshifter, a real human being. Like hell you know how he feels.”
Author’s Notes: You need no familiarity with my story, “A Matter of Principle,” to understand this one, but this fic is a sequel to a flashback in that story. If flashbacks can have sequels.

Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.
~ ~ ~

Dean marched straight past John when the boys returned from their hunt. Didn’t pause, didn’t even look him in the eye.

“Sammy’ll tell you,” he muttered, making a beeline for the bedroom he shared with his brother.

Another set of booted feet clomped up the stairs to their apartment. Sam—not Sammy, he insisted daily—stomped in, looked at the closed bedroom door, and threw his duffel on the couch sullenly. Two grocery-store clerks, the landlord, and three little old ladies in the retirement home across the street had marveled to John about his son’s sunny disposition, but as far as John knew the kid had only two moods: sullen and hostile. Maybe forty-eight unbroken hours of it had worn out even Dean’s patience.

“Report?” John demanded. Sam just glowered at him, so he started for the bedroom. “Dean, what happened?” he called.

In a heartbeat, Sam was between him and the door. “Leave him alone,” he ordered in the low growl he’d been cultivating since his voice started to change over the past year. Sam had changed a lot over the past year. Mostly, not for the better.

“Sam,” John cautioned.

His son stood his ground, and John read it in his face—something had gone wrong on the job. He backed down, tolerating the insubordination until he had the facts, and nodded toward the duffel bag. Sam rolled his eyes and hauled it over to the weapons trunk next to the television.

“Did Dean get hurt?” John asked. If he ordered Sam to talk he’d keep silent until Gabriel blew his horn, just on some obnoxious teenage principle, but some questions he wouldn’t ignore.

“Those missing hikers?” Sam said as he crouched down and opened the box. “They were collecting mushrooms.”

John flipped through his mental index cards for what would go after a couple of amateur mycologists. “You’re kidding. Faeries?” he asked.

“The Sidhe.” Sam began deftly putting away the gear. “Some loser with a book of Celtic folklore was summoning them through a hawthorn in a grove.”

“Idiot,” John grunted. Like they didn’t have enough to hunt without bringing in beings from another continent. “Did Dean get hurt?” he repeated.

“No.”

“This isn’t ‘Twenty Questions,’” John pointed out when Sam clammed up again.

“The faeries were on the Wild Hunt when we found the passage. We got the hikers out, and set up to torch the tree after the faeries went back through.” Sam paused once more and concentrated on arranging the equipment just so. “The guy jumped Dean. They were fighting, and the hunters came back...”

John put the pieces together: a struggle, a man falling before the onrushing horses and their fierce riders. Lore said the Sidhe were beautiful and terrible; fools remembered only the first part.

“I get it, Sam,” he interjected.

“Dad, he didn’t mean to,” Sam said, a little pleadingly.

“I know,” John reassured him, studying the rigid set of his son’s shoulders. Sam hadn’t witnessed a violent death before—not a human’s, at any rate—and this wasn’t how John would have wanted him to pass that grim milestone. “Did you see it?”

Sam closed the trunk. “I was getting the hikers clear.”

Well, that was something. “What did he do with the body?” John asked.

Sam snapped the latch shut. “What did he do with the body?” he repeated icily as he stood up. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Sam,” John warned again.

Sam lifted his chin and glared. The kid was itching for a fight, not that that was anything new. John rubbed at his eyes and tried to defuse the ticking time bomb that was his fourteen-year-old son.

“Look, it’s rough,” he conceded, wondering when the hell he started justifying himself to his own kid, “but in our line of work, it had to happen sometime.”

Sam’s lip curled. “No, Dad, it didn’t ‘have to happen sometime,’” he sneered in a tone calculated to make John’s palm itch. He’d never raised a hand against his boys; lately, he could swear that Sam was pushing to see what would change that.

“It didn’t have to happen because Dean doesn’t have to be in your line of work,” Sam railed on. “He should be finishing school—”

“That’s between your brother and me, Sam. Drop it.” John ordered. He took a step forward when Sam jutted his chin further and opened his mouth again. “I said drop it, Samuel.”

Sam didn’t lower his chin—whatever else you could say about the boy, John hadn’t raised any cowards—but he dropped it. “Leave him alone,” he spat instead when John turned toward the bedroom. “He won’t talk.”

“He’ll talk to me,” John tossed over his shoulder. “I know what he’s going through.”

“The hell you do,” Sam muttered.

John whirled on him. “You wanna repeat that to my face?”

“The hell you do,” Sam enunciated deliberately. “Dean’s eighteen years old, Dad, and he just killed a human being. Not a werewolf, not a shapeshifter, a real human being. Like hell you know how he feels.”

Screw it. If the kid wanted to push, he could damn well get pushed back. John advanced until Sam had to retreat, slamming his hand against the wall to pin his son when he couldn’t back away further.

“Sam, what the fuck do you think I was doing in the Mekong Delta?” John snarled.

Sam flinched, gaped—and stood down.

When John came out of the bedroom an hour later, Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a history book he’d propped up between John's own papers and newsclippings. John paused—Dean had said the kid was having nightmares—but when Sam didn’t speak up, he pulled a beer from the refrigerator and went to sit on their little balcony overlooking the parking lot. He twisted the cap off and set the bottle down without drinking.

After a few minutes, the glass door behind him slid open. John looked up. “Come on out, Sam,” he invited.

Sam bit his lip, hovering in the doorway. “You enlisted,” he said. “Sir.” The epithet was more a peace offering than a sign of genuine respect, but him and Sam had to take what they could get these days.

“I did, and I was proud to be serving my country. A lot of men didn’t, and weren’t.” John ran his fingers over the condensation on the bottle’s neck. Sooner or later, Sam was going to have to make his peace with the cold, hard facts. “But thing of it is, son, willing or not, soldiers all fight the same war.”

That too-familiar resentment sparked in Sam’s eyes. “Dean and me aren’t soldiers, Dad.”

Later, then. “Don’t speak for your brother, Sam,” he rebuked.

Sam glanced over his shoulder at some sound inside the apartment; a moment later, Dean appeared.

“I’m going out,” he said to John, running a hand through his damp, newly-spiky hair. Sam had glared daggers at his father when Dean had come home a week before school was to start with that goddamned ponytail chopped off, but for once, Dean wasn’t acting on orders. Sometimes a man needs to choose his own rite of passage.

“You going to be drinking?” John asked. They were living within walking distance of a bar that season. More often than not, they were living within walking distance of a bar. John always told himself it was a coincidental effect of staying in the residence hotels they could afford.

Dean blinked at the violation of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on what he did with his fake ID when he wasn’t on the job. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

John looked somewhere to the left of his son’s shoulder and delivered the truncated version of the ‘first R&R’ speech. “Don’t bet more than what’s in your wallet, don’t start any fights, and I don’t care how drunk you get, don’t forget to use a condom.”

Dean blinked again. “Yes, sir,” he answered. He thumped Sam on the upper arm without meeting his eyes, and turned to leave. “See ya later, Sammy.”

Sam watched his brother go a little wistfully, an almost-hidden longing for comfort in his expression, and Christ. If the kid would just trust John for once instead of nursing that meaningless teenaged anger, he wouldn’t have to deal with this alone.

“C’mere, son,” John told him. When Sam shuffled over to his chair he asked, “What did you really see?”

Sam shrugged, but his eyes reddened.

John threw an arm around his son’s waist. “Sammy,” he nudged.

Sam’s expression crumbled. “Everything.”

John let go of his waist and shifted his hand up to rub Sam’s back. “It’s okay,” he said, and Sam just broke down, sinking to a crouch, shoulders shaking. “It’s okay, Sammy. Nothing to be ashamed of,” John soothed.

“Dad, he…they...” Sam choked out incoherently, but John had a pretty good idea of who he meant. “I’m never gonna forget it, am I?”

“No, son,” John answered, blunt but honest. God damn the day he had learned the truth that set him back on the warrior’s path with a little boy at his knee and a baby in his arms. “But it’ll get better.”

Sam nodded jerkily and snuffled into his shirtsleeve. “Don’t tell Dean?”

“Sure,” John promised, not that it would take Dean long to figure out that his brother’s nightmares weren’t fueled by imagination, once he got over his own shock. Sam would get over his too, but John had no clue how to help him get there.

Sam lowered his head and wiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I’ve got studying to do,” he mumbled after another minute.

“Okay,” John answered, guiltily relieved.

Sam clambered up, stumbling a little with the clumsiness he’d been showing since he hit his growth spurt. “Dad?” he asked as he slid open the door.

“Yeah?”

Sam chewed his lip like he had before coming onto the porch. “Can we stay here until June?”

“June?” John asked before it clicked: June was the end of the school year. “Aw, kiddo, you know I can’t promise that.”

“I can’t get good grades if we move around all the time,” Sam protested, and John felt a flash of acid envy for the men who could be proud when their sons put school first. “I’m old enough to stay on my own now,” Sam continued. “No one’s going to notice.”

John mulled it over. Even if any of their neighbors were around long enough to realize Sam was alone, they weren’t the type of people to call Social Services. And the principal at Sam’s last school—no, that was Michigan, so it was the school before last—had said something pretty pointed about the gypsy lifestyle revealed in Sam’s file. She was sharper than most, but if moving around attracted attention instead of keeping them under the radar, he should rethink how much the boys needed to follow him as he chased new jobs. Plus, Sam was right: he was plenty old enough to be left alone if John and Dean were both gone.

“We’ll stay the whole semester,” John decided. “See what happens then.”

Sam’s face lit up, and that was the grin that elderly women cooed over. John made a mental note to make sure Sam was using it in the field.

“Thanks, sir,” Sam said, and ducked back inside.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sam hunch over the book and his notes. Studying was a better escape than alcohol; if they were lucky, Sam wouldn’t have to make the same decision about his schooling that Dean just had. John wasn’t optimistic. Luck had been escaping the shells and bullets that had claimed too many of his friends; luck had been meeting Mary; luck had been landing a job that would provide well for the children they’d been blessed with. He wasn’t owed any more good luck in this lifetime. Still, maybe his sons would catch a break.

John took a pull from his beer as he looked over the asphalt, remembering the acrid smell of gunpowder mingled with humid jungle scents, recalling the mad eyes of the vengeful spirit he’d wasted in this morning’s pre-dawn hours, imagining razor-sharp hooves pummeling the forest floor, flashing swords and merciless spears and a man who chose to believe only half of what he knew. He put the bottle back down.

He didn’t need to see more ghosts tonight.

~ ~ ~

Further author’s notes:

For the record, I don't even like John, so I don't know where this stuff keeps coming from. I tweak my fic continually, so feedback and concrit are thoroughly welcome. If you enjoyed this one, all my stories may be found here.

An internet personality quiz says I am Bobby...

2008-04-24T01:03:46Z

And it speaks the truth. Hee!

Which Supernatural Character Are You?

More on Supernatural. Created by BuddyTV

"Promises to Keep" ("Woods Are Lonely" 'verse)

2008-03-11T21:21:29Z

Title: "Promises to Keep"
Category: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3900
Summary: Sam angstily struggles to finish a job while dealing with continuing psychic events; Dean angstily struggles to finish the job while dealing with Sam. Dean POV.
Author's notes: You need to know the events of my earlier story, "The Woods Are Lonely, Dark and Deep," to follow this fic. Your life (okay, your reading experience) will be richer for reading all of the first story before going on, but if you want to get straight to the Dean angst here, you can get by with just reading this précis of "The Woods Are Lonely." Honestly, though, you should read the whole thing unspoiled. I'm not one to brag, but it's quite good.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin
October 10, 2006

He began the countdown as soon as they started hiking up the river: thirty minutes to sundown, twenty-five minutes to sundown...Sam's breathing roughened as they trudged into the woods to skirt a stretch where the rushing waters had eroded the riverbank straight up to a rocky overhang. He knew they should slow down, but the sun would set in twenty minutes and she was afraid of the dark...

This was a search-and-rescue mission, not a hunt, but long-ingrained habit kept him scanning the trail they were following. Theirs weren't the first boots to tread the path that week, maybe not even that day.

"If she's been haunting the woods for this long, there must have been sightings," he remarked to his brother. "We should poke around for some local ghost stories. Might be able to figure out who she was."

"She's not haunting the woods, Dean," Sam answered, sounding distracted. "They're haunting her."

His gut wrenched. He shoved the feeling back down and followed the path into a patch of maples and oaks so dense that freshly-fallen leaves blanketed the forest floor in a patchwork of color. Sam's footsteps slowed behind him, then stopped.

"Sammy?" he asked, wheeling around to see his brother, head hung down, bracing himself against a tree. He tossed down his duffel bag and crossed the space between them in three strides. "Hey. Talk to me, man," he said, grabbing Sam's arms.

"She brought me here when we switched places," Sam responded in a constricted voice. "I think it's where she figured out she was lost for good."

Next to freakish psychic abilities, a Winchester's greatest curse was a vivid imagination. He crushed the picture that sprang to mind and turned Sam so his back was against the tree. "How can you tell?"

"The whole place is soaked with what she feels." Sam slumped against the oak's trunk. "Gets stronger the closer we get."

His jaw tightened as he read what was behind Sam's words. She was cold, she was scared, she was lost and alone, and with every step Sam was forcing himself further from the land of the living into that of the dead. Nothing in her world that could hurt him, his brother had said. Right. Nothing but a century of psychic fear.

"You have to tell me, Sammy," he said with frustration. "I can't know if you don't tell me."

"It's new to me too, dude. I didn't know it would get worse." Sam let out one of his humorless, defensive chuckles and looked away. "I'm no good if I can't even take a walk in the woods, Dean," he mumbled.

"We'll figure something out," he promised helplessly. God, give him fear, give him pain--anything but helplessness.

Sam tilted his head up just enough to hide his eyes. "Gimme a few seconds, okay? And..." He made the little hand-wave that meant 'Too loud, Dean.' "You're too edgy," he apologized.

He took his edgy self a couple steps backwards--because how the hell could he turn down sound he couldn't hear?--and scanned their surroundings. The rays of sunlight breaking through the canopy above them were fading fast.

"Dean," Sam murmured.

He turned back to see Sam tensed against the tree, anxious eyes fixed on something just past him. He followed Sam's gaze, but saw nothing more worrisome than the brilliant red berries of a jack-in-the-pulpit under a thicket.

"What?" he asked.

Sam jerked his head up, brows knit in confusion. He spread his hands blankly; Sam swallowed, pointed with his chin, and looked back downward.

"Hello, princess," Sam said softly.

Adrenaline jolted into his bloodstream. He searched along Sam's line of sight again, with no result.

"Hey, hey, sweetheart, it's okay." His brother took a careful step toward him, then another and another, making shushing and soothing noises. It was disturbing, like watching a bum in the park muttering at the ghosts in his head, and got even more so when Sam knelt down and cocked his head as if trying to peer around his legs. "You remember me, don't you?" Sam asked.

"Sam," he muttered.

Sam ignored him. "C'mon, let me see that pretty face," he coaxed, making his sensitive eyes and hiding his fear with a gentle, almost teasing smile. "Yeah, that's it--" He sat back on his heels, face crumpling with worry. "Honey, what's wrong?"

There wasn't the slightest shimmer in the air to show Sam's hide-and-seek playmate, no trace of ozone under the leaves' crisp, sweet scent, not so much as a beep from the EMF reader in his jacket pocket. And if the spirit they sought really was there, Sam knew fucking well what was wrong. A chill ran down his spine. Sam had said the visions were making cracks in his psyche...

He shook the thought off. He'd spoken to her, and she was no trick of his brother's strained mind.

He crouched down next to Sam in the bright leaf-litter. "What's she saying?" he demanded.

Sam winced and fired off an Insensitivity Alert glare. On a scale of one to ten, with one being smiling inappropriately and ten being asking the widow if the head ever surfaced, it was about a four--like ignoring someone who was standing right next to him.

He shut up and waited for Sam to pass on her words, but Sam shook his head. Maybe she couldn't speak across the veil, or maybe, he thought inanely, she was just shy around Sam.

"C'mon, beautiful, it's all right. What's got you so upset?" Sam asked, reaching out.

He watched as Sam's hand stopped in midair. His brother jerked, hissing out a quick breath like he'd been shocked, and then set his face in a smile and made a little trailing motion with his fingers. Stroking her cheek, he realized. Rage flashed through him when he saw how small she was, rage as hot as the hellfire where her father should be burning.

"Sam," he whispered as another shudder wracked his brother's frame.

The whites of Sam's fear-widened eyes flashed in the gloom as he glanced over. No, not fear--Sam was fucking terrified. Goddammit. He would have bet his life she wasn't malevolent. Maybe he'd bet Sam's.

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head toward the bag with the shotguns they always carried, just in case. Sam made a minute but emphatic gesture signaling 'no danger' and looked back down, cooing more endearments. She wasn't doing it--she didn't know. She was just a lost, desperate child, too confused to understand that the fear poisoning her world was her own.

"You're not going to believe this," Sam murmured, "but I think she's just shy." Ashen skin stretched tight over his cheekbones, he let his shaking hand fall. "Something's scared her again, Dean. Talk to her."

Startled, he nodded soothingly at a speck of pollen around where Sam's hand had been. "Uh, it's okay, sweetheart," he said, searching his mind for what could be scarier than being abandoned to the dark by the man who should have done anything to keep her safe. The answer, when it came, nearly choked him.

"We just stopped to rest for a minute, honey," he told the pollen. "We're not going to leave without you."

"God," Sam gasped. "That was it."

He jerked his head around at the strain in Sam's voice. His brother was shaking all over and his skin looked clammy--Christ, he was one step away from going into shock. It ripped at his heart, but he had to get her away from Sam.

"Can you do something for me, angel?" he asked a leaf spiraling down in front of them. The words stuck like ash in his throat.

"She nodded," Sam panted, swaying on his knees.

"Can you be a brave girl for a little bit more, and go back to wait for us?" A quick sidelong glance at his brother's face told him exactly what she thought of that idea. "It won't be much longer," he hastened to add, with no clue what time felt like for her. Next to him, Sam made a superhuman effort to wipe everything but reassurance from his face, and stretched out both hands with the palms up.

"Come here, sweetheart." An instant later he suppressed a flinch--her palms touching his--and folded his hands protectively around empty space. "We'll be there before dark," he promised, tightening his clasp for a few heartbeats and then letting her go. "Just run on back. They won't stop you."

He watched his brother's eyes follow some invisible movement towards a shaded track opposite them. "Sam?" he prompted as Sam sat back, fisting his shaking hands.

Sam turned toward him, dropping the pretense of calm he'd clung to for her. "They never stop us going in," he croaked, and collapsed, hyperventilating.

"Sammy!" He lunged for the duffel bag and pulled out the blanket.

"Goddammit." Sam covered his face, alternately cursing and gagging back hoarse sobs. "Goddammit."

"It's not yours, Sammy," he soothed as he tucked the blanket around his brother's heaving shoulders. "You understand me? Whatever's in your head is hers, not yours."

"Mine now," Sam wheezed, wrapping his arms around himself. "Dean..."

"C'mon, man," he urged, looking uneasily at the darkening path she had taken. "It's okay."

"I can't..." Sam stuffed his fist against his mouth, and keened in fear.

"Sammy!"

Sam rocked back and forth, trapping his cries like he'd rather choke on them than let them out. He gripped Sam's shoulder, howling inwardly at a world that left an innocent child to wander lost forever and damned him to stand by impotently while his little brother fell apart.

"It's okay, Sam," he said, groping for calm. Someone in these woods had to stay calm. "There's nothing here anymore."

Sam shook his head, darting his eyes around the thick trunks surrounding them. In twenty-three years he'd seen Sam this scared just once--an hour ago, when the ghost of that six-year-old child was looking through his eyes.

Prompted by instinct, he reached out to cup Sam's cheek. He thought of cuddling a small boy who crawled into his bed after a nightmare, reassuring him when a thunderstorm left their shabby room in darkness, wiping away his tears when their father left them behind. If he was wrong about this Sam would never forgive him; if he was right, odds were fifty/fifty that he might.

"I won't let the trees get you, little brother," he vowed, low and soothing. "I swear, Sammy, they can't have you. I'll burn the whole forest down first."

Sam clamped an icy hand around his wrist, fear and shame warring in his expression--and nodded.

Relieved, he lowered his forehead to his brother's in a gesture of comfort they hadn't shared since Sam turned twelve. "We're getting out of here, Sam," he promised. "You, me, and her. I'm getting us all out."

After a few long moments, his brother cleared his throat. "Now I'm okay," he said.

"You sure?" he asked as Sam pulled back.

"Yeah. I, uh...heh." Face twisted into a study in humiliation, Sam faked a laugh. "So. That was new."

"Never a dull moment, Psychic Boy," he said lightly, trying to look Sam over without being obvious about it. Sam dodged his scrutiny by ducking his head so that his bangs shadowed his face. Not good. Sam stopped being told what to do the day he learned to say 'no,' but he remained trainable for a few more years, and sitting still to be checked out was a firmly established habit. Breaking the habit meant the shit was going to hit the fan as soon as Sam could stand up straight.

"Let's go," Sam said, shoving himself up and falling right back down.

He held up a staying hand when his brother tried to stand again; Sam glared as if defying him to mention the fall.

He sighed and did what he should have done the moment they stopped. "Close the door, Sam," he ordered.

Sam flashed him a tight little grin. "I already did."

"Oh," he said dumbly. Oh, shit.

"Yeah." Sam clambered to his feet and started forward. "C'mon. Daylight's burning."

He scooped up the bag and followed as Sam marched across the grove, if you could march and wobble at the same time. "If the door was closed, how'd you know she was there?" he demanded.

"Looked down, saw her holding your hand. She was as surprised as I was." Sam slashed at some yew branches barring the path like a scraggly gate. "Didn't even feel a cold spot, did you?"

He gaped. "No."

Not the faintest breeze or chill. Not a wisp of the miasma that had driven Sam into a full-blown meltdown, and this was a whole new level of not fucking good. Sam had a corner on premonitions, clairvoyance, empathy, and whatever the hell else, but not getting knocked on his ass by spirits too weak to score a blip on their sensors.

"That's why I thought it'd be safe for me to touch her. The first time, I mean." Sam released the bush when they'd both passed; the branches snapped back to stand sentry behind them. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"It means you don't give hug therapy to ghosts. Big deal," he declared. "Nothing's changed, Sam."

"Yeah." They had to go single file on the narrow trail; Sam wobble-stomped into the lead. "Right."

A seriously bad thought hit him. "Hey," he said, trotting along behind his brother. "Could you see what I was thinking?"

"You're not exactly a closed book, dude. I could guess," Sam bit out, before stumbling over a root.

"Whoa." He grabbed Sam's elbow. They shouldn't stop, but Sam breaking an ankle to prove a point would slow them down a hell of a lot more. "Sam, I know you're pissed..."

Sam tugged his arm free. "I'm not pissed, Dean," he said pissily. He stared off into the trees, then shook himself and blew out a breath. "Not at you," he clarified, letting his iron expression relax into a rueful smile. "You did what you had to do, man."

He hid his relief under his most annoying grin. "Worked, too, didn't it?" he asked, waggling his fingers. "Dean Winchester. It's the cure for what ails you."

Sam huffed, snickered, and set out at a slower pace. They worked their way through low branches and hanging vines, over treacherous rocks and gnarled roots, until they skidded down the embankment and out of the woods. The fading sunlight there showed what the shadows had hidden: Sam had weakened further as they pushed on.

"Hey," he said, stopping Sam with a hand on his chest, "can I find it from here?"

"Yeah." Anyone else would have missed the guilty relief that flickered across Sam's pinched face. He pointed upstream. "See that fallen tree? There's a cave in front of it. She's somewhere inside, but all she showed me was the entrance."

"She probably didn't go too far in." He squinted up the river, assessing how much time the short hike would take. "You, uh, need another hit before I go?" he asked, holding out his hand.

Sam let out a bitter, edgy chuckle. "Gotta learn to deal on my own, big brother." He shrugged out of the blanket still around his shoulders. "Go on. I can handle it."

He took the blanket that wouldn't warm her either, adjusted the bag on his shoulder, and halted at an unwelcome thought. Holding his hand, dodging behind his legs when Sam startled her...there was one thing left that could make this job worse.

"Do you think she understands?" he asked.

"What, that she's a ghost?" Sam responded bleakly. He was suddenly struck by how much his brother had aged since he left school. He wondered how much of it was the psychic attacks, and how much was the hunter's life itself.

"Dunno, but she understands you're going to take care of her. That'll be enough," Sam finished. "Go. It's almost dark."

The clean scent of the pristine water mingled with the earthy smells and evergreen aromas of the forest as he strode up the bank. The last of the fading sunlight dappled the stream and painted the pale bark of the beech trees; white cowbane flowers decorated the riverbank and brilliant red, orange, and yellow leaves crunched under his boots. Two weeks ago, this place would have been postcard-perfect. Even now, it was the sort of spot you'd go to bid a last farewell to summer, a place you could take a girl for a picnic without feeling hokey. It was harmless. It was pretty.

Sam's lips had been blue with cold.

He ducked under the lintel of the cave's archway just as the sun slipped from view. She didn't appear when he called out, and if ethereal little fingers wrapped around his inviting hand, he couldn't feel it. No instinct led him to the niche where she had huddled away from the cold, and the shiver that ran through him when his flashlight's beam fell across her skull was no more or less eerie than ever. He quickly tucked her remains into the blanket and left without looking back. Nothing in there that he could see.

It was almost as dark outside the cave as in; there was no artificial light for miles and clouds hid the moon. Three steps down the riverbed, he realized that the extra flashlight was still in the duffel. He jogged back as fast as the rocky terrain allowed, holding the little bundle awkwardly in one arm. No way in hell was he going to stick her into a bag reeking of lighter fluid and gritty with spilled salt.

"Sammy?" he called when he thought he'd reached the place where he'd left his brother.

"Here," came Sam's voice from the side.

He turned to see Sam sitting on a log that was green with lichen and topped with bitter nightshade. His wan, hollow-cheeked face was almost spectral in the flashlight's dim ray.

"Forgot to leave you this," he said, tossing Sam the light and keeping his distance.

"I'm not afraid of the dark." Sam popped the light into its lantern position, looked at the blanket, and swallowed. "Guess I'm not crazy, huh?"

"No one said you were, Sammy." He took one inquiring step forward, and waited.

"It's okay. I can't feel her." Sam beckoned him over with his chin. "Don't know what that means." Waving at his head, he added, "I've been trying to close some of the cracks, but it's a...work in progress."

"You mean, you can still feel the trees," he said. "Is it bad?"

Sam shrugged and fisted his hands to keep them from shaking. "I don't need another hit, if that's what you're asking."

"It wasn't." He set down the bag and, with Sam's silent permission, joined him on the log. "Sam, I get where you're coming from, but you don't have to play it like this. I'm not gonna start tucking you into bed with milk and cookies every time you"--he rummaged for a better description than 'flip out when bad shit gets into your brain'--"get hurt on the job."

Sam squinted at him with his own special brand of emo. "You will if I ask you too," he countered, and yeah, okay, that was true. "Anyway, that's not what this is about," Sam said, touching the blanket. "You shouldn't have to worry about her and me too."

He closed his eyes for a second under the weight he spent his days denying, then shook it off. "I can handle it, dude."

"I know." Sam bumped their shoulders together and stood up. "You didn't sense anything back there, right?"

"Zilch," he confirmed, also rising.

"Good. If you can't feel the trees, I don't think they can feel you." Sam picked up the bag and tossed him the flashlight. "You should lead."

You didn't have to be psychic to get creeped out as they climbed into the pitch-black forest--or when the flashlight dimmed. "The woods?" he asked, turning around.

Sam already had a shotgun out. "Hurry."

Palm itching for his own weapon, he added more steam. Sam stumbled along behind him, swearing when he tripped on a root or stone. The more the light waned the harder they pushed, so that they were both panting with exertion when he shoved past the yew at the end of the trail and crossed into the grove. The light faded to uselessness.

He tightened his hold on the bundle in the crook of his arm. "Gun, Sammy," he demanded.

Sam twisted free of the needles snagging on his jacket and hefted the shotgun. "Toss," he said.

He tossed. The gun passed the flashlight mid-arc in the air and landed, heavy and reassuring, in his hand. The light died the instant Sam's fingers closed around it.

"Goddammit!" Sam dropped the light and scrabbled in the bag for the other gun.

He swung his weapon around in a 180 and tried vainly to see the path they'd taken on their way in. They couldn't get lost if they stayed within earshot of the river, but blundering around off-trail in full dark might push Sam back over the edge. Or scare her into trying to make contact.

"Huh," Sam said from behind him.

"What?" He turned around just in time to get damn near blinded by white light.

"Sorry." Sam pointed the halogen beam of the spare flashlight downward, grinning sheepishly. "Must've been the batteries."

"You've got to be kidding me," he said in disbelief.

Sam shrugged, stowed both guns, and swept the light around. "Path's over there," he said, without moving toward it.

"You see something?" he asked.

"No. I was thinking, the door's still in my head." Sam grimaced and brushed with scratched hands at a few sticker-burrs clinging to his jacket; he looked like every bush and bramble between here and the river had snagged on his clothes. "Maybe me and her can switch again before we..." Before we bury her in an unmarked grave in an abandoned cemetery. "I'll try when we get there," he amended.

"You'll try to turn your head into an open house for ghosts in a freaking graveyard?" he demanded incredulously. "Forget it, Sam. I don't need to talk to her."

"It'll be okay." Sam peered out into the darkness, shook his head a little, and turned back to him. "I'm not doing it for you, Dean."

He should have argued harder. Instead he said, "All right," and headed across the grove.

Sam stopped him before he set foot on the outbound path. "I'll carry her from here."

"Huh?" he asked, oddly reluctant to relinquish his burden. "Why?"

Sam looked around the grove one last time, vicarious fear still on his face, and offered a lopsided grin. "Just in case."

He scanned the trees again himself, felt for a breeze or draft around him, and sensed nothing. He let Sam take the bundle anyway. They made the rest of their way back to the car in silence, Sam carrying her and the bag, and him lighting their way with the flashlight. Sam's eyes continually darted around them, but never landed on anything.

He kept his hand down at his side, just in case.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Continued in "Miles to Go."

Comments and feedback of all kinds are welcome. If you enjoyed, all my stories may be found here.

"A Matter of Principle"

2008-01-29T01:20:29Z

Title: A Matter of Principle
Rating: PG
Category: Gen.
Characters: Sam, Dean, Original Character, and a bit of John.
Word Count: 5300
Summary: Wherein a school administrator from days past nearly blows Sam and Dean's cover.
Author’s Notes: The setting is post-'Nightshifter/'Folsom Prison Blues.' Thanks to just_ruth for superfast beta and the title idea.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Generic warning on all of my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Guymon, Oklahoma

"Agent Kennerly, have we met before?" Beverly asked, peering up at the taller of the two men. "You look familiar."

He tensed, almost imperceptibly, but you learn to read body language in her line of work. "I don't think so, ma'am," he answered, glancing over at his partner.

"Ms. Jackson, we don't want to take up your time," the other agent--Young--said smoothly as he flashed a diverting grin. It was the sort of grin you see only from a man who knows he's attractive enough to exploit his looks openly and get away with it.

"You mean, you don't want me to take up your time," she said with a quirk of her own lips. "I apologize, Agents. How can I help you?"

"Just a few questions. How long have you been the principal here?" Young asked.

"Three years, since I moved into the area. I don't know Adam's family well, if that's what you're asking." She tilted her head at him. "Your colleagues two days ago were adamant that this didn't warrant FBI involvement. Are you here because someone is finally taking Adam's stepsister seriously?"

"All avenues of investigation are still open," Kennerly answered, deftly sidestepping the implied criticism of his agency. "What do you think she saw?"

"Not the angry spirit of Chief Longspur, obviously," she told him, "but with this town's history, it's criminally negligent to write the abduction off as a custody dispute."

"What can you tell us about old Longspur?" Young jumped in. "What's he so angry about?"

Beverly blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You know. Pioneer days, Indians, white settlers?" He waggled his head enthusiastically when she didn't pick up the thread. "Battles, atrocities, he must be hanging around for a reason."

Beverly could have let the question itself slide, but not the unseemly zest with which it was asked. "This county didn't see a single battle between Native Americans and settlers, Agent Young. The atrocity of Oklahoma is that it was a dumping ground for deported nations," she lectured. "Someone probably made up the 'avenging chief' ghost story so he can tell himself the ledger has already been balanced when tribal councils bring up uncomfortable truths about the historical origins of modern injustices."

"Sorry, ma'am." Young backed down. "We're just looking into the local lore."

"The FBI doesn't investigate ghosts, I'm sure." Beverly steeled herself and asked aloud what half the town was thinking. "It's a serial killer, isn't it? Playing some sick game?"

"Ms. Jackson, we're trying to rule that possibility out," Kennerly told her firmly. "The FBI has every reason to believe Adam will be found alive."

Kennerly had one of those sincere, honest faces, the kind you could trust. She nodded in relief…and then that nagging sense of recognition struck again.

"Agent Kennerly, I'm sorry to be an old biddy, but I have an excellent memory for faces." She squinted at his once-again guarded face, probably sealing the 'old biddy' image in the process, and tried to imagine him ten years younger. "Where did you go to junior high?"

"Junior high?" He blinked at her and then, oh my, but he would give his partner a run for his money if he smiled like that more often. "You must be thinking of someone else," he said. "I'm from Little Rock."

"And no one would call you an old biddy,'' Young added gallantly. He wasn't quite gallant enough to keep his grin from brightening when a younger, prettier woman entered the outer office in the form of Beverly's secretary, carrying an armful of mail. Suddenly he looked familiar too, but asking would have decisively crossed the 'biddy' line and come dangerously close to 'old bat' territory.

"Would you like to see Adam's file?" Beverly inquired instead, beckoning her assistant to the door of the Plexiglas partition that separated her office from the reception area. Maybe her vaunted memory for faces was nothing but false recognition.

"That's not--" Kennerly began.

"That'd be very helpful, ma'am," Young interrupted, staring at the low point of the vee in her secretary's sweater. Unprofessional, but she couldn't really fault him. Beverly had never discussed appropriate office attire with her secretary because the support staff always came by to make sure they had a full supply closet and working light bulbs on days Viv wore her pink cashmere top.

"She'll also know who you can talk to about the legend," Beverly added before making the introductions. "Gentlemen, this is Vivian Tasso. Viv, these are Agents Malcolm Young and..."

"Sean," the other agent supplied as she stumbled over his name.

"Agent Sean Kennerly," Beverly finished. "For some reason, I thought it was Sam."

Kennerly froze, and his partner, who had just managed to look Vivian in the eye, jerked his head around. The two exchanged a glance before Young said easily, "He's gotten called that before, actually."

Young idly stepped over to study the plaques on her wall after she sent Viv for the file. "You said you've been here three years, Ms. Jackson?" he asked. The question was casual, but a weird tension charged the air.

"That's right," she replied. She could feel Kennerly scrutinizing her as she trained her eyes on his partner. "I moved here from Michigan."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "You got fed up with the Michigan drivers?"

"I got divorced," she said curtly.

"Hmm." Young pursed his lips and joined his partner in silence.

"Every year, one of my students wants to be an FBI agent," she said when the silence got long enough to be uncomfortable. "I tell them it's not like what they see on TV."

Young turned away from his perusal of her bookcase. "No, ma'am. Everyone thinks we're profilers, but the Bureau mostly needs lawyers and accountants." He'd had this conversation before--the words were rote enough to have come from the FBI's website. "I'm a CPA, but adding numbers all day? Whew," he finished, with a whistle and another disarming, if forced, grin.

"What about you, Agent Kennerly?" she asked of his partner, who barely looked old enough to be out of college.

"I started in law," he said, and she moved her estimate of his age up as a shadow passed over his eyes. "It turned out that I wasn't meant to be an attorney."

The two men thanked her when Viv reentered the office with the file and turned to leave, both of their shoulders still rigid with tension. Kennerly bent down to murmur something into his partner's ear as he accepted Adam's file; Young nodded and turned to Vivian with a far more perfunctory version of his earlier smile.

Beverly turned away as the phone rang. When she glanced back she saw Kennerly bracing himself against the desk, head hung down, pinching the bridge of his nose. Young had him by the upper arm. Their eyes met through the glass, and another flash of recognition sparked in the back of her mind before he broke the connection and hustled his partner out of the room.

She stuck her head out the door as soon as she finished her call. "What happened?" she asked.

"Migraine, he said," Vivian answered. "My sister gets them, but they never come on that fast."

"The man could barely stand on his feet," Beverly pointed out, looking after them. "How can he be a field agent?"

Viv shook her head. "I don't know. But quick as his partner moved--that wasn't the first time it happened."

And it wasn't the first time Beverly had seen those two: she was certain of that.

~ ~ ~

Much later, after the jubilation at Adam's return had died down, some combination of the faces and words sparked her memory.

"Sam, the office isn't getting an answer at your house," she remembered saying as she hung up the phone on the nurse's desk. "Is there somewhere else we can reach your mom? Or dad?" she added belatedly. The product of an unbroken home and a wife who'd just celebrated her twenty-fifth anniversary, she hadn't been as sensitive to that sort of thing as she should have been.

Sam's head snapped up. "Ms. McHugh already called for my brother."

"Cheryl?" she asked the nurse.

"I called the high school. Sam said he's a junior there," Cheryl explained. "Sam, we need an adult. A parent or stepparent"--Cheryl was divorced--"or a guardian."

"My brother has power of attorney," Sam answered quietly. His lip twitched and he exhaled steadily as Cheryl finished wrapping the temporary pressure bandage over the gash across his forearm, but he was putting up a better front than the other two boys had. Then again, he wasn't hurt as badly.

Boots pounded up the hallway, and an older teen slammed through the door. Spiked black leather bracelet, she remembered, a rock-band T-shirt, pretty face and tied-back long hair that he wore like a dare. He had to have come from the other side of the double campus at a dead run, but exertion wasn't what quickened his breathing.

"Sammy, what happened?" he demanded, casting a quick look at Sam and a harder one at the boys on the other two cots.

Sam caught his gaze and then flicked his eyes toward Beverly.

The other boy turned to her at once. "I'm Sam's brother, Dean," he said with a smile so smooth that she almost thought she'd imagined the raptor's gaze he'd leveled at Sam's opponents. Almost.

"Mrs. Williams, the principal," she answered. "Sam got into an altercation"--the school board apparently believed that if the word 'fight' was driven from school grounds, the act itself would soon follow--"with two of his classmates. His arm needs stitches."

"He's current on his tetanus shot," Dean informed Cheryl, who looked vaguely taken aback at both his possession of the knowledge and its cool delivery. "What'd they get you with, Sammy?"

"I told them about the tetanus shot," Sam said with the world-weary tone of a kid barreling towards full adolescence. "Hunting knife, six inches."

Dean lifted an eyebrow; Beverly mused that there was no more eloquent statement on the nature of their school district than that Sam could identify the weapon so easily, and Dean didn't ask what it was doing in a middle school. Instead he reached out to nudge up Sam's chin, studying the bruise blooming on his cheekbone. The gesture was deft and oddly practiced, and Sam obediently lifted his face for inspection, as if he were used to it.

"Beverly," she heard from behind her. She turned to see her assistant in the doorway. "The brother's authorized. He must be eighteen."

Frowning, she took the file he proffered and turned back to the Winchester brothers.

"Anything else?" Dean was asking.

"Just scrapes and bruises," Cheryl answered, though the question hadn't been directed to her.

Sam's eyes flicked subtly downward this time, and Dean let him go. "Good thing this didn't happen a couple weeks ago, huh, Sammy?" he said, clapping his brother on the shoulder.

"Dad's going to be mad, isn't he?" Sam whispered, sounding for the first time like a kid his age should.

"That you lost a knife fight with two eighth-graders and dragged me out of English class to get you stitched up? Yeah, kiddo, he's going to be mad." Dean ruffled his hair. "Next time you want to ditch school, I'll write you a note."

"I didn't lose," Sam said defensively, to dead silence from the other two cots.

"Yeah?" Dean smirked at the other boys. "You can tell me about it in the car." He turned back to her. "Mrs. Williams, there's a clinic near our place that can do the stitches. Can we go?"

She nodded agreement. "I still need to talk to your father. Is there another number where he can be reached?"

"It'd be better if I told him," Dean said, pouring on the charm. "He'll call you first thing in the morning."

Her eyebrows shot up. "There's an automatic suspension for fighting, young man. He'll be in my office first thing in the morning."

"Yes, ma'am." Dean mussed Sam's hair again. "I'll get the car, Sammy. Meet me up front."

Beverly listened to the booted feet going off in half-jog, a teenager doing adult's job. She belatedly checked Sam's file, expecting some emergency release form. Instead she found the document Sam said she would: full power of attorney. She couldn't have kept Dean from taking his brother if she'd wanted to.

She walked Sam out of the nurse's office, away from the baleful glares of the other two kids, to the front of the school. "You want to tell me what happened now?" she asked.

Sam shrugged. "I got into a fight."

She sighed and looked at the POA form again. The notarization date jumped out at her: January 24, 1997, her wedding anniversary. Less than a month earlier; that explained Dean's comment back in the office.

"That's him," Sam said as a black muscle car rumbled up the drive. He shouldered his backpack with his good arm and looked to her for permission.

"Go ahead," she said. "And Sam, tell your father he can come by at eight-thirty."

He hesitated, biting his lip, then nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She walked over to the high school to talk someone into giving her Dean's file, and got an earful of stories with it. Looking over the boys' records that night left her surprised they hadn't been in more trouble. The two were lucky if they only moved once during the school year; sometimes it was twice or three times, and their father had withdrawn them from school entirely mid-year when Sam was eight and Dean was twelve. Under other circumstances Sam might have skipped third grade; instead he had to repeat it, and that explained why Dean was eighteen and still a junior. Sam's grades showed he had potential, but Dean was an "at-risk" kid. She doubted that he'd be back the next year.

She snorted to herself. It was virtually certain that neither of them would be back here the next year.

Dean's date of birth caught her eye as she closed the file: January 24, 1979. She flipped back to the power of attorney form: January 24, 1997.

Somehow, she doubted there'd been cake and candles when they got back from the courthouse.

~ ~ ~

She half-expected to see Dean in her office the next morning, but John Winchester was waiting when she arrived.

"How does Sam's face look?" she asked as they sat down.

"My son is the one with the cut arm," he corrected her. Confusion must have crossed her expression, because he added easily, "The bruises aren't that bad."

She looked him over. His eyes were reddened with fatigue and his chin had the appearance of a hasty shave. His shirt was ironed but creased, as if it had been folded up in a drawer--or a suitcase. Wherever this man had come from, it hadn't been his home.

"Do you work nights, Mr. Winchester?" she asked.

"My hours aren't as regular as I'd like," he answered. "Fortunately, Dean's very responsible."

"If by 'responsible,' you mean, he doesn't get caught," Beverly riposted, gesturing to the folders on her desk.

Winchester offered her a bland smile. "Dean says there's some kind of suspension. Does this go on Sammy's permanent record?"

That was it: no argument about who was at fault, no protestations that his son was really a good kid, nothing of what she'd soon hear from the other parents.

"It's the three-day kind of suspension, Mr. Winchester," she said dryly. Waving at the folders again, she added, "And it doesn't look like either of your sons has much of a permanent record."

Sam's father lifted his eyebrows politely and didn't rise to the bait.

Beverly knew a brick wall when she hit one. "I have the discretion to keep a first offense out of his file unless it's appealed to the school board," she said in response to his question. "You have that right, but students have a code of silence about fights. I doubt we can find anyone who'll say Sam was defending himself."

"I doubt that he was," Winchester replied. "Three days is fair punishment. We won't appeal it, as long as there's nothing else."

"Like what?" she asked.

"An apology," he said bluntly. "Sammy would be demanding home schooling, and I'd rather let someone else deal with him thirty hours a week."

Beverly refrained from either asking how many hours a week he currently spent dealing with Sam, or pointing out that he'd do well to find someone else to look after Sam in his absences if he wanted him to stay out of trouble. The man could legally leave Sam alone with his brother for as long as he liked, and Dean was the high school's problem, thank God, not hers.

"There won't be anyone to apologize to. The other two boys already had records; they'll be expelled."

He grinned. "After their parents have appealed to the school board?"

"Probably," she conceded. She slid a form noting the disciplinary action over to him. "I'll need you to sign this, if you would," she said.

Light caught a wedding ring on his finger as he reached for the paper. She subtly checked Sam's file again--no mention of a mother in his record. A father's new marriage could go a long way in explaining why his sons were acting up.

"Mr. Winchester, I don't mean to be forward," she probed, "but we need the contact information of anyone authorized to take Sam off-campus. Shouldn't your wife's name be here?"

His face closed off. "I'm a widower," he answered, pushing the signed form back.

A recent one too, by the look of it. Beverly could have said any number of things about support groups and grief counseling and resources available to help the boys, but it would have been a waste of her breath and his time. Instead, she just gave the universal signal that a meeting is over: "Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Winchester?"

He looked her over thoughtfully. "Yeah," he said. "Be straight with me, Mrs. Williams. You and me"--she cringed inwardly at his grammar--"both know this is a bad area. With these two boys gone, you're expecting fewer schoolyard 'accidents' this year, aren't you?"

Most parents would have made that point before discussing the suspension. Beverly figured she owed him an honest answer for that, if nothing else.

"Yes," she responded, and saw him lift an eyebrow at her candor. "But to be straight with you, Mr. Winchester, the school board considers it a matter of principle. The day we rely on students to keep order is the day we admit that we've given up doing it ourselves."

Her intercom buzzed. "Officer Calder is here," said her assistant, who was probably as pleased by the prospect of never saying those words again as she was about not hearing them. "He says he can't wait."

"Of course he does," Beverly answered wearily. "Send him in."

Sam's father took his cue. "Sam will see you on Monday, then. I'll find a few ways to keep him busy in the meantime."

She couldn't help but ask, "Those ways will not include meditating upon the wrongs of fighting in school, will they?"

"I'm not happy with Sammy right now, and he'll hear about it." Winchester picked up his coat. "But with all due respect, Mrs. Williams, one thing I'll never tell my boys to do is walk away from someone who needs help."

The door banged open and Rob Calder's father stormed in, wearing his full trooper's uniform and a choleric expression. He nodded at her with the strained civility he wore when forced to address someone with her skin color as a peer rather than a suspect, glared at the office's other occupant, and pointedly let the door slam shut. Beverly sighed inwardly.

"You Winchester?" he demanded.

"Yep," Sam's father told him. He didn't ask for a reciprocal introduction.

"Name's Calder," Rob's father told him anyway, looming in and using to full advantage the height and bulk his son was inheriting. "Do you know what your son did to my kid?"

Winchester planted his feet apart, chin tilted up. "Nope," he answered cheerfully. "Is he the concussion or the broken wrist?"

Beverly sighed again. Calder was a fool if he thought that Winchester would be intimidated, but if he'd guessed the man wasn't mature enough to walk away from a staring match, he was right.

"Mr. Winchester," she called.

He turned back to her, a smirk playing across his lips. "Ma'am?"

"Please tell the younger Mr. Winchester that we will be checking up on any notes he writes for Sam," she told him.

He winked at her before snapping off a salute. Beverly could recognize the difference between a trained salute and an imitation one; if nothing else, virtually everyone of her race and generation had seen a color guard give the real thing over a flag-draped casket. The crisp motion showed Winchester to be a man who could be dangerous if he wanted, not one who wanted to look dangerous. Calder's bravado faded, and he backed down.

Winchester smirked again. "Mrs. Williams," he said by way of farewell as he reached for the doorknob and looked back to Calder. "Didn't anyone ever tell you to take off your hat in a lady's presence, son?" he fired as a parting shot.

~ ~ ~

She had names, then, but no reason why they were here, carrying forged government badges. Beverly booted up her old desktop and started looking.

Twenty minutes later she pushed back her chair, sickened by what that smiling young man had become and what he had led his little brother into. They didn't go after children, that part made no sense, but Viv had clearly caught Dean's eye, and God knew who else they'd charmed into trusting them. She reached for the phone, thinking of Dean's mocking smirk in his mug shot, thinking of brutalized young women.

And then she thought about the ten-year-old boy with a wild tale of two men with shotguns who'd snatched him from the grip of a monster. She thought of how there were more fights when the Winchesters were in her school, and fewer kids walking around scared.

She put the phone back down.

~ ~ ~

Beverly didn't believe in signs: coincidences were nothing but coincidences. But when she saw a black muscle car pull past her on her way to work, she yielded to an instinct and tailed it back to a cheap motel. Dean got out, carrying two cups of coffee and a bag from Starbucks. His head turned toward the patrol car manning one of the police department's favorite speed traps at the motel's other driveway, and he limped quickly into the room in front of him. Beverly parked a few spaces away and followed him.

"--sending the gimp on the coffee run," she heard Dean griping over the sound of the television.

"Shut up and ice it, dude, you're the one who wouldn't drink instant," came the response. It took her a minute to place the voice as Sam's--he was laughing.

She rapped on the door, causing the laughter and the TV to cut off instantly. A moment later the door opened just wide enough to reveal one side of Sam's face, fringed with damp hair. She met his befuddled gaze coolly until he opened the door wider. His shirt was half-open, but he seemed to be fiddling with the back of it instead of doing up the buttons. Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed opposite them, a rolled-up towel on a chair in front of him and one hand under the bedspread. After a second's hesitation he rose to his feet, easing his hand from beneath the covers as he stood, and Sam let her in.

"Thank you, but I won't be staying," she said as Dean gestured toward the chair. He sat back down with a groan, hoisting his foot onto the seat and settling the towel--a makeshift icepack--on his knee. Sam shuffled over to stand next to him, fastening his remaining buttons as he went.

"What can the FBI do for you, Ms. Jackson?" Dean asked.

Not find a missing child, she thought wryly. Aloud, she said, "The FBI told the sheriff that none of their agents were in this area yesterday."

Dean's face closed off, and Sam flicked his gaze over to his brother, then back to her. She still had a chance to retreat, but she'd never been one for backing down. "You had a shiner last time I saw you too, Sam. I'm sorry to see you're getting headaches now," she said, studying his wary face. "Or were you called 'Sammy' then?"

Sam's expression shifted from wary to resigned, and the shadow she'd seen in her office crossed over his face again. She realized then why she hadn't recognized him sooner. Dean looked the same except for the suit and hair: overburdened and too old for his age. His brother, though, was different. Sam Winchester had been a solemn boy; he'd grown into a haunted man.

"They're an occupational hazard," Sam said opaquely after Dean offered him a fatalistic shrug and a nod. "And I was sort of in transition."

"Most kids that age are," she responded, before discovering herself at a loss on where to go next. She had no idea how to phrase the question, and besides, she wasn't sure what answer she wanted to hear. She settled for gesturing at the flickering TV screen and asking, "Is Adam telling the truth?"

The two men exchanged another of their glances before Sam started, "All that matters--"

Alternating blue and red lights flashed in the parking lot. Sam broke off and spun around, twitching open the curtain to peer out. Silver glinted at his waistband when the tail of his untucked shirt rode up. Beverly's pulse quickened as she realized why his hand had been behind his back when he answered the door, and why his brother had kept his own hand hidden until he recognized her.

Dean's jaw tightened when he caught her looking at the rumpled bedclothes next to him. "Dude, it's just a cop with a radar gun," he said.

"Then why isn't he pulling out?" Sam asked anxiously. "Listen!"

A siren wailed on the road leading to the motel.

"Shit." Dean snapped alert, throwing the icepack to the floor. "Does anyone know you're here?" he demanded, shoving his hand under the covers.

Beverly's heart slammed against her chest.

"Does anyone know you're here?" he repeated.

Beverly had hesitated too long; a lie would be obvious. "No," she answered.

Dean yanked out his weapon and lithely unfolded himself from the chair. His face was cold, hard. Deadly. What in God's name was she thinking when she knocked on the door of a serial killer and his accomplice, trusting only a hunch and a father's decade-old promise?

He jerked his chin at her and Sam--Sam, how could he possibly obey his brother so blindly?--immediately yielded his place at the window and approached her. He didn't have his own gun out. A man his size didn't need a gun against a woman her age.

"C'mon over here, Ms. Jackson," Sam said.

He cupped her elbow and tried to usher her away from the window, from the door, from escape. When she didn't move, he laid his other hand on her shoulder and nudged her with incongruous gentleness. Mutely, Beverly stepped backward. His hands were enormous, and her bones were getting frail...

"Ms. Jackson? Hey. Beverly. Don't worry," Sam was saying. He ducked his head down until he was looming over her instead of towering, squinting solicitously. "If anything goes down, you're just going to say I carjacked you, okay? They'll believe you."

"Sam…" Dean started as Beverly looked up at him, uncomprehending.

"My turn, Dean," Sam growled. "Shut up."

"Sam Winchester, annoying baby brother of dashing fugitive Dean Winchester, carjacks middle-school principal. News at eleven," Dean intoned. "Chill out, man. It'd be silent running if they were coming for us."

A horn blasted along with the siren, which was almost upon them.

"That's a fire engine," Beverly realized. Sam released her and half-turned back to the window.

"Give the lady a prize," Dean said, dropping the curtain. "Cruiser pulled out after it. Drama queen," he shot at his brother.

Sam scooped up the soggy, discarded towel and threw it straight at Dean's head. "Dude, it had you going too."

Dean caught the towel and staggered on his bad leg. "Goddammit," he muttered. Sam wrinkled his eyebrows in a credible imitation of Beverly's best sixth-grade teacher and tilted his head toward her. Dean fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Uh, about the fugitive thing," he said, limping to the ice bucket, "Sam and me, uh..."

"I know," Beverly informed him when he faltered.

"And you still came?" Dean whistled admiringly. "Old man Williams is one stupid son of a...gun."

"He wasn't the only reason I left Flint. That would have been my third carjacking." Beverly patted her chest, as if that really could slow her heart back to normal. "For the record, Sam, a polite carjacker says, 'You old bitch.'"

Dean looked up from filling the towel with ice. "What does a rude one say?" he asked curiously.

Beverly and Sam both stared at him.

He blinked and stumped back over to the window. "About Adam," he started, pulling up the chair.

"What matters is there won't be any more missing children," Sam picked up.

"At least, none that the FBI can't handle," Dean finished derisively.

They were liars, imposters, fugitives, and God knew what else. Beverly had no reason to believe them, but she did.

"That's good," she said. She didn't thank them. Thanking them would have made real something she didn't want to believe in.

"Not to be rude," Dean said as he checked out the window, "but you might want to get while the getting's good."

Beverly hastened to the door. The last thing she wanted was for someone to remember seeing her here later, after what she was about to do.

"Speaking as a taxpayer, Agents, I'm appalled that the Bureau loses track of where it assigns its personnel," she said as Sam reached for the doorknob. "That's certainly what I'll tell your colleague when he arrives this afternoon. I assume you'll have left town before he gets in."

The two men exchanged another one of their glances. "Yeah, I'm afraid we'll miss him," Sam answered. He opened the door for her. "Thanks," he said awkwardly.

"Ms. Jackson," Dean said as she stepped over the threshold. He winked when she looked back. "Stay out of trouble, now."

Beverly was forty years past the age where a roguish grin, however handsome, could make her feel twenty again. She smiled back anyway.

She wasn't smiling by the time she reached her car. A felony this morning, and lying to an agent this afternoon would be at least a misdemeanor. Maybe she'd round it out by committing a moving violation on the way home from work.

A "Missing Child" poster with Adam's picture was tacked on the fence in front of her.

Beverly checked for the police cruiser, got out of the car, and tore it down.

~~~~~

Feedback and concrit are welcome. And Google Sam's name, 'cause I worked hard on it.

A quasi-sequel to the flashback scene, in which the fate of Dean's ponytail is revealed, is here. All my fic can be found here.

"Proposition"

2007-05-19T15:46:16Z

Title: Proposition
Rating: PG
Category/Pairing: Slash, Sam/Dean
Word Count: 100 (Drabble)
Spoilers: You'll need to have seen "All Hell Breaks Loose," pt. 2.
Summary: Angst alert. To protect the unspoiled, no further summary.

Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.
~~~~~

His little brother's hands were the hottest thing he'd feel this side of the grave, and God, he had his voice down perfect.

"C'mon, Dean, I'll make it so good for you..."

Taunting voices whispered to him--brought back wrong, not your Sammy--as Sam's palm slid up his thigh.

The voices didn't know shit.

He caught Sam's wrist. "No."

Sam's shoulders slumped. "But you want it," he protested, his face too young and vulnerable.

He nodded at Sam's soft cock, and rolled to the other side of the bed.

"Not because you want to come with me," he said.

****

Author's Notes: So. Looks like the angsty fic muse overcame my denial about the season finale. Wasn't expecting that, really.

Any and all feedback is welcome. All my fic can be found here.

"Catharsis"

2007-04-21T00:12:28Z

Author: BlueIris
Title: “Catharsis”
Characters: Sam, Dean
Category: Gen, no slash
Word Count: 2000
Spoilers: General Season Two
Summary: The drunken, angsty post-Croatoan/Hunted scene that didn’t happen.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~~~~~
“So, how are you going to do it? Knife? Gun? Smother me in my sleep?” Sam swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. “Don’t choke me, okay? I hate it when they choke me.”

He’d seen this coming, been waiting for it for a week. Maybe he’d even suggested they hit this dive bar so that he could just get it over with, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“So, I’m one of them now?” he asked.

The table between them was sticky, scarred, and laden with two overflowing ashtrays. A cheap and loud bar got you off-brand liquor and a waitress who heard ‘Leave the bottle’ more than ‘I’ll have a glass of white wine,’ not a surface that was clean enough to put your elbows on and free of some chain-smoker’s butts.

“You know what I mean.” Sam tossed back his shot, grimacing at the harsh aftertaste. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Sure, Sam. Because everyone’s decided I’m the murderer in this family, right?

A piercing shriek cut through the din behind him. He tensed, hand slipping smoothly beneath his jacket, as Sam’s head jerked up. His eyes were harder than any drunk’s had the right to be, but then, when had Winchesters ever had the right to be soft?

Sam shook his head slightly—it’s nothing—just before the shriek fell into a loud giggle. He eased his hand away from the butt of his gun and Sam went back to staring moodily into his glass.

“You want to know the worst of it?” Sam asked after another shot. “He didn’t trust me enough to give me one last order. You know, like, ‘Sam! Don’t turn evil!’” His voice rose to a bark on the last line, then dropped again. “How hard would that have been, Dean? What could it have hurt?”

He rubbed at his reddened eyes, thinking that you should get used to smoke in their line of work. “Dad trusted you, Sammy,” he responded.

“You sure?” Sam asked with the blurred-precise enunciation that only the inebriated can manage. “Because Dad told me to toddle off while the grownups decided if I should live or die. And he told you not to warn me it was coming. Real vote of confidence there, dude.”

He looked up sharply, but Sam avoided his eyes. “No one’s dying,” he answered, skirting around whatever else his brother was implying.

“Mom did. Jess did. Dad did,” and God, that was a sucker punch to the gut. He flinched, and maybe Sam caught the motion, because his next words were, “That’s my fault too, you know. That’s what Dad told me. And I told him…”

“Sam, please,” he begged.

Sam, thank God, had already cut himself off, reaching for the bottle with a soft groan. He watched his brother refill his glass, suddenly wondering if he wasn’t the only one who’d come here to get Sam drunk enough to spill his guts.

“‘Wish you hadn’t fought with me so much, Sammy. So long.’” Sam’s lips twisted before he drank again. “A fucking cup of coffee, Dean.”

“I know,” he said neutrally, wishing to God he’d been the one sent on that errand.

Braying male laughter joined the giggling behind him. Sam glanced over reflexively, and then let his gaze wander back to nothing. “Know what I was supposed to be doing this weekend?” he asked.

He shook his head, and Sam went on, “Graduating from college. Money was tight, so I was going to finish a semester early and work until I started law school.” He picked up one of the flimsy squares of paper the bar was passing off as a napkin and twisted it between his fingers. “You remember asking why I applied to so many schools when I could only go to one?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug, but yeah, he remembered. Yale, Duke, Rice, Chicago, and more, all over the country, with no rhyme or reason that he could see.

“Because for just once, I was going to have a choice. I was going to decide what to do with my life.” Sam chuckled humorlessly. “Just once. Should’ve asked for more than that, huh?”

Sam's stream-of-consciousness ramblings were hard to follow at the best of times; when he was drunk, they were unnavigable. He kept quiet and waited it out.

“Whatever the demon’s plans are for me, Dean...,” Sam threw the balled-up napkin into one of the overfull ashtrays. “If Dad made you keep it a secret, either he figured I’ll do the wrong thing, or nothing I do is going to matter for shit.”

“Sam…,” he began, and trailed off. Who the hell knew?

Sam picked up his empty glass, and set it back down. “Didn’t he say anything else? Anything?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing about you.”

“Then what—?” Sam’s eyes flicked to his. “Oh.” Comprehension, envy, and shame crossed his face in rapid succession before he looked away. “Good,” he said, blinking rapidly. “Good. He owed you that, man.”

Chairs clattered as the table of partiers behind him gathered themselves up. The crowd had thinned, he realized. He hadn’t been paying attention.

Sam’s hand shook as he poured his next drink. A few drops spilled onto the scratched formica. They’d probably still be there, dried and sticky, the next week.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. You figure that’s why he didn’t…” Sam, usually so fastidious, dragged a finger through the slopped bourbon to trace some pattern over the grime. “I mean, you figure that’s why he always shoved me off on you? He didn’t want to get attached, just in case?”

He opened his mouth to deliver either a comforting platitude or a smackdown on the kid’s self-pitying ass—whichever came out—and stopped at Sam’s shadowed expression. The face across from him wasn’t that of a little boy pleading for attention or a sulking adolescent. It was the bleak face of a man dragged down into despair by a burden he hadn’t chosen, and bleeding from wounds that would never heal. He’d never before had so much in common with his brother, and never had Sam been more of a stranger.

“Dad loved you, Sam,” he said.

“You think?” Sam’s lips curved into his despondent smile. His doodle could have been an initial, could have been a protective rune, could have been nothing. “Do you think I’m even his son?”

To some people that would be the million-dollar question, but to him, it didn’t matter. Dad knew it didn’t matter, and he’d done it anyway.

“I know you are.”

Sam looked him straight in the eye for the first time that evening. There was still no plea for reassurance in his face. No real curiosity, even.

No hope.

“How?” he asked.

“Because you’re my brother.” He raised his own glass with a grin and a wink. “And that makes you one lucky bastard.”

Sam blinked at him for a moment and then laughed, soft and melancholy but real. “Maybe it does,” he conceded, returning the toast before he drank.

He automatically tracked the movements of the last pair of drunks staggering out as he finished his shot. The waitress caught his eye; he shook his head and she leaned over the bar, scribbling out their tally.

“You didn’t deserve this, you know.” Sam said, offering him the bottle. “You’re the only one of us who didn’t.”

He accepted the bottle and poured the remaining liquor into his brother’s glass instead of his own. It’d be worth listening to Sam puking all night if he didn’t remember anything in the morning. Catharsis had gone too far; he hadn’t come here to bleed too.

“You didn’t used to be such a sloppy drunk, Sammy,” he said lightly.

“Didn’t used to be a lot of things,” Sam answered, tipping his head back to drain the last drops.

The waitress bustled over with the bill as soon as Sam finished, eager to gather up the chipped glasses, swipe at the tables with a filthy rag, and get out of this hellhole. Sam slid the empty bottle and glass over to her with sheepish eyes and a soft grin that faded as she turned away. He tried without success to pinpoint the moment when Sam’s sincerity had become an act too, wondered if Sam had even noticed it happening. Wondered if anything was real with them anymore.

“Long-range rifle would be best,” Sam said, jerking him out of his musings. He rubbed his face tiredly. “Back of the head if you can. You shouldn’t have to see it. And don't pull anything like in Oregon, you hear me? You take your shot and you go, Dean. Prom—”

“I hear you, Sam,” he interjected before his brother could finish. He’d had enough promises for one lifetime. Sam squinted at him, like he was going to push the issue, and he moved to head it off. “Let’s get out of here, kiddo. The lady wants us gone, and you’re going to be hurting come morning.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but came along docilely enough. It was all about tone with Sam. Dad never understood that.

Sam lapsed back into morose silence as they made their way back to the hotel, fumbling out of his clothes and into bed as the last couple shots caught up with him.

“Hey, Dean?” he said after the lights were turned out, like when they were kids.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What, Sammy?”

“About what I said before.” Sam’s voice was soft and slurred—he was on the verge of passing out. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d want you to look me in the face, y’know? Dying won’t be as bad if you’re there.”

“No one’s dying, Sam,” he said again. “Go to sleep.”

He waited for Sam’s breathing to fall into an even rhythm before he settled himself at the table by the door and pulled out a knife and whetstone. The soft, even scrape was a soothing as a meditative chant, and yeah, what did that say about who was the killer?

He glanced up as the sheets rustled, and then went back to his mental list. Knife. Handgun. Explosives were out—he couldn’t do that to Sam. Sniper rifle would be easiest, but…

Dying won’t be as bad if you’re there.

Yeah, Sammy. It won’t.

*****

Author’s notes
This fic simply did not want to flow, and I'm not happy with the title either. Feedback and concrit are welcome before I circulate it more widely.

"Blame, Guilt, and Forbearance"

2006-11-10T20:33:22Z

Rating: PG
Characters: Sam, Dean. No slash.
Genre: General, Angst.
Wordcount: Triple Drabble (300 words)
Summary: Coda to “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things.” Sam has Daddy!angst too, you know.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~~~~~

“You broke a glass,” Sam said, crouching next to him as he stared into the ravine. He didn’t ask; when Sam started with a non sequitur, he always filled in the blanks on his own.

“In the hospital. Because Dad and I were fighting. Want to know why?”

He looked over in fatigue and resignation. Thirty straight hours in the car, driving until the length of the country lay between them and their mother’s grave. He could feel his eyes sinking into their orbits and his skin tightening over bone like a death’s-head.

“He blamed me.” Sam picked up a dead stick from the ground. “He said he never should have let me in on the hunt, said if I’d shot it back in the cabin, you wouldn’t be in a coma. I have to take that to my grave.” He snapped the stick in two. “I hate him for it.”

Maybe Sam meant it, maybe he was just trying to get a rise out of him. Either way, he was too numb to even shake his head.

“You know what? You’re his son. If he traded his life for yours, it’s no more than a father should have done.” Sam pitched the broken halves of the stick into the trees below them. “Think he would have done the same if it had been me?”

“For the love of God, Sam,” he said tiredly, “you know he would have.”

“No. No, I really don’t.” Rising, Sam turned back to the car. “So if it’s anyone's fault,” he threw over his shoulder, “it’s mine. Dad was the demon expert, and he sure as hell thought so.”

He lowered his head to his hands as the car door slammed, bowed down by the weight of the secrets and lies, and the truths.

~~~~~
Feedback and concrit are always welcome. If you enjoyed, you can find a linked list of my fic (categorized, no less), here.

"The Worst Thing about Possessing Dean Winchester:" Five Ways that Devil's Trap Didn't Happen

2006-10-29T19:22:46Z

“The Worst Thing about Possessing Dean Winchester:" Five Ways that Devil’s Trap Didn’t Happen, 5/5
Rating: NC-17
Category: Slash
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Demon!Dean
Word Count: 5000
Spoilers: This is a post-“Devil’s Trap” story that implicitly goes off-canon at the end of the ep. No spoilers for Season Two.
Summary: "The worst thing about possessing Dean Winchester, really, was that he couldn’t hit the fucker when he got too annoying. Still, it’s a small mind that can’t find other ways to torment."
Warnings: The NC-17 rating errs on the side of caution, but the fic has some slash and disturbing content. If you’re the sort that likes more precise warnings, click on the fic and go straight down to the bottom. There are additional notes there.

The previous installments of the series are Dead Man's Switch, "Intercession," "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "Standoff." Concrit and feedback of all sorts are welcome.

~~~~~

The first thing Sam did when he swung into the car was reach for the little pistol hidden in the glove compartment. Although neither of them liked to go unarmed these days—though what Dean liked was strictly academic—Sam left his weapon behind on research trips. University libraries, even in Texas, they’d found, still ban firearms, and the likelihood of getting caught and thrown out was greater than that of encountering a skinwalker disguised as a bleary-eyed econ major or a possessed graduate student dozing on a stack of bound journals. He didn’t much care for the omnipresent smell of silver, but it wasn’t as if it could harm him.

“Eleventh hour, little brother. Find anything?” he asked in Dean’s voice. He couldn’t see anything notable in Sam’s clenched-jaw expression—Sam had been walking around with his jaw clenched so much that you’d think the boy had tetanus—but he felt some flicker of alertness from Dean before the damned irritant managed to suppress it. “You did,” he said.

Sam nodded, still clenched. “We need an isolated place. Another cabin would be good. And a lot of salt.”

He put the truck into gear. “What have you got?”

Sam flashed a piece of paper at him. “Basically, a devil’s trap powerful enough to hide a living soul. Won’t do us any good for killing it, but we should be able to ride out tonight without it finding us.”

“Seriously?”

He took the paper from Sam’s hand, stifling a grunt of surprise when he saw the design. Whatever book Sam had found had misidentified the protective circle, and it couldn’t possibly be effective anyway: over generations of recopying the runes had grown distorted and misshapen, and part of the drawing was lost entirely. Somewhere back in the sketch’s ancestry, though, someone had seen the real deal, and there was the remotest chance that someone with the right knowledge and resources could reconstruct it. Note to self: burn Penn’s Rare Books Library, slaughter Religious Studies faculty. Another errand for Dean to run.

No, he’d use someone else to run it. He'd had enough of Dean; his time with the Winchester boys ended tonight.

“I’ll be damned,” he said for Sam’s benefit. “Are you sure it will work?”

Sam clenched some more and stared out the windshield. “No. But we’ve got nothing else.”

“We’re gone, dude,” he said, thinking how much Dean deserved to die just for making him use that form of address so often. “Now leaving the City of Brotherly Love.”

Sam’s upper lip twitched.

Dean snarled and beat futilely at his mind, and the worst thing about possessing Dean Winchester, really, was that he couldn’t hit the fucker when he got too annoying. Still, it’s a small mind that can’t find other ways to torment.

“Sammy,” he said as he navigated the truck toward the freeway, “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

Sam stopped clenching and staring and twitching, took in and let out a deep breath, and looked at him with those big, soft, brown eyes that always brought out Dean’s comically exploitable mama-bear instincts.

“I know.” But Sam still flinched when he reached out to grip his shoulder; Dean’s impotent—that’s right, Dean, impotent—raging turned to anguished silence, and that was satisfying on multiple levels.

So was Sam’s latest discovery; he could go out with a nice touch of drama, which would be some compensation for the tedium the Winchester brothers had inflicted on him in the past week. Though the ‘entire week’ thing was his fault, he admitted fairly. After he’d finished with John—and finished John off—he’d left the boys to their own devices, letting them believe they’d slipped out from under his radar while he attended to other business. Once it became clear, though, that they had stopped hunting and were criss-crossing the country, going from contact to contact and library to library, he had to head off the possibility that they’d find a way to shield themselves from his perception. So he followed the beacon that was Sam back to the two brothers and slipped into Dean to watch and wait.

Maybe he needn’t have bothered with the watching-and-waiting part. He’d wanted to avoid making the same mistake that he had with John, but Sam was at such a loss to recognize the Dean who appeared after their father’s death, the Dean who wouldn’t talk and couldn’t eat and didn’t even pretend to sleep, that Sam wouldn’t have seen anything suspicious in a thing he did. Nonetheless, he spent a few days as a silent observer in Dean’s body, absorbing his thoughts and memories. He’d never before cared about Dean one way or another, except to note his utility in keeping Sam alive, but now it was a nice little bonus to soak in Dean’s despair, enjoy his frustration at Sam’s nurturing and hovering, and feed on his aching loneliness when he succeeded in shooing his brother away for a few hours. All the inactivity began to wear on him, however, and he was more than ready to bring his Dean-hosted vacation to an end the day Sam came up with something that could finally spur his brother into action.

“Hey,” Sam had said softly after returning from another library run. He took in without comment the closed curtains and the muffin that sat untouched where he’d left it that morning, next to the latte that he’d bought on the grounds that the milk at least had protein. Long since accustomed to the silence, he walked over to Dean’s chair in the darkest corner of the room.

“You doing okay, big brother?” he asked, putting his hand on the back of Dean’s neck and touching their foreheads together. He didn’t expect any answer; the quasi-embrace was what served as the weather balloon. If Dean grumbled and shoved him away immediately, Sam knew he was on an upswing; if he waited a few seconds before grumbling and shoving, he was sinking into another trough.

He hadn’t noticed any difference in Sam’s voice or touch, but Dean looked up dully. “What is it, Sammy?”

“I need you to look at something.” Sam waited for Dean’s slight nod before laying some papers and photocopies out on the table. Dean flinched when he saw his father’s handwriting in among Sam’s notes; Sam’s hand fluttered as if to touch him again, and then stopped. “These were hidden in the truck.”

Frowning, Dean scanned over the photocopies of old fire marshals’ reports and new missing persons’ announcements, yellowed newsclippings of young bereaved husbands taped next to fresh ones of older bereft fathers, handwritten tables cross-referencing names and dates. He froze, crumpling the paper in his fist, when he came to the last page. It was blank except for the underlined date, “November 2.”

“Same date Mom died,” he said.

“And Jess,” Sam reminded him.

Dean looked at him apologetically. “Exactly six months after your birthday,” he sad, flipping back through the notes. “Were they all your age?”

“They were all twenty-three, yeah. And they all went missing on their date of birth plus six months. I don’t know why that’s important, but it could explain why it’s left me alone since that night.” Sam piled up the papers, hiding the ones with their father’s handwriting from view in the middle of the stack. “Dean, I don’t think Dad wanted me to shoot hi—the demon for revenge.”

Dean flinched again. “November second is four days from now,” he said. Dread and adrenaline flooded his every cell—a welcome change from the lassitude of depression. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, thinking quickly. “Pack up, Sam. It moves through people, right? So we get on the road, we keep moving, and we don’t contact anyone until the third. Okay?”

It was the longest string of words he’d spoken since their father died. And once more damned if he could what Sam was thinking, but Dean snapped, “No, Sam. Absolutely not.”

“Dean.” Sam sat on the bed and looked at his brother with that annoying earnestness of his. “We have to. This isn’t about Jess anymore, it isn’t about Mom, it isn’t about”—his voice hitched—“about Dad. It’s not about revenge. It’s about more and more people dying if we don’t stop it.”

“And how do you think we’ll do that, Sammy?” Dean’s anger and fear were perfect: they’d make him that much easier to take. “The Colt’s gone, Dad’s gone, what the hell are we going to do?”

“The Colt was one way to kill it. We don’t know it was the only way.” Sam ratcheted up the earnestness and added a touch of resolute conviction. “We’ll leave that afternoon, but I want to go through the libraries here until then. There’s a chance I’ll find something there that we sure as hell won’t find driving around at random. Please, Dean.”

The conviction, earnestness, and pleading did it: Dean agreed. He’d possessed him as soon as Sam went out to forage for something his brother would eat. The timing was perfect—he could savor every moment of Dean’s mounting despair as the date inevitably approached. He let Sam think that Dean’s renewed appetite had come from the reinvigorating effects of knowing there was an immediate danger to fight, and that night…Well, it had been a risk, but he was so bored that he set about discovering whether Sam really would do anything for his brother.

Surprisingly, the answer was ‘yes.’

**

Dean reached new heights of obnoxiousness as they headed out to their hiding place. The boy didn’t have the force of will his father did—he probably would’ve developed it now that he was out from under John’s thumb, but that point was moot—but he was a much greater aggravation. John would turn inward, mustering his strength before making an attack and retreating again. Dean, though, continually blustered, taunted, and probed for weaknesses. Mid-drive he seized upon a new method to annoy: singing at the top of his mental lungs. He sent back a promise to carve the lyrics into Sammy’s precious skin, and either because Dean believed him or because Sam’s skin was a touchy subject, the threat bought some blessed—not literally, of course—peace for the rest of the trip.

“Another one of Dad’s holing-up places,” he explained as they pulled into the drive of the abandoned hunting cabin. Sam blinked, jerking out of a reverie, and nodded as if he hadn’t thought to wonder how Dean knew about the place. Losing his edge, not that John had ever succeeded in honing Sam to the same edge that he did his brother.

The lodge’s remoteness was perfect, but he regretted not picking someplace smaller when Sam insisted that he dump salt not merely over the cabin’s door and windows, but in a circle around the entire damn thing. He actually did it, too—the Winchesters weren’t the only ones who deluded themselves into thinking they could be a threat to him, and it’d be a nice touch to give another self-styled hunter a tip that sent him off to find one boy missing and the other’s mutilated body inside several rings of protective circles.

When he got back, Sam was sitting cross-legged inside the circle with his head bowed. It looked like he was praying with their mother’s rosary. Book-smart, Sam was. No sense at all, no comprehension of how the world really works.

“It’s done,” he said. “You okay?” Not that he cared much, but it seemed the thing to ask.

Sam nodded, holding up a finger, and murmured his way through the last decade. “Yeah,” he said when he’d finished.

“Good.” He watched Sam put away the rosary, and then went with another round of repetitious, but always effective, jabbing at Dean. “It’ll be okay, Sam,” he said. “I promised, remember? Nothing’s going to hurt you while I’m alive.”

Sam looked up, all gooey-eyed. “I know.”

Dean made another tedious effort to batter his way out, and he was hit by a sudden foreboding that Sam was about to launch into one of his awkward declarations of fraternal gratitude. Enough was enough—he marched into the circle to haul Sam off his ass and get started. Sam leveraged himself up with the arm he offered, then yanked forward hard. Stumbling, he felt a hot, stinging slash across his forearm as Sam twisted out of his grasp and out of the circle.

“What the hell?” he snarled. He regained his footing in time to see Sam shaking the knife like an aspergillum, spattering blood over the runes inked into the circle.

Runes that were different from the design Sam had shown him.

He looked down at his feet, where Sam had been sitting. Runes that hadn’t been on the design at all.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

And the worst thing about possessing Dean Winchester was that he couldn’t hit the fucker when he gloated.

“Not bad,” he said in Dean’s most careless voice. “Guess you found something in the library after all.”

Sam went for his backpack, keeping his body half-turned so that he could watch him without looking at him directly, and kept his mouth shut.

“It took you long enough to figure out it was me,” he went on, kneeling down to examine the sigils. “Dean guessed about your father in ten minutes. He’s not surprised, mind you, that it took you this long to look past your own nose. But he’s still hurt.”

“I knew after that night,” Sam said quietly.

He hadn’t expected Sam to answer at all. This could be good. “Which night, Sammy? The night Dean hammered you unconscious?”

Sam set his jaw—again—and didn’t answer. He kept going, relishing the chance to torment the boy openly.

“That first time, Sammy? I think it was sweet. Dean thinks it’s the only time in your life that you did something just for him. Didn’t take too long for it to become all about Sammy, but even so, it was a nice gesture.”

And it had been so easy: ‘Sammy, I need...just this one thing. Just this once. Please.’ At first Sam drew back, shocked and reluctant, but when he sank to his knees, it felt like a lot more than fraternal duty. He’d eased Sam into it, running Dean’s fingers through his hair and muttering first the good-natured insults that substituted for expressions of approval and praise when Sam was an adolescent and needed a father, and then, softly enough that Sam wouldn’t be sure he’d heard them, the endearments Dean had used when they were very young and he was trying to be the mother they both needed. Sam had cringed from the sickness, but once he’d given in…well, Sam had youth on his side and he had centuries of experience on his. It had gone on for hours, and he’d made sure Sam loved every dirty minute of it.

“It was a little more contact with you than I really wanted, Sammy, but it was worth it to see John Winchester’s boy yowling like a cat in heat with his own brother’s tongue up his ass, begging for the fuck of his life.” Sam flinched, and he pushed on, “And it was, wasn’t it? The fuck of your life. You’ll never be able to get it out of your head.”

Sam winced again, and dug into his backpack. He studied the runes more thoroughly. The circle might be breakable, but not easily. Especially not with Dean fighting him in earnest.

“So, what’re you gonna do, try an exorcism?” he asked as Sam began inking another pattern around the one confining him. “Waste of your time, Sam. And your brother. It won’t kill me.”

A heartbeat passed before Sam lifted his head to look him straight in the eye. “It killed your daughter,” the Winchester boys said in unison.

He snarled, jerking around to turn his back to Sam, nostrils flaring as he brought under control the annoying adrenal responses that came with emotion when he possessed these creatures.

“If there was ever a ritual that could destroy me,” he said, turning around and sounding as neutral as he could after that embarrassing display of weakness, “it’s been gone for centuries.”

“Not gone,” Sam answered, kneeling just outside the circle. “Rare.”

He felt an unfamiliar, unpleasant shiver of anxiety as Sam sketched an intricate pattern on the floor, and tried to bring the conversation back under control. “All right, Sam,” he said, going for the obvious, “you know what I want.”

“Yes,” Sam responded quietly.

He turned with Sam as he moved around the circle, and he did not like the looks of that design. “Well? You know the drill: you come with me and Dean walks out of here, goes on with his pathetic life. I won’t touch him.”

Sam didn’t answer.

“Do we have a deal?” he pushed.

Sam kept his head bowed as he began painting over the penciled lines with black ink. “No deal.”

“Seriously?” he asked, genuinely surprised. “Ouch. That’s cold. After everything he’s done for you.”

“You’re lying.” Sam’s hand faltered, and he gripped the brush tighter. “This isn’t about me.”

“Huh.” He raised an eyebrow even though Sam wasn’t watching, because he’d picked up Dean’s stupid habits while inhabiting him. “That’s the first time Dean’s ever heard you say that.”

Sam shook his head. “You’ll take me if you can get me, but you care more about getting revenge on him.” He took a deep breath. “No matter what I do, he won’t leave here alive.”

“What, you’re not even going to try to save him?” He flashed Sam a shark-toothed grin when he looked up again. “You’re right, he won’t. And you want to know the saddest thing about Dean, Sammy-boy? You’re going to run, leave him to die alone, and he’s glad. He’s trying to figure out how much time he can buy you.”

“I’m not going to leave him,” Sam told him, and something in his voice made that unpleasant anxiety ramp up a little higher.

“What tipped you off?” he asked, still keeping his tone casual.

Sam’s face flooded a dull brick-red. “The last time.”

“Ah. The last time.” He smirked. Credit where credit was due—Dean had a good range of smirks. “When you went from blushing virgin to screaming for your big brother to fuck you harder?”

And screaming more than that. Sam had put up an unexpected resistance when he tried to get to the actual fucking part of the evening—‘This is sick, Dean, this is too far’—but by then he’d been stroked, licked, and fingered into a near-Pavlovian reaction to Dean’s touch there. A little tongue action—it was Dean’s tongue, what did he care?—and Sam was more than ready. And once he had Sam on his hands and knees, rocking with the slow, relentless thrusts of Dean’s cock, it was so easy for a few words to prompt him, a few questions to get him to babble what he wanted Dean to hear—‘Dean, Dean, I’m burning up, I need it, I’m on fire, Dean, I’m gonna die if you don’t….’ Dean had retreated to mulish silence in whatever corner of his brain was still left to him, but he couldn’t escape the feel of his own firm hand holding Sam in place when his writhing turned to near-struggling or the sound of his own voice whispering ‘It’s okay, Sammy, trust me, I’ll take care of you, little brother,’ and he’d felt every last shiver of orgasm when he’d let go just as Sam’s cries stilled and his body went limp.

“Yeah.” Sam looked down again. “It lacked subtlety.”

He was going to tear Sam’s tongue out just on principle, but he was right. “So does Dean,” he commented, a point that Sam did not contest as he began marking a pentagram around his symbols.

And no, he didn’t like the looks of that at all.

“He’s going to burn your sorry ass,” Dean chortled.

He swatted the little shit down again and went back to tormenting Sam. “Dean was disgusted, you know. Repulsed. Not just by the incest, but by the rest of it too.” He colored his tone with the disapproval Sam had heard so often from John, but never from his adored older brother. “He thought you were more of a man than that. And think of your father, Sam. He never much cared what you did as long as it didn’t interfere with the Winchesters’ futile little quest, but this? It would kill him.” If I hadn’t done it already, he left unspoken.

Sam jerked his shaking hand away from his runes just in time to keep from splattering ink on the design, and he pressed his advantage. “Speaking of John Winchester: remember that unsubtle moment when you were whining about the burning and how you couldn't stand any more? That’s how your father died. The burning was literal, though. Dean was thinking of that as he came, right when you were passing out.”

Sam turned away, retching, and he let Dean’s near-military posture slouch in annoyance. “So weak. Dean would have come in here and tried to shut me up instead of puking in a corner. His own fault for always protecting you when John tried to toughen you up.”

He grinned at Sam’s back, knowing he could hear the smile in his voice. “Ever wonder why he did that? Pathetic as he is, he always took care of you because he wanted someone to love him. And look how you turned out. God, he’s disappointed in you.”

Sam turned back around, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Don’t bother.”

“Too tough for you to hear?” he taunted.

Sam gave him a disgusted look. “You can’t hurt him like that. You can’t feed me that crap and make him think I believe it.”

“Sammy-boy, you are seriously underestimating his self-esteem issues.”

Sam looked into his eyes but somehow past him, and he wondered for the first time if Sam could see his brother. Maybe, in his disgust at Sam’s whiny refusal to develop his gifts, he’d underestimated their strength.

“Let’s get this out of the way,” Sam said. “Dad stuck Dean with me way too much, and sometimes I was a total brat, and he thinks that sometimes I’m still a total brat. It hurt him like hell when I left, he thinks Dad fucked up some but I still owe him more respect, and he feels guilty as hell about it, but he’s a little bit relieved that Dad died because that fucked up the last of our lives so bad that he thinks I wouldn’t leave him after that.”

He was breathing harder. “My dad and me, there was unfinished business there. There isn’t with Dean. You’re not going to hurt him by feeding me some lie and making him think I believe it,” he repeated, “and you’re not going to hurt me by telling me what I already know.”

Irked, he seized on the one exploitable thing in Sam’s little speech. “He thinks you wouldn’t leave him? Sounds like you would.”

“I would’ve stayed as long as he needed. And then…” Sam did the looking through his eyes thing again. “I wasn’t going to live in the Impala forever, but I swear, man, we would’ve found something that worked for both of us.”

Sam knelt back down to his design, moving with more purpose, as if he was steeling himself to wrap things up. “He believes me, and I’m not going through the rest of it for your fucking entertainment.”

And the hell of it was, the little bastard was right.

He watched Sam finish the drawing, trepidation mounting with each line, and tried another tack. “Forgot to wish you a happy birthday, Sammy. Twenty-three and a half.” He cocked Dean’s head inquiringly. “You know that you’ve never been the hunter that your father was. Or Dean. Without them, do you think you’ll see twenty-four?”

Sam shrugged indifferently. “No,” he said, eliciting a satisfying inward howl from Dean. “How many of your children do you think I’ll take out first? Their numbers aren’t legion, you know. Not as many as I expected, even.”

“What would you know about it?” he asked sharply.

Sam dug a set of squat black candles out of his bag, and oh yes, he knew what he was doing. It had to be a bluff: Sam knew that while he would still be bound within the circle, he could leave Dean before the ritual was complete. And then he was going to break the holding spell somehow, because damned if he was going to stay here, trapped inside a ring of discounted Halloween candles.

“The ones on Dad’s list—the ones like me.” Sam moved around the circle, arranging the candles. “Some of them showed up dead, some of them disappeared for good. Maybe there’s something about us that lets us fight off possession, or maybe you killed them because they just got too annoying to hold on to. Bet Dean’s driving you crazy right now, isn’t he?” A smile ghosted across Sam’s face, and he swore internally that one way or another, that’d be the last smile Sam ever gave anyone. “But the ones who were never found aren’t dead. They chose to go with you. And yeah, I’ll find them.” The smile turned icy cold as Sam finished, “Demons can vanish into thin air, but their hosts can’t.”

“Huh,” he said, lifting an eyebrow not out of habit, but to torment Sam with the familiar mannerism. “Not bad, Sammy. You’re smarter than your father. Smarter than Dean, too, but that’s not saying much, is it?”

“Maybe.” Sam focused his eyes on him. “He always was a better shot, though.”

It was subtle, he’d give the boy that. He snarled, finally abandoning the pretense of unconcern as Sam set down the last candle and squared his shoulders, looking pale and sick.

“You can trap me here,” he growled, “but he’s the one you’ll destroy. And it’ll take hours, Sam. He’ll die screaming and begging you to make it stop.”

“No,” Sam said softly. “He won’t.”

He stepped up to the very edge of the circle, almost touching the invisible wall protecting him, and once more looked past the yellow eyes glowing from his brother’s face. The little bear-cub was gone; the Sam that stood there instead was resolute, grim, and broken.

“Dean...” Sam whispered.

He shifted his focus inward as Dean made another futile attempt to escape, and felt a shiver in the air as Sam crossed the plane between them. Ice-cold lips brushed his forehead, cool steel kissed his ear, and the bullet fired into Dean’s brain burned as white-hot as hellfire.

He staggered, stunned, and Sam broke his fall. As Sam clutched at him, choking out every inane banality he had heard whispered to a hundred beloved dying—‘I’m sorry, Dean, I love you, it’s okay, big brother, Dad’s waiting and I won’t be long, so sorry, Dean, I love you, I love you’—the impossible happened: he lost his grip on Dean’s life-force. By the time Sam had sunk to the floor with his brother sprawled across his lap, Dean’s soul had slipped free.

Enraged, he gathered himself together to abandon Dean’s body and this maudlin fraternal pietà—and something yanked him back. It was the bullet; he could feel it now. Blessed by holy women and men from a half-dozen faiths, it tugged at him, holding him like a magnet holds iron filings. He was trapped in Dean’s useless corpse.

No. Not a corpse. Dean’s heart was still beating, his chest was still rising and falling in shallow breaths. The bullet ricocheting through his skull had scrambled the centers of intellect and emotion, the thoughts and memories and spirit that were Dean, like so many eggs. But it had left undamaged the knots and tangles of nerves that controlled the vital functions; he was inhabiting not a dead body, but a paralyzed living one. He was ensouling the body, and Sam Winchester, that whining whelp of a jumped-up ghost chaser, had found what he’d thought lost for a thousand years—a way to obliterate a soul.

Sam hugged him, gasping in a few ragged breaths, and then cupped his cheek and searched his face. Grimly, he waited for some last mawkish gesture as Sam lowered him to the floor—a final kiss on the forehead, perhaps, and closing Dean’s eyes as he arranged him as if in sleep. Instead, Sam’s face hardened into an expression worthy of his father as he leaned down to hiss directly into his ear.

“What Jessica and my mom felt. What my dad did. What you said Dean would feel when he burned alive...” Sam’s words were clipped and vicious. “When they say someone like this doesn’t feel pain, what they really mean is, there’s no consciousness there to perceive it.”

Sam stood up and kicked him onto his side. "I’d tell you to go to hell, but you won’t make it there.”

He stared at the front point of the pentagram, Sam’s parting shot ringing in his ears. He couldn’t do a damn thing but watch as the flames sprang up when Sam began reading out the ritual, watch them flow along the complex design to form a latticework around him, watch them glint off Dean’s amulet as they rushed in to consume him.

And somewhere, Dean Winchester was gloating.

*

*

*

*

*

Additional author’s notes:
The next section is a real mood-breaker, so skip it if you like.

For the record, I’ve got nothing against the University of Pennsylvania’s faculty. It’s a great school with strengths in Religious Studies, History, and Folklore—a combination that, as near as I can tell, means that it’s the most likely place in the country to have the resources Sam would need. In Texas, the boys were at the University of Texas, Austin, which has a fantastic classics program, but I don’t know that it’s as strong in the medieval period. I’m not saying I really do know, mind you, so don’t decide where to apply to grad school based on my say-so. The boys have also visited the several universities in the Bay Area, Columbia, UCLA, the University of Michigan, Yale (using a faked letter from Stanford Library requesting access for Sam), and went back to their own hometown of Lawrence. It was a really busy month or so. Why am I rambling on about this, you ask? No special reason. I’m mostly taking up space so that the faint of heart who want to see the promised additional warnings before reading the story can avoid seeing its end. Especially people who will have a lot of text on their page because they set their lj preferences to those itty-bitty little fonts. Man, I hate that. Drives me crazy when I have to bump my browser text size up to the “My God, woman, are you blind?” setting before I can read someone’s fic.

Additional story warnings: This fic contains not-100%-consensual sex between an unwitting Sam and Demon!Dean, as well as character death.

Promo Banner and Icon

2006-10-29T00:30:59Z

A while back I posted a homemade promo banner for SPN, since the CW’s doing such a horrendous job of promoting it. Here are a couple more: a banner, and an icon. I like CSI, really, but it’s no SPN. Both the banner and icon are free for the taking, but please credit, and it'd be great if you'd let me know where they end up. For new lj users: you can credit in the "comment" section when you edit your userpics.

There. I think it’s all graphic-making is out of my system now.

Promo Banner

2006-10-21T18:45:40Z

As Kripke and fans have both noted, the show is being under-advertised, and word-of-mouth is the best way to gain more viewers. The banner is my contribution. Use it. Spread it far and wide. Slap it on your website, post it on your own lj, blow it up and make a bumper sticker out of it. If you use or circulate it I'd love to hear about it or get links to its new home, so I know how it's snowballing. But borrow freely whether you drop me a line or not. By all means circulate it on other communities; just give me credit and/or send people here to get it. Basically, spread it and send it wherever you want, but I'd appreciate a heads-up to where I can go visit.

"The Woods Are Lonely, Dark and Deep"

2006-10-05T22:19:56Z

Rating: PG for disturbing content.
Characters: Sam and Dean. Genfic.
Word Count: 8000
Summary: A psychic encounter, fear, and a lot of angst. Sam POV.
Author's notes: This 'verse is set in an off-canon Season Two, and incorporates none of the events from "Devil's Trap" onward. The story continues from Dean's POV in "Promises to Keep," which is then followed by “Miles to Go.”
Generic warning on all of my fics: A small number of my stories contain character death. I prefer not to give away that plot spoiler in the headers, but if you like to avoid CD stories or go into them forewarned, click here to find out whether one of the Winchester brothers dies.

~~~~~

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin
October 10, 2006

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” the man crooned. “We won’t hurt you.”

She shrank back against the tree with a little gasp of terror when he took a step closer. The man was being nice now, but he had yelled in a scary deep voice and tried to grab for her when she’d slipped out of the woods.

“My name is Dean, and this is my brother Sammy, okay? You don’t need to be afraid of us.” She whimpered and hid her face against her knees, but when she looked up again, the stranger was still there. “Are you lost?” he asked.

She nodded, cowering back as he sat down on the grass in front of her. He just looked at her with kind, gentle eyes, not at all like Daddy’s, and waited for her to speak.

“Scared,” she whispered.

The man named Dean’s face got all tight. “I know,” he said, and his voice was even deeper than Daddy’s, but softer. “I know you are, honey, but we’re going to help you. Tell me what happened, all right?”

Trembling and twisting her fingers in the worn fabric of one of her sleeves, she tried to tell him, but something pushed at her.

“Dean!” she gasped, and then burst into fresh tears, because her voice sounded funny and that wasn’t what she’d meant to say.

“Sammy,” he said, his face still tight, like Mommy’s had been when she put cold cloths on her bruises. “Just wait a minute. It’s okay.”

He reached for her again, carefully, but she cringed away with a little scream. She shouldn’t have come out, she should have stayed hidden away...

“Can you tell us your name?”

She shook her head and twisted her fingers in her sleeve again. Another stranger was coming. She covered up her mouth because she couldn’t stop crying and curled up as small as she could, trying to make herself invisible.

The man looked over his shoulder, then back at her. “Stay here, honey, it’s all right,” he coaxed. “Just wait a little, Sammy…please, sweetheart, stay here.”

But the man named Dean was afraid of the stranger too, so she ran and hid back in the trees, hoping they’d all go away.

***

Sam knew three things for certain: he was lost, he wasn’t asleep, and he was scared as hell. He clawed at the thickets standing between him and daylight to no avail; he tried to follow the garbled snatches of Dean’s voice filtering through the brambles but couldn’t pinpoint its source. He kept searching anyway, afraid that if he stopped or turned around, skeletal branches would reach out to snag his clothes, catch in his hair, and drag him into the dark woods behind him.

He kept following Dean’s indistinct words until he ran up against an impossibly large, lightning-blasted oak. It was still standing, but split by a gaping crack wide enough for him to squeeze through. He hoped.

“Dean!” he shouted, shoving his way into the split. He couldn’t make it through...no, something was blocking him.

“Sammy…,” he heard, “…wait…” Damned if Sam knew what he was supposed to be waiting for, but there was no way Dean could want him to stay here, where the trees could pull him down into some nameless, maddening fear. He tried to circle around the trunk and came up short against more brambles. Something ghosted through them—the first motion he’d seen since he woke up. It should have scared him half to death, but he was already there.

“My brother…officer...give him some space...,” Dean was saying as he tried to climb through the split again.

The shadows still curled around him and didn’t want to let him go, but he struggled his way through the tree’s rotted core, into the light on the other side. A strange snap jerked him back where he’d been before he woke up in the forest: the picnic area where they’d stopped for a break. He was sitting with his knees drawn up, arms wrapped around his legs, and head tucked down. He was shaking from head to toe, his head was spinning, and he had no memory of getting from the forest to there.

“Sir...not drugs,” Sam heard. His mind was weirdly fractured: not an unfamiliar sensation, but more intense than ever before. Dean was echoing in the cracks, all sharp anxiety and a somehow off-kilter protectiveness, and so was another, unfamiliar presence.

“He’s schizophrenic,” Dean was pleading, “he has episodes sometimes. I just need to let the worst of it pass so I can take him home.”

He snapped his head up with fresh terror to see the park officer Dean was talking to looking at him. Kindness and compassion showed on the man’s face, but when Sam met his eyes, he felt pity and a vague fear of contagion. No, he had to be imagining it, because Dean was keeping the man way out of range. Hell, Dean was out of range too, even for Dean.

Choking back panic and nausea, he ducked his head back down. His cheeks were wet—fuck, his knees were damp with tears he didn’t remember crying. That he hadn’t cried, out there in the woods.

The other man withdrew, and Dean was back. “He’s gone, sweetheart, look at me, okay?” his brother asked in a tone that he hadn’t heard in...well, had never heard, because the last time he’d needed to be soothed like that was before Dean’s voice changed.

“Gimme a minute,” he grunted.

“Sammy?” Dean backed up a little bit. “Is that you?”

His tone changed a little, but it wasn’t the one he used for normal questions like, ‘Sammy, can you breathe?’, and the question itself was confirmation enough. Sam nodded, keeping his head tucked down against the bout of lightheadedness that, along with the bizarre empathic experiences, had begun following the psychic attacks--what he had thought were psychic attacks. Sam dug his nails into his palm in a futile effort to block out the rising terror. It would explain so much, he thought, but God, not that.

“You okay, dude? Getting dizzy?” Dean asked. When Sam nodded without lifting his head, his brother added gently, “Sammy, I need you to look at me now.”

Bite the bullet, Sam. Take it like a man, and a Winchester. It took every shred of his will, but Sam met his brother’s eyes.

“I’m schizophrenic?” he whispered.

“No! God, Sam, no.” Dean lurched forward and stopped when Sam flinched. “You were having an ESP thing. He thought you were tripping.”

“Jesus. Are you sure? It wasn’t a vision—it was outside my head, and everything’s too jagged now. Worse than usual.” When Dean arched a baffled eyebrow Sam repeated, “Are you sure?” Because when you might be psychotic, that sort of thing is worth double-checking.

“I’m sure,” Dean told him firmly.

Dean’s ‘aura’—Sam always thought psychic terms in quotation marks, hoping for the day he could find synonyms that didn’t call to mind love beads and flower power—was way too sharp and defined. Even at a distance, he could feel subtle variations in Dean’s ‘energies’ that he’d never been able to distinguish before: concern about Sam, an urgency he was trying to suppress, and then some indefinable other worry. But it didn’t have whatever an ‘I’m lying to my brother about being crazy’ vibe would feel like. Relief hit Sam with the same force the panic had, running unchecked through all the open spaces in his head. A giddy, almost hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up, and he jammed his hand against his mouth to keep it in.

“Sammy!” Dean lunged forward again like he was expecting Sam to go somewhere.

Sam held up a warning hand. He didn’t have enough control during the empathic fits to block Dean’s emotions out, and kept him at arm’s length until they passed because it was the only way to respect his privacy. Also, because Dean in his head was a whole lot of Dean. Sam loved his brother, but it was possibly more Dean than any one person needed.

“I can still feel you,” Sam told him. “And I felt that cop. No way should I have been able to feel that cop.” He pushed the heels of his hands against his temples, as if he could shove the misaligned pieces inside back into place. “And it wasn’t a dream or a vision—I was there.” A lingering flicker of fear suddenly expanded through his head like the relief had done, echoing and swelling instead of dissipating. Sam folded himself over again, trying not to hyperventilate. “Dean,” he choked out, “this one is really fucking me up.”

“You’ll be all right, Sammy,” Dean told him, in the tone that Sam couldn’t help but believe. “I’m coming closer, okay?” Without waiting for permission, he moved up to Sam’s side. Sam felt him reaching out before he made contact, like a psychic infrared camera picking up a halo of body heat. “It’s okay, man. It’ll pass.”

Sam nodded and tried to ground himself by focusing on his own breathing instead of Dean’s hand rubbing in steady circles between his shoulder blades. When he was reeling and disoriented from a mental assault, it was hard not to ride it out by clinging to the solid presence that was the only source of unwavering support and love Sam had ever known. It was a slippery slope from relying on his older brother’s assistance to needing his childhood caretaker’s comfort, and at the bottom of that slope lay dependency. Sam wasn’t going there.

“Okay,” he said once his breathing was under control. “I’m good.”

The fear was gone. Maybe the jagged pieces in his head had fit back together enough to dam up his emotions before every random feeling gushed out of control, or maybe it was just Sam’s irrational but enduring conviction that while he got beaten, slashed, strangled, and occasionally mauled as an occupational hazard, nothing would actually happen to him if Dean was around.

And, ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved dependency.

“What?” Dean asked, leaving Sam to wonder what he’d said out loud.

“Just—just don’t kiss me on the forehead and tell me you love me, okay?”

A beat passed before Dean said easily, “Dude. After three straight days in the car, I can barely stand to look at you.” He shifted his hand as Sam sat up and guided him to lean against the tree trunk behind him. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“It feels like you think you already know,” Sam pointed out, because uncontrollable rambling was another joy that had come along with the expansion of his—whatever they were. Sam refused to think of them as ‘powers’ because he had as much power over psychic forces as a sluice gate has over water, and he’d call them ‘abilities’ when he was able to do something with them. Preferably, shut them off.

“Don’t do that, Sammy,” Dean said without heat. It was his fault for coming too close, and he knew it.

“Do you think I would if I could help it?” Sam griped as he settled back. The dizziness was lessening, and the feeling of dislocation was finally fading out. He wasn’t back to normal, but he was close enough to fake it.

“Look, I don’t know, but I’m working a theory.” Dean let go of his shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”

Sam reluctantly closed his eyes and tried to pull the puzzle pieces of the not-vision out of the jumble in his head. “I never got lost when I was little, did I?” he asked slowly, wrinkling his brow in concentration as he sorted them through. “Really lost, in the woods or something. The thing in Minnesota doesn’t count.”

“It should damn well count for something, with the scar I got out of it,” Dean remarked. “Eyes open.”

Sam complied. No spinning or blurring. Disorientation gone, he checked off in the back of his mind. “I wasn’t little, and that was getting abducted, not lost,” he said out loud. “And, sorry.”

“S’okay,” Dean said absently, searching his eyes for God knew what. “Let's see. Ghosts, spirits, and beasties would come from three states over to eat, suck the life-force from, otherwise consume, or abduct the larval psychic Sammy…”

“Not funny,” Sam groused. “And are you an optometrist now?” Lightheadedness gone, he noted.

“For a minute, I thought you were getting as handsome as me. Trick of the light.” Dean backed off and handed him a water bottle. “Believe it or not, the only time you got lost was in the mall when you were six. Which was bad enough, had me and Dad splitting up and doing a store-to-store sweep of the place looking for you. Little shit, wandering off like that.”

“All six-year-olds get lost in the mall. It’s a universal constant,” Sam defended himself automatically. He took a drink and dampened a handkerchief to rub the itchy salt trails from his face. Empathy gone—that was the final checkbox.

“So you were in the woods?” Dean prompted.

“Yeah.” Sam set down the water bottle. “I dozed off, a nightmare started, and then it just stopped.” Dean would know what he meant: ‘nightmare’ indicated ‘premonition’ in the Winchester lexicon, while ‘dream’ meant ‘nightmare.’ They’d never needed a word for ‘good dream.’ “I woke up in the forest, scared as hell. Woke up, not dreamed it,” he emphasized.

Dean glanced at the utterly innocuous woods, then back to Sam. “Okay. Keep going.”

Sam spread his hands, deeply aware of how much the next part would sound like he’d eaten too many chili peppers and read Alice in Wonderland before settling in for a nap. “Um, I followed your voice to this giant split tree. It took me a couple tries to get through it, something yanked me, and then I was here.” Sam didn’t say anything more about the fragmented, dissociative sensations—he was working his own theory on that, and there was no point in bringing it up until he knew more.

If Dean also thought Sam’s story called March hares and mad hatters to mind, he didn’t mention it. “Did you call me?”

“Yeah, actually, when I couldn’t get through. Sounded like you told me to wait.” He waited for confirmation; to his relief, Dean nodded. “So, what’s your theory?”

Carefully, Dean said, “I think you were doing some kind of trance channeling.”

“Channeling,” Sam repeated.

“Yeah. Somebody around here was talking through you.”

“Oh, that’s just fucking great,” Sam said bitterly. “Jesus, what's it going to be next? What’s even left?” He knocked his head back against the tree and groaned as it stirred up a final ripple of dizziness.

“You haven’t done telepathy,” Dean offered helpfully.

“Rhetorical question.” Sam sighed. Dean would probably call it a pissy sigh, but Sam figured he had the right to be pissy when crap like this happened. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dean stayed put. “You need to do it again, Sam.”

“The hell I do. If it’s important, they’ll call back.” Once he’d dropped from exhaustion, because he wasn’t going to sleep as long as he could help it. “Look, it was a bad place, okay? I’m not going looking for it.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Dean soothed. “It wasn’t you being scared.”

“The hell it wasn’t. C’mon, man, what are the odds that there’s a psychic around here?” Sam was still irrationally but emphatically refusing to accept the truth that would be conveyed by saying ‘another psychic.’ He had psychic events, yes, but that’s all there was to it.

“You switched places with a little girl out in the woods.” Impatience was pushing out comfort in Dean’s voice. “She was trying to tell me where she was, but the cop scared her off.”

“Okay, what are the odds that there’s a psychic little girl with a fear of cops doing some ‘Freaky Friday’ thing in these woods? Even lower.” Disturbingly, though, in their world it could happen.

“Listen to me.” Dean’s urgency cut through Sam’s annoyance. “Don’t you get it? She’s lost. Out there.”

That shut Sam up. Dean kept going anyway.

“C’mon, Sam, think about it. This park is the size of Rhode Island,” he said, waving his arm toward the land reserve stretching out in front of them. “God knows how many picnic spots and hiking trails. How hard is it to believe a kid wandered off a path somewhere in it?”

Not that hard, and the kid didn’t need to be psychic. The scope of Sam’s visions had expanded beyond glimpses of fellow members of the community of the supernaturally cursed—he’d find a less cumbersome description eventually—maybe they were also mutating into some godawful form involving audience participation. Or it could be channeling, but either way Dean was right: it was entirely possible that there was a kid lost in the forest, or about to be.

“Okay,” he said. Plausibility became irrelevant in the face of Dean’s conviction anyway. “But I don’t know what to do. It’s not like I’ve ever had any control over it.”

“I dunno. Think of some psychic thing. Anything.” Dean looked at Sam as if he expected him to get a blanket and pillow out of the car and curl up for a nap on a picnic table. “She’s really scared, Sam.”

“I’ll give it a shot. And it might not have happened yet,” Sam reminded him as he tried to get comfortable against the rough bark at his back and closed his eyes. Needing no sixth sense—Sam was willing to think that term without qualifying mental punctuation marks—to know what Dean was doing, he warned, “Stop staring at me.”

He started with the obvious: imagining a room in whatever part of his brain housed his ‘freaky psychic shit,’ as Dean put it, and that was a better term than anything Sam could come up with. It appeared easily, too easily for his comfort. Sam hissed out a startled, dismayed breath when the walls came into focus.

Well. Dean’s theory hadn’t been confirmed yet, but his had.

“What is it?”

“A room. Hold on,” he said, concentrating harder. Some mental lens shifted, and he was standing inside the room, not visualizing it. He ran his fingers over the uneven texture of the surface in front of him. “Um, I’m not pawing at the tree bark or anything, right?”

“Huh? You’re just sitting here.” Catching on, Dean clarified, “Whatever you’re doing is all in your head.”

“I’m touching the wall.” At least the cop wouldn’t see him performing some bizarre pantomime if he came back, but Sam would have preferred the bark answer. He imagined a door forming, and it appeared with the same disconcerting readiness as the room itself.

“Got a door. It’s closed,” he told Dean. No one there, let’s go, he wanted to say.

“Open it,” Dean urged, like Sam wouldn’t have thought of that himself.

“Dude. Don’t help.” He put his hand on the doorknob, which was as solid as the walls and door itself. “No, on second thought, grab my hand. I don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“Got your left wrist,” Dean said as Sam felt his fingers close around his forearm. It wasn’t a physical sensation, but it was palpable, and not for the first time, Sam decided it was easiest not to think about how the whole thing worked.

“Okay, here goes,” he said, and turned the knob. Cold air rushed in at the first crack. Sam gritted his teeth against his trepidation, and pulled the door wide.

He yelped and jumped backward. She was right there, in the shadows just past where the light from the room spilled out.

“Sam?” Dean asked, anxious and a little too loud.

The child squeaked in fear and scuttled into the shadows out of Sam’s line of sight. Keeping one part of his mind fixed on Dean’s anchoring hold, he stepped forward until he could see further out. They were in the thickest part of the forest, where even the half-bare branches were dense enough to block out the autumn sun. Fallen, rotted leaves littered the ground, and the cold air was musty with decay.

The stark white of the little girl’s face flashed in the darkness as she peeked out from behind the nearest tree. Her face was smudged and tear-tracked, a broken twig had caught in a snarl of her tangled hair, and God, she was so small and so scared. Sam knelt down until he was sitting back on his heels and stretched his hand out. She stepped into view again, and his heart constricted when he saw her torn, muddy clothing.

“C’mon, sweetie,” he coaxed, urging her forward so that she could see into the room where it was warm and safe, and where Dean wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

She shook her head.

“Sam?” Dean called again.

She jumped back. She wasn’t sure about Dean, with his hard grasp and his big booming voice. Dean, who tightened his hold on Sam’s arm when he tried to tug it away.

“She won’t come if you’re holding on to me,” Sam said. “It’s okay. Let go.” Dean released him, and Sam could sense him sliding back a few feet. “And you’d better whisper,” he added.

He screwed up his courage and scooted forward onto the doorsill marking the boundary between his space and the little girl’s. She inched forward and looked up at his face, deciding if she was more afraid of him or the woods. When she reached out, a rip in her blouse revealed bruises where someone had gripped her forearm hard and twisted; Sam had an idea that there would be other marks on her body, inflicted by someone who knew to strike where bruises wouldn’t show.

“That’s it. That’s my brave girl,” he said.

She blinked at him as if praise was a foreign language, but in a burst of daring, she put her slender, filthy hand into his. Her skin was freezing, and if Sam had thought the shadows were frightening, they were nothing like what she carried inside. She let him gently tug her forward to the very edge of the threshold, but there she balked—she’d reached the limits of her courage.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I promise,” he told her, tucking a few bedraggled strands of hair behind her ear and running his thumb along her delicate cheekbone. His hand looked dark and huge as he cupped her face. “I’m going to show you something, all right?”

When she nodded, he reached back into his memory to that time when he had been lost too. She cringed back once and looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes as he showed her how he went from scared to safe, but she let him soothe her and carry the memory through to the end.

“That’s my big brother,” he said, gesturing through the doorway. “He’ll take care of you too.”

After a solemn consideration, she let him draw her across the doorsill. But it turned out that there was only room for one of them, so Sam picked her up—she squeaked again—and lifted her in with a weird wrench as he stepped out to where she had been.

Water rushing over rocks sounded close by, but at first, all he could see was trees. To the eye it was an ordinary forest, but the psychic imprint of her fear permeated every bit of it. It had sunk into the soil like water; the trees had drawn it up through their roots and spread it through the latticework of branches overhead. Fright had nourished the leaves that lay dead and rotting on the ground, so that they would feed the new shoots that would appear when spring came. Sam picked his way over the rocky ground until he found the small river. It ran white and fast, and the force that etched it into the shale bedrock was terror.

He inched toward it, approaching it as cautiously as the child had approached his room. Low, rocky crags rose up on either side of him. They were probably riddled with overhangs and shallow caves where a small girl could hide, but he couldn’t go farther without losing the path that would take him back. He wouldn’t be able to sense her anyway—she was safe with Dean, while he was alone in her place.

Except…he wasn’t, not quite. This place was hers alone, but he could sense other spaces around him, spiraling outward like a nautilus’s chambers. There were other presences in those places, one or two of them stirring as if they’d sensed him too.

Sam stumbled back to the door, noticing that his heart wasn’t pounding.

Dean’s rumbling low voice and the girl’s whispering one filtered through the door. Sam huddled in the sliver of light falling over the threshold to wait, and God help him for wishing a child in his place, but he couldn’t switch back soon enough. Eventually—he had no idea how long—she reappeared. He knelt down at the doorsill and held out his arms to her. She went mute again, but walked up to him without quailing and timidly reached up to touch his cheek. Her hands were warm while his had gone icy, and she showed him where to find her.

“I understand,” he told her when he had the image fixed in his mind. He met her eyes, waiting to see the belief there before he gingerly grasped the birdlike bones of her wrists and drew her arms around his neck. “We’re coming for you, I promise.”

He concentrated with all his power on sharing with her that memory of the relief of being found, just like they would find her, and swung them back into their rightful places with another strange twist. She gave him one more grave look, both frightened and hopeful, and scampered into the trees toward the meager comfort of her hiding place.

Sam was once more in whatever psychic antechamber he’d created. Studiously not looking at the walls around him, he deliberated what to do with the door: he wanted to lock it and will it out of existence, but knew there was a chance he’d need to seek her out again. He comprised by closing it all but a crack.

“Sammy!” Dean called, and Sam turned around and snapped back into full physicality. He gasped, yanking his hands away from the ones folded around them, and Dean slid back so fast that he almost fell over. “Sam? You all right?”

“Yeah,” Sam lied, leaning back and closing his eyes against the new onslaught of dizziness. His cheeks were wet again. “I need a minute.”

Dean backed away to what should have been a safe distance. Right now, the length of the whole picnic area probably wouldn’t have been enough of a buffer. “She didn’t know how to tell me where to find her. Could she show you?”

“Yeah. Enough, at least.” Sam opened his eyes again; to his relief, the scenery stayed still around him. “She’s on the bank of a little river. Just drive into the park until we hit it, and then follow it upstream.”

Dean swept their things haphazardly from the picnic table. “We’re gone.”

Sam made it halfway up before the wave of vertigo knocked him back on his ass.

“Fuck, Sammy.” Dean lunged for him.

Sam held up his hand to arrest the motion, dropped it back down when he realized how violently it was trembling. “Just give me a minute,” he repeated.

Dean’s energies were screaming ‘move now,’ but he simply clenched his jaw, nodded, and stepped back. Sam did the slow, careful breathing again and tried without an iota of success to barricade himself off from the waves of emotion rolling off his brother. Fending off another offer of help, he gritted his teeth and staggered up.

Sam kept his distance as they walked back to the parking lot, but when they got to the car, there was no avoiding it. “Dean, could you, uh...” he started as Dean unlocked his door.

“What, Sammy?” Dean’s voice shook. Sam could only remember seeing him like this once or twice in his life.

“Could you not be so mad?”

Dean yanked the driver’s side door open. “Honestly, Sam? No.” He braced his hands against the car anyway and breathed deep before clambering in. “Did you see what happened to her? Feel it?”

“No.”

Dean jammed the key into the ignition and twisted it so hard Sam was afraid he’d snap the metal. “Good.”

They peeled out of the lot into the park. Dean stared stone-faced ahead of them and drove too fast; Sam watched for a promising road and tried not to cower.

Dean looked apologetic and helpless to change his mood. “She’ll be okay until we get there, right?” he asked after a few minutes. “I mean, I know she’s scared, but it’s not like there’s anything there that will actually hurt her.”

“No. She’ll be all right until we find her.” Sam pointed as they passed an intersection. “Here, try here.”

Dean spun the wheel into too tight a turn and they fishtailed around, making Sam’s queasy stomach flip. His guess was right—the river came into view. Dean swung them onto the road running next to it.

“Now what?”

“She can see a footbridge way off downstream—she doesn’t know how far. We’ll start there and hike up until we find her.”

Dean was gripping the wheel tightly enough to leave dents. “You going to make it?”

“I have to. Don’t worry about me.”

Dean looked unconvinced, but didn’t pursue it. “We’ve got about an hour of sun left,” he said, slamming down the accelerator. “She’s not going to hide from us, is she?”

“I’ll recognize the spot when I see it. Slow down a little, okay?” Racing daylight wouldn’t help if they overshot their destination.

Dean decelerated enough that Sam would be able to blink without missing his landmark, but he didn’t look happy about it. “She wouldn’t tell me her name,” he said after a pause.

Sam stared out the windshield, as if he could block out the psychic memory burned into his brain by fixating hard enough on the scenery in front of him. “What did she say?” he asked.

“She lives in a big white house alone with her daddy because her mommy went to heaven,” Dean recited flatly. “She’s six years old. She’s afraid of the dark.”

Sam breathed through his nose and thought very, very hard about not throwing up until they got out of the car. The banks of the river were rising into bluffs—they had to be getting close.

“She wanted to know if I could take her away from her daddy like I took you away from yours,” Dean finished, shooting him a sidelong glance with an expression that was two parts inquiry and one part betrayal.

“I showed her that time at the mall,” Sam explained, “because I was scared and lost too, and I got found. But Dad was pretty mad, remember, and she couldn’t see past that. So I focused on you taking me away to wherever it was we went—can’t remember now.” He kept thinking, ‘fish,’ which wasn’t calming his sanity fears any, and now wasn’t the time to revisit them. “I just know I wasn’t scared anymore.”

“You were happy as a clam. Forgot all about it in five minutes.” More softly, Dean added, “She’s not lost in a mall, Sam.”

“I know. God, I know.” The temperature plummeted just as the bridge the child had shown Sam came into view. “There!” he pointed, and grabbed at the door handle.

Dean swerved the car into the little turnout and skidded into the parking spot nearest to the bridge. There was no one else in the lot. With a fresh shockwave of fury, he popped the trunk release and shoved his door open with enough force to make the springs bounce it back.

“Let’s haul ass.”

Sam pulled himself together and followed him to the rear of the car. Dean threw him a flashlight, stuffed a water bottle and blanket into a duffel bag, and leaned halfway into the trunk to root around for something. “Where’s your stash of those hippie California granola bars?”

“All the way in back. Far left corner,” Sam told him distractedly, grabbing a pair of work gloves. He made a mental note to watch for a clearing as they went in, and reached for the shovels.

Dean locked a hand around his wrist, hard enough to bruise. “What are you doing with those?”

“I don’t want to burn her, she’s not malevolent—Jesus, Dean!” Sam doubled over.

Dean snatched his hand away, threw down the duffel, and stormed off.

Sam followed his brother out to the footbridge, where he was facing away, body rigid. Sam waited until he turned halfway around, and then took a step forward. Dean didn’t give him the look that meant, ‘Keep your freakish psychic antenna out of my broadcast area,’ so Sam walked up to him and sat back against the handrail.

“I’m sorry, man. I thought you understood.”

Dean shook his head once, lips compressed. He was radiating the qualities that made him the hunter Sam would never be: leashed bloodlust and a cold killer’s instincts. “We’re going to take care of her,” he said with deadly calm. “And then we’re going to find him, and we’re going to put him in the ground. Understand?”

Sam braced himself. “We can’t.”

Dean slammed his open palms down on the wooden ledge Sam was sitting against, making the whole railing vibrate. It was barely noticeable against the simultaneous, inadvertent psychic concussion.

“Don’t you give me that! You don’t want to be a part of it, that’s fine. But as God is my witness, Sam, I’m going to do it. The son of a bitch is going to be lucky if I don’t fucking bury him alive.”

“Dean.” Sam waited for his brother to meet his eyes. “It’s too late,” he said gently.

Dean looked blank for a few seconds, and then comprehension struck. “How long?” he whispered. Sam hesitated, and Dean pushed, “Tell me, Sammy.”

“The park wasn’t here at all, that’s why she was so confused about how to get here, and she remembers the main road as a stagecoach route. From her clothes, it’s been at least a hundred years. Dean…,” he said helplessly as the anguish hit.

Dean shook his head, swallowed hard, and moved a few steps away. “You’re supposed to be premonition boy, Sam. Future boy. People we can help.”

“We are going to help her.”

“Whatever, Haley Joel.” Dean planted his elbows on the bridge’s wooden railing and dropped his head into his hands. Sam waited, trying not to shiver in the cold, until Dean cleared his throat and looked up. “You sure this is the right place?”

“I’m sure.” The ambient temperature—ambient to him, at least—was all the confirmation Sam needed, but he cast a quick look over his shoulder toward the grim landscape behind him anyway. He wondered if the water looked as black and the trees as skeletal to Dean as they did to him. “What happened to her?”

Dean ignored the question. “She let me hold”—he jerked his head towards where Sam was holding the railing—“those bony paws. They were freezing. Shoulda guessed then.”

“Her hands were warm when she came back through,” Sam told him.

Dean shrugged. After a few moments of silence, he bent down and picked up a handful of stones. “Why are you seeing dead people anyway?” he asked as he lined them up neatly along the railing. “Do you think she was one of…?” He nodded toward Sam again.

“One of whatever I am? I don’t think so.” Sam picked his words carefully. “I’m not sure the nightmare was going to be about her at all. It might have been random chance that she was here when it started, and she wandered in or got swept up with it.”

“Through the door?”

“No, I made the door. It’s hard to verbalize. You know, a psychic thing,” Sam deflected.

To his relief, Dean let it drop. He picked up his first stone and narrowed his eyes as he selected a target from a small logjam upstream, splitting his focus enough that the continuing buzz of his anger was no longer wreaking havoc with Sam’s synapses.

“Do you remember how we found you in the mall?” he asked.

Sam shoved his freezing bony paws into his pockets. “I started screaming bloody murder and someone found me, right?”

“Other way around.” Dean threw the rock; the thunk it made when it hit its mark was clearly audible over the rushing waters. “A mall cop saw you and tried to take you to kiddy lost-and-found. You started howling that you had to stay where you were so Daddy or Dean could find you.”

Sam waited.

“He was yelling at her.” Dean flung the next stone with more force. “Holding on to her, shaking her. She got away and ran into the woods.”

Sick realization sank in. “No.” She’d been killed there, her body had been dumped there, but not that. No one was that evil. “No,” Sam said again.

“He left her there, Sammy.” Dean’s voice cracked. “The bastard just fucking left her there.”

“God.” Sam reined in the shivers threatening to wrack his body as the dark cloud around him coalesced into the child’s abandonment and horror, and studied the set of his brother’s jaw. “There’s something more, isn’t there?” he asked.

Dean nodded stiffly, the knuckles of his left hand white as he gripped the railing with impotent rage and grief and empathetic fear. Sam mentally ran over what he’d sensed from the girl when he’d coaxed her to them. It mattered, he realized, that she was frightened of Dean until she saw him as a sturdy ten-year-old holding Sam’s hand as he skipped along and blithely jabbered away; there was a reason she wouldn’t tell them her name. She’d never had anyone big and strong to protect her; she’d never known anything but fear at a deep booming voice calling for her.

“She was afraid of men,” Sam guessed.

“Yeah.” Another rock, another hit. “So afraid that when someone came looking for her, she hid.”

“Jesus Christ.” The air was now as frigid as it had been in the pocket in space and time where the child dwelt. Sam lost the struggle not to shake.

Dean looked at him sharply “Is she here?”

“I’m there. We’re there. Don’t you...can’t you feel anything?” Sam heard the note of desperation rising in his voice. He knew that the one crumb of good fortune in all of this was that the supernatural curse had struck him instead of his brother, because Dean couldn’t have handled it—Dean could bear anything, except weakness. Just once, though, Sam wanted some confirmation that it wasn’t all in his head.

“No.” Dean started to strip off his jacket.

“It won’t help.” Nothing would help until they got away from that place; the cold would remain even after they freed the ghost. It would endure as long as the forest lasted, as long as the fear-fed leaves fell and decayed and nourished the next year’s buds.

Dean jerked his head. “Scoot your scrawny ass over here.”

Sam scooted, turning to face the river. He ventured a glance at the ominous gloom that grew ever thicker upstream, and quickly looked down at the water. Dean stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, put one of Sam’s hands on top of the other on the railing, and plunked one of his own over them.

“Dude, I can feel…” Sam warned, jumping at the sudden jolt of Dean-ness.

“I know. It’s okay.” Dean picked up another rock. Three more remained lined up on the railing. He’d finish them off and be ready to go—that was the goal he’d set himself, and he’d accomplish it. Sam just had to wait it out.

He focused on the warmth of Dean’s hand sinking into his, and the underlying, soothing hum of his protectiveness. Protectiveness for the nameless girl, for Sam—it didn’t matter, he’d take what he could get. God. Ten more minutes and he’d be wanting to hold his big brother’s hand all the way out to the girl’s hiding place. How a child’s spirit had survived so long without descending into malevolence or the ghostly equivalent of madness was beyond him.

“I wouldn’t have sent you out into the land of the dead if I’d known,” Dean said gruffly, pitching out the stone.

“Yeah, and then no one ever would have found her. Job’s got risks, right? This is just a different kind of risk.” Sam didn’t need to see Dean’s face to know that he’d lifted a skeptical eyebrow. He tried to keep his voice steady, as if he believed his own words. “It’s okay—it didn’t make it any worse.”

Shit.

Dean snapped his head around. “Didn’t make what worse?”

Sam turned back to the rushing waters, cursing his stupid post-attack loose lips. This wasn’t the time for this conversation, not with Dean tearing himself up for not saving a child who’d died nearly a century before he was born.

“You saw something in the room with the door, didn’t you?” his brother said slowly. “Look at me, Sam. What did you see?”

Sam looked. He was leaning far enough forward that he had to tilt his head up to meet Dean’s eyes, which even now felt normal—the weirdest day of Sam’s youth was the day he realized he was taller than his big brother. “The visions…,” he began, and trailed off.

“What about the visions?” Dean asked steadily.

Bite the bullet, Sam. “They’re making cracks in my psyche to get it. That’s what the headaches are.”

Dean’s eyes widened and scanned rapidly over Sam’s face, but he let Sam keep talking.

“I think the dizzy spells are my brain, my physical brain, going into shock while the cracks heal.” Sam tried to make it sound as innocuous as physical wound healing. “The empathic shit isn’t an antenna going up—it’s energies, or whatever, getting through the open spaces until they close up again. I'm still picking things up now because I left the door open a little.”

“Fuck, Sammy.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s mounting anxiety was amplifying Sam’s own, but he still felt safer than he would have without the connection. He bit his lip, wanting to hold back his next words and knowing they were coming out anyway. “This is, uh…this is really scaring me.”

Dean swallowed, shaking his head. “No,” he said. He took a deep breath, pulling himself together, and fell back on their old standby. “No. We’ll deal with it. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“You can’t promise that.” Sam ruthlessly crushed the spark of resentment at their father for doing that to Dean, because that was one conversation they were never going to have. “God, Dean, I need you not to promise that.”

A flash of hurt rippled through the firm warmth of Dean’s presence, but he didn’t pull his hand away. “Then what do you need, Sammy?”

“I need…” Sam walked cautiously; even this was ground Dean didn’t want to cover. “I need to be the man you raised me to be.”

Dean studied his face for another moment and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, Sam. I get that.”

“Okay.” Sam ventured another glance up the river, noting the lengthening position of the shadows. The sun was going down, and they’d have a hell of a time finding her in the dark.

Dean tossed out another rock. “We’re not leaving her alone out there,” he said suddenly. “We passed a cemetery about an hour back, remember? We’re going to bury her in holy ground.”

“That’s a good idea.” The detached, professional part of Sam’s mind ran over how best to move her. “Oh, God,” he said when he caught himself.

“What?”

“I didn’t think about what we’re going to find.” Sam had banished more malevolent ghosts than he could remember, and helped more than one lost soul find peace, but even as he’d automatically pulled the shovels out of the trunk, he’d seen her in his mind, not a small heap of fragile bones crumbling in a niche of a cave. “I was picturing her. She didn’t look like a ghost.”

“No, she didn’t.” Dean’s lips tightened, and Sam belatedly realized what frightened, motherless child his brother had actually seen. Jesus. Did Dean have any buttons left that this job hadn’t pushed?

“She was cute,” Sam told him.

Dean glanced at him sideways. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Light brown hair, blue eyes,”—wide and terrified—“heart-shaped little face, freckles across her nose. Pretty. She wasn’t me, Dean.”

“You never were all that cute,” Dean conceded, but the response was half-hearted, rote.

“And you couldn’t have protected her,” Sam went on doggedly. “You didn’t let her down.”

“You’re psychic, Sam, not a psychologist.” Dean hefted the second-to-last stone. “We’re not talking about my feelings.”

“I’m talking about hers.” In an old game, Sam pointed out a target; Dean snorted and hit it dead-on. “I know you’re hurting, man, but for her, this is nothing but good, see? She’s been out here alone for so long, and now somebody found her, somebody held her hand, and somebody who cares about her is going to lay her to rest. That’s all that matters."

Dean kept silent for a long moment, breathing in a controlled, steady rhythm. “Yeah,” he said, the despair in his aura lifting a bit. “Okay, yeah.”

One more rock left. Sam watched a stick circling in an eddy near the bank and sifted through the memories he’d shown the girl. His hand involuntarily twitched under Dean’s.

“What?”

“I was thinking of what I showed her.” Sam glanced over at his brother as he lifted the final stone. “Dad hugged me when he found me at the mall, right? Picked me up?”

“Yeah, sure. He had to pass you off to me when I got there because he couldn’t talk to the cop with you hiccupping and half-strangling him like a snot-nosed little monkey.” Dean’s lips quirked. “I took you to see the goldfish in the fountain. That’s what you were looking for when you wandered off.”

“Oh. Right.” The stick Sam had been watching broke out of the eddy and bobbed into the white froth of the rapids. “Did you catch hell for losing me?”

“Nah. All six-year-olds get lost in the mall, it’s a universal constant. Besides, he was the one watching you before you slithered away.” Dean hurled the last rock into the river, no target, just sending it as far as it would go. “You bit the cop, by the way. Dad was kind of proud of that.”

He let go of Sam’s hand and shoved away from the railing. “It’s almost sundown. We should get moving.”

“Be right there,” Sam told him without looking up. “Just let me get oriented.”

Dean’s boots crunched away in the gravel, and then paused. “Sammy, there’s nothing that could hurt you on the other side of the door, right?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Look, man, I don’t want you to take any chances.” Dean took a step back toward him. “But if it’s not dangerous, could you maybe let her back in? Just for a minute. I want to, you know....”

Sam nodded his comprehension as the branch washed under the bridge.

The memories he’d shown the child were chipped—they’d broken under the strain of the psychic twists when they’d switched places. The moment when his father must have scooped him up, hugging and scolding him and brushing away his tears, was missing, along with the recollection of Dad swinging him back down to put him into the equal safety of Dean’s guardianship. They were just gone, ground away like pebbles caught between shifting tectonic plates.

“Sam?”

“Yeah.” He pressed his freezing palms against his temples again. There were chips in his psyche, there were chips in him, and the rough plaster over the cracks in the walls didn’t look as if it would hold...

...and the sun was setting, and somewhere up the river was a scared little girl, lost in the woods for a hundred years, whose father had never kissed her goodnight.

“Yeah.” Sam looked up to face the shadows. “Yeah, Dean. Sure.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Continued in "Promises to Keep"

More notes: “Trance channeling” can indicate channeling the living too, not just the dead, so Dean wasn’t making an irrational assumption that the child was alive. If any new reader wonders why there are so many comments on when people realized the girl was a ghost—I’d asked for that feedback when I originally posted the story.

If you enjoyed this one, you can find all my fic here.

"What's Left to Lose"

2006-09-24T02:58:36Z

Rating: PG
Characters: John, Sam. Genfic—no slash.
Word Count: 950
Spoilers: This fic is written in the aftermath of “Devil’s Trap,” but contains no spoilers for the next season. ‘Cause I don’t know any.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John had to call Sam’s name twice before he jerked himself back from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “It’s been four hours,” he said without looking at his father. “They said it could be seven or eight.”

John hobbled across the waiting area. “Was he conscious before he went in there? Say anything?”

“He was in and out.” Sam was holding Dean’s amulet, fiddling with the cord. His voice was flat and thick, and tear tracks ran down his unbandaged cheek. “He kept talking about the guy he killed.”

John hissed between his teeth. “Did anyone hear him?”

Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “Is that really what you’re thinking about?” he asked, sounding vaguely puzzled.

“No. No, of course not.” John studiously avoided looking down the corridor opposite them. “How are you doing, son?”

“Better than either of you,” Sam answered after a beat. Either painkillers or his injuries themselves seemed to be numbing his wits and slowing his responses; still, he was right. His right eye was swollen shut and the bruises that were visible around his bandages were purpling, but he wasn’t on crutches, like John. Or on an operating table.

“Concussion, cerebral edema, broken ribs, internal bleeding, punctured lung,” Sam recited, staring somewhere off into the distance. “At least his heart’s okay,” he added after another pause, with weird, bitter laugh.

John eased himself down into a hard plastic chair across from his younger son. “Did he say anything about…what it did?”

Sam shook his head and rubbed at his cheek with the back of his sleeve. John nodded in relief, trying to shove away the echoes of Sam’s desperate shouts and Dean’s broken voice as he begged for his life. The memories wouldn’t budge; he’d probably be reliving them on his deathbed.

He leaned forward and rested his chin on his fists. “God, Sam. Dean’s had some close calls—probably closer than you know about—but I’ve never seen him afraid like that.”

“Afraid?” Sam flicked a glance at him. John thought he saw dull anger in his face, but Sam’s voice remained flat. “You think he was afraid to die? Jesus, Dad.” Sam’s gaze wandered off to nothing again. “Dean’s not afraid of anything but losing one of us. He was trying to save you from killing him.”

John flinched at hearing Sam speak the words aloud. “I thought you said he didn’t say anything about it.”

“He didn’t.” Sam took another swipe at the dampness on his face and went on tiredly. “I didn’t know it wasn’t you until it showed itself. Dean knew because you weren’t mad at him, right?”

John winced again. He’d forgotten about the perceptiveness Sam had honed in his angry adolescence, when he’d always been alert to the smallest slight, always probing for any sign of weakness. “Sam, what it said back there...”

“It was saying that to hurt him. I’m not your favorite.” Sam shrugged indifferently. There was nothing of the petulant or sullen teenager left in his voice; that was somehow chilling. “I’m not what you wanted. Never was. I was your child.”

Only Sam could piss him off at a time like this, John thought grimly. “What’s that supposed to mean? Dean’s my son. He’s your brother.”

“Yeah. But he wasn’t your child. You didn’t want children anymore, didn’t want to face the fact that you couldn’t do what you did and still be a parent.” Sam shrugged again, his voice as expressionless as if John were a stranger. “Dean was exactly what you wanted—he was you. So he was invisible. God, Dad. I never realized what you did to him, you know?”

Sam leaned back against the wall. His voice was beginning to tremble now. “He didn’t think you’d go through with it, killing yourself to get that thing. Choosing it over us. Over him. He told me thanks for not doing it.”

John didn’t answer, but then, Sam probably wasn’t expecting him to. “He said to tell you that he loves you,” he went on. Tears were forming on his lashes.

John shifted uncomfortably in the rigid seat. “Did he say anything else?”

Sam shook his head. His jaw worked and he took a deep breath. “Just held my hand until they came to take him away. I told him I’d find a cute nurse for his sponge bath, and said I’d see him soon. That was it.” He cleared his throat, wiped at his face one more time, and let his hands drop. “Odds are ten to one. Against him,” he finished before his voice failed completely.

“Jesus,” John breathed as Sam buried his face in his hands, crying softly but openly. The resident who had sent him up there hadn’t known anything except that his son had been taken into surgery.

“Sammy,” he said, his gut twisting, “Dean’s a fighter. He can beat those odds.”

Sam looked at him, bewildered. Grief, John realized, not drugs, was blunting his normal acuity. “You really don’t understand, do you?” Sam asked.

“Understand what, son?” John could hear his own voice shaking.

Sam lowered his head again. “Yeah, he could beat them. If he fought.”

An urgent call sounded over the PA system. Sam moaned in anguish and rocked backward, pressing his fist against his mouth. John looked from him toward the sound of feet running down the corridor, awful comprehension sinking in.

“We have one bullet left,” Sam choked out. “This time, whatever it takes.”

In that moment of numb shock, before the shattering pain struck, John nodded. “Whatever it takes,” he agreed.

After all, neither of them had anything left to lose.

~~~~

Thanks for reading, and feedback and concrit are welcome. All my fic can be found here.

"Conversations over a Gun Box and a Roadmap"

2006-07-22T00:57:53Z

Rating: PG
Category: Gen
Characters: John, Dean, guest appearance by Sam.
Word Count: 6000
Spoilers: “Dead Man’s Blood”
Summary: “Maybe if John had confronted it right then, things would have gone differently. But he couldn’t ask without tipping his hand.”
Further author’s notes: For the record, I sketched out the plot and some of the dialogue for this fic before “Salvation” and “Devil’s Trap” aired. So it’s prescient, rather than derivative. Feedback and concrit are always welcome.
Generic warning on all of my fics: A minority of my stories contain character death. For artistic reasons, I prefer not to disclose it in the headers. If you will not read a story unless you know whether one of the Winchester brothers dies, click here for the spoiler.

~~~~~

John guessed Dean knew something the moment he saw his face as he stood when John entered the room. Worry lines around his eyes that a man his age shouldn’t have—nothing new. The tightness at the corners of his lips, though...that meant something. Maybe if John had confronted it right then, things would have gone differently. But he couldn’t ask without tipping his hand.

So instead, he walked casually over to the table, nodding for Dean to sit back down, and inquired, “Where's Sammy?”

“Asleep. He wants to get a fresh start on that first thing in the morning.” Dean gestured toward a pile of papers on the seat of a chair. “Which is five-thirty for him, by the way. And he’s not quiet.”

“Roll call’s always been at six,” John pointed out, letting his lips twitch good-humoredly at Dean’s slight wince. He flipped through Sam’s notes, jotted down in English and Latin, while subtly glancing at his own pile of papers and newspaper clippings, which he shouldn’t have left out. The smells of coffee and gun oil were strong in the air.

“Just like old times, huh?” he remarked, now checking the article Dean had been reading. It was a probable banshee in Des Moines—maybe he was in the clear after all.

Dean grimaced in resignation. “Right down to you and Sam.”

“Sure hasn’t gotten any more reasonable,” John agreed. “And you’ve kept him on a leash for a year? Never thought I’d say this, son, but you might be a better man than I am.”

He shook his head. “Not sure he’s been such a good influence on you, though.”

“He can make me listen to NPR, but he can’t make me pay attention,” Dean reassured him. His heart wasn’t in the joke.

John went to hang up his jacket. “Did you finish your work?” he asked.

Dean pointed at the weapons and clips laid out on a tarp on the floor. “Ammo on the right side, rock salt in the middle, silver on the left. We’re ready for anything.”

“You know better than that, Dean. But we’re as ready as we can get.” He looked at his son shrewdly. “Did you clean the Colt?”

“You already did. Also, the case is locked.” Dean grinned, but when he met John’s eyes, John knew that yeah, Dean had figured it out.

But instead of confronting it, he returned to the table and said, “Don't tell me you couldn’t have picked that lock.”

“Even I have limits, sir. Wouldn’t hurt for me to have a look at it, though.” Dean put on his most innocent face, and actually managed to pull it off. “You always said that if there’s a weapon in the house”—house being a term loosely used for the sake of convenience in the Winchester family—“everyone should know how to use it.”

John’s lips twitched again. “Don’t play innocent with me, Dean. I taught you everything you know about it.”

Dean added another engaging grin that almost masked the grim lines around his eyes. “Pretty good, wasn’t it?”

After a moment’s consideration, John pulled the chain with the key to the gun box from around his neck. Dean’s expression lightened—the prospect of seeing the gun was probably the only thing that could have done that—and he went for the case. He carried it back with more reverence than John had ever seen him show anything, his hands deft and careful as he opened it.

“One down,” he commented as he skimmed his fingers over the bullets.

“Yeah.” John didn’t need to look, but he counted them anyway. “It wasn’t wasted, though. Now we know it works.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s lips tightened again, though, and John nodded toward the revolver.

“Go ahead,” he said. The gun felt different from other weapons, John was sure. If Dean could feel it too, he’d understand that this would work.

Dean lifted the Colt. John watched as his son automatically checked the chamber, ran his hand over the barrel without quite touching it, and then traced the inscription with his fingertips. His face gave no indication that he sensed anything different about it, but he could see the beauty in it—unlike his brother, Dean could appreciate a weapon’s form as well as its function.

“You know, we wouldn’t have seen you getting headlocked by the undead,” John commented. Dean glanced up, just a touch of surprise and pleasure on his face, as he went on, “Be straight with me. How has Sammy been doing?”

“He’s holding his own, has been since the beginning.” A note of pride colored Dean’s voice. “Kid might have fought you every step of the way, but he learned what you taught him.”

“Good.” John didn’t expect Sam to have to fight this battle, but it was good know that he could. “We’re going to get it this time, Dean, I know it.”

Too restless to stay sitting, he got up and found a mug in a cabinet of the kitchenette behind him. Dean turned the weapon over in his hands and curled his fingers around the grip.

“Can you imagine it, after all these years?” John asked, pouring his coffee. “I don't know what we'll do next.”

A shadow passed across Dean’s eyes. “Sam and I had the same conversation in Chicago,” he said, lifting the weapon and training it on the clock hanging on the wall. “He says he’s going back to school. Don't know if he plans to just graduate, or still wants to go to law school.”

John set down the coffee pot. “Do what?”

“Go to law school. Become a lawyer.” Dean raised an eyebrow at the surprise in John’s voice. “You didn’t know?”

“It hasn’t come up,” John shrugged. Sam wanted normal, fine, but even so...

Dean was still looking down the Colt, holding it steady and then lowering it slightly with his forehead wrinkled in concentration. John took his own pride in his son’s ease and thoroughness as he handled the weapon.

“Sights on a revolver weren’t worth shit until…when was it, Dad? The Civil War?” Dean asked, squinting as he lifted the gun back to firing position.

“Later than that. God. If Colt himself hadn’t made it, I couldn’t have taken the risk.” John’s fingers tightened around his mug, and he quickly moved away from that line of thought. “What made him pick law school?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Dean cast one more assessing look at his target. “Probably not genetics.”

“True.” John took a sip of the stale coffee. “No lawyers on your mother’s side of the family either.”

He watched as Dean laid the revolver down on the table and dug into his cleaning kit for a cloth. “Still, Stanford, Dean. She’d be so proud of him. She wanted you boys to go to college, we both did. Every parent wants their children to get further than they did.”

John could picture Mary’s face, young as it would always be and lit up joy, and for once it buoyed his mood instead of lowering it. He leaned back against the counter, letting himself indulge in the fantasy while Dean wiped the faint marks of his touch away from the gunmetal.

“Things were different, it would have been right for Sammy. You, on the other hand...”

Dean had been able to hit a 25-yard target in the kill zone since he was nine years old, could build a gaussmeter in a cell phone casing and count the number of foes in pitch black by the sound of their breathing, if they breathed. Dean understood what it meant to be a warrior in a way that Sam refused to, and if Sam had always been an unwilling recruit, Dean had been a comrade-in-arms since he was sixteen.

“Son, you would have made one hell of a Marine.” He took another sip from his mug, picturing it. “Too damn much sense to be an officer, though.”

Dean quirked his eyebrow again. “Hard to imagine college,” he agreed, still polishing the weapon. “I haven’t thought about that in…well, you know. Ten years.”

“Yeah,” John sympathized. He set his mug down, shaking away thoughts of the might-have-been world where Sam could have gone to college without abandoning his family, and Dean could have finished high school instead of growing up too fast. “Mary would be proud of you too, by the way. You raised Sammy more than a brother should ever have to. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“He’s family,” Dean answered, and in the end there was no more to be said. Not between him and Dean, at least.

“Still, after everything he’s seen, you think he can just walk away?” John asked as he rejoined his son at the table.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Dean turned the weapon in the light, checking for any last mark from his fingers or speck of dust. “Sam will do what he wants. He always does.”

“You could get him to stay,” John said quietly.

It had stung a bit to see Sam follow Dean's orders after defying John, but maybe that was natural with the time the boys had spent together. It’d change when they were all back together. But then again, Dean was right—John’s younger son might have gotten his priorities straight for the time being, but he hadn’t gotten any easier to deal with. Maybe the best thing was to make the world safe for Sam, and let him go back into it.

“We can deal with that once we’ve killed it,” Dean answered. He put the Colt back in the box, giving it a final caress through the cloth, and still didn’t speak what was on his mind.

Tired of waiting, John said, “Spit it out, son.”

Dean closed the box’s lid reluctantly. “You think it’s after Sammy,” he said, his voice soft and young. “Not our family. Just Sam.”

“I didn’t tell you to look at those papers,” John rebuked him.

“No, sir.” Dean spread his hands. “They were out, and I’ve gotten so used to using your journal that I didn’t think anything of it.”

John sighed. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Dean picked up a sheaf of newsclippings and photocopies among John’s other notes and read a section of one out loud. “July 10, 2005, New Rome, Wisconsin. ‘Fire kills a young couple; authorities believe it was started by an electrical short in the bedroom. It was a horror revisited for the woman’s father, who lost his wife in the same way six months after his daughter’s birth.’”

He laid it onto the table and turned to the next one. “August 13, 2005. Shelbyville, Illinois: ‘A sixteen-year-old boy commits suicide on the anniversary of his mother’s death. The teen had become obsessed with his mother’s death after learning the housefire that killed her when he was an infant had begun in his room.’”

Another. “September 6, 2005. ‘Three teens vanish from a New York juvenile correctional facility. A family member of one of the boys said the three had met in the center and became inseparable after discovering the astonishing coincidence that each had lost his mother to a fire in his infancy.’”

His voice hitched as he read the next one. “Hope, Arkansas, October 20, 2005. ‘A five-year-old girl burned to death in her bed. Police declined to confirm reports that they were reopening an investigation into the death of the girl’s mother, who died in a similar fire when the child was six months old.’”

Reaching his limit, he just waved with the hand holding the rest of the clippings. “One or two more a month, all over the country, last one was a couple weeks ago in Barstow. It has to be the demon that killed Mom, and it’s only going after the ones who were babies in the first fire.

“So, it’s after Sammy?” Even after he’d spelled out the evidence himself his voice held out hope the answer would be ‘no,’ but he set his jaw as he steeled himself for John’s confirmation. Still a boy enough to believe his father could make it right, but a man enough to take the truth.

John gave it to him. “Yeah, it is.”

Dean gave a truncated nod that ended with him staring down at the table. “Do you know why?”

John mulled the question over, but it was a foregone conclusion that he'd answer it—there’s secrecy, and then there’s heartlessness. And, he had to admit, it wasn’t an entirely bad thing that Dean knew.

“Has your brother had any nightmares lately?” he asked carefully.

Dean raised his head. “Sam always has nightmares,” he replied, his caution matching John’s. “Did he say something to you about them?”

John picked up a pen from the table, only to set it back down when he felt tooth marks around the plastic. “Missouri Moseley did.”

“Missouri?” Dean’s back straightened. “You've know about this since the beginning?”

“Not exactly.” John sifted each word as he spoke. Dean wasn’t stupid, and after so many years of hunting together, he could read John as well as John could read him. “She thought she could sense something about Sam when I first took you boys to see her, but didn't know until you came to Lawrence.”

“You were in Lawrence too,” Dean said, more of statement than a question. His expression shifted, closed off. “I called you. Didn’t know if you got my message. We didn’t know if you got any of them, until Chicago.”

“I got them.” John remembered the barely-masked desperation in his son’s voice during that call from Kansas, remembered the force of will it had taken not to call back. “I had my reasons for not contacting you, son. You just have to trust me on this.”

Dean went silent, turning his head to the side, and John held his words back too, until Dean finally said, “Yes, sir.”

“All right,” John said, relieved. Sam wouldn’t have let it go. “Besides, you boys did didn’t need me. You've been doing fine on your own.”

Dean turned back to him. “Mostly fine.”

They both knew he hadn’t answered John’s question—either of them. John tapped his knuckles on the table, and laid down another card.

“I talked to a couple of these kids’ families,” he said, pointing to the same clippings Dean had been through. “One of the boys who broke out of the juvenile center—someone on staff there said he was violent, throwing things around, but no one ever caught him doing it. Telekinetic.”

Dean’s gaze sharpened and he leaned forward as John went on.

“The little girl’s grandfather said she always knew when to give him a hug or a smile, like she knew when he was feeling down. I figure she may have been empathic. And the father of the woman in Wisconsin said two days before she was killed, she’d called him in the middle of the night, panicked, and told him not drive his usual way to work that morning. He thought she was nuts, but he did it. Fatal accident on the freeway that day: five-car pileup. I don’t think she saved him from getting stuck in traffic.”

He paused and looked at Dean, waiting.

“God.” Dean rubbed his chin in a gesture he’d picked up years before he needed to shave, because it’s what his father did. “Sam always has nightmares,” he repeated, “but they haven’t been premonitory lately.”

Answering John's unspoken question, he went on, “He was going to tell you about that stuff tomorrow. He doesn’t like talking about it, so let him bring it up.”

John nodded, though he’d have to ask if Sam didn’t mention it soon.

Dean went silent for several long moments before he reached out to touch the article on the young couple.

“He kept fighting me,” he said, so low that John had to lean forward to hear him.

“Sam did?” he probed quietly. This was something else he needed to know, and he couldn’t ask his younger son about it.

“Yeah. Kept trying to get back to save her, but it was too late. I was too late. I barely got him out.”

“But you did,” John said.

Dean shrugged in acknowledgment more than response. “And there was blood on his forehead. Like a baptism. Does that mean something, Dad?”

John grimly pushed back the mental image and filed the information away. “I don’t know, Dean,” he said. “Did you see anything else?”

Dean shook his head. “No. It was just like how you described Mom. Exactly like it.” He ran his fingers over the picture of the smiling couple. “If it wants Sammy, why her?"

The pronoun could have meant either woman who died in a holocaust over Sam’s bed, probably meant both.

“I don't know,” John told him again. He didn’t know why her, but the obvious answer, that Sam was supposed to die too, didn’t bear speaking out loud.

Dean nodded, cleared his throat, and turned the cutout face-down. He seemed to shake himself together, cleared his throat again, and asked, “Are we going straight to Cheyenne, or doing one of the decoy jobs first?”

John froze. He quickly pulled together his poker face, but it was still too damn late and he knew it.

“Nothing in Cheyenne but a basic haunting,” he prevaricated anyway. “Barely worth going to.”

“Yeah.” Another shadow crossed over Dean's face, a faint trace of sadness or even bitterness, as he took out a page torn from a cheap newsletter for paranormal enthusiasts.

“St. Mark’s Episcopal Church,” he read. “’Known for its “ghost room” built to pacify a spirit haunting the bell tower during its construction. In recent weeks, a series of accidents in the church has led some people to believe something has upset the resident ghost.’”

He leaned forward for a roadmap at John’s elbow, reciting the next story from memory. “Angel Fire, New Mexico. Woman died after being pushed or falling from an upper-story balcony in a ski lodge. Boyfriend being questioned.” He glanced up at John. “But weird things had been going on in the building for months; might be a poltergeist.”

“Go on,” John said neutrally.

Dean had the roadmap unfolded. He touched the spot in New Mexico, then tracked his finger west. “A woman drowns on a recreational boating trip near Ogden, Utah. Husband under investigation; says she jumped off the boat and was swimming toward the sound of an infant crying on the shore. Textbook water baby death.”

He pointed to a city further north on the map. “Hardin, Montana. Woman who lost three infants to SIDS in six years arrested for murder. Could be serial infanticide; could be a lamia following the family.”

He tapped the last spot. “Hiker who was way off-trail in a state park near Lincoln, Nebraska, died mysteriously. His partner says a ‘freaky giant snake’ attacked them. Sounds to the cops like a bad acid trip, sounds to us like an Utkena with a shit sense of direction.”

He added as an afterthought, “Looks like there’s a bad brownie infestation in Rapid City, South Dakota, but I think it might be real.”

John rubbed his hand over the stubble on his own jaw, mind racing. “Why not the other ones?”

Dean looked up at him. “Every one of them is big—somebody died. Odds are that if we’re anywhere west of the Mississippi, we’d hear about at least one and check it out. And when it turns out the job is a garden-variety murder—as far as we can tell—we’d swing by and look into that haunting.” He ran his finger around the rough circle formed by the four points, then tapped the spot in the middle. “Because every single job is within a six-hour radius of Cheyenne, and no matter which one we start with or which one we do next, we’d go through the city to get there anyway.”

Still watching John, he finished, “It’s trying to get us where it wants us, but not like in Chicago. It wants us off-guard, thinking that we just happened on a simple job.”

John looked at the map again, bemused, and a touch of an appeal crept into Dean’s voice as he said, “It’s all right here, Dad. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“I guess not,” John said slowly, studying his son. He hadn’t missed a single detail.

“Besides,” Dean added, folding the map with military precision, “I’ve been watching you do this for what, twenty years? You should be worried if I couldn’t put these things together.”

“Even so,” John conceded, “it was good work.” He gathered up the remaining papers and put them away in his notebook, swearing at himself all the while for leaving them out. “Did your brother see it?”

Dean handed him the map. “No, sir.”

“Good. I don't want him to know about this. I didn't want you to know either—“

He paused long enough to make his point, but Dean just looked back steadily, not disrespectful but not backing down. Maybe last night wasn’t a fluke; maybe things had changed.

“But it could be better this way,” John finished. “At least you can keep him under control.”

Dean made a face. “Don’t build a plan around that, Dad. I listen to Sam, he listens to me. Sometimes.”

“It’s more than he’ll do for me.”

John watched as Dean went for his own cup of coffee. His every move was contained, purposeful, efficient, and his erect posture wasn’t a soldier’s training—it was confidence. Maybe what had changed was that John had needed to look at his boys with fresh eyes to realize they’d become men.

“You figure we’re going to just walk into the church and find it waiting for us?” Dean asked as he sat back down.

“Yeah, I do. It’s not that different from Chicago—lure us exactly where it wants us. Think about it—the three of us alone, carrying rock salt and EMFs? Easy pickings. Once we’re in the city, though we should assume that it’s watching us. Watching Sam,” John corrected himself.

Dean took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “Sir, I don’t mean to question your judgment…”

John raised an eyebrow, but let it pass.

“But after all these years you’ve been hunting it, it’s going to be as easy as, what, just sending Sam through a door first? Dad, we don’t know if it will come for him itself, we don’t even know what it did to all those people.” Dean waved toward the notes now hidden away in John’s journal. “It won’t be that simple. It can’t be.”

“What it wants is pretty simple,” John pointed out. “It’ll be there.”

Dean might have been sharp with those notes—a little sharper than John expected, he admitted—but there was no way they could add up to instinct, and John’s every instinct told him it would be there. Almost unconsciously, he touched the lid of the gun box again.

Dean picked up the pen John had set down. He fiddled with it in a familiar gesture, silent for the moment but clearly not done.

John closed his eyes for a moment, working his fingers around the muscles that had been tense since he’d found the Colt. Patiently, he said, “Go ahead.”

“It’s just…” Dean put the pen down. “If it was my call, I’d say it’s too dangerous for Sam. Meaning no disrespect, sir.”

It was more than John would usually put up with—no, it was further than Dean would ever have pushed it before, but God knew, it was better than last night. And possibly, Dean had earned the right to speak his mind.

“I’m not going to get mad at you for looking out for your brother,” he said, massaging away the tension again, “but this is our best chance, Dean. The best one I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Best one?” Dean’s voice was low and young again, and hopeful. “So there might be another?”

John sighed, wishing once more for a life where the hardest of Dean’s fraternal duties would have been teaching Sam how to drive a stick shift.

“I've found hints of other ways to destroy it,” he answered, “maybe some rituals that might do it, but just hints. Nothing I can track down for sure; nothing I know will work. And we know this will.”

He leaned forward, trying to infuse some his excitement into his son, to get him to see past the risk. “Twenty-three years of hunting this thing, Dean, and we can finish it.”

Dean ran his hand over his chin again, his instinct to obey his father clearly warring with the need to protect his brother. John was half-expecting another sudden rebellion, but eventually Dean nodded acquiescence and said, “I just wish it could be one of us.”

“Me too,” John commiserated. “But it can’t be. I can distract it, piss it off enough to make it chase me for a while, but in the end, it wants your brother. You saw that yourself.”

“Yeah.” Dean stared into his coffee cup as he rotated it around. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Okay.”

John found an unchewed pen and began jotting down notes on the decoy jobs, just in case. Dean didn’t pick up his newspaper again, just kept pensively turning his mug in those circles.

“Dad, I've got to ask you something about Sam,” he burst out.

John looked up. “What?”

“What’s happening with him—it’s not normal. It's not natural.” Dean’s voice dropped on the last word, and he took a deep breath. “Meaning no disrespect to you, sir,” he repeated, “or to Mom, but there are changelings, you know, or things that appear to women…”

The days when Dean could be silenced by a dark look were apparently over, but he could still be intimidated by one, because he cut himself off at John’s expression, and his words came faster. “I swear, Dad, I’ll always take care of Sammy, nothing will change, but I have to know. Is he my brother?” He swallowed, seeming to brace himself for any response as he finished, “Is he your son?”

“God.” John laid his pen down and sighed again. He couldn’t be angry at Dean for asking the question, not when he’d wondered the same thing. “He is. I don’t know why he has those dreams or what they mean, but he’s your brother. He’s mine and your mother’s just as much as you are.”

Dean nodded as he lowered his eyes, masking the relief instead of showing it, and that was an unmistakable sign that things were different between them. John had been a bad father in many ways, he recognized that, but he’d never taught his boys to be ashamed to show emotion.

“Anything else?” he asked with uncharacteristic gentleness, before he realized that somehow, he’d already told Dean pretty much everything he knew.

“Yeah.” Dean stared down at his own hands for a minute, long enough for John to think he was done after all. Then he raised his head and looked John straight in the eye.

“How long have you been planning this, you son of a bitch?”

Every muscle in John’s body went rigid. “What did you just say to me?”

“After a year of saying it was too dangerous to stay together, you turned on a dime once you found out that worked.” Dean waved his hand at the gun box. “I figured there had to be a reason why.”

John stared at him, actually casting about in his mind for some supernatural force or contagion that could explain Dean’s bizarre behavior of the past twenty-four hours, as Dean went on.

“It wasn’t because you saw that Sam and me can handle ourselves—it’s because you can use him now. So how long have you been planning it? Since Chicago? Since the beginning? Is that why you left like you did, so I’d go get him and keep him under control until you needed him?”

The last angry sentence—and when had Dean’s voice gotten so deep?—clicked. Dean had had sole responsibility for watching out for his brother all year: it had made him overprotective, made him lose sight of the big picture.

Father, not drill sergeant. John told himself. Dean was reasonable, so he tried reason first. He could deal with the attitude later.

“Yesterday, with Sam, I realized—“

For the first time in his life, Dean interrupted him. “That shooting Sam in the head was an acceptable risk for finding out if an antique worked right?” he scoffed, and no way in hell could John keep himself in check if Dean said one more word in that tone. “That your life is expendable, so Sam’s is too?”

That did it—John’s temper frayed. “Dean, you know it would have killed him anyway,” he snapped. This time Dean was shocked silent, and John would concede that was phrased badly, but damned if he was going to defend himself.

“When I talked to Sam,” he started again, “I realized he cares about this like I do. He understands what’s at stake. After he lost….” He fumbled to pull up an echo of Sam’s voice. “Jess. After he lost Jess like I lost Mary….”

“Mom,” Dean said softly, the ache in his voice enough to blunt John’s anger.

“Yeah.” John shut his eyes, opened them again as the image of Mary, bleeding and burning, floated to the surface. “I know you loved your mother too,” he said, striving for gentleness again, “but it’s—“

Once more, Dean cut him off. “Different. I’ve heard. I can tell, because I wouldn’t leave you alone by getting myself killed just for revenge.”

He turned his gaze back to his hands, studying his ring, and when he spoke again his voice was level and calm. “Maybe that kind of love is different, or maybe I didn’t love her enough, or maybe you’re both just selfish bastards. I don’t know.” He looked John in the eye again. “But what’s at stake is my brother’s life. Your son’s life.”

Only then did John realize how masterfully he’d been played, and he didn’t know if he should be angrier at Dean for doing it or himself for not catching on sooner. Either way, he lost the fight to keep the fury off his face.

Dean didn’t so much as blink. “You know, Dad, Sam’s got a lot of flaws, but no matter what else you can say about him, he’d never do this. He’d trust me enough to tell me the plan before we walk into a fight, and he’d never keep you in the dark so you’d make more convincing bait.”

His voice broke. “Mom died for Sammy, didn’t she? You think she’d be proud that I got him for you to dangle on a hook in front of the thing that killed her?”

John made a superhuman effort to regain control of himself and the conversation. “I don't know what the hell has gotten into you, Dean, but if you want to protect Sam, you should be focused on getting the son of a bitch that killed your mother.”

“That's why we’re still here.”

John stared at him, genuinely confused, as Dean went on.

“This is the deal, Dad. You want to die doing this, that’s fine. You want me to die, that’s fine.” Dean raised a hand to forestall John’s rejoinder, and to his astonishment, John kept quiet. “And Sam’s stupid enough when it comes to this thing to go along with your plan. Such as it is,” Dean added, with a note of contempt worthy of Sam himself. “But he's not going in blind. You tell him what you’re getting him into, or we leave tonight.”

John mustered every remaining fragment of his patience. “Do you honestly believe you can get him to leave?”

Dean looked at him with Mary’s eyes and the set of her jaw and didn’t answer.

“He'll never forgive you.”

“He'll be alive.”

John slammed the book shut, barely remembering to keep his voice down. “Dean, you are getting as melodramatic as your brother! He’ll be fine. We’ll both be looking out for him.”

“Will we?” Dean's voice was dead calm again. “If somehow it comes down to a choice, Dad, which would you do: get it, or protect Sam?” Quietly, he added, "Or me?”

“This conversation is over.”

“Yeah. And the deal's on the table. What’s it going to be?”

John leaned back, glaring. Dean didn't quail, didn't flinch, simply watched him with his face flat and neutral.

A creaking floorboard gave John just enough warning to blank his own expression before Sam appeared in the doorway, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, his hair mussed from sleep.

“What's going on?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. He looked for all the world like a very, very tall six-year-old.

“It's okay, Sammy. Go back to bed,” Dean said gently. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Sam’s hands and jaw both dropped. “Don’t you start fucking regressing on me, man,” he said.

“What is it, kiddo?” John asked. He found himself using the same soft tone, because foul mouth or not, Sam really did look like a six-year-old.

Sam narrowed his eyes like he was considering giving him the same response, less the obscenity, but then he shrugged and busted out a grin, a full-on grin as if he was happy.

“I want a drink of water,” he said.

Dean snorted. “Wanna get that ‘All By Yourself,’ tiger?”

Sam flipped him off with the cackle that had replaced his little-boy giggle. It’d been a long time since John had heard the sound. He couldn't remember if it had ever been directed at him.

“Dad, there might be a couple mistakes in the way that ritual was transcribed,” Sam said through a yawn as he padded barefoot behind John to the sink. “I want to double-check it before we use it. Middle of an exorcism is the wrong time to find out that the verb tense really matters.”

“The sooner it’s done, the better,” John told him, looking pointedly at his elder son. “There's another dictionary in the truck if you need it.”

“Okay.” Sam filled his glass. “So, what’s up?” he asked again.

John made his living reading faces—telling when a witness was lying, when a poker player was bluffing, when a victim was holding back part of her story for fear of being thought crazy. He’d taught the boys to be subtle, but it still bothered him that he couldn’t discern the message in Dean’s barely perceptible tilt of his head. Sam, though, took his water and left without a word.

John waited until he heard the bedroom door shut before he opened the journal again and bent his head over it, dismissing his son. “You should go to bed too.”

Dean didn’t move.

John ground his teeth. “I’ll tell him.”

“All right.” Dean’s chair scraped back as he stood. “When this is over, Sam’s going to finish college. Don’t know how the kid found out that there was a life besides this one, but he’s going to have a chance to find out if he still wants it.”

John gripped his pen harder.

Dean’s footsteps retreated, then stopped. “When this is over, Dad…” he repeated.

Unwillingly, John looked up at the man opposite him, the man who wasn’t just Mary’s son or Sammy’s caretaker or his own right hand. Absurdly, he thought he didn’t recognize him.

“I’m starting my own business,” Dean finished. He left the room, following in his brother’s wake.

John stared at the empty doorway, wondering what the hell had just happened.

******
A final note: the places mentioned, including the church with the ghost room, are real--and I spent way too much time working the stories and geography out--but the events are made up. Thanks for reading, and if you liked, you can find all my fic here.